katyag85's blog

The discovery of an unintentional family mausoleum

Priests removed pharaoh from the tomb, rewrapped it all over again and transferred it to the tomb of the queen Amhose Inhapy from the 17th dynasty of ancient Egypt. But, obviously, it was not good enough, as within 72 hours priests removed Ramessess from that burial site and placed it in the tomb of High Priest of Amun at Thebes, named Pinedjem II who died in 10th century B.C.

We learned about these multiple reburials because priests recorded them in hieroglyphics on the linen covering the mummy of Ramesses. Yet, this is not the end of the story. Driven by unknown to us events, priests gathered the whole pile of other mummies and left it in the same tomb.  When it was discovered in 1881 archeologists discovered other famous pharaohs of 18th and 19th dynasties, including the mummy of Ramesses’ own father.

The discovery of this unintentional family mausoleum led to the largest studies of famous pharaohs.  Thanks to this massive entombment we know how the most powerful pharaohs looked like and even establish the cause of death.

The private mausoleum of Ramesses The Great

The private mausoleum of Egyptian pharaoh Ramesses The Great  is located in the Valley of the Kings. This final resting place of a God-King bears the cryptic for a burial site name – Tomb KV7. 

There is not really much left of the burial chamber – flash floods damaged it badly destroying much of the decoration beyond repair. None of the famous  monuments erected by mausoleum architects survived either.

However, Ramesses II still lucked out because his mummy is still safe and sound. It is exhibited in the Cairo’s Egyptian  Museum. How did it happen?

It turns out that Tomb KV7 did not have pharaoh's body for thousands of years.  In fact, the mummy was found by archeologists in another location quite by chance.

Several centuries passed after Ramesses died. The looting of the ancient tombs was on the rise. Egyptian priests decided to take drastic measures in order to preserve mummies of the great pharaohs. They developed a big plan that can easily be used as a plot of a great detective story.

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The best known to the world public

However, it seems that shortly after his death ninetten year old pharaoh’s name was completely forgotten and vanished from public consciousness in Egypt. The stones from other tombs safely hid his resting place, and the whereabouts of his burial site was lost for thousands of years. In fact, Tut’s tomb entrance was always close by proximity to the temporary huts of the workers in the Valley of the kings. But they did not even suspect that such a treasure was within their grasp.

Tutankhamon still rests in his climate controlled mausoleum in the Valley of the Kings. Forgotten in the past, Tut’s name, his artifacts and the tomb is the best known to the world public. It is the most exhibited too.  His name even entered the popular culture if you remember Steve Martin’s song and the villain character of King Tut in the 60s Batman TV series.

The greatest and priceless monument in Ravenna

Ostrogoths crossed the Alps and poured into Italy.  Three times Theodoric defeated armies of Odoacer and at last besieged him in his capital of Ravenna.  However, Ostrogoths tried in vain to capture the city for almost three years and in February 2, 493 Theodoric and Odoacer signed a treaty that ensured a shared rule over Italy.  Happy Odoacer organized a lavish banquet to celebrate the treaty. During this celebration, Theodoric, after making a first toast murdered Odoacer in cold blood. He strangled the king of Italy with his bare hands.

Unlike his predecessor, Theodoric restored Roman law and judicial system for Roman citizens while Goths were obeying their custom laws and customs. His kingdom kept on expanding. However he was Arian Christian and that led to the deterioration of his ties with Eastern Roman empire.  And after his death, Theodoric’s achievements began to unravel pretty fast.

His mausoleum is one of the greatest and priceless monuments in Ravenna.  It has its own Gothic style and decoration which UNESCO considers it among the world heritage sites. This memorial mausoleum  is also the only surviving burial tomb of a barbarian king of that period.

Mausoleum of the King of Ostrogoths

In the late 19th century just outside the Italian city of Ravenna workers excavated stone building that was partially submerged in water. It turned out to be the burial mausoleum of Theodoric the Great, king of Ostrogoths. I found some interesting facts about it during my research in archives of web analytics company. In the center of this personal mausoleum built in 520 there was a  porphyry tub, where once the warriors put the body of the late king. However, later, when the city was under Byzantine ruling, the remains were thrown out and the former mausoleum tomb became a Christian chapel.

Theodoric the Great was so popular among Germanic tribes that he became a legend in English, German and Norse mythology.  He was not only the king of Ostrogoths, but also the regent of Visigoths and the ruler of Italy.  Epic poems of Middle Ages tell stories about the way he dealt with Odoacer - Germanic general who deposed the last emperor of Western Roman empire Romulus Augustulus in 476.

After Odoacer put an end to Western Roman empire, he proclaimed himself a King of Italy.  He was an illiterate man and Arian Christian.  Odoacer defeated Vandals in Sicily and added ancient Dalmatia to his kingdom.  His actions angered Zeno, the Eastern Emperor, who persuaded his Ostrogothic vassals that Odoacer was their enemy. He sent Goths headed by Theodoric get rid of Odoacer once and for all.

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Famous Ballerina

Famous Ballerina

http://www.famousballerina.com/

Ballet is a highly technical form of dance with its origins in the Italian Renaissance court, where it emerged in the late 15th century as a dance interpretation of fencing. Later ballet was developed into a very complicated dance works with mime, acting and other components that are set to music. Ballet has graceful, flowing and very precise movements with almost ethereal qualities.

Product of popular imagination

Generations of theologists and inquisitors with vivid and sick imagination throughout centuries created sick descriptions of Witches’ Sabbath.  Tortured victims under extreme pain would add more fuel to the fire by adding numerous weird details. Here is some stuff that you would find interesting.

Witches would be piloting the brooms or were carried by demons to the place of meeting. The gathering itself would start at midnight and end at dawn. There were accounts of witches and warlocks eating human flesh, preferably children. Usually the Satan would be present in a form of a humongous goat . It was an honor for  each witch and warlock to kiss this goat in the butt.

In other accounts whole variety of demons would be present at the Sabbath too. Munching in all-you-can-eat buffet of human flesh was accompanied by wild dances and transitioned into Black Mass which was depicted as some kind of parody on Christian Mass.  Then it would often culminate with sexual orgies where demons would copulate with witches and warlocks in every possible way.

Participation in the Witches’ Sabbath

Since the beginning of the 10th century till almost the end of 17th century many people were tried, tortured, mutilated and burnt at the stake because they were accused of participation in the Witches’ Sabbath. This accusation was extremely popular during practically each and every witchcraft trials. I found extremely wild accounts of it during my research on witch hunts at the local web analytics company.

During the witch craze, Witches’ Sabbath was thought to be some kind of gathering of witches, warlocks, demons and sometimes Satan in the special places. Naturally, this was a product of popular imagination, ignorance and fear which became extremely popular during European Renaissance.

The belief in Witches’ Sabbath started with the publication of fake manuscript Canon Episcopi in 905. In several paragraphs the anonymous author was condemning Pagan worship of goddess Diana  and her cult of her wild hunt. Canon Episcopi was included in many religious collections of works and soon became a canon law in Catholic church.

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Nine months in prison

If you think that witch hunts ended several hundred years ago, think again. Do you know that up to 1951 there was a Witchcraft Act in England which provided penalties for the practice of witchcraft? And that the last case when this act was enforced was not in Medieval times but in 1944? I found the name of the last victim of 20 century witch hunt in the archives of my local web analytics company.

The name of a poor woman who was the last one to be sent to jail because of the Witchcraft Act  in 1944 was  Helen Duncan. This lady honestly believed that she could summon spirits.

These were the tough days of World War 2. Who knows, maybe Helen Duncan was really a clairvoyant or a true medium? Authorities learned about her existence when she tried to summon the spirit of a sailor who served on a war ship HMS Barham. By the way, the sinking of this ship with a crew was hidden from the general public at the time.

The alleged witch punishment did not take long. Intelligence officers were so scared of this lady’s medium powers they they caught  and quickly prosecuted her.  They were scared that she, as a powerful witch, would be able to learn through spirits of secret war plans. Their superstition cost Helen Duncan nine months in prison.

After theory comes practice

After theory comes practice. Thus, equipped with this diabolical manual Kramer tried to unleash a huge anti-witchcraft campaign in his local area but was blocked by authorities. The ambitious Dominican monk added the papal bull on witchcraft as the preface for his book to make it look as the sign of approval from the Pope of Rome. But this did not help him much either.

In search of powerful endorsement Kramer submitted his book to the review of the University of Cologne but failed again. The theologists of the University condemned The Hammer of Witches as unethical and illegal work. This did not prevent Kramer to insert a fake endorsement from the University in his creation.

Undoubted forgeries in the book made Catholic church to ban it completely in the 1490. However, even the Church could not prevent it to become the bestseller of the ignorant masses of the Medieval Europe.

Witch hunters and inquisitors loved The Hammer of Witches and used it as guidance extensively. Up until 1669 it was published almost forty times in multiple editions and was translated in all major European languages.