Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2018 i National Geographic History

The Sistine Chapel ceiling can feel overwhelming. Myriad figures and colors compete for your attention, pulling your eye from one dramatic moment to the next. God creates the sun and the planets; the first man receives the spark of life; Adam and Eve are cast out of Eden; and terrified people flee the Flood. It’s dizzying to try to take in all the action. Calmer moments are found in the 12 portraits surrounding these iconic scenes. Seven of them are biblical prophets, and the rest are sibyls, five women from the classical world who could see the future. The beautiful Delphic Sibyl graces our cover, and the elegant Libyan Sibyl perches above. Their presence on the Sistine ceiling not only provides moments of respite, it also reveals the respect that…

Talented sailors like Bering were welcomed into Peter the Great’s newly created Russian Navy. Although Siberia feels far away to many Americans, it actually sits only about 55 miles from Alaska, which is separated from Asia by the glacial waters of the Bering Strait. The man for whom that narrow passage was named played a vital role in Russia’s early 18th-century attempts to expand into North America. Among the very first Europeans to lay eyes on the coast of Alaska, Vitus Jonassen Bering is credited as commanding the first crew to cross from Asia to northwestern America in modern history, in circumstances of extraordinary hardship and heroism. The Call of the Ocean Despite serving several tsars and tsarinas, Bering was not a Russian, but a Dane. He was born in…

PSALM 137 IN THE BIBLE curses Babylon and the Edomites, allies of Nebuchadrezzar II, and exhorts the Jews: “Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites the day of Jerusalem’s fall, how they said, ‘Tear it down! Tear it down! Down to its foundations!’” Razing a city following its conquest was standard practice in ancient Mesopotamia. Exactly the same fate had befallen Babylon when the Assyrians took it a century before the siege of Jerusalem. When the Chaldeans revolted, the Assyrian king Sennacherib laid siege to Babylon in 690 B.C. and defeated the rebels. “The corpses of men with no one to bury them filled the squares of Babylon,” an inscription relates. Sennacherib exacted a more terrible punishment on the survivors: Babylon’s temples were destroyed, their ruins flooded, and even the city’s…

CHARES OF LINDOS was the sculptor tasked with creating the Colossus, but all that survives of his work is his name. After the disappearance of the remains of the Colossus in the seventh century A.D., all trace of his work was lost. He was a pupil of Lysippus, one of the most famous artists in the Greek world, who created busts of Alexander the Great (right). Although Lysippus’ original works have also all been lost, later replicas and works made by his disciples shed light on the type of education that his pupil might have received. Lysippus’ bronze pieces are notable for their slenderness. By elongating the body, and slightly reducing the size of the head, the artist created a sensation of height, a trait seen in the replica of…

1475 MICHELANGELO is born in Caprese, the Republic of Florence, to a family of minor nobility. He will be apprenticed at age 13 to the studio of Domenico Ghirlandajo, Florence’s most eminent painter. 1499 MICHELANGELO’S “Pietà” is unveiled in St. Peter’s Basilica. One of the most moving and accomplished works of the Renaissance, the sculpture raises Michelangelo’s profile. He is just 24. 1508 DESPITE his inexperience as a painter, Michelangelo is commissioned to paint frescoes on the ceiling of the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel, a monumental task he will complete in 1512. 1536 MICHELANGELO is commanded to paint a fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. He will complete it in 1541, but his use of nudity will offend increasingly orthodox elements in the Church. 1564 MICHELANGELO dies in…

KNOWN FOR HIS INTENSE PIETY, Michelangelo was also well known for his attraction to men. As the American art critic James Saslow puts it: “Michelangelo had two passions: one was men, and the other was God.” One notable aspect of Michelangelo’s art is how his figures representing women often have male physiology. The great Florentine artist was known to use male models in his preliminary sketches for female figures, as the sketch to the right—a study for the Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine ceiling—so clearly shows. The rendering would then be softened and feminized to produce the finished result (below). Many artists of the era used male models in this way, regardless of their sexual orientation. One theory is that there were simply more men than women in an artist’s…

Painted between 1536 and 1541, the fresco that tumbles down the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel is a swirl of movement. In his 60s, Michelangelo began working on it nearly three decades after finishing the Sistine ceiling. Medieval depictions of the Last Judgment tend to be very structured and hierarchical, but Michelangelo’s looser arrangement flows in a circular motion, as the dead rise from their graves, wait for judgment, and then descend to the torments of hell. The largest figure is Christ, who stands at the center of the painting. Michelangelo’s use of nudity, controversial for the time, to depict the angels and heavenly figures, reflects his passionate, lifelong belief that the perfection of the human figure is a reflection of the divine.…

THE INVENTOR who built Germany’s Eindecker I, the scourge of the Allies, was not German at all, but Dutch, and his genius went beyond aircraft design. In 1915 Anthony Fokker examined a captured French plane equipped with deflectors that allowed gunners to fire through the propeller without destroying it. Inspired, he improved upon the design and created synchronization gear that allowed bullets to pass cleanly between the blades without damaging them. It is said that during a test flight he refused to fire the new weapon, as he preferred the Germans to do their own killing.…

1681 Vitus Bering is born in Denmark. In 1704 he will join Tsar Peter I’s new Russian Navy. 1725 Bering sets out for Siberia. His mission, given him by Peter the Great, is to establish if Asia and North America are connected. 1728 Bering sails through the strait between the two continents, but the North American coast is hidden from sight by fog. 1730s Planning begins for Russia’s Great Northern Expedition to map Siberia and the North American coast, in which Bering will play a key role. 1741 Bering sets foot in North America, but the Danish commander dies before he can return to Russia.…

THE TOWER (right) from where the Habsburg regents were thrown in 1618 is part of the Old Royal Palace at Prague’s Hradcany Castle. The complex of buildings began as wooden structures on the Hradcany Hill above Prague in the ninth century, at around the time the Bohemia region became Christianized. Rebuilt and extended over the centuries, its many architectural styles are spread over more than a hundred acres. Another notorious tower of the castle complex is the 15th-century New White Tower. In 1620, early in the Thirty Years’ War, Habsburg prisoners taken at the Battle of White Mountain were held there prior to execution.…

408 B.C. Having united to create a commercial union, the Rhodian states of Lindos, Kameiros, and Ialysos found the port of Rhodes as their capital city. 306 B.C. Antigonus I, king of Macedonia, fails to persuade the Rhodians to ally with him against Ptolemy I of Egypt and sends his son Demetrius to besiege the city. 305 B.C. Failing to achieve his objective, Demetrius negotiates an agreement with the Rhodians, and abandons his gigantic siege tower on the island. 294-282 B.C. Chares of Lindos builds the Colossus, a huge statue of Helios, patron god of Rhodes, in thanks for protection during the Macedon siege. Circa 225 B.C. An earthquake destroys the Colossus. Despite an offer from Ptolemy III to rebuild, the Rhodians decide to leave it lying in pieces on…

8TH CENTURY B.C. Classical sources attribute the creation of the Vestal cult to the ancient Roman king Numa Pompilius. Young girls chosen as future priestesses had to leave their families to live in the temple of Vesta. 65 B.C. The selection process allows the Pontifex Maximus to choose a pool of 20 candidates, from which public lots would be drawn to determine the six girls who will join the temple. A.D. 193-211 A fire damages the compound in which the Vestals live and worship, leading the wife of Emperor Septimius Severus, Julia Domna, to oversee a restoration of the Temple of Vesta, which will retain its iconic circular structure. A.D. 394 Emperor Theodosius I bans all pagan rituals and cults. The Temple of Vesta is closed, the sacred fire extinguished—perhaps…

472 B.C. According to first-century b.c. historian Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Urbinia is accused of incestum with two lovers. She is flogged and buried alive. One of her lovers commits suicide while the other is scourged to death. 271 B.C. Caparronia is found guilty of incestum, but she hangs herself before the dreaded immurement can be carried out. According to fifth-century historian Orosius, her lover is executed. 216 B.C. First-century historian Livy wrote that Opimia and Floronia are the cause of Rome’s military defeat by Hannibal. They are found guilty of immorality, but Floronia kills herself before she can be immured. 70s B.C. Marcus Licinius Crassus is acquitted of incestum with Licinia when it is shown that he, who is known for his greed, only wanted her property—which, Plutarch writes, he…

MICHELANGELO WROTE: “All the discords that arose between Pope Julius and me were owing to the envy of Bramante [Pope Julius’s chief architect] and of [the painter] Raphael.” Did these rival artists suggest to the pope that Michelangelo was not up to the job? Ascanio Condivi, Michelangelo’s first biographer, had a different theory: It was Bramante himself who put forward Michelangelo’s name. He did so, however, out of spite, calculating that when his younger rival began to paint the ceiling, his lack of expertise would become clear and his career in Rome would be finished. Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, also follows this argument. Michelangelo himself was dubious of his abilities as a painter, so the theory may not be far-fetched. History…

The nine panels of the Sistine Chapel ceiling depict iconic scenes from the Old Testament, but perhaps Michelangelo’s most famous imagery can be found in the first six panels, which show the creation of the heavens, the earth, and humanity according to the first three chapters of Genesis. 1 Light and Darkness According to the Book of Genesis, God first creates light and then separates it from darkness. Michelangelo represents God giving form to the light with one hand while pushing away darkness with the other. 2 The Earth, the Sun, and the Moon In this panel, Michelangelo depicts God twice: On the left, God covers the earth with vegetation. On the right, God creates the sun and moon to be “lights in the dome of the sky to give…

PLACED OPPOSITE the youthful figure of the Libyan Sibyl on the Sistine ceiling, Michelangelo’s portrait of the Prophet Jeremiah is a powerful study of melancholy. Flanked by mourning women, the prophet seems to be brooding on the fate of Jerusalem in the Lamentations of Jeremiah: “How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations!“ The figure is often interpreted as a kind of future self-portrait, as if the artist is imagining himself as an old man. In the 1490s Michelangelo had witnessed the brief reign in his native Florence of Savonarola, the firebrand monk who frequently cited Jeremiah as he ranted against corruption and sin. More than two decades after painting the ceiling, Savonarola’s gloomy vision of man would permeate Michelangelo’s fresco of the Last…

VIKTOR SARIANIDI, born in 1929 in Uzbekistan, then a Soviet republic, forged an archaeological career deeply shaped by the Cold War. On the eve of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1978, Sarianidi unearthed a treasure hoard of some 22,000 items in a 2,000-year-old tomb at the Afghan site of Tillya Tepe. His life’s quest, however, was to raise the profile of the earlier Oxus culture from Margiana, to the north. When the Cold War ended, he introduced Western scholars to his work at Gonur Tepe, where he continued working almost until his death at age 84 in 2013.…

In Search of the Indo-Europeans Many modern languages trace their origins back to the Indo-Europeans, an ancient people whom scholars are studying through a mix of archaeology, linguistics, and science. Egyptian Law and Order The complex details of ancient Egypt’s justice system can be found in its legal papyri, from the punishment of criminals to divine statues believed to solve mysteries. The Murder of Cicero His sparkling oratory once thrilled the Roman Republic, but his feud with Mark Antony turned Cicero into an enemy of the state and eventually led to his brutal death. The Roots of Robin Hood The noble outlaw who stole from the rich and gave to the poor bears little resemblance to the original Robin Hood in medieval poems and tales of violence, misrule, and upheaval…

VITUS BERING HAS achieved the rare distinction of being a hero of both his native Denmark and adopted Russia, but there is little consensus as to what he looked like in life. One portrait of him showed him with a round, chubby face and long hair, but experts now widely believe the painting is of his uncle, not him. This 1989 illustration shows Aleksey Chirikov (co-commander of his 1741 expedition) with the Dane (left), who has indistinct features. In 1991 Bering’s body was exhumed by a joint Danish-Russian expedition, allowing experts to study his skull. Based on this analysis, it is now believed his face would have been long and thin, and his body athletic.…

ACCOUNTS of the events in Prague spread rapidly across Europe, often spiced with exaggerations tailored to specific audiences. Protestant readers of this contemporary Dutch engraving (right) would have been reminded of their own revolt against Catholic Spain. Hurled from the castle window, the Catholic victims land comically on 1 a pile of manure, a detail fabricated to humiliate the men and rob their survival of any miraculous qualities. 2 A crowd of observers is also fanciful, perhaps there to emphasize the sense of spectacle. 3 The central figure on the right is one of the victims, making his escape.…

605 B.C. After defeating Egypt and Assyria at Carchemish, Nebuchadrezzar learns his father, Nabopolassar, founder of the Chaldean Empire, has died. Returning to Babylon, he is proclaimed its new ruler. 5 87 B.C. Following a series of revolts against Babylonian rule by Judah, Nebuchadrezzar II completely destroys Jerusalem’s Temple. Its nobles are sent into exile to Babylon, where the king is carrying out an extensive rebuilding program. 575 B.C. The Ishtar Gate is built, the principal of Babylon’s eight great entrances. Nebuchadrezzar also completes restoration of the Etemenanki ziggurat, damaged during an Assyrian invasion a century before. 5 61 B.C. After a 44-year reign, Nebuchadrezzar II dies in Babylon. Only 22 years after his death, following a period of decadence, Babylon falls in 539 B.C. to the Persian king, Cyrus…

The Book of Daniel recounts Nebuchadrezzar’s treatment of the Jewish captives in Babylon, and how their worship of Jehovah was tested. The relief to the left depicts the story in the third chapter of Daniel, in which Nebuchadrezzar sets up a statue and orders the people to worship it. They refuse, and the king orders them thrown into a fiery furnace. They emerge unscathed. Astonished, the king decrees toleration of their faith. A similar tale occurs earlier in the Book of Daniel, when the king is plagued by troublesome dreams. He threatens to execute anyone who cannot guess the content of the dream and explain it to him. Daniel prays to God, who guides him. Brought into Nebuchadrezzar’s presence (right), he reveals to the king that his dream was about…

THE VESTAL VIRGINS lived in the Atrium Vestae in the Roman Forum. The illustration shows the Atrium as it looked following restoration under Emperor Septimius Severus in the early third century. Despite its grandeur, it was known for being dark and damp. In the center, 1 a large patio was decorated with the statues of those who had held the honor of being Vestalis Maxima, the chief priestess of the cult. 2 The aedicula was a small shrine supported by Ionic columns. Built under Hadrian in the early second century, it may have contained a statue of the goddess Vesta. 3 The Temple of Vesta was a circular structure (a tholos) of Corinthian columns, restored by the wife of Septimius Severus. Here, the priestesses tended the fire whose smoke rose…

Now in her 40s, a newly released Vestal could owe her survival, in part, to not having to undergo the dangerous experience of childbirth, and could look forward to a new life. After 30 years of service to the goddess, Vestal Virgins could, in theory, be free to leave the order, do as they wished, and even marry. In practice, it seems, exercising their newly found freedom was challenging. Material need was not a concern: a Vestal nearing the end of her service would have led the life of an aristocratic woman at the expense of the state and would enjoy a good pension. The problem seemed to be in adapting to life outside the temple. So many years spent in the confines of a regulated, all-female environment would make…

Following the reconstruction of the papal chapel by Sixtus IV between 1477 and 1480, various artists were commissioned to paint its walls. Michelangelo’s work, on the ceiling and altar wall, is the most acclaimed. CEILING Michelangelo’s ceiling (1508-1512) includes nine panels (all stories from Genesis) surrounded by 12 figures of prophets, sibyls, and ancestors of Jesus. In the four pendentives appear episodes from the salvation by God of ancient Israel. SOUTH WALL The south and north walls were painted in the 1480s by Perugino, Botticelli, Rosselli, and Ghirlandajo. The south wall depicts episodes from the life of Moses. Above them are portraits of popes, and trompe l’oeil curtains run below ALTAR WALL The whole wall behind the altar is filled with the “Last Judgment,” a fresco painted by Michelangelo between…

A LETTER WRITTEN by Michelangelo to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia provides a fascinating insight into the excruciating day-to-day discomfort he had to endure while painting the Sistine ceiling. Explaining his plight in a sonnet, he included a self-mocking sketch (right) in the margin. An extract of the sonnet follows: My belly is pushed by force underneath my chin. My beard toward Heaven, I feel the back of my skull Upon my neck, I’m getting a harpy’s breast; My brush, always dripping down above my face, Makes it a splendid floor. Before me, my hide is stretching And to fold itself behind, ties itself in a knot, And I bend like a Syrian bow.…

THE “LAST JUDGMENT “ unleashed a bitter battle between its defenders and detractors. In 1545 Pietro Aretino, a writer and satirist, wrote: “Michelangelo stupendous in his fame . . . has chosen to display to the whole world an impiety of irreligion only equaled by the perfection of his painting.” Vittoria Colonna, on the other hand, a deeply pious noblewoman, poet, and friend of the artist, defended Michelangelo’s great work, believing that its morals were as sound as its artistry. Still, the unmitigated nudity in the scene shocked many. The Theatines, a clerical movement cofounded by Gian Pietro Carafa, warned that “nudes do not belong in such a place.” Carafa, who had reorganized the Roman Inquisition in line with the new hard-line spirit, became Pope Paul IV in 1555, and…

Circa 1045 Hasan-e Sabbah is born in Rayy, south of modern Tehran, Iran. As a young man, he will convert to and study the Ismaili branch of Shiism. 1070-1080 Bright and ambitious, Hasan proves himself a superior scholar. He is sent to Cairo for advanced study and returns to Persia as a missionary. Circa 1090 Hasan founds a sect known as the Nizari Ismaili. They capture the mountain fortress Alamut Castle in Persia and make it their stronghold. 1092 The Nizari Ismaili murder Vizier Nizam al-Mulk, a powerful Seljuk official. The disguised Nizari agent publicly stabs the vizier in plain view of his guards. 11th-13th centuries Through espionage, and targeted killings of powerful opponents, the Nizari build their might and establish a power base in Syria. European crusaders spread tales…

October 5, 1914, seemed like an ordinary day for pilot Sgt. Joseph Frantz and observer Cpl. Louis Quénault. The two Frenchmen were flying near Reims, northern France, on board a Voisin 3 biplane. The very fact that they were airborne at all was a miracle, since little more than a decade had passed since the Wright brothers made their first manned flight near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In the first months of World War I airplanes had a narrow role in the military. Small and nimble, they were beginning to take over reconnaissance from the slow, unwieldy balloons that were still used as “eyes in the sky”to record enemy movements. Although the early aviators took rifles aloft and occasionally fired at enemy planes, few envisioned them taking on a true…

THE SON OF A PREACHER, Jesse James became one of the United States’ most notorious criminals, known for a spree of robbery and murder that terrorized the West. Born in 1847, Jesse grew up on a farm in Clay County, Missouri. Like the rest of the nation, the Civil War swept up his family; its brutality hardened young Jesse, who at age 16 followed his older brother Frank into the Confederate Army where the two witnessed and committed extreme acts of violence. Driven by greed and a desire for revenge against the Union, Jesse, his brother Frank, and other fellow former Confederates turned to a life of crime after the war, a decision that birthed a legend that grew bigger, badder, and bolder with time.…

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH’S persecution of heresy was feared all over Europe—and in few places more than Spain. Beginning in 1478 and finally ending in 1834, the Spanish Inquisition resulted in the arrest, torture, execution, and subjugation of Spain’s citizens in the pursuit of hegemony. Nearly 400 years of accounts reveal the effect on Spain’s people: the horrific fates of the accused; the kinds of people targeted and their alleged crimes; and the paranoia gripping an entire society as the Inquisition’s spy network turned neighbors, friends, and families against each other.…