Fish Market, Catania, Sicily  -  Travel Photos by Galen R Frysinger, Sheboygan, Wisconsin.

Athanasius Kircher – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Cape Finisterre – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Antikythera mechanism – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The Antikythera mechanism (IPA: [ˌæntɪkɪˈθɪərə], an-ti-ki-theer-uh), is an ancient mechanical calculator (also described as the first known mechanical computer^[1][2]) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, in 1901. Subsequent investigation, particularly in 2006, dated it to about 150–100 BC; and hypothesised that it was on board a ship that sank en route from the Greek island of Rhodes to Rome. Technological artifacts of similar complexity did not reappear until a thousand years later.^[3]

Jacques-Yves Cousteau visited the wreck for the last time in 1978,^[4] but found no more remains of the Antikythera Mechanism. Professor Michael Edmunds of Cardiff University who led the study of the mechanism said: “This device is just extraordinary, the only thing of its kind. The design is beautiful, the astronomy is exactly right. The way the mechanics are designed just makes your jaw drop. Whoever has done this has done it extremely carefully.” He added: “…in terms of historic and scarcity value, I have to regard this mechanism as being more valuable than the Mona Lisa.”^[5][6]

The device is displayed in the Bronze Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Athens, accompanied by a reconstruction made and offered to the museum by Derek de Solla Price. Other reconstructions are on display at the American Computer Museum in Bozeman, Montana and the Children’s Museum of Manhattan in New York.

Giovanni de’ Marignolli – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Giovanni de’ Marignolli

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Christianity in China portal

Giovanni de’ Marignolli, a notable traveller to the Far East in the 14th century, born probably before 1290, and sprung from a noble family in Florence.

The family is long extinct, but a street near the cathedral (Via de’ Cerretani) formerly bore the name of the Marignolli. In 1338 there arrived at Avignon, where Pope Benedict XIII held his court, an embassy from the great khan of Cathay (the Mongol-Chinese emperor), bearing letters to the pontiff from the khan himself, and from certain Christian nobles of the Alan race in his service. These latter represented that they had been eight years (since Monte Corvino‘s death) without a spiritual guide, and earnestly desired one. The pope replied to the letters, and appointed four ecclesiastics as his legates to the khan’s court. The name of John of Florence, i.e. Marignolli, appears third on the letters of commission.

A large party was associated with the four chief envoys; when in Peking the embassy still numbered thirty-two, out of an original fifty. The mission left Avignon in December 1338; picked up the Tatar envoys at Naples; stayed nearly two months in Constantinople (Pera, May 1-June 24, 1339); and sailed across the Black Sea to Caffa, whence they travelled to the court of Mohammed Uzbeg, khan of the Golden Horde, at Sarai on the Volga. The khan entertained them hospitably during the winter of 1339–-1340 and then sent them across the steppes to Armalec, Almalig or Almaligh (Kulja), the northern seat of the house of Chaghatai, in what is now the province of Ili. “There,” says Marignolli, “we built a church, bought a piece of ground … sung masses, and baptized several persons, notwithstanding that only the year before the bishop and six other minor friars had there undergone glorious martyrdom for Christ‘s salvation.” Quitting Almaligh in 1341, they seem to have reached Peking (by way of Kamul or Hami) in May or June 1342. They were well received by the reigning khan, the last of the Mongol dynasty in China.

Rhodes – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Ancient History

In the 1st century AD, the Emperor Tiberius spent a brief term of exile on Rhodes, and Saint Paul brought Christianity to the island. Rhodes reached her zenith in the third century, and was then by common consent the most civilized and beautiful city in Hellas. In 395, the long Byzantine Empire period began for Rhodes, when the Roman Empire was split and the eastern half gradually became a Greek empire. Although part of Byzantium for the next thousand years, Rhodes was nevertheless repeatedly attacked by various forces. It was first occupied by Muslim forces of Muawiyah I in 672. Much later, Rhodes was retrieved for the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus during the First Crusade.

Medieval period

Historic map of Rhodes by Piri Reis

In 1309 the Byzantine era came to an end when the island was occupied by forces of the Knights Hospitaller. Under the rule of the newly named “Knights of Rhodes”, the city was rebuilt into a model of the European medieval ideal. Many of the city’s famous monuments, including the Palace of the Grand Master, were built during this period.

The strong walls which the Knights had built withstood the attacks of the Sultan of Egypt in 1444, and of Mehmed II in 1480. Ultimately, however, Rhodes fell to the large army of Suleiman the Magnificent in December 1522, long after the rest of the Byzantine empire had been lost. The few surviving Knights were permitted to retire to the Kingdom of Sicily. The Knights would later move their base of operations to Malta. The island was thereafter a possession of the Ottoman Empire for nearly four centuries.

so how does the timeline work for the traveling sound museum?

we start the story in the Napataean city of Bostra in late antiquity, ie during the Sassanid Empire in what is modern day Syria. The Sassanid Empire was from 300-600 ad, and the baghdad battery is believed to be dated to this period and location. so we can date the original sound jars from 400 ad or so. then when Bosra is defeated by the Rashidan Army in 634 in the battle of Bosra, the jars are taken unbeknowen as part of the booty. where are they taken? well where was Rashidan Army headed?

The Rashidan Caliphate Army in 634ad was one of the largest and most feared military forces in the world. numbering 41,000 strong, the force was completely independent of communication or supply lines, because there was no logistical base or supply depot. they brought everything with them. and because everything was carried on camels, they had no need for roads. this gave them a tremendous edge on the Romans and Persians in mobility and speed. When on march, this army moved like a caravan and gave the impression of an undrilled horde; from the point of view of military security it was virtually invulnerable.

So the Byzantine army is defeated in Bosra by the Rashidan Caliphate Army in 634. The Rashidan then moves on.

The Caliph Abu Bakr entrusts Khalid ibn Walid with conquering Syria, after Khalid defeated Iraq. The Syria province in those days consisted of modern day Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and Southern Turkey.

So Khalid takes 9000 soldiers through the Syrian Desert, meets up with 23000 muslin soldiers and defeats the byzantine army in the first of several battles that summer. this was july 634.

this defeat of the byzantine empire and syria in general, paved the way for the muslims to conquer egypt, as egypt was under byzantine rule, with its capital at constantinople. the rashidun army crossed into egypt from palestine in dec 639. the imperial garrisons retreated into a walled town and lasted a year before surrendering. then the caliph marched to alexandria which was promptly surrendered.

then they conquered north africa, which agreed to pay a tax instead of being annexed.

then in 649 they build a navy and take over cyprus, crete and rhodes. got part of sicily but never all of it. then the Caliph dies and there is no more expansion. This is a good place to hand off the story.

ooh. ok.

so from the Rashidan Caliphate there follows the Umayyad Caliphate, 7th-8th century. this is followed by the Abassid Caliphat which lasted till the 13th century, when they are defeated at the Battle of Baghdad by, of course, the mongols under Hulagu (genghis khans grandson) in 1258.

So we can actually just keep the soundjars in the realm of the caliphate from the 600′s till 1258.maybe they move to north africa with the rashidans and stay there under the umayyad. then they grow slightly in popularity and make their way back to the capital which at this time has been moved from Damascus to Baghdad. ironic really, given the powering device is called the baghdad battery. or maybe just fitting. and then with the fall of the Umayyad Caliphate, marking the end of the Islamic golden age.

mongol invasion of syria

mongol empire:

“However, the Mongol Empire began to split following the succession war in 1260-1264, with the Golden Horde and the Chagatai Khanate being de facto independent and refusing to accept Kublai Khan as Khagan.^[10][11] By the time of Kublai Khan’s death, the Mongol Empire had already fractured into four separate khanates or empires, each pursuing its own separate interests and objectives.^[12]. But the Mongol Empire as a whole remained strong and united.^[13] The Great Khans of the Yuan Dynasty assumed the role of Chinese emperors and fixed their capital at Dadu (modern-day Beijing) from old Mongol capital Karakorum. Although other khanates accepted them as their titular suzerains and sent tributes and some support after the peace treaty in 1304, the three western khanates were virtually independent,^[14][15] and they each continued their own separate developments as sovereign states.^[16] Eventually the Mongol rule in China fell in 1368^[17][18] though the Genghisid Borjigin Dynasty survived in Mongolia until the 17th century.^[19]“

read about the caliphates here

nice slide here

Great expansion under Ogedei Khan

Ögedei Khan, Genghis Khan’s son and successor

At the time of Genghis khan’s death in 1227, the Mongol Empire ruled from the Pacific Ocean to the Caspian Sea – an empire twice the size of the Roman Empire and Muslim Caliphate.^[26]

ok. so the sound jars are safely in the hands of the mongols by 1258.

Destruction of Baghdad

Hulagu (left) imprisons Calif Al-Musta’sim among his treasures to starve him to death. Medieval depiction from “Le livre des merveilles”, 15th century.

Many historical accounts detailed the cruelties of the Mongol conquerors.

• The Grand Library of Baghdad, containing countless precious historical documents and books on subjects ranging from medicine to astronomy, was destroyed. Survivors said that the waters of the Tigris ran black with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river.

• Citizens attempted to flee, but were intercepted by Mongol soldiers who killed with abandon. Martin Sicker writes that close to 90,000 people may have died (Sicker 2000, p. 111). Other estimates go much higher. Wassaf claims the loss of life was several hundred thousand. Ian Frazier of The New Yorker says estimates of the death toll have ranged from 200,000 to a million.^[6]

• The Mongols looted and then destroyed mosques, palaces, libraries, and hospitals. Grand buildings that had been the work of generations were burned to the ground.

• The caliph was captured and forced to watch as his citizens were murdered and his treasury plundered. According to most accounts, the caliph was killed by trampling. The Mongols rolled the caliph up in a rug, and rode their horses over him, as they believed that the earth was offended if touched by royal blood. All but one of his sons were killed, and the sole surviving son was sent to Mongolia. (see Abbasid: The end of the dynasty)

• Hulagu had to move his camp upwind of the city, due to the stench of decay from the ruined city.

Typically, the Mongols destroyed a city only if it had resisted them. Cities that capitulated at the first demand for surrender could usually expect to be spared. The destruction of Baghdad was to some extent a military tactic: it was supposed to convince other cities and rulers to surrender without a fight, and while that worked with Damascus, it failed with Mamluk Egypt, which was inspired to resist, and subsequently defeated the Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in 1260 – a battle that saw the first real unavenged defeat of the Mongol Empire.

Baghdad was a depopulated, ruined city for several centuries and only gradually recovered some of its former glory.

Silk Road Mongol era

The Mongol expansion throughout the Asian continent from around 1215 to 1360 helped bring political stability and re-establish the Silk Road (via Karakorum). The Chinese Mongol diplomat Rabban Bar Sauma visited the courts of Europe in 1287-1288 and provided a detailed written report back to the Mongols. Around the same time, the Venetian explorer Marco Polo became one of the first Europeans to travel the Silk Road to China, and his tales, documented in Ptolemaic dynasty, opened Western eyes to some of the customs of the Far East. He was not the first to bring back stories, but he was one of the widest-read. He had been preceded by numerous Christian missionaries to the East, such as William of Rubruck, Benedykt Polak, Giovanni da Pian del Carpine, and Andrew of Longjumeau. Later envoys included Odoric of Pordenone, Giovanni de’ Marignolli, John of Montecorvino, Niccolò Da Conti, or Ibn Battuta, a Moroccan Muslim traveller, who passed through the present-day Middle East and across the Silk Road from Tabriz, between 1325-1354.^[39][40]

The 13th century also saw attempts at a Franco-Mongol alliance, with exchange of ambassadors and (failed) attempts at military collaboration in the Holy Land during the later Crusades, though eventually the Mongols in the Ilkhanate, after they had destroyed the Abbasid and Ayyubid dynasties, eventually themselves converted to Islam, and signed the 1323 Treaty of Aleppo with the surviving Muslim power, the Egyptian Mamluks.

Age of Discovery

The prelude to the Age of Exploration was a series of European expeditions crossing Eurasia by land in the late Middle Ages. While the Mongols had threatened Europe with pillage and destruction, the Mongol states also unified much of Eurasia creating trade routes and communication lines stretching from the Middle East to China.^[1] A series of Europeans took advantage of these to explore eastwards. These were almost all Italians as the trade between Europe and the Middle East was almost completely controlled by traders from the Italian city-states. The close Italian links to the Levant created great curiosity and commercial interest in countries which lay further east. Christian leaders, such as Prince Henry the Navigator, also launched expeditions in hopes of finding converts, or the fabled Prester John.^{[dubious – discuss]} There were many different types of causes and effects of the Age Of Exploration.

The first of these travelers was Giovanni de Plano Carpini who journeyed to Mongolia and back from 1241–1247.^[1] The most famous traveler, however, was Marco Polo who wrote of journeys throughout Asia from 1271 to 1295 in which he described being a guest at the Yuan Dynasty court of Kublai Khan. His journey was written up as Travels and the work was read throughout Europe. In 1439, Niccolò Da Conti published an account of his travels to India and Southeast Asia. In 1466-1472, a Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin of Tver described travels to India in his book A Journey Beyond the Three Seas.

These journeys had little immediate effect. The Mongol Empire collapsed almost as quickly as it formed and soon the route to the east became far more difficult and dangerous. The Black Death of the fourteenth century also blocked travel and trade.^[2] The land route to the East was controlled by Mediterranean commercial interests and Islamic empires that both controlled the flow and price of goods. The rise of the aggressive and expansionist Ottoman Empire further limited the possibilities of European overland trade.

“During the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, European merchants, numbering hundreds, perhaps thousands, made their way from Europe to the distant land of China — Marco Polo is only one of the best known of these. Well-traveled and relatively well-maintained roads linked lands from the Mediterranean basin to China. The Mongol Empire had negligible influence on seaborne trade. Despite the unmaterialized Franco-Mongol alliance, trade of Western Europe especially Italians with the Mongol territories had rapidly increased since 1300. They established their ports, markets and guilds in China, Russia, Crimea and Iran under the Mongols.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Mongol_alliance

“Many attempts were made towards forming a Franco-Mongol alliance between the mid-13th and early 14th centuries, starting around the time of the Seventh Crusade.^[1] Historians note that in hindsight an alliance between the Mongols and the “Franks” (European Crusaders) often appears a logical choice.^[1][2][3] The Mongols were already very sympathetic to Christianity as many Mongols were Nestorian Christians. The Europeans were open to the idea of assistance coming from the East, due to the long-running legend of a mythical Prester John, an Eastern king in a magical kingdom who many believed would arrive someday to help with the fight in the Holy Land. The Mongols and the Franks also shared a common enemy in the Muslims. There were numerous exchanges of letters, gifts and emissaries between the Mongols and the Europeans as well as offers for varying types of cooperation.^[1] However, despite many attempts, there was never any long-term successful military collaboration. Modern historians also debate whether or not such an alliance, if it had been successful, would have been effective in shifting the balance of power in the region, and/or whether it would have been a wise choice on the part of the Europeans.^[4] Traditionally, the Mongols tended to see outside parties as either subjects, or enemies, with little room in the middle for something such as an ally.^[5]“

**so the story is really that the baghdad battery is created in 600′s. its kept in Bosra under byzantine rule till the rashidan caliphate comes and sacks them. the caliphate has this in their posession through to the abbasid caliphate until they are beaten by hulega khan in 1258 at damascus or baghdad or something. the mongols take this technology and use it to capture the sounds of the places they are ruling over. then carpini or marco polo returns from his voyage to the khanate with the sound jars in hand. to where? to italy? worth mentioning the franco-mongolian alliance in here just for good measure.

From Age of Discovery:

“It was not until the carrack and then the caravel were developed in Iberia that Western Europeans seriously considered Asiatic trade and oceanic exploration.^[3] One factor was the lack of Christian European access to the spice and silk trade, for the eastern trade routes had become controlled by the Ottoman Empire after the Turks took control of Constantinople in 1453, and they barred Europeans from those trade routes, as they did through North Africa and the historically important combined-land-sea routes via the Red Sea. Both spice and silk were big businesses of the day, and arguably, spices which were both used as preservatives and used to disguise the taste of poorly preserved foods were something of a necessity—at least to those Europeans of better than modest means.”

research the silk road!

so maybe Giovanni de’ Marignolli finds it when he travels along the silk road and spends some time with the golden horde in russia? when he visits Muhammed Uzbeg at Sarai on the Volga in the winter of 1339-40. he is given a large collection of them by the khan and brings them to china where he goes next and stays for 3-4 years. maybe he is taught how to make more? of course he is. in 1353,  after many misadventures, he arrives back in Avignon. the collection is then free to find its way to america via some early adventures in that direction during the age of discovery.

Giovanni de’ Marignolli

The Iron Skeptic – The Baghdad Battery: Not Artillery.

The “Baghdad Battery” is the name given to an object found by Wilhelm Konig. It’s a small clay pot, about 5 inches long, that contains a copper cylinder and iron bar. These objects pass through a stopper made of asphalt at the neck of the jar.

actually seems more likely that the baghdad battery was created in this period.

Parthia – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasts, after which the Arsacid Empire is then also known as the ‘Parthian Empire‘.

Parthia roughly corresponds to the western half of Greater Khorasan. During Arsacid times, Parthia was united with Hyrcania (which today lies partly in Iran and partly in Turkmenistan) as one administrative unit, and that region is therefore often (subject to context) considered a part of Parthia proper.

The name “Parthia” is a continuation from Latin Parthia, from Parthava, which was the Parthian language self-designator signifying “of the Parthians”.

World Mysteries – Strange Artifacts, Baghdad Battery.

More than 60 years after their discovery, the batteries of Baghdad – as there are perhaps a dozen of them – are shrouded in myth.

“The batteries have always attracted interest as curios,” says Dr Paul Craddock, a metallurgy expert of the ancient Near East from the British Museum.

“They are a one-off. As far as we know, nobody else has found anything like these. They are odd things; they are one of life’s enigmas.”

No two accounts of them are the same. Some say the batteries were excavated, others that Konig found them in the basement of the Baghdad Museum when he took over as director. There is no definite figure on how many have been found, and their age is disputed.

Most sources date the batteries to around 200 BC – in the Parthian era, circa 250 BC to AD 225. Skilled warriors, the Parthians were not noted for their scientific achievements.

“Although this collection of objects is usually dated as Parthian, the grounds for this are unclear,” says Dr St John Simpson, also from the department of the ancient Near East at the British Museum.

“The pot itself is Sassanian. This discrepancy presumably lies either in a misidentification of the age of the ceramic vessel, or the site at which they were found.”