Indholdsfortegnelse for AH 47 i Ancient History Magazine

EDITORIAL – ALL THE SCYTHIAN'S HORSES AND ALL THE SCYTHIAN'S GOLD Ever since the Scythians emerged from the steppes and into the historical record in the seventh century BC, they have captured people's imagination. Wandering the sea of grass across Central Eurasia in their covered wagons and with their vast herds of horses, they were the antithesis of the settled agriculturalist communities around the Mediterranean. Subsequently, the fear and awe the Scythians inspired became curiosity, especially as the Scythians seemed set to stay. The Greeks were particularly curious about the Scythians. Along the northern Black Sea coast Greeks and Scythians lived side by side, offering an up-close perspective to these fascinating people. The Greeks, however, were wont to exaggerate, fabricate, and make mistakes. Thus, the term ‘Scythian’ came to be…

The Phoenicians originated on the Levantine coast of Syria-Palestine and are often considered to be the Iron Age descendants of the Canaanites, the Bronze Age civilization mentioned in the Bible. They were a Semiticspeaking people who, at the dawn of the first millennium BC, were organized into powerful and wealthy independent city-states: Tyre, a thriving metropolis and commercial centre that later established dozens of settlements throughout the Mediterranean region, including Carthage; Sidon, praised in antiquity as a production centre of intricate and highly desired glass and silverware, purple dye, and embroidery; Byblos, famous for its timber and for having produced the earliest Phoenician writing; and Arados, one of the northernmost Phoenician cities on an island off the coast of present-day Syria. From these sites, Phoenician merchants, craftsmen, and settlers migrated…

Scythian slaves, so-called by the Greeks because they were purchased from Scythia rather than necessarily being ethnic Scythians, were sold throughout the Mediterranean and Eurasian worlds. Athens appears to have been a particularly receptive market for Scythian slaves. For example, a pair appear on a list of confiscated property at Athens in the fifth century BC. They are priced significantly higher than the other contraband slaves. Maybe they had some specialist skills or perhaps their exoticism merely represented a social cache for potential buyers. As the Athenian state held a cadre of Scythian bowmen as a kind of quasi-police force, they perhaps acted as bodyguards for an elite citizen. The earliest record for the introduction of the Scythian police force is Andocides’ speech On the Peace, written ca. 392 BC,…

In the latter half of the fourth century BC, while Alexander the Great and his successors were reshaping the Greek-speaking world away to the south, on the northern bank of the great Dnipro River, a tribe of Scythian nomads gathered to bury their king. His subjects dug a chamber deep underground, where they laid the king. At his side they placed two pieces of gold war gear of exquisite Greek manufacture: a Scythian-style scabbard and a gorytos (a flat case which held both bow and arrows at the hip). Then the slaughter started. The king's concubine or queen, adorned in fine clothes and jewels, was strangled, along with three retainers, eleven horses, and two grooms. The king's cupbearer was also strangled, and his body laid out among more than a…

INGREDIENTS Base » 50 g hazelnuts » 50 g almonds » 40 g sesame seeds » 140 ml honey Filling » 1300 g ricotta » 6 tbsp honey » 12 dates » 12 dried apricots » 6 dried figs » 2 tsp black pepper Decoration » 200 g almond flour » 4 tbsp honey » Raspberry juice, beet juice, or red food colouring Preparation Put a sieve in a bowl and place a tea towel in it. Put the ricotta in the tea towel and tie it up. Let the ricotta drain for a few hours. Put a piece of baking paper on the bottom of a baking tin with a loose bottom. Cut another piece of baking paper in a long strip, as high as the side of the…

MORE ONLINE Read more about the scientists’ findings: https://bit.ly/3RiyM8V Consisting of the two metals copper and tin, bronze was the earliest alloy to dominate an entire era of human history. Although tin deposits are known, there is scant proof of exactly which sources were used to produce tin and bronze in the Bronze Age. Both raw materials occur as ores in natural deposits. However, compared to copper, which is almost ubiquitous, tin is much rarer and inconsistently distributed throughout Eurasia. As a result, tin was traded over hundreds, even thousands, of miles. The routes and connections by which tin travelled are of great interest to historians. Scientists recently analyzed samples of tin from a cache of ingots recovered from the Uluburun shipwreck in 1982, which sank off the Turkish coast…

The unmistakable three-pronged head of a trident has been discovered by archaeologists working at the ancient city of Assos in Turkey. The iron trident is believed to be 1700 ears old. It was found in the Nymphaion (eastern fountain) during the excavations. The wooden shaft has rotted away, leaving just the metal part. The iron harpoon was badly corroded, but it has been treated to prevent further deterioration. While tridents were used for fishing in ancient times, its findspot suggests it was a part of a statue – perhaps of Poseidon (Neptune) – in the fountain. Excavations in the city are being carried out by a team led by Nurettin Arslan, a humanities and social sciences professor at Canakkale Onsekiz Mart Universit. Support for the excavations is provided by the…

Name changing has long been a familiar practice among immigrants. There are many stories of immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in the United States and either declaring Englishsounding names or officials giving them ones, for example. This custom was one of the most common adaptive strategies used by ancient Phoenician immigrants. Many Phoenician immigrants living in ancient Greek communities seem to have voluntarily changed their names in one of three ways: translating their Phoenician name into a Greek one, adopting a Greek name unrelated to their Phoenician one, or modifying their Phoenician name by Hellenizing it in spelling or grammar. These permutations of name changing among Phoenician immigrants are illustrated by the Greek and Phoenician epitaphs inscribed on Antipatros’ tombstone. Shem— adopted the Greek name Antipatros to use in Athens,…

THEME: Greeks and Scythians EXPLORERS, GEOGRAPHERS, AND HISTORIANS From natural philosophy to geography and ethnography, the Greeks were curious about the world and its many different inhabitants. They explored sailing routes and coastlines, planting colonies throughout the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, encountering many disparate peoples. Geography and ethnography were developed mostly out of practical needs connected to this exploration: one needed to know the outline of the coast along which one sailed and the locations where one might find safe landing places, and it was useful to know about the culture of the peoples one would meet when arriving there. These considerations also underscored the Greeks’ understanding of the Scythians. Early explorers The Greek colonization of the Mediterranean began in the eighth century BC, as trading posts and colonies were…

The earliest written mention of Amazons appears in Homer's Iliad, where they are called “the equals of men” (3.189; 6.186). Amazons were cast as formidable foreign adversaries of the greatest Greek heroes. Battles with Amazons were suspenseful, although the Greeks ultimately emerged victorious. In the Trojan War, the warrior queen Penthesilea and her band of Amazons fought as allies of the Trojans. In her duel with Achilles – a scene illustrated in numerous vase paintings and sculptures – the Greek champion wins, but he falls in love with the Amazon as she dies. The great hero Heracles and Athens’ founder Theseus also proved their valour by overcoming powerful Amazon queens. In his Ninth Labor, Heracles’ mission was to obtain the war belt of Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons. In the…

Northeast of the modern Turkish city Kayseri, which lies in the shadow of the dramatic extinct volcano Erciyas, the landscape opens in a fertile plain surrounded by low mountain chains. In the middle, close by a village called Karahöyük lies the archaeological site known as Kültepe (‘Ash Mound'). The site is divided in two parts with a large, tall mound and a lower city. The site was the subject of archaeological interest after it became clear that cuneiform tablets bought by European and American museums in large numbers came from here. In 1924, Czech scholar Hrozny demonstrated that the tablets came from a lower city east of the mound, not the citadel. His brief excavation in that area led to the discovery of more than a thousand further tablets. In…

SPECIAL SUPPLYING THE ARMY IN LATE ANTIQUITY In the early empire, the supply of equipment to the Roman army was fairly decentralized. Fortresses contained workshops (fabricae) where equipment would be maintained, and in some cases produced, by soldiers with specialist skills. But much of this work was outsourced: independent workshops, manned by civilians (often veterans), sprung up in military towns and in the civilian settlements which clung to the walls of forts like limpets. What they produced was not necessarily always purchased in an ‘official’ capacity by the Roman army, but might have been bought privately by individual soldiers, who were expected to pay for their own equipment. In areas in which there were large numbers of these independent producers and traders, they might join together in voluntary associations – collegia…

Phoenicians among Others By Denise Demetriou ISBN: 978-0197634851 Oxford University Press (2023) - £29.99 global.oup.com The Phoenicians rightly deserve recognition for their role in the creation of the interconnected world of the Iron Age after the Late Bronze Age Collapse. The spread of the Phoenicians from the Aegean to the Atlantic, creating a complex network of trade routes as they went, has been studied for decades. The ancient world would be a very different place if they had not done as they did. However, after the rise of the Achaemenid Persian Empire and the Greek poleis, Phoenicians seem to largely disappear from the historical record. They certainly no longer appear to be the far-ranging traders and settlers of the past. Yet to Denise Demetriou, the Phoenicians continued to be an…

SPECIAL Of the many Cleopatras of the Ptolemaic dynasty, Cleopatra VII is, without question, the most famous. The last of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, her reign marked the end of the Hellenistic period and the beginning of the Roman Principate. Thoroughly embroiled in the politics of the period, she is rightly afforded an important place in history. Her fame, however, overshadows the remarkable life of her daughter, Cleopatra Selene II. Heir to Egypt The earliest event in Cleopatra Selene's life we learn of is when she, along with her twin brother Alexander Helios, are first presented to their father Mark Antony. As ruler of the east under the Second Triumvirate, Mark Antony had wintered in Alexandria with Cleopatra VII in 40 BC. During his stay, Cleopatra became pregnant with the twins,…

The tenth and ninth centuries BC in the Eurasian steppe witnessed the transition of various communities from agricultue to forms of agropastoralism and nomadism, and the emergence of a military-political elite reliant on horsepower. The Scythians, as they were known to the ancient Greeks, Assyrians, and their neighbours, were one of these earlier known nomadic pastoralists. The earliest undisputable mention of the Scythians comes from the inscriptions and divination reports of the Assyrian Empire during King Esarhaddon (r. 681–669 BC). Around the second quarter of the seventh century BC, a Scythian king named Išpakāya fought Assyrian forces for control and influence over Mannea – a region around Lake Urmiya in northwestern Iran. Here, the Scythians also competed with several other polities. One example is the Cimmerians, another pastoralist people, who…

Imagine, for a moment, that it is the sixth century BC. A lone herder watches over his grazing cattle somewhere on the western Eurasian steppe. A low rumble drifts towards him, at first barely a whisper, then slowly but surely, a dust cloud forms out of the shimmering haze on the distant horizon. There is little time for the herder to flee, even on horseback he is no match for the incoming riders on their thorough-bred mounts, thundering across the plain. If he somehow managed to outpace them, or they simply lost interest in the pursuit, his cattle – the life and livelihood of the steppe pastoralist – would be left at their mercy. These sights and sounds were the dread of all who inhabited the vast steppes of Eurasia…

Although oral tales about warrior women arose in the Greek storytelling imagination at an early date, with the earliest vase paintings depicting Amazons armed and armoured as Greek hoplites, with round shields and swords, later ideas about the Amazons’ appearance, lifestyle, weapons, and homeland were influenced by increasing knowledge of real-life warrior women of Scythia. The Scythians’ nomadic lifestyle, grounded in archery and horses, meant relative equality for the sexes, which made a powerful impression on the Greeks. For the Greeks, who mostly farmed and lived in towns, a boundless, uncultivated expanse of land inhabited by war-loving male and female mounted archers was an intimidating notion, arousing mixed emotions of awe and anxiety. In Greek maledominated society, women were expected to remain indoors, weaving and caring for children. It is…

During my studies, I delved into culinary history and cooked many historical dishes, from antiquity to the Second World War, but the Roman kitchen was my favourite. It wasn't until a few years after my studies that I had the courage to try the Villa Poppaea cake. Cooking without a recipe I just had a fresco of a cake. There is no recipe in ancient written sources that even comes close to a cake like this. The cake clearly has a white top: could fresh cheese be the base of this cake? What about the decoration on top? Fruit? And the most interesting: that red side of the cake. A mystery! Many experiments followed. I became more and more enthusiastic, but I was never satisfied. The eureka moment came during…

There is a common misconception that the phrase ‘caesarean birth’ derives from Julius Caesar's birth. This story can be traced back to Pliny the Elder, who remarked that the name ‘Caesar’ comes from the verb ‘cut’ (caes-) because “The first of the Caesars is said to have been cut from his mother's womb and the family take their name from this” (Natural History 7.9). Except, of course, there were others with the name Julius Caesar before the first-century BC dictator. Anyway, we know that this particular Caesar was born normally because his mother survived, and Roman mothers did not survive a caesarean birth. The whole point of the Lex Caesaria was that, if there was no chance that the mother could be saved, a baby could legally be cut from…

THE AMAZONS: LIVES AND LEGENDS OF WARRIOR WOMEN ACROSS THE ANCIENT WORLD By Adrienne Mayor Princeton University, 2018 ISBN: 978-0691170275 By comparing the Amazons of Greek myth, from their earliest mention to their depictions in Roman literature, with the archaeology of the warrior women of Scythians culture and their representation in Greco-Roman histories, Mayor traces the influence Greek interactions with the steppe nomads had on Greek myth. THE SCYTHIANS: NOMAD WARRIORS OF THE STEPPE By Barry Cunliffe Oxford University Press, 2019 ISBN: 978-0198820123 Despite being a nomadic people, the Scythians left a remarkable footprint in the archaeology record, particularly their burial mounds filled with grave goods. These artefacts form the basis of Barry Cunliffe's study of the Scythians, offering a complete overview with a wealth of full-colour plates bringing the…