History

A team of archaeologists from Peru, the United States, and Canada recently completed an analysis of 1,000-year-old textile samples recovered during excavations at the ancient and long-abandoned Andean city of Huacas de Moche northern Peru. Despite significant social, cultural, and political changes that had occurred in the region during the mid-to-late first millennium, it seems that some of the local Moche people’s cultural traditions had survived the passage of the centuries, as exhibited by the preservation of traditional ways of weaving and designing textiles.

“While occupants of the site experienced many outside cultural influences, including those from the highland Wari Empire, continuity in textile traditions suggests that some sense of Moche identity was maintained through the tenth century and after the perceived end of the Moche culture,” the study authors wrote in an article about their research published by Antiquity.

Huaca del Sol Moche building, Trujillo, Peru. (Jeffrey Quilter/ Antiquity Publications Ltd)

Unravelling Moche Through Their Textiles

Next to the one created by the Inca, the enigmatic Moche culture is perhaps the best known and most studied of all the ancient Andean cultures. It is famed for its sprawling temple complexes, most especially the adobe brick pyramidal structure known as Huaca del Sol. Constructed from more than 130 million bricks that were laid down in successive layers in the third through the fifth centuries AD, Huaca del Sol is the largest pre-Columbian structure of its type found anywhere in the Americas.

Sometime in the late first millennium, the Wari culture essentially replaced the Moche as the dominant force in the Central Andes. The Moche were subjugated both culturally and militarily by the Wari people, who came originally from the southern highlands, and this led to the decline and ultimately the demise of their civilization. Historians have concluded that the Moche had virtually disappeared as a separate and distinct culture by the middle of the ninth century, although this contention is disputed by some.

But whatever the fate of their culture, the Moche people did not die out completely after being absorbed into the Wari Empire. And it seems they maintained at least some degree of cultural memory, as the newly published study of their post-Wari textile-making practices makes clear.

Woven textile fragment made using Moche techniques, but decorated with distinctive Wari imagery. (Lizbeth Pariona Muñoz/Antiquity Publications Ltd)

Exploring Ancient Cultural and Ethnic Identities Using the Archaeological Record

The Moche culture is generally believed to have existed as a distinct entity from the second through the mid-ninth centuries AD. However, not much is known about the specifics of its beginning and its end.

“The people who built Huacas de Moche, now known as the Moche (a.k.a. the Mochicas), are only known to us through archaeology as they had no writing system,” explained anthropologist and study lead author Dr. Jeffrey Quilter from Harvard University’s Peabody Museum. “The date range for when the Moche culture existed has been debated for many decades.”

Rather than entering that debate, Dr. Quilter and his colleagues were more interested in gaining insight into a related issue.

“Our research involved our wrestling with the thorny and complicated issue of how ancient people identified themselves,” Dr. Quilter continued. “In brief, when did the Moche stop being Moche at the site of Huacas de Moche?”

To learn more about the persistence of the people’s sense of identity, the researchers set out to perform a more in-depth study of its cultural artifacts, with a special focus on textiles.

In addition to its temple complexes the ancient city of Huacas del Moche featured multiple public plazas and residential districts, making it clear the city was occupied by a relatively large number of people at its population peak. This has made it possible for archaeologists to recover a wide variety of artifacts from the site, including the preserved pieces of textile that have stood the test of time.

Textiles incorporating Moche and Wari images: left; crab man; Right; snake belt man. (Quilter, J et al./ Antiquity Publications Ltd)

In total the researchers examined approximately 20 textile samples recovered during Huacas de Moche excavations. They used radiocarbon dating to find out when the textiles were made, and discovered that many had weaved after the beginning of the 10th century AD. This was many decades beyond the point when the Moche had supposedly been fully assimilated into Wari culture.

Dr. Quilter and his team analyzed the textiles’ production techniques and decoration styles, and were able to identify a continuity between older Moche textile samples and those that dated to the 900-1000 AD range. Interestingly, the textiles did incorporate design features associated with the Wari culture, and with some other cultures in the region as well. But their identification as Moche artifacts was still indisputable.

What all of this shows is that Moche assimilation into the Wari Empire was far from complete.

“Our research indicates that longstanding Moche material cultural practices and styles continued to be valued at Huacas de Moche, long after the presumed end of the archaeological culture,” said study co-author Dr. Carlos Rengifo, an archaeologist from the National University of Trujillo in Peru. “Even as the world about them changed, some sense of Moche identity appears to have been maintained.”

What Archaeology Can Reveal, and What it Can’t

While the new research is revealing, there are limitations to what can be concluded about cultural identity without the presence of written evidence, as the study authors acknowledge.

“Until recently, it is likely that no one referred themselves as Moche,” Dr. Quilter noted. “Nevertheless, the archaeological culture that we call Moche clearly represents a distinct socio-cultural phenomenon and identity for those people who participated in it. Just as determining the cultural identity of any prehistoric community is fraught with difficulties, so too is identifying how they came to take on a new one.”

Top image: Some of the 20 textiles found at Huaca del Sol used in this study.  Source: Antiquity Publications Ltd

By Nathan Falde

Slavery, a practice that has existed in various forms throughout human history, was always a subject of significant ethical debate. In ancient civilizations, slavery was not only an economic and social institution but also deeply intertwined with the moral and philosophical frameworks of the time. Understanding the ethics of slavery in these early societies requires an examination of the cultural, religious, and philosophical beliefs that shaped attitudes toward slavery, as well as an analysis of the social structures that sustained it. So how did different cultures rationalize or oppose the practice? But more importantly, how did these perspectives evolve over time?

An Era of Different Worldviews: The Concept of Slavery in Ancient Civilizations

For millennia, slavery in ancient civilizations was a complex institution, varying significantly across regions and cultures. The ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and other civilizations all practiced slavery, but their justifications and ethical views differed greatly. In general, slavery was considered a natural part of society, with slaves often viewed as property rather than individuals with rights. This perception was supported by religious, legal, and philosophical frameworks that sought to justify the subjugation of one group of people by another.

In Mesopotamia, one of the earliest civilizations, slavery was institutionalized and regulated by law. The Code of Hammurabi, dating back to around 1754 BC, includes detailed regulations concerning the treatment of slaves, their rights (albeit quite limited), and the penalties for mistreating them. However, the code also reflects the view that slaves were property, with provisions that allowed for their sale, punishment, and even branding.

Similarly, in ancient Egypt, slavery was deeply embedded in the social and economic fabric of society. Slaves were often prisoners of war, debtors, or individuals sold into slavery by their families. While Egyptian religious beliefs emphasized the importance of ma’at (truth, balance, order, and justice), these principles did not extend to questioning the institution of slavery itself. Instead, the ethical treatment of slaves was often left to the discretion of their owners, with no overarching moral or religious condemnation of the practice.

Ancient Roman collared slave. (Jun / CC BY-SA 2.0)

Read more…

Top image: Historical Scene of Ancient Slavery.   Source: Domingo / Adobe Stock

By Aleksa Vučković

The practice of sacrifice in Britain has a long history but was particularly prolific during the Iron Age. Nevertheless, it has long been a contested topic: how often were sacrifices made, for what reasons, and what—or more interestingly, who—were sacrificed?  These are the three primary questions that have puzzled archaeologists and historians alike for many decades.  It is only in recent years that we have begun to paint a picture of what might have occurred during sacrificial events, and who might have been the chosen few that were ceremonially killed. 

The Concept of Sacrifice In the Iron Age

The idea of sacrifice stems from a desire to appease the gods: this could include asking for divine forgiveness or foresight, or to apologize for an event or task that might have angered them.  The Britons—and various other cultures such as the Greeks, Romans, and Mesopotamians—believed that the gods must receive sacrifices for various reasons, such as to request victory in battle, or to show thanks for said victory.  Evidence suggests a belief in sacrifice to stem off plague or famine, or even promote a good harvest.  The ritual appears to come from a need to appease supernatural deities in various facets, as ancient cultures were prone to believe that without the will of the gods, most actions were punishable and would result in ruin. 

So what and who were sacrificed?  Most of modern archaeology points to animals.  The archaeological record has revealed a wide variety of animals killed ritualistically, but the Britons appear to have greatly favored horses and dogs.  This is undoubtedly due to each animal’s religious significance within the culture.  Horses were honored because of their power and strength in war, and it was a great advantage to have the ability to ride into battle, elevated above the playing field.  The Britons revered horses as gifts from the gods so much so that it is rumored that Vercingetorix, a chieftain of the Arverni tribe, who brought together a confederation of Gallic tribes in a revolt against Roman forces under Julius Caesar, was said to have sent his horses away for their protection despite realizing that this may cost his own life.  At many sites, horse heads or bridles have been found, offerings to the divine realm.

Horse remains dating back to the Iron Age. (Cotswold Archaeology)

Similarly, dogs have been commonly found in grave sites, important because of their companionship and guardianship of humans; they could dwell in the home, warn against nighttime intruders, and sniff out preys or enemies.  They were the protectors.  It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that dogs were offered as a highly valued sacrifice to the gods.

Debates Over Human Sacrifice in Iron Age Britain

However, the most controversial subject surrounding sacrifice in Iron Age Britain, is human sacrifice. While some archaeologists are adamant that there is strong evidence for sacrificial practices involving humans, others doubt whether it ever occurred at all, instead arguing that so-called sacrificial victims were simply victims of murder.  While human sacrifice may not have been as common as many may believe, certain archaeological finds, coupled with ancient texts, have led to the belief that at least on some occasions, human sacrifice did occur. One of the most convincing examples is Lindow Man.

Lindow Man is the name given to the remains of an Iron Age man recovered from a bog in north-west England. A detailed analysis of his remains enabled researchers to piece together his final moments. He had been given a drink containing mistletoe, which was sacred to the Druids, and was then given two blows to the head. His throat was cut, and he was allowed to bleed for a time before being placed face down in a pond in the bog.

The features of Lindow Man’s remains suggest he was a victim of sacrifice. Image source: (© The Trustees of the British Museum)

Most researchers believe that the humans that were chosen for sacrifice in Iron Age Britain were criminals or prisoners of war. As far as scholars can tell thus far, non-criminal sacrifices appear to have been used only when there were no criminals available.  This may explain why some victims appear to have been treated with respect, while others show signs of torture or violent injury.  

It was common for sacrificial victims to be submerged in water rather than buried, though both did happen.  The ancient Britons believed that water was a doorway to another world or realm closer to the gods.  Due to this, victims such as the Lindow Man, Lindow Woman, and the Lindow Man II have been found in bogs, though rivers and lakes have also turned up supposedly sacrificial victims.  The submerging of victims has meant that a detailed record has been left for archaeologists to study, as the watery conditions can protect and preserve the body for future examination. 

There is also evidence of what is called pair-burial or multiple-burial, in which two or more people are found buried together in a grave, raising the possibility that one was killed to accompany the other in death.  In this case, the dead was probably a high-ranking member of society who wanted a servant or animal companion sent with him or her to the afterlife. This pairing concept has been discovered in both high-status graves and in the low-status mounds surrounding a high-status grave, suggesting both levels of society desired such company.

One final theory regarding the purpose for ritualized killing stems from the discovery of bodies found under structures and hill forts.  At Danebury and South Cadbury, bodies have been found in the foundations, supposedly sacrificed before the construction.  It was commonly believed that without sacrificing first, ground was unconsecrated and thus the structure built was offensive to the gods.  Both human and animal sacrifices have been found in such locations, interchangeably and together, signifying the close relationship between certain animals and humans, as well as certain animals’ abilities to be substituted for humans as previously referenced.

Evidence of human sacrifice has been found at Cadbury Castle.  (Joe D, modified by JimChampion/CC BY-SA 2.5)

Much of what is known about sacrifice is gleaned from fragments of the literature of Roman historians.  Though classical literature cannot be wholly counted upon for evidence, theirs is the first source of modern information about human sacrifice in the Iron Age.  (It should be noted, however, that their extreme dislike of the Britons encourages bias in their accounts.)  Julius Caesar, Lucan, and Tacitus all reference the burning, hanging, stabbing, throat-cutting, and a variety of other methods for the sacrificial murder of humans.  However, archaeologists and Classical scholars have come a long way in piecing together the textual information of the ancients with the remains found at various sites.  Though human sacrifice cannot altogether be proven or disproven yet, the practice of making offerings to the gods is known to have taken place in Iron Age Britain and played a significant role in their daily lives.

Top image: A panel from the Gundestrup Cauldron depicts three warriors sacrificing three bulls. The scene also features three hunting dogs and three felines, possibly leopards. Source: Claude Valette/CC BY-SA 3.0

By Riley Winters

This article was updated in Sept 2024.

Selim I, also known as Selim the Grim, reigned as Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1512 to 1520 and oversaw a remarkable expansion of Ottoman territory. In just eight years, he expanded the empire’s size by approximately 70%, annexing strategic regions such as the Levant, Egypt, and the Hejaz, which included the holiest cities of Islam—Mecca and Medina. This territorial growth laid a strong foundation for his successor, Suleiman the Magnificent, to extend Ottoman dominance into Europe.

One of the central conflicts of Selim’s reign was his confrontation with the Safavid Empire, led by Shah Ismail I. The rivalry between the two empires was not only territorial but also religious, with the Ottomans adhering to Sunni Islam and the Safavids primarily following Shia Islam. Selim decisively defeated the Safavids at the Battle of Chaldiran in 1514, a victory largely attributed to the Ottomans’ superior use of gunpowder weaponry, including muskets. This battle crippled Safavid power and allowed Selim to briefly occupy the Persian capital, Tabriz.

Selim then turned his focus to the Mamluk Sultanate, which controlled Egypt, Syria, and the western Arabian Peninsula. After a series of campaigns, he defeated the Mamluks at the Battle of Marj Dabiq in 1516 and the Battle of Ridaniya in 1517, effectively bringing Egypt and its wealth under Ottoman control. This conquest not only secured key trade routes but also granted Selim the prestigious title of Protector of Mecca and Medina, marking the beginning of the Ottoman Caliphate.

Beyond his military accomplishments, Selim enacted policies to strengthen the empire’s internal stability and economic dominance, including a trade embargo against the Safavids and a purge of ineffective officials. His short yet impactful reign transformed the Ottomans into a leading power in the Muslim world and beyond.

Top image: Selim I.        Source: Public Domain

By Robbie Mitchell

By Andrew Tomkins/The Conversation

The rings of Saturn are some of the most famous and spectacular objects in the Solar System. Earth may once have had something similar.

In a paper published last week in Earth & Planetary Science Letters, my colleagues and I present evidence that Earth may have had a ring.

The existence of such a ring, forming around 466 million years ago and persisting for a few tens of millions of years, could explain several puzzles in our planet’s past.

The Case for a Ringed Earth

Around 466 million years ago, a lot of meteorites started hitting Earth. We know this because many impact craters formed in a geologically brief period.

In the same period, we also find deposits of limestone across Europe, Russia and China containing very high levels of debris from a certain type of meteorite. The meteorite debris in these sedimentary rocks show signs that they were exposed to space radiation for much less time than we see in meteorites that fall today.

Many tsunamis also occurred at this time, as can be seen from other unusual jumbled up sedimentary rocks.

We think all these features are likely related to one another. But what links them together?

A Pattern of Craters

We know of 21 meteorite impact craters that formed during this high-impact period. We wanted to see if there was a pattern in their locations.

Using models of how Earth’s tectonic plates moved in the past, we mapped out where all these craters were when they first formed. We found all of the craters are on continents that were close to the equator in this period, and none are in places that were closer to the poles.

So all the impacts occurred close to the equator. But is this actually a fair sample of the impacts that occurred?

Well, we measured how much of Earth’s land surface suitable for preserving a crater was near the equator at that time. Only about 30% of the suitable land was close to the equator, with 70% at higher latitudes.

Under normal circumstances, asteroids hitting Earth can hit at any latitude, at random, as we see in craters on the Moon, Mars and Mercury.

Impact craters on the far side of the Moon are quite evenly distributed. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter / NASA / GSFC / Arizona State University

So it’s extremely unlikely that all 21 craters from this period would form close to the equator if they were unrelated to one another. We would expect to see many other craters at higher latitudes as well.

We think the best explanation for all this evidence is that a large asteroid broke up during a close encounter with Earth. Over several tens of millions of years, the asteroid’s debris rained down onto Earth, creating the pattern of craters, sediments and tsunamis we describe above.

How Rings Form

You may know that Saturn isn’t the only planet with rings. Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus have less obvious rings, too. Some scientists have even suggested that Phobos and Deimos, the small moons of Mars, may be remnants of an ancient ring.

So we know a lot about how rings form. Here’s how it works.

Saturn backlit by the Sun, taken by the Cassini spacecraft. (Cassini Imaging Team / SSI / JPL / ESA / NASA)

When a small body (like an asteroid) passes close to a large body (like a planet), it gets stretched by gravity. If it gets close enough (inside a distance called the Roche limit), the small body will break apart into lots of tiny pieces and a small number of bigger pieces.

All those fragments will be jostled around and gradually evolved into a debris ring orbiting the equator of the larger body. Over time, the material in the ring will fall down to the larger body, where the larger pieces will form impact craters. These craters will be located close to the equator.

So if Earth destroyed and captured a passing asteroid around 466 million years ago, it would explain the anomalous locations of the impact craters, the meteorite debris in sedimentary rocks, craters and tsunamis, and the meteorites’ relatively brief exposure to space radiation.

A Giant Sunshade?

Back then, the continents were in different positions due to continental drift. Much of North America, Europe and Australia were close to the equator, whereas Africa and South America were at higher southern latitudes.

The ring would have been around the equator. And since Earth’s axis is tilted relative to its orbit around the Sun, the ring would have shaded parts of Earth’s surface.

This shading in turn might have caused global cooling, as less sunlight reached the planet’s surface.

This brings us to another interesting puzzle. Around 465 million years ago, our planet began cooling dramatically. By 445 million years ago it was in the Hirnantian Ice Age, the coldest period in the past half a billion years.

Was a ring shading Earth responsible for this extreme cooling? The next step in our scientific sleuthing is to make mathematical models of how asteroids break up and disperse, and how the resulting ring evolves over time. This will set the scene for climate modelling that explores how much cooling could be imposed by such a ring.

Top image: Artist’s impression of a ring around the Earth.            Source: Oliver Hull/The Conversation

This article was originally published under the title ‘Hidden craters reveal Earth may once have had a ring – like Saturn’ by Andrew Tomkins on The Conversation, and has been republished under a Creative Commons License.

Almost a decade into a project examining the late Republican city of Fregellae, 100 kilometers (62.13 miles) from Rome, archaeologists have firmly pieced together the assault and devastation of the city in 125 BC. Unearthing the oldest villa in the region, belonging to a member of the local elite, findings have provided socio-economic insight into Roman military tactics, and the daily lives of the people who lived there before the siege.

Examining an Abandoned Region: Discovery of Wine and Amphorae

Fregellae had revolted against the Roman Republic, only for their uprising to be quashed by Roman forces, with the city razed to the ground. A team of researchers from the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) and the University of Trier have revealed that the assault not only devastated the city but also obliterated the economic foundation of the local inhabitants.

“As a result,” the researchers note, “the region remained uninhabited for over 170 years,” they write in a press statement.

This year, the focus has shifted to a villa equipped with an agricultural production facility, alongside further exploration of a Roman military camp established during the siege of Fregellae. The villa was built approximately 80 years prior to the city’s destruction.

Investigations into the site, including archaeobotanical studies and the discovery of amphorae and storage vessels, have confirmed that the villa produced wine, fruit, and grain.

“The wine was probably not just for local consumption,” explains Prof Dr. Dominik Maschek, project manager at LEIZA.

“It is quite possible that it was traded within Mediterranean exchange networks as far as Spain and France. The cultivation of grain and fruit, on the other hand, was certainly intended for the local market.”

The violent destruction of the site by the Roman army marked the end of this agricultural production facility and resulted in the loss of livelihoods for its inhabitants. Maschek asserts that the violence and destruction affected the entire economic structure of the region, which made it into a literal rubbish dump, as evidenced by ceramic vessels from 50 AD along the site, reports LBV Magazine.

Archaeobotanical analyses of seeds and plant remains provide information on the cultivation and trade of wine. (LEIZA / Anton Ritzhaupt)

Fregellae: Founding, Revolt, and the Scope of Research

Fregellae was founded in the 4th century BC near what is now the commune of Arce in the province of Frosinone. Thanks to its strategic location, the Romans established a colony there in 328 BC, using the city as a bulwark against Samnite incursions.

In 125 BC, the inhabitants of Fregellae revolted against Rome, seeking equal status as Roman citizens. Rome responded by sending a force under the command of praetor Lucius Opimius, who quickly crushed the rebellion and destroyed the city, reports The Heritage Daily.

Since 2015, Maschek has led the research project titled “A Landscape of Conflict: Battlefield Archaeology in the Territory of Ancient Fregellae / Modern Arce, Ceprano, and San Giovanni Incarico.” The archaeological investigations, taking place about 100 km from Rome, aim to reconstruct the Roman military assault on the once prosperous city of Fregellae.

Evidence of the deliberate destruction is found in the remains of wall paintings, sanctuaries, atrium houses, floor mosaics, and public baths in the city center.

The project’s primary goal is to understand how sieges during the Roman period impacted the urban hinterland, specifically examining the extent of damage inflicted on the cultural landscape surrounding Fregellae.

In addition to their work on the villa, the researchers have continued their investigation of the military camp identified last year. This camp, which was constructed for the siege of Fregellae, spanned an area of 90 by 143 meters (295.2×469.16 feet) and was surrounded by a rampart and a ditch.

“These investigations support our previous findings regarding Roman military strategy and siege tactics,” Maschek states.

“This new information consolidates our understanding of the Roman siege in 125 BC. It’s fascinating that we were able to uncover the architectural structure of such an early production facility. Despite the traces of fire and the almost complete removal of the building materials, the finds offer valuable insights into rural life and the economic activities of the inhabitants at the time.”

Looking ahead, the researchers plan to further analyze the rich finds from their excavations next year. “Our aim is to reconstruct the effects of war and conflict on the cultural landscape, from the destruction of 125 BC to the fighting of World War II,” they conclude.

Top image: The archaeological excavation in ancient Fregellae uncovered the oldest known villa in the region.               Source: LEIZA / Dominik Maschek

By Sahir Pandey

There is a remarkable tombstone installed in a church in Jamestown, Virginia, the site of the first English settlement in North America in 1607. The tombstone dates to 1627, and is covered with carved depressions (once filled with brass inlays) that depict the outline of an English knight with a sword and shield.

But while the exact location of the first burial site has been lost, researchers have uncovered a fascinating piece of information about this 400-year-old memorial. They have determined that the limestone used to make the tombstone was quarried overseas in Belgium, before being shipped to London for later transport to the New World.

300-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal Existence of a Colonial Era Trade Route

In their new study, Dr. Marcus Key, a professor of natural philosophy from Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, and Dr. Rebecca Rossi from the California Geological Survey analyzed some chips of rock that came from the knight’s tombstone. They were searching for the remnants of ancient fossils, which are easily preserved in limestone.

 “Due to the evolutionary process, biological species are much more unique through time and space than chemical elements or isotopic ratios,” Dr. Key explained in an interview published by Phys.org.

This approach proved highly successful. The researchers found traces of six microfossil species embedded in the pieces of rock, all of which were types of a Carboniferous Period lifeform known as foraminiferans. None of these species were native to North America, but 300 million years ago they would have been found in abundance in parts of an ancient ocean that covered the lands of two modern countries: Belgium and Ireland.

Given the connection between the stone and the British Isles, the obvious conclusion would be that the tombstone was brought to Virginia from Ireland. But in an article about their discovery published in the International Journal of Historical Archaeology, the researchers reveal that it actually came from Belgium, via an already-established 17th century ocean trade route.

“We hypothesize it was quarried and cut to size in Belgium, shipped down the Meuse River, across the English Channel to London where it was carved and the brass inlays installed, and finally shipped on to Jamestown as ballast,” they wrote. “This trade route was a small piece of the rapidly expanding Atlantic world of geopolitical colonial trade.”

Jamestown Knight tombstone. (Jamestown Rediscovery, Preservation Virginia/International Journal of Historical Archaeology)

In his interview about his and Dr. Rossi’s discoveries, Dr. Key explained that the motivation for their study was to uncover more information about trade in the earliest English settlements in North America. Studying tombstones seemed like a way to learn more, since it was known that elite English settlers would import the finest stones to create the most elaborate grave markers for themselves and their loved ones.

“We found that the oldest tombstone was the knight’s tombstone in Jamestown from 1627,” Dr. Key said.

“The particular historical archaeological question we were trying to answer was: How extensive was the trade network in the Chesapeake Bay during colonial times? Little did we realize that colonists were ordering black marble tombstones from Belgium like we order items from Amazon, just a lot slower.”

Has the Black Marble Knight’s Identify Been Discovered?

The knight’s unique tombstone was recovered during excavations in 1907 at the old site of the Jamestown Church.  It measured 67 inches (172 centimeters) long and 31 inches (80 centimeters) wide, and featured carved depressions made for brass inlays in the shape of a knight, his weaponry, his family crest, and an unfurled scroll. The inlays had been removed from the grave marker long ago, possibly during Bacon’s Rebellion in 1676, which featured a lot of looting by Virginia settlers upset with the colonial government’s failure to purge all Native Americans from the territory.

Historical records indicate the tombstone had been relocated within the church in the 1640s. So it was not possible to identify the exact spot where the tomb had been installed and the knight buried two decades earlier.

The tombstone in the church in Jamestown, Virginia.  (YouTube Screenshot)

It was common during this period for wealthy English colonists at Jamestown and elsewhere to order black “marble” tombstones for their family burials, as a way to signify their elite status. The Jamestown knight’s stone memorial was just one example, but it is the oldest one found and also the only one that marked the grave site of an authentic English knight.

Historical study has revealed the identities of two knights who lived and died during the period when the Jamestown Church was in use from 1617 through 1637.

One was Sir Thomas West, who served as the Jamestown’s first resident governor. He passed away in 1608 during a transatlantic voyage to the colony, and no historical records have emerged to suggest he was buried at the Jamestown Church.

The second individual was Sir George Yeardley, and some intriguing evidence strongly suggests the tombstone was made for him. This is in the form of a letter written by his step-grandson, Adam Thorowgood II, requesting a black “marble” tombstone for himself in the 1680s. He specifically requested that it should be engraved with the Yeardley family crest, and have the same inscription as the “broken tomb.”

When the black knight’s tomb was excavated in 1907, it was in fact found to be broken, which obviously fits perfectly with what was said in Thorowgood’s written correspondence. 

George Yeardley first arrived in Jamestown in 1610. He served as the captain of Lieutenant Governor Sir Thomas Gates’s guard, and later became Virginia’s lieutenant governor himself. In 1617 he was officially named the governor of Virginia, before which he was knighted by King James I. Sir George served in that position in two stints that lasted from 1617 to 1621 and 1626 to 1627, with his death in the latter year ending his second term abruptly.

Yeardley’s importance certainly would have been reflected in his choice of a tombstone, and in his burial in such an exalted location. But because the site of the original burial remains unknown, none of the bones excavated at the site over the years can be definitively linked with the black knight’s tomb, making a DNA match with Sir George or anyone else impossible.

Given that Belgium is located 4,000 miles (6,300 kilometers) from the Cheseapeake Bay region of Virginia, it is clear that whoever ordered the grave marker wanted to make sure it was made from the finest polished limestone. While this was no doubt a costly import, it does reveal that colonial trade routes could deliver supplies from quite far away even in the early 17th century, when the English presence in the Americas was new.

Top image: Left; Knight in armor, Right; Jamestown Knight tombstone.   Source: Left; LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS/Adobe Stock, Right;  Jamestown Rediscovery, Preservation Virginia/International Journal of Historical Archaeology

By Nathan Falde

Music was an integral part of daily life in the Nile Valley from the earliest times. It was a rich and important aspect of ancient Egyptian culture, permeating religious ceremonies, popular festivals, and daily activities.

The Role of Music in Ancient Egyptian Life

Music was not merely a form of entertainment but a crucial component of society and religion. It played a key role in religious rituals, often performed in temples to appease gods and goddesses. This style of music was believed to have magical qualities, which could call upon the favor of deities, and was also essential in the journey of the deceased to the afterlife.

Festivals and celebrations were also incomplete without music. Musicians and dancers were common sights at banquets and parties. Whether you were elite or one of the common folk, you could enjoy the beauty of music in social gatherings.

Ancient Egyptian Instruments

The instruments used in ancient Egyptian music were diverse, each contributing unique sounds to the musical landscape of the time. Here are some of the instruments of ancient Egypt:

• String Instruments: The harp was a prominent string instrument, varying in size from small hand-held versions to large, elaborate ones that required the musician to stand while playing. The lyre, another string instrument, was often used in more intimate settings.
• Wind Instruments: Flutes were popular and made from reeds or wood. The double clarinet, known as the  aulos, produced a rich, reedy sound and was frequently depicted in ancient Egyptian art.
• Percussion Instruments: Various percussion instruments provided rhythm and depth to ancient Egyptian music. Hand-held drums, clappers, and  sistrums (a type of sacred rattle associated with the goddess Hathor) were widely used. The sistrum held religious significance and was often used in temple rituals.
• Vocal Music: Singing was an essential element of ancient Egyptian music. Songs often told stories or were used in chants during religious ceremonies. The use of the human voice in music further emphasized the connection between the divine and everyday life.

Ancient Egyptian music was likely passed down orally, with musicians relying on memory and improvisation. This oral tradition meant that music was a living, evolving art form.

Ancient bronze sistrum dating back to circa 380 to 250 BC. (Public domain)

Instruments of War: Tutankhamun’s Trumpets

In 1922, the tomb of Tutankhamun was discovered in Egypt during an expedition led by the archaeologist Howard Carter. The discoveries made in uncovering the largely untouched tomb provided a wealth of knowledge about ancient Egypt, its burial practices and its customs. Among the amazing items recovered was a set of wooden, silver, and bronze trumpets.

The sound of one of the trumpets was recorded in 1939 by BBC Radio so that people from all over the world heard the sound of this extraordinary and ancient instrument. A few months after the trumpet was played, World War II broke out, eventually leading to a legend that the trumpets had the magical power to summon war. In addition to being an example of some of the oldest trumpets in the world, the trumpets of Tutankhamun have also gained a mystique because of the legend.

Listen to the 1939 recording in the video below, if you dare…

Read more about the amazing discovery and legend surrounding Tutankhamun’s trumpets in the article ‘Instruments of Mass Destruction: Do Tutankhamun’s Trumpets Really Summon War?’ available in the November – December 2023 issue of Ancient Origins Magazine. Get it here!

Featured Image: A wall scene with a harpist from the tomb of Inherkhau (TT 359), Thebes, Luxor – Egypt. Source: Svetlaili / Adobe Stock

By Alicia McDermott

If Horace Greeley is remembered at all today, it’s most often for the line, “Go West, young man!”—advice the crusading New York newspaper editor and antislavery advocate might have agreed with but probably never delivered in exactly those words. For much of the 19th century, however, Greeley was widely considered the best-known man in America, as celebrated for his writing as Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain and Walt Whitman, all of whom he published, with many becoming close friends.

When a splinter group of Republicans, disgusted by the rampant corruption of the current administration under their own party’s Ulysses S. Grant, decided to run a third-party presidential candidate in the 1872 election, it came as little surprise that they drafted Greeley for the task. The editor’s campaign got a further boost when the Democratic Party, unable to agree on a candidate of its own, threw its support to him, too.

But after a promising start, Greeley’s presidential bid ended not only in defeat but also tragedy.

Still benefitting from his reputation as a Civil War hero, Grant won the popular vote handily on November 5, 1872. Twenty-four days later, on November 29, Greeley died in a private mental sanatorium at age 61. The country could only wonder: What had happened?

At the time, many believed Greeley had died of heartbreak caused by both his humiliating election defeat and his wife Mary’s death, after a long series of illnesses, on October 30. Greeley had stopped campaigning earlier that month so he could stay at Mary’s bedside and was, by all accounts, devastated by his loss.

The campaign itself had been grueling, in part because of the effort Greeley put into it. In the month of September alone, writes historian Robert C. Williams in Horace Greeley: Champion of American Freedom, he delivered nearly 200 speeches in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana.

Greeley also faced vicious political attacks, discomfiting even for a man who was accustomed to controversy. From 1841, when he founded the New-York Tribune, until his death three decades later, Greeley was a tireless advocate for causes large and small. He was prominent in the fight against slavery and was a vocal supporter of women’s and workers’ rights. He opposed capital punishment, promoted the temperance movement and vegetarianism, and called for Irish independence from Great Britain. Along the way, he collected friends and foes, respect for his commitments, and occasional ridicule for having so many varied interests.

During the 1872 presidential campaign, the political cartoonist Thomas Nast, a Grant booster, turned his pen on Greeley in his regular cartoons for Harper’s Weekly. “From January 1872 through the election, [Nast] did 80-some drawings of Greeley that really roasted him,” says Gray Williams, town historian of New Castle, New York, where Greeley once lived. “Grant later said that he owed his election to the bayonets of [Union General Philip] Sheridan and the drawings of Thomas Nast.”

Nast’s August 17 cartoon, for example, lampooned Greeley’s unlikely alliance with the Democrats, depicting him kneeling before Satan, who clutches a copy of the party’s nomination. On September 14, Nast placed the editor at the grave of Abraham Lincoln, seemingly bowing and extending his hand to the ghost of the Republican president’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth.

One friend reported visiting Greeley just before the election and seeing Nast cartoons lying about his office. “I will be beaten in the campaign, and I am ruined for life,” Greeley predicted, as he complained about the many ways in which his views had been distorted.

In the days after his defeat, Greeley wrote to another friend, saying, “I have been assailed so bitterly that I hardly knew whether I was running for president or the penitentiary. … Well, I am used up.”

As if all that weren’t enough, Greeley’s finances were in shambles as well. He had lost control of the Tribune, in large part because he had sold many of his shares to his employees and friends, often for less than their market value. Once Greeley’s debts were settled, the value of his $206,084.25 estate fell to $2,589.28 (around $67,000 today)—a modest sum even then for a prominent individual.

After the election, Greeley briefly returned to the Tribune. “It was pitiful to see how wearily, day after day, he dragged himself to his office, endeavoring to take up the threads of his busy life again,” one early biographer recounted. Greeley managed to write several articles, but he was plagued by insomnia and gave up his work on November 12. A week later, the Tribune announced that he was suffering from “nervous prostration” but was expected to return “speedily to his usual vigorous health.”

In truth, Greeley had taken a turn for the worse both physically and mentally. On November 20, he reluctantly agreed to move to a private mental health facility in Pleasantville, New York, which was run by a highly regarded physician, George S. Choate.

“[Greeley’s] removal did not ameliorate his mental condition, for the very next day, he became a raving maniac,” another early and largely sympathetic biographer wrote, using the now-outdated language of the era. “Being unable to take nourishment, his strength rapidly declined, and as he grew weaker, he became more quiet and at length sank into unconsciousness.”

On November 27, the Tribune again assured readers that while Greeley was still suffering from nervous prostration “arising from almost total loss of sleep for a month or more,” as well as a lack of appetite, he was improving.

But in the early evening of November 29, the editor-turned-politician died in his bed, by all accounts peacefully.

Greeley was the first major presidential candidate to die so soon after his defeat, before the Electoral College had even made the outcome of the election official. His death raised the unprecedented question of what to do with his electoral votes, which were ultimately divided among several minor candidates. The messiness of the process led to calls to abolish the Electoral College altogether—a divisive political issue to this day.

As the nation tried to absorb the shocking news of Greeley’s death, reporters pressed doctors who’d been involved in the case for an answer as to what had killed him. While most of the physicians were circumspect and unwilling to offer a definitive diagnosis, several attributed Greeley’s illness to an overworked brain. “We see such cases every day, and they usually spring from the same cause,” one doctor said. “The death of his wife and his herculean work during the campaign both contributed to bring about the sad result.”

Indeed, Greeley seemed to be a classic, if unusually tragic, case of what doctors of the day referred to as neurasthenia—a sort of catchall diagnosis encompassing anxiety, depression, insomnia, loss of appetite, physical exhaustion and other symptoms typically attributed to overwork.

As Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University and co-author of Madness in America: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness Before 1914, says, well-to-do patients like Greeley “who weren’t a danger to themselves or others” were often treated in private sanatoriums like Choate’s. The “state-of-the-art” treatment offered at these facilities was simple: bed rest.

But neurasthenia alone wouldn’t account for Greeley’s death. “A 61-year-old man doesn’t die of neurasthenia,” Tomes says. “There had to be something else going on.”

In any case, no autopsy was ever performed. So, as biographer Williams concludes, “We will never know.”

At the time, few members of the public knew that this wasn’t Greeley’s first serious mental health episode. Williams deems it “fairly likely” that he’d “suffered a nervous breakdown, or bad depression,” at least twice before: once with the death of his young son in 1849 and later during the Civil War. He’d begun an 1861 letter to then-President Lincoln by noting that he was writing at midnight on his “seventh sleepless night” and had been reduced to a “hopelessly broken” man.

As badly as he had been treated at the end of his life, in death, Greeley was lionized for his accomplishments. Newspapers both at home and abroad hailed him as “the greatest editor America has produced,” the “most remarkable man in the United States,” the “foremost man of his time” and the “apostle of freedom.” As one New York paper observed, “No event since the death of Abraham Lincoln has so deeply touched the nation’s heart.”

On December 3, Greeley’s body lay in state at New York’s City Hall, where thousands of mourners came to pay their respects. “The millionaire walked side by side with the crossing sweeper,” the Tribune reported. “Famous lawyers kept step with ragged bootblacks. Ladies in silk and fur came behind the shopgirl in her faded worsted shawl.”

The U.S. Senate suspended deliberations so members could make the trip to New York. Grant, the victorious president, attended the funeral service, as did both the incoming and outgoing vice presidents, future President Chester A. Arthur, and numerous other politicians. After the service, a procession of 125 carriages accompanied Greeley’s coffin to a Brooklyn cemetery, where he was buried alongside his wife.

Greeley has largely faded from public memory in the decades since his death, but traces of his life remain. In 1890, New York erected a statue in his honor, which now resides in City Hall Park. Residents of Chappaqua, New York, where Greeley kept a farm, installed a separate sculpture there in 1914. The editor’s home in Chappaqua’s downtown still stands, serving as a combination museum and headquarters for the New Castle Historical Society. The local high school bears Greeley’s name.

Choate’s sanatorium, where Greeley died, is now part of Pace University’s Pleasantville campus. An enduring student legend maintains that his ghost wanders the building, which is now home to the university’s welcome center.

Greeley hoped his newspaper would live long after him, and it did, until in 1924 it was merged into the New York Herald Tribune, which continued on until the 1960s. But he had no illusions about his own immortality. “Fame is a vapor; popularity an accident; riches take wings,” he once wrote. “The only earthly certainty is oblivion.”

A rather unusual petition from October 1716 is tucked away in the pope’s diocesan archives in the basilica of San Giovanni in Rome:

Antonio Piervenanzi, parish priest of San Benedetto in Piscinola, has found himself in poor health since the month of September on account of a continuous flux that descends from his head and affects his whole body. He has constant pain inside and outside and, for this reason, has remained without hair and almost without teeth, with dizziness and temporary blindness. Doctors fear that a greater, even unrecoverable, illness could occur. Piervenanzi, on the advice of those who treat him, therefore asks permission to wear a light wig in natural colours, with a tonsure and without curls.

Why would an 18th-century priest need to ask the pope’s permission to wear a wig?

The underlying context of Piervenanzi’s petition was the contemporaneous fashion craze for carefully coiffured false hair. Think of portraits of Louis XIV, J.S. Bach, Marie Antoinette, the Founding Fathers, or the ‘hanging judge’ George Jeffreys. A wig, the larger and the more elaborate the better, was a must-have for any person of importance. Indeed, the great English church historian Owen Chadwick once remarked how ‘the wig became as necessary to the uniform of Anglican bishops as to that of English judges’. Yet Chadwick also noted that the same was not true of Catholic clerics. For several generations, numerous bishops in France and Italy waged a concerted campaign against priests who wore them.

Pietro Maria Orsini, an archbishop of Benevento who in 1724 became Pope Benedict XIII, was at the forefront of this crackdown. A lifelong Benedictine monk, and also the 18th century’s only fully bald pope, he may have approached the subject of wigs from a particularly personal perspective. Yet, like other ‘wig critics’ in the Catholic hierarchy, he saw artificial hair as vain, inappropriate and eccentric.

In Benedict’s critique, a priest who wore a wig to fit in with fashionable trends in wider society was exhibiting a misguided, even unholy, attachment to the secular. The 16th-century saint and archbishop of Milan Carlo Borromeo had previously said as much. In a famous pastoral letter, he admonished his diocesan clergy for neglecting godliness, which was clean-shaven, in favour of that century’s male grooming fad, the bushy beard.

Wearing a wig was even worse than sporting a beard, wig critics argued, because it broke a key injunction in the Church’s sacred law. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians states that ‘every man who prays or prophesies with his head covered dishonors his head’ and also that ‘a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man’.

Many throughout history have interpreted these verses to mean that men, though not women, must remove their hats in church. And what was a wig if not a kind of hat? How could a priest who was in breach of this rule stand before the altar and utter the Blessed Sacrament’s holy words? The scandal undermined its efficacy.

As pope, Benedict XIII issued three edicts in just three years which mention wigs. Other popes had prohibited wearing wigs in church, but his proscriptions were the harshest yet: a priest who brought his wig anywhere near a sacred space, even a sacristy, could be sentenced to 15 days in prison, an indeterminate monetary fine and suspension of his rights to celebrate.

There is scant evidence that Benedict was able to catch any offending clerics – or, if any were caught, to punish them for their misdemeanours. He simply lacked the resources to monitor or prosecute his ban effectively. The problem for him, as for other Church leaders, was that many Catholic priests dissented from the anti-wig policy. They may have been men of the cloth,  but they did not share all of their superiors’ beliefs. They also wanted to participate in a wider social order beyond the Church itself, where wigs signalled that those who wore them were respectable persons of status.

The next pope but one, the celebrated ‘Enlightenment Pope’ Benedict XIV (r.1740-58), recognised the problem and so took a different approach. Intent mattered, he suggested. A priest who wore a modest, unostentatious wig out of medical necessity did nothing wrong. It was only excessive concern for outward appearance that was a sin.

This, of course, was the position advanced by the priest Piervenanzi in his petition of 1716. But Piervenanzi was unlucky: his argument was ahead of its time (and his request denied). A few other priests who pleaded similar cases did better because they argued more forcefully that they needed the wig to reduce levels of disgust (and therefore scandal) among their congregations. The Church viewed priests whose bodies were imperfect with great suspicion. The argument about disgust had to be taken seriously because it threatened the priest’s parishioners’ souls if his ugliness caused them to avoid church.

The Vatican’s Congregation of the Council, a body established to regulate conduct among religious, was often called in to adjudicate such cases. It ruled that hermaphrodites could be priests but not nuns, for example. It also decided the case of Antonio Maniardo, a monastic doorkeeper sacked when his bad stammer prevented him from discharging his duties. Maniardo argued that his duties were performed through bodily actions rather than through speech, which meant that his disability was no object to it. He seems to have been less successful than other priests, who got to keep their wigs.

The Church’s problem with wigs eventually solved itself. They went out of style after the French Revolution and soon every Catholic cleric was embarrassed that any predecessors had ever worn one. Pius VI (r.1775-99), the only wigged pope, was later said only to have worn powder in his hair. Priests who wear wigs today are too discreet to tell us.

Miles Pattenden teaches History at the University of Oxford.