Innholdsfortegnelse for September/October 2018 i National Geographic History

If you close your eyes and imagine evil, what do you see? A scarlet man with horns and a pitchfork? A pair of glowing eyes glaring in the dark? A dark force thriving on fear and pain? Evil has many incarnations, and in this issue, HISTORY explores two of them—one spiritual and the other physical. The first article delves into medieval Christian art to show how the devil’s appearance evolved over centuries from fallen angel to horned monster, like the one shown above in this 15th-century Spanish altarpiece. In many of these artworks, evil is vividly rendered as an ugly, slavering beast awaiting sinful souls to punish in hell. In the story of Jack the Ripper, evil is a mystery man: predatory, anonymous, and elusive. Dwelling in the shadows, it…

In her memoir Tussaud wrote that during the Reign of Terror her head was shaved in preparation for the guillotine. Paris seethed with tension in the summer of 1789 as crisis engulfed France. Gripped with revolutionary fervor, the people were clamoring for a greater say in their government. In July outrage grew after King Louis XVI fired his reform-minded finance minister, Jacques Necker. A huge crowd of revolutionaries took to the streets of the capital, waving black flags and mimicking a funeral cortège. They bore wax effigies of both Necker and the pro-democracy prince, the Duke of Orléans. Taken from the collection of a well-known waxwork artist, these likenesses may have been sculpted by his apprentice, Marie Grosholtz, who would become better known by her married name: Madame Tussaud. Years…

THE SCULPTING GENE was strong in Tussaud’s family, and her successors turned the museum into a lucrative family business. Even after it was no longer in the family’s hands, Tussaud’s great-grandson, John Theodore Tussaud, was museum manager until the 1940s. He wrote a biography of his great-grandmother and was a respected modeler in his own right, sculpting busts of contemporary figures, like Christabel Pankhurst (left), a suffragette imprisoned in the early 1900s.…

Persecution and new opportunities in other lands have led to an annual decline in Iran’s Zoroastrian population. In the city of Yazd, once a thriving center of Zoroastrianism, only a couple hundred followers of Zarathustra’s creed remain in a city of nearly half a million. Near Yazd is a site that symbolizes both the resilience of Iran’s Zoroastrian culture, as well as an elegiac reminder of how this ancient creed has weathered centuries of prejudice and persecution. In the desert, some 60 miles from Yazd, lies the Zoroastrian shrine of Pir-e Sabz, a cave inside an otherwise barren mountain. Nicknamed “Chak-Chak” for the sound of water dripping from a nearby spring, it is the setting of a poignant legend. In the seventh century, as the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III,…

HAVING ROUTED DARIUS at Gaugamela, Alexander enjoyed a warm welcome in Babylon, hosted by Mazaeus, the Persian satrap (regional governor). Although Alexander considered Babylon to be the seat of his new government in Asia, he allowed Mazaeus to continue in his position as satrap, with some powers curtailed. This decision was key to Alexander cementing power, but some of his Macedon followers were resentful of Mazaeus, who had fought against them at the Battle of Gaugamela. The incident marked a continuing trend: Alexander built up a parallel court of satraps and eunuchs, introduced Asian rituals into court, and later married a Bactrian princess, Roxana. His entourage of Macedons, older men who had fought for Alexander’s father, Philip II, began to resent this behavior on both generational and cultural grounds.…

HEPHAESTION had been Alexander’s close friend from childhood, probably taught by Aristotle alongside the young prince. The two were close in age, with sources putting Hephaestion’s birth in 357 or 356 B.C., and some historians believe the two were lovers as young men. One popular account puts the comrades near the river Granicus in Anatolia (modern Turkey) on the way to battle the Persian army in 334. Alexander visited the tomb of Achilles, his alleged ancestor, while Hephaestion paid his respects to Patroclus, Achilles’ dear companion. The two were said to look so alike that they were often mistaken for one another. Hephaestion stayed in Alexander’s favor throughout his career. His sudden death in 324 B.C. deeply affected Alexander, who openly mourned his lifelong friend.…

Perhaps the devil’s most famous depiction was crafted by English poet John Milton in his 1667 masterpiece, Paradise Lost. The epic poem tells two stories: one of the fall of man and the other the fall of an angel. Once the most beautiful of all angels, Lucifer rebels against God and becomes Satan, the adversary, who is: Hurld headlong flaming from th’ Ethereal Skie With hideous ruine and combustion down To bottomless perdition, there to dwell In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire . . . To develop his character, Milton relied on an idea of the devil that had been evolving throughout the Middle Ages and early Renaissance: the foe of God and man, the master of witches, and the tempter of sinners. This personage was largely fixed in the…

"THE FRONT was the figure of a man, curiously and richly dressed, and the face, evidently a portrait, solemn, stern, and well fitted to excite terror . . . This our guide called an 'Idol'; and before it . . . was a large block of stone, also sculpted with figures and emblematical devices, which he called an altar. The sight of this unexpected monument put at rest . . . all uncertainty in regard to the character of American antiquities, and gave us the assurance that the objects we were in search of were interesting, not only as the remains of an unknown people, but as works of art, proving . . . that the people who once occupied the Continent of America were not savages.” From Incidents of…

August 31 Mary Ann “Polly” Nichols is murdered. Investigation will reveal that she is Jack the Ripper’s first victim. September 1-7 Police begin questioning Whitechapel prostitutes to assemble a list of suspects. September 8 The second Ripper victim, Annie Chapman, is discovered savagely murdered. September 27 The Central News Agency receives a letter from a person claiming to be the killer. It is signed “Jack the Ripper.” September 30 In one night Jack the Ripper slays two women: Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes. October More letters from the would-be killer are received by the police, the press, and Whitechapel officials. Most are hoaxes, but three are believed genuine. November 9 Mary Jane Kelly is murdered. After her death, the Ripper killings abruptly stop.…

IT IS THE STUFF OF movie plots, and every police chief’s nightmare: A killer is on the loose, panic is spreading, and the killer appears to be mocking his pursuers. Captained by Sir Charles Warren, London’s Metropolitan Police struggled from the moment Mary Ann Nichols’s body was found on August 31, 1888. As the murders mounted, and the cases against suspects fell apart, the press picked over the police’s perceived failures: They were slow to react to the murders; they took too few photographs; they destroyed evidence. Today sympathetic historians highlight the challenge of even basic policing in the East End, as well as the flow of misinformation, and suspected hoax letters, produced by the press. But the media were merciless: In October 1888 the Cork Examiner reported “people are…

GEORGE A. REISNER was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1867. Educated at Harvard, he pursued a career in Egyptology, developing meticulous excavation and recording methods based partly on his use of field photography. Following his 1906-1910 triumph at Giza, Reisner made another great discovery in 1925, finding the tomb of Queen Hetepheres, mother of Khufu. Despite losing his sight in the 1930s, he continued his work with the help of his daughter.…

SLIGHTLY MORE than a decade after the Wright brothers’ first flight, aircraft began soaring over the battlefields of World War I on reconnaissance missions, and gave a newfound perspective on the military maneuvers below. When a French crew shot down a German plane, air-to-air combat was born, and warfare was transformed forever. Engineers fine-tuned maneuverability and retooled weapons for dogfights. Daring pilots pushed themselves to the limit, adding a dash of chivalrous glamour to the ugliness of war.…

1761 Marie Grosholtz is born in Strasbourg, France. She grows up in the Bern home of her mother’s employer, the doctor and sculptor Philippe Curtius. 1765 Curtius moves to Paris, and young Marie and her mother will follow two years later. There he will teach the girl to create lifelike waxworks. 1789 The French Revolution breaks out, and Marie is accused of being a royalist. To escape execution, she sculpts wax death masks. 1794 Curtius dies, and Marie inherits his waxworks. A year later, she marries François Tussaud. Despite being in an unhappy marriage, the couple have two sons. 1802 Leaving France, Madame Tussaud travels to Britain and gains fame with her waxworks. She will never again return to France.…

Work on Rome’s Temple of Peace began in the late first century a.d., undertaken by Emperor Vespasian to commemorate his conquest of Jerusalem in a.d. 70. The temple stood for centuries and later served as an administrative center for the urban prefecture, the body tasked with keeping order in the city. During the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus, in the first years of the third century, civil servants worked in the large main chamber, dominated by one of the most extraordinary maps ever produced: A huge marble street plan of Rome known as the “Forma Urbis Romae.” Taking up an entire wall and measuring 60 feet wide and 43 feet high, it depicted Rome’s urban landmarks across five square miles, from grand temples to humble warehouses. Aside from their practical…

HELD IN THE LOUVRE in Paris, this small painting makes a big impact. Created in 1568 by Flemish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder, the work is perhaps an allegory on the plight of those disabled by St. Anthony’s fire. The beggars’ different hats may give the work deeper meaning, but the exact symbolism eludes modern art historians. Bruegel was fascinated by the works of Hieronymus Bosch, a 15th-century painter who often depicted disabled people in his paintings. Among the causes suggested for the injuries in the paintings are polio, cerebral palsy, and St. Anthony’s fire. Bruegel’s unflinching look at them reveals how the disabled would have been a regular part of village life.…

1700-1200 B.C. The Gathas, hymns attributed to the prophet Zarathustra, are thought to have been written. Mainstream scholarship considers that Zarathustra lived toward the later part of this period. 539 B.C. Persian king Cyrus the Great conquers Babylon. He is influenced by Zoroastrianism—whose tenets also influence the Hebrews—which will later become Persia’s official religion. 330 B.C. Alexander the Great conquers the Achaemenian Empire by toppling Darius III. Scholars believe many sacred texts are destroyed in the conquest, and Zoroastrianism will decline during Hellenic rule. A.D. 241-272 Under Shapur I, Zoroastrianism reemerges as an official, imperial religion at the heart of the Sasanian Persian empire. The building of fire temples begins during this period. Circa third century A.D. The Sasanian kings oversee the assembly and standardization of the Avesta. This work…

334 B.C. Alexander invades the Persian Empire, led by Darius III. Alexander’s victory at Gaugamela in 331 will lead to Darius’s overthrow. 330 B.C. Philotas, commander of the elite Companion cavalry, is tried, tortured, and executed for allegedly participating in a murder conspiracy. Alexander then orders the death of Philotas’s father, the respected general Parmenio. 328 B.C. During a banquet in Samarqand, a drunken Alexander slays his general Cleitus the Black, who had openly criticized Alexander’s despotism and adoption of Persian customs. 327 B.C. Seven royal pages are charged with plotting to murder Alexander. All are executed, and the court historian and Alexander’s biographer, Callisthenes, is accused of being complicit. He is arrested and dies in prison. 323 B.C. After a session of feasting and drinking that lasts for several…

1 THE TORTURE OF PHILOTAS Alexander’s aides closed ranks against Philotas, persuading the king to permit his torture: [H]e was seized, and while his eyes were being bound, while his clothing was taken off, he called upon his country’s gods and on the law of nations, but vainly to deaf ears . . . now fire, and now the lash were used on him, no longer for the purpose of seeking the truth, but as a punishment . . . but when his body, swollen with wounds, could no longer endure the blows of the scourges . . . he promised that if they would moderate his tortures, he would tell them what they wished to know . . . [Later, he was] stoned to death, on a given signal,…

THE OLDEST REPRESENTATION OF the Christian idea of the devil may be this mosaic in the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy. The sixth-century mosaic shows Jesus Christ, dressed in royal purple, seated at the Last Judgment. He is separating the souls of the saved (symbolized by sheep) from the souls of the damned (the goats). Behind the sheep stands a red angel, and behind the damned is a blue angel. Both angels wear halos, a device originally seen as a symbol of power, but not necessarily of sanctity. The blue figure may be Lucifer, the fallen angel later known as Satan. Unlike later depictions, he is beautiful and radiant—not the horned, hoofed, red monster of later depictions. The color of the holy kingdom in the sixth century, red became…

In January 1842, having begun their second trip to the region the October before, Stephens and Catherwood began visiting a chain of Maya sites strongly marked by the Puuc style. Although there was some knowledge of Uxmal and Chichén Itzá among American scholars, the site of Kabáh, which flourished in the ninth century and was abandoned in the 10th, was almost undocumented. Despite its being linked to Uxmal by a causeway— sacbé in Mayan—Stephens had difficulty locating the site, and is credited with being the first to provide a detailed survey, including of the surprising apartment interiors: “Here we were presented with a scene entirely new . . . [one apartment] consists of two parallel chambers . . . communicating by a door in the center. The inner room is…

Melville Macnaghten ran the Metropolitan Police’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) from 1890 and was admired as a brilliant sleuth with an uncanny memory, who later established fingerprinting as a forensic tool. It was Macnaghten who helped identify the five canonical Ripper victims by linking common characteristics of the crimes. Macnaghten personally believed Montague John Druitt to be the killer, but little direct evidence can link him to the murders. Over the years, many other sleuths have tried to solve the case and have pointed a finger at different culprits. {1} Montague J. Druitt Macnaghten’s chief suspect, Druitt was born into a middle-class family with a history of mental illness. Well educated and trained as a lawyer, he taught at a boarding school but was discharged for unknown reasons…

The police identified five murders as being committed by Jack the Ripper, but some experts believe there may be as many as 11 killings. The last of the five “canonical” victims is Mary Jane Kelly (also known as Marie Jeanette), murdered in her room in Miller’s Court (above). To the residents of Whitechapel, the months following her death were thankfully free of more grisly discoveries, but the hiatus came to an end on July 16, 1889, when the body of Alice McKenzie was found with her throat slit and her abdomen mutilated. Dr. Thomas Bond, who had conducted Kelly’s autopsy, studied the corpse and concluded that McKenzie was another victim of the Ripper. Even though the police disagreed with Bond’s opinion, the press stirred up a frenzy claiming that the…

IN 1910 a boy beckoned George Reisner over to a pit at Menkaure’s Valley Temple to show him treasure: the tops of two stone heads protruding from the sand. After Reisner retrieved the double statue, he knew he was in the presence of a masterpiece: The couple are serene and powerful, individualized and regal. The male figure depicts Menkaure, recognizable by his royal headwear. The identity of the female figure who embraces the king has puzzled scholars, since the statue bears no names. Wearing no divine accessories, she is not a goddess, but a mortal woman, most likely either Menkaure’s mother or his Great Royal Wife.…

HUMAN SACRIFICE has been recorded in the Aztec, Maya, and Inca cultures, but the rite more typically involved the deaths of adults. Child sacrifice seems to have been much rarer. Before the Las Llamas find, the largest known incident had been at the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, where 42 children were killed. As in this, and in cases of individual child murder at Inca sites, the violence at Las Llamas was highly ritualized. The children’s faces were daubed with a red, cinnabar-based pigment, traces of which were found on their skulls. Their sternums and ribs also bear the marks of a quick, deliberate strike, most likely a deep cut across the chest.…

THIS WAXWORK of Marie Grosholtz was fashioned by her mentor, Dr. Philippe Curtius, in 1784. The future Madame Tussaud was in her early 20s when she was in residence at Versailles. According to her memoirs, her skills had earned her a position tutoring members of the French royal family. Her placid expression and regal dress give no hint of the terrors to come after 1789 when the French Revolution broke out. Witnessing the horrors of the day would give her the toughness and the subject matter that formed the foundation of her later success.…

THE MONASTIC MEMBERS of the Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony would have been a familiar sight in medieval Europe. Many wore on their habit the T-shaped St. Anthony’s cross—also called a tau cross, for its similarity to the Greek letter of that name. Of the 370 or so hospitals built and run by the order across Europe, the most celebrated is that of Isenheim, near Colmar in northern France. e to the hermit elics were said to s of St. Anthony’s e, the monks ommissioned a eat altarpiece or the monasery hospital’s chapel in the early 1500s. Sculpted by Niclaus of Haguenau and painted by Matthias Grünewald, the masterpiece is today housed in the Unterlinden Museum in nearby Colmar. A panel (above) shows the saint learning humility from an older…

Fire is a central element of the rituals performed  in Zoroastrian temples, but followers of Zarathustra are at pains to dispel the popular idea that they worship the fire itself. The flame is a potent and multifaceted symbol. It represents an attribute of Ahura Mazda, the one god. It recalls the miraculous burning hearth in which the divine essence was kept alive in the home of Zarathustra’s mother, and so combines both domesticity and the wonder of the heavens. It dispels the shadows of ignorance and represents justice and order. Fire temples do not feature in the older Zoroastrian scripture, and seem to have developed later in the long evolution of the faith. There are three grades of fire temple. Flames in the two lower grades of temple can be…

Alexander the Great’s accomplishments in the fourth century B.C. were breathtaking. The son of a powerful king and an ambitious queen, Alexander was born in 356 B.C. He studied under Aristotle until age 16 and became king of Macedon at age 20. In his 13-year rule, Alexander united ancient Greece, conquered Persia, seized Egypt, and created an empire stretching from Europe to Asia. He fancied himself the descendant of Achilles and the son of Zeus. As Alexander’s power grew, so did his fear of losing it. At times megalomaniacal and paranoid, he began to see threats everywhere, including among those closest to him. He believed they envied him. He believed they wanted his power. He believed they wanted him dead. Bold Beginnings Alexander’s brilliant start won him many loyal followers,…

BAGOAS, a young eunuch, first met Alexander following the death of Darius III. He had been sent on behalf of Nabarzanes, a Persian military officer who had helped slay Darius, and whom Alexander—as Darius’s successor—could consider punishing as a murderer of his king. Writing in the first century A.D., Quintus Curtius Rufus recounts that Bagoas, “of uniquely lovely looks,” argued successfully that Nabarzanes be pardoned and later became Alexander’s lover. The implication that Alexander’s judgment was swayed by Bagoas’s looks was later echoed by Plutarch, who wrote of Alexander’s enthusiastic response to Bagoas’s dancing. Another source, Arrian of Nicomedia, however, generally portrays Alexander as able to resist his attraction to Bagoas. Some historians argue that Bagoas’s plea to Alexander was strengthened by his knowledge of the case, and the fact…

AMONG THE BEHAVIORS that irked members of Alexander’s entourage was his adoption of the courtly ceremonies of his Persian predecessors. These involved complex rituals of greeting the king, which in the case of the lowliest subjects, required full prostration. Termed proskynesis in Greek (literally “kissing toward”), the practice was regarded by many Macedons as hostile to the Hellenist spirit. Worshipping a living person as if they were divine struck them as both impious and degrading. The second-century A.D. historian Arrian of Nicomedia writes of a face-off at a banquet when some figures in Alexander’s inner circle spoke of their approval of the ritual. Callisthenes, the court scholar, was having none of it. “It is unreasonable to obliterate all these distinctions by inflating human beings to excessive proportions through extravagant honors,…

ST. AUGUSTINE (A.D. 354-430), today considered one of the most significant Christian authors since St. Paul, took demons very seriously. He wrote a short work dedicated to demons, as well as including many passages about them in his treatise The City of God. In his treatise on demons (De divinatione deamonum), Augustine wrote that demons could tell the future and had winged bodies endowed with “keenness of perception and speed of movement,” which allowed them to foretell many things that they have recognized far in advance. At this, because of the sluggishness of earthly perception, men wonder. The demons, too, through the long period into which their life is extended, have gained a far greater experience in events than accrues to men . . . Demons not only foretell many…

Continuing along the chain of Puucstyle sites, Stephens and Catherwood visited Labná, a spot so secluded that even many local people did not know of its existence. Stephens noted his admiration for these “decaying, but still proud memorials of a mysterious people.” Flourishing between the seventh and 10th centuries, Labná is noted for its gateway constructed using a corbeled arch. Echoing the wall of masks at nearby Kabáh, the arch bears representations of Chac, the Maya god of rain—an important deity in a region lacking streams and rivers. Stephens hailed the arch for its “beauty of proportions . . . The effect of the whole combination was curious and striking, and, familiar as we were with ruins, the first view, with the great wall towering in front, created an impression…

At the end of the 19th century a foreign traveler only had to spend a day sightseeing in London to feel stirred by England’s power. At Westminster the Houses of Parliament proudly proclaimed British global domination, while at Buckingham Palace Queen Victoria crowned the nation’s golden age. All along the Thames to the sea, lined with ship after ship of merchants and the Royal Navy, a visitor could see for themselves the formidable maritime might of the largest empire the world had ever known. But all was not well with London. Joseph Conrad’s 1899 novel, Heart of Darkness, describes London as “one of the dark places of the earth.”To the theatergoers and shoppers thronging the well-lit, opulent streets of the West End, this description might have seemed out of place,…

NOT EVEN DURING THE RIOTS OF 1886 have I seen London so thoroughly excited as it is tonight,” wrote one breathless reporter following the murder of Annie Chapman on September 8, 1888. “The Whitechapel fiend murdered his fourth victim this morning and still continues undetected, unseen, and unknown. ” The attentive reader will note that—unlike the consensus view of the Ripper case, in which Annie was the second victim—the writer here is attributing previous murders in the district to the killer. It is one insight into the way in which the press drew its own muddled conclusions and whipped up panic. The 1880s were a boom period for the sensationalist press. Publications like the Illustrated Police News seized on the Ripper case to feed public hunger for gory crimes while…

In October 1888 George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, a volunteer police force, received a small box in the mail. Inside it was a letter (above)—and half a human kidney. Known as the “From Hell” letter, the author claims to be the killer, describes his revolting behavior, and taunts Lusk to try to catch him. The text reads: “From hell / Mr Lusk, Sor I send you half the Kidne I took from one woman and prasarved it for you [.] tother piece I fried and ate it was very nise. I may send you the bloody knif that took it out if you only wate a whil longer / signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk.” Dr. Thomas Horrocks Openshaw of the London Pathological Museum examined the…