Month: June 2019

Earliest evidence of inhaled psychoactive cannabis found in tomb

Ancient

Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main compound in cannabis that causes its psychoactive effects, residue has been discovered on braziers in a burial ground in western China. The graves where the braziers were found date to 500 B.C., making them the oldest evidence of cannabis being smoked for consciousness-altering purposes.

There is evidence of the cannabis plant being used for its oil and fibers going back 4,000 years, but not that it was cultivated, and wild cannabis has negligible quantities of  THC. Cannabis plants have been found in burials dating to between 2,400 and 2,800 years ago in China’s Turpan Basin indicating a ritual significance, but again, there is no evidence of them having been consumed in any way.

It’s unclear from the archaeological record when cannabis began to be selectively bred and cultivated to enhance its psychoactive properties. The first historical account of the use of inhaled cannabis is in Herodotus’ Histories. In Book IV, he describes a Scythian king’s funeral thus:

Such, then, is the mode in which the kings are buried: as for the people, when any one dies, his nearest of kin lay him upon a waggon and take him round to all his friends in succession: each receives them in turn and entertains them with a banquet, whereat the dead man is served with a portion of all that is set before the others; this is done for forty days, at the end of which time the burial takes place. After the burial, those engaged in it have to purify themselves, which they do in the following way. First they well soap and wash their heads; then, in order to cleanse their bodies, they act as follows: they make a booth by fixing in the ground three sticks inclined towards one another, and stretching around them woollen felts, which they arrange so as to fit as close as possible: inside the booth a dish is placed upon the ground, into which they put a number of red-hot stones, and then add some hemp-seed.

Hemp grows in Scythia: it is very like flax; only that it is a much coarser and taller plant: some grows wild about the country, some is produced by cultivation: the Thracians make garments of it which closely resemble linen; so much so, indeed, that if a person has never seen hemp he is sure to think they are linen, and if he has, unless he is very experienced in such matters, he will not know of which material they are.

The Scythians, as I said, take some of this hemp-seed, and, creeping under the felt coverings, throw it upon the red-hot stones; immediately it smokes, and gives out such a vapour as no Grecian vapour-bath can exceed; the Scyths, delighted, shout for joy, and this vapour serves them instead of a water-bath; for they never by any chance wash their bodies with water.

Herodotus lived around 484 – 425 B.C. and is believed to have written The Histories between 440 and 430 B.C. So far, this thin sourcing is the most historians have had to go on regarding the origins of the inhalation of psychoactive cannabis in Eurasia.

Researchers unearthed 10 wooden braziers containing stones with traces of burning from eight graves at the Jirzankal Cemetery in the eastern Pamir mountains. Using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS), researchers tested samples of organic material from 10 brazier fragments and four of the stones inside the braziers. They found cannabis biomarkers on all the wooden vessels, on nine of the vessels’ burned residues and on two of the four stones. This is strong evidence that cannabis plants were burned by placing them on hot stones inside wooden braziers.

Not only that, but the cannabinoids found in the braziers contained higher levels of cannabinol (CBN), the oxidative metabolite of THC, than of cannabidiol (CBD), which is not psychotropic. If the plants burned had been wild, the levels of CBN and CBD would be roughly equivalent. The greater levels of the former indicate this was a plant either recognized and foraged as being a better high, or deliberately cultivated for it.

Some of the skeletons recovered from the site, situated in modern-day western China, have features that resemble those of contemporaneous peoples further west in Central Asia. Objects found in the burials also appear to link this population to peoples further west in the mountain foothills of Inner Asia. Additionally, stable isotope studies on the human bones from the cemetery show that not all of the people buried there grew up locally.

These data fit with the notion that the high-elevation mountain passes of Central and Eastern Asia played a key role in early trans-Eurasian exchange. Indeed, the Pamir region, today so remote, may once have sat astride a key ancient trade route of the early Silk Road. The Silk Road was at certain times in the past the single most important vector for cultural spread in the ancient world. Robert Spengler, the lead archaeobotanist for the study, also at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, explains, “The exchange routes of the early Silk Road functioned more like the spokes of a wagon wheel than a long-distance road, placing Central Asia at the heart of the ancient world. Our study implies that knowledge of cannabis smoking and specific high-chemical-producing varieties of the cannabis plant were among the cultural traditions that spread along these exchange routes.”

The study has been published in the journal Science Advances and can be read in its entirety here.

Museum acquires USCT battle flag for $196,800

Modern(ish), Museums

The battle flag of the 127th Regiment United States Colored Troops sold at auction yesterday for $160,000 hammer price, just above the low end of its pre-sale estimate. The total cost including buyer’s premium is $196,800. The winning bid was made by the Atlanta History Center, home of the newly restored Battle of Atlanta Cyclorama (which is up and running as of February, btw). This is the most the AHC has ever paid for a single object.

The Atlanta History Center is one of the largest museums in the country in terms of square footage, a 33-acre campus that features thousands of artifacts in the museum’s permanent collection, extensive gardens, the historic Swan House, Smith Family Farm and the Wood Family log cabin. Objects associated with the United States Colored Troops are extremely rare, and the museum has very few of them.

Objects specifically identified with soldiers or regiments of the United States Colored Troops are extraordinarily scarce.  Atlanta History Center Military Historian and Curator Gordon Jones called this flag the definition of rare. “It’s an iconic knock-your-socks-off artifact,” Jones said. “Even an enlisted man’s USCT uniform wouldn’t be as historically significant as this flag.”

Black soldiers in the U.S. Army were issued the same uniforms and equipment as white soldiers, making collecting to interpret the USCT story a significant challenge. “So unless a soldier put his name on a piece of gear or it came down through the family, we will never know who used it,” Jones noted. […]

Among at least 11,000 Civil War objects in the Center’s collections are a dozen objects identified specifically with African American soldiers or regiments. These include a brass drum belonging to a drummer boy of the all-black 55th Massachusetts Regiment, a knapsack used at the Battle of Olustee, Florida, by a soldier in the 8th USCT, and a recently acquired canteen bearing the stenciled mark of the 15th U.S.C.T., which guarded railroad lines in Tennessee during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign.

The acquisition of the battle flag dovetails neatly into the Center’s long-term strategical goal of making the museum an inclusive representation of city’s demographics with a focus on attracting new members and visitors among non-white people under 50 years old who live inside the perimeter of metro Atlanta.

Intact 40,000-year-old wolf head found in Siberia

Ancient

The perfectly preserved decapitated head of a Pleistocene wolf has been found above the Arctic Circle north of Yakutia, Siberia. It was discovered last summer by Pavel Efimov on shore of the Tirekhtyakh River, but the find was only announced this week at the opening of a Woolly Mammoth exhibition in Tokyo.

The soft tissue is in excellent condition. Muscles, brain, fur, skin are all intact, preserved for 40,000 years in the Siberian permafrost. The fur is very thick, described by researchers as “mammoth-like.” It is brown now, giving rise to questions from the public that it looks more like a bear rather than a wolf. That was not its original coloring; its an effect of burial in the permafrost which has permanently altered the fur’s color. Even if the fur were thoroughly washed, it would still look brown, and there’s no way to determine the original color.

The wolf was a fully grown adult between two and four years old when it died, and was rather petite compared to most modern wolves. The head is 40cm (15.7″) long. The head of modern Arctic wolves varies in length from 66cm to 86cm (26-34″). Interestingly, a CT scan of the head revealed that some parts of the skull are more developed than those areas are in the skulls of today’s wolves. 

“This is a unique discovery of the first ever remains of a fully grown Pleistocene wolf with its tissue preserved. We will be comparing it to modern-day wolves to understand how the species has evolved and to reconstruct its appearance,” said an excited Albert Protopopov, from the Republic of Sakha Academy of Sciences. 

How the wolf’s head became detached from its body is unknown, but it was almost certainly not cut off by people as there is no evidence humans inhabited the gelid region 40,000 years ago. Its likely that it was severed by ice. Expanding ice often beheads dead animals trapped in it, leaving characteristic traces on the soft tissue. Researchers in this area have seen this phenomenon at work. The ice acts like an axe or a knife, cutting cleanly through necks. It’s possible some other force was involved in the decapitation of this wolf, however, because the cut is more ragged than ice expansion cuts usually are. A trace expert will be called in to examine specimens taken from the sever point under a microscope.

No other parts of the wolf have been found so far. Researchers plan to visit the find site to excavate it looking for additional remains.

Here’s a brief but amazing video of the head being turned and examined by researchers:

Watch the Penn Museum sphinx move live!

Ancient, Museums

The largest sphinx in the western hemisphere is on the move right now! The Penn Museum’s 25,000-pound sphinx from the reign of Rameses II is being moved to its new location in the Main Entrance Hall. This is the first time it has seen daylight since it was installed in the museum’s Lower Egypt Gallery in 1926.

See it all go down in real time in the video below.

https://www.facebook.com/pennmuseum/videos/693586074411250/

They’re using a system of air dollies to raise it just enough above the ground that it moves at a hover. There are four dollies under each corner that use pressurized air to lift the sphinx. The ramp is at a slight incline to enlist the aid of gravity while still keeping the rate of movement under close control.

The museum is undergoing a major transformation of its exhibition spaces, so you won’t be able to see the sphinx in its new home until the grand reopening on November 16th.

Unique 1864 Black regiment flag for sale

Modern(ish)

A one-of-a-kind Civil War flag from Pennsylvania’s 127th United States Colored Infantry Regiment is going up for auction this week.

Its imagery is remarkable, depicting a Black troop waving goodbye to Columbia, the Goddess of Liberty, beneath a banner that reads: “WE WILL PROVE OURSELVES MEN.” Below the cartouche is a banner that says: “127th REGt. U.S. COLORED TROOPS.”

The flag was designed and hand-painted by Philadelphia portraitist David Bustill Bowser. He was the son of a fugitive slave father and grandson on his mother’s side of prominent Philadelphia baker, brewer and civic leader Cyrus Bustill, a former slave owned by his own Quaker father. Cyrus Bustill was able to buy his freedom before the Revolutionary War. Like many members of his extended family, David Bowser was politically active in his community. His home was a stop on the Underground Railroad and he made portraits of important abolitionist figures, most famously John Brown a year before the Harper’s Ferry raid. He also designed flags, banners and regalia for political parties, civil rights organizations, fraternal groups and fire companies.

[Entirely random historical flagmaker connection:

David Bowser’s father Jeremiah was a member of the Society of Friends. He had escaped slavery and become a successful businessman in Philadelphia as owner of a popular oyster house and beer seller. His former owners had him arrested in Philadelphia and Friends raised funds to buy his freedom. When his son was born, he named him David after David Newport, one of the Friends who had worked indefatigably to secure Jeremiah’s freedom. David Newport’s grandson, also named David, who had known Jeremiah and David Bowser from early childhood, married Susan Satterthwaite, granddaughter of Betsy Ross.]

As soon as Congress passed the act allowing African Americans to serve in the military, Bowser actively worked to recruit black soldiers. That was July of 1862, but President Lincoln didn’t allow any black troops to serve in combat until the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1st, 1863, and then it took another six months before the War Department created the Bureau of Colored Troops to recruit and deploy black units in an organized fashion. Racism was deeply ingrained in the process. Commissioned officers all had to be white; black soldiers were paid laborers’ wages; their families were rarely granted the financial support white soldiers’ dependents received.

In June of 1863, the Union Army issued an appeal for black soldiers to enlist: “The Government of the United States calls for every able-bodied African-American man to enter the army for three years’ service, and join in fighting the battles of Liberty and the Union.” A week after that proclamation, Camp William Penn, the first federally operated recruitment and training center for black troops, was established on property outside Philadelphia owned by prominent Quaker abolitionist and women’s rights activist Lucretia Mott.

A month later, a Meeting for the Promotion of Colored Enlistments was held in Philadelphia where speakers including Frederick Douglass promoted black men enlisting in the Union Army. Douglass’ clear-eyed, thoughtful explanation of why African Americans should fight for a government and army that had shown such active contempt for them was extremely well-received and recruitment took off in a big way.

Almost 11,000 volunteers made their way to Camp William Penn. Eleven of the new United States Colored Infantry regiments mustered there and the camp’s Supervisory Committee for Recruiting Colored Regiments commissioned Bowser to create their regimental battle flags. Somebody, there are no surviving records indicating who, lodged an objection. All we know about this event is from a letter written by John Weil Forney, an influential Philadelphia politician, to Thomas Webster, chairman of the committee, on March 29th, 1864. Forney wrote:

“While in Philadelphia two days ago, I learned that an effort was being made to deprive Mr. D. B. Bowser of the work of painting the flags of the colored regiments, and I would have called upon you to make an appeal on his behalf had not the weather been so bad. He came to see me, but I was much too occupied to give him a hearing, and he writes me this morning, begging me to intercede with you — which I most earnestly and cheerfully do. He is a poor man, and certainly professes very remarkable talent. He has been active in the cause and is himself a colored man, and it seems to me there would be peculiar hardship in taking away this little job from him and giving it to a wealthy house. Will you do your best for him, and greatly oblige.”

That did the trick. Bowser kept the commission and created one flag for each of the 11 Camp William Penn regiments. The image of Columbia, the personification of the United States as symbol of liberty and justice, accompanied by a black soldier was a recurring motif on Bowser’s flags, perhaps a deliberate needling of Confederate troops who, symbolism aside, would surely have been triggered by the images of a white woman being defended/touched/closely accompanied by a black man. Other low-key burns include the 45th regiment’s flag featured a black soldier waving a US flag in front of a bust of George Washington under the slogan “One Cause, One Country,” and the flag of the 22nd regiment which showed a black soldier bayoneting a Confederate soldier under the banner “Sic semper tyrannis,” (thus always to tyrants), the motto of Virginia and the phrase yelled by John Wilkes Booth on the stage of Ford’s Theater after he shot Abraham Lincoln in the head.

Of the 11 flags Bowser created, only the 127th regiment’s is known to survive today. Seven of them are known from photographic prints. Because United States Colored Troops flags were not issued by state and/or federal government as every other unit’s was, when the Mustering Office closed in June of 1866, the physical flags were returned to the USCT. They were stored in Washington, D.C., until 1906 when they were moved to the museum of the United States Military Academy at West Point. Never exhibited, they were taken out of storage and destroyed in 1942.

The 127th flag is believed to have been given to David Bustill Bowser after the war by Camp William Penn’s commander Louis Wagner. Bowser gave it to Post 2 of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), a fraternal organization of Union veterans, which eventually became the GAR Civil War Museum and Library. The museum did some work restoring the flag. They are now putting it up for sale via Morphy Auctions, which has done further restoration work to stabilize and preserve this precious and unique survivor. It will go under the hammer on June 13th with a pre-sale estimate of $150,000-$250,000.