If you have followed one of my musings in the past, you are aware there have not been any offered for quite some time. In fact, it has been a year since I last penned one. In many ways it can be assumed that the past two years with Covid, where the entire world’s population was exposed to the virus(es?), has given this population a common paradigm of sorts within which to live. Something got in my way for the past year, not all of it Covid. Here I am again.
Because of the nature of travel and the interconnectedness now found throughout much of the world, few individuals escape what happens in some countries due to the means of transmitting, transferring or transporting “things” around the world (and dare I say now “into space”, but that is another musing). What has been going on for millennia, expanding the opportunity for one group and its paradigm of living to be exchanged with some other group, is now done with such rapidity that digitL transactions can take place in as short a time span as a nanosecond or something physically can be moved from one place on earth to another in less than a portion of the time of one rotation of the earth.
The fact and result of the speed of transfer is what has occupied us for these past three years. About this time in 2020 the United States found out that the Corona virus, first reported a month earlier in China, was in the United States. This is now an approximate date in spite of the first cases being formally tested in Washington state, as our record of finding and containing the virus was not among the best when compared to other countries’ responses. This is a part of the “new reality” covered in this musing, asserting the truth has come under stress and alternative options of late. Another is the date of January 6th. It has entered the historical lexicon and has myriad meanings as of its two year anniversary. I believe the historical consensus will render this a horrible date in history, but there are too many contradictory positions to see whether the “good history” will win out. Recently, Brazil suffered its own version of January 6th, though the comparisons to our own are only somewhat similar when the basic contrasts. If you read Heather Cox Richardson’s substack article, you can see these contrasts and you should also be worried about the nature of GOP governance in the year 2023 and onwards. But, from a historical perspective, this is just the latest phase in the American experiment with democracy. We have always had factions that disagree with the method of governance in this country, groups that propose a more nuanced, more narrow, more exclusive understanding of what the Constitution lays out for guidance. What will history say about these past few years two or three decades hence?
Of the many things facing us in the world; climate change, rising authoritarianism, expanded reach of technology and AI, the international connectedness that both enhances our productivity and threatens our very existence, the pressure of population growth disproportionately exhibiting itself in the world’s various geopolitical/environmental regions, nuclear proliferation since 1945, accommodation of myriad paradigms subscribing to religious and existential questions, the continuing discussion/disagreements surrounding humanity’s preferred economic model, the internationalization of the concept of “the rule of law”, cyber existential issues as digital systems become more exposed to problems (Iowa today), Putin’s mental status, and the Corona virus coupled with the nature of international medicine are all asserting itself in the near term. And, are there really two standards being applied to finding classified documents at Mar-a-Largo and in Biden’s former office closet as the GOP now asserts? Hmmmm. History?
All those issues must be dealt with by each country, and all the countries should continue to address how they fit into the world’s individual and international orders and we, humanity, will surely be facing more existential realities as the decades of the 21st century unfold. But how are things with you personally? Isn’t that the Big Question? As 2023 begins, I have struggled with the bubble I, we, Mary and I, have constructed around is on the MidCoast of Maine. For the past three years this bubble has proven to be one of the better places on earth to be, though one could argue that has been the case for a long time. I think my next few musings, which in their banner description connotes a perspective as delivered from the MidCoast of Maine, will focus on the fact of how this little piece of the earth serves us. Yet, the two of us send our dendrites out seeking knowledge daily to access what is of value to us. We are brought to the state of wonder at what we find. I am hopeful the year 2023 is one that the history books will treat more kindly than those of the past three years.
While this specific musing has been very broad in the issues it has raised, its real purpose is to say hello after this long hiatus and to wish you all the very best in this new year. Shortly Mary and I will be delivering another Salon similar to the one we offered last year, which is one of those collective occasions when were are left exalted from the wonder uncovered. The Salon, in many ways, is a product of the isolation of the Covid years.
Our book club, which prior to the virus met in one of the member’s homes accompanied by a luscious meal with wine and the opportunity to share ideas and laugh in the same room, spent most of the last three years emailing, sometimes Zooming, but rarely together. One of the later meetings, when we returned to in-person visits, had us discussing Carl Schorske’s Fin-de-Siecle Vienna. This Pulitzer awarded book from the late 70s evoked ideas of the contemporary political world for our book club and rekindled the love of the time we spent in the city for Mary and me. The possibility of exploring a distant city, its history, politics and art through the click of a mouse, the construction of a PowerPoint and the delivery of a message through the Zoom platform, gave us the chance to reconnect with three score of friends from around the world. Ranging from recent college grads to midlife GenXers to our own contemporaries who at one time or another shared our personal world at some time, we had a ball. What a treat that was to see and speak with everyone.
This year the two of us again take on a topic of interest and it appears there are still a few individuals willing to partake of a Zoom Salon to share the fruits of our research and take the opportunity to catch up and reconnect. The topic of Plunder and how it affects History, specifically Cultural Heritage, is this year’s theme. Regardless of what happens during the Zoom, the impetus the meetings gave the two of us to research, to dig into topics we have long loved, is highly satisfying. We have learned so much in the past month or so. Many is the morning that the two of us start our day sharing what we have read in the past bit of time when on our own in our “reading worlds”. One tidbit I have been intrigued by are the Phoenician ivories carved three millennia ago. In the world of plunder one of the key phrases of understanding is provenance. What a wonderful concept. It is something every culture in history has had to address. When was something made, for whom, for what purpose and who has owned it since the initial days of its existence?
Those beautiful ivories, carved from either elephant tusks or hippopotamus teeth, are delightful panels that once adorned the palaces of Nimrud, or were glanced upon by pharaohs, either occurring nearly three millennia in the past. From the workshop of an artist, most likely in a port city along the eastern Mediterranean coast, they found their way to Mesopotamia or some other important culture those many years ago and were “safely” buried with those cultures for thousands of years as that once great power fell into ruin. We knew little about them for the past few centuries, almost nothing, even though for a time they were among the most prized of possessions. Their provenance is not yet completely determined, though the more we unearth the more connections we make. It’s strange to think that what was once a mark of horror from the Second World War, a NAZI Swastika on the back of a work of art, is now a mark that could increase the value of a work….if that work’s provenance has been completely traced through its years between 1933 and 1945 and that whoever had it during those years has had a say in who owns it today. Take a look at the reverse side of Vermeer’s Astronomer. Should its value be more because of its time in Hitler’s personal possession?
With all these distractions, it has been useful to focus on a field of knowledge and a topic that can be traced through history. Plunder is where we have been poking around for the past month or more. Going back into the Biblical era is a good place to take man’s understanding of history. In trying to find evidence in support of the Ark, the Flood and other Old Testament cities and empires, the new field of archeology sent out tentacles through its diggers to the Bible World. By the early 19th century these diggers had already found the cities of Herculanum and Pompeii (by accident in the 16th entry and dedicated work to uncover the city began in the early 18th century), the Rosetta Stone (both by design but also a little accident) and any European Salon of the early 19th century was abuzz with the finds. The attacks on religion associated with the fledgling science of geology, which was supported, enhanced and necessary as we dug for coal to feed a new machines of steam. Those in support of Biblical explanations were troubled by some of the specimens found in the early years of geology. They found the assumptions constituted blasphemy in some cases, or at the very least in deep contrast with Biblical accounts. Dinosaurs? What are these specimens found in the layers of stone? How old could they be? Calendars, once again, are under attack. Sometimes, though, our very body of knowledge about an earlier time was greatly added to by the uncovering of earlier works. The image below is from excavations made at Pompeii in an early, 18th century dig and is found in a museum in Naples today.
So, we arrive back at Nimrud in the early 19th century in search of stories and places that support the Bible’s accounts. The newly founded British Museum, the first modern museum interested in education its citizens, or at least those of the upper class at first, was going to be the beneficiary of the digs at Nimrud carried out by Austen Henry Layard. These will be enhanced after the Second World War by Max Mallowan, accompanied by his wife, Agatha Christie. She loved the digs and even assisted in cleaning the newly unearthed ivories with her face cream. The one below is an example of the ivories Agatha and Max found, though it ended up in a museum in Sydney, not in London.
I leave you with a “coincidence”, given that dates are a fudge/fuzzy unit on which to make predictions and assertions. When researching the nature of Plunder, the Biblical reference I utilized to describe plunder in the Old Testament came from Esther. As a Jewess and Queen, she became involved in the issue between Mordecai and Haman, which led to Haman being so upset with Mordecai for not bowing to him in his new position in the royal circle (Mordecai had good reasons not to) Haman sought permission from the king to have Mordecai hanged from a huge gallows and to have all of the Jews in the kingdom killed. Esther’s story of appeal and the resulting change of heart on the part of the king, her husband, is the stuff of legend. But the basic story is the Jews are given full authority by the king to fight their enemy, who had been unleashed by Haman. The authority given Mordecai would allow him to benefit from the purge of his enemies and to take possession of the dispossessed Haman’s estate and belongings. But, in Esther 9: 6-10, the defeated enemies of the Jews, after killing their enemies and Haman’s ten sons in the citadel of Shushan, the sons were hanged on the gallows with their father, but the Jews did not take the plunder.
The message is that what is legal is not always what is right. The rule of law, developed in all societies, has expected outcomes that are not always in agreement with the moral compass established through religious or philosophical tenets. Searching for the best outcome morally is often messy. Plunder, which is probably what the those ivories, including the Seated Lady above, were when it was stored in the palace fortress of Nimrud nearly 3000 years ago, could have also been described by the Arabs of the 19th century as having been plundered by the British, and, when the Brits and French divided up the Middle East after the Great War based loosely on the Sykes-Picot Agreement lines. When the Seated Lady was lifted from the ground after the Second World War by Max Mallowan and his wife, Agatha Christie, this, too, could have been called plunder even though the Arab authorities at the time had little they could do to stop their overlords. At least the Arabs got to keep a portion of the booty for their own museum in Baghdad. A few decades later, after the failed efforts by the Americans and her allies during the Bush years, ISIS blew up Nimrud palace because of all its forbidden idolatries. What is best for history is sometimes a crapshoot. Also, to whose legal voice and claims should we listen?
In an interesting connection between my research on Esther to start the Salon’s discussion about plunder, and the plunder the NAZIs perpetrated during the war, at the end of the war the top surviving German henchmen were put on trial at Nuremberg for their plundering and perpetration of genocide. It is here where I learned of that strange coincidence. In the end, the Americans were able to try twelve Nazis at Nuremberg, one in absentia, and the night before the order of execution for the other eleven was to be carried out, Göring committed suicide by biting into a cyanide capsule. There were ten left and the last to the gallows, Julius Streicher, was a fervent Jew-hater who knew his adversary and their culture. He called out as the noose was being put around his neck, “Purim Fest, 1946”. He equated and evoked the hanging of Haram’s sons with his and his compatriots’ deaths. In a strange personal historical association, they died on October 16th, 1946. I was born the very next day. Strange places the researching for the Salon has taken us. More later….Happy New Year!
Maine Musing 