Common Errors: Summing up

Spijkers op laag water

Today, my little book on common errors, Spijkers op laag water, becomes available in the bookshops in the Netherlands and Flanders. I have, over the past couple of months, several times blogged about it; today, I finish this series with an article on the causes of error. It is, essentially, the epilogue of my book. You can read it here.

In this epilogue, I stress that professionalism does matter, and that “amateur historian” is just another word for “unqualified”. I also stress that specialization has disastrous consequences: there is no time to teach the logical foundations of scholarship, which means that quality control is reduced to mutual criticism. That 37 of the 50 errors presented in my book have been made by people with a Ph.D., proves that this type of control fails.

Worse, our specialists are often forced to talk about subjects outside their direct competence; you cannot expect from a classicist to explain ancient history – but in publications for the general audience and teaching to first year-students, scholars are forced to discuss subjects they are unqualified for. As a consequence, our academicians are now a more important source for false knowledge than pseudoscholars like Immanuel Velikovsky or Erich von Däniken.

This may come as a shock, but I can substantiate this claim. Since 1995, I have probably answered 3,200-3,600 e-mail messages from “the general audience”, and I came to realize that there was a pattern behind the many misunderstandings: people are perfectly capable of distinguishing scholarship from pseudoscholarship, but will be fooled when a credible author makes a mistake.

I may be wrong, of course. I even hope so. But I am unaware of other studies to the causes of misunderstanding about Antiquity, and so far, the messages I have received appear to be the only data around. Unless professional scholars can offer better figures – which is certainly possible – I think that efforts to improve scholarship must not be directed against pseudohistorians; instead, we must focus on the universities.

Read more here, or order the book here.

Improved beyond repair

Flowerman

One of the things in Iran I find endlessly intriguing, is the use of Achaemenid motifs in contemporary design. For instance, it is quite normal to see painted Immortals guarding a restaurant, and Darius’ audience scene on a curtain, a pillow, or a wallpaper, and the sign of Ahuramazda on the ministry of Foreign Affairs. The use of pre-Islamic symbols in an Islamic republic is one of the many remarkable aspects of a country that seems to collect paradoxes by the dozen.

Most imitations are coarse and only a few are truly beautiful. (In this respect, it reminds one of Catholicism’s artistic language, which also ranges from the sublime to the terrible.) Occasionaly, a modern Iranian artist allows himself a little joke, neutralizing the sometimes warlike imagery of Achaemenid art. The flowerman in a restaurant in Tehran is based on a soldier (this one), but our Iranian artist has made something much more charming. I was reminded of Alexander Kosolapov, who is also capable of neutralizing unpretty images – for instance, by making an addition to Hitler’s state portrait.

Sarvestan

Sarvestan Palace

The Sarvestan Palace (satellite photo), built in the fifth century by the Sasanian king Bahram V, is about an hour and a half east of Shiraz. The trip itself is half the fun, because the road passes along a salt lake and through some orchards (the pomegranates are now ripe). Finally, you reach an immense plain, where the only sounds you hear are the ones you produce yourself, and where your only company consists of an occasional twister. The palace is in the center of the plain, splendidly isolated.

The monument is made of bricks and used to have three domes, of which two survive. Just like the Qalah-e Dokhtar and the palace of Ardašir, both near Firuzabad, the Sarvestan Palace is being restored. There were large scaffolds in the great dome. On our way back, we bought some pomegranates, and enjoyed the chaotic traffic of Shiraz. All in all, the visit was extremely worthwhile.

If you want to go to the Sarvestan palace, too, it may be useful to know that it is not near the town called Sarvestan; it is in fact ten kilometers east of it, close to a small village. I read the sign while we were passing along it in the car and I could not read it well – it may have been Mohsenabad. Amusingly, I wrote in my notes “Mohinabad”, Nothingville.

Bishapur’s New Museum

Ardašir I

I was writing my book on Alexander the Great when I visited Iran for the first time. We had already visited Susa and our next stop was Shiraz, which we wanted to use as base to visit Persepolis, Pasargadae, and the Persian Gate (near modern Yasuj). We planned to visit Bishapur, but it was not our priority. The splendid reliefs and the remains of the city, therefore, were a complete surprise. Next years, I visited the place two times, better prepared.

The only thing that is unique at Bishapur is, of course, the cave with Shapur’s statue (which may have been the king’s tomb); Sasanian walls, rock reliefs, and palaces can be seen on other sites in Iran. Yet, the place is dear to me, and I was disappointed that the museum was closed for some time. It has a small collection, but it really adds something to the ruins – and I do not mean the shade that the visitor so desperately needs in Bishapur.

Today, however, we found it reopened. The small room has been replaced with a very big one, which still smelt of fresh paint. The explanatory signs are, for the time being, only in Farsi, and the displays are a bit too large. Some of them are still waiting to be filled with objects. The collection can still grow, and I expect that this will happen pretty soon, because excavation was resumed about three months ago. So far, there are no spectacular results and the Ramadan – or Ramezan, as the Iranians say – intervened, but the archaeologists will return, and the museum will no doubt benefit.

Iwan-e Karkheh

Walls of Iwan-e Karkheh

“Iwan-e Karkheh” is the name of a region west of modern Andimeshk (Khuzestan), and is also the name given to the ruins of an ancient city, largely unexplored by archaeologists. Yet, the first conclusions were intriguing. It is a Sasanian city, founded in the fourth century and surrounded by a large wall of about 4×1 km. The enceinte can be seen over large distances. The archaeologists also found a building, perhaps a palace, with a cross-vault of a type that was to become popular in churches but has not been attested earlier than Iwan-e Karkheh.

I was attracted to the site because I had read that it had been converted into a garbage dump, and wanted to see it before it would be destroyed. But the site turned out to be not threatened at all. In all countries of the Near East, people throw away their waste along the roads. Garbage can be seen everywhere, and I have heard in both Syria and Iran the joke that it’s not garbage at all – the farmers grow plastic on their fields. Iwan-e Karkheh is not exceptionally dirty; in fact, it seems to be well protected by the police post in the northeast.

The city must have looked something like Bishapur, but there is, apart from the wall, not much to be seen. Nevertheless, we enjoyed our visit and received an inevitable invitation from a nearby farmer. I do not know whether to recommend a visit, but if you decide to go, take the road from Andimeshk to Ahvaz, turn to the right to Deloran, and after about fifteen kilometer, when the road forks and the Deloran road leads to the right, turn to the left. By then, you will already have seen the walls. Your satellite photo is here.

Godin Tepe

One of the magazines of Godin Tepe

In the area immediately surrounding modern Hamadan are several sites that may be labeled “Median”. Earlier this year, I blogged about Tepe Nush-e Jan; this time, we visited Godin Tepe, which is just south of the road to Kangavar. The eighth-century Median settlement was built on a hill, consisted of several halls and storage rooms, and reminded me of both Tepe Nush-e Jan and Çavustepe, an Urartaean fort I visited a couple of years ago.

Today, little remains of Godin Tepe (satellite photo). Some of the storage rooms are still recognizable, but the halls were destroyed when the archaeologists made a deep sounding. They discovered that the hill contained at least nine earlier strata, going back to the Copper Age; very interesting of course, but there’s little left to be seen for the occasional visitor.

The most interesting aspect of our visit was the discovery that on the site of the ancient cemetery, which has been excavated and contained no archaeological remains any more, a new cemetery had been made. Apparently, today’s inhabitants want to be buried where their ancestors had rested. Remarkably enough, they all had “Godini” as their family name.

New Excavations at Ecbatana

The Parthian town

I like Hamadan. Once the main settlement of the Medians, it is now a large town that also happens to be the world’s French fries capital. I’ve been there five times now and I really came to love the museum. Consisting of two large rooms and a corridor, it is admittedly small, but Mrs Khoshmu’s team manage to have always something new to present.

The excavation near the museum is a classical example of contradictory evidence. Our written sources refer to a city with seven walls of increasing height, but archaeologists have, so far, found nothing. Maximalists will say that we will have to dig deeper or on other places, minimalists will argue that we need to read our sources differently – for example by taking the description of the seven walls as a story about a ziggurat or a fairy-tale motif. I do not know which is the more prudent way to proceed.

What I do know, on the other hand, is that so far, most excavated objects belong to the Parthian and Sasanian age. This led the late Mr Azarnoosh, one of the archaeologists, to conclude that he was excavating a town that was founded by the Parthians, but since this does not fit well with the sources, investigation has been renewed last summer. The aim is to test Azarnoosh’s interpretation: was this really a Parthian foundation? If this turns out to be the case, we will have to look elsewhere for the Achaemenid palace that is known from written sources and stray finds. The Median residence will be even harder to find, because the Medians appear essentially to have remained nomadic pastoralists.

Hamadan is also the town where the philosopher-physician Avicenna (or Ibn Sina, or Bu Ali) lies buried in a splendid mausoleum. (I have often wondered why the Dutch never built something similar for doctor Boerhave.) During my visit, I benefitted from Avicenna’s insights, because I was suffering from a nasty cough, and one of my companions bought the herbs which the Iranian physician had prescribed in this case. The mix, in which I recognized chamomile, worked well: drinking Avicenna’s elixir, I was cured in two days. So, I can claim without exaggeration to have been cured by the great physician.

Tehran, Archaeological Museum

Relief from the northern stairs of the Apadana at Persepolis

The Archaeological Museum of Tehran has all the advantages of an old-fashioned institution. As the regular reader of this blog may know, I think that one of the problems with modern museums is that they try to evoke some kind of mysterious atmosphere: in poorly-lit rooms, you can see only a couple of objects lying there, beautifully spotlighted, just looking mysterious. The illumination allows you to look at it from one point of view, but not from other angles. Photography is almost impossible. In other words, you cannot study the objects.

I get the impression that museums are now leaving this cul-de-sac, and return to decent displays. The Tehran museum has never succumbed to ill-directed aestheticism, and this makes it, easily, one of the better museums dedicated to ancient culture.

Stone fish from Susa

This does not mean that there are no beautiful objects. The first part, dedicated to the Neolithicum and Bronze Ages, culminates in the pottery from Susa, which is just splendid. Recently, this part has been redesigned; several objects from the important excavations at Jiroft have been inserted, to name but one change.

Statue of a cow from Choga Zanbil

Passing along a nice sculpture of a bovine from Choga Zanbil, you will reach the Iron Age, where you will find an Assyrian and an Urartaean inscription, and countless small objects. They are interesting, but your attention is drawn by the great relief next to it, from the northern stairs of the Apadana in Persepolis (photo above; more…). Next to it, about half-way through the exhibition, is the statue of Darius from Susa (more…). I visited the museum yesterday with an Egyptologist, who was fascinated by the hieroglyphs.

There are some other Achaemenid remains, including several inscriptions (like this one) and some fine art. Here, you will also see a Penelope in wet-drapery style, taken to Persepolis by either Xerxes or Mardonius.

Greek-style mosaic from Bishapur

Compared to the Achaemenid age, the Greek, Parthian, and Sasanian ages are a bit underrepresented. From the Greek age is a fine bust of a Muse, from the Parthian age is a splendid bronze statue of a prince (one of the few remaining bronze statues from Antiquity), and from the Sasanian age are the spooky salt men and some mosaics from Bishapur, made by Antiochene artists.

The museum has a treasury that contains precious objects, made of silver and gold, but it is often closed. Asking for permission to get there is futile. In this aspect, the Tehran Museum suffers from the same error as western museums: it creates obstacles for students. I think this is inexcusable. There is simply no reason why a museum should hide its entire collection from people who have made an effort to get there.

This being said, the Tehran museum is really something special. Next to it is the museum of Islamic Art, which has not been open for quite some time; I remember that I liked it very much. Around the corner you will find the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, situated in a building that is inspired by the Persepolis Apadana; and around another corner, you will find a charming museum dedicated to fine art made of glass. If you have only one day in Tehran, spend it in this part of the city.

In need of a holiday

Confused

As my Dutch readers probably know, I publish a newsletter every month, a bit like David Meadows’ Explorator. The difference is that I try to offer some context. If an archaeologist claims to have found something very special, I try to explain why it is so special, or why his press release must be taken with a pinch of salt.

Quickly after I started, I realized how much news was, in fact, no news at all. At first, I could make jokes about it and I awarded a satirical prize to the archaeologist who had written the most outrageous press release to draw attention (and get money) for his excavation. Some journalists, like this one, realize that they’re fooled, but most of them are easy victims. Unfortunately, it’s not funny any more. Take this month’s newsletter:

• The inevitable Zahi Hawass, visiting Russia, comments upon the Taposiris excavations. We all know that it is not the tomb of Cleopatra VII, so why is he stressing it again?
• The Alexander exposition in Mannheim is abused to stress again that Alexander has nothing to do with the Former Yugoslavian Republic of Macedonia. Boring. We already knew that, and people who still do not realize that ethnicity is fluid, are mentally living in the nineteenth century.
• An article about hoards as indication for population trends is interesting, but raises a lot statistical questions, which are not addressed.
• A street in Jerusalem belongs to the “Second Temple Period”. The name is a way to make things look Biblical, but basic information -was the street from the Persian, Hellenistic, Hasmonaean, Herodian, or Roman age?- is withheld.
• A first-century cup from Jerusalem is described as a “mystery vessel” written “in code”. Now if those words were written by Dan Brown, I wouldn’t have a problem, but it’s the National Geographic.
• After a year of unnecessarily commemorating the battle in the Teutoburg Forest, you’d believe that no one will say that ancient Germania was poor – an idea only found in Tacitus and not matched by the natural resources of the country east of the Rhine. But no, here‘s a professor claiming that the Germans’ “poverty helped preserve their liberty”.
• Nero’s rotating dining room has been found, for the second time. Either it’s the next archaeologist’s trick to obtain funds, or archaeologists have fooled the public for quite some time.

It’s just a selection, I might add more. All these claims were made by professional historians and classicists. It is so depressing that our universities are becoming one of the main sources of false knowledge about Antiquity.

Usually, I like writing the Newsletter, but this time, I felt really frustrated. I need a holiday – and that’s why I’m off to Iran for two weeks.

Clytaemnestra Bed and Bath

Bellerophon never arrived on his destination

Many years ago, I spotted a hotel in Mycenae that tried to attract visitors with the slogan “Clytaemnestra Bed & Bath”. I am quite sure that the owner meant it as a joke. But I am less certain that the owner of the shoeshop named Oedipus in Antwerp, which I noticed on the Groenplaats as long ago as 1982, realized that the name of the Greek hero meant “swollen foot”. Calling a restaurant “Saint Simon”, or travel agencies “Odysseus” or “Xenophon”, is pretty infelicitous too, while a Chimera – well, it is a fantasy shop.

No one travelling with Odysseus survived	“A lion, its waist a goat, its tail a snake”	Saint Simon fasted very often
14.000 mercenaries joined Xenophon; 6.000 returned

Known and Unknown Unknowns

We often have to believe the stories of Herodotus, because he is the only source, and we cannot evaluate the quality of his information.

Many people have ridiculed Donald Rumsfeld’s remarks about the known and unknown unknowns; he even got a satirical prize for them. That was highly undeserved, and not only because the Secretary of Defense’s words were a brilliant piece of found poetry:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.

I am quoting these words in the first place because I like them as a free-speaking verse, but also because Rumsfeld made a very good point. He accurately describes an epistemological problem that faces every historian: unus testis, nullus testis.

Anne Frank in Amsterdam

Statuette for Anne Frank at the Merwedeplein

Maybe it was coincidence, maybe it was not. But today, I received an Anti-Semitic e-mail from someone calling himself “Aryan Warrior” (why the pseudonym if you have nothing to hide?), and I came across a blogger who posted a little movie clip about Anne Frank. So I decided to devote, especially for Mr. Anonymous, a webpage to the life of Anne Frank in Amsterdam; it was something I wanted to do for quite a long time. You can find it here, and you can find more information on the Frank family here. Or, if you want to know more about the other Dutch Jews killed during the Second World War, visit the Digital Monument.

(And next time I will be adding to this little blog, it will be about classics again.)

An extremely useful epigraphical tool

IRT 607

One of the most useful websites I know is the Epigraphik-Datenbank Clauss/Slaby (EDCS), maintained by the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. The English site is here. I use it nearly every day, and it rarely disappoints. These days, I am reorganizing my collection of photos, and it often helps me find the catalog numbers of the inscriptions.

Take, for instance, the photo to the right: an inscription from Lepcis Magna, which we photographed in 2006. There is no explanatory sign, but using the words “Lepcis Magna”, “Septimiae” and “splendidissimi”, it was easy to discover that this was inscription #607 of J.M. Reynolds & J.B. Ward Perkins, Inscriptions of Roman Tripolitania (1952 London). You will also find a photo of the inscription, which describes the setting up of a statue – the most expensive silver statue of Roman Africa, to be precise.

Some time ago, I used the EDCS to check which deities the ancients actually venerated. I obtained some remarkable results, which I would not have reached in so little time -one evening- if I had had to use those massive books of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum – which I happen to love, but are less easy to use than the EDCS.