Ancient World Review

Ancient Nubia, Egypt's Rival In Africa

Dating back to at least 2,000 BC, the history of Nubia is confusing because several ancient kingdoms rose and fell in this part of Africa and the term "Nubia" is sometimes used to refer to one or more of these early kingdoms while at other times it just refers to the region as a whole. Complicating matters even more, the ancient Egyptians referred to their Nubian neighbors as Kushites, a kingdom in Nubia, and some sources use the term "Kush" to refer to the entire area.

The Nubian people were apparently descendants of the "the Noba people, nomads who settled the area in the 4th century [BC] following the collapse of the kingdom of Meroë," a city located on the east bank of the Nile, (Wikipedia).

The most well-known civilization of the Nubians was the previously mentioned Kingdom of Kush, which came into existence after the Bronze Age collapse (~1200 - 1150 BC) and fall of the Egyptian New Kingdom (~11th century BC). This is another source of confusion -- for me -- because at least one source I've found says that the Nubians didn't take over the region until after the fall of the Kingdom of Kush. Most of the sources, however, say that it was a Nubian kingdom, so I'll leave it at that.

Egypt had a complex and volatile relationship with Nubia. During the Early Dynastic Period (c3100 - 2686? BC), Egypt traded with Nubia, but "none of these trading expeditions, it seems, was aggressive in character, though the Egyptians occasionally had cause to protect themselves against the local populations," according to The Penguin Encyclopedia of Ancient Civilizations. During the Old Kingdom (c2613 - 2160 BC), Egyptian expeditions "were regularly sent through Nubia to obtain exotic products such as incense, ivory and panther skins. These expeditions were not without incident." (Ibid)

This trade between Egypt and Nubia continued for millennia. Wars sometimes broke out and traders were sometimes killed, apparently by local tribes, during these trade expeditions, but "relations between the two peoples also show peaceful cultural interchange and cooperation, including mixed marriages," (Wikipedia). Egypt's southern borders shifted back and forth as Egyptian power waxed and waned, and over time it appears that the two populations became thoroughly mixed.

The history of the relationship between Egypt and Nubia is long and complex, with Egypt conquering Nubia several times and Nubia conquering Egypt around 760 BC. After they defeated their northern neighbor, the Nubians established the short-lived 25th Dynasty - sometimes referred to as the Nubian Dynasty or the Kushite Empire. The Black Pharaohs didn't last very long, however. They were conquered by the Assyrians around 656 BC.

Documentary from 2015.

How The "Heretic Pharoah" Almost Destroyed Egypt

King Tut's father, Amenhotep IV, was a mystic and religious revolutionary who turned his back on the traditional Egyptian gods -- not to mention the powerful priesthood associated with them -- and decreed that Aten, the sun god, was the only god who could be worshiped in the country. Known as the "heretic pharoah," Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten and built a new capitol city at Amarna north of Thebes, forcibly relocating the population of Thebes to populate his new city.

Video from 2016.

Akhenaten dedicated Armana to the worship of the deified disk of the sun and set himself up as the leader of the new monotheistic cult, living in splendid isolation and basically ignoring the defense and administration of Egypt. His neglect (and later persecution) of the other gods created a lot of enemies. Cities like Thebes -- and the priests who controlled them -- owed their wealth and political power to their temples, which attracted both private and official benefactions. Akhenaten's revolution wasn't just religious but also political and economic. My impression is that he was oblivious to the disastrous effects his revolution -- and his isolation -- had on the rest of his country.

Akhenaten's neglect of the ordinary affairs of Egypt led to its decline and threatened its security. Near the end of his reign, other empires like the Hittites were encroaching on Egyptian territory. When Akhenaten died around 1330 BC, his city at Amarna was destroyed and depopulated and the new rulers began a comprehensive program to restore the traditional gods and their sacred cities.

The moral of the story, if there is one, is that religious fanatics, idealists and true believers, no matter how inspired, make bad leaders. Akhenaten is a classic example.

Alexander The Great: One Of History's Most Ruthless Kings?

It doesn't make sense to judge an ancient figure like Alexander the Great by modern standards, but there's no doubt that he could be extremely ruthless under certain circumstances. For example, when his Macedonian troops staged a second mutiny at Opis in Babylon (324 BC) after their earlier, successful mutiny in India, Alexander "confronted their contumacious [rebellious] demands for repatriation with summary executions and a devastating threat to man his army exclusively from Persians," according to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised).

Alexander and his snake-handling mother, Olympias, may have been behind the assassination of his father, Philip II of Macedon, but Philip's death remains one of those ancient murder mysteries which may never be solved. Whatever the case, "Alexander was proclaimed king against a background of dynastic intrigue, in which his rivals ... were eliminated. A show of force in southern Greece saw him acknowledged Philip's successor ... and in 335, [when the Thebans rebelled], he destroyed the city and enslaved the survivors." (OCD)

Alexander was more interested in creating a new empire than in butchering his enemies but he was responsible for several massacres, most of them in response to stubborn resistance. For instance, when the Macedonians finally defeated the city of Tyre after a long siege, "[s]ix thousand Tyrians were slaughtered ... and another 2,000 crucified on the beach. A further 30,000 were sold into slavery," according to the Ancient History Encyclopedia. (These figures are probably exaggerated).

The rest of this six-part series can be found here.

Alexander could be just as ruthless when dealing with rebellion in his own court. For example, "he isolated and struck down Parmenion because of his resistance to imperial expansion, and the adolescent pages, who seriously threatened his life for reasons which are obscure (but probably based on empathy to the new absolutism), were tortured and stoned to death." (OCD)

Note: Parmenion, one of Alexander's most trusted generals, may have simply been murdered to prevent his taking revenge for the execution of his son, Philotas, for treason.

To Alexander, "insubordination was as intolerable as conspiracy," according to the OCD. "Alexander's return to the west in 325/4 witnessed a spate of executions of [puppet] satraps who had exceeded their authority or arrogated power." 

Alexander's homicidal behavior sounds grim, true, but it wasn't really all that unusual. He was capable of extreme violence under certain circumstances, but he wasn't Ramsay Bolton. Alexander's use of violence was always calculated. There was nothing mindless or sadistic about it. Executing his internal enemies was necessary to maintain his power and, in some cases, to protect his own life; and massacring the populations of cities that refused to submit was standard operating procedure in the ancient world. Maybe the Dali Lama wouldn't approve, but as a practical matter harsh measures were required to send a message to other cities that might be thinking about resistance.

Photoshop reconstruction based on a bust by the 4th century BC Greek sculptor Lysippos. His depictions of Alexander are thought to be the most accurate, but the various details of Alexander's general appearance (hair color, etc) vary from source to source. He was said to have one blue and one brown eye by more than one source, however - a detail captured in this reconstruction.

Alexander was ruthless but was he "one of the most ruthless kings in history?" Not by a long shot. I wouldn't call him moderate by any means, but he was nothing compared to Vlad the Impaler, for instance, or the bloodthirsty rulers of ancient Assyria who had a well-deserved reputation for cruelty and violence.

All things considered, Alexander showed a surprising amount of tolerance and diplomacy in his conquests. He wasn't a liberal, though. He didn't live in Berkeley or Portland. Like all rulers throughout history, he had to use violence to maintain order and some of the things he did like executing corrupt politicians are practices that we would do well to emulate today.

Silver Coins Unearthed In New England May Be Loot From One Of The "Greatest Crimes In History"

"A handful of Arabian silver coins found in New England may be the last surviving relics of history's most notorious act of piracy — and perhaps one of the most famous pirates who ever lived." Source: Live Science.

"Evidence suggests the distinctive coins were spent as common silver in the American colonies in the late 1690s by the fugitive pirate crew of Henry Every, also known as John Avery, who had fled there after plundering the Mughal treasure ship Ganj-i-sawai as it was returning pilgrims from the Muslim Hajj.

"Researchers aren't certain that the coins are from the Ganj-i-sawai, but their origin, their dates and their discovery in such a distant region suggest they were seized by the pirates and spent in the Americas."

According to the Muslim historian Khafi Khan, Every and his cronies inflicted "an orgy of horrors" on the people aboard the Mughal ships they captured. Some dispute this, but Kahn's account was backed up, at least in part, by the British governor of Bombay, Sir John Gayer:

"It is certain the Pyrates, which these People affirm were all English, did do very barbarously by the People of the Ganj-i-sawai and Abdul Gofor's Ship, to make them confess where their Money was, and there happened to be a great Umbraws Wife (as Wee hear) related to the King, returning from her Pilgrimage to Mecha, in her old age. She they abused very much, and forced severall other Women, which Caused one person of Quality, his Wife and Nurse, to kill themselves to prevent the Husbands seing them (and their being) ravished." (Wikipedia)

Every was supposedly the target of the first worldwide manhunt in history. After the spectacular heist several of his crew were captured, but Every himself vanished, perhaps living out the rest of his life in England or on some tropical island. The treasure was never recovered.

Pirate Skeletons Discovered In Shipwreck Off Cape Cod

This isn't ancient or medieval history, but who cares?

"The skeletal remains of at least six pirates were discovered at the site of a shipwreck that happened off Wellfleet in 1717." (CBS Boston (Feb. 2021)) "...An investigative team from the Whydah Pirate Museum announced the discovery on Wednesday."

Note: Wellfleet is a town in Massachusetts "located halfway between the 'tip' and 'elbow' of Cape Cod." The history of this area goes way back. According to Wikipedia, "It may have been the 'Promontory of Vinland' mentioned by the Norse voyagers (985–1025). The Manomet River area (taken up by the western end of the Cape Cod Canal in the early 20th century) is claimed by some to have been visited by Leif Eiriksson, and a stone wall discovered in Provincetown in 1805 is also claimed to have been built by his younger brother Thorvald Eiriksson around 1007 AD, when the keel of his ship was repaired in the harbor, according to Norse sagas." Cape Cod was also one of the first places settled by the English in the 17th century.

Video from 2011. The wreckage, discovered in 1984, was positively identified by an inscription on its bell. The rest of this 4(?)-part series can be found here.

The shipwreck here is of the Whydah Gally, a full-rigged, three-masted ship designed to transport passengers, cargo and slaves. The Whydah was commissioned in London in 1715 by Sir Humphrey Morice, governor of the Bank of England, member of Parliament and "'the foremost London slave merchant of his day'". (Wikipedia)

Morice couldn't have been pleased when his new ship was hijacked while returning from its maiden voyage. "In late February 1717, Whydah Gally, under the command of Captain Lawrence Prince, a former buccaneer under Sir Henry Morgan, was navigating the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola when she was attacked by pirates led by 'Black Sam' Bellamy." (Wikipedia)

Black Sam didn't have much luck with the Wydah, either. According to local legend (which may have some basis in fact) he sailed north, heading to Provincetown so he "could visit his love, Maria "Goody" Hallett – the 'Witch of Wellfleet'" and the Wydah went down in a storm. Back in London, Sir Humphrey Morice was probably gnashing his teeth. Not only did his new ship get hijacked by pirates during its first voyage, but it then sunk in a "violent nor'easter," either as the result of bad luck or navigation error or whatever happened. So much for that investment.

Black Sam was extremely successful -- for a while. According to the New England Historical Society, "In a year, Black Sam Bellamy and his crew raided 54 ships along the U.S. East Coast and the Caribbean. All in all they captured treasure worth $120 million today, according to Forbes magazine. That made him the top-earning pirate." A human femur thought to belong to him was discovered in 2018. As for Maria Hallett, the woman he loved, she had his child -- which later died -- and may have spent some time in jail. "According to local lore, she lost her mind or withdrew from society and moved to a shack in Wellfleet. People called her ‘Goody Hallett’ or ‘The Witch of Wellfleet.’ Today a meadow in Wellfleet is known as Goody Hallett Meadow."

Document Discovered In Wreckage Of Blackbeard's Ship May Reveal Pirate Reading Tastes

"A discovery from the wreck of Blackbeard's ship could offer some insights into pirate reading tastes." Source: Live Science (Jan. 2021).

"Conservators in North Carolina found paper fragments wadded up inside a cannon chamber that was pulled up from the wreck of Queen Anne's Revenge, the flagship of the infamous 18th-century pirate Blackbeard. The pages had been ripped from a seafaring adventure tale that inspired the novel 'Robinson Crusoe.'"

Pirate Tale Revealed In Vatican Archives

"Newly published documents from the Vatican archives tell an incredible story of a ship full of treasure, bound for the pope, which was seized by pirates near Cartagena in modern day Spain." Source: Live Science.

"...The São Vicente, a ship laden with a dead bishop's treasure, was to deliver the treasure consisting of gold, silver, rings, tapestries, jewels, fine plates and even portable altars to Avignon, in France ... where Pope Innocent VI (reign 1352-1362) was based."

Note: Hard up for funds, the pope couldn't have been too happy about the loss of this treasure. The Vatican was apparently in serious financial trouble during his papacy because of the reckless spending of his predecessor, Clement VI.

"Most of the wealth accumulated by John XXII and Benedict XII had been lost during the extravagant pontificate of Clement VI. Innocent VI economised by cutting the chapel staff ... from twelve to eight. Works of art were sold rather than commissioned. His pontificate was dominated by the war in Italy and by Avignon's recovery from the plague, both of which made draining demands on his treasury. By 1357, he was complaining of poverty." (Wikipedia)

Jagger Library In S. Africa Destroyed By Fire

"Forest fires raging in South Africa’s Table Mountain National Park have reached the University of Cape Town (UCT), and gutted the reading room of its main library, which houses irreplaceable documents and records from the country’s past." Source: Nature.

"Amid apocalyptic scenes on 18 April, fire tore through part of the 200-year-old university’s campus on the slopes of Table Mountain, torching the library building and destroying a plant research unit."

Comment: The Jagger Library, named after the British politician and businessman John William Jagger, a major benefactor of the UCT libraries in the early 1900s, held thousands of irreplaceable books and manuscripts, including the first Xhosa-language dictionary, compiled by the Scottish missionary, John Bennies, in 1823, and copies of the first Xhosa-language newspapers published by missionaries in the 1870s.

According to early reports, the blaze which engulfed the library may have been started by a cooking fire which got out of control. Cape Town apparently has a major problem with homeless people sleeping on the streets and in the surrounding countryside. It now looks like the blaze was intentionally set, however. According to Cape Town's Eyewitness News,  one man was arrested six days ago after authorities received reports that several people were moving through the bush, starting fires.

The destruction of the Jagger Library is only one calamity in a series of disasters to hit South Africa recently. South African Airways went bankrupt; the South African Post Office is "on the brink of collapse;" the South African Road Accident Fund is bankrupt; and the Johannesburg General Hospital suffered major damage in a fire earlier this month. These are all obvious symptoms of the social disintegration taking place as South Africa continues its decades-long and all too predictable collapse into the Third World.

Related: Why did it take the ANC so long to destroy South Africa?

Will South Africa be a failed state by 2030?

Denmark & Iceland Clash Over Medieval Manuscripts (2019)

Video from 2019.

"They recount tales of Viking raids, Norse history, kings and gods: a priceless collection of medieval manuscripts, bequeathed by an Icelandic scholar to the University of Copenhagen in the 18th century, that Iceland now wants back." Source: The Local (Nov. 2019).

"The UN cultural organisation UNESCO has called them 'the single most important collection of early Scandinavian manuscripts in existence', with the earliest one dating from the 12th century.

"Some of the texts — known as the Arnamagnaean Collection — have already been returned to Reykjavik, but 1,400 documents are still locked away in Copenhagen."

Note: The Arnamagnaean Collection is named after a scholar named Arni Magnusson, "a historian and literature and language expert who was born in Iceland but died in 1730 in Copenhagen, where he left his 3,000 or so manuscripts."

I'm not sure where this issue stands as of 2021. The quarrel over the ownership of these manuscripts is complicated by the entangled history of the two countries:

"The transfer of manuscripts from Denmark to Iceland took place as a result of numerous petitions from the Icelanders dating back to the 1830s and increasingly after the constitutional separation from Denmark in 1944, and it is undoubtedly connected to Iceland’s struggle for independence from Denmark. The demands for repatriation are founded on the fact that when Árni Magnússon bequeathed his collection to the University of Copenhagen this was also the university of Iceland." Source: University of Copenhagen.

Book Of Lost Books Discovered In Danish Archive

"Christopher Columbus may have explored oceans, but his illegitimate son, Hernando Colón, explored the mind. In the 16th century, he amassed somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 books, part of a pie-in-the-sky effort to collect 'all books, in all languages and on all subjects, that can be found both within Christendom and without.' As part of this ambitious endeavor, he commissioned an entire staff of scholars to read the books and write short summaries for a 16-volume, cross-referenced index. Called the Libro de los Epítomes, it served as a primitive sort of search engine. Now, researchers have found one of those lost volumes, a precious key to many books lost to history." Source: Smithsonian Magazine.