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Last night my roommate was watching the end of an NFL (American football) playoff game and I sat down to watch the conclusion with him. It was a thrilling shootout finale which featured all sorts of touchdowns, fieldgoals, and overtime…all within a few minutes of gameplay! It was extremely exciting–except for the team themselves which represented America’s 36th and 76th largest cities. How does the NFL ever even find these places? We will say nothing of the losing team (although I preferred them morally, aesthetically, and geographically) and instead concentrate on the victor–the Kansas City Chiefs who are apparently indeed from Kansas City, a rather large and prosperous city in Missouri.
After wracking my brain I realized that I have, in fact, heard of Kansas City–as the location of “Road House” a strange 80s film about a superbouncer (?) cleaning up a large violent bar just outside the city. Aside from bar-fighting, the most distinctive thing about “Road House” was the fact that everything in the film was run by a king-like crime boss with quasi-legitimate connections to business and politics. I looked it up and truly, Kansas City was made by a weird political boss who was fixated with royalty and living like a king. References to kings, monarchs, sovereigns, rulership, royalty and chiefs are everywhere. Kansas City is even a sister city with Xi’an, a famous and important city which people have actually heard of, which was the capital of China during the Qin, Tang and Sui dynasties (among others).
Anyway…all of this is a roundabout way of saying that Kansas City famously makes use of kingly crowns as a sort of symbol/trademark (city historians aver that this is because of “The American Royal” an important livestock show held in Kansas City since 1899–although how did that get its name?). Indeed, not only is the city known for the Kansas City Royals (a major-league baseball team) but for whimsical crown themed lighting in winter time. Here we have finally reached the point of this post (sorry if I buried the lede somewhat): check out these amazing lighted crowns from Kansas City!
I have a feeling we will be seeing more of these Kansas City Chiefs. In fact my football editor is calling to tell me that the Chiefs won the Superbowl outright two years ago (yet, although I watched that game with my friends, I have very limited memories of any Kansas or Missouri people involved). I will also work to find out about this giant livestock show and the famous gangster who built Kansas City. Right now let’s just relax and enjoy these scintillating crowns made of light.
In dynastic China, the color yellow was considered to be the most beautiful and prestigious color. Yellow was symbolically linked with the land itself and the turning of tao: thus yellow became associated with the mandate of heaven–the emperor’s divine prerogative over the middle kingdom. Huang Di, the mythical first emperor of China (who was worshiped as a culture hero and a powerful magician/sage) was more commonly known as “the yellow emperor”. Yellow was extensively employed in the decoration of the royal palaces and the royal personage. During the Ming dynasty, when a yellow glaze was discovered for porcelain, it was initially the exclusive provenance of the imperial household.
A Ming Dynasty Stem Cup (ca. 1488-1505)
Here is a stem-cup in imperial yellow from the Ming dynasty. It bears the mark of the Hongzhi period (Hongzhi reigned from 1487-1505). A five clawed dragon, the symbol of the emperor crawls along the side of the piece. The cup perfectly exemplifies the elegant lines and perfect calligraphic grace of middle Ming aesthetic ideas. Additionally the age of the hardworking and morally upstanding Hongzhi was an era of peace and happiness. Alone among all Chinese emperors in history, Hongzhi elected to marry a single wife and keep no concubines. Palace intrigues were thus kept to an all-time low (although the plan backfired somewhat when his sole heir took up a life of prodigal indulgence).
The Hongzhi Emperor in a yellow robe
Behold the moderately exciting crown of João VI! Crafted in 1817, the crown served as the sole royal crown of Portugal until a revolution in 1910 transformed that nation into a republic. Made by the Portuguese royal jeweler, the crown lacks gemstones and if crafted wholly of gold, silver, iron, and velvet. Eight half arches (which somewhat resemble octopus arms) meet at a monde (a globe like ball) surmounted by a cross. Although the crown may not be as exciting as more ancient or ostentatious royal regalia, it forms the central decoration of the Portuguese royal coat of arms (below) which is very exciting and strange. Two frowning spear-tongued wyverns hold up a shield (which is inexplicably wearing a crucifix necklace). Upon the shield are seven castles and five smaller shields–each with a quincunx (five spots in an ancient Roman pattern). The whole thing is like some weird royalist arithmetic question.
The Scythians, the wild horse-mounted warriors of the Steppes, sometimes ride onto these pages and off again, back into the billowing mists of Central Asian history. Their name straddles myth and reality: the Scyths were there at the fall of the tower of Babel. They were the children of Echidna and Hercules. They lived in a swath of land somewhere from Romania to Korea in a swath of time from 800 BC to 300AD. They were Europeans with pale skin and blue eyes or Asians with dark slanted eyes. They were fighters, shamans, traders, slavers, and peerless artisans. To Greeks they were the opposite of Greeks. To the Chinese they were the opposite of Chinese.
But really who were the Scythians? Well we don’t exactly know. We have some partial answers to some of these questions, but “Scythian” was a word that was used in classical antiquity the same way we use “Gothic” today (indeed–the last Scythians, who played such a role in the histories written by Byzantine historians from the 2nd through the 5th centuries AD were literally Goths). The word denoted an outlander from the steppes—an ideal of living rather than an ethnicity. Upon the Steppes, in the land the Greeks called Scythia, there were indeed pastoral tribes of equestrian herdsmen (who sometimes turned to war and plunder when circumstances were unusually bad or unusually good) but since they did not write it is difficult to untangle their history. This society was made up of confederated tribes–which tended to specialize at different tasks (herdsmen, ploughmen, smiths, etc.). However above the other tribes were the warrior elites, the royal Scyths, who according to Herodotus, regarded the other tribes as little more than slaves. These closely allied elites were formidable warriors. Without stirrup or saddle they rode horses to battle: even while mounted bareback they fought with composite bows laminated together from horn, hood, and sinew.
They don't really look super friendly, but maybe it's just a bad likeness.
The ruling Scythian warriors, or Royal Dahae, were inhumed in spectacular kurgans along with great hordes of treasure. Much of what we know about the Scythians comes from these archaeological finds (and the rest mostly comes from Herodotus who was probably making a lot of it up). A kurgan consisted of a great mound of earth over a central tomb constructed of sacred larchwood. Animal or human sacrifices were draped over the outside of the tomb. Inside the warrior elite lay in state with hordes of treasure. Some of the most spectacular treasures known come from Scythian graves (which definitely deserve their own posting) and consist of golden statues depicting sacred creatures like lions, antlered reindeer, and gryphons. Kurgan tombs of the Scythian warrior elite contained weapons, armour, sumptuous clothing (woven of silk, gold, and hemp) and bowls of coriander seeds and cannabis–which was used in purification rituals and shamanistic rites.
Kurgan tombs from the Altai Mountains which stretch across Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China
Although the Ancient Greeks might have looked down on the Scythians, numerous modern groups have claimed to be their direct descendants. Among the peoples who have claimed or currently claim Scythian blood and heritage are the Ossetians, Pashtuns, Jats, Parthians, Poles, Picts, Gaels, Hungarians, Serbs, Croats, Scots, Slavs, Anglo-Saxons, and sundry Germans. Like all such ancestral claims, many of these are disputed by scholars, nationalists, rivals and so forth (although Slavic people most certainly have Scythian ties). Being American, I am inclined to think that anybody who wants to claim a particular ethnicity or heritage is welcome to do so, but perhaps that is my mixed Scythian blood talking!
Scythian Shield emblem (end of the 7th century B.C. Northern Caucasus from the
Kostromskaia kurgan, Gold)
Białowieża Forest
Long ago Eastern Europe was covered by vast virgin forests. Almost all of these woodlands have long ago been cut down to make way for agriculture, roads, or towns, but in the northeast corner of Poland one of these ancient forests still survives.
Until late in the 14th century, Białowieża forest located at the junction of the Baltic Sea watershed and the Black Sea watershed was a primeval forest so thick that travelers could pass through the region only by river. Even in the fifteenth century roads and bridges were rare in the ancient woodlands of eastern Poland and the human population remained sparse to non-existent. Because the lands were so empty of people but full of animals, the kings of Poland adopted Białowieża forest as a royal game preserve. The Polish monarchy also used the forest as a wilderness retreat: it was in the dark fastness of his forest hunting lodge that King Władysław holed up to escape the Black Death.
Hunters returing to Białowieża Hill (1820, print)
The region remained a pristine royal forest until the partition of Poland delivered the forest to Russian hands. Even the Russian tsars were beguiled by Białowieża forest, for it was one of the last wild preserves for the largest land animal in Europe, the mighty wisent. In 1801 Tsar Alexander I was moved by the plight of wisent herds (which had swiftly dwindled due to poaching). The tsar reintroduced a hunting ban and hired a small number of peasants as game rangers. Alexander II reinstated the ban in 1860 and in 1888 the tsars assumed direct ownership of the entire forest.
Great Gray Owl
During World War I the forest fell under German control and, from 1915 to 1918, the occupying army rushed to cut down Białowieża’s timber and hunt down all remaining wildlife. But even the Germans had their hands full during those tumultuous years and they lost World War I before they could despoil the entire forest. Białowieża came under Soviet control and during Stalin’s era, all Polish inhabitants were “deported to remote parts of the Soviet Union” and replaced by Soviet forest workers. When German troops again retook Białowieża in World War II, the Soviet forest workers in turn disappeared. Hermann Göring harbored ambitious plans to create the world’s biggest hunting reserve at Białowieża, but, in the end, the Nazis predictably used the remote location as a grave for resistance fighters. When the Germans retreated they destroyed the ancient hunting lodges of the Polish throne, but they did not destroy the forest itself. After the war the forest was divided between Poland and the Belarusian State of the Soviet Union. Both regions became protected wilderness areas.
The brickwork Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas on the outskirts of Białowieża
Because of this history, Białowieża Primeval Forest is now the last remaining primary deciduous and mixed forest of the European lowlands. The land is a refuge for pine, beech, alder, spruce, and towering oaks which have never known the axe. Just as the forest lies in the place where two watersheds meet, it also straddles the boreal and temperate zone: plants and animals from south and north live wild in the park.
The World Heritage Convention website enumerates the many wildlife species which currently live in the forest writing, “these wilderness areas are inhabited by European bison, a species reintroduced into the park in 1929, elk, stag, roe deer, wild boar, lynx, wolf, fox, marten, badger, otter, ermine, beaver and numerous bats. It is also a showplace reserve for tarpan (Polish wild forest horse). The avifauna includes corncrake, white-tailed eagle, white stork, peregrine falcon and eagle owl.”
A Wisent Flees into Bialowieza Forest
ferrebeekeeper 