Alexander the Great’s achievements rested on those of his father. Who was Philip II of Macedon and how did he enable his son’s “greatness”?

In his day, Philip II was arguably the most significant player in the politics of Eastern Mediterranean. He was a wise innovator, a masterful tactician, and a shrewd diplomat, who carried Macedon from periphery to apex of Mediterranean power politics. However, his life is usually overshadowed by that of his son, Alexander the Great. Often, he appears in the historical record only as a prelude or side character in his son’s path to glory, but Philip was a fascinating individual who deserves his own share of attention.

Like many great rulers, Philip was never meant to be King. Born around 382 BC, he was only third eldest son of King Amyntas III of Macedon, and his elder brother Alexander II was destined to succeed his father. However, after Alexander’s assassination by a powerful courtier, the young Philip was sent away as a diplomatic hostage, first to the Kingdom of Illyria on the coast of the Adriatic Sea, but then to Thebes. In Thebes, he learned at the feet of the legendary Theban General Epaminondas and lessons Philip learned there would reshape Greece, Macedon, and the world forever. Philip returned to Macedon when he reached adulthood. His second-eldest brother Perdiccas III trusted Philip and appointed him as regent for his own son Amyntas while the King was out on campaign. However, in 359 BCE, King Perdiccas was killed in battle against the Illyrian ruler Bardylis. Philip became the regent for his infant nephew but quietly sidelined Amyntas to establish his own power. He was kind enough not to kill Amyntas and permitted him a life of relative comfort, but he never allowed his nephew anything that might challenge his own power.

Philip’s time under Epaminondas honed his military skill and he embarked on a series of tactical and military reforms as king that paved the way for Macedon’s future glory. The most important was the introduction of sarissa. The sarissa was a long spear roughly twice the length of the traditional dory used in Greek and Macedonian warfare. Warfare in this period was based around phalanx formations — men armed with spears and shields in a tight formation, providing an unbreakable wall of protective shields and offensive spears. The Greeks had perfected this type of warfare and famously employed it in battles such as Thermopylae and Marathon.

Philip’s sarissa was a simple change, but a profound one. By doubling the length of the spear, he doubled the distance between his own men and the enemy’s weapons. Furthermore, because the spears were so long, additional rows of phalangites could point their spears in front of the formation, creating multiple layers of spears for attackers to get through. This made Macedonian phalanx almost impenetrable.

Philip also improved the use of cavalry by forming the hetairoi, or Companion Cavalry. This elite heavy cavalry force was comprised of the Macedonian elites and were typically personally led into battle by the king. Usually, the sarissa-equipped phalanx units would hold an enemy in place while the swift hetairoi outflanked the enemy. This combination would be devastatingly effective against the Persians. Lastly, Philip innovated with the use of siege equipment. He made one of history’s first use of catapults against the town of Byzantion in 340 BC and made liberal use of siege towers, battering rams, and early ballistae named oxybeles. Although he had mixed success with them, his varied and sophisticated array of siegecraft equipment would be indispensable to Alexander’s later conquests.

📷 : The royal shield of King Philip II in Museum of the Royal Tombs of Aigai.

© Nathan Hewitt

#archaeohistories Upon seizing power, Philip’s immediate political concerns were the Illyrians. Having killed his predecessor in battle, the Illyrians posed a unique threat as they had been emboldened by their success and might inspire others to revolt against Macedonian power. Philip marched to meet the Illyrians in the Erigon Valley in 358 BC, where he decisively defeated them and slew their king on the field.

On top of his military acumen, Philip understood the value of marriage as a political tool. He secured the obedience of Illyria through marriage to the Princess Audata and consolidated his control of Elimeia by similarly marrying Phila of Elimeia. By far his most consequential union came from Princess Olympias of Epirus in 357 BC. By all accounts, Olympias was a formidable and wilful woman, and together they quickly conceived a son, whom they would name Alexander.

Philip continued his expansion by acquiring the gold-rich territory around the city of Amphipolis in 357 BC and that same year he conquered the city of Pydna. These actions directly defied the demands of Athens and brought Philip fully into shifting alliances of the Greek world. The dispute over Amphipolis and Pydna led to ten years of intermittent conflict between Philip and Athens. Philip continued to prove himself an able battlefield commander. He wrested multiple cities out of Athenian control with remarkable success, although the city of Methone did cost him his right eye. He then carried his campaigns into Thrace and Thessaly, further expanding Macedonian power at the expense of the Greek city-states.

From 356 BC, Philip was dragged into the Third Sacred War as an ally of Thebes against the Phocians. Despite initial successes, Philip was actually defeated in battle by the Phocians but dusted himself off and redoubled his efforts. He delivered a decisive revenge upon them at the Battle of Crocus Field in late 353 or early 352 BC where he killed or captured almost 10,000 Phocians. The victory rewarded Philip with effective control of Thessaly and a powerful stake in Greek affairs that he would only expand.

Amid his military and diplomatic achievements, Philip still found time to be present in his son’s life. Philip features in several famous anecdotes from Alexander’s early life, although not all of them may be true. For example, it was Philip who tried and failed to tame the horse Bucephalus before Alexander managed to subdue the beast and make him his loyal companion. Philip supposedly wept with joy and told his son to find a bigger kingdom because “Macedon is too small for you.” An unintentionally prophetic prediction for a future conqueror, or a later invention to bolster the heroic destiny in Alexander’s myth? The latter is more likely.

For his part, Philip appears to have trusted Alexander. In one Plutarchian tale, Alexander was trusted to receive Persian ambassadors while Philip was away from court. In another, he entrusted 16 year old Alexander with the regency while he was on campaign, during which the young Alexander successfully subdued a rebellion in Macedonian territory.

Many of these anecdotes are dubious, but we do know that Philip made some impressive provisions for his son. Most famously, Philip arranged for Aristotle to personally tutor Alexander. Teacher and student enjoyed a close relationship for many years and one can think of few people in history who might be as impressive a teacher for a young man to have. Clearly, Philip wanted Alexander to have the best education possible.

📷 : Alexander the Great (356-323 BC), taming Bucephalus, by Benjamin Robert Haydon, 1826/7, Philip is seated on the right. (The National Trust Collections)

Many Greek and Roman authors including Theopompus of Chios and Plato referred to the Etruscans as immoral. During later Roman times, the word Etruscan was almost synonomous with prostitute, and Livy's histories moralise about the rape of Lucretia, where Roman women are seen as virtuous model wives in comparison to their liberated Etruscan counterparts. On this site we shall examine the evidence given by these sources and also from Necropolis art such as the "Tomb of the Bulls" in Tarquinia.

Athenaeus, a Greek grammarian of the 3rd Century CE came too late to give a personal eye-witness account of Etruscan life-style, and had to rely instead on the accounts of Timaeus and Theopompus who both lived in the 4th Century BC.

According to Timaeus:

"Among the Etruscans who had become extravagantly luxurious, it is customary for the slave girls to wait on the men naked...."

"Among the Etruscans who had become extravagantly luxurious, it is customary for the slave girls to wait on the men naked...."

A Greek historian's account of the behaviour of Etruscan women.
Theopompus of Chios, 4th Century BC (Histories Book 43)

Sharing wives is an established Etruscan custom. Etruscan women take particular care of their bodies and exercise often, sometimes along with the men, and sometimes by themselves. It is not a disgrace for them to be seen naked. They do not share their couches with their husbands but with the other men who happen to be present, and they propose toasts to anyone they choose. They are expert drinkers and very attractive.

The Etruscans raise all the children that are born, without knowing who their fathers are. The children live the way their parents live, often attending drinking parties and having sexual relations with all the women. It is no disgrace for them to do anything in the open, or to be seen having it done to them, for they consider it a native custom. So far from thinking it disgraceful, they say when someone ask to see the master of the house, and he is making love, that he is doing so-and-so, calling the indecent action by its name.

When they are having sexual relations either with courtesans or within their family, they do as follows: after they have stopped drinking and are about to go to bed, while the lamps are still lit, servants bring in courtesans, or boys, or sometimes even their wives. And when they have enjoyed these they bring in boys, and make love to them. They sometimes make love and have intercourse while people are watching them, but most of the time they put screens woven of sticks around the beds, and throw cloths on top of them.

They are keen on making love to women, but they particularly enjoy boys and youths. The youths in Etruria are very good-looking, because they live in luxury and keep their bodies smooth. In fact all the barbarians in the West use pitch to pull out and shave off the hair on their bodies.

Dionysius of Halicarnassus wrote in 1st Century BC:

The Tyrrhenians were a people of dainty and expensive tastes, both at home and in the field, carrying about with them, besides the necessities, costly and artistic articles of all kinds designed for pleasure and luxury.

#archaeohistories The frescos from the Tomb of the Bulls (Tombe dei Tori) in Tarquinia are characterised by fertility symbols, although the meaning of some of the symbolism is not entirely clear. The panel on the left depicts a heterosexual scene involving two couples, whereas the scene on the right depicts a homosexual scene. This has been variously interpreted. It is noted that the bull on the right has an aggressive pose, whereas the bull on the left is completed passive, which has been interpreted by some authors as a disapproval of homosexuality. Note also that the bulls have human faces, possibly indicating some mythological context.

One watercolor painting from the The Tomb of The Bigas, Tarquinia, which was painted soon after the discovery of the Tomb of the Bigas in Tarquinia (These frescoes have since almost completely deteriorated) The picture shows an audience of a chariot race, and show a homosexual couple making love quite openly in full view of all. This shows that perhaps Etruscan society had a high acceptance level of homosexuality. The city of Pompeii was founded by the Etruscans as part of their expansion in Campania. Although captured by the Samnites in the 4th Century, and later by the Romans,it retained many of the customs introduced by the Etruscans, in common with Capua, the Urbs princeps of the Campania league. We have a very good understanding of sexuality among the Pompeians during the 1st Century CE, although to correlate this with Etruscan habitation of Pompeii requires a trained imagination. In Pompeii, all variations of sexuality were openly and blatantly pursued. Here, homosexuality, group orgies and even pedophilia were widely accepted as normal behaviour.

Tomb of the floggings (tomba della fustigazione) has frescoes which depict erotic scenes, and like those in the Tomb of the Bulls, these may carry an underlying apotropaic theme. On the right hand wall, there are two erotic scenes separated by a prothesis (funerary door). The wall paintings are badly damaged, The scene to the right shows a woman, clad only in a tutulus, bending and holding the hips of a bearded man who faces her with a smile. From behind, the woman is approached by a youth who has one hand on her buttocks and raises a whip with the other hand. On the left side of the prothesis, another woman embraces a young man, while being penetrated from behind by a bearded man.

The other walls of the tomb are covered with scenes of musicians, drinking, dancers etc, which suggest the influence of the cult of Dionysus.

Many Items of pottery from Tarquinia tombs, particularly of the 6th and 5th Century also show such erotic scenes, and tend to back up Theopompus's view of Etruscan society, however these may be no more than copies of Greek art of the same period. Perhaps the erotic images are part of some wider significance such as a religious festival (cf the Roman festival of Lupercalia, probably the forerunner of Valentine's Day).

The fact that the imagery is used so blatently in tombs tends to reinforce the belief that Etruscan society was much more permissive than other contemporary societies. Some authors have drawn parallels with present day US society, from the perspective of the fact that both are very open societies, and with a high immigrant population. My own opinion is that we should exercise extreme caution when comparing modern societies with their ancient counterparts.

📷 : Erotic scene (5th Century BC; fresco; Tarquinia, Tomb of the Flogging)

King Minos and Minotaur remain shrouded in mystery and mythology, yet evidence of a Bronze Age ‘Bull Cult’ at Minoan palaces abounds...

It was Greek mythology, as represented in works of Homer and Apollodorus, that first prompted antiquarians to search for fabled island civilization of King Minos, backcloth against which struggle of the hero Theseus with the Minotaur was supposedly enacted. Interest in locating ‘Homeric’ sites of pre-Classical Greek world was stimulated in 1870, when pioneering archaeologist, Heinrich Schliemann, claimed to have identified the city of Troy.

His later excavations at Mycenae, in Argolid region of mainland Greece, soon revealed further spectacular evidence of an ‘age of heroes’, including the so-called ‘gold mask of Agamemnon’. By 1876, Schliemann was convinced that the epic poems of Homer were, in fact, reliable historical documents; and when he turned his attention towards Crete, more sensational revelations were expected, this time of lost civilization of King Minos. Schliemann, however, was unable to obtain permission to excavate; and it was not until 1899 that the site of Knossos was explored, under the direction of Sir Arthur Evans.

Like his predecessor, Evans was aware of mythology of Crete and the ancient travel accounts of Pausanias; but he was primarily drawn to the island by his ambition to establish the origins of the Greek language. His excavations produced curious Linear B tablets, which defied decipherment until 1952, when the outstanding researches of Michael Ventris and John Chadwick proved that ancient Cretan script was forerunner of Archaic Greek.

The tablets had defeated Evans; but he was left with the triumph of having unearthed the vast royal complex at Knossos, parts of which he ‘restored’ in controversial fashion. Evans was certain that he had discovered the royal seat of King Minos; he labelled the entire Bronze Age civilization of the island ‘Minoan’, after the mythical king. The account of excavations at Knossos, published between 1922 and 1935, bore the grandiose title The Palace of Minos.

As in the case of Schliemann’s discovery of what he had believed to be the Homeric city of Troy, much of the romance that surrounded the findings at Knossos has now been dispelled. King Minos and the Minotaur remain shrouded in mystery and mythology; yet Evans’ consummate achievement was the exposition of the remnants of a culture in which the image of the bull held portentous significance.

Cretan painters, sculptors and metal-workers have bequeathed to posterity a wealth of scenes and artefacts which show that the bull and the associated ‘bull-sports’ played a prominent part in the lives of the Bronze Age inhabitants of the island. The precise meaning of the bull-image has provoked a good deal of speculation throughout this century, as the continuing process of excavation has increased our knowledge of Minoan culture.

Many ancient peoples respected the bull as a symbol of strength and fertility; its size, power and potency have impressed man for many thousands of years. Bronze Age Crete, however, constitutes something of a special case; it has produced not only static representations of the bull itself, but also the highly mobile figures of the bull-leapers, young people of both sexes, apparently performing astounding acrobatical feats using a charging bull in much same way as modern-day gymnasts might use a piece of fixed apparatus.

The palace at Knossos yielded the famous ‘bull-leap’ fresco painting; seals and signets found at several sites bear the bull’s horns motif; image of the bull appeared on funerary furniture, and in the form of rhytons (pouring vessels). ‘Bull-leapers’ were depicted in a variety of activities, and were fashioned from a wide range of materials, including bronze, ivory and terracotta.

📷 : Zakros Bull's Head (1500-1450 BC), belonged to Minoan Civilization (3100-1100 BC), Crete, Greece. (Archaeological Museum of Heraklion, Crete)

#archaeohistories At first it was thought that the ‘bull-cult’ had been confined to the royal precincts at Knossos; but examination of the palaces at Phaistos and Malia, the ‘summer palace’ at Hagia Triada and other important sites at Zakro, Armenoi and Pseira, has provided evidence that the phenomenon was fairly widespread throughout the island.

As has been noted, the bull had fascinated man both before and after the Aegean Bronze Age. Palaeolithic cave paintings from Lascaux in France, which depict the strength and ferocity of the bison, have been dated to c.13,500 BC by radiocarbon analysis. The civilizations that flourished in Anatolia and Mesopotamia between 6000 BC and 2000 BC have furnished us with many striking examples of the bull-image, from the vivid murals at Catal Huyuk to the intricate and delicately-made golden head of a bull from the city of Ur.

The theme of the bull persisted in Near Eastern artwork for centuries, culminating in the monumental winged bulls of the Neo-Assyrian age. There has been considerable speculation as to the possible magico-religious significance of such objects. The Ancient Egyptians observed the religious cult of Apis, the Bull of Memphis, and also revered Mnevis, a minor deity who took the form of a huge, heavily built black bull. Long after the waning of the Aegean Bronze Age, the Etruscan peoples of Italy decorated their funerary furniture with bull-scenes, in much the same way as the Cretans had done.

Greek vase-painters of the sixth century BC tended to depict some of the more outlandish mythological scenes; yet the theme of Theseus and the Minotaur was not neglected, as the black-figure ‘Francois vase’ and the red-figure work of the ‘Panaitos painter’ show. The bull continued to have significance well into the age of Rome; Cato gives an account of the rustic ceremony of the lustratio, the cleansing and purification of the land, in which a sacrificial bull is led around the field concerned, before its blood is scattered over the ground.

The wealth of bull-images found in Crete encouraged archaeologists to re-appraise some of the similar items found elsewhere. In particular, attention focused on two gold cups, called ‘Mycenaean’, discovered at Vapheio, near Sparta, some 20 years before the excavations at Knossos. These richly-wrought vessels, in the so-called ‘tea-cup’ style, depicted scenes very similar to some of those found in Crete, especially a rhyton from Hagia Triada. The first Vapheio Cup relief shows what is apparently a bull tethered by its hind leg, with a second bull recumbent nearby; but the ‘second bull’ is, in fact, a cow, probably used as a decoy to attract the bull, who was then smartly roped by concealed captors.

The head of the bull is raised, its expression one of anger. The second cup depicts hunters, in the typically Cretan slim-waisted style, attempting to ensnare a bull by suspending a net between two trees. The bull is seen, on the next relief, to be apparently firmly enmeshed; but the final scene reveals that the bull has broken free and trampled one of his would-be captors, while a second, thought to be a girl, seemingly wraps herself around the bull’s horns. The theme, the figures and the style of workmanship are all typically Cretan, despite their location at Vapheio; the cups were probably imported from Crete, or produced on the Greek mainland by Cretan goldsmiths.

The not-so-gentle art of bull-catching is similarly portrayed on one of the reliefs of the Hagia Triada rhyton from southern Crete; a young man is shown near a bull, but not engaged in any form of athletic activity. He is about to attempt to capture the bull. And a painting on a crystal plaque from Knossos shows a rope being used to capture a bull; the resemblance to the subject matter of the Vapheio Cups is inescapable.

📷 : Bull-Leaping Fresco, Knossos, 1450 BC. Jebulon (CC0).

The Neolithic, also known as the Stone Age, is a period between 10,000-2200 BC that is characterized by a shift from the hunter-gatherer lifestyle to one revolving around more permanent settlements and a newfound reliance on agriculture. With farming came, for the first time in human history, a consistent surplus of food. This allowed for rapid population growth and farming populations spread quickly throughout regions inhabited by hunter-gatherers. Paleolithic people, who lived in the time period before the Neolithic, were constrained to relatively small, mobile populations in which the energetic cost of reproduction was quite high. It has been estimated that children would be raised only once every four years. Farming and animal domestication allowed for the caloric needs of larger numbers of people to be met, and population size rapidly increased due to high fertility rates and migration patterns. Altogether, this resulted in a large-scale shift towards larger, more concentrated communities, closer interactions with animals, and consistent use of the same landscapes for waste deposition and resource extraction.

These lifestyle changes create favorable conditions for the spread of disease into new niches. In fact, it is presumed that the Neolithic coincided with an increased impact of infectious disease on human populations. Emergence of human-adapted Salmonella strains, for example, is linked to the cultural transformations of the Neolithic, during which the sheer number of people made obligate parasitism a viable survival strategy. Before the transition, small groups of hunter-gatherers in Africa consisted of only about 50 people and resulted in a low population density of about 30 people per square kilometer. The effective human population, therefore, was quite small, and any pathogens that specialized in human infection would have been relegated to a long period of stagnant growth. Ancestors of Mycobacterium tuberculosis would have only seen about 0.003% annual growth during the Pleistocene. With larger populations, however, growth increased dramatically. The effect of animal domestication in the spread of disease should not be underestimated. Evidence of systemic animal husbandry suggests a heavy reliance on animal labor and products throughout the Neolithic period, which presents greater opportunities for spillover events between species. This is one of the leading theories for the evolution of human-specific tuberculosis. While societies could now support rapidly increasing populations, the quality of life was not necessarily significantly improved. Elevated exposure to disease and higher workloads in more complex communities meant that individuals had high health risks. Neolithic individuals also often present symptoms of nutritional and mineral deficiencies, which would increase disease risk.

📷 : Lesions related to infectious disease in individual M20 from Neolithic Northern Vietnam. A) and b) show cavitations (holes) in the right humerus. C) and d) show new bone on the tibiae and fibulae. E), f), and g) show new bone growth and cavitations on the right fibula. H) shows cavitations on the left heel bone.

#archaeohistories The presence of infectious disease in the Neolithic can be examined in several ways. The most common is through the archaeological record. For decades, the presence of mass graves and skeletal markers of disease after excavation were the only available indicators of pathogens from thousands of years ago. As a result, this type of analysis has become very robust. The combination of various skeletal deformities and lesions can distinguish between similar diseases; tuberculosis and syphilis, for example, can both cause bone lesions, but syphilis does so specifically on the face and may affect the long bones like the tibia in unique ways. Unfortunately, these methods limit paleomicrobiology to the effects of the microbes and not organisms themselves. As a result, skeletal paleopathology only identifies microbes that cause diseases that affect bone and have cases severe enough to be visible on skeleton. Diseases caused by Treponema like syphilis and yaws, for example, only start permanently affecting bone when they reach the tertiary stage. This stage only occurs in one of every three untreated cases, suggesting that diseases significantly affecting quality of life and population demographics may be seriously underrepresented.

In recent years, development of molecular methods like polymerase chain reaction (PCR) and gene sequencing has resulted in powerful analysis by palaeomicrobiologists on causative agents of diseases themselves. Furthermore, some microorganisms such as mycobacteria, to which tuberculosis and leprosy are related, can be detected by their very stable cell wall lipids. Ancient DNA (aDNA) from the Neolithic is often sampled from environment or from bone itself. With amplification, different species can be identified, characterized, and placed within a phylogenetic tree describing their evolutionary histories. This has resulted in identification of pathogens previously unseen in the Neolithic; Pantovirus B19, Yersenia pestis, Helocobacter pylori, and hepatitis B, among others, have been found in Neolithic populations from aDNA alone.

Recent study of infectious diseases in the Neolithic has revealed a variety of microbes affecting humans during the time period, especially those that are only detectable from DNA. These range from Pantovirus B19 to brucellosis, meningitis and leprosy. Listed here are several of the pathogens that have been extensively studied and are subjects of newly developing research.

Genetic evidence of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, causative agent of tuberculosis, has been found as early as 5000 years ago. It is most often identified as a Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex, a larger group that is recognized by standard DNA probes. The complex includes M. tuberculosis, M. bovis, M. africanum, and M. microti. M. tuberculosis is one of the most common causes of tuberculosis, but M. bovis and M. africanum can result in similar symptoms in humans. Of these, M. bovis mostly affects cattle but can infect humans if infected meat and dairy products are ingested, while M. africanum is responsible for majority of tuberculosis cases in Africa. M. microti specifically affects mice and voles.

📷 : Lateral view of spine affected by tuberculosis, partly healed, affecting thoracic vertebrae 7 and 8 and first lumbar vertebra.

The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were a collection of buildings admired as feats of beauty and human engineering. A number of ancient authors such as Diodorus Siculus and Antipater of Sidon, compiled lists of these ‘sights to be seen’, but the list we know today has eclipsed all other compilations to become the definitive selection of famous ancient sites in the Eastern Mediterranean. The list includes Great Pyramid of Giza, Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, Statue of Zeus from Olympia, Colossus of Rhodes, Alexandria’s Pharos or Great Lighthouse and Hanging Gardens of Babylon.

• The Great Pyramid of Giza :
Only surviving wonder is, of course, Great Pyramid of Giza. Built in 2500s BC during Egypt’s 4th Dynasty, Pyramids are great structures on Giza Plateau that were built by three generations of monumental pyramid builders. The Great Pyramid was first and largest and was built by Khufu, called Cheops by Herodotus. The second largest pyramid was built by his son Khafre who most Egytpolgists also believe constructed Sphinx, while third and smallest was built by Khafre’s son Menkaure.

Pyramids are the crowning glory of Giza Necropolis and originally gleamed in shining white limestone with golden capstones. They served as tombs for the Pharaohs and were invested with intense religious symbolism, although exact nature of that symbolism still divides scholars, and acted as statement of Pharaoh’s power over the materials and manpower needed to create them. Scholars now understand that their construction was a product of immense resources Egypt could mobilize and talented, well-paid labor force — neither armies of slaves nor aliens had a part to play.

Like almost all royal burials in Egypt, Pyramids were robbed millennia ago. Most likely, they were plucked clean in First Intermediate Period that followed the collapse of Egypt’s Old Kingdom in 2200s BC. Pyramids acted as tempting beacons for plunderers, and their failure to protect their occupants might explain later shift to less conspicuous tombs like those in the Valley of the Kings. Time and scavenging took away limestone casings and golden capstones, leaving the rough stone exteriors that we see today. Despite looting and damage, Pyramids are some of most recognizable structures on Earth and a magnet for tourism from all over the world. They may have failed to protect their Pharaonic occupants, but for over 4,000 years, they still stand as a testament to their immense power. Unfortunately, the rest of the wonders weren’t so lucky.

• Mausoleum of Halicarnassus :
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus was built at the city of Halicarnassus on Western coast of modern-day Turkey in mid-4th Century BC for the Carian king Mausolus and his family. It was started before his death and finished posthumously on the orders of his sister-wife Artemisia II. Artemisia’s grief was said to be immense and endured in art and literature for millennia, but Mausoleum was ultimate monument to that grief.

Mausoleum was a towering 45m structure containing over 400 sculptures from some of the finest sculptors in Greek world. It was topped by a pyramid upon which Mausolus and Artemisia rode in a four-horse chariot. Pliny the Elder, Strabo, Vitruvius and others described its beauty which cemented its place among Seven Wonders.nThese descriptions and fragmentary remains of a handful of the statues are all that remain. As will become a trend with wonders, we do not actually know how it fell to ruin. It was still standing in Roman period, but at some point in following millennium it fell into disrepair. No sources describe how or why this happened. The only thing we can say for certain is that by 1402 Mausoleum was little more than a ruin when crusading knights cannibalized its remains for stones to build the nearby Bodrum Castle. Frustrating but not unusual even for something so famous and respected in its day.

© Nathan Hewitt

#archaeohistories • Temple of Artemis at Ephesus :
Modern Turkey also played host to another of the wonders: the Temple of Artemis at the formerly Greek city of Ephesus. Artemis was the Greek goddess of the hunt and had strong associations with the moon and female youth, which earned her high regard across the Greek world. Ephesus treated her as something of a patron deity, quite similar to the Athenian veneration of Athena, which is why they constructed a massive temple to her or, should we say, constructed several.

Temple of Artemis was actually three temples built and destroyed at separate times. The date of the construction of the first temple is unknown, but we do know that it was destroyed by a flood in 7th Century BC. It was rebuilt larger with slight design changes soon after, only to burn down in 356 BC due to arson by a man named Herostratus. This was around the time of the birth of Alexander the Great in Macedonia and Plutarch relates one story that said the temple burned because the gods were distracted by his arrival into the world.

The third and final form of the temple was built in late 4th Century BC and stood for centuries before facing a gradual decline. This is the version of the temple most associated with its place among the seven wonders and this version, with the impressive number of peripteral columns surrounding it, is what endures in popular imagination.

It was severely damaged by Gothic raids in 3rd Century CE which might have left the temple in ruins before it was finally demolished by Christians in late 4th Century. The site was lost for years until a British expedition rediscovered it, and now a lone column assembled from disparate fragments uncovered at the site is all that stands from one of the greatest wonders of the ancient world.

• Statue of Zeus at Olympia :
A similar grim fate awaited the massive Statue of Zeus at Olympia. The statue was made of wood covered in gold and ivory plates and stood at 14m tall, although it must be noted that Zeus was seated on a similarly massive throne, so the figure itself was considerably larger than the height suggests. It was built some time in 5th Century BC by famous Greek architect Phidias. Phidias was probably the greatest of the ancient Greek sculptors and also created the statue of Athena Parthenos that used to stand on the Acropolis, which might be why Olympia chose to enlist him to erect a statue to their own favoured patron.

The exact fate of the Statue of Zeus is unknown, and it is one of the hardest wonders to trace through the historical record. It was still there in 391 CE when Theodosius I closed all pagan temples in the Roman Empire but there’s no clear record afterwards. It was most likely destroyed when the temple itself burned down in the 400s. There’s a wild story that it was secretly hidden away in Constantinople, where it was reassembled before being burned again, but there’s no evidence for that. It’s as if the Statue of Zeus simply faded away into history and historians are still at a loss over what became of it.

Described as ‘Holy Grail’ of archaeology, tomb of Alexander the Great has tempted and frustrated generations who have tried and failed to find it...

When Alexander the Great died in 323 BC at the young age of 32, he appeared to have given little thought to what might happen to his empire or his body after his death. It was Ptolemies of Egypt who acquired his body and built him a tomb in Alexandria that became a landmark of the city for centuries. However, conqueror’s tomb mysteriously vanished from the historical record and the quest to rediscover it has possessed countless people ever since.

Following Alexander’s death, his powerful friends scrambled over scraps of his empire. Eventually, they would tear it apart through decades of civil conflict and forge their own kingdoms. One of those friends, and the most relevant to our story, was Ptolemy Soter. Ptolemy was a relatively minor figure at court during Alexander’s life — a long-term friend but not a man who wielded much power. In the settlement forged after Alexander’s death, Ptolemy was granted control of Egypt where he planted his own Ptolemaic Dynasty that would stand until Cleopatra’s fatal alliance with Mark Anthony almost 300 years later.

Alexander’s wishes for his own burial are unclear. His successor Perdiccas eventually chose to send him back to Macedon but he never arrived. His funeral train departed Babylon in 321 BC but Ptolemy’s forces appropriated body in Syria and redirected it to Egypt. When Ptolemy stole Alexander’s body, he was ruling from city of Memphis. Alexandria was still being constructed so Alexander was placed inside a temporary tomb near city.

Near Serapeum of Saqqara, 19th Century archaeologists found a temple of Pharaoh Nectanebo II. Nectanebo was last native pharaoh of Egypt who vanished after Persian invasion in 340 BC. Archaeologists such as Andrew Chugg have proposed that this temple of Nectanebo at Saqqara was Alexander’s original Memphite tomb. Temple would only have been a few decades old when Ptolemy was searching for a burial place and it was probably most recent major non-Persian monument in Egypt, and therefore an ideal place to lay Alexander to rest. Throw in an unused royal sarcophagus for Nectanebo II, and Ptolemy had a perfectly prepared royal burial right next door to his seat of power that was perfect for Alexander’s temporary interment.

Discovery of statues dating from Ptolemy I’s reign in vicinity of this temple confirms that some royal attention was paid to this site at this time. Interestingly, an apocryphal ancient story claimed that Nectanebo fled to Macedon and was Alexander’s true father. Modern historians acknowledge this story as nonsense, Alexander was almost certainly already born before Nectanebo fled Egypt, but story might have emerged because of Alexander’s burial in former’s tomb.

After several years in Memphis, Alexander was moved to Alexandria by Ptolemy II. There was a lost second tomb in city but we know nothing about it other than fact it existed. It was Ptolemy IV who finally completed Alexander’s third and most famous tomb called Soma. Soma was a mausoleum built to house both Alexander and the Ptolemaic royal family. Ancient sources tell us that it stood at crossroads between city’s main north-south and east-west road. Tomb served as cult center of deified Alexander through 3 centuries of Ptolemaic rule. Later, as power of Ptolemies declined, they pillaged tomb for gold and treasures that could be melted down or sold to meet their needs.

Julius Caesar visited tomb in 48 BC. Later, Cleopatra stripped tomb of many of its remaining treasures to raise money for her and Mark Anthony’s doomed war effort against Octavian. After his victory, Octavian himself visited the tomb to pay tribute to Alexander. When asked if he wished to see bodies of Ptolemaic kings as well, Octavian replied, “I came to see a king, not corpses.”

📷 : Alexander's tomb in Assassins Creed Origins

© Nathan Hewitt

#archaeohistories The Soma was a landmark of the city and its fame drew visitors from far and wide. That only makes its disappearance more peculiar. The last recorded visit to the tomb was in 215 CE when the Roman emperor Caracalla visited during his time in Egypt. Caracalla ordered some of the burial goods to be removed but supposedly added some of his own gifts to the burial as compensation. After this, the tomb and Alexander’s body are only referenced off-handedly.

The writer Libanius offers out final mentions of Alexander’s mummy still being on display just before 390 CE. The timeline of this final mention aligns with the Theodosian Decrees between 389 and 391, where Emperor Theodosius ordered the closure of pagan temples across the empire. The tomb, being a cult center for the deified king, must have run afoul of these laws. Saint Cyril of Alexander mentions that the cult centers of Alexander were stripped of their treasures on Theodosius’ orders, although the tomb is not directly mentioned. Then, by the early 400s CE, Saint John Chrysostom wrote that the locations of the body and tomb of Alexander had been lost.

The hunt for the tomb poses many challenges. The fact that Alexandria is a bustling inhabited city is one, meaning that it is virtually impossible to excavate most of the area. The continual inhabitation of Alexandria also raises the possibility that the tomb has simply been destroyed and that there is nothing left to be found. Land subsidence and changing sea levels have also flooded many old areas of the city and may have damaged the tomb.

There is also the question of whether Alexander will be found with his famous tomb. It is common for bodies to be moved long after their interment Egypt itself has no shortage of examples in its other royal burials and there is a chance that Alexander was taken out of the Soma and reburied somewhere else. While some archaeologists insist on searching for the Soma itself, the search for Alexander may yet be a different quest. Therefore, the ‘search for Alexander’s tomb’ can mean quite different things to different people.

The obvious starting point is to find the old crossroads of Alexandria somewhere in the modern city. The current layout does not correspond to the old layout, with settlement patterns in Alexandria shifting significantly over time. Excavations under the authority of Mahmoud Bey in 1895 provided some insight into the old layout and placed the crossroads somewhere in the vicinity of the intersection of the modern El-Horeya and Nebi Daniel roads.

This conclusion is strongly supported by local traditions that assert that the tomb was somewhere nearby. While no reliable evidence of the actual tomb exists past the 4th century, several later writers claimed that the tomb of Alexander still existed in the city, although none of them described any tomb consistent with the ancient sources. More likely, local memory preserved the approximate location of Alexander’s tomb and, over time, various places claimed to be atop the site or passed themselves off as the genuine tomb.

The Nebi Daniel Mosque is one such claimant. Sitting barely 100 meters from the Horeya-Nebi Daniel intersection, the mosque has long claimed to be atop Alexander’s tomb. In 1850, Heinrich Schliemann, who would earn fame for his work on the site of Troy, unsuccessfully sought permission to excavate there to settle the matter once and for all. Modern scholars such as Professor Faouzi Fakharani have studied the mosque and rejected its literal claims to being the site of the lost Soma, but its claims probably reflect a genuine historical memory of the tomb’s existence somewhere nearby.

Ancient Amazon Civilization Unveiled by LiDAR: Exploring the Secrets of the Rainforest

The dense, verdant expanse of the Amazon rainforest has long captivated the world’s imagination, often portrayed as an untouched wilderness teeming with biodiversity. Yet, recent technological advances, particularly in the field of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), have peeled back this leafy curtain, revealing a hidden history of ancient civilizations that once thrived beneath its canopy. This groundbreaking discovery not only rewrites chapters of human history but also challenges our understanding of the Amazon as an ecological wonder.

LiDAR technology, a remote sensing method, has emerged as a game-changer in archaeological exploration. Mounted on aircraft, LiDAR instruments emit rapid laser pulses that penetrate the dense forest canopy to map the ground below in extraordinary detail. This technology creates high-resolution, three-dimensional images of terrain, uncovering features obscured for centuries.

In the context of the Amazon, LiDAR’s ability to reveal the contours of ancient structures, roads, and other human-made formations has been invaluable. Where traditional ground-based surveying is hampered by the impenetrable jungle, LiDAR provides a bird’s-eye view of the landscape, allowing researchers to identify and map extensive archaeological sites with unprecedented accuracy and efficiency.

One of the most striking examples of LiDAR’s potential is the recent discovery in Ecuador’s Upano Valley. Here, LiDAR unveiled an extensive network of ancient settlements, interconnected by a web of roads and comprising more than 6,000 structures, including platforms, agricultural terraces, and sophisticated drainage systems. The scale and complexity of these findings suggest an advanced civilization that had mastered large-scale urban planning and agriculture. Dating back to 2,500 years ago, the Upano Valley civilization appears to have flourished in an area long thought too hostile for such large-scale human habitation. The discovery challenges traditional views of the Amazon as sparsely populated by nomadic tribes. Instead, it paints a picture of a region that was once home to bustling cities and extensive agricultural landscapes, rivaling the grandeur of ancient urban centers found in Central America.

The implications of the Upano Valley discovery are profound. For centuries, the narrative of the Amazon has been one of an untouched Eden, a ‘virgin’ forest largely uninfluenced by human activity. However, the evidence unearthed by LiDAR tells a different story—a story of complex societies that lived, farmed, and altered the landscape on a grand scale.

These revelations compel us to reconsider our understanding of the Amazon’s ecological and historical significance. The fact that such extensive human modification went unnoticed for so long underscores the limitations of traditional archaeology in dense forest environments and highlights the transformative impact of LiDAR technology in uncovering the secrets of our past.

Furthermore, these discoveries contribute significantly to the ongoing debate about the impact of indigenous populations on the Amazonian ecosystem. The sophisticated urban and agricultural systems revealed by LiDAR suggest that the pre-Columbian Amazon was more akin to a managed landscape, shaped by its inhabitants over thousands of years, rather than the untouched wilderness it was once believed to be.

#archaeohistories Ancient Urban Landscapes of the Amazon – A Deeper Dive into the Discoveries

This section should explore the specific features of the Upano Valley sites revealed by LiDAR. Discuss the layout of the settlements, the structure and purpose of the earthen platforms, terraces, and roads. Emphasize the sophistication evident in the urban planning, such as the alignment of roads and the integration of agricultural areas with living spaces. Include insights from archaeologists and LiDAR experts on how these features reflect the social and economic aspects of the society.

Draw parallels between the Upano Valley civilization and other well-known ancient societies like the Maya or the Incas. Highlight similarities and differences in urban planning, architectural styles, and societal organization. This comparative analysis will provide readers with a familiar frame of reference and underscore the significance of the Amazonian discoveries.

Shift the focus to the Landívar and Cotoca sites in Bolivia, uncovered in the Llano de Mojos region. Describe the unique features of these sites, such as the moat and rampart fortifications, the terraces, and the pyramidal structures. Discuss how these features align with or differ from the Upano Valley findings and what they suggest about the diversity of cultures in the pre-Columbian Amazon.

Delve into the cultural and cosmological aspects of these ancient Amazonian societies. Explore how the architectural orientation and layout of the cities might reflect religious beliefs, astronomical knowledge, and societal values. Reference any artifacts or iconography discovered that could provide insights into the spiritual and daily life of these people.

Conclude this section by reflecting on how these discoveries reshape our understanding of the Amazon’s history. Discuss the potential scale of human impact on the region and how these findings challenge the perception of the Amazon as an untouched wilderness. Highlight the need for a reevaluation of the historical narrative of the Amazon and its indigenous peoples.

The discoveries in Ecuador’s Upano Valley, brought to light by LiDAR technology, have significantly advanced our understanding of the region’s ancient history. The intricate network of settlements, interconnected by an extensive road system, reveals a level of urban sophistication previously unknown in the Amazon. These settlements, characterized by large mounds and terraces, were likely centers of social, economic, and religious activities.

The urban layout, particularly the alignment of the roads and platforms, suggests a society with a deep understanding of engineering and urban planning. This sophistication is further evidenced by the agricultural terraces and drainage systems, indicative of advanced knowledge in agriculture and water management.

The comparison with other ancient civilizations, such as the Maya, is inevitable. Like the Maya, Upano Valley civilization demonstrates a complex societal structure with a significant emphasis on urban planning and architecture. However, unlike the stone-based structures of the Maya, Upano Valley’s architecture was primarily earthen, a difference that speaks to the unique environmental conditions of the Amazon.

In Bolivia’s Llano de Mojos region, Landívar and Cotoca sites represent another facet of Amazon’s ancient urban landscapes. These sites, also uncovered through LiDAR, feature moat and rampart fortifications, suggesting a society concerned with defense and territorial control. Presence of conical pyramids and large civic-ceremonial buildings indicates a society with a rich cultural and religious life.

Cultural and cosmological significance of these sites is profound. Architectural orientation and design of cities likely reflect cosmological beliefs and societal values of these ancient Amazonian people. Artifacts found at these sites, such as ceremonial objects and everyday utensils, offer a glimpse into lives of their inhabitants.

It’s often said that winners dictate history. Not so for the medieval holy wars called the Crusades.

Muslim forces ultimately expelled the European Christians who invaded the eastern Mediterranean repeatedly in 12th-13th Centuries and thwarted their effort to regain control of sacred Holy Land sites such as Jerusalem. Still, most histories of the Crusades offer a largely one-sided view, drawn originally from European medieval chronicles, then filtered through 18th-19th Century Western scholars.

But how did Muslims at the time view the invasions? (Not always so contentiously, it turns out.) And what did they think of the European interlopers? (One common cliché: “unwashed barbarians.”) For a nuanced view of the medieval Muslim world, HISTORY talked with two prominent scholars: Paul M. Cobb, professor of Islamic History at the University of Pennsylvania, author of Race for Paradise: An Islamic History of the Crusades, and Suleiman A. Mourad, a professor of religion at Smith College and author of The Mosaic of Islam.

Broadly speaking, how do Islamic perspectives on the Crusades differ from those of the Christian sources from Western Europe?
Suleiman Mourad: If we wrote the history of the Crusades based on Islamic narratives, it would be a completely different story altogether. There were no doubt wars and bloodshed, but that wasn’t the only or dominant story. There was also coexistence, political compromise, trade, scientific exchange, love. We have poetry and chronicles with evidence of mixed marriages.

Do Muslim perspectives match Western ones in terms of chronology and geography?
Paul Cobb: Chronologically, Muslim sources differ from the Christians because they don’t recognize the Crusades. They recognize the events we call the Crusades today simply as another wave of Frankish aggression on the Muslim world. (I use “Franks” or “Frankish” to refer to western Christians.) For them, the Crusades didn’t begin in Clermont with Pope Urban’s 1095 speech [rallying crusaders], as most historians say, but rather decades earlier. By 1060 Christians were not only nibbling at the edges of the Islamic world, but were actually gaining territory in Sicily and Spain. And whereas most Western historians recognize the 1291 fall of Acre as the end of the main Crusades, Muslim historians don’t see the end of the Frankish threat until, I would say, the mid-15th century, when Ottoman armies conquer Constantinople.

SM: To say the Crusades started in Clermont in 1095 and ended at Acre in 1291, we are fooling ourselves. History is not that clean cut. What came before and after reflected a lot of continuity and not abrupt change.

And geographically?
PC: Muslims saw the Frankish threat as Mediterranean-wide. It’s not just Franks invading Jerusalem, holding it 87 years and leaving, but a long-term and consistent assault on the most exposed areas of the Mediterranean edge of Muslim world—Spain, Sicily, North Africa, and what is now Turkey—over hundreds of years.

As the Crusades began, what were the physical boundaries of the Islamic world?
PC: The Islamic world—that is, those lands that recognized Muslim rulers and the authority of Islamic Law—was much bigger than the land of the Latin Christian west. It stretched from Spain and Portugal in the west to India in the east. And from central Asia in the north to Sudan and the horn of Africa in the south.

At that time, the core of the Islamic world was divided between a Shi’ite dynasty in Egypt and a Sunni dynasty in Syria and Iraq. But there was eventually a movement toward unification, right?
PC: Saladin, Islam’s most famous counter-crusading hero, was a very astute politician who knew he had to get his own house in order before he could deal with the Franks. He took over Egypt, then set about reconquering Syria and parts of Iraq. He would go on to ultimately recapture Jerusalem from the crusaders and push them back to a thin strip along the Mediterranean.

© HISTORY

#archaeohistories Tell me about medieval Islamic civilization. Wasn’t there a flowering in the 9th and 10th centuries?
SM: Actually, Islam’s “golden age” goes much longer, from the 9th to the 14th Centuries and it moves around, from Baghdad to Damascus to Cairo. Within that time, there were golden ages of mathematics and astronomy and medicine, with many advances. One example: A physician named Ibm al-Nafis, who lived in the 13th century in Cairo, was the first person to describe the pulmonary circulation of blood four centuries before the Europeans discovered that.

The main accomplishment was when, on a large scale, Muslims began to creatively engage with the science and philosophy of the classical Greco-Roman-Byzantine tradition and began to rethink those ideas. For pretty much the whole apparatus of science, mathematics and logic, Muslim scholars, along with others based in the Muslim world, provided corrections to the Greco-Roman tradition.

How would you compare European and Islamic civilizations during this time?
PC: The Islamic world was much bigger and more urbanized, with more wealth and cultural patronage, and more ethnic and linguistic diversity. Whereas the cities of western Christendom had populations measured in the thousands—Paris and London would have had maybe 20,000 each—Baghdad likely had hundreds of thousands of citizens.

So we’re talking about an invasion of peoples from a marginal, underdeveloped region of the world to one of the most urbanized, culturally sophisticated zones on the planet. That accounts for the sense of trauma from the Muslim side. How could people from the edge of the known world invade this divinely protected, culturally sophisticated and militarily triumphant region? There was a lot of soul searching on the part of the Muslims.

If the crusaders’ mandate was to reclaim the Holy Land and regain control of important Christian sites like Jerusalem, what was the importance of this territory for the Islamic world?
PC: Jerusalem, one of Islam’s holiest cities after Mecca and Medina, was one of its most pious pilgrimage sites. Islamic tradition built on many Christian traditions and revered many of the same figures known from the Bible and elsewhere—including Jesus. So for them, Jerusalem was at the center of a vast sacred landscape that stretched to Palestine and Syria.

SM: There’s a lot of literature that enjoins Muslims to protect the Holy Land and safeguard it as an Islamic space. But many places—in Jerusalem, in Acre, Saidnaya and elsewhere—were claimed by more than one community. These were sacred sites for everyone, not just one group.

Wait. So they were actually sharing sacred sites that, in theory, they were supposed to be fighting over?
SM: Today we have a rigid understanding of sacred sites being for one group, and the others won’t—and shouldn’t—come near it. Back then, there was a more collective approach to sanctity of space. The Islamic theory said, “we should fight these people and protect the Holy Land.” But in practice, they were willing to share. We know for a fact that when the crusaders came, most Muslims did not raise a finger. And to a large extent, the crusaders didn’t interfere with Muslim religious space.

No sooner did the crusaders infiltrate, they were accepted into the political landscape as any others that came: with alliances, wars, treaties, commerce. We have letters from Saladin to the king of Jerusalem, Baldwin III, that convey friendship and deep alliances. The relationship wasn’t dogmatic, it was pragmatic.

AI imagined ancient Athenians before the Battle of Salamis. In 480 BC, about 2,504 years ago, during the Persian invasion of Greece, most Athenians evacuated to Salamis Island. A small group remained at the Acropolis but was soon defeated. The Persian army occupied and destroyed Athens. However, the Greeks won a decisive naval victory at the Battle of Salamis. This victory helped determine the fate of ancient Greece.

The Battle of Salamis was one of the steppingstones of the democratic principle of government. The truth of this statement can be readily seen when the governments of the two opposing nations are compared. The Persian Empire at the time of the battle consisted of a monarchial or regal government in which the great mass of people paid honors to a sovereign on the throne because he represented the Deity. In this form of government the ruler had a life and death power over his subjects. He made all the laws to fit his whims, and the mass was forced to accept his rulings. The soldiers of Persia fought not because of a patriotic love for their country but rather because they were driven forward by officers with lashes. On the other hand, many of the Greeks lived under a democratic government in which the people decided the important issues. Athens was the model democracy of the ancient world. The Greek soldiers, unlike those of Persia, were men of character, men trained in initiative, and men who fought for the love of freedom and of their homes. The Battle of Salamis was therefore not only a struggle between two nations; it was a fight between the monarchial and democratic forms of government. The Greek victory not only established the supremacy of Greece; it permitted the continuance of the democratic principle. Salamis was the triumph of a people over the arbitrary authority of a despot.

For fifty years (500 B.C.-449 b.c.), the states of Greece and the Persian Empire engaged in a series of wars known in history as the Persian Wars. These wars started in 500 b.c. with the Ionic Revolt, an attempt on the part of the Greeks in Asia Minor to free themselves of their Persian rulers. The Greek states (especially Athens) sent money, ships, and men to aid this revolt; and when the rebellion was quelled, Darius, the Persian king, swore revenge. His first attempt in 492 b.c. to fulfill this oath ended in defeat when the fleet of warships and transports was shattered by a tempest while rounding the dangerous headland of Mount Athos in Chalcidice. In 490 b.c. the second invasion, which went directly across the Aegean Sea to avoid the dread sea coast of northern Greece, was defeated by an inferior force of Greeks at Marathon; and the Persian fleet was forced to retreat.

After the Battle of Marathon there arose two prominent Athenian leaders who were to render a great service to their state. One was Themistocles, a resourceful, energetic, and farsighted statesman, who used any means to gain his ends. The other was Aristides, who, though not as farsighted as Themistocles, was a true patriot and was so honest that he gained the name of “The Just.”

Themistocles urged the Athenians to prepare for a renewal of the Persian invasions by building a powerful navy and a naval base at the Piraeus. At this time the Athenians were developing the silver mines at Laurium, a mountain in southern Attica. With this silver and under Themistocles’s leadership, a fleet was built that proved to be the salvation of Greece. While the other Greek maritime states were building ships, no state made as rapid an advance as Athens. Within two years 200 triremes had been completed and provision was made to build 20 new triremes every following year.

🎥© The Archaeologist

#archaeohistories Aristides, on the other hand, opposed this policy very strongly. He recalled to mind the victory of the army at Marathon. He urged Athens to rely on her demonstrated advantage in the army. He opposed experiments now that Athens had already proved her army superior to that of the Persians. The quarrel between the two rivals became so fierce that an ostracism was held, and Aristides was obliged to go into banishment.

In 480 B.C. the third invasion, which is said by Herodotus to have consisted of an army of 1,700,000 fighting men and 80,000 cavalry and a fleet of 1,207 warships and tenders and transports under the direct command of the Persian King, Xerxes, crossed the Hellespont and marched along the coast of Thrace into Greece. The Persians met with very little resistance until they reached the northern boundary of Locris. Here, at Thermopylae, a narrow mountain pass, they were confronted by an army of approximately 7,000 Greeks under the Spartan King, Leonidas. On the sea the Persian fleet was opposed by a Greek fleet of 271 triremes at Artemisium, on the northern coast of Euboea. After being stopped for seven days, the Persians were led around the pass by a Greek traitor. The Greeks were trapped and slain, and the road into Greece lay open to the Persians. Before the final battle Leonidas allowed any of his allies to retire except the Thebans; and all, with the exception of 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, and, of course, 400 Thebans, took advantage of this opportunity to escape. Thus the army on the last day consisted of 1,400 Greeks. The seven days of battle caused the death of some 4,000 Greeks and about 20,000 Persians. Meanwhile, a series of indecisive battles, which resulted in great damage to the ships of both sides, took place between the Persian and Greek fleets; and the latter upon hearing of the loss of Thermopylae retreated through the Euripus to the shores of Attica.

After the destruction of Leonidas and his army the Persian host poured through the pass into central Greece, crushing all resistance in their way. When the news of their approach reached Athens, the city was thrown into consternation, but Themistocles comforted the citizens by reminding them of the prophecy of the Delphic Oracle. When the news of the preparations for the third Persian Invasion reached Athens, the Athenians sent envoys to Delphi to seek the advice of the oracle. The first answer was: “Wretched men, leave your homes and flee afar; fire and sword shall destroy your city and the temples of the gods.” The envoys pleaded for a better answer and were then told: “Pallas Athene cannot entreat Zeus for you; but he grants that, when all else is destroyed, the wooden wall shall protect you. Divine Salamis will make women childless.” The “wooden wall” was finally interpreted to mean their fleet, and the entire city with the exception of a few who remained within a wooden palisade in the Acropolis was moved to places of safety, some to the islands of Salamis and Aegina, others to Troezen, in Argolis. At length the Persians reached the uninhabited city and destroyed it, and their fleet took up its position in the bay of Phalerum, some 5 miles distant from the bay of Salamis, where the Greek fleet was stationed.

According to 'The Secret History of the Mongols' from Genghis’ birth, to see how the family rises from a “single family household” to the first global superpower in which land and horses are the predominant form of wealth of the empire. This will also include subsequent organization and growth of the empire by: sons Toloui and Ogadai; and grandsons Guyuk, Mongke, and Hulagu and finally the unification of the east and first truly global economy under Kublai, with his institution of paper money, the jaichao. Though it was not perfect, it was a bold and visionary move that left a mark on history.

Much of what is known about the Mongolian Empire started by Genghis Kahn was discovered peripherally. Where the Mongolians went they were like a plague of locust who would lay waste to entire populations. In the final chapters of Edward Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire he writes about the comparative importance and understanding of other empires, mentioning the Greeks, Turks, Ottomans and then goes on to say:

They are founded on the previous knowledge of the great eruption of the Moguls (Mongols) and Tartars, whose rapid conquests may be compared with the primitive convulsions of nature, which have agitated and altered the surface of the globe… Our European battles, says a philosopher [Voltaire], are petty skirmishes, if compared to the numbers that have fought and fallen in the fields of Asia.

Temujin, but better known now as Genghis Khan, lived a life that seemed to have been fire as an arrow, full speed from the moment of his birth in 1162. There was bitter political fighting going on in his region, and he was raised in this lifestyle that is nearly modern in speed, but completely ancient in both ritual and violence. The currency of the land was horse and food trading. Before Temujin’s rise to power, he would be captured by his father’s enemies to be kept as a slave, and it is upon his escape that he get’s one of his first big historical break’s” when he would meet one of his strongest allies, who would be considered among Genghis’ best friend, a wealthy Horse trader’s Son, Bogorchu. The would spend their lives together as friends and allies, securing a wealthy backing to begin his conqests.

When Genghis’s dies in 1227 the art of war, politics, and empire building had been upended completely and replaced with the newer Mongolian Model of speed and destruction. If you base your calculation of wealth on the value of land control/ownership, when Genghis Khan died he was the richest person in History (4,000,000 km2 or 1,500,000 sq mi, at the height of the empire) and readjust to the world market standard USD value, it yields a total of 100 trillion dollars.

The east and west were now connected like never before, through the Hungarian steppe with express riders traveling 150 kilometers a day, where the nomadic generals would meet and share information. During this time Beijing, though not defeated, was left abandoned by the Jin empire’s leadership in North China and Russia was primed for invasion as well. Genghis Khan felt that he was ordained by god to cover the earth with his people and he did exactly that by killing the men who would fight against him (and many who didn’t), raping the women, enslaving the children, and then inviting the remaining people into partnerships, an offer they couldn’t refuse… and for all this fear and destruction, the empire would grow evermore, faraway countries would come offering alms that they might be spared. The bonds were strong and the Fiefdom was a resilient one filled with strong and capable warriors as heirs of Genghis.

#archaeohistories After conquering a place, Genghis Khan and the Mongol Empire were good about inducting talent and new ideas into his own lexicon of success. A wonderful example of this is a man Chu-Tsai, a Giant by any conventional standards (standing 6’8”) Governor of North China who worked for Genghis Khan as a chancery (tax and laws book keeper) despite having previously worked for one of Genghis’ rivals, the Jin Emperor. He (Chu-Tsai) would spend many years attempting to reign in Kublai’s uncle, Ogadai’s dreadful drinking and spending habits, recommending a more reserved life instead. Going as far as suggesting, that Ogadai should nurture and tax the poor, rather than razing them along with the crops to make room for horse pasture. Implemented in 1230, this method of taxation produced 10,000 silver ingots ad likely spared many lives, a revolutionary idea for the time. Genghis is succeeded by Ogadai “whose kingdom was won on horseback, could not be governed there” said Chu-Tsai.

It wasn’t long after these taxation rights are distributed throughout the various Khanates of the family and into the Islamic territories that the power is in the hands of somebody other than the gentle (for the times) Chu-Tsai, and it’s estimated that around this time more than half of the population decides to flee rather than face those who would tax up to 100% of their harvest. Gentle is unquestionably a relative term, it is suspected that the destruction brought on by the Mongolian empire in the 1200s reduced the population of the Eurasian continent by as much three quarters.

When Kublai, Genghis’s grandson, was in his early twenties, that he gets his first opportunity at governance after his mother, Sorkaktani, implemented this softer style of cultivation and taxation, learned from Chu-Tsai in the city of Zhengding, 200km south of Beijing. The land was used largely for farming, which was seen as unappealing by more traditional Mongol people who preferred livestock and pasture. Kublai’s estate was south of his mothers and contained around 10,000 homes, and though he did initially leave it to local officials during which time things would decline, this would eventually become a place of growth and peace (STILL a relative term) in a time of total chaos. Under Kublai’s governance during Ogadai’s rule, the region prospered.

While a semblance of peace is rising in the east, the western front of the empire belongs to the General Subadai, one of the Genghis’ best generals(if not THE greatest). The Mongols defeat the Hungarian King Bela’s army of 150 thousand soldiers. Though the reasons for the exact use is contested, artillery (an advantage take from Chinese alchemists/chemists, that would become extremely valuable) was used the first time in history during this battle. Historian Richard Gabriel suspects that 1/3rd of King Bela’s 150 thousand troops died fleeing their final camp on the bank of the Sajo river.

From 1241–1248 the Khan empire would temporarily halt any geopolitical reformation or war campaigning. In 1241 Ogadia Genghis son and first successor would succumb to a lifetime of drink, falling ill and then dying in December during a hunt. It was four years until Guyuk, Ogadai’s son would be selected the Great Khan. Guyuk too, would serve a short lived reign after dying (likely) from poor health due to alcoholism.

It was Guyuk’s Cousin, Mongke Khan, who would restart the Global War Machine that was the Mongol empire, beginning with political and financial reform. In the 1250’s a great undertaking began for the Mongols, when a head tax was instituted for every person in the empire, to include the recently conquered land in Europe and the middle east. As the largest empire in history, this level of global governmental institution, even if it was ONLY clear roads for taxation purposes, could not have been possible up to this time. These taxes also included both agricultural taxes and commercial taxes on business (Man,2006).

In the spring of 1291, the largest army that Islam had ever assembled during 200 years of crusader warfare was advancing on the city of Acre. Swelled by a vast number of volunteers and fired by the spirit of jihad it had come to finally drive the Franks back into the sea.

The city that they were approaching was crucial to the crusader project. After Pope Urban II had delivered his rallying call to save Jerusalem in 1095, a crusader army slogged the 2,000 miles round Europe into the Middle East and, against all reasonable expectations, captured the holy city but the venture had been massively attritional. Of the 35,000 who set out only about 12,000 saw Jerusalem. It was clear that the land route was unsustainable. This taught military planners the need to transport armies by ships, the services of the Italian maritime republics to provide them, and the necessity of ports to receive them. Acre, strategically positioned on the coast of Palestine and with a secure harbour, was ideal. Following its capture in 1104 the city became the main port of the Frankish Levant and the principal landing place for pilgrims and armies. Crusader ventures set out through its gates; royal brides arrived at its port; kings were married in its church and died in its mansions. It served multiple functions as a market, port, transit station, logistics centre and hub within the Mediterranean trading system, and it was from here that a crusader marched out to confront Saladin in 1187. They were annihilated at the battle of Hattin.

This catastrophe handed Jerusalem back to Islam and Acre became, once again, a Muslim city. It was recaptured by the forces of the Third Crusade in 1191 after an exhaustive siege that lasted nearly two years and, with Jerusalem lost, it became the principal city of the crusader states. The military orders – the Templars, the Hospitaller knights of St John and the Teutonic knights – moved their headquarters there and built themselves imposing strongholds. The trading republics of Venice, Genoa and Pisa carried on highly profitable trade with the Islamic world from the city. Acre boomed. It was the centre of trade across the whole Mediterranean and the most cosmopolitan city in the world.

It was only regime change in the heart of the Islamic world that began to tilt the balance of power back to Islam. By the 1260s the dynasties of the Middle East were under threat from the Mongols. After the Mongol destruction of Baghdad in 1258, the trade routes moved north, damaging Acre’s economy and the Mongol advance threatened the very existence of Islam. In the process the Mamluks, slave soldiers of the Ayyubid sultans of Egypt, staged a coup and established a new dynasty that brought with it a harder ideology to contest with its enemies.

Mamluks were traditionally mobile horse warriors but under the great Mamluk sultan, Baybars, they also developed high-level skills in besieging cities. Baybars started to wage concerted warfare against both the Mongols and the Franks. Between 1265 and 1271, Baybars systematically dismantled the chain of fortresses that had provided a defensive wall for the crusader states. His crowning achievement was the capture of Krak des Chevaliers, the Hospitallers’ massive fortress in southern Syria in 1269.

The burden of defence fell increasingly on the military orders. The master of the Templars in the last quarter of the 13th century, Guillaume de Beaujeu, was aware that it was only a matter of time before Acre came under sustained assault. After the neighbouring city of Tripoli fell to the Mamluks in 1289, it was the last surviving crusader stronghold. When a massacre of visiting Muslim merchants took place there in 1290 it provided the Mamluk sultan, Qalawun, with a justification to attack.

#archaeohistories During that winter the sultan gathered the resources for war against Acre. Giant trees were cut down in the mountains of the Lebanon and laboriously hauled to Damascus to be fashioned into catapults. Siege miners were summoned from Aleppo. Troop detachments were requisitioned from all the vassal princes in Palestine and Syria. Preaching in the mosques in the name of jihad fired up the ordinary people to volunteer for the cause. The Christians also made increasingly desperate calls to Europe for a new crusade to save the city. The pope issued a general encyclical exhorting people to take the crusade but the response was limited. The appetite for crusading ventures by the kings and great nobles of Europe was dying. In the end only 3,000 men made it. Few of them were professional soldiers.

However, in November 1290, with the siege preparations well advanced, Qalawun unexpectedly died and siege preparations stalled. The people of Acre breathed a sigh of relief. They believed they had been spared, but Qalawun’s son, Khalil, vowed to press on. In March 1291 his army was on the move. It was by all accounts an extraordinary spectacle – an immense concourse of men and animals, tents, baggage and supplies, all converging on Christendom’s last foothold. The aim was to deliver a knock-out blow. Forces had been drawn widely from across the Middle East – from Egypt 500 miles to the south, from Lebanon and Syria as far north as the banks of the Euphrates, from the great cities – Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo – a gathering of all the regions’ military resources. The elite troops were the Turkish-speaking Mamluks and the army included not only cavalry, infantry, and specialist supply corps, but enthusiastic volunteers, mullahs and dervishes. The campaign had inspired a popular fervour for holy war – and a less pious one for booty.

Visible in this panorama was a vast array of outfits, devices and armour: lordly emirs in white turbans; foot soldiers in conical metal helmets, chain mail, and leather scale tunics; cavalry armed with short bows, their animals covered in colourful cloths and saddles embroidered with heraldic insignia; camel-mounted musicians playing kettledrums, horns and cymbals; fluttering yellow banners and weapons of all kinds: maces, javelins, spears, swords, siege crossbows, carved stone balls, naptha for the manufacture of Greek fire and clay grenades. Oxen strained to haul carts laden with the prefabricated timber components of stone-throwing catapults – known in the Islamic world as manjaniqs (mangonels), to Europeans as trebuchets. The rumbling carts were bringing an unprecedented number of such devices, some of enormous size, to batter the walls of Acre. They represented the most powerful form of artillery weapon before the age of gunpowder.

Acre was well defended. It comprised a dense urban centre backed onto the Mediterranean Sea so that it could only be besieged from one side and was protected by a double line of walls surmounted by towers and fronted by deep ditches, but the disparity between the number of troops on each side was huge. Acre could draw on about 700 to 800 elite mounted knights and about 13,000 infantry. Qalawun had marshalled perhaps 100,000 in the cause of holy war.

The logistical and organisational skills of the Mamluks were extraordinary. They brought to the walls probably the largest number of siege catapults ever assembled – perhaps 90 in total. The majority of these were fast-firing traction devices, relying on teams of men hauling in unison to send stone balls hurling against the walls. Alongside these came a number of giant counterweight devices, with names such as The Furious and The Victorious, which could launch projectiles up to 165 kilograms in weight. In early April, Khalil set up his red tent on a hill overlooking the city and his men set to work bombarding the walls and undermining them.

The Assyrians are a people who have lived in the Middle East since ancient times and today can be found all over the world. They are well known for their vast ancient empire; ancient cities, such as Nimrud and Nineveh; and their fierce invasions, including into the Kingdom of Judah and Egypt.

In ancient times, the Assyrian civilization was often centered at the city of Assur (Ashur), named after the supreme god of Assyria and ruins of the city are located in what is now northern Iraq. The territory the Assyrians controlled was vast, stretching from southern Iraq to the Mediterranean coast at the civilization's height in 7th Century BC. Before the city of Assur gained its independence about 4,000 years ago, it was controlled by a people known as the Sumerians, whose civilization declined because of a mix of political, military and environmental problems.

Modern-day scholars often divide Assyrian history into three periods: the Old Assyrian, the Middle Assyrian and the Neo-Assyrian. However, scholars disagree about the time span each period covers.

• The Old Assyrian period generally refers to the time after Assyria first gained independence, around 2000 BC. In first two centuries after independence Assur was a city focussed on trade, wrote Klaas Veenhof, an emeritus professor of Assyriology at Leiden University in a paper published in the book "A Companion to Assyria" (Wiley Blackwell, 2017). The city was no more than 40 hectares in size and held a population of between 5000-8000 people, something that likely limited its military power, Veenhof noted.

Its early rulers didn't refer to themselves as a "king" in their inscriptions; instead, they called themselves a "vicegerent" (a word that can mean "governor") of god Ashur, Amélie Kuhrt, professor emeritus of ancient Near Eastern history at University College London, wrote in her book "The Ancient Near East, 3000-330 BC" (Routledge, 1995).

Part of an inscription found on an Assyrian temple's stairway reads, "Erishum, the vicegerent of the god Ashur, son of Ilushuma, vicegerent of the god Ashur, built the entire temple area of temple of the god Ashur" (translation by Albert Kirk Grayson). Why Assyria's early rulers used such modest titles (governor as opposed to king) is a mystery that scholars are still trying to understand. The people of the city spoke Assyrian, which is a "distinct language, albeit closely related to Babylonian, which was used in the regions south of Assur," Karen Radner, the Alexander von Humboldt chair for the ancient history of the Near and Middle East at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, wrote in her book "Ancient Assyria: A Very Short Introduction" (Oxford University Press, 2015).

In about 1800 BC, a ruler named Shamshi-Adad I took control of Assur. He incorporated the city into a sizable amount of territory that he already controlled in what is now Iraq and Syria. Unlike the previous rulers of Assur, Shamshi-Adad made no pretense of modesty, instead giving himself a title that scholars sometimes translate as "king of the universe," wrote Albert Grayson, professor emeritus of Assyriology at the University of Toronto, in the book "Assyrian Royal Inscriptions: From the beginning to Ashur-resha-ishi I" (Otto Harrassowitz, 1972).

Shamshi-Adad's empire did not last long. After his death, it collapsed and the kingdoms of Ekallatum, Eshnunna and Babylon all controlled Assur at some point during the period of about 1775-1720 BC.," Shigeo Yamada, a history professor at the University of Tsukuba, wrote in a paper published in book "A Companion to Assyria". By around 1500 BC, Assur was under strong influence, if not control, of a kingdom called Mitanni, Yamada wrote.

#archaeohistories • During 14th Century BC, kingdom of Mitanni began to fade, and those in charge of Assur began to assert the city's independence. Modern-day scholars often call this period of newfound Assyrian independence the Middle Assyrian period. At the start of this period, Assur-uballit I (who reigned from around 1363-1328 BC) came to power at Assur and claimed independence from Mitanni, Stefan Jacob, a researcher at Heidelberg University in Germany, wrote in a paper that was also published in "A Companion to Assyria." In a letter to pharaoh of Egypt, Assur-uballit I referred to himself as a "brother" of the pharaoh claiming "equal status with him," Jacob wrote. Assur-uballit I also attempted to use military conquest to expand the territory he controlled. 

His successors further enlarged Assyrian territory. Adad-nirari I (who reigned from around 1305-1274 BC) conquered Mitanni, taking over a kingdom that had ruled Assyria a century earlier. In ancient texts, Adad-nirari I claimed that he "sowed salt over" the Mittani capital of Taidu and imposed labor obligations on the city's survivors. He constructed a palace over Taidu saying that he built it "from top to bottom" and deposited a stele (an inscription carved on stone) to mark his control of the city (translation by Albert Kirk Grayson). Adad-nirari I also called himself "king of the universe," a title that future Assyrian kings would also use.

Ancient records say successors of Adad-nirari I continued to expand Assyria. Assyrians conquered Babylon during reign of Tukulti-Ninurta I (1243-1207 BC) and reached the Mediterranean coast during reign of Tiglath-Pileser I (1114-1076 BC). Tiglath-Pileser marked achievement by bringing back cedar wood for building projects, ancient texts say. The martial prowess and skill of Assyrian kings continued to be emphasized in ancient inscriptions. Tiglath-Pileser I boasted in one inscription that "altogether I conquered 42 lands and their rulers" from across the Middle East, adding that he was a "valiant man" with an "unrivaled bow" who was such a good hunter that "I killed on foot 120 lions with my wildly vigorous assault" (translation by Albert Kirk Grayson).

However, inscriptions from Tiglath-Pileser's time, and that of his successors, point to problems Assyria was experiencing. Cities and civilizations across the Middle East were collapsing as as a group of people from the Aegean that are sometimes called the "sea people," arrived in the region, displacing local populations and collapsing trade networks. Assyrian records indicate that Tiglath-Pileser and his successors frequently fought against the Arameans, a group of people who were displaced or otherwise caught up in the chaos. In two centuries following Tiglath-Pileser's conquests, Assyria's territory contracted, but the kingdom retained control of Assur and nearby areas. Assyria didn't expand again until 10th Century BC.

📷 : Assyrian art on the wall of King Ashurnasirpal II. Ashur-nasir-pal II was king of Assyria from 883-859 BC. Ashurnasirpal II succeeded his father, Tukulti-Ninurta II, 883 BC.

One of the most well-known Europeans to travel the silk road in Medieval times was Marco Polo (1245-1324), a merchant, explorer and writer who recorded his travels in the book “Livres des merveilles du monde” (Book of the world’s marvels), published around 1300 AD. In English, this book is also known as The Travels of Marco Polo, and it describes – among other things – Polo’s travels along the Silk Road and the various Asian regions and cities that he traverses, including China.

A citizen of the Republic of Venice, Polo grew up in a family where both his father Niccoló and uncle Maffeo were merchants. Even before Marco was born, the brothers had travelled extensively, setting up trading posts in Constantinople, Sudak, Crimea, and the western part of the Mongolian Empire. They even visited China. Later, Polo brother’s embarked on a new journey, and this time they brought Marco with them. This trip, which would end up taking 24 years since they stayed for very long in China, is the one chronicled by Marco Polo in his book. It has been assumed that the Polos travelled along the Northern Silk Road, although the possibility of a southern route has also been advanced by some scholars.

When the three Polo’s finally returned to Venice, the city state was at war with neighbooring Genoa. Marco particpated in the war and was eventually imprisoned, spending his time in jail dictating travel stories to a cellmate. After being released from prison in 1299, Marco Polo went back to being a merchant and ammassed considerable wealth. He also married and had three children. He is buried in the San Lorenzo church in Venize. Polos weren’t the first Europeans to visit China, but Marco Polo was the first European to publish a detailed account of it, and his book went on to become very important for future generations of explorers – including a 15th Century navigator named Christopher Columbus (Cristòffa Cómbo). Marco Polo’s book also influenced European cartographers, including Fra Mauro who created his highly influential circular planisphere map around 1450.

The brothers Niccilo and Maffeo Polo left Venice and embarked on their first long sejour abroad when Marco was just a child. After staying in the Venetian qaurter of Constantinople for several years, the brothers realized that the political situation had grown precarious and decided to leave. They arrived in the Crimean port Sudak in 1260, and then continued to Surai, located on the Volga river, where they engaged in trading for a year. When civil war broke out between two powerful cousins in the region, the violence made it too risky for the Polo brother to return by the same route as they had come, and they decided to instead go east to get away from the war. This is how they ended up spending three years in Bukhara in today’s Uzbekistan, pretty much unable to move anywhere else.

Eventually, a Mongol ambassador arrived to Bukhara, asking the brothers to go to the Hulagu Khan who was interested in meeting the exotic foreigners. Consequently, the brothers started travelling even further to the east, via Samarkand and then through the dangerous Gobi desert. Passing through Turfan, Hami and Dunhuang, they finally got to the Hexi Corridor, and arrived to Beijing in 1266 – where Hulagu Khan’s brother Kublai Khan had his court. (At this point, Hulagu Khan was already dead, he died in February 1265). Kublai Khan, fifth Khagan of the Mongol Empire and the would-be founder of China’s Yuan dynasty, was happy to see the foreigners and greeted them with great hospitality. He wanted to know a lot about Europe, and especially about the Pope and the Roman church. Niccolo and Matteo could communicate with him since they had learn Turkic dialects.

#archaeohistories After a year in China, Polo brothers were sent back to Europe by Kublai Khan who wanted them to deliver a letter from him to Pope Clement IV. In this letter, the Khan asked the Pope to send him a hundred learned men to teach his people about Christianity and Western science, and he also wanted the Pope to procure oil for him from the lamp at the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem.

To safeguard the Polos during their journey back, Kulbai Khan gave them a foot long and three inches wide inscribed golden tablet that was essentially a very fancy diplomatic passport, giving the brothers wide ranging rights to recieve lodging, provisions, horses, and guides throughout the lands controlled by the Khan. An English translation of the inscription would be roughly: “By the strength of the eternal Heaven, holy be the Khan’s name. Let him that pays him not reverence be killed.” It took the Polo brothers three years to get back home, arriving in April 1269...

Marco Polo was born in 1254. His family were Ventians, but it is unclear if he was actually born in Venice or if the birth took place on the island of Curzola off the Dalmatian coast, where his father and uncle had established a trading post.

We do know that Marco Polo spent at least part of his childhood in Venice, which was at the time a city state heavily engaged in international commerce. He recieved a good education that included, among other things, classes in French and Italian. His native language is believed to have been Venetian. Polo read many classical authors and was also schooled in the Christian teology of the Latin Church. Growing up in a merchantile family, he was taught subjects such as appraising, foreign currency trade, and the handling of cargo ships.

Marco Polo’s mother died when he was just a child, after which he was taken care of by his aunt and uncle. The Polo brothers returned to Venice in April 1269 and the now teenaged Marco could finally be reunited with his father. Presenting the pope with the letter from Kublai Khan proved impossible for the brothers, since Pope Clement IV had died in 1268 and no new pope had been elected yet.

Marco Polo and his travels have had a very large cultural influence on the western world. The 13th Century book by Rustichello “Book of the Marvels of the World” later know as “The travels of Marco Polo” was a best-seller and had a huge impact on Medieval and Early Modern explorers, missionaries, and merchants.

In 1271, Polo brothers embarked on a new journey, and this time the took Marco with them. They had finally been able to deliver the letter from Kublai Khan to the pope, since Teobaldo Visconti had been elected at the conclusion of the papal election that had been running from 1268 to 1271 – the longest papal election in the history of the Latin Church. With them on their new journey east, the Polo family brought letters and gifts from the pope that they were to give to Kublai Khan, and they were also accompanied by two friars. The friars left them fairly soon, however, because they reached a war zone and the friars got too scared to continue. Polo family pushed on without them, traveling through Armenia, Persia, and Afghanistan, and following a route that went over the Pamir Mountains of Central Asia to get to China.

The disastrous mortal disease known as the Black Death spread across Europe in 1346-53. The frightening name, however, only came several centuries after its visitation (and was probably a mistranslation of the Latin word ‘atra’ meaning both ‘terrible’ and ‘black)’. Chronicles and letters from the time describe terror wrought by illness. In Florence, great Renaissance poet Petrarch was sure that they would not be believed: ‘O happy posterity, who will not experience such abysmal woe and will look upon our testimony as a fable.’ A Florentine chronicler relates that,

All citizens did little else except to carry dead bodies to be buried [...] At every church they dug deep pits down to the water-table; and thus those who were poor who died during the night were bundled up quickly and thrown into the pit. In the morning when a large number of bodies were found in the pit, they took some earth and shovelled it down on top of them; and later others were placed on top of them and then another layer of earth, just as one makes lasagne with layers of pasta and cheese.

The accounts are remarkably similar. The chronicler Agnolo di Tura ‘the Fat’ relates from his Tuscan home town that

... in many places in Siena great pits were dug and piled deep with the multitude of dead [...] And there were also those who were so sparsely covered with earth that the dogs dragged them forth and devoured many bodies throughout the city.

The tragedy was extraordinary. In the course of just a few months, 60% of Florence’s population died from the plague, and probably the same proportion in Siena. In addition to the bald statistics, we come across profound personal tragedies: Petrarch lost to the Black Death his beloved Laura to whom he wrote his famous love poems; Di Tura tells us that ‘I [...] buried my five children with my own hands’.

Black Death was an epidemic of bubonic plague, a disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis that circulates among wild rodents where they live in great numbers and density. Such an area is called a ‘plague focus’ or a ‘plague reservoir’. Plague among humans  arises when rodents in human habitation, normally black rats, become infected. The black rat, also called the ‘house rat’ and the ‘ship rat’, likes to live close to people, the very quality that makes it dangerous (in contrast, the brown or grey rat prefers to keep its distance in sewers and cellars). Normally, it takes ten to fourteen days before plague has killed off most of a contaminated rat colony, making it difficult for great numbers of fleas gathered on the remaining, but soon- dying, rats to find new hosts. After three days of fasting, hungry rat fleas turn on humans. From the bite site, contagion drains to a lymph node that consequently swells to form a painful bubo, most often in the groin, on thigh, in an armpit or on neck. Hence the name bubonic plague. The infection takes three–five days to incubate in people before they fall ill, and another three–five days before, in 80% of the cases, victims die. Thus, from introduction of plague contagion among rats in a human community it takes, on average, twenty-three days before the first person dies.

When, for instance, a stranger called Andrew Hogson died from plague on his arrival in Penrith in 1597, and next plague case followed 22 days later, this corresponded to the first phase of the development of an epidemic of bubonic plague. And Hobson was, of course, not only fugitive from a plague-stricken town or area arriving in various communities in the region with infective rat fleas in their clothing or luggage. This pattern of spread is called ‘spread by leaps’ or ‘metastatic spread’. Thus, plague soon broke out in other urban and rural centres, from where the disease spread into the villages and townships of the surrounding districts by a similar process of leaps.

📷 : British Library, Harley 2953, f 20 (Triumph of Death). Psalter. Germany (S. Ausburg), 1st half of 16th Century

#archaeohistories In order to become an epidemic the disease must be spread to other rat colonies in the locality and transmitted to inhabitants in the same way. It took some time for people to recognize that a terrible epidemic was breaking out among them and for chroniclers to note this. The timescale varies: in the countryside it took about forty days for realisation to dawn; in most towns with a few thousand inhabitants, six to seven weeks; in the cities with over 10,000 inhabitants, about seven weeks, and in the few metropolises with over 100,000 inhabitants, as much as eight weeks.

Plague bacteria can break out of the buboes and be carried by the blood stream to the lungs and cause a variant of plague that is spread by contaminated droplets from the cough of patients (pneumonic plague). However, contrary to what is sometimes believed, this form is not contracted easily, spreads normally only episodically or incidentally and constitutes therefore normally only a small fraction of plague cases. It now appears clear that human fleas and lice did not contribute to the spread, at least not significantly. The bloodstream of humans is not invaded by plague bacteria from the buboes, or people die with so few bacteria in the blood that bloodsucking human parasites become insufficiently infected to become infective and spread the disease: the blood of plague-infected rats contains 500-1,000 times more bacteria per unit of measurement than the blood of plague-infected humans.

Importantly, plague was spread considerable distances by rat fleas on ships. Infected ship rats would die, but their fleas would often survive and find new rat hosts wherever they landed. Unlike human fleas, rat fleas are adapted to riding with their hosts; they readily also infest clothing of people entering affected houses and ride with them to other houses or localities. This gives plague epidemics a peculiar rhythm and pace of development and a characteristic pattern of dissemination. The fact that plague is transmitted by rat fleas means plague is a disease of the warmer seasons, disappearing during the winter, or at least lose most of their powers of spread. The peculiar seasonal pattern of plague has been observed everywhere and is a systematic feature also of the spread of the Black Death. In the plague history of Norway from the Black Death 1348-49 to the last outbreaks in 1654, comprising over thirty waves of plague, there was never a winter epidemic of plague. Plague is very different from airborne contagious diseases, which are spread directly between people by droplets: these thrive in cold weather.

This conspicuous feature constitutes proof that the Black Death and plague in general is an insect-borne disease. Cambridge historian John Hatcher has noted that there is ‘a remarkable transformation in the seasonal pattern of mortality in England after 1348’: whilst before the Black Death the heaviest mortality was in the winter months, in the following century it was heaviest in the period from late July to late September. He points out that this strongly indicates that the ‘transformation was caused by the virulence of bubonic plague’.

📷 : Miniature from the Toggenburg Bible (Switzerland), 1411. The disease is widely believed to be the plague, although the location of bumps and blisters is more consistent with smallpox.

Controversies regarding the Sumerian people — generally called “The Sumerian Problem” — started almost as soon as their civilization was rediscovered. After almost two centuries of discoveries and interpretations, and the deciphering of ancient cuneiform texts from various ancient Near Eastern sources, the very existence of the Sumerians as a distinct nation is still questioned today by some learned scholars.

Add to this the various theories about ancient aliens and mysterious teachers, and we have a veritable melting pot of beliefs, myths, and interpretations that defy logic. Many Assyriologists and Sumerologists, like Thorkild Jacobsen and Samuel Noah Kramer, have contributed immensely to the unraveling and interpretation of facts from conjecture. They started to create a semblance of order using the conglomeration of information from archaeology, cuneiform texts, guesswork, and unsubstantiated theories. But even they had to guess and make assumptions.

Discovering our ancient roots is enlightening and wonderfully exciting, one clue leads to a discovery, which leads to another clue, which leads to another discovery, and so on — almost like a top-selling mystery novel. But imagine that your favorite mystery or crime novelist suddenly ends a book without tying up the pieces and with some crucial pieces of the mystery still missing. Without crucial evidence, without enough hints to lead you further, you may check and recheck if you were right in your analysis and tentative conclusions. Sometimes archaeologists end up with just such a mystery.

In the case of the Sumerians, the problems started from the very beginning; their very existence, their identity, their origin, their language, and their demise have all been questioned. Once most of the archaeological and linguistic fraternities agreed that a previously unknown group of people had in fact settled in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) before 4000 BC, theories abounded. Scholars theorized, reasoned, and debated. Instead of arriving at a reasonable potential geographic location, questions and mysteries multiplied. The issue became several issues. Sumerian Problem became so emotional for some scholars that they attacked each other openly and personally. The media had a field day, and the scholarly war became in itself part of problem.

The truth is that a civilization that lasted for more than 3,000 years would inevitably have gone through deep changes — in social, political, cultural, and economic terms. It will have been affected by outside factors such as physical environment, contact with and incursions from outsiders, and pestilence. It would also have been impacted by population growth patterns, cultural changes, habits, natural diffusion of immigrant cultures, as well as thought patterns, religious influences, internal strife, and wars among city-states.

How then can we define such a multiplex of societal epochs as one single civilization? Were the Sumerians rough and robust outsiders that took over an already refined and more advanced southern Mesopotamian society?

After thousands of years of nomadic and semi-nomadic seasonal settlements created by hunter-gatherers, some settlements in southern Mesopotamia were settled all year round. From around 4000 BC there appears to have been a relatively rapid development in agriculture, culture and technology. Crops were planted using irrigation: canals diverted rivers, channels ran from rivers to crop fields, and furrows led water into the fields. A simple plow was converted into a seeder plow which could do both jobs at once and could be pulled by draught animals.

© Nita Gleimius

#archaeohistories By 3500 BC, agriculture was no longer so labor-intensive, and people could direct their attention to other occupations. Urbanization and specialization in the manufacturing of goods such as ceramics, farm implements, boat building, and other crafts led to cities being built around large religious centers by 3000 BC. Why and where did this burst of innovation come from?

Various Biblical scholars and treasure hunters have actively searched the ancient Near East for proof of Biblical stories and to find legendary riches from ancient civilizations. Scholars and historians from as far back as Herodotus knew well enough about the Assyrians and the Babylonians. Nobody, though, knew that these civilizations inherited their advanced cultures from a still older civilization. Though the Sumerians were gone and forgotten, their legacy was very much alive. It had passed down through other geographic locations, and through social, political, and economic developments as empires came and went through the ages that followed.

It was during 1800s that astute Assyriologists noticed that there was a distinct and mysterious difference in the cultural legacy that preceded that of Assyrians and the Babylonians. By this time, they knew a lot about these two major Mesopotamian civilizations from archaeological discoveries and ancient records that had been deciphered, including from biblical references. It was becoming clear that there must have been some astonishingly advanced developments before the Assyrians and Babylonians appeared.

Discovery of Ashurbanipal’s library at Nineveh and the subsequent translation of its texts revealed three distinct languages written in similar cuneiform script. Assyrian and Babylonian were distinctly Semitic, but a third Semitic script contained words and syllables that just did not fit into the rest of its Semitic vocabulary. This language was Akkadian with non-Semitic Sumerian phraseology interlaced. Excavations at Lagash and Nippur provided plenty of cuneiform tablets, and these were entirely in this non-Semitic language.

Researchers noted that the Babylonian kings called themselves the kings of Sumer and Akkad. Akkadian was accounted for, so they named the new script Sumerian. Then they found tablets with bilingual texts, believed to be from school exercises. Although these tablets were dated to 1st Millennium BC, long after Sumerian as a spoken language had ceased to exist, it continued as a written language similar to the use of Latin today. Identifying and deciphering Sumerian did not solve the problem of their origins. The language is what is known as a language isolate — it fits into no other known language group. Instead of clarifying the origins of the Sumerians, it added to the confusion.

Scholars have identified many Semitic names among the place names used by the Sumerians for some of their greatest cities. Ur, Uruk, Eridu, and Kish are but a few of these. This could mean that they moved into places that were already settled or it could mean that they kept the place names given to these cities by their conquerors — Akkadians and the Elamites — after regaining their independence. Elamites, though, were also a non-Semitic speaking people, and the identified names are Semitic.

The Ottoman Empire is often assumed to be oppressive towards women. Such ideas often arise from what women must wear and their freedoms or lack of freedoms to be seen in public. While these assumptions are not entirely baseless, they are created through a western lens. The true state of women within the Ottoman Empire is complex and can be difficult to decipher. Within the Topkapi Palace, the sultan’s home, an organization existed comprised of women referred to as the ‘Harem’. The term ‘Harem’ refers to both the physical living quarters that housed the women of the imperial palace as well as women, as spouses and relatives in a typical household. The 17th Century became known as the Century of the “Harem Rule” as the power of the women in the palace grew to levels previously unknown. Though not seen by almost anyone, these women held power through an invisible hand while balancing obligations to the sultan.

The immediate connotation of the word ‘Harem’ is ‘inviolable’ though it has a variety of meanings such as a forbidden place, sacred, to live isolated from the outside, and members of the family that are female. These nuanced meanings emphasize the sanctity of these women within the imperial household that are reinforced through the architectural structure of the physical Harem. In Ottoman society, as was generally true in the pre-modern world and even today, women who are not seen or heard are those that hold the most wealth and power. Construction of a gendered space was and is a sign of the wealthy elite.

The creation of the Harem also established the extreme privacy and physical invisibility of the women on the imperial grounds. The amount of privacy one maintained was directly related to one’s status and wealth. Only the wealthy could afford separate rooms or even buildings for each sex. Within the imperial palace, this division of the sexes was at a premium. As dictated by Islamic law, men were not to be in the company of women except for kin. This level of gender division is nearly impossible for the common man, thus it was a privilege to hold such privacy. Such privacy afforded the women the luxury to focus on learning, entertaining the sultan, and ideally bearing the next heir to the throne. The last task was of the utmost importance since the main purpose for the Harem was to reproduce in order to continue the dynasty. Simply put, without the reproduction power of the Harem, the dynasty would die out.

Construction on the physical structures of Harem likely began under Sultan Mehmet II in 1465, but it was not finished until late 16th Century by the chief royal architect Mimar Sinan. Sinan achieved great architectural achievement in his lifetime. He constructed hundreds of buildings becoming most famous for his mosques and palaces. The original construction was intended to allow for more women to reside on the premises of the imperial palace. Previously very few women resided there. It allowed the sultan greater access to the valide sultan, the mother of the sultan also known as the queen mother, and the women of the Harem with whom he was romantically interested. Such a move was paramount in the growth both in size and power of the Harem that was to come.

The architectural design and location of the Harem waiss vital to understanding the Harem’s power and role within the palace. In the layout of the Topkapi Palace, the Harem was located in the right wing just behind the imperial council building. In other palaces, Harem quarters were located in the far back of the palace, hidden from much of palace population.

#archaeohistories The centralization of the Harem’s living quarters in the Topkapi Palace was indicative of the power dynamics between the men of the palace and the women of the Harem. The building itself was a clear physical reminder of the presence and power of the Harem to all that worked and lived within the grounds of the palace. Rather than being in the back, unseen and forgotten by most, the Harem was visible and central. Those that resided or worked in the palace had to confront the presence of the Harem daily, denoting the prominence and power of the women. This made it clear to all that these women were a key part of the imperial house.

This location within the palace also gave the Harem great access to the sounds of the palace. Though not seen, the women could hear and be heard by those around them. The ability to hear conversations and news allowed the women to stay well educated on current events. Such a location also gave the Harem a chance to speak to people other than the sultan without violating Islamic law. It allowed for the women to have further access to information and power through other channels than just conversations with the sultan.

Harem would undergo many reconstructions and expansions under future sultans, performed mostly by the original architect of the Harem, Sinan. The first of which took place under Sultan Selim II who was fond of sleeping in the Harem rather than his own quarters. His affection for the Harem is evident because he added a room for general utility and another room that may have been used for studies or as the kitchen. When Sultan Murad III ascended to the throne, he decided the Harem was unsuitable in its current conditions for such worthy women. The construction focused on expanding the quarters of valide sultan and the sultan’s concubines. Such changes ultimately enlarged the Harem to three times its original size by 1579. This construction reaffirmed the importance and power of the Harem. Through his actions, Sultan Murad III indicates that the women deserved higher quality living areas. The physical growth and changes made to the Harem reveals the reverence given to the women. These reconstructions also allowed the Harem room to grow in size, presence, and power.

This expansion helped transform the roles of women in the imperial palace. In some ways, this expansion was part of a cyclical relationship. As the power of the Harem grew, the physical space expanded. As the space grew, the Harem grew more powerful. Physical space was needed as the practice of fratricide ceased to be practiced during Sultan Suleyman I’s reign. Fratricide was a practice in which an heir to the throne killed all of his brothers in the event of the sultan’s death. The custom also dictated that the heirs and their mothers left the palace to be raised in a province that the sultan gifted to them. The killing of brothers was intended to prevent any conflict for the throne and a potential civil war. Without fratricide, more heirs and concubines continued to live in the Harem rather than leaving for a province. This created a need for a larger physical space. Harem was also vital to the continuation of the dynasty. Concubines were necessary because of the high infant mortality rate, thus the whole institution was necessary to reproduce a future heir to the throne.

The Babylonian Story of the Creation and the Earliest History of the World -

During the summer of 1912 I examined the collections of cuneiform inscriptions in the University Museum. I was especially interested in historical and grammatical texts and of both I found quite remarkable specimens.

- Arno Poebel (Penn University Museum)

One of the tablets of historical contents takes us, at least in the belief of the Babylonians, back to the very beginnings of history, namely to the time of the deluge, and even farther back to the time of the creation of mankind. Only the lower part of this tablet has been found; what has been recovered is, however, a priceless possession of the Museum.

The preserved portion of the first column begins with instructions concerning the building of cities, which, it seems, were given by the gods to the first men, whose creation must have been related in the now missing preceding lines. Still we are fortunate enough to read at the end of the first column at least the following reference to their creation. “After Enlil, Enki and Ninharsagga had created the blackheaded” (thus the Babylonians designated humankind) “they called into being in a fine fashion the animals, the four-legged, of the field.” Up to the present time there has been, among Assyriologists as well as among Biblical scholars, considerable speculation as to whom the Babylonians, in the older times, credited with having created the first of the human race. Here we are told that it was the two gods Enlil and Enki and the goddess Ninharsagga. From Greek writers we know of a very queer late Babylonian account of the creation of man which was transmitted to them by the Babylonian priest Berosus, a younger contemporary of Alexander the Great. According to him the god Bel, i.e., Marduk of Babylon, cut off his head and the other gods mixed the blood that flowed from his head with the earth and fashioned man who thus became a rational being. This story has not come to us directly from Berosus; it first passed into a book by the Greek scholar Alexander Polyhistor and from there has been quoted by Eusebius, the writer of the history of the Christian church, and it may therefore have reached us somewhat disfigured. But assuming its general correctness and considering it in the light of our new text as well as what we know from other cuneiform sources, we may perhaps reconstruct the older Babylonian story of the creation of man in this way. When Enlil, the creator of heaven and earth, wished to people the earth with living beings, the god Enki, the god of wisdom and knowledge, devised the image of man after the image of the gods, and the goddess Ninharsagga moulded it in clay, while the blood of Enlil gave it life and intellect. From the Old Testament we know that the blood was considered to be the seat of life, but whether or not the idea that Enlil cut off his head to obtain this life-giving blood will be corroborated from cuneiform sources we cannot tell at the present time.

Turning now to the second column of our tablet we read of some of the antediluvian cities of Babylonia, which Enlil bestows upon certain gods. Here again our tablet settles a disputed question; it mentions the city of Larak, and it is therefore this city that must be identified with the city of Laranche, which according to Berosus was the seat of several of the prediluvian kings of Babylonia.

📷 : Obverse of a tablet containing the story of the creation and the deluge.

© Penn University Museum

#archaeohistories The third, fourth, fifth and sixth columns then contain the story of the deluge. “At that time,” we read in column 3, “Ziugiddu was king, a pashish-priest of Enki; daily and constantly he was in the service of his god.- In order to requite him for his piety Enki, in column 4, the first of the reverse, informs him that at the request of Enlil it has been resolved “in council of the gods to destroy the seed of mankind,” whereupon Ziugiddu—this part of the story, however, is broken away—builds a big boat and loads it with all kinds of animals. For seven days and seven nights a rainstorm, as we read in column 5, rages through the land and the flood of water carries the boat away; but then the sun appears again and when its light shines into the boat Ziugiddu sacrifices an ox and a sheep. Lastly, in column 6, we find Ziugiddu worshipping before Enlil, whose anger against men now has abated, for he says: “Life like that of a god I give to him,” and “an eternal soul like that of a god I create for him,” which means that Ziugiddu, the hero of the deluge story, shall become a god.

A Babylonian story of the deluge has been known to us for a long time from a poem that is imbedded in famous Gilgamesh epic. There exist also several fragments of other versions of the story, and the Museum possesses a small fragment of 13 partially preserved lines, which was published by Prof. Hilprecht some years ago. Our new text, however, is an entirely different account, as will be seen from the fact that the hero bears a name different from that found in other deluge stories. But what makes the new account especially important is that it is not, like the other versions, written in Semitic Babylonian language, but in Sumerian, that is, old tongue of non-Semitic race which, in earliest days of history, held sway over Babylonia. As will be seen from some of the quotations the text is a kind of poetical composition, and as such was originally not intended to be merely an historical record, but served some practical, ritualistic or other purpose. For various reasons it seems to me that our tablet was written about time of king Hammurabi (2117-2075), thus being the oldest Babylonian record we have at the present time, of the creation as well as the deluge. Text itself, however, may go back to even a much earlier time.

Judging by color of clay, shape of tablet and script, our text belongs with another tablet that contains a list of kings. It even seems to me that there were three tablets of about equal size measuring about 5½ by 7 inches, on which an historically interested scribe wrote the world’s history, or at least its outlines. The first of these tablets, I believe, contained the Babylonian theogony and then related famous fight between younger generation of the gods and the deity of the primeval chaos, which ultimately resulted in the creation of heaven and earth out of the two parts of Chaos. Here the tablet which I have just described comes in and gives the history of the world as far as the deluge. Then a third tablet gave a complete list of the kings of Babylonia from the time of the deluge to the king under whom the tablets were written. A portion of this third tablet or, to be more accurate, reverse of this portion, which contains about an eighth of whole text, was published six years ago by Prof. Hilprecht. It contained two of last dynasties of this list of kings. I succeeded in copying also the much effaced obverse which contains the names of kings of the period immediately after deluge, and, in addition to this, I also found larger and smaller fragments of three other and older lists of kings. I need hardly emphasize the great historical and chronological value of these new lists since they give us not only the names of the kings, but the length of their respective reigns, and in some few instances even add some short historical references relating to these kings.

📷 : Reverse of a tablet containing the story of the creation and the deluge

Pliny the Elder became an unexpected Roman hero during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

On 24th August 79 CE is one of the most famous dates in the history of the Roman world. On this day, just under 2,000 years ago, the landscape of the Bay of Naples changed forever as a result of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. This devastating natural disaster led to the apocalyptic destruction of the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Oplontis, and it caused the deaths of many thousands of people.

Among these victims was the Roman author and naval commander Pliny the Elder. Pliny is an historical figure who is almost as famous for the events that led to his death as he is for his achievements during his lifetime. This is largely thanks to the harrowing eye-witness account of his final hours recounted by his nephew Pliny the Younger. This detailed narrative provides a fascinating portrait of a courageous man and a valuable record of one of the most fateful days in Roman history.

Pliny the Elder was born around 23/24 CE into a wealthy equestrian family. His ancestral home was in Comum (modern-day Como), but he spent much of his life either in Rome or in service across the empire. As a young man, during the tumultuous reign of Emperor Nero, Pliny the Elder trained and worked as a lawyer. But his talents were soon noticed by Nero’s successor Emperor Vespasian, and he was promoted to an important role at the imperial court.

Pliny the Elder was also a well-respected author and naturalist. He was a prolific writer, and his most famous work is Natural History, a vast encyclopedia covering an array of topics, from botany to wall paintings. Early in reign of Emperor Titus, Pliny the Elder was appointed as commander of the Roman naval fleet. In 79 CE, this prestigious military position saw him stationed at the fleet’s base at Misenum, just 50km up the coast from Mount Vesuvius and Pompeii.

Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus, known to us today as Pliny the Younger, was born in 61 CE. His father died during his childhood, and afterward, he and his mother went to live with his uncle Pliny the Elder. The young Pliny was much in awe of his uncle, and he was particularly inspired by his scholarly pursuits. Indeed, it was his desire not to interrupt his studies that prevented him from accompanying his uncle on the day he died. Following his uncle’s death, Pliny the Younger went on to have an illustrious political career. Around 100 CE, he became one of Rome’s youngest consuls at the age of 39. In 110 CE, during the reign of Emperor Trajan, he was appointed governor of province of Bithynia and Pontus, where he is believed to have died around 112/113 CE. Pliny the Younger also published a large collection of letters that provide one of the most extensive sources on Roman life and politics in 1st Century CE.

It is Letter 6.16 from Pliny the Younger’s collection that provides the narrative for his uncle’s final hours. From the opening lines of the letter, it is clear that a request has been made for an accurate account of his uncle’s death and the events leading up to it. This request was made by none other than Tacitus, one of Rome’s greatest historians and the author of great works such as the Annals and the Histories. Pliny is acutely aware of the implications of Tacitus’ interest in his uncle: “I know that immortal fame awaits him if his death is recorded by you.”

The story starts in the early afternoon of 24th August 79 CE. Pliny the Elder is hard at work on his latest manuscript, and his sister, the mother of the younger Pliny, is also present. It is his sister who first notices the appearance of a strange and ominous cloud in the distance.

📷 : Vesuvius in Eruption, by J. M. W. Turner, 1817-1820 (Yale Center for British Art)

© Laura Hayward

#archaeohistories Pliny the Elder decides to take a closer look and climbs to a point where he can get a better view of the cloud. Pliny the Younger compares the cloud to an umbrella pine in shape, given that it rose upwards in a column and then branched out at the top. Pliny the Elder immediately realizes that all is not well. He orders for a boat to be made ready to make further investigations. However, just as he is leaving, a note arrives from a friend, Rectina, requesting his help.

At this point, Pliny the Elder’s mission changes from one of inspection to one of rescue. He launches a small fleet of warships with the purpose of helping others along the coast as well as Rectina. Once he reaches Rectina’s house, located about five kilometers (three miles) from Pompeii, his helmsman advises him to turn back. But Pliny refuses, and instead he pushes on to reach another friend, Pomponianus, based at Stabiae.

When Pliny the Elder arrives at Pomponianus’ house, he attempts to calm his friend by carrying out normal tasks. He bathes, rests, and then has dinner, with the intention of sitting out the worst of the danger. But, by the early evening, it is clear that the situation is becoming increasingly more dangerous. Pliny describes seeing “broad sheets of fire and leaping flames.” Meanwhile, houses visible in the distance are set alight by a flow of lava that is making a hasty path down the mountain.

Pliny and his friends decide to remain indoors and try to sleep. However, Pliny is woken a few hours later by his slaves who point out the new dangers outside the window. The internal courtyard is fast filling up with ash and pumice stones, making an escape increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, the building itself is starting to shake from small tremors caused by the eruption.

Pliny and his friends weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of leaving and remaining in the house. Outside the falling pumice stones are getting larger, but inside the foundations of the house are becoming unstable. After a short discussion, they decide that it is best to try to escape while it is still possible to leave the house. The group presents an unusual image as they leave with pillows tied to their heads to protect them from the falling pumice stones.

Dawn has arrived by this time, but they are still surrounded by darkness caused by the sheer build-up of volcanic matter in the air. As they make their way through the smog of ash and pumice, Pliny describes the darkness as being “blacker and denser than any ordinary night.”

Pliny the Elder decides to head for the beach to investigate whether an escape by sea is still possible. However, once he reaches the sea it is very clear that the waves are now too high to launch even a large boat. It is at this point that Pliny starts to struggle physically, and he repeatedly asks for cold water to drink. His friends come running down the beach to warn him of the approaching flames. All too soon, the flames are upon them, along with the intoxicating smell of sulfur.

The last known detail about Pliny the Elder is that he was seen leaning on two slaves trying to stand with little success. Two days later, his body was found on the beach. Pliny the Younger suggests that his uncle died as a result of asphyxiation. He was apparently known to suffer from respiratory problems, and it is believed that the poisonous fumes fatally restricted his windpipe.

📷 : An Eruption of Vesuvius, Johan Christian Dahl, 1824 (MET Museum)

A clay plaque shows a man and a woman (a prostitute?) having sex. The woman sips beer through a long straw. This was a popular motif throughout Mesopotamia. There are many different variations on this theme. The plaques were made in molds for mass production. It was the Mesopotamian version of pornography.

Is he wearing a hat?

(Munus-kin = woman-work = prostitute) Munus (woman) is exactly what it looks like, turned on its side. The signs for man and woman were originally pictographs of their genitals, which probably saved a lot of gender confusion.

Epic of Gilgamesh is largest and important of Mesopotamian cultural works, this epic was translated into different languages ​​in ancient times, and was used for practicing and studying cuneiform script. The female characters in this story are divided into two main groups: the "maternal" characters and "prostitute" characters. The first group consists primarily of the goddess Ninsun, Gilgamesh's mother. The character of Ninson faithfully represents traditional Mesopotamian perception of the role of women in society. She is perfect mother, caring, nurturing and wisely advising her son, and even feels compassion and "adopts" her son's wild friend - 'Enkidu'. She is also described by nickname Rimet-Ninson or Ninson cow, symbol of motherhood and care.

Other female characters presented as mothers are, surprisingly, prostitute Shamhat and the owner of inn Siduri. Mesopotamian society attaches great importance to these two roles: both brothel and the inn are a significant part of leisure life of Mesopotamian men, and a natural part of city life. It's not that owners of inn were considered prostitutes on contrary, women of Nadītu (nadītu) who were consecrated to God Shamash in Sumerian city of Sippar owned businesses, including inns. However, fornication (possibly even sex at all) was strictly forbidden to them, and penalty was death. These women play an important role in story, in that they actually domesticate Enchidu, wild man gods created to defeat Gilgamesh, and turn him into a Mesopotamian man. Simhat does this with help of sexual relations, an act that binds Enchidu to her (and through her to Mesopotamian urban culture), she dresses him in clothes and introduces to society to Siduri, owner of inn where Simhat works, a different and less sexual role. She is even described as wearing a veil, as Mesopotamian housewives sometimes wore, although it seems that owners of the inn were not inclined to such a level of modesty. Siduri's role is maternal in that she advises good and practical advice to wild Enchido, steps that are designed to make life in society easier for him.

The inn was an important Mesopotamian urban institution, and moreover, inn is under magical patronage of Inanna-Ishtar, in her appearance as a harimtu, a woman who is in her own right (not married and not living under her father's roof). Due to status of Harimato, as independent women, oil is associated with the activities of sex and drinking alcohol, in their search for a husband. Most important female character in story is that of Ishtar, the goddess of love, fertility and war. Even though Ishtar is Ella, Gilgamesh taunts her and insults her, he even defeats and kills champion, Par of Heavens, whom she stabbed as revenge for insult. Ishtar's role in story is to switch roles: Gilgamesh, a mortal, rejects Ella's courtship. On other hand, those who propose marriage to a human male. Despite presentation of prostitution as an accepted and even positive institution, judging by Simchat's good influence on Enchido, Gilgamesh's main arguments against Ishtar are precisely about her sexual promiscuity: about her many lovers and husbands, as well as her deadly attitude towards them (Tales of Gilgamesh, Plate VI, lines 79-1).

British Museum

#archaeohistories The reason for this inequality between Simhat, who was distinctly a prostitute, but nevertheless received a sympathetic and respectful tone, and Ishtar, who, despite her divinity, receives the least amount of insults, stems from the roles assigned to them in the story. Family life, marriage and gender education gained a central place in Mesopotamian culture. Simhat the harlot fulfilled in "Tales of Gilgamesh" traditional role of mother: nurse, educate, clothe and feed Enchidu's "child". The week Enchidu spent making love to her was actually the episode of his childhood. In description of Ishtar, on other hand, her disloyalty and cruelty towards her many husbands are emphasized, things which are contrary to Mesopotamian social code.

In Mesopotamian culture liminal areas gained a mystical meaning as points of passage from physical to supernatural world, and to gods. These areas were shown through windows, doors and gates, but also in objects of residence, including the bed, for example. The female genital organ (bāb ūri) is also considered such a transitional area. Hence, shift, in bed or in general, had meaning of a mystical transition between dimensions.

An expression and representation of sexuality, eroticism and fertility in Mesopotamia of the first half of 2nd Millennium BC can be seen in the material find in the form of clay tablets made in a pattern, which show sexual scenes, between a man and a woman in a variety of positions (including scenes that take place in inns, while drinking beer or on top of a bed or a single female figure, in various positions, with or without depictions of a phallus between her legs. Researcher Asante believes that the female figure in plates showing Meshgal is non-Ishtar, and that high standard of the description indicates that origin of the scene is in mythology. Thus, male depicted in tablets is Dumozi, consort of the goddess. The lone female figure should not be associated with Inna, but clear description of female genital organ as "gate" has a mystical and magical meaning. Tablets were found mainly in residential areas and it can be assumed that they were hung on windowsills and doors as symbols of fertility. Apparently clear visual descriptions on tablets were exposed to eyes of men, women and children in the house - and hence they were intended to serve all members of the house by bringing them the blessing of the gods. If so, because female body itself, in Mesopotamian culture, and the genitals in particular, had a deep mystical meaning, and were thus presented both in texts and in iconography.

Sexual activity was not perceived as something "natural" in Mesopotamian culture, as it is perceived in modern Western culture, but as one of elements of civilization. The female body was presented as the most common agent for presentation of sexuality, eroticism and fertility (and sometimes also death and destruction, see for example the insults that Gilgamesh throws at Ishtar: "I will not make you a woman!...a broken door that will not contain wind and wind...a shoe bites foot of its owner..." (Shefra and Klein 2017; Pg 234-235)

📷 : A couple in the crosshairs, apparently an overhead view of a bed

Byzantine Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes being captured by Seljuk warriors in the Battle of Manzikert :

Romanos IV Diogenes was the Byzantine Emperor from 1068-1071 AD. He strove to be a respected and capable leader. However, his life and his reign were constantly hampered by outside forces, causing his brief rule to come to a sad conclusion. His fate, and his unfair deposition, would come to stain the Byzantine reputation and would haunt it for generations to follow. Even from his birth, Romanos IV Diogenes was destined for greatness. He was born around 1030 AD, as a son of the prominent Byzantine general, Constantine Diogenes. This man was a major strategos (general) in service of the then Emperor Basil II Porphyrogenitus, the Bulgar Slayer.

When Basil II reconquered Balkan provinces, Constantine Diogenes was placed as the governor of the theme of Syrmia, a place of power and prominence. The family of Diogenes was a powerful Byzantine Greek lineage originating from Cappadocia, and one of major families of “military nobility,” which was a central player in numerous conflicts that shook the Byzantine Empire during 11th Century AD, when the civil and military nobility clashed against one another.

Romanos IV Diogenes rose through the ranks and gained prominence very early on in his youth. He was often described as very courageous and ambitious, if not a bit rash and impetuous at times. As was common for the members of his family, Romanos served in military with prominence, mostly in Balkans, at Danubian frontier. By 1067, he was installed as the doux, or duke, of Serdica, where a new province was reorganized and needed a capable leader. But all that would soon change, when young and ambitious Romanos was easily dragged into an affair at Byzantine royal court. When Emperor Constantine X Doukas died in 1067, his sons were still minors. Throne thus passed into the hands of Constantine’s widow, Eudokia Makrembolitissa, who could reign as the de-facto empress until her sons came of age. She also swore that she would never marry again.

At the time Romanos IV Diogenes conspired with Princess Theodora and attempted to seek the aid of Hungary to usurp the throne from minor sons of late emperor Constantine. His attempts failed, and he was soon imprisoned by Romanos III Argyros and sentenced to death for this conspiracy. However, the empress Eudokia recognized the potential that Romanos had.

At the time Byzantine Empire was under a lot of pressure. Seljuk Turks constantly raided empire’s edges and Byzantine army could not effectively respond, due to the lack of development in the years prior. Eudokia knew that she alone could not remedy situation, and that new emperor was needed, and it had to be a seasoned military veteran.

Romanos also enjoyed immense popularity. One could say that he was a sort of celebrity at the time, and some sources describe him as particularly handsome and charming. Moreover, he had a lot of military experience as a general and was ideal choice for emperor in more ways than one. Empress Eudokia Makrembolitissa and her closest advisors saw this immediately and chose Romanos IV Diogenes to be their new leader. Some sources say that empress saw even more than that and that she became infatuated by Romanos and desired him. Thus, death sentence against Romanos was never passed. In an odd turn of events, this young and energetic noble narrowly avoided death and immediately jumped to position of emperor of Byzantine Empire. The vows that Eudokia gave not to marry were promptly annulled by Patriarch of Constantinople, and two were married on January 1st, 1068 AD.

#archaeohistories It became clear in contemporary sources that Romanos IV Diogenes was quickly accepted by almost everyone at the court. He was instructed on his obligations as emperor, and he understood the reasons for his pardon. He also accepted this position with the zeal and ambition that is so iconic for young noblemen. It was his energetic approach that Eudokia knew was necessary for Byzantine throne. And while Romanos was accepted by most, he still faced enemies. This was particularly true of brother of the late Emperor Constantine, John Doukas, who saw the arrival of Romanos as a great threat to powerful Doukas dynasty, and the minor sons of Eudokia. He held a big grudge against Romanos and constantly plotted to bring his rule to an end.

One of first and foremost obligations that Romanos had as new emperor was to address disastrous state of Byzantine eastern frontiers. For almost a decade it was left unattended due to negligence of Emperor Constantine X, and now Seljuk Turks became a major threat, constantly raiding the territory. At once, Romanos proved his shrewdness and an honest desire to combat this threat. The decades of civil war in the empire and the dominance of the civil aristocracy had devastated defensive capabilities of the Byzantines. What Romanos IV Diogenes now had at his disposal was a meager mercenary force of Slavs, Franks, and Bulgars, who were poorly disciplined and stubborn, though they were fierce warriors. That is when Romanos made a bold and shrewd decision: he ordered the renewal of great tagmata army that was completely neglected in generations past. Tagmas were elite heavy cavalry units, mobile and highly skilled, and maintained on permanent basis. These units were always considered as political power: whoever controlled them held all the power. That is why this move by Romanos IV Diogenes was misunderstood by his opponents. They didn’t see it as an honest attempt to defend empire’s borders, but as his attempt to use military power to limit their influence and their power.

During his relatively short reign, Romanos IV Diogenes undertook four campaigns against the Seljuk Turks. The first was made in 1068 AD. After just three months he managed to assemble a force of roughly 35,000 men and marched them against the Seljuks and their Arab allies from Syrian Aleppo. These two forces had been raiding and devastating Armenia, Cilicia, Cappadocia, and Georgia.

Romanos marched south with his army and eventually managed to inflict two major defeats against Turks in the battles of Sebaste and Ieropolis. However, neither of these victories were enough to end the Seljuk threat, as they rapidly fled and avoided head on collision with Byzantines. Turkish cavalry moved so rapidly across the country that Romanos could not possibly react in time. Thus, the Seljuks raided Neocaesarea and Amorium before moving on. With the onset of winter, Romanos IV Diogenes returned to Alexandretta, and eventually to Constantinople.

In April 1069 AD, Romanos launched another campaign. His new attempt saw him marching towards Caesarea where the first clash with the Seljuks occurred. As the Byzantine army was raising their camp, they were surprised by an attack from the Turks. However, Romanos’ skilled command helped them to gain a victory against all odds.

Still, their rapid movements did not give Romanos the chance to strike a decisive victory he yearned for, leaving him to waste his efforts in frustration. Eventually he caught up with Seljuks at Tarsus, capital of Cilicia, where his armies won decisively. Seljuks were forced to flee to Aleppo, and Romanos made a peace with Turkish sultan Alp Arslan. Nevertheless, he did not manage to defeat the Seljuks, and this caused some discontent in Constantinople. Even though peace was made, a major victory was not.

📷 : Romanos IV Diogenes's biggest enemy beyond his internal foes were the Seljuk Turks and this is their leader, Alp Arslan (1029-1072 AD), ascending throne in Herat, Afghanistan.

One of the great, dramatic escapes of Jerusalem was the encounter with Sennacherib in 701 BC. In those days the Western part of Asia was in a tremendous state of upheaval. Assyria was mighty, and the smaller nations lived in fear and trembling, never knowing which of them would be savagely attacked and devastated by her next.

The land of Judah had suffered several attacks from nearby Edomite people and as a result Judah's king had done a terribly naïve thing. He had appealed for help to the great tyrant, Assyria. So Assyria took Judah under her wing, but it was a wing of treachery. She took Judah's wealth, made Judah a subject nation, set up pagan worship in Judah's cities, and then left her unprotected from local enemies.

Judah, with Jerusalem her capital, was down. Her prosperity, peace and freedom had gone. And all this misery and folly had really come about because of a succession of godless Kings, and because the people had thrown aside their respect and service to the Lord.

Then King Hezekiah came on to the scene. At twenty-five years of age Hezekiah took over the helm of the 'puppet' government which ruled Judah as a satellite of Assyria. Here was the man for the hour. There was no one to approach him among all the kings of Judah before or since. Hezekiah probably served as joint-king with Ahaz for thirteen years, and in those early years of power he saw terrible things happen. The land of Israel, immediately north of Judah, was invaded by Assyria. For three years the capital city was besieged and then it fell. Assyrians struck without mercy and drove the people in their thousands to slavery in Persia. Hezekiah knew that these people of Israel had lost the care and protection of God because they had rejected Him and scorned Him. The young king was determined to change things for the people of Judah. For many years the great Temple of Jerusalem had been closed and the services abandoned. The giant doors on the porch hung in decay. Inside, lumber had been dumped and dust and dirt covered everything. Hezekiah ordered the immediate cleaning and restoration of the Temple. Then he stirred the priests into action and urged a total reconsecration of everyone to the Lord.

He sent messengers along the hot, dusty highways of Judah to every town and village to evangelise the people, "Serve the Lord," was the call, "for the Lord is gracious and compassionate and will not turn away his face from you if you return to Him." He even sent messengers across the border to Israel saying, "Don't be like your fathers or brothers who transgressed against the Lord...for as you can see, He turned them over to desolation." The vast majority of people left in Israel made fun of the messengers and ridiculed them, but in Judah, the people humbled themselves before God as one body, and vast numbers of them travelled to Jerusalem for a truly amazing Passover.

Once again Judah was trusting in the Lord and seeing great blessings as a result. So Hezekiah repudiated the authority of Assyria over his land. This was rebellion. From that moment, Hezekiah became a marked man, high on the list for punishment.

#archaeohistories Meanwhile, the king who was to be Hezekiah's most terrifying enemy ascended the Assyrian throne. King Sennacherib became outright King of Assyria in 705 BC and he soon established himself as a deadly expert in the science of warfare. His records, chipped out of stone prisms, have been recovered from the ruins of his great palace at Nineveh, and are solid evidence for the Biblical narrative. In them he makes no secret of his opinion about himself.

He calls himself "Sennacherib, the great King, the mighty King, the King of the Universe, favourite of the great gods, perfect hero, mighty man . . . the wise ruler, lover of justice." In another place this great lover of justice describes how he dealt with a rebel king. "The warriors I cut down with the sword, not one escaped . . . the corpses of his warriors I hung on stakes surrounding the city."

Sennacherib was, in fact, an evil, high-handed bully whose incredible conceit was only exceeded by his ability to massacre people in their thousands. The extension of his kingdom was his main interest, and when he conquered, he drove countless fatherless families back to Nineveh to become slaves in the building of his great palace. His wallpaper consisted of huge pictures of his victories cut out of slabs of stone and now to be seen in the "Nineveh Gallery" of the British Museum. No one can look at these slabs of stone and doubt the reality of the Biblical history.

As the years went by Sennacherib gained momentum at the head of his armies. He would deal with some rebels, and then some new challenge would present itself and he would launch out into fresh aggression. Sennacherib became one of the most successful commanders ever. Assyrian kings had never managed to defeat certain tribes in Persia. But Sennacherib was a brilliant and ruthless general, and he conquered where others had failed. "I destroyed, I devastated, I turned into ruins, and their houses I set on fire."

He marked all his records "Sennacherib ‑ 'King of all the Universe'" and he meant it. He certainly meant to deal with all those people who had dared to rebel against him. The programme was arranged.

Firstly, Sennacherib disciplined Babylon. Then he turned his attention to Tyre, only 110 miles north of Jerusalem. His fury and military power struck the King of Tyre hard, and Sennacherib boasted on records of stone. "The terrifying splendour of my sovereignty overcame him and far off into the midst of the sea he fled."

Who was next? The great army turned south. Southward they marched heading for Samaria, and then . . . Jerusalem. In their path rebels were crushed. The obedient subjects went trembling to him with numerous presents and great sums of money. They bowed down to him and kissed his feet. There could be no resistance to Sennacherib. He was the invincible King of the Universe.

Finally, when Hezekiah was in his fourteenth year as King, Sennacherib arrived in the land of Judah and began his operations.

The valleys of Judah filled with chariots and horsemen, and the numerous walled cities that formed the protection of Judah were besieged and taken by Sennacherib one by one. Hezekiah hardly knew what to do. The defences of Jerusalem were in a hopeless state. The walls were full of gaps, all the foreigners in the army had become terrified and deserted and it was too late for Hezekiah to help the smaller cities.

It wasn't long before Sennacherib arrived in Lachish and surrounded it with his entire Imperial Force. Lachish was a strongly fortified town only twenty-five miles south-west of Jerusalem. It commanded a position over the road from Egypt, and this may have been why Sennacherib besieged it. If so, it was perfect military strategy. If Jerusalem had by any chance hoped for help from Egypt, they were now cut off.