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Ancient Clam Shell Jewelry from Prehistoric Israel
Intriguing archaeological news from Qafzeh Cave, a prehistoric burial site located at the bottom of Mount Precipice in Israel. The anatomically modern human remains found interred in the cave are 92,000 years old–among the oldest Homo Sapiens remains discovered outside of Africa. However the cave did not just contain ancient skeletal remains–indeed the upper levels of the cave (which is to say, the younger/newer layers) were filled with stoves, stone tools, animal bones and all manner of campsite detritus. Yet, we are interested in the layers below the ancient graves which predate them by tens of thousands of years. In these strata, anthropologists discovered the shells of Glycymeris bivalves, carried from the Mediterranean Sea 35 kilometers away.
The shells bear evidence of having been prepared (perferrated/polished) and hung on wild flax string. Some shells even had ochre stains on them. These were special adornments–jewelry–for the humans who dwelt in the Lower Galilee region of Israel 120,000 years ago. They are striking in their lack of obvious utility, and are among the first cultural artifacts known.
Alas, we can not know the precise meaning which these adornments had for the hunter-gatherer folks of prehistoric Galilee, but, based on everything we know about subsequent humans we can certainly make intelligent guesses. The shells were ornaments which indicated status. They could also have indicated group identity or reflected personal beliefs of the wearer. Another nearby cave had shells from 160,000 years ago–which must also have been carried by ancient humans to that site. Yet the 160,000 year old shells had no perforations or marks of wear from string. Somewhere between 120,000 and 160,000 years ago we made some real leaps forward in terms of string and accessories! It doesn’t surprise me that the phylum Mollusca was involved (obviously clams had been important to us as food and tools for tens of thousands of years before we discovered their use as stringed body ornaments), yet I do find it worthy of comment.
Here at Ferrebeekeeper, we have featured some very ancient crowns (like this ancient Greek funerary crown, the legendary grass crown, the polos, or the pharaoh’s crowns from Ancient Egypt). All of these rich and venerable royal headdresses beg the question: what is the oldest crown we know about? As with most questions, the correct answer depends on how you define the terms of the question. Is a crown a chieftain’s hat or an ornamental star-shaped thing made of precious materials or a very specific royal object made a very specific way? We fed these queries into the Ferrebeekeeper crown algorithm, and it spat out this strong contender for the oldest crown: a copper-age headpiece from the Judaean Desert (by the Dead Sea in what is now modern Israel) which was discovered in 1961 as part of the mysterious “Nahal Mishar” Hoard.
Dating to circa 4000 – 3500 BC, the crown is wrought of copper and features two vultures next to two strange shamanistic portals (or that is how the shapes are generally construed, at any rate…maybe they are elderly flamingos next to peg boards. Maybe this isn’t a crown at all! Perhaps it is a trivet or a potholder or something. The piece did not come with an explanation). Based on the other objects in the hoard (pottery vessels, ossuaries, religious statues, and wands/scepters) it is believed that this crown was utilized in the funerary ceremonies for high status individuals. However the Nahal Mishar hoard is still perplexing to archaeologists. Their best guess is that is that the objects are the sacred regalia of a shrine at Ein Gedi, (a habitation site twelve kilometers away), but nobody really knows what most of the objects are or why they were hidden in a cave. Just to add to the ambiguities of today’s post, here are some of the other objects (sans explanation, of course).
One of Ferrebeekeeper’s most popular posts of all time was a short essay on the kingly crowns of ancient Egypt: the hedjet, the ancient white (vulture) crown of upper Egypt; the deshret, the red (bumblebee) crown of fertile lower Egypt; and the khepresh, the blue battle crown worn by the pharaoh when he mounted his war chariot to smite the kingdom’s enemies in person! Immediately below are some little refresher pictures to show these three crowns (plus, if you want to know more about them, you could always read the original article).
This is already a lot of crowns, especially considering that the three were combined in various ways (and mixed with various other royal regalia) for sundry ceremonial purposes–and yet there were other crowns in ancient Egypt worn by beings even more important than the pharaoh. Today’s post concerns a prime example–the “atef”, the ostrich crown of Osiris. In the mythology of ancient Egypt, Osiris played a central role as the first pharaoh, the king of the underworld and the lord of death, rebirth, agriculture, and mummification. His all-important story (death at the hands of his wicked brother and reincarnation thanks to his loving wife) was the central myth of ancient Egypt, which informed people about the afterlife. As a pharaoh and the eternal ruler of the underworld, Osiris wore a kingly crown, but the underworld is neither upper nor lower Egypt (nor is it a battle as such) and so the atef crown of Osiris is a whole different crown–a knobbed version of the white hedjet of upper Egypt with symbolic rainbow ostrich feathers rising around it. There is a schematic digital representation of the atef at the top of the post, and here is a 3300 year old painting of it:
Osiris portrayed on a wall frieze from the tomb of Nefertari (c. 1295-1255 B.C.)
The two ostrich feathers respectively symbolized truth and justice (the nearly identical feather of Maat is one of the most important religious symbols of Egypt–with a nearly identical meaning). The bulbous central crown was sometimes pictured as a classic white hedjet (as in the image from Nefertari’s tomb above) and sometimes portrayed as a rainbow hedjet surmounted by an astrological-looking cardioid of gold and midnight blue (as in the crown Osiris wears below).
“Wow” you are probably thinking. “There were so many crowns in ancient Egypt! Were there still more?” Of course there were! However the answers start getting murkier as we move to other rulers (and other crowns). Come back to Ferrebeekeeper to find out more (or, you know, Google it, and find out all you can bear to know.
9,000 year old Neolithic limestone mask found in the Judean desert
We are coming up to Halloween and, as always, we will have a special week of horrifying posts concerning a theme topic (like flaying, the undead, or the monstrous brood of Echidna). Before we get there, though, let’s take a peak back through time to look at some of the other faces that our forbears decided to put on in the ages before “Joker” or “It”. The greatest masks are astonishing sculptures, but they were more, too–masks lay at the crux of ancient cults and ancient drama. We will never truly know what the makers of that first mask up there were doing with it 9000 years ago (human sacrifice?), nor will we know what the Etruscans wanted with their Charun-like mask (human sacrifice?). We truly can’t know what the mysterious Moche wanted with their mostrous mask (human sacrifice?), and sadly, I couldn’t find out about the Bornean & Congolese masks. Yet on a deeper level we do know: our hearts tell us what each of these masks is about as surely as we can read a line of emoticons on a phone or know to jump away from a striking cobra. Some things are instinctual even for humans. Although I am sure an ethnologist would chide me, it is hard not to look through the empty eyes of masks, both sacred and profane, and see the familiar dark places always within the human heart.
Borneo Mask Indai-Guru Mask Borneo, Iban Dayak
Kumu Mask: Congo/Central Africa
Etruscan mask in Archeology Museum in Cagliari.
Moche Mask, Peru, 6th-7th century AD, Silvered copper, shell
I am extremely sorry that my posts have been so thin on the ground for the last fortnight. I don’t have very good excuses for last week (although maybe the brain-melting heat wave which swept through the region provides some cover), but last night there was a blackout in Brooklyn, and there was no way I could write anything in the digital realm! Being cast back in time made me reflect on the world before the internet and electricity. Specifically I became fascinated by non-electrical lamps (which you never really think about until you need them).
Although I filled up my darkened house with LED tea candles and glowsticks, other peoples have not always had recourse to such safe options–like the Romans, who were forced to rely on candles, fires, torches, and their favorite night time standby, the oil lamp. Ferrebeekeeper has touched on how the symbols and visual culture of Ancient Rome do not always make sense to us today…and indeed today’s post offers a powerful example of that. Oil lamps came in all sorts of shapes and sizes (some of them seem to have been commemorative, or tourist trap items), but one of the absolute favorite lamp shapes was a foot. These oil foot-lamps were sometimes bare and sometimes super ornate, but most often they are wearing handsome sandals.
So, why are these things shaped like feet? Trying to research this question on Google resulted in me being whisked to various strange theological explanations of the Book of Romans by Dr. Lightfoot! I was hoping that this was the foot of Mercury or something, but I never did get to the bottom of what is going on. Speaking of which, the best hint I got was that the lamps may have been placed at the bottom of a mural so that the painting glittered in the darkness…which is to say these were the original and literal footlights. This makes no sense to me, but it is sort of a modern English pun, I guess. Perhaps it was a pun or a satisfying visual cue to the Romans as well.
Roman Foot Lamp with Sphinx Handle (Excavated in Libya, manufactured ca.1st century AD) Pottery
Whatever the case is, I love the feet! These lamps are truly satisfying to look at, so maybe the Romans were on to something (they got roads and aqueducts right, after all). If anybody wants to make a new old-style lamp company I am opened to that. Also, if there are any classics majors out there who could explain this, please help us out in the comments! I am unhappy with the “footlight” explanation and I long for a real understanding of what is going on with these charming feet!
Roman Imperial Foot-Lamp (Ca. 3RD-4TH Century A.D.) bronze
The Euthydikos Kore, ca. 500 BCE
I have been fretting about the post I wrote last week concerning the polos, a minimally-adorned cylindrical crown which was worn by certain goddesses of the Greek pantheon. One of several mysteries about the polos is how it went from being normal (?) feminine headwear of the Mycenaean world to something worn only by goddesses from the 5th century onward. Mycenaean civilization was swept away by cataclysm around 1100 BC. The 5th century occurred in, um, the 5th century BC. So was anybody wearing these things during the intervening 600 years? It is as though one noted that Western women of the early 15th century AD wore hennins but nobody wears them now except for magical fairytale beings (which, come to think of it, is completely true).
There is no fashion guide of Archaic Greek ladies’ style to answer this question, but we do have a mighty trove of data in the form of korai statues. The kore was a sort of idealized statue of a perfect Greek maiden wearing heavy draperies and an enigmatic empty smile (“kourai” is the plural of the word “kore” which means “maiden”). There are many of these statues in existence, since the Greeks apparently presented them to great temples as a sort of religious tribute (and as a status competition between leading citizens). Additionally the statues were esteemed by collectors of subsequent ages so they didn’t suffer the same level of destruction as some other sorts of statues from two-and-a-half-millenia ago.
Kore of Lyons (540s BC, Athens)
Unfortunately, contemporary classics and art scholars have some big unanswered questions about the korai statues. Were they meant to represent goddesses outright? Some kore statues have garb or items which were later regarded as symbolic of divinity (like the polos, as seen in the “Kore of Lyons” above). Yet, the statues have a somewhat different tone than votive statues of the proud goddesses of ancient Greece. They are softer and less assertive than the goddess statues and, even though the korai represent perfect female beauty as construed by an Archaic-era Greek sculptor, the statues are less concerned with fertility and nudity than are goddess statues. Perhaps they are statues of a transitional goddess such as Persephone or Semele (both of whom had mortal aspects). Another school of thought holds that they are divine attendants which embody general maidenly ideals–as would a group of priestesses or votaries. This explains why they sometimes have divine accoutrements but lack more specific iconography or identification. There is also a school of thought that the statues are simply “maidens” from a time when the more rigorous traditions of the Greco-Roman pantheon were coalescing.
So I have failed to answer any questions about the polos (maybe there is a reason nobody talks about these things), however we have looked at some lovely statues from a looooong time ago and we have learned something about the figurative sculpture of Archaic Greece in the era leading up to the Golden Age. This in turn is relevant, because the Kourai (and their male counterparts the kouros/kouroi statues) are arguably the main antecedent to Western figurative sculptural arts. European Sculptors have lingered for long centuries in the shadow of Ancient Greece. Whatever these statues are, we are indebted to them.
In 1899 Wang Yirong, director of the Imperial Academy, noticed that Chinese pharmacists were selling dragon bones with strange mystical characters written on them (according to a fairly believable account, he was suffering from malaria and the ancient bones were prescribed to him as a quack remedy for his illness). This began an investigation which ended with the discovery of an archaeological site near Anyang, just north of the Yellow River in modern Henan province. The site is now known as Yinxu (literally “the ruins of Yin”) the capital of the Shang dynasty. The Shang dynasty (ca.1600 to 1046 BC) was the first known Chinese dynasty to be supported by any historical or archaeological evidence (although there are stories an earlier dynasty, the Xie Dynasty, the Xie is believed to be a myth or a dream). The City of Yin flourished from 1300 to 1046 BC. It was a place of palaces, foundries, workshops, tombs, walls, and wonders. There are reasons to believe that, during its heyday it was the greatest city the world has thus far seen.
We will talk more about Yinxu in later posts, but for right now let’s get back to those mysterious dragon bones or, as they are now called, “oracle bones.” Oracle Bones were animal bones (mostly turtle shells & ox scapulaes) which were used by used by ancient Chinese shamans to predict the future. Querants would ask their questions which were then carved onto the bones. The diviner would apply a hot metal rod to the bone which would cause it to crack apart. Then the shaman would interpret the future through the cracks in the bone.
The characters written on the oracle bones are the earliest known Chinese characters, and thus it is during the Shang that written history begins in China. We have elaborate genealogies of the Shang Dynasty (and we know what sort of questions the rulers and the elite asked of their augurs). The oracle bone script is certainly more pictographic in nature than “modern” Chinese script (which is coincidentally quite ancient) however it was already stylized and sophisticated–able to convey the full range of the Chinese language. Considering its enormous complexity there must be earlier precursors, but they are still lost…as are too many of the precious ancient oracle bones. Imagine how much ancient history was made into vile tasting “medicinal” broth that did nothing at all (just like the scales of the poor pangolins)! Chinese culture is an ancient marvel, but ancient Chinese medicine is a monstrosity which needs to be stopped!
We often hear about people’s bonds with animals (and for good reason: a loving relationship with pets is one of life’s best aspects) but what about their bonds with plants? Today’s (somewhat sad) story shines a touching light on this intra-kingdom devotion, but it also highlights a sinister new menace in modern society: bonsai bandits! As enthusiasts of eastern gardens know, bonsai is an art/horticulture form which utilizes careful pruning and husbandry to make miniature trees which have the appearance and proportions of wild trees. The more ancient a bonsai tree, the more realistic (and valuable) it becomes.
This is why unknown thieves stole seven tiny trees from a garden in Saitama prefecture near Tokyo. Among the rustled trees was a “shimpaku” juniper, an increasingly rare mountain conifer which is regarded as the nonpareil tree variety of the bonsai world. The tree was over four centuries old and was collected in the wild back during the Edo period, when feuding Samurai clans vied for power (it is pictured immediately above).
The (human) victims of the theft were Seiji Iimura, who hales from a long lineage of bonsai keepers stretching back to the Edo period and his wife Fuyumi Iimura who wrote an anguished lament to the internet. “We treated these miniature trees like our children,” she said. “There are no words to describe how we feel. It’s like having your limbs lopped off.” She then begged the thieves to return her trees, or barring that to water them and tend them with love. She included complete instructions which I won’t include on the assumption that bonsai thieves don’t read my blog (also, in my world, a bonsai thief is a very small thief who looks just like a larger one because of careful pruning and staking).
The juniper, with its crazy calligraphic lines and ancient gnarled roots has taken the majority of the international media attention in this heist, but other trees were stolen too including three more shimpakus (of less venerable age) and a trio of miniature pine trees, called “goyomatsus” (there are two unstolen examples in the picture below). It is somewhat fun to imagine the thieves as little elf-people who made their getaway in a kei car and are now hiding out in a shoebox on a meter tall volcano and what not, but the victims seem legitimately heartbroken. Theft of living things is a more serious matter than theft of mere valuables. Why can’t people stick to nicking money and jewels from heavily insured oligarchs and drug kingpins? This is my message for the criminals: give the Iimuras their beloved trees back and grow up!
Welcome back to Ferrebeekeeper’s special Halloween series about cities! Obviously, no such effort would be complete without venturing once again into the realms of the Gothic, that ill-defined but very real concept which encompasses literature, history, culture, and architecture in exceedingly different (and yet weirdly unified) ways across a span of 1700 years. My first inclination here was to present some famous Gothic fantasy cities—Minis Tirith, Gotham, Lankhmar, Oldtown, and Ankh-Morpork (sob) but the daunting nature of this project quickly became obvious. Maybe we will revisit these places later (I feel like I have lived in each of them), but right now let us turn to what is arguably the world’s most successful actual extant Gothic city, which is also a place I don’t know nearly as well as those fantasy burgs: the great metropolis of Barcelona!
I have legions of friends who return from Barcelona singing its praises as the world’s greatest party city, and I remember lots of partial factoids from the 1992 Summer Olympics (which were completely amazing: Thanks Barcelona!). Sadly, I don’t know much about the actual city which is too bad–of all of the places on Earth, Barcelona has true claim to being the most Gothic city, not just because of its Gothic quarter (the somber medieval buildings were added to and spruced up at the end of the 19th century) , its ancient Gothic cathedral (the Barcelona Cathedral, seen at the top of the post and immediately above), its new Gothic cathedral (The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família designed by Gaudi, which is immediately below), or its many other Gothic architectural wonders, but instead because of its history.
Barcelona has two foundation myths, both of which are amazing. According to legend it was either founded by the great Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca (Hannibal’s dad) or by Hercules himself as he roamed the Mediterranean world during his famous labors. Wow! The truth is only slightly less amazing. The Romans first built Barcelona into a major city, but they built on top of a settlement which was already ancient. Archaeologists have found artifacts/remains which can be dated back to 5000 years ago.
Ancient Roman Burial Ground in Barcelona
As the Roman Empire blew apart (because of climate change, cultural stagnation, and disastrous misrule by corrupt dolts), strange groups of barbaric invaders from the hinterlands marauded through what had once been the most prosperous provinces of the West. Among these tribes were Huns, Franks, Sueves, Vandals, Alans, and Burgundians (goodness help us), but perhaps the most infamous of these groups were the Visigoths, who sacked Rome itself in 410 AD. The Visigoths warred with Rome and its allies for generations while they sought a permanent kingdom (hoping perhaps to become like the Franks, who grabbed up the most beautiful parts of France). For a time it seemed the Visigoths had found a permanent home in what is now southern France, but the tides of War turned against them and they moved southwards.
Thus, in the beginning of the 6th century AD, Barcelona was the capital of the Visigoth Kingdom. In 511 AD, the king of the Visigoths was a nine-year-old child named Amalaric. Amalaric was an Arian Christian, which is to say he was a follower of the nontrinitarian Christological doctrine of Arius, not that he marched around in studded jackets throwing dumb white power fist salutes (although, frankly, he probably did that too). He was married to Chrotilda, the daughter of Clovis I and she was a devout Catholic devoted to the trinity. The two fought ferociously about religion and Amalaric would beat Chrotilda savagely to demonstrate the superiority of his Christological doctrines. At one pointshe even sent a towel stained with her blood to her brother Childebert I to show him the benighted state of her marriage.
Hmm…We have fallen down a bit of a Medieval history rabbit hole here in describing why Barcelona is a Gothic city. To succinctly recap, it was the capital of the Visigoths and it has whole districts of Gothic buildings which are either Medieval, or made in faux Medieval styles. And what about Amalaric? In the early 530s, he fought the Ostragoth army and was defeated. He fled back to Barcelona but was betrayed and murdered by his own men (perhaps at the command of Theudis, governor of Barcelona. Some say you can still hear Amalaric’s ghost, angrily promulgating Arian doctrines among the midnight bubble disco parties of present-day Barcelona, but to me that sounds like something some disreputable blogger made up to get hits.
Persepolis (pictured above) was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Empire, the great Persian Empire which ruled the near east from around 550 BC to 330 BC (when Alexander the Great swept through and conquered it). Persepolis was apparently a rather strange city—an imperial showplace of palaces, temples, and stately grandeur, but with very few inhabitants, at least compared to the thriving Persian cities of Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana. Archaeologists are still arguing about whether it was a palace complex, an administrative center, or a seasonal city for high Zoroastrian festivals. Whatever the case, Persepolis’ strange quasi-urban nature is a good segue to today’s featured location: Naqsh-e Rustam, a Persian necropolis which is located 12 km (7.5 miles) from the site of Persepolis (both locations are high in the mountains of what is today the Fars province of Iran).
Naqsh-e Rustam, the cemetery of Persian emperors, had even fewer inhabitants than Persepolis, and mostly those inhabitants were (and still are!) deceased. The most important tombs are four large tombs cut high into the living rock of the cliff face. These are the tombs of Darius I (c. 522-486 BC), Xerxes I (c. 486-465 BC), Artaxerxes I (c. 465-424 BC), and Darius II, the great emperors of ancient Persia. The facade to Xerxes tomb is pictured immediately below.
Not many cities have only 4 long dead inhabitants. Indeed, the site of Naqsh-e Rustam was sacred long before the Achaemenids carved their unearthly mausoleums. The oldest carvings are dated to around 1000 BCE and thought to be from the Elamite kingdoms. Later on, the monarchs of the Sassanid dynasty (the empire which stood in counterweight opposition to Imperial Rome) also carved great reliefs there. These illustrate battles and victories. In the middle of the complex is a mysterious cubic tower known as the Ka’ba-ye Zartosht. It was made at the same time as the tombs and is presumably a Zoroastrian sacred building, but nobody really knows what is was originally for.
I wrote about this astonishing place, because I was struck by the majesty and remoteness of the great tombs carved out of living rock, but now that I have started writing, I realize that Naqsh-e Rustam strains any definition of a city (other than as a place of great human-crafted edifices). The urban culture, the political hegemony, and the sheer human labor required to craft such a site are obvious from the 2500 year old architecture, but the bigger questions about why humans make the things we make, or even about why the Persians organized their great civilization in this fashion are not answered by the haunting graves an monuments.
