Archive for the ‘Ancient Europe’ Category
By: The Scribe on January, 2008
Sister Maria Celeste, born under the name Virginia Gamba, came into the world on August 16th, 1600. She was the daughter of the now-famous astronomer, mathematician, and philosopher Galileo Galilei and a woman named Marina Gamba – Marina actually bore all three of Galileo’s children, but the two never wed. As a result, Virginia and her sister Livia were considered illegitimate and unmarriable – and so Galileo entered his two daughters into the San Matteo convent of Florence just after Virginia’s 13th birthday.
Galileo wanted his daughters to have a good life and to be cared for, and since they could not marry, life in a convent was the best option at the time. Unfortunately, the girls were considered too young to make the decision to enter a convent for themselves, and Galileo was met with significant resistance from the church authorities. After a time, Galileo was able to obtain special dispensation from the Cardinal Maffeo Barberini – who just so happened to be an admirer of Galileo’s work – and in 1613, his two daughters were placed in the San Matteo convent of Arcetri, Florence.
In 1616, Virginia realized that the life of a nun was truly what she wanted for herself, and proceeded to “take the veil”. She chose the name of Sister Maria Celeste – young women were expected to take a new name, symbolic of their new devotion – which represented both her reverence for the Virgin Mary, and her father’s passion for astronomy.
As Galileo’s scientific books began to stir up controversy among leaders of the Catholic Church, father and daughter began composing letters to each other, an activity which likely sustained Galileo through some of his darkest trials. While very little is known about Maria Celeste’s actual life, about 120 letters have survived – written between 1623 and 1634 – that she wrote to her father while in the convent. Unfortunately, only one side of the story survives – after Maria died, the church authorities burned Galileo’s letters to his daughter, not wishing to retain the writings of someone considered to be a heretic.
The picture of Maria that emerges from these letters is of a caring, loving daughter, who was not only constantly concerned with her father’s well being, but who also seemed to nearly match him in intelligence and wit. She often prepared her father’s manuscripts, a feat which must have been remarkable to accomplish inside the convent – under the rule of the very church that accused her father of heresy. However, Maria saw that Galileo was a devoted man of God whose scientific discoveries clashed in no way with his religious beliefs – yet, in 1633, Galileo was tried and convicted of heresy.
For a time, Maria served as the convent’s apothecary, and was able to send various remedies to her father, now living in Tuscany, for his ailments, and managed to appeal to him on more than one occasion to help the convent’s upkeep – the convent of San Matteo was extremely poor, as the nuns had no means with which to feed themselves or repair the buildings. After notifying her father of various problems, Galileo even took it upon himself to ensure that the convent clock was running properly at all times.
When Galileo was convicted of heresy, he was sentenced to house arrest in Arcetri – which happened to be near enough to the convent that he could see its outer walls and hear the bells each day. Another portion of his sentence had been to recite the seven penitential Psalms once every week for the next three years, which Maria Celeste took upon herself to perform for him – however, it wasn’t long before she contracted dysentery and died on April 2nd, 1634, only four months after her father’s return to Arcetri.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on January, 2008
For decades, scientists believed that ancient cave bears which lived around the same time as prehistoric humans were nothing to worry about – they were supposedly the ‘gentle giants’ of the time, vegetarian animals that thrived on berries and roots…
Unfortunately for these human ancestors, that no longer appears to have been the case. Along with saber-toothed lions, man-eating birds of prey, and dire wolves, ancient cave bears can now be added to the list of terrifying predators that prehistoric humans struggled to avoid in their fight to survive.
New bones found in the Carpathian mountains indicate that the ancient cave bears – named ‘Ursus spelaeus’ or ‘cave bears’ since their bones have been commonly found in caves – have caused scientists to throw away the idea that all these bears were largely herbivores.
For 30 years, studies of their skulls, teeth and jaws revealed the same long-term wear as other herbivores, and the bones of the bears had very low levels of nitrogen-15. Nitrogen-15 is something accumulated by all animals, but carnivorous animals build up far more nitrogen-15 in their bones than herbivores. Oddly enough, these new bones from the Carpathians had quite the opposite results from previous cave bear bones, with extremely high levels of nitrogen-15.
The bones were quite difficult to retrieve, located within a cave where the entrance had collapsed thousands of years before. In order to reach the back rooms, archaeologists had to wade through a spring and then swim underwater across an underground river, using scuba gear. To get up into the cave, climbing equipment was needed.
So far, the cave bear bones from this location are the only bones that show signs of carnivorous activity. The question that arises is whether certain regions of Europe were home to carnivorous Ursus spelaeus while other regions were strictly occupied by herbivores, or whether these bears practiced a degree of bear-bear cannibalism. There are examples of bear cannibalism from a cave in Western Turkey, where a young bear’s skull holds tooth marks from a larger bear.
This discovery might also shed some light on the rituals that were practiced by ancient humans, who often deposited large amounts of cave bear bones inside of caves that they had taken over and occupied themselves. One theory is that if humans and bears were competing for food resources and living space – assuming that there were more meat-eating bears than just the group found at this one Carpathian cave – humans might have found the bears compelling, and felt the need to venerate or honor them in some way.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on January, 2008
For the first time since its discovery, Britain’s very own underwater “Atlantis” is likely to finally be revealed and examined. The town under investigation is the lost city of Dunwich, located off the coast of Suffolk.
This ancient British town was considered lost until the 1970s, when marine archaeologist Stuart Bacon located the city’s debris underwater. Since that time, dives have been conducted on the site, but it wasn’t until recently that high-tech underwater cameras were developed that could massively improve researchers’ ability to take accurate images of the city as it sits on the seafloor.
An expedition is planned for 2008 that will make use of the latest sonar, scanning equipment, and underwater cameras, in order to build an accurate picture of what the ancient sunken city looked like before it was submerged. Currently, the city lies between 3 and 15 meters below the surface.
About 1,500 years ago, Dunwich was the capital of East Anglia – and at this point, divers have found three churches and one chapel, though the silt levels in the water are so high that visibility for the sunken city is no more than a few centimeters.
During the city’s height, it was a prosperous seaport that specialized in the wool and grain trade, boasting a population of around 3,000 people. Historical texts from the time have identified that the city had about eight churches, three chapels, two hospitals, and five houses for various religious orders – though it is likely that there were even more churches at the city during its most prosperous period, considering the size of the population.
The decline of the city began in 1286 AD, when the East Anglian coast was hit by a sea surge that began to erode the coastline. Since Dunwich literally sat right on the coast, the city was gradually claimed by the sea as the coastline eroded over a period of time. According to ancient reports, after the storm of 1286 had swept away a large part of the town, the residents banded together to try and save the harbor – but in 1328, a second storm destroyed it and the entirety of a neighboring village a little way up the coast.
In 1347, another storm swept around 400 houses into the sea, and longshore drift set in to reduce the city to what is visible today; the Dunwich buildings that currently sit on cliffs were once at least a mile inland. According to local legend, there are certain tides where a person can stand on the shore and hear church bells underneath the waves.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on January, 2008
Many pieces of ancient art have little information known about them, other than the context of where they were found and the approximate time period they were from. However, this should not discount their value as incredibly important testaments to human creativity in history. Whether appreciated for their historic value or their artistic merit alone, one would be doing a great disservice to their ancient creators if one was to ignore these tangible objects of the human past.
One of these ancient pieces of art that little is know about is the Venus van Mierlo. This little engraving was found on a piece of sandstone in the Netherlands, at a site called Geldrop-Mierlo in North Brabant province. The image engraved on the stone is of a girl who appears to be dancing – her legs and arms swing out in motion, and she is wearing a low, hip-hugging garment.
Called the ‘Venus of Mierlo’ as a bit of a joke – a testament to the ancient Greek goddess Venus, though the Greeks certainly established their gods thousands of years after this little engraving would have been made – the cultural and religious significance of the piece is completely unknown.
The site where it was found is believed to have been occupied by reindeer hunters, and it is entirely possible that the image of this dancing girl had something to do with their religious notions about the hunt… or, perhaps someone simply was bored and drew a picture on the stone.
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Tomorrow: A brief history of Tae Kwon Do
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