In a divided Ethiopia, the Orthodox mark Meskel celebration

Aymeric VINCENOT
Wed, September 27, 2023 

A high priest holds a cross while standing in front of a bonfire during the Meskel celebrations in Addis Ababa (Amanuel Sileshi)

Orthodox Ethiopians on Wednesday marked the beginning of Meskel, one of the holiest celebrations in the Christian tradition followed in this devout nation riven by ethnic and political violence.

Among Orthodox believers in Ethiopia and its neighbour Eritrea, Meskel commemorates the discovery by Saint Helena in Palestine in the fourth century of the "true cross" upon which Jesus Christ was crucified.

According to legend, Helena, the mother of Roman Emperor Constantine I, was led to the cross -- a fragment of which was believed to have been brought back to Ethiopia -- by the smoke from a ceremonial bonfire.

On the eve of Meskel, worshippers construct large pyres in streets and church courtyards for a ceremony known as "demera" that signals the start of the festivities.

At sunset, after hours of dancing and singing, these bonfires -- topped with a cross and covered in indigenous flowers -- are set ablaze across the country.

The largest, several metres high, is lit in Meskel Square, a vast esplanade in the centre of Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa, in the presence of tens of thousands of congregants and Orthodox priests and bishops in rich fabrics.

"The power of Christianity is bringing back our original unity. It helps us to forget those differences that have shaped us for so many years, and brought us to these conflicts, wars, hate and... atrocities," said one Orthodox priest in attendance, who did not give his name.

- 'How can we celebrate?' -

A mosaic of 80 different peoples, Ethiopia is one of the oldest Christian countries in the world.

The Aksumite Empire, ancestor of present-day Ethiopia, made Christianity a state religion from the 4th century, at the same time as Rome.

Short of an official census, it is estimated that roughly two-thirds of Ethiopia's 120 million people are Christian and another third are Muslim, with a small animist minority.

Most Christians are Orthodox, although the share of Protestants has grown significantly recently.

In Tigray, the cradle of the Axumite kingdom, this Meskel was the first in peacetime since 2020 when the federal government went to war with rebellious leaders in the northern region.

A peace deal in November last year drew a line under the two-year conflict.

"I am celebrating Meskel in a better way than in previous years. At least this time there are no gunshots and we are in a more peaceful atmosphere," said Kalayu Kiros from Mekele, the capital of Tigray.

But, he said, there were "so many traumas of war that I cannot fully celebrate this festival".

Meaza Teklemariam, also from Mekele, said Meskel was "not like it was before the war" and that cost of living pressures had made it harder to celebrate.

Despite the conflict ending in Tigray, armed violence rages elsewhere in Africa's second-most populous country, which is divided into states along ethno-linguistic lines.

In Amhara, where militias have been clashing with Ethiopia's army since April, a state of emergency has been declared in the region where accusations of summary executions and arbitrary arrests have been made.

"How can we celebrate Meskel when the fear and the curfew make you have to stay home?" said a resident in Debre Markos, a town in Amhara, who asked to remain anonymous.

ayv/np/cw

 

 

ROFLMAO😂

Turkish opposition hopeful touts plan to finally defeat Erdogan

Nevzat Devranoglu
Thu, September 28, 2023

Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu and Ozgur Ozel

By Nevzat Devranoglu

ANKARA (Reuters) - Ozgur Ozel aims to become leader of Turkey's main opposition party this year and break through its historic ceiling of 25% support nationwide to finally defeat President Tayyip Erdogan, who has enjoyed two decades of election victories.

But Ozel, 49, said in an interview that his Republican People's Party (CHP) must first rebuild the trust of its own voters, disillusioned after its latest painful defeat to Erdogan in May presidential and parliamentary elections.

Setting out his plans to challenge veteran CHP leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu, Ozel said he would also reach out and address the problems of voters who have hitherto rejected the centre-left, secularist party.

"We aim to rebuild the shattered hopes, faith and sense of trust among the 25 million people who voted for us," Ozel told Reuters, two weeks after announcing his bid to challenge Kilicdaroglu for the CHP leadership.

The CHP, established by modern Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, has always struggled to reach beyond its secularist grassroots towards conservatives.

"We aim to shatter this 25% invisible glass ceiling. We want to do this by being ourselves and determining our own position," he said, saying he aimed to restore the party's left-wing, social democratic identity.

Berk Esen, associate professor at Sabanci University, said there could be some change in the CHP if Ozel were elected leader, repairing recent damage done to the party, but he was sceptical about the prospects for fundamental transformation.

"The main opposition party is heading towards a very serious breaking point," Esen said. "It is rotting from the inside, and I don't think the staff that has watched that rot for a long time can change it."

The CHP has long been hit by internal disagreements over its leadership and policy direction and the latest election showings have deepened the disputes.

The CHP won 25% of the vote in May's parliamentary election while Erdogan, who has maintained power through his broad appeal to conservative and nationalist voters, comfortably beat Kilicdaroglu in the second round of the presidential vote.

Ozel said the CHP failed to analyse those defeats or set out a road map for March local elections, where it is hoping to retain control of the key Istanbul and Ankara municipalities that it won in 2019 after nearly two decades of AKP control.

A leadership vote will be held at the CHP congress on Nov. 4-5, with Kilicdaroglu and Ozel among five candidates. Kilicdaroglu, 74, has led the party since 2010.

Ozel said electing a new leader was the only way forward.

"If the emotional rupture experienced by the voter is not repaired, the voter may move to the point of staying away from the ballot box or even breaking away from politics."

(Reporting by Nevzat Devranoglu and Birsen Altayli; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Family searching for lost earring finds Viking-era burial instead, Norway photos show

Aspen Pflughoeft
Wed, September 27, 2023 

A family in Norway was searching for a lost earring in their garden but stumbled on a much older find instead: a first-of-its-kind Viking grave, photos show.

The Aasvik family got out a metal detector to look for a lost gold earring, the Cultural Heritage of Vestfold and Telemark County Municipality said in a Sept. 25 Facebook post. As they searched their yard, they uncovered something else entirely.

Buried under a big tree near the center of their garden, they unearthed two metal artifacts, officials said.

Photos show the artifacts. The smaller, broken one has an intricate X-shaped design with a central raised point. The larger turtle-shell-shaped one has a simpler X-shaped design.

Archaeologists identified the artifacts as a Viking-era clasp and buckle from the eighth century. The objects came from the grave of a woman buried over 1,100 years ago, the post said.


Photos show the relatively shallow burial and the surrounding garden.

The artifacts are a first-of-its-kind find for the Jomfruland area, officials said. The area was long believed to have been inhabited during Viking times, but the Aasvik family’s find is the first evidence of this history.

Jomfruland is an island in the Vestfold og Telemark county municipality off the southeastern coast of Norway. Jomfruland is about 130 miles southwest of Oslo.

Facebook Translate and Google Translate were used to translate the Facebook post from the Cultural Heritage of Vestfold and Telemark County Municipality.

As ancient Rome dominates TikTok, investors spot worrying parallels to the American empire — but here’s why one expert argues that doesn’t mean the US is destined to go bust

Sabina Wex
Thu, September 28, 2023 



TikTok’s latest trend has seen women ask the men in their lives one simple question: how often do you think about the Roman empire? And to their shock and amusement, it turns out, for many men, the answer is “often.”

From roads to politics to philosophy, these guys have Rome on their minds.

And Carl Ichan and Ray Dalio aren’t immune to it either. Both investors have recently referenced the Roman Empire’s demise when raising concerns about the nation’s seemingly never-ending inflation woes.

Some even worry history may be repeating itself. But Roman history expert Jack Mitchell says he'd compare the current American climate to the first century b.c. — a full 400 years before the fall of the Roman Empire. But with civil wars and riots, steep inflation and peasant unrest at the time, just because the empire wasn’t crumbling, that doesn’t mean Romans were living la dolce vita, adds the professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

The first century b.c. created inflation, wage stagnation and economic and political destabilization for ancient Roman citizens, which all eventually led to the fall of the empire. So is there a Dark Ages ahead for the American Empire? There are certainly some worrying signs, but experts say it’s not too late to change course.

The similarities

First, the bad news. The current U.S. economy does share some similarities to Rome’s situation prior to the empire’s fall.

Mitchell says the major economic problem Rome faced was its precious metal-based currency. Over time, these coins contained less and less of these valuable materials, so they essentially became worthless. This economic crisis created record-high inflation and a deficit for the state.

Although the U.S. dollar is a fiat currency rather than precious metal currency (like the ancient Roman one), which means its value isn’t as dependent on its resources, Americans who follow the news no doubt have noticed much discussion of the “dedollarization” trend as some countries hope to move away from relying on the USD as a reserve currency. Although government officials say they’re not worried yet, a dethroned dollar could threaten America’s economic stability and lead to hyperinflation — as the Romans experienced.

Inflation aside, an empire’s economic stability often rests on the shoulders of the working class — if they pull out of the workforce, the whole system could easily tumble. For Roman soldiers, Mitchell says, work simply stopped being worth their time. Not only was the pay awful, they were often sent to the army as a way for landowners to avoid taxes by paying with human capital instead.

While no one is sending Gen Z workers to the front lines, today’s high cost of living, coupled with wage stagnation, is an oft-cited reason as to why young workers say they’d rather “clock out eternally” than sit at a desk all day, barely making enough to cover groceries.

Adding to the financial troubles, mistrust in institutions saw deep effects on the economy in ancient Rome. Mitchell says the third century a.d. saw 35 emperors in 50 years, something that didn’t give citizens huge trust in their institutions. Similarly, with political polarization and “fake news,” Americans have also hit a “new low” of distrust in their own institutions, according to a 2022 Gallup poll.

“Once people stop believing in a currency or in political institutions, then it can come tumbling down much faster than you would think,” Mitchell says. “Power and wealth is based on trust.”

The good news is that while they share some similarities, there are enough differences between the U.S. and the Roman Empire to reassure Mitchell.

One major distinction between the two is currency. Again, because the greenback is a fiat currency, the supremacy of the U.S. dollar isn’t as easy to dethrone as it was in ancient Rome. And it doesn’t hurt that due to global trade’s dependence on it, even the Fed’s own Janet Yellen feels safe about its status going forward.

Though it’s been a tough time for young workers, the “summer of strikes” has seen workers actively creating better wages and security for themselves. Plus, with the Federal Reserve pause in interest rate hikes (at least for now), light may be at the end of the tunnel for struggling Americans as the central bank continues its fight against record-high inflation.

Institutional trust is a problem that's much harder to fix. But compared to the ancient Romans, Americans have a lot more control over their lives. If unsatisfied workers don’t like the 9-to-5 corporate life, they simply pick up a side hustle. When they dislike their elected officials, they vote for someone else the next time around.

Rome may have set the stage for America, but that doesn’t mean the country has to follow in its footsteps.

“Even if the American Empire looked like it were starting to falter with inflation and prices and authority,” Mitchell says, “one lesson is that it's possible to breathe new life into these old structures, economically and politically.”

The Most Famous Historian of Rome on Why Men Are Obsessed

Olivia B. Waxman

TIME
Thu, September 28, 2023 

Historian Mary Beard poses during an interview at the Prado Museum in Madrid on Oct. 29, 2021. 

Credit - Ricardo Rubio—Europa Press/AP

To a historian of ancient Rome like Mary Beard, it’s always timely to talk about the empire. But her new book about the daily lives of Roman Emperors, Emperor of Rome: Ruling the Ancient Roman World, is due to come out in the U.S. when the Roman Empire has been trending on TikTok.

Women have been posting videos of themselves asking the men in their lives how often they think about the Roman Empire and expressing shock as these boyfriends and husbands say they think about the Roman world all of the time. Beard, meanwhile, does not need to ask her husband how often he thinks about the Roman Empire—he is an art historian who studies Roman art.

Whether these men on TikTok are serious or joking, the reasons why they say they think about the ancient Roman world offer Beard a starting point for discussing what modern conveniences we can attribute to the ancient Romans and what’s the stuff of myth.

In a phone conversation with TIME on Sept. 26, Beard, also the author of SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, explained the proper way to wear a toga and set the record straight on other misconceptions about the Roman Empire running rampant on TikTok.
More From TIME

The following conversation has been lightly edited and condensed.

Does the Roman Empire have a special appeal among men? Why or why not?

In some ways, ancient Rome is a kind of safe place for macho fantasies. It's where men can pretend to be macho men. That must be part of the appeal, I suppose. And people say to me, 'Well, you must think that's awful, don't you?' Anything that brings people to be interested in the ancient world is fine by me. But I'm very keen that they should see that there's more to the ancient world than macho fantasies. I think my job is to say, 'Okay, you've gotten interested in Rome. Now, I'm going to tell you it's more interesting than you thought.'

What should people be thinking about when they think about the Roman Empire?

It was not all generals and posh white men. This was a culture built on slavery. Last week, I went to Rome and I went to the Palatine palace—the kind of mission control of the Roman Empire. There's one little area there, which must have been an area for the staff, the slaves, the service quarters. The [servants] have written all over the walls of this area in graffiti scrawls. There is a parody of the crucifixion of Jesus. It was probably done in the late second century CE. It might be the earliest representation of the crucifixion of Jesus that we have. There's a man being crucified on the cross, but he has a donkey's head. There is a figure in a tunic next to him clearly praying to him. We can also see that the slaves are into Christianity before the Emperors—it was another 100 years before any emperor became a Christian. So there are other stories to tell, not just stories about the big guys.

One guy on TikTok says he thinks about the Roman Empire because men at their core are warriors and have to be ready for battle and the Roman Empire is all about battle.

The Roman Empire is partly about battle. We've got to remember that those emperors didn't conquer the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire had been brutally acquired when Rome was still a democracy. And actually not many Roman emperors do much conquering at all, and they make a kind of show of the image of the brand. They have loads of statues of themselves dressed up as warriors. But in some ways, that's a substitute for conquering. They're not actually doing very much.

Other guys on TikTok have said they associate Romans with togas and think about Rome when they use the bathroom because of their role developing sewage systems. How accurate is that?

Roman people did not wear the toga every day. They wore the toga on special occasions. If you went to the Colosseum, that's a bit like going to the opera in London, so you wear your toga just like you’d wear a tuxedo. But most Romans wore tunics and they wore all white and probably wore trousers, actually. This idea that Rome was a nation in which everybody wore togas—that's simply untrue. I also think that we overestimate the sophistication of Roman sewage work and Roman drainage. In the middle of a flood, things like octopuses came up in people's lavatories.

Now let’s talk about your new book Emperor of Rome. You talk about the cross-dressing ruler Elagabalus. What do you want readers to take away from his story?

Some of our questions about gender fluidity —what counts as male and what counts as female—they're not new. I don't think the Romans give us an answer to that. But I do think it's helpful for us to realize that our issues weren't invented 20 years ago. It's really important to see that these questions go back millennia. I don't think there has been a human culture that hasn't wondered about the nature of what it is to be male or what it is to be female.

I was disappointed to learn in your book that Caligula did not really appoint his horse consul. How did that myth become so widespread?

There are sources which say Caligula threatened the Senate that he would appoint his horse consul, and that always gets quoted as, “Caligula made his horse consul.” He’s one of a whole series of emperors who treat their horses almost like people.
Why does Julius Caesar get so much attention?

The answer is probably because he was assassinated. Shakespeare writes up that moment as an absolutely crucial moment in thinking about political justice and political fairness. But Julius Caesar wasn't around very long as dictator. He was mostly not in Rome. He mostly didn't finish things.

Who was the most overrated Roman emperor?

I would say that Claudius has been very lucky, partly because of Robert Graves, between I, Claudius and Claudius the God and the TV series. They turned Claudius into a slightly charming, old academic emperor, a kind of Uncle Claudius, a sort of nice guy. That was fiction. If you go back and you read what Romans were saying about Claudius, he was a murderous bastard.

Who was the most important Roman Emperor?

Augustus, the first proper Roman Emperor after Caesar, because he sets the whole system up. He rules for 40 years. And he actually ensures that there is a system that will last. The emperors don't last, but the autocratic system lasts, and Augustus is very largely responsible for that.

What would Romans have thought of TikTok and social media?

They would have loved it. Romans like graffiti. They would have loved sharing the equivalent of graffiti. Rome was a master of image creation and image replication You see these idealizing—in our terms, Photoshopped—images of the Emperor Augustus all over the place. In that sense, they're very modern. They certainly want to leave them on any wall they post. They want to say, 'Marcus was here.'

Write to Olivia B. Waxman at olivia.waxman@time.com.

Mary Beard weighs in on macho men’s TikTok fixation on Roman Empire

Patrick Sawer
Wed, September 27, 2023 

Mary Beard says a lot of men prefer to think about the Roman Empire as a 'safe space for being macho' - Caterina Turroni/Lion TV

The classicist Mary Beard has weighed in on the TikTok trend of women asking their partners how often they think of the Roman Empire by claiming that men consider the era a “safe space to be macho”.

The author and broadcaster has said a new generation of men look fondly on the Roman Empire as a place to behave in a macho way without fear of any resistance by women.

Dame Mary, who launches her new book, Emperor Of Rome: Ruling The Ancient Roman World, on Thursday, was commenting on the surprising social media trend in which women post short videos asking their husbands or boyfriends how often they think about the Roman Empire – with many of them claiming to do so several times a week and even daily.

She said: “It’s extraordinary ... one thing I think about that is [that the] Roman Empire is a sort of safe space for being macho in, you imagine that it’s so long ago, you can indulge your macho fantasies without it really mattering, I think is what’s going on there.”

Russell Crowe in Gladiator - the misogynist's fantasy man 

- c.Dreamwrks/Everett / Rex Features

But the 68-year-old historian suggested that Ancient Rome was not as one-dimensional as many men might imagine.

“I suppose I think that for people like me, women who work on the Roman Empire, this is our moment also to tell these blokes that the Roman Empire is a bit more interesting than perhaps they think it is,” she said.

Dame Mary, whose new book examines Roman rulers and what powers they wielded, also said that Carrie Johnson had frequently been portrayed as the real power behind Boris’s rule during the couple’s time in Downing Street, in the manner of a Roman Emperor’s wife.

Her comments coincide with a new Sky TV drama series about Livia Drusilla, the wife of Caesar Augustus, who became one of the most powerful women in the world in her own right.

‘Streak of misogyny’

Dame Mary said there was a “good streak of misogyny” in the way Drusilla was blamed for the intrigue within the palace walls and in particular the deaths of the Emperor’s many rivals.

She said: “Look for what is going wrong in the Roman Empire, right, in the palace, we can’t see inside, but look at how we imagine all this happened? Well I’ll tell you, it’s by a scheming, manipulative woman.

“Carrie Johnson was subjected to the same sort of gossip, wasn’t she? Why did Boris do that? Well, it’s because Carrie wanted it. And why did Augustus do that? Because Livia wanted it. What did Livia do? She poisons people. What’s poisoning? Well, poisoning is a kind of perverted form of cookery. The woman who should be the nurturer actually kills you.”

Kirk Douglas grapples in Spartacus - a particular fantasy of many men, according to Mary Beard - Silver Screen Collection

Dame Mary, who debated with Mr Johnson on the subject of Greece vs Rome at an Intelligence Squared session in November 2015, said: “In the end, I think Boris Johnson is someone who’s put the ancient world very much front in his image and I think we need to think about that, whether he’s getting it right, and whether it was all a pose.

“I think that there are more interesting things to think about in the ancient world than how Boris Johnson sees it, that’s for sure.”

Dame Mary said her new book examined the way the emperors were able to exercise power through more subtle means than fear alone and that lots of the empire’s citizens “probably disapproved” of the autocratic regime.

“Rome didn’t just survive because of violence or because they’re a police state, they survive because most people actually go along with them,” she said.

TikTok Roman Empire Trend Shows How Pervasive Misogyny Informs Historical Record

Casey Haughin-Scasny
Wed, September 27, 2023 

In this op-ed, writer Casey Haughin-Scasny explores the virality of the recent “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” TikTok trend in the context of how history is constructed.

I am a woman who thinks about the Roman Empire every single day. Not just the innovations of its legal system, or its monumental architecture, or even the staggering scale of its bureaucracy, but about the way its historical legacy has been written and rewritten, and how we understand the realities of life in its past.

The recent TikTok trend hinges on a simple question, with women asking their male partners, family members, or friends about the frequency of their ruminations on Rome. The recorded responses range from confusion over the very term “Roman Empire” to opinions about the legitimacy of different emperors. While there is a fair share of men who don’t think about the Roman Empire at all, the absurdist comedy of the question hinges on the prevalence of men who do think about the Roman Empire, almost reverently or obsessively, unbeknownst to their female loved ones.

The revelations, shared on TikTok, have generated a deluge of content that involves (predominately white) men justifying their interest, often appealing to the “lessons” to be learned from the Empire’s rise and fall, or the importance of Rome in the modern world. Women, in response, have asked each other what the female “Roman Empire” is—that is, to say, what women regularly think about in history that men are not aware of. Responses have varied, but they primarily include the Titanic, the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire, the Romanovs, and Greek mythology.

It could be another harmless internet fad, except for what it implies about the way history is passed down and constructed. The trend demonstrates how popular perceptions of Rome rely on an interpretation of history that many scholars now recognize to be actively harmful, both to our ability to understand the ancient past and to our society at large.

My work as a PhD candidate in public history examines how Americans have used, abused, and misconstrued the ancient past in order to make meaning in their present from the 18th century to today. I am also an archaeologist who has participated in the excavation of a Roman villa since I was 19. I teach classes on Roman art and archeology. Since my first introduction to Latin at the age of eleven I have been fascinated with Rome. I would say between now and then there is likely not a day that has gone by that I have not thought about the Roman Empire. My gender does not prevent me from joining in on the fun. Women are interested in the ancient past! Who knew?

Many folks don’t. And there’s a reason for that.

The commentaries on TikTok reveal the prevalence of the “great man” narratives that progressive scholars have worked so hard in recent years to supplement, challenge, and contextualize. The Roman Empire that exists within the minds of TikTok users is one that is inherently of interest to men — and, given the way it’s being talked about, why wouldn’t it be? It’s something of a Kendom, really. Maybe the Domus Aurea is the original Mojo Dojo Casa House.

Much of the image that we have constructed around Rome in popular culture — its place as the basis of “Western” civilization, the brilliance of its expansion under various male emperors and generals, the superiority of its rulership, the inevitability of its demise — relies on outdated imaginations of the ancient world. A significant part of this narrative involves androcentric interpretations of the past that emphasize “great man” history over the lives of the vast majority of the Empire’s citizens.

In the fascination over emperors and their proclivities for conquest, we lose sight of the complex tapestry that influenced daily life in the Roman empire. Not only that, we often risk reaffirming the very active schools of thought within white supremacist circles that these Roman “white” men were naturally positioned to conquer the known world due to their innate superiority. This might sound dramatic, but it’s not — there’s an entire country as proof. All we have to do is look to the very foundation of America, from its governance to its laws to its architecture and so many things in between, to see how ideas about ancient Rome’s success and values have been purposefully taken on, manipulated, and baked into power structures that continue to marginalize communities to this day (Dr. Lyra D. Monteiro’s phenomenal article “Power Structures: White Columns, White Marble, White Supremacy” is a great introduction to the issues at hand). Uncritical praise of Rome for all the seemingly positive things it’s given us does little to unpack how this heritage has been leveraged historically.

I’m not out here trying to say that Rome was some kind of egalitarian paradise where women were seen as equals in the eyes of the law or in social situations. In fact, I’m saying the opposite — Rome was an inherently unequal society, and the Pax Romana that so many admire was built on the oppression of various demographics, women among them. When we simply focus on great men in these histories and romanticize imperialism, we lose the opportunity to understand how marginalized groups navigated these circumstances in ways ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary. We also lose the opportunity to consider why people from historically marginalized backgrounds would want to learn about Rome now.

The trend’s relegation of women’s interests in antiquity to mythology, and specifically Greek mythology, further reveals the divides that are so prevalent in the popular and academic studies of ancient history. Rome stands as the powerful, militaristic foil to Greece’s more refined, softer lifestyle, and mythology as a more appropriate option for women’s interests than the intricacies of rule and bloodshed. This divide is, of course, artificial. That hasn’t stopped generations of people from relegating women to limited, “appropriate” areas of study, if they’re permitted to engage with antiquity at all, or assuming that women are incapable of or uninterested in engaging with traditionally “masculine” aspects of the ancient past like epics or tactical histories. This isn’t to say that women can’t be interested in mythology — it’s awesome! But there’s nearly a millennium of baggage to consider before we accept these divisions wholesale.

The men who are featured on TikTok are almost certainly not considering the legacies above when they’re thinking about the Roman Empire. And that’s exactly the issue — as long as these assumptions about the past are commonplace, the harm that is done by their invocation will persist. The trend reveals just how pervasive longstanding assumptions about Rome are, and when these assumptions remain unchecked, we’re able to see the consequences.

The presumption that women aren’t interested in these histories comes from these biases, but it’s not an innocent one. Even if we put aside all of the other issues I’ve outlined here, the impact these biases have on the study of antiquity is alive and well. I regularly watch male colleagues as their eyes glaze over while female colleagues talk about their work on social histories of the Roman Empire or the pitfalls of ancient reception, while men I meet in my life outside academia assume their cursory knowledge based on this imagined past is equivalent or superior to my knowledge after a decade of training. I’ve sat through too many disrespectful Q&As to not understand the consequences of the possessiveness men hold over Rome in how it affects women’s abilities to engage with ancient history. This article doesn’t even scratch the surface of how these issues are amplified for scholars who occupy intersecting identities as people of color, or members of the LGBTQIA+ community, or are disabled (like myself), topics that responses on TikTok have also grappled with as the trend gains popularity. The imagination of ancient Rome affects people in far more ways than gender.

And I’m sick of it.

I’m not accusing the men featured in TikTok videos of harboring these feelings about gender, race, or imperialism. However, to ignore the subtext of this trend would be to pass up an opportunity to discuss the presence of the ancient world in our modern lives, and all the baggage that comes with it. So, I have to ask: how often do you think about why we think about the Roman Empire?

---

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue

'Very rare' Bronze Age arrow with quartzite tip uncovered from melting ice after 3,000 years

Laura Geggel
Thu, September 28, 2023 



Archaeologists in Norway's mountains have discovered a "very rare" ancient arrow that still has its quartzite arrowhead and feather fletching in place.

It's likely that reindeer hunters used the weapon up to 3,000 years ago, according to archaeologist Lars Pilø, who heads the Secrets of the Ice project in the Jotunheimen Mountains of central Norway's Oppland region.

While archaeologists with the project have previously found human-made hunting blinds where hunters hid while targeting reindeer, the newfound arrow wasn't unearthed near one.

"There are no hunting blinds in the immediate vicinity, but this arrow was found along the upper edge of the ice, so the hunters may simply have been hiding behind the upper ridge," Pilø told Live Science in an email.

Related: 25 things found frozen in Europe's mountain ice

Secrets of the Ice glacial archaeologist Espen Finstad discovered the arrow on Sept. 13. Due to human-caused climate change, the snow and ice in the Jotunheimen Mountains is melting, exposing artifacts from hundreds to thousands of years ago. If archaeologists don't find these human-made items quickly after being exposed, the artifacts can deteriorate in the elements.

Finstad found the arrow during a targeted survey, when he and colleagues "checked newly exposed areas along the edge of the ice," Pilø said.

An analysis revealed that the arrow's shaft was made of birch and that it still had an aerodynamic fletching with three preserved feathers. Hunters use fletching to help guide the arrow in flight, but these typically decay over time.


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The quartzite arrowhead at the front of the shaft "is barely visible because pitch covers most of the arrowhead," Pilø said. "The pitch was used for securing the arrowhead to the shaft and to smooth the front of the arrow, allowing for better penetration. Arrows with preserved arrowheads still attached are not uncommon during the Iron Age on our ice sites, but this early they are very rare."

The pitch likely came from birch charcoal, he added.

Despite its well-preserved arrowhead and feathers, the rest of the arrow fared slightly worse. The roughly 2.9-foot-long (90 centimeters) arrow broke into three pieces along its shaft, "probably due to snow pressure," Pilø said.

Treasure hunters pose a problem for underwater archaeological heritage

Hipólito Sanchiz Alvarez de Toledo, 

Profesor Adjunto de Historia Antigua Universidad CEU-San Pablo, Universidad CEU San Pablo y Hipólito 

Sanchiz Alcaraz, Teacher Assistant, Colgate University
Wed, September 27, 2023 

THE CONVERSATION

Noaa / Unsplash


There are ancient pirates and modern treasure hunters. They are separated by more than 200 years of history, differences in the available technology, and types of sponsorship that keep them afloat – the former sailing for a country and the latter protected by a company. Even so, they seem to have the same objective: the gold and silver of the Spanish Empire.

On October 5, 1804, the frigate “La Mercedes” came to the end of its journey at the bottom of the sea near Cape of St. Mary, at the south of Portugal. A surprise attack by the English wiped out the fleet, which was about to reach its destination. At the time, the two nations were at peace. However, that didn’t matter much to the British Royal Navy.

The tides and the fish were the silent guardians of the treasure, which remained sunk with the Mercedes for more than two centuries. That is, until its discovery was announced with great fanfare in 2007.

Since 1999, electric lights and robotic submarines had been periodically disturbing the peace of the seabed in secret. The company Odyssey was sweeping the bottom of the sea in search of the wreck, even though this was a potentially delicate archaeological site. It found its target: almost 600,000 silver and gold coins minted in Peru during the times of Charles IV.

Spanish silver and gold coins from the reign of Charles IV, extracted by Odyssey from the wreck of the frigate Mercedes and prepared for sale by said company as well. Hispalois/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

The coins were transferred from Gibraltar to Atlanta, the city where Odyssey has its headquarters. However, the Spanish government initiated a lawsuit against the company. In 2011, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Atlanta upheld the decision of a Florida judge, who ruled in favour of Spain. The coins were returned in 2012 under a legal decision that no longer allowed any type of appeal or reversal. However, investigators still discovered that the company had wrongfully hidden some objects recovered from the site in Gibraltar.

In the end, they were forced to return everything and pay a large part of the court costs.
Archaeology provides context

Archaeological treasure hunters pose a problem not only for underwater archaeological heritage but also for heritage pieces and sites located on land. Not so much because of the material value of the looted antiquities; in fact, contrary to popular belief, archaeologists are not interested in the objects found, but more so in their relationship with other objects and structures.

At an archaeological site, structures and objects are found in levels that take on the form of layers, and what matters is the relationship between objects and structures at any given level.

For example, the fact that Roman coins appear at a site in northern Europe may suggest that trade with the Roman Empire reached that point.

Because of all this, the context in which archaeological remains appear is absolutely key. The archaeologist needs to know exactly where an artefact has been found, at what archaeological level, and what artefacts and structures are on the same level. That is when the finding is really useful from a scientific point of view.
The price of underwater conservation

The main difference between an archaeological site on land and the site of a sunken ship is that, while a land site may contain material remains from various eras, a shipwreck is like a photograph of a moment in time. The materials that we find there are exclusively from the moment in which the ship sank, indicating styles, fashions, types of food, weapons, etc.

The other big difference is that studying an underwater site is prohibitively expensive.

To begin with, highly specialised labour is needed, along with diving licences, underwater equipment, one or more boats, and very expensive excavation equipment that can vacuum up mud or sand from the seabed. In land archaeology, shifts of 8 hours or more in length are normal – something unthinkable in underwater archaeology.

The worst is in the conservation of artefacts extracted from the seabed. If there is not a restorer prepared to act on the surface, these objects can very easily degrade in a matter of hours. This type of conservation is extremely expensive.

As an example, one of the best-preserved wrecks in the world at a museum on land is that of the famous warship the Vasa. It is a Swedish ship that foundered and sank in 1628 on its maiden voyage. This ship is one of the main attractions of the city of Stockholm. Nevertheless, the museum makes losses every year due to the cost of preserving the piece.

Odyssey is a company and, as such, it has to make a profit. And making a profit by doing a good job of underwater archaeology is impossible because of the high costs associated with it. Hence, many of these companies do what Odyssey did with the frigate La Mercedes: they loot the silver that the ship contained –approximately 600,000 silver coins– and completely ignore any other non-valuable object from the wreck.

If Odyssey had carried out proper archaeological work, even if the Spanish state had allowed Odyssey to sell the coins, they would have incurred financial losses.
That ship belongs to us

Who is the owner of submerged archaeological heritage sites? This is a difficult question to answer, and, in short, it depends. In theory, everything that falls into the jurisdictional waters of a given country or the nearby continental shelf belongs to that country, unless there is an international treaty involved.

This was the case of the Mercedes; it could be recovered by Spain because there was a treaty with the United States to respect ships’ maritime flags. In other words, if an American ship had sunk more than a hundred years ago in Spanish territorial waters, the remains would still belong to the United States – and vice versa.

Since 2001, we have had an international standard for respect towards submerged heritage, which is the UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage, signed by 20 countries, with more and more are being added. Hopefully, in the future it will be global in scope.

'Ritual text' from lost Indo-European language discovered on ancient clay tablet in Turkey

Tom Metcalfe
Wed, September 27, 2023


Words from a "lost" language spoken more than 3,000 years ago have been discovered on an ancient clay tablet unearthed in Turkey.

Archaeologists discovered the tablet earlier this year during excavations at Boğazköy-Hattuşa in north-central Turkey, the site of Hattusha, the Hittite capital from about 1600 B.C. until about 1200 B.C. and now a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Annual expeditions to the site led by Andreas Schachner, an archaeologist at the German Archaeological Institute, have unearthed thousands of clay tablets written in cuneiform — perhaps the most ancient written script, created by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia more than 5,000 years ago.

The tablets are "mainly found in clusters connected to half a dozen buildings," sometimes described as archives or libraries, Schachner told Live Science. "But we find text all over the [site] that are moved around by erosion."

Most of the tablets unearthed at Boğazköy-Hattuşa are written in the language of the Hittites, but a few include words from other languages — apparently because the Hittites were interested in foreign religious rituals.

Related: What's the world's oldest civilization?

The words in the previously unknown language appear to be from such a ritual, which was recorded on a single clay tablet along with writing in Hittite explaining what it was.

"The introduction is in Hittite," Schachner said in an email. "It is clear that it is a ritual text."

Lost language

The clay tablet was one of several sent to Germany to be analyzed, where it was studied by Daniel Schwemer, a professor and chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Würzburg. From the Hittite introduction, he identified it as the language of Kalašma, a region on the north-western edge of the Hittite heartland near the modern Turkish city of Bolu.

The scholars don't know what it says yet, and they're not releasing any photographs of the tablet until it has been fully studied.

But they've determined that it belongs to the Anatolian group of the Indo-European family of languages, which the Hittite language also belonged to; other ancient languages in the region, including Akkadian, Hebrew and Aramaic, belong to the Semitic family of languages.


Schwemer said in a statement that "the Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages." Extracts of rituals in other foreign languages have also been found in the tablets from Boğazköy-Hattuşa, including in the Indo-European languages Luwian and Palaic and a non-Indo-European language known as Hattic.

Such ritual texts were written by Hittite scribes and reflected various Anatolian, Syrian and Mesopotamian traditions and linguistic milieus.

"The rituals provide valuable glimpses into the little-known linguistic landscapes of Late Bronze Age Anatolia, where not just Hittite was spoken," Schwemer said.

Hittite Empire

For centuries, the Hittites, who ruled over most of Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and Syria, were among the most powerful empires in the ancient world. In 1274 B.C., the Hittites fought the Battle of Kadesh against the Egyptians for control of Canaan — what's now southern Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

The battle may be the earliest military action ever recorded. It seems to have been a defeat for the Hittites; although they kept control of the city of Kadesh, the Egyptians kept control of Canaan.

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Hattusha became the Hittite capital in about 1600 B.C.; and more than 100 years of archaeological excavations at the site have revealed a vast ancient city there.

But it was abandoned in about 1200 B.C. during the cataclysmic "Late Bronze Age collapse" that suddenly ended or damaged many ancient states in the eastern Mediterranean; the collapse has been ascribed to invasions by migrants called the "Sea Peoples", sudden climate changes, and disruptive new technologies like iron — but historians and archaeologists debate the causes.

Schachner said it wasn't possible to foresee if any other writings in the "lost" language would be found, or if extracts from still other ancient languages would be found in the tablets from Boğazköy-Hattuşa.

Previously unknown language found hidden in "cultic ritual text" of ancient tablets

Kerry Breen
Wed, September 27, 2023 

A new language has been discovered in a UNESCO World Heritage Site being excavated in northern Turkey, according to a news release from the University of Würzburg.

The area being excavated is Boğazköy-Hattusha, the former capital of the Hittite Empire. The Hittites are one of the world's oldest known civilizations, with the world's oldest known Indo-European language, and excavations at that site have been ongoing for more than 100 years, the university said. The excavations are directed by the German Archaeological Institute. Previously, archaeologists at the site have found "almost 30,000 clay tablets with cuneiform writing," according to the university's news release.

The tablets have helped researchers understand the civilization's history, society, economy, religious traditions and more, but this year's excavations at the site "yielded a surprise," the university said: Within a "cultic ritual text," written in Hititte, there is a "recitation in a hitherto unknown language."

"The Hittites were uniquely interested in recording rituals in foreign languages," said Daniel Schwemer, chair of Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the university, in the release. This means that the find isn't entirely unexpected. It appears to refer to a language from an area once called Kalašma, on the northwestern edge of the Hittite civilization, where the Turkish towns of Bolu and Gerede currently exist.

The language is "as yet largely incomprehensible," the news release said, and is being studied for more understanding.

This is the fourth such language found among the tablets: Previous researchers have found cuneiform texts with passages in Luwian, Palaic and Hattic languages. The first two languages are closely related to Hittite, the university said, while the third language differs. The new language was found where the Palaic language was spoken, but researchers believe it shares "more features" with Luwian. The connection between the languages will be studied by researchers.

The university said that these ritual texts were usually written by the scribes of Hittite rulers and reflect various Bronze Age traditions and languages. According to the University of Chicago's Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures, which keeps the Chicago Hittite Dictionary, a "comprehensive, bilingual Hittite-English dictionary," studying Hittite languages can help illuminate how Western civilization began.

"Despite what is often thought, modern Western civilization did not start with the Greeks," the institute said on its website. "The real cradle of our civilization stood in what is now the Middle East. Many literary and artistic themes and motifs can be traced back directly to that world. The Bible was embedded in ancient Near Eastern society, and the earliest forms of what we call modern science are found in Babylon. Anatolia is the natural bridge between those Eastern worlds and Graeco-Roman civilization and the Hittites and their later descendants in the same area served as intermediaries, handing down ancient Near Eastern culture to the West."

Mysterious box donated to museum turns out to contain ‘exceptional’ Neanderthal

 remains

ANOTHER AMAZING FIND FROM THE MUSEUM STORAGE ROOM

Brendan Rascius
Wed, September 27, 2023

Photo from Frontiers in Earth Science

A trove of Neanderthal bones was recently found inside a box donated to a museum in Spain, researchers said.

The ancient remains, concealed under a layer of clay-like material, sat untouched for decades, according to a study published Sept. 19 in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science.

Amateur collector Miguel Aznar excavated the bones near Barcelona in the 1970s. And in 1986, he donated an “exceptional collection” of more than 100 bone pieces, as well as pottery fragments and animal remains, to the Museum of Archaeology of Catalonia.

Museum officials finally set about identifying the mysterious donation in 2020, researchers said.

Brushes and water were used to clean the remains, and acrylic resin was applied to help repair fractures. Despite having been coated in sediment, the bones appeared remarkably well-preserved.

After analyzing the collection, researchers concluded there were 53 Neanderthal bones inside. A molar, jaw fragment and bones from arms and feet were among those found.

“At least three individuals can be identified in the sample,” researchers said in the study. “The most complete one is defined by a complete left humerus (the largest bone in the upper arm).”

The three identified individuals appear to have been a woman, a child about 11 years old and another child about 7 years old.

The three Neanderthals roamed the Iberian Peninsula at least 42,000 years ago, researchers said.

“This assemblage is currently the most extensive Neanderthal collection from the northeastern Mediterranean Iberia, offering invaluable insights into the morphology and evolutionary trajectory of Late Pleistocene hominins,” researchers said.

Neanderthals were a subspecies of ancient humans who lived in Eurasia up until about 40,000 years ago, according to the Natural History Museum. They stood no more than 5.6 feet tall and ate plants, meat and shellfish.

Though Neanderthals went extinct long ago, their DNA lives on in modern humans, according to the museum. Some people share about 2% of their genetic makeup with Neanderthals.

Inside One of the World’s Largest and Most Advanced Underground Cities

Charlotte Collins
Wed, September 27, 2023 


Beneath the streets throughout parts of Turkey, a network of tunnels once housed thousands of residents seeking refuge from invaders and religious persecution. The country is known for its underground cities—particularly the expansive Derinkuyu, which could accommodate over 20,000 people. Though not yet fully excavated, current records indicate the 11-floor settlement measures around 2,000 square feet, with potentially over 5,000 square feet still unexplored. But as of this summer, archaeologists studying a site about 150 miles west of the ancient subterranean sanctuary believe they might have unearthed one of the largest and most advanced underground cities thus far. The network of subterranean rooms and corridors known as Sarayini covers approximately 215,000 square feet, according to Turkish news outlet Anadolu Agency.

Though it had long been subject of rumors in the area, excavation work to determine the true enormity of Sarayini began only two years ago and is still ongoing.

Photo: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency 

Below what is now the Sarayonu district of Turkey’s Konya metropolitan area, a labyrinth of 30 chambers is outfitted with chimneys, storage areas, cellars, and wells. The multilevel network reportedly dates back to the eighth century. Hasan Uğuz, a Konya Museums archaeologist who is directing the excavation, said that the teams working on site were not expecting the settlement to cover so much ground. In addition to its many rooms and halls, one particularly wide passageway is being described as a “main street.” The areas within the structure are likened to palaces for their comfortable nature and the high quality of life the network was able to support—far from the primitive caves one might imagine in discussions of subterranean dwellings. The refined character of the space earned it the name Sarayini, which means “palace” in Turkish.

The excavation work has unearthed a labyrinth of corridors and galleries as well as a number of amenities that give an idea of what life in the temporary retreat was like, including stoves, cellars, and storage areas.

Photo: Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesMore

“We did not think that it could spread over such a large area,” Uğuz told Anadolu Agency in August. “During the surface surveys, the old men living here said that they had visited this place when they were children and that it was a very large underground city.” Uğuz believes that this year’s excavation work has made the difference in determining how enormous the underground city truly was.

Among the items recovered during the excavation are animal bones and lamp stands. One particular room in the network was found to house a column drum and an object positioned in the manner of a tombstone.

Photo: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency 

The true depth of the underground city has not yet been determined. Ventilation systems and chimneys have been discovered in the structure, indicating a relatively high quality of life for the residents seeking temporary refuge in Sarayini.

Photo: Serhat Cetinkaya/Anadolu Agency via Getty ImagesMore

Excavation work at Sarayini has been in process for the past two years. Many of the ancient underground cities unearthed in Turkey have only been discovered in recent years, and most have not been fully explored. Preliminary studies have indicated that a subterranean complex found in Turkey’s Neveshir region may be larger than both Derinkuyu and Sarayini, though archaeologists don’t yet have a complete picture of the site. With Sarayini’s neighboring underground cities between three and seven miles away, research as to whether the complexes may be connected is ongoing.

Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest