The History Blog

To nobody’s surprise, the beautiful and historic “Beau Sancy” diamond has sold for more than double the high pre-sale estimate at Sotheby’s Geneva Magnificent Jewels and Noble Jewels sale. The 35-carat modified pear double rose cut gemstone, which since the early 17th century has successively been part of the crown jewels of France, Holland, England, Prussia and the German Empire, was purchased by an anonymous telephone bidder for $9.7 million including buyer’s premium.

The diamond first entered the historical record in 1570 when it was purchased in Constantinople by diplomat, financier and jewel expert Nicolas de Harlay, Lord of Sancy. It was purchased by Henri IV of France for his wife Marie de Medici in 1604. From then until now, the “Beau Sancy” has never been in non-royal hands (as long as you consider the sellers, the House of Hohenzollern, still royal, even though their last scion to sit on a throne was Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany).

Five bidders from North America, Europe and Asia vied for the “Beau Sancy” and one of them won. Sotheby’s won’t disclose any more information than that, so sadly this probably means a stone that has been at the center of European royal history for more than 400 years has now been sucked into the black hole of private collections never to be seen again until the next public sale.

Perhaps we’ll get lucky and the buyer will loan it to the Louvre so it can be put on display in the Apollo Gallery along with its cousin the “Sancy” diamond, a 53-carat pale yellow shield-shaped modified brilliant cut that was once the center stone of the fleur-de-lis on top of Louis XV’s coronation crown. The “Sancy” was replaced by a replica in 1729 at the king’s command, and the Revolution and later French Republics looted, dispersed and sold the originals. After many vicissitudes, including decades of being hidden away in anonymous private collections, the “Sancy” found its way back home again when William Waldorf Astor, 4th Viscount Astor, sold it to the Louvre for one million dollars in 1978. So there’s hope that like its cousin, the “Beau Sancy” might end up in a museum, even though it could take a few centuries.

See the catalogue notes on Sotheby’s website for more details about the fascinating history of the “Beau Sancy” diamond. I found the information about the connection between the light-giving symbolism of royalty and the newly-invented cut particularly interesting:

The fact that the Beau Sancy was first worn by Marie de Medici in 1610 as the principle [sic] stone and centrepiece of her coronation crown indicates very clearly the importance of the diamond at this time as the supreme emblem of Royalty. On a symbolic level, diamonds are associated with the sun, our “Daystar”, the dynamic centre of our cosmos and thus the source of all life and light. What better stone therefore could be used to illustrate the parallel with the position and central role of the Monarch within his Kingdom? Indeed, later the same century, King Louis XIV would go a step further and call himself “Le Roi Soleil”.

The Beau Sancy, which was cut and polished towards the end of the 16th century, exhibits the first attempts to liberate the ‘fire’ inherent in the stone – a property of diamond so familiar and so admired today, but which, due to the absolute hardness of the crystal which rendered cutting so difficult, had only just begun to be exploited. By the use of the newly-developed ‘rose’ style of cutting, which employed a myriad of triangular facets covering the entire surface of the crystal, the light which entered the stone was reflected and dispersed, broken up on the way into the colours of the rainbow. This was totally new.

In January, a plumber installing pump pipes for an in-ground pool in the backyard of a one-year-old house in Winter Garden, Florida found a piece of bone in the sand. He reported it to the police who brought the fragment to Orange-Osceola County Medical Examiner Dr. Jan Garavaglia. She determined that the bone had come from the face of a child of around 10 years. There was some mummified tissue still attached to the bone, which concerned her because most archaeological remains are devoid of any tissue. She informed police that there might be a recently dead child illegally buried on the work site.

University of Central Florida archaeologist Dr. John Schultz worked with the forensic specialists to ensure the site was handled as an archaeological dig instead of just as a pure crime scene. They didn’t find the remains of a murdered child, but they did find two crania, a dozen shards of pottery, bits of newspaper from 1978, textiles including an embroidered purse still carrying woven slings and a netted bag with a strap made out of non-human hair. When Dr. Garavaglia X-rayed the skulls, she and Dr. Schultz were able to confirm that they were at least hundreds of years old.

The skulls belonged to an adult male and a child, and they both had “Inca bones,” a triangular interparietal bone that sometimes develops where the posterior fontanelle used to be. It’s not exclusive to them, but it is highly characteristic of Peruvian mummies, particularly Andean Inca tribes between 1200 and 1597 A.D. Researchers identified the style of the pottery and textiles as coming from the Chancay culture of coastal Peru. Their dates are in keeping with the Inca bone period, between 1200 and 1470 A.D.

At this point it became clear that the Winter Garden swimming pool was a secondary burial site. Someone had placed these artifacts in the ground after March 16, 1978 (the date of the newspaper), but who and exactly when remains a mystery. We do know that the land which is now a subdivision used to be a camp for migrant orange pickers. For thirty years until the mid-1980s, migrants from all over Central America and the Caribbean lived in wooden barracks in the area. It’s possible that the remains and artifacts could have been buried by one of those migrant workers, perhaps as part of a religious ritual, perhaps for safekeeping. It’s also possible that tourists brought them back from a trip to South America, although the purchase and removal of archaeological artifacts has been illegal in Peru since the early 20th century.

Developers bought the land and built it into a subdivision four years ago. They had to grade it extensively in order to build the orderly houses and streets, so it’s an incredible stroke of luck that they missed the spot that happened to contain ancient human remains and incredibly delicate textiles. Then the house was built on the property just a year ago, and they fortuitously missed the spot too.

The bones and artifacts will remain at the Medical Examiner’s office for now. Dr. Schultz intends to study them extensively with an eye to publishing the results so they can be used as examples for future crime scene/archaeological finds. The ultimate goal, however, is to return the pieces to Peru.

A Kittyhawk P-40 that crashed in the Sahara desert on June 28, 1942 has been found in remarkably good condition by Polish oil company employee Jakub Perka. Perka was exploring the desert west of the Nile 200 miles from the nearest city when he found the downed plane. It was damaged from the crash landing and bears scars from flak encounters, but other than that, the single-seater fighter plane appears to have been frozen in time by the desert heat.

The identification plates were undamaged, so military historians were able to identify it as a Royal Air Force plane piloted by Flight Sergeant Dennis Copping. Copping was part of the RAF’s 260 Squadron fighting German General Erwin Rommel’s forces’ advance towards Egypt. On June 28th, Copping was ordered to fly a damaged but functioning Kittyhawk to another airbase in Egypt for repairs. He went off course and was neither seen nor heard from again.

Military historians are confident the Kittyhawk found in the desert was the one flown by Ft Sgt Copping, based on identification numbers and letters on the plane.

It was documented at the time that there was a fault with its front landing gear which would not retract and the photographic evidence suggests the aircraft had its front wheel down when it crashed.

According to experts, a plane making a controlled crash landing in the desert wouldn’t have its landing gear down and would belly-flop on the sand.

There is also flak damage in the fuselage, which is also consistent with documented evidence of Ft Sgt Copping’s plane.

No human remains were discovered at the crash site. There is evidence that the pilot survived and tried to make a shelter from the baking sun out of his parachute. The radio and battery were also removed from the airplane, suggesting the pilot tried to get it in working order so he could send out an SOS. Had he died in the crash or while working nearby, his body would have been found, so he probably starting walking as a last resort. His remains could be anywhere within a 20 mile radius. The British Ministry of Defense plans to search the area, but the odds of finding Flight Sergeant Copping are very slim.

Meanwhile, after 70 years of untouched rest, the wreck itself is now in danger. The Egyptian military has removed all the weapons and bullets for safety reasons, but the real danger is locals peeling parts off to sell as scrap. The wreck is close to a smuggling route between Sudan and Libya, and now that the word is out that the plane is there, some people have taken detours to strip pieces of it.

The Ministry of Defense is working with the RAF Museum to recover the plane. Because of the location of the wreck, the search and recovery teams will need to be escorted by the Egyptian army. Coordination is a challenge, to say the least, and the clock is ticking.

For more pictures, see the Telegraph’s photo gallery and Jakub Perka’s Picasa album.

In the centuries before flossing, fluoride and Waterpiks became standard in human populations, tartar would build up on teeth in layers, sometimes creating dental superstructures of majestically disgusting size; see the technicolor example on the right. Now researchers from the University of Nevada, Reno have discovered that small samples of plaque removed from the teeth of ancient human remains can reveal information about the food they once chewed.

Analysis of stable isotopes like oxygen, strontium, lead, carbon and nitrogen performed on teeth and bone can provide a wealth of detail about ancient diet and migration, but the analysis requires the destruction of the sample. Museum curators are obviously not keen to allow destructive procedures on the remains in their charge, but since dental calculus is technically an accretion on the body, scraping off bits of it and destroying them doesn’t count.

[Researcher G. Richard] Scott obtained samples of dental calculus from 58 skeletons buried in the Cathedral of Santa Maria in northern Spain dating from the 11th to 19th centuries to conduct research on the diet of this ancient population. After his first methodology met with mixed results, he decided to send five samples of dental calculus to Poulson at the University’s Stable Isotope Lab, in the off chance they might contain enough carbon and nitrogen to allow them to estimate stable isotope ratios.

“It’s chemistry and is pretty complex,” Scott explained. “But basically, since only protein has nitrogen, the more nitrogen that is present, the more animal products were consumed as part of the diet. Carbon provides information on the types of plants consumed.”

Scott said that once at the lab, the material was crushed, and then an instrument called a mass spectrometer was used to obtain stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios.

“It was a long shot,” he said. “No one really thought there would be enough carbon and nitrogen in these tiny, 5- to 10- milligram samples to be measurable, but Dr. Poulson’s work revealed there was. The lab results yielded stable carbon and nitrogen isotope ratios very similar to studies that used bone collagen, which is the typical material used for this type of analysis.”

Extracting collagen requires dissolving the bone samples in multiple acid baths. It’s time-consuming, dangerous, expensive and highly destructive. Scraping off a small amount of plaque from thousand-year-old dental stalactites is quick and easy. Then all you have to do is grind it up and put it in the mass spectrometer to find the stable isotope ratios. If this procedure turns out to be repeatable and accurate, our long, scabrous history of poor dental hygiene will finally have meaning.

A heretofore unknown collection of 178 glass plate negatives taken in India during the heyday of the British Raj were found in a shoebox in the archives of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) in Edinburgh. The negatives were still in their original five-by-eight-inch plate boxes which were wrapped in pages from 1914 issues of the English-language Indian newspaper The Statesman and then placed gingerly in a box that once held a pair of grey, size 9 Peter Lord loafers.

The pictures document daily life in India, mainly Calcutta (today known as Kolkata) in 1912. There are pilgrims at a religious festival, street fairs, riverside villages, portraits of nameless pith-helmeted British types, and spectacular night views of the city lights, among many other subjects. (Doesn’t the sporting gent at right look just like Tintin?) All of the images are in pristine condition. RCAHMS thinks the glass plates remained untouched since they were wrapped in 1914 newspaper (possibly in 1914), thus keeping the delicate negatives from degrading.

In December of 1911, King George V and Queen Mary traveled to India for the Delhi Durbar, an opulent ceremony proclaiming them Emperor and Empress of India. This was the only time a British monarch was actually present at Durbar, and the only time a British monarch visited India as her emperor. After the ceremony, they toured other cities of the subcontinent, including Calcutta right before and after the New Year. There are some amazing pictures in the collection showing the city decked out in welcome, documentation as historically significant as it is beautiful given that George V had unexpectedly announced at the Durbar that the capital of India would be moved from Calcutta to Delhi.

RCAHMS has no idea where the pictures came from or who the photographer was. They theorize that the pictures could have been taken by a British civil servant stationed in Calcutta, or by a Scotsman involved in the jute trade. In the early part of the 20th century, there was a thriving trade in raw Indian jute fibers between Calcutta and Dundee, Scotland. Factories owned by formidable local industrialists known as the Jute Barons spun the raw jute fibers into a plethora of consumer products like twine and burlap bags. There was enough of a Scottish community in Raj-era Calcutta that they had their own cemetery which has recently been restored and documented.

RCAHMS architectural historian Clare Sorensen said, “We don’t know for sure how the negatives came to be in our collection. We receive archive material from countless different sources, from architectural practices to generous donations from the public, and sometimes take large amounts of material in at once, and often documentation for historical deposits does not exist.

“Over time all this new material will be inspected and catalogued as part of our collection and then made available to the public. It’s fantastic that a small shoe-box contained such a treasure-trove of photographic imagery, but in some ways it’s not unsual [sic]. Our experience as an archive has shown us that some of the most interesting discoveries can be made in the most unlikely of places.”

The entire collection has been digitized and is very much worth a browse. They’ve also put a selection of 40 highlights in this gallery.

It’s raining ancient blood, Hallelujah! A research team from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) has found blood cells, muscle tissue, tendons, skin and hair on 31 2000-year-old obsidian knives from the ancient Cantona site in the central Mexico state of Puebla. This is the first definitive proof that human sacrifice was practiced in a Mesoamerican culture 1000 years before the Aztecs.

Ancient images showed priests using knives in blood-letting ceremonies and cuts found on bones suggested ritual dismemberment, but they couldn’t conclusively prove human sacrifice. Finding a large number of ancient knives with a variety of human tissues on them from the Cantona culture is strong evidence that there was a systematic ritualized practice of killing people.

INAH researcher Louisa Mainou first detected traces of human blood on a sacrificial knife from the site of Zethé in the state of Hidalgo, eastern Mexico, back in 1992. She continued to examine pieces archaeologists brought to the INAH lab and found more human remains, but they had to combine results from several different finds to get anything more than tiny trace material.

The set of 31 obsidian knives were found together at Cantona, an important religious center for the local pre-Hispanic culture. Mainou’s team received them from the archaeologists who excavated them two years ago. An initial examination found tiny spots on the obsidian. The knives were scanned inch by inch with a stereo microscope. They found that the spots were composed of what appeared to be blood cells, but they needed stronger technology to be sure.

They removed some test spots with different scalpels for each obsidian knife and made samples for a scanning electron microscope which could see the substances in higher magnification and analyze their chemical makeup.

With help from specialists at Mexico’s National Autonomous University, they were studied under the scanning electronic microscope and found to contain red blood cells, collagen, tendon and muscle fiber fragments.

While historical accounts from Aztec times, as well as drawings and paintings from earlier cultures, had long suggested that priests used knives and other instruments for non-life-threatening bloodletting rituals, the presence of the muscle and tendon traces indicates the cuts were deep and intended to sever portions of the victim’s body.

“These finds confirm that the knives were used for sacrifices,” Mainou said. [...]

Some knives in the test had more traces of red blood cells, while others had more skin, and others more muscle or collagen, “which suggest that each cutting tool was used for a different purpose, according to its form,” Mainou said

Like the Bolzano researchers did with the Iceman, this research team also found fibrin, a blood protein involved in the coagulation process indicating that the cutting was done on either living people or very recently deceased ones. The study also found silica, aluminum, calcium and potassium from the mineralization of the organic matter.

Otzi the Iceman never stops giving. The 5300-year-old mummy found embedded in the ice of the Ötztal Alps in 1991 has been an endless bounty of information about prehistoric man ever since. His latest gifts are red blood cells preserved in tissue around his arrow wound and hand laceration for more than 5000 years.

Blood cells degrade fairly quickly after death, and previous scans of the Iceman turned up empty. Researchers used state-of-the-art atomic force microscope technology to scan the surface of tissue samples. A tiny metal probe just a few atoms wide is dragged across the sample. Sensors attached to the probe track its movements, detecting even the smallest unevenness in the surface and creating a 3D map of it in enormously high resolution. They found cells the size and classic donut shape of healthy, recently-dried red blood cells.

They confirmed that the samples they found were red blood cells using the Raman spectroscopy method in which a laser illuminates the tissue and examination of the spectrum of the resulting scattered light identifies the molecules doing the scattering. Had the cells been pollen or some other substance, researchers would have been able to tell. Instead, the spectra revealed bands characteristic of the protein hemoglobin. They were an order of magnitude weaker than the bands you get with fresh red blood cells indicating a decrease in hemoglobin due to degradation of the cells.

The laser also found fibrin, a protein found in fresh wounds that helps blood to clot, in the sample from the arrow wound. Fibrin is only present in fresh wounds, which confirms that Otzi died shortly after being hit with the arrow instead of several days later as an earlier theory held.

Despite some degradation, the red blood cells were remarkably well-preserved.

“They really looked similar to modern-day blood samples,” said Professor Albert Zink, 46, the German head of the Institute for Mummies and the Iceman at the European Academy in Bolzano, the capital of Italy’s German-speaking Alto-Adige region.

“So far, this is the clearest evidence of the oldest blood cells,” he said by telephone, adding that the new technique might now be used to examine mummies from Egypt. [...]

“It is very interesting to see that the red blood cells can last for such a long time,” he said.

“This will also open up possibilities for forensic science and may help lead to a more precise determination of the age of blood spots in crime investigations,” he added.

Their research has been published in the Journal of the Royal Society and is available to read in full free of charge.

The city of Moscow has launched an innovative program that gets private developers to pay to restore historic properties in “inadequate condition.” It’s really rather ingenious. The city’s Heritage Commission picks properties that are in dire need of repair and offers 49-year leases for a yearly rent determined by auction. The developers pay the market-price rent — they pay the first year of rent up front — while they restore the building to specifications determined by the Heritage Commission. Once the restoration is done and approved, the yearly rent drops to one ruble per square meter for the rest of the 49 year lease.

Last Wednesday the first auction was held, and it was a notable success. Twenty bidders competed in rent auctions for three historical buildings, the mansion of the merchant Morozov family (late 18th-early 19th century), the mansion of merchant Nikolai Baulin (circa 18th century), both on Nikoloyamskaya Street, and architect Konstantin Busse’s 18th-19th century mansion on Podsosensky Pereulok. The final bids for yearly rents ranged from $470,000 to $682,000.

Based on this first auction, which included three historical buildings in various stages of disrepair, the program looks promising. The first buildings included two city-owned mansions and an apartment building [the Baulin mansion], ranging in size from 705 square meters to 993 square meters. The apartment building is half-destroyed, and of the three was the only one on the city’s list of landmarked buildings whose condition is classified as “dangerous.” [...]

Moscow’s Heritage Commission has indicated that there are a total of 244 historical buildings in a precarious state that it would like to have renovated through this program, and has said they have 50 applications from potential investors.

All restorations must be finished within five years of signing the contract, or the lessors will have to pay a fine equal to six months of market rent. The restoration has to be approved by the Heritage Commission. If it’s substandard or shoddy work, it will not be accepted. Presumably that means the rent reduction won’t take place, but I don’t know what other penalties will be applied, if they’ll have to redo the restoration or if the contract will be considered broken and the property offered to someone else.

Obviously oversight is key to the success of this plan. Rejecting the final restoration at the end of five years will not prevent disasters. The city has to keep an eye on the construction to ensure all historical preservation laws are being obeyed and to do ongoing quality assurance. The Department of Cultural Heritage insists that all landmark laws will be enforced, which means that there can be no altering the interior structure to make, say, a warren of hotel rooms, in any officially designated landmark buildings. Not all historic properties have landmark status, however, so in some cases the rules will allow extensive alteration inside as long as the facade and structure are preserved.

For the three buildings auctioned Wednesday, the restoration standard requires that they be returned to their 19th century condition. All work must be done by qualified restoration experts according to strict guidelines developed by the Department of Cultural Heritage for each project.

If there is proper oversight, this could turn out to be an enormous boon for Moscow’s historic architecture and economy and a damn sweet deal for the renters to boot. Developer MR Group estimates that the cost to restore the three buildings that were auctioned Wednesday could range anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 per square meter, depending on the structures’ conditions. For the 993-square-meter Podsosensky Pereulok mansion, that’s a total restoration price tag of $2.5 million to $10 million.

That would make the restorations cost about four to 15 years of market rent, so assuming they do it right the first time and within the five year limit, investors will be getting at worst 19 years of rent on restored 19th century historic properties in downtown Moscow practically for free.

The city gets someone else to pay to save derelict structures while still owning the properties, plus lots of construction jobs on an ongoing basis. Buildings that would otherwise be vacant/home to squatters will be put to use while Moscow’s historic center preserves and enhances its character instead of just knocking it down. Should it manage to avoid being mired in corruption and look-the-other-wayism, this program might just be crazy enough to work.

The Library of Congress’ online collections of historical images are some of my favorite time sinks. I found a new one this weekend that sucked up hours of browsing time and more hours of researching random tidbits discovered during the browse. It’s the Performing Arts Posters collection, 2114 publicity posters from live entertainment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Most of them are color lithographs or woodcuts that advertise all kinds of performances, from magic shows to splashy theatrical reenactments of historical events to operas.

If you have time to burn, I recommend you view all and arrow through the entire collection in alphabetical order. If you do not have eternities to while away, you could browse the three main collections that make up the whole: the Magic Poster Collection, the Minstrel Poster Collection, and the Theatrical Poster Collection, the last of which is subdivided according to genre (Burlesque, Specialty Acts, Vaudeville, etc.).

The Magic Poster Collection includes some prestidigitation masters who are still famous today, like Harry Houdini and Howard Thurston, but I have a soft spot for the more obscure acts. Sometimes it’s the little guy who has the best graphics. The Minstrel Poster Collection is, as the name suggests, chock full o’ racist caricatures. Those shows were popular for an incredibly long time. The oldest poster in the collection dates to 1847, the pre-Civil War heyday of white actors blackening their faces with burnt cork and acting like buffoons.

The troupe advertised in the poster, the New Orleans Ethiopian Serenaders (also known as Buckley’s Serenaders after troupe leader James Buckley), were touring England at the time where they were a notable success. Contrary to the standard song and dance style of minstrel shows, the New Orleans Ethiopian Serenaders’ 1847 performance at London’s Princess Theater kicked off with a burlesque version of the opera La Sonnambula by Vincenzo Bellini. This became something of a trademark for Buckley’s shows even when they returned to the United States and set up permanent shop in a theater on Broadway until it closed in 1862.

The Theatrical Poster Collection has the lion’s share of art works, over 1800 posters covering multiple genres of variety stage theater. Of course the Burlesque posters are good unclean fun, but some of the most spectacular graphics come from the Operetta category, especially the D’Oyly Carte’s Gilbert and Sullivan productions, and from the Kiralfy Brothers, a company that staged lavish spectaculars of Biblical stories, famous adventure stories, and quasi-historical re-enactments.

Here’s an interesting link that cropped up. Three of the posters in the Vaudeville category advertise a female impersonator known as Stuart, the Male Patti (1, 2, 3). I assumed Patti was another vaudeville performer of the wearing-little-more-than-a-corset-on-stage variety, but then in the Portrait Posters, posters advertising a single star performer, I came across one M. Sissieretta Jones, the Black Patti, “the greatest singer of her race.” A page later and what to my wondering eyes should appear but “the wonderful child singer & actress” Louise Marguerite, aka the Miniature Patti, who I think bears a striking resemblance to a Scarlett Johansson ca. The Horse Whisperer.

I discovered that Patti was not a Vaudeville performer, but rather a famous Italian coloratura soprano called Adelina Patti. She was something of a prodigy, debuting as Lucia in Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor in 1859 when she was just 16 years old. Two years later, she was invited to perform at Covent Garden in a non-burlesque version of La Sonnambula and was a smash hit. She continued to be a smash for decades, even though her voice changed and deepened as she aged. Verdi adored her, calling her the greatest singer who ever lived. In 1862, she performed the popular song “Home, Sweet Home” at the White House for President Abraham Lincoln and First Lady Mary Todd. They were moved to tears and asked her to sing it again. After that, the song became a signature piece for her.

By the time of the male (1898), Black (1899) and child (1894) Pattis, the original Patti was in her 50s singing at her mature peak, making thousands of dollars a night which she insisted be paid to her in gold before every performance. She retired from public performance in the early 1900s, but still put on the occasional private or charity concert. Her bags of gold and smart investments ensured that her retirement was a luxurious one. She died in 1919 and is buried at Paris’ Père Lachaise Cemetery.

I very much doubt the other Pattis were so fortunate. I couldn’t find out what happened to Stuart and Louise Marguerite, but Matilda Sissieretta Joyner Jones was a pioneer and a trailblazer. She’s probably the only one of the three who came by her moniker legitimately, since it was Adelina Patti’s manager who saw her perform in 1888 and suggested she take her soprano virtuosity on tour. In 1892 she was the first African American to sing at New York’s Music Hall (renamed Carnegie Hall a year later). That same year she sang at the White House for President Benjamin Harrison. She would sing for the next three presidents after him — Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt — and for the British royal family.

Despite her success as a soprano in Europe and the United States, she soon hit the segregation ceiling. When she found that the major opera houses like the Metropolitan would not hire a black artist, she formed a troupe of her own, the Black Patti Troubadours, and went on the road with a musical review that included vaudeville and minstrel acts as well as greatest hits of opera, not just arias but fully staged scenes. The troupe was a success for two decades and earned her a great deal of money.

She retired in 1915 at the age of 46 due to illness and to care for her sick mother in Providence, Rhode Island. The money she had made sadly did not last. Eventually she had to sell all her properties, her awards, and her trophies just to pay the bills. She was 74 and penniless when she died of cancer in 1933.

Late in the summer of 2011, archaeologists examining the site of the Battle of Lützen discovered a mass grave thought to contain up to 175 soldiers. The battle between the Protestant forces of King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden and the Catholic Habsburg imperial army led by Czech General Albrecht von Wallenstein took place over four hours in the afternoon of November 16 (according to the Gregorian calendar used by the Catholic Holy Roman Empire and us; November 6 according to the Julian calendar used by the Protestant Swedes), 1632. Although the battle was one of the bloodiest of the Thirty Years’ War, claiming the life of Gustav II Adolf (commissioner of the ill-fated Vasa warship) and 6,000 to 9,000 other men, no bodies have been found before.

Archaeologists have already excavated a third of the 1.1 million square meter (3.6 million square foot) field and have discovered thousands of artifacts from the battle. They’ve taken a more high-tech approach to the recovery of the human remains, however. To excavate the mass grave under ideal conditions, without interference from bad weather, hooligans, and environmental contaminants, the entire grave, all 452 square feet and 55 tons of it, was cut out of the earth by heavy machinery. The solid block of soil and human remains was split in two to make it easier to transport, then carried on flatbed trucks to the laboratory of the Saxony-Anhalt State Office for Heritage Management and Archaeology 45 minutes away in Halle.

At first archaeologists estimated there were around 75 bodies buried naked, unarmed, close together in layers. After months of close examination in the lab that estimate has more than doubled, but they’re still in the early stages of excavation and only 20 bodies have been unearthed thus far, one layer from one of the blocks. They were indeed buried naked, without weapons or personal effects, close together with their legs facing each other.

It was the people of Lützen who removed the dead from the battlefield and buried them carefully on the side of the road. The soldiers who survived the battle were immediately shipped off to the next battle. The job was so overwhelming the townspeople asked soldiers in the nearby garrison of Weissenfels to help them. The field and adjacent area is probably dotted with mass graves like this one.

Scientists are hoping they’ll be able to determine the nationality of the dead. Soldiers from Scotland, England, Croatia, Germany, Austria, Finland and Sweden all fought in the battle. Strontium isotope analysis on their bones will hopefully provide information on their recent travels, and strontium isotope analysis on their teeth will shed light on where they spent their childhoods. Osteological examination has already returned evidence of perimortem injuries, like skull fractures and a lead bullet recovered from a pelvic bone.

The Battle of Lützen was in theory a Protestant victory. Wallenstein’s imperial forces left the field to the armies of the Swedish King who accomplished their primary goal of stopping the Catholic advance into Saxony. However, the Catholics lost fewer men and most saliently, they didn’t lose their leader. Gustavus Adolphus’ death left the Protestant forces confused and demoralized, leaving the French to take the dominant role in the anti-Hapsburg alliance. The war went on for another 16 years until the Peace of Westphalia finally put an end to it in 1648.

The spot on the Lützen battlefield where King Gustav II Adolf fell was marked by a granite boulder the day after the battle. It’s called the Schwedenstein, or Swedes’ Stone, and is still marking the spot today.