Europe’s Last Neanderthals

 From EcoNews:

Ancient DNA from Belgium and France challenges the idea that Neanderthals faded away as isolated, increasingly inbred groups. Researchers found signs of connected populations in northwestern Europe, without evidence of an increasing burden of harmful genetic variants.

Neanderthals disappeared roughly 40,000 years ago, but the findings do not explain why. Instead, they challenge a simple story of biological decline, suggesting that the final chapter of Neanderthal life differed across regions rather than following one inevitable genetic downward spiral.

The research examined ancient remains from present-day Belgium and France dating to less than about 52,500 years ago. Nature’s press summary describes 27 remains representing at least 11 distinct individuals, an important distinction because several bone fragments can belong to the same person. (Read more.)

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Possible Hidden Chambers Beyond Tutankhamun’s Tomb

 From Heritage Daily:

A new investigation of the famous tomb (KV62) in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings has revealed underground anomalies which researchers say may be a hidden complex of rooms and passageways.

The results are not conclusive, however — and independent experts have cautioned until more detailed data (or physical evidence) is available.

Researchers used ground-penetrating radar (GPR) and microgravity measurements to investigate the tomb and surrounding ground. The latter detects tiny changes in Earth’s gravitational field which scientists can use to identify differences in the density of material below the surface.

The team says the combined evidence points towards structures that could pre-date the burial of Tutankhamun.

Mamdouh Eldamaty, an archaeologist at Ain Shams University in Cairo and Egypt’s former antiquities minister, said the findings “suggest a possible hidden complex of corridors and rooms”.

One of the most interesting things they found is evidence of what they believe could be a two metre wide corridor filled with rubble extending away from Tutankhamun’s burial chamber.

Structural engineer and geophysics specialist George Ballard who analysed the survey results alongside data from earlier surveys says that earlier surveys might have missed it because they were looking for a large empty chamber immediately behind the tomb wall. (Read more.)

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Ancient Cave Art Discovery

 From BBC:

Researchers believe the first known humans to set foot on Ireland thousands of years ago were most likely from Wales, following the "exciting" discovery of ancient cave art.

During the most recent Ice Age, when much of the British Isles were beneath a vast continental glacier, the depleted sea levels opened a "lost land bridge" between modern-day Pembrokeshire and the south-east tip of Ireland, around Rosslare.

According to rock expert Dr George Nash, from Liverpool University, the opportunities presented by this pathway would have been too good for hunter gatherers to ignore.

Now, alongside an international team of experts, Nash has located eight cave sites in south-west Ireland featuring rock art dating back from at least 15,000 years ago, around 5,000 years before the previous oldest example of humans in Ireland.

Nash, who coordinated the Lost Land Bridge Project, said there would have been a forested and grassland plateau around 46 miles (76 km) coast-to-coast.

With summertime temperatures typically -10°C to -20°C, Nash said the pathway would have supported wild horses, mammoth, bison, reindeer and other large herbivores, which fed off the hardy sedges, mosses and lichens growing through the fertile, but near-frozen soil. (Read more.)

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A Long-lost Ancient Egyptian City

 From Live Science:

A 3,200-year-old Egyptian inscription found near an ancient military road may indicate the location of a long-lost city, archaeologists have announced. Found at the site of Tell Abu Seifi (also spelled Seify), the inscription mentions Ramesses II, who reigned from about 1279 to 1213 B.C. It says that Horus, a falcon-headed ancient Egyptian god associated with the sky and war, is the "Lord of the City of Mesn," representatives of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities said in a translated statement.

The team also found the remains of a temple dedicated to Horus at the archaeological site, they said in the statement. Unfortunately, "the temple was almost completely destroyed," making it difficult to get much information from it, Hesham Hussein, the director general of Delta and Sinai Archaeology at Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and a leader of the research team, told Live Science in an email. (Read more.)

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What Ancient Greeks Looked Like

 From The Greek Reporter:

Ancient Greek writers have left behind clues about how they perceived the physical appearance of Greeks as a people. Several surviving texts use terms describing complexion, hair, body build, and facial features, offering a glimpse into how some ancient authors portrayed the Greeks themselves. Perhaps the most detailed surviving example comes from the Physiognomonica of Adamantius, a work from Late Antiquity that draws heavily on the earlier physiognomist Polemon.

Adamantius refers explicitly to those among whom the “Hellenic and Ionian stock” (Ἑλληνικὸν καὶ Ἰωνικὸν γένος) had remained “pure.” He describes them as relatively large and broad, upright and strongly built, with straight legs and well-proportioned extremities. More strikingly, he calls them “lighter or whiter in complexion” (λευκότεροι τὴν χρόαν) and xanthos (more on that later). He subsequently describes their hair as subtly blond (ὑπόξανθον), soft, and gently curling. Adamantius continues by describing a square face, thin lips, a straight nose, and bright, highly expressive eyes, concluding that the Hellenic people had the finest eyes of all peoples.

The passage should not be mistaken for anything resembling a modern anthropological study. Ancient physiognomy sought to draw conclusions about a person’s character from outward physical characteristics, a practice formalized in Greek and Roman antiquity but long since rejected as highly unscientific. (Read more.)

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The 'Real Indiana Jones'

From BBC:

In 1911, a US professor claimed he had discovered the ancient mountain stronghold of the last Incan king deep in the Peruvian Andes. Yet 53 years later, another explorer proved he was mistaken – and shortly afterwards, a BBC crew followed his trail.

"No one now disputes that this was the site of ancient Vilcabamba." So wrote the Yale academic who brought the Peruvian ruins of Machu Picchu to global attention in 1911. Hiram Bingham III was recruited by locals to look for a lost Incan city fabled for its hidden treasures – and he firmly believed that's what he had found.

Yet 50 years later, Bingham's conviction was challenged by another US explorer nicknamed "the real Indiana Jones". In August 1964, Gene Savoy claimed to have found the same lost city – around 60km (37 miles) northwest of Machu Picchu. He believed his expedition had identified the mountain stronghold of the last Incan king at Espíritu Pampa (the "Plain of the Spirits" or Vilcabamba), a set of ruins in remote cloud forests, high above a tributary of the Amazon. 

Just six weeks after Savoy's discovery, a BBC crew followed in his footsteps, travelling by rubber dinghy (and capsizing) on rapids, ascending steep canyon slopes with mules, and hacking through jungle to the site. "Scraps of information they'd picked up on the way made them doubt some of Savoy's claims," revealed the presenter. "But, having come so far, they had to get on and see for themselves."

The stakes were high. Perhaps they would find "the heart of an unknown city, where it seems likely the last Inca emperor gathered the remnants of his people". (Read more.)

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Did the Hittites Record the Fall of Homeric Troy in Cuneiform?

 From The Collector:

Homer’s account of the Trojan War in the Iliad, written in the 7th century BC, is one of the world’s most enduring stories. But was it purely fantasy, or based on real historical events? In the search for confirming evidence, scholars have examined clay tablets containing the historical archives of the Hittite kings at Hattusa. They preserve details of Anatolian politics in the 13th century BC, the time when the Trojan War was supposed to have been fought. While these administrative texts do not speak of golden armor or meddling gods, they do record a century of real conflict over the legendary city the Hittites called Wilusa, which many scholars believe was ancient Troy.

The Hittite Empire ruled over much of Anatolia throughout the Late Bronze Age, the era between approximately 1550 and 1150 BC. Numerous Hittite documents have been uncovered and translated. In particular, thousands of clay tablets were unearthed at Bogazköy in modern Turkey in the early 20th century, containing administrative records kept by Hittite royal scribes of the Hittite capital of Hattusa. This collection contains diplomatic letters between rulers, quite a few of which refer to attacks on western Anatolia by a nation called the Ahhiyawa. While not universally accepted, the majority of scholars agree that the Ahhiyawa were the Mycenaean Greeks. The ethnonym “Ahhiyawa” is held to be a Hittite version of “Akhaioi,” the Greek form of “Achaeans.”

As soon as these documents were uncovered and translated, historians began to realize their potential significance regarding the Iliad. According to Homer’s epic poem, a thousand Greek ships were launched against Troy in western Anatolia in the 13th century BC. This was not a war against just one city but against Troy’s many allies all over western Anatolia as well. Hittite documents dating to the same period appear to confirm that the Ahhiyawa were engaged in large-scale warfare in western Anatolia at this time. (Read more.)

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Spells, Magic and Ancient Paganism

 Pagans lived lives of superstition. From The Collector:

In ancient Mesopotamia, magic was considered commonplace and was inseparable from religion, politics, and daily customs. Unlike today, magic was not seen as “other,” but essential for the functioning of society. This was true for all the various city-states and empires that flourished in Mesopotamia across its 3,000 years of history. This article explores the types of spells and rituals that characterized magic in ancient Mesopotamia.

In ancient Mesopotamia, magic and spells were considered a normal part of religion and were integrated into daily customs. Polytheists, people could call on a variety of gods through spells and rituals, though the patron deity of an individual city was chiefly honored.

Unlike ancient Egyptian religion, which was built around the predictability of the life-giving Nile flood, Mesopotamian cosmology was shaped by the instability of life in the ancient Near East. Whether conditions were harsh, harvests irregular, wild animals threatening, and there was often armed conflict between people. There, it is not surprising that their pantheon was occupied by both gods and demons, connected with nature and the other unpredictable elements of life in the region. While the gods were often anthropomorphic, they could also appear as mythical beasts that embodied aspects of the animals in the region, including lions, snakes, and birds of prey. (Read more.)

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An Ancient Civilization of Millions Once Flourished in the Amazon

 From Phys.org:

New research conducted using airborne laser scanning reveals that a multicultural civilization that flourished in southwestern Amazonia between 600 BCE and 850 CE was home to millions of people. Spanning roughly 183,000 square kilometers (71,000 square miles), the Aquiry civilization built large centers for political and ritual purposes. By surveying a representative section of the area, researchers identified the remains of more than 400 well-preserved sites of monumental ceremonial architecture, along with some later settlement sites.

Extrapolating their findings to the civilization's full territory, the researchers arrived at a cautious estimate of more than 20,000 ancient earthwork ceremonial centers. The largest known site covers 50 hectares (124 acres).

Comprehensive surveys and radiocarbon dating showed that the Aquiry territory—which makes up less than 3% of Greater Amazonia—was already home to 1.25–3 million people at the start of the first millennium. This finding challenges earlier, more conservative estimates of the population across the wider Amazon region, which have ranged between 1 million and 10 million. The Amazon's total population may have numbered in the tens of millions.

"Our findings overturn our understanding of the Amazon region's past," says the emeritus professor at the University of Helsinki who led the study published in Nature. (Read more.)

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The Silk Road and Myths of Dragons

 From The Collector:

The Silk Road is one of the world’s most famous trade routes, connecting distant eastern civilizations with Eurasia. It stretched from China through Central Asia and Persia to the Mediterranean. But it was much more than just a trade route. While silk, spices, and jewels were transported, so were customs, myths, religions, and legends. One important myth that traveled along the Silk Road was about dragons. This is how Chinese ideas about dragons influenced European dragon lore, along the Silk Road.

The Silk Road was not a single road that led from China to Europe. It was a network of interconnected trade routes that meandered between the two continents until a standard route was established. The people who used this network did not call it the Silk Road, a term that was coined in the 19th century by the German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. Historians believe that the beginnings of the Silk Road can be traced back to the 2nd century BC during China’s Han dynasty, when the diplomat Zhang Qian was sent to establish alliances with western lands and bring his knowledge and observations back to China. During his journey, he saw great trading potential for China, which primarily exported silk.

The Silk Road stretched for thousands and thousands of kilometers, beginning in northern China and passing through important oasis cities such as Dunhuang and Kashgar before reaching the desert regions and mountains of Central Asia. From there, caravans would travel west to Samarkand and Bukhara, continue into Persia, and eventually reach the Mediterranean through cities such as Antioch. Along this route, one of the biggest challenges was navigating complicated terrains such as the Taklamakan Desert and the Pamir Mountains. If there were signposts at all, there were not many of them. Along the way, merchants often founded smaller trading towns and colonies that served travelers.

The Silk Road was most commonly used for transporting Chinese silk, Central Asian horses, spices from South Asia, and precious metals, glass, and ceramics. However, the Silk Road was not used only by merchants but also by pilgrims, diplomats, poets, artists, and adventurers. It was often these travelers who transported ideas, including myths about dragons. (Read more.)

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‘The Odyssey’: The Blueprint of a Civilization

 From Ekathimerini:

We tend to file “The Odyssey” under “mythology” – alongside stories of gods who never existed, sung by people trying to explain thunder. That filing is a mistake, and it obscures the single most consequential literary achievement in human history.

“The Odyssey” is not a myth. It is a founding document. It is the moment human beings first discovered that they had an inside – and it is the blueprint from which an entire civilization, and everything that civilization would eventually give the world, was built.

Read “The Iliad” closely and something strange emerges. Achilles does not decide to rage – rage arrives and moves through him like wind fills a sail. When a god speaks, the hero does not experience it as an outside voice interrupting his thoughts; the god’s command is his thought. Heroes act. They do not deliberate. There is no interior room where a self sits and weighs its options – there is only impulse, arriving as if from outside, and action following immediately after.

The Odyssey breaks this pattern, and the break is the whole point.

Odysseus pauses. He calculates. He lies, plots, improvises, disguises himself, and – for the first time in surviving literature – he talks to himself. Clinging to a rock through a violent night, he says: “Endure, my heart. You have endured worse than this.” That is not a god speaking through him. That is one part of a man addressing another part of the same man. It is the first recorded act of a human being holding itself together through interior dialogue.

Homer did not just tell a story about a man finding his way home. He recorded – perhaps without fully realizing it – the birth of human self-awareness. (Read more.)

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Armenia Was the Most Important Buffer State Between Rome and Persia

 From The Collector:

The Roman Empire fought for centuries with powerful Persian dynasties in the east, which prevented it from establishing a fixed eastern frontier. The Parthian Empire and then the Sasanian Empire were among Rome’s greatest and most powerful rivals, and their conflicts often took place in the lands between their territories. One of those lands was Armenia, a kingdom situated between Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and the Caucasus. Control of Armenia provided a key defensive barrier and control of important trade routes. The Kingdom of Armenia became one of the most important buffer states between the two mighty empires.

Armenia is located in what has always been a geographically sensitive region. In ancient times, it was located between the eastern Roman provinces and the western territories of the Parthian and, later, the Sasanian Empire. Armenia forms a natural bridge between Anatolia, the Iranian plateau, and Mesopotamia. It is also close to an important transregional route connecting the Black Sea basin to the Near East.

The territory of Armenia is defined by rugged highlands, making the Armenian plateau rich in mountains and deep valleys, with limited passes. These passages were crucial because they directed armies and traders along predictable routes. These vast mountain ranges gave Armenia a great advantage because it was almost unconquerable. Consequently, the major powers like Rome and Persia, instead of conquering, often sought to secure the allegiance and loyalty of the Armenian crown. (Read more.)

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Does King Priam of Troy Appear in Hittite Records?

 From The Greek Reporter:

King Priam was the famous king of Troy during the Trojan War. It was his son, Paris Alexander, who took Helen back to Troy and inadvertently caused the enormous war with the Greeks. Priam himself was allegedly a powerful monarch. He was married to a princess from the nearby kingdom of Phrygia, which itself was a very wealthy and powerful kingdom.

The father of Priam was Laomedon, the king who had fortified the city of Troy. He was the last king in a dynasty going all the way back to Dardanus, some five generations prior to him. While many of the kings in this line had Greek names, scholars generally interpret Priam’s name to be Luwian. This was an Anatolian language common in the Bronze Age.

Traditionally, scholars believe Priam first appears in Homer’s Iliad. However, some researchers claim he appears in records, such as those of the Hittites, long before this.

What are the records in question? They are Hittite documents dating to the 13th century BCE, particularly the middle and late part of that century. These documents reveal that a certain war leader named Piyama-Radu was active in Western Anatolia in that era. (Read more.)

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History of the Christian Altar

 

From Shawn Tribe at The Liturgical Arts Journal:

Altars are (or ought to be at least), architecturally and liturgically, the central focal point of the interior of our churches. Given their evident importance, it is no surprise that there can be much in the way of disagreement as to what the ideal form of the altar is. Debates rage about free-standing altars versus altars with grand reredoses attached to them.

It was through the consideration of the different forms of the altar, particularly through the pursuits of the Liturgical Movement, that the idea arose of taking a brief look at the history and development of its forms. I. Early Christian Antiquity If we look to the earliest time of Christian antiquity, there are two early forms of altar that can be identified. One is those of the house-churches, which were wooden and in table form. Some of the Eucharistic frescoes of the Roman catacombs may give some sense of this form:

The "Fractio Panis" fresco in the Capella Greca of the Roman catacomb of St. Priscilla

The second form was the use of the stone tombs of the martyrs as altars. This custom is thought to trace to the first quarter of the 2nd century. Marble tops were placed upon the tombs for the Mass to be celebrated upon.

The Fractio Panis fresco of the Capella Greca, which belongs to this period is located in the apse directly above a small cavity which Wilpert supposes to have contained the relics of a martyr, and it is highly probable that the stone covering this tomb served as an altar. (The Catholic Encyclopedia)

(Read more.)

At San Clemente in Rome, although the church was built facing west, Mass was offered facing east. The congregation would face east as well. From Shawn Tribe at The Liturgical Arts Journal:

I cannot definitively explain why the church was laid out this way as a glance at the property would suggest that it could easily have been orientated, which is to say, designed so that one's movement through the church was from west to east, toward the rising sun. All the churches built by Constantine in Rome were laid out "backwards" this way (except Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, which was built into an existing building), and I can only guess that this was done in part to imitate the Temple at Jerusalem.

There are other possibilities as well. The priest offering the Holy Sacrifice is facing east, of course--the design of the altar makes it impossible for Mass to be offered any other way. It is thought that in antiquity the assembly would actually turn around and face east with the celebrant, putting the Sanctuary behind them. This is not as strange as it might at first sound. A shepherd is always behind his flock. This is why the celebrant always comes last in procession. Furthermore, the church building symbolizes the Barque of Peter. In fact, the word nave derives from the Latin navis, which means boat. So the Sanctuary is where the helm in an ancient ship would be--at the back.

We have a dual movement, then. We move into the church building toward the west, and then we turn around at a certain point in the liturgy and proceed east. Now consider for a moment St. Germanus' text. He says that the Sanctuary is an image of the tomb in which Christ was buried; the Altar is "the spot in the tomb where Christ was placed"; and the apse corresponds to the cave in which He was buried. So perhaps our movement from east to west toward the Sanctuary, toward the setting sun, is actually a representation of our burial with Christ. And turning around and proceeding east, toward the rising sun, represents our sharing in His Resurrection. (Read more.)

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How the Phoenician Spoken and Written Language Shaped the Mediterranean

 From The Collector:

The Phoenicians were prolific merchants and explorers who traveled from their home in the Levant across the ancient Near East and Mediterranean, planting colonies and trading outposts around the ancient world. Wherever the Phoenicians went, they took their language with them, and they were pioneers in this area too. They developed the first true alphabetic script. The useful tool was adopted by other cultures, including the ancient Greeks, who in turn influenced the ancient Latin alphabet, which is the basis of most modern Indo-European languages, including English.

The Phoenicians were Semitic-speaking people who primarily inhabited several coastal cities in the Levant, including Byblos, Tyre, Arvad, Berytus (Beirut), and Sidon. There was no Phoenician empire or unified state. Each city was an independent city-state. The Phoenicians never referred to themselves as “Phoenicians” in their own written texts but as members of their respective city-states.

The earliest recorded references to the Phoenicians date from the Late Bronze Age Egypt (c. 1500-1200 BC). The “Annals of Thutmose III” (c. 1479-1425 BC) mention Byblos extensively as a vassal of New Kingdom Egypt. The Egyptians called them “Asiatics.” Byblos was also mentioned in the “Amarna Letters” (1360-1332 BC) as an important city that was a source of contention between the Egyptians and Hittites. (Read more.)

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The Paris Temple

The former Temple enclosure in Paris

 The tower of the original Paris Temple was used as a prison during the French Revolution to house Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and their family. It was torn down by Napoleon in 1808 to discourage the pilgrims who were flocking to the site. From the BBC:

Their original estate has long since succumbed to the great march of history, but you can still visit the site on which it once stood on rue de Lobau, located just behind the Hôtel de Ville. Back in the day, surrounding the mansion were miles of uncultivated marshland. In order to make the land arable, the Knights Templar set about drying the marsh – a feat that they were able to fully achieve circa 1240. But though the wetlands have long since disappeared, the area is still referred to as ‘le Marais’ or ‘the Marsh’....

Surrounded by eight 10m-high crenelated walls reinforced by turrets and buttress, this gargantuan fortress once featured towers, a drawbridge, a gothic church, vast stables and homes for the knights. It was here that the Templars guarded mass portions of their treasure and created a powerful ‘state-within-a-state’ that was entirely sovereign from the kings of France.

While this system of sovereignty worked for a time, everything changed in 1303 when the Knights Templar were forced to move their base of operations from the Temple Mount to their European headquarters – the enclos du Temple – after Jerusalem was recaptured by Muslim armies.

The king of France at the time, Philip the Fair, deeply resented the Knights Templar’s powerful ‘state-within-a-state’ and resolved to bring the order down by any means necessary. King Philip’s reasoning for destroying the order is speculated to this day, though many scholars believe his motivations were financial. “Philip could use the silver coin he acquired from the Templars' treasury in Paris to improve the quality of the heavily debased French coinage,” explained Dr Helen Nicholson, author of The Knights Templar: A New History and professor of medieval history at Cardiff University. (Read more.)

From Paris Marais:

To the north east lay stretches of marshland, remnants of the ancient branch of the Seine that had once flowed down from the heights of Belleville, east of Paris. It took the hardy Templars barely a century to turn it into the market garden (marais) of the capital, emulating the monks of Saint Martin des Champs who had dried up the swamps on the western fringe of the future arrondissement a century earlier. Having redeemed the land, they moved to its north-eastern edge, where they built a fortified compound,  l'Enclos du Temple, which also served as their European headquarters.

Forget about Rennes-le-Château and other such fantasies - there was nothing mysterious about the Order. Rather, it was their sophisticated farming methods that enabled them to redeem the marshy land of the future Marais, and it was their acute business acumen that incited them to use their geographical dispersion to advantage and develop a kind of international deposit bank  which contributed to the continual increase of their wealth. This, and their independence, were jealously kept behind the crenellated walls of the Enclos du Temple, roughly on the site of today's rue du Temple, rue de Bretagne, rue de Picardie and rue Béranger, south of Place de la République. It was complete with watch towers and a drawbridge that led to the Temple' only gate (now corner of rue des Fontaines-du-Temple and rue du Temple). (Read more.)

Banner honoring Louis XVII who died in the Temple

More HERE.
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The Lost Basilica of Saint John at Ephesus

 From Liturgical Arts Journal:

This basilica was constructed by the Emperor Justinian in the sixth century over what was said to be the site of tomb of the apostle John. It replaced another, even earlier church founded on this same site, a church that was already ancient and worn down by Justinian's time. This new church was constructed in a typical Eastern Roman, Byzantine style and, according to the Greek historian Procopius, it took its design inspiration from the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. The actual dates for its construction are A.D. 548-565 and the construction was overseen by the local bishop of Epheuus, Hypatius. 

This basilica was cruciform in shape and included typical features such as a long, columned nave; a sanctuary surrounded by a balustrade, a ciborium covering the altar and tomb of St. John, and a synthronon located behind. There was also an octagonal baptistery attached to the basilica, as well as a forecourt. 

The interior walls of the basilica were covered in polychrome marbles, as were the columns and there was a decorative stone pavement for the basilica's floor. Mosaic work ornamented the ceiling and at some point following the main construction of the church, iconographic paintings were also added, a few of which are still extant.  

In short, it sounds like both familiar and noble, and between the basilica's imperial patronage and its connection with the Apostle John, it would go on to become one of the most important Christian sites in the region -- though one which, sadly, history would not be as generous toward. (Read more.)

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The New York City Unicorn Apartment

 

From Architectural Digest:

Many try their luck at finding the New York City unicorn apartment—the charming, affordable, off-market unit. And most fail. But interior designer Sam Masters achieved the unthinkable: a prewar, one-bedroom in the heart of the West Village. Of course, this wouldn’t be a true New York City fairy tale without a bit of drama. It took Masters 16 years and six apartments to land here. But when he did, it almost felt scripted: “When I first moved to Manhattan, my friends and I went out one night and walked down Bleecker Street. It was just so alive, and I looked up at these very windows and wondered who lived there.” Of course, like any true New Yorker, Masters is quick to temper that memory with the caveat that the Village has “become overrun and a little annoying.”

 But Masters isn’t afraid of leaning into the (well-earned) city cliché. “[My apartment] definitely has a very 2000s-ish New York City feel,” the designer says. “It’s got that Sex and the City vibe of the West Village, which I love, and it’s quirky—you know, crumbling plaster walls and paper-thin windows, so it’s loud.” Manhattan is, after all, an island of trade-offs. (Read more.)

 

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Modern Americans Work More than Medieval Peasants

From Nancy Bilyeau at the Vintage News:

“Before capitalism, most people did not work very long hours at all,” wrote Schor in her book. “Consider a typical working day in the medieval period. It stretched from dawn to dusk (sixteen hours in summer and eight in winter), but, as the Bishop Pilkington has noted, work was intermittent – called to a halt for breakfast, lunch, the customary afternoon nap, and dinner.” 

Depending on time and place, there were also midmorning and midafternoon refreshment breaks. These rest periods were the traditional rights of laborers, which they enjoyed even during peak harvest times. During slack periods, which accounted for a large part of the year, adherence to regular working hours was not usual. According to Oxford Professor James E. Thorold Rogers, the medieval workday was not more than eight hours. 

Plowing and harvesting were backbreaking toil, no doubt, but the peasant enjoyed anywhere from eight weeks to half the year off. 

The Catholic Church, mindful of how to keep a population from rebelling, enforced frequent mandatory holidays. Weddings, wakes, and births might mean a week off to celebrate, “and when wandering jugglers or sporting events came to town, the peasant expected time off for entertainment,” according to Business Insider. “There were labor-free Sundays, and when the plowing and harvesting seasons were over, the peasant got time to rest, too.” 

In fact, Schor found that during periods of particularly high wages, such as 14th-century England, peasants might put in no more than 150 days a year. “All told, holiday leisure time in medieval England took up probably about one-third of the year,” she wrote in her book. “And the English were apparently working harder than their neighbors. The ancien règime in France is reported to have guaranteed fifty-two Sundays, ninety rest days, and thirty-eight holidays. In Spain, travelers noted that holidays totaled five months per year.” (Read more.)

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Medieval Lepers

 From Archaeology Magazine:

Phys.org reports that Elena Fiorin of Sapienza University of Rome and her colleagues looked for mercury in samples of dental calculus taken from the remains of people buried at two medieval lepers’ hospitals, or leprosaria—Peterborough Abbey in England, which was founded in 1125, and Saint-Thomas-d’Aizier, built in the late eleventh century in Normandy, France. During the medieval period, the toxic metal was used to treat syphilis and leprosy in the form of ointments that were rubbed onto the skin. Samples of bones, teeth, and hair are usually used to test mercury levels in human remains. “Dental calculus offers a new and complementary perspective,” Fiorin said. “Because it forms in the mouth during life, it can capture substances that enter the body more directly, including medical treatments applied in or around the mouth,” she explained. The researchers also tested soil from the graves to see if mercury could have entered the dental calculus after burial, and analyzed the dental calculus of people who had been buried in non-leprosaria cemeteries in England and France. “Individuals buried in leprosaria show significantly higher mercury levels than those from other cemeteries, and our analyses indicate that this mercury was incorporated during life rather from the soil,” Fiorin said. “In addition, there is no evidence of local environmental sources, such as mining, that could explain these patterns.” Mercury detected in the soil at the leprosaria likely leached from contaminated bodies, since the levels of mercury in the dental calculus tended to be higher than those in the soil samples. The highest levels of mercury were found in the remains of two individuals who had been buried in a leprosarium chapel, perhaps indicating that they were elites with access to more medical treatment. Read the original scholarly article about this research in the Journal of Archaeological Science. To read more about chemical sampling of soil around burials, go to "Secrets of Life in the Soil." (Read more.)

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