January 2012 – Page 4 – The History Blog

Oldest-known astrologer’s board found in Croatia

January 16, 2012

Ancient, Treasures

Archaeologists excavating a Croatian cave overlooking the Adriatic Sea have discovered what they believe is the oldest astrologer’s board ever found. They were digging at the entrance to the cave in 1999 when one of the researchers’ girlfriends burrowed her way through debris into the cavern. She discovered a 33-foot-long passageway leading to a chamber that had been sealed off in antiquity, probably in the first century B.C. during a war against invading Romans. Inside were thousands of pieces of pottery, ivory, and bones around a stalagmite shaped like a phallus.

It took several seasons to excavate the cave. The floor of the cave and all the artifacts were caked in thick, sticky cave clay making them a challenge to dig out and to clean. Once excavated, researchers spent years piecing together the fragments of what turned out to be high quality Hellenistic drinking vessels from the 3rd and 2nd century B.C. The tiny fragments of ivory turned out to be pieces of a Greco-Roman astrology board, beautifully carved with the signs of the zodiac.

Radiocarbon dating of the ivory indicates the ivory is 2,200 years old, which is just around the time that astrology, originally a Babylonian discipline, became popular under the reign of the Ptolemys in Egypt. It’s the Greco-Egyptian version of astrology that established itself in Europe and that is still in popular use today.

An ancient astrologer, trying to determine a person’s horoscope, could have used the board to show the position of the planets, sun and moon at the time the person was born.

“What he would show the client would be where each planet is, where the sun is, where the moon is and what are the points on the zodiac that were rising and setting on the horizon at the moment of birth,” said Alexander Jones, a professor at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University.

“This is probably older than any other known example,” Jones said. “It’s also older than any of the written-down horoscopes that we have from the Greco-Roman world,” he said, adding, “we have a lot of horoscopes that are written down as a kind of document on papyrus or on a wall but none of them as old as this.”

We can’t trace where the ivory came from, but Egypt is certainly a viable candidate. Ivory was a precious material, so once harvested from its elephantine owner it could have been hoarded for years, maybe as long as a century, before it was carved. The board was made by carving ivory plaques in a 28-degree arc with a sign of the zodiac on the face. The plaques were then attached to a flat surface, probably a wood board.

The Cancer plaque is the most complete one, with Gemini and Pisces also clearly identifiable. A partially reconstructed plaque shows the back of an animal that could be Sagittarius’ horse’s ass. The rest of the plaques are too fragmentary to identify.

Researchers aren’t sure how and why these valuable Hellenistic artifacts found themselves smashed around a stalagmite in an Illyrian cave. The location, overlooking the Adriatic, was a well-traveled commercial route. Illyrians, who the Greeks thought of as somewhat barbarous, could have traded for the goods or pirated them and then brought them to the cave for religious purposes.

According to Stašo Forenbaher, a researcher with the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb whose former girlfriend (now wife) tunneled her way into the sealed-off chamber in 1999, the broken artifacts around the stalagmite suggest the chamber was a sacred space which the locals used to sacrifice to a deity.

“There is definitely a possibility that this astrologer’s board showed up as an offering together with other special things that were either bought or plundered from a passing ship,” Forenbaher said. He pointed out that the drinking vessels found in the cave were carefully chosen. They were foreign-made, and only a few examples of cruder amphora storage vessels were found with them.

“It almost seems that somebody was bringing out wine there, pouring it and then tossing the amphora away because they [the amphora] were not good enough for the gods, they were not good enough to be deposited in the sanctuary,” Forenbaher said.

The Illyrians might not even have known what the astrologer’s board was for, but recognizing it as a valuable and beautiful object they sacrificed it anyway.

Tomb of non-royal singer found in Valley of Kings

January 15, 2012

Ancient, Modern(ish)

Archaeologists from the University of Basel in Switzerland have discovered the tomb of a woman with no connection to the royal family in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings. This is the first tomb of a non-royal woman ever found in the Valley of the Kings.

According to an inscription inside the tomb, her name was Nehmes Bastet and she was a singer for deity Amon Ra in the Temple of Karnak during the 22nd Dynasty (945-712 B.C.). She may have been the daughter of the High Priest of Amon, which would explain how she secured such a primo location for eternity.

At the time of her death, Egypt was ruled by Libyan kings, but the high priests who ruled Thebes, which is now within the city of Luxor, were independent. Their authority enabled them to use the royal cemetery for family members, according to [Mansour Boraiq, the Antiquities’ Ministry top official for Luxor].

The unearthing marks the 64th tomb to be discovered in the Valley of the Kings.

The tomb was discovered entirely by accident. The University of Basel team’s remit is to clean and document some of the less glamorous and therefore less studied tombs. While cleaning near the tomb of Thuthmosis III (discovered a hundred years ago), they found a shaft with a chamber at the bottom. Inside the chamber was an intact wooden sarcophagus painted black and decorated with hieroglyphics and a wooden plaque engraved with Nehmes Bastet’s name and titles.

The coffin will be opened this week. Egyptologists expect (probably because of the weight distribution) to find a mummy covered with a cartonnage (plastered layers of linen) mask.

Ahram Online says the burial chamber contains a “treasured collection of ancient Egyptian artefacts.” There are no specifics on what these artifacts are, but they apparently were used to determine that the tomb itself pre-dates the 22nd Dynasty burial. It was originally cut during the 18th Dynasty (1550-1292 B.C.), the dynasty of superstars like Tutankhamun and Nefertiti. We don’t know yet what exactly allowed them to date the tomb or who the original resident might have been.

Sarcophagus of Nehmes Bastet in Valley of the Kings tomb KV64

Interesting side note to this story: several Egyptology bloggers first heard rumors that the University of Basel had found a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings around the time of the Egyptian revolution last year. Security police had been withdrawn from the Valley of the Kings, so there was nobody on site to deter and capture the looters who would inevitably descend on the site like locusts should they catch wind of a new tomb.

Bloggers coordinated with Dr. Thomas Schuler of Blue Shield, an international organization for the protection of cultural heritage during emergency situations, to warn the University of Basel team and to publicly dismiss the rumored find as just a secondary shaft to a pre-existing tomb. Thanks to them, researchers were able to do their thing without dangerous interference. :notworthy:

Leonardo da Vinci, handbag designer

January 14, 2012

Modern(ish), Museums, Renaissance

Amidst thousands of drawings of mechanical inventions, artillery, anatomy, the natural world, etc. made by Leonardo da Vinci and collected in the Codex Atlanticus are some fragments of a design that nobody paid much attention to for 500 years. In 1978, Da Vinci scholar Carlo Pedretti paid attention and identified the drawing as a handbag designed by Leonardo da Vinci around 1497.

Agnese Sabato and Alessandro Vezzosi of the Museo Ideale Leonardo Da Vinci in Vinci recently reassembled the design from the fragments. Vezzosi thinks Leonardo made several drawings of the same bag but they’ve been lost.

As a tribute to the city of Florence, a city that has long been famous for its exquisite leather work, fashion house Gherardini has brought Leonardo’s handbag to life. Designer Carla Braccialini designed the “Pretiosa” (meaning “precious” and yes, I am saying it like Gollum) bag based on Leonardo’s drawing, and artisans made it by hand using luxury materials like embroidered calf leather and an embossed brass handle.

Here is an all too short video of a craftsman making the “Pretiosa”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96ZESWW6_0M&w=430]

Functional and beautiful, creative and provocative, the bag would have certainly stood out among Renaissance fashion.

“While the shape recalls the lectern in “The Annunciation,” painted by Leonardo in the workshop of Verrocchio, its patterns feature rotating spirals and floral motifs, scrolls and foliage in metamorphosis,” Vezzosi said.

Boasting a unique closing system, the bag was designed at the end of Leonardo’s first Milanese period, around 1497. At that time, the artist was painting the tapestries in the Last Supper and knots designs in the Sala delle Asse in the Castello Sforzesco.

“Pretiosa” was on display for just three days (January 11-13) at the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, the first art school in Europe which was founded by Cosimo I de’ Medici and Giorgio Vasari in 1563. Gherardini has made only 99 Preciouses. They will theoretically be sold in Gherardini boutiques starting in March, but I highly doubt anybody walking in off the street will be able to get their mitts on one.

This wasn’t Leonardo’s only foray into fashion design. Several of his forays into clothing and accessory design have survived, as have his writings on the subject. He had strong opinions on the fashions of his era, condemning excessive ornamentation, overly tight clothes and shoes.

An appreciation for fashion is not Gherardini’s sole connection to the Renaissance genius. Lisa Gherardini, born to a decayed aristocratic Florentine family in 1479, married successful silk merchant Francesco Del Giocondo when she was 15. In 1503, Francesco commissioned Leonardo da Vinci to paint a portrait of her. It took him so long to paint it that he officially gave up the commission in 1506, although he kept working on it for the rest of his life.

After his death in 1519, the painting was bought by King Francis I of France. Now Leonardo’s portrait of Lisa Gherardini, aka la Gioconda, aka Madonna Lisa, aka Monna Lisa, aka the Mona Lisa, smiles serenely at dense crowds of Louvre visitors. One hundred and twenty-six years ago, her relatives founded the Gherardini fashion house.

Victorian astronomy drawings (plus gypsy moths)

January 13, 2012

Modern(ish), Multimedia

The New York Public Library has digitized and uploaded a gallery of astronomy drawings made in the late 1800s by French artist Étienne Léopold Trouvelot and they are gorgeous.

A staunch Republican (of the French variety, not the US variety), Trouvelot fled France when he was just 24 years old after Louis-Napoléon’s December 2, 1851 coup d’état. By the time President Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte had crowned himself Napoleon III exactly one year later, Trouvelot was living in the United States with his family. He settled in Massachusetts in 1855, earning an income as an artist.

A member of the Boston Society of Natural History, Trouvelot was an amateur entomologist with a particular interest in silkworms. That interest was more than a minor hobby. By 1865, he had a million Polyphemus moth caterpillars living in bushes in his backyard under a vast net. His aim was to improve the health of the disease-prone caterpillars so their silk production would improve. In aid of this, he had the brilliant idea to breed them with a hardier creature: the gypsy moth.

Even in 1868, the gypsy moth already had a reputation as a destructive invasive species. Trouvelot was convinced he could control them, though, so in the winter of 1868/69, he returned from Europe with a clutch of gypsy moth eggs which he put in a tree in the backyard thinking his netting would keep them from spreading. Nature lol’d and with a soft breeze blew the eggs into nearby woods. Trouvelot tried to track them all down but of course couldn’t. He alerted his neighbors and entomologists but none of them did anything.

And thus the gypsy moth was introduced to the US. By 1886, his suburban Boston neighborhood was saturated with the beasties. By 1890, the entire state was. The federal and state governments tried to eradicate the pest, but failed miserably. By 1898 the moths had spread south to Virginia and west to the Great Lakes. Today gypsy moths live all over the contiguous US and cause an estimated $868 million of agricultural damage a year.

After this mess Trouvelot decided to direct his scientific interests to non-entomological pursuits. He had already begun to draw astronomical phenomena like meteor showers and auroras in the late 1860s. Joseph Winlock, director of the Harvard College Observatory, admired his illustrations and hired Trouvelot to work for the observatory. Space photography had existed for a couple of decades by then, but although the technology was constantly improving, drawings were still considered the most accurate depictions of astronomical phenomena.

For the next few years Trouvelot made hundred of sketches of what he saw through the observatory’s 15-inch refractor telescope. In 1875 he published a discovery of his own: veiled spots, grey patches that look like shadows on the surface of the sun. He then moved on to other observatories, including the Washington Observatory and the University of Virginia’s.

In 1881, he selected 15 out of his thousands of astronomy drawings to be published in a book using then-cutting edge chromolithography technology, a color printing process that made color illustrations cheap and plentiful. It’s those chromolithographs that the New York Public Library has digitized. Trouvelet described his work thus:

“With a view to making these observations more generally useful, I was led…to prepare, from this collection of drawings, a series of astronomical pictures, which were intended to represent the celestial phenomena as they appear to the trained eye and to an experienced draughtsman through the great modern telescopes provided with the most delicate instrumental appliances…. While my aim in this work has been to combine scrupulous fidelity and accuracy in the details, I have also endeavored to preserve the natural elegance and the delicate outlines peculiar to the objects depicted….”

Goal achieved, I’d say.

Total eclipse of the sun, observed July 29, 1878

Compare his illustrations to period photography of astronomical phenomena in this NYPL gallery. Trouvelot’s work is far more accurate as well as incredibly beautiful.

Two William Wallace letters return to Scotland

January 12, 2012

Medieval, Museums

Two letters that are thought to have passed through the hands of Scottish national hero William Wallace will go on display this August at the Scottish Parliament as part of its annual Festival of Politics. These are the only two surviving documents that are directly connected to Wallace and neither of them is actually owned by Scotland, so to see them both together in the motherland is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

One letter, known as the Safe Conduct or the Wallace Letter, was written on November 7th, 1300 by King Philip IV of France to his representatives in Rome. Wallace had left Scotland for France in the fall of 1298 after his defeat at the Battle of Falkirk and his resignation as Guardian of Scotland in favour of Robert the Bruce. Written in Latin, the letter commands that the King’s ambassadors ask Pope Boniface VIII to agree to Wallace’s requests.

Letter from Philip IV to Pope Boniface VIII re. William Wallace, 1300

Here’s a translation of the letter:

Philip by the grace of God, king of the French, to his beloved and loyal people appointed at the Roman Court, greetings and favour. We command you that you ask the Supreme Pontiff to consider with favour our beloved William le Walois of Scotland, knight, with regard to those things which concern him that he has to expedite. Dated at Pierrefonds on the Monday after the feast of All Saints [7 November 1300]. [Endorsed]: Fourth letter of the King of France.

So it’s not really a safe conduct so much as a King asking a third party to support his ally. The reason it’s called the Safe Conduct is that English records note that Wallace was carrying three safe conducts when he was arrested, one from the King of France, one from the King of Norway and one from the King of Scotland. It was last referred to in an inventory of English records in 1323, then faded in the mists of time until the letter was discovered in the Tower of London in 1820.

We can’t know with certainty that this document is the French safe conduct taken from William Wallace after his arrest. It could have been intercepted by spies, for instance. However, the letter does indicate that Wallace was going to appeal to the Pope in person so it makes sense that he would have carried it on him rather than Philip sending it directly, and given that it was found in the Tower, it makes sense that it was confiscated from one the Tower’s most famous residents.

The second letter is known as the Lübeck Letter and is the only surviving document we have that was written by William Wallace himself. Attached to this letter is also the only surviving example of Wallace’s personal seal. It has a Scottish Lion rampant on the front and a strung bow with arrow on the reverse.

After Scottish forces led by William Wallace and his northern ally Andrew de Mornay (aka Andrew Murray) won the Battle of Stirling Bridge on September 11, 1297, Wallace wasted no time trying to get the Scottish economy back on track. The British had captured Scottish ports the year before and severely curtailed trade. Exactly a month after Stirling Bridge, Wallace felt secure enough to write to the Hanseatic League towns of Hamburg and Lübeck alerting them that Scotland’s ports were open for business again. (Mornay was mortally wounded at Stirling Bridge, although it appears he lived for a short time afterwards and Wallace continued to include his name in correspondence until his death.)

Andrew Moray and William Wallace, leaders of the army of the Kingdom of Scotland and the Community, to their worthy and beloved friends, the Mayors and citizens of Lübeck and Hamburg, greeting. We have been told by trustworthy merchants of the Kingdom of Scotland that you are giving help and favour in all business concerning us and our merchants for which we thank you. We ask that it be made known among your merchants that they will now have safe access to all ports in the Kingdom of Scotland, since Scotland, blessed be God, has been rescued from the power of the English by force of arms. Given at Haddington in Scotland, on the 11th day of October in the year of grace one thousand two hundred and ninety seven.

The Hamburg letter was destroyed in World War II. The Lübeck Letter survived secreted away in a Hanseatic League archive in a Lübeck museum. It is now kept in the National Archives of Lübeck who have loaned it to Scotland for the exhibit.

The Scottish government has long yearned for both letters. Members of Parliament have requested that the National Archives in Kew and Lübeck donate the letters to Scotland. That hasn’t happened, although Kew has agreed to a long-term loan of the Safe Conduct letter. Since both documents are extremely fragile, they will be exhibited for a short time only. The exhibition is free and will be open from August 10 to August 31, 2012 in the Scottish Parliament Building’s Main Hall.