Innholdsfortegnelse for May/June 2025 i National Geographic History

In his first campaign, Thutmose III, Egypt’s greatest military leader, defeated forces of the Mitanni Empire and their allies at Megiddo, beginning a new era of Egyptian dominion over the eastern Mediterranean. The death of Queen Hatshepsut opened the door to rebellion in the Levant. After 22 years in power, she disappeared from history and Thutmose III occupied the throne of Egypt alone. A coalition of Canaanite citystates, supported by the Mitanni Empire and rulers of Kadesh, began to rebel against the new pharaoh. It would come to a head in the walled city of Megiddo, in what today is Israel. Sited on the Plain of Esdraelon, the city could control two trade routes of special interest: one connecting with the coastline and the other leading north to Kadesh. As…

Although horses were valued as military and status symbols across Celtic societies, they were rarely part of agricultural work. The harnesses used in the Iron Age lacked a collar to spread weight to the horse’s neck and shoulders; without such a collar, the animal’s windpipe became compressed when pulling a plow and limited the weight it could drag. Untainted by rural toil and costly to maintain, horses became the animal par excellence of aristocrats. They played a prominent role in warfare, at first to pull light war chariots. Normally a pair of animals was used for each chariot, and in the fourth century b.c. full cavalry units appeared. In time, the Celts would become renowned as horsemen throughout the ancient world, especially among the Romans, who often employed them as…

BICYCLE PIONEERS Two American brothers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, were the first to achieve sustained, manned flight with a fixed wing in 1903. Yet the race for manned flight with a rotary-wing aircraft took longer. The victor was Frenchman Paul Cornu, shown in this image in his simple but ingenious helicopter. Equipped with a 24-horsepower engine, its twin rotors achieved liftoff near Lisieux, France, on November 13, 1907. It maintained a height of one foot for 20 seconds. Since it bore the weight of Cornu, who kept it steadily airborne without ropes on the ground to guide it, the moment counts as the first manned helicopter flight. Like the Wright brothers who sold and repaired bicycles, Cornu’s experiments with aircraft were facilitated by his experience as a bicycle engineer. The…

Rising over the Mancheng district, 120 miles south of Beijing, is Lingshan. More than 2,000 years ago, thousands of tons of rock were removed from its eastern slope to create complex tombs housing the remains of an elite couple: Liu Sheng, prince of Zhongshan, and his wife, Dou Wan. Miraculously unlooted for the next two millennia, the tombs’ 1960s discovery stunned archaeologists, not only for their engineering but also for the dazzling grave goods they contained. The couple’s remains were wrapped in jade burial suits now regarded as some of China’s greatest national treasures. Lord of the North Liu Sheng’s father, Jing Di, was the sixth emperor of the Han, the second of China’s imperial dynasties, which ruled between 206 b.c. and a.d. 220. Beset with rebellions, in 154 b.c.,…

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ALTHOUGH IRVINE was likely tied to Mallory when the two men fell, the spot where Irvine’s boot and sock were found in 2024 is a considerable distance from where Mallory’s remains were found in 1999. The camera that Mallory was carrying hasn’t been recovered. Irvine was also a photographer and may have carried his own. Even if such a device were found, experts consider the likelihood of it containing salvageable film is slim, given the extreme weather conditions.…

WOMEN WERE urged to help the war effort in a variety of traditional roles. Although posters encouraging women to offer their services as nurses and knitters of military clothing were familiar across the U.S. from 1917, the idea of women participating in military activity was controversial. Newton D. Baker, secretary of war, was uncomfortable with women working in military settings. The pressure of war, however, was changing attitudes. In 1917, under Josephus Daniels, the U.S. Navy became the first in the world to recruit women—but only to serve at home. The Hello Girls were the only women permitted in a near-frontline role, keeping the channels of communication open during offensives and being exposed to danger. The notion of “girl soldiers” in the headline at right was a new and radical…

MILITARY OFFICIALS of ancient Egypt who won fame and fortune could expect a lavish tomb. The achievements of Thutmose III’s commander Amenemheb (nicknamed Mahu) are partially preserved on a wall of his tomb. They record that he fought in many Asian campaigns, killing and capturing enemies, amassing a substantial booty, and being rewarded by Thutmose III with promotions and expensive gifts. They also relate several curious episodes, such as when he killed a mare in heat that the ruler of Kadesh had sent into the ranks of Egyptian chariots to distract the horses, or when he helped the pharaoh kill an elephant after a military operation in Syria. This reference provides tantalizing evidence that the pharaohs of the time hunted elephants in the Syrian region of Niya after having fought…

During the Iron Age, (circa 1200–500 b.c.), a large swath of non-Mediterranean Europe was occupied by a people who became known for their craftsmanship, religion, and warfare. Different groups, now known collectively as Celts, spoke languages belonging to the Celtic family and shared a common ideological framework reflected in a series of divinities they worshipped in religious festivities. The Romans built up a stereotype of the Celts and other enemies, like the Germanic peoples, as barbarians. They caricatured them as blond, white-skinned giants from the north with a primitive tendency for drunkenness and violence. This cliché helped condition how researchers regarded the Celts. But in recent decades, new readings of the classical sources and some fascinating archaeological discoveries have overturned the stereotype of the Celts as primitive. New findings show…

As in most societies, the Celtic aristocracy used the ownership and display of jewelry to proclaim and advance their privileged position in the hierarchy. Among the Celts, the custom of burying the deceased with grave goods was widespread, and ornaments occupied a preferential place. Archaeologists have found a large number of luxury items, both personal jewelry and ornaments for horse harnesses, inside burials. These pieces were appreciated for their materials—precious metals including silver and gold—and for the excellence of the craftsmanship. One piece of jewelry most associated with the Celts is the torque. This type of necklace, which can take many different forms, was worn by other peoples as well, such as the Thracians and Scythians. The Roman army gave torques to reward their soldiers, although in this case they…

The samurai, Japan’s celebrated lineage of warriors, emerged in the Heian period (794-1185), when the rise of their status enabled them to mingle with the refined nobility living in the then-capital of Heian-kyō (Kyoto). Samurai fought in the Ōnin War and during the period of unrest that followed. From then on, the bushi, as the samurai were also called, made their mark on Japanese history with their exceptional fighting prowess, becoming emblematic of Japanese culture. The high point of samurai history is often associated with the Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the Edo period (1603–1868), a time of peace, prosperity, isolationist policies, and cultural growth. This is the most studied era of Japanese history and the period in which novelists, filmmakers, and comic book creators tend to place their samurai…

The discovery of a boot and partial remains, believed to belong to British Explorer Sandy Irvine, has supercharged interest in a mystery that has endured since Irvine first vanished with George Mallory on Mount Everest a hundred years ago. “It’s the biggest thing that’s happened in mountaineering circles since Mallory’s body was found in 1999,” says Julie Summers, Irvine’s great-niece and biographer. An Icy Tomb In September 2024, on the Central Rongbuk Glacier, below the north face of Everest, a National Geographic documentary team, led by American mountaineer and director Jimmy Chin, spotted the remains sticking out of the ice. They realized the remains belonged to Andrew Comyn Irvine, or Sandy, as he was known, when they saw his name stitched into the sock. Since June 1924, when Irvine and…

Ethel Elkins was one of roughly 25,000 American women who volunteered in Europe during the First World War. But unlike most who served with the International Red Cross and other aid organizations, Elkins was one of the first female soldiers officially deployed to a combat zone—as a uniformed member of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. An eager nation took note: “How many girls do you know with ‘the disposition of angels’ who can add thereto a strong constitution, soldierly fortitude, a low, musical voice, and ability to speak French just as fluently as English?” wrote a reporter in a 1918 Philadelphia newspaper article about Elkins. She was no girl, but her voice did matter: Her unit would serve as frontline telephone operators on the battlefields of France, translating, encoding, and…

The surname Mustafa Kemal formally assumed a few years before his death in 1938 is the name the world remembers him by: Atatürk, meaning “father of the Turks.” The sobriquet was not an exaggeration: The modern nation of Türkiye (Turkey) was shaped primarily by his complex and sometimes paradoxical personality. He was a proponent of emancipating women yet authoritarian; he was proud of his Turkish identity yet a passionate westernizer. His leadership has cast a long shadow over the modern state of Turkey since its founding in the fall of 1923. From Greece to Mecca Although the new state marked a break in history, it—and Atatürk—can be understood only within the context of the sprawling, multiethnic Ottoman Empire it replaced. In 1453, more than a century after the Muslim Ottoman…

Faced with injustice in the land of their enslavement, oppressed people might find the offer of a new country, with the chance for freedom and prosperity, attractive. During the early 1800s in the U.S., however, the idea of establishing a colony of Black Americans in Africa was deeply controversial among freedmen—people of African descent who had gained freedom from enslavement—and freeborn Black people. The reasons centered on the selfserving motives of many of the project’s promoters: It was supported by, among others, pro-enslavement figures. Although it led to the founding of Liberia—the world’s second ever Black republic—the new state later practiced violence against Indigenous Africans. ‘Back’ to Africa Most free Black people saw themselves as Americans, participating in the economy of their newly liberated country. Many freedmen had fought…

THE SOURCES DEPICT Olympias as vengeful and ruthless. However, these accounts should be read critically. The author Plutarch, who lived centuries after her, influenced this extreme characterization and is known for misogynistic accounts and often fabricated anecdotes. Plutarch recorded the infamous story in which Philip finds his wife, Olympias, asleep in bed with a ser pent beside her. Perhaps fearing that she is an enchantress, Philip loses interest in her. The couple would later become yet more estranged after the clash between Alexander and Philip on the eve of Philip’s wedding with Cleopatra. Olympias accompanied her son into exile and, according to the third-century a.d. Roman historian Justin, tried to conspire against her husband from Epirus. Some sources depict Olympias as the brains behind the plot to kill Philip and…

ACCORDING TO ANCIENT SOURCES, Pausanias murdered Philip out of revenge. Pausanias was thought to be the king’s former lover, and was jealous of his new relationship with an attendant. After a quarrel between Pausanias and the new lover, the attendant died by suicide. To punish Pausanias for causing the suicide of a friend, Attalus brought in servants to rape him. Pausanias denounced Attalus to Philip, but the king took no action against Attalus, who was his wife Cleopatra’s uncle. But did Pausanias act alone? Historians Plutarch and Justin suggest that the instigator was Olympias, as revenge for being spurned by Philip when he married Cleopatra. It would have been in Alexander’s interests to ensure his father didn’t have children with Cleopatra, since they would challenge his claim to the throne.…

From the fifth century b.c. onward, the dominant Celtic culture that archaeologists call Hallstatt evolved into the more aristocratic warrior society known as La Tène, heavily influenced by Greek and Etruscan styles. The weaponry of the Celtic warriors became established in this period: a doubleedged iron sword, iron-tipped spears, and an oval wooden shield. Aristocratic warriors of the period also carried defensive equipment, such as helmets and armor. The warrior sculpture (pictured right) known as the Prince of Glauberg wears armor similar to the Greek linothorax, made of hardened linen or leather. In the third century b.c., the first chain mail was developed, a Celtic innovation that the Romans would copy. Influenced by Mediterranean cultures, Celtic fighters evolved from warrior bands into armies. Their orders were produced by the war…