Ancient World Review

The Dark Lords Of Hattusha

"Hattusha [Hattusa] exerted dominating influence upon the civilizations of the 2nd and 1st millennia BC in Anatolia and northern Syria. The palaces, temples, trading quarters and necropolis of this political and religious metropolis provide a comprehensive picture of a capital and bear a unique testimony to the disappeared Hittite civilization." Source: UNESCO World Heritage.

According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised),  "the site [of Hattusa] has been under excavation by German archaeologists since 1906 (1), and besides the massive Hittite occupation has produced pre- and post-Hittite levels. Among the principle finds has been the royal archives of thousands of cuneiform clay tablets."

(1) I'm not sure if the Germans were still excavating the site when the war broke out in Syria. If so, I assume that their work was interrupted.

"Hattusa is a site full of treasures, which is mentioned in history books due to the rich correspondence between the Hittite king and other rulers like the pharaohs of Egypt. The site contains many important places, including the pre-Hittite royal tombs, dating to 3,000 B.C., and have yielded stunning artifacts such as weapons, gold and silver containers and jewelry, animal sculptures made of bronze and clay, chairs, gold brooches, belt buckles, and gold leaf-covered figures." Source: Ancient Origins (2016).

Next video shows the Yer Kapi tunnel under Hattusa.

"The Hittite Empire began its decline around the middle of the 13th century BC," according to Ancient Origins, "mainly due to the rise of their eastern neighbors, the Assyrians. Moreover, raids by hostile forces, such as the Sea Peoples and the Kaska further weakened the Hittite Empire, finally resulting in its collapse during the first half of the 12th century BC. In 1190 BC, the Kaskas managed to capture Hattusa, which they then sacked and burned."

According to Wikipedia, "[e]xcavations suggest that Hattusa was gradually abandoned over a period of several decades as the Hittite empire disintegrated. The site was subsequently abandoned until 800 BC, when a modest Phrygian settlement appeared in the area."

Sweden Could Drop Ancient History From School Curriculum

"Previously-undisputed pillars of education such as ancient and medieval history will have to make way for contemporary topics such as gender roles, democratic values and immigration in the newly-proposed Swedish school curriculum." Source: RT.

"A new syllabus developed for Sweden's state schools by the country's National Agency for Education proposes drastic changes in how history and humanities should be taught.

"The most striking part is that Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages, a formative period for the Western world in general and Sweden in particular, will disappear from the curriculum completely."

Comment: More self-destructive radlib insanity from Sweden. All I can say to these morons in the National Agency for Education is "HOW DARE YOU?"

Activists Demand More "Social Justice" In Medieval Studies

Video from 2018. More on Rachel Fulton Brown here.

"A group of medieval studies scholars is threatening to boycott next year's International Congress on Medieval Studies to protest the rejection of sessions proposed by 'Medievalists of Color.'" Source: Campus Reform (2018).

"Conference organizers, however, insist that workshops like 'How to Be a White Ally in Medieval Studies 101' and 'Toxic Medievalisms' were rejected based on standard criteria such as lack of intellectual justification." (See below)

Comment: Aided and abetted by cowardly administrators and leftist academics (is there any other kind?), the Cultural Marxists have almost completely destroyed the Liberal Arts programs at most universities in the West. They've even been trying to worm their way into traditionally immune STEM fields.

These parasites have been going after Medieval Studies for some time now:

"A growing concern among Medieval Studies scholars is that the field is too dominated by white, male scholars who appreciate its link to Christian values and the fact that it’s been somewhat resistant to identity politics changes seen in other humanities departments." Source: College Fix (2017). (Emphasis added)

The Social Justice Warriors are trying to undermine any field dominated by whites, especially white males seen as being "too sympathetic" to Christianity. That's what's really happening here. It's all part of the general assault on "whiteness" and men and Western Civilization. And the SJWs can't stand it when they're faced with any kind of resistance. They keep protesting and protesting until they get their way.

In the case of the International Congress of Medieval Studies, the July 19 Campus Reform story quoted at the top of this article makes it sound like the conference organizers still had the sense to resist the demands for idiotic workshops like "How To Be A White Ally In Medieval Studies," but according to a statement (PDF) I found on the ICMS' website (dated July 20, 2018), it sounds like the steering committee was ready to cave in:

"We are also willing to reconsider all four of the rejected sessions proposed to be co-sponsored by the Fellowship of Medievalists of Color for the 2019 Congress, should we be contacted by the sponsoring groups who proposed them."

Note: For an example of the kind of "scholarly work" produced by the Fellowship of Medievalists of Color, all you have to do is skim the titles of the papers presented at their 2018 Whiteness In Medieval Studies 2.0 workshop.

If this kind of stuff goes on it won't be long until Medieval Studies programs have been transformed into discussion groups about white privilege, gender fluidity, BLM activism, postmodernism and the politics of intersectionality. The best professors will leave or take early retirement. Enrollment, such as it is, will drop as the best programs are systematically undermined. This pattern has repeated itself endlessly with other schools all around Europe and the United States.

Luckily, the universities don't have a monopoly on knowledge. If you're interested in the Middle Ages, you can learn just as much, if not more, about the period through a program of self-directed reading. There are still a lot of good history books out there, especially the ones written before the SJW blight started to spread its poison through the system, and you won't have to take a mandatory diversity-training workshop before you're allowed to read them.

Related: The Unbearable White of Medieval Studies.

Profs fear "alt-right" is taking over medieval studies.

White Marble In Artwork "Contributes To White Supremacy"

Report from 2017.

"A University of Iowa professor recently argued that appreciation of 'white marble' used in classical artwork contributes to 'white supremacist ideas today.'" Source: Campus Reform (2017)

"Professor Sarah Bond demonstrates in an article published in Hyperallergic that 'many of the statues, reliefs, and sarcophagi created in the ancient Western world were in fact painted,' meaning the 'white marble' often seen in such pieces of art were intended to be colored.

"... Consequently, Bond argues that 'the equation of white marble with beauty is not an inherent truth of the universe,' and is thus 'a dangerous construct that continues to influence white supremacist ideas today.'"

Comment: Good golly Miss Molly -- where do these idiots come from?

Animated History Of The Ancient Near East

Was The Byzantine Empire Roman?

Documentary from 2014.

"The Byzantine Empire was the continuation of the Roman Empire [see comment]  in the Greek-speaking, eastern part of the Mediterranean. Christian in nature, it was perennially at war with the Muslims, Flourishing during the reign of the Macedonian emperors, its demise was the consequence of attacks by Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, and Ottoman Turks." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

Comment: The Byzantine Empire is usually referred to as the "Roman empire in the East," but I've never thought there was anything particularly Roman about the Byzantines. Romans weren't Greek-speaking Christians; they were pagans who spoke Latin. If you ask me, the real Roman empire had already ceased to exist for all practical purposes by the time Italy and the western provinces were overrun by Germanic tribes in the fifth century AD. The Byzantines retained Roman institutions, but they were essentially an Oriental kingdom, a kind of hybrid of western and eastern traditions.

According to this view, the Roman Empire collapsed as a culture long before it was conquered militarily. When Rome fell in the West, that was the end of it. Parts of its territory still remained, however, most of it in the East, but it's hard to see these surviving territories as Roman.

The picture is very complicated, naturally. There were similarities and differences beween the Roman and Byzantine empires. It would be surprising if nothing had carried over from the old world. As a general rule, civilizations aren't suddenly obliterated, leaving no trace behind. Collapse doesn't work that way. Kingdoms and empires rise and fall and evolve into new political systems, usually after a period of chaos and warfare. Zombie civilizations are common in history -- nations that still exist long after their cultures have died or changed out of all recognition. Christian Rome and the Roman Byzantine Empire are both good examples, I think, of zombie empires.

The Byzantine empire was a "continuation" of the Roman Empire in the sense that it was once part of the Roman empire with all of its legal and political institutions, but it was Roman in name only. The main difference, I think, was religious. Paganism had been outlawed and driven underground, replaced by Christianity, an essentially Oriental religion.

Here's a modern analogy. Let's say that the United States becomes a Muslim caliphate, but keeps all of its current institutions in place. There's a White House, a Congress, a Supreme Court, and so on. People still vote, but all the candidates are Muslims. The county courthouse still looks the same, but Christianity is illegal and the courts enforce Shariah Law. Then the western half of the country is invaded and overrun by savage barbarians who settle down and take over the existing legislative machinery. The eastern half of the country still survives as an independent nation, but is it American? The answer is obvious.

Related: Continuity and change in the Byzantine Empire.

Clown World In The Church Of England

"A cathedral has installed a 55ft-tall helter skelter in its nave so that visitors can enjoy a better view of its ornate roof." Source: The Guardian.

"The Rev Canon Andy Bryant, of Norwich Cathedral, said the idea came to him when he was visiting the Sistine Chapel in Rome."

Comment: Welcome to Clown World, UK. I'm not religious, but installing fun rides and miniature golf courses in medieval cathedrals is a sacrilege. There's no other word for it. Of course, this is exactly the kind of stunt you'd expect from the ultra-liberal and largely secularized Church of England, a once powerful institution which has been in decline for decades:

"The number of people who identify as belonging to the Church of England has dropped to a record low in an 'unrelenting decline' that could threaten the denomination’s future, research suggests." Source: The Independent (2018).

"CofE affiliation has fallen to just 2 per cent among adults aged 18 to 24, while the majority of every age group now has no religion, the British Social Attitudes (BSA) survey found.

"The number of Britons who describe themselves as part of the church has more than halved since 2002, from 31 per cent to 14 per cent. The number who actually attend sermons is far lower."

The decline of the CofE is just one part of a much larger story -- the collapse of the West and the transformation of Christianity into a third-world religion.

Great Library Of Alexandria Destroyed By Budget Cuts, Not Fire?

This brief piece from the History Channel (2013) blames Julius Caesar for the destruction of the Library of Alexandria as if this is a proven fact.

Whatever the case, it's true that Caesar was widely blamed at the time:

"The prime suspect in destruction of the Library of Alexandria is Julius Caesar. It is alleged that during Caesar's occupation of the city of Alexandria in 48 BCE, he found himself in the Royal Palace, hemmed in by the Egyptian fleet in the harbour. For his own safety he had his men set fire to the Egyptian ships, but the fire got out of control and spread to the parts of the city nearest the shore, which included warehouses, depots and some arsenals." Source: Ancient History Encyclopedia.

That's the story, anyway, but it probably isn't true:

"In his book The Vanished Library, Luciano Canfora interprets the evidence from ancient writers to indicate the destruction of manuscripts stored in warehouses near the port waiting for export, rather than the great Library itself." Furthermore, "[t]he great scholar and stoic philosopher Strabo, was working in Alexandria in 20 BC and from his writings it is obvious that the Library was not at that time the world-renowned centre for learning it had been in previous centuries." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

Clip from Cosmos (1980). Note the standard assumption that the library was deliberately destroyed.

The Christians have been blamed as well, but it doesn't look like they did it, either:

"The second possible culprit would be the Christians of the 4 ^th century AD. In 391 AD, the Emperor Theodosius issued a decree that officially outlawed pagan practices. Thus, the Serapeum or Temple of Serapis in Alexandria was destroyed. However, this was not the Library of Alexandria, or for that matter, a library of any sort. Furthermore, no ancient sources mention the destruction of any library at this time at all. Hence, there is no evidence that the Christians of the 4 ^th century destroyed the Library of Alexandria." Source: Ancient Origins.

So if Caesar wasn't responsible and the Christians seem to have been exonerated, who destroyed the library and its priceless collection of ancient texts? Strangely enough, considering how widespread the traditional story is, there's a possibility that the library wasn't destroyed by a fire in the first place. The truth may be radically different and a lot less dramatic.

"Though it seems fitting that the destruction of so mythic an institution as the Great Library of Alexandria must have required some cataclysmic event ... – and while [riots, fires and other disasters] certainly took their toll on the Library - in reality, the fortunes of the Great Library waxed and waned with those of Alexandria itself. Much of [the library's] downfall was gradual, often bureaucratic, and by comparison to our cultural imaginings, somewhat petty." Source: "The Great Library Of Alexandria?" by Heather Philips (PDF).

This article appeared in 2010, I think. If Heather Philips is right, her version of events would radically change the traditional history of the destruction of the Great Library, but that would be a good thing for those of us who want to know the true story. The traditional history has always been highly speculative since no one really knows what happened.

If Philips is right, we'd lose some dramatic stories, though. For example, her revisionist view would demolish the historical accuracy (such as it is) of the excellent 2009 movie, Agora, which tells the heavily romanticized story of Hypatia of Alexandria  and blames the destruction of the library on a rioting Christian mob.

Agora is a good flick, highly recommended, but it's undeniably a work of anti-Christian propaganda. That doesn't bother me particularly, but some people get all worked up about it. For instance, here's a harsh attack on the movie (2010) by David Bentley Hart who admits he never saw the film but argues that its premise is completely ahistorical, which may very well be true. Considering their record of destroying pagan shrines and writings, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the Christians destroyed the library, but it looks like they weren't involved.

Various other individuals and groups have been blamed for the destruction of the Great Library --the emperor Aurelian, the Muslims, Pope Theophilus of Alexandria -- but if Heather Philips is right, the library may never have been "destroyed" at all, only damaged over the years in various wars and riots before it went out of business due to budget cuts. That doesn't make for a good movie, however, so if that's what really happened, I doubt if the story will ever make it to the Big Screen.

Garbage Crisis Continues In Rome

"Landfills in flames and rats feasting on waste in the streets have sparked health fears in Rome, as doctors warn families to steer clear of disease-ridden curbside garbage and locals launch a disgusting dumpster contest online." Source: AFP.

"Crowds of summer tourists are forced to navigate overflowing bins in the stifling heat, as the pungent perfume of neglected garbage draws scavenging animals and the threat of disease to the Eternal City and locals fume over the city's refuse management."

Note: The garbage crisis in Italy has been going on for years. For more information see The Garbage Problem in Rome and Naples posted here in Jan. 2019. The Italian Mafia is responsible for a lot of this, but since the same thing is happening in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities in the United States, it's hard not to also see it as a symptom of general cultural decline. Ancient Rome was never the most sanitary place in the world, granted, but Augustus would be shocked if he could see what's happened to the former heart of the Roman Empire.

Swedish Politician Suggests Banning "Nazi" Runes (UPDATE)

Evil Nazi runes!

Back in May, 2019, Russia Today reported that the Swedish government was "looking into the possibility of forbidding the use of Norse runes ... amid concerns that the ancient symbols have been misappropriated by neo-Nazi groups." According to RT, Justice Minister Morgan Johansson was "investigating whether or not runes should be banned in Sweden as a way to deter hate groups ..."

This proposed ban was absurd, of course, but it was a particularly dumb idea because banning runes would be impossible. Runic inscriptions can be found all over Scandinavia and Europe, for one thing, but even if you destroyed every runestone and medieval artifact in the West, you still couldn't get rid of these "racist" symbols. This ancient writing system is not only the subject of scholarly research, but "runic alphabets were added to the Unicode Standard in September, 1999 with the release of version 3.0." (Wikipedia) Hundreds of rune-related books and merchandise can be found on Amazon and rune tattoos are very popular (see next video). You'd have to be crazy, not to mention unbelievably arrogant, to think you could actually "forbid" runes.

That's not what this proposal was about, of course. The Swedish government would just use a ban as a legal tool to persecute political groups they don't approve of. This kind of thing is SOP for the modern left. Attacks on national symbols have been taking place all over Europe and the US. For example, the Union Jack is now considered to be "racist" in Britain. So is the Betsy Ross flag in the United States.

Also see: Sweden Investigating Criminalizing Runes, Thor's Hammer & Other Norse Symbols.

Evil Nazi girl gets rune tattoos, including the notorious Tyr rune (2017).

The proposed criminalization of runes was typical of the current Swedish government. Malicious little creatures like Justice Minister Johansson are actively hostile to the culture and heritage of their own country, and they'll end up destroying Sweden completely if they aren't driven out of office. But even if these idiots were all purged tomorrow, it may be too late to turn the situation around. Sweden is dying. The level of violence there is soaring and the country is rapidly becoming Islamified thanks to its self-destructive immigration policies. The truly insane thing about all of this is that Sweden's "feminist government" has been bending over backwards to import an alien culture which treats women like chattel, but that's typical of the clown world we live in today.

Sweden is a classic example of cultural decay. It's hard to believe that its people are descended from the Vikings.

Video from 2015.

UPDATE: Surprisingly, the idiotic Swedish government decided not to ban runes. According to The Local (May 30, 2019), "an inquiry in Sweden has recommended against bringing in a ban on racist symbols such as the Tyr or Tiwaz rune used by the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement ... The inquiry, led by Charlotte Brokelind, President of the Göta Court of Appeal, found in its conclusions that existing ethnic hate laws were sufficient, and did not need to be supplemented by additional bans on specific symbols."

The Local is a left-wing rag. Note the ridiculous assertion that the Tyr or Tiwaz rune is a "racist symbol."

"In Germanic mythology, Týr (Old Norse), Tíw (Old English), and Ziu (Old High German) is a god. Stemming from the Proto-Germanic deity *Tīwaz and ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European deity *Dyeus, little information about the god survives beyond Old Norse sources. Due to the etymology of the god's name and the shadowy presence of the god in the extant Germanic corpus, some scholars propose that Týr may have once held a more central place among the deities of early Germanic mythology" (Wikipedia)

The Tyr rune is a symbol of national identity. That's why the Nordic Resistance Front adopted it. If they had used a Nordic Cross instead, the Swedish government would probably hold an inquiry into banning the Swedish flag.