̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Ancient

Ancient DNA reveals 'genetic continuity’ between Stone Age and modern populations in East Asia

fpjl2 — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 19:04:57 +0000

Researchers working on ancient DNA extracted from human remains interred almost 8,000 years ago in a cave in the Russian Far East have found that the genetic makeup of certain modern East Asian populations closely resemble that of their hunter-gatherer ancestors.

̽��ֱ��study, published today in the journal Science Advances, is the first to obtain nuclear genome data from ancient mainland East Asia and compare the results to modern populations.

̽��ֱ��findings indicate that there was no major migratory interruption, or “population turnover”, for well over seven millennia. Consequently, some contemporary ethnic groups share a remarkable genetic similarity to Stone Age hunters that once roamed the same region.

̽��ֱ��high “genetic continuity” in East Asia is in stark contrast to most of Western Europe, where sustained migrations of early farmers from the Levant overwhelmed hunter-gatherer populations. This was followed by a wave of horse riders from Central Asia during the Bronze Age. These events were likely driven by the success of emerging technologies such as agriculture and metallurgy

̽��ֱ��new research shows that, at least for part of East Asia, the story differs – with little genetic disruption in populations since the early Neolithic period.

Despite being separated by a vast expanse of history, this has allowed an exceptional genetic proximity between the Ulchi people of the Amur Basin, near where Russia borders China and North Korea, and the ancient hunter-gatherers laid to rest in a cave close to the Ulchi’s native land.

̽��ֱ��researchers suggest that the sheer scale of East Asia and dramatic variations in its climate may have prevented the sweeping influence of Neolithic agriculture and the accompanying migrations that replaced hunter-gatherers across much of Europe. They note that the Ulchi retained their hunter-fisher-gatherer lifestyle until recent times.

“Genetically speaking, the populations across northern East Asia have changed very little for around eight millennia,” said senior author Andrea Manica from the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, who conducted the work with an international team, including colleagues from Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, and Trinity College Dublin and ̽��ֱ�� College Dublin in Ireland.

“Once we accounted for some local intermingling, the Ulchi and the ancient hunter-gatherers appeared to be almost the same population from a genetic point of view, even though there are thousands of years between them.”

̽��ֱ��new study also provides further support for the ‘dual origin’ theory of modern Japanese populations: that they descend from a combination of hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists that eventually brought wet rice farming from southern China. A similar pattern is also found in neighbouring Koreans, who are genetically very close to Japanese.

However, Manica says that much more DNA data from Neolithic China is required to pinpoint the origin of the agriculturalists involved in this mixture.

̽��ֱ��team from Trinity College Dublin were responsible for extracting DNA from the remains, which were found in a cave known as Devil’s Gate. Situated in a mountainous area close to the far eastern coast of Russia that faces northern Japan, the cave was first excavated by a soviet team in 1973.

Along with hundreds of stone and bone tools, the carbonised wood of a former dwelling, and woven wild grass that is one of the earliest examples of a textile, were the incomplete bodies of five humans.

If ancient DNA can be found in sufficiently preserved remains, sequencing it involves sifting through the contamination of millennia. ̽��ֱ��best samples for analysis from Devil’s Gate were obtained from the skulls of two females: one in her early twenties, the other close to fifty. ̽��ֱ��site itself dates back over 9,000 years, but the two women are estimated to have died around 7,700 years ago.

Researchers were able to glean the most from the middle-aged woman. Her DNA revealed she likely had brown eyes and thick, straight hair. She almost certainly lacked the ability to tolerate lactose, but was unlikely to have suffered from ‘alcohol flush’: the skin reaction to alcohol now common across East Asia.

While the Devil’s Gate samples show high genetic affinity to the Ulchi, fishermen from the same area who speak the Tungusic language, they are also close to other Tungusic-speaking populations in present day China, such as the Oroqen and Hezhen.

“These are ethnic groups with traditional societies and deep roots across eastern Russia and China, whose culture, language and populations are rapidly dwindling,” added lead author Veronika Siska, also from Cambridge.

“Our work suggests that these groups form a strong genetic lineage descending directly from the early Neolithic hunter-gatherers who inhabited the same region thousands of years previously.”

In contrast to Western Europeans, new research finds contemporary East Asians are genetically much closer to the ancient hunter-gatherers that lived in the same region eight thousand years previously.

̽��ֱ��Ulchi and the ancient hunter-gatherers appeared to be almost the same population from a genetic point of view, even though there are thousands of years between them

Andrea Manica

Elizaveta Veselovskaya/Yuriy Chernyavskiy

Right: Exterior of Devil’s Gate, the cave in the Primorye region near the far eastern coast of Russia. Left: One of the skulls found in the Devil’s Gate cave from which ancient DNA used in the study was extracted.

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Ancient DNA shows earliest European genomes weathered the ice age, and shines new light on Neanderthal interbreeding and a mystery human lineage

fpjl2 — Thu, 06 Nov 2014 19:07:25 +0000

A ground-breaking new study on DNA recovered from a fossil of one of the earliest known Europeans - a man who lived 36,000 years ago in Kostenki, western Russia - has shown that the earliest European humans’ genetic ancestry survived the Last Glacial Maximum: the peak point of the last ice age.

̽��ֱ��study also uncovers a more accurate timescale for when humans and Neanderthals interbred, and finds evidence for an early contact between the European hunter-gatherers and those in the Middle East – who would later develop agriculture and disperse into Europe about 8,000 years ago, transforming the European gene pool.

Scientists now believe Eurasians separated into at least three populations earlier than 36,000 years ago: Western Eurasians, East Asians and a mystery third lineage, all of whose descendants would develop the unique features of most non-African peoples - but not before some interbreeding with Neanderthals took place.

Led by the Centre for GeoGenetics at the ̽��ֱ�� of Copenhagen, the study was conducted by an international team of researchers from institutions including the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s Departments of Archaeology and Anthropology, and Zoology, and is published today in the journal Science.

By cross-referencing the ancient man’s complete genome – the second oldest modern human genome ever sequenced – with previous research, the team discovered a surprising genetic “unity” running from the first modern humans in Europe, suggesting that a ‘meta-population’ of Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers with deep shared ancestry managed to survive through the Last Glacial Maximum and colonise the landmass of Europe for more than 30,000 years.

While the communities within this overarching population expanded, mixed and fragmented during seismic cultural shifts and ferocious climate change, this was a “reshuffling of the same genetic deck” say scientists, and European populations as a whole maintained the same genetic thread from their earliest establishment out of Africa until Middle Eastern populations arrived in the last 8,000 years, bringing with them agriculture and lighter skin colour.

“That there was continuity from the earliest Upper Palaeolithic to the Mesolithic, across a major glaciation, is a great insight into the evolutionary processes underlying human success,” said co-author Dr Marta Mirazón Lahr, from Cambridge’s Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies (LCHES).

“For 30,000 years ice sheets came and went, at one point covering two-thirds of Europe. Old cultures died and new ones emerged - such as the Aurignacian and the Grevettian - over thousands of years, and the hunter-gatherer populations ebbed and flowed. But we now know that no new sets of genes are coming in: these changes in survival and cultural kit are overlaid on the same biological background,” Mirazón Lahr said. “It is only when famers from the Near East arrived about 8,000 years ago that the structure of the European population changed significantly.”

̽��ֱ��Kostenki genome also contained, as with all people of Eurasia today, a small percentage of Neanderthal genes, confirming previous findings which show there was an ‘admixture event’ early in the human colonisation Eurasia: a period when Neanderthals and the first humans to leave Africa for Europe briefly interbred.

̽��ֱ��new study allows scientists to closer estimate this ‘event’ as occurring around 54,000 years ago, before the Eurasian population began to separate. This means that, even today, anyone with a Eurasian ancestry – from Chinese to Scandinavian and North American – has a small element of Neanderthal DNA.

However, despite Western Eurasians going on to share the European landmass with Neanderthals for another 10,000 years, no further periods of interbreeding occurred.

“Were Neanderthal populations dwindling very fast? Did modern humans still encounter them? We were originally surprised to discover there had been interbreeding. Now the question is, why so little? It’s an extraordinary finding that we don’t understand yet,” said co-author Professor Robert Foley, also from LCHES.

Unique to the Kostenki genome is a small element it shares with people who live in parts of the Middle East now, and who were also the population of farmers that arrived in Europe about 8,000 years ago and assimilated with indigenous hunter-gatherers. This early contact is surprising, and provides the first clues to a hereto unknown lineage that could be as old as – or older than – the other major Eurasian genetic lines. These two populations must have interacted briefly before 36,000 years ago, and then remained isolated from each other for tens of millennia.

“This element of the Kostenki genome confirms the presence of a yet unmapped major population lineage in Eurasia. ̽��ֱ��population separated early on from ancestors of other Eurasians, both Europeans and Eastern Asians,” said Andaine Seguin-Orlando from the Centre for GeoGenetics in Copenhagen.

Mirazón Lahr points out that, while Western Eurasia was busy mixing as a ‘meta-population’, there was no interbreeding with these mystery populations for some 30,000 years – meaning there must have been some kind of geographic barrier for millennia, despite the fact that Europe and the Middle East seem, for us at least, to be so close geographically. But the Kostenki genome not only shows the existence of these unmapped populations, but that there was at least one window of time when whatever barrier existed became briefly permeable.

“This mystery population may have remained small for a very long time, surviving in refugia in areas such as the Zagros Mountains of Iran and Iraq, for example,” said Mirazón Lahr. “We have no idea at the moment where they were for those first 30,000 years, only that they were in the Middle East by the end of the ice age, when they invented agriculture.”

Lead author and Lundbeck Foundation Professor Eske Willerslev added: “This work reveals the complex web of population relationships in the past, generating for the first time a firm framework with which to explore how humans responded to climate change, encounters with other populations, and the dynamic landscapes of the ice age.”

Inset images (top-bottom): Russian archeologist Mikhail Mikhaylovich Gerasimov taking the Kostinki skull out of the ground in 1954; the Kostinki skull; Marta Mirazón Lahr and Robert Foley

A genome taken from a 36,000 year old skeleton reveals an early divergence of Eurasians once they had left Africa, and allows scientists to better assess the point at which ‘admixture’ - or interbreeding - between Eurasians and Neanderthals occurred. ̽��ֱ��latest research also points to a previously unknown population lineage as old as the first population separations since humans dispersed out of Africa.

These changes in survival and cultural kit are overlaid on the same biological background

Marta Mirazón Lahr

Peter the Great Museum/Philip Nigst

Kosenki fossil skull, and and illustration of the Kosteni find

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Yes

Archaeologists discover lost language

bjb42 — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:00:08 +0000

Researchers working at Ziyaret Tepe, the probable site of the ancient Assyrian city of Tušhan, believe that the language may have been spoken by deportees originally from the Zagros Mountains, on the border of modern-day Iran and Iraq.

In keeping with a policy widely practised across the Assyrian Empire, these people may have been forcibly moved from their homeland and resettled in what is now south-east Turkey, where they would have been set to work building the new frontier city and farming its hinterland.

̽��ֱ��evidence for the language they spoke comes from a single clay tablet, which was preserved after it was baked in a fire that destroyed the palace in Tušhan at some point around the end of the 8^th century BCE. Inscribed with cuneiform characters, the tablet is essentially a list of the names of women who were attached to the palace and the local Assyrian administration.

Writing in the new issue of the Journal Of Near Eastern Studies, Dr John MacGinnis, from the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, explains how the nature of these names has piqued the interest of researchers.

“Altogether around 60 names are preserved,” MacGinnis said. “One or two are actually Assyrian and a few more may belong to other known languages of the period, such as Luwian or Hurrian, but the great majority belong to a previously unidentified language.”

“If the theory that the speakers of this language came from western Iran is correct, then there is the potential here to complete the picture of the world’s first multi-ethnic empire. We know from existing texts that the Assyrians did conquer people from that region. Now we know that there is another language, perhaps from the same area, and maybe more evidence of its existence waiting to be discovered.”

Ziyaret Tepe is on the River Tigris in south east Turkey, and has been the subject of extensive archaeological excavations since 1997. Recent work has revealed evidence that it was probably once the site of the Assyrian frontier city of Tušhan. In particular, it is thought that the remains of a monumental building excavated on the site are those of the governor’s palace, built by the Assyrian King Ashurnasirpal II (883 – 859 BCE).

̽��ֱ��tablet was found in what may have been the palace’s throne room by Dr Dirk Wicke of the ̽��ֱ�� of Mainz, working as part of a team led by Professor Timothy Matney of the ̽��ֱ�� Akron, Ohio. When a conflagration destroyed the palace, perhaps around the year 700 BCE, the tablet was baked and much of its contents on the obverse side preserved.

MacGinnis was handed the task of deciphering the tablet and has identified a total of 144 names, of which 59 can still be made out. His analysis systematically rules out not only common languages from within the Assyrian Empire, but also other languages of the time – including Egyptian, Elamite, Urartian or West Semitic. Even at its most generous, his assessment suggests that only 15 of the legible names belong to a language previously known to historians.

̽��ֱ��report also posits several theories about where this mysterious language may have come from. One notion is that it may be Shubrian – the indigenous language spoken in the Tušhan area before the Assyrians arrived. As far as historians know, Shubrian was never written down. In addition, it is believed to have been a dialect of Hurrian, which is known and does not appear to bear any resemblance to most of the names on the tablet.

Another theory is that it was the language spoken by the Mushki – a people who were migrating to Eastern Anatolia at around the time the tablet was made. This idea seems less plausible, however, as to appear on the list of the Assyrian administration, these people would either have infiltrated the Empire or been captured, and historians have evidence for neither.

More convincing is the theory that the language in question may have been spoken by a people from somewhere else in the Assyrian Empire who were forcibly moved by the administration.

This was standard practice for successive Assyrian Kings, particularly after the Empire began to expand during the 9^th century. “It was an approach which helped them to consolidate power by breaking the control of the ruling elite in newly-conquered areas,” MacGinnis said. “If people were deported to a new location, they were entirely dependent on the Assyrian administration for their well-being.”

Although historians already know that the Zagros Mountains were in a region invaded and annexed by the Assyrians, it remains, to date, the one area under Assyrian occupation for which no known language exists. That makes it tempting to link the text on the tablet to the same region. An Assyrian King, Esarhaddon, even referred to an unidentified language, Mekhranian, which supposedly hailed from the Zagros, but in practice the area was probably a patchwork of chiefdoms and more than one dialect may have been in use.

“If correct this suggests that Iran was home to previously unknown languages,” MacGinnis said. “ ̽��ֱ��immediate impression is that the names on this tablet were those of women who belonged to an isolated community. It may be, however, that there were others whom we still have to find out about.”

̽��ֱ��tablet is currently being stored in Diyarbakir, Turkey, where it is hoped that it will eventually go on public display. Dr MacGinnis’ report on its decipherment is published in the April issue of the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

Evidence for a forgotten ancient language which dates back more than 2,500 years, to the time of the Assyrian Empire, has been found by archaeologists working in Turkey.

If the theory that the speakers of this language came from western Iran is correct, then there is the potential here to complete the picture of the world’s first multi-ethnic empire.

John MacGinnis

Detail from the tablet found at Ziyaret Tepe. Inscribed with Cuneiform characters, the tablet consists of a list of women's names, many of which appear to be from a previously unknown language.

In brief...

Archaeologists have been working at Ziyaret Tepe since 1997 and the site, in western Turkey, is widely thought to be the original site of the Assyrian frontier city of Tušhan. Zirayet Tepe, literally “pilgrimage mound”, consists of a central mound about 30 metres high, and a surrounding lower town of about 30 hectares.
̽��ֱ��tablet studied by John MacGinnis was found in what may have been the governor’s throne room in the remains of the palace on the site. It was written in Neo-Assyrian script (Cuneiform), and lists women attached to the palace. There are about 60 names and most belong to an unidentified language.
̽��ֱ��most plausible explanation is that this language is from Western Iran. We already know that the Assyrians deported people from the Zagros Mountains area of modern-day Iran, but we don't know anything about the language that they spoke. It has also been speculated that a language referred to by the Assyrian King, Esarhaddon, called Mehkranian, may be what we are seeing here.
Deportation was a common practice in the Assyrian Empire. It was an approach which helped the Assyrians to consolidate power, by breaking the control of the ruling elite in newly-conquered areas. ̽��ֱ��deportees were set to work building cities or labouring in the agricultural hinterland of these new settlements.

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Yes

Hay gears up for Greek marathon

bjb42 — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:32:18 +0000

Ancient Greece is all the rage this year as the UK gears up for Olympic fever and this year's Hay Festival [www.hayfestival.com] is no exception. It is putting on a series of debates on classical Greece covering everything from Plato to heroisation and sex.

̽��ֱ��idea for the series came after Professor Paul Cartledge, A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, gave a very popular talk at Hay 2010 on how the Greeks would view contemporary democracy. He will be taking part in three of the 10 Greek Classics sessions this year.

On 7^th June he will speak on the first panel on Herodotus, described in the Festival programme as “the Father of History, who pioneered the systems of ‘inquiry’ and holds a mirror up to our own concerns about East and West”. His fellow panellist is author and Cambridge alumnus Tom Holland.

̽��ֱ��two are collaborating on a new hardback translation of Herodotus for Penguin so at least part of the focus of their session will be the translation process. “Tom is not a classicist. His degree was in English,” says Professor Cartledge, “but he has turned himself into a master historian and translator.”

Tom's books include Persian Fire, the first world empire, battle for the West which draws extensively on Herodotus.

̽��ֱ��new translation, which will be completed by the time the Hay Festival begins, will be printed on high quality paper and will only be out in hardback. There could be an e-version as well, which would be the first digital version of Herodotus.

Later that day Professor Cartledge will also be speaking at a session entitled the Greek Idea. This will cover the aspirations and concepts of civilisation, democracy, drama, virtue, victory, liberty and xenia, and discuss what the study of Classics has meant in the wider world.

̽��ֱ��panel consists of Tom Holland, popular historian Bettany Hughes, ̽��ֱ�� of Warwick philosopher and former Cambridge alumna Angela Hobbs and Professor Cartledge and the session is based on a proposal which Professor Cartledge and Bettany Hughes are putting forward for a 15-part BBC Radio Four series. This will be consist of 15 minute programmes on Greek ideas that have had a major impact down the ages.

̽��ֱ��third session he is taking part in on 8^th June is on Plato with Angela Hobbs, a Plato specialist and a former pupil of Professor Cartledge and Bettany Hughes who has a book out on Socrates, Plato's mentor. Professor Cartledge has also written a chapter on Socrates in his book, Ancient Greek Political Thought in Practice. ̽��ֱ��panellists will consider the influence and impact of ̽��ֱ��Republic and ̽��ֱ��Symposium.

Professor Cartledge is a veteran of the Cambridge series at the Hay Festival – now in its fourth year - and last year he was in a discussion with Guardian journalist and author Charlotte Higgins which drew an audience of around 400 people.

“It shows how Cambridge, Classics, outreach and impact are just bubbling at the moment. It's terrific publicity and I'm very thrilled to be taking part,” he says.

He has also written the introduction to ̽��ֱ��Sites of Ancient Greece, a book of aerial photos of Greece published by Phaidon which will be launched on 3^rd May at Heffers and he will be on the Today programme talking about it this week. “There's a huge buzz about ancient Greece right now thanks to the Olympics,” he says.

Next year, the Hay Festival will run a series on Rome which will be organised by Professor Mary Beard.

For the full line-up of the Cambridge series at the Hay Festival, click here. Tickets can be booked through the Hay Festival site.

Following a successful talk at Hay in 2010, Professor Paul Cartledge will be playing a major part in a series of 10 discussions on Ancient Greece at this year's festival, alongside Cambridge's own regular programme.

It shows how Cambridge, Classics, outreach and impact are just bubbling at the moment.

Paul Cartledge

Michailk via Creative Commons

Herodotus

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Yes

How luxury became a four-letter word

bjb42 — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 12:45:26 +0000

For some, it's about fine wines, penthouses, exclusive clubs and designer clothes. For others, it can be as simple as settling down for the afternoon with a good book. Now a two-part BBC miniseries, presented by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� academic Dr Michael Scott, is to reveal how the ambiguous meaning of luxury is the very thing that has defined our often-troubled relationship with it throughout history - and thwarted multiple attempts to stamp it out.

Starting on Monday (June 27), as part of BBC Four's Luxury season, Guilty Pleasures; Luxury In Ancient Greece And ̽��ֱ��Medieval World aims to trace the way in which human attitudes towards symbols of wealth, power and indulgence developed, from Ancient Athens to the time of the Black Death.

By examining how different societies dealt with the acquisition and flaunting of rare and expensive goods, Scott, from the ̽��ֱ��'s Faculty of Classics, believes we can get closer to understanding how luxury became a "four-letter word" - something that we frequently despise, but also can't quite live without.

In the austere economic climate (not least in Greece itself), and amid growing concerns about the environmental impact of trade and commerce, he believes that luxury should not simply be associated with over-indulgence. History suggests that our craving for the exquisite and the extravagant is too instinctive to be brought under control, but can be harnessed to better principles and good causes.

"Luxury isn't just a question of expensive and beautiful things for the rich and powerful - it feeds into ideas about democracy, patriotism and social harmony, as well as our values and our relationships with the divine," Scott says. "It is impossible to define, but we all know it when we see it because we each have our own ideas of what luxury is. That makes it a good tool for understanding the values and priorities of different societies, present and past.”

Historical attempts to rein in people's cravings for indulgence and luxury goods rarely succeeded. Even the Spartans, whose name became a byword for abstention - struggled with the issue. ̽��ֱ��lesson is still relevant today: China has recently introduced bans on luxury advertising because of fears that it might further agitate unrest about the country's wealth gap. ̽��ֱ��message from the past seems to be that such restrictions will fail.

Scott's examination starts in the 6th to 4th centuries BCE, when the inimical city states of Athens and Sparta both broke away from the traditional idea that luxury was something ruling monarchs and aristocrats brandished as a sign of personal power.

Athens, home to the first democracy, was also one of the first societies to try to manage luxury goods. Where wealth had once belonged to elite ruling clans, rich citizens were asked to pamper the democratic ideal instead, by channelling their money into communal services or public events. This was relatively successful, but attempts to specify what constituted luxury in sharper terms, such as what food people should buy, simply served to foment social unrest.

Sparta's contrasting efforts to stamp luxury out were a dismal failure. A raft of measures, such as bans on fancy clothes and the minting of coinage too heavy to carry around, were adopted to reinforce principles of self-discipline and self-restraint. These were ignored from the start, however, and after Sparta won the Peloponnesian Wars and became the dominant power in Greece, the flow of wealth into the city only exacerbated its rich-poor divide, stirring up the discontent that led to its implosion and decline at the end of the 4th century.

Scott views these early experiments as an "aberration" later smoothed over by Alexander the Great, who had a more conventional approach to showing off wealth. "What they struggled with was a fundamental dichotomy between political theory and reality - between the idea of all citizens being equal, and the fact that ideas about luxury and inequality would nevertheless always remain," he says.

̽��ֱ��second episode looks at how Christianity added a moral dimension to the problem. As it became an alternate force of government, the Church tried to treat luxury as a sin, but also knew that it could not afford to ignore it if it wanted power.

̽��ֱ��Middle Ages saw a series of ecclesiastical condemnations of luxury goods like spices and State attempts, in assorted acts of apparel, to prevent the wearing of clothes deemed above one's station. Overall, however, the Church became a major consumer of luxuries - whether investing in fine architecture, or producing beautiful, illuminated manuscripts. Luxury was employed in the service of God. As consumerism also became an important social force, earlier efforts to ban certain goods according to feudal strata became increasingly irrelevant.

By the 15th century, Scott believes that society had evolved something resembling the complex consumerist attitude to luxury it has today. " ̽��ֱ��power of luxury is its relativity," he concludes. "It is not confined by a thing, a time or a period. That means it's probably here to stay. Like the Athenian example, or the medieval Church, it works best when instead of trying to get rid of it, we find ways to accommodate and manage our need for it instead."

Guilty Pleasures begins on Monday, 27 June at 9pm on BBC Four, and continues on Monday 4 July.

A new series presented by Michael Scott examines the history of luxury and the origins of our ambivalent attitude to the finer things in life.

Luxury isn't just a question of expensive and beautiful things - it feeds into ideas about democracy, patriotism, social harmony, our values and our relationships with the divine.

Dr. Michael Scott

Tern TV

Michael Scott.

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Yes

̽��ֱ��Penultimate Supper?

bjb42 — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 04:00:10 +0000

̽��ֱ��Last Supper, which millions of Christians will mark on Maundy Thursday as Easter begins this week, actually took place on a Wednesday, a groundbreaking study is to reveal.

̽��ֱ��dramatic claim is the principal conclusion of a new book in which Professor Sir Colin Humphreys, a scientist at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, argues that he has solved what the eminent Biblical scholar, F. F. Bruce, once described as “the thorniest problem in the New Testament”.

Researchers have puzzled for centuries over the precise nature and timing of Jesus’ final meal with his disciples. At the heart of the problem is an apparently fundamental contradiction in the Gospels. Matthew, Mark and Luke all assert that the Last Supper was a meal marking the start of the Jewish festival of Passover. John, by contrast, says that it took place before the Passover began.

Writing in ̽��ֱ��Mystery Of ̽��ֱ��Last Supper, Professor Humphreys proposes a new solution, based on a combination of Biblical, historical and astronomical research. ̽��ֱ��core of his argument is that Jesus used a different calendar to that conventionally accepted by Jews at the time. According to this different system, the Last Supper would have fallen on the Wednesday, and not the Thursday, of what is now called Holy Week.

“Whatever you think about the Bible, the fact is that Jewish people would never mistake the Passover meal for another meal, so for the Gospels to contradict themselves in this regard is really hard to understand,” Professor Humphreys said.

“Many Biblical scholars say that, for this reason, you can’t trust the Gospels at all. But if we use science and the Gospels hand in hand, we can actually prove that there was no contradiction. In addition, this research seems to present a case for finally introducing a fixed date for Easter.”

̽��ֱ��new study is based on earlier research which Professor Humphreys carried out with the Oxford astrophysicist, Graeme Waddington, in 1983. This identified the date of Jesus’ crucifixion as the morning of Friday, April 3^rd, AD 33 – which has since been widely accepted by other scholars as well.

For Professor Humphreys, who only studies the Bible when not pursuing his day-job as a materials scientist, this presented an opportunity to deal with the equally difficult issue of when (and how) Jesus’ Last Supper really took place.

Aside from the basic contradiction posed by three Gospels’ reference to a Passover meal, all four present a logistical problem. If, according to the Holy Week model, the Last Supper was on a Thursday, then for Jesus to have been executed on a Friday morning, a large number of events had to take place overnight: These included his arrest, interrogation, and separate trials before the Jewish court (the Sanhedrin), Pontius Pilate and Herod.

Even for the alleged son of God, squeezing all of this in would have been an ask. In addition, it was against Jewish law for the Sanhedrin to meet at night. Suspiciously, all of the Gospels also omit to mention what happened on the Wednesday of Holy Week.

If Jesus died on April 3^rd, the standard Jewish calendar of AD33 would have placed his crucifixion on the 14^th day of the Jewish month of Nisan. ̽��ֱ��Passover meal, however, falls on the 15^th – which supports John’s account, but not those of the other Gospels.

Humphreys is not the first researcher to suggest that Jesus might, therefore, have been using a different calendar altogether. Most recently, the Pope suggested in 2007 that Jesus used the solar calendar of the Qumran community, which was probably employed by a Jewish sect called the Essenes and is described in the Dead Sea Scrolls. As Humphreys shows, however, when the date of Passover is calculated using this calendar, it would have fallen a week later, after both Jesus’ death and resurrection.

For the first time, Humphreys investigates the possibility that a third calendar was in use. ̽��ֱ��official Jewish calendar at the time of Jesus’ death was that still used by Jews today; a lunar system in which days run from sunset to sunset. This was developed during the Jewish exile in Babylon in the 6^th century BC.

Beforehand, however, the Jews had a different system. This is referred to in the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament, when God instructs Moses and Aaron to start their year at the time of the Exodus from Egypt. Humphreys argues that this system would have been an adaptation of the Egyptian lunar calendar (confusingly one of two systems used by the Egyptians), in which the start of the year was redated to occur in the spring.

There is, he adds, extensive evidence to suggest that this survived as more than a remnant into Jesus’ time. Not all Jews were exiled in Babylon. Those who remained retained the old system of marking the days, and by the 1^st century AD, groups such as the Samaritans, Zealots, some Galileans and some Essenes (who may well have provided Jesus with the accommodation used for the Last Supper), were still abiding by the old system.

Under this, pre-exilic, calendar, Passover always fell earlier and the days were marked from sunrise to sunrise, not sunset to sunset. In AD33, the Passover meal would have occurred on the Wednesday of Holy Week, which presuming Jesus, Matthew, Mark and Luke all used pre-exilic dating, and John does not, resolves both the contradictions in the Gospels and means that the events they describe could have taken place on Thursday, at a more leisurely pace and in accordance with Jewish law.

Jesus also had the motivation to use the earlier dating system developed by Moses. ̽��ֱ��Gospels are littered with examples of him presenting himself as the new Moses. According to Luke, he even said during the Last Supper that he was making a “new covenant” with his disciples – a direct reference to the covenant made between God and the Jewish people through Moses in Exodus.

In many ways, therefore, Humphreys suggests that the Last Supper was a positioning exercise on Jesus’ part, which gave him ample reason to use the pre-exilic calendar. “Jesus was identifying himself explicitly with Moses,” he said. “He was setting himself up as a deliberate parallel. He then died on Nisan 14^th, just as the Passover lambs were being slain according to the official Jewish calendar as well. These are deep, powerful symbolisms – and they can be based on objective, historical evidence.”

̽��ֱ��Mystery of the Last Supper, by Professor Sir Colin Humphreys, is published by Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Press.

̽��ֱ��Last Supper of Jesus Christ was on the Wednesday, and not the Thursday, before his death, according to a new study which claims to have solved “the thorniest problem in the New Testament”.

If we use science and the Gospels hand in hand, we can prove there was no contradiction about the nature of the Last Supper.

Professor Colin Humphreys.

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Leonardo Da Vinci's depiction of the Last Supper

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̽��ֱ��Athenians: Another warning from history?

bjb42 — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

In a new history of the 4th century BC, Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Classicist Dr. Michael Scott reveals how the implosion of Ancient Athens occurred amid a crippling economic downturn, while politicians committed financial misdemeanours, sent its army to fight unpopular foreign wars and struggled to cope with a surge in immigration.

̽��ֱ��book, entitled From Democrats To Kings, aims to overhaul Athens' traditional image as the ancient world's "golden city", arguing that its early successes have obscured a darker history of blood-lust and mob rule.

Other reputations are also taken to task: ̽��ֱ��"heroic" Spartans of Thermopylae, immortalised in the film 300, are unmasked as warmongering bullies of the ancient world. Alexander the Great, for all his achievements, is described as a "mummy's boy" whose success rested in many ways on the more pragmatic foundations laid by his father, Philip II.

Perhaps more significantly, however, the study suggests that the collapse of Greek democracy and of Athens in particular offer a stark warning from history which is often overlooked.

It argues that it was not the loss of its empire and defeat in war against Sparta at the end of the 5th century that heralded the death knell of Athenian democracy - as it is traditionally perceived. Athens' democracy in fact recovered from these injuries within years. Instead, Dr. Scott argues that the strains and stresses of the 4th century BC, which our own times seem to echo, proved too much for the Athenian democratic system and ultimately caused it to destroy itself.

"If history can provide a map of where we have been, a mirror to where we are right now and perhaps even a guide to what we should do next, the story of this period is perfectly suited to do that in our times," Dr. Scott said.

"It shows how an earlier generation of people responded to similar challenges and which strategies succeeded. It is a period of history that we would do well to think about a little more right now - and we ignore it at our peril."

Although the 4th century was one of critical transition, the era has been overlooked by many ancient historians in favour of those which bookend it - the glory days of Athenian democracy in the 5th century and the supremacy of Alexander the Great from 336 to 323 BC.

This, the study says, has led to a two-dimensional view of the intervening decades as a period of unimportant decline. Instead, Dr. Scott argues that this period is fundamental to understanding what really happened to Athenian democracy.

Athens was already a waning star on the international stage resting on past imperial glories, and the book argues that it struggled to keep pace with a world in a state of fast-paced globalisation and political transition.

In an effort to remain a major player in world affairs, it abandoned its ideology and values to ditch past allies while maintaining special relationships with emerging powers like Macedonia and supporting old enemies like the Persian King. This "slippery-fish diplomacy" helped it survive military defeats and widespread political turbulence, but at the expense of its political system. At the start of the century Athens, contrary to traditional reports, was a flourishing democracy. By the end, it was hailing its latest ruler, Demetrius, as both a king and a living God.

Dr. Scott argues that this was caused by a range of circumstances which in many cases were the ancient world's equivalent of those faced by Britain today. Athens, for example, committed itself to unpopular wars which ultimately brought it into direct conflict with the vastly more powerful Macedonia. Its economy, heavily dependent on trade and resources from overseas, crashed when in the 4th century instability in the region began to affect the arterial routes through which those supplies flowed.

̽��ֱ��result was a series of domestic problems, including an inability to fund the traditional police force. In an effort to cope, Athens began to create a system of self-regulation, described as a "giant Neighbourhood Watch", asking citizens not to trouble its overstretched bureaucracy with non-urgent, petty crimes.

Ultimately, the city was to respond positively to some of these challenges. Many of its economic problems were gradually solved by attracting wealthy immigrants to Athens - which as a name still carried considerable prestige.

Democracy itself, however, buckled under the strain. Persuasive speakers who seemed to offer solutions - such as Demosthenes - came to the fore but ultimately took it closer to military defeat and submission to Macedonia. Critically, the emphasis on "people power" saw a revolving door of political leaders impeached, exiled and even executed as the inconstant international climate forced a tetchy political assembly into multiple changes in policy direction.

̽��ֱ��name of "democracy" became an excuse to turn on anyone regarded as an enemy of the state, even good politicians who have, as a result, almost been forgotten. Dr Scott's study also marks an attempt to recognise figures such as Isocrates and Phocion - sage political advisers who tried to steer it away from crippling confrontations with other Greek states and Macedonia.

"In many ways this was a period of total uncertainty just like our own time," Dr. Scott added. "There are grounds to consider whether we want to go down the same route that Athens did. It survived the period through slippery-fish diplomacy, at the cost of a clear democratic conscience, a policy which, in the end, led it to accept a dictator King and make him a God."

From Democrats To Kings is published by Icon Books.

̽��ֱ��collapse of Greek democracy 2,400 years ago occurred in circumstances so similar to our own it could be read as a dark and often ignored lesson from the past, a new study suggests.

It shows how an earlier generation of people responded to similar challenges and which strategies succeeded.

Dr. Michael Scott

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Athens acropolis

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