Archeology: The Telltale Art

Richard III death and finding
Richard III was a British monarch who died at the Battle of Bosworth Field, a battle that was the grand finale of the War of the Roses. Richard was the last Yorkist king, and he lost in the battle to Henry VII of Tudor. His body was not found, died around the age of 32, he was buried at Greyfriars Church, a 13th century holy church in the city of Leicester. Today, people thought the church was destroyed by Henry VII, until 2012 a team of archeologists, led by Philippa Langley. They found the location of the church by comparing old and new maps, and coming to the conclusion that the church was located at a parking lot. They dug there, and found a body – they DNA tested it, and confirmed those were Richard III's. Richard III's look was a little weird, even Shakespeare described him as a "poisonous bunch backed toad", but with today's tech archeologists found out he had a form of scoliosis, when the spine curves on the side. King Richard III's remains were re-interred at Leicester Cathedral in March 2015.

Ancient Buddhist temple in Pakistan found
Italian and Pakistani archeologists led by Luca Maria Olivieri in partnership with the International Association for Mediterranean and Oriental Studies found in Pakistan a roughly 2000 year old Buddhist temple, which is the oldest in the Gandhara region. This region was a trade crossroads between Asia, Europe and the Middle East. The archaeologists found in the temple treasures and buddhist symbols. In the temple you could see the rooms and their usage, like a stupa for monks, a stupa for relics etc.

Fastest human in history found
Archeologists found in New South Wales (a region in Australia) aboriginal footprints from 20,000 years ago. They stepped on wetlands that are now dry, so you can see their big footprints on the dry dunes. It now belongs to the Mingo National Park. They found 700 footprints, 400 of them grouped in a set of 23 tracks, and these belonged to several groups who crossed the wetlands – families, hunters. On a group of 5 aboriginal hunters, Steve Webb, with Bond University found that one of them was running at 37 km/h on mud, which is close to Usain Bolt's 37.6 km/h without running on mud, or Donovan Bailey who once reached the speed of 43.6 km/h. Nevertheless, he is a good competitor for the fastest man in history.

Found how Pompeii people lived
Pompeii was an ancient Roman city in Italy that had a thriving culture, which was near Mount Vesuvius, a volcano (nice place to settle in). It erupted. The city was buried in mountains of volcanic ashes, until it was found in 1748, being to this day one of the most famous archeological sites in the world. With today's X-raying people's decomposed bodies, we found what the city looked like, and with CGI technology, we can see how the streets once looked (probably). With 3D mapping tech, Professor Eric Poehler from the University of Massachusetts put together a grid of transportation in Pompeii. With the organic trash in the city we found out the people ate seafood and pork – even fed pigs different stuff to make their bodies taste different. Hopefully in a few years or decades we could see the living city from our phones and computers, digitally with all the people.

Rosetta Stone
An ancient Egyptian stone with inscriptions in several languages and scripts that helped the 19th century world understand the lost hieroglyphic writing of ancient Egypt. It was found in Rosetta, Rasheed, Egypt, by a Frenchman named Bouchard/ Boussard in 1799, but after the French surrender of Egypt it was passed to the British Museum in London (1801- ). The writings themselves were made by the priests of Memphis, the capital city of ancient Egypt, explaining about Ptolemy V Epiphanes' reign, and because she was Egyptian and Greek, it was written in these two  languages, in three writing systems: hieroglyphics (which we didn't know), demonic script (hieroglyphics but in words, looks like Arabic), and the Greek alphabet. It was written in a large kind of broken basalt stone, and the minerals helped the text remain.

Dead Sea Scrolls
Dead sea scrolls are a lot, but a lot of pieces of a scroll from 2000 years ago of the Hebrew bible (Jewish bible/ old testament), and also a few apocryphal texts, such as the book of Judith. A few pieces of the scrolls were first found in 1947 in a few caves near the dead sea by Bedouins, which is a group of Arab tribes living in Israel’s desert. These scrolls are one of the biggest finds of archeology so far. Yigael Yadin, an Israeli archeologist, found tens of thousands of these scroll pieces on the shores of the dead sea in 1947. These scrolls are known to be the oldest written source for the Jewish bible. During the 50's, people could barely match the scroll parts, but with today's x-rays we can see what is really written there.. It described the life of Jews with Christians in the 1st century too. The text remained because it was written on a special paper, papyrus, and also special papers with rich leather and copper materials, making the text visible.

Borobudur
Borobudur is the most massive Buddhist monument, and is located in Java, Indonesia. It used to house holy relics, and symbolized the mandala, a symbol of the universe, combining the square as earth and the circle as heaven. Borobudur was constructed in the 8th-9th century, under the Shailendra dynasty, as it was buried under volcanic ash (like Pompeii), until it was discovered by governor Thomas Stamford Raffles in 1814, when England conquered the world, including southeast Asia. Some Dutch restored it two times in the 20th century. You can find Buddhist symbols and writings of Buddha's life and previous lives. The world's largest Buddhist monument and a priceless ancient center for pilgrimage and education in Mahayana Buddhism.

Terracotta Army
This so-called "army" is a life -sized figure found in the tomb of the first Qin emperor, Qin Shi Huang, near Xi'an, China. The figures guarded the outer wall of the tomb from Qin's former adversaries. The tomb was found in 1974 by Chinese farmers. Then the archeologists found the terracotta army in a scale of 8,000 human sized clay soldiers. The figures had real swords, bows, and other Chinese weapons. The clay and the lack of oxygen might have saved the terracotta army from not being a part of history anymore.

Lucy (fossil)
Lucy is a nickname for a hominin skeleton found by Donald Johnson in Hadar, an Anthropological site in Ethiopia, 1974 (just when the terracotta army was discovered), and is dated to 3.2 million years ago. The specimen is classified as Australopithecus Afarensis. It  has long arms, short legs, apelike chest and jaw, and a small brain, therefore it was a primal version of the human, yet a greater version of a monkey. Lucy got her name in the party Donald had a few days later to celebrate the finding, and after a lot of drinking there was the Beatles' song "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds", and so no one remembers who gave her the name Lucy, but someone probably did. The real Lucy is stored in a specially constructed safe in the Paleoanthropology Laboratories of the National Museum of Ethiopia in Addis Ababa. The rest of the stuff regarding "how did they find out Lucy is an Australopithecus Afarensis" was determined by X rays of the skull and DNA testing.

Sue (fossil)
Sue is the most complete and best-preserved skeleton of the Tyrannosaurus rex. The fossil is 67 million years old. Also among the largest T Rex skeletons. It was found in 1990, on South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux reservation on a cattle ranch owned by Maurice Williams. That's what also sparked the love for dinosaurs at the time. It was found by Peter Larson with archaeologist and paleontologist, Susan Hendrickson; hence the fossil is called Sue. Till 2000's there was a battle between Larson and Williams on who owns the fossil, and it came to the US supreme court in 1993. In the end Williams won the case and she owned it with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Williams took it to an auction. Chicago's Field Museum of Natural history won the fossil itself, with Walt Disney that won a replica, and McDonalds that won 2 replicas, for 8,362,500$. After death, she was covered with water and mud, therefore she was preserved for a long time. Just like the fastest man's footprints. Sue is unusually old for a dinosaur.

Machu Picchu
Is a site of ancient Inca ruins near Cusco, Peru. Machu Picchu in English is "old peak", and is located near Huayna Picchu ``new peak". It was built in the 1450's by the Inka tribes in Peru and some Colombians (at the time they were the same). In 1967 a German adventurer by the name Augusto Berns almost discovered it, what a fancy clown. It was really discovered by Professor Hiram Bingham, sponsored by Yale University.

Petra
Petra, once called Sela, or "rock" in Hebrew, is now located in Jordan, but was the place in which Moses struck his stick on a rock to make water come out of it (which eventually caused him not to step on the holy land). Was also where some of the Israeli tribes settled, although outside the holy land. It switched hands between a lot of people – the Israelis-the Edomites-the romans-the Greek, and so it got the name Petra – a rock in Greek. Shit was a place for the good spice, Arrakis was actually based on the sandstone look of Petra! It is a valley surrounded by cliffs – just like in the overwatch map. It was discovered in 1812 by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt.

Sutton Hoo
An estate near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, that is the site of an early medieval burial ground that includes the grave of an Anglo-Saxon King whose identity isn't known yet. There was great treasure in the grave, they buried him inside his own ship. Therefore, archeologists assume he was one of the first Anglo-Saxon kings to go from Germany to England – with the boat he is buried with. . In 1939, Edith Pretty, a landowner at Sutton Hoo (the place), asked archeologist Basil Brown to investigate the Anglo-Saxon burial mounds on her property. This is one of the most spectacular archeological findings – the big ship and the treasure. He was buried with his helmet too.

Nobody knows if T-Rexes have feathers.
Lately there has been this debate on if T-Rexes had feathers. Unlike bones, feathers fade away after a few years, therefore unlike Sue’s skull, we can't find her feathers, as they disappeared in the last 67 million years. So one side says you need to prove they had feathers, while the other says you need to prove they didn't have feathers. However, in China there were a lot of volcanic eruptions that buried entire ecosystems, just like with the city of Pompeii and Mount Vesuvius. As a result you can find not only the dinosaur's bones, but also their feathers. And really we found 2 T-rexes who were covered with feathers in China . Called Yutyannus and Dilong. Means 2 things, or T-Rexes had feathers, or the ancestors of T-rexes had feathers, which means T-rexes probably had feathers too. There isn't really a conclusion for this debate – but there it is.

Paleoart
The art of reconstructing something without the complete information – just like what  people have been doing with dinosaurs for over 100 years. Connects perfectly to my last point. Also, a book by Zoe Lescaze – Paleoart: visions of the prehistoric past. There are a lot of artworks there of featherless dinosaurs,

Excavation
Carefully digging a hole in the earth, trying to discover something specific like a boat or in the Sutton Hoo that was previously mentioned . There are many types of excavation – brushing, digging and different kinds of approaches, but in all of them you dig a hole in the ground.

Remote sensing
The process of detecting and monitoring the physical characteristics of an area by measuring its reflected and emitted radiation at a distance. Getting info about something without making physical contact with the object. Satellites are the main usage of remote sensing nowadays. Bonus is radar. Sonar (The stuff bats use) is remote sensing too. In archeology, remote sensing is mostly used by sending radio waves to the ground, and then recording in nanoseconds how much time it took for the radio to come back, and that's how they discover stuff without touching it.  even creating a 3d map of it without seeing it. Just like sonar but with tech. GPR equipment is a valid name too.

Zooarchaeology

The study of animal remains from archeological contexts. Fossils or remains of extinct animals. You can learn how long it takes for human hunting to cause extinction, what are the triggers that cause over-hunting, and how to prevent it in the future, so you learn for the past how animals were extinct and try to not make the same mistake again.

Archaeobotany

The study of ancient plant remains. Remains of extinct plants. Learning the details of how plants were extinct and how to prevent these. Similar to zooarcheology but on plants.

Carbon Dating
Is a method of determining the age of a plant/ animal, using the carbon it used a lot of time ago. So it works like this – in earth's atmosphere, interaction between nitrogen and a cosmic ray causes a RadioCarbon, aka C14, a carbon isotope, and with oxygen it becomes a radioactive form of carbon dioxide. A plant gets this radioactive carbon dioxide by photosynthesis, and an animal eats that plant, meaning that both of them probably have radioactive carbon dioxide in them right now. That RadioCarbon undergoes a radioactive decay, in other words, the body's atoms slowly, but extremely slowly decay, and take the body's energy, therefore in 1940's when Willard Libby of the University of Chicago found out about this method, he got a Nobel prize in Chemistry 20 years later. So from determining how much energy a dead life form lost by radiocarbon, you can find out when it lived.

Dendrochronology
A dating technique for trees, based on the analysis of their rings. You measure the rings of the tree's log to date it. It is because many species of trees produce growth rings during annual growth seasons. The width of the ring for each year is determined by internal and external factors, but it tends to vary mainly in proportion to either the amount of available precipitation or the prevailing temperatures.

Pseudoarchaeology
Interpreting past archeological facts from outside the archaeological science community, like saying that the pyramids must have had support of extraterrestrial forces because the stones are too large to move with modern technology. There is always lack of scientific method in these interpretation, and they oppose to what the archaeological science community thinks, and it happens among nationalist and religious movements

ChatGenePT: Reconstruction as Resurrection

Shanidar 1
Shanidar 1, also called the “Old Man” of Shanidar, is a neanderthal found in the Shanidar cave located in Kurdistan, Iraq and lived about 45,000 to 60,000 years ago. His skull was discovered by German archeologist Dr. Ralph Solecki in the 1950’s. The evidence Solecki found changed the whole way we think about neanderthals. He found by looking at Shanidar 1’s skull that he was physically and sensory disabled, as he couldn’t even see or hear well, but still lived for about 50 years. That means he probably had neanderthal buddies that helped him survive for a long time, a characteristic we didn’t think neanderthals had. Also his grave was covered with flowers. You can see he was treated for his injuries from just looking at his skull. The Post-Mortem Facial Reconstruction comes to the picture with Kathleen Gallo, who under the direction of Dr. Janet Monge, reconstructed the face of Shanidar 1 with the method, and by using a mold of the skull made by Wenner Gren Foundation of Anthropological Research.This method of reconstruction involves attaching pegs to the cast indicating different thicknesses of tissue, and using clay to model the shape based on specific points that define the contours of the human face. For example, in the case of a Neandertal, anthropologists know that there is greater muscle mass around the mouth and jaw and larger teeth than in modern humans. In the next step, the forensic artist reimagines the face, based on the structure of the skull, the position of various features, and what we know about the age and sex of this particular Neandertal. The artist uses oil-based plasticine clay, which will not harden, and adds details to the skin such as pores and wrinkles. She coats the piece with silicone, which will pick up the face in complete and meticulous detail, and a plaster cast is made. The re-creation of the neanderthal is located in the Sphinx Gallery at the Penn Museum.

All the Czar’s Horses: The Politics of Putting the Past Together Again

Putin rebuilding the glory of the Soviet Union
During the cold war, the Soviet Union was a top tier country, serving as a global power. In 1991, when it dissolved, Russia found itself losing relevance. Right after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Boris Yeltsin became the ruler of the newly formed Russian federation. Because he wasn’t dominant and the Soviet Union basically lost the cold war. Russia’s relevance was lost and less people saw it as a global superpower. At the collapse of the USSR, Vladimir Putin was a KGB officer stationed in the East German city Dresden. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, that signaled the end of Soviet Control in Germany, crowds went to destroy the KGB headquarters in East Germany, and because Putin and his men didn’t have enough power to defend the building, they just lied to them that they had a lot of armed people inside. At that moment he felt he was watching one of the most powerful empires unravel in the most pathetic and humiliating way. During the 90’s Putin moved from the KGB to the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, and then worked at Yeltsin’s office. In 1998, when Bill Clinton called Yeltsin to tell him the US was considering airstrikes in Serbia, Yeltsin was just mad, but didn’t do anything. Putin saw how Yeltsin is not dominant, and he decided to replace him as the president. Unlike Yeltsin, Putin worked with an approach from his KGB background to always show he’s in control, so for example when Strobe Talbott, a politician, came to Russia, Putin dropped some names of Yalbotts poets he learned about in university. Also all of his workers were now with backgrounds from the KGB too, and to bring back Russia to its top tier spot, Putin turned back to history. Russia’s history was full of bloodshed and wars, but still he requested from the citizens to adore the past. He did that by adoring WW2 veterans and calling the war a patriotic one. Putin wants Russia to not feel guilty of their past, but proud of it. He uses Russian historical figures, such as Prince Vladimir, who established Rus in the 10th century, Lenin, and himself. He also tried to make his character much more appealing by having very strong and manly photos, such as riding a horse topless, or participating in a Judo competition, but his way of work is still very discrete.

Mussolini rebuilding the glory of the Roman empire in Italy
Benito Mussolini was a teacher in Italy during the 30’s, but then turned into politics, and was the first to have a fascist vision - a belief that the country is more important than the people, and that the citizens are meant to serve the country and not the other side, and lastly that the country should be constantly in war against other countries, for the dictator to not get any judgment from the media. The thing he did to make Italy fascist was to appeal to the citizen’s nostalgia to the Roman empire, and he tells the citizens of Italy that with him in power they can be as powerful as the Roman empire. He used signs such as the Fasces (from there comes the term facism), which was a symbol for the Roman empire’s military power. It talks there about Adolf Hitler, which I can guess he used the nostalgia to the era of Otto von Bismarck, the uniting of Germany, before WW1 when Germany was actually not broke, and so people loved him because like Mussolini he gave promises he’ll bring the glory of the past.

Conservatives long for three great American periods
Conservatives are people who don’t believe so much in renewing stuff, and prefer religion. They are republicans in America. These republicans tend to long for three specific periods of time in American history. The first one, being the 50’s, was right after WW2 and America’s big win. It was after the Great Depression (1930s s) had ended, so now with the win every man with a high-school graduation could afford raising a family. At the time there were Republican presidents, like Richard Nixon and Eisenhower. Therefore it was the best time for Americans, and for Republicans specifically. Another period of time is the 80’s, and that’s because Ronald Reagan, a Republican president, has done a lot of tax cuts at the time, and because of the US’ win in the cold war against the USSR. The last period is November of 2016, when Donald Trump got the presidential job. All 3 are periods of time in which conservative people exist. Author David Frum researched the topic, and he doesn’t like the idea of conservatives appealing to nostalgia to the 50’s, because as a result they don’t change the world and think only of the past. He also has an opinion that unlike Robert H. Bork, that the republican great era lasted in the 1960’s too. He also thinks that from now on looking towards the future the US will become more feminist, and hopefully the conservatives will accept it. Also says that in these eras of republican greatness, he notes there are  more sexual assault cases.

The politicization of nostalgia
Ezgi Elci is a researcher in the department of International Relations at Ozyegin University, Turkey. He researched on if nostalgia boosts populism (telling the simple people simple statements and not too complicated stuff to make them vote for them). Donald Trump used nostalgia to boost populism by stating that he will “make America great again”. Venezuelans referred to Simon Bolivar, the guy who gave their independence and a lot of other South American states as “El Libertador” in order to support the formation of a big Latin country in South America. In Turkey the “Justice and Development Party” builds their rhetoric on nostalgia to the strong Ottoman empire. In western Europe right-wing populists appeal to their voters by appealing to their nostalgia to the era before a lot of immigrants came to Europe, and the era before the unification of Europe, when their country lost sovereignty. Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orban appeals to the Treaty of Trianon, that ended WW1 and gave Hungary more borders to settle in. Ezgi Elci defines nostalgia as “nost” (return home) “algia” (a painful condition), therefore nostalgia is homecoming when the condition is bad. Politicians use nostalgia in a way that they paint an image of the past in an era before the corruptions and distortions of today. They use nostalgia to create a border between the authentic us and the immoral them. It maintains a specific identity when there is a crisis of some sorts. In politics nostalgia is used to make other politicians look like enemies that need to be destroyed instead of legit rivals. Using nostalgia as the ruler will always be harder than using nostalgia as a form of criticizing the ruling power, because the ruling power can actually do stuff about it. That’s why Trump used nostalgia in the way I just said in the last bit, while Bernie Sanders, from the democrats, uses nostalgia to revive the era when workers had better working conditions. The main example in the article talks about Turkey, in which there are the Islamists, who want a religious country, unlike the Kemalists, who want a non-religious country. The Ottoman nostalgia directs resentment to the Kemalist ruling power, and the Kemalist nostalgia that is made to counter the Ottoman nostalgia is simply weaker, because Kemalism has less history than the Ottoman empire. The author conducted a survey and found out that people prefer the Ottoman empire nostalgia than the Kemalist nostalgia. Nostalgia is often washed away from bad memories, and so the author says we should look to the future more than to the past.

British Luddites breaking mechanical looms
Around 200 years ago in Britain, there was the industrial revolution. In the textile industry this led to William Lee creating a knitting machine, called a stocking frame. Because the popularization of machines led to low-quality textile stuff being sold, and not-apprenticed workers getting paid more than people who learned the natural subject for years, a group of people, called the Luddists, formed up to improve the machines by destroying the old ones and hopefully making more advanced ones, and also to bring back the credit to those who approach the textile industry in the natural way. They called themselves ‘luddists’ after a fictional character named Ned Ludd, who was their “general/ king” (for tricking the British soldiers”), who is told to be a worker who was told by his evil owner to square his needles, but Ludd instead took a hammer and flattened the entire machine. The luddites were serious about their cause, but still were really strange. For example they once protested with dresses, claiming they are general Ludd’s wives, or that they bought hammers from the same blacksmith that created the machines they intended to destroy (his name was Enoch). Britain didn’t like this at all, and so a lot of Luddites were killed or hanged for their protests. Throughout the last 200 years the meaning of the word Luddite changed a lot, and now it means just someone who generally hates technology. Sometimes though they use technology to further their cause just like Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, a terrorist that sent explosive packages to people. It also refers to people who hate or are clumsy with technology.

Anti Social New-York Teenagers
Logan Lane, got a cell phone when she was in a young age, but during the pandemic she realized that the social media apps consumed her life, and after meeting Jameson Butler, another student, at a party, she made with him a promise that both won’t use a smartphone, and they started hanging out weekly. At the beginning it was extremely boring switching from a smartphone to a flip-phone, but after a while Lane was more creative and used her time better. They call the club “the luddite club”, named after the luddites from the previous paragraph . It now has 16 members, and they meet up every Sunday in prospect park and there they read books, play guitar, and do journalism stuff. Some of them changed their phone from a smartphone to a flip phone, and others still have a smartphone but come to the club to get out of the screens for a day. The club is now in a massive problem as most of its members are moving to college, and can’t stay in it. On your trip to Yale University, have your New-York day on a Sunday, and go search for these kids in Prospect Park.

Mennonites in Belize
In the late 1950’s a group of over 3000 Canadian Mennomites, people who have the same beliefs as Amish people, but can still use electronics, although they just don’t want to, unlike Amish who are not permitted. These Canadian Mennomites immigrated from Mexico to Belize, because they wanted to be a part of a pretty closed society, and got an agreement from the Belizean government that offered them land, less taxes, and not being in the army, for getting most of their agricultural goods. Belize thrives from this deal even today. Jake Michaels, a photographer, went to 3 Mennonite towns: Little Belize, Indian Creek, and Shipyard, and there he found a christian community that doesn’t tend to use electronics, for instance they ride on horses, although in some occasions he finds a girl or a few boys using cameras from the 80’s. The people there are very nice, and unlike the Amish aren’t total anti-society people, though they still want to live in a kinda closed christian community. They still wear traditional clothes and stuff.

Breaking World Records

Library of Alexandria
A library located in Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria is a city first established by Alexander the Great, a Greek guy who decided to conquer Europe and the middle east. His successor, pharaoh Ptolemy I, decided to build a library in the city. It was called “the Royal Library in Alexandria” in the 3rd century bc. Was also called Museum of Alexandria, Greek Mouseion, “seat of the muses”, and was at first place a shrine of muses, aka goddesses from Greek mythology, based on the Lyceum of Aristotle, a shrine he made for Apollo. Only then, it was considered a library, as it was a lecture area with gardens, a zoo, and a shrine for each of the nine muses. It had over half a million documents from countries conquered by the Persian empire, soon conquered by Alexander the Great. It had a daughter library called “the Temple of Serapis” that held 10% of its documents. It was somehow lost, and even worse, we don’t know how.

Impostor I - Julius Caesar
The first person who is blamed for the destruction  of the Museum of Alexandria is Julius Caesar. Basically two hundred years after the library was established, the Greek empire was replaced with the Roman empire, led by the guy who crowned himself Julius Caesar. Caesar, of course, wasn’t a fan of powerful people being traitors, and so when Pompey (not linked to the city of Pompeii) stabbed him on the back (metaphorically), Pompey was on the run, and went to hide in Alexandria, a place conquered by the empire. Caesar ordered the soldiers there to set fire to the ship harbor there, for Pompey not to escape, but sadly the fire spread into the Library of Alexandria too, and destroyed it. The main case against that story is that if Caesar would’ve really done that, it’d probably be more documented, as he was one of the most powerful people in history.

Impostor II - Theophilus
In Edward Gibbon’s book, “the fall of the Roman Empire”, he gives a version of his own to the disappearance of Greek Mouseion. So six hundred years after the establishment of the library, there was a patriarch, kind of like Rabbi Kanievski in Israel, but Christian, called Theophilus. During his reign he decided to convert the Temple of Serapis into a Christian Church, and so 10% of the library’s documents were destroyed. Then after he died his nephew took control, and because the lack of ruling there was a tight conflict between Jews, Christians and Pagans, led to Hypatia, a female philosopher and the daughter of the last Library of Alexandria being murdered on the street, but still people blame the death on Theophilus, although he died sooner.

Impostor III - Moslem Caliph Omar
Basically Bishop Gregory says that eight hundred years after the establishment of the Library of Alexandria the Muslims, a bunch of rich muslim people took control of Alexandria. As muslims, they loved the Quran. Caliph Omar made a big brain move by thinking with himself that the library isn’t necessary. If it contradicts the Quran, then it should be destroyed. If it has the same ideas as the Quran, it is literally not necessary as the Quran already exists. So hedecided to use the texts as tinder to his bathhouses of the city.

The House of Wisdom
A library also known by the names “Khizanat-al-Hikma”, “Storehouse of Wisdom”, “Bayt al hikmah”, that had a lot of books in it, but was then destroyed. Unlike the Library of Alexandria, the House of Wisdom is known for its destroyer. House of Wisdom was established in 600 AD, by Muawiyah I, a Caliph in the Umayyad Dynasty, and as a bibliophile, a book lover, he collected a lot of books in Damascus. With the help of Christian and Persian scholars, the Umayyads translated all of their collection to Arabic, and all of these books opened a window of opportunity for the Arab world, as it educated them. Soon the Abbasid Dynasty succeeded the Umayyads, and the Caliph Al-Mansur moved the House of Wisdom to Baghdad instead of Damascus. Al-Mansur made changes in the library, as he made it bigger and more magnificent, attracting scholars from all over the world. Then came Caliph Al-Mamun, who was fond of scientific knowledge that he preferred scientific works over other war spoils. Scholars from all over the world, such as the Banu Musa brothers, Al-Jahiz, Al-Kindi, and Al-Battani came to the House of Wisdom to share their knowledge.
In 1258 the Mongols in the command of Hulagu Khan, Genghis Khan’s grandson, invaded Baghdad for thirteen days, after the current Abbasid Caliph didn’t agree to help the Mongols against fighting Persia. As a result the Caliph was immediately executed, while the locals were massacred on a large scale, and during the siege all of the books from the House of Wisdom were sadly thrown into the Tigris River, and the amount of books thrown was so enormous that a bridge could be formed using those books in water alone - supporting a man mounted on a horse. The only books that remained from this library were the ones that Nasir-al-Din-al-Tulsi took along with him to Maragheh before the attack.

What Stopped Mongol Hordes From Conquering Europe
As we all know Genghis Khan was very good at conquering, and then he died and gave his son (Ogodei) a LOT of land, but his son did pretty well, conquering Hungary. And some other stuff. After Ogodei’s death his nephew took over the western campaign but never returned, so Ogodei’s wife, Toregene, took power as the Great Khatun. It turns out that the western horde turned back, probably due to damp weather which caused food shortages. (similar story to Napoleon's retreat from Moscow) It's likely that Ogodei's commanders chose a southern route because of its relatively drier condition. So what happened after Ogodei’s death? The Mongols were split and never reunified.

A History of Tripitaka Koreana
Aka the biggest collection of Buddhist texts in the world. Situated in Haeinsa Temple. Tripitaka has been used by scholars as the authority of Zen Buddhism. It was destroyed during a Mongol invasion. But later King Gojong ordered the collection to be remade. The woodblocks on which the texts were printed were soaked in boiling water and covered with laka to protect from deterioration, the depositories were constructed to provide ventilation and moderate temperature and humidity. This incredible design has preserved the woodblocks for over 750 years from pests and extreme weather conditions. This design was so good that  the Tripitaka woodblocks were declared a National Treasure of South Korea and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In 2000, the contents of the Tripitaka Koreana were put into electronic form.

Here We Go Again: History Redux

Paleolithic Diet
Also known as “caveman diet”, is a way of eating based on the food our ancient ancestors ate during the Paleolithic era, a one that lasted 10,000 years ago.
The idea behind it is that you don’t eat processed foods, grains, legumes, dairy products and refined sugars, things that were not available during the Paleolithic era, and so your body consumes what it was genetically adapted to eat - protein from meat, fish, fruits, vegetables, and nuts.
The main criticism for it is that people at the time died early in their life, but to be fair, on average people died young because the super young died much more often.

Appetite for the Past

The New York University’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World hosted a tasting, called “Appetite for the Past”, in which diners could sample food spanning continents and millenia. For example, they got to eat a honey-flavored mochi inspired by a book of vegetarian recipes dating to China’s Song Dynasty, and jiggling almond-milk custard that dates to the medieval era.
Among the diners were archaeologists, chefs and other researchers that all researched and analyzed how people once ate in past eras.

To reconstruct an ancient meal, sometimes these meals are written in recipes found in excavations, and other times, researchers can rely on buried cooking vessels.

Reconstructing Ancient Menus

It is a story in the following article of a team of archaeologists excavating in ancient China and finding a pot for cooking dating back to the Song Dynasty.
Researchers took the residue from the pot and used a variety of chemical processes to separate the organic material. In this case, they were able to identify millet as an ingredient because it has a unique molecule in it that makes it obvious when it's present, but for most other foods it’s not that easy. Then, they examined the patterns of soot and oxidation on the pot (from heat) and experimented with different ways to cook with a similar pot that would cause similar patterns. Since other foods are hard to identify, they only had millet to go off of, which wouldn’t have been good for the taste-testing event, so they basically made guesses for other ingredients based on different foods they knew were eaten in the same area from other archaeological evidence. Additionally, we can fill in more gaps in our knowledge about what they ate by basically just ruling out options that would taste too bad for people to eat. “Human palates have outer bounds,” says Pia Sörensen, of Harvard University, who worked on the Babylonian dishes. The name of the person who started investigating the pot was anthropologist and archaeologist Yitzchak Jaffe but he worked with anthropologist Karine Taché (who specifically analyzed the residue). Then they got chef Raymond Childs to turn their findings into an actual dish for the event “Appetite for the Past”.

Thermopolium

The Roman Empire’s version of fast food. It translates from Greco-Roman to “hot shop”, in which Romans could eat Roman food, such as bread, wine, cheese, meats, fish, seafood, vegetables, soup and stews.

One special food the WSC refers to is the isicia omentata, which is an ancient version for the hamburger (the meat itself, not the structure of the bread and the vegetables).

These can be found in archaeological sites such as the one in Pompeii.

Caupona is an active thermopolium located in Pompeii, in which you can sleep and dine with an ancient Roman menu. A thermopolium usually includes a small room with direct access to the street with a counter, just like fast-food restaurants and bars today.

Medieval Times

A restaurant chain that got popular in North America because of its menu, which consists of food mainly associated with the medieval ages (for example, loaf of garlic, fowl leg, boar rib…). According to their website it “is based upon authentic Medieval history and is the true story of a noble family with documentation dating back to the 11th Century”. Apparently there is a medieval horse fight happening there, a joust. Their menu is criticized to be historically inaccurate, as for example Medieval Times sells tomatoes, a thing people didn’t eat in the medieval era. Therefore it is more an entertaining family dine instead of a direct re-creation of medieval dining places.

Reconstructing the last meal of the titanic

In April of 1912 the great steamship RMS Titanic met its tragic fate, hitting an iceberg, being one of the biggest mistakes of the 20th century. As a result more than 1500 wealthy and important passengers passed away, not knowing the last meal they would ever eat would be the first-class evening meal on April 14th, a day before the sinking of the Titanic. Two of the April 14th menus were recovered and preserved after the Titanic sunk, and the menu, by Chef Rousseau, consisted of ten courses, consisting of Hors D'Oeuvres, Oysters, Consommé Olga, Cream of Barley, Poached Salmon with Mousseline Sauce, Cucumbers, Filet, Mignons Lili, Sauté of Chicken, Lyonnaise, Vegetable Marrow Farci, Lamb, Mint Sauce, Roast Duckling, Apple Sauce, Sirloin of Beef, Chateau Potatoes, Green Pea, Creamed Carrots, Boiled Rice, Parmentier & Boiled New Potatoes, Punch Romaine, Roast Squab & Cress, Cold Asparagus Vinaigrette, Pate de Foie Gras, Celery, Waldorf Pudding, Peaches in Chartreuse Jelly, Chocolate & Vanilla Eclairs and French Ice Cream.

In honor of the centennial year, many restaurants and supper clubs are re-creating that final meal, but none is as close to the actual event as The Balmoral. The commemorative cruise ship left the Southampton, England, port on April 8, 2012, and set out to sail the same course as the TItanic, but making it all the way to New York City. On board, passengers will dine on an as-close-to-a replication of the grand meal served on April 14 100 years ago. According to chef Sara Sipek, "The essential elements of cuisine have not changed a great deal in the last century, but certainly there would have been spices, delicacies, or even produce that may have been more popular in 1912." While still quite grand, the Balmoral menu will only have seven courses.