Innholdsfortegnelse for March/April 2025 i National Geographic History

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION On a cold January evening in 1888, 33 scientists, scholars, and explorers met at the exclusive Cosmos Club in Washington, D.C. They discussed the idea of founding a society of geography. Several months later, for October, they issued the first National Geographic magazine (pictured above). This month we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of National Geographic History. With a decade of publications behind us, we aim to carry on the tradition set forth for “a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge.” In 10 years we’ve covered a lot of ground. We’ve traveled down rivers and ancient roads to examine empires and civilizations, crossed mountains and oceans with explorers and colonizers, probed for answers to unsolved mysteries, marveled at works of art, and uplifted…

THIS PORTRAIT of Anning and her dog, Tray, is a copy of an original made in 1842, when the fossil hunter was 43. Holding her pick in her right hand, her left hand indicates an ammonite. Anning’s lifetime straddled an odd period in scientific history when fossils went from must-have curiosities to items worthy of serious study. She capitalized on both, selling ammonites to tourists while providing scientists with skeletons of extinct animals. This led to a myth that the tongue twister “She sells seashells by the seashore” refers to Anning. This is false; no evidence supports its composition in her honor, and the earliest known use of the phrase is in an American magazine published decades after Anning’s death.…

THE TATTOOING tradition of the Māori of New Zealand, tā moko, distinguishes between men and women. Generally, women tattoo only their chins and sometimes their lips. For men, the tā moko can cover the forehead, nose, cheeks, and lower jaw in complex designs formed of interlocking curvilinear lines. Far from being merely decorative, tattoo designs once contained information about the ancestry, social status, and exploits of the person who wore them. Today, as the practice of tā moko enjoys a resurgence in New Zealand, new design traditions and codes have developed. If a woman has a tā moko on her lips, this indicates that she is a proficient speaker of the Māori language.…

The Achaemenid kings of Persia ruled the largest empire in the world between the sixth and fourth centuries b.c., but much of what we know about them today comes from Greek rather than Persian sources. The various Greek authors who wrote about the Persians tended to depict them as decadent and weak-willed, ruled by a series of self-styled great kings. Persian culture was often contrasted with the austerity of Athens and Sparta. The stories of Persian kings that have filtered down through Greek works of philosophy, history, and plays mix firsthand observations with a large dose of fiction and fantasy. It should be remembered that the Greeks saw the might of Persia as a huge threat. For half a century they were engaged in the Greco-Persian wars (499-449 b.c.), fighting…

138 B.C. Zhang Qian leads a Chinese diplomatic mission to forge alliances with the Yuezhi tribes in Central Asia. 118 b.c. Eudoxus of Cyzicus is the first Greek to cross the Indian Ocean from Egypt to India. He is guided by an Indian sailor. 26 b.c. Isidore of Charax details an overland trade route between Turkey and India in his book The Parthian Stations. c. A.D. 50 The Greek travel book Periplus Maris Erythraei describes navigation and trade between ports on the Red Sea and Indian coasts. 101 Maes Titianus, a Macedonian merchant, sends traders to Tashkurgan with the aim of reaching China. 7th to 10th centuries Under China’s Tang dynasty, multidirectional trading booms along the Silk Roads, spreading languages and ideas. 13th to 14th centuries Mongol-era trade helps spread…

THE OVERLAND ROUTE to Central Asia, India, and China that Roman merchants or emissaries followed can be divided into three main stages. The first took them to the eastern borders of the Roman Empire, either Palmyra, in the Syrian desert, or Alexandria, in Egypt. The second crossed the Parthian Empire as far as Bactria (modern-day Afghanistan), a major intersection between the West and the East. The route then continued through the Pamirs mountain range, over passes as high as 16,500 feet, before skirting the Taklimakan Desert and finally penetrating Chinese territory en route for the capital, Jicheng (today’s Beijing). The third was a maritime route, which was more popular among Greek and Roman travelers in antiquity, started from Alexandria, continued along the Red Sea to the Indian coast, skirted the…

When the members of the Sanhedrin heard [Stephen’s speech], they were furious… they all rushed at him, dragged him out of the city, and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul. While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” Then he fell on his knees and cried out, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” When he had said this, he fell asleep. And Saul approved of their killing him. —Acts, chapters 7 and 8…

ALTHOUGH THE PAUL of the New Testament can be conservative about gender roles, the apocryphal literature (accounts not included in the New Testament) reveals an Apostle whose preaching connects with women. The secondcentury Acts of Paul and Thecla tells the story of a young noblewoman moved by his teaching, while in another text, he inspires Artemilla from Ephesus and her servant, Eubula. The third-century Acts of Xanthippe, Polyxena, and Rebecca takes the Apostle to Spain, where, in an action-packed plot involving shipwrecks and kidnapping, sisters Xanthippe and Polyxena are captivated by Paul’s teaching. “When Xanthippe saw Paul… her heart leaped continually, and as possessed with an unexpected joy she said to herself, Why does my heart beat vehemently at the sight of this man?”…

When Scottish geologist Roderick Murchison arrived in Lyme Regis, England, in September 1825, he knew exactly where to go on his hunt for important fossils. As he walked down a beach in the wake of drenching rain, he found who he was looking for: 26-year-old Mary Anning. “I soon discovered her with her dog, hammer & basket,” he later wrote. “Her genius in grouping the dislocated bones of any one of the [dinosaurs] is astonishing,”Murchison observed. He had just met one of the most important figures in early geology and paleontology: a woman whose class and gender made her a most unlikely fossil expert. On the Coast Born in 1799 to a cabinetmaker and his wife, Anning was one of 10 children in a working-class family. At the time, Lyme…

SCIENTISTS had already discovered the existence of massive swimming reptiles, now known as ichthyosaurs, before Anning spotted one of the gigantic skeletons as a child. But her fossilized finds were often the first to be correctly identified as extinct species. She is even credited with discovering the first known pterodactyl—revealing the existence of flying dinosaurs. Anning’s best known find was the plesiosaur, an ancient marine reptile described as almost perfect in its day; it was so stunning that some contested it as a fraud. When other plesiosaur skeletons were uncovered at Lyme Regis, her critics backed down; further study revealed the reptiles coexisted with dinosaurs. Today, multiple extinct species are named in her honor, including the Ichthyosaurus anningae.…

HERODOTUS LINKS the death of Cyrus to the king’s hubris in the final years of his life. Puffed up with pride from his constant victories, Cyrus declared war on the nomadic Massagetae people, ruled by Queen Tomyris. Cyrus then tricked the Massagetae by feigning a retreat. He ordered his army to abandon their camp but leave large quantities of undiluted wine and all kinds of delicacies. The Massagetae, led by Spargapises, son of Tomyris, approached the abandoned camp. When they had drunk the wine that was left behind, Cyrus returned with his forces. Spargapises, once he had sobered up and realized his mistake, took his own life. Outraged, his mother rode out to confront Cyrus in battle with the bulk of her troops. Their final face-off saw the Persian army…

41 b.c. As co-ruler of Rome, Mark Antony summons Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, to Tarsus, where they begin a relationship. 40 b.c. Antony returns to Rome and marries Octavia, sister of his powerful co-ruler, Octavian (who will later rule solely as Augustus). 32 b.c. Antony divorces Octavia. Tensions between Antony and Octavian increase. Octavian declares war on Cleopatra. 31 b.c. After being defeated by Octavian at the Battle of Actium on September 2, Cleopatra and Antony flee to Alexandria. 30 b.c. Following a victory in Alexandria, Octavian conquers Egypt. Antony and Cleopatra take their own lives.…

DURING THE REIGN OF AUGUSTUS, a fondness for silk had taken hold of the Roman upper classes. First-century poet Martial likened a lover’s kiss to the beautiful scent “of silken robes of the Empress from her Palatine wardrobe.” The term siricaria found on a Roman tablet from the first century a.d. is thought to refer to an enslaved person specialized in taking care of the costly silk garments in a household. Men also started to wear silk, a practice Roman moralists regarded as unmanly. According to the author Tacitus, in the early first century the Roman Senate decreed that “oriental silks should no longer degrade the male sex.” In truth, the demand for silk created a trade imbalance with China while draining the Roman Empire of gold. According to historian…

IN 1946 the Department of Antiquities of Iraq began work at Tell Abu Shahrain. After a preliminary investigation, archaeologists Fuad Safar and Seton Lloyd focused on Mound 1, which, given its dimensions and based on previous excavation reports, they thought likely contained the most evidence of buildings. They opened up some trenches on the top of the mound and, as they dug further and further down, uncovered various strata containing the remains of successively older buildings. Their goal was to get down to virgin soil and on the way document all the strata. In total, they identified 18 strata and the remains of six successive temples.…

STAMPED WITH a distinctive kneeling archer design, the darics found in the Notion hoard were minted from gold of very pure quality, likely in nearby Sardis, the capital of Lydia. Located by the Pactolus River, Sardis was rich in gold deposits, a crucial resource for the wealthy King Croesus before he was defeated and conquered by Persia in the sixth century b.c. The name "daric" could be derived from Darius I, Persian king until 486 b.c., or from dari-, the root of the Old Persian word for gold. The figure of the archer is in a kneeling position, holding a bow in his left hand and a spear in his right. Used to pay Persian mercenaries, one daric was equal to a month’s wage.…

1811 As a child, Mary Anning uncovers a complete ichthyosaur skeleton with her brother, Joseph, in Lyme Regis, England. 1823 On the Jurassic Coast of southern England, Anning discovers the first complete plesiosaur, known briefly as the sea dragon. 1824 Anning realizes a group of hollow-seeming fossils are in fact coprolites, fossilized feces containing remnants of digested creatures. 1826 Despite opening Anning’s Fossil Depot, she remains poor. A lithograph of Lyme Regis is later sold to benefit Anning and her family. 1847 Anning dies of breast cancer at age 47. Three years later, her local church installs a stained glass window in her memory.…

In July 1595 Spanish explorer Álvaro de Mendaña found himself on the shores of the small island of Fatu Hiva, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The name he gave to it was Magdalena. He called the surrounding archipelago las Islas Marquesas de Mendoza in honor of the viceroy of Peru, who had organized the expedition. Pedro Fernández de Quirós, captain of the expedition’s flagship, wrote in his logbook of the local warriors: “They all came naked, without any part covered; their faces and bodies in patterns of a blue colour, painted with fish and other patterns.” Without realizing it, he had just recorded the first description of a Polynesian tattoo known in the Western world. Tattooing, the art of decorating the body with permanent designs of ink introduced…

EGYPTIANS SAW crocodiles as intermediaries between humans and Sobek, the crocodile-headed god of water and fertility—vital attributes in a desert land where all life came from the Nile. The specimens found at Qubbet el Hawa belong to two species: the Nile crocodile and the West African crocodile. When alive, the mummified crocodiles ranged in size from around six feet to 11.5 feet. In addition to their association with Sobek, crocodiles had plenty of day-to-day experience being observed, and feared, by the ancient Egyptians they lived among. Nile crocodiles are still spectacularly aggressive hunters, capable of holding prey underwater until it drowns. In 2023, 115 people were killed in attacks by Nile crocodiles across their range in Africa.…

THE CYRUS CYLINDER was found in 1879 in Babylon’s Temple of Marduk by the Assyrian archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam. Shortly after Cyrus took Babylon in 539 b.c., this cylinder was formed out of clay, and while it was still wet, 45 lines of a royal decree issued by Cyrus were impressed into its surface in cuneiform. The decree pours scorn on the last Babylonian king, Nabonidus, for his impiety toward Marduk, patron god of the city, and exalts Cyrus for being a liberator of peoples, including the Babylonians. Although the text is clearly propagandist, it upholds the version of Cyrus in the Bible as a liberator. In the Book of Ezra, Cyrus allowed the Jews, who had been exiled in Babylon since the time of King Nebuchadrezzar II, to return home.…

In a.d. 166, Chinese chroniclers recorded that ambassadors from the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius presented themselves at the imperial court of Luoyang in eastcentral China—and were given an unusual welcome. The travelers had come via Malaysia, followed the coasts of Thailand and Vietnam, and docked at a Chinese port at the mouth of the Red River in the Gulf of Tonkin. Then, escorted by Chinese military authorities, they traveled overland for another 1,200 miles or so, passing numerous fortresses and walled cities. Anticipation at the Chinese court mounted as the travelers grew closer. The Chinese had long been aware that the Roman Empire existed; they knew it as Da Qin, “the Great China” and considered it to be equal in power to their own empire. But this was the first…

PAUL’S IMAGE in artistic representations is relatively consistent. This may owe something to an apocryphal text, Acts of Paul and Thecla, which recounts the influence of Paul’s teaching on Thecla, a young noblewoman. In the beginning of the narrative, Paul is described as “a man small in size, baldheaded, bowlegged, well-built, with eyebrows meeting, rather long-nosed, full of grace.” The text was described by Tertullian, an early Christian writer, who dates its composition to around a.d. 160. It was written by a Christian official in what is today Turkey, who was reprimanded for his flight of fancy and possibly stripped of his position. Nevertheless, it was widely read at the time and seems to have informed El Greco’s vision of Paul in this 16th-century painting.…