Innholdsfortegnelse for November/December 2023 i National Geographic History

DURING THE INITIAL recovery of H. naledi fossils in 2013 and 2014, Lee Berger’s six-woman team of caver-researchers, known as the Underground Astronauts, became expert navigators of the chute into the Dinaledi Chamber. At its narrowest point, the chute is less than eight inches wide. By the 2017-2018 expedition, more and more members of the team were learning how to pass down the chute, and in 2022, Berger decided he too would make the descent. After shedding 55 pounds, he successfully passed through the 39-foot-long fissure to the chamber below, “my body seemingly contorting like toothpaste in a gnarled tube,” Berger recalled.…

1745 Olaudah Equiano claims he is born to an Igbo family in southern Nigeria, where his father is a village elder. 1756 Equiano and his sister are kidnapped by enslavers and separated. He is transported to Barbados and sold. 1766 After years of enslavement, Equiano earns enough money to buy his freedom from Robert King, a Philadelphia merchant. 1774 Equiano converts to Methodism. He will become the leading Black campaigner in abolishing the slave trade. 1789 Equiano’s autobiography is published. His firsthand account of slavery’s horrors inspires the abolition movement.…

Dolly Parton is credited with the phrase“the higher the hair, the closer to God,” but King Louis XIV might have shared her sentiments some 300 years earlier. The French king, famous for his ostentatious sense of style, donned wigs with long flowing locks, and men around the continent—from kings to commoners—followed suit. Covering Up Wigs had been around for millennia in Europe and the Mediterranean before Louis XIV’s reign. Some of history’s oldest wigs were donned by the elite of ancient Egypt, both in life and death. Wigs have been found on mummies’ heads, and ancient tombs contain wig boxes along with other personal items. In ancient Greece, wigs were used mostly by actors in plays. Some Romans wore fashionable wigs; wealthy women favored blond hair imported from Germany. During…

The statue of Zeus sitting on a magnificent throne rose about 40 feet inside his eponymous temple in the sanctuary of Olympia, 30 miles from the ancient Greek city-state of Elis on the Peloponnese Peninsula. It was so large that, according to the geographer Strabo, the head almost touched the ceiling, giving the impression that if Zeus stood up, his head would go through the roof. He was adorned in golden drapery. The work was incredibly detailed, with intricate carvings and embellishments, including precious gemstones for his eyes, which conveyed a lifelike quality. The Statue of Zeus was declared one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World in 225 b.c. by various observers, including the writer Antipater of Sidon and the mathematician Philo of Byzantium. The list also included…

In the fifth century a.d., a paleo-Christian basilica was built on the ruins of Phidias’s workshop. The remains that can be seen today at the center of the ancient Olympian archaeological site derive from the basilica, but excavations have uncovered many tools that reveal more about how the ancient Greeks worked with precious materials such as gold and ivory. Molds (both negative and positive) used to shape gold or clay have been found, as well as various tools and pieces of bronze, lead, and glass that are believed to be remnants of the artworks created here. PERSONAL PROPERTY Archaeologists were able to identify Phidias’s workshop thanks to the discovery of the black varnished cup shown above. Along its base the words “I belong to Phidias” are engraved in Greek.…

MARCUS AURELIUS’S WIFE, Faustina the Younger, isn’t remembered fondly by the written record. While her mother, Faustina the Elder, is celebrated for her virtues, many ancient writers, such as historian Cassius Dio, accused the younger woman of immoral behavior. They linked her to torrid affairs with soldiers, sailors, and gladiators. But Faustina’s life does not seem to align with these accounts. She and her husband had a close relationship during their 30-year marriage. The Roman people, the Senate, and her husband granted her many public honors during her life. Records show she often traveled with Marcus Aurelius during his campaigns. Perhaps the strongest evidence for her good reputation can be found in the opening section of Meditations, where he writes glowing words of gratitude for his wife—a passage meant for his…

First century Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians and three of the four Gospels mention the chalice used by Jesus at the Last Supper. 1155 In his Roman de Brut, the poet Wace provides one of the earliest accounts of King Arthur. The Grail does not yet feature in the tales. 1180 In Chrétien de Troyes’s Arthurian romance, the Grail appears in the castle of the Fisher King. It is not yet associated with Christ. 1190 Robert de Boron links the Grail with the Last Supper chalice, connecting the Arthurian legend with Christian faith. 1210 In Wolfram von Eschenbach’s epic poem Parzival, the elusive Grail is won by the knight Percival, who is crowned Grail King. 1220 Poems in the Lancelot-Grail cycle establish the conventions of the Grail quest, including…

THE FIRST TIME King Harald was given the nickname Blåtand (Bluetooth) is in the Roskilde Chronicle, a 12th-century Latin text probably written by a monk from eastern Denmark. Bluetooth had chosen Roskilde as his new capital (replacing Jelling) and built a church there, the precursor to a later cathedral. The Roskilde Chronicle covers events in Denmark from the ninth century to the time of the manuscript’s composition, around 1143. The translation of Blåtand as Bluetooth is controversial. In Old Norse, the term blár can mean blue, but it also denotes a dark color, like blue-black. Tradition says that one of Harald’s teeth appeared darker than normal. Not only was Bluetooth technology’s name inspired by the famous Viking, its distinctive logo combines the runes Hagall (hail) ᚼ and Bjarkan (birch) ᛒ,…

THE CREATION of centralized monarchies in Scandinavia went hand-in-hand with the establishment of Christianity. However, as the example of Norway shows, this process often came with violent invasion by neighboring monarchies, including that of Harald Bluetooth and his heirs. Unification first took place in Norway at the end of the ninth century under Harald Fairhair, but a strong state was achieved at a cost: In the Icelandic sagas, Harald Fairhair is depicted as a tyrant. About a century later, in 970, Bluetooth briefly took control of Norway and tried to impose Christianity, as he had done in Denmark, but without much success. From 1015, OlafII completed Norway’s Christianization, uniting the country under his rule, only to lose control of Norway to Bluetooth’s grandson Canute. In the 12th century, Olaf was…

IN A REVIEW of pro-slavery texts in 1788, Equiano defended interracial marriage as a way to “encourage open, free, and generous love upon Nature’s own wide and extensive plan … without distinction of the color of a skin.” He concluded that interracial marriage would be “a national honour, national strength, and productive of national virtue.” In 1792 he put his theories into practice when he married Susannah Cullen, a white Englishwoman he met in 1789 while on tour to promote his book. The couple settled in the rural English town of Soham. Cullen bore two daughters, Ann Mary and Joanna, before she died in 1796.…

776 B.C. By order of the oracle of Delphi, Iphitus, king of Elis, holds the world’s first Olympic Games. ca 460 B.C. The Temple of Zeus, a model for all Doric temples in the Peloponnese, is consecrated at Olympia. ca 430 B.C. The monumental gold and ivory statue of Zeus is placed in his temple at Olympia and consecrated. 2nd–1st century B.C. The earliest lists of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World appear. The Statue of Zeus is among them. A.D. 391 As Christianity spreads, Roman emperor Theodosius I outlaws pagan cults and ends the Olympic Games. 5th century A.D. The Statue of Zeus is relocated to Constantinople (Istanbul), where it is lost or destroyed.…

THE WORD “chryselephantine” comes from the Greek names for gold and ivory. Both materials have been highly valued since ancient times. Gold (chrisós) was one of the first metals worked by humans. Despite being very soft, gold has an incorruptibility, rarity, color, and versatility that gave it financial, aesthetic, and symbolic worth in ancient Greece. It was associated with divinity and was an emblem of social status. Ivory is one of the hardest organic materials to manipulate, and although it is usually obtained from the tusks of elephants (hence its name in Greek, elefas), it can also be sourced from hippopotamuses, sperm whales, and walruses. The chryselephantine technique uses gold for accentuating parts of the sculpture, including drapery and jewelry, while the rest is crafted in ivory.…

PHIDIAS BUILT A THRONE as impressive as the god that sat upon it. Greek geographer Pausanias lists all the intricate details in his Description of Greece: “The throne is adorned with gold and with jewels, to say nothing of ebony and ivory. Upon it are painted figures and wrought images. There are four Victories, represented as dancing women… On each of the two front feet are set Theban children ravished by Sphinxes, while under the Sphinxes Apollo and Artemis are shooting down the children of Niobe.” Across the back of the throne danced the Graces and the Seasons. The footstool featured golden lions and a relief of the Athenian hero Theseus fighting Amazons. Gold ornaments depicting Olympian divinities—including Zeus’s wife Hera and his children Hephaestus, Hermes, Apollo, Artemis, and Athena—decorated the…

A.D. 121 Marcus Aurelius is born on April 26 in Rome. His father belongs to a noble family from Ucubi, a city in Córdoba, Spain. 138 The future emperor Antoninus Pius adopts both Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius as his successors. 161 Emperor Antoninus Pius dies. Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus succeed him and rule jointly. 169 After Lucius Verus dies, Marcus Aurelius rules alone. He goes to the Danube to fight various Germanic peoples. 178 During the conflict with the Quadi and Marcomanni, Marcus Aurelius writes Meditations. 180 Marcus Aurelius dies of plague in Vindobona (Vienna). His son Commodus inherits the throne.…

From 1872 to 1874, storms exposed 16 pieces of gold jewelry from the Viking era (circa 793-1066) on the beach of Hiddensee, a small German island in the Baltic Sea. The find consists of a neck ring, a discshaped brooch, and 14 pendants, of which 10 are in the shape of a cross. Although the style is fairly typical of 10th-century Viking metalwork, the use of pure gold is exceptional. What is most striking is the combination of Christian and non-Christian motifs in the decoration of the pieces. The top part of the cross-shaped pendant (below), for example, bears a bird’s head with protruding eyes. Such an elaborate set of golden jewelry must have belonged to a person of very high rank. The style suggests that they were made for…

THIS GILT COPPER relief shows the priest Poppo baptizing King Harald Bluetooth, as recounted by the medieval Saxon chronicler Widukind of Corvey. The piece is part of a series of 13th-century reliefs that decorated the altar of the church in Tamdrup, Denmark, northeast of Jellin. The panels may once have formed part of a reliquary’s decoration. Two other reliefs depict the red-hot iron test by which Poppo convinced Bluetooth of the truth of Christianity. The reliefs are preserved in the National Museum of Denmark.…

WHEN RESEARCHERS first examined the Homo naledi fossils from the Rising Star Cave, they were surprised by what they saw. The H. naledi skull (right) is humanlike in form, sharing characteristics with other members of the Homo genus, such as Homo habilis. But its tiny skull resembles those of much earlier relatives. The bones recovered from the cave, consisting of up to 15 H. naledi individuals, share other features with modern humans: hands that can manipulate objects, skeletons adapted for walking upright. But, unlike human beings, they had shoulders and fingers adapted for climbing. “We never expected to see a combination of characteristics like this,” paleoanthropologist John Hawks, who worked on the project, said in 2015. In 2017 H. naledi was dated to have lived between 236,000 and 335,000 years…

Its title appears unassuming, but its impact is undeniable. Published in 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African is a two-volume autobiography that became one of the most important works of the late 18th century and a foundational text in the fight against slavery. Equiano’s Interesting Narrative is the first book-length narrative by an enslaved person. It is the prototype for a genre that developed in the 19th century, culminating in Frederick Douglass’s 1845 autobiography. His and other testimonies by formerly enslaved people are “the very foundation upon which most subsequent Afro-American fictional and nonfictional narrative forms are based,” wrote African American scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Birth of a Bestseller Equiano’s book was immensely popular when it was published in England.…

OLAUDAH EQUIANO was a prominent voice bringing attention to the horrors committed on the slave ship Zong. Sailing from Ghana to Jamaica in 1781, the ship ran low on drinking water, prompting the crew to throw more than 130 enslaved people overboard. Outrage against the massacre provided fuel for Britain’s growing abolition movement in the following decades. The Zong inspired a painting (right) by J.M.W. Turner. Vividly depicting the barbarity of the transatlantic slave trade, “The Slave Ship” was displayed at the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840, whose aim was to end slavery around the world.…

IN 1761 the English satirist and artist William Hogarth poked fun at the elaborate wigs worn by guests to the coronation of Britain’s King George III and Queen Charlotte in his en-graving “The Five Orders of Periwigs” (right). Mimicking the five orders of classical architecture, Hogarth organized the wigs and their wearers into five categories: Episcopal, Old Peerian, Aldermanic, Lexonic, and Queerinthian. Each of his detailed descriptions, written in the style of a contemporary architectural treatise, satirizes these different divisions of British society as well as their embrace of ostentatious, and often ludicrous, wigs.…

PHIDIAS’S gigantic sculpture of Zeus might have been lost to history, but its archetype representing divinity and majesty has endured through the ages in political portraits. One of the earliest examples appeared in the first-century a.d. marble statue of Emperor Augustus as Jupiter (right), the Roman equivalent of Zeus. The Areobindus diptych, an ivory writing tablet from the sixth century a.d. (middle bottom), shows the seated consul presiding over animal fights in Constantinople. Areobindus would have presented these tablets to highlevel officials to invite them to the sporting events as a way of celebrating his newly obtained rank. Fast-forward to the 19th century, when Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres painted Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte seated on his imperial throne in 1806 (middle top), directly referencing Phidias’s work. The Statue of Zeus even inspired a…

MEDITATIONS reveals the life of Marcus Aurelius and the general customs of his era. But there are few references to the specific circumstances under which he wrote it: in the midst of a military operation. One comes at the end of Book II, which cites Carnuntum as the place of writing. This military base on the Danube (near modern Vienna) was where Marcus Aurelius had established his headquarters. Another note at the end of Book I refers to “the River Gran, among the Quadi.” The River Gran (today’s Hron River) is a Danube tributary that runs through Slovakia. The fact that Marcus Aurelius was there shows he was not satisfied with directing operations from Carnuntum but instead crossed the Danube into barbarian territory to lead from the front. Even in battle,…

Every day, thanks to Bluetooth technology, people across the world can connect wirelessly to listen to music, check out a podcast, or watch a movie. In the mid-1990s, its developer—Intel engineer Jim Kardach—was trying to think up a name for the new technology. Reading about Viking history at the time, he was intrigued by a stone inscribed with runes that praised the exploits of a 10th-century Danish king called Harald Bluetooth. The stone described how Bluetooth had brought the Danes together as one people and conquered Norway. “It occurred to me that [his name] would make a good code name for the program,” Kardach wrote. Other names were considered, but the Viking ruler’s moniker stuck. Bluetooth technology set out to conquer and connect the modern world, just as King Bluetooth…

FOLLOWING incursions into Den-mark by Holy Roman Emperor Otto II, Harald Bluetooth rolled out fortifications across Denmark in 980. Central to this ambitious building program were seven ring forts, including Trelleborg, on the large island of Zealand (below). The ring fort follows a strict geometric pattern: Bisecting roads divide the circle into quarters. In each quarter are four long-houses arranged in a square. Housing around 1,300 people, Trelleborg guarded the busy sea routes west of Zealand.…