"Back in 2009, archaeologists at Eleutherna — an ancient city-state located on the Greek island of Crete — discovered a woman’s skeleton that showed unusual signs of wear. As Michael Price writes for Science magazine, in comparison to the other females at the site, the muscles on the right side of her body were notably developed, while the cartilage on her knee and hip joints was worn away, leaving the bones smooth and ivory-like." Source: Smithsonian Magazine.
"Initial analysis of the woman’s remains, as well as the pottery found in similar graves at the Orthi Petra burial site, indicated that the approximately 45 to 50 year old lived between 900 B.C.. and 650 B.C. By this point in Crete’s history, the Minoan and Mycenaean civilizations — rivals best known for the labyrinthine palace complexes that inspired the classic Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur and the gold mask of Agamemnon, respectively — had long since collapsed, ushering the region into a tumultuous period later dubbed the Greek Dark Ages."
Note: Archaeologists now believe that this woman worked as a ceramicist:
According to Atlas Obscura (2018), "the team chanced upon a master ceramicist who lived near the Eleutherna site. The woman demonstrated how she created her large artisan vases — describing the sets of muscles used and subsequent strain experienced — and provided researchers with a key breakthough in the frustrating case. Her movements and the physical toll exacted by the process ... closely mirrored that of her 3,000-year-old predecessor."
Notes: Cybele may have evolved from an even older fertility goddess in the proto-city of Catalhoyuk (7500-5700 BC), also located in ancient Anatolia. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (OCD, 3rd ed. revised), Cybele was "the great mother-goddess of Anatolia, associated in myth, and later at least in cult, with her youthful lover Attis. Pessinus in Phrygia was her chief sanctuary, and the cult appears at an early date in Lydia."
According to Theoi Greek Mythology, "Kybele (Cybele) was the ancient Phrygian Mother of the Gods, a primal nature goddess worshiped with orgiastic rites in the mountains of central and western Anatolia. The Greeks identified her with their own mother of the gods--the Titaness Rhea."
The cult of Cybele was apparently introduced fairly early (3rd cent. BC) in Rome. "Thanks to its official status and early naturalization in Rome and in Ostia, the cult spread rapidly through the provinces, especially in Gaul and Africa, and was readily accepted as a municipal cult. Its agrarian character made it more popular with the fixed populations than with the soldiers, and it was especially favored by women." (OCD)
Cybele was also known as the Magna Mater or Great Mother. According to The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook of Ancient Texts, edited by Marvin W. Meyer (p.113), "she was honored as the mother goddess of fertility, but her particular power was evidenced in the wilds of the untamed forests and mountains." After Cybele entered the official Roman pantheon, "she was to function practically as a Roman national goddess" and enjoyed great favor with the emperors starting with Claudius in the first century.
"The most well-known Roman festival in honor of the Anatolian deities [Cybele and her consort Attis] was celebrated in the spring, during March," according to The Ancient Mysteries (p.114). These rites were associated with violent religious frenzy. "March 24 was aptly named The Day of Blood. On this day some of the fanatical celebrants flogged themselves until they bled and sprinkled their blood upon the image and altars in the sanctuary, while others are said to have imitated Attis by castrating themselves." (Ibid) Bulls were also sacrificed in honor of the Great Mother of the Gods.
A scene from the great HBO series Rome. Highly recommended.
Several Roman historians and poets described the cult of Cybele in detail. Livy, for instance, described how the cult was first brought to Rome in his History of Rome (Book 29.10-14):
"About this time a sudden wave of superstition swept over Rome. The Sibylline Books had been consulted because it had rained stones that year more than usual [!], and in the Books a prophecy was found that if ever a foreign enemy should invade Italy, he could be defeated and driven out if Cybele, The Idaean Mother of the Gods, were brought from Pessinus to Rome." (Ibid, p. 121).
Christian writers denounced the cult of Cybele and the church banned it altogether when they gained the secular power required to force their intolerant monotheism on the pagan world, but the tradition of the Great Mother still survives in the figure of the Virgin Mary.
The Book of Revelation is thought to have been written during the reign of the Roman emperor Domitian (81-96 AD). Many Christians believe the author was the apostle John, but the consensus among scholars is that the book was written by an unknown author they call John of Patmos, who either lived on the Greek island of Patmos or was exiled there during one of Domitian's alleged persecutions of the early Christians.
Note:According to Christian sources, Domitian carried out several harsh persecutions, especially towards the end of his reign, but "some historians ... have maintained that there was little or no anti-Christian activity during Domitian's time." (Wikipedia) "The lack of consensus by historians about the extent of persecution during the reign of Domitian derives from the fact that while accounts of persecution exist, these accounts are very cursory or their reliability is debated." (That's a polite way of saying that a lot of the Christian stories about how they were persecuted in the ancient world are myths.)
It's commonly believed that the Book of Revelation describes Armageddon, the end of the world, but it seems more likely that its author was prophesying the fall of the hated Roman empire:
"Many people look to the Book of Revelations for signs of the apocalypse," according to a now-defunct source I found a while ago. "This event represents the cumulative battle between good and evil, ends the world, ushers in the Age of God. The Book of Revelations was written during a trying time in Christian and Jewish history. The book’s target was not necessarily Satan, but Rome. As a result, the final battle and victory of God over Satan was actually predicting the fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of Christianity."
According to biblical scholar L. Michael White, "most scholars now think that the issue revolved around the inauguration of the Flavian imperial cult in Ephesus ... Our clearest indication of how this is reflected in Revelation is seen in the description of the two 'beasts' from Rev. 13. The first is called 'the beast from the sea' who is given his power by Satan himself. He is described as having 'seven heads and ten horns,' and people worshiped him (Rev. 13.1-4). Then there is a second, 'the beast from the land' who makes everyone worship the first beast and its 'image' (Rev. 13.11-18). The 'image' (13.14-15) and the mysterious number '666' (13.18) refer to statues and coins or inscriptions with the emperor's image and titles. The 'beast from the land' probably referred to either the provincial governor of Asia or to the high priest of the imperial cult, who jointly would have overseen the temple and its festivals in Ephesus at just this time."
In other words, the apocalypse predicted by the Book of Revelation actually refers to the hoped-for collapse of Rome. If this view is correct, then all the millennial cults and end-times Christians who are waiting for Armageddon based on their reading of Revelation are actually waiting for an event which happened almost 1500 years ago. But the strange truth of all of this is that the Roman empire was already Christian when it collapsed in the west. Gibbon was at least partially right when he blamed the fall of Rome (partly) on "barbarians and Christianity."
It's strange and revealing that the New Testament, a collection of books about peace, love and redemption, should end with the apocalyptic bloodbath of Revelation. One minute, you have Jesus blessing the little children and talking about forgiving your enemies, then, the next minute, a beast with seven heads is slaughtering millions of sinners in a river of blood. That's quite a story arc, to say the least.
Revelation has always been my favorite book in the Bible because of its hallucinatory weirdness. This is one thing I share with Hunter Thompson:
"I have stolen more quotes and thoughts and purely elegant little starbursts of writing from the Book of Revelation than anything else in the English language-and it is not because I am a biblical scholar, or because of any religious faith, but because I love the wild power of the language and purity of the madness that governs it and makes it music." -- Generation of Swine, Introduction, Hunter S. Thompson.
Considering the Book of Revelation's surrealistic content, I've always wondered if John -- assuming that was his real name -- happened to stumble across some funny plants or mushrooms during his exile on Patmos, which, incidentally, was listed by Forbes (in 2014) as "modern Europe's most idyllic place to live." This has probably changed dramatically with the "refugee" invasion of the Greek islands, which has been an absolute disaster. The island probably wasn't that idyllic back in John's day, either, but the views must have been spectacular.
"The small island of Pátmos in the Dodecanese is reputed to be where St John the Theologian wrote both his Gospel and the Apocalypse. A monastery dedicated to the ‘beloved disciple’ was founded there in the late 10th century and it has been a place of pilgrimage and Greek Orthodox learning ever since. The fine monastic complex dominates the island. The old settlement of Chorá [the capital 'city'], associated with it, contains many religious and secular buildings." Source: UNESCO World Heritage List.
"Midway along the road that winds steeply up from Skála [the only commercial port on the island] to Chorá is the Cave of the Apocalypse ... where according to tradition St John dictated the Book of Revelation and his Gospel to his disciple Prochoros. This holy place attracted a number of small churches, chapels, and monastic cells, creating an interesting architectural ensemble."
That's the official church history. There's no telling how true any of this is, however, and it's still unclear who actually wrote the Book of Revelation. The author identifies himself as John, but there are several Johns who could have written this obscure, bloody and hallucinogenic apocalypse.
The author of Revelation is widely considered to be the same John the Apostle who wrote the Gospel of John. However, other authorities identify the author as John the Elder, aka John the Presbyter, and many modern scholars believe that Revelation was written by another author they've named John of Patmos. It's possible that all these men were one and the same, and it's also possible that Revelation was written by a completely unknown apocalyptic prophet who passed off his book as the work of one of these other characters in order to make it seem more authentic.
According to the traditional story, John the Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation while exiled to Patmos as a result of anti-Christian persecution under the Roman emperor Domitian, but this is unlikely since the emperor Domitian didn't come to power until 81 AD.
As far as I can tell there isn't much evidence that Domitian actually persecuted the Christians, but some historians believe that he launched a persecution against Jews and Christians during the latter part of his reign (89-96 AD). John the Apostle is thought to have lived from 6-100 AD, so if the dates are correct and you believe the traditional story, he would've been somewhere between 83 and 90 years old when he dictated Revelation to Prochorus [1]. That's still possible, of course, but, again, it doesn't seem very likely.
[1] The Book of Revelation is commonly thought to have been written around 95 or 96 AD, which would put its composition towards the very end of Domitian's supposed persecution.
I have a hard time accepting any of the official church history about the Book of Revelation and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the entire tradition surrounding Patmos and the Cave of the Apocalypse is just another Christian myth. As for who wrote the book, if I had to take a position I'd guess that it was written by an unknown, educated Christian, possibly a Greek, who may have lived in or near the Ionian city of Ephesus during the reign of Domitian (or earlier) and who had a serious grudge against Rome.
It's commonly believed that the Book of Revelation describes Armageddon, the end of the world, but it seems more likely that its author was prophesying the fall of the hated Roman empire. A classic example of the apocalyptic literature of the period, the Book of Revelation was probably written in response to the spread of the Roman imperial cult under the Flavian emperors:
According to biblical scholar L. Michael White, "most scholars now think that the issue revolved around the inauguration of the Flavian imperial cult in Ephesus ... Our clearest indication of how this is reflected in Revelation is seen in the description of the two 'beasts' from Rev. 13. The first is called 'the beast from the sea' who is given his power by Satan himself. He is described as having 'seven heads and ten horns,' and people worshiped him (Rev. 13.1-4). Then there is a second, 'the beast from the land' who makes everyone worship the first beast and its 'image' (Rev. 13.11-18). The 'image' (13.14-15) and the mysterious number '666' (13.18) refer to statues and coins or inscriptions with the emperor's image and titles. The 'beast from the land' probably referred to either the provincial governor of Asia or to the high priest of the imperial cult, who jointly would have overseen the temple and its festivals in Ephesus at just this time."
In other words, the apocalypse predicted by the Book of Revelation actually refers to the hoped-for collapse of Rome. If this view is correct, then all the millennial cults and end-times Christians who are waiting for Armageddon based on their reading of Revelation are actually waiting for an event which happened almost 1500 years ago. But the strange truth of all of this is that the Roman empire was already Christian when it collapsed in the west. Gibbon was at least partially right when he blamed the fall of Rome (partly) on "barbarians and Christianity."
We'll probably never know for sure who wrote the Book of Revelation. This is a shame because it's a masterpiece and its author should get credit.
This charming contraption is regularly featured in sensationalistic stories and videos about ancient death machines. According to Wikipedia, "the brazen bull, bronze bull, or Sicilian bull, was a torture and execution device designed in ancient Greece. According to Diodorus Siculus, recounting the story in Bibliotheca historica, Perillos of Athens invented and proposed it to Phalaris, the tyrant of Akragas, Sicily, as a new means of executing criminals." Assuming that it actually existed, the brazen bull may have had its origins in Carthaginian human sacrifices and ancient bull worship.
I haven't been able to find much information about the alleged inventor, Perillos of Athens, other than that he was a brass worker who was supposed to have invented and suggested the use of the Bull to the tyrant Phalaris. If true, Perillos must have had a sick mind and he apparently came to a well-deserved end when Phalaris (disgusted by Perillos's sadism) used him as a guinea pig to test his new invention. Perillos was cooked inside the bull for a while, then taken out alive and thrown off a cliff. That's the story, anyway.
The question is: How much of this story is actually true? The history is extremely murky, but as far as I can tell no archaeologist has ever uncovered hard evidence that the brass bull as described here ever existed. According to NNDB (a kind of Who's Who database of unknown reliability), "the story of the bull cannot be dismissed as pure invention. Pindar, who lived less than a century afterwards, expressly associates this instrument of torture with the name of the tyrant [Phalaris]. There was certainly a brazen bull at Agrigentum, which was carried off by the Carthaginians to Carthage, from where it was again taken by Scipio [Africanus?] and restored to Agrigentum."
Pindar was probably just passing on a story he found in the sources. Likewise for Diodorus Siculus, whose reliability as a historian is still a matter of debate. A very scholarly discussion of Diodorus Siculus's historical method in relation to the story of the bull of Phalaris can be found here [PDF]. As for the brass bull at Agrigentum mentioned above, I haven't been able to find any evidence that it was the same bull as the famous Brazen Bull or that the Agrigentum bull was anything more than a statue. The bull was sacred to several ancient cultures.
There's no limit to human cruelty, but I'm guessing that the story of the Brazen Bull is an early example of propaganda designed, in this case, to smear the reputation of Phalaris, a hated tyrant who was eventually overthrown for his viciousness (and supposedly burned inside his own torture device). According to Livius, "Phalaris became the prototype of an evil dictator" and the story of the invention of the brass bull "...was clearly invented to suggest what tyranny was all about, but there may be an element of historical truth."
"Tattooing has been practiced across the globe since at least Neolithic times, as evidenced by mummified preserved skin, ancient art, and the archaeological record. Both ancient art and archaeological finds of possible tattoo tools suggest tattooing was practiced by the Upper Paleolithic period in Europe. However, direct evidence for tattooing on mummified human skin extends only to the 4th millennium BC." Source: Wikipedia.
"... tattooed mummies have been recovered from at least 49 archaeological sites including locations in Greenland, Alaska, Siberia, Mongolia, western China, Egypt, Sudan, the Philippines, and the Andes." In 2016, Nature reported the discovery of "[a] mummy from ancient Egypt ... heavily tattooed with sacred symbols, which may have served to advertise and enhance the religious powers of the woman who received them more than 3,000 years ago."
According to Smithsonian Magazine (2007), "... the earliest known examples [of tattoos] were for a long time Egyptian and were present on several female mummies dated to c. 2000 B.C. But following the more recent discovery of [Otzi the Iceman] from the area of the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 and his tattoo patterns, this date has been pushed back a further thousand years when he was carbon-dated at around 5,200 years old."
Otzi had 61 tattoos, apparently. Whether these are still the oldest known tattoos remains to be seen:
"Although Ötzi is the oldest tattooed human ... this will likely change: Ötzi’s tattoos are indicative of social and/or therapeutic practices that predate him, and future archaeological finds and new techniques should someday lead to even older evidence of tattooed mummies." Source: Smithsonian (2015).
"Some tribal cultures traditionally created tattoos by cutting designs into the skin and rubbing the resulting wound with ink, ashes or other agents; some cultures continue this practice, which may be an adjunct to scarification. Some cultures create tattooed marks by hand-tapping the ink into the skin [next video] using sharpened sticks or animal bones (made like needles) with clay formed disks or, in modern times, needles." Source: Wikipedia.
Otzi the Iceman's tattoos may have been a form of acupuncture. According to the International Business Times (2015), "eighty per cent of [Otzi's] tattoos had been found along acupuncture meridians used to treat back pain and abdominal problems, which Otzi suffered from ... If correct, the tattoos would predate the first recorded use of acupuncture in China by 2,000 years."
"Pre-Christian Germanic, Celtic and other central and northern European tribes were often heavily tattooed, according to surviving accounts, but it may also have been normal paint. The Picts may have been tattooed (or scarified) with elaborate, war-inspired black or dark blue woad (or possibly copper for the blue tone) designs. Julius Caesar described these tattoos in Book V of his Gallic Wars (54 BC). Nevertheless, these may have been painted markings rather than tattoos." Source: Wikipedia.
Note: According to Caesar, "All the Britons dye their body with woad, which produces a blue color, and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and upper lip." (The Conquest of Gaul, Book V.14)
In Greece and Rome, tattoos were mostly used for identification purposes -- much like brands on cattle -- but this changed over the centuries, at least among certain classes of society:
"... amongst the Greeks and Romans, the use of tattoos or 'stigmata' as they were then called, seems to have been largely used as a means to mark someone as 'belonging' either to a religious sect or to an owner in the case of slaves or even as a punitive measure to mark them as criminals. It is therefore quite intriguing that during Ptolemaic times when a dynasty of Macedonian Greek monarchs ruled Egypt, the pharaoh himself, Ptolemy IV (221-205 B.C.), was said to have been tattooed with ivy leaves to symbolize his devotion to Dionysus, Greek god of wine and the patron deity of the royal house at that time. The fashion was also adopted by Roman soldiers and spread across the Roman Empire until the emergence of Christianity, when tattoos were felt to 'disfigure that made in God's image' and so were banned by the Emperor Constantine (A.D. 306-373)." Source: Smithsonian Magazine.
Closed-captions helpful.
Comment: Tattoos, piercings and scarification are usually associated with barbarian tribes and the lower orders of society. In the classical world, tattooing as a decorative art seems to have been practiced mostly by the more primitive cultures of Europe, Asia and the Orient. In a way, the popularity of tattoos in any given culture could be seen as an indicator of that culture's social development. The more barbaric the culture, the more tattoos. There also seems to have been an inverse relationship between tattoos and social status. In Greece and Rome, for instance, soldiers, slaves, criminals and some priests and acolytes were frequently tattooed, but I'd be amazed to find out that someone like Tacitus had a tramp stamp.
Tattooing seems to become more widespread in civilizations on their way down. For instance, "the decline of the Ptolemaic dynasty began under the reign of Ptolemy IV," the tattooed Egyptian pharaoh, according to Wikipedia. This is just a theory, but I'd say that the rising popularity of tattoos is a symptom of cultural decay. For example, I don't think it's an accident that the use of tattoos "spread across the Roman Empire until the emergence of Christianity" or that tattoos are becoming a cultural norm in modern Europe and the United States. I guess you could call this the Tattoo Theory of Social Collapse. As a civilization declines into the Third World, more and more people start to cover themselves with body art. I have no idea why this would happen, but maybe the masses are responding in an unconscious way to the barbarism that is slowly engulfing them.
Video from 2009. Edgerton searched for the site back in the Sixties.
"There is little to see today of Helike, just a few walls and artifacts scraped clean by archaeologists. The great Greek city, famed across the classical world, sunk into the coastal mud of the Gulf of Corinth in 373 BC during a terrible earthquake. Writers still recalled its fate hundreds of years later." Source: Archaeology News Network (2019).
According to Wikipedia, "Helike was founded in the Bronze Age, becoming the principal city of Achaea. The poet Homer states that the city of Helike participated in the Trojan War as a part of Agamemnon's forces. Later, following its fall to the Achaeans, Helike led the Achaean League, an association that joined twelve neighboring cities in an area including today's town of Aigio. Helike, also known as Dodekapolis (from the Greek words dodeka meaning twelve and polis meaning city), became a cultural and religious center with its own coinage."
In 2001, after decades of searching, the ruins of the city were discovered "buried in an ancient lagoon near the village of Rizomylos. To further confirm that the discovered site belongs to Helike, the earthquake destruction layer consisting of cobblestones, clay roof tiles, and pottery was uncovered in 2012. This destruction layer is in good agreement with ancient texts on the location of Helike and earthquake effects to the city." (Wikipedia)
The search for Helike is a story in itself and led to several other interesting discoveries. For instance, "in 1979 in the Corinthian Gulf, the Greek undersea explorer Alexis Papadopoulos discovered a sunken town and recorded his findings in a documentary film which shows walls, fallen roofs, roof tiles, streets, etc. at a depth of between 25 and 45 m" and a 1994 magnetometer survey "carried out in the midplain of the [Helike delta] revealed the outlines of a buried building. This target (now known as the Klonis site) was excavated and a large Roman building with standing walls was found. Also a well-preserved settlement of the early bronze age was uncovered." (Wikipedia) More information can be found here.
Next video (2009) shows the discovery of an ancient Roman artifact from a dig conducted during the hunt for Helike. I'm not sure if this particular site was Helike or turned out to be something else.
Helike is commonly referred to as a "real Atlantis." This thriving city was literally destroyed overnight:
"One night during the winter of 373 B.C., the city of Helike was obliterated. Some signs of the city’s impending doom were recorded, including the appearance of ‘immense columns of flames’ and the mass migration of small animals from the coast to the mountains several days prior to the disaster. A major earthquake, followed by a large tsunami from the Gulf of Corinth, wiped the city of Helike from the face of the earth. The rescue party that came in the following morning found no survivors." (Ancient Origins)
The sunken city could still be seen under the water for hundreds of years:
"Around 174 AD the traveler Pausanias visited a coastal site still called Helike, located seven kilometres southeast of Aigio, and reported that the walls of the ancient city were still visible under water, 'but not so plainly now as they were once, because they are corroded by the salt water'." (Wikipedia)
"For centuries after, its submerged ruins could still be seen. Roman tourists frequently sailed over the site, admiring the city's statuary. Later the site silted over and the location was lost to memory."
This is the temple of Apollo at the Ionian sanctuary of Didyma in Turkey. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, the oracular shrine of Apollo "was administered by a priestly clan, the Brnachidae, and rose to great prominence in the 6th cent. BC." The fate of the sanctuary "seems to have been sealed by an oracle given in AD 303, advising Diocletian to initiate his empire-wide persecution of the Christian church. Constantine I closed the oracle, and executed the priests; it appears not to have functioned thereafter."
In other words, the oracle was shut down in retaliation for its advice to Diocletian.
The video above shows the underground chamber of the Nekyomanteion, aka the Necromanteion, the "Oracle of the Dead," which the ancient Greeks believed was the door to Hades -- the Greek underworld, not the Hell of Christianity.
"The Necromanteion ... was an ancient Greek temple of necromancy devoted to Hades and [his wife, the goddess of he underworld] Persephone." (Wikipedia). "According to tradition, it was located on the banks of the Acheron river in Epirus, near the ancient city of Ephyra. The site was believed by devotees to be the door to Hades, the realm of the dead."
Note: Technically, Nekyomanteion is a term for "the prophecy-place of the dead," but it is also used as a place name.
"Although there were many oracles in ancient Greece, there is only one known oracle of the dead (1)," according to Atlas Obscura. "It was an entryway to the underworld, and a place where the shades of the dead could - under special circumstances - reveal the future to the living. It was the place that Homer sent Odysseus to seek advice from a long-dead oracle, and where he was horrified by visions of Hades, and it also appears in a sordid chapter of Herodotus' Histories."
Odysseus visits Hades (plus later encounter with Scylla and Charybdis). From the great 1997 miniseries The Odyssey. Highly recommended.
"Communicating with the dead, however, was not limited to the famous characters in the writings of the ancient Greek authors," according to Ancient Origins. "Regular citizens [also visited] the Necromanteion to seek counsel with the dead. They would first enter a dark chamber before performing certain elaborate rituals intended for their own protection and to gain the ability to communicate with the deceased. After this, a priest would lead them into a deeper chamber, where a ritual animal sacrifice would be performed, before passing through three gates which symbolised their entry into the Underworld. The celebrants would now be able to speak to the spirits of the Underworld."
(1) The Atlas Obscura is incorrect when it says that there was only one Greek oracle of the dead. According to the Ogden paper cited above, there were four major oracles: "Acheron in Thesprotia [the oracle discussed here -- named after the river], Avernus in Campania [Italy], Heracleia Pontica on the south coast of the Black Sea, and Tainaron at the tip of the Peloponnese's Mani Peninsula."
Note: As mentioned in the footnote above, the oracle on the Acheron river was located in Thesprotia. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary (3rd ed. revised), the Thesproti were "a people mentioned in Homer's Odyssey with a king of Ephyra in the Archeron valley." They formed "a tribal state which entered the Epirote Alliance and the Epirote Confederacy, sided with Rome in 170 BC, and survived under the Roman settlement."
"Tourists left reviews carved into stone in Egypt that have been compared by experts to an ancient version of Trip Advisor." Source: Daily Mail (2017)
"The marks have been studied by archaeologists working in the Valley of the Kings, where visitors etched their thoughts into artworks and on walls millennia ago.
"Among the carvings were the phrases 'I visited and I did not like anything except the sarcophagus!', 'I admired!', and 'I can not read the hieroglyphs!'"
Next video shows examples of more recent graffiti in Egyptian temples. (Audio incomprehensible.)
The Tattoo Theory Of Social Collapse
"Tattooing has been practiced across the globe since at least Neolithic times, as evidenced by mummified preserved skin, ancient art, and the archaeological record. Both ancient art and archaeological finds of possible tattoo tools suggest tattooing was practiced by the Upper Paleolithic period in Europe. However, direct evidence for tattooing on mummified human skin extends only to the 4th millennium BC." Source: Wikipedia.
"... tattooed mummies have been recovered from at least 49 archaeological sites including locations in Greenland, Alaska, Siberia, Mongolia, western China, Egypt, Sudan, the Philippines, and the Andes." In 2016, Nature reported the discovery of "[a] mummy from ancient Egypt ... heavily tattooed with sacred symbols, which may have served to advertise and enhance the religious powers of the woman who received them more than 3,000 years ago."
According to Smithsonian Magazine (2007), "... the earliest known examples [of tattoos] were for a long time Egyptian and were present on several female mummies dated to c. 2000 B.C. But following the more recent discovery of [Otzi the Iceman] from the area of the Italian-Austrian border in 1991 and his tattoo patterns, this date has been pushed back a further thousand years when he was carbon-dated at around 5,200 years old."
Otzi had 61 tattoos, apparently. Whether these are still the oldest known tattoos remains to be seen:
"Although Ötzi is the oldest tattooed human ... this will likely change: Ötzi’s tattoos are indicative of social and/or therapeutic practices that predate him, and future archaeological finds and new techniques should someday lead to even older evidence of tattooed mummies." Source: Smithsonian (2015).
"Some tribal cultures traditionally created tattoos by cutting designs into the skin and rubbing the resulting wound with ink, ashes or other agents; some cultures continue this practice, which may be an adjunct to scarification. Some cultures create tattooed marks by hand-tapping the ink into the skin [next video] using sharpened sticks or animal bones (made like needles) with clay formed disks or, in modern times, needles." Source: Wikipedia.
Otzi the Iceman's tattoos may have been a form of acupuncture. According to the International Business Times (2015), "eighty per cent of [Otzi's] tattoos had been found along acupuncture meridians used to treat back pain and abdominal problems, which Otzi suffered from ... If correct, the tattoos would predate the first recorded use of acupuncture in China by 2,000 years."
"Pre-Christian Germanic, Celtic and other central and northern European tribes were often heavily tattooed, according to surviving accounts, but it may also have been normal paint. The Picts may have been tattooed (or scarified) with elaborate, war-inspired black or dark blue woad (or possibly copper for the blue tone) designs. Julius Caesar described these tattoos in Book V of his Gallic Wars (54 BC). Nevertheless, these may have been painted markings rather than tattoos." Source: Wikipedia.
Note: According to Caesar, "All the Britons dye their body with woad, which produces a blue color, and shave the whole of their bodies except the head and upper lip." (The Conquest of Gaul, Book V.14)
In Greece and Rome, tattoos were mostly used for identification purposes -- much like brands on cattle -- but this changed over the centuries, at least among certain classes of society:
"... amongst the Greeks and Romans, the use of tattoos or 'stigmata' as they were then called, seems to have been largely used as a means to mark someone as 'belonging' either to a religious sect or to an owner in the case of slaves or even as a punitive measure to mark them as criminals. It is therefore quite intriguing that during Ptolemaic times when a dynasty of Macedonian Greek monarchs ruled Egypt, the pharaoh himself, Ptolemy IV (221-205 B.C.), was said to have been tattooed with ivy leaves to symbolize his devotion to Dionysus, Greek god of wine and the patron deity of the royal house at that time. The fashion was also adopted by Roman soldiers and spread across the Roman Empire until the emergence of Christianity, when tattoos were felt to 'disfigure that made in God's image' and so were banned by the Emperor Constantine (A.D. 306-373)." Source: Smithsonian Magazine.
Closed-captions helpful.
Comment: Tattoos, piercings and scarification are usually associated with barbarian tribes and the lower orders of society. In the classical world, tattooing as a decorative art seems to have been practiced mostly by the more primitive cultures of Europe, Asia and the Orient. In a way, the popularity of tattoos in any given culture could be seen as an indicator of that culture's social development. The more barbaric the culture, the more tattoos. There also seems to have been an inverse relationship between tattoos and social status. In Greece and Rome, for instance, soldiers, slaves, criminals and some priests and acolytes were frequently tattooed, but I'd be amazed to find out that someone like Tacitus had a tramp stamp.
Tattooing seems to become more widespread in civilizations on their way down. For instance, "the decline of the Ptolemaic dynasty began under the reign of Ptolemy IV," the tattooed Egyptian pharaoh, according to Wikipedia. This is just a theory, but I'd say that the rising popularity of tattoos is a symptom of cultural decay. For example, I don't think it's an accident that the use of tattoos "spread across the Roman Empire until the emergence of Christianity" or that tattoos are becoming a cultural norm in modern Europe and the United States. I guess you could call this the Tattoo Theory of Social Collapse. As a civilization declines into the Third World, more and more people start to cover themselves with body art. I have no idea why this would happen, but maybe the masses are responding in an unconscious way to the barbarism that is slowly engulfing them.
Or maybe it's just a form of masochism.
Posted at 07:00 AM in Art, Barbarians, Collapse, Commentary, Culture, Greece, Rome, Videos | Permalink