Category Archives: History

Going a Viking

19 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by in History, RW Out and About

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The latest special exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science is Vikings: Beyond the Legend.  I was looking forward to seeing it.  When I first began researching different cultures for my book, I had no idea where to begin.  I visited the children’s non-fiction section of my local library and pulled off the shelf every cultural and historical book that looked remotely interesting.  I remember reading a few books on Vikings but, as my attention was quickly diverted to the cultures of the Ancient Mediterranean, my reading on Vikings quickly fell by the wayside.  I was looking forward to re-acquainting myself with them.

I began said re-acquaintance by attending a lecture at the museum before purchasing a ticket to the exhibit.  The lecture assured me I would see the Vikings in a new light; show me proof they were much more than raiders and killers portrayed by history.  Maps shown at the lecture did make me aware that Viking ships made it far further into various lands than I knew and that was interesting.  However, as another slide showed archaeological evidence that victims of a raid had been neatly buried in one mound with all their heads neatly buried in one adjacent, the lecture didn’t do much to dispel the raider image.  I had hopes the exhibit would do a better job.

It did.  The artifacts on display are incredible.  I learned Viking culture was so much more than swords and raids.  Metallurgy did involve the forging of swords but it also resulted in fabulous jewelry the intricacy of which, the exhibit tells me, is almost impossible to replicate today.

 

More details on gold jewelry. I’d wear it.
The workmanship is so delicate
A jewelry box?

I was able to see Viking ingenuity at work in the inner workings of a lock.  The spring mechanism, activated by pressure from the teeth of a key, was brilliant.  I wish I had been able to get a photo of it.  The exhibit did tell me that the penalty for theft where the goods had been locked away was higher than if they had not.  An interesting facet of law.

The role of women in Viking culture interested me.  I had always thought that only men went a viking but, apparently, this isn’t so.  Women too, went on these travels.  Women had a great deal of authority in the home, more so than most other women of their day, and this role and power as household manager is symbolized with the keys found in some burials of women.

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Of course, Viking raids did definitely happen and were brutal.  And yet, the Vikings were also accomplished traders, dealing in goods as far away as China.  There was a replica of a Buddha found in a burial but, try as I might, I couldn’t get a clear photo of it.  I did manage to get a picture of a glass beaker, something I would have thought would be unheard of in Viking lands.

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I left the exhibit with a desire to know more and I decided to go straight to the source.  What did the Vikings have to say about themselves?  To find out, I purchased The Sagas of the Icelanders from the gift shop.  I look forward to reading it and learning more about this fascinating culture.

A caveat:

I googled tips for taking photos in a museum and did try to put them to good use but I still have a long way to go. 🙂  These are the rest of the salvageable photos.  The exhibit will have to come back…

The workmanship is so delicate
More details on gold jewelry. I’d wear it.
A jewelry box?

 

 

That’s Queen Samurai To You

21 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in History

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I recently came across another of history’s little-told stories; that of the female Samurai.  I haven’t done extensive study of the Samurai culture and history but what little I have done has acquainted me with names like Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, and Tokugawa Ieyasu.  A name I hadn’t come across before was Nakano Takeko.  An hour long documentary entitled Samurai Warrior Queens on the Smithsonian channel introduced me to this fierce woman.

Nakano Takeko was born in Edo, a member of the Aizu domain and daughter of an Aizu official.  Samurai women were trained in martial arts so they could protect the estates from bandits and Takeko began her training when she was six.  She quickly showed aptitude, not only for the martial arts training but in scholarly pursuits as well.  Her favorite stories were of Tomoe Gozen, a Samurai woman who’d fought and died 600 years before Takeko’s birth.

When Takeko was 16 her master, Daisuke, presented his nephew to her as a potential husband.  If Takeko accepted, she’d be subject to her  new husband and her name would probably have been lost to history.  She refused and had to separate herself from her disgruntled master, becoming a martial arts instructor in her own right.

At the same time, Japan was rapidly changing.  The Samurai had been in power for over 1000 years but their power was waning, as was Japan’s isolation from the west.  It was an American, Commodore Matthew Perry, who used gunboat diplomacy to  force the Shogun into a trade treaty in 1854.  Once America had a foothold; Britain, France, and Russia followed.  Many Samurai felt their country had been humiliated and rose against the Shogun, joining together under the banner of the Emperor, a relatively useless ruler based in Kyoto.

The Emperor’s Samurai had access to western weapons-rifles and canon-while the Shogun’s Samurai fought with the historical edged weapons.  Not surprisingly, the Shogun’s Samurai were defeated and retreated north; Nakano Takeko and her sister Yuko among them.

The Shogun’s Samurai prepared for a last stand and a westerner, Henry Schnell, promised he could get them weapons.  He intended to smuggle them through the port of Niigata but he was unsuccessful and ended up fleeing for his life.  The Shogun’s Samurai were on their own.

Rumors spread about the Emperor’s fighters raping women and selling them into slavery but Takeko was determined not to commit suicide.  She and her sister were determined to fight and other women rallied around them.  They presented themselves at an Aizu outpost but the Samurai commander refused to allow them to fight as an official part of the domain’s army.  Not to be refused, on the morning of October 10, 1868, Takeko Nakano leads 18 other women into battle.

They should have been cut down.  The Emperor’s Samurai were armed with rifles, probably Spencer rifles; repeating rifles capable of 15 shots per minute.  Instead, the order was given to take the women alive.  This was a mistake.  The opposing army was stunned at the women’s ferocity and none fought harder than Takeko.  Despite her skill and ferocity, Nakano Takeko was killed.  Her sister, Yuko, removed her head from the battlefield to prevent her from becoming an enemy trophy and managed to get it back to the family’s temple  where the priest promised to bury Takeko with honor.

A memorial to Nakano Takeko has been erected and modern Japanese women train in the same fighting style Takeko would have learned.  And yet, Nakano Takeko isn’t alone.  While the traditional role of female Samurai was to defend castles, extinguish fires, tend wounded, and prepare ammunition, there were many who played vital roles on battlefields.  And yet, most Samurai history revolves around men.

I have a book, Samurai: The code of the Warrior by Thomas Louis and Tommy Ito.  This is hardly a comprehensive history of the Samurai and yet the only mention of female Samurai is:

Samurai girls did not receive formal education, but they were expected to run their husbands’ estate while they were away at war.  They also received martial arts training, especially in the yari and naginata, and there are many examples of samurai women fighting alongside their husbands.  The most famous samurai woman, Tomeo Gozen, lived during the Gempei Wars.  She decapitated the enemy leader after he ripped her clothes, and she presented his head to her husband.

 

Why is there so little said of female Samurai’s contribution?  According to the Smithsonian’s documentary, it would be shameful if the victorious outcome of a battle could, in any way, be attributed to women.  Thus, glory and honor were reserved exclusively for male warriors.  That is changing.

Archaeological evidence is finally showing the true magnitude of contributions of many women  who fought with the same spirit as Nakano Takeko.  Bones were discovered at Senbon Matsubara, site of a 1580 battle involving the Takeda Samurai.  As the bones were unearthed and studied, forensic archaeologists were able to determine 30% of the fighting force were women.  This discovery prompted the study of other battlefields and archaeologists were surprised to find the average held true: almost 30% of the Samurai fighting forces were women.

Nakano Takeko and her army were retroactively called the Women’s Army but their contribution is recognized and history is beginning to recognize the many other women that sacrificed and died, equal to their male counterparts.  The Samurai Warrior Queens.

Some interesting links:

http://www.smithsonianchannel.com/shows/samurai-warrior-queens/0/3420808

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakano_Takeko

https://badassladiesofhistory.wordpress.com/2014/06/10/nakano-takeko/

http://thefemalesoldier.com/blog/nakano-takeko

 

 

She’s a Real Amazon

04 Monday Jul 2016

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Photo found on messagetoeagle.com

I never used to like non-fiction.  Why waste my time?  It was dry and boring; I’d much rather spend my time reading fiction.  However, I quickly learned I would have to get over my dislike of non-fiction because I needed to do the research necessary to create a believable world in my novel.  True, I encountered dry and boring tomes but I encountered many more brilliantly written books that made the ancient world come alive.  I’ve been hooked ever since.  I do most of my reading about the Ancient World-Rome, Egypt, Carthage-and am thrilled when I discover stories of women who defy the strictures of society.  Women who made a name for themselves by living their lives on equal footing with men.  Women like Hypsicratea, the Amazon who fought beside and loved Mithradates VI.

I’d encountered Mithradates  in a couple of my Roman history books but never heard of Hypsicratea until I purchased Vicki Leon’s “The Joy of Sexus”.  It was there I discovered Hypsicratea-or Hypsicrates, as Mithradates called her.  I wanted to know more.  Ms. Leon’s book led me to Adrienne Mayor’s “The Poison King”.  I bought it and searched its pages for mention of this amazing woman.

Mithradates meets Hypsicratea after the Third Mithradatic War while recruiting soldiers in Armenia.  She belongs to to one of the nomadic Eurasian tribes where both boys and girls were taught to ride, hunt, and make war.  She’s most likely in her early thirties in 69 BC and is a proficient horsewoman, archer, and wielder of the javelin and battle-axe.  Hypsicratea begins traveling with Mithradates as his groom, caring for his horses, but quickly becomes his personal attendant and lover and, quite believably, the love of his life.

She would be at his side when he faced Pompey in battle and is more than likely at his side when he is forced to flee Pompey’s moonlight attack and take refuge in Sinora, his fortified treasury on the border of Armenia.  But then what?

Unfortunately, there is no historical account of Hypsicratea after the winter of 63 BC.  Did she die when Mithradates crossed the Caucasus?  The base of a marble statue unearthed by Russian Archeologists says no.  She survived the crossing and was still with Mithradates when he reclaimed the Kingdom of the Bosporus.  Yet she was not with Mithradates when he met his death in that same Kingdom.  Where did she go?  Did she survive?

There is plenty of fuel for speculation.  There are historical references to a “Hypsicrates”, a historian who wrote about Pontus and the Black Sea.  Is this Mithradates’ Hypsicrates, an amazing woman who would have little difficulty passing as a male?  There just isn’t enough information to know for sure and it only makes the story of Hypsicratea all the more fascinating.

The Poison King by Adrienne Mayor

Parallel Cultures

07 Thursday Jan 2016

Posted by in History

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I’ve never paid too much attention to American History.  I’ve always been fascinated with Rome, Carthage, Egypt, and Parthia.  Medieval England is the latest period I’ve spent any time with.  Still, I’m a history buff and I was able to persuade my family to stop at the Anasazi and Fremont Indian State Parks during our trip to Utah.

The Fremont Indian State Park was a fascinating place and I highly recommend stopping there if you ever get a chance.  My family and I were the only visitors so I had the museum to myself.  I was delighted to spend as much time with the exhibits as I liked without having to try and read over someone else’s head or dodge children.  It was in the museum that the similarities between Ancient American and Ancient Egyptian Cultures first clicked in my mind.  I was grinding corn with the mano and metate when I looked up to read the description of the artifacts.  Whoever had written it had added that the Ancient Americans suffered from painful teeth due to bits of stone ending up on the grain.  I’d read the exact same thing in Red Land, Black Land by Barbara Mertz and was struck by the similarity.  But, of course there would be similarities between cultures, I told myself: there are only so many materials from which basic tools can be crafted.  It makes sense both cultures would grind grain between two stones.

And yet…as I traveled through the outdoor exhibits and saw the cave paintings, I was struck again with-even though these cultures are utterly unique-I could see similarities.  I thought perhaps it was merely human nature to wish to leave something behind; something carved into stone that tells future generations ‘I was here.  I lived.’  Apparently, this was a desire felt by all Ancient Peoples.  A vast ocean and a continent separated these two cultures so it wasn’t possible they could be linked in any way.

Pictures of the Cave Paintings-you have to look close to see some of them

Or could they?  Always drawn to books, I’d perused the Fremont State Park library and jotted down some titles I was interested in reading.  While searching for those titles, I found They Came Before Columbus: The African Presence in Ancient America by Ivan Van Sertima; a professor of Afro-American studies at Rutgers University.  I was curious what Professor Van Sertima had to say about pre-Columbian visitors.  I had read about a Viking presence but had never heard of an African presence before so I bought the book.

The entire book is fascinating.  I can’t say enough good things about it.  Get it.  Read it.  I wish I had time to discuss the entire book but I’ll limit myself to Chapters 7 through 9 because they reminded me of the sense of similarity between Egyptian and American cultures I’d had.

Chapter Seven, titled Black Africa and Egypt, introduced me to the influence of ethnically black Africans on Egypt and how many of things I considered uniquely Egyptian-mummification, tomb painting, bird and animal deities-had their origins among Africans south and west of the Nile.  Chapter Eight, titled The Black Kings of the Twenty-Fifth Dynasty, introduced me to Nubian Kings who liberated Egypt from Assyrian vassalage and ruled it for a century.  Chapter Nine, titled African-Egyptian Presences in Ancient America, took me through the archaeological evidence that not only proves Africans had crossed the Atlantic and mingled with Ancient Americans, but that there are astonishing similarities between Ancient American and Ancient Egyptian cultures. (Professor Van Sertima used the term “Ancient American” so I have continued use of his term for clarification purposes)

The North Equatorial current and counter current make travel between the African and American continents possible.  Professor Van Sertima includes descriptions of experiments proving such travel and culture sharing was possible with the level of ship sophistication of the time, especially that of the Egyptians and Phoenicians.  Travel and culture sharing happened across the Sahara and that culture sharing was carried across the Atlantic long before it was believed to be possible.  This book shows there is archaeological proof for culture sharing hundreds of years before Columbus.

I found this absolutely fascinating.  And, the culture sharing went both ways: I read it’s a bit more difficult to make the crossing from America to Africa (due to currents) but Professor Van Sertima shows examples of linguistic similarities that suggest an Ancient American influence in Northern Africa.

I never learned this in school.  Public school classes are, by necessity, overviews of history and I get that but I think this African influence, the culture sharing across the Sahara, and the fact that there were great explorers who carried their culture across a vast ocean, is worth knowing.  I look forward to studying more African history.  And, my interest in American history has been piqued.  I think seeing how these African-Egyptian influences were absorbed into and made unique by Olmec, Aztec, and Mayan cultures will be fascinating.  I’m going to need more bookshelves.

These all came from the Cave of 100 Hands
I wonder what the squiggle means…
The Little Frog Man is a bit blurry-I couldn’t get closer
The Cave had to be barred because of vandals so I pushed my camera’s zoom capability to the limit
These hand prints are awe-inspring