The History Blog

Versailles has been undergoing a massive renovation the past four years, renovations that are projected to continue until at least 2020.

The Hall of Mirrors was reopened last year to great fanfare, but I’ve found a more unassuming but equally fascinating testament to the restoration work that’s been done.

Architectural photographer Robert Polidori has been photographing Versailles over the past two decades using a large format camera. Here’s a sample of some of those pictures.

He’s really captured the moment of transition, hasn’t he? Not only is the subject exquisitely beautiful, but it’s such a unique view: plastic-covered canopy beds, the Sun King’s legs on a giant portrait laid horizontally, dramatic vistas of almost empty rooms.

He’s coming out with a monograph collection of the pictures. Sixty-three smackers is a little rich for my blood, but I’m sure it’s worth it.

Urban sprawl has an fascinating side-effect in Europe. Medieval and early modern execution sites which used to be on roadways outside of town are turning up in people’s back yards.

The finds are gruesomely informative. One site in Germany had a skeleton of a woman with a foot and a half long spike driven through her skull.

Apparently part of the executioner’s job was to decorate the area with dead people and body parts and whatnot to let visitors know the town was tough on crime. The lady’s head was nailed to a post as part of the “don’t fuck with us” decor.

She had it easy, though.

Of course, convicts might also have suffered by way of the notorious “wheel.” This punishment was reserved for the worst of all crimes, murder or treason. Using the wheel involved pegging the convict down on the ground with his or her extremities spread wide. Then the executioner would repeatedly drop an iron-mounted wheel onto the victim.

A skeleton from Friedlandburg near Göttingen demonstrates what kind of mess this brutal procedure produced. The ribs are shattered, lower legs and forearms broken, the skull’s left temple shattered.

Then the body was left to rot. The longest period of time recorded for a corpse to have been exposed on a wheel is 3 years.

Cracked magazine has a great little article covering five historical instances of negative campaigning, all of them surprisingly similar to aspersions cast in the current political climate.

President Adams’ team sent out pamphlets saying if Jefferson was elected he would destroy Christianity, and that, “prostitutes…will preside in the sanctuaries now devoted to the worship of the Most High.”

When the threat of an all-hooker church wasn’t effective enough to destroy Jefferson’s career, Adams’ Federalists stepped up their game, explaining that Jefferson’s America would involve the “teaching of murder robbery, rape, adultery and incest”. Thomas Jefferson wants “murder robbery” taught in our elementary schools, people!

And that’s just the first one. It gets better. Or worse.

As always, history soothes my jangled nerves. Knowing that we aren’t particularly exceptional is a relief, frankly.

A lovely big shire horse by the name of Major is doing the heavy work of preserving an 2000-year-old Iron Age fort in Wessex, England.

Park Hill Camp is basically two ditches and an embankment, but just because there are no remaining structures doesn’t mean there isn’t a great deal to be learned from the site.

Martin Papworth, the National Trust’s archaeologist for Wessex, said: “The roots of relatively young trees are digging into the important archaeology – the hill itself. The story of the generations of people who once lived within Park Hill’s ramparts survives as layers of evidence buried in the soil. We need to remove young and immature trees from the hillfort to protect this archaeological information.” [...]

Using Major negates the risk of churning up the ground by using heavy vehicles to pull the logs and fallen trees.

The timber Major drags offsite is either sold or used for fences and gate posts on the estate.

Best of all: the footpaths are open so anyone can go watch Major do his thing. Archaeology groupies take note. It’s not every day you get to see preservation at work, and not ever with a horse at the helm.

As conditions in Iraq improve, more and more historical attractions are opening back up. Not the main one, though. The National Museum in Baghdad, so brutally looted 5 1/2 years ago, is still a wreck.

The US government is stepping up the plate and donating $13 million to restore the museum and support other archaeological endeavors.

U.S. forces came under widespread criticism in the immediate aftermath of the invasion for failing to prevent the looting of priceless relics from the museum, even while troops were dispatched to secure other sites such as the Oil Ministry.

“This is an investment not only in Iraq’s heritage but in the world’s heritage,” the U.S. ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said. The money will be used for archaeology and museum training projects as well as the restoration of the museum.

Seems only fair. I wouldn’t mind if the number on the check were larger, but at least this nest egg should be enough to get the museum back on its feet.

The Brooks Brothers (!) coat Abraham Lincoln was wearing the night of his assassination is part of Ford’s Theater permanent collection.

Until last year when Ford’s closed for renovations, the coat had been on exhibit since the museum acquired it in 1968, but now that reopening approaches, some conservators are concerned that the coat can’t take being on public display much longer.

Light and gravity can doom historic clothing, they say. And the Brooks Brothers coat, like other Lincoln garments, had been on almost continuous display from the time they were acquired in 1968 until Ford’s was closed for renovation last year, officials said.

“It might be that it’s time to put these things away and not to exhibit them to the public if there’s any hope of saving them for future generations,” said Cathy Heffner, president of Textile Preservation Associates, who said she examined the clothes for the National Park Service last month.

The concern illustrates an ongoing debate over the display of national treasures: the desire to preserve items for posterity vs. the right of citizens to experience them.

It’s a tough question. Light damages textiles irreparably. There is no way to restore them once the UV rays have done their thing. UV blocking technology can help delay the inevitable, but it’s not a long-term solution.

Meanwhile, people want to see these kinds of deeply personal artifacts of iconic figures. How much closer can you get to the great man himself than to see his blood on his coat?

Archaeologists have found evidence that Neanderthals living in caves on the Rock of Gibraltar ate seals and dolphins.

This is a major find because up until now there has only been evidence of our more direct Cro-Magnon ancestors eating seafood, a misconception that has helped bolster the presumption of our cognitive superiority.

The researchers can’t be sure how the ancient Neanderthals hunted their seafood, but suggest that perhaps Neanderthals used clubs to kill seals that came close to the beach to have their pups. This skill might have involved knowledge of the seasons, and prediction of seal birthing time. And maybe they snatched dolphins that swam too close to shore, or got stranded on the beach.

The fact that the sea mammal remains found in the caves date from several different time periods spread over about 30,000 years demonstrates that seafood eating wasn’t just a fluke event, but a practiced and repeated behavior, Finlayson said. And there’s no reason to think it wasn’t happening all along the coasts of Portugal and Spain where Neanderthals were living at the time.

Not having any idea that scientists claimed Neanderthals were strictly land-meat eaters, I find it an odd assumption. Even if it had been true, why would it indicate cognitive inferiority?

It’s not like the other humans used dragnets or dynamite or something to get their seafood. They probably hunted and scavenged just like the Neanderthals did.

More specifically, Caligula died here. The crazy sumbitch was killed by his own guards in a passageway underneath the palace, and now, Italian archaeologists may have found that very passageway.

Maria Antonietta Tomei, a Rome archeologist, said a cryptoportico or underground corridor discovered beneath the imperial palaces on the Palatine Hill matched exactly the description given by the Rome historian Suetonius, who says that the Emperor was stabbed to death after watching an entertainment. He left via the passageway, where the Praetorian Guard led by its commander, Cassius Chaerea, was lying in wait.

Professor Tomei said she was “absolutely convinced” that the cryptportico was the one in which Caligula met his end. Although it bore builders’ stamps from the time of Claudius, it already existed at the time of Caligula, and had only been restructured by his uncle and successor.

Cassius Chaerea particularly hated Caligula because he mocked him all the time, giving him embarrassing watchwords. Moral of the story: do not mercilessly taunt your bodyguard.

Anyway, Professor Tomei seems suspiciously certain that this is the corridor in question. Suetonius isn’t exactly rich with detailed descriptions of the corridor. He just says it was a covered passage.

Unless there was only one of them underneath the palace, I don’t see how they could know for sure they’ve found the place Caligula died.

The little people of WWII London hid in subway stations during the Blitz. Big shots (like spies and government functionaries) got much nicer digs: the Kingsway Tunnels.

British Telecom owns them now, and they’re looking to sell.

The two wartime tunnels that kept the men in bowler hats safe from the Luftwaffe were supplemented in the 1950s by four more, about half as long as the originals, added by the Post Office, who turned the site into a vast telephone exchange. The large tunnels are linked by smaller ones, and the sense of being in an underground town is heightened by the wooden roads signs that tell you which tunnel you are in – “South Street”, “First Avenue” or “Tea Bar Alley” etc. A menu board is still on the wall in the old staff restaurant, offering sausages, chips, tea and sweets

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, when the world hovered on the brink of nuclear war, dozens of engineers, technicians and support staff were literally entombed in the tunnels, forbidden to go up to ground level for days. Their grim task would have been to keep phones working after London was obliterated by a nuclear bomb. They had emergency generators to keep the machines, lights and air conditioning going independently of whatever horror was being experienced above. They also had a well-stocked bar and restaurant, a recreation room with a snooker table, a private cinema and an artesian well for fresh water.

Sounds pretty sweet, neh? I’ve always wanted a bomb shelter, but I was thinking more goofy 50’s cinderblock style. This one is deluxe.

You’d think a mile of prime downtown London historical real estate would get snapped right up, but health and safety codes prevent the space from being used in the most lucrative ways. No boutique Blitz Hotel, no nightclubs, no Howard Hughes-style personal dwelling.

The realtors claim they’ve already seen interest, but BT won’t say what kind of money they’re looking to make from the deal. I read £5 million, but that’s unconfirmed.

He sold for £24,000 ($41,000). The estimate was between £25,000 and £30,000, so somebody got themselves a bargain.

Apparently the whole Bonhams auction sold a lot less than expected, despite the publicity from Roman Elvis and Italy demanding some of their stuff back.

David Gill lays it out adroitly.

Out of three lots that got the most attention, one (Elvis) sold under estimate, one (the Hydria) was withdrawn due to its being stolen goods, and one just didn’t sell. The overall sales total was projected to be something in the $1.3 million range. Instead, they made $814,000, and many lots remain unsold.

Perhaps the bleak economic news is making people less willing to spend big on Roman bouffants.