Ancient Moroccan civilisation (partly) rewrites Mediterranean history

The Maghreb (al-Maghrib means 'The place where the sun sets') is possibly better known as Northwest Africa. Archaeologists in Morocco have discovered the earliest known farming society in northwest Africa – a finding that reshapes our understanding of Mediterranean history[1].

While the Maghreb’s importance during the Iron Age and Islamic era is well known, there is a significant gap in knowledge about its archaeology between 4,000BC and 1,000BC.

Archaeologists, excavating the Oued Beht site, found indications of the presence of a large farming settlement in the region, 'similar in size to Early Bronze Age Troy', which is probably a bit of an exaggeration.

“This is currently the earliest and largest agricultural complex in Africa beyond the Nile corridor,” the researchers claimed in a study published in the journal Antiquity.

Oued Beht first came to attention in the 1930s, when building work by the French colonial regime revealed a large number of polished stone axes and grinding artefacts.

In their latest fieldwork, archaeologists discovered remains of domesticated plants and animals, as well as pottery dating to the late Stone Age.

“The concentration of pottery and lithics at Oued Beht is of a size unprecedented at this date on the African continent outside the Nile corridor and its immediate vicinity and is also exceptional in Mediterranean terms,” they noted. Samples, derived from deep storage pits, revealed dates between 3,400 and 2,900 BC.

These storage pits are very alike to those found on the other side of the Strait of Gibraltar in southern Iberia[2]. At the Iberian sites, archaeologists had found ivory and ostrich eggs, pointing to an African connection.

All of this indicates, archaeologists said, that the Maghreb was instrumental in shaping the western Mediterranean during the fourth millennium BC.

[Neolithic pottery from Oued Beht]

Scientists think this community made substantial contributions to the shaping of the early social world. “Oued Beht and the northwest Maghreb will henceforth occupy an integral and profoundly revisionary place in the later prehistory of the Mediterranean.”

They proposed that this phase of activity at Oued Beht be referred to as a regional Final Neolithic, thereby filling one of the hitherto most obscure phases of Maghrebian prehistory.

[1] Broodbank et al: Oued Beht, Morocco: a complex early farming society in north-west Africa and its implications for western Mediterranean interaction during later prehistory in Antiquity - 2024. See here.
[2] Armenteros-Lojo, Jiménez-Jáimez: Massive prehistoric pit sites in Southern Iberia: Challenges, opportunities and lessons learned in Oxford Journal of Archaeology - 2023. See here.

[Recipe] Kourabiedes (Greek Shortbread Cookies)

Kourabiedes (κουραμπιέδες) are one of the most delicious Greek shortbread cookie sweets you’ll ever taste. Versions are found in most Arab, Balkan and Ottoman cuisines, with various different forms and recipes. the Albanian version, for instance, is called Gurabija.

These butter cookies, which are sometimes flavoured with brandy, vanilla, or mastiha, are the buzz of Greek tradition and dessert served during the Christmas holidays. In some Greek households you will also find kourabiedes served during Easter as well as during engagement parties and weddings.

The primary distinction between Kourabiedes and conventional shortbread cookies is that these delightful delicacies are frequently filled with almonds and lavishly dusted with icing sugar. These cookies are perhaps a bit messy to eat, but they provide a delightful taste of classic Greek cookies.

Ingredients:
- 1 kilo all-purpose flour
- 500 gram butter
- 160 gram caster sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (or two packets vanilla powder)
- 200 gram blanched slivered almonds, toasted (toast for 5-10 minutes at 200^oC)
- caster sugar for dusting
- rosewater

How to prepare:
- Remove the butter from the fridge 2 to 3 hours before using to allow it to soften at room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 180^oC.
- In a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, whip the butter on high speed for 5 to 6 minutes, or until it turns white. Combine the caster sugar and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. Continue to beat for a further 5 to 7 minutes. The volume of the butter may decrease when the sugar is added, but it will rise again. When it resembles whipped cream, it’s done.
- Remove the mixing bowl and gradually add the flour. Fold in gently with a spatula, then add the almonds.
- The mixture should be soft but not too soft that it sticks to your hands.
- Make walnut-sized balls out of the mixture (25 g). Arrange them in a row on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Make a small indent with your finger on top of each little ball of dough. It will be able to hang on to more caster sugar this way.
- Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Remove the dish from the oven. Place them on a wire rack to cool after carefully removing them from the baking sheet. When they’re heated, they’re soft and crumbly.
- Spray them with rose water once they’ve cooled.
- Dust with some caster sugar in a sieve.

Partial source.

English Tangier

Tangier is a city in northwestern Morocco, situated on the Atlantic coast, though some would like to (erroneously) claim that it is also part of the Mediterranean. Tangier has the best natural harbour on the western end of the Strait of Gibraltar, allowing its occupier to control naval access to the Mediterranean. A rather forgotten episode of English history is that Tangier once was part of the British Empire.

Starting as a small, strategic Phoenician town and trading centre, Tangier has been occupied many times during its history.

The Portuguese were able to occupy Tangier in 1471 though it remained 'unquiet' in the surrounding areas. Then, in 1661 Tangier became part of the dowry of the marriage of King Charles II of England (1630-1685) to Catarina de Bragança (1638-1705). I suppose the Portuguese were rather glad to get rid of the city and its troublesome countryside. Another part of this dowry was the Indian Isle of Bombay (now Mumbai).

At its peak, Tangier’s population ranged from some 600 to more than 2000 inhabitants, including Portuguese, Spaniards, French, Dutch, Italians, and Jews, until the latter were accused of spying and expelled in 1677. Some 80 slaves, mostly captured Moors and Turks, added to the labour. Only a handful of free Moroccans lived within city walls.

The English sent a garrison and fortified the city against (still) hostile Moroccan forces. They also planned to improve the harbour by building a 440 meters long breakwater. The improved harbour was to be 550 meters long and nine meters deep at low tide. It would be capable of keeping out the roughest of seas. Work began on the fortified harbour at the end of November 1662, and work on the breakwater in August 1663. The work continued for some years under a succession of governors. With an improved harbour the town would have played the same role that Gibraltar later played in British naval strategy.

[Leonardo de Ferrari's plan of the breakwater]

But the exclave was hideously expensive to defend and to fortify. In the end, it would offer neither commercial nor military advantage to England. When Morocco was later united, the cost of maintaining the garrison against Moroccan attacks vastly increased. The English Parliament refused to provide funds for its upkeep, which forced Charles II to give up his possession. In 1684, the English blew up the city's harbour and defensive works that they had been constructing and evacuated the city, which was swiftly occupied and annexed by Moroccan forces.

Some of the departing high-ranking soldiers were rewarded with large land grants in the newly acquired Province of New York. Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick, a lieutenant-governor of Tangier, became New York provincial governor and William "Tangier" Smith, the last mayor of Tangier, obtained 50 miles of Atlantic oceanfront property on Long Island.

Two-faced beauty

An aryballos (ἀρύβαλλος) was a small spherical or globular flask with a narrow neck used in Ancient Greece. It was designed to contain perfume or oil.

The shape of the aryballos originally came from the oinokhóē (οἰνοχόη), derived from oînos (οἶνος) 'wine' and khéō (χέω) 'I pour'. The first known aryballoi belonged to the Geometric period of the 9th century BCE and was a 'simple' globe-shaped wine jar.

By the Proto-Corinthian period of the following century, it had attained its definitive shape, going from spherical to ovoid to conical, and finally back to spherical. This definitive form has a wide, flat mouth, and a single small handle. Some later variations have bell-shaped mouths, a second handle, and/or a flat base. Potters also created inventive shapes for aryballoi.

A rather famous ancient aryballos (ca. 520-510 BC) offers a fascinating look into Greek ideas of beauty and cultural exchange. It features the faces of a Greek and an Ethiopian woman, inscribed with the word “ΚΑΛΟΣ” ('beauty').

The depiction of both women highlights the Greek fascination with distant lands like Ethiopia and shows an appreciation for diverse representations of beauty. This blending of cultures also reflects the interconnected Mediterranean world.

Beyond its artistic value, the flask also played a role in athletes’ bathing rituals, making it both a functional and symbolic part of daily Greek life. Aryballos often depicted in vase paintings being used by athletes during bathing. In these depictions, the vessel is at times attached by a strap to the athlete's wrist, or hung by a strap from a peg on the wall.

So, this aryballos is about beauty and certainly not about racism as Sarah F. Derbew so desperately tries to prove in her book 'Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity'.

The aryballos in the image is now on display in the Louvre (Paris, France).

Smyrna Cookies (or Easter Cookies)

These days, Koulourakia Smyrneika (or Smyrna cookies) are an essential component of Greek culinary tradition. In Greece they are referred to as Smyrna cookies because they only became only widely known after 1922, when refugees from Asia Minor brought with them the recipes of their homeland. In Smyrna they are called Easter cookies because they are traditionally associated with Easter. Sweet and fluffy breads, such as cakes, were virtually unknown in Greece. The same is true for sugar, a luxury item that was rarely used in Greek confectionery, and was only available to the privileged social classes. The most common sweeteners at the time were honey and grape molasses.

Sugar was a popular ingredient in cosmopolitan Smyrna. Recipes on how to make cakes, sponge cakes, meringues, and sweet breads also arrived from Europe together with sugar, allowing the women of Asia Minor to perfect recipes such as vasilopita (which in Smyrna was a sweet cake with dried fruits, nuts, and spices), tsoureki, and of course cookies and koulourakia.

One starts to appreciate the variety, finesse, and uniqueness of their sweets when one considers the abundance of spices they also had at their disposal, such as cardamom, vanilla, mahleb, mastic from the island of Chios (Χίος) and (once) from Kysos (Κύσος), and so many other 'strange' ingredients. Privileged and daring, the women of Smyrna created a baking tradition that was totally different from that of Greece.

These kinds of desserts were unknown to the Greeks. The Greek Vasilopita (Βασιλόπιτα), a New Year's cake, for instance, was traditionally a savoury filo pastry pie filled with meat, poultry, and/or vegetables. Similarly, Christopsomo (Χριστόψωμο), a Greek Christmas cake, was made without sugar or spices and instead sweetened with a small amount of honey or grape molasses 'to sweeten the new year'. Tsoureki (Τσουρέκι), a Greek Easter sweet bread, was unknown. In other words, people were unfamiliar with sweet, fluffy, baked goods, except in major cities. As soon as tsoureki, sponge cakes, cakes (some even with chocolate and cocoa), and fluffy koulourakia scented with butter and mastic were introduced, they were embraced, loved, and adopted immediately. The term smyrneika ('from Smyrna') was applied to every recipe the women of Smyrna brought with them, which is how these cookies got their name.

Smyrna cookies are made primarily with butter and aromatic spices, like vanilla, although orange zest or mastic are also used. Despite the numerous variations, they are all distinguished by their fluffy yet crispy texture, aroma, and finesse. The most common shapes are an elongated spiral (like a small boat), a snail, and a double snail, but they are frequently braided into a simple braid as well.

Bologna's leaning tower might collapse

The famous 48 metres high Garisenda Tower (that's the smaller tower on the left in the image) is one of two towers that dominate the skyline of the Italian city of Bologna. The other, the taller Asinelli Tower, is more than twice the height (97.2 metres) and also leans, though not so dramatically, and is usually open for tourists to climb.

[The Garisenda Tower is the (short) one on the left]

The structures were built between 1109 and 1119, though the height of the Garisenda Tower was reduced in the 14th Century because it had already begun to lean. The towers were mentioned several times by Dante in his Divina Commedia ('Divine Comedy'), published in 1320.

But time has not been kind to the Garisenda Tower. The tower now tilts at a four-degree angle, and monitoring has found shifts in the direction of the tilt.

The site was first closed in October 2023 after sensors picked up the changes in the Garisenda's tilt and inspections revealed deterioration in the materials that make up its base.

Authorities have begun constructing a 5 meters high barrier around the 12th Century Garisenda Tower to contain debris in the event that it falls.

It said that as well as containing debris, the barrier would protect surrounding buildings and people in the event of a collapse. Metal rockfall nets will also be installed around the tower. Construction of the barrier will be completed early in 2024, while the tower and the plaza beneath it are expected to remain closed for a number of years while restoration work is carried out.

Calcata: Where's the Holy Prepuce?

Precariously nestled on the edge of a cliff, the medieval village of Calcata in Italy is not your typical picturesque Italian town. It is a small, picturesque village located in the province of Viterbo, in the Lazio region of Italy, some 50 kilometres north of Rome. It is known for its interesting architecture, stunning views of the surrounding countryside, and a rather unusual historical claim to fame: the relic of the Holy Prepuce, or the foreskin of Jesus Christ. Prepuce is a Latin word from prae- ('fore-') and pūtos ('penis').

The story of Calcata’s claim to the Holy Prepuce can be traced back to the Middle Ages. According to local legend, the relic was brought to Calcata in the 16th century by a soldier who participated in the Crusades. The soldier claimed to have acquired the relic from a monk in the Holy Land. Another legend, somewhat less heroic, claims that in AD1527, a soldier in the German army was helpful in looting the Sanctum sanctorum (the Temple of Jerusalem). Not much of a provenance, I agree.

The Holy Prepuce was then placed in the Church of San Pietro in Calcata, making the town a destination for pilgrims. The Holy Prepuce was considered a rare and significant relic in the Catholic Church. However, its authenticity was a subject of controversy and skepticism, and many other churches also claimed to possess the Holy Prepuce. The relic was essentially forbidden from being worshipped by a papal decree issued in 1900 by Pope Leo XIII, and eventually faded into obscurity.

In defiance of the papal decree, Calcata continued to stage an annual procession on the Day of the Holy Circumcision to honour the relic. In 1983, however, parish priest Dario Magnoni had to announce: "This year, the holy relic will not be exposed to the devotion of the faithful. It has vanished. Sacrilegious thieves have taken it from my home."

He had reportedly kept the sacred relic in a shoebox in the back of a wardrobe. Conveniently citing the Vatican's decree of excommunication, Magnoni refused to further discuss the event, as does the Vatican.

As a result, theories of the crime vary from theft for lucrative resale to an effort by the Vatican to quietly put an end to the practice it had attempted to end by excommunication years ago. Its current location is a mystery.

Nowadays, Calcata is home to a thriving artistic community.