Quotulatiousness

September 25, 2011

Mecca is becoming a “playground for the rich”

Filed under: History, Middle East, Religion — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 10:30

Jerome Taylor looks at the vast changes being wrought in Mecca and Medina:

Over the past 10 years the holiest site in Islam has undergone a huge transformation, one that has divided opinion among Muslims all over the world.

Once a dusty desert town struggling to cope with the ever-increasing number of pilgrims arriving for the annual Hajj, the city now soars above its surroundings with a glittering array of skyscrapers, shopping malls and luxury hotels.

To the al-Saud monarchy, Mecca is their vision of the future — a steel and concrete metropolis built on the proceeds of enormous oil wealth that showcases their national pride.

Yet growing numbers of citizens, particularly those living in the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina, have looked on aghast as the nation’s archaeological heritage is trampled under a construction mania backed by hardline clerics who preach against the preservation of their own heritage. Mecca, once a place where the Prophet Mohamed insisted all Muslims would be equal, has become a playground for the rich, critics say, where naked capitalism has usurped spirituality as the city’s raison d’être.

Few are willing to discuss their fears openly because of the risks associated with criticising official policy in the authoritarian kingdom. And, with the exceptions of Turkey and Iran, fellow Muslim nations have largely held their tongues for fear of of a diplomatic fallout and restrictions on their citizens’ pilgrimage visas. Western archaeologists are silent out of fear that the few sites they are allowed access to will be closed to them.

But a number of prominent Saudi archaeologists and historians are speaking up in the belief that the opportunity to save Saudi Arabia’s remaining historical sites is closing fast.

September 5, 2011

How the wreck of a ship-of-the-line led to the Mary Rose

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 10:41

The bottom of the Solent must be carpeted with shipwrecks:

According to naval historian Dr John Bevan, the largely forgotten flagship, which sank in the Solent at Spithead in August 1782, helped divers to locate the wreckage of the Mary Rose in the 1830s — a full 150 years before the stricken vessel was raised from the seabed.

More than 900 people died when the Royal George sank, including 300 women and 60 children who were visiting the ship which was due to head for Gibraltar with HMS Victory.

It was the biggest loss of life in British waters.

The 100-gun battleship had been heeled on to its side for repairs to be carried out on its sea cock — a valve on the hull — when it began to take in water though its open gun ports. It capsized and sank.

“For weeks after the tragedy, bodies washed ashore at Southsea, Gosport and Ryde and were buried in mass graves along the seafront,” said Royal Marines Museum historian Stuart Haven.

The Royal George remained in shallow water just beyond the entrance to Portsmouth harbour for many years, “her masts standing above the water a macabre reminder of the tragedy,” Mr Haven said.

Some 50 years later the pioneering divers Charles and John Deane tried to recover the battleship, which had become a hazard to other vessels.

Between 1834-36 the brothers undertook a series of dives.

August 9, 2011

(Temporarily) Drying out USS Monitor

Filed under: History, Technology, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:07

John Tierney reports on the conservation efforts on one of the most revolutionary warships in history:

[In 1861] a shipyard in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, launched not merely an ironclad but an entirely new kind of warship. The U.S.S. Monitor had no masts and no line of cannons. It was essentially a submarine beneath a revolving gun turret, something so tiny and bizarre-looking that many experts doubted the “cheese box on a raft” would float, much less fight.

But somehow it survived both the Navy bureaucracy and a broadside barrage to become one of the most celebrated ships in the world. Its designer and crew were the 19th-century celebrity equivalent of astronauts. Long after the ship sank in a storm off Cape Hatteras, N.C., the turret remained a cultural icon: an “armored tower” in Melville’s poetry, an image on book covers and film posters, a shape reproduced in items from toys to refrigerators.

Now the original turret, which was recovered from the ocean floor nine years ago and placed in a freshwater tank to protect it from corrosion, is on display again. It has been temporarily exposed to the air so that it can be scraped clean — very carefully, in front of museum visitors and a live webcam — by a team of researchers at the U.S.S. Monitor Center of the Mariners’ Museum here in Newport News. The team expects to have nearly all the barnacles and sediment removed by the end of this month, giving the public a new look at the dents from the Confederate cannonballs and shells that would have sunk any ordinary ship of its day. Then the turret will be submerged again in fresh water for 15 more years, until enough ocean salt has been removed from the metal to allow it to face the air permanently.

July 7, 2011

The Innocent Bystander’s Survival Guide

Filed under: Humour, Media, Randomness — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:05

You know that it’s bound to happen, especially if you’re a comic nerd or rabid anime fan. Be prepared to survive:

9. If an acquaintance of yours seems to disappear everytime the Hero puts in an appearance, rub some of those brain cells together and see what comes up.

[. . .]

11. If you are a news reporter, find a happy medium between the people’s right to know and your right to not get kidnapped/held hostage/etc.

12. Likewise, if you are a policeman, bank guard, or night watchman, and your first shot bounces off of the intruder’s chest, try shooting other areas of the intruder’s body, like their face, groin, etc. If this also fails, do not waste the rest of your ammo on him/her/it, or risk your neck in hand-to-hand combat; instead, fall back and observe.

[. . .]

21. If a Superhero takes up residence in your city, a nice spacious estate in the country will help you to actualize your potential lifespan.

22. If you are a security guard for a vast, powerful corporation, try to get assigned to the Marketing or Personnel departments, rather than R&D.

[. . .]

49. No matter how hooked you are on phonics, don’t try to pronounce things you find inscribed in ancient artifacts.

H/T to Nicholas Rosen for the link.

April 26, 2011

Archaeology as a form of collectivism

Filed under: Americas, History, Media — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 09:19

L. Neil Smith was watching an old archaeology show on Netflix the other day:

What this otherwise interesting and enjoyable documentary on the early Mayans whined about — even more than Third World agricultural techniques — was the fact that descendants of these ancient people were venturing out in the thulies without government approval or, more importantly, academic sanction, finding pyramids and other structures abandoned by their ancestors before tenured treasure-hunters could, burrowing into them and laying claim to their inheritance, which they then used to supplement the crappy income that comes of subsistence farming.

These people were constantly referred to as “looters” by the documentary’s writers and the featured academics, who, unbelievably, begrudge them — and their hungry children — what Indiana Jones’ girlfriend Marian Ravenwood accurately called “little bits of junk”, a phrase that I firmly believe should be tattooed across every academic archaeologist’s torso simply to remind him of the proper priorities in life.

Backwards, so he can see it in the bathroom mirror.

Or upside-down, across his stomach.

Robert Bakker of hotblooded dinosaur fame has criticized proposed laws that make amateur paleontology a crime, pointing out that most good finds begin with non-professionals stumbling across interesting new materials. Unfortunately, many such laws are already in place for archaeology, with government, in effect, preclaiming everything under the topsoil before it’s discovered, a clear-cut case of underground Marxism.

You often hear supporters of such laws snort, “That ought to be in a museum!” when they spot some desirable something on a collector’s mantlepiece. But isn’t it infinitely better off there, than hidden in a museum basement where most “nationalized” artifacts and fossils end up? And given the miserable track record socialism has earned in every other field of human endeavor, isn’t it socialists who belong in a museum?

Believe me when I attest that archaeology is important to me for many reasons and has been since I was about five years old. Much like paleontology, it tells us where we are by showing us where we’ve been. Sometimes it explains how we got this way and warns us of mistakes we shouldn’t make again. And it’s just plain splendiferously mysterious and interesting — like an old adventure radio serial. My very lovely and talented wife is preparing herself even now for a second career in archaeology. She’d like to be curator of a private museum in the Southwest.

What fun we’re going to have!

But not only is there nothing under the ground worth depriving some poor farmer’s family of a meal, of arresting, jailing, possibly killing him over, there is yet another extremely important ethical consideration.

Or two.

What, precisely, is the moral distinction between a pot-hunting farmer, on the one hand, digging into a hill and extracting something for profit that will improve his life and the lives of his kids, and a college professor, on the other hand, from some faraway country, doing exactly the same thing for profit in the form of tenure and scientific prestige?

April 21, 2011

Exploring an abandoned underground mail railway line

Filed under: Britain, History, Railways — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 07:49

The Royal Mail system had a dedicated subway line of their own. It was eventually abandoned, but not destroyed, as some trespassers were able to discover:

Construction of the tunnels began on February 1915, from a series of shaft located along the route. The tunnels were primarily dug in clay using the Greathead shield system, although the connecting tunnels in and around the stations were mined by hand. Construction was suspended due to the outbreak of WW1, but was allowed to continue until completion for safety reasons. Further setbacks halted the construction of the stations during 1917 due to the shortage of labour and materials.

It wasn’t until June 1924, that workers began laying the track using 1000 tons of running rail and 160 tons of conductor rail. The remaining electrical installation took place in 1925 with the section between Paddington and the West Central District Office being ready for training. The line was eventually finished in 1927 with the first letter through the system running on February 1928.

In 1954, due to problems with access at the Western District Office and the Western Central District Office plans were drawn up to construct a new Western District Office at Rathbone Place. This meant the construction of a diversion to the line to the station which was completed in 1958, although the station was not opened until the 3rd August, 1965.

H/T to Cory Doctorow for the link.

January 12, 2011

Armenian discovery may be earliest winery

Filed under: History, Wine — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 01:47

A recent find in Armenia shows evidence of grape pressing, vine cuttings, and fermentation vessels. It may be the earliest winery ever discovered:

While older evidence of wine drinking has been found, this is the earliest example of complete wine production, according to Gregory Areshian of the University of California, Los Angeles, co-director of the excavation.

The findings, announced Tuesday by the National Geographic Society, are published in the online edition of the Journal of Archaeological Science.

“The evidence argues convincingly for a wine-making facility,” said Patrick McGovern, scientific director of the Biomolecular Archaeology Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia, who was not part of the research team.

I don’t know how far back it goes, but the evidence at this site shows that even 6,000 years ago, Vitis vinifera vinifera was the best choice to turn into wine.

December 18, 2010

Unwelcome discoveries in China’s past

Filed under: China, History, Science — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:38

Strategy Page looks at some recent archaeological and DNA study results that are not popular with China’s government:

Chinese scientists, conducting genetic research in western China, recently tested the people in an ancient, and remote, village, and found that the DNA of the villagers was 56 percent Caucasian (Indo-European). The current theory is that these people are descendants of Roman soldiers who were long rumored to have established an outpost on this eastern end of the ancient Silk Road (the caravan route from China to the Middle East.) The Chinese are not happy with findings like this.

The Chinese government has long been uneasy about archeologists and anthropologists finding evidence of European peoples living, and settling, in western China thousands of years ago. The Chinese have a high opinion of themselves (often justified), but because of the European role in humiliating China in the 18th and 19th centuries, they are uncomfortable with the idea that the damn Europeans have been in their neighborhood even earlier. Earlier discoveries included very old (more than 3,000 years ago) burial sites containing tall, blonde, warriors. There was also a village of ancient Jews in western China, where the people had only stopped practicing Jewish religious rituals in the last century.

[. . .]

The Chinese may be unhappy simply because they have to give the “northern barbarians” credit for driving the Indo-Aryan tribes away, rather than letting Chinese soldiers do it. Thus it’s currently a big deal in China anytime Chinese technology, or diplomats, beats the Westerners. In the Chinese universe, it’s the supreme insult for foreigners to best the Chinese, militarily or otherwise. But for the last few centuries, that is what happened. China isn’t really looking for a war with the West, but politicians find it easy to win approval by playing up the might of the motherland, and what China can do (in theory) if anyone messes with us. That process induces some amnesia about what has really happened in the past, but that’s what nationalism and demagoguery are all about.

December 4, 2010

Looking for the remains of Zheng He’s treasure fleet

Filed under: Africa, China, History — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 12:22

Virginia Postrel looks at the latest archaeological expedition in the Indian Ocean:

A team of Chinese archeologists arrived in Kenya last week, headed for waters surrounding the Lamu archipelago on the country’s northern coast. They hadn’t made the trip to study local history. They came to recover a lost Chinese past.

In the early 1400s, nearly a century before Vasco da Gama reached eastern Africa, Chinese records say that the great admiral Zheng He took his vast fleet of treasure ships as far as Kenya’s northern Swahili coast. Zheng visited the Sultan of Malindi, the most powerful local ruler, and brought back exotic gifts, including a giraffe. “Africa was China’s El Dorado — the land of rare and precious things, mysterious and unfathomable,” writes Louise Levathes in her 1994 history of Zheng’s voyages, “When China Ruled the Seas.”

Now the Chinese government is funding a three-year, $3 million project, in cooperation with the National Museums of Kenya, to find and analyze evidence of Zheng’s visits. The underwater search for shipwrecks follows a dig last summer in the village of Mambrui that unearthed a rare coin carried only by emissaries of the Chinese emperor, as well as a large fragment of a green-glazed porcelain bowl whose fine workmanship befits an imperial envoy. Although Ming-era porcelains are nothing new in Mambrui — Chinese porcelains fill the local museum and decorate a centuries-old tomb — the latest finds suggest that the wares came not through Arab merchants but directly from China.

China’s brief dabbling in overseas exploration ended fairly suddenly, but there was no technical reason that they could not have continued. It would be a very different world indeed if the Emperor hadn’t decided to ignore everything outside the Middle Kingdom.

The real problem with contemporary China’s version of the Zheng He story is that it omits the ending. In the century after Zheng’s death in 1433, emperors cut back on shipbuilding and exploration. When private merchants replaced the old tribute trade, the central authorities banned those ships as well. Building a ship with more than two masts became a crime punishable by death. Going to sea in a multimasted ship, even to trade, was also forbidden. Zheng’s logs were hidden or destroyed, lest they encourage future expeditions. To the Confucians who controlled the court, writes Ms. Levathes, “a desire for contact with the outside world meant that China itself needed something from abroad and was therefore not strong and self-sufficient.”

November 25, 2010

“They took more than 400, highly detailed photographs of the dig”

Filed under: Britain, History — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 00:09

By way of A Blog About History, a story about a valuable set of over 400 photographs of the Sutton Hoo excavations:

Like the original ship burial, this remarkable find has laid unseen and forgotten for a long time. Tucked away in a dusty storeroom were a couple of fairly nondescript cardboard boxes.

Inside these unprepossessing packages were a photographic treasure trove which sheds new light on the discovery and the excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship burial.

Inside the boxes were more than 400 photographs taken during the summer of 1939 by two visiting school teachers Barbara Wagstaff and Mercie Lack.

It is believed that they had contacts with The British Museum which is why they were given access to the site but very little is known about them.

They took more than 400, highly detailed photographs of the dig — far more than the 29 official shots taken by the British Museum photographer.

The pictures have laid forgotten until now; as a selection of them are forming the centrepiece of a new exhibition at Sutton Hoo.

It’s hard to believe that the British Museum didn’t have a more comprehensive formal photographic record of the excavations.

November 10, 2010

Pompeii building collapse triggers calls for nationalization privatization

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Economics, Europe, History, Italy — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 13:30

I never thought I’d read an article in the Guardian calling for the privatization of a state asset:

Opposition politicians and commentators accused Italy’s government of neglect and mismanagement today over the collapse of the 2,000-year-old House of the Gladiators in the ruins of ancient Pompeii.

Some commentators said the Unesco world heritage site should be privatised and removed from state control. La Stampa newspaper ran a story headlined “Pompeii — the collapse of shame,” echoing national opinion over the cultural disaster.

The stone house, on one of the site’s main streets and measuring about 80 sq m (860 sq ft), collapsed just after dawn yesterday while Pompeii was closed to visitors. The structure was believed to have been used as a club house by gladiators before they went to battle in a nearby amphitheatre.

[. . .]

“Precisely because it belongs to all humanity, its management should be taken away from a state that has shown itself incapable of protecting it,”

[. . .]

Approximately 2.5 million tourists visit Pompeii every year, making it one of Italy’s most popular attractions. Art historians and residents have for years complained that the sites were in a state of decay and needed regular maintenance. Two years ago the government declared a state of emergency for Pompeii but it lasted only a year.

Roberto Cecchi, under-secretary at the culture ministry, said there had been no effective, continuous maintenance at Pompeii in half a century. Breaking ranks with his ministry, he said stop-gap, ad hoc measures, such as the appointment of commissioners, which attracted flashes of publicity, were no substitute for the constant monitoring worthy of a world treasure.

To be fair, the Guardian is merely reporting on the calls for privatization, not explicitly endorsing them, but even that is shocking enough.

October 7, 2010

Breaking: Historians confess they invented “ancient Greeks”

Filed under: Europe, Greece, History, Humour, Media — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 12:41

As many had suspected for years, the entire history of ancient Greece was fabricated by historians:

A group of leading historians held a press conference Monday at the National Geographic Society to announce they had “entirely fabricated” ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of Western civilization.

The group acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction created by a team of some two dozen historians, anthropologists, and classicists who worked nonstop between 1971 and 1974 to forge “Greek” documents and artifacts.

“Honestly, we never meant for things to go this far,” said Professor Gene Haddlebury, who has offered to resign his position as chair of Hellenic Studies at Georgetown University. “We were young and trying to advance our careers, so we just started making things up: Homer, Aristotle, Socrates, Hippocrates, the lever and fulcrum, rhetoric, ethics, all the different kinds of columns — everything.”

[. . .]

According to Haddlebury, the idea of inventing a wholly fraudulent ancient culture came about when he and other scholars realized they had no idea what had actually happened in Europe during the 800-year period before the Christian era.

I’m glad that they’ve finally come clean on this huge historical fraud. Especially The Iliad, which “was a bitch to write, by the way” but “it seemed to catch on.”

July 22, 2010

First results from new study around Stonehenge

Filed under: Britain, Europe, History, Science — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 07:27

A new study of Stonehenge by the University of Birmingham and Vienna’s Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection and Virtual Archaeology has made its first major discovery:

Archaeologists have discovered a second henge at Stonehenge, described as the most exciting find there in 50 years.

The circular ditch surrounding a smaller circle of deep pits about a metre (3ft) wide has been unearthed at the world-famous site in Wiltshire.

Archaeologists conducting a multi-million pound study believe timber posts were in the pits.

Project leader Professor Vince Gaffney, from the University of Birmingham, said the discovery was “exceptional”.

The new “henge” — which means a circular monument dating to Neolithic and Bronze Ages — is situated about 900m (2,950ft) from the giant stones on Salisbury Plain.

I imagine, given how many times Stonehenge has been mucked about with by earlier enthusiasts, there must be much misleading data has to be sifted and re-sifted before any definite discoveries can be announced. Stonehenge has been fascinating people for centuries and there are probably lots of amateur investigations that may well have made the situation more confusing (think of a sixteenth century equivalent of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft with a nose for treasure).

June 30, 2010

Here’s an example of a home that’s really a castle

Filed under: Architecture, Europe, France, History — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 12:03

Chateau de Guedelon is a real 13th century castle, or at least, it will be when they finish building it:

The ­Chateau de Guedelon was started in 1998, after local landowner Michel Guyot wondered whether it would be possible to build a castle from scratch, using only contemporary tools and materials.

Today, the walls are rising gradually from the red Burgundy clay. The great hall is almost finished, with only part of the roof remaining, while the main tower edges past the 15m (50ft) mark.

Builders use sandstone quarried from the very ground from which the castle is emerging.

[. . .]

The Guedelon site was chosen because it contained all the necessary materials: plentiful oak from the forests, as well as clay and water. Stone from the quarry had actually been used in the building of real-life medieval chateaux.

May 24, 2010

Racy archaeology

Filed under: Economics, Europe, History — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 18:45

The theory is that these coins were created to ease language barriers between non-Latin speaking customers in brothels and the (often non-Latin speaking) prostitutes:

This is a spintria. They were used in ancient Rome to request and pay for different “services” in brothels and from prostitutes on the street. Since there were a lot of foreigners coming to the city that did not speak the language and most of the prostitutes were slaves captured from other places the coins made the transactions easy and efficient. One side of these coins showed what the buyer wanted and the other showed the amount of money to be paid for the act.

[. . .]

They may have been used to pay prostitutes, who at times spoke a different language. While this is subject to argument, the numbers on them line up with known prices for Roman prostitutes (University of Queensland reference). Some theorize them gaming tokens, and they may have been produced for only a short period, probably in the 1st century A.D.

So, either an innovative solution to an ongoing economic problem, or the Roman equivalent to the nudie card decks of the 1940s and 50s.

Images at the link. H/T to Radley Balko for the URL.

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