Okay, if there’s one thing that really, really annoys me about the media it’s when they don’t take the time — whether on purpose or out of simple negligence — to do a bit of research about something. This a.m. as I was waiting for my triple grande sugar-free-vanilla soy latte to be constructed, a news alert from the BBC crossed my iPod screen, to wit:
A team of archaeologists and scientists says it has, for the first time, found pieces of a burial shroud from the time of Jesus in a tomb in Jerusalem.
The researchers, from Hebrew University and institutions in Canada and the US, said the shroud was very different from the controversial Turin Shroud.
Some people believe the Turin Shroud to have been Christ’s burial cloth, but others believe it is a fake.
The newly found cloth has a simpler weave than Turin’s, the scientists say.
The body of a man wrapped in fragments of the shroud was found in a tomb dating from the time of Jesus near the Old City of Jerusalem.
The tomb is part of a cemetery called the Field of Blood, where Judas Iscariot is said to have killed himself.
The researchers believe the man was a Jewish high priest or member of the aristocracy who died of leprosy, the earliest proven case.
They say he was wrapped in a cloth made of a simple two-way weave, very different to the complex weave of the Turin Shroud.
The researchers believe that the fragments are typical of the burial cloths used at the time of Jesus.
As a result, they conclude that the Turin Shroud did not originate from 1st Century Jerusalem.
The Turin Shroud has been the subject of much controversy.
Tests 20 years ago dated the fabric to the Middle Ages, but believers say the cloth bears the imprint of a man’s face that is an authentic image of Christ.
Coverage from other sources is quickly adding to the pile, with more or less detail. What needs to be mentioned is that this really isn’t a new discovery. We mentioned this ‘first leper’ story back in 2004, when rogueclassicism was still trying to find its voice — it was mentioned in the context of Shimon Gibson’s claims about the ‘John the Baptist Cave’. At least one of the links we mentioned back then is still alive, and contains this excerpt:
Although he made the discovery three years ago, he said he held off from publicising the find until exhaustive examination of the bones, DNA and fibres in the skeleton’s shroud were complete.
So this piece of cloth was actually found back in 2000 or 2001 but at the time the ‘first leper’ story was breaking, you might recall that this find was being touted as a piece of shroud belonging to someone who might have witnessed the crucifixion (alas, my link to that isn’t working still).
“We didn’t want to make a spectacular announcement and then find we hadn’t done our homework,” he told The Associated Press.
Orit Shamir, a textiles expert at the Israel Antiquities Authority, said the leper’s linen shroud was also unique.
“This is the first time we have found a shroud of that age in the Jerusalem area,” she said, adding that the man’s clothing indicated his social status.
“He was from the upper level of society,” she said.
Gibson said that although leprosy weakened the man’s immune system, it was tuberculosis that actually killed him.
He said that contrary to the local custom at the time of burying a corpse and then later re-interring the bones, the leper was left untouched in his niche, away from the bones of his relatives.
“People were very frightened of leprosy,” he said. “They were afraid of being contaminated.”
That fear may have led to the preservation of the shroud, Gibson said, keeping the cloth in its niche above the cave floor away from the rotting effects of rainwater.
“Such things have previously only been found in arid or semi-arid areas such as the Jordan Valley or Egypt.”
We might note that the BBC themselves also mentioned this discovery early in 2005 (I’ll skip the link to rc). Whatever the case, this isn’t ‘new’ and it is clearly deceptive to pass it off as a “new” discovery. I honestly am not sure whether the ‘weave analysis’ is something new or not; it’s clearly a response to the claim a few weeks ago of a researcher’s discovery of text on the Shroud of Turin that authenticate it (which received tons of press attention, of course)… please enlighten us in the comments if you can point us to a source about these ‘recent’ tests.
UPDATE (an hour or so later): I note that Antonio Lombatti points to the original research article in the comments to Jim West’s post on this.
I’m sure folks have all heard/read about the latest news from the Egyptian desert — presented with varying degrees of credulity by a less-than- incredulous media –about the claimed discovery of remains of Cambyses’ ‘lost army’ by the brothers Castiglioni. Google, fora, lists, discussion groups are all agog at this apparently amazing discovery ‘proving’ one of many hitherto unverified stories in Herodotus. So let’s begin with Herodotus (3.26 … from the Internet Classics Archive; Rawlinson translation):
The men sent to attack the Ammonians, started from Thebes, having guides with them, and may be clearly traced as far as the city Oasis, which is inhabited by Samians, said to be of the tribe Aeschrionia. The place is distant from Thebes seven days’ journey across the sand, and is called in our tongue “the Island of the Blessed.” Thus far the army is known to have made its way; but thenceforth nothing is to be heard of them, except what the Ammonians, and those who get their knowledge from them, report. It is certain they neither reached the Ammonians, nor even came back to Egypt. Further than this, the Ammonians relate as follows:- That the Persians set forth from Oasis across the sand, and had reached about half way between that place and themselves when, as they were at their midday meal, a wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear. Thus, according to the Ammonians, did it fare with this army.
Back in the beginning of 2004, rogueclassicism had its first taste of the search for this ‘lost army’ with a story from Egypt Today about a tourist company’s plans to have tourists take part in the search (hopefully the reason I’m doing this will become clear later) … here’s a better excerpt (I think) than I originally had, via the Wayback Machine:
The fate of Cambyses’ army is one of the great mysteries of archaeology. Attempts to find traces of it have ended in failure, and some historians suspect the tale was a fabrication, or at the very least a gross exaggeration.
Tourism companies, however, see it as a potential cash cow.
“It is a great opportunity,” says Hisham Nessim, manager of Aqua Sun Resort. “We will give tourists a chance to participate in solving this ancient mystery and we will sell it as a touristic product.”
Nessim, a former desert rally driver, leads the Egyptian Exploration Desert Team (EEDT), an exploratory “archaeological” mission funded entirely by private tourism firms. The plan, approved by the Ministry of Tourism, is to comb the Western Desert in 4WD vehicles packed with paying tourists hot on the trail of Cambyses’ army.
Archaeologists have reacted with suspicion and horror.
“It’s a very, very bad idea,” contends Salima Ikram, associate professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo.
“The more people go trampling through the desert, the more they muck up the archaeological evidence.” A foreign archaeologist, preferring not to be named, railed: “Do you think that if they find anything they will leave it intact? Of course not. They’ll pick it up, manhandle it and take home a few souvenirs. This is just the sort of sh-t we don’t need.”
Nessim brushes off his critics, who he says are blowing things out of proportion.
Hundreds of desert safari expeditions take tourists to the Western Desert each year.
The only difference here is that the safari’s route winds through areas deemed likely to contain remains of the lost army. Any evidence discovered will be referred to experts for analysis.
“My license is not to dig, so if I find something I must report it to the authorities,” Nessim says, indicating that the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has no objections to the project. So far, Aqua Sun and co-sponsor Emeco Travel have organized two expeditions. Neither trip, each of which went ahead despite last-minute cancellations, made significant discoveries.
“We still have far to go. This secret has been hidden for over 2,000 years and we can’t expect to find it in just two trips,” says Nessim, who is reportedly cooperating with US space agency NASA to prepare a route for a third mission. “There are some places on the ground that I suspect and they [NASA] will check with satellites.”Remote sensors will also scan an area 50 km southwest of Siwa Oasis, where a Helwan University geological team prospecting for oil in 2000 discovered human bones, arrow-heads, frayed textiles and daggers in the dunes. The find sent shivers of excitement through the archaeological community, but an SCA team dispatched to excavate found nothing at the GPS coordinates they were given. The sand may have simply swallowed the evidence.
“The dunes in the Great Sand Sea move about 30-50 cm a year to the south and southeast because of the prevailing wind,” explains geologist and EEDT guide Bahei El-Asawi. “It’s hard to find anything, because the sand can cover one area and expose another.”
The nature of the desert adds a challenge, says desert safari specialist Hani Zaki of Emeco Tours, who compares the search for Cambyses’ army to finding a needle in a haystack.
“When you’re in the Great Sand Sea you can look 360 and all you see is sand. There are no landmarks, mountains or anything,” he says. “You don’t see anybody and there is almost no sign of life, but there is plenty of natural beauty.”
EEDT expeditions run between 10 and 22 days, traversing parts of the most beautiful and inhospitable desert in the world. The team’s 4WD vehicles are specially equipped for deep desert exploration, carrying extra fuel, water, rations, parts and GPS equipment.
“There’s always a risk, but it’s greater if you’re not following the rules, are not well-equipped or don’t have experience,” says Zaki. “Without risk it’s not an adventure. Our role is to avoid major risks and minimize minor ones.”
While Zaki is apologetic that the EEDT team does not include a professional archaeologist, he strongly rejects arguments that tourists are being deceived. Clients do not sign up for an archaeological dig, he says, they come to explore the desert with veteran guides “who know the desert like the back of their hand” and can provide valuable insights into desert history, geology, flora and fauna.The search for Cambyses’ lost army is “just a theme,” he says, insisting clients are aware that the chance of actually finding 50,000 desiccated soldiers and the bleached-white bones of their pack animals is remote. Instead, they hope to find traces like clay water vessels, trail markers, discarded weapons and – if lucky – the remains of a stray soldier.
Rival outfit Zarzora Expeditions is promoting similar themed trips, with itineraries that trace the steps of 19th Century German explorer Gerhard Rohlfs as well as Hungarian spy Count Laszlo Almasy (upon whom the 1996 film The English Patient was loosely based). The firm is also hoping to put together its own quest for Cambyses’ lost army.”It is an irresistible marketing tool,” says Wael Abed, the company’s general manager.
Even before that, in September/October of 2004, Archaeology Magazine was reporting:
A Helwan University geological team, prospecting for petroleum in Egypt’s Western Desert, has come upon well-preserved fragments of textiles, bits of metal resembling weapons, and human remains they believe to be traces of the lost army of the Persian ruler, Cambyses II, who conquered and ruled Egypt in the sixth century B.C.
Lately, there has been considerable petroleum excavation in the Western Desert. Anyone traveling the main route between the near oasis will see this activity, but the exploration for oil stretched much deeper into the Western Desert. It is not surprising that they have come upon a few archaeological finds, and it is not unlikely that they will come across others. Very recently, when a geological team from the Helwan University geologists found themselves walking through dunes littered with fragments of textiles, daggers, arrow-heads, and the bleached bones of the men to whom all these trappings belonged, they reported the discovery to the antiquity service.
Mohammed al-Saghir of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) now believes that this accidental find may very well be at least remnants of the mysterious Lost Army of Cambyses II, and he is now organizing a mission to investigate the site more thoroughly. If he is successful and the discovery is that of Cambyses II’s 50,000 strong lost army, than it will not only answer some ancient mysteries, but will probably also provide us with a rich source of information on the Persian military of that time, and maybe even expand our knowledge of Cambyses II himself. The Persian armed forces consisted of many elements, including companies of foreign mercenaries such as Greeks, Phoenicians, Carians, Cilicians, Medes and Syrians. Hence, if this is not another false lead, we may expect excellent preservation of helmets, leather corselets, cloth garments, spears, bows, swords and daggers – a veritable treasure trove of military memorabilia. The rations and support equipment will all be there, ready for detailed analysis.
However, it should be noted that some Egyptologists question the very existence of such an army, rather believing that the whole affair was simply a fable told by a very prejudiced Greek.
A vague item from the BBC appears to be referring to the same thing.
Skipping ahead a bit, a quick scour of past issue of my Ancient World on Television Listings note a documentary called The Lost Army of King Cambyses, which appeared on the Canadian History Television network in 2004 (not sure if it ever was on in the US). I don’t recall seeing it myself, but a program summary at ABC (Australia) seems to be referring to the same thing. Here’s a good excerpt therefrom:
The Lost Army of King Cambyses follows Bown and MacKinnon on their journey from Luxor into one of the most dangerous deserts on earth on the trail of the lost army.
Bown has developed his own theory to explain the army’s fate and has meticulously calculated how long the journey would have taken it. He believes the Persians’ lack of understanding of local geography led them into the towering dunes known as the Great Sand Sea, where they perished.
They explore the area for lost weapons and bones to prove his theory. But, although they find pits from which the dagger and arrowheads were excavated, there is no sign of the bones and skulls and a sandstorm blows up before they can search further.
When they do find bone fragments, MacKinnon is sceptical they belonged to a Persian soldier and puts a brake on Bown’s unbridled enthusiasm.
So much for recent history … before getting to the ‘recent’ stuff, I think it’s also worth noting something I found while poking around Google Books in an idle moment today which may or may not be relevant. From Gentlemen’s Magazine, vol 135 (1824):
FWIW … the common denominator seems to be a bunch of bones lying around, with the more recent ones mentioning arrowheads and a dagger. For another ‘backgrounder’, see Rossella Lorenzi’s excellent piece at Discovery News. Outside of that, most of the other coverage seems to derive from another piece at Discovery News, so we’ll do some clipping from that … Dixit Dario del Bufalo, who is described as “a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce”:
We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus
The article continues:
Now, two top Italian archaeologists claim to have found striking evidence that the Persian army was indeed swallowed in a sandstorm. Twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni are already famous for their discovery 20 years ago of the ancient Egyptian “city of gold” Berenike Panchrysos.
Presented recently at the archaeological film festival of Rovereto, the discovery is the result of 13 years of research and five expeditions to the desert.
“It all started in 1996, during an expedition aimed at investigating the presence of iron meteorites near Bahrin, one small oasis not far from Siwa,” Alfredo Castiglioni, director of the Eastern Desert Research Center (CeRDO)in Varese, told Discovery News.
While working in the area, the researchers noticed a half-buried pot and some human remains. Then the brothers spotted something really intriguing — what could have been a natural shelter.
It was a rock about 35 meters (114.8 feet) long, 1.8 meters (5.9 feet) in height and 3 meters (9.8 feet) deep. Such natural formations occur in the desert, but this large rock was the only one in a large area.
“Its size and shape made it the perfect refuge in a sandstorm,” Castiglioni said.
Right there, the metal detector of Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat of Cairo University located relics of ancient warfare: a bronze dagger and several arrow tips.
“We are talking of small items, but they are extremely important as they are the first Achaemenid objects, thus dating to Cambyses’ time, which have emerged from the desert sands in a location quite close to Siwa,” Castiglioni said.
A bit later:
“Termoluminescence has dated the pottery to 2,500 years ago, which is in line with Cambyses’ time,” Castiglioni said.
In their last expedition in 2002, the Castiglioni brothers returned to the location of their initial discovery. Right there, some 100 km (62 miles) south of Siwa, ancient maps had erroneously located the temple of Amun.
The soldiers believed they had reached their destination, but instead they found the khamsin — the hot, strong, unpredictable southeasterly wind that blows from the Sahara desert over Egypt.
“Some soldiers found refuge under that natural shelter, other dispersed in various directions. Some might have reached the lake of Sitra, thus surviving,” Castiglioni said.
At the end of their expedition, the team decided to investigate Bedouin stories about thousands of white bones that would have emerged decades ago during particular wind conditions in a nearby area.
Indeed, they found a mass grave with hundreds of bleached bones and skulls.
“We learned that the remains had been exposed by tomb robbers and that a beautiful sword which was found among the bones was sold to American tourists,” Castiglioni said.
There is also a very interesting Discovery News video report up at YouTube (which is mentioned in the Discovery News report mentioned above):
There’s a similar sort of thing (in Italian) at Archeologiaviva (not sure how long it will be on the front page). Also of interest is a slideshow of some of the finds, which, interestingly enough, are bones, arrowheads and a dagger. And a horse bit.
So far, so good … it seems to be a spectacular find and I can’t help but wonder whether that claimed sale of a sword to an American tourist occurred on one of those tours we mentioned above. But whatever the case, to paraphrase Hank Hill, something ain’t right about all this. Consider another video up at Youtube, which appears to be an excerpt from the Castiglioni brothers’ film:
While watching this, I had a very uncomfortable feeling … these guys don’t seem to be acting much like archaeologists, even perhaps in a survey situation. There doesn’t seem to be any concern for context and they appear to be pulling random artifacts out from random places. Not a good sign. I also get very suspicious that they happen to find what appears to be an Achaemenid horse bit, and I don’t see anything resembling horse bones in any of the photos. Not a good sign. I also see a bunch of broken pots and they are described as “artificial wells” which the army supposedly used … does an army on the move carry water in pots? Does it create ‘artificial wells’? To what end? Not a good sign.
So I do some poking around, and while the Castiglioni brothers are touted as archaeologists, they are, it seems, filmmakers. They are included as exemplars of “mondo” (a.k.a. “Shockumentary”) films in the English version of Wikipedia. The Italian listing for their names reveals their education background is economics/commerce. Not a good sign.
Poking around for some info about Dario Del Bufalo, I was somewhat gobsmacked to find I had a mention of him in a previous post at rogueclassicism. According to an item I excerpted from the Museum Security Network — and I can’t vouch either way for its authority — Del Bufalo was once (perhaps still is?) a bigwig in the Italian Ministry of Culture who was possibly connected to Frieda Tchacos, of ‘Gospel of Judas’ fame. Possibly not a good sign.
Finally, and certainly not least, there is up at Dr Zahi Hawass’ blog (hmmm … is that why Facebook was suggesting I should “reconnect” with him?) a very important press release:
I need to inform the public that recent reports published in newspapers, news agencies and TV news announcing that “twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni have unearthed remains of the Persian army of Cambyses,” are unfounded and misleading.
The brothers are not heading any archaeological mission in Berenike Panchrysos at the small Bahrin Oasis near Siwa Oasis. This site has been excavated since 2002 by an Italian mission led by Dr. Paulo Gallo of Turin University. The Castiglioni brothers have not been granted permission by the SCA to excavate in Egypt, so anything they claim to find is not to be believed.
The Supreme Council of Antiquities has already informed the proper legal and security authorities in Egypt and are taking the necessary procedures.
I think it’s time to let the air out of this balloon …
UPDATE (11/17/09): driving home from school today I realized the other name in the report is known to us as well … Aly Barakat is the Egyptian geologist who ‘confirmed’ that those things in Bosnia were pyramids … and that they were man-made like the pyramids in Egypt … I think that puts the final nail in the credibility coffin on this one …
One of the things which continues to bother me about blogs and the like is that they really haven’t been embraced by a significant number of academics actually working in the field (there are exceptions, of course) and as a result, the press is ‘getting away with murder’ in regards to claims it is making about things within our purview. This past week or so has just been brutal for this sort of thing, as the following little survey will show. We begin with the supposed news that there was a settlement at Alexandria prior to Alexander’s founding of the city. Here’s Livescience via MSNBC:
Alexander the Great has long been credited with being the first to settle the area along Egypt’s coast that became the great port city of Alexandria. But in recent years, evidence has been mounting that other groups of people were there first.
Well if nothing else, we have a fine example of petitio principis … I’d love to know the source of the claim that Alexander was the “first”. Whatever the case, it continues with some useful information:
The latest clues that settlements existed in the area for several hundred years before Alexander the Great come from microscopic bits of pollen and charcoal in ancient sediment layers.
Alexandria was founded by Alexander the Great in 331 B.C. The city sits on the Mediterranean coast at the western edge of the Nile delta. Its location made it a major port city in ancient times; it was also famous for its lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and its library, the largest in the ancient world.
But in the past few years, scientists have found fragments of ceramics and traces of lead in sediments in the area that predate Alexander’s arrival by several hundred years, suggesting there was already a settlement in the area (though one far smaller than what Alexandria became).
Christopher Bernhardt of the U.S. Geological Survey and his colleagues took sediment cores (long cylindrical pieces of sediment drilled from the ground) that featured layers going as far back as nearly 8,000 years ago as part of a larger climate study of the area.
In these sediment layers, Bernhardt and his colleagues took samples of embedded ancient pollen grains to look for shifts from primarily native plants to those associated with agriculture. They also analyzed levels of microscopic charcoal, whose presence can indicate human fires.
At a mark of 3,000 years ago, Bernhardt’s team detected a shift in pollen grains from native grasses and other plants to those from cereal grains, grapes and weeds associated with agriculture. They also found a marked increase in charcoal particles, all of which suggests that a settlement pre-dated the great city of Alexandria. [etc.]
Now I strongly suspect it was the journalist, and not the geologist in this situation who has embellished the tale somewhat. But even my mind boggles that the journalist doesn’t appear to have even checked the Wikipedia article on Alexandria to read about the fishing/maritime settlement of Rhakotis which was on the site prior to Alexander’s foundation. Heck, one would think this settlement would be well known since it is usually brought up as “evidence” that there was a library at Alexandria prior to Alexander (and in case you’re wondering; it isn’t … there’s no evidence of the library prior to Alexandria). And it boggles the mind somewhat — but maybe not — that an editor would allow such a false claim to form the hook for a story which is important in its own right.
Our next foray is against some book hype masquerading as a news article. Paul Cartledge is working on/about to publish a book on the wide influence of the Greeks in the Mediterranean world and the hype this week focussed on the ‘discovery’ (it seems) that the Greeks introduced viticulture to France. Here’s some representative (excerpted) coverage from PhysOrg:
Rewind 2,500 years, however, and the original makers of Côtes-du-Rhône are more likely to have prided themselves on rather different qualities, such as Athenian sophistication, and perhaps just a soupçon of Spartan grit.
Writing in a new study, Cambridge University Professor Paul Cartledge suggests that the French, not to mention the rest of the West, might never have become the passionate wine lovers we are without the assistance of a band of pioneering Greek explorers who settled in southern France around 600 BC.
Finding a sheltered port at the mouth of a major river system with natural hilly defences, the Greeks founded the city of Massalia, or modern-day Marseilles, and soon began to mingle and trade with friendly local tribes of Ligurian Celts, turning the settlement into a bustling entrepôt.
Within a matter of generations, Professor Cartledge says, the nearby Rhône became a major thoroughfare for vessels loaded with terracotta amphorae containing a new, exotic Greek drink made from fermented grape juice that would soon be taking the uncivilised tribes of western Europe by storm. Travelling up the river might even have constituted the original booze cruise.
The portrait of Marseilles’ origins, which appears in a new book, Ancient Greece: A History In Eleven Cities, will, Professor Cartledge hopes, lay to rest an enduring debate about the historic origins of supermarket plonk.
Although some academics agree that the Greeks were central to the foundation of Europe’s wine trade, others argue that the Etruscans (of modern Tuscany), or even the later Romans, were the ones responsible for bringing viticulture to France.
As Professor Cartledge points out, however, two points swing the argument firmly in the Greeks’ favour. First, the Greeks had to marry and mix with the local Ligurians to ensure that Massalia survived, suggesting that they also swapped goods and ideas. Second, they left behind copious amounts of archaeological evidence of their wine trade (unlike the Etruscans and long before the Romans), much of which has been found on Celtic sites.
Again, I’m having difficulties putting the blame for the spin on this on Dr. Cartledge. I am fairly positive that he doesn’t believe that he’s the only one privy to the knowledge of the archaeological evidence for Greek viticulture in France. Perhaps there are “some academics” and “others” engaging in some major debate on this (as Dr Cartledge seems to imply in a comment in the Telegraph), but I’m not sure where it might be happening.
Fulfilling the ‘scholastic rule of three’, we have this ‘labyrinth business’. The intro to the Discovery News coverage is pretty typical:
The site that inspired the ancient Greek Labyrinth, a mythical maze that supposedly housed the bull-man Minotaur, may have just been unearthed in Crete by an international team of researchers.
Oxford University geographer Nicholas Howarth and his colleagues believe a cave complex near Gortyn on the Greek island could have led to the myth. The cave system consists of a twisting and turning network of underground tunnels. Howarth describes it as “dark and dangerous.”
The 2.5-mile-long underground system is even called Labyrinthos Caves by locals. Some of its paths lead to large chambers, while others result in dead ends. (etc.)
FWIW, I had never heard of these caves before, so the claim that they had “just” been discovered, was a bit exciting. But as the week or so of coverage played out, and as discussion on the Classics list and (especially) AegeaNet ensued, it became clear that these caves had, in fact, been known for quite a while. Indeed, Dudley Moore includes a chapter on the caves in his to-be-published thesis The Early British Travellers to Crete and their contribution to the island’s Bronze Age archaeological heritage, and he kindly sent the relevant chapter along to me to peruse. To make an interesting story less so (by me, of course), Dr. Moore documents possible visits to this cave system beginning in the sixteenth century and stretching down to the nineteenth, and the long accompanying debate whether it was the ‘labyrinth’ or just a quarry (as an aside, I found the numerous attempts by travellers to ‘prove’ the existence of the labyrinth very interesting … in all our first year Classics courses, we are told that Heinrich Schliemann was alone in having this sort of ‘prove the myths true’ attitude, but it seems to have a longer history … I’ll have to look further into this). The upshot: this was nothing new.
Now to be fair, the Telegraph did explain this one a bit more clearly:
An Anglo-Greek team believes that the site, near the town of Gortyn, has just as much claim to be the place of the Labyrinth as the Minoan palace at Knossos 20 miles away, which has been synonymous with the Minotaur myth since its excavation a century ago.
The 600,000 people a year who visit the ruins at Knossos are told the site was almost certainly the home of the legendary King Minos, who was supposed to have constructed the Labyrinth to house the Minotaur, a fearsome creature born out of a union between the king’s wife and a bull, the Independent reports.
Nicholas Howarth, an Oxford University geographer who led the expedition to the site, said there was a danger of Gortyn being lost from the story of the Labyrinth because of the overpowering position that Knossos had taken in the legend “People come not just to see the controversial ruins excavated and reconstructed by Evans, but also to seek a connection to the mythical past of the Age of Heroes. It is a shame that almost all visitors to Knossos have never heard of these other possible ‘sites’ for the mythical Labyrinth,” Mr Howarth said. [etc.]
Taken together, what probably bothered me most about all of these cases was that there clearly was some discussion about the claim going on amongst people who did know the facts, but that the ‘public’ wasn’t privy to that discussion. The public was only privy to the misinformation and/or sensationalized claims being put forth by the media. We need to be doing a better job of what the media is doing with ‘our stuff’.
I’ve got a large file of ‘claims’ associated with the ancient world which I try to track down every now and then, but this one arrived today and I can’t wrap my head around it at all … from one of those press release things:
The more she listened to this music, the better she felt. She wondered, why? She found that music had been used for healing since the beginning of time and that only in the last few hundred years had it evolved into being used primarily for entertainment. Euclid used the monochord, a single-stringed instrument, for healing in 300 BC. In the third century B.C., Socrates was said to have healed hundreds by playing water-filled glasses..
… so … anyone know of Euclid or Socrates ‘healing’?
Homer is usually cited as the origin of the phrase, ‘sardonic smile’, specifically, from Odyssey 20.302 (or thereabouts):
So saying, he hurled with strong hand the hoof of an ox, taking it up from the basket where it lay. But Odysseus avoided it with a quick turn of his head, and in his heart he smiled a right grim and bitter smile; and the ox’s hoof struck the well-built wall.
Now Sardianian scientists are claiming to have discovered the plant whence was derived a drug which induced such a smile:
Sardinian scientists believe they’ve traced the roots of the ‘death-defying’ sardonic grin to a plant commonly found on the Italian island.
Greek poet Homer first used the word, an adaptation of the ancient word for Sardininan, to describe a defiant smile or laugh in the face of death.
He was believed to have coined it because of the belief that the Punic people who settled Sardinia gave condemned men a potion that made them smile before dying.
The association with Sardinia has often been disputed, but Cagliari University botanists think they’ve settled the case – and the plant in question could have beneficial properties too.
The plant, tubular water-dropwart (oenanthe fistulosa), is common in Sardinia, where it is popularly known as ‘water celery’.
”Our discovery supports what many cultural anthropologists have said about death rituals among the ancient Sardinians,” said Cagliari University Botany Department chief Mauro Ballero.
”The Punics were convinced that death was the start of new life, to be greeted with a smile,” he said.
Ballero’s team, whose work appears in the latest edition of the US Journal of Natural Products, have established that a toxic substance in the dropwart plant does, in fact, cause facial muscles to contract and produce a grimace or rictus.
The discovery could have a brighter side, he said, leading to drugs that might help certain conditions where parts of the face are paralysed.
”The good news is that the molecule in this plant may be retooled by pharmaceutical companies to have the opposite effect,” he said.
… I’ve always wondered whether the smile one sees on depictions of the Medusa are considered such a grin …
rogueclassicism 