Easter a pagan festival? Eggstremely Unlikely!

As alluring as the idea is to atheists like me, the claim that Easter was derived from a pre-existing pagan festival in honour of the goddess ‘Eostre’ turns out to have very little basis indeed. It amounts to one reference. CJ Romer has this tied up on his blog;

Eostre never existed???: why Easter is NOT a Pagan Holiday

CJ is a Christian, so in case you think there’s bias at work, here’s another three-part debunk from a Neo-Pagan writer;

Eostre: The Making of a Myth

An instructive lesson in not buying into claims just becuase they agree with our (pagan or atheist) preconceptions and biases.

Slicing the Upper Crust

I caught some of ‘Paul Hollywood’s Bread’ today on TV, and heard him pronounce that the phrase ‘the upper crust’, to mean the British upper class, originated with the practice of giving used bread trenchers to the poor. As we’ve seen before on this blog,  this kind of etmylogical literalism is usually bogus – phrases very rarely arise in this convenient, pat way, and if you hear an explanation of this sort, chances are it’s outright BS, or is at the least unprovable/unfalsifiable. But they’re appealing, easy to understand, and to remember, which is why they’ve been ‘going viral’ since well before the internet even existed (it just makes the process easier!). In this case, a TV reviewer was taken in.

This one is no exception – fortunately I don’t have to embark on an essay about it though, because Phrases.org has this one nailed, the key sentence being this one;

‘The term ‘upper crust’ didn’t in fact come to be used figuratively to refer to the aristocracy until the 19th century.’

The fact is we can’t know what was in the head of the person who coined the phrase, but the trencher explanation is at least no more likely than any other you care to dream up. In fact, it’s arguably less so, since the use of bread trenchers was long dead by this time. The earliest Google Books reference for the origin (as opposed to the phrase) is 2001, and Snopes has it appearing as part of a hoax list dating to 1999. I could find no references via the Google news archive either. It’s possible that it was in oral circulation prior to ’99, but my money’s on that list, which seems to me to have been an exercise in seeing what historical tomfoolery one could get away with in a single email forward (though elements of it certainly did pre-exist the list).

It amazes me in this day and age that TV researchers either don’t bother to take 10 seconds to check something like this. But then I suspect that, like the tour guides Phrases.org mentions, they’re more interested in storytelling and traditional history than in the real thing. But when you’re recreating historical breads as the focus of your programme, why do you need this extra fluff?

Spear of Destiny

Anyone following my blog is probably following Bad Archaeology, but in case not, you should check out this fascinating piece on the origin of the now traditional association between the Spear of Destiny and the Nazis.

Sanity Clause

OK, this one actually IS relevant to the season. This is a fascinating piece on the ‘links’ between shamanism, drug-taking, and the modern figure of Santa Claus. Not because of the hypothesis itself, which is pretty tenuous to say the least, but for the fact that it’s actually self-debunking. It starts out making specious connections between the (pre)historic reality of spiritual leaders taking drugs to (amongst other things) experience flight, and the folkloric/fictional activities of St. Nicholas and his derivatives. But the last third or so makes pretty clear that there’s no evidence for any of it, and those who actually work in the relevant historical fields aren’t convinced. Ronald Hutton’s comments should carry particular weight. Even the editor has left a qualifying ‘may’ in the title. Thus, no journalistic standards have been compromised, and yet I wonder whether most readers won’t still come away with the impression that Santa = Shaman.

Whilst part of me wants to rant about this, actually I wonder if this isn’t a clever way for everyone to enjoy this story. My own work on the vampire killing kits ended up being reported in a similar way, and despite my best efforts, many would still have failed to pick up the message I’ve been trying to convey (they’re not ‘real’, but they’re still worthy of interest). But the comments on the above article demonstrate a good deal of incredulity and some actual scepticism, so people are thinking critically about this kind of bold historical claim.

 

 

You’ve Got Red On You

‘Santa vs Zombies’ by Victor Negreiro

(Nothing to do with my title, which is a ‘Shaun of the Dead’ reference)

Why is Santa Claus’ tunic red? Because of Coca-Cola? S’Nope! To conceal the wounds he sustains in battle, of course! OK, perhaps not. But that explanation really has been offered on many an occasion to explain why the British ‘redcoat’ was so clad, especially in the US. A seamless seasonal link there, I think you’ll agree. The implication being that the British army that fought the American Revolution comprised thousands of scared impressed conscripts who would rout at the drop of a hat, were it not for the tyrannical discipline of their officers. Even the British have made this claim, probably because until relatively recently, soldiers were very much looked down upon in British society, such that a slight against their courage wouldn’t necessarily be a slight against the army or the Empire. Francis Grose, in his  ‘Military Antiquities’, states (though I can’t find the original source he cites online);

‘Julius Ferretus, a writer of the middle of the 16th century, in his Treatife on the Military Science, fays, that foldiers commonly wore a fhort red fagum, or frock, which colour was chofen that they might not be difcouraged by the fight of the blood from their wounds.’
-Grose, Military Antiquities, 1788 (p.6)

So this idea was a contemporary one. Nevertheless, it’s pretty dubious. Military uniforms were bold solid colours because for line infantry (riflemen and light infantry being a special case) there was no tactical need for anything that would blend in. It was also a bonus for officers and general staff to be able to see where their men were on the black powder-filled battlefield, and for the men themselves to be able to tell each other apart in close quarters. More significantly, in an age before chemical dyes, there was also quite a limited colour palette to choose from. Hiding your sucking chest wound had nothing to do with it. A fellow WordPress blogger has a good summary of why this claim is bogus. It points out that blood is in fact quite visible against red fabric, something I can vouch for having seen period uniform still bearing obvious blood stains. But I’m just as interested in where these things come from as debunking them. So where does this red herring originate? Well, it’s actually pretty ancient – 1st Century A.D. ancient, in fact:

‘They used to wear red tunics in battle to disguise and hide the blood from their wounds, not that the sight of the wounds would terrify them, but it might make the enemy a little more confident.’
-Valerius Maximus on the Spartans

Of course we have no way of knowing whether the Spartans really did this, but as another practical warfighting race, like the British later on, it seems pretty unlikely. The claim was recycled five hundred years later by an ecclesiastical scholar of the ancient world;

‘The reddened (russata) garment, which the Greeks call Phoenician and we call scarlet, was invented by the Lacedaemonians so as to conceal the blood with a similar color whenever someone was wounded in battle, lest their opponents’ spirits rise at the sight.’
-Isidore of Seville, Origines XIX, xxii, 10

Intriguingly, Isidore also says that Roman soldiers were known as russati because of the similarly red tunics that they wore; a direct foreshadowing of the British ‘redcoats’. I suspect our missing link here is a later writer, perhaps at the height of the British Empire in the Victorian period, deliberately drawing an analogy between the armies of the two empires, just as Valerius had by referencing the Spartans. The russati/redcoat connection would have reinforced this Britain=Rome meme, and might even have inspired the appropriation of the old Spartan/Roman myth. Now, this could be used by both proponents and enemies of a given country/empire, depending how it’s spun. Valerius and Isidore give a positive angle, but perhaps more logical is the negative version in currency by the 19th century, and presumably earlier:

‘English children are, perhaps, still taught that French soldiers wear red trousers in order that the sight of blood may not frighten them in war-time ; and doubtless French children imbibe a similar theory regarding the English red coats.’
-J.A. Farrer in ‘The Gentleman’s Magazine’, 1885**

Farrer’s summary is actually very comprehensive, although I couldn’t find the original source for this claim of his; ‘Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver…chose it, according to Xenophon, because red is most easily taken by cloth and most lasting;’ Which is a shame, because it would predate even Valerius (Xenophon being active c300 BC) Nevertheless, it’s still far closer to the truth than the blood thing, for which there is no evidence and no plausibility. After all, I can’t see this chap being overly worried about a spot of blood on his cloak, can you?

 

 

Expanded references; *Wardle, D. Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Deeds and Sayings: Book 1. Oxford University Press (Clarendon Ancient History Series): Oxford and New York, 1998, p57, Ch.6 para.2. **Farrer, J.A. Curiosities of Military Discipline, The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol.258-259,1885, p.133.

A Ripper of an Idea

Another day, another Jack the Ripper suspect, this time put forward by former solicitor John Morris. As ever, we’ve no more reason to believe this suggestion than any of the dozens of others that have been advanced, sometimes repeatedly, over the years. At least the name appears to be a new one, even if the idea of the Ripper being a woman certainly is not.

Be wary of definitive statements about 120-year-old cold cases;

‘There’s absolutely no doubt that the Ripper was a woman.’

It’s pretty clear that there is, I’m afraid. The list of proof reads like a textbook definition of ‘circumstantial evidence’, and are not necessarily even established facts. I’m no Ripperologist, but in 20 minutes of investigoogling found some problems with the claims made in the press piece. Firstly;

‘Three small buttons from a woman’s boot were found in blood near Catherine Eddowes’

…is true, but lacks some important context. The actual source reads;

‘Sergeant Jones picked up from the foot way by the left side of the deceased three small black buttons, such as are generally used for boots, a small metal button, a common metal thimble, and a small penny mustard tin containing two pawn-tickets.’

Note that the boot association comes from a policemans’ attempt to describe the objects in the absence of a photograph, and the fact that the buttons were found with various other objects you might expect to find in a woman’s handbag or pocket. It’s far more likely that the buttons were loose and in the victim’s possession than it is that they were somehow torn from the killer’s person.

That a Victorian journalist thought arranging items in some kind of order was a ‘feminine’ trait reveals far more about Victorian attitudes to gender (and possibly our own if we’re prepared to set store by them) than it does about our elusive killer.

Finally, I’m not sure how we can know that Mary Jane Kelly had ‘never been seen wearing’ the clothes found in her fireplace, as one witness does describe a hat and jacket, and another (contradictory) witness specifies a pelerine (cape) and skirt. Eyewitness testimony being notoriously unreliable, of course.

I should reserve judgement until someone (not sure I can face another Ripper book) has analysed the main thesis and evidence for it. But on past form, I can’t hold my breath. We will almost certainly never know who Jack the Ripper was, and it’s no coincidence that scholarly study in the area is more concerned with the social historical context of the killings than it is with the futile search for the actual killer. Personally, my money’s still on the Phantom Raspberry-Blower.

‘Beware of rashness…’

The great Museum of Hoaxes, which has a new piece on the Daily Mail’s reporting of the ‘first ever Photoshopped image’, a composite photo of Abraham Lincoln’s head onto John Calhoun’s body. Firstly, regards the headline/claim of the first manipulated image, it’s a case of ‘I think you’ll find it’s a bit more complicated than that‘.

Secondly, as the Museum curator points out, this isn’t news. It’s been pointed out many, many times over the years, prominently by the New York Times in 2009. I may be able to add something to the story however, and in the process show just how behind the times the Mail actually is.

The earliest reference that I could find to the faking of the Lincoln/Calhoun mashup is the 1913 book ‘Lincoln’ by the Reverend Alonzo Mansfield Bullock. Not only does Bullock refer to the image in question, he also claims to have debunked it personally (see page 7).

So our beloved Daily Mail is less than a century late; but only just. They’re also telling porkies by omission, since a few minutes research would have shown that there are far earlier fake photographic images. As Lincoln himself said:

‘…he who makes an assertion without knowing whether it is true or false, is guilty of falsehood; and the accidental truth of the assertion, does not justify or excuse him.

• Letter to Allen N. Ford (11 August 1846), reported in Roy Prentice Basler, ed., Abraham Lincoln: His Speeches and Writings (1990 [1946]).

Finally, I’m quite surprised there was no mention of ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter‘.

You’re Pulling My Leg

‘I say, would you mind awfully attaching some

urchins to my breeches?’

Guided tours of heritage sites can be a bountiful source of BS history. A friend and I have even come up with a game called ‘Hence the Expression’, where we’ll compete to dream up with the most fanciful origin possible for a given word or phrase. Unfortunately the real tour guides are sometimes beyond parody. A favourite of mine involved the claim that big dining tables historically had reversible surfaces in order that the household dogs could ‘clean’ the table with their tongues between courses. See what I mean?

Another slightly more plausible example is that sometimes given for the expression ‘hangers on’ (and to a lesser extent, ‘pulling one’s leg’); that it derives from the individuals paid by a criminal’s family to pull down on them during their hanging, and thereby minimise their suffering. I last heard this during a tour of Lincoln Castle, where it’s a bit of a staple claim, even appearing on the wall of the cafe. Tastefully, it specifies that ‘hangers on’ were children.

A quick note with respect to my title above; although ‘hangers on’ remains the subject of this post, I have come across a few instances of this explanation being given for the expression ‘to pull one’s leg’.

To start with, I should concede that the basic premise is sound; people did occasionally attempt to hasten the death of the convicted, although as the linked source points out, it wasn’t usually desired by the authorities. This simply provides a convincing basis for a story like this, it does NOT make it true. It also does not provide evidence for the veritable trade in ‘hangers on’ implied by the claim.

Interestingly, the phrase does appear in my favourite period slang dictionary (1699), but not in its own right:

‘Burre, a Hanger on or Dependent.’

We can presume, therefore, that it was a common phrase in the standard English of the day, and that there was no need to spell out either its meaning or origin. In fact we can trace it back as far as 1549, in Hugh Latimer’s ‘Sermons’:

‘But your Majesty hath divers of your chaplains, well learned men, and of good knowledge: and yet ye have some that be bad enough, hangers-on of the court; I mean not those.’
(p.66-67)

The term doesn’t appear in any dictionary, slang or otherwise. Indeed, why would it? The etymology here is surely self-explanatory. A ‘hanger-on’ is a sycophant who almost literally ‘hangs-on’ to the coat-tails of a well-off and/or well-known person. Just as a parasitical animal physically hangs on to its host. There’s no need to associate ‘hang’ in the sense of ‘attach’ to ‘hang’ in terms of the form of execution. Possible irony aside, there’s also no connection between the supposed origin and the meaning of the saying – a metaphorical hanger on attaches himself to the great and good; a literal one to the lowest of the low.

Not only that, but the French-derived synonym ‘dependant’ happens to also mean to ‘hang down’ or ‘hang on’, as in ‘pendant’ (as noted here), backing up the idea that ‘hanger-on’ is purely descriptive.

As usual, I’ve had a bash at finding early references, and the furthest I can push this one back is a piece of fiction that although set in the 1750s, was published very recently – in 2001.

‘the friends and relatives and hired ‘hangers-on’ hauling on the feet to hurry death. . . ‘
(‘Slammerkin’ by Emma Donoghue, p.76)

The first non-fiction cite is a throwaway line, given without reference, in a local history book ‘Sentenced to Cross the Raging Sea’ (2004).

‘…it was customary to accelerate the business of hanging by means of the poor victims having their ‘leg pulled’ by a ‘hanger on.’
(p.97)

Everything else post-dates these appearances in print. How the idea spread is anyone’s guess; I tend to think that these trite origin stories started as jokes, like oral email forwards. They provide easy to understand, evocative and memorable ‘bites’ of history, particularly where they relate to the dark side of the past and allow us to feel superior to our barbarous forebears. The problem is that they’re often bollocks. So, the next time a tour guide or some bloke down the pub tells you where a particular saying came from, question it: The more convenient and appealing it sounds, the less likely it is to be true!

Tis But a Scratch!

Have at you!

As I’m studiously ignoring ‘Deadliest Warrior’ for the time being (though I will say that I thought the Vampire vs Zombie was a much better use of the format) I’ll just comment briefly on a recent UK TV series entitled ‘Back From the Dead’. It’s part of a series on, essentially, Osteoarchaeology (aka bioarcheology), although they employ the services of a less specific Forensic Anthropologist instead.

They take a number of human remains from a given site and period, look at the evidence in the bones in terms of healed and unhealed injuries, as well as the apparent age, sex, status and likely occupation of the original owner. It’s a fascinating subject and does make for an interesting and entertaining – not to mention gory – TV documentary. I have only nitpicks with it, really, although the fight scenes from the ‘Samurai’ episode were pretty poor, with theatre-style hack and slash choreography (including the dreaded static edge-to-edge block move) and even wirework a la ‘Crouching Tiger’. Unnecessary. They’ve have been better going for the classic ‘gunfighter’ style duel, with the fight ended by a single sword stroke. This would still be an oversimplification, but closer to real history (and I need to apologise here for linking to Wikipedia with the phrase ‘real history’ – sorry Wikiers, but I’m still slightly bitter about the ‘original research’ thing!).

Anyway, one of my major nitpicks, if that’s not a contradiction in terms, had to do with the ‘Crusader’ episode (currently still available for UK viewers here). Whilst I enjoyed the ‘300‘ style wide-angle slowmo scenes interpreting the various battle wounds received by the skeletons/people in question (complete with severed limbs reminiscent of Monty Python’s Black Knight), I found one conclusion by the specialist featured to be particularly speculative.

There was a clear cut down through the joint of one humerus – a disabling wound and clearly produced by a sword blade. But as the cut didn’t extend very far into the bone, the conclusion was made that the man must have been wearing ‘chain mail’ that slowed down the blow and limited the damage, and therefore that he must have been a Templar Sergeant (informing the detailed recreation shown shortly afterward).

Firstly, I don’t regard the cut shown as being at all limited – particularly if this man was a warrior and had considerable muscle mass around that joint. If the man was, as seems likely, moving when the blow was struck, this will limit the penetration of the blade. For example, if he had simply stepped back, only the tip of the sword/scimitar would have connected, explaining the wound. The other thing is that the wound from an edged weapon is dependent upon cutting angle and the force applied – if all the attacker’s strength and technique is not brought to bear, the cut will not be as severe. But really, I think a 6″ (or so) cut down through an upper arm bone is quite severe enough for a sword wound!

Had he been wearing mail, there would not be a cut! Or at least, not a clean partition as shown. Period riveted mail armour (NOT ‘chain mail’ please, Channel 4) is quite simply proof against cuts (or thrusts, for that matter) from the swords of the period in question. Have a look at this video. I don’t know whether this was something that the bone specialist had been pressed on, or whether the claim appears in the original research (perhaps someone with access to the article can let me know at bs.historian@yahoo.com), but it should not have been made without reference to an expert in arms and armour. The man in question could not have been wearing armour, and so the conclusion that he was a senior Templar soldier is invalid.

As ever, the subject is (or should be) interesting enough without resorting to making stuff up.

Wary Had a Little Lamb or “Peruvian Pareidolia”

Thanks to Foolmewunz on the JREF forums for this beaut of a BS History story. An “archaeoastronomer” named Bill Veall claims to have found an ancient temple in the Andes. But not just any temple. This one is LAMB SHAPED, baby!

This has to be textbook pareidolia. Think Jesus on a skirting board, the Face On Mars, that sort of thing. So far, this guy is keeping his cards close to his chest – when and if he releases the location, we can check for ourselves just how lamb-like this “feature” is. I suspect that is the real reason why he hasn’t yet done so. To quote Veall himself;

“I have a very simple explanation for those who don’t believe me,” Mr Veall says. “If I gave you the co-ordinates of the site, a million people would find it immediately. When you know where it is, it’s obvious. But we want to secure and preserve the site until we can get a scientific team to have a look at it.”

Last time I heard evasion like that, the earth-shattering discovery in question turned out to be a monkey-suit covered in offal. Then (assuming it is our chum) we have the rather childish retort on the Sky comments page;

“To all those disbelievers in what is surely a momentous and historical discovery- please keep your inane rubbish off SKY NEWS;I know for a fact that the images are absolutely genuine and the whole site will be filmed at close quarters in April/May 2009Habasha”

I really hope that isn’t you, “Bill”, for your sake. The internet doesn’t give a fig for your ego.

William J Veall’s only internet presence prior to this story was the Nascodex site a bounty of speculative online archaeology. See what you think of an earlier discovery of his – an, erm, “owl”… Neither can I find any academic or other publications under his name. Aside from “Nascodex”, we do have the website of the company that produced his promo video (as featured in the Sky News link).  There’s some lovely self-publicity and handy press contact details on the  bio page, but precious little of substance re the actual “discovery”.

Shadron of the JREF Forums has whipped up a nice little analysis of one feature – the so-called “language” on the so-called “altar”. You can see it in the link above, but for reading ease (and because this entry lacks piccies!) I reproduce it here;

“OK, just for grins I did a little analysis on the pics on Bro. Veall’s images on his web page. On the first page he shows “altar” with the supposed writing on it; for those who are blind to his imagination, he shows another image on a “more…” page. The two are obviously extracted from the same image (first of all, no maps service is going to update some forgotten crag in the Andes very often, and for he second, all the snow patterns are identical). Now, Veall states at the bottom of the page that the images have been “lightly retouched to enhance definition for transmission over the Internet”. Indeed. Unfortunately, the point of this all is in that “definition”.

After rotating one image and then resizing it downward to match the other in resolution, here are the two images side by side:

The one on the left is the enhanced image on the second page. The enhancements include:

• Touch up on the “letters” on the stone (apparently done in snow on the altar), particularly the first and third characters, but including all.
• All the surroundings except the altar are grayed out.
• The color on the altar is played up, particularly the green, which is only hinted at in the right image.
• The pic is stretched in the vertical direction about 12%, giving more room for the letters to be better depicted.

Now, NASA photo users enhance some of NASA’s astronomical photographs (over and above the fact that many are false color images anyway) for more spectacular results in public consumption, but that’s not really an attempt to deceive.

This does appear to be. Why am I not surprised?

Shame on him for trying to con a poor country like Peru, anxious to get some tourist attention. Shame on them for believing him, if they bite.”

Shame indeed, Shadron, if it is indeed a hoax.

Update – the rather good Museum of Hoaxes has similar feelings.

Update #2 – still no proof offered by Veall, but another counter to the original claim that I can’t believe I didn’t think of myself – THERE WERE NO SHEEP in Peru until Europeans introduced them, well into recorded history. Needless to say, there were therefore no lambs, sacred or otherwise, to serve as models for any carved feature.