Five things you didn’t know about the Caucasus

History Extra

Situated on the border of Asia and Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, the Caucasus is shrouded in myth and mystery. In Sunday Feature: Caucasian Roots, Hughes examines the fables surrounding the Caucasus, and tests how far they are backed up by reality. She follows the trail of the Caucasus in antiquity from the Black Sea coast of Ancient Colchis to the shadow of Mount Ararat in Armenia. 

 Here, writing for History Extra, Hughes reveals five things you (probably) didn’t know about the Caucasus… 

 ‘White Caucasian’ 

 Every year millions of people around the world describe themselves as being ‘White Caucasian’. But why? 

 The answer is a combination of sexual fantasy and pseudo-science. In 1775 the anthropologist and passionate craniologist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach published the first draft of his thesis dividing the world in to five ‘varieties’: Mongolian, Ethiopian, Malay, American Indian and Caucasian. 

 He developed his findings from his own collection of 60 skulls, among which was the remains of a young Georgian woman [as in the American state] – the ‘Caucasian’ variety. Believing this skull to be ‘perfect’, and moved by tales of the 17th-century Huguenot travel-writer Sir John Chardin – who described Georgian women as being simply the most beautiful in the world – Blumenbach concluded that the Caucasus was the locus for the origin of white people. 

 We have been calling ourselves Caucasian ever since. 

 Dmanisi’s early man

 In a hilltop settlement close to the Armenian/Georgian border, excavations [details of which were fully published in 2013] uncovered the remains of five men and women of the homo erectus variety. Some standing under 3ft tall, these dated back 1.8 million years – making them the very oldest discovered outside Africa. 

 One male had been kept alive despite having a deformed jaw and no teeth – suggesting he was fed, and that these pre-humans operated guided by empathy. The group may well have been attacked and eaten by sabre-toothed tigers. Best-selling myths 

 Some of the most tenacious and popular myths from the ancient world are located in the Caucasus. This was said to be the home of Amazons, of Medea and her aunt Circe, where Jason adventured with his Argonauts and where Prometheus was chained to a rock for the crime of stealing fire from the gods. 

 Early and prodigious metalworking did take place in the region – perhaps sparking those tales of Prometheus meddling with fire and being bound to the Caucasian mountains with iron rivets. 

Drunk Noah 

 We’re told that Noah’s ark came to rest on Mount Ararat (Marco Polo popularised this as being the Mount Ararat in modern-day Turkey, just across the border from Armenia), and that he came down to cultivate the land and to plant vines – from which he ‘became drunken’. 

 The region claims to be the first to have domesticated the vine. Certainly, winemaking equipment and residues, 8,000 years old, have recently been discovered in both Georgia and Armenia.  

Djabal al-Alsun 

 Mediaeval Arab geographers described this isthmus of land between the Black and the Caspian Seas as that “of many languages”. That tradition continues today – 40 languages are spoken in the region. 

Recently in the Areni cave the world’s oldest leather shoe was found – dating back to c3500 BC. Rather than being a ‘liminal’ and ‘remote’ place, as the Caucasus was often described by classical authors, the area has long been a crossroads and congruence of cultures.

 Circassian beauties 

 The idea of gorgeous, languorous women from a remote land promised good box office takings: PT Barnum ‘imported’ Caucasian women who, for a dime, would recount the tale of their capture and life in the Sultan’s Ottoman harem – and then liberation by one of PT Barnum’s agents. 

 Generally these were, in reality, young Irish girls who had their hair coiffured into ‘wild-woman’ bouffant hairstyles – reminiscent of the afro. The reason for this seems to have been a visual indicator of ‘slave’, and a cultural reference to the thick hair and sheepskin hats of native Caucasians. The false hairdos were held in place by a combination of beer and egg white. 

 The Circassians were in fact a tribe from North West Caucasus, but their name became interchangeable with Caucasian. Beauty treatments such as ‘The Bloom of Circassia’ lotion were bestsellers in Europe and the US throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. 

 Dr Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author and broadcaster – she is currently writing a new history of Istanbul. Visit www.bettanyhughes.com to find out more.

Remnants of ancient necropolis excavated in Black Sea city in Turkey

Ancient Origins

A necropolis is being excavated at a veritable crossroads of ancient civilizations, in Sinop, Turkey. Workers found remnants of the 4^th century BC city of the dead while building a culture center in the ancient city on the Black Sea.
The necropolis dates to the 4^th century BC, and many artifacts have been found, including amphorae, pottery, scent bottles and Greek coins.
Construction of the culture center has stopped while archaeologists excavate the necropolis, a word meaning “city of the dead.”
“We have also unearthed findings related to the Jewish faith in the west of the necropolis area. Works have been continuing,” said Sinop Museum Director Hüseyin Vura.
Sinop Governor Yasemin Özata Çetinkaya said finds like this are often made in Sinop as “the city is located on really historic land.”

A sea wall in modern Sinop (Photo by Aramgar/Wikimedia Commons)

“It is exciting that these valuables which have remained underground for 6,000 years are now being presented to humanity. When the excavations are done, the findings will be removed and the construction of the culture center will continue here. The findings will be displayed in the museum,” the governor said. “If it is approved, we can display these findings in an area in the culture center. Then the center will work as a natural museum. There are many examples of it in Turkey and the world. This is the most-preferred method.”
Sinop has a rich history of Turkish, Greek, Hittite and other peoples.

“According to legend, Sinope was founded by the Amazons, who named it for their queen, Sinova,” writes the Encyclopedia Britannica. “The city’s ancient inhabitants ascribed its foundation to Autolycus, a companion of Hercules. Destroyed by the wandering Cimmerians, it was refounded toward the end of the 7th century bce by a colony of Milesians. It ultimately became the most flourishing Greek settlement on the Euxine (Black) Sea. As a terminus of the trade routes from Upper Mesopotamia, it commanded much of the maritime trade of the Pontic region and by the 5th century bce had established many colonies on the coast and enjoyed naval supremacy in the Black Sea. In 183 bce it was taken by Pharnaces I and became the capital of the Pontic kings. Under Mithradates VI Eupator, who was born there (as was the 4th-century-bce founder of the Cynic sect, Diogenes), it enjoyed a high degree of prosperity and was embellished with fine buildings, naval arsenals, and well-built harbors. The Roman general Lucius Licinius Lucullus captured the seaport in 70bce, and the city was nearly destroyed by fire.”

Other ancient monuments and structures in Sinop include a ruined citadel that was reconstructed during the Seljuk and Byzantine eras, and from early Greece and Rome inscribed stones in walls and isolated columns

Greek coins like this one of Pontus have been found in the necropolis (Photo by CNG Coins/Wikimedia Commons)

Though people lived in the area long before recorded history, before the New Stone Age, scholars believe the city of Sinop was founded by Hittites, who gave it that name. From 1400 to 1200 BC the Hittites had one of the great civilizations, from Syria, to northern Mesopotamia to central Turkey.

A ruin at the coast of Sinop (Photo by Michael F. Schonitzer/Wikimedia Commons)

“Hittite culture survived in parts of Syria such as Carchemish which had once been under their power,” says the British Museum site. “These Neo-Hittites wrote Luwian, a language related to Hittite, using a hieroglyphic script. Many modern city names in Turkey are derived from their Hittite name, for example Sinop or Adana, showing the impact of Hittite culture in Anatolia.” Anatolia is another name for Asia Minor or western Turkey.
Featured image: A necropolis was found under land upon which a new culture center is being built in Sinop. (Hurriyet Daily News photo)

'For Allah' Inscription Found on Viking Era Ring

Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News  
Live Science

The Viking Age ring with the Arabic inscription. Credit: Christer Åhlin/Swedish History Museum View full size image

Ancient tales about Viking expeditions to Islamic countries had some elements of truth, according to recent analysis of a ring recovered from a 9th century Swedish grave.
Featuring a pink-violet colored stone with an inscription that reads “for Allah” or “to Allah,” the silver ring was found during the 1872-1895 excavations of grave fields at the Viking age trading center of Birka, some 15.5 miles west of Stockholm.
It was recovered from a rectangular wooden coffin along with jewelry, brooches and remains of clothes. Although the skeleton was completely decomposed, the objects indicated it was a female burial dating to about 850 A.D.
The ring was cataloged at the Swedish History Museum in Stockholm as a signet ring consisting of gilded silver set with an amethyst inscribed with the word “Allah” in Arabic Kufic writing.
The object attracted the attention of an international team of researchers led by biophysicist Sebastian Wärmländer of Stockholm University.
“It’s the only ring with an Arabic inscription found in Scandinavia. We have a few other Arabic-style rings, but without inscriptions,” Wärmländer told Discovery News.
Video: Mythical Viking Sunstone is Real
Using a scanning electron microscope, the researchers discovered that the museum description wasn’t entirely correct.
“Our analysis shows that the studied ring consists of a high quality (94.5 percent) non-gilded silver alloy, set with a stone of colored soda-lime glass with an Arabic inscription reading some version of the word Allah,” Wärmländer and colleagues wrote in the journal Scanning.
Although the stone wasn’t an amethyst, as long presumed, it wasn’t necessarily a material of lower value.
“Colored glass was an exotic material in Viking Age Scandinavia,” Wärmländer said.
A closer inspection revealed the glass was engraved with early Kufic characters, consistent with the grave at Birka dating to around 850 A.D.
Mysterious Toe Rings Found on Ancient Skeletons
The researchers interpreted the inscription as “il-la-lah,” meaning “For/To Allah.” Alternative interpretations of the engraving are possible, and the letters could also be read as “INs…LLH” meaning “Inshallah” (God-willing).
“Most likely, we will never know the exact meaning behind the inscription, or where and why it was done,” the researchers wrote.
Viking ‘Hammer of Thor’ Unearthed
“For the present investigation, it is enough to note that its Arabic-Islamic nature clearly links the ring and the stone to the cultural sphere of the Caliphate,” they added.
Most interestingly, Wärmländer and colleagues noted the ring body is in mint condition.
“On this ring the filing marks are still present on the metal surface. This shows the jewel has never been much used, and indicates that it did not have many owners,” Wärmländer said.
In other words, the ring did not accidentally end up in Birka after being traded or exchanged between many different people.
“Instead, it must have passed from the Islamic silversmith who made it to the woman buried at Birka with few, if any, owners in between,” Wärmländer said.
Viking Women Colonized New Lands, Too
“Perhaps the woman herself was from the Islamic world, or perhaps a Swedish Viking got the ring, by trade or robbery, while visiting the Islamic Caliphate,” he added.
Either way, the ring constitutes evidence for direct interactions between the Vikings and the Islamic world, the researchers concluded.
“The Viking Sagas and Chronicles tell us of Viking expeditions to the Black and Caspian Seas, and beyond, but we don’t know what is fact and what is fiction in these stories,” Wärmländer said.
“The mint condition of the ring corroborates ancient tales about direct contacts between Viking Age Scandinavia and the Islamic world,” he said.
Originally published on Discovery News.