Ostrich pulling a cart at the Los Angeles Ostrich Farm. Postcard by unknown; Lincoln Park, Los Angeles, California, 1919. From the Werner von Boltenstern Postcard Collection; Department of Archives and Special Collections, William H. Hannon Library, Loyola Marymount University. In public domain.
Why do fantasy stories so often employ equines as beasts of burden, when you could breed large birds for the task? In our world, humans do have a long history with the horse family, but who’s to say that in another, more SFFnal one you couldn’t find giant versions of armadillos, capybaras, or rats used for transportation? Or faster, large-scale chameleons?
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Last week, I shared the image of an ostrich cart. There must’ve been random serendipity rays in the air, because this week I happened on a photo of someone actually riding an ostrich:
Man riding an ostrich at the Cawston ostrich farm, South Pasadena, California. Via Elle Decor, June 2014, p. 67.
Cawston ostrich farm. Postcard by Detroit Photographic Company; South Pasadena, California, unknown date. From the collection of Marc Walter, published in An American Odyssey: Photos from the Detroit Photographic Company, 1888-1924, by Marc Walter and Sabine Arqué (Taschen, 2014). Found in Elle Decor magazine, June 2014, p. 67.
Huh. I used to think that the various tallstrider or hawkstrider type mounts in World of Warcraft were based more on fantasy than fact. I’m sure large birds come with a host of training and handling issues, but apparently it’s not as far-fetched as I thought. On the other hand, having grown up two hours south of the Arctic Circle and traveled in Lapland multiple times, seeing reindeer doesn’t make me bat an eye. Just goes to show how our experiences influence our sense of normal. :)
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Aerial view of Dún Aonghasa. Photograph by Ronan Mac Giollopharaic
While doing some research on northern European hillforts recently, I found myself looking at some pictures of Dún Aonghasa (also known as Dun Aengus). It’s an impressive site. The fort is a series of concentric half-rings backing up onto 100-meter cliffs on the island on Inishmore off the western coast of Ireland. The earliest construction on the site has been dated to around 1100 BCE. Later additions were made around 500 BCE. It is one of the largest well-preserved examples of a type of structure that was built throughout northern and western Europe, from Spain to Sweden, in the prehistoric era.
The “cheveaux de frise,” a barrier of jagged stones set up to slow down attackers. Photograph by Herbert Ortner
There has been disagreement in the scholarship about the function of Dún Aonghasa and similar forts. While often identified as fortified settlements, some have suggested that they were actually sites of religious ritual. It has to be said that if Dún Aonghasa and sites like it were religious sanctuaries, they were amazingly well-defended ones. I think it is more likely that sites that were originally built for defense were centuries later repurposed as ceremonial sites, much like how medieval castles built for defense have centuries later become museums and tourist attractions.
It may be hard to believe that such an enormous fortification was built in so remote a place, but forts like Dún Aonghasa were once fairly common across western and northern Europe. Most, however, have been lost to decay, erosion, and the reuse of stones. It is only in remote places like Inishmore that they still survive.
Thoughts for writers
Just a simple thought today: the world is full of interesting possibilities. Fortresses don’t have to look like medieval castles. Religious sites don’t have to look like cathedrals or Greek temples. History is huge and there are amazing things out there to inspire your imagination.
History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writershere.
Or: Some History behind Ostrich Riding, Part 1 of 7
Background: I ran into two historicalimages from California with ostriches used as transportation. That got me wondering about the history of ostrich riding. And that lead me down quite a rabbit hole.
I’ve divided my findings into separate posts (find them with the ostrich riding tag). Warning: serious early history and language nerdery ahead in Serious Academic Voice.
TL;DR – Tracing ostrich riding to a 3rd century BCE tomb find from Egypt is rubbish, but the concept is, indeed, ancient.
Below is the long story.
A quick Google search finds several tourism-related pieces on ostrich riding that refer to ancient Egypt. Queen Arsinoe II’s tomb is said to have contained a statue depicting her riding an ostrich, which is used as evidence for stretching the history of the activity back to antiquity (for example in thesetwo articles).
Sweeping generalizations like these make me wary, fascinating as the prospect is. There are two major issues with a claim like this: a) Did Queen Arsinoe II’s tomb, in fact, contain a statue of her riding an ostrich? b) If so, is the statue unique, or are there other sources depicting or describing ostrich riding between Queen Arsinoe II’s life and modern times?
Fragment of a faience vase depicting Arsinoe II. From Alexandria region, Egypt, 275-250 BCE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Queen Arsinoe II lived in 3rd century BCE (dates vary from source to source; ca. 316 to 270 / 268 BCE are often mentioned). She was the daughter of Berenice I and Ptolemy I Soter, one of Alexander the Great’s generals and the founder of the Macedonian Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt after Alexander’s death in 323 BCE. She was involved with the continuing power struggles in the Macedonian kingdoms after Alexander through her three husbands. They were Lysimachus (another of Alexander’s generals, later a provincial governor in Thrace and King of Thrace, Asia Minor, and Macedon), Ptolemy Ceraunus (also spelled Keraunos, her half-brother, son of Ptolemy I and Eurydice, and briefly King of Macedon), and Ptolemy II Philadelphus (her brother and King of Egypt after Ptolemy I).
As Queen of Egypt, Arsinoe shared all of her brother’s titles, and towns were dedicated to and a cult created for her. In addition, she appeared on coins both alone and with him – even during their lifetimes, the pair was known as ‘sibling divinities’ (theoi adelphoi). After her death, Arsinoe was connected with the goddess Aphrodite and continued to be worshiped in numerous places.
Several popular articles mention not only a statue of Arsinoe riding an ostrich, but also the statue having been found in her tomb. Unfortunately, none of them give sources of any kind for their claim. It seems to come from the Wikipedia entry for ostrich, though, and there we have a citation: Dorothy Burr Thompson’s article “A Portrait of Arsinoe Philadelphos” in American Journal of Archaeology 59, no. 3 (published in 1955). A specific reference to a scholarly article looks very promising!
However, the Wikipedia citation turns out to be utterly wrong. While Thompson does mention a statue of Arsinoe on a large bird, the point of her article is that Arsinoe was typically depicted with features and symbols that were at the time thought to indicate her divinity and that, therefore, it would be more believable that the bird mount in question was a phoenix or one of the Memnonides. The latter are mythological birds that sprang from Memnon’s ashes, fated to appear annually and fight in a ritual ceremony in memory of Memnon (see e.g. Ovid’s Metamorphoses13.576 or Pliny the Elder’s Natural History10.37).
Not only that, Thompson doesn’t even mention the word tomb in her article. Further searching confirms that in the literature on Arsinoe II there is no mention of her tomb having ever been discovered to begin with (indeed, Acosta-Hughes & Stephens, p. 11, doubt that her funerary temple was completed). What a sad trombone moment!
So, what do we know about the statue of Arsinoe riding an ostrich? The description that Thompson refers to comes from Pausanias (ca. 110 to 180 CE), a Greek traveler, geographer, and writer. The statue itself is lost, but according to Pausanias’ Description of Greece (9.31.1), it was made of bronze and erected on Mount Helicon in Boeotia (central Greece):
“On Helicon there is also a statue of Arsinoe, who married Ptolemy her brother. She is being carried by a bronze ostrich. Ostriches grow wings just like other birds, but their bodies are so heavy and large that the wings cannot lift them into the air.”
Pausanias was writing about 400 years after Arsinoe II’s death, which should immediately give the reader pause. In fact, earlier scholarship questioned his accuracy, but the current consensus accepts Pausanias as a generally reliable source in his descriptions, if not always in his interpretations.
What about Pausanias’ reliability on Arsinoe’s bird mount specifically? Many scholars – if they mention the statue at all – don’t doubt the identification as ostrich like Thompson does (e.g. Rice 90). There’s remarkably little critical commentary on it, however, and what there is generally follows and cites Thompson (see e.g. Griffiths 59, Masséglia 50). The contexts of sources that mention Arsinoe II and ostriches point to mythological or deifying rather than real-world circumstances. In general, art depicting Ptolemy II and Arsinoe II suggests that the Ptolemaic dynasty used both their own Hellenistic and Egyptian art conventions (Masséglia 50). This seems to have been in order to link the newcomer Macedonian dynasty to the Egyptian tradition (Salisbury 17). So, at the moment there’s nothing conclusive we can say about Pausanias or the statue either way; the history is much more complicated.
It looks like we know two things at this point:
It seems there was at one time a statue of Queen Arsinoe II atop a large bird, but it wasn’t in her tomb.
The one extant description of the statue dates from four centuries after Arsinoe II’s death. According to that description, the bird she rides is an ostrich, but later interpretations cast some doubt on the identification.
Several open questions remain: It seems a given that they were known in Egypt, but were ostriches merely hunted or were they also tamed or domesticated for riding or other uses? Was Pausanias right in describing Arsinoe’s bird mount as ostrich? How would he know an ostrich – were ostriches known either physically or through art in Greece at Pausanias’ time? Was Arsinoe II’s statue as unique as the surviving evidence seems to suggest, or were there others like it? I’ll return to these issues in my next posts.
Thoughts for writers
History is full of fascinating stuff!
When doing research, do not trust the first source – especially if it’s the only one! – you find on the Internet without checking.
Although laborious, it can be fruitful, even crucial, to track down a primary source rather than trusting a second-hand report.
The difference between spelling ancient names (Philadelphus and Philadelphos, Ceraunus and Keraunos, etc.) in various sources can drive you crazy! In this case, the -us ending comes from Latin, while -os retains the original Greek form. If you’re using actual historical names or names formed on the basis of historical names in your world, pick one form and stay consistent.
Selected Sources for Part 1:
Acosta-Hughes, Benjamin and Susan A. Stephens. Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. https://books.google.com/books?id=aXdsdo0u__gC.
Thompson, Dorothy Burr. “A Portrait of Arsinoe Philadelphos.” American Journal of Archaeology 59, no. 3 (1955): 199-206, http://www.jstor.org/stable/500319.
History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writers here.
Or: Some History behind Ostrich Riding, Part 2 of 7
Background: I ran into two historicalimages from California with ostriches used as transportation. That got me wondering about the history of ostrich riding. And that lead me down quite a rabbit hole.
I’ve divided my findings into separate posts (find them with the ostrich riding tag). Warning: serious early history and language nerdery ahead in Serious Academic Voice.
TL;DR – Tracing ostrich riding to a 3rd century BCE tomb find (a statue of Arsinoe II) from Egypt doesn’t hold up. The use of various ostrich products in human material culture dates back thousands of years. A few ancient depictions involve humans handling ostriches; however, extant sources don’t tell us whether ostriches were merely hunted or whether they were also tamed in the ancient world.
Below is the long story.
In Part 1, we discovered that tracing the history of ostrich riding to a tomb find of a statue of Queen Arsinoe II of Egypt (ca. 316 to 270 / 268 BCE) doesn’t hold up. What we do have, instead, is a 2nd century CE description of a lost statue of Arsinoe II riding a large bird, but later interpretations cast some doubt on the identification of the bird as ostrich. Some of the questions we were left with address knowledge of ostriches in Egypt and Greece. What exactly do we know about the presence of ostriches in the Eastern Mediterranean?
Arsinoe II’s bird mount could have been an ostrich at least as far as Egyptian access to them is considered. The ostrich range has shrunk due to overhunting, but it formerly extended from East Africa to much of Asia Minor and Arabia, including areas of both northern and sub-Saharan Africa, and perhaps even southern Europe. Nicolas Manlius has looked at the ostrich distribution in Egypt from late pleistocene up to present times (“The Ostrich in Egypt: Past and Present” in Journal of Biogeography 28, no. 8, published in 2001), but no-one seems to have studied their historical distribution in Asia Minor. It could be fun to really dig into the historical range further north to see how likely it was that peoples in the ancient Aegean had actual first-hand experience with wild ostriches, but it’s not what I’m truly interested in. (If anyone has any great sources, let me know.)
Ostrich eggs, skin, and feathers are mentioned or described in several written documents from the eastern Mediterranean-Mesopotamian area throughout centuries (see e.g. de Mosenthal & Harting for a partial list, esp. pp. 13-15). However, the earliest primary sources are items and visual art dating from the neolithic period onwards (e.g. Agius; Lucas & Harris; Phillips). The most famous examples come from the tomb of Tutankhamun, who ruled ca. 1332–1323 BCE.
Tutankhamun’s ostrich fan. From 1300s BCE. The Egyptian Museum, Cairo, Egypt; image via Touregypt.net.
In Africa, ostrich eggshell beads are among the earliest human-made items, and both decorated and undecorated ostrich eggs were used (or imitated) as drinking vessels, canteens, and/or perfume containers in the Mediterranean-Mesopotamian area from at least 4000 BCE onwards (Agius; Conwell; Phillips; for two especially breathtaking examples from Mesopotamia, see Aruz and Wallenfels, pp. 118-119, items 70a and 70b).
An ostrich eggshell cup. From Mesopotamia, ca. 2500-2300 BCE. The Field Museum, Chicago; image via Conwell 1987.
Ostriches and ostrich eggs were depicted in tribute-giving scenes in Egyptian monumental art from the New Kingdom, but it’s been difficult to research details without access to a large research library. Depictions of ostrich eggs and feathers have been found at least during New Kingdom (ca. 1550-1070 BCE) in the tombs of Meryre II (El Amarna, tomb 2, 18th dynasty; e.g. Conwell) and Rekhmire (Thebes, tomb 100, 18th dynasty; e.g. Hodel-Hoenes). A copy of a wall painting of a servant with an ibex, a hare and ostrich eggs (from Thebes, tomb 78; for Horemheb, the last pharaoh of the 18th dynasty) was made for modern commercial resale, so there must (have) be(en) also an original.
Patrick F. Houlihan’s 1986 book The Birds of Ancient Egypt sounds useful, too, for it catalogs birds identified from representational art – reliefs, paintings, and hieroglyphs – but I’ve only been able to access a review. A thorough investigation of ostrich images in ancient Egypt would surely benefit from looking at Houlihan’s data.
(Sidenote: I found fantastic images on the Cow of Gold: An Encyclopedia of Egyptian Mythologywiki page on the ostrich. Some look like they come from Rekhmire’s tomb, and I’d say they almost certainly are, but none of the images are identified in any way at all so there’s no way to be sure. Frustrations galore! So, here’s a friendly reminder for anyone who wishes to be taken seriously: always mention your sources!)
If the natural range of ostriches ever overlapped with the Greek area of influence, there seem not have been enough to quench the demand for ostrich products. Eggs, especially, seem to have been popular trading material. The Mycenaean civilization (ca. 1625-1125 BCE) in Greece had contacts with ancient Egypt and imported luxury goods like ivory, semiprecious stones, Egyptian alabaster vases, and ostrich eggs (e.g. Aruz, Benzel & Evans; Papazoglou-Manioudaki; Phillips). Ostrich eggs found in the Etruscan “Isis Tomb”, dated to 625-600 BCE, were decorated in Phoenicia. Phoenician artwork was also found on intricately painted ostrich eggs from 5th-4th century BCE in Ibiza, Spain.
Ostriches themselves, not just their eggs, were also included in visual art in the eastern Mediterranean-Mesopotamian area. The collections at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (abbreviated as The Met below) include some 30 African finds with an ostrich connection. Among them, there is a predynastic bone comb with a prominent ostrich end from ca. 3900-3500 BCE. The Met also holds a 9th-century BCE plaque fragment with an engraved ostrich from Hasanlu, Iran, and a cylinder seal with an ostrich, an ibex, and fish from 9th-8th century BCE Mesopotamia, which cast light to the range of human interest in ostriches.
Ancient images of humans with ostriches seem much rarer. Tracking the sources of sources of sources, some dating back to late 1800s and early 1900s, has gotten easier with the Internet and various digitizing initiatives, but so much of early research still only exists on paper. (A heartfelt “Thank you!” goes out to all cultural institutions that publish their holdings online!)
The Met has a limestone relief fragment of a man carrying an ostrich from the Memphis area from ca. 1981-1950 BCE. The Cow of Gold: An Encyclopedia of Egyptian Mythologywiki page on the ostrich includes three fantastic images of ostriches with people, but since they’re not identified on the page, I haven’t had luck in finding exact information on them.
A relief fragment of a man carrying an ostrich, ca. 1981-1950 BCE. Memphite region, Egypt. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
So, we do have some depictions of humans handling ostriches. However, what we have doesn’t tell us whether ostriches were merely hunted or whether they were also tamed in the ancient world – after all, an image of a man carrying an ostrich doesn’t discriminate between transporting a captured wild animal and a home-grown individual. There’s also a difference between a tame animal (one that’s used to humans, i.e. whose behavior around humans has changed) and a domesticated one (one that’s been changed as result of human activity, i.e., whose characteristics have changed because of humans). Basically, taming is what happens to individual animals; domestication is what happens to animal species (and plants and other organisms).
Thoughts for writers
Check definitions and synonyms when researching; terms can vary widely in meaning.
Be wary of ambiguous evidence.
Researching for writing is a balance act between finding facts and reigning in your curiosity. Frankly, I took too much time to goggle at images of the decorated ostrich eggs and ostrich egg vessels. They’re seriously gorgeous.
Selected Sources for Part 2:
Agius, D.A. “’Leave Your Homeland in Search for Prosperity’: The Ostrich Egg in a Burial Site at Quseir al-Qadim in the Mamluk Period.” In Egypt and Syria in the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk Eras IV: Proceedings of the 9th and 10th International Colloquium Organized at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in May 2000 and May 2001, edited by Urbain Vermeulen and J. van Steenbergen, 355-380. Leuven: Peeters Publishers, 2005. https://books.google.com/books?id=Sk6tAUL5ZWYC.
Aruz, Joan, Kim Benzel and Jean M. Evans (eds.). Beyond Babylon: Art, Trade, and Diplomacy in the Second Millennium B.C. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2008. https://books.google.com/books?id=gr5BgOwEJicC.
Aruz, Joan and Ronald Wallenfels (eds.). Art of the First Cities: The Third Millennium B.C. from the Mediterranean to the Indus. New York, NY: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003. https://books.google.com/books?id=8l9X_3rHFdEC.
Hodel-Hoenes, Sigrid. Life and Death in Ancient Egypt: Scenes from Private Tombs in New Kingdom Thebes. Translated by David Warburton. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000. https://books.google.com/books?id=eptd8D2ljS8C.
Manlius, Nicolas. “The Ostrich in Egypt: Past and Present.” Journal of Biogeography 28, no. 8 (August 2001), 945-953. Abstract is available via Jstor, http://www.jstor.org/stable/827488.
Papazoglou-Manioudaki, Lena. “Mycenae.” In Aruz et al., 274-278.
Phillips, Jacke. “Ostrich Eggshells”. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul T.Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 332-333. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. https://books.google.com/books?id=Vj7A9jJrZP0C.
Phillipson, David W. “Africa (Excluding Egypt) from the Beginnings of Food Production up to about 5,000 Years Ago.” In History of Humanity: Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization, edited by Sigfried J. de Laet, 412-424. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1994. https://books.google.com/books?id=e75T03MIp3sC.
History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writers here.
Or: Some History behind Ostrich Riding, Part 3 of 7
Background: I ran into two historicalimages from California with ostriches used as transportation. That got me wondering about the history of ostrich riding. And that lead me down quite a rabbit hole.
I’ve divided my findings into separate posts (find them with the ostrich riding tag). Warning: serious early history and language nerdery ahead in Serious Academic Voice.
TL;DR – Tracing ostrich riding to a 3rd century BCE tomb find (a statue of Arsinoe II) from Egypt doesn’t hold up. The use of various ostrich products in human material culture dates back thousands of years. A few ancient depictions involve humans handling ostriches; however, extant sources don’t tell us whether ostriches were merely hunted or whether they were also tamed in the ancient world. The most promising source seems to be a description of a magnificent parade put together by Arsinoe II’s husband-brother Ptolemy II. This Grand Procession included eight chariots drawn by pairs of ostriches, and the ostriches may have been ridden by boys in costumes.
Clearly ancient Egyptians had frequent contact with ostriches, and ancient Greeks were interested in ostrich products. Even further away in Italy and Spain, ostriches and ostrich products were desirable. The primary sources do not, however, tell us anything about whether ostriches were merely hunted or whether they were also tamed in the ancient world. Ancient petroglyphs and monumental art may offer some clues, though.
Prehistoric rock art at Jebel Uweinat, Libya, contain images of animals, overwhelmingly (but not entirely) of domesticated cattle. The paintings and engravings also include for example humans, dogs, goats, camels, and what we would consider wild animals. Dating the Jebel Uweinat rock art is difficult, but it seems that some earlier styles might have been made as early as 8,500 years ago, whereas other images (such as camels) might be as late as about 2,000 years ago (or less).
There is one section of Jebel Uweinat art that is of special interest. Phillipson (417-418, see figure 105 on p. 418) surmises that several figures, including two giraffes and an ostrich, “tethered and being led by halters”, indicate experiments in taming wild animals in northeastern Africa. Phillipson’s information comes from a 1978 publication Rock Art of the Jebel Uweinat by Francis L. van Noten, Hans Rhotert and Xavier Misonne, which I haven’t been able to access myself, so I can’t evaluate his conclusion. Another secondary source (Phillips 332) mentions a tantalizing “hint of ostrich domestication”, presumably some type of ostrich farms, during the New Kingdom of Egypt (ca. 1550-1070 BCE) but unfortunately no additional details are given. Perhaps the relief fragment at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from ca. 1981-1950 BCE sparked that reference?
An often-cited source for ostriches in the ancient world is Berthold Laufer’s “Ostrich Egg-shell Cups of Mesopotamia and the Ostrich in Ancient and Modern Times” published by The Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, in their Anthropology Leaflet series (no. 23, 1926). He reprints several drawings that look like copies of engravings and reliefs with humans in contact with ostriches (figures 1, 2, 4, 6, and 7).
Captured ostrich and man with ostrich feathers and eggs. From Egypt, no date given. O. Keller; image via Laufer, “Ostrich Egg-shell Cups of Mesopotamia and the Ostrich in Ancient and Modern Times,” Anthropology Leaflet no. 23 (1926), p. 17.
Unfortunately, Laufer refers to the sources of these fascinating images only by giving the author’s first initial and last name, and his bibliography omits each and every one (he added “Only articles which might prove of interest to the general reader are listed here”). Laufer’s research is also partly outdated, partly possibly outdated (pending further reading), and partly circumlocutious, and doesn’t even mention the statue of Arsinoe II astride an ostrich.
What about other depictions or descriptions of ostrich riding, then? Laufer (18, fig. 5) does include a drawing of a scene of ostrich-riders from a “[p]ainting on a Greek vase” but, frustratingly, doesn’t elaborate. Arnott (230) mentions
“[a]n Attic black-figure skythos of the the sixth century BC (so predating written references by half a century at least!), now in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, shows six youths riding on Ostriches…”
(Sidenote: I love the smudge over the bird’s head in the image – it makes it look like an ostrich mid-caw, with an open beak!)
MFA Boston has made several images and metadata of the skyphos available to the public. Here seems to be some evidence of ostrich riding at last! – until we look at the museum’s item description:
“The vase has a frieze in the later black figure style, apparently with chorus scenes from early Attic comedies.
“Side A: Six warriors riding on dolphins, to right, towards a man playing a flute.
“Side B: Six youths riding upon ostriches, to right, towards a man playing a flute. In front of him, facing the others, is a bearded Pygmy. Repaired and painted over.
“The presence of a flute-player in each scene suggests that the dolphin and ostrich-riders are chorusmen in theatrical comedies, which often featured choruses of men dressed in outlandish costumes, such as wasps or frogs. Dolphin-riders appear elsewhere in Greek art, especially on the coinage of Taras, in southern Italy.”
The phrase theatrical comedies makes the context problematic for our purpose. A group of Greek vases dating from about 560 to 480 BCE bearing depictions of costumed figures is counted as evidence of choral formation dances or choral performances, and the MFA Boston skyphos seems to belong to that tradition (Hart & Walton 19-20).
We know that ancient theatrical pieces pulled inspiration both from the real world and from myths and stories. Elsewhere in the eastern Mediterranean cultural context, there is evidence of Semitic peoples having mythology with demons or jinns either appearing as or riding wolves or ostriches (see Al-Rawi; Smith 129, footnote 2). And, certainly, with the opposite side of this vessel depicting dolphin riders, there’s every reason to doubt the veracity of these ostrich riders. Foiled (fowled?) again!
(Sidenote 2: My resident ancient history professor raised the possibility that perhaps the dolphin scene is a reference to lyre player Arion of Methymna being carried by a dolphin from the island of Lesbos to Cape Tainaron at the southern tip of mainland Greece in Herodotus’ Histories, 1.23-24, or similar stories. In any case, I as far as I can tell the theatrical context for the skyphos imagery sounds plausible.)
So, where do the ostrich teams in the post title come in? Ancient Egypt again, and Arsinoe II’s husband-brother Ptolemy II.
Several books on Ptolemy II Philadelphus mention his Grand Procession, a magnificent parade depicting various scenes from the life of the god Dionysus to display Ptolemy’s power and wealth. Some sources mention ostriches pulling a chariot or chariots as part of the procession. This sounds promising, for having ostrich-drawn carts would’ve required preparation and, therefore, at least, taming of ostriches if not outright domestication.
The Grand Procession took place perhaps between 270 and 260 BCE (precise date is not agreed on; often-cited dates include 262 BCE and 279/278 BCE; see Marquaille 54), and was described by Callixenus of Rhodes, a contemporary of Ptolemy II. Callixenus’ description survives only through another work, Deipnosophistae, by Athenaeus of Naucratis (late 2nd to early 3rd century CE).
The Deipnosophistae consists of 15 books, and, unfortunately, its history is very complex. The text as we have it today is compiled from an incomplete manuscript and an incomplete synopsis, and two different systems of citation to the text are still used in research. This made hunting down the actual section describing the ostriches, shall we say, an interesting exercise.
The pertinent section survives in book 5, lines 196a-203b or thereabouts (after the so-called Casaubon system); ostriches are mentioned on line 200f. Rice (17-19; found via Litwa 78) translates it thus:
“After them marched twenty-four elephant quadrigae, sixty bigae of goats, twelve of saiga antilopes, seven of oryxes, fifteen of hartebeest, eight bigae of ostriches, seven of onelaphoi, four bigae of onagers, and four quadrigae of horses.”
Rice uses a Latin term, biga (plural bigae), to translate the original Greek expression for ‘a pair of’. The biga is a two-horse chariot used in ancient Rome for sport, transportation, and ceremonies. Other animals might replace horses in art and occasionally for actual ceremonies.
Rice’s translation, therefore, gives us a total of 96 elephants, 120 goats, 24 antelopes, and 16 ostriches, and that’s not even counting the other exotic species mentioned – in this (just one) part of the Grand Procession. If Athenaeus and Callixenus weren’t exaggerating, that must have required quite a bit of coordination, and certainly would’ve been an impressive sight.
“And after them came twenty-four chariots drawn by four elephants each, and sixty chariots each drawn by a pair of goats, and twelve chariots by antelopes, and seven by oryxes, and fifteen by buffaloes, eight by pairs of ostriches, and seven by gnus, and four by pairs of zebras, and four chariots also drawn each by four zebras.”
The really exciting thing is that the Perseus translation continues with “[a]nd on all these animals rode boys wearing the garments of charioteers, and the broad hats called petasi” (my emphasis). I haven’t had proper access to Rice’s work, so I cannot check how his translation continues. However, my resident ancient history professor tells me that the original Greek strictly speaking translates to ‘on all these rode boys’, i.e., the word animal in the Perseus translation isn’t present in the Greek, which means the Greek is grammatically ambiguous – either all of the different kinds of animals listed above, or just the zebras at the end of the list.
There is an opposing however, however: the rest of the immediate context does make it sound like all of the animals in the beginning of the section had riders. Namely, after these “boys wearing the garments of charioteers” and other boys besides them are described, there begins another list of animals – camels and mules, the latter of which were pulling palanquins with women from India and other countries. This set of animals is clearly different from the one containing the ostriches, so it is possible, after all, that Ptolemy II’s Grand Procession did include boys on ostriches pulling chariots – but only if we assume Athenaeus was repeating Callixenus right, and that the Perseus translation is truthful.
To update our list of things known about the early history of ostrich riding:
It seems there was at one time a statue of Queen Arsinoe II atop a large bird, but it wasn’t in her tomb.
The one extant description of the statue dates from four centuries after Arsinoe II’s death. According to that description, the bird she rides is an ostrich, but later interpretations cast some doubt on the identification.
Ostriches were certainly known in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period when Arsinoe II lived and appear in both visual and verbal sources.
A description of a Grand Procession put together by Arsinoe II’s husband-brother Ptolemy II includes eight chariots drawn by pairs of ostriches, and the ostriches may have been ridden by boys in costumes.
A number of additional questions have opened: Can Athenaeus’ / Callixenus’ description of the Grand Procession be trusted? If so, is it an indication of ostrich taming or domestication in general? Or does it change our reading of the statue of Arsinoe II riding an ostrich? I’ll return to some of these issues in my next post.
Thoughts for writers
Academic sources are more difficult to comb through for information, sometimes much, much more so, but they can make the difference between a well-researched story and a foot planted firmly in your mouth. If confidence in having done your research well matters to you, it’s likely to be time well spent.
There’s a reason why serious scholarship is a full-time profession. Scholars especially of ancient or early cultures deserve all the kudos they can get, and more. If you can cultivate a respectful relationship with a professor – of any professional expert, really – it can be of enormous help.
Marquaille, Céline. “The Foreign Policy of Ptolemy II.” In Ptolemy II Philadelphus and His World, edited by Paul McKechnie and Philippe Guillaume, 39-64. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008. https://books.google.com/books?id=8QmwCQAAQBAJ.
Phillips, Jacke. “Ostrich Eggshells”. In Ancient Egyptian Materials and Technology, edited by Paul T.Nicholson and Ian Shaw, 332-333. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. https://books.google.com/books?id=Vj7A9jJrZP0C.
Phillipson, David W. “Africa (Excluding Egypt) from the Beginnings of Food Production up to about 5,000 Years Ago.” In History of Humanity: Prehistory and the Beginnings of Civilization, edited by Sigfried J. de Laet, 412-424. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1994. https://books.google.com/books?id=e75T03MIp3sC.
Rice, E.E. The Grand Procession of Ptolemy Philadelphus. London: Oxford University Press, 1983.
History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writers here.
In this age of selfies and Instagram, we are very aware of how consciously we all create the image of ourselves that we show to the world. The people of antiquity were no less self-conscious about their public image. Look at these two sculptures of Cleopatra VII.
Cleopatra VII Philopator is the famous Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt and lover of both Julius Caesar and Marcus Antonius. She was the last of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt, founded by Ptolemy I, one of the generals of Alexander the Great. The Ptolemies ruled Egypt for almost three hundred years, arguably the first European colonial state in Africa. Like other Macedonian dynasties in the relics of Alexander’s short-lived empire, Ptolemy and his heirs took a pragmatic approach to ruling over a large population that did not share in their Hellenized Macedonian culture. They embraced a kind of cultural bilingualism in which they presented themselves in very different ways to different audiences.
This marble head of Cleopatra is sculpted in a Hellenistic style and presents the queen in a Greek cultural context. White marble was favored for sculpture in the Greek world because it reacts to light in ways similar to human skin, making marble sculpture appear more naturalistic. Details like the soft rendering of the mouth, the detailed delineation of the hair, and the slightly off-center tilt of the head are drawn from the artistic repertoire of late Classical and Hellenistic portrait sculpture. This statue asserts Cleopatra’s Greekness and her participation in the broader Mediterranean cultural world. It was probably displayed in Alexandria, the Ptolemaic capital, which had a cosmopolitan population largely made up of Macedonians and Greeks, along with substantial Jewish and Persian communities and a variety of other peoples, but few ethnic Egyptians. It was meant to be seen by an audience that would recognize and appreciate the way this portrait fit into the larger history of Hellenistic ruler portraiture.
Statue of Cleopatra VII, late 1st c. BCE, Hermitage Museum St. Petersburg, basalt, photograph by George Shuklin
This basalt statue of Cleopatra uses not only an Egyptian artistic style, but an almost entirely Egyptian iconographic vocabulary. Many different stones were used for Egyptian portrait sculpture, but basalt was a popular one since the stone is very hard and durable, giving a sense of permanence especially to royal portraiture. Cleopatra is presented here as an Egyptian pharaoh. She wears a wig adorned with the royal uraeus and carries and ankh in her right hand. The cornucopia in her left hand is a Greek symbol, but its connotation of bounty is similar to the ankh’s symbolism of life. Also note that one of her feet is advanced. Egyptian women were typically depicted with feet together and men with one foot advanced, but the adoption of masculine traits to represent a ruling queen is also traditionally Egyptian. This statue was intended for an Egyptian audience and meant to convey Cleopatra’s commitment to ruling over her Egyptian subjects through the forms and structures that they had long been accustomed to.
The Ptolemaic monarchs were aware that their power rested on two precarious premises: that the people of Egypt would accept rulers who were not themselves ethnically Egyptian and that other Mediterranean, African, and Asian powers would respect as equals a royal house of comparatively recent vintage. These sculptures show the confidence with which Cleopatra balanced those two needs and reinvented her image for two different audiences.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Or: Some History behind Ostrich Riding, Part 6 of 7
Background: I ran into two historicalimages from California with ostriches used as transportation. That got me wondering about the history of ostrich riding. And that lead me down quite a rabbit hole.
I’ve divided my findings into separate posts (find them with the ostrich riding tag). Warning: serious early history and language nerdery ahead in Serious Academic Voice.
TL;DR – Tracing ostrich riding to a 3rd century BCE tomb find (a statue of Arsinoe II) from Egypt doesn’t hold up. The use of various ostrich products in human material culture dates back thousands of years. A few ancient depictions involve humans handling ostriches; however, extant sources don’t tell us whether ostriches were merely hunted or whether they were also tamed in the ancient world. The most promising source seems to be a description of a magnificent parade put together by Arsinoe II’s husband-brother Ptolemy II. This Grand Procession included eight chariots drawn by pairs of ostriches, and the ostriches may have been ridden by boys in costumes.
I had hoped to find a nice, neat selection of ancient texts putting the Greek word for ‘ostrich’ in context, but even a cursory look reveals that the history of the word strouthos is complex. At best, we can say that there are no immediate red flags either in the original Greek or modern English translations for Arsinoe II’s statue or Ptolemy II’s Grand Procession. The poem Berenice’s Lock was said to contain further evidence of ostriches as mounts in Ptolemaic Egypt after Arsinoe II’s death. Instead, what we seem to have is a case of poetic ambiguity translated with poetic license and taken uncritically as evidence.
Some centuries after Arsinoe II and Ptolemy II, ostrich riding may appear in the Roman Empire. Claims in some secondary sources turn out unverifiable, however. Researching primary sources helps but a little: on one hand, many of these texts either have problematic histories or their authorship or accuracy may be questionable; on the other, ostriches tend to appear in context of fighting in gladiatorial games, not being ridden or raced. Surviving visual art only confirms the appearance of ostriches in hunting and arena scenes the Roman territories, not riding or chariot-pulling. A description in the life of Emperor Firmus comes closest, but Historia Augusta, the source of his life, is considered unreliable.
Below is the long story.
There are secondary sources that take the existence of ostrich riding or charioteering as given in the Roman Empire, but on closer examination they prove frustratingly vague. For example, in 1877 de Mosenthal & Harting (15) claim that
“[i]n the gorgeous public spectacles in which many of the Roman emperors used to delight, the ostrich played a conspicuous part; and it seems that domesticated birds were occasionally used for riding purposes by Roman ladies of noble birth.”
In 1992, Bertram (9), when talking about the beginnings of the demand for ostrich feathers in the 14th century Europe, says that “odd young birds” had been “kept as pets, or for riding as in ancient Rome and Egypt” and names a source – namely, a 1963 publication Ostrich Farming in the Little Karoo by one D. J. v. Z. Smit – but that source isn’t available online, so its sources weren’t verified. For Roots (2006, 18), the statue of Arsinoe II depicts her “riding a saddled ostrich” (my emphasis; except we know the saddle part to be inaccurate from the original Greek text). Roots (2006, 18; 2007, 84) also claims that Romans trained ostriches to pull chariots or to ride on. In 2013, Williams (112) mentions the practice of eating ostriches as evidenced by mosaics in Pompeii, Roman cookbooks, and reports on the extravagancies of Emperor Elegabalus.
Tracking all these references was laborious, because these authors’ source citations are few, vague, or non-existent. de Mosenthal & Harting mention no specific sources to back up their claims. Instead, they resort to generic hand-waving to the effect of ‘trust us, young Padawan, it’s so because we say so’.
The only precise sources de Mosenthal and Harting mention are Pausanias (the familiar passage about Arsinoe II’s ostrich riding statue) and descriptions culled from Herodotus and Strabo of how “a certain desert tribe” and “a race” in Africa use ostrich skins. The latter would be interesting from the point of view of a historical study of the word strouthos, but are of no help regarding the history of ostrich riding. Roots and Williams don’t even attempt giving source information.
A few easily available Roman texts do mention ostriches. Already a hundred years before Pausanias, Pliny the Elder’s encyclopedic account of birds (in Naturalis Historia, 10.1) starts with the ostrich, followed by the phoenix (10.2). Pliny (23-79 CE) was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, known mainly for The Natural History. Begun in 77 CE, The Natural History is divided into 37 books and presented as a work of reference to classify information, and is therefore seen as a precursor to modern encyclopedias. In addition to actual fact, it included a lot of hearsay, exaggeration, and superstition, but was hugely influential from its day to the late medieval period in Europe.
Since Pliny acted primarily as a compiler, gathering information from hundreds of Greek and Roman sources, his description could be seen as a good reflection of popular knowledge at the time. The Natural History only describes the bird in general terms, however, and doesn’t touch on how common ostriches were in the Roman territories. To find out whether they were merely imported or bred locally, and why – as transportation, entertainment, curiosity pets, or food – we must turn to other sources.
According to Cassius Dio’s Historiae Romanae, ostriches were brought to Rome for Emperor Commodus (161-192 CE) to kill. Commodus enjoyed gladiatorial fights, and often stepped into the arena himself. The Historiae section mentioning an ostrich (73.21) is meant to cast doubt on the respectability (and/or sanity) of the Emperor, so it should be taken with a grain of salt:
“Having killed an ostrich and cut off his head, he came up to where we were sitting, holding the head in his left hand and in his right hand raising aloft his bloody sword; and though he spoke not a word, yet he wagged his head with a grin, indicating that he would treat us in the same way. And many would indeed have perished by the sword on the spot, for laughing at him (for it was laughter rather than indignation that overcame us), if I had not chewed some laurel leaves […]”
Cassius Dio’s account takes the presence of ostriches in the city of Rome for granted – it’s not the ostriches that are remarkable in the passage above, but the Emperor’s behavior. That tells us something, but unfortunately nothing of ostriches used in riding or chariot-pulling.
Confirming the ostrich connection for Emperors Firmus and Elegabalus is another tale in research hell frustration. First, you must establish the identity of Firmus. There is a Firmus who was the son of the Moorish prince Nubel. This Moorish-born Firmus was a Roman military officer and a Christian. He rebelled against the comes Africae (i.e., commander of Roman forces in Africa) by the name of Romanus, and was declared Emperor ca. 372-375 (he died 375 CE). No life is extant; what we know of him comes largely from Rerum gestarum libri qui supersunt by Ammianus Marcellinus, and there’s no mention of ostriches there.
One ancient source, the Historia Augusta, mentions another Firmus. This second Firmus, born in Seleucia in Syria, is said to have rebelled and been killed by Emperor Aurelian in 273 CE. The life of the Syrian-born Firmus is attributed to a Flavius Vopiscus (one of the authors of Historia Augusta) and it is full of fantastical details (book 3, chapters 3, 4, and 6):
“For example, it is said that he fitted his house with square panes of glass set in with pitch and other such substances and that he owned so many books that he used often to say in public that he could support an army on the paper and glue. He kept up, moreover, the closest relations with the Blemmyae and Saracens, and he often sent merchant-vessels to the Indians also. He even owned, it is said, two elephant-tusks, ten feet in length […]”
“But as for Firmus himself, he was of huge size, his eyes very prominent, his hair curly, his brow scarred, his face rather swarthy, while the rest of his body was white, though rough and covered with hair, so that many called him a Cyclops. He would eat great amounts of meat and he even, so it is said, consumed an ostrich in a single day.”
“[…] if you wish to learn it, you should read him yourself, most of all the passage which tells how this same Firmus went swimming among the crocodiles when rubbed with crocodiles’ fat, how he drove an elephant and mounted a hippopotamus and rode about sitting upon huge ostriches, so that he seemed to be flying.”
The selection above is intriguing. Window glass existed in the Roman empire, and sea trade between Greek and Roman territories and India did take place (see the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea); in contrast, swimming with crocodiles reads like a fantasy narration. Alas, Historia Augusta turns out to be extremely problematic, like so many of our other ostrich riding sources.
Historia Augusta is a series of biographies of Roman Emperors and usurpers for the period 117-284 CE. It’s said to have been written by six authors, but the accuracy, actual authorship, and even the date of the text are disputed. In fact, Historia Augusta is thought to contain a lot of plagiarism, even downright forgery. Accordingly, modern research casts doubt on the existence of the Syrian-born Firmus (see e.g. Drijvers 139). And again, like with Cassius Dio’s account, even if Historia Augusta could be taken entirely seriously, its evidence is limited. The Syrian-born Firmus having a go on an ostrich sounds more like a rash stunt rather than the semi-established practice that de Mosenthal & Harting and Bertram refer to (see beginning of this post).
In addition to ostriches in connection to Emperor Firmus, in Historia Augusta there are several mentions of ostriches in the life of Emperor Antoninus Elagabalus (also called Heliogobalus, ca. 203-222 CE). He is said to have given ostriches away as presents (volume 2, chapter 21), served them as food (28 and 32), and eaten their brains (30):
“[a]t one dinner where there were many tables he brought in the heads of six hundred ostriches in order that the brains might be eaten.”
The life of Elagabalus isn’t the only source to mention eating ostriches. A late Roman manuscript on cooking dating from ca. late 300s / early 400s CE conventionally referred to as either Apicius (after the author) or De Re Coquinaria included a recipe for boiled ostrich. Unfortunately, Apicius has a reputation of using a plethora of unusual ingredients or making one ingredient or material look like another. (Foiled Fowled again!)
There is also some non-textual evidencefor the presence of ostriches in Rome. In a Google image search for ostrich racing in ancient Rome, one of the results is an ostrich killing scene from the 2nd century CE Zliten mosaic in Libya (presumably one of the gladiatorial scenes in the house depicting venationes or “hunts of the arena”; see Dunbabin 121-122). Another is a large, detailed mosaic of a chariot being pulled by two large birds, and comes from an antechamber in Villa Romana del Casale:
Villa del Casale – Enfants auriges sur un char mené par des échassiers. Science&Avenir n° 746, Avril 2009, page 58; via Wikipedia.
Villa del Casale’s gorgeous early 4th century CE mosaics (also referred to as Piazza Armerina mosaics) are among the most well-preserved and extensive in the world. While often quite realistic, they do also contain unreal or imaginary details or beings (like a crosshatch skin pattern on an elephant or a griffin). The Wikipedia file for the image above calls these birds “possibly herons or ostriches” but I don’t think the species identification is correct.
It also turns out that this mosaic is only a part of a larger scene with four chariots racing, each pulled by a different type of bird:
Children’s race in an antechamber floor. From Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy, 3rd to 4th century BC. Image by Sue Dyer.
The larger scene is described as a children’s race (and sometimes called Little Circus or Vestibolo del Piccolo Circo). One site describes the Little Circus birds (from top right and moving counter-clockwise) as flamingos, white geese, waders, and wood pigeons. Flamingos, geese, and some waders might be big enough, but I have a hard time imagining pigeons or pigeon-like birds pulling chariots in the real world. Arnott identifies one of the birds as Porphyrio madigascarensis (African swamphen) and says attempts were made to domesticate it in ancient Greece and the Roman Empire. The swamphen range from large to very large, with body lengths between 38–50 cm and wingspans 90–100 cm. That’s better, but to me their size still sounds quite small for charioteering purposes. Toynbee in her discussion of harnessed birds (280-282) identifies the Little Circus birds as flamingos, ducks, porphyrions, and wood pigeons, and concludes that each of the teams symbolizes a season. It doesn’t seem that we have any ostriches here.
(Sidenote: Setting aside my incredulity over these seemingly small birds pulling chariots, there are a few aspects of the children’s race mosaic that give it credibility. Firstly, the racing team colors – red, white, blue, and green – match what we know of Roman racing. Secondly, you can see the reins wrapped around the team drivers’ waists. This was apparently how Roman racers steered their chariots as opposed to holding them in their hand like Greeks did.)
Two Workers Unloading Ostriches from the Ship in the Corridor of the Great Hunt. From Villa Romana del Casale, Piazza Armerina, Sicily, Italy, 3rd to 4th century BC. Image by Branislav L. Slantchev.
They appear in the so-called Corridor of the Great Hunt (or Ambulacro della Grande Caccia) and are a much more believable match to ostrich than any of the birds in the Little Circus racing scene. I couldn’t find enough context to find out whether they’re transporting a captured wild animal or a farm-grown individual (like mentioned in Part 2, a static image does not differentiate between the two). According to Toynbee (28), the Villa Romana del Casale mosaics contain yet another ostrich. That one is being unloaded from a ship, so it’s of equally limited use here.
So far, then, the evidence is mixed. Emperor Firmus’ possible escapades aside, it doesn’t sound like Romans actually kept ostriches for transportation; there certainly doesn’t seem to be any confirmation in the surviving art of ostrich riding or of ostriches as chariot beasts. In any case, the large bird mosaics at Villa Romana del Casale are not only fantastic works of art; they also support the textual evidence of exotic animals, ostriches included, in arena spectacles in the Roman territories (for more examples see e.g. Toynbee, whose study lists an impressive range of animal appearances in extant Roman texts and art). It also seems that ostrich meat was available at least as a fad and at least to the wealthy, but it’s difficult to make further-reaching claims than that. The idea of riding ostriches was unquestionably known in the ancient Mediterranean and continued to intrigue people.
Thoughts for writers
Old lives and histories (and I mean old, not just from 200-500 or a thousand years ago) can serve as inspiration for strange settings, curious circumstances, extraordinary events, or peculiar perspectives. (Like chewing on laurel leaves to keep yourself from laughing, for example.) Check around online or in your local library for free translations to modern languages.
What passed for historical research in Europe in the 1800s and early 1900s wasn’t particularly strenuous; in fact, parts of it sound more like the game of telephone (Chinese whispers). If accuracy of research matters to you and you can’t find reliable sources on your topic, try an alternate discipline like art history, archeology, anthropology, ethnography, or linguistics, for example.
There’s a great temptation to think of historical eras preceding ours as primitive and limited. The reality is often much more nuanced. Yes, we have computers and penicillin and space probes, but intercultural trade is probably as old as humankind, and there is evidence of long-distance travel from millennia ago. Human curiosity and ingenuity were and are a motivation for all sorts of adventures, both in the physical and mental worlds (=research, art, religion, etc.).
Drijvers, Jan Willem. “Ammianus on the revolt of Firmus.” In Ammianus after Julian: The Reign of Valentinian and Valens in Books 26-31 of the Res Gestae. Philological and Historical Commentary on Ammianus Marcellinus XXVI, Volume 26. edited by J. den Boeft, J.W. Drijvers, D. den Hengst and H.C. Teitler, 129-155. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2007. https://books.google.com/books?id=INz-Kqphz3cC.
History for Writers is a weekly feature which looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool. From worldbuilding to dialogue, history helps you write. Check out the introduction to History for Writers here.
“A Day in Pompeii” is an 8-minute high-definition video on how a series of eruptions wiped out Pompeii over 48 hours, produced by Museum Victoria (Melbourne Museum) and Zero One Animation for an exhibition at Melbourne Museum in 2009.
It would’ve been more stunning with changes in the POV rather than a static camera, but it was still interesting.
To accompany the exhibit, Melbourne Museum produced a wealth of additional online material.
Unfortunately there’s currently no index page, but articles are still available on the Museum website (do a search for Pompeii). For example, House of the Vine is a nifty virtual recreation of a beautiful Pompeian house. And did you know that Pompeii had running water and lavatories? There is even a replica of a loaf of bread from Pompeii:
After Melbourne, the exhibition traveled to other places. The Western Australian Museum also built a helpful site, still fully available, to go with their 2010 version in Perth.
Complementary views can be found from photos of the current state of the city at Pompeii in Pictures, website by Jackie and Bob Dunn. (Getting to the photos themselves takes a bit of clicking through the menus, but they’re there.)
Images: Box, (c) Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei via Melbourne Museum (House of Julius Polybius, Pompeii; original iron and bronze fittings and wood reconstruction). Loaf of bread via Melbourne Museum (bakery in Pompeii; plaster copy of an original, carbonized loaf)
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
What if there was a fantasy world where moose were tamed and selectively bred for cavalry? I spent some time pondering it after a couple of things found online collided in my head.
Their size, speed, and ability to gallop through deep snowbanks make moose fearsome and pretty near unstoppable. Imagine a line of ginormous moose thundering at full tilt towards you across a field – that’s a truly frightening thought! Also bogs don’t slow them down by much, I believe, which might conceivably tip the scales in the right kind of a campaign.
Then, I saw this photo of an albino moose:
Natural snow camouflage. Hmmm.
It’s not that far-fetched an idea, apparently. The Soviet Union attempted to build a moose cavalry in the first half of the 20th century, but they were unsuccessful. In our world, the solitary habits of moose seem to be standing in the way of domestication. If we’re talking about a fantasy world, however, I don’t see why not.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
After the invention of the printing press, old handwritten books and documents were commonly recycled as reinforcements in new bookbindings made in the 15th through 18th centuries. Now, thanks to an x-ray technique developed in the Netherlands, these hidden manuscript fragments are readable without destroying the book they’re a part of.
It’s all possible with macro x-ray fluorescence spectrometry (MA-XRF), which allows even pages glued to each other to be read. Dr. Erik Kwakkel at Leiden University, one of the academics behind the Hidden Library project attempting to uncover more of these fragments, has both been interviewed and written about the process.
“Every library has thousands of these bindings, especially the larger collections. If you go to the British Library or the Bodleian [in Oxford], they will have thousands of these bindings. So you can see how that adds up to a huge potential.”
Now I’m hoping we will eventually find a wealth of medieval texts in bookbindings. It’s really fascinating what we can discover with modern technology!
Image: A printed book with medieval manuscript fragments inside the spine, photograph by Erik Kwakkel (Leiden, University Library, nr. 583; 16th c. with 12th c. fragments)
In an article at SAPIENS, archaeologist Stephen E. Nash discusses the difficulty of interpreting prehistoric life due to the fact that artifacts made of perishable materials are so rarely preserved to be found. It’s a quick, fascinating read, but what jumped at me was this image of a split-twig figurine that Dr. Nash shared:
Figurine of a deer or bighorn sheep, accession number DMNS/A1291.1, by Denver Museum of Nature & Science via SAPIENS (Dolores Cave near Gunnison, Colorado; c. 2,500 BCE; split twigs)
Found in Dolores Cave near Gunnison, Colorado, and at 4,500 years old it’s apparently the oldest and easternmost example of an artifact style found in dry cave environments across the American West. It’s unknown whether the figurine had ritualistic (or magical) uses or whether it was a child’s toy.
Regardless of what its function was, the figurine is an intriguing example of Stone Age material culture. Like Dr. Nash points out, much of the coverage of prehistoric cultures concentrates on artifacts made of nonperishable materials—stone, bone, shells, metal, or the like. It’s exhilarating to see something that could basically have been the equivalent of a twig toy horse.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
The library attached to al-Qarawiyyin mosque and university (alternate western spellings include Al Karaouin and Al Quaraouiyine, among others) in Fez, Morocco, is not just the oldest active library in the world, it’s also exceptionally beautiful.
Al-Qarawiyyin was founded in 859 by Fatima Al Fihri. The architecture of the university reflects various past styles and ruling dynasties. The decorated interiors include calligraphic designs on the walls, ceramic patterns on the floors, and wooden carvings on the ceilings.
“When I first visited, I was shocked at the state of the place.
“In rooms containing precious manuscripts dating back to the 7th century, the temperature and moisture were uncontrolled, and there were cracks in the ceiling. […]
“Throughout the years, the library underwent many rehabilitations, but it still suffered from major structural problems, a lack of insulation, and infrastructural deficiencies like a blocked drainage system, broken tiles, cracked wood beams, exposed electric wires, and so on.”
One of Chaouni’s leading principles was respect to its authenticity. Her restoration team preserved and salvaged what they could, but when it wasn’t possible, features and details were created from scratch. This included using local materials and construction systems, like furniture by local craftsmen who used native wood. Says Chaouni:
“There has to be a fine balance between keeping the original spaces, addressing the needs of current users, including students, researchers and visitors, and integrating new sustainable technologies — solar panels, water collection for garden irrigation, and so on.”
Currently a part of Morocco’s state university system, the library is now open to the public in addition to historians and students.
(Incidentally, the university’s famous alumni include the 16th-century Andalusian adventurer known as Leo Africanus, whose book Description of Africa was considered the most authoritative source for northern Africa until the beginning of European exploration and expansion in the African continent.)
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Oh, wow: quite possibly the oldest attempt at animation ever comes from some four thousand years ago. It’s a depiction of a goat jumping up a tree to eat the leaves:
Found via The Real Iran on Tumblr. My Tumblr source doesn’t unfortunately give any more info, but it sounds like the cup was found in the Bronze Age site of Shahr-e Sūkhté (or Shahr-e Sukhteh) in Sistan, southeastern Iran.
Just reading the Wikipedia page for Shahr-e Sūkhté makes my imagination run—a large trading route hub with connections to Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and India with rich material culture would make an excellent setting for historical or speculative fiction. (For example, among the archaeological finds from the Burnt City is apparently the world’s first artificial eyeball.)
Finding real-world inspiration like this is when I really wish I was a writer!
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
There’s been some buzz—quite understandably, too, for the drone looks pretty neat—but the vehicle doesn’t seem to have been ready for the international market quite as soon as some western newsoutlets have reported. It sounds like the battery life is still rather limited, too. Fortunately the limitations of the current tech do not have to restrain a science fiction writer—just think of how much cell phone batteries have improved in the last ten years alone.
My goodness, it’s exciting to be living now!
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
A few more possibilities for speculative writers and artists looking to break out of the Eurocentric worldbuilding mold, this time from among the Earth’s birds, snails, and mushrooms.
The male pink robin (Petroica rodinogaster) has a bright fuchsia chest and belly; the female looks drabber, with merely pinkish-tinged underparts. These small birds live in the cool temperate forests of southeastern Australia.
The many-colored fruit doves (Ptilinopus perousii) live on islands in the south-west Pacific Ocean (Fiji, the Samoan Islands, and Tonga). The male is yellow on the wings and back, red on the head and neck; the female is greener, darker on the back and greyer on the head and breast.
The violet snail (Janthina janthina) is a small purple mollusk found floating on the surface in tropical and temperate seas worldwide.
Indigo milk cap (Lactarius indigo) is a species of generally blue or blueish mushrooms found in eastern North America, East Asia, and Central America. The milk that oozes out of a cut or broken mushroom is also indigo blue, but slowly turns green upon exposure to air. According to Wikipedia, it’s edible and sold in rural markets in China, Guatemala, and Mexico.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Apparently in Pennsylvania, there’s a town—Centralia—all but abandoned due to a coal mine fire that’s been burning underground since 1962.
There is disagreement over the cause of the fire. It seems that one way or another a surface fire moved into the system of mining tunnels below the town.
The effects are indisputable and scary: unstable ground, sink holes, damaged roads, plumes of hot steam, vents of smoke and toxic gases (like lethal levels of carbon monoxide), and, finally, evictions plus abandoned and/or demolished buildings.
Speculative fiction that takes place in a post-catastrophy world of some sort immediately comes to mind, and no wonder. Even the little that I read gave me a glimpse on the variety of reactions people can have to major environmental disruptions and their aftermath. Not to mention that photos of the abandoned parts of Centralia are stunning. They remind me of Pripyat after the Chernobyl nuclear accident, which is the closest equivalent I can think of from my childhood in Finland.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Solar power technologies are advanced enough that they are increasingly being integrated into buildings during construction, not just added onto existing ones. For example, there’s a way to make thin enough, light-weight enough, and transparent enough solar cells to embed them into windows. Some cells even have color, which makes inventive facades a definite possibility!
Below are some colorful glass facades and/or windows, some actually photovoltaic, others made from regular glass or other sun control materials, to illustrate just a few possibilities SFF creators might want to consider.
SwissTech Convention Center in Ecublens, Switzerland
Using dye-sensitized solar cells or DSSC (also known as Grätzel cells), the world’s first multicolored solar facade was built at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. Although the technology is 30 years old already, the building is only from 2014.
Biochemistry building at The University of Oxford in Oxford, UK
The facade is made up of glass fins that emulate the colors of the historic buildings surrounding it.
Clapham Manor Primary School in London, UK
A new wing added to an existing Victorian school. No solar glass as far as I can tell, but the combinations of solid and fritted, on one hand, and clear and colored glass, on the other, allow for some environmental control.
Environmental education center El Captivador in Alicante, Spain
Designed by CrystalZoo, the roof tiles of the sustainably built environmental education center flow from bright reds via oranges to yellows.
An atrium with semi-translucent photovoltaic ceiling panels plus regular colorful glass (as far as I can tell).
Kuggen building, Chalmers tekniska högskola in Gothenburg, Sweden
Designed by Winngårdh Arkitektkontor for the Chalmers University of Technology, Kuggen has a movable sunscreen and six floors, each shielding the floor below.
At the moment, it seems that next to cost, fairly low efficiency is the biggest problem with building-integrated photovoltaics. (Although, the efficiency problem might soon be solved.) Fortunately, both are something that SFF writers can easily deal with.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
Since 1991, in Gentilly, Quebec, the residents have held an annual giant pumpkin competition—and boat race!—called Potirothon. The name is a portmanteau of potiron and marathon.
After weighing the entrants, some of the giant pumpkins are carved into 1-seater canoes and raced on the Bécancour River.
The Potirothon race is so awesome! Although pumpkins aren’t new to me anymore, the giant variety is. This is also the first I hear of carving the giant kind. My mind immediately went to an alternate Shire, or maybe another secondary world where humanoids of a smaller stature might want to use giant hollowed-out gourds / fruit / plants as transport. Or not even necessarily humanoids; intelligent beings of any shape or size.
The Visual Inspiration occasional feature pulls the unusual from our world to inspire design, story-telling, and worldbuilding. If stuff like this already exists, what else could we imagine?
