British Museum London

I'll be heading back to London again soon (nearly exactly one year after my last visit), so I thought now would be a good time to share some of my favorite photos from the British Museum. Taken in wildly different exhibits, here you have everything from the Netherlands to Greece!

 

Konrad Adenauer

"History is the sum total of things that could have been avoided."

Konrad Hermann Joseph Adenauer, German Chancellor from 1949 - 1963, was the oldest democratically elected leader in world history. He was 73 at the time of his election.

In 1917, during World War I, he was mayor of Cologne, an office he lost when Adolf Hitler rose to power in 1933. Persecuted for his criticism of the new regime, he was imprisoned in 1944 (some sources say he was in fact sent to a concentration camp), but was restored to his former office at the end of World War II. (Interestingly, he was restored to the position by U.S. military authorities, but it only took the British four months to remove him from office after they assumed control of the city. Apparently they hadn't appreciated the way he considered Germans their equals.)

Just a few years after his renewed fall from office he was appointed by the Bundestag as chancellor to Germany - by a majority of only one vote. He kept the office for fourteen years, founding the Bundeswehr (German army), bringing Germany into NATO, and bringing about the Élysée Treaty between West Germany and France. He was much criticized for refusing to even attempt unification between East and West Germany, believing that a strong, democratic West Germany allied with Western powers would act as a sort of magnet that would bring down the East German regime without the to him distasteful need to deal with the Soviet Union. He called his policy "Politik der Stärke" - Policy of Strength.

He is remembered as one of Germany's greatest Chancellors - indeed, in 2003 he was voted the "greatest German of all time" in a contest by the television broadcaster ZDF, for which more than three million votes were cast.

Vi Hart

Victoria Hart is a self-described "recreational mathemusician", and does very neat things with - you guessed it! - math and music. Above is her video "Twelve Tones", a fascinating exploration of such songs as "Mary Had A Little Lamb" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" accompanied by neat little bits of information and some very cute drawings. It's funny, it's engaging, it's really very interesting, so check it out!

She has many other videos on her YouTube channel, and funny blog posts about the making of these on her website, so feel free to explore further. (Mom, you would probably enjoy watching her "Doodle Music" video with the little two!)

Bonsai

A bonsai (盆栽, literally "plantings in tray")is a tree that is carefully pruned and shaped to remain a diminutive size while mimicking the style and shape of mature, full-size trees. The Japanese art of bonsai began in the 6th century, when Japanese diplomats brought back penjing (盆景, literally "tray scenery") from mainland China, though the Japanese repidly developed their own aesthetics for the art.

From Wikipedia: "Generally speaking, tree penjing specimens differ from bonsai by allowing a wider range of tree shapes (more "wild-looking") and by planting them in bright-colored and creatively shaped pots. In contrast, bonsai are more simplified in shape (more "refined" in appearance) with larger-in-proportion trunks, and are planted in unobtrusive, low-sided containers with simple lines and muted colors." (It seems, however, that different regions of Japan developed different styles - by the late 1860s Tokyo and Kyoto had different styles when it came to bonsai, and neither approved of the other.)

In Utsubo Monogatari (Tale of the Hollow Tree, year 970), Japan's oldest full-length narrative (a literary style comparable to the epic), there is a passage that illustrates the Japanese mindset in this point in history fairly well: "A tree that is left growing in its natural state is a crude thing. It is only when it is kept close to human beings who fashion it with loving care that its shape and style acquire the ability to move one."

One has to say, though, that Japanese aesthetics are manyfold and intricate, considered in Western society as more of a philosophy than anything else while within Japan they are considered an integral part of life. A key point of Japanese aesthetics is mono no aware, a concept originated by Motoori Norinaga in the 18th century, which describes empathy towards beauty. In his Shibun Yoryo (The Essentials of the Tale of Genji, 1763), Norinaga describes it as such:

For instance, if a man, viewing beautiful cherry-blossoms in full bloom, appreciates them as beautiful, he is aware of mono no kokoro or the heart of the thing. Being aware of the beauty of the blossoms, he is moved by it. That is, he is sensitive to mono no aware. In contrast, if a man, whatever beautiful flowers he sees, does not feel them to be beautiful, he is not aware of mono no kokoro. Such a man is never moved by the beauty of the flowers. That is to say, he is not sensitive to mono no aware.

In Japanese culture, a main point of life is to appreciate ephemeral things such as the cherry blossoms, and this certainly extends to bonsai, for which there are many rules. These little trees are trimmed and shaped to best reflect wabi-sabi, perhaps the most important of Japanese aesthetic ideals. This ideal concerns the elegance in imperfection, simplicity and age. In art books, it is typically defined as "flawed beauty". Being moved by wabi-sabi is to be sensitive to mono no aware, and I hope you feel a part of these concepts when admiring the below bonsai from the Japanese collection of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum.

Japanese Maple, in training since 1906

Hornbeam, in training since 1935

Japanese White Pine, training date unknown

These miniature trees are cultivated over decades, often more than a century, but I do have to giggle at the phrase "in training since"! An interesting turn of phrase to use for trees. It makes me think more of martial art than the art of careful trimming.

Makuragaeshi

Japanese folk tales have a lot of different ghosts and spirits, many of them geared towards silly or terrifying pranks (such as creating typhoons at funerals, luring humans off cliffs by rolling downhill in the shape of a sake bottle, or sneaking up behind women in the street at night and cutting off their hair). You can check out some of these strange and interesting monsters in these illustrations that describe their anatomy, and if you're familiar with Japanese tales you will be unsurprised to see that quite a few of them consume human souls. There are, however, differing tales in which certain spirits will be more or less dangerous: The Bisha-ga-tsuku, for example, is also said to simply pass you by if you invite it to.

Yesterday I came across a spirit called Makuragaeshi,  which translates to "pillow flipper" or "pillow mover", and thought it was too neat not to share. It's a ghost that haunts specific rooms in a house, and the main thing it does is - you guessed it - flip people's pillows while they sleep! They may also run through ashes and leave dirty footprints all over the house, or sit on a sleeping person's chest to squeeze the air out of their lungs, or, in some of the more sinister tales, steal someone's soul while they're unconscious.

The Japanese do like their soul-stealing spirits.

The Makuragaeshi is generally said to take on the form of a small child dressed as either a Nio (Buddhist guardian), a monk, or a samurai, of which I chose to illustrate the second. Dirty footprints lead up to the bed, where a girl sleeps restlessly, the Makuragaeshi pressing down on her chest as it removes the pillow from under her head. A small smile curves the prankster's lips as the girl's breathing becomes labored... Whether or not it also steals her soul is left to your imagination.

[Edit 07.10.2015: I found out today that the origins of the words "nightmare" and "Alptraum" (English and German, respectively) are of a creature that would sit on the chest of a sleeping person, putting pressure on their lungs and giving them bad dreams. The original word, "mahr", is Germanic, and an "alb" is a demon or elf. How neat!]

Laconic

Today I learned something very neat about the origins of the word "laconic" (meaning "using very few words", "brief", or "terse"), and thought I'd share it here! Taken directly from onestopenglish.com:

The word laconic is derived from a region of ancient Greece called Laconia, the capital of which was the city of Sparta. The inhabitants of Sparta were famed for their warfare but also for the economy of their speech. The story goes that Philip II of Macedon once called on the Spartans to surrender, sending them the following message: "if I bring my army into your land, I will destroy your farms, slay your people, and raze your city”. The Spartans, in typical laconic style, sent a reply containing just one word: “If”.

Ashikaga Takauji

That's the name of the founder and first shogun of the Ashikaga shogunate. (The name is pronounced Taka-u-ji, with emphasis on the U and all A sounds pronounced "ah".) A Shogun, which literally means "military commander", was a hereditary military governor in Japan and the de facto ruler of the country, despite officially being appointed by the emperor (Tenno, 天皇, "heavenly sovereign"), and a shogunate is a dynasty. The Ashikaga shogunate is also known as the Muromachi period of Japan, which followed the Kenmu Restoration.

Takauji's rule began in 1338 and ended with his death in 1358; he was a descendent of Emperor Seiwa, the 56th emperor of Japan. According to famous Zen master and intellectual Muso Soseki, Takauji had three qualities: First, he kept his cool in battle and was not afraid of death; second, he was merciful and tolerant, and third, he was very generous with those below him. It seems that Ashikaga Takauji was rarely called by name in contemporary chronicles, but referred to as "great shogun" (Ō-gosho, 大御所).

However, the man's reputation is not quite so clear-cut, for he based his shogunate on betrayal. Japan was in restless times, the Emperor Go-Daigo having been exiled from the imperial capital, and Takauji was sent by the Kamakura shogunate to quell the unrests in Kyoto as they reached the level of a civil war. Disillusioned with the Kamakura shogunate, Takauji joined forces with the banished emperor and began fighting against the shogunate. With the downfall of the shogunate, Emperor Go-Daiyo became the de facto ruler of Japan, beginning the Kenmu restoration. This was an attempt to bring the Imperial House back into power, thus restoring a civilian government after almost a century and a half of military rule, but the restoration failed rapidly. The samurai clans were unhappy with the reestablished imperial court, and Takauji switched his support from the emperor to the rebels, allying himself with several clans and seizing Kyoto with his forces. After Emperor Go-Daigo fled, Takauji installed Emperor Komyo on the throne and was soon named Shogun.

This had the result that there were two emperors at once - Emperor Go-Daigo in the Southern Court, and Emperor Komyo in the Northern Court. This came about because after fleeing Kyoto, a very weakened Go-Daigo agreed to a cease-fire and handed over the Imperial Regalia to Ashikaga. Once he was safely esconced in Yoshino, Go-Daigo loudly claimed that the Imperial Regalia Ashikaga had used to enthrone Komyo were in fact forgeries, meaning that Komyo wasn't in fact the legitimate successor to the throne. The Southern Court is considered the legitimate sovereignty, but later Japanese sovereigns were descended from the Northern Court, which is also known as the "Ashikaga Pretenders". (The current Japanese imperial family is descended from the Northern Court.)

Takauji himself is one of the most controversial figures of Japanese history, often seen either as a great soldier and a charismatic leader or a traitor, opportunist, and villain. You can read a thorough and extremely interesting account of the battles, political situations and people the man found himself surrounded by here, and while his shogunate was one of the weakest in Japanese history, Takauji is considered one of Japan's greatest samurai figures.

Also, his name is AWESOME, and the entire reason why I started reading up on him to begin with.

Anatolia Story - History

In my last blog post I introduced you to the historical fantasy manga Anatolia Story, explaining that after revisiting that manga (for the umpteenth time) I started reading up on the actual history behind the manga series. The mangaka (artist) really did an amazing job with it - the history is, for the most part, accurate, with only small modifications involving the Japanese protagonist. I highly recommend the series for an engaging glimpse into Hittite customs, clothing, religion and history!

The protagonist of Anatolia Story was most likely based on, or at least inspired by, the Hittite queen Puduhepa. A priestess of Ishtar (the goddess of love, war, fertility and sexuality), she married the king Hattusili III and is considered one of the most influential women known from the Ancient Near East. She was portrayed as reigning hand in hand with her husband and featured prominently at his side as he made his rulings and decisions, playing an important role in the Hittite court and international diplomacy of the period. Her husband Hattusili III was the fourth son of Mursili II, the love interest of the manga's protagonist Yuri Suzuki.

In actual history, the king Mursili II married a woman named Gassulawiya and had four children by her, also marrying and having (unrecorded) children with a second wife named Tanuhepa. He ruled from ca. 1321-1295 BC, succeeding his brother Arnuwanda II and being succeeded by his son Muwatalli II. Muwatalli II was succeded by his own son, but Mursili III only reigned for approx. 5 years before his uncle Hattusili III defeated and exiled him during the course of a civil war.

Confusing? Here's the order:
Suppiluliuma I (father) --> Arnuwanda II (brother) --> Mursili II --> Muwatalli II (son) --> Mursili III (grandson) --> Hattusili III (son)

The storyline of the manga series takes place during the time of Mursuli II, with Yuri arriving in Anatolia during the reign of Suppiluliuma I, living through the very short reign of Arnuwanda II, and marrying Mursili II not long after he assumes the throne. In the series both Suppiluliuma I and Arnuwanda II are killed through plots of Suppiluliuma's wife to place her only son (the youngest of the princes) on the throne; in actual history, both regents succumb to a plague brought to the Hittite Empire by Egyptian captives.

While Mursili II is portrayed as a born ruler in the manga, in Hittite records Mursili is stated to be relatively young and inexperienced upon his unexpected accession to the thone. His prosperous reign however shows that the fiction may not be far from the fact.

Battles and political complications portrayed in the manga are also generally accurate, though the final battle and peace treaty between Egypt and the Hittite Empire did not take place under the reign of Mursili II. The Battle of Kadesh was during the reign of Muwatalli II and was probably the largest chariot battle ever fought, involving some 5,000-6,000 chariots. Dating to 1274 BC, it is also the earliest battle in recorded history for which details of tactics and formations are known. The peace treaty concluded at Kadesh to end the conflict between the two empires is the earliest known peace treaty in world history and was decided between pharaoh Ramses II and king Hattusili III. (Fun fact: Ramses II was a redhead!) The Hittite king's wife, Puduhepa, played an important part in the discussions surrounding the treaty.
(Click the images to see them bigger, and don't forget to read right to left!)

However, during this time the Assyrians were gaining power, and Hattusili's son was the last strong Hittite king able to keep the Assyrians out of the Hittite heartland, though he lost territory to them. Soon after that the Hittite Empire met its end, with the capital city, Hattusa, being destroyed by the Phrygians and Aramaeans as part of the Bronze Age collapse. Suppiluliuma II was the last known king of the Hittite Empire, ruling c. 1207-1178 BC.

To put it into perspective: The New Kingdom of the Hittite Empire had its peak under King Suppiluliuma I, and met its end during the reign of the king's great-great-grandson (Suppiluliuma I --> Mursili II --> Hattusili III --> Tudhaliya IV --> Suppiluliuma II). Egypt was just entering its Twentieth Dynasty and the end of its own New Kingdom, marking the end of Egypt's most prosperous and powerful time. The two great powers of the time either disappeared completely or were conquered and ruled by foreigners.


It's really a fascinating time in history, and I highly recommend perusing the entries on Wikipedia a little! The History of the Hittites and the History of Egypt are fascinating - the latter being a lot longer and more complete than the former. (Fun fact: Most scholars believe that the Anatolian languages split from the rest of Proto-Indo-European much earlier than the other divisions of the proto-language! (Other "old" Indo-European languages are Sanskrit, Latin and Ancient Greek, among other languages. Hittite doesn't have the Indo-European gender system masculine-femenine, but rather a noun-class system with an animate-inanimate opposition. Neat!))

There really are so many interesting things about this time frame, and I hope this was a good introduction! What a fascinating topic.

Sapphic Stanza

Yesterday I came across the Greek poet Sappho and was fascinated not only by her poetry (most of which has been lost to time), but also by her life and reputation. I was particularly intrigued by the below quote by the 3rd-century philosopher Maximus of Tyre, which led to a very interesting journey along the pages of Wikipedia concerning Socrates and the other names mentioned in the quote.

"What else could one call the love of the Lesbian [note: from Lesbos] woman than the Socratic art of love? For they seem to me to have practised love after their own fashion, she the love of women, he of boys. For they said they loved many, and were captivated by all things beautiful. What Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to him, Gyrinna and Atthis and Anactoria were to her ..."

Sappho wasn't a philosopher, but refreshing my memory on Socratic values and reading Plato's dialogue Phaedrus was just as interesting as learning about the Sapphic stanza, a meter Sappho may or may not have originated. It's an Aeolic verse form (Aeolic Greek being a dialect of Ancient Greek spoken on the Aegean island of Lesbos, where Sappho came from) that spans four lines.

With "-" for a long syllable, "u" for a short one and "x" for an anceps (or free syllable), the metric is thus:

- u -  x  - u u -   u - -
- u -  x  - u u -   u - -
- u -  x  - u u -   u - -
- u u - u

Sappho's poems are, of course, in Ancient Greek (a language I unfortunately don't understand), but there is an excellent page here with a large number of her poems both in their original forms and their translations. There are, however, some rather humorous attempts by more contemporary poets to use the metric with English words. From Wikipedia, my favorites have to be this one by the Australian poet John Tranter:

Writing Sapphics well is a tricky business.

Lines begin and end with a pair of trochees;

in between them dozes a dactyl, rhythm

rising and falling,

like a drunk asleep at a party. Ancient

Greek — the language seemed to be made for Sapphics,

not a worry; anyone used to English

finds it a bastard.

and this one by Oxford classicist Armand D'Angour:

Independent metre is overrated:

What's the point if nobody knows the dance-form?

Wisely, Sappho chose to create a stately

regular stanza.

I made my own attempt, and after failing terribly in English I tried in in German. It worked out slightly better, but I believe my metric is flawed in more than one place. So tricky! But, to end this post, here's my attempt.

            Auch auf Deutsch ist's schwieriger als man denken
            würde; aber hey, einen Versuch ist's doch
            wert, nicht wahr? Da kommt man doch in's Probieren,
                      strengt das Gehirn an.