Ancient World Review

The Festival Of Drunkenness & The Blood-Red Sphinx

"The Festival of Drunkenness is a religiously significant celebration that was held annually (said to be biannually in some places) by the ancient Egyptians. The background story for the celebration of this festival can be found in a text known as The Book of the Heavenly Cow [next video]. In this text, there is an ancient Egyptian myth involving the destruction of mankind. According to the myth, human beings were saved from extinction thanks, in part, to alcohol." Source: Ancient Origins (2016).

From what I've read, the Festival of Drunkenness wasn't just a big celebration with some harmless social drinking; it was about getting completely plastered and passing out to commemorate how booze saved humanity from the bloodthirsty warrior goddess, Sekhmet:

"According to the story, Ra had become weary of people's endless cruelty and nonsense and so sent Sekhmet to destroy them. She took to her task with enthusiasm, tearing people apart and drinking their blood. Ra is satisfied with the destruction until the other gods point out to him that, if he wanted to teach people a lesson, he should stop the destruction before no one was left to learn from it. Ra then orders the goddess of beer, Tenenet, to dye a large quantity of the brew red and has it delivered to Dendera, right in Sekhmet's path of destruction. She finds it and, thinking it is blood, drinks it all, falls asleep, and wakes up as the gentle and beneficent Hathor." (Ancient History Encyclopedia)

In other words, all it took to transform the homicidal blood-slurping Sekhmet (often represented as a lion) into Hathor, the goddess of "music, dance, joy, love, sexuality and maternal care" (often represented as a cow) was to get Sekhmet drunk. I also like the bit about how Ra had to be reminded that there was no point in killing everybody if his goal was to teach people a lesson. This is a great story, much more human than the legend of Yahweh exterminating  his own creations (humans as well as animals) in a flood.

Note: According to the Ancient Architects video at the top of this post, the Festival of Drunkenness "could potentially explain the original pre-dynastic origins of the Great Sphinx - as a bloodthirsty statue of an Egyptian lion goddess."

Ancient Egypt is normally seen as kind of austere and grim, but the Egyptians had all sorts of feasts and banquets and they liked their beer:

"Considering the value the ancient Egyptians placed on enjoying life, it is no surprise that they are known as the first civilization to perfect the art of brewing beer. The Egyptians were so well known as brewers, in fact, that their fame eclipsed the actual inventors of the process, the Sumerians, even in ancient times." Source: Ancient History Encylopedia.

The Festival of Drunkenness goes way back:

"Originally, it was thought these rituals took place later in Egyptian history when they were ruled by the Greeks and Romans.  However, recent discoveries from the excavations of the Temple of Mut complex in Luxor show they took place much earlier -  around 1470 BCE.  ... the Festival of Drunkenness was celebrated by people at least once a year, sometimes twice, in homes, temples and makeshift desert shrines.  It was different than many other temple ceremonies as the priests or pharaoh would act on behalf of the people.  In this ritual, everyone participated together -- the elites and the peasants.  The scene is described in a hymn to Sakhnet as young women with flowing garlands in their hair serving alcohol to everyone  They all drink to the point of passing out, then are awoken to the beating of drums and the priests carried out a likeness of the goddess Hathor and they present their petitions to her.  It wasn’t just drinking going on either.  Graffiti was found discussing 'traveling the marshes', which is a euphemism for having sex.  These festivals took place at the beginning of the Nile floods in mid-August, which hearkened to the fertility and renewal of the land by the floods." Source: Naked History (2017).

How can you not like a civilization where everyone took part in a festival like this at least once a year? Drunken orgies have been popular throughout history, of course, but they've gradually lost their religious context. Next video shows a panel from William Hogarth's moralistic series of paintings, A Rake's Progress (1733-35). I like to think that the Festival of Drunkenness in ancient Egypt involved scenes like these all over the country.

Giant Prehistoric Bird Ate Neanderthal Child's Bones (2013)

"One Neanderthal child had a very bad day about 115,000 years ago. The child died — that much is certain — and the bones were gulped down and digested by a giant, prehistoric bird, according to archaeologists in Poland." Source: Live Science (2018).

"However, it's unclear whether the giant bird killed the child before the gruesome feast or whether the child died from another cause before the bird scavenged the remains, the archaeologists said."

Note: The bones, discovered in Ciemna Cave, one of several caves in Ojcow National Park in Poland, are "the oldest known human remains ever to be found in Poland." The bird that ate the child's bones isn't identified, which is too bad. I've got this picture of a Neanderthal kid wandering off from its cave and getting gobbled up by a huge terror bird, but the terror birds, unfortunately, lived in South America during a different time period.

British Royalty Dined On Human Flesh?

"They have long been famed for their love of lavish banquets and rich recipes.  But what is less well known is that the British royals also had a taste for human flesh." Source: Daily Mail (2016).

"A new book on medicinal cannibalism has revealed that possibly as recently as the end of the 18th century British royalty swallowed parts of the human body.

"The author adds that this was not a practice reserved for monarchs but was widespread among the well-to-do in Europe.

"Even as they denounced the barbaric cannibals of the New World, they applied, drank, or wore powdered Egyptian mummy, human fat, flesh, bone, blood, brains and skin."

Note: It appears that aristocrats weren't the only ones who believed in the medicinal properties of human body parts and fluids. There are all sorts of stories about commoners doing the same thing. For example, the crowds who witnessed Charles I's execution supposedly rushed in to mop up the king's blood:

"At about 2:00 p.m., Charles put his head on the block after saying a prayer and signaled the executioner when he was ready by stretching out his hands; he was then beheaded with one clean stroke. According to observer Philip Henry, a moan 'as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again' rose from the assembled crowd, some of whom then dipped their handkerchiefs in the king's blood as a memento." (Wikipedia) According to the Guardian, they believed that royal blood had healing properties.

Pottery Production "Increased Significantly" At End Of Last Ice Age (2016)

"Archaeologists have revealed surprising new insights into why pottery production increased significantly at the end of the last Ice Age – with culture playing a bigger role than expected." Source: Science Daily (2016).

"...Pottery is thought to have originated in Japan around 16,000 years ago [1], but the numbers produced vastly increased 11,500 years ago, coinciding with a shift to a warmer climate. As resurgence in forests took place, an increase in vegetation and animals led to new food sources becoming available."

[1] "Pottery and porcelain ... is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period ... Earthenwares were created as early as the Jōmon period (10,500–300 BC), giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world." (Wikipedia)

"Previous thinking suggested that pottery use and production increased to accommodate different cooking and storage techniques for the wider variety of foodstuffs available at this time. However, new analysis reveals this not to be the case.

"Performing molecular and isotopic analysis of lipids extracted from vessels spanning a 9000 year period, the researchers found that pottery was used largely for cooking marine and freshwater animal species – a routine that remained constant despite climate warming and new resources becoming available. Finding surprisingly little evidence of plant processing in pottery, or cooking of animals such as deer, researchers found the only significant change to be the different types of fish consumed, such as an increase in freshwater fish."

Comment: As far as I can tell, this story could be boiled down to one sentence: "The ancient Japanese started making more pottery after the last ice age because they were catching more fish."

Related: Flaming Pots and the Precocious Foragers Of Ancient Japan.

Ancient Japanese Pottery Design Includes Estimated 500 Maize Weevils

"Researchers have discovered an ancient Japanese pottery vessel from the late Jomon period (4500-3300 BP) with an estimated 500 maize weevils incorporated into its design. The vessel was discovered in February 2016 from ruins in Hokkaido, Japan. This extremely rare discovery provides clues on the cultivation and distribution of chestnuts, food in the Jomon era, and the spirituality of ancient Japanese people." Source: Science Daily (2018).

Spanish Police Investigate Father & Son Who Decorated Seafood Store With Ancient Roman Amphorae

"Spanish authorities are investigating a father and son who were found in possession of ancient Roman artefacts, which they had used to decorate their fish shop in Alicante." Source: RT (7/23/20).

"Officers with Spain's Civil Guard noticed the unusually archaic-looking adornments while carrying out a routine inspection of the fishmongers.

"They immediately called for assistance from the Ministry of Culture to identify and care for the ancient urns [amphorae], which had been left exposed to the elements inside the fish shop for a prolonged period of time."

Note: The artifacts included "13 Roman amphorae dating back possibly as far as the first century AD, along with a metal anchor from the 18th century, and a limestone plate with an inscription which reads: 'East'."

Video of the Spanish cops inspecting the amphorae.

Comment:  Father and son have been charged with "crimes against historical heritage," which is ridiculous. The son found these artifacts while out fishing and if he hadn't recovered them they would still be lying on the bottom of the sea. As far as I'm concerned, that makes them the family's property. If they had discovered something rare that would be a different matter, but it's not like we have a shortage of Roman amphorae. Thousands of them have been found over the years and the bottom of the Mediterranean, in particular, must be littered with the things. In just one instance, back in 2019, the wreckage of a single cargo ship carrying 6,000 of them was discovered off the coast of Greece.

The Spanish police are turning the amphorae this family used to decorate their fish shop over "to the Santa Pola Sea Museum for further investigation and safe keeping." (RT) That means the artifacts will probably end up gathering dust on some shelf in the museum basement. How is that better for "historical heritage" than leaving them on display in the fish shop where people could actually see them?

Posca: The Roman "Energy Drink"

Typical YT video on how to make posca. This is the most basic recipe without honey. No telling how accurate it is.

"Posca, the Roman vinegar-based wonder-drink, is a bit of a mystery, because as much as people keep mentioning it, it is oddly absent from ancient literature.  Posca appears in books and articles, being sipped by soldiers and passed around by pals, yet we don't even have a recipe for it!" Source: Pass the Garum (great blog about ancient food and drink).

"Basically, we know that soldiers were given a vinegar ration (Vegetius, Concerning Military Matters, 3.3), and that this vinegar could be mixed with water and drunk. (Celsus, On Medicine, 2.27)   Hadrian drank posca to 'be one of the soldiers' (Historia Augusta: Hadrian, 10.2), and from this we can infer that it wasn't a drink usually served to the rich.  On the contrary, this was a drink sold on the streets! (Suetonius, Vitellius, 12.1)  If you think about it, this makes a lot of sense - vinegar is what is left when wine production goes 'wrong', or if wine is left exposed for too long.  Knowing how much wine the Romans got through, it stands to reason that there was a lot of vinegar knocking about - so, why not put it to use?"

The far more complex recipe where honey is actually added to the mixture.

Comment: Pass the Garum claims that this disgusting drink is actually pretty good. I've never tried it so maybe it is, but it sounds nasty. In any case, the Romans weren't the only ones to drink stuff like this. The Greeks had a honey-vinegar concoction called oxymel that they used as a medicine and the Persians drank sekanjabin which was basically the same thing.

Various sources describe posca as the "Roman Gatorade" (Pass the Garum describes it as a "wonder-drink") but I have no idea why a mixture of water and wine vinegar would be considered an energy drink. Vinegar in general is supposed to have health benefits and one study found that acetic acid, the main component in vinegar, improves blood flow and glucose uptake in muscles, so maybe that would have an effect on your performance.

The Origin Of Coffee - The Nectar Of The Gods

"Caffeine itself wasn’t discovered until 1821, but caffeine-containing foods have been known and cultivated for centuries, since at least the fourth century A.D., when historical records show coffee cultivation began in Ethiopia [see note]. According to legend, Ethiopians became enamored with coffee after observing that grazing animals were more energetic after munching on particular shrubs which we now know as coffee." Source: Tufts Journal (2009).

Note: The legend that the ancient Ethiopians first discovered coffee apparently has no documentary support. According to Wikipedia, "The story of Kaldi, the 9th-century Ethiopian goatherd who discovered coffee when he noticed how excited his goats became after eating the beans from a coffee plant, did not appear in writing until 1671 and is probably apocryphal."

There's another legend that coffee was first discovered by a Yemeni healer named Sheikh Omar. Exiled for some reason to live in a desert cave, he was starving to death and tried eating some berries he found on the local shrubbery," but they were too bitter so he roasted them, hoping that would improve the flavor. The roasting made them too hard, however, so he boiled them and ended up with a "fragrant brown liquid" that "revitalized and sustained" him for days. When his home city learned about his discovery, they called him back from exile and made him a saint, rightly so if any of this actually happened.

Even though these stories are legendary, they might reflect actual history:

"The earliest credible evidence of coffee-drinking or knowledge of the coffee tree appears in the middle of the 15th century in the accounts of Ahmed al-Ghaffar in Yemen. It was here in Arabia that coffee seeds were first roasted and brewed, in a similar way to how it is prepared now. Coffee was used by Sufi circles to stay awake for their religious rituals. Accounts differ on the origin of the coffee plant prior to its appearance in Yemen. From Ethiopia, coffee could have been introduced to Yemen via trade across the Red Sea." (Wikipedia)

I don't see how anyone could prove definitively that coffee was first discovered in Yemen. After all, the earliest discovery could have been made anywhere in the coffee belt, a huge area that covers most of MesoAmerica, South America, Africa, India, Australasia, southern Indochina and parts of Oceania. I wouldn't be surprised if coffee wasn't discovered multiple times in different parts of the world or that its use in one form or another dates back to the Stone Age.

One way or another, I'm just glad that somebody discovered this fantastic drink -- the greatest addiction in the world.

Coffee is the nectar of the gods. The blathering idiots who claim that it's dangerous and that we would gain all sorts of health benefits by giving it up are a bunch of communists. I literally can't function without coffee, lots of coffee. I can't even get out of bed without it and I drink it constantly throughout the day. Coffee is my preferred caffeine-delivery vehicle, but tea is almost as good and I drink gallons of that every day as well. I'm not a coffee snob, however. As far as I'm concerned, quantity is more important than quality. I can never get enough of this ambrosia and I know I'm not alone.

An Ancient Roman Hamburger Recipe

"The burger may be America’s favorite food, but the popular dish was gifted to us by the Romans." Source: Daily Mail.

"In an ancient Roman cookbook a meal called ‘Isicia Omentata’ uses minced meat, juniper berries, wine, pine nuts and a salty fish-based sauce – all of which are formed into a patty.

"The book, called Apicius [next video], was composed in the late fourth or fifth centuries with recipes created as early as the first century and provides recipes that the ancient empire dined on."

The recipe book, Apicius. This is apparently an 8th century copy of an earlier (4th century?) version.

Comment: Garum, the fermented fish sauce used in this Roman burger, was hugely popular back then but I've always thought it sounds disgusting. I could be wrong, though; after all, I like soy sauce which is made from a fermented paste of soybeans, grain and various molds. The Isicia Omentata might have been pretty good after all, but even so there's no denying that the best hamburger in history is the Heart Attack Grill's Octuple Bypass Burger.

Related: Historical Italian Cooking.

First Evidence That Ancient Humans Ate Snakes & Lizards Unearthed In Israel

"People who lived 15,000 years ago in what is now Israel feasted on snakes and lizards, archaeologists have discovered." Source: Live Science.

"Prior excavations in the Levant, a geographic region that historically included Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, and parts of Syria and Jordan, unearthed thousands of bones belonging to lizards and snakes. Animal bones are usually found where ancient people once lived if the animals were being eaten. But it was unknown if lizards and snakes were part of the human diet or if their bones were left behind by other predators.

"By experimenting on the bones of modern squamates — the group that includes lizards and snakes — researchers developed visual references for different types of surface damage, such as erosion, burning or digestion by birds of prey. When the scientists compared these patterns to damage in squamate bones from the el-Wad Terrace, a cave site near Israel's Mount Carmel that was occupied by humans between 11,500 and 15,000 years ago, they determined that many of the ancient bones there had been eaten by people."