Roman invasion beach found in Kent
Archaeologists unearth landing point of legions – only now it's two miles from the coast
By David Keys, Archaeology Correspondent, The Independent.
Friday, 3 October 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/roman-invasion-beach-found-in-kent-949717.html
Two metres beneath the Kent countryside, archaeologists have found the beginning of British history. Excavations at Richborough in east Kent have uncovered the original beach – now two and a half miles from the sea – where the Roman legions started their conquest of Britain almost 2,000 years ago. The site represents the moment Britain's prehistory ended and its history began.
The archaeologists from English Heritage have only exposed four square metres of the beach, but the discovery is already shedding new light on the earliest events of the conquest.
Until now, scholars had beendivided as to what orders the Romancommander, Aulus Plautius, first gave on landing in Britain in 43 AD. Some academics had interpreted a set of earthworks exposed by the latest excavation as a fort built to accommodate all or some of the 20,000 legionnaires in the invasion force. Other scholars believed those earthworks were a bridgehead defensive structure, designed to protect the boats of the Roman invasion fleet once they had been hauled on to the beach.
Now the discovery and excavation of the beach itself has pinpointed its geographical relationship to the earthworks, proving that the earthworks were a beachhead defence, protecting around 700 metres of coast. The site is now two and half miles inland because the bay that the Roman fleet sailed into has long been silted up.
Tony Wilmott, an English Heritage archaeologist who has been directing the excavations, believes the site was also a strategic transit point from which some ships set sail again, bound for Chichester, further to the west.
He argues that the Romans sailed first to Richborough (Rutupiae, a name of Celtic origin probably meaning "Muddy Waters") to establish a beachhead, and then waited for a change of wind so at least some could sail safely on to Chichester, where the local tribal ruler was enthusiastically pro-Roman.
For at least a century, the place was the main port of Roman Britain, linking the province to the rest of the empire. In the late first century AD, the Romans built a 25-metre high marble and bronze triumphal arch at Richborough to commemorate their invasion.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
by William Wordsworth
Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Thursday, November 22, 2007
The battle for ayurveda: India is racing to record the details of its traditional medicine
By Andrew Buncombe
Published: 23 November 2007
They range from the everyday to the decidedly obscure, from items with a specific, specialised use to those with a host of applications. Their common heritage is one of the world's oldest cultures, and their details are being gathered together to guard against theft by the West.
For several years the Indian authorities have been collating information about hundreds of thousands of plants, cures, foods and even yoga poses to create a vast digital database of traditional knowledge dating back to up to 5,000 years ago, available in five international languages. Now, the first part of that database – relating to ayurveda or traditional Indian medicine – has been completed and it is set to launch the fight back against what some have termed "bio-colonialism".
"The ayurveda part has been completed," said Dr Vinod Gupta, the chairman of India's National Institute for Science Communication and Information Resources (Niscair), which is overseeing the project. "Now we are negotiating an agreement with international patent offices [for access to this database]."
The database, totalling more than 30 million pages and known as the Traditional Knowledge Data Library, has come about for one very simple reason: to prevent Western pharmaceutical giants and others using this traditional Indian information to create a product for which they then obtain a patent.
The danger of such "misappropriation" is all too real. In 1994 an American company was granted a patent for a product based on the seeds of the need tree, an item that had for centuries been used in India as an insecticide. It took the Indian authorities more than 10 years to have the patent overturned. Similar battles were fought over a product based on the spice turmeric – traditionally used to heal wounds – as well as a Texan company's attempt to trademark its strain of rice as "Texmati".
"In 2000 we did a study of the US patent database. We found there were 4,986 patents for products based on medicinal plants," said Dr Gupta. "Of those around 80 per cent were based on plants from India ... 50 percent of those patents should never have been given – there was no change to the traditional knowledge."
Under international guidelines, patents should not be given if it is shown there is "prior knowledge" or existing information about the product or item. In the United States – where many of the patent applications have been made – this prior existing knowledge is only recognised if the information has been written down. It does not consider information passed down for centuries by means of oral tradition to be valid.
Unlike many cultures from which traditional information has been misappropriated, India has an extensive written tradition. But most of the writing was in languages not widely read in the West. For example ayurvedic texts were written in Sanskrit or Hindi, writings about unani medicine – based on Ancient Greek practices now only practiced in the sub-continent – were in Arabic and Persian, while writings about another form of traditional medicine known as siddha was in the Tamil language.
To get around this challenge, Dr Gupta called in more than 100 practitioners of Ayurveda, siddha and unani to help compile the information using computer software. The database is being made available in Japanese, English, German, French and Spanish and the contents will be made available to patent officials once agreements on protecting the information and preventing it from being passed to corporations, are reached.
Also included within the database are more than 1,500 positions or asanas of yoga. This is because in recent years several yoga teachers in the West have tried to copyright methods of teaching yoga that they are argue are unique but which have existed for centuries in India.
One high-profile case involved Los Angeles-based Bikram Choudhury, the self-styled "yoga teacher to the stars". Mr Choudhury, who moved to America in the 1970s, first obtained a copyright for a book he wrote. But when other teachers began copying the way he taught yoga – with 26 specific poses performed in a room heated to 41C (105F) – he sought legal advice and was told to obtain a copyright for the moves themselves. It has been recognised by the US courts despite India's objections.
Dr Dinesh Katoch, an adviser on ayurveda within India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said more than 50,000 different ayurvedic formulations for treating everything from heart disease to memory loss had been entered into the database. Some of the information is mentioned in the Vedas, the ancient Hindu texts that date back several thousand years.
"We want to use this information for the global benefit but it should be done in a judicious way, not by stealing," he said, sitting in his office in central Delhi. "We want to prevent misappropriation. Prevention is the most important thing because it is not easy to repeal a patent."
In addition to the considerable cost incurred by the Indian authorities fighting patents they do not believe are genuine or fair, there is a widespread feeling that Western corporations should not be making vast profits from traditional knowledge while the people who discovered the information receive no benefit.
But campaigners say the misappropriation also has cultural and political implications. "I have termed it bio-colonialism," said Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmental activist and author.
"The international intellectual property laws as promoted by the World Trade Organisation [WTO] promote bio-colonialism because while they say there should be a global system to patent everything, the reality is that patent inspection is done at a national level. If you want to have a global system you have to have global inspection," she said. "This would involve setting up a global database. This will take a decade and cost billions of dollars."
Vital ingredients
* Arjuna Tree
The bark is a traditional Ayurvedic herbal cure for a variety of ills and is now widely used throughout the world as a high-blood pressure treatment. It is thought to improve the function of the cardiac muscle and to stabilise cholesterol levels, and it contains anti-oxidant properties.
* Basmati Rice
Authentic basmati rice is grown in the foothills of the Himalayas and the Indian government has tried hard to protect the grain. A patent granted by the US Patent Office to a local company for new strains of rice similar to basmati was revoked after a legal battle with the Indian government.
* Turmeric
It is grown mostly in Bengal and other areas of south-east Asia but, in addition to a curry spice, it can be used to heal wounds. In 1995, the US Patent Office granted a patent on its healing properties but Indian scientists protested and it was revoked.
* Brahmi
This creeping herb is used in many Indian preparations and has gained global recognition for its ability to improve mental acuity and fight cognitive decay. It is thought that brahmi boosts the memory and has calming properties. In India, the plant is often used in salads and soups.
Jeremy Laurance: Little evidence, but much tradition
It is an ancient form of therapy with 5,000-year history and a string of modern celebrity followers but there is "no convincing evidence" that ayurvedic medicine works.
Enthusiastically promoted by users including Cherie Blair, Madonna, Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow, ayurveda has become more of a brand than a treatment in the West. There are ayurvedic recipes and it embraces meditation, diet, yoga and herbal medicine, as well as featuring a lexicon that defines consciousness as the "dream state of the cosmic being".
Offered in hotels, spas and retreats, as well as in the charitable Ayurvedic hospital in west London, its underlying principle is that the body and mind must be maintained in balance. Ayurvedic medicines are combinations of different herbs, tailor-made for each individual, which are given to correct imbalances that would otherwise lead to physical or psychological ill health.
In Britain, practitioners must undertake a three-year BSc degree course, followed by a 1,000-hour internship with an ayurvedic doctor, in order to be registered with the British Association of Ayurvedic Practitioners. They charge £50-60 on the first occasion and around £30 for follow-up appointments.
Despite the long training, scientific peer-reviewed evidence for the effectiveness of what ayurvedic practitioners do is scant. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee investigation into alternative medicine concluded in 2005 that the case for ayurvedic medicine was "not proven".
Some studies have suggested that certain herbal combinations may be effective for heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Triphala, the most popular ayurvedic remedy in India, made from the powdered and dried fruit of threeplants and taken as an aid to digestion, has been shown to slow cancer growth in mice.
Max Pittler, deputy head of the department of complementary medicine at Exeter University said: "There may be individual trials that suggest certain herbal combinations may be effective but there is no really convincing body of evidence that specific ayurvedic mixtures have specific effects. There is no good evidence that it is beneficial. "
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3187089.ece
By Andrew Buncombe
Published: 23 November 2007
They range from the everyday to the decidedly obscure, from items with a specific, specialised use to those with a host of applications. Their common heritage is one of the world's oldest cultures, and their details are being gathered together to guard against theft by the West.
For several years the Indian authorities have been collating information about hundreds of thousands of plants, cures, foods and even yoga poses to create a vast digital database of traditional knowledge dating back to up to 5,000 years ago, available in five international languages. Now, the first part of that database – relating to ayurveda or traditional Indian medicine – has been completed and it is set to launch the fight back against what some have termed "bio-colonialism".
"The ayurveda part has been completed," said Dr Vinod Gupta, the chairman of India's National Institute for Science Communication and Information Resources (Niscair), which is overseeing the project. "Now we are negotiating an agreement with international patent offices [for access to this database]."
The database, totalling more than 30 million pages and known as the Traditional Knowledge Data Library, has come about for one very simple reason: to prevent Western pharmaceutical giants and others using this traditional Indian information to create a product for which they then obtain a patent.
The danger of such "misappropriation" is all too real. In 1994 an American company was granted a patent for a product based on the seeds of the need tree, an item that had for centuries been used in India as an insecticide. It took the Indian authorities more than 10 years to have the patent overturned. Similar battles were fought over a product based on the spice turmeric – traditionally used to heal wounds – as well as a Texan company's attempt to trademark its strain of rice as "Texmati".
"In 2000 we did a study of the US patent database. We found there were 4,986 patents for products based on medicinal plants," said Dr Gupta. "Of those around 80 per cent were based on plants from India ... 50 percent of those patents should never have been given – there was no change to the traditional knowledge."
Under international guidelines, patents should not be given if it is shown there is "prior knowledge" or existing information about the product or item. In the United States – where many of the patent applications have been made – this prior existing knowledge is only recognised if the information has been written down. It does not consider information passed down for centuries by means of oral tradition to be valid.
Unlike many cultures from which traditional information has been misappropriated, India has an extensive written tradition. But most of the writing was in languages not widely read in the West. For example ayurvedic texts were written in Sanskrit or Hindi, writings about unani medicine – based on Ancient Greek practices now only practiced in the sub-continent – were in Arabic and Persian, while writings about another form of traditional medicine known as siddha was in the Tamil language.
To get around this challenge, Dr Gupta called in more than 100 practitioners of Ayurveda, siddha and unani to help compile the information using computer software. The database is being made available in Japanese, English, German, French and Spanish and the contents will be made available to patent officials once agreements on protecting the information and preventing it from being passed to corporations, are reached.
Also included within the database are more than 1,500 positions or asanas of yoga. This is because in recent years several yoga teachers in the West have tried to copyright methods of teaching yoga that they are argue are unique but which have existed for centuries in India.
One high-profile case involved Los Angeles-based Bikram Choudhury, the self-styled "yoga teacher to the stars". Mr Choudhury, who moved to America in the 1970s, first obtained a copyright for a book he wrote. But when other teachers began copying the way he taught yoga – with 26 specific poses performed in a room heated to 41C (105F) – he sought legal advice and was told to obtain a copyright for the moves themselves. It has been recognised by the US courts despite India's objections.
Dr Dinesh Katoch, an adviser on ayurveda within India's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, said more than 50,000 different ayurvedic formulations for treating everything from heart disease to memory loss had been entered into the database. Some of the information is mentioned in the Vedas, the ancient Hindu texts that date back several thousand years.
"We want to use this information for the global benefit but it should be done in a judicious way, not by stealing," he said, sitting in his office in central Delhi. "We want to prevent misappropriation. Prevention is the most important thing because it is not easy to repeal a patent."
In addition to the considerable cost incurred by the Indian authorities fighting patents they do not believe are genuine or fair, there is a widespread feeling that Western corporations should not be making vast profits from traditional knowledge while the people who discovered the information receive no benefit.
But campaigners say the misappropriation also has cultural and political implications. "I have termed it bio-colonialism," said Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmental activist and author.
"The international intellectual property laws as promoted by the World Trade Organisation [WTO] promote bio-colonialism because while they say there should be a global system to patent everything, the reality is that patent inspection is done at a national level. If you want to have a global system you have to have global inspection," she said. "This would involve setting up a global database. This will take a decade and cost billions of dollars."
Vital ingredients
* Arjuna Tree
The bark is a traditional Ayurvedic herbal cure for a variety of ills and is now widely used throughout the world as a high-blood pressure treatment. It is thought to improve the function of the cardiac muscle and to stabilise cholesterol levels, and it contains anti-oxidant properties.
* Basmati Rice
Authentic basmati rice is grown in the foothills of the Himalayas and the Indian government has tried hard to protect the grain. A patent granted by the US Patent Office to a local company for new strains of rice similar to basmati was revoked after a legal battle with the Indian government.
* Turmeric
It is grown mostly in Bengal and other areas of south-east Asia but, in addition to a curry spice, it can be used to heal wounds. In 1995, the US Patent Office granted a patent on its healing properties but Indian scientists protested and it was revoked.
* Brahmi
This creeping herb is used in many Indian preparations and has gained global recognition for its ability to improve mental acuity and fight cognitive decay. It is thought that brahmi boosts the memory and has calming properties. In India, the plant is often used in salads and soups.
Jeremy Laurance: Little evidence, but much tradition
It is an ancient form of therapy with 5,000-year history and a string of modern celebrity followers but there is "no convincing evidence" that ayurvedic medicine works.
Enthusiastically promoted by users including Cherie Blair, Madonna, Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow, ayurveda has become more of a brand than a treatment in the West. There are ayurvedic recipes and it embraces meditation, diet, yoga and herbal medicine, as well as featuring a lexicon that defines consciousness as the "dream state of the cosmic being".
Offered in hotels, spas and retreats, as well as in the charitable Ayurvedic hospital in west London, its underlying principle is that the body and mind must be maintained in balance. Ayurvedic medicines are combinations of different herbs, tailor-made for each individual, which are given to correct imbalances that would otherwise lead to physical or psychological ill health.
In Britain, practitioners must undertake a three-year BSc degree course, followed by a 1,000-hour internship with an ayurvedic doctor, in order to be registered with the British Association of Ayurvedic Practitioners. They charge £50-60 on the first occasion and around £30 for follow-up appointments.
Despite the long training, scientific peer-reviewed evidence for the effectiveness of what ayurvedic practitioners do is scant. The House of Lords Science and Technology Committee investigation into alternative medicine concluded in 2005 that the case for ayurvedic medicine was "not proven".
Some studies have suggested that certain herbal combinations may be effective for heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis. Triphala, the most popular ayurvedic remedy in India, made from the powdered and dried fruit of threeplants and taken as an aid to digestion, has been shown to slow cancer growth in mice.
Max Pittler, deputy head of the department of complementary medicine at Exeter University said: "There may be individual trials that suggest certain herbal combinations may be effective but there is no really convincing body of evidence that specific ayurvedic mixtures have specific effects. There is no good evidence that it is beneficial. "
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3187089.ece
Saturday, November 10, 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article3135401.ece
Eight-limbed girl revered as deity has marathon surgery
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Published: 07 November 2007
Indian surgeons were performing a marathon operation last night on a two-year-old girl who was born with four arms and four legs.
The girl, called Lakshmi after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, is revered as a deity by some in her impoverished village. But doctors say Lakshmi is connected at the pelvis to a headless "parasitic twin" who stopped developing in her mother's womb while she absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts. The rare condition is called isciopagus and it occurs in between one in 50,000 to one in 200,000 births.
"Everybody considers her a goddess at our village," her father, Shambhu, who has only one name, told the Associated Press. "All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine."
The operation to separate Lakshmi is complicated and high-risk and involves a team of least 30 medics. The surgeons at Bangalore's Sparsh Hospital have to separate two spines and entangled nerves. At present, Lakshmi has four kidneys, two stomachs and two chest cavities and she is unable to stand or walk. Doctors say there is about a 25 per cent chance she could die during the operation.
Surgeons started the operation, which was expected to last up to 40 hours, at 7am yesterday and reported good progress. They said the little girl was stable and although they had encountered "some surprises" in the initial stages of the operation, those had been taken care of.
Last night, they were preparing to begin actually separating the little girl from the "twin". "It's a big team effort of a lot of skilled surgeons who will be putting their heart and soul into solving the problem of Lakshmi," said Dr Sharan Patil, the lead surgeon. "It's going to take many, many hours on a continuous basis to operate."
The hospital's foundation is paying for the operation because the girl's family could not afford it, said a spokesman. Indeed, her parents struggled to even get her to the point where she could go to the hospital
Lakshmi is from the village of Arhariya in Bihar, one of India's poorest states. Her parents said they had been offered money to sell her. "We took her to a hospital in Delhi but circus owners heard about her, wanted to turn her into a freak show and offered us money," her father told an Indian newspaper.
Eight-limbed girl revered as deity has marathon surgery
By Andrew Buncombe in Delhi
Published: 07 November 2007
Indian surgeons were performing a marathon operation last night on a two-year-old girl who was born with four arms and four legs.
The girl, called Lakshmi after the four-armed Hindu goddess of wealth, is revered as a deity by some in her impoverished village. But doctors say Lakshmi is connected at the pelvis to a headless "parasitic twin" who stopped developing in her mother's womb while she absorbed the limbs, kidneys and other body parts. The rare condition is called isciopagus and it occurs in between one in 50,000 to one in 200,000 births.
"Everybody considers her a goddess at our village," her father, Shambhu, who has only one name, told the Associated Press. "All this expenditure has happened to make her normal. So far, everything is fine."
The operation to separate Lakshmi is complicated and high-risk and involves a team of least 30 medics. The surgeons at Bangalore's Sparsh Hospital have to separate two spines and entangled nerves. At present, Lakshmi has four kidneys, two stomachs and two chest cavities and she is unable to stand or walk. Doctors say there is about a 25 per cent chance she could die during the operation.
Surgeons started the operation, which was expected to last up to 40 hours, at 7am yesterday and reported good progress. They said the little girl was stable and although they had encountered "some surprises" in the initial stages of the operation, those had been taken care of.
Last night, they were preparing to begin actually separating the little girl from the "twin". "It's a big team effort of a lot of skilled surgeons who will be putting their heart and soul into solving the problem of Lakshmi," said Dr Sharan Patil, the lead surgeon. "It's going to take many, many hours on a continuous basis to operate."
The hospital's foundation is paying for the operation because the girl's family could not afford it, said a spokesman. Indeed, her parents struggled to even get her to the point where she could go to the hospital
Lakshmi is from the village of Arhariya in Bihar, one of India's poorest states. Her parents said they had been offered money to sell her. "We took her to a hospital in Delhi but circus owners heard about her, wanted to turn her into a freak show and offered us money," her father told an Indian newspaper.
Williams leads tributes to Samaritans founder
By Sadie Gray
Published: 09 November 2007
The Rev Chad Varah, who founded the Samaritans in the crypt of a London church more than 50 years ago, has died aged 95.
Tributes were led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who said Dr Varah had changed attitudes to suicide and brought a non-judgmental approach to people coping with depressive illness.
Dr Varah launched the Samaritans in 1953 "to befriend the suicidal and despairing" after conducting the funeral of a 13-year-old girl who had killed herself. Uneducated about sex, she had mistaken her first period for a symptom of a sexually transmitted disease which she feared would afford her a painful, shameful death.
Her case also prompted him to become one of the earliest proponents of sex education, particularly to poorly educated young people, for which conservative 1950s society vilified him as a "dirty old man".
Now, the Samaritans has 202 branches throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland, manned by some 15,500 volunteers, and supports Befrienders Worldwide, a confidential listening service with 400 centres in 40 countries.
Dr Williams said: "Chad Varah made a unique contribution to the life of our whole society. His instinct that a listening and sympathetic ear could make a difference has proved to be enormously important to those who felt alone and with nowhere to turn to.
"His vision and energy in the foundation of the Samaritans and its subsequent development is a legacy that stretches far beyond the church and far beyond these shores; one that will continue to bring help to those who 'just need someone to talk to'. He will be greatly missed."
Felicity Varah, the eldest of his five children, said: "Thanks to my father, Samaritans has been working for over 50 years, providing confidential, emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide.
"His relationship with Samaritans had many chapters, from the moment he founded it in his beloved church, St Stephen Walbrook in 1953, through its expansion worldwide, to the latter years when he stepped back to allow the movement to grow and flourish."
Dr Varah died in hospital in Basingstoke yesterday. The eldest of nine children, he was born in Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, where his father was the vicar. He studied at Worksop College, Nottinghamshire, before going up to Keble College, Oxford, where he read politics, philosophy and economics.
To subsidise his vicar's salary and to meet the financial demands of a growing family in the 1940s, he had a second career as a comic scriptwriter and visualiser, notably as one of the brains behind Dan Dare. His wife, Doris, died in 1993, and he is survived by four of his children.
The Prince of Wales, Samaritans' patron, said: "Chad Varah was an utterly remarkable man who founded an organisation which has saved the lives of countless people since 1953. He was an outstanding humanitarian and a great Briton." Steve Evans, the chairman of Samaritans, added: "It was Chad's inspiration and untiring determination that created Samaritans. It is our honour and determination to carry on his extraordinary work in the way he would have liked." The organisation's chief executive Dominic Rudd added: "Chad was quite simply an extraordinary man, and his legacy is a strengthened Samaritans which seeks to make emotional health part of everyday conversation. Chad's vision – of a society in which people are able to explore their feelings without fear or prejudice, in turn respecting the feelings of others – has touched millions of people in the 54 years since we started to offer emotional support."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3143314.ece
By Sadie Gray
Published: 09 November 2007
The Rev Chad Varah, who founded the Samaritans in the crypt of a London church more than 50 years ago, has died aged 95.
Tributes were led by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, who said Dr Varah had changed attitudes to suicide and brought a non-judgmental approach to people coping with depressive illness.
Dr Varah launched the Samaritans in 1953 "to befriend the suicidal and despairing" after conducting the funeral of a 13-year-old girl who had killed herself. Uneducated about sex, she had mistaken her first period for a symptom of a sexually transmitted disease which she feared would afford her a painful, shameful death.
Her case also prompted him to become one of the earliest proponents of sex education, particularly to poorly educated young people, for which conservative 1950s society vilified him as a "dirty old man".
Now, the Samaritans has 202 branches throughout the UK and the Republic of Ireland, manned by some 15,500 volunteers, and supports Befrienders Worldwide, a confidential listening service with 400 centres in 40 countries.
Dr Williams said: "Chad Varah made a unique contribution to the life of our whole society. His instinct that a listening and sympathetic ear could make a difference has proved to be enormously important to those who felt alone and with nowhere to turn to.
"His vision and energy in the foundation of the Samaritans and its subsequent development is a legacy that stretches far beyond the church and far beyond these shores; one that will continue to bring help to those who 'just need someone to talk to'. He will be greatly missed."
Felicity Varah, the eldest of his five children, said: "Thanks to my father, Samaritans has been working for over 50 years, providing confidential, emotional support for people who are experiencing feelings of distress or despair, including those which may lead to suicide.
"His relationship with Samaritans had many chapters, from the moment he founded it in his beloved church, St Stephen Walbrook in 1953, through its expansion worldwide, to the latter years when he stepped back to allow the movement to grow and flourish."
Dr Varah died in hospital in Basingstoke yesterday. The eldest of nine children, he was born in Barton-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, where his father was the vicar. He studied at Worksop College, Nottinghamshire, before going up to Keble College, Oxford, where he read politics, philosophy and economics.
To subsidise his vicar's salary and to meet the financial demands of a growing family in the 1940s, he had a second career as a comic scriptwriter and visualiser, notably as one of the brains behind Dan Dare. His wife, Doris, died in 1993, and he is survived by four of his children.
The Prince of Wales, Samaritans' patron, said: "Chad Varah was an utterly remarkable man who founded an organisation which has saved the lives of countless people since 1953. He was an outstanding humanitarian and a great Briton." Steve Evans, the chairman of Samaritans, added: "It was Chad's inspiration and untiring determination that created Samaritans. It is our honour and determination to carry on his extraordinary work in the way he would have liked." The organisation's chief executive Dominic Rudd added: "Chad was quite simply an extraordinary man, and his legacy is a strengthened Samaritans which seeks to make emotional health part of everyday conversation. Chad's vision – of a society in which people are able to explore their feelings without fear or prejudice, in turn respecting the feelings of others – has touched millions of people in the 54 years since we started to offer emotional support."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3143314.ece
Dust is turned into wallpaper for V&A show
By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
Published: 09 November 2007
For allergy sufferers it is the stuff of nightmares. The artist Catherine Bertola has taken the dust collected by the army of cleaners at the Victoria and Albert Museum and turned it into art, as part of an exhibition to mark the opening of the museum's new contemporary space next week.
Bertola has used the dust to make wallpaper, based on a design by William Morris, "Marigold", which she discovered from trawling through the V&A's archive, had hung on the walls of the gallery at the turn of the last century.
As part of her research for the work, Everything and Nothing, Bertola joined the cleaners as they did their after-hours rounds of the galleries, vacuuming the mosaic and marble floors and polishing glass cabinets. For the past eight weeks, the cleaners have posted dust from the vacuum cleaners to Bertola's home in Newcastle and she has pasted it on to paper, padding it down and brushing it, before cutting it into the intricate flower pattern. As the dust contains insects, the museum insisted the wallpaper should be covered in varnish to prevent infestation.
The piece is part of the show Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft, the first to be held in the V&A's refurbished Porter Gallery which opens on Tuesday, showcasing the works of artists who use meticulous craft techniques to produce their work.
The wallpaper has only been part installed and will growin size as Bertola adds to it throughout the exhibition. It hangs near examples of some of the oldest surviving wall-paper, from 18th-century China.
Explaining her work, Bertola said: "Dust collects over time and within it there's a history of the place, the poetic sense of what it represents. We think of museums as dusty places, but the dust is constantly removed."
It is not the first time the 31-year-old artist has used dust in her work. In her adopted home city of Newcastle (Bertola was in fact born in Rugby) she created wallpaper and a hearth rug from dust in the former office of the renowned locomotive engineer George Stephenson.
Laurie Britton Newell, the V&A's curator of contemporary programmes, said: "Catherine is an interesting example of someone who works with such ordinary materials and turns them into ornate pieces."
Other artists featured in the exhibition include Yoshihiro Suda, a Japanese artist who carves leaves and flowers from wood, Lu Shengzhong, who has a contemporary take on the Chinese folk art of paper cutting, the American artist Anne Wilson who creates installations from lace and pins and the Nigerian Olu Amoda who works with scrap metal.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3143270.ece
By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
Published: 09 November 2007
For allergy sufferers it is the stuff of nightmares. The artist Catherine Bertola has taken the dust collected by the army of cleaners at the Victoria and Albert Museum and turned it into art, as part of an exhibition to mark the opening of the museum's new contemporary space next week.
Bertola has used the dust to make wallpaper, based on a design by William Morris, "Marigold", which she discovered from trawling through the V&A's archive, had hung on the walls of the gallery at the turn of the last century.
As part of her research for the work, Everything and Nothing, Bertola joined the cleaners as they did their after-hours rounds of the galleries, vacuuming the mosaic and marble floors and polishing glass cabinets. For the past eight weeks, the cleaners have posted dust from the vacuum cleaners to Bertola's home in Newcastle and she has pasted it on to paper, padding it down and brushing it, before cutting it into the intricate flower pattern. As the dust contains insects, the museum insisted the wallpaper should be covered in varnish to prevent infestation.
The piece is part of the show Out of the Ordinary: Spectacular Craft, the first to be held in the V&A's refurbished Porter Gallery which opens on Tuesday, showcasing the works of artists who use meticulous craft techniques to produce their work.
The wallpaper has only been part installed and will growin size as Bertola adds to it throughout the exhibition. It hangs near examples of some of the oldest surviving wall-paper, from 18th-century China.
Explaining her work, Bertola said: "Dust collects over time and within it there's a history of the place, the poetic sense of what it represents. We think of museums as dusty places, but the dust is constantly removed."
It is not the first time the 31-year-old artist has used dust in her work. In her adopted home city of Newcastle (Bertola was in fact born in Rugby) she created wallpaper and a hearth rug from dust in the former office of the renowned locomotive engineer George Stephenson.
Laurie Britton Newell, the V&A's curator of contemporary programmes, said: "Catherine is an interesting example of someone who works with such ordinary materials and turns them into ornate pieces."
Other artists featured in the exhibition include Yoshihiro Suda, a Japanese artist who carves leaves and flowers from wood, Lu Shengzhong, who has a contemporary take on the Chinese folk art of paper cutting, the American artist Anne Wilson who creates installations from lace and pins and the Nigerian Olu Amoda who works with scrap metal.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article3143270.ece
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Radar scans reveal Viking boat beneath pub car park
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2947402.ece
By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
Published: 10 September 2007
In 1938, a labourer building a pub car park in Wirral unearthed part of an old boat 3 metres below ground. His foreman told him to cover it up quickly, because an archaeological dig would have slowed down construction, costing time and money. Nearly 70 years later, investigators are finally close to solving the mystery of the vessel. Radar scans have revealed the outline of a what appears to be a Viking boat beneath the car park of the Railway Inn at Meols. The only other known examples in Britain were unearthed at Balladoole on the Isle of Man and Sanday in Orkney.
John McRae, the builder who discovered the boat in 1938, told the story to his family. Before he died in 1991, his son asked him to describe the proportions of what he had seen, which he turned into a sketch. He sent the details to archaeologists at Liverpool University, who put them on record. When the pub's owner sought planning permission for a new patio, details of the buried boat emerged. The landlord mentioned the discovery to a police officer, Tim Baldock, who in turn contacted Stephen Harding, an expert on the Viking settlement which once covered much of the Wirral peninsula. Mr Baldock and Mr Harding organised a radar scan of the area, using the McRae sketch as a guide, which revealed a "boat-shaped anomaly" buried in waterlogged blue clay, which preserves wood and which ensured the survival of the few Viking vessels found in Norway.
Mr McRae was sure he had dug up a clinker boat with overlapping planks, which would date it from the Viking era or later. Dr Knut Paasche, of the University of Oslo, has examined the scan and believes the vessel may well be a "six faering", a six-oared boat which could carry 12 people. Mr Baldock said he hoped to persuade archaeologists to conduct a more detailed investigation and possibly a dig.
Wirral was an independent Viking mini-state in the 10th century. Many Viking place names remain, including Thingwall – the name of the parliament
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2947402.ece
By Ciar Byrne, Arts and Media Correspondent
Published: 10 September 2007
In 1938, a labourer building a pub car park in Wirral unearthed part of an old boat 3 metres below ground. His foreman told him to cover it up quickly, because an archaeological dig would have slowed down construction, costing time and money. Nearly 70 years later, investigators are finally close to solving the mystery of the vessel. Radar scans have revealed the outline of a what appears to be a Viking boat beneath the car park of the Railway Inn at Meols. The only other known examples in Britain were unearthed at Balladoole on the Isle of Man and Sanday in Orkney.
John McRae, the builder who discovered the boat in 1938, told the story to his family. Before he died in 1991, his son asked him to describe the proportions of what he had seen, which he turned into a sketch. He sent the details to archaeologists at Liverpool University, who put them on record. When the pub's owner sought planning permission for a new patio, details of the buried boat emerged. The landlord mentioned the discovery to a police officer, Tim Baldock, who in turn contacted Stephen Harding, an expert on the Viking settlement which once covered much of the Wirral peninsula. Mr Baldock and Mr Harding organised a radar scan of the area, using the McRae sketch as a guide, which revealed a "boat-shaped anomaly" buried in waterlogged blue clay, which preserves wood and which ensured the survival of the few Viking vessels found in Norway.
Mr McRae was sure he had dug up a clinker boat with overlapping planks, which would date it from the Viking era or later. Dr Knut Paasche, of the University of Oslo, has examined the scan and believes the vessel may well be a "six faering", a six-oared boat which could carry 12 people. Mr Baldock said he hoped to persuade archaeologists to conduct a more detailed investigation and possibly a dig.
Wirral was an independent Viking mini-state in the 10th century. Many Viking place names remain, including Thingwall – the name of the parliament
Monday, September 03, 2007
PAST & PRESENT
Recalling the “liberation” of Goa
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking back, some of the reactions to the “invasion” of Goa, both Indian and Western, are amusing and bewildering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my last column I wrote of Goa’s more-or-less happy integration with India, based on a recent visit to that territory. In this column I wish to recall the moment when Goa passed from Portuguese to Indian rule, based on some historical documen ts of the time.
Lingering remnants
India became independent in August 1947. By the end of 1948, some five hundred princely States had been persuaded — or, in a few cases, coerced — to join the nation. The French left Pondicherry in 1954. In the same year, activists overran the tiny Portuguese enclaves of Dadra and Nagar-Haveli. But Goa, and its appendage Daman, remained outside Indian control, as an irritating reminder of the long —and still unfinished — history of European colonialism in the sub-continent.
Finally, in December 1961, the Indian Army went into Goa and forced the garrison there to surrender. In the papers of Penderel Moon, a former ICS man who had also worked with the Government of free India, I found two letters commenting on the action. A British army officer living in retirement in Roorkee wrote to Moon that “not a single Indian has any qualms about Goa except the Eastern Economist. Public opinion approved from the word go and has had no difficulty in justifying it since!”
Voices of dissent
This was not true. Also in the Moon papers, I found a letter written by a serving Cabinet Minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, which said: “I have personally been very sad about Goa. It was really the enormous and continuous pressure from his own and all the other political parties of India, in particular that of the Jan Sangh and the Communists, that finally drove our Prime Minister to accede to their demands. I feel the triumph has not been worth the price we have had to pay for it. For some time, at any rate, India’s voice will not count as much as it has done in the past in the world councils for peace”.
One does not know whether the Rajkumari expressed her reservations in Cabinet meetings. But another old Gandhian, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, wrote in his journal Swarajya that after the action in Goa, India could no longer claim t o be on a “mission for promoting peace”. Rajaji’s thoughts were echoed by this newspaper, which feared that “by her action India might have endangered the high esteem in which she has been held all over the world”.
Western commentators were less equivocal in their criticisms. In his book The Liberation of Goa, P.D. Gaitonde quotes the American historian Arthur Schelsinger as saying that “the contrast between Nehru’s incessant sanct imony on the subject of non-aggression and his brisk exercise of Machtpolitik was too comic not to cause comment. It was a little like catching the preacher in the hen-house; and it suggested that Harrow and Cambridge, in instilling the British virtues, had not neglected hypocrisy”.
Some Western critics focused on the mismatch between India’s profession of non-violence and its invasion of Goa; others on what they saw as the fundamental incompatibility of the cultures of Goa and India. One British writer argued that the “Goans are as much Mediterranean Europeans as the present descendants of various European nationalists [in the United States] are Americans”. And the Catholic Herald newspaper claimed that “wherever he goes even in India, a Goan remains a Goan, and tends to form a self contained Goan community. He certainly does not see himself as an Indian. Five hundred years of religious, social, and racial and cultural interpretations have sharply differentiated him from other peoples of the Indian subcontinent”.
Off the mark
Forty-five years later, one reads these judgements with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment. That some Goans are Catholics and that many Goans speak Konkani does not mean that they do not or cannot consider themselves Indian. And which Goan now sees himself as a “Mediterrenean European”? Also, the charge that Indians were being hypocritical and sanctimonious falls away in the light of the behaviour, in later decades, of the world’s superpowers. Who, in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, could consider India’s action in Goa to be illegitimate? Those other invasions brought untold misery and suffering to the people they claimed to “liberate”. In contrast, few Goans now would wish to exchange Indian rule for that of the Portuguese.
I shall end this recollection on a less serious note. In February 1962, two months after the event, the Illustrated Weekly of India printed a cover story celebrating Goa’s reunion with the motherland. Here the Weekly’s editor, A.S. Raman, wrote about his walking into a store in Panjim where the following conversation ensued:
Salesman: “We’ve got some very nice German ball-points for you, sir. Would you like to see them?”
Journalist: “Only ball-points! No, thanks. Your signboard lists a number of other items, bigger and more luxurious. What are they?”
Salesman: “Oh, yes, sir. We’ve hankies, ties, socks, gloves, watch-straps, belts, ash-trays, cigarette cases and a variety of curios and novelties”.
Journalist: “Where are all the transistors and tape-recorders, refrigerators and radiograms?”
Salesman: “All sold out, sir”.
Journalist: “You must be experiencing a big boom”.
Salesman: “Yes, sir, thanks to the liberation”.
ramguha@vsnl.com
Recalling the “liberation” of Goa
RAMACHANDRA GUHA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Looking back, some of the reactions to the “invasion” of Goa, both Indian and Western, are amusing and bewildering.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In my last column I wrote of Goa’s more-or-less happy integration with India, based on a recent visit to that territory. In this column I wish to recall the moment when Goa passed from Portuguese to Indian rule, based on some historical documen ts of the time.
Lingering remnants
India became independent in August 1947. By the end of 1948, some five hundred princely States had been persuaded — or, in a few cases, coerced — to join the nation. The French left Pondicherry in 1954. In the same year, activists overran the tiny Portuguese enclaves of Dadra and Nagar-Haveli. But Goa, and its appendage Daman, remained outside Indian control, as an irritating reminder of the long —and still unfinished — history of European colonialism in the sub-continent.
Finally, in December 1961, the Indian Army went into Goa and forced the garrison there to surrender. In the papers of Penderel Moon, a former ICS man who had also worked with the Government of free India, I found two letters commenting on the action. A British army officer living in retirement in Roorkee wrote to Moon that “not a single Indian has any qualms about Goa except the Eastern Economist. Public opinion approved from the word go and has had no difficulty in justifying it since!”
Voices of dissent
This was not true. Also in the Moon papers, I found a letter written by a serving Cabinet Minister, Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, which said: “I have personally been very sad about Goa. It was really the enormous and continuous pressure from his own and all the other political parties of India, in particular that of the Jan Sangh and the Communists, that finally drove our Prime Minister to accede to their demands. I feel the triumph has not been worth the price we have had to pay for it. For some time, at any rate, India’s voice will not count as much as it has done in the past in the world councils for peace”.
One does not know whether the Rajkumari expressed her reservations in Cabinet meetings. But another old Gandhian, Chakravarti Rajagopalachari, wrote in his journal Swarajya that after the action in Goa, India could no longer claim t o be on a “mission for promoting peace”. Rajaji’s thoughts were echoed by this newspaper, which feared that “by her action India might have endangered the high esteem in which she has been held all over the world”.
Western commentators were less equivocal in their criticisms. In his book The Liberation of Goa, P.D. Gaitonde quotes the American historian Arthur Schelsinger as saying that “the contrast between Nehru’s incessant sanct imony on the subject of non-aggression and his brisk exercise of Machtpolitik was too comic not to cause comment. It was a little like catching the preacher in the hen-house; and it suggested that Harrow and Cambridge, in instilling the British virtues, had not neglected hypocrisy”.
Some Western critics focused on the mismatch between India’s profession of non-violence and its invasion of Goa; others on what they saw as the fundamental incompatibility of the cultures of Goa and India. One British writer argued that the “Goans are as much Mediterranean Europeans as the present descendants of various European nationalists [in the United States] are Americans”. And the Catholic Herald newspaper claimed that “wherever he goes even in India, a Goan remains a Goan, and tends to form a self contained Goan community. He certainly does not see himself as an Indian. Five hundred years of religious, social, and racial and cultural interpretations have sharply differentiated him from other peoples of the Indian subcontinent”.
Off the mark
Forty-five years later, one reads these judgements with a mixture of amusement and bewilderment. That some Goans are Catholics and that many Goans speak Konkani does not mean that they do not or cannot consider themselves Indian. And which Goan now sees himself as a “Mediterrenean European”? Also, the charge that Indians were being hypocritical and sanctimonious falls away in the light of the behaviour, in later decades, of the world’s superpowers. Who, in the face of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 or the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, could consider India’s action in Goa to be illegitimate? Those other invasions brought untold misery and suffering to the people they claimed to “liberate”. In contrast, few Goans now would wish to exchange Indian rule for that of the Portuguese.
I shall end this recollection on a less serious note. In February 1962, two months after the event, the Illustrated Weekly of India printed a cover story celebrating Goa’s reunion with the motherland. Here the Weekly’s editor, A.S. Raman, wrote about his walking into a store in Panjim where the following conversation ensued:
Salesman: “We’ve got some very nice German ball-points for you, sir. Would you like to see them?”
Journalist: “Only ball-points! No, thanks. Your signboard lists a number of other items, bigger and more luxurious. What are they?”
Salesman: “Oh, yes, sir. We’ve hankies, ties, socks, gloves, watch-straps, belts, ash-trays, cigarette cases and a variety of curios and novelties”.
Journalist: “Where are all the transistors and tape-recorders, refrigerators and radiograms?”
Salesman: “All sold out, sir”.
Journalist: “You must be experiencing a big boom”.
Salesman: “Yes, sir, thanks to the liberation”.
ramguha@vsnl.com
Thursday, August 30, 2007
http://www.violinist.com/blog/Darcylewis/20078/7457/
From Jack Krumbein
Posted via 207.200.116.7 on August 30, 2007 at 3:39 PM
My greatgrandfather was Hans Blechschmidt. He was Pablo Sarasate's accompanist, chief conductor of the Hamburg Opera and in 1932 conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He was also known as Germany's greatest Wagner interpeter. When Hitler came to power the Nazi's tried recruiting him to become their state conductor in Berlin over Furtwengler. He hated the Nazi's... he organized a group to tour the United States and "defected" in San Francisco. Became the conductor of the San Francisco/Los Angeles Opera Association (their name at the time) and eventually made his way to Los Angeles. He died in 1954 and is buried in Santa Monica. Everyone has a choice... he chose to do the right thing over his career. Furtwengler and Karajan were wrong in closing their eyes as to what the Nazi's were doing in order to further their career's. This was on my Father's mother's side... on my Father's father's side it was a tragic story of German-Jewish persecutions and escapes, hunger and suffering I cannot even imagine... many Krumbein's were murdered during the war... there are no excuses for genocide... or for a population pretending not to know... or not bearing up arms against its governments when truth and righteousness demand it...
From Jack Krumbein
Posted via 207.200.116.7 on August 30, 2007 at 3:39 PM
My greatgrandfather was Hans Blechschmidt. He was Pablo Sarasate's accompanist, chief conductor of the Hamburg Opera and in 1932 conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. He was also known as Germany's greatest Wagner interpeter. When Hitler came to power the Nazi's tried recruiting him to become their state conductor in Berlin over Furtwengler. He hated the Nazi's... he organized a group to tour the United States and "defected" in San Francisco. Became the conductor of the San Francisco/Los Angeles Opera Association (their name at the time) and eventually made his way to Los Angeles. He died in 1954 and is buried in Santa Monica. Everyone has a choice... he chose to do the right thing over his career. Furtwengler and Karajan were wrong in closing their eyes as to what the Nazi's were doing in order to further their career's. This was on my Father's mother's side... on my Father's father's side it was a tragic story of German-Jewish persecutions and escapes, hunger and suffering I cannot even imagine... many Krumbein's were murdered during the war... there are no excuses for genocide... or for a population pretending not to know... or not bearing up arms against its governments when truth and righteousness demand it...
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
India's forgotten 1583 uprising in Cuncolim
By Armstrong Vaz, Qatar
Doha August 19: Jhansi, a small city in the northern Indian Uttar Pradesh, celebrates the 150th anniversary of India's "first war of independence" this year. The 1857 war for independence from British rule has been well documented in history books.
Unlike other parts of India, however, Goa, a small state on the western coast, was ruled by the Portuguese from 1510 to 1961. British rule ended in 1947.
An uprising against the colonial Portuguese rulers launched by a small village -- Cuncolim -- some 48 kilometers from the state capital of Panjim in 1583 has gone largely unnoticed.
Madicotto historic chapel
The Portuguese first conquered Goa in 1510 and Cuncolim was the first uprising that the Portuguese had to face in Goa apart from the organized armies and rulers who fought different wars with them over a period of time.
The villagers of Cuncolim, comprised mostly of Khastriyas (a warrior caste) who rendered services for different armies of different rulers, fought the war over forceful conversions and the destruction and defiling of their temples and places of worship.
But the Cuncolim revolt may soon find its way into local history books if the assertions of Shantaram Naik, who is from the village, are reliable. A lawmaker who is a member of Rajya Sabha, the Upper House (India has two houses of parliament) has said the Cuncolim revolt will find its way into the school curriculum.
The revolt took shape as a popular rebellion against invading Portuguese who came to the village accompanied by Jesuits, an order of Roman Catholic priests, and destroyed temples and defiled Hindu religious places.
The villagers retaliated by organizing themselves. Five Jesuits lost their lives along with five laymen.
The five priests have since being canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as martyrs, but the laymen have not received such treatment. (See Catholic-forum.com and Newadvent.org for more information.)
The murdered priests were canonized because their bodies, despite being left in the well for a few days, did not emit any foul smell. Rather, they emitted "special aromas," which was the only factor in their canonization process.
A "martyrs' chapel" was erected, dedicated to the priests and layman killed in 1583. Another chapel, some 500 meters away, which is dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa, was the site where the bodies of the murdered priests were dumped in a well.
Martyrs' chapel
The well still stands today inside the chapel and is opened for people to view once a year during the feast of St. Xavier, celebrated in the first week of December.
The Cuncolim villagers had to face the fury of the Portuguese for having killed the five priests and five laymen. The Portuguese destroyed orchards in the village and unleashed many atrocities on the local population. More trouble was in store for them.
The village chieftains were invited for talks at a fort in the neighboring village of Assolna, where the church of Assolna stands today. All but one was executed. The one who survived did so by escaping through a toilet hole to swim across the "River Sal" and fleeing to the neighboring Karwar district, which now forms part of the southern state of Karnataka.
As part of the memory of the murdered village chieftains, Cuncolim as recently as five years ago erected a "chieftains' memorial" thanks to the initiative of Vermissio Coutinho, who took the lead in the building of the memorial. The chieftains' memorial stands close to the martyrs' chapel.
Chieftains' Memorial
The subsequent execution of the chieftains -- cold-blooded murder -- did not diminish the fighting and valorous qualities of the villagers. After the Khastriyas of Cuncolim failed to match the superior armed forces of the colonial rulers, who destroyed their orchards and unleashed other atrocities, the villagers continued the struggle through a non-cooperation movement of not paying taxes to the Portuguese.
Centuries later, Mahatma Gandhi would launch a similar movement of not paying taxes to British rulers.
The villages of Cuncolim, Velim, Assolna, Ambleim and Veroda refused to pay taxes on the produce generated from their fields and orchards. As a result, their lands were confiscated and entrusted to the Condado of the Marquis of Fronteira.
The villagers waged a strong struggle but it was through the efforts of the visionary Dr. Rogociano Rebello, a general medical practitioner who studied law, that they got their land back.
Cuncolim church
He took their case from the Goa law courts established by the Portuguese to the highest court in Portugal. Finally, it bore fruit.
A truce has been struck but the effect of opposing Portuguese rule has had long-lasting effects, even to this day.
The forceful conversion of the villagers forced those of Cuncolim to move their places of Worship to different places. One of the temples of the goddess Shri Shantadurga Cuncolikarian was moved to the neighboring village of Fatorpa some seven kilometers away.
The villagers rejoice once a year when the same goddess is brought in a ceremonial procession from Fatorpa to Cuncolim. The 12 colorful umbrellas accompanying the deity represent the 12 vangodds (clans) of the village.
Incidentally, this year's yearly zatra (one week festival) falls on Dec. 24. Residents from various part of Goa will come together during the festival to get the blessing of the deity.
The villagers, despite having to convert to Christianity, have confirmed their age-old Hindu customs and maintained their caste beliefs. They also have a 12 vangodd system running the church's affairs.
The Khastriyas (warrior caste) who claim to be the original residents of the village, called Gaunkars (original inhabitants), have carried the Hindu caste system into the Roman Catholic Church and are demanding that they have a hold over the running of the affairs of the Cuncolim church, a view which has not been taken lightly by church authorities.
The Gaunkars claim that the Cuncolim church was built by their forefathers and that they have the right to conduct the religious festivals of the Cuncolim church, compared to non-Gaunkars who belong to the lower caste. No Brahmin families are found in the village of Cuncolim.
The dominant stance of the Khastriyas have seen many a struggle over the last 30 years and even led to church services being suspended for some months in the early 1980s.
Despite all this, the villagers of Cuncolim are braced for a new beginning.
[Armstrong Vaz works as a sub-editor for the Peninsula – largest circulated English daily in Doha Qatar]
By Armstrong Vaz, Qatar
Doha August 19: Jhansi, a small city in the northern Indian Uttar Pradesh, celebrates the 150th anniversary of India's "first war of independence" this year. The 1857 war for independence from British rule has been well documented in history books.
Unlike other parts of India, however, Goa, a small state on the western coast, was ruled by the Portuguese from 1510 to 1961. British rule ended in 1947.
An uprising against the colonial Portuguese rulers launched by a small village -- Cuncolim -- some 48 kilometers from the state capital of Panjim in 1583 has gone largely unnoticed.
Madicotto historic chapel
The Portuguese first conquered Goa in 1510 and Cuncolim was the first uprising that the Portuguese had to face in Goa apart from the organized armies and rulers who fought different wars with them over a period of time.
The villagers of Cuncolim, comprised mostly of Khastriyas (a warrior caste) who rendered services for different armies of different rulers, fought the war over forceful conversions and the destruction and defiling of their temples and places of worship.
But the Cuncolim revolt may soon find its way into local history books if the assertions of Shantaram Naik, who is from the village, are reliable. A lawmaker who is a member of Rajya Sabha, the Upper House (India has two houses of parliament) has said the Cuncolim revolt will find its way into the school curriculum.
The revolt took shape as a popular rebellion against invading Portuguese who came to the village accompanied by Jesuits, an order of Roman Catholic priests, and destroyed temples and defiled Hindu religious places.
The villagers retaliated by organizing themselves. Five Jesuits lost their lives along with five laymen.
The five priests have since being canonized by the Roman Catholic Church as martyrs, but the laymen have not received such treatment. (See Catholic-forum.com and Newadvent.org for more information.)
The murdered priests were canonized because their bodies, despite being left in the well for a few days, did not emit any foul smell. Rather, they emitted "special aromas," which was the only factor in their canonization process.
A "martyrs' chapel" was erected, dedicated to the priests and layman killed in 1583. Another chapel, some 500 meters away, which is dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Goa, was the site where the bodies of the murdered priests were dumped in a well.
Martyrs' chapel
The well still stands today inside the chapel and is opened for people to view once a year during the feast of St. Xavier, celebrated in the first week of December.
The Cuncolim villagers had to face the fury of the Portuguese for having killed the five priests and five laymen. The Portuguese destroyed orchards in the village and unleashed many atrocities on the local population. More trouble was in store for them.
The village chieftains were invited for talks at a fort in the neighboring village of Assolna, where the church of Assolna stands today. All but one was executed. The one who survived did so by escaping through a toilet hole to swim across the "River Sal" and fleeing to the neighboring Karwar district, which now forms part of the southern state of Karnataka.
As part of the memory of the murdered village chieftains, Cuncolim as recently as five years ago erected a "chieftains' memorial" thanks to the initiative of Vermissio Coutinho, who took the lead in the building of the memorial. The chieftains' memorial stands close to the martyrs' chapel.
Chieftains' Memorial
The subsequent execution of the chieftains -- cold-blooded murder -- did not diminish the fighting and valorous qualities of the villagers. After the Khastriyas of Cuncolim failed to match the superior armed forces of the colonial rulers, who destroyed their orchards and unleashed other atrocities, the villagers continued the struggle through a non-cooperation movement of not paying taxes to the Portuguese.
Centuries later, Mahatma Gandhi would launch a similar movement of not paying taxes to British rulers.
The villages of Cuncolim, Velim, Assolna, Ambleim and Veroda refused to pay taxes on the produce generated from their fields and orchards. As a result, their lands were confiscated and entrusted to the Condado of the Marquis of Fronteira.
The villagers waged a strong struggle but it was through the efforts of the visionary Dr. Rogociano Rebello, a general medical practitioner who studied law, that they got their land back.
Cuncolim church
He took their case from the Goa law courts established by the Portuguese to the highest court in Portugal. Finally, it bore fruit.
A truce has been struck but the effect of opposing Portuguese rule has had long-lasting effects, even to this day.
The forceful conversion of the villagers forced those of Cuncolim to move their places of Worship to different places. One of the temples of the goddess Shri Shantadurga Cuncolikarian was moved to the neighboring village of Fatorpa some seven kilometers away.
The villagers rejoice once a year when the same goddess is brought in a ceremonial procession from Fatorpa to Cuncolim. The 12 colorful umbrellas accompanying the deity represent the 12 vangodds (clans) of the village.
Incidentally, this year's yearly zatra (one week festival) falls on Dec. 24. Residents from various part of Goa will come together during the festival to get the blessing of the deity.
The villagers, despite having to convert to Christianity, have confirmed their age-old Hindu customs and maintained their caste beliefs. They also have a 12 vangodd system running the church's affairs.
The Khastriyas (warrior caste) who claim to be the original residents of the village, called Gaunkars (original inhabitants), have carried the Hindu caste system into the Roman Catholic Church and are demanding that they have a hold over the running of the affairs of the Cuncolim church, a view which has not been taken lightly by church authorities.
The Gaunkars claim that the Cuncolim church was built by their forefathers and that they have the right to conduct the religious festivals of the Cuncolim church, compared to non-Gaunkars who belong to the lower caste. No Brahmin families are found in the village of Cuncolim.
The dominant stance of the Khastriyas have seen many a struggle over the last 30 years and even led to church services being suspended for some months in the early 1980s.
Despite all this, the villagers of Cuncolim are braced for a new beginning.
[Armstrong Vaz works as a sub-editor for the Peninsula – largest circulated English daily in Doha Qatar]
Monday, August 20, 2007
Mozart work brings discord to Germany and Poland
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2871508.ece
By Claire Soares
Published: 17 August 2007
When Mozart wrote his 27th piano concerto in his usual neat hand months before he died, he could never have imagined the manuscript's future journey.
The document survived bombs and escaped looters before eventually finding itself at the heart of a 21st century diplomatic dispute.
The manuscript on which Mozart wrote with a quill his Piano Concerto No 27 in B-flat is held, within green velvet covers, in a university library in Krakow, Poland. And that makes it, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the "last German prisoners-of-war".
As Allied bombs fell on Berlin in the Second World War, the Nazis took tens of thousands of culturally important papers from the national library towards the eastern fringes of the Third Reich for safekeeping.
About 500 boxes of artistic treasures, including not only Mozart's score but also manuscripts by Goethe, were hidden first in the Ksiaz fortress in the Sudety mountains, before being transferred to a Benedictine monastery at what is now Krzeszow. A handful of boxes were destroyed or stolen, but most survived.
When peace came, the documents found themselves on Polish rather than German territory. Eventually, most of the 100,000 items were moved to the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow.
In the Seventies, several treasures were handed back to the East German leader Erich Honecker by fellow communists in Poland. Among them was Mozart's handwritten sheet music for Die Zauberflöte. But the 27th piano concerto eluded the Germans' grasp.
Talks between Berlin and Warsaw have dragged on for more than a decade, but bubbled up again in the past month. The rumblings in the German press drew a swift response from the Polish foreign ministry last week. It said the claims were "entirely groundless".
For many Poles, keeping the collection in Krakow is poor recompense for their cultural losses over almost six years of German occupation. About 22 million books and hundreds of thousands of works of art were destroyed as the Nazis ravaged the country.
"Polish public opinion still remembers the artworks carted away, the burned libraries and archives, whose loss was never made up for," the ministry said.
Bitterness has raised its head in the political domain too. At a European summit earlier this year, Poland demanded EU voting powers disproportionate to its size, saying its population would be larger today if Germany had not killed six million of its people during the war.
But for the guardian of the Mozart work, these wranglings are background chatter. "These are things for governments to discuss and work out for themselves. I want nothing to do with it," said Zdzislaw Pietrzyk, head of the Jagiellonian.
For him, what matters is that the manuscript has been preserved in almost mint condition. Mozart's writing, small and neat, is perfectly clear. "It just takes your breath away," said Mr Pietrzyk.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2871508.ece
By Claire Soares
Published: 17 August 2007
When Mozart wrote his 27th piano concerto in his usual neat hand months before he died, he could never have imagined the manuscript's future journey.
The document survived bombs and escaped looters before eventually finding itself at the heart of a 21st century diplomatic dispute.
The manuscript on which Mozart wrote with a quill his Piano Concerto No 27 in B-flat is held, within green velvet covers, in a university library in Krakow, Poland. And that makes it, according to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the "last German prisoners-of-war".
As Allied bombs fell on Berlin in the Second World War, the Nazis took tens of thousands of culturally important papers from the national library towards the eastern fringes of the Third Reich for safekeeping.
About 500 boxes of artistic treasures, including not only Mozart's score but also manuscripts by Goethe, were hidden first in the Ksiaz fortress in the Sudety mountains, before being transferred to a Benedictine monastery at what is now Krzeszow. A handful of boxes were destroyed or stolen, but most survived.
When peace came, the documents found themselves on Polish rather than German territory. Eventually, most of the 100,000 items were moved to the Jagiellonian Library in Krakow.
In the Seventies, several treasures were handed back to the East German leader Erich Honecker by fellow communists in Poland. Among them was Mozart's handwritten sheet music for Die Zauberflöte. But the 27th piano concerto eluded the Germans' grasp.
Talks between Berlin and Warsaw have dragged on for more than a decade, but bubbled up again in the past month. The rumblings in the German press drew a swift response from the Polish foreign ministry last week. It said the claims were "entirely groundless".
For many Poles, keeping the collection in Krakow is poor recompense for their cultural losses over almost six years of German occupation. About 22 million books and hundreds of thousands of works of art were destroyed as the Nazis ravaged the country.
"Polish public opinion still remembers the artworks carted away, the burned libraries and archives, whose loss was never made up for," the ministry said.
Bitterness has raised its head in the political domain too. At a European summit earlier this year, Poland demanded EU voting powers disproportionate to its size, saying its population would be larger today if Germany had not killed six million of its people during the war.
But for the guardian of the Mozart work, these wranglings are background chatter. "These are things for governments to discuss and work out for themselves. I want nothing to do with it," said Zdzislaw Pietrzyk, head of the Jagiellonian.
For him, what matters is that the manuscript has been preserved in almost mint condition. Mozart's writing, small and neat, is perfectly clear. "It just takes your breath away," said Mr Pietrzyk.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Father and son discover 10th century Viking hoard buried in field
By Arifa Akbar
Published: 20 July 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2785479.ece
The most important Viking treasures to be discovered in Britain for 150 years have been unearthed by a father and son while metal detecting in North Yorkshire.
David and Andrew Whelan uncovered the hoard, which dates back to the 10th century, in Harrogate. The British Museum said yesterday that the treasures were of global significance and could shed new light on the period.
Andrew Whelan, 35, said it had initially felt like an unlucky day when they drove out to the countryside with their metal detectors one Saturday morning in January.
He and his father, 65, had been turned away from two farms and had had a squabble before reluctantly visiting a field as a "last resort" because they had only ever discovered buttons there.
The pair then unearthed a bundle which included 617 silver coins, a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel so rare it is only the second of its kind ever to be found in Britain, and is among six or seven in Europe.
Mr Whelan Jnr, who has been metal detecting for six years, said it quickly became apparent they had stumbled upon an extraordinary find.
"My father got a strong signal and a cup tumbled out after a couple of scoops of earth. There was a coin sat on top of this bundle. We knew then it was something big and we were shaking with excitement as we lifted it out," he said.
After transporting the hoard to their home, they left it on their kitchen counter while they went to report it to their local finds liaison officer in Leeds. It was transferred to the British Museum where conservators carefully examined each item over months.
It is thought that the treasure was buried for safekeeping by a wealthy Viking leader during the unrest that followed the conquest of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria in AD 927 by the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan (924-39).
One of the coins, which bears the Latin inscription, Rex Tiotius Britanniae, dating to 927, is the earliest indication of Britain being under one ruler, at a time when the country was split between Viking and Anglo-Saxon control. The medieval objects were found to have come from Afghanistan, Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.
The gilt vessel, made in France in the first half of the ninth century, has roundels inscribed with seven animals around it, and was believed to have been intended for use in church services. It was probably looted from a monastery by Vikings or given to them in tribute.
Most of the smaller objects were hidden inside the vessel. The coins included several new and rare types, suggesting that there were more mints in the country than previously thought.
The coroner, Geoff Fell, declared the hoard as a treasure, at a court hearing in Harrogate. "Treasure cases are always interesting, but this is one of the most exciting cases that I have ever had to rule on. I'm delighted that such an important Viking hoard has been discovered in North Yorkshire. We are extremely proud of our Viking heritage in this area," he said.
Margaret Hodge, the Culture minister, added: "Finds such as this are invaluable in teaching us about our history. I commend David and Andrew Whelan for their prompt and responsible reporting of this hugely significant find, which will enrich our understanding of the Vikings."
The hoard will be valued and then the British Museum and York Museum Trust plan to appeal to the Heritage Lottery Fund for its acquisition so they can exhibit it.
The Vikings in Britain
* In the year 793, Viking pirate raiders sailed across the North Sea to attack a Christian monastery at Lindisfarne in north-east England and pillage the surrounding area. Viking raids spread across Britain soon afterwards.
* In 865, a huge army of Danish Vikings invaded England. The fighting went on for several years.
* Vikings conquered all of northern, central and eastern England, and seized much of the land for their own farms. They called the area The Danelaw.
* In the ninth century, Norwegian Vikings sailed to northern and western Scotland and seized land. They also settled on the Isle of Man and Wales.
By Arifa Akbar
Published: 20 July 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article2785479.ece
The most important Viking treasures to be discovered in Britain for 150 years have been unearthed by a father and son while metal detecting in North Yorkshire.
David and Andrew Whelan uncovered the hoard, which dates back to the 10th century, in Harrogate. The British Museum said yesterday that the treasures were of global significance and could shed new light on the period.
Andrew Whelan, 35, said it had initially felt like an unlucky day when they drove out to the countryside with their metal detectors one Saturday morning in January.
He and his father, 65, had been turned away from two farms and had had a squabble before reluctantly visiting a field as a "last resort" because they had only ever discovered buttons there.
The pair then unearthed a bundle which included 617 silver coins, a gold arm-ring and a gilt silver vessel so rare it is only the second of its kind ever to be found in Britain, and is among six or seven in Europe.
Mr Whelan Jnr, who has been metal detecting for six years, said it quickly became apparent they had stumbled upon an extraordinary find.
"My father got a strong signal and a cup tumbled out after a couple of scoops of earth. There was a coin sat on top of this bundle. We knew then it was something big and we were shaking with excitement as we lifted it out," he said.
After transporting the hoard to their home, they left it on their kitchen counter while they went to report it to their local finds liaison officer in Leeds. It was transferred to the British Museum where conservators carefully examined each item over months.
It is thought that the treasure was buried for safekeeping by a wealthy Viking leader during the unrest that followed the conquest of the Viking kingdom of Northumbria in AD 927 by the Anglo-Saxon king Athelstan (924-39).
One of the coins, which bears the Latin inscription, Rex Tiotius Britanniae, dating to 927, is the earliest indication of Britain being under one ruler, at a time when the country was split between Viking and Anglo-Saxon control. The medieval objects were found to have come from Afghanistan, Russia, Scandinavia and continental Europe.
The gilt vessel, made in France in the first half of the ninth century, has roundels inscribed with seven animals around it, and was believed to have been intended for use in church services. It was probably looted from a monastery by Vikings or given to them in tribute.
Most of the smaller objects were hidden inside the vessel. The coins included several new and rare types, suggesting that there were more mints in the country than previously thought.
The coroner, Geoff Fell, declared the hoard as a treasure, at a court hearing in Harrogate. "Treasure cases are always interesting, but this is one of the most exciting cases that I have ever had to rule on. I'm delighted that such an important Viking hoard has been discovered in North Yorkshire. We are extremely proud of our Viking heritage in this area," he said.
Margaret Hodge, the Culture minister, added: "Finds such as this are invaluable in teaching us about our history. I commend David and Andrew Whelan for their prompt and responsible reporting of this hugely significant find, which will enrich our understanding of the Vikings."
The hoard will be valued and then the British Museum and York Museum Trust plan to appeal to the Heritage Lottery Fund for its acquisition so they can exhibit it.
The Vikings in Britain
* In the year 793, Viking pirate raiders sailed across the North Sea to attack a Christian monastery at Lindisfarne in north-east England and pillage the surrounding area. Viking raids spread across Britain soon afterwards.
* In 865, a huge army of Danish Vikings invaded England. The fighting went on for several years.
* Vikings conquered all of northern, central and eastern England, and seized much of the land for their own farms. They called the area The Danelaw.
* In the ninth century, Norwegian Vikings sailed to northern and western Scotland and seized land. They also settled on the Isle of Man and Wales.
Found in India: the last king of France
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,2025636,00.html
· Indian lawyer acclaimed as head of royal house
· Prince Philip's cousin sets out 'incredible' theory
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Saturday March 3, 2007
The Guardian
Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, a jovial Indian lawyer and part-time farmer, has always been fascinated by France. Framed pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the palace of Versailles implausibly decorate his house in a dusty, bustling suburb of the central Indian city of Bhopal. He gave his children French names even though he has never set foot in France.
But he may soon make his first trip to Paris, after he was visited by a relative of Prince Philip, who told him that he is the first in line to the lost French throne
This Indian father-of-three is being feted as the long-lost descendent of the Bourbon kings who ruled France from the 16th century to the French revolution. A distant cousin of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he is alleged to be not only related to the current Bourbon king of Spain and the Bourbon descendants still in France, but to have more claim than any of them to the French crown.
The story of a potential Asian dauphin to one of the most important royal houses of Europe appears to be a poke in the eye for colonial history, and has sparked a rush of interest among royals in Europe.
Prince Michael of Greece, the cousin of Prince Philip, this week published a historical novel called Le Rajah de Bourbon, which traces the swashbuckling story of Mr Bourbon's first royal ancestor in India. Prince Michael believes Jean de Bourbon was a nephew of the first Bourbon French king, Henry IV. In the mid-16th century Jean embarked on an action-packed adventure across the world which saw him survive assassination attempts and kidnap by pirates to be sold at an Egyptian slave market and serve in the Ethiopian army.
In 1560, he turned up at the court of the Mogul emperor Akbar. It was the beginning of a long line of Bourbons in India, who centuries later would serve as the administrators of Bhopal and become the second most important family in the region.
Michael of Greece, who lives in Paris and is of Bourbon descent, believes his detective work on his newfound Indian "cousins" is more than just the latest whimsy in a history of attempts to uncover relatives of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
"If I am right - and I don't have absolute proof, but I completely believe in my theory - then Balthazar Bourbon would be the eldest in the line," he told the Guardian.
"This is the cherry on the cake. Mr Bourbon is head of a decent, dignified, middle-class Indian family. They look so Indian and yet bear this name. When you look at them, it seems incredible. The more unbelievable it is, the more I believe in it."
He said several of his royal relatives in Spain and France were "quite excited and thrilled to have found a new branch". He was in favour of a DNA test, perhaps from a surviving lock of Bourbon hair, to establish the facts.
From his home in the Bhopal suburbs, Mr Bourbon, 48, said he would be glad to take a DNA test, but remained stoical about the "hypothetical question" of whether he was heir to the throne. Conscious of the bloody outcome for royals in France, he felt royal status could bring "trouble", not to mention questions from skeptical historians.
Still, he has long had a brass plaque above his front door reading "House of Bourbon" with the fleur-de-lis crest of the French monarchy. His wife runs the neighbouring school for local children, called the Bourbon school. The family is Catholic and keeps Bourbon relics, including a sword, in their home. He said he felt "a sense of pride" when contemplating the picture of Versailles on his wall.
But he is aware that his family's fortunes waned in Bhopal long ago. He describes the Indian branch of the family as Bourbons on the rocks.
"From the day I was born, I was made to understand that I belonged to the family of the Bourbons," he said.
"I may be from a royal family but I live my life as a commoner. I didn't have time to learn French as a teenager because my father's death meant I had to work to look after my mother and sisters. Life has been very tough for me."
When his sister went to France on holiday she visited a castle once owned by Bourbon kings. It was closed to the public but she showed her Indian passport with the Bourbon name and was allowed in.
"I don't know if any of this will change my life," Mr Bourbon said. "The fact is, we've been having visitors from England, France and across Europe for years, curious about our family name.
"All these travellers, all this publicity, but nothing has happened yet. So how can I believe that something will change now?"
Backstory
War, assassinations, child kings, opulence and revolution marked the two centuries during which the Bourbons ruled France. They were known as much for their colourful personal lives as their politics. The first king, Henri IV, came to power in 1589 and was reputed to have more than 60 mistresses and 11 illegitimate children. Later Louis XIV, the Sun King, became the most powerful ruler in French history and one of the longest reigning kings in Europe. In 1793, Louis XVI was guillotined by revolutionaries, followed months later by his wife Marie Antoinette. Different branches of the Bourbons were restored to the throne from 1814 until the revolution of 1848.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,,2025636,00.html
· Indian lawyer acclaimed as head of royal house
· Prince Philip's cousin sets out 'incredible' theory
Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
Saturday March 3, 2007
The Guardian
Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon, a jovial Indian lawyer and part-time farmer, has always been fascinated by France. Framed pictures of the Eiffel Tower and the palace of Versailles implausibly decorate his house in a dusty, bustling suburb of the central Indian city of Bhopal. He gave his children French names even though he has never set foot in France.
But he may soon make his first trip to Paris, after he was visited by a relative of Prince Philip, who told him that he is the first in line to the lost French throne
This Indian father-of-three is being feted as the long-lost descendent of the Bourbon kings who ruled France from the 16th century to the French revolution. A distant cousin of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, he is alleged to be not only related to the current Bourbon king of Spain and the Bourbon descendants still in France, but to have more claim than any of them to the French crown.
The story of a potential Asian dauphin to one of the most important royal houses of Europe appears to be a poke in the eye for colonial history, and has sparked a rush of interest among royals in Europe.
Prince Michael of Greece, the cousin of Prince Philip, this week published a historical novel called Le Rajah de Bourbon, which traces the swashbuckling story of Mr Bourbon's first royal ancestor in India. Prince Michael believes Jean de Bourbon was a nephew of the first Bourbon French king, Henry IV. In the mid-16th century Jean embarked on an action-packed adventure across the world which saw him survive assassination attempts and kidnap by pirates to be sold at an Egyptian slave market and serve in the Ethiopian army.
In 1560, he turned up at the court of the Mogul emperor Akbar. It was the beginning of a long line of Bourbons in India, who centuries later would serve as the administrators of Bhopal and become the second most important family in the region.
Michael of Greece, who lives in Paris and is of Bourbon descent, believes his detective work on his newfound Indian "cousins" is more than just the latest whimsy in a history of attempts to uncover relatives of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
"If I am right - and I don't have absolute proof, but I completely believe in my theory - then Balthazar Bourbon would be the eldest in the line," he told the Guardian.
"This is the cherry on the cake. Mr Bourbon is head of a decent, dignified, middle-class Indian family. They look so Indian and yet bear this name. When you look at them, it seems incredible. The more unbelievable it is, the more I believe in it."
He said several of his royal relatives in Spain and France were "quite excited and thrilled to have found a new branch". He was in favour of a DNA test, perhaps from a surviving lock of Bourbon hair, to establish the facts.
From his home in the Bhopal suburbs, Mr Bourbon, 48, said he would be glad to take a DNA test, but remained stoical about the "hypothetical question" of whether he was heir to the throne. Conscious of the bloody outcome for royals in France, he felt royal status could bring "trouble", not to mention questions from skeptical historians.
Still, he has long had a brass plaque above his front door reading "House of Bourbon" with the fleur-de-lis crest of the French monarchy. His wife runs the neighbouring school for local children, called the Bourbon school. The family is Catholic and keeps Bourbon relics, including a sword, in their home. He said he felt "a sense of pride" when contemplating the picture of Versailles on his wall.
But he is aware that his family's fortunes waned in Bhopal long ago. He describes the Indian branch of the family as Bourbons on the rocks.
"From the day I was born, I was made to understand that I belonged to the family of the Bourbons," he said.
"I may be from a royal family but I live my life as a commoner. I didn't have time to learn French as a teenager because my father's death meant I had to work to look after my mother and sisters. Life has been very tough for me."
When his sister went to France on holiday she visited a castle once owned by Bourbon kings. It was closed to the public but she showed her Indian passport with the Bourbon name and was allowed in.
"I don't know if any of this will change my life," Mr Bourbon said. "The fact is, we've been having visitors from England, France and across Europe for years, curious about our family name.
"All these travellers, all this publicity, but nothing has happened yet. So how can I believe that something will change now?"
Backstory
War, assassinations, child kings, opulence and revolution marked the two centuries during which the Bourbons ruled France. They were known as much for their colourful personal lives as their politics. The first king, Henri IV, came to power in 1589 and was reputed to have more than 60 mistresses and 11 illegitimate children. Later Louis XIV, the Sun King, became the most powerful ruler in French history and one of the longest reigning kings in Europe. In 1793, Louis XVI was guillotined by revolutionaries, followed months later by his wife Marie Antoinette. Different branches of the Bourbons were restored to the throne from 1814 until the revolution of 1848.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Unveiled: The Pakistani tribe that dares to defy the fundamentalists
In the North West Frontier Province, the mullahs' word is law and the veil is worn. But one ancient tribe refuses to cover up. Jerome Taylor reports from the Rumbur Valley
Published: 18 July 2007 (The Independent)
In Pakistan's deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, the veil is simply a way of life. Whether in the bazaars of the capital Peshawar or high up in the myriad of Himalayan villages bordering Afghanistan, women wishing to leave their houses do so under the cover of a niqab or a billowing burqa. So important is the Islamic concept of purdah that the fort-like houses in the tribal areas usually contain separate living quarters for women and men.
Give or take the occasional advertising hoarding or glitzy film from Lahore, most men are unlikely to see an adult female face outside of their immediate family until they marry.
But in the remote Chitral region nestled high in the Hindu Kush mountain range are the last remnants of a tribe where the women walk unveiled in bright red and black dresses. Lavishly decorated with orange bead necklaces and colourful hats made from cowrie shells, they dance in public and are often free to marry and take lovers. They are the Kalasha, one of Pakistan's only remaining indigenous non-Muslim communities and a remarkable living throwback to a pre-Islamic era.
Yet according to the Kalasha themselves, their unique way of life is under attack like never before. Thanks to rising extremism among a small minority of Pakistanis and the growing appeal of populist orthodox mullahs who espouse sharia law and Taliban-like austerity, the Kalasha are increasingly in the firing line.
"We've always been called kafirs (infidels) but most people simply left us alone," says Azam Kalash, one of the few members of his 3,500-strong community who managed to go to university and now campaigns for his tribe's welfare. "Now we are deemed enemy number one. Particularly after September 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the missionaries and mullahs are determined to see us wiped out."
Isolated from the outside world by the remoteness of their valleys and the heavy Himalayan snows that block the mountain passes in winter, the Kalash somehow managed to survive successive waves of Muslim invaders and missionaries that pushed back the pre-Islamic Hindu, Buddhist and pagan tribes who once filled the fertile plains of the Indus valley.
Until last century, very few outsiders had ever made it as far as the three valleys of Rumbur, Bumboret and Birir where the Kalasha now live. Even today the valleys are only accessible by 4x4 along a tortuous road perilously carved into the shifting mountain side. But 20 years ago, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of the religious mujahedin, things began to change.
"For a long time the Kalasha lived in total isolation," says Cecil Chaudhury, General Secretary of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. "I remember going there in the 1950s with a mountaineering expedition and they were blissfully happy living in their own distinct social system. But with the mujahedin came the missionaries and the Kalasha were always going to be an easy group to target. Now the extremists are back."
Although the fighters have largely disappeared from the Chitral region, the Kalasha are now outnumbered in their own villages by converts and outsiders. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the notoriously brutal Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar used the valley as his hideout and many believe he has returned to the region to continue his fight against Nato forces and the Afghan government.
After a 10-year lull, the missionaries are returning and many fear that if orthodox preachers, such as those who, until recently, ran Islamabad's Red Mosque, continue to increase their appeal, the country's last non-Muslim tribe may sink into oblivion.
No Kalasha would mean no Zonor Bibi. The mother of five sits on the front porch of her mud-walled house perched high above the swollen glacial river that roars through the heart of her village. It is harvest time and apricots lie drying in the summer sun eyed by her eight-year-old daughter Walena.
Zonor's husband has just set off on the daily three-hour walk to the grazing meadows that lie high above the village but that does not stop Zonor from welcoming outsiders with open arms, an act that would be unthinkable to her Muslim neighbours.
Deeply proud of her culture, she bursts into laughter when asked how long it takes to make the iconic cowrie shell hats that all Kalasha women wear.
"They take us months," she says. "It is important to continue our traditions so not to anger our spirits and god."
Kalasha believe that failure to practice their ancient traditions has profound religious implications and can bring disaster on the village which may explain why their dress and distinct practices have managed to survive against such odds.
The role of women in Kalash society is perhaps the most obvious aspect that separates their culture from their Muslim neighbours. Where Muslim women in the region generally remain indoors or hidden from public view, their Kalash counterparts are conspicuous in the fields working alongside their men. During the festivals that celebrate the various summer harvests and preparations for winter, it is not unusual to find Kalasha women drinking apricot wine and dancing in public with males that are neither their husband nor family. Although some marriages are arranged by families, it is perfectly acceptable for Kalasha women to choose their husbands. If they are treated unkindly during the marriage the women are expected to leave the house and take a lover.
Such comparative sexual and social freedom has led to the false but commonly held perception among many lowland Pakistanis that the tribe's women are sexually promiscuous. But while Kalasha men do seem to extend a greater level of physical and social freedom to their other halves, the lives of their women-folk are still strictly regimented.
To the Kalash the world is divided into two states, onjesta (pure, sacred) and pragata (impure, profane). Women are considered pragata, particularly during menstruation and childbirth where they are exiled to special huts away from the village. Only once they have purified themselves can they return to the tribe. Certain fields and shrines considered pure and sacred to the community are also out of bounds for the tribe's women.
Such peculiarly distinct customs have fascinated anthropologists, linguists and travellers alike for centuries, not just because the survival of the Kalasha in a sea of Islam is so unusual but because no one is sure exactly where they came from.
Their tongue, like many of the dialects spoken in the Hindu Kush range, is closest to the Dardic branch of the Indo-European languages of Central Asia. But Kalash oral history tells a different story, that they are descended from Shalak Shah, one of Alexander the Great's generals whose armies conquered as far as the Indus river before turning back towards Europe. Although blond hair and blue eyes are common amongst the Kalash, recent genetic testing has suggested that they may be an aboriginal group that are, in fact, indigenous to the area.
But how did the Kalasha manage to cling on to their distinct polytheistic pagan traditions in an area renowned for its particularly orthodox brand of Islam?
"I think they were just lucky," says Siraj Ul Mulk, a direct descendant of the Sunni Muslim royal family that once ruled the Chitral region until they ceded to Pakistan in the 1960s.
"Despite their orthodox appearance, Chitralis have always been very relaxed about the Kalasha and other minorities. The missionaries always tend to come from outside." Walking through the dusty fort that his father, the Mehtar of Chitral, once used as his summer palace, Mr Ul Mulk also offers another explanation for why the Kalasha of Pakistan remained unharmed: India's partition. "Under British partition we were lucky enough to be placed on the Pakistani side," he says. "If we'd ended up in Afghanistan I doubt the Kalasha would have survived."
Two hundred years ago Afghanistan was also home to numerous Kalasha tribes, known locally as the Red Kafirs, but they were annihilated at the end of the 19th century. After receiving a bloody nose in two disastrous conflicts with the Afghans, the British simply stood by as the founding father of modern Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, systematically forced the non-Muslim tribes in the east of the country to convert at the point of a sword. A small number of Afghan Kalasha managed to flee towards Chitral and can still be seen in the upper valleys wearing their distinctive red dresses but all Kalasha are fully aware of the threat that extremist beliefs pose to their very survival.
That the Kalash are frightened of the current climate in Pakistan is testament to how seriously they take the current threats. They survived the marauding armies of Tamerlaine, the religious zeal of Abdur Rahman and even the anti-Soviet mujahedin. But now, like many of Pakistan's religious and ethnic minorities, they once again feel unprotected and vulnerable.
"We've survived so much over the years and we're not about to give up now," says Azam Kalash. "For centuries we have lived happily alongside our Muslim neighbours but thanks to extremism our numbers are dwindling. Whether we'll survive this century I simply don't know."
In the North West Frontier Province, the mullahs' word is law and the veil is worn. But one ancient tribe refuses to cover up. Jerome Taylor reports from the Rumbur Valley
Published: 18 July 2007 (The Independent)
In Pakistan's deeply conservative North West Frontier Province, the veil is simply a way of life. Whether in the bazaars of the capital Peshawar or high up in the myriad of Himalayan villages bordering Afghanistan, women wishing to leave their houses do so under the cover of a niqab or a billowing burqa. So important is the Islamic concept of purdah that the fort-like houses in the tribal areas usually contain separate living quarters for women and men.
Give or take the occasional advertising hoarding or glitzy film from Lahore, most men are unlikely to see an adult female face outside of their immediate family until they marry.
But in the remote Chitral region nestled high in the Hindu Kush mountain range are the last remnants of a tribe where the women walk unveiled in bright red and black dresses. Lavishly decorated with orange bead necklaces and colourful hats made from cowrie shells, they dance in public and are often free to marry and take lovers. They are the Kalasha, one of Pakistan's only remaining indigenous non-Muslim communities and a remarkable living throwback to a pre-Islamic era.
Yet according to the Kalasha themselves, their unique way of life is under attack like never before. Thanks to rising extremism among a small minority of Pakistanis and the growing appeal of populist orthodox mullahs who espouse sharia law and Taliban-like austerity, the Kalasha are increasingly in the firing line.
"We've always been called kafirs (infidels) but most people simply left us alone," says Azam Kalash, one of the few members of his 3,500-strong community who managed to go to university and now campaigns for his tribe's welfare. "Now we are deemed enemy number one. Particularly after September 11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the missionaries and mullahs are determined to see us wiped out."
Isolated from the outside world by the remoteness of their valleys and the heavy Himalayan snows that block the mountain passes in winter, the Kalash somehow managed to survive successive waves of Muslim invaders and missionaries that pushed back the pre-Islamic Hindu, Buddhist and pagan tribes who once filled the fertile plains of the Indus valley.
Until last century, very few outsiders had ever made it as far as the three valleys of Rumbur, Bumboret and Birir where the Kalasha now live. Even today the valleys are only accessible by 4x4 along a tortuous road perilously carved into the shifting mountain side. But 20 years ago, following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the rise of the religious mujahedin, things began to change.
"For a long time the Kalasha lived in total isolation," says Cecil Chaudhury, General Secretary of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. "I remember going there in the 1950s with a mountaineering expedition and they were blissfully happy living in their own distinct social system. But with the mujahedin came the missionaries and the Kalasha were always going to be an easy group to target. Now the extremists are back."
Although the fighters have largely disappeared from the Chitral region, the Kalasha are now outnumbered in their own villages by converts and outsiders. During the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the notoriously brutal Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar used the valley as his hideout and many believe he has returned to the region to continue his fight against Nato forces and the Afghan government.
After a 10-year lull, the missionaries are returning and many fear that if orthodox preachers, such as those who, until recently, ran Islamabad's Red Mosque, continue to increase their appeal, the country's last non-Muslim tribe may sink into oblivion.
No Kalasha would mean no Zonor Bibi. The mother of five sits on the front porch of her mud-walled house perched high above the swollen glacial river that roars through the heart of her village. It is harvest time and apricots lie drying in the summer sun eyed by her eight-year-old daughter Walena.
Zonor's husband has just set off on the daily three-hour walk to the grazing meadows that lie high above the village but that does not stop Zonor from welcoming outsiders with open arms, an act that would be unthinkable to her Muslim neighbours.
Deeply proud of her culture, she bursts into laughter when asked how long it takes to make the iconic cowrie shell hats that all Kalasha women wear.
"They take us months," she says. "It is important to continue our traditions so not to anger our spirits and god."
Kalasha believe that failure to practice their ancient traditions has profound religious implications and can bring disaster on the village which may explain why their dress and distinct practices have managed to survive against such odds.
The role of women in Kalash society is perhaps the most obvious aspect that separates their culture from their Muslim neighbours. Where Muslim women in the region generally remain indoors or hidden from public view, their Kalash counterparts are conspicuous in the fields working alongside their men. During the festivals that celebrate the various summer harvests and preparations for winter, it is not unusual to find Kalasha women drinking apricot wine and dancing in public with males that are neither their husband nor family. Although some marriages are arranged by families, it is perfectly acceptable for Kalasha women to choose their husbands. If they are treated unkindly during the marriage the women are expected to leave the house and take a lover.
Such comparative sexual and social freedom has led to the false but commonly held perception among many lowland Pakistanis that the tribe's women are sexually promiscuous. But while Kalasha men do seem to extend a greater level of physical and social freedom to their other halves, the lives of their women-folk are still strictly regimented.
To the Kalash the world is divided into two states, onjesta (pure, sacred) and pragata (impure, profane). Women are considered pragata, particularly during menstruation and childbirth where they are exiled to special huts away from the village. Only once they have purified themselves can they return to the tribe. Certain fields and shrines considered pure and sacred to the community are also out of bounds for the tribe's women.
Such peculiarly distinct customs have fascinated anthropologists, linguists and travellers alike for centuries, not just because the survival of the Kalasha in a sea of Islam is so unusual but because no one is sure exactly where they came from.
Their tongue, like many of the dialects spoken in the Hindu Kush range, is closest to the Dardic branch of the Indo-European languages of Central Asia. But Kalash oral history tells a different story, that they are descended from Shalak Shah, one of Alexander the Great's generals whose armies conquered as far as the Indus river before turning back towards Europe. Although blond hair and blue eyes are common amongst the Kalash, recent genetic testing has suggested that they may be an aboriginal group that are, in fact, indigenous to the area.
But how did the Kalasha manage to cling on to their distinct polytheistic pagan traditions in an area renowned for its particularly orthodox brand of Islam?
"I think they were just lucky," says Siraj Ul Mulk, a direct descendant of the Sunni Muslim royal family that once ruled the Chitral region until they ceded to Pakistan in the 1960s.
"Despite their orthodox appearance, Chitralis have always been very relaxed about the Kalasha and other minorities. The missionaries always tend to come from outside." Walking through the dusty fort that his father, the Mehtar of Chitral, once used as his summer palace, Mr Ul Mulk also offers another explanation for why the Kalasha of Pakistan remained unharmed: India's partition. "Under British partition we were lucky enough to be placed on the Pakistani side," he says. "If we'd ended up in Afghanistan I doubt the Kalasha would have survived."
Two hundred years ago Afghanistan was also home to numerous Kalasha tribes, known locally as the Red Kafirs, but they were annihilated at the end of the 19th century. After receiving a bloody nose in two disastrous conflicts with the Afghans, the British simply stood by as the founding father of modern Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Khan, systematically forced the non-Muslim tribes in the east of the country to convert at the point of a sword. A small number of Afghan Kalasha managed to flee towards Chitral and can still be seen in the upper valleys wearing their distinctive red dresses but all Kalasha are fully aware of the threat that extremist beliefs pose to their very survival.
That the Kalash are frightened of the current climate in Pakistan is testament to how seriously they take the current threats. They survived the marauding armies of Tamerlaine, the religious zeal of Abdur Rahman and even the anti-Soviet mujahedin. But now, like many of Pakistan's religious and ethnic minorities, they once again feel unprotected and vulnerable.
"We've survived so much over the years and we're not about to give up now," says Azam Kalash. "For centuries we have lived happily alongside our Muslim neighbours but thanks to extremism our numbers are dwindling. Whether we'll survive this century I simply don't know."
Monday, July 16, 2007
The truth about why we walk on two legs: it saves energy
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2776141.ece
Published: 17 July 2007
Walking on two legs uses up a quarter of the energy it takes to walk on all fours, according to a study that could explain why early human ancestors adopted bipedalism rather than the knuckle-walking of chimpanzees and gorillas.
Explaining why humans went from a four-legged gait to a two-legged, upright posture has proven to be one of the most difficult and contentious issues in evolution.
The study suggests that it all comes down to energy expenditure and how costly it is to move around in terms of the food required.
Scientists compared the amount of energy expended by humans and chimps when walking on a treadmill and found that a two-legged gait is about 75 per cent less costly compared with walking on all fours.
The results provide powerful evidence in support of the idea that the bipedal gait of humans became established because it was more energy efficient and so required less food.
David Raichlen, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, said that although in the past scholars have suggested that bipedalism may have something do to with saving energy, there was little hard evidence to support of it.
"For decades researchers have debated the role of energetics and the evolution of bipedalism," Professor Raichlen said. "The big problem in the study of bipedalism was that there was little data out there."
The study, which is published in the journal Science, measured the oxygen used by four adult humans and five adult chimps as they walked on a treadmill. The scientists also measured the force exerted on the treadmill, which enabled them to calculate the amount of muscle power being used.
The scientists found that there was a clear advantage in bipedalism over knuckle-walking, but that there were also substantial differences between individuals which were masked when the entire group was analysed.
On average, the amount of energy used by chimps to walk on two legs or to knuckle-walk on four legs was about the same. However, the chimps who took longer bipedal strides were more energy efficient than those who took shorter ones.
"We were able to tie the energetic cost in chimps to their anatomy," Professor Raichlen said. "We were able to show exactly why certain individuals were able to walk bipedally more cheaply than others, and we did that with biomechanical modelling.
"What those results allowed us to do was to look at the fossil record and see whether fossil hominins [ancestors] show adaptations that would have reduced bipedal energy expenditure."
Such an analysis has revealed that some early human ancestors had developed slightly longer legs. "This tells us that energetics played a pretty large role in the evolution of bipedalism," Professor Raichlen said.
The study can explain the advantage of a bipedal gait once it had come about, but is less convincing when it comes to explaining why our ape-like ancestor went from a four-legged to a two-legged gait in the first place.
Herman Pontzer, professor of anthropology at Washington University in St Louis, said the central aim of the study was to test the idea that two-legged walking is better than four when it comes to burning calories.
"We now have a tried-and-tested and supported hypothesis for why bipedalism was so successful," Professor Pontzer, a member of the research team, said.
The chimps involved in the study were trained to walk on the treadmill. " It took a long time and a lot of treats [to train them]," Professor Pontzer said. "They weigh as much as you do and are five times as strong - so they won't work with you if they don't want to."
Rival theories
* Tree walking: A recent theory suggests that our tree-living ancestors walked upright on branches, using their arms for balance. The idea is based on observing modern-day orang-utans, which often move around in trees by walking on two legs, gripping the branches with their hands.
* A cooling effect: Another idea is that it was cooler to walk upright in savannah grasslands because by doing so there was less surface area of the body exposed to the Sun.
* Wading in water: If our ancestors had to wade through water, they would have learned to walk on two legs. Modern-day chimps often adopt a two-legged gait when walking through water.
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2776141.ece
Published: 17 July 2007
Walking on two legs uses up a quarter of the energy it takes to walk on all fours, according to a study that could explain why early human ancestors adopted bipedalism rather than the knuckle-walking of chimpanzees and gorillas.
Explaining why humans went from a four-legged gait to a two-legged, upright posture has proven to be one of the most difficult and contentious issues in evolution.
The study suggests that it all comes down to energy expenditure and how costly it is to move around in terms of the food required.
Scientists compared the amount of energy expended by humans and chimps when walking on a treadmill and found that a two-legged gait is about 75 per cent less costly compared with walking on all fours.
The results provide powerful evidence in support of the idea that the bipedal gait of humans became established because it was more energy efficient and so required less food.
David Raichlen, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, said that although in the past scholars have suggested that bipedalism may have something do to with saving energy, there was little hard evidence to support of it.
"For decades researchers have debated the role of energetics and the evolution of bipedalism," Professor Raichlen said. "The big problem in the study of bipedalism was that there was little data out there."
The study, which is published in the journal Science, measured the oxygen used by four adult humans and five adult chimps as they walked on a treadmill. The scientists also measured the force exerted on the treadmill, which enabled them to calculate the amount of muscle power being used.
The scientists found that there was a clear advantage in bipedalism over knuckle-walking, but that there were also substantial differences between individuals which were masked when the entire group was analysed.
On average, the amount of energy used by chimps to walk on two legs or to knuckle-walk on four legs was about the same. However, the chimps who took longer bipedal strides were more energy efficient than those who took shorter ones.
"We were able to tie the energetic cost in chimps to their anatomy," Professor Raichlen said. "We were able to show exactly why certain individuals were able to walk bipedally more cheaply than others, and we did that with biomechanical modelling.
"What those results allowed us to do was to look at the fossil record and see whether fossil hominins [ancestors] show adaptations that would have reduced bipedal energy expenditure."
Such an analysis has revealed that some early human ancestors had developed slightly longer legs. "This tells us that energetics played a pretty large role in the evolution of bipedalism," Professor Raichlen said.
The study can explain the advantage of a bipedal gait once it had come about, but is less convincing when it comes to explaining why our ape-like ancestor went from a four-legged to a two-legged gait in the first place.
Herman Pontzer, professor of anthropology at Washington University in St Louis, said the central aim of the study was to test the idea that two-legged walking is better than four when it comes to burning calories.
"We now have a tried-and-tested and supported hypothesis for why bipedalism was so successful," Professor Pontzer, a member of the research team, said.
The chimps involved in the study were trained to walk on the treadmill. " It took a long time and a lot of treats [to train them]," Professor Pontzer said. "They weigh as much as you do and are five times as strong - so they won't work with you if they don't want to."
Rival theories
* Tree walking: A recent theory suggests that our tree-living ancestors walked upright on branches, using their arms for balance. The idea is based on observing modern-day orang-utans, which often move around in trees by walking on two legs, gripping the branches with their hands.
* A cooling effect: Another idea is that it was cooler to walk upright in savannah grasslands because by doing so there was less surface area of the body exposed to the Sun.
* Wading in water: If our ancestors had to wade through water, they would have learned to walk on two legs. Modern-day chimps often adopt a two-legged gait when walking through water.
Fishermen catch coelacanth off the coast of Indian Ocean archipelago
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2776120.ece
By Ali Sultan, Associated Press Writer
Published: 17 July 2007
Fishermen have caught a rare and endangered fish, the coelacanth, off the coast of the Indian Ocean archipelago of Zanzibar.
The find makes Zanzibar the third place in Tanzania where fishermen have caught the coelacanth, a heavy-bodied, many-finned fish with a three-lobed tail that was thought extinct until it was caught in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. Since then two types of coelacanth have been caught in five other countries: Comoros, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique, according to African Coelacanth Ecosystem Program.
"Fishermen informed us that they caught a strange fish in their nets. We rushed to Nungwi (the northern reaches of Zanzibar) to find it's a coelacanth, a rare fish thought to have become extinct when it disappeared from fossil records 80 million years ago," said Nariman Jiddawi of the Institute of Marine Sciences, which is part of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania's commercial capital.
Trade in the coelacanth is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
"Zanzibar will join a list of sites of having the rare fish caught in its own waters," said Jiddawi, adding the catch weighed 27 kilograms (59.5 pounds) and measured 1.34 meters (4.4 feet).
Four fishermen caught the fish on Saturday, Jiddawi said.
Mussa Aboud Jume, director of fisheries in Zanzibar, said that the coelacanth will be preserved and put on display at the Zanzibar Museum.
A statement of the Institute of Marine Sciences said that 35 coelacanths have been caught since September 2003 in Mtwara, a southern region of Tanzania, and mostly along the coast of Tanga in Tanzania's north.
Coelacanths are the only living animals to have a fully functional intercranial joint, a division separating the ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye, according to an Institute of Marine Sciences statement.
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article2776120.ece
By Ali Sultan, Associated Press Writer
Published: 17 July 2007
Fishermen have caught a rare and endangered fish, the coelacanth, off the coast of the Indian Ocean archipelago of Zanzibar.
The find makes Zanzibar the third place in Tanzania where fishermen have caught the coelacanth, a heavy-bodied, many-finned fish with a three-lobed tail that was thought extinct until it was caught in 1938 off the coast of South Africa. Since then two types of coelacanth have been caught in five other countries: Comoros, Indonesia, Kenya, Madagascar and Mozambique, according to African Coelacanth Ecosystem Program.
"Fishermen informed us that they caught a strange fish in their nets. We rushed to Nungwi (the northern reaches of Zanzibar) to find it's a coelacanth, a rare fish thought to have become extinct when it disappeared from fossil records 80 million years ago," said Nariman Jiddawi of the Institute of Marine Sciences, which is part of the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania's commercial capital.
Trade in the coelacanth is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
"Zanzibar will join a list of sites of having the rare fish caught in its own waters," said Jiddawi, adding the catch weighed 27 kilograms (59.5 pounds) and measured 1.34 meters (4.4 feet).
Four fishermen caught the fish on Saturday, Jiddawi said.
Mussa Aboud Jume, director of fisheries in Zanzibar, said that the coelacanth will be preserved and put on display at the Zanzibar Museum.
A statement of the Institute of Marine Sciences said that 35 coelacanths have been caught since September 2003 in Mtwara, a southern region of Tanzania, and mostly along the coast of Tanga in Tanzania's north.
Coelacanths are the only living animals to have a fully functional intercranial joint, a division separating the ear and brain from the nasal organs and eye, according to an Institute of Marine Sciences statement.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
After 65 years, submarine gives up its macabre secret
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article2573306.ece
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 23 May 2007
Sixty-five years after it vanished, a Japanese midget submarine that sank an Australian warship in Sydney harbour during the Second World War has yielded up its secrets.
The two-man submarine was one of three midgets that sneaked into the harbour in May 1942 to attack the American battle cruiser USS Chicago. Two were damaged and scuttled by their occupants, who shot themselves. The third fired a torpedo that missed the Chicago but blew up a converted ferry, HMAS Kuttabul, killing 19 Australian and two British ratings.
The third submarine disappeared under heavy fire, and could not be found. It became one of Australia's most enduring maritime mysteries. In November, recreational divers stumbled across it, in 54m (177ft) deep water off Sydney's northern beaches. The location of the 46-tonne submarine was kept secret while military divers examined the wreck.
This week the site was disclosed by the government, which said the bodies of the crew, Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe and Sub-Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban, were probably still inside. It will be left undisturbed. Divers collected a jar of sand from the seabed beside it, to present to the families of the men.
The site has been declared a protected zone, with exclusion enforced by alarms and cameras, and fines of $1m (£416,000). Australian authorities said it would be too difficult and expensive to salvage the wreck in open sea.
Mr Ashibe's brother, Itsuo, told Australian television earlier this year that he hoped the submarine would be raised. "I would like to take home an article left by my brother, or even a broken piece of the top of the sub," he said. "Then it would mean my brother came home."
The submarine was entangled in torn fishing nets, which navy divers cut away in order to map and survey it. Photographs show it sitting upright on the sea floor, largely intact.
The daring assault by the midgets shook Sydneysiders out of their apathy, and sparked fears of a Japanese invasion. Until then, despite the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin in the north, locals had felt untouched by the war.
The subs, launched from a mother submarine 35 miles east of Sydney Heads, were on a mission to divert Allied naval power from the decisive battle fought near Midway in the Pacific, a week later in June 1942.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/australasia/article2573306.ece
By Kathy Marks in Sydney
Published: 23 May 2007
Sixty-five years after it vanished, a Japanese midget submarine that sank an Australian warship in Sydney harbour during the Second World War has yielded up its secrets.
The two-man submarine was one of three midgets that sneaked into the harbour in May 1942 to attack the American battle cruiser USS Chicago. Two were damaged and scuttled by their occupants, who shot themselves. The third fired a torpedo that missed the Chicago but blew up a converted ferry, HMAS Kuttabul, killing 19 Australian and two British ratings.
The third submarine disappeared under heavy fire, and could not be found. It became one of Australia's most enduring maritime mysteries. In November, recreational divers stumbled across it, in 54m (177ft) deep water off Sydney's northern beaches. The location of the 46-tonne submarine was kept secret while military divers examined the wreck.
This week the site was disclosed by the government, which said the bodies of the crew, Petty Officer Mamoru Ashibe and Sub-Lieutenant Katsuhisa Ban, were probably still inside. It will be left undisturbed. Divers collected a jar of sand from the seabed beside it, to present to the families of the men.
The site has been declared a protected zone, with exclusion enforced by alarms and cameras, and fines of $1m (£416,000). Australian authorities said it would be too difficult and expensive to salvage the wreck in open sea.
Mr Ashibe's brother, Itsuo, told Australian television earlier this year that he hoped the submarine would be raised. "I would like to take home an article left by my brother, or even a broken piece of the top of the sub," he said. "Then it would mean my brother came home."
The submarine was entangled in torn fishing nets, which navy divers cut away in order to map and survey it. Photographs show it sitting upright on the sea floor, largely intact.
The daring assault by the midgets shook Sydneysiders out of their apathy, and sparked fears of a Japanese invasion. Until then, despite the fall of Singapore and the bombing of Darwin in the north, locals had felt untouched by the war.
The subs, launched from a mother submarine 35 miles east of Sydney Heads, were on a mission to divert Allied naval power from the decisive battle fought near Midway in the Pacific, a week later in June 1942.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
How Monet's cataracts coloured his view of the lilies
By Jonathan Brown
Published: 16 May 2007
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2548759.ece
Monet's series of paintings depicting the dappled light playing across the water-lilies at his home in Giverny are considered some of the finest works by the French Impressionists.
But new research suggests the famously blurred effect achieved by the master's brush strokes may have been a literal representation of how he saw the world.
Monet's deteriorating sight, caused by the onset of cataracts, has long been the subject of speculation by art historians. A computer simulation carried out by an ophthalmologist at Stanford University has now cast new light on the state of Monet's vision and the effect it had on his work.
According to Professor Michael Marmor, the artist's failing sight was a source of frustration to him in the early decades of the 20th century. "He wrote letters to friends, [complaining] how colours were getting dull, and it was hard to tell them apart, and how he had to label tubes of paint," Professor Marmor said. "He was very vocal about how his failing eyesight was affecting him."
Monet's cataracts caused the lens of his eye to become denser and more yellowish. One immediate effect was to blur colours and reduce their intensity. "It was getting harder for him to see," Professor Marmor said. "[His eyesight] was getting blurrier, but he was probably more bothered by the progressive loss of colour vision."
The academic has illustrated how Monet's worldview changed by altering a photograph of his 1899 painting of the ornamental Japanese bridge in his garden. The adjusted photo shows that as the artist's sight got worse, so the bright, floral shades of pink and blue disappeared, leaving muddier browns, reds and yellows. The study, published in the Archives of Ophthalmology, argues that two later paintings of the bridge with strong red-orange and green-blue tones would have appeared almost identical to him.
Monet eventually had surgery in 1923 - just three years before his death from lung cancer at the age of 86. But afterwards he complained incessantly that his sight was first too yellow and then too blue. He destroyed much of the work he completed while suffering cataracts and the few pieces that survive were rescued by family or friends. When Monet eventually went back to painting, he completed the lily series that now hangs in the Orangerie.
Professor Marmor has also examined the life and work of the painter Edgar Degas, thought to have suffered from maculopathy - a condition which seriously affected his central vision. The evidence could force a dramatic reappraisal of both artists' work, he believes. "I think it points out very dramatically some physical limitations that they had, which limited their ability to paint."
But Chris Riopelle, curator of 19th-century painting at the National Gallery, said: "It does not entirely answer the questions - after surgery, Monet's style did not alter radically."
Friday, May 11, 2007
Bats' wing strokes 'defy normal rules of flight'
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 11 May 2007
Bats use wings to fly very differently to birds, according to a study that has revealed the nocturnal mammals engage in sophisticated aerial acrobatics.
One of the first detailed investigations into the aerodynamics of bat flight shows that they can hover in mid-air by flipping their wings upside down to generate lift on the upstroke as well as the downstroke.
Scientists said that bats often seemed to defy conventional aerodynamic theory because of their ability to twist and turn quickly in mid-flight to avoid predators or catch prey.
"They are a vertebrate version of the bumble bee, which is said to defy scientific logic by being too heavy to fly with such short wings. It's not been known before that bats can generate such high lift forces with their wings," said Anders Hedenström of Lund University in Sweden.
Using a wind tunnel and a fog machine, Dr Hedenström and his colleagues took high-speed video images of a nectar-eating species of bat to study the vortices of air produced by its beating wings. "One of the unusual things we saw was that when the bat flew slowly or hovered it rotated its wings by nearly 180 degrees at the turn of the upstroke and the downstroke. The underside of the wing became the upperside," he said.
A bat's wings are made of flexible membranes stretched over the extended bones of its limbs. This design requires it to keep its wings rigid to produce lift. A bird's wing, however, is naturally more rigid and employs the extra trick of being able to separate its flight feathers on the upstroke so that air can pass through the wing, rather like light passing through an open venetian blind, said Geoffrey Spedding, an aerospace engineer at the University of Southern California, who was part of the research team.
"Instead of feathers projecting back from lightweight, fused arm and hand bones, bats have flexible, elastic membranes that stretch between specially extended, slender bones of the hand," Dr Spedding said. "The bones and wing membranes both change shape with every wing beat, flexing in response to the balance between forces applied by the muscles and competing forces due to the air motion around them," he said. "Where birds can feather their wings, opening the feathers like a Venetian blind, bats must do something different. Hence they have developed a twisting wing path that increases the lift during the upstroke," he added.
The study, published in the journal Science, found that when bats fly slowly they use the rotating-wing "and this difference can be traced to the peculiar upstroke", Dr Spedding said. "That, in turn, is likely to be caused by the collapsible membrane of the bat's wing."
Bats, a protected species, are the only mammal to have evolved self-powered flight and most species are adapted to eating flying insects, consuming up to their own body weight each night. They employ a sophisticated echo-location system to catch prey as well as avoid collisions
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 11 May 2007
Bats use wings to fly very differently to birds, according to a study that has revealed the nocturnal mammals engage in sophisticated aerial acrobatics.
One of the first detailed investigations into the aerodynamics of bat flight shows that they can hover in mid-air by flipping their wings upside down to generate lift on the upstroke as well as the downstroke.
Scientists said that bats often seemed to defy conventional aerodynamic theory because of their ability to twist and turn quickly in mid-flight to avoid predators or catch prey.
"They are a vertebrate version of the bumble bee, which is said to defy scientific logic by being too heavy to fly with such short wings. It's not been known before that bats can generate such high lift forces with their wings," said Anders Hedenström of Lund University in Sweden.
Using a wind tunnel and a fog machine, Dr Hedenström and his colleagues took high-speed video images of a nectar-eating species of bat to study the vortices of air produced by its beating wings. "One of the unusual things we saw was that when the bat flew slowly or hovered it rotated its wings by nearly 180 degrees at the turn of the upstroke and the downstroke. The underside of the wing became the upperside," he said.
A bat's wings are made of flexible membranes stretched over the extended bones of its limbs. This design requires it to keep its wings rigid to produce lift. A bird's wing, however, is naturally more rigid and employs the extra trick of being able to separate its flight feathers on the upstroke so that air can pass through the wing, rather like light passing through an open venetian blind, said Geoffrey Spedding, an aerospace engineer at the University of Southern California, who was part of the research team.
"Instead of feathers projecting back from lightweight, fused arm and hand bones, bats have flexible, elastic membranes that stretch between specially extended, slender bones of the hand," Dr Spedding said. "The bones and wing membranes both change shape with every wing beat, flexing in response to the balance between forces applied by the muscles and competing forces due to the air motion around them," he said. "Where birds can feather their wings, opening the feathers like a Venetian blind, bats must do something different. Hence they have developed a twisting wing path that increases the lift during the upstroke," he added.
The study, published in the journal Science, found that when bats fly slowly they use the rotating-wing "and this difference can be traced to the peculiar upstroke", Dr Spedding said. "That, in turn, is likely to be caused by the collapsible membrane of the bat's wing."
Bats, a protected species, are the only mammal to have evolved self-powered flight and most species are adapted to eating flying insects, consuming up to their own body weight each night. They employ a sophisticated echo-location system to catch prey as well as avoid collisions
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Herod: The Bible's biggest villain
As archaeologists announce they have discovered Herod the Great's burial site, Eric Silver looks at the life of the Jewish king who killed three of his sons, executed one of his wives and ordered the massacre of the innocents
Published: 09 May 2007
Under a brain-numbing sun, the mountain gradually gave up its secrets to the archaeologists' trowels. A flight of stairs - part of the route of the elaborate funeral procession planned by the tyrannical ruler - leads to the very place where the notorious king of Judea was buried.
Yesterday, on the powdery grey flank of an artificial mountain overlooking the Arab villages and Jewish settlements scattered across the Judean Wilderness, Israeli scholars presented their answer to one of the great mysteries of biblical archaeology: the tomb of Herod the Great, a Roman client king who ruled the Jews with the ruthless paranoia of a Stalin or Saddam Hussein from 37BC until his death in 4BC.
For Ehud Netzer, professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University, the find was the culmination of a 30-year search. Herod was known to have been buried at Herodium, the towering desert fortress he built for that purpose a day's march south of Jerusalem.
The Roman historian Josephus Flavius described the lavish funeral procession in his book The Jewish Wars, the unchallenged source book of the Second Temple era. He told how the body was attended by members of the family richly dressed in silks and jewels, how soldiers from across the ancient world paraded in their armour, as for war, accompanied by hundreds of attendants carrying spices such as frankincense. He said the king's body was covered in a purple shroud and carried on a bier.
"The bier," wrote Josephus, "was of solid gold, studded with precious stones, and had a covering of purple, embroidered with various colours. On this lay the body enveloped in purple robe, a diadem encircling the head and surmounted by a crown of gold, the sceptre beside his right hand."
The sarcophagus, with its triangular cover decorated on all sides, was indeed a unique specimen, Professor Netzer said. Its remains were still clearly identifiable although it had been smashed into pieces, probably, he said, by Jewish rebels fighting between the years 66 to 72AD, decades after the king's death.
Jews who had rebelled against Roman rule in 66AD and took refuge at Herodium were the most likely suspects. "The rebels," explained Professor Netzer, "were known for their hatred of Herod and all that he stood for as a puppet ruler of the Romans."
Herodium was one of Herod's many architectural masterpieces in the Holy Land, and according to some, his finest work. A man of great ego and architectural vision, this was the place he had chosen to be not only his burial place but also his memorial.
Herod was also responsible for the rebuilding and expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the desert fortress of Masada, as well as building up the port city of Caesarea and other major projects.
Herod's tomb is no 21st-century Tutankhamen treasury. There are no bones, let alone a mummified body. What Professor Netzer unearthed on the West Bank three weeks ago were dozens of fragments of finely dressed pale-pink limestone, elegantly carved with rosettes, decorated stone urns and the remains of a stone podium 10 metres square on which the mausoleum is believed to have stood.
All that is left of Herod is his notoriety - which in the view of many people, was well-earned. To Christians, he was the king who ordered the massacre of the innocents, described in St Matthew's Gospel (though in no other source). St Matthew tells how, soon after the birth of Jesus, three wise men from the east came to Herod and asked where they could find "the one having been born the king of the Jews". Herod, who feared the rise of a a rival for his kingdom, ordered the slaughter of all boys up to the age of two in Bethlehem.
Joseph, who had been warned in a dream that Herod intended to kill Jesus, fled with his family to Egypt, where they stayed until after Herod's death.
To his Jewish subjects Herod was at once a benefactor and a scourge. Kenneth Spiro, a modern American rabbi, defined him as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis", but acknowledged that he was "also the greatest builder in Jewish history".
Jona Lendering, a Dutch historian of the Holy Land, summed him up thus: "With building projects, the expansion of his territories, the establishment of a sound bureaucracy, and the development of economic resources, he did much for his country. However, many of his projects won him the bitter hatred of the orthodox Jews, who disliked Herod's Greek tastes - tastes he showed not only in his building projects, but also in several transgressions of the Mosaic Law."
Not the least of these was the erection of a golden eagle, the symbol of the Roman Empire, at the gate of the Jerusalem Temple, which was torn down by Jewish students just before his death.
Herod, the son of an Idumean father and Arab mother, encouraged the Jews to practise their faith, however. He married Mariamne, a princess of the deposed Hasmonean royal family, to buttress his legitimacy (having put aside his first wife, Doris, in order to do so). Above all, he rebuilt and greatly expanded the Temple. It is said to have taken 10,000 men 10 years to build the retaining wall of the massive man-made platform on which Al Aqsa mosque now stands. One face is the Western Wall, the holiest of Jewish sites.
"The sanctuary," Josephus wrote, "had everything that could amaze either mind or eye. Overlaid all round with stout plates of gold, in the first rays of the sun it reflected so fierce a blaze of fire that those who endeavoured to look at it were forced to turn away as if they had looked straight at the sun."
Herod brought prosperity and a measure of stability to the land. He skilfully played off the rivals among his Roman masters. He commanded his troops to victory over local foes. But, like tyrants throughout history, he feared plotters, real or imagined, and liquidated anyone he thought might challenge his supremacy. These included two high priests - one his father-in-law Hyrcanus, the other his brother-in-law Aristobulus - who were drowned in a bathing pool, as well as 46 judges of the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical court.
Not even those who Herod supposedly loved passionately were spared the paranoid monarch's wrath. Convinced by his sister Salome that his beloved Mariamne was being unfaithful, he planned to have her murdered. According to Josephus, once Mariamne found out about the plot to have her killed she stopped sleeping with her husband but this simply convinced Herod that he was right to suspect his favourite wife in the first place and he swiftly had her put on trial for adultery. "As soon as his passion [anger] was over," Josephus wrote, "he repented of what he had done and his affections were kindled again." But it was too late. Mariamne had been executed.
Mariamne's mother, Alexandra, who had colluded in her trial, was also executed after she accused Herod of being unfit to rule in a bid to seize power.
Nor did he spare his sons. "It is better to be Herod's dog than one of his children," the Roman emperor Augustus is said to have drily remarked. (Augustus should know; he gave permission for their executions.)
Herod's two sons by Mariamne, Alexandros and Aristobulus, were strangled on their father's orders after being found guilty of high treason. (Herod's heir, Herod Antipas, the king who ordered the beheading of John the Baptist, is alleged to have incited his father's anger against his half-brothers.)
Antipater, his son by his discarded first wife, was also executed, accused of involvement in the insurrection that led to the smashing of the golden eagle.
Of Herod's monuments, many can still be seen: the Temple platform and the Citadel near Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem; Herodium, the only one to carry his name, and its sister fortress Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea; the massive structure erected over the traditional burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Hebron; the ruined Mediterranean port city of Caesarea; and a winter palace complex excavated by Professor Netzer near Jericho in the 1970s.
The professor still has to prove to some scholars that he has indeed found Herod's tomb. An official of the Palestinian antiquities authority, visiting the site yesterday, noted that the Israelis had found no inscription. Stephen Pfann, a Christian textual scholar at the University of the Holy Land, hailed the find as "a major discovery by all means," but cautioned that more research was needed."We're moving in the right direction," he said. "It will be clinched once we have an inscription that bears his name."
Professor Netzer, who learned his trade under the celebrated Yigael Yadin at Masada, is confident of his attribution, however. "The location and the unique nature of the findings, as well as the historical record, leave no doubt that this was Herod's burial site," he insisted.
The stones bore all the marks of majesty, he said, and the sarcophagus was similar to those found at the Tomb of the Kings in Salah ed-Din Street in East Jerusalem. "It's not every rich Jew or citizen of this time that could afford this royal sarcophagus," he argued. "This podium, this base, is a well-executed monument. The stone work is very different from any we know elsewhere in Herodium." The location was right, he added. Pottery and coins found on the site showed that so was the date.
But the work is not over. Excavation began as recently as August 2006. Professor Netzer will keep on looking for the clincher.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2524437.ece
As archaeologists announce they have discovered Herod the Great's burial site, Eric Silver looks at the life of the Jewish king who killed three of his sons, executed one of his wives and ordered the massacre of the innocents
Published: 09 May 2007
Under a brain-numbing sun, the mountain gradually gave up its secrets to the archaeologists' trowels. A flight of stairs - part of the route of the elaborate funeral procession planned by the tyrannical ruler - leads to the very place where the notorious king of Judea was buried.
Yesterday, on the powdery grey flank of an artificial mountain overlooking the Arab villages and Jewish settlements scattered across the Judean Wilderness, Israeli scholars presented their answer to one of the great mysteries of biblical archaeology: the tomb of Herod the Great, a Roman client king who ruled the Jews with the ruthless paranoia of a Stalin or Saddam Hussein from 37BC until his death in 4BC.
For Ehud Netzer, professor of archaeology at the Hebrew University, the find was the culmination of a 30-year search. Herod was known to have been buried at Herodium, the towering desert fortress he built for that purpose a day's march south of Jerusalem.
The Roman historian Josephus Flavius described the lavish funeral procession in his book The Jewish Wars, the unchallenged source book of the Second Temple era. He told how the body was attended by members of the family richly dressed in silks and jewels, how soldiers from across the ancient world paraded in their armour, as for war, accompanied by hundreds of attendants carrying spices such as frankincense. He said the king's body was covered in a purple shroud and carried on a bier.
"The bier," wrote Josephus, "was of solid gold, studded with precious stones, and had a covering of purple, embroidered with various colours. On this lay the body enveloped in purple robe, a diadem encircling the head and surmounted by a crown of gold, the sceptre beside his right hand."
The sarcophagus, with its triangular cover decorated on all sides, was indeed a unique specimen, Professor Netzer said. Its remains were still clearly identifiable although it had been smashed into pieces, probably, he said, by Jewish rebels fighting between the years 66 to 72AD, decades after the king's death.
Jews who had rebelled against Roman rule in 66AD and took refuge at Herodium were the most likely suspects. "The rebels," explained Professor Netzer, "were known for their hatred of Herod and all that he stood for as a puppet ruler of the Romans."
Herodium was one of Herod's many architectural masterpieces in the Holy Land, and according to some, his finest work. A man of great ego and architectural vision, this was the place he had chosen to be not only his burial place but also his memorial.
Herod was also responsible for the rebuilding and expansion of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, and the desert fortress of Masada, as well as building up the port city of Caesarea and other major projects.
Herod's tomb is no 21st-century Tutankhamen treasury. There are no bones, let alone a mummified body. What Professor Netzer unearthed on the West Bank three weeks ago were dozens of fragments of finely dressed pale-pink limestone, elegantly carved with rosettes, decorated stone urns and the remains of a stone podium 10 metres square on which the mausoleum is believed to have stood.
All that is left of Herod is his notoriety - which in the view of many people, was well-earned. To Christians, he was the king who ordered the massacre of the innocents, described in St Matthew's Gospel (though in no other source). St Matthew tells how, soon after the birth of Jesus, three wise men from the east came to Herod and asked where they could find "the one having been born the king of the Jews". Herod, who feared the rise of a a rival for his kingdom, ordered the slaughter of all boys up to the age of two in Bethlehem.
Joseph, who had been warned in a dream that Herod intended to kill Jesus, fled with his family to Egypt, where they stayed until after Herod's death.
To his Jewish subjects Herod was at once a benefactor and a scourge. Kenneth Spiro, a modern American rabbi, defined him as "a madman who murdered his own family and a great many rabbis", but acknowledged that he was "also the greatest builder in Jewish history".
Jona Lendering, a Dutch historian of the Holy Land, summed him up thus: "With building projects, the expansion of his territories, the establishment of a sound bureaucracy, and the development of economic resources, he did much for his country. However, many of his projects won him the bitter hatred of the orthodox Jews, who disliked Herod's Greek tastes - tastes he showed not only in his building projects, but also in several transgressions of the Mosaic Law."
Not the least of these was the erection of a golden eagle, the symbol of the Roman Empire, at the gate of the Jerusalem Temple, which was torn down by Jewish students just before his death.
Herod, the son of an Idumean father and Arab mother, encouraged the Jews to practise their faith, however. He married Mariamne, a princess of the deposed Hasmonean royal family, to buttress his legitimacy (having put aside his first wife, Doris, in order to do so). Above all, he rebuilt and greatly expanded the Temple. It is said to have taken 10,000 men 10 years to build the retaining wall of the massive man-made platform on which Al Aqsa mosque now stands. One face is the Western Wall, the holiest of Jewish sites.
"The sanctuary," Josephus wrote, "had everything that could amaze either mind or eye. Overlaid all round with stout plates of gold, in the first rays of the sun it reflected so fierce a blaze of fire that those who endeavoured to look at it were forced to turn away as if they had looked straight at the sun."
Herod brought prosperity and a measure of stability to the land. He skilfully played off the rivals among his Roman masters. He commanded his troops to victory over local foes. But, like tyrants throughout history, he feared plotters, real or imagined, and liquidated anyone he thought might challenge his supremacy. These included two high priests - one his father-in-law Hyrcanus, the other his brother-in-law Aristobulus - who were drowned in a bathing pool, as well as 46 judges of the Sanhedrin, the rabbinical court.
Not even those who Herod supposedly loved passionately were spared the paranoid monarch's wrath. Convinced by his sister Salome that his beloved Mariamne was being unfaithful, he planned to have her murdered. According to Josephus, once Mariamne found out about the plot to have her killed she stopped sleeping with her husband but this simply convinced Herod that he was right to suspect his favourite wife in the first place and he swiftly had her put on trial for adultery. "As soon as his passion [anger] was over," Josephus wrote, "he repented of what he had done and his affections were kindled again." But it was too late. Mariamne had been executed.
Mariamne's mother, Alexandra, who had colluded in her trial, was also executed after she accused Herod of being unfit to rule in a bid to seize power.
Nor did he spare his sons. "It is better to be Herod's dog than one of his children," the Roman emperor Augustus is said to have drily remarked. (Augustus should know; he gave permission for their executions.)
Herod's two sons by Mariamne, Alexandros and Aristobulus, were strangled on their father's orders after being found guilty of high treason. (Herod's heir, Herod Antipas, the king who ordered the beheading of John the Baptist, is alleged to have incited his father's anger against his half-brothers.)
Antipater, his son by his discarded first wife, was also executed, accused of involvement in the insurrection that led to the smashing of the golden eagle.
Of Herod's monuments, many can still be seen: the Temple platform and the Citadel near Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem; Herodium, the only one to carry his name, and its sister fortress Masada, overlooking the Dead Sea; the massive structure erected over the traditional burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Hebron; the ruined Mediterranean port city of Caesarea; and a winter palace complex excavated by Professor Netzer near Jericho in the 1970s.
The professor still has to prove to some scholars that he has indeed found Herod's tomb. An official of the Palestinian antiquities authority, visiting the site yesterday, noted that the Israelis had found no inscription. Stephen Pfann, a Christian textual scholar at the University of the Holy Land, hailed the find as "a major discovery by all means," but cautioned that more research was needed."We're moving in the right direction," he said. "It will be clinched once we have an inscription that bears his name."
Professor Netzer, who learned his trade under the celebrated Yigael Yadin at Masada, is confident of his attribution, however. "The location and the unique nature of the findings, as well as the historical record, leave no doubt that this was Herod's burial site," he insisted.
The stones bore all the marks of majesty, he said, and the sarcophagus was similar to those found at the Tomb of the Kings in Salah ed-Din Street in East Jerusalem. "It's not every rich Jew or citizen of this time that could afford this royal sarcophagus," he argued. "This podium, this base, is a well-executed monument. The stone work is very different from any we know elsewhere in Herodium." The location was right, he added. Pottery and coins found on the site showed that so was the date.
But the work is not over. Excavation began as recently as August 2006. Professor Netzer will keep on looking for the clincher.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2524437.ece
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
