The Zenobia Romance II (Truth or Fiction?)

Continuing The Zenobia Romance (please click and read that first)

Tabari's life of Zebba (= Zenobia) is so deeply imbued with folklore that it is hardly possible to take the story seriously on any level. Besides, he makes her a member of a mythical tribe, the Amlaqi, and gives her a nomadic lifestyle so unsuited to the city of Palmyra that it's easy to dismiss his tale as a hotchpotch of epic proportions.

Once we clear away the fantastical and obviously legendary elements, what -- if anything -- is left in this Arabic version of her history?

Quite a bit, actually.

And there are inscriptions to prove it.

As an Arab proverb has it, A thousand friends are few, one enemy is many.

Zenobia's enemy in Tabari's story is undoubtedly the Tanukh tribe. This is a real tribe, originally from the northeastern Arabian peninsula -- not far from where Ptolemy's Geography had placed them in mid-second century. By the end of the Parthian period (before 220), or a little later -- after purportedly being attacked either by Ardashir I or Shapur I (ca. 240) -- some groups split off, leaving their homeland, and moved north into Iraq.

Inscription # 1

Tabari's report of their origins is confirmed by an inscription from Yemen (ca. 275) in the Himyaritic script, which describes the country as containing 'two royal provinces of Persia and the land of the Tanukh.' This may have marked the Sassanian encroachment into Arabia which caused some of the Tanukh to emigrate.

Tabari further says that they settled around al-Hira in Iraq (about 7 km [4 miles] south-east of the modern Shia holy city of Najaf), joining Arabs already established there. We hear from another historian that, on the advice of a female soothsayer, many Tanukh pushed on yet further north into the desert regions west of the Euphrates. There, according to Tabari, they were joined by Jadhima and his followers. When Jadhima appears in the story, we are in the time of Zenobia and he is ruling the Tanukh.

Inscription # 2

An extraordinary bilingual inscription in not-wholly-literate Nabataean and Greek from Um al-Jimal (which means "Mother of Camels", in northern Jordan near the Syrian border, a town still famous for its handsome white camels; right) is dated to mid-third century: it commemorates a man called Fihr (Pheros in Greek), who was the teacher of Jadhima -- who is explicitly named and described as 'king of the Tanukh':

This is the grave-monument of Pheros son of Solleos, tutor of Gadimathos, king of [the Tanukh]

Several scholars argue that this inscription proves that the Tanukh and their king were in Roman Arabia -- and probably in Syria as well -- by mid-century, well in time to confront the power of Palmyra.* But, no, it doesn't prove their presence in the region, or anywhere near it; all we know for certain is that Fihr was buried there. He may not even have been a native of the country where he died. For it is curious that the carver of his tombstone knew little Nabataean and less Greek. I would have thought that the family of a local, well-educated man would have ensured that at least one of the languages was correct! In short, there seems little reason to conclude from this document that Jadhima ever came into Nabataean territory, or into Syria for that matter.

What the inscription does show is that Jadhima is an historical figure, who was king of the Tanukh in the mid-third century (though even that date needs a question mark). Beyond that, the literary traditions about him are so encrusted with folkloric and mythical elements that they are of little historical value. They show Jadhima as founder of pagan cults in al-Hira, and the originator of many Arabic proverbs -- few of which sound properly proverbial when put into English:

Feeble thought and sheer treachery.

I see a matter that is neither odd nor even.

A minor occurrence in a major affair.

Since he was said to be a founder (or re-founder) of Al-Hira, we may credit him with the cultivation of proverbs that are such a feature in poetry at the later royal court of that city. For example, a 6th-C king of al-Hira supposedly quipped: Man's worth is in his two smaller [organs]; that is, the heart and the tongue.

It probably sounds better in Arabic. But you get the idea.

Another old Arab proverb: The man who accepts the word of his enemy is doomed.

Perhaps it wasn't yet proverbial at al-Hira, so Jadhima foolishly took Zenobia/Zebba at her word and got his wrists cut in return: after he bleeds to death, his nephew, Amr ibn Adi, becomes king of the Tanukh. Amr had been abducted by jinn in his youth but was rescued and returned to the bosom of his tribe. Now grown to manhood, we are told, he was

the first Arab king to settle in al-Hira, and the first of the Arab kings in Iraq whom the people of al-Hira glorified in their writings.

Despite having been maltreated by the jinn, he lived to the ripe age of 120 -- a good life, full of raiding, rape and murder, and booty.

In Tabari's History, he is succeeded by his son, Imru'l-qais.

Inscription # 3

A funerary inscription from Namara -- a small Roman frontier fort, about 120 km [90 miles] southeast of Damascus -- is in unequivocal Arabic though also written in the Nabataean script (below right); it can be precisely dated to the 7th of the month Kislev in the year 328/329 (that's about a year or so before the Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople). The stone commemorates Imru'l-qais, the very man we believe to be the son of our long-lived Amr ibn Adi.

This is the funerary monument of Imru'l-qais, son of Amr, king of the Arabs....

As for the rest of the text, little is certain except that he ruled over an extensive area and had subdued, overwhelmed and put to flight a number of enemy tribes; there is also a not quite comprehensible but seemingly friendly reference to the Romans. Finally, he boasts of himself:

And no king has equalled his achievements...
Oh the good fortune of those who were his friends!

So, the Namara inscription seemingly confirms the succession of rulers reported by Tabari -- Jadhima > Amr ibn Adi > Imru'l-qais.

You will not be surprised to learn that nothing is so simple.

How many kings were named Imru'l-qais?

Tabari tells us that Imru'l-qais ruled for 114 years and was a Sassanian vassal under a succession of Persian kings (from Shapur I [240-272] to Bahram II? [276-293]). Needless to say, this does not fit the explicit date of the Namara gravestone (328/9, when Imru'l-qais presumably died). Nor does it make any sense to have two inscriptions from Roman Arabia (both Namara and Um al-Jimal) if these kings owed their loyalty to Persia rather than Rome.

So, while there were two rulers, father and son, named Amr and Imru'l-qais, a closer look at the at the succession of kings of al-Hira after Amr ibn Adi shows great confusion. For there were several named Imru'l-qais, not all in a row but interspersed with the names of other kings.** That's bad enough but, even the shortest king list gives us two kings, both named Imru'l-qais the First. Finally, there is also a tradition Amr ibn Adi was not succeeded by his son Imru'l-qais but by his brother al-Harith. All we can be sure of is that at least the first part of the list of kings of al-Hira is legendary.

Here's why. Around 400 CE, a new dynasty came to power al-Hira and needed to establish their legitimacy by means of links to the heroic past. It appears that they knew of two different main lines of descent: one connected with South Arabia, the other with Amr ibn Adi. It is doubtful that either line is historical. What seems to have happened is that, at a fairly early stage, the two are fused into a single line -- with all the duplication and muddle you would expect. Though the new reigning kings had no connection with Amr ibn Adi in the third century, this line of descent -- as well as their ultimate origin from Jahima -- was spun by the poets and chroniclers of al-Hira in the fifth and sixth centuries and does not reflect any direct historical links.

The story of Jadhima's death, too, is pure legend, and may reflect the activities of these many later story-tellers.

All that seems factual is that the real Amr ibn Adi was in Syria in the 290's and established himself as the ruler of several tribes in the desert on both sides of the Euphrates. He -- or his son Imru'l-qais -- became a close ally of Rome, possibly after the treaty of Nisibis between the Romans and Sassanians in 298 , when the Sassanian king Narseh was forced to cede Mesopotamia back to Rome. Was Amr involved in the fall of Palmyra in 272? It's possible, but we just don't know.***

We can be pretty sure, however, that the romance about Amr and his revenge on Zebba/Zenobia is from a different epic cycle tacked on to the legendary origins of the kings of al-Hira. Indeed, it is told as a separate tale in fragments left by other historians. One of Tabari's sources is the pre-Islamic Christian Arab poet Adi b. Zayd from al-Hira. He is a fascinating figure, the most famous Arab poet of the time (d. ca. 600). He had been educated at the Sassanian court in the Imperial capital,Ctesiphon, and was for long a secretary and a translator between Persian and Arabic for the Sassanian King of Kings. Who better to have put together an epic Persian tale of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra with the Arab saga of the wanderings of the Tanukh and the legends about Jadhima to create a story glorifying the origins of the great kings of al-Hira in the sixth century CE?

It could well represent the official version of the founding of the royal house of al-Hira.

With no more credence than that.



* Most importantly, G.W. Bowersock, Roman Arabia, 133, 136.

** This reconstruction is my attempt to synthesize the very complicated, contradictory sources, masterfully disentangled by Jan Retso, The Arabs in Antiquity: their history from the Assyrians to the Umayyads (2003) 476-485.

*** Everything told about Amr, albeit legendary, locates him in the middle Euphrates region (map). Al-Hira is really very far from Palmyra [Ctesiphon is near modern Baghdad]:

Illustrations

Top of post: An entirely fanciful Orientalist picture of the timeless East :-)

Middle left: Construction of the castle at Khawarnaq, Al-Hira, 1494-1495, by Behzād, most famous of Persian miniature painters (British Museum).

Above right: a Himyarite inscription from Ma'rib (modern Yemen), Encyclopaedia of the Orient.

Middle right: the white camels of Um al-Jimal before the ruins of the town's grim basalt walls (© Zohrab) .

Below right: the Namara inscription

Phoenix Touches Martian Ice (with Two Updates)

I know it's off topic, but I'm awestruck.

This week on Mars:

White bits in this trench vaporized during four martian days (15 - 19 June 2008), proving that they were water ice.

In the lower left corner of the left image, a group of lumps is visible. In the right image, the lumps disappear, similar to the process of evaporation.

"It is with great joy that I report we have found the proof that this material really is water ice," Phoenix principal investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson, said.

NASA's "follow the water" approach to finding life--or evidence of past life--on Mars has finally hit pay dirt. Three weeks into its 90-day mission, the Phoenix lander has scraped a few centimetres down to an irrefutable layer of water ice in the martian arctic. Phoenix's first digging exposed a thin layer of white material, but team members couldn't tell whether it was ice or perhaps salts. So they waited and watched the trench. In 4 days, at least eight crouton-sized white chunks formed by the digging disappeared, vaporized into the cold, dry air. "Salt does not behave like that," said Smith, "so we are confident now that this is ice."

NASA sent Phoenix to a safe-looking spot where, if past climates were warm enough, that ice might have melted to form a cosy zone for life between the ice and the soil surface. The first robotic contact with water on Mars promises a score of chemical analyses in the next few months that could reveal whether this ice ever melted to liquid water that could have supported living organisms.

Not little green men but possibly Martian creatures like this multicoloured phoenix.*

Pliny (Nat. Hist. 10, 2):

The phoenix, of which there is only one in the world, is the size of an eagle. It is gold around the neck, its body is purple, and its tail is blue with some rose-colored feathers. It has a feathered crest on its head. No one has ever seen the Phoenix feeding. In Arabia it is sacred to the sun god. It lives 540 years; when it is old it builds a nest from wild cinnamon and frankincense, fills the nest with scents, and lies down on it until it dies. From the bones and marrow of the dead phoenix there grows a sort of maggot, which grows into a bird the size of a chicken. This bird performs funeral rites for its predecessor, then carries the whole nest to the City of the Sun near Panchaia and places it on an alter there.**

Panchaia is a country or island in Arabia, its name derived from the Egyptian word Pa’-anch, which came to mean an island paradise brimming with spices. Euhemerus of Messene (ca. 300 BC) described a spectacular temple to Zeus Triphilus on Panchaia -- which, needless to say, he had never visited -- built by Zeus himself: it sat on “an exceedingly high hill” and contained a stela of gold inscribed with the deeds of the gods.

A friend of mine once told me that the last practical use of the Classics is for people to give clever names to their pets (two of my three cats, for example). Not so, Prof. John Younger! It's to name places in outer space. For, to come full circle, there is, of course, a spot on Mars called Panchaia, an albedo (radiation reflecting) feature in the northern polar region of Mars -- perhaps not all that far from where the Phoenix lander is industriously digging.

Wouldn't it be fun if that turns out to be the home of the phoenix after all. And well worth telling on a stela of gold.

* From the Fitzwilliam parchment MS 254; dated 1220-1230.

** For more on the phoenix (and other legendary beasties), see the invaluable pages of the Medieval Bestiary.

Update (12 November 2008): Farewell to Phoenix.

As Phoenix nears the end of its prime mission, it has found water ice under the surface, seasonal frost on the surface, water ice clouds in the sky and even falling water ice crystals. Yes, snow falling from ice clouds. You can see it 'snowing' on Mars on the Gizmodo blog.

The Phoenix last conducted science on October 27th, when a perfect storm converged. A combination of ice clouds and a dust storm darkened the sky, causing a dramatic drop in sunlight reaching its solar panels. Power levels reached a critical point. To make matters worse, temperatures dropped to the lowest point of any time in the mission, and the heaters kicked in for the very first time. With that, the last bit of power drained away.

Its systems are built automatically to attempt to jump-start again should the batteries begin to receive power again. On a few days since the storm, when sunlight hit the solar panels, it gave enough energy to send a beep to an orbiter before losing power again.

Its scientific work is done. All its instruments -- including a miniature chemistry lab, an oven to bake samples and analyze their vapors, an optical and an atomic force microscope, a laser (which discovered the snow), and a weather station -- worked valiantly throughout the mission and sent back enough data to keep the scientists busy for months, if not years, to come.

On Monday 10 November, mission control announced they lost contact with Phoenix.

They tell a story of what this bird does, which does not seem to me to be credible: that he comes all the way from Arabia, and brings [its dead] parent bird, all plastered over with myrrh, to the temple of the Sun, and there buries the body. In order to bring him, they say, he first forms a ball of myrrh as big as he finds that he can carry; then he hollows out the ball, and puts his parent inside, after which he covers over the opening with fresh myrrh ...; so he brings it to Egypt, plastered over as I have said, and deposits it in the temple of the Sun. Such is the story they tell of the doings of this bird. [Herodotus Book 2]

Not in a ball of myrrh (as Egyptian priests told Herodotus) but, when temperatures reach -199F (-128C) on Mars this winter, Phoenix will be enveloped in a tomb of carbon dioxide ice. It's hardly credible -- even to us. Farewell Phoenix.

Update (7 July 2008):

Still off-topic but we now have more amazing news of water on Mercury too! From The Planetary Society (via The Greenbelt):

MESSENGER Scientists 'Astonished' to Find Water in Mercury's Thin Atmosphere

As MESSENGER flew past the night side of Mercury in January, its Fast Imaging Plasma Spectrometer (FIPS) scooped up ions from an atmosphere so tenuous that it's usually called an "exosphere." FIPS measured the expected amounts of ions like sodium, potassium, and calcium that had previously been detected in Mercury's exosphere, but to the science team's great surprise, there was also water present, and in large amounts. . "Nobody expected that. I don't know a single person that did. We were astonished, just astonished," said MESSENGER science team member Thomas Zurbuchen.

MESSENGER's journey to Mercury

MESSENGER's trip to Mercury requires a total of six gravity assists (one of Earth, two of Venus, and three of Mercury) to permit it to enter orbit at the small planet close to the Sun. This fabulous animation (above: for the animated version, click on link) shows that journey and the motions of Venus and Mercury using a frame of reference that holds the Earth-Sun line fixed.

The Zenobia Romance

The Persian historian and commentator on the Koran , al-Tabari (839-923 CE), seen left among his disciples, wrote a History of Prophets and Kings, ten thick volumes in Arabic recounting the history of the world from the Creation up to the events of his own day. When he reached the time of Zenobia, he told about the queen -- but it was an entirely different story from the one given in the Historiae Augustae -- or in any other Greek or Roman source -- and at least as fabulous.

At the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day, it was Tabari's turn. Johan Weststeijn, who is writing his dissertation on the role of dreams in the History of Prophets and Kings, gave us Tabari's version of the life and loves of Queen Zenobia, a blood-curdling saga of Blood Revenge, Deceit, and Royal Murder.

In Tabari's tale, there are no Romans at all. There is no Roman empire, no legions and no Emperor Aurelian. Even the Persians and the King of Kings are hardly mentioned. It is rather an almost timeless world with Arab tribes battling each other -- a pot-boiler of war and intrigue -- in the desert.



The Arab Queen Zenobia

Unlike the historical Zenobia, Tabari's Zenobia is undoubtedly an Arab. Her father was Amr Ibn Zarib, shaikh of the nomadic Amlaqi tribe,* "ruler of the Arabs in the Jazirah and the fringes of Syria." He was killed fighting against a Shaikh Jadhima for control of the two banks of the Euphrates. Jadhima was ruler of part of central Arabia and king of their tribal rivals, the Tanukh. Amr's death -- in Arab society then, as now -- demanded blood revenge, and so it sets Tabiri's story moving.

'Amr had two daughters, Zebba (= Zenobia) and Zabibah. After his death, Zenobia became head of the tribe and continued a nomadic lifestyle, leading the tribe between summer and winter pastures. At some point, she marries Udaynath (Odenathus) of a more settled Palmyran branch of the same tribe,* and presumably spent some time with him in the city -- but the story is about her, not him, and he fades out. In any event, she is too busy plotting revenge to bother about a husband.

When her power was well established and she was well entrenched in her reign she wanted to avenge her father's death.

She builds a castle beyond the Euphrates with a tunnel under the river to link the two banks. For her forthcoming joust with Jadhima, her sister Zabibah advises her against battle and recommends cunning instead. So Zenobia sends a message to Jadhima suggesting that they unite their two realms by marriage. Come visit me, she tempts him. Zenobia's sister, it seems, was smarter than Jadhima's generals. Although one general, Qasir by name, bridled at the idea, arguing that Zenobia should come to him at his camp, others won the day and decided that Jadhima would go to meet her.

This was a bad mistake. One should never, never, forget blood revenge in the Middle East.

As they crossed the Euphrates, Jadhima asked Qasir what prudence would advise him to do now. 'Prudence!' replied Qasir, in a phrase that became proverbial, 'You left your prudence behind at [our camp].' How true! But before reality strikes, there's a curious interlude. Here's what happens when Jadhima and Zenobia meet somewhere in the desert to discuss the marriage proposal.

When Jadhima assents to the marriage, Zenobia lifts her skirts to reveal her private parts. The length and quantity of her pubic hair (her name in Arabic means 'with beautiful long hair') astonishes him. Zenobia remarks that a woman with such an appearance is not a suitable bride.

At this point, I'd like to insert some thoughts (marked in blue) on the folkloric themes that appear in this and other parts of the story.

This scene strongly recalls the meeting between King Solomon and the queen of Sheba in both Jewish and Islamic traditions. In the collection of homilies known as the Targum Sheni (perhaps late 7th/early 8th C. CE), when the queen of Sheba finally reaches Jerusalem, Solomon receives her at the royal baths. This unusual welcome disconcerts the queen, who lifts the hem of her dress just enough to prevent it from getting wet. Solomon catches sight of her hairy legs and says, with a certain lack of courtesy, "Madam, your beauty is feminine but the hair on your legs is masculine. Hairy legs are fine for a man but revolting on a woman." The queen's pride was hurt and she reacted by putting a long series of riddles to Solomon only to discover, to her astonishment, that he was cleverer than she for he solved them without difficulty. So she praised both him and the One God and, receiving gifts, took her leave. Whether or not she depilated is not stated.


The earliest Islamic version of this story comes from the 11th century writer, al-Tha'labi. Solomon receives the queen of Sheba in a glass building or a palace with crystal paving. The queen is tricked by the reflection (thinking it water) into lifting her skirt and thus reveals her hairy legs. Solomon, no longer the biblical king but owner of a magic ring, angrily summons demons and orders them to find a depilatory. They promptly produced a mixture of arsenic and quicklime and, thanks to that, the Queen of Sheba's attractiveness became proverbial (the Prophet Muhammed was supposed to have said that the queen was 'one of the women with the most gorgeous legs').

It seems that the only really important aspect of the meeting between the two sovereigns was the fact of the queen's excessively hairy legs. There can be little doubt that she is almost assimilated into a female demon (later tradition gives her donkey-hooves as well) because she is not prepared to accept the typical role of a female. Despite her beauty, she refused to serve any man. It was up to Solomon, who had mastery over the evil spirits, to put this dangerous woman in her place and restore the natural order. On this gender issue of setting things straight, both Judaism and Islam agree.** As for Zenobia, it was probably not she, with her supposedly hairy pubes, who inspired these legends, but on the contrary, the same widely-spread folklore marked her dangerous attempt to subvert time-honoured rules of gender.

Meanwhile back in the desert, a squadron of Zenobia's cavalry surrounds Jadhima, unhorses him, and brings him to Zenobia. ' How do you wish to die?' she asked. And he replied, 'Like a king." He was served a last meal, with plenty of wine to make him drowsy. As he began to snooze, she cut the veins of his wrists and collected the blood in a suitably royal golden basin.

Naturally, this murder, too, demands blood revenge.

Qasir is the man who avenges Jadhima. But first he must get into Palmyra. How? He mutilates himself, cutting off his nose and scarring his back. In this pitiful state he goes to Zenobia, presenting himself as a fugitive from his tribe which had treated him so cruelly. Zenobia, seeing the general all but streaming with blood, was sure that he was speaking the truth and had deserted the Tanukh and come over to her side.

This trick recalls the famous story in Herodotus (3 153-160) when Darius the Great was besieging the rebellious city of Babylon without success. A Persian nobleman, Zopyrus, gets into the city by a similar ruse.

Zopyrus could not conceive of any other way of taking the city except to mutilate himself and then desert to the Babylonians.... He cut off his nose and ears and shaved his hair to disfigure himself and laid lashes on himself.

He then pretended to flee to the Babylonians. When they saw the most notable man in Persia in this state, they believed he had deserted and had come to be their ally and so gave him an army. As he had schemed with Darius, Zopyrus now encircled and killed a thousand Persian troops, then 2,000 troops, then 4,000 troops. Impressed, the Babylonians made him commander-in-chief. And soon enough he threw open the gates -- and it was bye-bye Babylon.

Zenobia should have read her Herodotus. And never, never, have let herself forget blood revenge in the Middle East.

Once accepted as a friend, Qasir gained her confidence by another trick. He announced that a train of a thousand camels, heavily laden with treasure of all kinds, was on its way to her. Each camel carried two large sacks, and the greedy queen admitted the caravan in delicious anticipation. Each sack proved to conceal an armed warrior. Once within the city, they emerged and massacred the garrison.

This, of course, reminds us of the tale of Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves as told by Shahrazade in The 1001 Nights, when armed thieves were smuggled into Ali Baba's house within empty oil jars loaded on mules.

Very similar, too, is a story told by Tabari himself, which supposedly took place in the time of king Kawad I of Persia (488-531). There was an effete king of Samarkand whose intelligent daughter ruled in his place and "decided the affairs of the city". An Arab prince Shamir sent her gifts with an offer of marriage. To sweeten the deal, he promised her 4,000 chests full of gold and silver. She accepted -- but instead of treasure, two men were hidden within each chest. When the caravan got inside the city, "they sprang out and seized control of the gates. Shamir led a frontal attack with his troops and entered the city, killing its populace and seizing as plunder everything within it." Which is why, to this day, the city is called Samarkand (in Persian popular etymology, 'Shamir destroyed it').

The End of Zenobia

After the fall of her city, Jadhima's sister's son, Amr ibn Adi, pursues Zenobia, who attempts to flee via her tunnel under the Euphrates. But Qasir was inside the tunnel waiting for her. She evaded capture by swallowing poison. Because of her suicide, neither Amr nor Qasir are guilty of her death and the cycle of vengeance ceases. Her kingdom passed to Amr.

Truth and Fiction

Only a few points connect this story to the Graeco-Roman accounts:

1. The Arabic form of her name al-zabba is a reasonable approximation of Zenobia's name in Palmyrene, bt zby.

2. She is ruler of Palmyra.

3. In the Hist. Aug. Zenobia is captured on the Euphrates; in Tabari, she is trapped and kills herself in a tunnel under the Euphrates (but now see Johan Weststeijn's comment below, and my reply).

Though it is hard for us to disconnect Zenobia from Rome, Tabari's tale at least preserves what must have been an important Arab dimension to the struggle that was going on in the mid-third century in the Roman provinces of Syria and Arabia. We'll come back to discuss the importance of this -- and such evidence as there is -- in the next post.



* It is odd that the reality of the Amlaqi tribe is widely accepted: Warwick Ball (" probably one of the original four tribes of Palmyra", Rome in the East, 78); and becomes an underlying assumption with Irfan Shahid, (e.g., "the more recognizably Arab Odenathus and Zenobia. Their military operations were [conducted] from the Arab city of Palmyra ... with Arab troops...." Rome and the Arabs, 151). The Amlaqi are a mythical tribe of Arabs, their name derived from the biblical Amalek, to which many further legends and stories were added by Arab story-tellers (M. Perlmann, History of al-Tabari, Vol. 4: The Ancient Kingdoms, 131 fn 335). It can certainly not be taken as good evidence to identify any of the Palmyran tribes.

** On this fascinating subject, see Jacob Lassner, Demonizing the Queen of Sheba: Boundaries of Gender and Culture in Postbiblical Judaism and Medieval Islam, and Fabrizio Pennacchietti, Three Mirrors for Two Biblical Ladies. The Queen of Sheba and Susanna in the Eyes of Jews, Christians, and Muslims.

Illustrations

At top of post: Cover of Bal'ami's 14th century Persian version of Universal History by Tabari (Smithsonian Institute).

Above right: Arabian archers fighting from a dromedary, Assyrian relief , ca. 650 BCE (British Museum), via Livius.org.

Centre: Queen of Sheba facing the hoopoe, Solomon's messenger; from Persia, Safaid c. 1590-1600 (British Museum).

Below left: Terracotta figure of a Persian nobleman (Persepolis), via Livius.org.

Bottom left: Shahrazade, engraving by Thomas Dalziel (1823-1906).

Giraffe Milk is OK Kosher

Just in time for the Jewish festival of Shavuot, giraffe's milk has been pronounced as kosher.* Milk from a non-kosher animal is widely held not to coagulate or curdle. Earlier this week, veterinarians treating a giraffe at the Ramat Gan safari park near Tel Aviv took a milk sample which formed curds, as required by religious law. Since giraffes also chew the cud and have cloven hooves, there was nothing to stop religious Jews from nibbling a bit of roast spotted haunch except doubts about the milk.

Now a rabbi has weighed in with a judgment: "The giraffe has all the signs of a ritually pure animal, and the milk that forms curds strengthened that."

Shavuot, or the festival of the first fruits, which begins today, is traditionally a time for consuming milk products, especially cheese. One explanation for the consumption of dairy foods is that the Israelites had not yet received the Torah, with its laws of shechita (ritual slaughtering of animals). As the food they had prepared beforehand was not in accordance with these laws, they opted to eat simple dairy meals to honour the holiday. Another theory holds that in spring calves and kids would be weaned from their mothers and milk would be plentiful. Still another points to verses in The Song of Songs that stand metaphorically for acceptance of the Torah: "Honey and milk on your tongue (4:11)." Yet another theory holds that because the Jewish people were at Sinai for so long, their milk turned into cheese.

In other words, no one has a clue.

Since food is an important aspect of every Jewish holiday (and every other day, for that matter) the cooks have been busy nevertheless. Among the most famous Shavuot dishes are blintzes, cheese knishes, butter cakes, cheese cakes, cheese kreplach, salads of bread and cheese, soups with bread and cheese, and lasagne.

Lasagne?

Yes, according to the childhood memories of Rabbi Kahn-Troster,

Growing up, Shavuot for me meant lasagna - a delicious, cheesy creation that my mother would make for the one Jewish holiday on which we did not eat meat. (Actually, I was an adult before I realized that non-kosher lasagna was made with meat). I loved the lasagna, and Shavuot wasn’t bad either. Special food, staying up late the first night with my friends- Shavuot was a hit, and I didn’t think about it more than that.

The good rabbi then gives us the recipe.

At which point Italian blogger Antonio Lombatti explodes.

First of all, he thunders, lasagne is always written with an 'e', not an 'a' (since it's always plural: you can't eat one lasagna any more than you can one spaghetto). But the real issue is the recipe. "If your mother really cooked lasagne that way, well, that was blasphemous."

Worse , it's "heresy!"

To drive the point home, Antonio slapped a slab of proper lasagne over the Israeli flag (I'm not sure why, since the good rabbi is North American).

Ever devoted to la cucina, I investigated.

Marcella Hazan, in her Classic Italian Cookbook, is uncompromising: " It is extremely important to avoid overcooking lasagne." Using biblical language, she warns, "Mushy lasagne is an abomination." But Rabbi Kahn-Troster mama's lasagne doesn't look mushy. So that can't be the reason.

"Do not use commercial ready-made lasagne", Hazan insists. "Lasagne is never, but simply never, made with anything but home-made pasta dough." The rabbi's mother certainly slipped up here: her recipe called for a "12 oz package of lasagna noodles". A grave error undoubtedly, but one committed by so many busy mama's in Italy today that I can't imagine that it would raise a cry of 'heresy!' on that score.

Hazan's Second Italian Cookbook brings up another issue: "... the light, precious texture of the pasta is never buried by a haphazard pile-up of ingredients. The pasta, in lasagne, becomes a dainty mounting for the tasteful display of either a fully integrated filling or a single ingredient." Well, mama Kahn-Troster certainly fails in this regard. Her lasagne is over-full, even haphazard. An overly-mighty mouthful, for sure, but that's the American way. Still, with the exception of the canned/tinned tomato sauce topped up with Tabasco and Worcestershire sauces, most of her ingredients are found in Hazan's own recipe for Le lasagne coi funghi e prosciutto (but skip the ham!).

Having given far too much thought to the problem, I think I've got the answer.

Where's the béchamel sauce?

Hazan's recipe quite rightly includes a Salsa Balsamella (a fact of northern Italian life long before the French christened it 'béchamel') -- a smooth, luxuriantly creamy white sauce made of milk, butter, flour, and a pinch of salt. "It is essential to many of its pastas," she affirms, "and such an unquestionably native dish as lasagne could not exist without it."

Its omission is probably what raised Antonio's ire.

So, get your silky milk sauces ready for Shavuot. But not using giraffe milk, I think. Despite its new kosher credentials, it is hard to milk a giraffe. On the right, a nursing mother lopes along the veld.

Those legs are made for kicking.


(Next, I return to my reports on the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day)


* Thanks to WIIIAI for tipping me off to this breaking news.

Now All Shame is Exhausted...

for in the weakened state of the commonwealth things came to such a pass that ... even women ruled most excellently. For, in fact, even a foreigner, Zenobia by name, proceeded to cast about her shoulders the imperial mantle, [and was] ruling longer than could be endured from one of the female sex.

Thus begins the biography of Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, in the unreliable and fantastical Historiae Augustae , written near the end of the 4th C. She is one of thirty-two usurpers described in the section The Thirty Pretenders (why we get two extra pretenders for our money is a mystery). And what we read here is really almost all we know about Zenobia. There are no contemporary historical texts and the short, later reports are just as dubious as Hist. Aug. when it comes to sources.

So who better to take us through this thicket of anachronisms, false letters, fictitious speeches, suspect anecdotes, and imaginary evidence than Diederik Burgersdijk, who is writing his doctoral thesis on the Hist. Aug? Diederik was one of the organisers of the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day and he began the Day with a triumphant 'The Triumph of Zenobia'.*

First, What we Need to Know.

Zenobia's story does not follow the normal rules of Roman biography --
which require some remarks about birth and ancestry, youth and education, deeds, and death, including age. The absence of these items may simply be explained by the author’s lack of information. If he didn't know much about her, he may have had little choice but to write a partly fictional piece. Fair enough, but you need a model even for writing fiction. Where did he find it? Portrayals of women from antiquity lie at two extremes: at one end, idealized nurturing figures; at the other, devouring hypersexualized monsters. There weren't many portraits of heroic women for him to follow (at least, very very few have come down to us). On the other hand, there are quite a lot of ancient misogynous portraits of wicked women.

Especially, the ever-popular Sixth Satire of Juvenal (d. 130 AD) The Ways of Women -- a brilliant and bitter mockery of the whole female sex. Juvenal is amazed at the decision of his friend named Postumus:


What! Postumus, are you who once had your wits, taking to yourself a wife? Tell me what snakes are driving you mad? Can you submit to a she-tyrant when there is so much rope to be had, so many dizzy heights of windows standing open, and when the Aemilian bridge offers itself to your hand?

Naturally, Juvenal takes him aside to offer some advice.

Or if none of all these modes of exit hit your fancy, how much better to take some boy-bedfellow, who would never wrangle with you of nights, never ask presents of you when in bed, and never complain that you took your ease and were indifferent to his solicitations!

Quite rightly, he backs this up by ripping to shreds the behaviour and pretensions of women, lambasting their loose sexual morals, clothing, pride in ancestry, vaunted skills in language and literature, and (when all shame was exhausted) their masculine activities like fighting and even preparing to show off their gladiatorial skills in the arena.

Was the author of The Thirty Pretenders thinking of the Sixth Satire, one of the most conspicuous portraits of women in Latin literature, when he sat down to write (what may nowadays be called) his herstory? If so, he would deserve credit for ingeniously turning its misogyny into a positive portrait of a successful warrior-queen. I am not convinced, but Diederik makes some strong points.

Juvenal topsy-turvy?

Of all Juvenal's charges against women -- and they are many -- two stand out heads and shoulders above the others.

Chastity: The central theme in Juvenal’s Sixth Satire is the deteriorated morals of his time, especially the almost complete disappearance of pudicitia (“chastity”). He's not talking about male chastity, of course -- if there is such a thing-- but about degenerate wives and indecent women. At quite the opposite pole, Zenobia is astoundingly chaste:

Such was her continence, it is said, that she would not know even her own husband save for the purpose of conception. Even when once she had lain with him, she would refrain until the time of menstruation to see if she were pregnant; if not, she would again grant him an opportunity of begetting children.

But chastity was a hot item by the 4th century, partly perhaps under the influence of Christianity. All the surviving Greek novels had amazingly chaste heroines (Think of that most popular tale of Leukippe and Kleitophon, celebrated for The acid taste of love combined with chastity). It was in the air.

Man-like Women: Needless to say, what we would today regard as healthy exercise, Juvenal finds despicable.

Why need I tell of the [coarse woollen cloak] and the wrestling-oils used by women? Who has not seen one of them smiting a stump, piercing it through and through with a foil, lunging at it with a shield...? Unless indeed, she is nursing some further ambition in her bosom, and is practising for the arena. What modesty can you expect in a woman who wears a helmet (galeata), abjures her own sex, and delights in feats of strength?

Pause a moment at that word for helmet': galeata is the rare female form which otherwise describes the helmet of the armed goddess Minerva. Juvenal uses the word to sneer at man-like women who might have gladiatorial longings. The same word appears in the description of Zenobia who approaches her troops “in the manner of a Roman emperor that she came forth to public assemblies, wearing a helmet (galeata).…”

Evidence that he was reading Juvenal? I'm not sure. Since so few females (besides Minerva) wear helmets, it's hard to know; it might have been borrowed from some description of the goddess or her statues instead. It's true, though, that Hist. Aug. sees Zenobia as a fighter: She "fears like a woman, and fights like a man...." And again, "She hunted with the eagerness of a Spaniard." Not just that Spaniards were reputedly very keen hunters but the ancient hunt wasn't simply sport: it was training for military service as well.

Zenobia has several other masculine traits. She rarely rides in a woman's coach but goes about on horseback. She "conserved her treasures beyond the wont of women." "Her voice was clear and like that of a man." She was as stern as any tyrant. She attended public gatherings "in the fashion of a man." This last is something that Juvenal excoriates in Roman women:

rushing boldly about the entire city, attending men's meetings, talking with unflinching face and hard breasts to Generals in their military cloaks.

We don't know if Zenobia flinched or the state of her breasts, but she certainly talked to generals, and then went one better:

She often drank with her generals, though at other times she refrained, and she drank, too, with the Persians and the Armenians, but only for the purpose of getting the better of them.

Why, even a man might do that! So she holds her wine like a man -- unlike the rest of the female sex: What decency does Venus observe when she is drunk? None! for women other than Zenobia, wine = drunkenness = lewdness.

Roman women cannot hold their drink. Juvenal memorably depicts a lady who comes home from the baths

with thirst enough to drink off the vessel containing full three gallons [12 litres] ... and from which she tosses off a couple of pints [half-litres] before her dinner to create a raging appetite: then she brings it all up again and souses the floor with the washings of her inside. The stream runs over the marble pavement; the gilt basin reeks of Falernian [wine], for she drinks and vomits like a big snake that has tumbled into a vat.

Did the pseudonymous author of The Thirty Pretenders really read that and decide that his Zenobia was the flip side of the coin?

The Other Zenobia

When, after a mighty effort, Aurelian conquered that most powerful woman, Zenobia, our author almost certainly finally conflates her story with that of The Other Zenobia of Tacitus to come up with a happy ending. He describes in great detail Aurelian's triumph, with Zenobia paraded in golden chains, and then tells us (in the most repeated version of her fate, but not the only one!) that the Emperor granted her life:

and they say that thereafter she lived with her children in the manner of a Roman matron on an estate that had been presented to her at Tibur, which even this day is called Zenobia, not far from the palace of Hadrian...

The 'Other Zenobia', too, as we told in our post, was taken to a hostile king who received her kindly and granted her life and living: "she was escorted to Tiridates, and, after a kind reception, was treated with royal honours."

That two queens named Zenobia share a common fate seems more than coincidence. As may also be, as Diederik suggests, the author's little joke when he places our Zenobia's estate near Juvenal's own Tiburtine farm (Eleventh Satire, 65).

What is left of Zenobia?

In history, she is 'a blaze of colour against the rather bleak background of the mid-third century.' ** We can be sure that Zenobia lacked neither courage nor conviction but the woman herself is now largely shrouded in legend. This process probably began in her lifetime; it was taken to all sorts of lengths by the Hist. Aug. and, largely under the influence of this source, has continued down to the present day.

In more ways than one, Zenobia is 'one of the most romantic figures of history'.


(I'll continue my reports on the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day as soon as other work allows).

* For this post, I also make use of Diederik Burgersdijk's article, 'Zenobia's Biography in the Historia Augusta', Talanta 36-37 (2004-2005) 139-152.

** A. Watson, Aurelian and the Third Century, 87.

Illustrations

At top of post, left: fragment of an arch carved with the figure of Victory, Palmyra, mid-third C (Palmyra Museum).

Above, right: cover of manuscript of Hist. Aug. made for Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1479 , by Mariano del Buono di Jacopo (1433-1504). The scribe, Neri di Filippo Rinuccini, signed the fine script with his customary motto from Terence: omnium rerum vicissitudo est ('how all things do change'). State Library of Victoria.

Above, left: Messalina by Aubrey Beardsley, 1896, intended to illustrate Juvenal's 6th Satire.

Seminar on Zoroastrian Religion, History and Culture

World Zoroastrian Organisation
Seminar on
Zoroastrian Religion, History and Culture

(Held in association with the World Zarathushtrian Trust Fund)

Sunday 1st June 2008

Shapour Suren Pahlav, "The conversion of Zoroastrian shrines and temples in Iran to Islamic ones."

Prof Stanley Insler, "Zarathustra: The Man and the Message."

Prof Kejia Yan (China) & Dr Takeshi Aoki (Japan) , "Zoroastrians and the Sassanian Royal Family in the Tang China (618-907)."

Gulbenkian Room
The International Students House
229 Gt. Portland Street
London W1N 5HD

Please reserve your place by telephoning Mr Darayus S Motivala on +44 (0)
1844 352 887 or email: darayus@motivala.uk


(Above) A panel from a Chinese Zoroastrian screen that surrounded the coffin bed in the tomb of the Sogdian religious leader (sabao) called An Jia, discovered in May 2000, at the eastern end of the Silk Route: Xi'an, Shaanxi province, Northern Zhou period (557-581 AD).

Atlantis Rising by Bierenbroodspot

Today is Bierenbroodspot Day (reality) -- or Atlantis Rising Day (myth).

Hooray!

Scoot over to bierenbroodspot.com to see why I'm excited. That's the newly refurbished website of the Dutch artist Gerti Bierenbroodspot. And today her big show of paintings and sculpture opens at the Museum Jan van der Togt. The theme is Atlantis Rising.

There is magic in names and the mightiest among these words of magic is Atlantis… it is as if this vision of a lost culture touched the most hidden thought of our soul. (H.G. Wells)

The official ribbon will be cut by the Dutch film star Rutger Hauer (Bierenbroodspot's dream). And the cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger will be there, too, to make his music -- a fellow barefoot artist.

Here's something I wrote about them.

A BAREFOOT PAINTER IN SEARCH OF SERENDIPITY

Bierenbroodspot always walks barefooted, whether over the rough unlandscaped grounds where the past has placed a temple, or when she paces over slabs of alabaster that once were palace floors. And she is always barefoot when she paints, indoors or out. It is not so much that footwear constrains her, but barefoot is freer, and gives her a mindset conducive to improvisation.

Letting happenstance into her paintings. Like white light that contains all colours.

Seeing a beautiful painting is also to hear the music of it. Triads, consonance and rhythmic patterns metamorphose into paint; these are the themes, tunes and icons of a silent song. Its mathematical structure incorporates silence and the sound of birdsong, a single note and the rush of the winds. This brings her close to the music of cellist and composer Ernst Reijseger.

Bierenbroodspot first listened to Reijseger's music on the terrace of her house in Petra one evening nearing sunset, as she watched a sandstorm approaching.

She was listening to his Requiem For A Dying Planet, the music he composed for Werner Herzog's documentaries, "The Wild Blue Yonder" and "The White Diamond", and remixed for this recording. Requiem evokes the near-term end of Earth, a longing and nostalgia for what is disappearing – just as the dim outlines of jebels and mountains were dissolving in the distance as sand began to obliterate all distinctions between earth and sky.

In this half-dream world, Sardinian voices (Tenore e Concordu de Orosei) were chanting Libera me, Domine, "Kyrie," and "Sanctus", mantra-like droning and bursts of full-throated singing, "Free me, Lord!" Mingling with the choir and sometimes taking turns, the soaring vocals of Mola Sylla in the Wolof language of Senegal, singing to the metal-tongued mbira . And underneath the songs, the dark contemplative shadow of Reijseger's cello, his chords rising like storm winds before the oncoming, invisible sand. Bierenbroodspot was sinking into the gorgeousness of it when the storm reached her, blanking out the dying planet's sounds of radio bleeps and not-quite-audible ground control-to-space messages, and jungle rivers and wildlife cries. As if doomsday had hit.

She took that music with her into the desert, and into her studio. She painted with it and sculpted with it, even going so far as to remove her shoes when working with stone and listening to it. Despite her bruised toes (it was truly foolish), the Requiem inspired her while she created the icons of Atlantis Rising, the end of an earlier world, a dream transmuted into art before it too passes finally away.

(Don't have time, I'm afraid, to write more about the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day today, but will try for tomorrow.)

Update 26 May 2008: A photo made by Theo Botschuijver yesterday. Over 1,000 people attended Gerti's opening. It was amazing.

This is Gerti (left) and Ernst (right) after he had played.


A fabulous show.


(but no time yet for reporting on the Zenobia Day. Sorry)

Update # 2, 1 June 2008: For everything you always wanted to know about Atlantis, a wonderful book by the late Pierre Vidal-Naquet has now been translated into English, The Atlantis Story: A Short History of Plato's Myth. It recounts the history and development of popular views of the City of Atlantis from Plato's time through the myth's many transformations in the Renaissance and Enlightenment. Serious stuff but a delightful read, too:

The book is written in a casual and conversational tone and reading it is rather like spending an afternoon with a great scholar, but with several brandies and in a state of total relaxation.

What could be wrong with that! I've ordered a copy as a little gift for Bierenbroodspot; she's earned it.

The Best Yet Mansour Rahbani Zenobia Video

As seen at the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day today.

It was part of Robbert Woltering's presentation: Zenobia Lives! The Modern Arab Reception of al-Zabba [Zenobia]. I couldn't wait to post it.



But I've no time to comment now; not even for a smile. So Robbert gets the beady eye tomorrow.

Prepare yourself, if you will, by reading my three earlier Mansour Rahbani posts, Zenobia Receives Royal Patronage, Zenobia the Musical and Conquest's Law, and Zenobia's Terrible Curved Sword.

I have lots to say (for better or for worse). But what an extraordinary Amsterdam Zenobia Day! Thanks to the Netherlands Classical Association, along with Ex Oriente Lux, Laverna (University of Amsterdam), and the Athenaeum Bookstore.

The Baker's Daughter and the Artemidorus Papyrus (with multiple updates)

What has Margherita Luti (left), a baker's daughter from Siena, to do with this lively giraffe (right) drawn on a papyrus in the late first century BC -- the so-called Artemidorus Papyrus?

Known as La Fornarina * ('little baker girl'), Margherita's portrait was painted c. 1518 by the 'prince of painters', Raphael -- who was undoubtedly her lover. Appropriately, it is one of Raphael's most seductive portraits. Marguerita gazes prettily to one side, presumably at the artist himself; a smile plays at the corners of her lips. We can well believe, as Giorgio Vasari tells in his Lives of the Artists, that Raphael “could not give his mind to his work because of his infatuation for his mistress”.

Aside from a fashionable silk turban, all she wears is jewellery: a tiny ring on her left hand and a blue armband that bears the artist's name—Raphael of Urbino—in gold letters. She pulls a diaphanous veil over her belly with a gesture derived from classical sculptures of the Venus pudica (modest Venus), and suggestively cups her left breast. Her other hand rests between her legs, the fingers splayed and outlined in a deep red.

That's the hand we want!

The splay of its fingers may be thought to offer a blatant suggestion of sexual possibility -- or it may just be a way a hand lies, relaxed. Like one of the several hands (below), carefully drawn and shaded, and seen from a variety of angles, on the spectacular 1st C BC papyrus roll which also hosts the giraffe; specifically, the limp hand appearing centre left.

How can that be BC? It's a very Renaissance-looking hand; isn't it?

In fact, all these sketches of hands and feet could easily pass for Renaissance drawing exercises.

'Aha' cried the Italian classical scholar Luciano Canfora,* clearly someone was copying La Fornarina's hand on the papyrus! Needless to say, if true, there is only one possible conclusion: the papyrus is a forgery.

Is this papyrus a fake? And what is this all about?

The case for the defence.

The story begins mid-first century BC, when a scribe in Alexandria, Egypt, began working on a very big piece of blank papyrus (nearly 32.5 cm [13 "] tall and over 2.5 meters [8'] long). His task was to copy the geography of the Mediterranean world from the 11 books written by Artemidorus of Ephesus, who lived at the turn of the 1st century BC. He got as far as writing a preface and the beginning of Book II (about Spain), neatly leaving a space between the third and the fourth columns where two maps were to be inserted.

He probably didn't plan to draw the maps himself but took the papyrus to a painter's workshop to have the job done. Alas, 'tis many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip -- and what would have been (and, in a way, still is) the earliest Greek map to survive was never finished. It does show roads and rivers, but none of them have names, and, anyway, it seems to be the wrong part of Spain; at least it's not the place described in the text.

The stupid painter had ruined the papyrus ... and consequently stopped working on it. But papyrus is expensive and you don't throw it away .

What was to have been an édition de luxe became instead an exercise book for the workshop's artists practising their draughtsmanship. The whole of the left-hand margin and any empty spaces were completely filled with sketches of hands, feet, and heads. The heads are extraordinarily vivid (left), presumably based on, or even copied from, statues of gods, philosophers, and perhaps even prospective patrons.

At much the same time, the entire back of the papyrus was covered with small drawings of birds, fish and animals, real and imaginary. Some are extremely lifelife and strongly reminiscent of a medieval bestiary -- such as the haughty giraffe above, the rampant tiger below, elephants, and griffins (if a mythical creature can be described as 'lifelife'), a winged horned lion (below left) and a strange crocodile-like monster and a dragon biting each other's tails (way below, centre). The drawings were presumably displayed as a 'pattern book', an index of mosaics and frescos that the painters would offer to their customers.

After using it for decades (the roll was mended after the animals were drawn), the papyrus was sold as pulp to be turned into mummy-cartonnage -- torn or cut up, and glued together like a kind of papier mâché.

Almost two millennia later, local excavators recovered and sold the mummy wrapping to an Egyptian collector who owned it until the mid-20th century. After passages around Europe, a German collector bought it, opened the cartonnage (soaking it an enzyme solution, which dissolves the glue) and recovered about 200 fragments of papyrus. Fifty of these have been pieced together to make the Artemidorus roll.

The case for the prosecution

Not only has the forger copied La Fornarina's hand but the animals, according to Luciano Canfora, are copied as well -- in this case from drawings of constellations in early modern star-maps.^ Hence, the papyrus which combines an ostensibly early script (the animals are dated to the end of the first century BC by the written names which accompany them) with demonstrably later drawings, must be a fake.

But who could have faked both the script and these graphics?

Canfora has a culprit in mind -- a man whose name "deserves a whole page in the golden book of chutzpah", Constantine Simonides, Dr. Ph. (Moscow).

He was undoubtedly the greatest forger of the last century (1820? - 1867?). Even 19th century critics, who knew styles of writing Greek, the colours of the ink and paints of different times, and the kinds of parchment and papyrus used, were often fooled by his skills. Simonides combined intellect with versatility, and industry with ingenuity, such as is rarely found. His stock-in-trade was a large number of both genuine manuscripts, many obtained from Mount Athos, and of forged ones written by himself. In 1846, he was reportedly in possession of 5000 manuscripts, which he exhibited to savants at Athens.

His known scams include an incredibly ancient copy of Hesiod's Theogony, marked up with pseudo-ancient musical notes plus three indecipherable 'ancient' poems; a parchment which carried a hitherto unknown history of the kings of Egypt by Uranius of Alexandria; a papyrus with an early and 'corrected' copy of Hanno's Voyage Round Africa; and a text of St. Matthew's Gospel dictated by the apostle himself to Nicholas the Deacon. Finally, in a triumphant display of chutzpah, Simonides falsely claimed to have forged the genuine Codex Sinaiticus (the Book from Sinai: one of the two earliest Christian bibles, 694 pages of which were acquired by the British Museum in 1933 for £ 100,000).

Even if he didn't forge the fabulous Codex Sinaiticus, had he the skills to create the drawings and recreate the text of a shadowy geographer in first century script?

Peter Parsons, for many years director of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri Project, and unquestionably one of today's cannier experts , sees no compelling reason to doubt the papyrus (Forging Ahead, TLS 22 Feb. 2008): To my eye the script of 'Artemidorus' looks unexceptionable, both in quality of line and in delicacy of execution, and much more accomplished than any sample of Simonides that I have yet seen.

His judgment got an unexpected boost with a letter published in the TLS on 14 March from a Greek architect, Ms. Haris Kalligas:

...as my family originates from the same island (Symi, near Rhodes) as Simonides, I had the fortune to come across some new material, including his father’s will, when I was writing a short article on his family house, of which some parts are still standing....

Simonides forged his own descendancy, claiming that his ancestors originated through a direct line of eighty-eight generations from Stageira, the city Aristotle came from, and gives lots of other false facts. Apparently, as a young man he tried to poison his parents, and this was the reason he had to leave the island around 1840. He also forged Symi’s past, having composed a totally imaginary history: “Symais, or History of the Apollonias School in Symi … ” (1849), claiming that the author was a certain monk called Meletios, from Chios.

During my term of office as Director of the Gennadius Library in Athens, I had the chance to examine in detail various holdings of the Library referring to Simonides. To my great surprise his forgeries are so evident and so clumsy that I was really mystified as to how it could have been possible for him to fool eminent philologists of the nineteenth century, who should have been familiar with authentic manuscripts.

Luciano Canfora shot back an angry reply (published in the TLS on 11 April):

It was with great surprise that I read the letter on Simonides from the architect Haris Kalligas. Her assertions strike me as faintly comical....

... I must, anyway, confess to being greatly impressed by the palaeographic skills which, as an architect, Kalligas demonstrates in her letter.

The Scoop

But time had already run out for Prof. Canfora. On 12 March, 2008 , it was reported that the Laboratory for Cultural Goods (LABEC), Florence, Italy, of the National Institute of Nuclear Physics had dated the Artemidorus Papyrus. According to the analyses, the Papyrus dates back approximately 2,000 years.

LABEC used the ultrasensitive technique of accelerator mass spectroscopy to perform carbon-14 dating on three tiny fragments from different points on the Papyrus. The analyses consistently showed that the fragments are from around the 1st century A.D., with a 95% probability that they date back to between 40 B.C. and 130 A.D.

And the ink, too is consistent with ancient inks:

Another important analysis conducted by LABEC was that of the ink used to write the Papyrus, performed using Ion Beam Analysis. According to the results, the Papyrus was definitely not written with iron-gallic ink (which is based on metal salts and was commonly used in the 19th century) but with an ink with a purely organic base.

Why this matters


The drawings on the Artemidorus Papyrus, while not in themselves masterpieces, are the first solid evidence of the quality of draughtsmanship that underpinned the easel paintings of the famous painters of the Greek and Roman world. The celebrities of classical and Hellenistic Greece -- Zeuxis, Parrhasios, Apelles, Protogenes, Sosos -- are but names today, their works known only from glowing accounts by ancient writers.

While we need not believe (with Quintilian) that a single man, or even a single generation of painters were responsible for creating the illusion of 'space enveloping light and air', there's little doubt that this is what happened in Greek art around the time of Zeuxis (c 464 - 397? BC) and Parrhasios (d. 388 BC):

Of these, the first invented the systematic calculation of light and shade, the second, according to tradition, brought great refinement to draughtsmanship.

Zeuxis was responsible for a chiaroscuro that, like Parrhasios' linear method, suggested both the three-dimensionality of the parts we see as well as the continuation into space of the parts we do not see. So the sketches from the Artemidorus Papyrus are like living fossils, missing links between the lost masterpieces of ancient painting and the generally workmanlike pictures that 'till now have actually survived.

We End As We Meant to Begin


The Artemidorus Papyrus sketches come so close to quattrocento art that one almost believes that the painters of the Renaissance must have known and studied ancient prototypes -- and that these prototypes have, somehow, again vanished into dust. But, in truth, they had nothing to guide them besides the same written descriptions that we have today, plus some ancient reliefs and a few carved gems -- and their own genius.

And vice versa.

So when we see this incredibly Raphaelesque head of a woman in this painted stele of the 3rd C BC (left) from a site near Verria in Macedonia,^^ we can only marvel at the coincidence.

As a good Tuscan, Marguerita would have cried out, "Madonna Patata!"


Given a similar canon of beauty, is it true that the solutions that emerge are somehow natural and inevitable?



* Wikipedia wrongly describes Margherita as his "semi-legendary Roman lover". Of course she did exist -- and her family was Sienese, not Roman (which counts in Italy), though her father's bakery had moved to Rome at the time she met Raphael; more at Raphael's other woman.

** The True History of the So-Called Artemidorus Papyrus (Bari) 2008.

^ There are certainly some striking resemblances -- but I'd wager that the winged horned lion, at least, is an amalgam of Greek and Achaemenid-Persian images and styles. Winged lions are of ancient Babylonian lineage, but the horned variety, afaik, first appears in the Persian period (for example, a gold plaque from the Metropolitan Museum, and another gold jewel from the Oriental Institute collection). So this post is very slightly on-topic after all: although I've been unable to work into the story Zenobia or Palmyra, try as I might, I'm at least back in almost the right time and place with this Persian note.

^^ Stele found near Verria, Macedonia. Photo (and musings) from Vincent J. Bruno, Form and Colour in Greek Painting (London) 1977, Pl. 5a.


Update 23 May 2008:

An Artemidorus Papyrus One-day Conference will be held at St John's College, Oxford on Friday, June 13th, 2008.

The conference aims to bring together specialists on all aspects of the papyrus - the text, the map, and images. Scholars from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, the UK and the USA have agreed to participate. Luciano Canfora, should he be unable to come, will send a written statement. The aim of the conference is to study the artefact, and its text, map, and images, as "gobbets"* first (in a well-established Oxford tradition), thus contributing to a deeper understanding of what the papyrus presents, before discussing probabilities and authenticities.

*For those who do not know Oxford-speak, 'gobbets'are raw lumps of texts cut into bite-sized chucks, which can then be munched by scholars; they become morsels to be analysed as to (1) the source: what has the document or picture to "say" and how is it "said"? (2)who produced it ? What is being said/shown? Who was it intended for?

Update 17 June 2008:

An excellent close-up of one of the heads (above) drawn on the Artemidorus papyrus; via PHDiva.


Update 15 July 2008:

Everything you ever wanted to know about the Artemidorus Papyrus

Il papiro di Artemidoro : (P.Artemid.) has just been published. Six hundred and thirty pages, with full reproduction of the scroll in the original Greek, a translation into Italian, reports on all scientific tests, plus illustrations of the drawings in 40 folded leaves of plates. This important, finely produced work (edited by Claudio Gallazzi, Bärbel Kramer, and Salvatore Settis), is the complete critical study of the papyrus of Artemidorus.

You can read part of the study on the web.

And enjoy a few of the illustrations, such as this excellent reproduction of the two battling monsters:


Of course, the accompanying text also has a learned discussion of what the draughtsman thought he was drawing. The left monster is labelled as a Xiphias -- the usual word for swordfish; the snout may be vaguely right but a fish is hardly a quadruped. The dragon-like creature coiling about the Xiphias is called a Thunn[o] Prist[is], a combined tunny sawfish (if ever there were such a thing). Yet, the artist was not entirely wrong: to my surprise, there once were sawfish in the Mediterranean, though they are long extinct in such waters. If, as I imagine, the artist lived somewhere in the Nile valley, he must have heard of such beasties but, to him, they were just as much a part of fantasy as dragons and chimeras.

That doesn't mean that they are not accurately drawn -- down to every detail. And I wouldn't want to tussle with either of them.

(Via What's New in Papyrology, where you can find more information; and gasp at the price)


Update 13 November 2008:

Luciano Canfora Strikes Back

Backed into an academic corner by the sheer weight of Il papiro di Artemidoro published in July (discussed above), Professor Canfora has come out fighting, wielding heavy cudgels of his own -- and in English, this time, so that his arguments will be read by the whole international papyrological community.

He hasn't backtracked one bit.

Translating from the publisher's blurb (why in Italian only?), he declares the big papyrus in every respect dubious (inverosimile): its script, its contents, the pictures of humans and animals, as well as the famous "first-ever Greek map" of an unidentifiable country -- the lot. In short, the papyrus cannot be Artemidorus in any shape, way, or form.

The True History is the "definitive word" and is intended to put an end to the passionate quarrel that has consumed reams of paper in cultural supplements in Italian and foreign newspapers.

Fat chance!

But buy it by all means: it's a very modest Euro 18. A snip compared to the opposition's Il papiro di Artemidoro, at a hefty Euro 480.

My thanks again to What's New in Papyrology for alerting me to this new book.

Double Update 1 November 2009

An online review of Il papiro di Artemidoro by Arthur Verhoogt has just appeared in The American Journal of Archaeology. Prof. Verhoogt neatly sums up the significance of P. Artemid.

"This papyrus reminds us that our knowledge of antiquity is incomplete and based on sources that have survived....Whenever something falls through the cracks of selection and survival, so to say, we may not like what we see because it does not fit what we have, but we have to deal with it."

In other words, it's not a forgery: get on with studying it even if that means changing some long-held assumptions.

And that's exactly what is happening. Just yesterday, I received this report from What's New In Papyrology :

The book of the conference at St John’s College, Oxford (see my update of 23 May 2008) has now been published. Read all the lively and impassioned debates by the international panel of scholars as they discuss the artefact, the images, the map and the texts on the papyrus. And, yes, it does include the promised papers by Luciano Canfora and other opponents of authenticity although they did not attend the Oxford conference.

Kai Brodersen &Jas Elsner (eds.)
Images and Texts on the "Artemidorus Papyrus"
Working Papers on P. Artemid.

You can buy the book at Franz Steiner Verlag, € 50,00

The book also contains, courtesy of the original publishers, black and white photographs of the whole papyrus -- which makes it a very good deal compared with the whacking price of € 480 for the major publication.

 Update 7 October 2010

An excellent on-line review of Images and Texts on the "Artemidorus Papyrus" by Stanley M. Burstein appears today at Bryn Mawr Classical Review: "Papyri always produce something new and surprising, but surely nothing was more unprecedented and unexpected than the Artemidorus Papyrus...."  For those who can't or won't read the book, this review will bring you up-to-date on the state of scholarly play.  An important shift: it now seems unlikely that the papyrus was originally intended to be a deluxe edition of Artemidorus, but instead its layout is more compatible with it being a notebook created by several scribes with varied interests.