Ancient World Review

The St. Cuthbert Gospel, The Digital Dark Age & The Spread Of Illiteracy

Video from 2012. Closed-captions helpful.

"The Gospel, which is a manuscript copy of the Gospel of St John, is the earliest intact European book and is intimately associated with Cuthbert, one of Britain's foremost saints. It was created in the late 7th century in the north-east of England and placed in St Cuthbert's coffin, apparently in 698. It was discovered when the coffin was opened in Durham Cathedral in 1104 on the occasion of the removal of Cuthbert's body to a new shrine. The Gospel has a beautifully-worked, original, red leather binding in excellent condition, and is the only surviving high-status manuscript from this crucial period in British history to retain its original appearance, both inside and out." Source: British Library.

Next video: CT scan of the gospel:

According to Caroline Petit (Medicine, Ancient and Modern), "[f]or me, the real star of the Lindisfarne Gospel exhibition [where the gospel was displayed in 2013] was another manuscript: the St Cuthbert Gospel .., a tiny, modest book with a simple leather binding containing Saint John’s gospel. From a historical and codicological point of view, it is a most remarkable artefact. Allegedly found in Cuthbert’s coffin in 1104 among other precious relics, the book is thought to have been made at Wearmouth-Jarrow [a monastery located in the medieval Kingdom of Northumbria] shortly before 700, and to ‘have been the very copy that SS. Cuthbert and Boisil had read together at Melrose when the latter was on his deathbed..."

St. Cuthbert was a hermit and missionary known for his asceticism and generosity to the poor. A politically important figure later in life, he was thought to be a wonder worker and became the center of a cult. "After Cuthbert's death, numerous miracles were attributed to his intercession and to intercessory prayer near his remains," according to Wikipedia, a classic example of the early church's superstitious belief in holy relics and the way Christians transformed their saints into demigods with miraculous powers.

This fantastic old book was taken from Cuthbert's coffin, turned into a relic and apparently ended up in the hands of collectors after Henry VIII shut down the Catholic monasteries in the mid-1500s. It was then given to a college operated by the Jesuits, who loaned it to the British Library and eventually sold it to them in 2012 for a tidy profit of around nine million pounds (almost 13 million dollars).  Business is business, after all. The book is in good hands now, at least until the Muslims take over Britain. If that happens, the Jihadis won't think twice about burning this incredible artifact.

Note: "With a page size of only 138 by 92 millimetres (5.4 in × 3.6 in), the St Cuthbert Gospel is one of the smallest surviving Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. The essentially undecorated text is the Gospel of John in Latin, written in a script that has been regarded as a model of elegant simplicity." (Wikipedia)

Comment: This fantastic book is over 1300 years old, but it's still perfectly clear and legible. Compare that to the average lifespan of digital documents, which can probably be measured in a few decades at most.

Preserving digital files is a labor-intensive process. According to the Digital Preservation Coalition, the longevity of these documents can be extended with periodic refreshing (moving a file from one physical storage medium to another), migration (changing them from one format to another) and emulation (creating software that can read a variety of formats), but only a small percentage of the digital material being produced today will ever get this kind of archival treatment.

Physical books, on the other hand, will last for centuries, if not millennia, if they're kept in relatively dry, shaded and -- as in the case of the St. Cuthbert Gospel -- airtight spaces. And they frequently don't need any specialized handling at all to survive for thousands of years. For instance, look at all the ancient papyri scrolls that have been discovered which are still readable even though they were just stuffed into amphorae and buried in the sand. When it comes to longevity, the old technologies are still the best and this includes things like photographs recorded on film rather than digital media:

"We know that photographic negatives, transparencies and prints last a long time. They are reliable forms of storing data. Recently the Royal Geographic Society reprinted Frank Hurley's pictures from the 1913 Antarctic Exhibition - from his original glass negatives, nearly 100 years old. An example of how robust the storage medium was - remember these negatives had been in sub-zero conditions and transported across an ocean in a tiny lifeboat!" (Digital Preservation Coalition)

The digital revolution that was supposed to make us all smarter has not only shortened the lifespan of written material but has actually caused a general decline in reading and writing. The number of people who read for pleasure has been going down for decades now. The deterioration in writing skills is obvious all over the western world, and cursive handwriting is no longer being taught in many schools. One of the bizarre consequences of this is that "toddler's’ excessive use of touchscreens is leaving the muscles in their hands so weak they cannot grip a pencil," according to the Sunday Express.

What does this have to do with the Cuthbert Gospel? Nothing directly, I guess, but look at what the Gospel represents. What we have here is an approximately 1,300-year-old book which has survived into an age when print is dying in favor of digital media with an average lifespan of less than 20 years. The Cuthbert Gospel was written by hand -- a skill that most people don't learn or use anymore -- in a language that most people can't understand -- that came down to us from a period that most people don't know anything about (they don't know the most basic facts about their own history, never mind the Middle Ages).

I wouldn't call this progress. The Cuthbert Gospel, among other things, is a reminder of how much the West has deteriorated.

Note: The entire Cuthbert Gospel can be viewed online in the British Museum's digitized manuscripts collection. Scanning the book makes it available to people who can't visit the museum, but I have to wonder if the digitized version will last anywhere near as long as the original.

Did Nero Burn Rome?

Was Nero the victim of an ancient smear campaign? Of course he was. Just to take one example, the famous story that he set fire to Rome and then played the lyre while watching the city burn is an obvious fabrication.

Here's the Roman historian Suetonius's description of what happened:

"Pretending to be disgusted by the drab old buildings and narrow, winding streets of Rome, he brazenly set fire to the city; and though a group of ex-consuls caught his attendants, armed with tow and blazing torches, trespassing on their property, they dared not interfere. He also coveted the sites of several granaries, solidly built in stone, near the Golden House; having knocked down their walls with siege-engines, he set the interiors ablaze. This terror lasted for six days and seven nights, causing many people to take shelter in monuments and tombs. Nero's men destroyed not only a vast number of apartment blocks, but mansions which had belonged to famous generals and were still decorated with their triumphal trophies; temples, too, vowed and dedicated by the kings, and others during the Punic and Gallic wars -- in fact, every ancient monument of historical interest that had hitherto survived. Nero watched the conflagration from the Tower of Maecenas, enraptured by what he called 'the beauty of the flames'; then put on his tragedian's costume and sang The Sack of Ilium from beginning to end." -- from "Nero", paragraph 38, Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars.

This is an entertaining story, but it's pure fiction. In fact, this account of Nero's crime is so outlandish that it's almost comical.

Just think about it. According to Suetonius and other sources, Nero sent his flunkies out to burn the city because he wanted to clear land to build his Golden Palace, aka the Domus Aurea, a "vast landscaped palace ... in the heart of Rome." (Wikipedia) This would be like an American president sending out his personal staff to burn down the neighborhoods around the White House so he could build a gigantic complex of mansions and pleasure gardens.

Nero's men weren't subtle about their arson, either. If Suetonius is to be believed, they ran completely amok for six days and seven nights, using siege engines to knock down walls and torching apartment blocks and other buildings that were presumably swarming with people. The chaos and panic this would have caused can easily be imagined. That would be bad enough, of course, but Nero also destroyed monuments and tombs and temples and "mansions which had belonged to famous generals."

This wholesale destruction would attract some attention, to say the least.

Rome was a big city at the time, but it wasn't that big and Nero's orgy of destruction supposedly went on for an entire week, right out in the open. Everybody would have known what was happening and who was responsible. According to Suetonius, a group of ex-consuls, no less, caught Nero's men setting fires but were afraid to do anything about it. In other words, they knew who the arsonists worked for.

The point is that none of this was a secret. When it was all over, everyone from the patricians in the Roman government to the ordinary plebs on the street would have known that Nero was responsible. He would have been universally condemned, but that isn't what happened:

"The Great Fire of Rome was an urban fire in July of the year AD 64. It caused widespread devastation in the city on 19 July, before being brought under control after six days. Differing accounts [emphasis added] either blame Emperor Nero for initiating the fire or credit him with organizing measures to contain it and provide relief for refugees." Wikipedia.

Why would there be differing accounts of what happened if Suetonius's version of events is correct? Remember, some of Nero's arsonists were supposedly caught in the act. This wasn't a covert operation. If Nero really did order his people to "brazenly" attack and burn his own city, it wasn't exactly deniable.

Nero himself was in Antium when the fire started. According to Wikipedia, "[h]e returned to the city and took measures to bring in food supplies and open gardens and public buildings to accommodate refugees." Curiously, he wasn't lynched on the spot after committing such an atrocity. On the contrary, he was given credit, at least in some sources, for his relief efforts.

Nero, like Caligula, was the victim of an ancient smear campaign, but that doesn't mean he was a particularly good emperor. He wasn't, but even though Rome apparently rejoiced at his death (according to Suetonius), he was still popular with part of the population when he was finally overthrown and murdered during the revolt of Vindex and Galba in 68 AD. Even Seutonius concedes as much:

"...there were people who used to lay spring and summer flowers on his grave for a long time, and had statues made of him, wearing his fringed toga, which they put up on the Rostra; they even continued to circulate his edicts, pretending he was still alive and would soon return to confound his enemies. What is more, King Vologaesus of Parthia, on sending ambassadors to ratify his alliance with Rome, particularly requested the Senate to honor Nero's memory. In fact, twenty years later, when I was a young man, a mysterious individual came forward claiming to be Nero; and so magical was the sound of his name in the Parthians' ears that they supported him to the best of their ability, and only handed him over with great reluctance." -- "Nero," from paragraph 57.

People don't usually put up statues to honor deranged lunatics who attack and burn their own capital cities. For the real story, at least as far as it can be reconstructed, check out The Great Fire of Rome by Stephen Dando-Collins. Highly recommended.

Was Caligula A Victim Of Ancient Propaganda?

If immortality means that people remember your name, then the "mad Roman emperor" Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, more commonly known as Caligula, is definitely immortal. Everybody's heard of him even if they've never cracked a history book, which just goes to show that being a "good ruler" doesn't necessarily guarantee that your name will go down in posterity. Moral, competent leaders come and go, fading into obscurity, but villains like Caligula live on forever in movies, plays, novels and TV productions. The only problem is that most of what we think we know about Caligula -- the long litany of crimes that make him so famous -- probably isn't true.

Caligula is the most notorious Roman emperor, with a reputation for insanity, cruelty and sexual depravity based almost completely on his depiction in the media and in absurd sensationalized films like Bob Guccione's pornographic Caligula, one of the vilest, most degenerate and unhistorical movies I've ever seen. This image of Caligula as an insane emperor is so ingrained in popular culture that most people would automatically reject the idea that it's probably not accurate.

If you're interested in actual history instead of lurid Hollywood pseudo-history, you should read "Caligula: The Corruption of Power" by Anthony A. Barrett. One of the interesting things you'll learn from this fantastic revisionist biography is that everything we know about Caligula is based on just a few biased and generally unreliable ancient sources:

"The quintessential mad despot, Caligula had inspired plays, films, several series for television. Yet while the public at large seems to find him irresistible, academic biographers have tended to give him a wide berth. Nor is this surprising. The loss of the relevant books of the most important ancient commentator on the Julio-Claudian period, the historian Tacitus, means that we have to rely for our information on markedly inferior sources, in particular the late historian Dio and the biographer Suetonius." -- Caligula: The Corruption of Power, Barrett, 1989, p. xv, Forward.

In other words, we don't know nearly as much about Caligula as we think we do. Most of his image is a masturbatory Hollywood concoction based very loosely on a few unreliable ancient sources. If you read those sources, then read Barrett, a hazy but very different picture of who he actually was starts to emerge.

Image based on period portraits and sculpture.

I don't have the time or space to get into all the details here, but if Barrett is correct, it would appear that Caligula was the victim of an ancient smear campaign designed to justify his assassination to the masses and bolster the reputation of his successor, Claudius. (Note: that's my own conclusion, not Barrett's). For instance, Suetonius' admittedly entertaining biography of Caligula is an obvious hit piece accusing him of the most outlandish crimes and atrocities, including incest with his sister, but as far as that last charge goes, it was common in Roman politics to accuse your political enemies of all kinds of sexual degeneracy. Spreading malicious rumors for political purposes isn't a modern invention.

Even Suetonius' biography isn't completely negative, however. Caligula is described as a fairly competent, though inexperienced, ruler who later turned into a "monster" for some unknown reason. The impression I get from reading Barrett and Suetonius is that Caligula wasn't really interested in running the empire; like Nero, he was much more interested in the arts, especially acting, music and singing, tastes which would have made him appear effeminate and decadent in the eyes of the elite. Early in his reign, he became seriously ill and Suetonius implies that his sickness may have unhinged his mind. Even if that's true, however, many of the crimes he is accused of are unbelievable and almost certainly never happened.

Caligula had his vices, no doubt, but even if they were exaggerated (or concocted) by ancient propagandists like Suetonius, that doesn't mean that he was actually a good emperor living a chaste and moral life. He wasn't, but it's doubtful if he would have been smeared so viciously if something else hadn't been going on. The fact that he was brutally assassinated by his own Praetorians after a few short years in power shows that he had made powerful enemies among the ruling elites.

A coin depicting Gaius Caligula.

Caligula was the victim of a political conspiracy. That's a historical fact. We'll never know for sure because of the scarcity and anecdotal nature of the sources, but it appears that he was murdered because he tried to eliminate the political enemies he suspected (with justification) were trying to get rid of him. In other words, they killed him before he could kill them, a common scenario in ancient and medieval monarchies. If Caligula was paranoid, he probably had good reason.

After his murder, his enemies had to justify his assassination to the people, who apparently had a great deal of affection for this "cruel tyrant:"

"Caligula began his reign as the darling of the masses--Suetonius speaks of the immensus civium amor ('the massive affection of his fellow-citizens'). It also seems clear that he stayed popular with the ordinary people right up to the end, and indeed their reaction to the news of his death seems to have caused the sources some embarrassment." -- Caligula: The Corruption Of Power, Barrett, p. 229

Caligula was popular with the masses (1). This is critical. His murder--and the murder of his family--had to be justified to the people and the best way to do that was to portray him as an insane monster who had to be put down like any mad dog. Politics back then wasn't so different than it is now. For example, look at the way Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi were demonized or the way the Germans were portrayed as inhuman baby killers during World War I. These days, the mass media handles the propaganda. Back in ancient Rome, they didn't have television or radio, but that's the only real difference.

(1) "Gaius' accession was greeted with widespread joy and relief, and his civility promised well." (Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed. revised).

The popular image of Caligula isn't historical. His reputation as an insane monster was first created by ancient writers with a murder to justify and a talent for pandering to the decadent tastes of the mob, tastes that apparently haven't changed at all since the days of ancient Rome. The real Caligula, whoever he was, has been transformed into a sensationalized tabloid demon by the modern media and the mob laps it up, just like it did two thousand years ago.

The ironic thing is that if it weren't for this sensationalized image, most people wouldn't even know Caligula's name. It's one of those bizarre twists of history that his enemies, the very people who worked so hard to destroy him, ended up making him immortal.

Book Review -- Ancient Rome: The Autobiography

Ancient Rome:The Autobiography, edited by Jon E. Lewis, is a fantastic collection of official reports, personal letters, inscriptions, graffiti, memoirs, speeches, poetry and historical writings that cover the history of Rome from the early days of the kings to the collapse of the western empire.  An epilogue contains some material from the eastern empire and a long extract from The Second Speech Of Marcus Tullius Cicero Against Marc Antony is included in an appendix.

The book has a little bit of everything "...from the writings of Caesars, slaves, generals, and poets, on everything from major battles, conspiracies, and politics to the minutiae of everyday life." Shorter pieces like inscriptions and graffiti are given complete, but much of the anthology consists of excerpts from longer works. The collection doesn't just focus on Roman writers, but includes material from all over the Roman world.

The Autobiography is divided into three main sections covering the Rise, the Empire and the Fall.

Part One -- Rise: Rome 753 BC - 31 BC -- starts with Plutarch's description of the ordination of the vestal virgins by King Numa in 680 BC and ends with Horace's description of Octavian's victory at Actium in 31 BC.

This section covers a wide range of subjects including Polybius' account of the Punic Wars, Cato the Elder's advice on how to keep a slave, an example of election graffiti from Pompeii, a reward notice for the return of runaway slaves and Cicero's descriptions of piracy in Sicily, jury corruption and election bribery in Rome and what it was like to have dinner with Caesar. One entertaining excerpt is from a letter that Marc Antony wrote to Octavian, who was complaining because Antony was getting it on with Cleopatra while he was married to Octavian's sister, Octavia:

"To Octavianus Augustus: What's upset you? Because I go to bed with Cleopatra? But she's my wife and I've been doing so for nine years, not just recently. And, anyway, is Livia [Octavian's wife] your only pleasure? I expect that you will have managed, by the time you read this, to have hopped into bed with Tertulla, Terentilla, Rufilla, Salvia Titisenia, or the whole lot of them. Does it really matter where, or with what women, you get your excitement?"

Part Two -- Empire: Rome 30 BC-AD 180 -- starts with The Deeds of  the Divine Augustus, in which Augustus (Octavian) brags about all his accomplishments, and ends with Avidius Cassius' account of an insurrectionist plot by the governor of Syria in 175 AD. This section is full of fascinating material: a letter from Augustus to Tiberius describing his luck at gambling; Philo's description of a personal audience with Caligula and a juicy story by the poet Juvenal (my favorite Roman poet) about the way Claudius' third wife, Messalina, liked to prostitute herself in the streets like a common whore. Other excerpts from Juvenal describe female athletes and gladiators, and the "hot, overcrowded, venal, class-ridden" city of Rome.

Part Three -- Fall: Rome AD 181-476 -- describes the final years of corruption, war, riots and invasion. It starts with Herodian's account of how a disgraced former consul, Didius Julianus, bought the Roman empire at auction and ends with a sycophantic piece by Sidonius called "The Magnificence Of The Barbarian Prince Sigismer, Burgundy" (AD 470). As this section progresses, the Visigoths, Huns and Christians start to appear. There are descriptions of gladiatorial games, the conversion of Constantine, mob insurrection, the sack of Rome, and a fascinating account by Priscus of the Court of Attila the Hun.

This is a fantastic book that covers a huge amount of material from original sources. Some of the most interesting material deals with the details of everyday life: the hazards of sea travel, a flute player's contract, window shopping in Rome, recipes, advice on how to bring up children, advertisements for gladiatorial shows, petty crimes, what it was like to live above a Roman bath, and so on. If you're interested in ancient Rome, you should definitely check this out.

Note: "Ancient Rome: The Autobiography" was first published in the UK as "The Mammoth Book of Eyewitness Ancient Rome." I somehow ended up with both of these books and as far as I can tell they're identical.

The Monster Grendel From Beowulf

From the 2007 animated movie. Nothing like the poem, of course, but the carnage here is pretty entertaining.

"In medieval England, monsters were very different and sometimes quite ambiguous. Such is the case of Grendel in Beowulf. Revered as a primary example of Anglo-Saxon literature and western epic poetry, the text was originally written in Old English and dictates the story of the Scandinavian hero Beowulf and his attempts to aid the Danish king Hrothgar. One of the three reasons Beowulf is needed is to slay a strong monster that has been consistently plaguing the mead hall of Hrothgar . This monster is none other than Grendel - who, arguably, is as famous as  - if not more than - Beowulf himself." Source: Ancient Origins.

The original story, translated by Seamus Heaney. Part Two here.

"The precise nature of Grendel's being is never made fully clear. Interpretations of his character have ranged from giant to dragon to a Scandinavian berserker. He has been described as a bipedal brute with impenetrable scales and spikes in place of skin and is called a shadow walker in the text. The moniker might be indicative of Grendel's preference for darkness and shadows, or it might have a symbolic meaning explaining the creature Grendel was initially intended to be interpreted as. Regardless, the aforementioned description of the monster has long been a topic of debate among scholars."

In The Footsteps Of Zuanzang In Kyrgyzstan

The rest of this 12-part series can be found here.

"At the start of the Tang dynasty, in the early 7th century, a young wandering monk embarked on a 16-year long voyage from the imperial capital Chang’an (today’s Xian) to India to collect Buddhist manuscripts. At the time Chang’an was six times bigger than Rome at its height, with a population of over one million – the epicenter of Asian civilization." Source: UNZ Review.

3D animation of ancient Chang'an.

"History ended up converting Xuanzang into a legend and a national hero in China – although in the West he would never reach Marco Polo levels of popularity.

"Xuanzang had embarked on a quest that still resonates today. He wanted to know whether all men – or just an enlightened few – could attain Buddhahood. There was only one way to find out: ride all the way to India and bring back Sanskrit texts to China, especially from the Yogacara school of Buddhism, which professed that the outside world did not exist: it was merely a projection of one’s consciousness."

Related: The China History Podcast: Buddhism Zuanzang and the Silk Road (2014).

Sappho Of Lesbos, "The Most Iconic Lesbian Poet In History," Wasn't A Lesbian After All?

"Sappho of Lesbos (c. 620-570 BCE) was a lyric poet whose work was so popular in ancient Greece, and beyond, that she was  honored in statuary and praised by figures such as Solon and Plato. Very little is known of her life and of the nine volumes of her work which were widely read in antiquity only fragments survive. Contrary to popular opinion on the subject, her works were not destroyed by closed-minded Christians seeking to suppress lesbian love poetry but were lost simply through time and circumstance." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

The popular image of Sappho as the "original lesbian" is relatively modern. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (2rd ed. revised), "Her sexual inclinations have occasioned much speculation from antiquity to the present. From Attic comedy onward she was credited with an implausible selection of male lovers. [Emphasis added] She is described as a lover of women only in post-Classical times, and in later European tradition was often regarded as heterosexual." The truth is that hardly anything is known about her personal life or her work other than the fact that she was highly regarded during her time. As for her supposed lesbianism, the truth may have been far different:

"Even Sappho’s sexuality, which for modern readers is the most famous thing about her, has been controversial from the start. However exalted her reputation among the ancient literati, in Greek popular culture of the Classical period and afterward Sappho was known primarily as an oversexed predator — of men. This, in fact, was the ancient cliché about 'Lesbians': when we hear the word today we think of love between women, but when the ancient Greeks heard the word they thought of blow jobs. In classical Greek, the verb lesbiazein — 'to act like someone from Lesbos' — meant performing fellatio, an activity for which inhabitants of the island were thought to have a particular penchant." Source: "Girl, Interrupted," Daniel Mendelsohn, The New Yorker.

The strong possibility that Sappho, "the most iconic lesbian poet in history," may have actually been a notorious heterosexual man-eater famous for her knob jobs is absolutely hilarious and all too typical of the way real history so often turns out to be the exact opposite of what everybody thinks they know.

Killer Bunnies, Phallic Trees & Other Weird Medieval Images

"The image of cute little bunny rabbits doing horrible violence to people is strangely adorable – watching the twitchy nosed little guys beat the hell out of people who’d normally have then for dinner with Rosemary, thyme and sage – but it does beg a simple question: what the hell is going on?" Source: Jon Kaneko-James.

Weird images aren't unusual in manuscripts from the Middle Ages.

According to Sexy Codicology (2013): "Often, in medieval manuscripts’ marginalia we find odd images with all sorts of monsters, half man-beasts, monkeys, and more; even in religious books the margins sometimes have drawings that simply are making fun of monks, nuns and bishops. For example: The monkey is a popular animal to take over the human role in the marginal decorations; but so is the rabbit, along with many other animals."

According to Listverse, Besides killer rabbits and knights fighting snails, the bizarre images in medieval art also include cats licking their butts, women riding Aristotle like a pony,  Moses with horns on his head, Mary Magdalene covered in body hair, bored people getting killed in various violent ways, people flying spaceships and demons with faces on their crotches. And don't forget tubas in people's butts.

These images may have had some kind of symbolic value. There's been a lot of speculation about that, but it's also possible, I guess, that the artists were just flat-out deranged.

Also see: X-rated Medieval Doodles Reveal Our Ancestors Had A Sense Of Humor.

Medieval Paintings Of Cats Licking Their Butts

Why Knights Fought Snails In Medieval Art

"It’s common to find, in the blank spaces of 13th and 14th century English texts, sketches and notes from medieval readers. And scattered through this marginalia is an oddly recurring scene: a brave knight in shining armor facing down a snail." Source: Smithsonian Magazine (2013).

"It’s a great unsolved mystery of medieval manuscripts ... Epic snail-on-knight combat showed up as often in medieval manuscripts as Kilroy across Europe. 'But the ubiquity of these depictions doesn’t make them any less strange,' says the British Library, rounding up a number of examples of the slimy battles."

Medieval Woman With Lapis Lazuli In Her Teeth May Have Illustrated Manuscripts

"Traces of ultramarine — a vivid blue pigment ground from the mineral lapis lazuli, mined only in Afghanistan and once as prized as gold — were detected in plaque coating the teeth of a woman who died in western Germany about 1,000 years ago." Source: Live Science.

"Blue pigments were rare in medieval Europe, and ultramarine was the rarest and the most costly of them all, scientists wrote in a new study. This pigment was therefore used to illustrate only the most elaborate and expensive sacred manuscripts of the day."

According to The Atlantic, "...the teeth that were embedded with this blue likely belonged to a scribe or painter of medieval manuscripts."

"...But art experts were still skeptical. Some dismissed the idea that a woman could have been a painter skilled enough to work with ultramarine. One suggested ... that this woman came into contact with ultramarine because she was simply the cleaning lady."

Note: "In the early Middle Ages, most books were produced in monasteries, whether for their own use, for presentation, or for a commission. However, commercial scriptoria grew up in large cities, especially Paris, and in Italy and the Netherlands, and by the late 14th century there was a significant industry producing manuscripts, including agents who would take long-distance commissions, with details of the heraldry of the buyer and the saints of personal interest to him (for the calendar of a Book of hours). By the end of the period, many of the painters were women, perhaps especially in Paris." Source: Wikipedia.

According to Live Science, the woman in this story "was buried in an unmarked cemetery near a monastery complex that stood from the ninth century through the 14th century," and "radiocarbon dating indicated that she lived around 997 to 1162." Considering the monastic setting and time period, it seems unlikely that she would have been directly involved in manuscript illumination, but at the same time it's hard to see how a cleaning lady could have come into contact with enough lapis lazuli to leave these stains on her teeth.

It's possible, I suppose, that she wasn't a painter herself but was involved with the preparation of the paints used by the manuscript illustrators. This is pure speculation (by me), but work like this would have brought her into close contact with lapis lazuli on a fairly regular basis.

Closed captions helpful.