Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2023 i National Geographic History

Fast, maneuverable, and dangerous, the trireme was the most feared ship in ancient Greece. With powerful bronze rams and the ability to turn on a dime, it would leave enemy ships dead in the water by punching holes in their sides or smashing their oars. In his Histories, Herodotus writes how Greek naval dominance owed so much to the brilliant use of triremes in battle. In the fifth century B.C., Athenian shipyards had the capacity for over 300 triremes, the most famous warships of antiquity. The trireme—a term derived from the Greek trieres, “three rows of oars”—was the result of the continuous development of naval technology in the Greek world. The epic poem Iliad (attributed to Homer, and written in the eighth century B.C.) mentions ships called triaconters and penteconters,…

A long the shores of northeastern Canada are several places that have yielded artifacts associated with Vikings. They have provided clues to a potential second Norse settlement in North America, but conclusive evidence of any Norse expansion beyond L’Anse aux Meadows has yet to be confirmed. Small pieces of metalwork have been recovered from the shores of Hudson Bay and the Hudson Strait. On Baffin Island at the Nanook site (also known as Tanfield Valley), archaeologists have made some intriguing finds, including a small stone crucible used for smelting, whetstones to hone metal tools, and antlers carved with human faces. Farther north in Canada’s Arctic region, iron tools and the characteristic twisted nails used to construct Viking ships have been found at Inuit sites, suggesting that these communities scavenged at…

When Christopher Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage to the Americas, he brought news of a people adorned with gold. It sparked a Spanish gold rush, which would run like a glittering seam through the whole history of Spain’s exploration and conquest of the Americas. But reality often belied the wild imaginings of the Spanish conquistadores. Hernán Cortés, having overthrown Aztec Mexico, seized a cache of gold, silver, and precious stones valued at two billion pesos. Expectations soared. But then suddenly sources of Mexican gold and silver seemed to dry up until the Viceroyalty of New Spain, established in 1535 to govern the lands Spain conquered in the New World, sought new territory for mining. Even before the arrival of Cortés, the search for gold was directed south,…

Fighting during World War II led to surprising discoveries near the Bulgarian city of Kazanlak. Bulgaria had sided with Nazi Germany, and toward the end of the war, the country was bombed by the Allies from the west, while the threat of Soviet invasion loomed in the east. To protect their lands, the Bulgarian Army built antiaircraft defenses near the central city of Kazanlak. These works set off a remarkable series of archaeological discoveries that would hugely expand knowledge about the ancient peoples who lived in the region thousands of years before World War II. Their kingdom was called Thrace. Horses and Gold Ancient Thrace extended over what today is Bulgaria, northwest Turkey, southern Romania, and southeast Serbia. Not unlike 1940s Bulgaria, Thrace sat at a geopolitical crossroads, surrounded by…

Archaeologists have found the remains of a young hunter-gatherer in Indonesian Borneo whose left foot was successfully amputated at least 31,000 years ago, making it the oldest known example of such a procedure, according to a team of Indonesian and Australian investigators who published their research in Nature. The skeleton’s sex is as yet unconfirmed. When they died at around 19 or 20, roughly six to nine years after the operation, their lower leg bones showed signs of healing. The find predates history’s next oldest amputation—a forearm removal in Neolithic France—by 24,000 years. Until now, most experts thought innovations in prehistoric medical practices began with settled agricultural societies around 10,000 years ago. “This suggests that some modern human foraging groups in tropical Asia had developed advanced medical knowledge and skills…

TECHNICAL DATA Length: 118-131 feet Beam: 11-19 feet Weight: 46 tons Crew: 200, including 170 oarsmen (on each side of the ship, 31 on the upper level, 27 on the middle level, and 27 on the lower level) Maximum speed: 9 knots…

In 1725 a child was born in the Republic of Venice who would grow up to be Casanova, known for his lifelong obsession with the pursuit of pleasure. Wreathed in beauty and splendor, Venice in the 18th century exuded opulence and mystery. It shaped the young man’s worldview and attitudes. Through its celebrations, theaters, casinos, and bordellos, he came to embrace a life of exploration. Giacomo Girolamo Casanova was born to two actors in the Venetian neighborhood of San Samuele. Much of what is known about his life came from his own pen; in middle age, he wrote an exhaustive memoir, Histoire de ma vie, which chronicles the first 50 years of his life. His detailed and candid recollections stretch all the way back to his childhood, revealing how the…

Anyone standing today by the windswept shore of Epaves Bay at the northern tip of Newfoundland might find it hard to comprehend the enormity of the modest archaeological site that extends around them. Here, at L’Anse aux Meadows—the name is probably a garbled reference to an old French naval vessel—lies what is still the only known Norse settlement in North America. A few humps and bumps in the grass, a replica building, and a fine museum mark the point of first contact between human populations across the Atlantic. It is an astonishing place, but its significance was only recognized in relatively recent decades. Until as late as the 1960s, the Viking adventure in North America was known only secondhand from the Icelandic sagas, the great epic tales that form one…

The Globetrotter In both of the Vinland sagas, the largest and most significant of the voyages is that of Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife, Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir. Whether Gudríd had wanderlust is unknown, but she lived her life on the move, spending time in Iceland, Greenland, and North America. She was born in the late 10th century at Snaefellsnes in western Iceland. As a teenager she emigrated to Greenland with her family who were following Erik the Red. Surviving a rough voyage and shipwreck, they were taken in by Erik’s household. In one saga, Gudríd was already married, but her husband died the first winter in Greenland. This was a time of religious transition, and Gudríd was right in the middle. A committed Christian, as a girl she had nonetheless learned…

Gambling was a favorite pastime in Venice and took place in special rooms called ridotti. The one depicted in this 1746 painting by Francesco Guardi is in the 17th-century Palazzo Dandolo, overlooking Venice’s Grand Canal. The game rooms can be glimpsed to the left at the rear, and although the painter doesn’t show what is going on inside, it is suggested by means of the playing cards scattered on the floor. On the left, some players seem to be exchanging money for chips. In the central space, men and women appear in conversation together. Some wear masks that only cover the face, like the moretta, or eye mask, while others the bauta, a fuller disguise consisting of a cloak, hood, hat, and mask. A few guests, of patrician status, go…