Archive for 2007
By: The Scribe on November, 2007
The book of Nehemiah in the Bible describes in detail the construction of a city wall in Jerusalem, located in the ‘City of David’ , as a replacement for the wall which had been previously destroyed by the Babylonians. Although many historians and scholars have claimed for years that this wall would never be identified or found, a team of archaeologists working on a rescue excavation for a collapsing tower have done just the opposite.
According to Eilat Mazar, director of a Jerusalem-based research organization’s Institute of Archaeology, the team found shards of pottery and a number of arrowheads under the tower, which indicate that both the tower and the nearby wall date back to the 5th century BC. Earlier estimates had placed the wall’s construction to sometime during the Hasmonean Period (142 – 37 BC), but the items found there date to the Persian Period, when Nehemiah lived.
The section of the wall that has been dated to Nehemiah’s time is about 30 meters long, and a portion of the tower that measures about 6 x 3 meters has also been dated to the 5th century. Nehemiah’s role in Jerusalem’s history was in his determination to rebuild the city, a century after the city had sat desolate due to the Babylonians’ destruction of the First Temple. Despite the hostility of neighboring people, Nehemiah incited the Jews of the city to action, and the Bible relates how the entire city wall was completed in an incredibly fast 52-day timeframe.
Naturally, skeptics are calling the announced find ‘interesting’, but point out that since the debris and artifacts were not found connected to a piece of the wall structure, the wall could have theoretically have been built later.
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Tomorrow: Seat of the Roman Empire
By: The Scribe on November, 2007
In the grave of an elite member of the Mayan Empire, archaeologists discovered a vase situated next to the skeletal remains – and oddly enough, the vase still contains some remains of food that was placed inside the vase at the time of burial. The vase itself is the first among its kind to be discovered archaeologically in modern times, and it may actually be able to shed some light on the ancient rituals practiced by the Mayans.
The food remains inside this intricately carved “death vase” reveal more about the ancient Mayans’ practice of ancestor worship than was previously known – the vase included remnants of corn pollen, cacao, and something called ‘false ipecac’ which is known to induce bouts of severe nausea when ingested.
These trace remains may suggest that “death vases” such as this one were used in the ancient rites that produced trance-like states through an intense form of physical purging – the Mayans communicated with their ancestors through visions, which they would induce by such practices as bloodletting, taking a powerful chocolate enema, or by drinking excessive amounts of alcohol and then repeatedly throwing up.
All evidence points to whatever drink was inside of the vase as having contained ipecac, which would have made the person ingesting the drink throw up – and throw up a lot. Then through this, they would have had ‘visions’ wherein they could talk to their ancestors.
What kind of drink would have contained this nausea-drug? The white-marble death vase probably held a gruel primarily made with corn, with cacao added for flavor, and the drug added for the… ‘religious’ experience.
Prior to the discovery of this vase in its context, other Mayan death vases existed in museums only due to looters having taken the intricately carved pieces out of tombs and selling them on the black market or to museums for their own profit – this is the first of the death vases to be scientifically excavated.
The place where the grave was located is slightly perplexing, however – it was found underneath a palace in a small settlement inside of Honduras’ Palmarejo Valley. The palace and the vase point to a higher level of prestige than should have been prevalent at an otherwise typical and unimportant farming village – so why was a high status burial located inside of a residential building in a tiny settlement?
The likeliest explanation is that the person who was buried here was an important historical figure for the people of this town – perhaps someone whose death marked the end of an era, such as a community founder or original member of the town’s ruling lineage. Interestingly enough, the vase itself isn’t as old as the burial – the vase was added to the grave about a hundred years later, likely in commemoration for the individual.
The decoration on the death vase is made up of sculpted scroll images and tiles that look like snake scales, with handles that were carved to resemble a leaf-nose bat’s head.
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Tomorrow: Nehemiah’s Wall?
By: The Scribe on November, 2007
Often considered synonymous with ‘adventurer’ or someone who has exceptional sailing skills, the truth of the matter is: the Argonauts were not real people.
The Argonauts were a group of heroes from Greek mythology who, before the familiar story of the Trojan War apparently took place, accompanied the hero Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece in the kingdom of Colchis. These men were known as Argonauts simply because they sailed on a ship called the Argo, which was named for its builder, Argus. Literally, “Argonauts” translates as “argo sailors.”
During the period when the tale of Jason and the Argonauts was supposed to take place, a prehistoric tribe of people is known to have lived in the area, and thus when historians attempt to pinpoint exactly who the Argonauts would have been – if they were real – they will sometimes refer to the heroes as ‘Minyans’. The Minyans were real, the Argonauts weren’t – which tends to be where the confusion sets in.
The Argonauts consisted of approximately 50 men, and the team was supposedly assembled after an oracle was received by King Pelias. What many people don’t realize, however, is that the heroes who made up the group of Argonauts are not faceless characters – a relatively comprehensive list exists of all the men who were a part of Jason’s Argonauts, and among them? An extremely familiar individual: Hercules.
Hercules actually played quite a central role in the tale of the Argonauts, and it was his idea to appoint Jason to be their leader in the first place. However, Hercules did not complete the quest for the Golden Fleece with the rest of the Argonauts – after his companion Hylas was abducted by nymphs while the Argonauts were on land, Hercules was distraught and began searching for Hylas, unable to concentrate on anything else. Eventually, the Argonauts were forced to set sail without him, leaving Hercules behind to continue the search for his companion.
After the quest for the Golden Fleece, the remaining Argonauts either went back to their lives or onward to other journeys in future myths. Some familiar names from mythology who are typically counted among the Argonauts are: Admetus, Atalanta (though this is disputed, as she was female), Castor and Pollux, Laertes (the father of Odysseus from Trojan War fame), Philoctetes (who later fought in the Trojan War), Nestor (an old, wise leader during the Trojan War), and the famous figure who descended to the Underworld to find his dead wife – Orpheus.
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Tomorrow: More Ancient Standard
By: The Scribe on November, 2007
The Tabula Peutingeriana, or “Peutinger Table” is an ancient Roman road map that actually shows the road network of the entire Roman Empire – all the way across Europe, Asia, and in parts of North Africa. The map was created in the 13th century by a monk from Colmar, and was drawn on a scroll of parchment.
The map itself was made up of eleven sections assembled together, and when laid out it measures approximately 6.75 meters long – and all evidence points to this map being a Medieval reproduction of an original that was created in the 3rd or 4th century AD. The art of the map is very schematic and stylized, with highly distorted landmasses that seem to suggest the map’s use was primarily for the information on distances between settlements – which is given right on the map – and recognition of major intersecting roads, rivers, mountains, and so forth.
Some of the Roman Empire’s most important cities – Antioch, Constantinople, and Rome – are denoted on the map with different symbols to indicate their importance, and the lack of the Iberian Peninsula in the western area of the map seems to suggest that the original copy of the map had a twelfth section that would have included this portion of the Empire.
The Tabula Peutingeriana seems to have been based on ‘itineraries’, or meaning the destination points along the Roman roads, since that would have allowed travelers to know how far they needed to travel – approximately – between each town. The roads are roughly parallel in their representation, and each city and its size/comparative scale is demarcated by one of several hundred place symbols – these can be anything from small building icons to elaborate portraits of the large cities.
An interesting feature of the roads along the map are little ‘hook’ marks that appear every so often – these hooks were actually representations of rest stops. The distance between each set of hooks indicated one day’s worth of travel, and sometimes this would include a little icon of a building that showed there was an inn or hotel at certain locations where a traveler could stay – more luxurious accommodations were shown by icons that had large courtyards in the picture.
The people who would have used this map were either travelers – typically those who were making a long journey or who traveled often – or couriers, who spent each and every day traversing the roads across the Roman Empire and beyond.
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Tomorrow: The REAL Argonauts
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