Bulgarian archaeologists have discovered an unusually large votive relief of the Greek god Zeus near the Bulgarian village of Starosel, indicating that it was once the center part of an ancient temple.
The temple is believed to have been built in the 6th or 5th century BCE, and could have very well been the power center of Ancient Thrace in the 4th century BCE. It was subsequently destroyed during the rise of the Macedonian state of Philip II in 342-341 BCE.
In antiquity, Zeus was commonly featured as, or with, an eagle. Strangely, the archaeologists reported that a large eagle appeared in the sky as they were about to uncover the artifact.
Perhaps it was Zeus watching over them?
I will never forget the disbelief I felt when my undergraduate art history professor mentioned that civilization had lost the recipe for concrete. This seemed preposterous. I've walked on a sidewalk before, skipped down the paved path as a child, watching diligently to not step on cracks for fear of “breaking my mother’s back”, as the old saying warned. We have concrete!
What she went on to explain was that the original recipe for the highly durable Roman concrete had been lost to history. For thousands of years, people have tried to reverse engineer this seemingly simple technology. It has been quite a challenge. Though we have concrete now, it is not the same as the concrete used by the Romans. The concrete we use in modernity is actually pretty poor in comparison to the Roman concrete of the past. Think about it for a moment. Roman concrete roads, aqueducts, and structure are still doing well considering there antiquity. Consider all the times you've driven down a road of potholes or walked down a sidewalk with pits and cracks and questioned, “Didn't they just pave this a few years ago?”
While some of this may be seen as planned obsolesce, it is still testament to the relative inefficiency of modern concrete, most of which lasts only decades. Commonly, what is used is Portland cement. We have been using this recipe for over 200 years, not a bad recipe, but compared with the durability of Roman concrete, it falls flat, especially when exposed to salt water.
After years of research, scientists in the US and Europe have finally figured out the recipe to Roman concrete. The findings are published in this month's issues of the Journal of the American Ceramic Society and American Mineralogist, a publication to which I’m sure you all subscribe. ;)
According to the scientists, "The Romans made concrete by mixing lime and volcanic rock. For underwater structures, lime and volcanic ash were mixed to form mortar, and this mortar and volcanic tuff were packed into wooden forms. The seawater instantly triggered a hot chemical reaction. The lime was hydrated – incorporating water molecules into its structure – and reacted with the ash to cement the whole mixture together." It is because of this lime and volcanic ash mixture that Roman concrete has such tremendous binding ability.
It gets better, though. Not only is this concrete far superior in durability, but unlike modern concrete, it is more environmentally sustainable. The manufacturing of most modern concrete accounts for 7% of greenhouse gas emissions. With these new, ancient methods, we have the potential to make amazingly durable structures and live in harmony with the environment.
I wonder what other lost technology we may find and for use in modernity? It is my belief that ancient civilizations possessed a number of technologies that we may never fully understand. Since they used the natural resources around them, a lot of evidence of such “green” technologies may have simply decayed or been lost to history, though some have not.
Between the pyramids, Baghdad Battery, and the Antikythera mechanism, just to name a few, there is little doubt that the ancients were far more advanced than they are commonly depicted.
May 1, or "May Day", has been celebrated around the world for a very long time. Early observances were likely derived from the spring festivals of ancient Babylon, Egypt and India, which is often the case. However, today its celebrations more closely resemble those of its pagan European origins.
The month of May is named after the Greek fertility goddess Maia, considered the most beautiful of the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades. She was the mother of Hermes, god of magic. Like many old world festivals, it celebrated fertility and developed into a type of “agrarian magic” to bless the first spring planting. The ancient Celts and Saxons celebrated May 1st as Beltane, a fire festival. The word 'Beltane' originates from the Celtic God 'Bel', meaning 'the bright one' and the Gaelic word 'teine' meaning fire.
During a time where societies were hunter-gatherer, evening celebrations on the night before May Day included people chanting and singing, blowing hunting horns, and lighting bonfires. This was sometimes led by a person dressed as Diana, Goddess of the Hunt, with someone else dressed as the horned god, Herne.
As time passed and society turned more agrarian, Diana and Herne came to be seen as fertility deities of the crops and fields. Diana became the Queen of the May, believed to be the origin of the modern tradition of pageant and festival queens. Herne became Robin Goodfellow, seen as a predecessor of Robin Hood, also known as the Green Man. The Green Man was a protective woodland spirit. He can be seen on many pieces of folk art as well as church decoration, even today.
An iconic symbol of May Day has been the Maypole, an important part of the festivities, though scholars debate about its origin and meaning. Some say it represents an Axis Mundi, the world's center or a connection between Heaven and Earth. Others say its roots are in traditional Germanic reverence of sacred trees. Some believe it could have originated from the Roman’s worship of the god Priapu and is a phallic symbol. According to some anthropologists, the explanation for the Maypole is that of simply symbolizing the growth of new vegetation.
Regardless of its origin, the Maypole tradition still takes place in many areas around the world, as do a number of diverse celebrations to usher in springtime.
Best wishes to all on this first day of May!
Happy Birthday Ovid!
Often described as one of the most important figures to know of ancient history, Ovid’s prolific writing influenced Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dante, and Milton.
Publius Ovidius Naso, or Ovid, was born on March 20, 43 BCE in Sulmona, Italy to a wealthy family. He studied in Rome to become a public speaker and politician but to the dismay of his father, he used what he had learned to write poetry.
Though critics in antiquity were not always kind, considering his work to be frivolous, his writings remain some of the most important work of the ancient world.
Read and/or download Ovid’s epic meter of dactylic hexameters, “Metamorphoses."
♥ Happy Lupercalia! ♥
As with many modern holidays, it is widely theorized by scholars that the true origins of Valentine’s Day is actually steeped in a very ancient Roman pastoral fertility festival, observed on February 13 through 15. The festival was called Lupercalia.
The belief was that the goddess Juno Februata (where the name February comes from) inflicted her "love fever" on the youth. Lupercalia “festivities” involved an orgy and sexual excesses, the sacrifice of goats and dogs, and the burning of salt meal-cakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins. Young men would randomly pick love notes of eligible young women from a container, after which they would try to guess who wrote the notes. Another practice was to smear the foreheads of youths with the blood of a sacrificed dog and goat and send them off with a priest around the perimeter of the city, whipping women along the way with strips of the goat’s skin. This act was to protect the women from infertility.
For years the Christian church tried to suppress the festival of Lupercalia. Pope Gelasius changed Lupercalia from the 15th to the 14th and renamed it after the legendary St. Valentine in an attempt to redefine the pagan celebration. Even after the church replaced Lupercus with St. Valentine, the Lupercalia festival continued relatively unchanged except for the sexual excesses.
Though much has changed since the days of Lupercalia, in elementary schools across the country, children still put concealed notes in a box much as the ancient Romans did. Some traditions are well worth keeping!
A recent study published in the British Medical Journal has confirmed that pessoi, ceramic discs thought to be game pieces in ancient chess-like strategy games, were put to a more utilitarian use: "toilet paper".
Researchers examined two terracotta pessoi, probably fragments from broken amphorae, found in the filling underneath Roman latrines close to excrement deposits. The fragments were recut to have smoother edges. Examination under a microscope found solidified and partially mineralized feces.
There is also artistic evidence of the use of pottery fragments for wiping. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston has a kylix (a wine cup) that has a rather cut and dry depiction on the tondo, the flat round inside the cup.
Until now, the pessoi had been cataloged as pieces in an intellectual game. I guess they'll have to "wipe" the slate clean and start reclassifying these artifacts as a being used for a less cerebral purpose.
