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24
May 15

The British Museum

(This is a long post with 15 cool photos and just over a thousand words. The last photo, I assure you, is worth the wait.)

Dressing up, because that’s how you do the big museums.

I wore a polo, because I don’t do big museums properly.

Tiglath-pileser III didn’t mind. He had other things on his mind. This is the capture of Astartu (in modern Jordan). The cuneiform says it was taken by King Tiglath-pileser, shown here in his chariot, under a parasol. The population was leaving under Asssyrian escort. This took place somewhere between 730 and 727 BC. He built the world’s first professional standing army and conquered much of the land they knew about at the time. One of the world’s great military rulers, he frequently appointed eunuchs as puppet governors of newly conquered lands. No dynasty. He shrank the provinces, reducing the power of his officials by reducing the size of the provinces.

This is part of the false door and architrave of Ptahshepses. Usually the Egyptian tomb doors focused on the afterlife, but this one tells how lived in this realm. He grew up at court, married the king’s daughter and lived through the next six pharaohs as a high priest for Ptah, the chief god of Egypt’s capital at Memphis and patron of artisans. He was also the senior priest of Ra in three sun temples. This is during the 5th dynasty, around 2400 BC. The stone was painted red to resemble wood, which was rare. Ptahshepses was also called “barber of the Great House” and the “manicure of the Great House,” great honors because his work required him to touch the pharaoh. It is said he got to kiss his foot, where most people had to kiss the ground because the king was a religious incarnation himself.

The history of decorative tiles dates to Egypt and Ancient Greece and at least to the 13th century BC in the Middle East and Sri Lanka on hugely important projects. They weren’t common, but the Byzantines and the Romans and in places like Tunisia and Iran they really hit their stride. Starting around the 10th century, tiles became more common in Western Europe, but they were still expensive. When the Moors invaded Spain things really picked up for the art form, the art and several of the techniques spread throughout Europe throughout the 16th century.

This is all going to be important in a bit.

But first, more about our friend King Tiglath-pileser III. This relief was in his palace and shows the sheep and goats captured in his campaign against the Arabs. The livestock were being driven back to the Assyrian camp:

Here’s a relief of the king. He’s got his ceremonial robes on, because he, too, wanted to be like Elvis. He’s holding a bow and his assistant behind him has more weapons. The king should be staring at two officials, but that part of the relief no longer exists. (They have drawings.) Tiglath-pileser may have had this in his palace, but it was also used by King Esarhaddon — his great-grandson — a half-century later.

It was hard to be a king. Esarhaddon was killed by his older brothers. Two of Tiglath-pileser’s sons also ruled. Two because of another familial coup.

But, if you were a succesful military campaigner like Tiglath-pileser, you got your share of war treasure. This relief showing a woman and herd of camels are more of the spoils of war he won during his reign.

But this was all in the 745–727 BC era. Let’s go even farther back into Assyrian history.

This is a guardian lion from the temple of Ishtar Sharrat-Niphi. It was 15 tons and is meant to represent the goddess of war. It guarded the entrance to Ishtar’s temple, installed between 865-860 BC. It was re-discovered in the 19th century.

The signage calls it fierce. That it guarded the temple is important.

Do you think it intimidated anyone?

How did the Egyptians do lions? So glad you asked. This is meant to be King Amenhotep III. The pharaohs were often shown as a sphinx, but this full lion image is rather rare. Amenhotep IV called the king a “lion of rulers, wild when he sees his enemies tread his path.” This dates to 1390 BC, but the lion and its companion piece were used by several rulers throughout history.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Rosetta Stone, a decree from Memphis, Egypt, mandated in 196 BC by King Ptolemy V. There are three scripts, three languages, Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic script and Ancient Greek. The text is basically the same, and that gave scholars the key to our modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Thought to have been on display in a temple, the stone was eventually used as building material of a fort. From there it was rediscovered in 1799 by a soldier, Pierre-François Bouchard, of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. In 1802 it became British property as a spoil of war. Since 2003 the Egyptians have asked to have it returned. So far, they’ve only received a replica. This is the real thing:

The supreme god Amun is portrayed here as a ram. That ram is protecting King Taharqo. Two cobras are symbols of sovereignty. This sphinx and others like it lines a road to the temple of Amun at Kawa. This is from the 25th dynasty, 690-664 BC.

This is supposedly a pair of protective spirits, a great lion or Ugallu/ This is Assyrian, from Nineveh, dating to around 700-692 BC:

Bronze tablets like this one were often placed on temple walls as dedications to gods. This tablet is said to describe an offering made to the Sabean god Almaqah after a successful grain harvest. A Tree of Life is surrounded on either side by sphinxes and date palms. It dates to the 2nd century BC of Yemen:

And, finally, this is a 4th-century AD mosaic floor from a villa in Dorset. It is an important Christian remain from the Roman Empire. This central portion is believed to be the earliest known mosaic of Jesus Christ. The Greek letters X and P (chi and rho) are the usual symbol of early Christianity. The pomegranates are meant to suggest immortality.

In the corners of the larger mosaic are four heads, thought to be Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. The mosaic was rediscovered in the 1960s.

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23
May 15

The story of Billiter Street

Once upon a time Adam came over to see us. Being the history major that he was and the genealogy buff that he is, he has traced his ancestors migration to the new world.

He is descended from Richard Mynatt, who came over to the colonies from England in 1749. Mynatt, the son of a sailor, was a 20-year-old cook who signed a four-year agreement of servitude with Thomas Lee. He would go to Virginia and become the head cook of Stratford Hall, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. (Thomas was his grandfather.)

When Thomas Lee died, Mynatt’s contract was passed to Philip Ludwell Lee. When Mynatt’s servitude was up, he asked for his freedom and the money he was owed. Philip said no, so Mynatt went to court. He became the first indentured servant in America to win his freedom in court.

Philip would serve in the House of Burgesses, but died before the Revolution. Two of his brothers, Richard Henry and Francis Lighthorse, signed the Declaration of Independence. Stands to reason that Mynatt knew them.

Now, Adam has been to Stratford Hall. He’s climbed into the attic space where Mynatt lived for four years. Some of his recipes are said to still be on file there.

But that might be about the only thing Mynatt left behind. He moved a few counties to the north when he gained his freedom in 1754. He started a family and later worked as a courier for George Washington, serving two tours of duty, in the Revolutionary War. Richard’s eldest son, William, is also on Revolutionary War rosters.

In 1787 Mynatt sold his Virginia land and moved the family to east Tennessee, where he bought several hundred acres of farmland. He worked as a doorkeeper for the Southwest Territorial House of Representatives.

He died in 1823 in Union, Tennessee and is buried there, in a family cemetery. He was 96 or 100 years old, depending on which record you like. He and his wife, Sarah, had 10 children.

Adam has been to the Mynatt cemetery. But he’s never been to where the ancestral roots began. Adam has found the document that showed Mynatt’s immigration and servitude. It lists the road where Richard Mynatt lived in England, in London.

Let’s find it on a map, we said, when he came to visit.

As these things do, one search led to a neighborhood, which led to looking over every street in the area and there it was. Billiter Lane is now Billiter Street. And it was very close to where we were.

So we went for a visit.

It is a small little road, and of course it looks nothing like mid-18th century London.

This is the oldest building on Billiter, and it is from the 1860s. No one Richard Mynatt knew when he left for the colonies would have ever seen this place. Nor would their grandkids. What I’m saying is, it has been some long time since Mynatt left.

It is a small little road. This is a photo taken while standing on one end of the modern Billiter. You can see the other end from here.

It was cool to see where it all started. A young man who left for reasons lost to history, worked hard and turned himself into a free man, a successful land owner in the new world. He worked on the edges of history and raised a family. And here’s one of his great-great-greats now, wondering where on this street an English sailor raised a future American cook.

And that’s the story of Billiter Street.

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22
May 15

Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey has more than a millennium of history behind it. Monks moved in around 960 AD. England have crowned royalty there since 1066. The structure reaches back to the 13th and 16th centuries. Seventeen monarchs are buried there, and more than 3,000 other people besides. Many of them especially important to the United Kingdom and the world. They could use a good dusting in places, but it is a beautiful church.

No photos inside, but here are some from the courtyard, including the famous west towers and flying buttresses.

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16
May 15

Stonehenge

It is smaller than you’d imagine. You can get closer to it than you think. And aside from the other people and the ropes and whatever curious, cosmic thing the location was doing to my camera lens, this isn’t a bad little atmospheric video:

Here we are:

Nearby are early Bronze Age burial mounds, knowns as Cursus barrows. The people buried in those mounds lived a few centuries after the stones were put in place. A huge earthwork enclosure was built about a millennia before the stones were raised. You can walk the Cursus enclosure, and if you figure out their purpose, you’ll be the first one. No one knows for sure why the early Neolithic people put in the effort.

If you know how to look for it, you can see the Avenue, which are parallel banks of ditches. It links Stonehenge to the river Avon. (One of the four Avons, as we learned in the previous post‘s video.) The Avenue was put into place around 2300 BC, around the time the bluestones were being rearranged. The part nearest the stones are still low earthworks, the rest are plowed flat. The section lines up nicely with the midsummer sunrise and midwinter sunset.

Click to embiggen this one in a new browser tab:

The ruins you and I know are several different stages of work, starting about 5,000 years ago, with the big circle. A few centuries passed before the sarsen stones were placed in the horseshoe and then a circle with the bluestones put between them. Some time later the bluestones were rearranged. Some have fallen since then, some have been removed. Then, during the middle of the 20th century some were reinstalled during a 45-year restoration project.

Cowslip flowers are all over the region:

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16
May 15

The Roman Baths

Still in Bath, at the historic feature that defines and named the town. The touring here is almost entirely indoors. You need more time than we were allowed, to be honest. And the design of the tour, which is 100 percent determined by the historical plumbing, is not conducive to the number of people they let inside at one time.

If you’re interested in the history of the Romans in Britannia, this is a great place to come, but do it during a slow period. The foot traffic was all but intolerable.

Nevertheless, there is plenty to see here. You first get a view of the famous bath from above. And you’re told to not drink, swim, dive, touch, lick, perspire in, think about or wink at the water. But you can go right up to it, later in your self-guided tour.

Best part of the tour:

There are statues of the Roman governors of the province of Britannia. Mixed among them are likenesses of Roman emperors with particular connections to Britain. I’d like you to meet them now.

This is Julius Caesar. He invaded Britain twice: in 55 and 54 BC. The first time it was late summer, and less than a full-scale move. It was unsuccessful, giving him no more than a beachhead toehold at Kent. During his second visit the Romans installed a king friendly to Rome, but there wasn’t a lot of territory conquered. There were between one and four million people in Britain at the time.

Here’s the emperor Claudius. The Roman conquest started under his reign, in 43 AD. Literature and monuments suggest he won with minimal bloodshed. The locals were already beaten.

That brings us to Vespasian, who fought for Claudius before, a few decades later, oversaw the Roman expansion in the modern British Isles.

Here’s Ostorius Scapula, a Roman general who governed Britain from 47 until his death five years later. He was more of a tactician than a politican, and is thought to be buried somewhere nearby in Wales, where much of his military campaigning took place.

Suetonius Paulinus came to power as governor in 58 and his first two years on the job were considered successful. He was the lead man for more than a few battles, perhaps the largest being when he stood with an army of 10,000 Romans against a mob of Britons estimated at almost a quarter-million strong. The Romans and their discipline won, and won big. Some 400 Romans were killed, compared to reports of almost 80,000 of the locals. It turned into a slaughter.

He was, perhaps, too good at his job as a military governor. The Romans took him out of the job, fearing that his fighting would lead to stronger and more bitter resistance.

Julius Agricola was given a military command in Britain, where his military career had also started. When it ended in 73, he was made patrician in Rome and appointed governor of Gallia Aquitania. In 77 he was tapped as consul and governor of Britannia and he completed the conquest of what is now Wales and northern England. He marched on the far northern territories of Scotland and established forts across much of the Lowlands. He went home in 85. He died eight years later at the age of 53.

Here’s Hadrian, emperor from 117 to 138. He rebuilt the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. Perhaps you’ve heard of Hadrian’s Wall, which marked the northern limit of Britannia. He visited in 122, after hearing of a revolt there in the previous years. but never saw that wall finished. He went off to fight some rebels in Africa and then visited his beloved Greece, then Asia and then Egypt and finally back to Rome in 133, ending the ultimate road trip. He never returned to Britain.

Which brings us to the last statue, of Constantine the Great. He was the Roman Emperor from 306 to 337 AD. As a younger man he fought north of Hadrian’s Wall. His dominion consisted of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. He therefore commanded one of the largest Roman armies, stationed along the important Rhine frontier. He founded Constantinople, of course, and also stopped Christian persecutions and legalized Christianity. In 325 he summoned the famous Council of Nicaea.

The Temple pediment is one of the highlights of the Bath tour, and it is one of only two truly classical temples from Roman Britain. An animation shows how the pediment would have looked in Roman times.

The pediment features the image of a fearsome head carved in Bath stone and it is thought to be the Gorgon’s Head which was a powerful symbol of the goddess Sulis Minerva.

Inside the temple you would have found the statue of the goddess Sulis Minerva. The gilt bronze head is one of the best known objects from Roman Britain. The head may well date from the first century AD. There are six layers of gilding. The first two use a technique known as fire gilding and the four later layers are applied as gold leaf. There is corrosion which has affected it in parts where it lay in the ground for over a thousand years. And you can also see a rectangular cut beneath the chin, thought to be a repair from a casting flaw.

The Bath from ground level. I just imagine Roman lifeguards yelling “No running on the deck!”

The engineering is impressive, still in operation and the tour lets you see some fine examples of Roman handiwork and ingenuity. There are plenty of video screens and dioramas trying to explain life in Roman Britannia. There are tin scrolls where people wrote out curses against those that wrong them. There are impressive coin displays, with currency covering a span of 1,700 years. The oldest coin is as far removed from the newest coin as we are. It is remarkable to consider in terms like that.

Here’s a 40-second video dose from inside the facility:

And, finally: