Book Spotlight and Excerpt: The Alcoholic Mercenary by Phil Hughes

 

They said, “See Naples and then die!”

Rachel had thought it was to do with the natural beauty of the place. A misconception she soon lost after climbing down from the C130 troop carrier. The suspicious death of her predecessor, followed by the murder of a sailor, and an enforced liaison with a chauvinistic and probably corrupt cop saw to that.

“See Naples and then die!”

Some said the saying was anonymous. Some attributed it to Goethe. Still, others said it was Lord Byron, or maybe Keats. When the young brother of a mercenary hitman became her main suspect, Rachel leaned towards Keats. Didn’t the poet die here? Somewhere near, for sure. Probably coined the phrase on his deathbed.

And then, the cherry on the top of her ice cream soda, she could smell grappa on the breath of the mercenary when she interviewed him. The only thing worse than a violent man: a violent man who drinks.

The only thing worse than a violent man who drinks: a violent man who drinks and considers himself Rachel’s enemy.

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 EXCERPT

Capri, Italy

The thrill of the sea spray, the wind, the bouncing and jostling of the Zodiac always excited Beni. He could think of nothing he would prefer at three in the morning. Not so his navigator, Stefano, wobbling in the front, armed with the compass, who kept waving and shouting directions when the boat veered, pushed off course by an unforgiving sea. Beni could imagine Stefano’s free hand gripping the rope so tightly his knucklebones would be shining in the moonlight.

When they reached the open sea, and the shadow of the Sorrento coast hid Capri, the waves tried to knock Stefano out of the boat. Beni screamed at the thrill, and Stefano screamed at him to slow down. Tough on Stefano, though, because Beni had the wheel. And what a wheel. What speed. Someone told him how many knots the Zodiac could do. With no idea what knots were, he still knew that if he pulled the throttle back to the stop, he would be doing more than thirty klicks an hour, which, at sea, was a fantastic and scary feeling.

Stefano started to wave his red dimmed torch, just visible in the predawn black, when a beam of light lanced from a point at sea where no land could be. Beni eased back on the throttle and grinned. The freighter. As soon as they had slowed enough to be gently rocking in the waves, he lifted his halogen torch and flashed a response. It was a game. Scortese had told him the Guardia could do nothing. They were outside Italian waters. The threat would be when they were returning.

Beni didn’t think there was much threat, even then. This was his fourth trip, and he’d seen nothing of the sbirri or the Guardia. It was as if they didn’t care. They had billions of lire’s worth of hi-tech boats resting idly in the port of Miseno. Sure, he’d listened to those engines booming across the bay. Anyone who lived around Baia had heard them. They shook buildings and made teeth rattle. Beni had never seen an interceptor, but he’d felt one often enough.

It didn’t take long to load the crates into the Zodiac. The men hanging out of a loading door in the ship’s hull held their peace. Beni knew they only spoke Russian and supposed they didn’t care if the AKs went to the correct buyer because they’d get their money either way. Ten minutes and he was again feeling the thrill of pure power. The boat’s bow lifted out of the waves like some monstrous creature from the deep, one of the spooky black and white ones from the American films he’d snuck in to see.

They’d made it into the gap between Capri and the coast when Stefano once more started to wave his torch frantically like he was trying to swat some elusive mosquito. Beni eased off the throttle and let the Zodiac come to a rest, swaying gently in the wash, the outboard quietly chugging and spitting sea spray.

‘What’s up?’

‘Can’t you hear it?’ Stefano asked, stress evident in his tone. Beni could imagine his frown, invisible in the red glow, mouth and eyes nothing but black.

Cupping his ear, he listened. Finally, he could hear a muted roar over the chugging of their engine.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘That’s the Guardia interceptor. They’re coming for us.’

‘How do they know we’re here?’

‘I dunno. Radar, maybe,’ Stefano replied.

‘What are we going to do?’ Beni asked.

‘We’ll have to run for it. Hope they miss us.’

‘Are they likely to?’

‘No idea. Only one way to find out.’ Stefano’s tone was a sure indication of what he thought their chances might be. Beni knew if the light had been enough, he would see Stefano’s face etched with panic lines.

‘So, let’s find out then,’ he said.

They found out quickly.

As they raced out from their cover, someone flicked a switch, and the interceptor glared at them with a halogen beam, which made daylight appear wherever it touched. Tall explosions of water in front of the Zodiac were accompanied by the dub-dub-dub of heavy machine gunfire and a mechanical voice ordering them to heave to. They couldn’t argue with the twin guns mounted to the front of the boat, which would tear the Zodiac into plastic strips while churning Stefano and Beni into shark bait. Beni turned the engine off and waited calmly.

He had nothing to fear.

Before long, a Zodiac like theirs appeared in the light thrown by the interceptor. It was smaller, and Beni guessed it had been launched off the other vessel. There were Guardia in it, pointing guns at them.

‘Get your hands up.’

He could see Stefano shaking. Neither of them had been arrested before, but Beni knew he would not spend more than a single night in custody because Beni made sure to give his tame sbirro the odd scrap of information. His insurance policy. He never told the cop anything of importance, just gossip, but the man was about as bright as a beachball and took it all as though it was Christmas.

Less than ten minutes later, they were pulling themselves up the boarding ladder into the Guardia’s boat. The boat impressed Beni. He couldn’t ignore the beauty of its hard lines and massive engines, throbbing right into his guts, making his teeth ache. Jumping onto the deck, he found a man standing there wearing chinos and a summer jacket. The man had his arms crossed and was grinning.

‘Where’s your uniform?’ Beni asked before he could stop himself.

‘Not Guardia. I’m a detective. Serious Crimes in Pozzuoli. Just observing here.’

‘What? Like watching the boat crew? That’s a bit creepy, isn’t it?’

‘What’s your name, guaglio?’ the man asked, his accent causing Beni to frown. Most cops he dealt with were not from around Napoli. In fact, they tended to be from north of Rome – way north of Rome.

‘You a local?’

‘Baia born and bred. Why’d you ask?’

‘No reason. Curiosity.’

‘So, what’s your name, kid?’

‘Beni Di Cuma.’

The cop smiled and nodded, making like he was on Beni’s side. The idiot thought Beni would be swayed by his false friendship because they were paisan. He didn’t need any buddies in the cops. He had his sbirro in Pozzuoli, who worked for the Secret Service. His wannabe handler. The one who would have the power to keep him out of La Casa. Beni would be eating lunch in Pescatore’s come midday.

‘This’ll warm you up,’ the sbirro offered his hipflask. Beni took a swig before handing it to Stefano.

‘Who’d you work for, Beni? My guess is the Scortese crew.’

Beni shrugged and turned to look at the silhouette of Capri, quickly receding as they headed into port. He thought the cop knew well enough. He thought they all knew. Did they not talk to each other? He supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. All the different types of cops Naples had, and they all thought they were better than the others. The Gatti Neri, the Guardia, the sbirri, all thought the others should bow to them. Never mind the Secret Service, who – chosen by God himself – bowed to no one.

 Phil Hughes

Although educated in Classical Studies, Phil is the author of several historical crime novels. Having spent many years living in the Mafia-infested hinterlands of Naples, Phil bases his novels on his experiences while living there. Much of what he includes in his stories is based on real events witnessed first-hand.

Having retired from writing and editing technical documentation for a living, Phil now lives in Wexford with his partner and their border terriers, Ruby, Maisy, and the new addition Ted. He writes full-time and where better to do it than in the Sunny South East of Ireland.

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7 things you (probably) didn’t know about Roman women

History Extra

Mosaic in the Roman villa of Casale, near Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy, showing women exercising. (Photo by Peter Thompson/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

1 Breast is best?
Roman doctors thought so, but mothers weren’t convinced Wealthy Roman women did not usually breastfeed their own children. Instead, they handed them over to a wet-nurse – usually a slave or hired freedwoman – who was contracted to provide this service. Soranus, influential author of a second-century work on gynaecology, prescribed that a wet-nurse’s milk might be preferable in the days after the birth, on the grounds that the mother could become too exhausted to feed. He did not approve of feeding on demand, and recommended that solids such as bread soaked in wine should be introduced at six months. Soranus also pointed to the possible benefits of employing a Greek wet-nurse, who could pass on the gift of her mother tongue to her charge.

Yet this flew in the face of advice from most Roman physicians and philosophers. They suggested that mother’s milk was best – both for the child’s health and moral character – on the grounds that wet-nurses might pass on servile defects of character to the baby. These same men opined that women who did not suckle their own children were lazy, vain and unnatural mothers who only cared about the possible damage to their figures.

2 Growing up, Roman girls played with their own version of Barbie dolls
 Childhood was over quickly for Roman girls. The law decreed that they could be married at as young as 12, thus capitalising on their most fertile, child-bearing years at a time when infant mortality rates were high. On the eve of her wedding, a girl would be expected to put away childish things – including her toys.

These same toys might be buried with her if she were to die before reaching marriageable age. In the late 19th century, a sarcophagus was discovered belonging to a girl named Crepereia Tryphaena, who lived in second century Rome. Among her grave goods was an ivory doll with jointed legs and arms that could be moved and bent, much like the plastic figurines that some little girls play with today. The doll even came with a little box of clothes and ornaments for Crepereia to dress her in. But in contrast to the much-critiqued dimensions of a modern Barbie, Crepereia’s doll had wide child-bearing hips and a rounded stomach. Clearly, the message this young girl was expected to internalise was of her own future role as a mother – the achievement for which Roman women were most valued.

Wooden doll from the sarcophagus of Crepereia Tryphaena. (Getty Images)

 3 Roman fathers, not mothers, usually got custody of their children after a divorce
Divorce was quick, easy and common in ancient Rome. Marriage was the grease and glue of society, used to facilitate political and personal ties between families. However, marital ties could be severed at short notice when they were no longer useful to one or other party.

Unlike today, there was no legal procedure to go through in getting a divorce. The marriage was effectively over when the husband – or more unusually, the wife – said so. Fathers could also initiate a divorce on behalf of their daughters, thanks to the common practice of fathers retaining legal guardianship over their daughters even after their marriage. This arrangement enabled the bride’s family to reclaim any dowry paid to the husband, thus keeping family fortunes intact. However, a few husbands tried to exploit a legal loophole that stated they could keep the dowry if – according to them – their wives had been unfaithful.

Women may sometimes have been dissuaded from leaving their husbands due to the fact that the Roman legal system favoured the father rather than the mother in the event of divorce. In fact, a Roman woman had no legal rights at all over her own children – the patrilineal relationship was all-important. Sometimes, however, if it were more convenient to the father, children would live with their mothers after divorce, and strong ties of affection and loyalty might remain even after the break-up of a household.

 A famous example of this is the case of emperor Augustus’s daughter Julia and her mother Scribonia, who was cast aside in favour of the emperor’s third wife Livia when Julia was a newborn. When Julia was later also cast into exile by her father on account of her rebellious behaviour, Scribonia voluntarily accompanied her grown-up daughter to the island of Ventotene (known in Roman times as Pandateria), where she had been banished.

Marble bust of Julia, who was exiled by her father, the emperor Augustus. (Getty Images)

4 Maybe she’s born with it…. maybe it’s crocodile dung
Roman women were under immense pressure to look good. In part, this was because a woman’s appearance was thought to serve as a reflection on her husband. Yet, at the same time as women tried to conform to a youthful ideal of beauty, they were mocked for doing so. Roman poet Ovid (43–17 BC) gleefully admonished a woman for attempting a DIY dye job on her hair: “I told you to stop using rinses – now just look at you. No hair worth mentioning left to dye.” In another satirical portrait by the writer Juvenal (c55–127 AD), a woman is said to have whipped the hairdresser who made a mess of her curly up-do.

There was clearly a thriving cosmetics industry in ancient Rome. Though some recipes would probably win cautious modern approval for their use of recognised therapeutic ingredients such as crushed rose petals or honey, others might raise eyebrows. Recommended treatments for spots included chicken fat and onion. Ground oyster shells were used as an exfoliant and a mixture of crushed earthworms and oil was thought to camouflage grey hairs. Other writers spoke of crocodile dung being used as a kind of rouge. Such practices may simply be the mischievous inventions of satirists determined to poke fun at women’s fruitless attempts to hold back the ravages of time. But it is clear from archaeological discoveries that the recipes for some beauty products were indeed somewhat bizarre. A small cosmetics container discovered at an archaeological dig in London in 2003 contained remnants of 2,000-year-old Roman face cream. When analysed, it was found to be made from a mixture of animal fat, starch and tin.

Second-century relief portraying a lady having her hair styled. (Getty Images)

5 The Romans believed in the education of women… up to a point
The education of women was a controversial subject in the Roman period. Basic skills of reading and writing were taught to most girls in the Roman upper and middle classes, while some families went further and employed private tutors to teach their daughters more advanced grammar or Greek.

All of this was intended to facilitate a girl’s future role in managing a household and to make her a more literate, and therefore entertaining, companion to her husband. Although very little writing by women is preserved from antiquity, that doesn’t mean that women didn’t write. Letters between soldiers’ wives, discovered at the Roman fort of Vindolanda on Hadrian’s Wall, illustrate something of the busy social scene of life on the frontier, and we know that Nero’s mother, Agrippina the Younger, wrote a memoir, which – much to historians’ frustration – has not survived.

However, many Romans believed that too much education could turn a woman into a pretentious bore. Worse still, intellectual independence could become a synonym for sexual promiscuity. Nevertheless, some elite families encouraged their daughters to cultivate an unusually educated persona, particularly if the family had a track-record of intellectual achievement. Perhaps the most famous example of this is Hortensia, daughter of Cicero’s great courtroom rival Hortensius. She was one of very few Roman women to be celebrated for her abilities as a speechmaker – an accomplishment that was traditionally the exclusive preserve of men. In 42 BC, Hortensia stood on the speaker’s platform in the Roman forum and eloquently denounced the imposition of a tax imposed on Rome’s wealthiest women to help pay for war.

Fresco detail of a young girl reading, from the first century BC. (Getty Images)

6 Like modern ‘first ladies’, Roman women played an important part in their husbands’ political campaigns
 Roman women could not run for political office themselves, but they could – and did – play a role in influencing the results of elections. Graffiti from the walls of Pompeii provides evidence of women urging support for certain candidates.

Politicians’ wives, meanwhile, played a role not dissimilar to that of modern presidential and prime ministerial spouses, promoting a ‘family man’ image of their husbands to the general public. Most Roman emperors broadcasted idealised images of themselves with their wives, sisters, daughters and mothers across the empire. Coins and sculptural portraits were designed to present Rome’s ‘first family’ as a harmonious, close-knit unit, no matter what the reality might be.

When Augustus became Rome’s first emperor, he tried to preserve the illusion that he remained a man of the people by making it known that, instead of expensive clothing, he preferred to wear simple woollen gowns handmade for him by his female relatives. Since wool working was considered an ideal pastime for a dutiful Roman matron, this helped foster the image of the imperial household as a haven of reassuring moral propriety.

 However, just as in today’s political landscape, the wives and other female relatives of Roman politicians and emperors could prove a liability as well as an asset. Having passed stringent legislation against adultery in 18 BC, Augustus was later forced to send his own daughter Julia into exile on the same charge.

7 Roman empresses weren’t all schemers and poisoners
Rome’s empresses have long been portrayed both in literature and film as poisoners and nymphomaniacs who would stop at nothing to remove those who stood in the way of their –or their husband’s – ambitions.

Augustus’s wife Livia is famously said to have killed him after 52 years of marriage by smearing poison on the green figs he liked to pluck from the trees around their house. Agrippina is said to have committed a similar act against her elderly husband Claudius, slipping a deadly toxin into his dinner of mushrooms. Agrippina’s predecessor Messalina – the teenage third wife of Claudius – is remembered primarily for ordering the deaths of her enemies and for her reputation as an insatiable sexual glutton, a label which even led to her being used as the poster girl for an anti-venereal disease campaign in France in the 1920s.

But before we pronounce on the guilt or otherwise of Livia and her fellow empresses, it is worth considering other Roman accounts of Augustus’s death that paint Livia not as a scheming poisoner, but as a devoted and grief-stricken widow. Moreover, there are such striking plot similarities between the reputed involvement of not just of Livia and Agrippina but other Roman empresses in the deaths of their husbands, such as Trajan’s wife Plotina and Domitian’s wife Domitia, that we should be hesistant about taking such sources at face value.

What is most likely is that recycled stories portraying emperor’s wives as poisonous traitors and conspirators in fact spoke to anxieties about how close these women were to the heart of power during the age of emperors. Where once power had resided in the Roman senate, now women presided over a household that was also the epicentre of government. As US first lady Nancy Reagan once said, “For eight years, I was sleeping with the president, and if that doesn’t give you special access, I don’t know what does”. The question of how much influence women did – and should – have in that set-up was one that preoccupied the Romans as powerfully as it preoccupies us today.

Annelise Freisenbruch is a classicist and author of The First Ladies of Rome. Her first historical novel, Rivals of the Republic, was published by Duckworth in the UK and The Overlook Press in the US in the autumn of 2016. Inspired by historical accounts of Hortensia, daughter of Cicero’s great law court rival Hortensius Hortalus, it is the first installment of the Blood of Rome series of Roman crime mysteries.

The Construction of Venice, the Floating City

Ancient Origins

Venice, Italy, is known by several names, one of which is the ‘Floating City’. This is due to the fact that the city of Venice consists of 118 small islands connected by numerous canals and bridges. Yet, the buildings in Venice were not built directly on the islands. Instead, they were built upon wooden platforms that were supported by wooden stakes driven into the ground.

The story of Venice begins in the 5th century A.D. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, barbarians from the north were raiding Rome’s former territories. In order to escape these raids, the Venetian population on the mainland escaped to the nearby marshes, and found refuge on the sandy islands of Torcello, Iesolo and Malamocco. Although the settlements were initially temporary in nature, the Venetians gradually inhabited the islands on a permanent basis. In order to have their buildings on a solid foundation, the Venetians first drove wooden stakes into the sandy ground. Then, wooden platforms were constructed on top of these stakes. Finally, the buildings were constructed on these platforms. A 17th century book which explains in detail the construction procedure in Venice demonstrates the amount of wood required just for the stakes. According to this book, when the Santa Maria Della Salute church was built, 1,106,657 wooden stakes, each measuring 4 metres, were driven underwater. This process took two years and two months to be completed. On top of that, the wood had to be obtained from the forests of Slovenia, Croatia and Montenegro, and transported to Venice via water. Thus, one can imagine the scale of this undertaking.

The city of Venice was built on wooden foundations.

The use of wood as a supporting structure may seem as a surprise, since wood is relatively less durable than stone or metal. The secret to the longevity of Venice’s wooden foundation is the fact that they are submerged underwater. The decay of wood is caused by microorganisms, such as fungi and bacteria. As the wooden support in Venice is submerged underwater, they are not exposed to oxygen, one of the elements needed by microorganisms to survive. In addition, the constant flow of salt water around and through the wood petrifies the wood over time, turning the wood into a hardened stone-like structure.

As a city surrounded by water, Venice had a distinct advantage over her land-based neighbours. For a start, Venice was secure from enemy invasions. For instance, Pepin, the son of Charlemagne, attempted to invade Venice, but failed as he was unable to reach the islands on which the city was built. Venice eventually became a great maritime power in the Mediterranean. For instance, in 1204, Venice allied itself with the Crusaders and succeeded in capturing the Byzantine capital, Constantinople. Nevertheless, Venice started to decline in the 15th century, and was eventually captured by Napoleon in 1797 when he invaded Italy.

As of today, the lagoon that has protected Venice from countless foreign invaders is the biggest threat to its survival. To the local Venetians, the flooding of the city seems to be a normal phenomenon, as the water level rises about a dozen times a year. These floodings are known as aqua alta (high water), and are generally caused by unusually high tides due to strong winds, storm surges, and severe inland rains. However, this is happening more frequently in recent years due to the rising sea level caused by climate change, which is starting to alarm the city. Thus, a number of solutions have been proposed to rescue Venice from sinking. One of these measures is the Mo.S.E. (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico, or Experimental Electromechanical Module) Project. This involves the construction of 79 mobile floodgates which will separate the lagoon from the Adriatic when the tide exceeds one meter above the usual high-water mark. Nevertheless, some pessimistic observers doubt that such measures will be sufficient to preserve Venice forever, and that the city will eventually sink, just like the fabled city of Atlantis.

Featured image: Beautiful Water Street Venice. Photo source: BigStockPhoto

By Ḏḥwty

Q&A: When did Italian replace Latin as the language of Italy?

History Extra

Languages can literally die overnight when the last of their speakers dies, but the death of Latin was very different.

 After the fall of the Roman empire in the west in AD 476, Latin evolved into a wide variety of regional dialects now known as Romance vernaculars. In the early 14th century the Florentine poet Dante Alighieri reckoned that more than 1,000 such dialects were spoken in Italy. At the time of Dante, Latin was still used in literature, philosophy, medicine and other cultural or legal written documents. Dialects were spoken, but also used in writing: the earliest examples of vernacular writing in Italy date from the ninth century.

The early 16th century saw the dialect used by Dante in his work replace Latin as the language of culture. We can thus say that modern Italian descends from 14th-century literary Florentine. Italy did not become a single nation until 1861, at which time less than 10 per cent of its citizens spoke the national language, Italian.

Throughout the first half of the 20th century, Italy was a ‘diglossic country’ – one where a local dialect such as Neapolitan or Milanese was spoken at home while Italian was learned at school and used for official purposes.

The First World War helped foster linguistic unification when, for the first time, soldiers from all over Italy met and talked to each other. The rise in literacy levels after the Second World War and the spread of mass media changed Italy into a bilingual nation, where Italian, increasingly the mother tongue of all Italians, coexists and interacts with the dialects of Italy.

 Answered by Delia Bentley, senior lecturer at the University of Manchester.

Q&A: How did pasta come to Europe and when did it first become established in Italy?

History Extra

That the food crops up in so many cultures isn’t surprising: pasta is basically unleavened bread that has been boiled rather than baked.

There was long a fond myth that Marco Polo (1254–1324) brought pasta back to Italy from his travels in China, though what in fact he said was that he had found the Chinese eating lagana (sheets or ribbons of noodles or wheat pasta) similar to that already found in Italy.

Pasta as we know it today, made from durum wheat and water, was being produced in Sicily by the 12th century (and probably much earlier), and was probably introduced by Arab colonists. North Africa’s variation on pasta is, of course, couscous. It’s thought the Arabs used dried noodles on journeys and military campaigns as it kept well for long periods. Dried pasta would later be used by European seafarers.

Pasta spread across Italy where production remained hard, physical work; pasta-makers would generally sit and knead the dough with their feet. For this reason, it was expensive until industrialised kneading and extrusion methods were pioneered in Naples in the late 1700s. Only then did it become part of the diet of most Italians, before spreading across the world.

Answered by Eugene Byrne, author and historian.

6,000-Year-Old Cave Find Shows Sicilians Made Wine Way Before Previously Thought

Ancient Origins

Researchers have found traces of wine in Sicily dating back to the 4th millennium BC. According to experts, that could mean that Italians have been making and drinking wine for much longer than previously believed.

 Oldest Italian Wine Found
A group of scientists led by Dr. Davide Tanasi from the University of South Florida, analyzed a small amount of remaining wine on an ancient jar found in a cave in Sicily. The results showed traces of tartaric acid and its sodium salt, which occur in grapes and the wine-making process, meaning that the region’s wine production possibly began in the early fourth millennium BC as The Guardian reports.

The jars found in a Sicilian cave were found to have small traces of wine residue. (Image: Dr. Davide Tanasi, University of South Florida)

The finding, published in Microchemical Journal, is considered extremely important as it’s the earliest discovery of wine residue in the entire prehistory of the Italian peninsula. In other words, the discovery could reshape the history of winemaking in Italy, since previous recovery of seeds and samples made archaeologists (falsely) believe that winemaking developed in Italy during the Middle Bronze Age, around 1300-1100BC.

“Unlike earlier discoveries that were limited to vines and so showed only that grapes were being grown, our work has resulted in the identification of a wine residue,” Dr. Tanasi tells The Guardian. He continues, “That obviously involves not just the practice of viticulture but the production of actual wine – and during a much earlier period.”

The jars were found in a cave near Monte Kronio, Agrigento, Sicily (ConsorzioTouristicodeiTempli)

Still not the Oldest Wine in Europe’s History?
The newly found Copper Age containers may contained traces of 6,000 years old wine, making it the oldest known Italian wine, but is it the oldest wine in Europe’s history? Not likely. As previously reported in an Ancient Origins article, archaeologists excavating a prehistoric settlement site in northern Greece in 2013, completed analyses of wine samples from ancient ceramics revealing evidence of wine dating back to 4200 BC, which makes it still the oldest known sample of wine in Europe.

This sample was located at an ancient settlement known as Dikili Tash, 1.2 miles from the ancient city of Philippi and has been inhabited since 6500 BC. Not much is known about the people who lived at Dikili Tash during these periods as of yet, so the 2013 findings offered some insight into these ancient people, although the societal changes that may have been influenced by the consumption of alcohol is still an issue of debate.

"Mosaic of the cupbearers", from the 2nd century AD. J.-C., from Dougga, in the National Museum of Bardo, Tunisia (CC BY 3.0)

 "The find is highly significant for the European prehistory, because it is for the moment the oldest indication for vinification in Europe," said Dimitra Malamidou, co-director of the 2013 excavation at the site. "The historical meaning of our discovery is important for the Aegean and the European prehistory, as it gives evidence of early developments of the agricultural and diet practices, affecting social processes," she added.

Wine boy at a Greek symposium. He uses an oinochoe (wine jug, in his right hand) to draw wine from a crater, in order to fill a kylix (shallow cup, in his left hand). Tondo of an Attic red-figure cup, ca. 490-480 BC. (Public Domain)

It is believed that the wine traces in Dikili Tash represent the oldest known traces of wine drinking in Europe. Previous studies have unearthed a 6,100-year-old Armenian winery, and beyond Europe, scientists have found traces of a 9,000-year-old Chinese alcohol made from rice, honey and fruit.

New Find Sheds Light on Vinification in Ancient Sicily
From the so far findings, the team of researchers conducting the study has managed to understand how the ancient Italians were using the pottery jar and what they were drinking almost 6,000 years ago, “The goal was that to shed new light on the use of certain ceramic shapes and infer some hypothesis about ancient dietary habits,” they write as IBTimes reported. And add, “Insights into the diets of early societies can be gained, indirectly, from the cultural evidence of artifacts related to food procurement, preparation and consumption, and [from] human skeletal remains.”

However, scientists suggest that more direct proof for dietary habits derived from the distinguishing of intact plant and animal remains collected during the excavations but also from the analysis of the amorphous remains of foodstuff associated with artifacts.

 Wine Could be an Offering to Gods According to Experts
Ultimately, Dr. Tanasi told CNN that the wine may have been left in the cave as an offering to underground deities. “The cave site of Monte Kronio is also a cult place used for religious practices from prehistory to Classical times,” Tanasi said. And added, “This discovery has important archaeological and historical implications.”

The next step for his team is to find out whether the wine was red or white, according to Dr. Tanasi’s statement.

Top image: Fresco depicting two lares pouring wine from a drinking horn (rhyton) into a bucket (situla), they stand on either side of a scene of sacrifice, beneath a pair of serpents bringers of prosperity and abondance, Pompeii, Naples Archaeological Museum (CC BY-SA 2.0)

 By Theodoros Karasavvas

History's 1st emoji? Ancient pitcher shows a smiley face

Fox News


By Laura Geggel

 The iconic smiley face may seem like a modern squiggle, but the discovery of a smiley face-like painting on an ancient piece of pottery suggests that it may be much older.

 During an excavation of Karkemish, an ancient Hittite city whose remains are in modern-day Turkey near the Syrian border, archaeologists came across a 3,700-year-old pitcher that has three visible paint strokes on it: a swoosh of a smile and two dots for eyes above it.

 "The smiling face is undoubtedly there," Nikolo Marchetti, an associate professor in the Department of History and Cultures at the University of Bologna in Italy, told Live Science in an email. "There are no other traces of painting on the flask." [The 25 Most Mysterious Archaeological Finds on Earth]

 The team of Turkish and Italian archaeologists found the pitcher, which dates to about 1700 B.C., in what was a burial site beneath a house in Karkemish, Marchetti said. The pitcher was likely used to drink sherbet, a sweet beverage, he told the Anadolu Agency, a Turkish news outlet.

The archaeologists also found other vases and pots, as well as metal goods in the ancient city, which measures about 135 acres (55 hectares), or slightly more than 100 football fields.

 The name Karkemish translates to "Quay of (the god) Kamis," a deity popular at that time in northern Syria. The city was inhabited from the sixth millennium B.C., until the late Middle Ages when it was abandoned, and populated by a string of different cultures, including the Hittites, Neo Assyrians and Romans, the archaeologists said in a statement. It was used once more in 1920 as a Turkish military outpost, the archaeologists added.

 British archaeologists visited the site in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but there was still much to be uncovered, so the new team, directed by Marchetti, began excavating it in 2003. But it wasn't until this past field season, which began in May, that the archaeologists unearthed the pitcher with the emoji-like painting.

 "It has no parallels in ancient ceramic art of the area," Marchetti told Live Science. "As for the interpretation, you may certainly choose your own."

 Original article on Live Science.

Can Researchers Crack da Vinci’s DNA Code? Recently Discovered Relics Attributed to the Legendary Renaissance Man May Help

Ancient Origins

A team of Italian researchers claim that they have discovered two relics belonging to Leonardo da Vinci, which could them help in tracing the DNA of the legendary polymath whose work epitomized the Renaissance.

 A Discovery of Immense Historical Importance? Could These be Da Vinci’s Relics? The peculiar relics were spotted during a long-term genealogical study of da Vinci’s family. “I can’t yet disclose the nature of these relics. I can only say that both are historically associated with Leonardo da Vinci. One is an object, the other is organic material,” Alessandro Vezzosi, director of the Museo Ideale in Vinci, told Seeker. The significance of such a discovery – if the relics are authentic– would be of immense historical value, since there are no known traces left of the Italian genius.

According to the “mainstream” version of history, the remains of Leonardo da Vinci, who died in 1519 in France, were scattered before the 19th century. However, in 1863 a corpse and large skull were discovered at the church of Saint-Florentin, where da Vinci was initially buried. Unfortunately, the place was pillaged during religious conflicts back in the 16th century and was entirely ruined in 1808. However, a stone inscription reading LEO DUS VINC was uncovered near the corpse, hinting at da Vinci’s name.

Leonardo da Vinci's Tomb in Saint-Hubert Chapel (Amboise). (CC BY SA 3.0)

DNA Testing Dilemmas
The aforementioned bones, attributed to Leonardo da Vinci, would be rediscovered in 1874 and reburied in the chapel of Saint-Hubert at the Château d'Amboise. What confuses things, however, is that researchers can’t get permission to conduct DNA testing and further analysis of the bones due to ethical reasons.

Ironically, another team of researchers seeking to unveil the true identity of the mysterious model who sat for Leonardo da Vinci’s world renowned painting, The Mona Lisa, had issues with DNA testing as well, but for different reasons. As Liz Leafloor reported in a previous Ancient Origins article, Italian archaeologists claim to own fragments of bone which they are certain belonged to Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo —the woman thought to have sat for da Vinci’s famous painting — but the remains cannot be DNA tested due to their decayed condition.

Mona Lisa, one of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous paintings. (Public Domain)

Researchers have tried studying the DNA of bone fragments which belonged to Lisa Gherardini Del Giocondo —the woman thought to have sat for this painting — but the remains cannot be DNA tested due to their decayed condition.

On the other hand, historian Agnese Sabato and Alessandro Vezzosi, founders of an organization titled Leonardo da Vinci Heritage to safeguard and promote his legacy, have been searching for biological traces of da Vinci since 2000 without any particular success. “We pieced together an archive of hundreds of Leonardo’s fingerprints, hoping to get some biological material. At that time, cracking da Vinci’s DNA code was just a wild dream. Now it’s a real possibility,” Vezzosi tells Seeker.

An illustration of Leonardo da Vinci's presumed remains in Amboise, France. (Museo Ideale Leonardo da Vinci)

The Hunt for da Vinci’s DNA Will Continue for a Couple More Years
The research is part of a broader project to trace da Vinci’s DNA by 2019, in honor of the 500th anniversary of his death. “The hunt for Leonardo DNA can now rely on a good, well-referenced genealogy,” Sabato told Seeker, explaining that all of the direct descendants come from Leonardo’s father. The researchers will be in communication with many international universities in order to achieve the widest possible scientific investigation on the relics and da Vinci’s descendants. The plan is to conduct DNA analysis on the relics and compare it to da Vinci’s descendants and bones found in recently identified da Vinci family burials throughout Tuscany.

Leonardo da Vinci statue outside the Uffizi, Florence, by Luigi Pampaloni. (Public Domain)

The researchers know that none of this will be easy and there’s a good chance that they won’t be able to extract any usable DNA from the relics.

Despite the difficulties waiting for them ahead, they are optimistic, “We now have a solid Da Vinci genealogy. We also hope the organic relic yields enough usable DNA,” Vezzosi told Seeker and adds, “Whatever the case. This relic has an extraordinary historic importance. We hope we will be soon able to put it on display.”

Top Image: A representation of Leonardo da Vinci. (Deriv.) (CC BY SA) Background: Structure of DNA. (Public Domain Pictures)

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Just How Rich Were the Inhabitants of Magna Graecia Really?

Ancient Origins

A team of archaeologists excavating in the Italian city of Paestum (Poseidonia), has uncovered the remnants of a palatial structure and indispensable ceramics. Almost 2,500 years ago, Poseidonia was part of Magna Graecia’s (“Great Greece’s”) most significant sanctuaries.

Magna Graecia’s Glorious Past
Magna Graecia was the name given in antiquity by the Romans to the group of Greek colonies which encircled the shores of Southern Italy, in the present-day regions of Campania, Apulia, Basilicata, Calabria and Sicily that were extensively populated by Greek settlers.

 The name is not found in any extant author earlier than Polybius, who mentions the cities of Magna Graecia during the time of Pythagoras by using the expression, “the country that was then called Magna Graecia” (Pol. 2.39). However, many historians believe that the name possibly had arisen already at an early stage of Greek history, probably during a period that the Greek colonies in Italy were at the height of their power and prosperity and before many famous city-states of Greece had reached their peak.

The Greek expansion into Southern Italy began in the 8th century BC and the settlers would bring with them their Hellenic civilization, which was to leave a lasting imprint in Italy, such as in the culture of ancient Rome. Greek colonists founded a number of city states on both coasts of the peninsula from the Bay of Naples and the Gulf of Taranto southwards and all-round the narrow coastal plain of Sicily.

Ancient Greek colonies and their dialect groupings in Southern Italy (Magna Graecia). (Public Domain)

 In their hey-day these city states, founded by farmers, traders, and craftsmen, represented the “new rich” of the Greek world. Their temples were bigger, their houses more ornate, and their aristocracy lived a life of pampered luxury. Trade between the Italian colonies and their founding cities in mainland Greece prospered, and Magna Graecia became the center for two philosophical groups: Parmenides founded a school at Elea and Pythagoras another at Croton. Croton was also famed to have the finest physicians in the Greek world and was the home of one of the greatest ancient athletes, Milo, who was a six times champion in wrestling at both the Olympic and Pythian games.

Coins from Magna Graecia. (CC BY SA 2.5)

 New Findings at Poseidonia Clearly Show the Affluence of its Greek Founders
Despite many of the Greek inhabitants of Southern Italy getting totally Italianized during the Middle Ages, the immense impact of Greek culture and language has survived to present day. One major example of this is Griko people, an ethnic Greek community of Southern Italy that can be mainly found in regions of Calabria and Apulia.

Another major example would be all the discoveries that have taken place in Southern Italy, with the most recent being a block-built building and the new artifacts in Poseidonia as Greek Reporter recently reported.

Archaeologists excavating a structure which is believed to date from when the settlement of Poseidonia was founded in southern Italy. (Parco Archeologico di Paestum)

Poseidonia was established by Greek colonists from the Gulf of Taranto around 400 BC. The city would later fall under the rule of an indigenous Italic people known as the Lucanians, who changed the city’s name.

The remains of the recently unearthed large structure, which most likely served as either a palace or a very luxurious household, seems to have been constructed within the same time period as the Doric-style temples of the Greek gods Athena, Hera, and Poseidon - for which Poseidonia was best known in antiquity.

Second temple of Hera, also called Neptune temple or Poseidon temple, Paestum (Poseidonia), Campania, Italy. (Norbert Nagel/CC BY SA 3.0)

Besides the large building, as New Historian reports, archaeologists have also uncovered a respectable amount of Attic red-figure style pottery – a proficiency invented in Athens after the Greek Dark Age -which influenced the rest of Greece, especially Boeotia, Corinth, the Cyclades, and the Ionian colonies in the east Aegean – along with other luxury objects, which clearly show how rich the city’s Greek founders became catering to the travelers and believers who came to worship at the temples. Other finds include vessels used for cooking, eating, and drinking.

An Attic vase fragment found at the Paestum site in southern Italy. It depicts the Greek god Hermes. (Parco Archeologico di Paestum)

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Top Image: A richly decorate vase in the National Archaeological Museum of Paestum, Italy. Source: CC BY SA 3.0

Have We Got a Temple, Theater, and Gate? Check! New Details Emerge on Roman Urban Planning in Central Italy

Ancient Origins

Archaeologists have discovered a magnificent ancient Roman temple the size of St Paul's Cathedral in central Italy. The discovery took place with the help of a radar device that was attached to the back of a quad bike in order to explore the hidden details of the excavation site.

Getting to Know Falerii Novi
An archaeological team of Cambridge University discovered the remains of the immense Roman temple in central Italy. The ancient temple had lines of columns on three sides covering an area of about 400 ft. (120 meters) long and 200 ft. (60 meters) wide and was unearthed many feet below Falerii Novi, an abandoned walled town in the Tiber River valley, about 50 km (31 miles) north of Rome. The small town was created by the Romans, who resettled the inhabitants of Falerii Veteres in this much less defensible position after a revolt in 241 BC. It is placed on a modest volcanic plateau and housed around 2,500 people during the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The town also gives insight into the Roman Empire’s expanding interchange from other cultures, as Greek-style buildings were also discovered there.

Archaeological area of Falerii Novi, Italy. ( Camminare nella storia blog )

 Radar Device Helped to Explore the Excavation Site
Archaeologists used a radar device attached to the back of a quad bike to explore the excavation site. Martin Millett, professor of classical archaeology at Cambridge University said as International Business Times reports , that the radar helped the team to discover in depth the layout of the town as well as its development and growth. The fascinating antiquities excavated so far are the remains of a theater, a basilica that was probably used for meetings and legal proceedings, as well as a large defensive gate. Experts suggest that some of these finds (such as the gate) will provide historians with valuable information in order to understand a little more about the urban planning in the early days of the Roman period.

Remnants of the theater. Falerii Novi, Italy. ( CC BY SA 3.0 )

 The Role of the British School at Rome’s Tiber Valley Project The Roman colony of Falerii Novi was excavated during the 1990s but it was just recently that it was thoroughly examined as part of the Tiber Valley Project , which shows the urbanization of this area by the Romans. The plan produced by the British School at Rome using magnetometry reveals in great detail the subsurface archaeological features of the Republican city, as this technique can detect metals at a much greater depth than basic metal detectors, which have a standard range of about two meters (6.56 ft.).

Photo of the necropolis of "Tre ponti": the "Cavo degli Zucchi" with the Roman Amerina via (road) near Falerii, Italy. ( CC BY SA 3.0 )

 According to its official website , the British School at Rome’s Tiber Valley project, studied the changing landscapes of the middle Tiber valley as the hinterland of Rome through two millennia. It drew on the vast amount of archaeological work carried out in this area to examine the impact of the growth, success and transformation of the Imperial city on the history of settlement, economy, and society in the river valley from 1000 BC to AD 1000. The project involved twelve British universities and institutions as well as many Italian scholars.

A plan of of Falerii Novi - taken from ‘Falerii: A New Survey of the Walled Area, 2002.’
Investigations conducted by the Department of Archaeology of the 'University of Southampton. (Comune di Fabrica di Roma/ CC BY SA 3.0 )

Top Image: Entrance gate to Falerii Novi. Source: Comune di Fabrica di Roma/ CC BY SA 3.0

By Theodoros Karasavvas

Sam’s historical recipe corner: Torta Margherita

History Extra

A delicious gluten and dairy-free cake with only three ingredients. (Credit: Sam Nott)

In every issue of BBC History Magazine, picture editor Sam Nott brings you a recipe from the past. In this article, Sam recreates Torta Margherita, a 19th-century cake from Italy that is both gluten and dairy-free.

 This recipe comes from Pellegrino Artusi’s 1891 cookbook La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di Mangiare Bene (The Science of Cooking and the Art of Fine Dining), and is a cake that has been enjoyed in many Italian households.

 Artusi’s introduction to his cookbook gives an insight into the origins of the cake. He originally made it for a friend of his, Antonio Mattei, who took the recipe and, after making a few changes, sold it in his restaurant.

 The cake was such a success that it soon became the norm to finish a meal with Torta Margherita. The moral of the story, according to Artusi, is that if you grab opportunities when they arise (as Mattei did) fortune will favour you above someone who merely sits back and waits. 

Ingredients
120g of potato starch,
 sifted 120g of fine white sugar (caster sugar)
 4 eggs
 Juice or zest of a lemon (optional)
 Butter and baking paper (to line the baking tin)

 Method
Separate the yolks from the whites and beat the yolks together with the sugar until pale and creamy. Add the lemon (optional) and the potato starch and beat.

 In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then delicately fold the whites through the batter. Place the mixture into a round cake tin (buttered and lined with baking paper). Bake at a moderate heat for about an hour or until golden on top and firm to the touch.

 Difficulty: 2/10

 Time: 60 minutes

 Verdict: When I found this recipe I was intrigued: a gluten and dairy-free cake that tastes nice? And with only three ingredients? But the picture in the recipe book looked very enticing so I gave it a try. 

And I’m glad I did! I ended up making several of these as they were so delicious; friends and family devoured them all. The cake is incredibly light, goes well with tea or coffee, and takes just an hour to make.

 Recipe courtesy of Emiko Davies.

McDonald’s offers diners ancient road on the side

PalmBeachPost

By Elisabetta Povoledo

The New York Times MARINO, Italy

It’s a common enough story in Italy: An ancient ruin — in this case, a tract of Roman road — is discovered during the construction of a building — in this case, a McDonald’s — and puts a halt to the work until the site can be excavated.

 Rather than fret about lost time and money, McDonald’s decided to sponsor the dig, and it worked with the archaeological authorities to preserve the road, built between the second and first centuries B.C.

 As of Tuesday, visitors to the fast-food restaurant, about 12 miles southeast of central Rome, could walk along the 147-foot stretch of road without even having to buy a Big Mac.

 Many parts of Italy contain subterranean riches, and over the centuries, countless edifices have incorporated or adapted the ruins of previous eras. Several restaurants in Rome, for example, have an important historical or archaeological lineage, like being the site where Julius Caesar was murdered, or a place where oil amphorae were stocked in ancient times. Even the McDonald’s in Termini Station in Rome includes a section of the Servian Wall, from the fourth century B.C.

 But the work at the McDonald’s in Marino — more precisely in the hamlet of Frattocchie, known as Bovillae in ancient times — stands out because the project incorporated the road, which would otherwise have been reburied.

 “Archaeology is constantly bringing to light testimonies of the past that have to be documented in an exacting manner but can’t always be properly preserved,” said Alfonsina Russo, the Culture Ministry’s archaeological superintendent for the area.

 In many cases, unless the finds are exceptional, they are reburied in the hopes that they can be re-examined later.

 “It’s better to protect them than to leave them exposed, when it’s not possible to properly care for them,” Russo explained. “The earth protects; man destroys.”

 The finding of the road, uncovered in 2014 while digging for the foundations of the McDonald’s, came as a surprise.

 “We decided with McDonald’s to protect and promote this important site, which would have otherwise fallen again into oblivion,” Russo said.

 The road was a diverticulum, or side passage, leading to the Appian Way, a Roman thoroughfare built in 312 B.C. The uncovered stretch probably led to a villa or a great estate, Russo said. 

Archaeologists on the dig have said that the unearthed road, which has grooved signs of ancient wear and tear from cart wheels, was most likely used for a few hundred years before it was abandoned. The skeletons of three men found in the gutter of the road, which have been reproduced in resin casts, are signs that the road had been abandoned, said an archaeologist involved in the effort, Pamela Cerino.

 The skeletons, which have yet to be dated through carbon testing, were found with items including terra cotta tiles, that led to the hypothesis that the road stopped being used in the second or third centuries A.D., Cerino said.

 She was hired by McDonald’s but worked under the supervision of the Culture Ministry, as is usually the case in Italy when private property is involved. McDonald’s spent around 300,000 euros, or about $315,000, on the restoration project.

 The road was excavated, documented and enclosed in a gallery with a glass roof, so that patrons of the restaurant can look down on it. The entrance to the gallery is separate and can be visited by anyone, not just McDonald’s customers.

 Given its remoteness from major attractions, the site is unlikely to attract many tourists, although explanatory panels in Italian and English have been installed throughout the site. School groups from nearby towns began arriving Tuesday, when the site officially opened to the public.

 The gallery is closed off by a gate and monitored with surveillance cameras, and McDonald’s Italia has pledged to pay for its upkeep.

 “That’s the most important thing, guaranteeing its constant maintenance,” said Russo, who added that Culture Ministry officials would periodically check on the site.

 “It’s easy to excavate; the more critical operation is to preserve a site,” she said.

 “We’re proud to be here, giving this Roman road,” said Mario Federico, managing director of McDonald’s Italia, who said it was the first time the restaurant chain had encountered the need for “a solution of this kind” in Italy.

 Asked if he thought hungry patrons would be squeamish about seeing skeletons on display below, he said it was unlikely.

Italian Archaeologists Find a Rare Solar Observatory Hewn Into Rock to Highlight the Winter Solstice

Ancient Origins

A group of friends surveying World War II bunkers in Sicily, Italy, uncovered something much older—a rock on a hill with a circular hole that was apparently carved into it through which the winter sun still shines the morning of the solstice. It is a sundial that has been dubbed the Stonehenge of Italy. Archaeologists who examined the holey stone say it dates as far back as 6,000 to 3,000 years.

Archaeoastronomy Professor Alberto Scuderi, a regional director with Italy’s Archaeologist Groups, studied the stone after amateur archaeologist Giuseppe La Spina and his friends discovered it on November 30, 2016.

Finally, on the winter solstice of December 21, experts determined that the stone was used to determine seasons and solstices. They used a compass, a GPS drone, cameras and video equipment to verify that the sundial worked.

"At 7:32 am the sun shone brightly through the hole with an incredible precision," Mr. La Spina told Live Science. "It was amazing."

Professor Scuderi completed his work on January 3 and was to present a report on the stone to the Gela Archaeological Museum.

The stone arrangement is near three prehistoric cemeteries—Grotticelle, Dessueri and Ponte Olivo. The closest town is Gela, on the southern Sicilian coast.

This rock-hewn tomb at Syracuse, reportedly that of Archimedes, is of a type found near the sundial in Gela, Sicily. (Wikimedia Commons/Photo by Codas2)

“Making an archaeological discovery is in itself an important event, but to be part of one of the most sensational finds in recent years fills me with pride,” Mr. La Spina told the Local.

He added that this Bronze Age monument was special to him personally because he and his group found it near his hometown of Gela.

Mr. La Spina said the discovery of the sundial with its 3.2-foot (1-meter) diameter hole may mean even more archaeological treasures are there to be discovered. He hopes for new finds that will shed light on the distant past of his hometown.

The 7-meter-tall (23-foot tall) stone’s special ritual importance becomes even clearer in the context of the sacred ground upon which it was found. Around the end of the 3rd millennium BC, there were burials nearby called grotticella tombs that were carved out of rock by people of the Castelluccio culture that held sway in Sicily.

La Spina and his associates also found a stone called a menhir at the eastern side of the sundial. They believe the stone was upright when it was taken there, but it fell at some point later. The menhir is 5 meters tall (16.4 feet) and in front of it is a pit.

The sundial stone and menhir have different geological compositions, which experts think indicate the menhir was imported to the site from elsewhere.

This is not the only stone with a man-made hole found so far on Sicily. Professor Scuderi said he found two others, near Palermo, that were made in prehistoric times.

"One lined up with the rising sun at the winter solstice, the other produced the same effect with the rising sun at the summer solstice," Scuderi told Live Science . "For this reason, I believe that another holed calendar stone, marking the summer solstice, may be found near Gela."

Featured image: The morning sun shines through the stone with the hole, an event marking the beginning of winter on December 21. (Credit: Giuseppe La Spina)

By Mark Miller

Supervolcano That May Have Wiped out Neanderthals Comes to Life Again

Ancient Origins

A huge area of volcanic activity near heavily populated Naples, Italy, is reaching a critical point and scientists think it could erupt. The 12-kilometer (7.46 miles) caldera or volcanic cauldron hasn’t erupted for nearly 500 years, but scientists say the seismic monster is reawakening. Some researchers speculate that when Campi Flegrei, which translates from Italian as Burning Fields, erupted about 39,000 years ago it may have wiped out the Neanderthals. Although there is no definitive evidence for this, the fact that the caldera has the potential to devastate a large region of Italy and could even cause volcanic winter worldwide is not in question.

An 1845 map of Campi Flegrei by the Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London. (Wikimedia Commons)

The caldera has 24 craters and some large volcanic edifices, most under the Mediterranean Sea. It formed 39,000 years ago during the most catastrophic volcanic explosion in Europe for 200,000 years, says Science Alert.

Scientists call these types of geological feature supervolcanos, which form large fields of volcanic eruptions and spew so much magma from below that they collapse and leave behind a big crater. The supervolcano landscape generates hydrothermal activity, geysers and sulfuric acid.

Campi Flegrei has had just three eruptions—two large ones 39,000 and 12,000 years ago. A “smaller” one in 1538 was so great that it lasted for eight days and put out such huge releases of lava that it formed Monte Nuovo, a new mountain.

Monte Nuovo was formed during an eruption of Campi Flegrei in 1538. ( Wikimedia Commons photo)

One eruption of Campi Flegrei was so huge that researchers speculate it killed off the Neanderthals. Modern Homo sapiens survived because they lived farther away from the volcanic activity, these researchers say.

While the connection of the demise of the Neanderthals remains purely speculative until further evidence can be found, the eruption, which is thought to have spewed almost 1 trillion gallons (3.7 trillion litres) of molten rock onto the surface - along and with just as much sulfur into the atmosphere - is not.

Another reason Homo sapiens may have outlived Neanderthals was because of a population vacuum of Neanderthals in Europe and a revolution in technological and social advancements that people came up with shortly after 40,000 years ago.

Sulfur in a burning landscape at Campi Flegrei near Naples, Italy ( Wikipedia photo /Donar Reiskoffer)

Scientists can’t accurately predict when a volcano will blow, though they monitor volcanoes, especially near populated areas such as Naples with 500,000 people. Volcanic eruption predictions are an imprecise science.

But volcanologist Giovanni Chiodini of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and his team are saying Campi Flegrei seems to be nearing the point of eruption and is in a state of critical degassing pressure. Their paper in the journal Nature Communications states:

We propose that magma could be approaching the CDP at Campi Flegrei, a volcano in the metropolitan area of Naples, one of the most densely inhabited areas in the world, and where accelerating deformation and heating are currently being observed.

The CDP at Campi Flegrei could result in release of jets of super-hot gases into the atmosphere and could heat rocks and hydrothermal fluids that could cause rock failure and even an eruption.

This phenomenon has been observed at two other active volcanoes, one in Papua New Guinea and one in the Galapagos Islands. “Both showed acceleration in ground deformation before eruption with a pattern similar to that observed at Campi Flegrei,” Chiodini told The Guardian .

There are many uncertainties about this possible volcanic activity, Chiodini told The Washington Post . Campi Flegrei may evolve in both directions, toward conditions of pre-eruption or even to the demise of any volcanic unrest.

Top image: The dramatic eruption of Mt Vesuvius. ( Wikimedia Commons )

By Mark Miller