November 2012 – Page 4 – The History Blog

Ice hockey games held in Roman amphitheater

November 15, 2012

A hockey rink is built in the ancient Roman Pula Arena

I don’t know how I missed this when it happened two months ago, but some genius in Croatia had the brilliant idea of setting the tooth-loosingest, elbow-to-the-faciest, beatings-will-continue-until-the-score-improvesingest sport of the modern era in its ancient habitat: the Roman amphitheater in Pula, Croatia. The Pula Arena is one of the best preserved Roman amphitheaters in existence, with all four of its side towers and all three levels of the classical orders still standing. With a capacity of more than 20,000 spectators, it’s one of the six largest ever built.

Like the Colosseum in Rome, the Pula Arena as we know it today (there were earlier and smaller wooden and stone versions) was started by the emperor Vespasian in 79 A.D. and completed by his son Titus in 81 A.D. Also like the Colosseum, it was used as a source of construction materials after the fall of the Western Empire, but in Pula the practice was prohibited by the Patriarch of Aquileia in the 1200s which is why so much of it remains today. Italian powers from Venice in the 16th century to the Fascist national government during World War II have made attempts to dismantle the entire arena so they could rebuild it back home, but thankfully none of these plans ever came to fruition.

It is felicitously located on the tip of the Istrian peninsula, overlooking the glimmering turquoise waters of the Adriatic, and today is both a tourist attraction and a 5,000-seat venue for events like movies, operas and military ceremonies. Those are fairly staid entertainments compared to the ones that took place in the first four centuries of its existence. Ice hockey games, on the other hand, may at first glance seem incongruous given Pula’s mild Mediterranean climate, but thematically it’s a perfect match.

Not just because of the violence either. (Are the European hockey leagues as rough as the NHL? I’m just assuming they are but I have no idea.) In their heyday, amphitheaters were the pinnacle of high-tech entertainment. They had pulley and trap door systems to raise animals and fighters from the basement, canvas roofing systems that would be unfurled by sailors to give the audience some shade, mechanisms to flood and drain the arena. Pula Arena even has water cisterns in the four towers that were used to supply fountains and spray perfumed water over the spectators.

In the recreations of historical sea battles called naumachia, the arena would be flooded with a few inches of water and re-enactors would fight on ships that weren’t floating so much as mechanical props. (Full-scale naumachia using actual warships and thousands of fighters happened on lakes and in specially built basins, but there wasn’t room for them even in the Colosseum.) If they had had the technology to freeze the flooded floor, I’m sure they would have recreated Hannibal crossing the Alps.

The creation of an ice hockey rink in the middle of Pula Arena was no small technological marvel even today. One hundred and fifty tons of rink- and bleacher-building material was transported from Italy to Zagreb in 22 mega-trucks and then moved to Pula in stages. Workers then built a rink on a wooden platform with a complex icing system below and bleachers to accomodate 7,000 spectators.

Dimension of ice in Pula Arena will be 57 x 26 meters [187 feet x 85 feet) while the thickness will be 6 – 8 cm [2.3 inches – 3.1 inches]. Ice in Pula Arena will be placed on a specially built platform sized 1,900 square meters [20,451 square feet]; 15,000 liters [4,000 gallons] of a special liquid for freezing- glycol running in 2540m [8333 foot]-long pipes below the surface which is needed to create and maintain the ice in the open of the Pula Arena. World’s highest eco-standards are abided during the use of this machinery so after the event ends, those same 15,000 liters of glycol will be stored back in the same tanks and taken off the site with a high level of responsibility and care! 100 liters [26.4 gallons] of special paint will be used to paint the ice base layer for the purpose of stronger puck contrast on the surface and as much as 1800 square meters [19,375 square feet] of special foil will be used to protect the ice in Pula Arena from sun and high temperatures. Interesting fact is that the same type of foil is used to produce astronauts’ suits designed for astronauts to exit the spacecraft and enter the space. -12°C will be the temperature at which special machinery will maintain the ice surface in Arena; 6 foreign experts will supervise the set-up and ice maintenance helped by 70 domestic, local workers.

Amazingly enough, it all worked. They managed to keep a skatable ice hockey rink going when the temperatures were in the 60s F for the three games held September 14th-16th. Austrian league teams Medvescak Zagreb and Olimpija Ljubljana went head to head on Friday (final score 2-3) and Medvescak Zagreb beat the UPC Vienna Capitals on Sunday 4-0. On Saturday a game pitted retired hockey legends from Croatia and Russia against each other. The Russian legends won 10-3. The total cost was around 500,000 Euros ($627,000), paid for by sponsors and ticket sales.

This whole crazy project went from idea to execution in three months, which is kind of mind-blowing. Players and spectators got a huge kick out of it, as you can see from this awesome video which also features cool time-lapse footage of the construction:

The Sun King’s antiques return to Versailles

November 14, 2012

Modern(ish), Museums, Renaissance

King Louis XIV, a believer in the theory that kings are chosen by God and rule by divine right, adopted the iconography of classical antiquity to convey his godlike power. As a youth, while still under the regency of his mother, Anne of Austria (who had ceded control to Cardinal Mazarin), he went to a masquerade dressed as the sun, with rays around his head and gold dust on his face. He thereafter adopted the sun as his seal. After Mazarin died in 1661 and Louis acceded to his full power as King of France, he commissioned artists like Jean Nocret and Charles Le Brun to depict him as the deified rulers of antiquity or as the deities themselves, preferably Apollo, the Greek and Roman god of the sun, bringer of heat and light to the world.

The metaphor extended to political reality with the construction of the Palace of Versailles. Louis XIV deliberately had the palace built outside of Paris in what was then a sleepy village, so it wouldn’t be an easy target for the Parisian mobs like the one that had burst into his bedroom in the Palais-Royal when he was 10 years old. By 1682, Versailles was the epicenter of royal power. France’s greatest nobles, who only a few years earlier had fought hard for their feudal rights against an increasingly centralized monarchy during the civil wars of the Fronde, now lived at Versailles at the king’s beck and call. He was the sun and they revolved entirely around him. Feudal lords who had once ruled their own domains and fielded personal armies now vied with recently ennobled courtiers to perform servile duties for the monarch.

Although some of his ancestors, most notably Francis I, had purchased large numbers of ancient sculptures from Italy, these collections had been dispersed during the reigns of subsequent uninterested and perpetually broke monarchs. He only inherited one life-sized Roman marble, Artemis with a Deer, now in the Louvre Museum. The rest of his decor was paintings and tapestries, many of them featuring him in the guise of the heroes of classical antiquity.

He realized that wasn’t enough cachet for him when the Baroque master Gianlorenzo Bernini came to Paris in 1665 when Louis was 27 years old. Bernini was invited to present a new design for the east facade of the Louvre, then a royal palace, but his vision did not meet with Louis’ approval. Instead, Bernini made a bust of the king which did meet with his approval and many other art lovers’ approvals in the centuries since. It’s considered a masterpiece of Baroque sculptural portraiture. Louis sat for Bernini 13 times during the making of this piece, and the artist also followed him around to convey the great man in action.

He saw little greatness in the king’s living quarters, however. Bernini publicly declared that “the ornaments of this chamber and the adjoining rooms are ornaments for ladies.” Wounded to the core by this iceburn, Louis spent the rest of his days accumulating life-sized and colossal ancient sculptures or commissioning copies thereof. Soon his vast new digs at Versailles would require filling, and what better stage for a display of (manly) power through art.

Much of his collection of antiquities as well as his sculptures, paintings, tapestries and other decorative pieces inspired by antiquity were removed from Versailles during the French Revolution. Whatever wasn’t tied down was divvied up to French museums and sold abroad. A new exhibition at Versailles, Versailles and Antiquity, seeks to reunite Louis’ collection with other ancien régime antiques and put them on display in ten rooms of the palace they once adorned.

The theme is the relationship of ancient imagery to power. On loan from museums all over the country, mainly the Louvre, the pieces will be returned to the exact locations they occupied during the reigns of Louis XIV, XV and XVI. Artemis and her deer have returned, as have the Venus of Arles and Hermes the Sandalbinder, who was mistakenly thought to be Cincinnatus for many years and had a plowshare added to represent the Roman hero who saved his country and then rejected power to go back to his farm.

“The castle finds its splendour,” said museum president Catherine Pegard. “It is of great emotional impact: past masterpieces are returning in their place thanks to the magic of Italian theatre director Pier Luigi Pizzi who has been in charge of the scenery. It is not just an exhibit, this is theatre: we are projected to the apartment of the king, in the intimacy of the art collector.”

“I tried to build a dialogue between a great king such as Louis XIV and the masterpieces on display, making them re-live in a precise atmosphere which corresponded to the spirit of the XVII and XVIII centuries,” observed Pizzi. “It was very much an issue of stage design, the set here was as important as in theatre. It was necessary to adapt the rooms of the royal palace to the context of the collection.”

The Milanese director covered the walls in a burgundy fabric and created imaginary boiseries and doors. “Evoking antiquity entails bringing to mind a certain classicism which influenced the whole style of Louis XIV. His collections needed to find a certain environment. I tried not to make it look like a makeshift environment and preferred to leave the sense of the palace as if objects found their natural collocation, instead of putting them on display as is usually done.”

The exhibition runs from November 13th, 2012 to March 17th, 2013. Versailles’ YouTube channel will post a series of six short videos about the role of antiquities in palace history. So far only one video has been uploaded, but it starts with Francis I and ends with the Bernini burn so it’s a good one.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Fs0QZ73Uh8&w=430]

Time capsule from Battle of Fredericksburg found

November 13, 2012

Modern(ish)

During an archaeological survey of a plot next to City Hall where a new courthouse will be built in Fredericksburg, Virginia, workers have discovered hundreds of artifacts and the remains of a row house that was burned during the Battle of Fredericksburg. It was a big surprise, as before the survey began researchers had searched the city records and the earliest evidence they’d found of a building on the site dated to 1886. Underneath the concrete slab foundation of the most recent structure on the site, the law offices of Thom Savage, they unearthed the cellar of what later research into the tax records indicated was the property of Fredericksburg businessman and pre-Civil War mayor Peter Goolrick. That concrete slab preserved the cellar, turning it into a time capsule of the Confederate victory.

In all probability, the house was destroyed during the 1862 battle. It disappeared from the tax records in 1865, but it was already missing from pictures of the city taken in 1863. The remains of the sandstone cellar walls, a brick fireplace and carbonized heart-of-pine floorboards testify to the house’s demise by fire. The artifacts discovered within suggest the house played an interesting role in the battle fought between December 11th and December 15th of 1862. The team from archaeological contractors Cultural Resources, Inc. (CRI) found dozens of bullets, tobacco pipe bowls, chinstrap buckles, pieces of a cartridge box and ration tins, glass inkwells, broken whiskey bottles and plates. Most significantly, they also found buttons and metal company insignia from uniforms, Union uniforms.

Historians believe the cellar was inhabited by Union troops during the Battle of Fredericksburg because its location was less exposed to Confederate shelling than some of the homes in the business district. According to CRI’s project archaeologist Taft Kiser, the insignia left in the cellar belonged to a regiment from Company C with the number “2” in its name. There are several possibilities. The hope is that a Union diarist who was part of that regiment might have left enough clues to their position to allow for a positive identification.

The timing of the discovery could not be more propitious. Fredericksburg has a number of events planned in memory of the 150th anniversary of the battle. The first has already kicked off: an exhibit at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park of the favorite sword of General Ambrose Burnside, the Union officer who had replaced General George McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac on November 10th.

Burnside decided to move the army towards the Confederate capital of Richmond rather than continue on their southwestern route. The hope was to catch General Lee’s Army of Virginia off guard and bring the battle to the heart of the Confederacy. Unfortunately, the Union Army of the Potomac was an organizational disaster and even though large numbers of troops had reached the crossing point of the Rappahannock River opposite Fredericksburg by November 19th, the supplies to build the pontoon bridge to cross the river didn’t arrive until November 25th. By then, Lee was happily ensconced on the hills above the city.

Burnside, keenly aware of the political pressure on him to score a decisive confrontation and victory rather than pussyfoot around as McClellan had done after Antietam, chose to launch a frontal attack on Lee’s entrenched position. He chose poorly. After a day of intense Union cannon fire on the town, Union troops crossed the Rappahannock into Fredericksburg on the night of December 11th. They sacked the city but didn’t make a dent in Confederate lines. An attempt to breach them on December 13th resulted in the most lopsided slaughter of the Civil War, with eight Union soldiers dead for every one Confederate soldier. Under intense shelling from the high ground on the town perimeter, the Union troops in Fredericksburg hunkered down wherever they could find some shelter, including, apparently, the cellar of the building belonging to Peter Goolrick.

The discovery will not impede construction of the courthouse, I’m sad to say. Over the next two weeks, the brick and sandstone foundations will be removed to make room for the foundations of the new building. Some of the stones of particular architectural interest — the ornamented Aquia stone steps, for example — will be preserved, as will the artifacts which will eventually be returned to the city for storage and display.

Some pre-Civil War remains have also been discovered on the site on the other side from the battle-scarred house. The team unearthed an 18th century well and a privy from the livery stables of George Gravatt. Pieces of a creamware chamber pot made in Staffordshire, England were especially charming because you can still clearly see the transfer print image of the Enterprise, a schooner that fought in the Barbary Wars of the early 19th century. Just 30 or so years after the end of the Revolutionary War, England was mass-producing consumer goods with patriotic images for the US market.

For more events commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Fredericksburg, see this National Parks Service schedule.

The Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I

November 12, 2012

Museums, Renaissance

Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I (reigned 1493-1519) never actually had a triumphal procession. What he did have was a discerning eye for self-aggrandizing propaganda, and he enlisted artists to ensure the image of the great emperor, son of emperors, glorious in victory, bringer of prosperity and high culture to his people, would capture the grandeur of his reign and long outlive the man.

As one often sees today with midlife crisis Lamborghini purchases, Maximilian was overcompensating. His father Frederick III became the first Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor in 1452. Maximilian co-ruled the empire with his father for the last 10 years of his reign (1483-1493). With so fresh a link to the imperial throne, Maximilian made a point of emphasizing royal connections, real or fictional, in his family line. He traced his ancestry back to Hector, son of King Priam of Troy, Julius Caesar, King Arthur, Charlemagne and a number of saints. The point of this family tree liberally sprinkled with myth was to underscore that though the Habsburg dynasty might be technically brand spanking new to the throne, its long history of heroism, military genius, leadership, chivalric ideals and piety made it even more of an imperial line than some of the other families with royal claims.

As one also sees today with those midlife crisis Lamborghini purchasers, Maximilian’s mortality weighed heavily upon him. From 1514 on, he carried his coffin with him wherever he traveled, and he traveled a lot. To ensure that his legacy would live on once he was gone, he spent a great deal of money to immortalize his deeds, words and lineage. When questioned on the vast sums he dispensed on this pursuit, Maximilian replied:

“He who does not provide for his memory while he lives, will not be remembered after his death, so that this person will be forgotten when the bell tolls. And hence the money I spend for my memory will not be lost.”

With his historical legitimacy and posthumous legacy in mind, in the last decade of his life the emperor commissioned three monumental works inspired by the victorious generals of Rome: the Triumphal Procession, the Great Triumphal Chariot, and the Triumphal Arch. Engraver Hans Burgkmair began work on the Triumphal Procession in 1512, designing scenes from the life and military victories of Maximilian carried along in a long procession of musicians, hunters, falconers, standard bearers, courtiers, exotic baggage trains, Habsburg ancestors, knights and a hugely elaborate imperial carriage. The original gouache was painted by Albrecht Altdorfer on 109 large vellum sheets which all together were more than 100 meters (328 feet) long.

Behold the glory (click for large versions to truly behold the glory):

"The Ancestors of Emperor Maximilian" from the "Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I" by Albrecht Altdorfer and workshop, c. 1512-1515 © Albertina, Vienna

"The German Princes" from the "Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I" by Albrecht Altdorfer c. 1512-1515 © Albertina, Vienna

"The Emperor's Coach" from the "Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I" by Albrecht Altdorfer, c. 1512-1515 © Albertina, Vienna

"The Swiss War and The Neapolitan War" from the "Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I" by Albrecht Altdorfer and workshop, c. 1512-1515 © Albertina, Vienna

"The Great Venetian War" from the "Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I" by Albrecht Altdorfer and workshop, c. 1512-1515 © Albertina, Vienna

"Baggage Train" from the "Triumphal Procession of Emperor Maximilian I" by Albrecht Altdorfer and workshop, c. 1512-1515 © Albertina, Vienna

The detail is not only beautiful, but has also proven an invaluable resource for historians of the musical instruments, heraldry, clothing and armor of the period. My favorite part is the Lion of St. Mark turning tail and running from Maximilian’s forces in The Great Venetian War. By 1517, the emperor would lose all the territory he had won in that particular skirmish.

We don’t know how this monster piece was displayed, but some art historians believe it was unrolled and moved forward while the seated emperor watched, a Renaissance animated gif, if you will. We do know that he disseminated this tribute to his military successes and illustrious ancestry to the populace via reproduction prints made from woodcuts engraved by Burgkmair, Altdorfer and the greatest master of them all, Albrecht Dürer.

Albrecht Dürer also created the Triumphal Arch and the Great Triumphal Chariot, only the former of which was completed before Maximilian’s death. The woodcuts of the Triumphal Procession and of the Triumphal Arch, which ended up being composed of 192 woodcut panels for a total dimension of 9′ 8″ by 11′ 8 1/2″, were the largest woodcut prints ever produced. They were intended to be plastered to walls, like giant billboards advertising the awesomeness of the emperor, and to be issued in large special edition publications.

Half of the original vellum Triumphal Procession sheets are now gone, but sheets 49 through 109 have survived and are part of the permanent collection of the Albertina Museum in Vienna, Austria, which also has many of the original woodcuts used to make the reproduction prints. They remain in good condition, with the colors and details still brilliant. They are very rarely seen, however, and were last put on public display in 1959 in celebration of Maximilian’s 500th birthday.

Now is your chance to see all 54 meters (177 feet) remaining of the original Triumphal Procession painting. The Albertina has put the complete Triumphal Procession sheets on display along with many other related masterpieces in a new exhibit: Emperor Maximilian I and the Age of Dürer.

On his deathbed in 1519 Maximilian fled from all this splendor he had purchased. Terrified of God’s judgment on his prideful life, after receiving the last rites he abdicated all his titles and ordered that his body be mutilated after death. His hair was to be shorn, his teeth broken off and his back scourged. He was buried in a simple tomb in St. George’s Cathedral in the castle of Wiener Neustadt, northeast Austria, where he was born. Forty years later, his grandson Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I would build a church (the Hofkirche) with an elaborate cenotaph in Innsbruck in Maximilian’s memory.

Despite the last-minute foray into mortification, Maximilian’s political, military and dynastic efforts during his life secured for the Habsburg family centuries of power among the crowned heads of Europe. The range of history set in motion by Maximilian’s choices is breathtaking. His marriage to Mary of Burgundy ultimately netted much of what are today the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and a considerable piece of northern France for the Habsburg line. His son’s marriage to Joan of Castile (later known as Juana la Loca, Joan the Crazy Lady, for among other things allegedly carrying her husband’s corpse with her wherever she went for years after he died of typhoid fever) resulted in their son Charles V becoming King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor at the same time.

It was Charles V who sacked Rome in 1527 and imprisoned the Pope, preventing him from granting Britain’s King Henry VIII an annulment of his marriage to his wife and Charles’ aunt, Catherine of Aragon. Charles’ son, Maximilian’s great-grandson, would become King Philip II of Spain, King of England during his marriage to Queen Mary I, and sender of the Spanish Armada so soundly defeated by the navy of Queen Elizabeth I, the weather, and the violent moods of the English Channel. The Spanish Habsburg line died in 1700 with poor Charles II who was riddled with congenital deformities and diseases thanks to the family’s penchant for uncle-niece and cousin-cousin marriages, but the Austrian Habsburgs reigned until the 1780 death of the formidable Queen Maria Theresa, mother of Queen Marie Antoinette of France.

Bolivia returns 700-year-old toddler mummy to Peru

November 11, 2012

Ancient, Looting, Modern(ish), Social policy

Two years ago, police in El Alto, a suburb of the Bolivian seat of government La Paz, arrested a woman who had been caught during a routine search by postal workers attempting to mail the mummy of a toddler to an address in Compiègne, France. She claimed she had no idea what was inside the package, that she had simply received it in Desaguadero, a small town near the border with Peru, from a man she knew only as Don Gustavo who had instructed her to mail it to France. The mummy was confiscated by the police and then transferred to the Bolivian Ministry of Culture’s Archaeology Unit, which conducted a detailed examination of the artifact.

Investigations since then haven’t contradicted her story, but not many specifics have been uncovered. There’s little doubt the mummy was destined to be sold in France. Smugglers had replaced the missing left leg with the mummified leg of a younger child and added three textiles to the two original cotton and cameloid wool pieces in order to complete the mummy so it would sell for a higher price. The textiles identified the mummy as Peruvian rather than Bolivian (Bolivian mummies were wrapped in straw). Archaeologists believe it dates to the pre-Inca Late Intermediate period (1000 A.D.-1450 A.D.), possibly from one of the southern coastal cultures like the Chiribaya or Paracas.

In keeping with the Convention for the Recuperation of Cultural Goods and Others Stolen, Imported or Exported Illicitly, a bilateral agreement signed by Bolivia and Peru in 1998 and ratified in 2000, the little mummy was officially returned to Peru in a ceremony at the Peruvian Foreign Ministry in Lima on Tuesday, November 6th. This is the first time Bolivia has repatriated human remains to the country from which they were looted. Peru didn’t add skeletal and mummified human remains to its “red list” of cultural heritage goods endangered by illegal export until 2009. Until recently, most of the looted and trafficked artifacts from Peru were textiles, ceramics, jewels, precious metals and stones. There’s been a notable increase in the trafficking of human remains since the financial crisis, sadly.

The repatriation of the toddler mummy, in addition to being a function of the pre-existing bilateral agreement, was also the symbol of a new pact signed at Tuesday’s ceremony. In recognition of their shared Andean culture, Bolivia and Peru have agreed to a plan of action to combat the trafficking of cultural patrimony that will engage not just both governments but also private companies in the recovery of looted artifacts. The document was signed by Peruvian Minister of Culture Luis Peirano and Bolivian Culture Minister Pablo Groux. It is their hope that this plan will help fight trafficking between the bordering nations and serve as a signal to other countries to respect their cultural heritage.

Peruvian Foreign Minister Rafael Roncagliolo spoke during the ceremony, saying that the new agreement will improve procedures and techniques used to combat the trade in illegal artifacts. They won’t be relying only on police work, but principally creating a program of academic and archaeological cooperation between Bolivia and Peru that will be vital to the formulation of a common strategy of heritage protection. Since, like the traffic in drugs and weapons, cultural property trafficking is large-scale organized crime that has elaborate networks in many countries at once, in order for one country to combat it, it must work closely together with other countries. These agreements can pave the way to allow for the repatriation of cultural artifacts with a minimum of complex, time-consuming and expensive bureaucracy.

The traffic in Peruvian artifacts is endemic throughout Latin America.

An archaeologist at Argentina’s National Institute of Anthropology and Latin American Thought, Julio Avalos, said he and his colleagues are frequently called by police to assess whether relics encountered at airports and Buenos Aires’ seaport — or for sale on the Internet — are protected patrimony.

“Most of it is Peruvian because that’s what there is mostly,” Avalos said.

Just last year three skulls and a mummy from the pre-Incan Paracas culture (7th c. B.C.-3rd c. A.D.) of coastal Peru were intercepted by customs agents in Argentina. They had been sent in the mail from (you guessed it) Bolivia to an Argentine citizen in Buenos Aires and were spotted when the package, labeled as containing replica Peruvian ceramics, was X-rayed in the post office. The recipient was detained on smuggling charges, but officials believe the ultimate destination for the trafficked human remains was yet again the European antiquities market.