Scribal Terror

Lost army of Cambyses

Discovery News reports:

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army -- 50,000 strong -- of Persian King Cambyses II, buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

Did you think Herodotus just made this shit up?

Ancient Roman mariners

Wikipedia caption: "Roman ship with spritsail on the Copenhagen Sarcophagus from the late 3rd century AD. It is one of the oldest depictions of spritsails in the history of navigation. . . .  Current location: Ny-Carlsberg Glyptothek in Copenhagen (Denmark), Inv.-No. 1299. The pic above shows a copy displayed at the Museum für Antike Schiffahrt (Museum for Ancient Navigation) in Mainz, Germany."

They not only have some high-tech rigging, but they've obviously figured out a way to keep their clothes dry on deck.

A fondness for eels

Some ancient Romans had a fondness for eels, not only as the principal ingredient of eel pie, but as pets. According to an article on eels (murenae) at the superb Encyclopaedia Romana:

The orator Quintus Hortensius . . . is said to have wept when his favorite murena died. Another pet murena, kept there by Antonia, the niece of Augustus, was adorned with earrings, which prompted some to visit and witness the spectacle. (Here, an eel must be meant, given that the lamprey and moray have no pectoral fins on which to hang such ornaments.)

Crassus, too, was said to have adorned a pet eel with earrings and small necklaces "just like some lovely maiden," training it to respond to its name and swimming up to eat what was offered. Rebuked by Domitius for weeping upon the death of the creature, he retorted that his accuser had buried three wives without shedding a tear (Aelian, VIII.4; Plutarch, De sollertia animalium, 976a; Macrobius, III.15.3).

The mural is from Pompeii, photo at the link.

You've heard of throwing people to the lions . . .

How about throwing them to the eels instead? According to the second century Roman historian, Dio, this practice was not unknown:

Vedius Pollio [was] a man who in general had done nothing deserving of remembrance, as he was sprung from freedmen, belonged to the knights, and had performed no brilliant deeds; but he had become very famous for his wealth and for his cruelty, so that he has even gained a place in history. Most of the things he did it would be wearisome to relate, but I may mention that he kept in reservoirs huge lampreys that had been trained to eat men, and he was accustomed to throw to them such of his slaves as he desired to put to death. Once, when he was entertaining Augustus, his cup-bearer broke a crystal goblet, and without regard for his guest, Pollio ordered the fellow to be thrown to the lampreys*. Hereupon the slave fell on his knees before Augustus and supplicated him, and Augustus at first tried to persuade Pollio not to commit so monstrous a deed. Then, when Pollio paid no heed to him, the emperor said, 'Bring all the rest of the drinking vessels which are of like sort or any others of value that you possess, in order that I may use them,' and when they were brought, he ordered them to be broken. When Pollio saw this, he was vexed, of course; but since he was no longer angry over the one goblet, considering the great number of the others that were ruined, and, on the other hand, could not punish his servant for what Augustus also had done, he held his peace, though much against his will. -- Dio, Roman History (LIV.23)

*The "lampreys" mentioned in this translation are actually thought to have been morays. [The photo of the happy, smiling eel  was taken at Shedd Aquarium by my husband.]

Troy: the Hittite connection

If all this information is correct and all the connections fit as explained in this Horizon documentary, the city of the topless towers, whether Wilucia or Ilion (another name for Troy), was a Hittite ally which had been in constant conflict with the Mycenaeans for two centuries (not ten years as in the Iliad) before the city fell.

Dolphins from Knossos Palace

I found this beautiful photo, by Marcel Germain, of the dolphin frieze at Knossos Palace on Crete at Marcel's excellent flickr site. The work is not exactly what it would have been in the Bronze Age, having been susbtantially recreated by Sir Arthur Evans' restoration team in the early 20th century, but it at least gives the flavor of what must have been a wonderfully colorful and imaginative concept of interior design from the second millennium BC.

And you thought your neighbors were noisy . . .

Seneca (4 BC - 65 AD) had some really noisy neighbors -- not the least of whom were the professional armpit hair pluckers:

I have lodgings right over a bathing establishment. So picture to yourself the assortment of sounds, which are strong enough to make me hate my very powers of hearing? When your strenuous gentleman, for example, is exercising himself by flourishing leaden weights; when he is working hard, or else pretends to be working hard, I can hear him grunt; and whenever he releases his imprisoned breath, I can hear him panting in wheezy and high-pitched tones. Or perhaps I notice some lazy fellow, content with a cheap rubdown, and hear the crack of the pummeling hand on his shoulder, varying in sound according as the hand is laid on flat or hollow. The, perhaps, a professional [possibly the score-keeper for some game at the gym] comes along, shouting out the score; that is the finishing touch. Add to this the arresting of an occasional roysterer or pickpocket, the racket of the man who always likes to hear his own voice in the bathroom, or the enthusiast who plunges into the swimming-tank with unconscionable noise and splashing. Besides all those whose voices, if nothing else, are good, imagine the hair-plucker with his penetrating, shrill voice, -- for purposes of advertisement, -- continually giving it vent and never holding his tongue except when he is plucking the armpits and making his victim yell instead. Then the cake-seller with his varied cries, the sausage man, the confectioner, and all the vendors of food hawking their wares, each with his own distinctive intonation.

Fingerprinting in the ancient world

According to Wikipedia:

In Babylon from 1885-1913 B.C.E., in order to protect against forgery, parties to a legal contract impressed their fingerprints into the clay tablet on which the contract had been written. By 246 B.C.E., Chinese officials impressed their fingerprints in clay seals, which were used to seal documents. With the advent of silk and paper in China, parties to a legal contract impressed their handprints on the document. Sometime before 851 C.E., an Arab merchant in China, Abu Zayd Hasan, witnessed Chinese merchants using fingerprints to authenticate loans. By 702 C.E., Japan had adopted the Chinese practice of sealing contracts with fingerprints. Supposedly, in 14th century Persia, government documents were authenticated with thumbprints.

Although the ancient peoples probably did not realize that fingerprints could identify individuals, references from the age of the Babylonian king Hammurabi (1792-1750 B.C.E.) indicate that law officials fingerprinted people who had been arrested. In China around 300 C.E. handprints were used as evidence in a trial for theft. In 650 C.E., the Chinese historian Kia Kung-Yen remarked that fingerprints could be used as a means of authentication.In his Jami al-Tawarikh [Universal History], Persian official and physician Rashid-al-Din Hamadani (a.k.a. "Rashideddin") (1247-1318) comments on the Chinese practice of identifying people via their fingerprints: "Experience shows that no two individuals have fingers exactly alike."

Circuitously, via Cabinet of Wonders

The origin of ice skating

According to Discovery News:

Archaeological evidence suggests humans started skating on ice approximately in the second millennium B.C. The oldest known ice skates, found throughout Scandinavia, were made mostly of horse and cow bones, pierced at one end and bound to the foot with leather straps.

Bones lack the edge necessary for the modern skating stride, so forward propulsion came from the person's upper limbs: a stick was pushed backward between the legs, which were kept almost straight.

Slow and awkward but effective, especially in Finland:

The researchers measured the skaters' heart rates, oxygen intake and skating speeds, and the results were fed into computer simulations to determine how much energy our ancestors would have saved using skates during each of 240 six-mile journeys in different parts of northern Europe.

It emerged that while the energy saving was only 3 percent in Norway, and 1 percent or less in Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands, skating across Finland's lakes would save 10 percent of people's energy.

The researchers believe that in Finland, the strong presence of lakes of irregular shape could force humans to develop ice skates in order to limit the energy cost of traveling.

"Ice skates in Finland were a huge benefit. Our study does not provide conclusive evidence that ice skating originated in that country, but poses strong basis for this hypothesis. In other words, if I were an archaeologist searching for the oldest ice skates, I would certainly start from Finland," Formenti said.

Poisoned needles

During this period some persons made a business of smearing needles with poison and then pricking with them whomsoever they would. Many persons who were thus attacked died without even knowing the cause, but many of the murderers were informed against and punished. And this sort of thing happened not only in Rome but over practically the whole world. -- Cassius Dio (d. 229 AD) on the reign of Domitian (51-96 AD)