Classical Bookworm

Novel Punishment

It seems I come from a long line of literacy advocates. Here is a bit I read about my great-great-grandfather, who commanded of the 62nd U.S. Colored Infantry (also called U.S. Colored Troops) at the end of the American Civil War.

Armies run on rules and regulations and any infraction of discipline at Brazos Santiago was punished by time in the guardhouse. For men in the 62nd USCT there was a more novel punishment. Any soldier caught playing cards was required to take a book and, while "standing in some prominent position in the camp," forced to "learn a considerable lesson in reading and spelling"—twin causes the regiment's White officers had been advocating since the 62nd's creation.

—Jeffrey William Hunt, The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch

Apparently General Grandpa (as I call him) did quite a bit of work with the Lincoln Institute (now Lincoln University) of Missouri after the war. The school was established by the 62nd and 65th USCT for the benefit of freed slaves, and both (white) officers and the troops contributed financially to its establishment. There is a news story about it at the Hannibal Courier-Post and Lincoln University has a short blurb about it as well.

Way to go, Grandpa.

From the Archives of the New York Times

I mentioned a couple of days ago that the New York Times was making its online archives available free of charge. I took advantage of that today to look up the news story about a famous American Civil War battle that my great-great-grandfather led (and lost) for the Union. The news story is mentioned in The Last Battle of the Civil War: Palmetto Ranch, by Jeffrey William Hunt, which I've finally started reading. Apparently the account published in the Times wasn't terribly accurate, and as it came weeks after Appomattox, it was not a welcome in the North as a reminder of the slaughter that everyone was hoping to put behind them. As uncomplimentary as the story is, I can't get over the wonder of being able to read it on my computer, 142 years later. Wow.

The Permanence of Parchment

When I watch documentaries about archaeology (which is often) I wonder what archaeological evidence our culture is going to leave behind. What will remain of our civilization in a thousand years, or three thousand years? The pyramids will undoubtedly still be here, and very likely the Acropolis, the Colosseum, the Great Wall of China, and countless other structures and artifacts made of stone and perhaps pottery, if conditions are right. But what of our buildings and artworks? Wood burns, steel rusts, pigments fade, and plastic (eventually) disintegrates. Concrete is the only durable material we regularly build with, but even it will fall apart if exposed to the weather, and the way we use it certainly won't give a favourable impression of our aesthetic values.

It seems strange to me that the most powerful and wealthy civilizations that have ever existed can't seem to afford to build with beautiful stone. When was the last time a stone building was erected in your city, or even your country? Is there anyone carving our stories into friezes and columns, or at least painting them into plaster? No, our stories are printed on paper—thin, fragile paper. And for the last 150 years or so, our stories have been written on the worst kind of paper, acidic tree-pulp paper, which is now busily dissolving itself on our library shelves.

May 18: International Museum Day

Ever wondered what the official definition of a museum is? According to the 23,000-member International Council of Museums,

A museum is a non-profit making, permanent institution in the service of society and of its development, and open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits, for purposes of study, education and enjoyment, material evidence of people and their environment.

This year the theme of International Museum Day is "Museums and Universal Heritage," which emphasizes the "individual and collective responsibility for global heritage."

ICOM's International Museum Day has high purpose in promoting access to museum collections to focus on how cultural diversity and universal heritage go hand in hand. ICOM is inviting the world's museums and their communities to show how, as a member of a family, neighborhood, tribe, nation, ethnic group or religion, and as public citizens, on all levels, we are separately and together responsible for sharing and protecting our respective and common heritage. [source]

Interestingly, museums are struggling with some of the same pressures and trends as public libraries:

Worldwide, the role of museums within society seems to be changing fundamentally and rapidly. Educational work as well as economic considerations are becoming predominant features among the 5 main tasks - collection/acquisition, conservation, research, education/communication and exhibition - by which museums are being defined according to the ICOM Statutes. Acquiring and collecting objects and material no longer seems to be the primary basis of museums’ work and consciousness. Communication and dialogue with visitors is becoming increasingly important, including new media (visualisation vs. verbalisation). But the act of preserving heritage with a universal view is more than economic or political expectancy. Contextualisation of objects / collections vs. uncritical adoption of social tendencies and fashions remains a key issue. [source]

I live near a pretty good museum and their big exhibit right now is relics from the Titanic, a certain money-maker as we head into tourist season, but pretty irrelevant from a cultural perspective. My personal, cranky, view is that the only reason people are so fascinated and horrified by that particular shipwreck is because a lot of wealthy people died, and in the same way as a lot of rabble. Plenty of other great ships have gone down with more loss of life, but they weren't built for luxury and so the elites weren't traumatized and those ships were forgotten. However newsworthy the sinking of the Titanic might have been 95 years ago, it doesn't seem like a good use of 6 months of prime exhibition space in what is supposedly B.C.'s official museum. What about bringing out a few of the 10 million objects crammed into the collections tower? (I've been in there—it's so tight you have to step outside to inhale.) I'm sure they have enough good material in there for 60 years worth of exhibitions that might actually teach tourists something about the place they're visiting.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a rant. I suppose museums wouldn't have to host these travelling road shows if more people went to them, so I encourage you all to visit your local museum and explore the history of where you are.

Mess-O'-Potamia II

Reading about the dawn of civilization has been fascinating. According to my Encyclopedia of World History by Peter Stearns, civilization has the following features:

1. large concentrations of people, usually cities, in central areas (even though the majority of settlements remained rural);
2. hierarchical social and political structures, usually with states and priesthoods;
3. economic specialization and organized societal division of labor; and,
4. formal methods of permanent record keeping using some form of writing.

The history of Mesopotamia also suggests that civilization makes large-scale war and conquest both possible (e.g. wheeled chariots) and worth-while (portable spoils). The first civilization developed in Sumeria, lower Mesopotamia, around 3300 BCE. It was a scattering of independent city states that grew up around regional temples. They were run by priests and semi-democratic citizen councils. Through trade their technologies spread from the Indus to the Nile, and harmless neolithic tribes became conquerers of the people who made their civilizations possible. This is the thanks you get for inventing writing!

The first conquerers (2334 BCE) were the Akkadians led by Sargon I. His daughter, Enheduanna, was installed as high priestess and is the first known author. She wrote hymns to the Inanna, the virgin goddess of love, fertility, and war. The Akkadian Empire is considered the first true state as it separated religious and governing powers. It only lasted about 200 years, however, and was followed by a brief Sumerian renaissance in which local rule was re-established. After that, Sumeria was finished as both upper and lower Mesopotamia were conquered, invaded, and ruled by a succession of outsiders.

The most famous of the subsequent empires is the Babylonian Empire, which united upper and lower Mesopotamia, and left behind the Law Code of Hammurabi, which was literally "set in stone"—no small feat in a place where stone had to be imported. Babylonia was the largest state yet and made significant advances in astronomy and mathematics, as well as preserving the Epic of Gilgamesh on some of the huge number of cuneiform tablets they left behind. They too were conquered, however, and the war machines rolled on as before.

Next up: Mesopotamian art!

Mess-O'-Potamia

I read this while finishing up the chapter on ancient Mesopotamian history:

…and Mesopotamia was once more divided between rival peoples who flowed into it from all sides.

—J.M. Roberts,  The New History of the World

Plus ça change…

Sumer-time and the living is easy...or is it?

I dragged myself away from the ballet barre and climbed back on the history horse today. I was surprised to read this about the early Sumerian civilization of southern Mesopotamia:

In the midst of the uncertainties of Mesopotamian life, some feeling that a possible access to protection existed was essential. Men depended on the gods for reassurance in a capricious universe. The gods—though no Mesopotamian could have put it in these terms—were conceptualizations of elementary attempts to control environment, to resist the sudden disasters of flood and dust-storm, to assure the continuation of the cycle of the seasons by the repetition of the great spring festival when the gods were again married and the drama of creation was re-enacted. After that, the world's existence was assured for another year.

—J.M. Roberts, The New History of the World

Didn't these people know that they were, by far, the most wealthy and advanced civilization in their region (and on the planet, though they couldn't have known that)? Didn't they know they lived on extremely fertile land that was also blessed with an abundance of domesticable plant and animal species? Did they not see their population growing and the extent of their occupation of the Tigris and Euphrates floodplains expanding?

The early Sumerians had every advantage over their more primitive neighbours, and yet they seem to have had a great anxiety about their survival. Every regional center had its own god with its temple, and these became the seeds of the first monumental structures and the first cities. Writing seems to have developed out of a need to record the size of crops brought to the temples. Life revolved around the gods who could bring either abundance or destruction.

I wonder if this was a cultural holdover from neolithic times when survival was much more difficult and people had little control over their food sources and little organized protection against enemies—like people who are born poor and continue to pinch pennies even after acquiring wealth. Was it perhaps because they knew they were "cheating" nature with their agriculture and irrigation and were worried that the gods would be angry at this violation of the natural order? Were they insecure about their new abilities to produce food and govern large populations and so needed support from higher powers?

Or is it just human nature to always want more? We in the "First World" are, as the name suggests, in the same position as Sumer was 5000 years ago, yet our litany of complaints about the supposed rigors of our lives is endless. I haven't read Gilgamesh yet but I understand it is about a great king who wanted immortality. It wasn't enough that he was one of, if not the wealthiest person that ever lived; he wanted it forever. Of course he was denied, but that doesn't seem to have stopped his culture or the ones that followed it from desiring ever more wealth and security. Five thousand years have passed and we still don't seem to know when enough is enough.