The Roman Empire did not fall in AD 476

History teaches us that the Roman Empire fell in AD 476, but that 'fact' is not based on historical evidence. The Roman Empire had been intermittently split into two halves ever since the later third century and that the eastern half—based at Constantinople—continued in existence for nearly another 1000 years up to its final destruction in 1453.

Although this 'Eastern Roman Empire' is known to most modern scholarship as the 'Byzantine Empire', this name was first coined in the mid-sixteenth century: in the medieval period it was usually known as the Imperium Romanorum, 'the Empire of the Romans', or Rhomania, 'the land of the Romans'.

Indeed, in the Middle Ages the 'Byzantines' were usually considered by both themselves and outsiders to be quite simply Rhomaioi, 'Romans', living in Rhomania under an emperor whose official title was the Basileus ton Rhomaion, 'Emperor of the Romans'. In consequence, any claim that the Roman Empire as a whole ended in 476 is completely without foundation in face of the continuing imperial presence in Constantinople.

So, can we argue that the western Roman Empire collapsed in 476? Although political power had passed to the Ostrogoths under Theodoric, the 'former' western empire continued to be run largely by Romans in the Roman manner. As if nothing had changed. The 'barbarian' Goths actually became Romanised themselves over time, adopting Roman customs, language and religion.

The Catholic church also copied much of the Roman culture and style of decoration, turning itself into an pendant from its opulent Roman predecessor.

So, the Roman Empire certainly didn't cease to exist in 476. What did happen was that the power, might and splendor of that region gradually diminished and 476 is just an arbitrary date. All that seems to have actually ended in 476 was the fiction that the Western Roman Empire still existed in any meaningful form.

Source.

Roman-era pollution found in the ice of Mont Blanc

We primarily see pollution as a modern-day problem. However, you only have to look at the smog of Victorian London understand that pollution is a far more persisting problem.

Scientists have been studying the oldest ice on Mont Blanc and discovered some interesting aspects of pollution in the Roman Empire. The deepest layers of carbon-14 dated ice are found in the Col du Dôme of the Mont Blanc glacier in the French Alps. They provide a record of atmospheric conditions in the ancient Roman era[1].

The scientific study, led by an international team, reveals significant atmospheric pollution from heavy metals: the presence of lead and antimony (detected in ancient alpine ice for the first time here) is linked to mining activity and lead and silver production by the ancient Romans, well before the industrial age, in fact.

Though less well dated than in Greenland, the Alpine record traces the major periods of prosperity in Roman antiquity, with two very distinct peaks in lead emissions noted during the Republican period (between 350 and 100 B.C.) and Imperial period (between 0 and 200 A.D.) Romans extracted lead ore, which contained silver, to produce the lead needed to make plumbing and silver for coins.

The silver was extracted from the lead by heating the ore to a temperature of 1200°C, releasing significant amounts of lead into the atmosphere. While this was already documented in continental peat records, obtaining global data at the European level was difficult.

This first-ever study of Ancient-era pollution using Alpine ice provides better insight into the impact of these ancient emissions on the present-day environment in Europe, as well as a comparison with more recent pollution linked to the use of lead petrol between 1950 and 1985.

[1] Preunkert et al: Lead and Antimony in Basal Ice From Col du Dome (French Alps) Dated With Radiocarbon: A Record of Pollution During Antiquity in Geophysical Research Letters – 2019. See here.

The Staff of Moses

The Staff of Moses is a staff, mentioned in both the Bible and Quran. It is traditionally seen as a walking stick used by Moses. According to the Book of Exodus in the Bible, the staff was used to produce water from a rock, was transformed into a snake and back, and was used at the parting of the Red Sea.

Well, that surely must have been a powerful piece of wood. A simple walking stick that could perform magical tricks. That can't possibly be true.

In the original Hebrew, the implement was called matteh (מַטֶּה‎), which can be translated a 'rod'. If this rod, as is said in the bible, could change itself into a snake, maybe what the ancients meant to say was that it was a rod that looked like a snake. It must have been viewed as very powerful too.

So, are there any snakelike rods in nature that can possibly harbour immense power?

Yes, there are and they are called fulgurites (from the Latin fulgur, meaning 'lightning'). They are natural tubes, clumps or masses of sintered, vitrified, and/or fused soil, sand, rock, organic debris or other sediments that can form when lightning discharges into the ground.

Fulgurites can therefore be seen as petrified lightning. Can you think of a more powerful image for a man like Moses?

Even Zeus (Ζεύς), the ancient Greek god of the sky and thunder and ruler of the gods on Mount Olympus, is always depicted with a rod of lightning in his hand. And it shouldn't really come as a surprise that a fulgurite was found within the contents of an altar at the temple of Zeus at Mount Lykaion in Greece.

The first Greek to reach America

As we all know, Christopher Columbus (1451-1506) was the first to discover the American continent in 1492. Columbus was born in the Republic of Genoa, which means that the Italians may bask a bit in the sunshine of Columbus' discovery.

Crews in those days were a mixed lot. When we call a ship Spanish or when an expedition is paid for by a Spanish king or queen, it doesn't follow that the entire crew would be Spanish.

So, who was the first known Greek to have reached the Americas? That would be Theodoros Griego, a sailor who landed on Florida with the Spanish expedition led by Pánfilo de Narváez (1470 (or 1478)–1528) on April 14, 1528. The fleet of five ships and 600 men sailed from the Spanish port of Sanlucar de Barrameda to North America. The expedition first reached Cuba and then sailed on to Florida.

Griego was born somewhere in the Aegean and later moved to Spain. Theodoros Griego simply means Theodore (the) Greek in Spanish. His original Greek name was Doroteo Teodoro.

As did most of his companions on this ill-fated expedition, Theodoros Griego did not survive his adventure. After landing on the florida peninsular, the conquistatores were repeatedly attacked by Indians. After de Narváez was injured in such an attack, Teodoro thought it wise to desert[1]. Some reports of the time says he lived among the Indians for quite some time, but others claim he was almost immediately killed by them[2]. Only four members of the original crew survived to tell the story.

Today, a statue has been erected in Florida in the city of Tampa in honour of this Greek conquistador,  explorer and deserter.

[1] Hugh Thomas: The golden Age of the Spanish Empire of Charles V – 2011
[2] Robin Varnum: Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaga: American Trailblazer - 2014

Wine in Ancient Egypt

Many people think that wine must have originated in Ancient Greece or Imperial Rome. In fact, winemaking actually predates the Greeks by at least 4 000 years.

A new study looked at Egyptian winemaking and preservation between the predynastic (3800-3300 BCE) and New Kingdom (1539-1075 BCE) periods[1].

The study also drew upon an unusual kind of ancient text. During its New Kingdom period, Egypt manufactured amphorae (60-cm ceramic bottles, with handles) to contain wine. The containers were inscribed in hieratic script, an everyday, cursive form of hieroglyphs. The inscriptions served the same function as today’s wine bottle labels, and helped in the selection of a good wine. The inscriptions included type of product, year of vintage, quality and sweetness, geographical origin, type of ownership (royal, temple or private), and the winemakers’ details. Analysis of the inscriptions, combined with separate analysis of the jars’ ceramics, will help trace the diffusion of winemaking techniques to Europe.

The project’s preliminary literature review of archaeological evidence reveals considerable information about the role of wine (shedeh) in Ancient Egypt. Tomb-wall paintings are one of several sources of information as they often depict grape harvesting, winemaking and religious ceremonies.

"Egyptians saw a connection between wine’s red colour and the blood of Osiris, god of the underworld and afterlife," says project lead researcher, Dr Maria Rosa Guasch-Jané. "Therefore, grapes and wine in Egyptian culture symbolised revitalisation and rebirth."

Egypt had a very organised system of wine production. Yet, the product was seen as a luxury, suitable for religious ceremonies. Pharaohs and priests used it for temple offerings. Large wine jars displaying the royal seal found in tombs from the Predynastic period (ca. 3800 BCE) at Abydos and Saqqara were interpreted to mean that the wine was meant for the deceased in the afterworld. From the Early dynastic period (ca. 2950 BCE), wine was also consumed during funeral ceremonies. Royalty and the nobility also enjoyed wine at banquets and during festivals.

It seems that Egyptian use of wine ended with the dynastic period around 343 BCE. The Greeks probably picked up Egyptian winemaking traditions during their rule of Egypt from 305 BCE.

The team created a website, ‘Wine of Ancient Egypt’, that elaborates on all aspects of wine in Egyptian life. The site includes an interactive archaeological map of Egypt, showing wine-related scenes from tombs.

[1] Guasch-Jané et al: ‘Irep en Kemet’ Wine of Ancient Egypt: Documenting the Viticulture and Winemaking Scenes in the Egyptian Tombs in Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences - 2013

Was Cleopatra (really) beautiful?

Cleopatra - or rather Cleopatra VII Philopator – lived from 69 until 30 BC. She was and still is renowned for her outstanding beauty, but what does history say about that claim to fame?

[Probably a posthumously painted portrait of Cleopatra with red hair and her distinct facial features
from Roman Herculaneum, Italy (1st century AD)]

Simply based on her famous seduction of both Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, both powerful Roman leaders, Cleaopatra must have had some redeeming features. But what did she really look like? Is there any solid basis to the claims of unparalleled physical beauty?

The first problem we encounter is that no contemporary accounts have survived. And, even now, after centuries of archeaology, there are no busts that can be reliably attributed to Cleopatra.

[An ancient Roman sculpture possibly depicting either Cleopatra or her daughter Cleopatra Selene II]

But we do have various images of her surviving on ancient coinage. In these images, she is depicted as anywhere from average-looking to hook-nosed and manly. However, it must be remembered that coins in the ancient world were a powerful piece of political propaganda. The deliberate portrayal of Cleopatra with masculine features not dissimilar to her ancestral male rulers the Ptolemies was not an attempt to capture a true likeness, but rather to help legitimise the rule of a young female queen.

[A denarius minted in 32 BC: a diademed portrait of Cleopatra,
with the Latin inscription "CLEOPATRA[E REGINAE REGVM]FILIORVM REGVM"]

The Greek historian Plutarch (circa 46 AD-120 AD), writing more than a century later, maintains that "her beauty… was in itself not altogether incomparable, nor such as to strike those who saw her." Another century later, the Roman historian Cassius Dio (155-235 AD) describes Cleopatra as "a woman of surpassing beauty" who was "brilliant to look upon".

As neither are contemporary accounts, there is no good reason to believe any of these writers, who might have had ulterior motives to glorify Roman history and its past Ceasars.

It is also important to keep in mind that ancient ideals of beauty were quite different to those of the modern Western world. Remember the use by Cleopatra of the poisonous atropine from the Egyptian henbane to dilate her pupils, hoping that she would appear more alluring. Or take the use of toxic kohl eye makeup in ancient Egypt. Recent scientific research suggests that galena, the lead-based mineral that formed its base, would have had anti-bacterial properties when mixed with moisture from the eyes.

So, we simply do not know how beautiful Cleopatra really was, but she was young and was a woman in a powerful position. That alone would make her attractive to both Caesar and Antony, who were known to be notorious womanisers and would surely not have fallen for Cleopatra on the basis of beauty alone.

Where was Jesus born?

The New Testament states that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, but not all archaeologists agree: one rogue Israeli archaeologist says it is far more likely the Christian savior was born in Bethlehem of the Galilee, more than 175 kilometers from Jerusalem[1].

Aviram Oshri spent nearly eleven years excavating in Bethlehem of the Galilee — an ancient biblical village near Nazareth — which he believes show that the traditional account of Jesus’s birthplace may be wrong.

The town of Bethlehem of Judea, about six miles south of Jerusalem, has always been considered the birthplace of Jesus. According to the account of the apostle Matthew in the New Testament, Joseph and Mary were living in Bethlehem of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth and later moved to Nazareth up north.

In the more popular account of the apostle Luke, Joseph and Mary, who was then nine months pregnant, traveled more than 175 kilometers from Nazareth to Bethlehem of Judea, Joseph’s hometown, in order to be counted in a Roman census. Almost two days of continuous travel by donkey, when at that time in the Roman period, people didn’t move from place to place. All of his family is from Nazareth.”

That never made sense to Oshri.

"How would a woman who is nine months pregnant travel 175 kilometers on a donkey all the way to Bethlehem of Judea?" he asked himself. "It makes much more sense that she would have traveled seven kilometers," the distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem of the Galilee.

"How did Mary and Joseph meet?" he asked. "If she’s from Tzippori and he’s from Bethlehem of Judea, and what are the chances that they would meet when they live so far away from each other in the ancient world? Zero. But Bethlehem of the Galilee and Nazareth and Tzippori are very close to each other."

The Israeli Antiquities Authority wasn't at all pleased with Oshri's theory and he ended up working on other digs.

“The story that Jesus was born in Bethlehem [in the West Bank] was to connect him to King David”, says Dr Uzi Dahari, a fellow archaeologist at the Israeli Antiquities Authority. Did Dahari just obliquely say that Jesus must be born in Bethlehem of Judea because religion demands it?

[1] Oshri: Where was Jesus Born? in Archaeology - 2005

When was the end of the Trojan War?

In our first column (see here), we have proven that Odysseus returned in his beloved Ithaca on the 30th October 1207 BC. Because it has taken Odysseus ten years to return home, the ten year Trojan War must have raged from 1227 BC until 1217 BC.

Can we find corraboration elsewhere in the works of Homer? Stavros Papamarinopoulos and his team think they can[1]. Homer’s Iliad recounts 52 days during the final year of the ten-year conflict.

[Mourners by the corpse of Patroclus]

The night before Patroclus’ death, the Trojans were compelled to make many fires in order to watch better the Achaeans’ possible maneuvers because the night was black. That could signify a moonless night, because a possible new moon, which is a prerequisite for a solar eclipse. Moreover, Diomedes and Odysseus heard the cry of a a heron. Herons arrive to the northern Aegean Sea in the spring and stay there until the summer’s end.

Homer describes the battle, indicated that the time has reached at noon, as connecting it with the time in which the woodman has his meal. During this period, Patroclus was engaged in fighting with Sarpedon whom he eventually killed. Zeus then covered the battlefield by a destructive night en Patroclus himself is slain by Hector.

[NASA's computers forgot there's no year 0]

The only possible partial solar eclipse was the one that happened on the 6th of June 1218 BC and that started at 14.10 local time. This means that indeed a slight kind of darkness is occurred characterized, by Homer, as 'night' (νύκτα) at noon.

But Achilles needs time to create a new shield and to be killed by an arrow to his only weak spot, his ankle, shot by Paris and guided by Apollo. Then the fabled Trojan horse must be made and implemented. These episodes must have taken a few weeks.

The end of the Trojan War can now be definitely set at the end of June 1218 BC. This date corresponds perfectly with the return of Odysseus to Ithaca on 4 November 1207 BC.

[1] Papamarinopoulos et al: A New Astronommical Dating of the Trojan War's End in Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry - 2014. See here.

When was the Trojan War?

We know about the Trojan War from Homer, the poet who composed both the Iliad and the Odyssey. The Iliad is set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek kingdoms. The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, whose journey home takes ten years (after the ten-year Trojan War).

Scholars continue to debate questions such as whether the Trojan War actually took place and they always ask the same questions: where did it take place and when did it take place.

The first question was answered by Heinrich Schliemann (1822-1890), who began digging in 1870 (not excavating) at Hisarlik, an artificial hill in western Turkey, now situated approximately 6.5 kilometres from the Aegean Sea and about the same distance from the Dardanelles. He found several layers of occupation and declared he had found Troj (Τροία). Historians now agree that Hisarlik is indeed the fabled city of Troj.

The actual date of the Trojan War remained elusive, but Greek astronomer Stavros Papamarinopoulos and his collegues have found a very credible solution[1]. They looked closely at the astronomical and biological information that Homer included in the Odyssey.

Five days before Odysseus' finally was able to return to Ithaca, Homer wrote: '... and the sun has perished out of heaven and an evil mist covers all.' Papamarinopoulos thinks that this must signify a solar eclipse, but there are several possible eclipses that fit within the historical time frame.

[NASA's computers forgot there's no year 0]

Even Plutarch and Heraclitus believed that the passage in the Odyssey (“Theoclymenus' prophecy”) to be a poetic description of a near total solar eclipse. Baikouzis and Magnasco write that 'close to noon ….the total eclipse of the sun occurred at 12.02 p.m local time'[2].

Homer also gives significant details in connection with the climate, the environment, the plants, the animals and the peoples' habits, which strongly prove the autumn as the season of the Odysseus’s return to Ithaca.

In conclusion, the only possible date for Odysseus’s return to Ithaca is 30 October 1207 BC plus five days. Which means that he finally returned home on 4 November 1217 BC. Given that it has taken Odysseus ten years to return home, the ten year Trojan War must have raged from 1227 BC until 1217 BC.

Part 2 of this series 'When was the end of the Trojan War' can be read here.

[1] Papamarinopoulos et al: A New Astronomical Dating of Odysseus' Return to Ithica in Mediterranean Arhaeology and Archaeometry - 2012. see here.
[2] Baikouzis and Magnasco: Is an eclipse described in the Odyssey? in PNAS - 2008. See here.

Territories of Discord [1]

The plazas de soberanía ('places of sovereignty') are tiny Spanish sovereign territories in North Africa. These are separate pieces of land, peninsulas (peñóns) and islands scattered along the Mediterranean coast bordering Morocco.

[Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera]

Most of these territories came into possession of Spain in 1492 when they drove the Moors out of southern Spain, a moment still remembered as the Reconquista. Others were occupied during the various wars that followed.

The territories are usually divided into four groups: the cities of Ceuta and Melilla, the Islas Alhucemas (consisting of Peñón de Alhucemas, Isla de Tierra and Isla de Mar), the Islas Chafarinas (consisting of Isla del Congreso, Isla Isabel II and Isla del Rey) and the Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. Next, there is the disputed Isla Perejil, a small uninhabited islet close to Ceuta, considered by Spain to be a part of Ceuta and not a territory in its own right. The Isla de Alborán is another small island in the western Mediterranean, about 50 kilometres from the African coast and 90 kilometres from Europe. Some Spanish maps even include Gibraltar to their 'places of sovereignty'.

The problem is that, because these territories are part of Spain, they also are part of the European Union. The cities look like war zones, heavily guarded and surrounded by barbed wire. But desperate people always retort to desperate actions, which means that they go to great lengths to illegally enter Ceuta or Melilla. They have then safely entered in the European Union.

So, why doesn't Spain cede these territories to Morocco? They are of little economic or strategic importance anymore. Like so often the reason is Iberian pride.

Spain ceded Gibraltar to Great Britain in 1713, but now wants it back (but has no legal right whatsoever), does not want to cede the towns of the towns of Olivença and Talega (occupied in 1801) to Portugal, but does want to retain those pesky little territories in or near Morocco. Whatever the (human) costs.

Was Cleopatra black?

Cleopatra VII Philopator (69-30 BC) is better known as 'simply' Cleopatra. She was the last active ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. The Romans portrayed her as stunningly beautiful and she was able to seduce two Roman emperors: Julius Caesar (100-44) and then – after he was assassinated – his successor Marcus Anthonius (83-30).

[Cleopatra]

Nobody ever really thought about the colour of her skin, until black American university students began to ague in the 1980s that Cleopatra might be black. I can understand the reason behind that flawed thinking: America has no collective history and blacks had their history ripped from them when they were kidnapped by their own kinsmen, taken to slave ships and sold in the Americas. These students subconsciously needed a role model, a power woman from Africa.

The point is that by choosing Cleopatra they showed a deeply disturbing level of wishful thinking. Cleopatra came from a family from Macedonia, Greece's most northern province. The people living there were (and still are) white skinned. Those black students then pointed to Cleopatra's grandmother, who was probably a concubine and whose name remains unknown. She might have been black, they argue. If that is the level of reasoning in American universities, I'm deeply worried, because the right argumentation is: if all other family members are white, then the most probable answer is that a concubine was also white skinned.

But if their level of their teachers was somewhat higher they would have understood that there were other female candidates that had a better chance of being black.

Ancient Egypt consisted of two kingdoms, Upper Egypt and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt or Nubia consisted of what is now Sudan and Ethiopia. The people living there were black. Once called the Kingdom of Kush, it was first conquered by Lower Egypt, but later the events were reversed and Egypt was ruled by black pharaohs.

[Hatshepsut]

The Bible mentions a visit from the queen of Sheba to King Salomon. While a number theories about the location of Sheba are circulating, there are several clues that are worth mentioning. She came to Jerusalem "with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, and very much gold, and precious stones" (I Kings 10:2) . This wasn't a queen of some obscure little kingdom, this was a queen that equaled Salomon. Egypt was the only kingdom in the vicinity of Israel that could produce such priceless gifts, as Roman historian Josephus attests.

The Queen of Sheba was possibly Hatshepsut (1507–1458 BC), the fifth pharaoh of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. She is generally regarded as one of the most successful pharaohs, reigning longer than any other woman of an indigenous Egyptian dynasty. She was probably black.

[I hope nobody is offended by my use of the words 'black' and 'white']

Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi jailed

Ahed Tamimi (2001) is a Palestinian teenager, living in the Israeli occupied West Bank. She gained worldwide notoriety because she screamed at, punched, slapped and kicked at an Israeli soldier. Her mother streamed the confrontation live on Facebook. The officer faced her impassively, absorbing some blows, evading others, but never striking back at her, then finally turned and, with his comrade, simply walked away. Quelle humiliation.

Ahed Tamimi's actions got her swiftly jailed without bail. Ahed Tamimi was eventually sentenced in a military court to eight months in prison. Ahed Tamimi, 17, accepted a plea bargain that will end her trial, her lawyer said. The sentence included a fine of about $1,400 and a three-year suspended sentence.

Ahed’s mother, Nariman Tamimi, who was charged with incitement for showing the altercation live on Facebook, was also sentenced to eight months in prison, a suspended sentence and a fine of about $1,700. Mother and daughter were released on July 28, 2018.

As a result, a majority of Palestinians view the blue-eyed teenager as a hero of the Palestinian cause. However, some Palestinians wonder if the actions of Ahem Tamini might even be counterproductive, because the soldiers behaved with restraint and thus showing that Israelis 'are human' after all.

I wonder why young Palestinian women choose inept violence to counter the Israeli occupation. In my view it would be far wiser to get a proper education, to learn a trade and to work your way out of despair and poverty. And using your child to get publicity in a never-ending struggle is always a reprehensible strategy.

Update [July 29, 2018]: After her release Ahed Tamimi was quoted as saying that she had resolved "to study law and to focus on holding the occupation accountable". It seems that a few months in an Iraeli prison, away from her abusive parents, finally managed to put some common sense in Ahed Tamimi.

Update [March 06, 2019]: Ahed Tamimi will go to Britain to study international law so that 'she can hold Israel accountable for its war crimes'.

Update [June 19, 2019]: Ahed Tamimi is back on the West Bank after spending three months studying English in the UK. Well, that didn't last long. Besides, did she study law or did she study English?

The Monastery in Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose'

Who does not remember the imposing monastery in Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose' (1980). Both in the novel and in the movie, it loomed dark and forbidden in the story and the landscape.

In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville, accompanied by and Adso of Melk, a Benedictine novice, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy. Melk, the unreliable narrator of the story, tells us that "it is only right and pious now to omit [the name of the abbey]"(p11)

Umberto Eco took great care in weaving fact and fiction together in his story. So, the curious among us want to know if Umberto Eco modeled his fictional monastery on an existing one.

"Conjecture allows us to designate a vague area between Pomposa and Conques, with reasonable likelihood that the community was somewhere along the central ridge of the Apennines, between Piedmont, Liguria, and France," writes Adso(p3). That's a rather large area and Adso's remark isn't helpful at all.

So, what other clues can we find in the story? Let's start at the very end. After departing the ruined monastery Adso writes "We headed east. When we reached Bobbio again."(p498) Therefore, the monastery must have been situated to the west of Bobbio.

Are there any existing once great monasteries that stand west of Bobbio? Well, there are a lot of smaller ones, but one seems a very interesting candidate: the Sacra di San Michele, built high on Mount Pirchiriano, looking menacingly down onto the small city of Fonte di San Pietro. For much of its history the abbey was under Benedictine rule. Situated just 20 kilometers or so from Turin, in the region of Piedmont, it might therefore well have been the unnamed monastery of 'The Name of the Rose'.

The monastery fell into a gradual decline and was finally suppressed in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. The complex includes the ruins of the 12th-15th centuries monastery, which had five floors. The remains of a chapel reproduced, in its octagonal plan, the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. 'This was an octagonal construction,' writes Adso.(p21)
 
The website of the Sacra di San Michele proudly tells us that Umberto Eco wrote a letter to the rector saying that 'I last visited it (the Sacra di San Michele) with the director of the Name of the Rose, who initially thought to shoot the main scenes there...". (letter of U.Eco to Rector A.Salvatori, dated 20 February 1995)

We now have a number of clues that point to the Sacra di San Michele as being the source or inspiration for the unnamed monastery in Umberto Eco's 'The Name of the Rose'. Can we ever be certain? No, but that's the joy and mystery of a (partly) fictional story.

Erdogan: it’s all empty, it’s all a lie

Just a few months after Egyptian singer Sherine Abdel Wahab was sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined for 'insulting Egypt.', because she advised people not to drink from the river Nile, Turkish singer and actress Zuhal Olcay (1957) has been sentenced to ten months in prison for insulting Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan during a performance in 2016.

Olcay was accused of changing the lyrics of one of her songs by adding an extra line that was deemed insulting to Erdogan and making an insulting hand gesture while singing.

A video from the performance showed Olcay changing her song’s lyrics to read “Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it’s all empty, it’s all a lie, life will end one day and you’ll say ‘I had a dream’,” Turkish newspaper Hurriyet said. Just yesterday it was revealed that the newsaper will be bought taken over by a pro-Erdogan group.

In her testimony, Olcay rejected the accusations, saying she had used Erdogan’s name because it simply fitted the rhyme scheme and had no 'ulterior or insulting motive'. She said the hand gesture was aimed at an audience member in the front row because they had made a negative comment about her.

Olcay was previously fined 10,620 lira (€2,100) for 'insulting a public servant' in 2010, according to the state-run Anadolu agency.

Insulting the president is a crime punishable by up to four years in prison in Turkey. Lawyers for Erdogan, who has dominated Turkish politics for more than a decade, have filed more than 1,800 cases against people on accusations of insulting him.

Erdogan, a bully, is known for his long toes and short fuse. Most European governments have voiced concern that Turkey is sliding toward authoritarianism, criticizing the crackdown which saw some 150,000 people sacked or suspended from their jobs and more than 50,000 jailed pending trial on suspicion of links to the failed coup.

The government says such measures are necessary to ensure stability and defend Turkey from multiple security threats. Yeah right.

Maybe Erdogan should pay more attention to the economy: The Turkish lira is quickly losing ground, down over 11% in 2017, 42% in 2 years, 127% in 5 years.

Do not drink from the River Nile

In November 2017, a public storm of outrage erupted on social media in Egypt after a video was shared on Twitter. It showed Egyptian Pop singer Sherine Abdel Wahab (1980) making a light-hearted comment at one of her concerts about Egypt’s Nile river when her audience requested her to sing her famous song 'Mashrebtesh Men Nilha' (translation: 'Didn't You Drink from the Nile').

During the twelve seconds segment of the video, Sherine quipped: “You’ll get bilharzia [schistosomiasis] if you drink from the Nile.” She then suggested that her audience drink bottled mineral water Evian. “It is better,” she said.

The Egyptian Ministry of Health responded to Sherine’s remark in the video, stating that it has long combated the parasitic disease that once plagued Egypt, and 'reduced its prevalence to 0.2 percent,' reported the news outlet Egypt Today.

While some Egyptian people criticized Sherine and vowed to stop listening to her songs, others supported and defended her. Then, the Egyptian Musicians Syndicate decided, after conducting the necessary investigations, on banning Abdel Wahab from singing in Egypt for two months. This period ended on January 14, 2018.

But her ordeal did not end there. After she was already banned from singing in Egypt for 'mocking' the Nile River, in February 2018, Sherine was also sentenced to six months imprisonment and fined for 'insulting Egypt.' The court also ordered Sherine to pay a fine of 5,000 EGP.

Sherine apologized for her remarks, saying that the video was recorded during her concert in Sharjah (United Arab Emirates) in 2016.

This bullying treatment of a woman is a dark and troubling signal of a society ruled by still immature and medieval men.

Italy's Red Olives

In most cases, olives are green of blackish. On Malta grows a rare variety that produces white olives. See here. But there's also a red olive.

The Bella di Cerignola ('beauty of Cerignola') is an olive cultivar, which originates from the south-eastern Italian province of Apulia and is named for the town of Cerignola. The cultivation of the Bella di Cerignola, reputed to be the largest table olive in the world, has ancient origins. Some authors believe that this cultivar derives from the 'Orchite' olives used in ancient Rome.

According to some it was introduced around 1400 AD from Spain, which might justify its now obsolete synonym of 'Oliva di Spagna'. According to others, however, the synonym simply derives from the type of curing used in Cerignola, which is called the 'Spanish' or 'Sevillano' method. However, since no closely related cultivar has ever been found elsewhere, it can be considered a native variety of the Cerignola area.

But how do green olives turn into red olives? The secret is a food dye called erythrosine (or E127). Which is a bit of cheating nature. The black olives are created by soaking them in ferrous gluconate.

Evidence of early plant-based dyeing in Israel

Textile-dyeing has been practised since prehistoric times, using dyes extracted from both plant and animal sources, as well as inorganic materials. But the majority of natural dyes are derived from plants. Plant-based dyes such as woad, indigo, saffron and madder were important trade goods in the economies of Asia, the Middle East and Europe.

[Image: Naama Sukenik]

Archaeological textiles tend to be rare finds. Like any perishable organic material, they are subject to rapid decomposition and their preservation requires special conditions to prevent their destruction by microorganisms[1]. Extremely dry or, alternatively, oxygen-deficient permanently wet environments such as in a peat bog, are the most conducive to the preservation of textiles in their original organic state[2].

Central Timna Valley in Israel is an extreme arid environment and perfect for the preservation of textiles. Many fragments of textiles and cordages were found: 116 fragments were uncovered during the 2013 and 2014 excavation seasons and a few dozens of other textile fragments were uncovered in the successive 2015 and 2016 seasons. The textiles were radiocarbon dated to the early Iron Age (11th-10th centuries BC[3].

What plants were used to colour these textiles? Analysis indicated that the textiles were dyed using two different plants: Madder (Rubia tinctorum) for red and - most probably - woad (Isatis tinctoria) for blue[4]. These plants are among the earliest known in the dyeing craft.

[1] Strand et al:Old Textiles–New Possibilities in European Journal of Archaeology – 2010 
[2] Good: Archaeological Textiles: A Review of Current Research in Annual Review of Anthropology – 2001 [3] Ben-Yosef: Back to Solomon’s Era: Results of the First Excavations at Slaves’ Hill (Site 34, Timna, Israel) in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research – 2016 
[4] Sukenik et al: Early evidence (late 2nd millennium BCE) of plant-based dyeing of textiles from Timna, Israel in Plos One - 2017. See here.

The demise of 'real' Chardonnay

Just a few decades ago, Chardonnay was a wine that had a complex and rich taste with notes of oak, butter and caramel. Now, the Chardonnay has been recreated to please the American taste: it has become light, with notes of citrus, peach and apple.

Chardonnay is a cross between two ancient grape varieties, the Pinot noir and the Gouais blanc. The Pinot noir, a red wine variety, is a very ancient variety that was already grown in Burgundy (France) in 100 AD. It may be only one or two generations removed from the wild vines (Vitis sylvestris). The Gouais blanc is said to have been introduced in France by Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius Probus (276–282) and the variety is thought to originate in Central Europe, with Hungary, Austria and even southern Germany as the most likely candidates. The name Gouais remains something of a mystery, but it is most probably named after a place name: Gouaix, Gouais-les-Saint-Bris, Gouex or Goix. All four are situated in central northern France.

The buttery taste in Chardonnay is the result of so-called malolactic fermentation. Malic acid is the acid you taste in a green apples. Chardonnay contains a lot of malic acid. During its fermentation, the wine is inoculated with a bacteria that converts that malic acid into lactic acid. The compound created from this process is called diacetyl, a yellow or green liquid with an intensely buttery flavour. So, if you do not inoculate your Chardonnay with that specific bacterium, you end up with a light wine.

The Chardonnay grape takes on the minerals of the soil, which means that if you transplant the vine to, say, another continent, it will taste somewhat differently. Furthermore, the grape can be easily 'trained' to express other tastes. And this is what happened in recent years.

We, Europeans like our wines having robust traditional tastes. The Americans are like children and like their wines to be light and fruity. As they are the largest market of wines, the producers of Chardonney followed suit. As mentioned above, the Chardonnay as we knew it hardly exists anymore. It has been replaced by a ghost of itself. Light and not nearly as tasty.

Italy's oldest wine (residue) found on Sicily

While winemaking probably originated in what is now Georgia during the early Neolithic period (ca. 6,000–5,000 BC)[1], its use spread to the Mediterranean. Traditionally, retrieval of seeds has led to the belief that wine growing and wine production developed in Italy in the Middle Bronze Age (1300-1100 B.C.).

From Georgia to Italy is not such a great distance that wine would need around 4,000 years to reach Italy. New research has dramatically pushed the commencement of winemaking in Italy further back in time. A large storage jar from the Italian Copper Age (early 4th millennium BC) just tested positive for wine[2].

Archeaologists conducted chemical analysis of residue on unglazed pottery found at the Copper Age sites of Monte Kronio and Sant'Ippolito in Agrigento, located off the southwest coast of Sicily. The team determined the residue contains tartaric acid and its sodium salt, which occur naturally in grapes and in the winemaking process. Tests of the residue also showed the presence of malvidin, a pigment that gives wine its red colour.

It’s very rare to determine the composition of such residue, because it requires the ancient pottery to be excavated intact. The study’s authors are now trying to determine whether the wine was red or white.

But Sicily was once a Greek colony. It might well be that ancient Greece is the 'missing link' between winemaking in Georgia and Italy.

[1] McGovern et al: Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus in PNAS - 2017
[2] Tanasi et al: ¹H-¹H NMR 2D-TOCSY, ATR FT-IR and SEM-EDX for the identification of organic residues on Sicilian prehistoric pottery in Microchemical Journal - 2017

Evidence of Neolithic Wine Making

Excavations in the Republic of Georgia have uncovered evidence of the earliest wine making anywhere in the world. Archaeologists excavated the remnants of two villages that date back to the Neolithic period, which began around 15,200 BC in parts of the Middle East and ended between 4500 and 2000 BC in other parts of the world.

The Neolithic period is characterized by a series of related activities that include the beginning of farming, the domestication of animals, the development of crafts such as pottery and weaving, and the making of polished stone tools. Now we can add winemaking to that list of novel activities.

During the excavations in Georgia, archaeologists found eight very large-capacity jars, some of the earliest pottery made in the Near East, dating from the early Neolithic period (ca. 6,000–5,000 BC). They probably served as combination fermentation, aging, and serving vessels. Chemical extraction of the residue recovered from these jars confirmed tartaric acid, the fingerprint compound for grape and wine as well as three associated organic acids – malic, succinic and citric[1]. The findings constitute tthe oldest example of the domestication of a wild-growing Eurasian grapevine solely for the production of wine.

The infinite range of flavours and aromas of today’s 8,000-10,000 grape varieties are the end result of the domesticated Eurasian grapevine being transplanted and crossed with wild grapevines elsewhere over and over again. The Eurasian grapevine that now accounts for 99.9 per cent of wine made in the world today, must have Caucasian roots the research shows.

The researchers say the combined archaeological, chemical, botanical, climatic and radiocarbon data provided by the analysis demonstrate that the Eurasian grapevine Vitis vinifera was abundant around the sites. It grew under ideal environmental conditions in early Neolithic times, similar to premium wine-producing regions in Italy and southern France today.

[1] McGovern et al: Early Neolithic wine of Georgia in the South Caucasus in PNAS - 2017

Where was the River Styx situated?

In Greek mythology, Styx (Ancient Greek: Στύξ) is both a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and Hades, the Underworld. Hades is also the name of its ruler. Styx is also a goddess with prehistoric roots in Greek mythology as a daughter of Tethys, after whom the river is named and because of whom it had miraculous powers. Charon is the ferryman who transferred the dead to the Underworld.

The river Styx converges with other rivers at the center of the underworld on a great marsh, which sometimes is also called the Styx.

So, we have a river and a deity with the same name and we have an underworld and its ruler with the same name. What do these names mean?

The word 'Styx' is cognate with Greek stygos 'hatred', stygnos 'gloomy', and derives from stygein 'to hate', 'abominate'. Both the words 'Hades' and 'Charon' are reputedly of unknown origin, which always makes me suspicious. Every linguist seems to try to find an etymology by comparing a Greek word to the languages of its neighbours, but always tend to forget its most influential and powerful neighbour: Egypt.

The question is therefore: can we find an etymology in Egyptian that mirrors the Greek version. The answer is: yes, we can.

In Egyptian, stkn (remember they didn't use vowels in Egyptian) is a causative of tkn 'approach' with the specific sense of 'to induct, bring on doom'. Hades received his/its name from ḥdi as a verb with the meaning 'to be destroyed' and as a noun 'damage', 'destruction'. Diodoros believed that the name Charon (Kharon) was Egyptian:

The other myths about Hades, current among the Greeks, also agree with the customs which are practised even now in Egypt. For the boat which receives the bodies is called baris and the passenger's fee is given to the boatman, who in the Egyptian tongue is called charon. And near these regions, they say, are also the 'Shades'.

But the baris was also the ship of Osiris and dead pharaohs were also transported on a baris to their final resting places. The journey from Osiris to the Underworld was therefore reenacted time and time again.

We can identify the Egyptian god of the Underworld Anubis in this description of Hades. 'Anubis' was  the Greek rendering of this god's Egyptian name. In the Old Kingdom (ca 2686 BC–ca 2181 BC), the standard way of writing his name in hieroglyphs was composed of the sound ı͗npw followed by a 'jackal' over a ḥtp sign.

The problem is that there does not seem to be a plausible Egyptian root of the word 'Charon', but it is possible that it has an etymology from the West-Semitic deity Ḥrn, vocalized as Horon in the Bible and known as the 'Lord of Hell'. Still, the region was frequently conquered by Egypt and we might assume that Hades ultimately has Egyptian roots.

[Ancient branches of the Nile]

Thus with a river with several tributaries that end in a great march. Which other river can that be other than the river Nile? But what of all these words that signify death and doom? These are very reminiscent of the spells from the 'Book of the Dead', the ancient Egyptian group of magical and religious texts. The spells are meant to help the dead progress through the many challenges in the underworld (the Duat) to the afterlife. Pharaohs who had died were transferred in boats via the river Nile to their lavishly decorated tombs in the Valley of the Death. These tombs were protected by powerful spells that would ensure that they were not violated.

[Book of the Dead]

Based on the evidence it seems very probable that the concept of the River Styx was borrowed from Egypt and 'transplanted' to Ancient Greece. My conclusion is that the River Styx is non other than the River Nile.

Was Marco Polo born in Croatia?

Marco Polo (1254-1324) was a Venetian merchant, traveller and citizen of the Venice Republic. He learned the mercantile trade from his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, who travelled through Asia and met Kublai Khan. In 1269, they returned to Venice to meet Marco for the first time. The three of them embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa.

The Republic of Genoa defeated Venice in the Battle of Curzola off the coast of Dalmatia in 1298 and Marco Polo, then a galley commander, was taken prisoner to eventually spend his time in a Genoese prison dictating his adventures to a cell-mate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married and fathered three children.

So far, so good. But the problem is that Marco Polo's exact date and place of birth cannot be found in the Venetian archives, which is strange because these were among the very best in Medieval Europe. So, while he is mentioned as a citizen, he seems not to have been born in the city of Venice. At the time Venice was a powerful mercantile nation that had vastly expanded its boundaries.

Some historians believe that Marco Polo was born on the now Croatian island of Korčula, then called Curzola by Venetians[1].

So many Slavs (not slaves) from the Dalmatian Coast arrived as sailors in Venice, that the long quay by St. Mark's was and is known as Riva degli Sciavoni ('Quay of the Slavs'). Marco Polo was buried in a Slavic quarter in Venice.

If Marco Polo was originally from – modern day – Croatia, he would also have have a Slavic name. And, as some think, he had: Marco Polo was once called Marko Pillic.

[Supposed home of Marco Polo on Korčula/Curzola]

Is this theory based on fact or is it simply conjecture to boast tourism in Croatia? It might well be that it is a bit of both. If Marco Polo was born on Korčula/Curzola, he would have been regarded as a Venetian, because the island was part of Venice. That the island is now part of Croatia is not important.

[1] Olga Orlić: The curious case of Marco Polo from Korčula: An example of invented tradition in ScienceDirect - 2013  

Malta's white olives

Once, when the Knights of the Order of Saint John, also known as the Knights of Malta, occupied Malta from 1530 to 1798, plump, bone-white olives were known across Europe as perlina Maltese (Maltese pearls).

The white olive is just one of hundreds of varieties of the European olive (Olea europaea). One of its botanical subclassifications is Leucocarpa, from the Greek leukos (white) and karpos (flesh or pulp). White olives not only grow on Malta, but can also be found in Italy, Morocco, Libya, Greece and Portugal, where they often go by local names, including bianca (Italian 'white'), biancolilla or cannellina (after their resemblance to white cannellini beans). Researchers who have studied the white olive’s genetics say that its unique color, or lack thereof, is simply a quirk of nature.

White olives originate from mutations affecting the production of anthocyanins, the pigments typical of what you see in conventional ripened olives, so that at the full ripening stage they do not become black.

White olives are a rare sight. They are seldom commercially available today and, historically, why they have been valued ornamentally and even religiously. In the southern Italian region of Calabria, for example, white olive trees in the gardens of churches and monasteries provided sacramental oil used to anoint high-ranking church officials and Byzantine emperors.

Oil from white olives resembles that from black and green olives, yet it has a much shorter shelf life. That is because it has comparatively low levels of bitter-tasting antioxidants that also make for a natural preservative. Therefore, white olive oil tastes sweeter than many other olive oils.

Italian knights introduced white olives on Malta in the 14th or 15th century. The bajda (Maltese 'white') is probably an Italian cultivar brought from southern and central Italy as an ornamental plant. That's partly the reason why today no wild white olive trees in Malta exist and only a few old, individual trees remain.

[The oldest white olive tree. Designated 'national treasure']

That number of old trees was down to precisely three when Sam Cremona first set eyes on one in 2010. “It was in a nunnery, in a garden that once belonged to the knights,” said Cremona. At first, he thought the startlingly white olives might be diseased or albino aberrations. However, after taking some to an olive conference in Spain, he learned that Malta possessed a rare treasure.

“They told me, ‘Ah, we know about these white olives. We used to have them, but we don’t have them anymore,’ because they were a variety that had disappeared in Spain, where they were known as ‘Maltese olives,’” Cremona stated. Of the island nation’s 12,000 olive trees today, only 70 are white olive trees.

The taste of the white olive is described as delicious—bitter top, citrusy middle, briny finish.

A Cypriot snack: Tsakistes vs. Çakizdez

Elies Tsakistes (ελιές τσακιστές) means 'crushed olives' in Greek and they are - yes - crushed olives which are harvested when green. They are a hugely popular snack on Cyprus.

First the olives have to be crushed (be careful not to break the pip). Then they are immersed in fresh water. You should refresh the water every day. Repeat for as long as necessary until the olives aren't bitter any more. Then drain and salt liberally. Add a slice of lemon. Let stand for 12 to 36 hours, according to how salty you want the olives to be. Transfer the olives to a jar, packing them tightly in order to fit as many as possible.

Right, this is the Greek Cypriot version. However, the island has been divided since 1974 when northern Cyprus was invaded by Turkish troops to 'liberate' the 'oppressed' Turkish Cypriots. The northern part of the island has now been under Turkish influence for almost 45 years and you might wonder if this tasty snack has survived.

Well, it certainly has: Elies Tsakistes is called çakizdez on northern Cyprus and it is just as much appreciated there as by its southern brethren.

A Turkish dictionary claims that çakizdez is related to tsaki'zw which means 'to break' but the word is just a Turkified loan from Greek. It simply shows that occupation cannot conquer taste and kitchens.

Spain: Gibraltar vs. Olivença

Mention Gibraltar and Spanish pride will take over from their common sense. Gibraltar is located on the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula and measures just 6.7 square kilometers. It was captured by the British in 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714). The Spanish Crown formally ceded the territory 'in perpetuity' to the British Crown in 1713, under the Treaty of Utrecht. Spain later unsuccessfully attempted to recapture the territory, but reclamation of Gibraltar remains government policy ever since.

The Spanish government also refuses to acknowledge Gibraltar's territorial waters or its airport which is built partly on reclaimed land and on the isthmus, claiming that these were not explicitly covered by the treaty.

So, the Spanish lay claim to Gibraltar, but they conveniently forget that they still occupy a territory that it has held illegally for 211 years: the towns of Olivença and Talega (Olivenza and Táliga in Spanish). This border town was Portuguese from 1297 to 1801, when the Spanish army, along with French troops, invaded. The Treaty of Vienna of 1815 returned Olivença and Talega, its outlying villages and a tranche of land near the Guadiana River to Portugal, but Spanish forces never left[1].

They even outlawed the Portuguese language and prevented a bridge linking it to Portugal to be rebuilt until this day. Spain’s refusal to return the town and surrounding countryside (750 square kilometers and home to some 11,000 people) is very reminiscent of the situation of Gibraltar.

If Spain ever wants Gibraltar back, then it should first consider ceding Olivença and Talega to Portugal and honour its obligations under the Treaty of Vienna of 1815.

[1] La Vanguardia: Olivenza todavía es zona de conflicto internacional - 2016

A mother goddess (for sale)

My very own mother goddess (found in southern Italy, near Bari). Possibly several thousands of years old.

The item is for sale at any reasonable offer.

Masticha of Chios

Mastic is an aromatic resin offered to us by the mastic tree (Pistacia Lentiscus), a shrub growing on Southern Chios. It is locally known as 'the tears of Chios'. Since ancient times, mastic has been seen as the emblem of the island of Chios. The mastic tree (or large shrub) can grow up to four meters high. While the tree is endemic in the entire Mediterranean region, the mastic grown on Chios is regarded 'different' than those that grows elsewhere.

The ingredient forms as a droplet (the 'tear') on the mastic tree. It starts its life as a juice. It is dried in the sunlight and then changes into brittle, almost transparent and yellow-colored granules. When you chew these granules, they turn into a bright and opaque sort of gum. At first, the flavour is bitter, but after a while it gets a refreshing pine-like taste sensation.

Mastic is a spice that is used to flavour a liqueur known as Masticha of Chios. It is produced on the island of Chios and is the outcome of the distillation of mastic, a process that distinguishes it from a plain mastic liqueur.

The producers of the island of Chios realized the importance of mastic early on and, as a result, one of their very first products in the 18th century was Mastic Ouzo, resulting from the distillation of anise seeds together with natural mastic.

Later, they experimented on the production of liqueur made of mastic by distilling the mastic’s granules, obtaining a natural mastic distillate and, in turn, adding pure alcohol and sugar to produce the Masticha of Chios Liqueur.

Local tradition has it that the Masticha of Chios Liqueur should be served accompanied by a dessert after each meal or alongside coffee. The traditional Masticha of Chios Liqueur is also an excellent choice in a shot, ice cold at all times, or even as an aperitif, served with plenty of crushed ice.

One of us: Altamura Man

Neanderthals are a species or subspecies of Hominids within the genus Homo that went extinct some 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals and modern humans share 99.7% of their DNA. Since humans have inherited 1 to 4 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals, we must have had sex with our ancestral brothers and sisters (scientists call this 'interbreeding')[1]. To produce offspring, both species must be genetically very close. Therefore my suggestion is that it would probably be better to regard both modern man (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) as subspecies of Homo sapiens, which means that the former should be called Homo sapiens sapiens and the latter Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.

In 1993, a fossil hominin skeleton was discovered by cave explorers in the karst caves of Lamalunga, near Altamura, in southern Italy. The remains were embedded in rock and were covered in a thick layer of calcite, leaving only the head and part of a shoulder visible. They lie in a karst borehole rich in limestone amid running water. It was thought that excavating the remains would cause irreparable damage and thus, they have remained in situ for over twenty years, leaving researchers to rely on casual observation for their studies. For that reason, there was some debate initially about morphology and age.

Recently, the retrieval from the cave of a tiny fragment of the right shoulder blade allowed the first dating of the individual, indicating that it belongs to Homo neanderthalensis (or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis), with some peculiarities that appear consistent with a date of around 150,000 years[2]. Thus, the skeleton from Altamura represents the most ancient Neanderthal from which endogenous DNA has ever been extracted. And that's a feat in itself.

[1] Lari et al: The Microcephalin Ancestral Allele in a Neanderthal Individual in PloS One – 2010. See here.
[2] Lari et al: The Neanderthal in the karst: First dating, morphometric, and paleogenetic data on the fossil skeleton from Altamura (Italy) in Journal of Human Evolution – 2015

Koum Kuat of Corfu

Kam kwat (金橘) in Cantonese may well originate from kin-ku in Chinese. Translated it means 'golden orange' and it is the origin of the name of both the tree and the fruit called 'kumquat'. The tree grows to about four meters in height and is cultivated for its fruit but it is also a decorative indoor plant. Its leaves are dark green, bayonet shaped and its flowers similar to that of the orange tree. Its fruit is either round or oblong shaped depending on the variety and reaches a diameter of about four centimeters. When raw, its taste is tangy and bittersweet and the fruit is not particularly juicy.

The tree has been extensively cultivated on the Greek island of Corfu since its introduction in around 1860 by British botanist Sidney Merlin (1856–1952). He also introduced a variety of orange, the Washington Navel, to his estate on Corfu in 1925.

Today the kumquat, which has earned a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) status in 1994, is mainly cultivated on northern Corfu near the village of Nimfes. Annual production amounts to about 140 tonnes.

Most of the crop ends up as liqueur, but the fruit is also used in cooking. It even finds its way into perfumes.

Kumquats are ideal for liqueurs, jams, marmelades and glyka tou koutaliou ('spoon sweets'), which is fruit in syrup. Koum Kuat of Corfu is a pleasant liqueur made from kumquat fruits, with an aroma and taste that resemble oranges and strawberries. It is produced exclusively on the island of Corfu.