This stela comes from the Temple of Marduk in Babylon and dates from around 800 BC. It is a commemorative monument set up in honour of a private individual called Adad-etir. He was an official in the temple, known as 'the dagger bearer', and this stela was erected by his son Marduk-balassu-iqbi. The figures carved in relief on the front represent the father and son together. Their shaven heads show that they are both priests, it being normal in ancient Mesopotamia for a son to adopt his father's profession. There are three divine symbols above the two priests: a winged solar disc representing the sun-god Shamash, a crescent of the moon-god Sin and a lion-headed mace on a pedestal. The cuneiform inscription includes a curse upon anyone who defaces the stela. It translates: "May Marduk, the great lord, in anger look upon him, and his name and his seed may he cause to disappear. May Nabu, the scribe of all, curtail the number of his days. But may the man who protects it be satisfied with the fulness of life."

One of the last authentic voices of the ancient Mesopotamian culture was a Babylonian priest by the name of Bel-re'ušunu. He is better known to posterity as Berossus.

He was a priest at the Temple of Marduk in Babylon and held high office within the temple organisation. Having direct access to temple archives, he was in a position to be able to write a history of Mesopotamia starting from its earliest days and running right up to his own time (a period covering more than three thousand years). His history was named Babyloniaka and was written in Greek. In it he sought to explain Mesopotamian culture and religion to the new Hellenistic rulers of his country. He dedicated his book to Antiochus I Soter (323-261 BC).

Unfortunately, none of Berossus' books have survived and what we know about his writings has only come down to us from quotations made by later authors. One of these was Abydenus who, as a disciple of Alexander the Great's one time teacher: Aristotle, was probably a contemporary of Berossus. Another was Alexander Polyhistor, a native of the Anatolian kingdom of Pontus on the Black Sea coast. He had originally came to Rome as a slave captured during the war with Mithradates of Pontus but he was eventually freed and became a Roman citizen. As indicated by his name, Polyhistor wrote numerous history books and he quoted extensively from Berossus when he came to write about Mesopotamia.

Alas, none of the works of these two authors has survived either except in the form of quotations from later authors. Chief amongst these was Eusebius Pamphilius (264 - 338 AD), Bishop of Caesarea, delegate to the Council of Nicea and one of the most eminent scholars of his time. Through this remarkable chain of writers and despite being heavily edited and summarised according to the agendas of his preservers, the voice of Berossus the priest of Marduk can still be heard. He speaks of stories and traditions that have only been confirmed in modern times through the work of archaeologists.

One story in particular (via Polyhistor), undoubtedly would have made Eusebius sit up and pay attention:

After the death of Ardates, his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen sari. In his time happened a great Deluge; the history of which is thus described. The Deity, Cronus, appeared to him in a vision, and warned him that upon the fifteenth day of the month Dæsius there would be a flood, by which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, procedure, and conclusion of all things; and to bury it in the city of the Sun at Sippara; and to build a vessel, and take with him into it his friends and relations; and to convey on board every thing necessary to sustain life, together with all the different animals; both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself fearlessly to the deep. Having asked the Deity, whither he was to sail? he was answered, "To the Gods:" upon which he offered up a prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine admonition: and built a vessel five stadia in length, and two in breadth. Into this he put every thing which he had prepared; and last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his friends.
After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel; which, not finding any food, nor any place whereupon they might rest their feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days, he sent them forth a second time; and they now returned with their feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these birds; but they returned to him no more: from whence he judged that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters. He therefore made an opening in the vessel, and upon looking out found that it was stranded upon the side of some mountain; upon which he immediately quitted it with his wife, his daughter, and the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth: and having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and, with those who had come out of the vessel with him, disappeared.

They, who remained within, finding that their companions did not return, quitted the vessel with many lamentations, and called continually on the name of Xisuthrus. Him they saw no more; but they could distinguish his voice in the air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due regard to religion; and likewise informed them that it was upon account of his piety that he was translated to live with the gods; that his wife and daughter, and the pilot, had obtained the same honour. To this he added, that they should return to Babylonia; and, as it was ordained, search for the writings at Sippara, which they were to make known to all mankind: moreover that the place, wherein they then were, was the land of Armenia. The rest having heard these words, offered sacrifices to the gods; and taking a circuit, journeyed towards Babylonia.

The vessel being thus stranded in Armenia, some part of it yet remains in the Corcyræan mountains of Armenia; and the people scrape off the bitumen, with which it had been outwardly coated, and make use of it by way of an alexipharmic and amulet. And when they returned to Babylon, and had found the writings at Sippara, they built cities, and erected temples: and Babylon was thus inhabited again.


— Berossus from Alexander Polyhistor.

Xisuthrus is a rendering into Greek of the ancient name Ziusudra (or Ziudsara), the last king mentioned in the Sumerian King List before the Great Flood. According this list, several versions of which have been found, he did indeed reign as a king of the city of Shuruppak on the Euphrates for eighteen saris. A sari is equivalent to 3,600 years so his reign was said to be a mere 64,800 years long! It's worth recalling at this point that Noah was said to be 600 years old when he set sail on his boat.


The deity who came to visit him was, of course, not the Greek god Cronos but a Sumerian one, Enki (it was a common practice in the syncretic world of antiquity to replace the names of foreign gods with more familiar ones). Enki had come to warn Ziusudra that the lord of the gods, Enlil (Lord Air, later Marduk or Bel) had become so annoyed by the constant racket being made by the people on the Earth that he had decided to destroy them all.


Ziusudra (who in other texts is known as Atrahasis "Exceedingly Wise" or Ut-napishtim "He Who Saw Life") already knew about this because this was the fourth time that the gods had attempted to wipe out the entire human race. The first time was by disease, the second time was by drought, the third time was by famine. In each case Enki foiled Enlil's plans by either getting his servant on Earth, the king Ziusudra, to instruct his people to pray to various gods in order to shame them into helping them or by directly intervening himself.


Enlil became so enraged by Enki's continual meddling that he demanded that Enki should be the one to create a great flood to wipe out humanity. To this Enki refused saying, "Why should I use my power against my people?...This is Enlil's kind of work!" but he did agree to be bound by an oath not to interfere the plan.


Knowing that this time he would not be able to save everyone, Enki decided that he must try a different approach. He was bound by an oath to Enlil so he knew that he would have to find another way to warn Ziusudra. He did this by exploiting one of the lamest loopholes imaginable. The King of Shuruppak lived in a reed house (probably one quite similar to the mudhifs of the modern Marsh Arabs) and Enki, fully within earshot of Ziusudra, directed his instructions to the walls of his house!

Wall, listen constantly to me!
Reed hut, make sure you attend to all my words!
Dismantle the house, build a boat . . .

Enki addressed Ziusudra's wall and gave the precise dimensions of a vessel and instructed that it should be filled with every kind of animal. Ziusudra explained to the the elders of the city of Shuruppak that Enki was at war with Enlil and that as a partisan on the side of Enki he would have to leave immediately. The people of the city built him a vessel and he selected the best examples of every animal.


He then held a feast for his people but he became so upset about what he knew was about to happen that he felt ill. It was then that the weather changed and Ziusudra brought his family inside the vessel with him. He sealed it shut with bitumen.

The [violent storm] went against the people like an army.
No one could see anyone else,
They could not be recognized in the catastrophe.
The Flood roared like a bull,
Like a wild ass screaming, the winds [howled]
The darkness was total, there was no sun.

When the gods saw the magnitude of the disaster they had wrought they began to weep. How could they have so wantonly destroyed their own creation? Worse still, the gods had created people for a specific purpose: so that they would never have to toil again. Who was now going to do their work? Who was now going to sacrifice and make offerings in their name?


And just what kind of smart decision maker was this Enlil, anyway?


The world was now completely covered in water and like reeds floated the corpses people. After seven days and seven nights the waters had begun to recede and Ziusudra's vessel became grounded on top of a mountain in the country of Nizir (later tradition places this in the mountains of Urartu or Ararat. George Smith, however, thought it was more likely to be somewhere east of Assyria).

I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and searched and
a resting place it did not find, and it returned.
I sent forth a swallow, and it left. The swallow went and searched and
a resting place it did not find, and it returned.
I sent forth a raven, and it left.
The raven went, and the corpses on the waters it saw, and
it did eat, it swam, and wandered away, and did not return.
I sent the animals forth to the four winds...

When Ziusudra started laying out food and burning offerings of thanks for his survival the gods, who were now hungry and thirsty, began to gather "like flies over the offering" and inhale its sweet fragrance.


But just then the shit really hit the fan:

The warrior Ellil spotted the boat
And was furious with the [the other gods].
"We, the great Anunna, all of us,
Agreed together on an oath!
No form of life should have escaped!
How did any man survive the catastrophe?"


Anu made his voice heard
And spoke to the warrior Ellil,
"Who but Enki would do this?
He made sure that the [reed hut] disclosed the order."


Enki made his voice heard And spoke to the great gods,
"I did it, in defiance of you!
I made sure life was preserved...
Exact your punishment from the sinner.
And whoever contradicts your order

Enki then went on to explain why the gods should never have tried to destroy humanity. People were useful servants who were essential for keeping the gods living in the lap of luxury. If the problem was that there were too many of them then this could be easily fixed through a smart policy of birth control. Enki made a deal with Nintu, the goddess of birth and fertlity, that the human infant mortality rate would be made much higher and that one in three women would not be able to give birth successfully. He also established a caste of women priests who would not be allowed to have children.


Enlil thus satisfied went down to Earth to greet Ziusudra and his family and he gave them his blessing. He made a covenant never to try to destroy them again. Ziusudra, his wife and the ship's pilot (but not the rest of his family) were declared immortal and were taken away to live in a far off country, in the good and pure land of Dilmun (the island of Bahrain), the place where the sun rises.


Never again would the gods try to destroy mankind. The goddess Nintu made a memento of lapis-lazuli to wear as a necklace so that they would never forget.


The Sumerian Flood Story (1800 BC)
Babylonian version: Atrahasis (1700 BC)


Many centuries later, Ziusudra and his wife were visited by a great and illustrious king from Uruk. His name was Gilgamesh, the famous hero of Mesopotamian legend (although according to the Sumerian King List there really was a king by that name who ruled Uruk around 2700 BC). After the death of his close friend Enkidu, Gilgamesh travelled across the ocean to meet Ziusudra (Ut-napishtim) and to ask him how he obtained immortality.

The Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet XI
The Chaldean Account of the Deluge by George Smith

During the Second World War, in India, a young Indian girl found herself having to introduce one of her oriental friends to an Englishman who appeared at her home. The problem was that her girlfriend was Japanese and would have been immediately arrested were this to become known. So, she sought to disguise her nationality by telling her English visitor that her friend was Chinese. He was somewhat suspicious and then surprised them both by asking the oriental girl to do something very odd: ‘Count with your fingers! Count to five!' he demanded. The Indian girl was shocked. Was this man out of his mind, she wondered, or was this another manifestation of the English sense of humor? Yet the oriental girl seemed unperturbed, and raised her hand to count out on her fingers, one, two, three, four, five. The man let out a cry of triumph, ‘You see she is not Chinese; she is Japanese! Didn't you see how she did it? She began with her hand open and bent her fingers in one by one. Did you ever see a Chinese do such a thing? Never! The Chinese count like the English. Beginning with the fist closed, opening the fingers out one by one!'

— John D. Barrow, Pi in the Sky, Penguin 1993, p. 26

Frustratingly, the story breaks off at this point and we never do find out what happened to the Japanese girl (the story may also be apocryphal) but it is true that the Japanese do count on their hands differently to the Chinese. Any similarity between the way Chinese and the English count, however, are purely superficial.

For one thing, like the Japanese the Chinese count from one to ten using only one hand. Unlike the Japanese, however, who achieve this by counting back down using the same fingers, the Chinese represent the numbers 1 to 10 using ten separate signs. This allows the system to be used for more than merely keeping track whilst counting, it can also be used for communication as well. Chinese numeric hand gestures are a common sight in Asian marketplaces and are especially useful for specifying quanities and prices in noisy environments (i.e. Asian marketplaces).

The table below shows the signs for the numbers 1 to 10. The basic idea is that each sign is suggestive of the Chinese character that corresponds to that number. The characters for the first three numbers are familiar, just like Roman Numerals turned on their sides, but any similarity with the English system of counting starts to break down at the number four.

1			6
2			7
3			8
4			9
5			10

Only the number 10 in this table shows the use of two hands which, when compared with the other signs, appears rather inelegant. In reality, in my experience at least, the number 10 is normally represented with a "fingers crossed" gesture on one hand.

The English way of finger counting, on the other hand ;-), hasn't always been as simplistic as it is today. In 725 AD, the famous Anglo-Saxon Benedictine monk, the Venerable Bede, presented in his book Tractatus de computo, vel loquela per gestum digitorum a system for representing the numbers up to 9,999. Bede's system, which had precedents in ancient Rome and was similar to ones in use throughtout the Muslim world until modern times, worked by dividing each hand into two parts: on the left hand, the middle, ring and little fingers were used to represent the numbers 1 to 9 while the thumb and index fingers represented the tens. On the right hand, the thumb and index fingers represented the hundreds while the remaining three fingers represented the thousands. Bede extended his system to even be able to represent numbers up to one million by positioning the hands in different ways upon different parts of the body.

Bede is famous for helping to establish a common chronology for historical events based on Anno Domini (the year of the birth of Jesus Christ) and reconciling important dates within this framework. He was meticulous in preferring to work from primary sources rather than relying upon second-hand information and for doing his own calculations. This was unusual for scholars of his day (and even got him into some heretical bother at one point) and one can imagine that, with all those calculations, his finger reckoning system must have been put through a very thorough test.

Now we had to trust to the guides, whose ideas of time and distance were most provokingly indistinct ; besides this, they have no comparative in their language, so that you cannot say to them, " Which is the longer of the two, the next stage or the last one?" but you must say, "The last stage is little; the next, is it great?" The reply is not, it is a "little longer," "much longer," or " very much longer ; "but simply, " it is so," or "it is not so." They have a very poor notion of time. If you say, "Suppose we start at sunrise, where will the sun be when we arrive?" they make the wildest points in the sky, though they are something of astronomers, and give names to several stars. They have no way of distinguishing days, but reckon by the rainy season, the dry season, or the pig-nut season. When inquiries are made about how many days' journey off a place may be, their ignorance of all numerical ideas is very annoying.

In practice, whatever they may possess in their language, they certainly use no numeral greater than three. When they wish to express four, they take to their fingers, which are to them as formidable instruments of calculation as a sliding-rule is to an English schoolboy. They puzzle very much after five, because no spare hand remains to grasp and secure the fingers that are required for " units." Yet they seldom lose oxen: the way in which they discover the loss of one, is not by the number of the herd being diminished, but by the absence of a face they know. When bartering is going on, each sheep must be paid for separately. Thus: suppose two sticks of tobacco to be the rate of exchange for one sheep, it would sorely puzzle a Damara to take two sheep and give him four sticks. I have done so, and seen a man first put two of the sticks apart and take a sight over them at one of the sheep he was about to sell. Having satisfied himself that that one was honestly paid for, and finding to his surprise that exactly two sticks remained in hand to settle the account for the other sheep, he would be afflicted with doubts; the transaction seemed to come out too "pat" to be correct, and he would refer back to the first couple of sticks, and then his mind got hazy and confused, and wandered from one sheep to the other, and he broke off the transaction until two sticks were put into his hand and one sheep driven away, and then the other two sticks given him and the second sheep driven away.

Viruses share a common ancestor that existed over 3 billion years ago and may even have even preceded cellular forms of life. Researchers at Montana State University have come to this conclusion after comparing the protein coating of an exotic virus strain, recently isolated from a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, with a range of vastly different virus types. Unlike most viruses, this new virus doesn't reproduce by infecting living cells but through a chemical reaction and yet it has been found to share a common protein structure with the other viruses. Furthermore, these proteins have shown no significant similarities with the proteins of living cells and this suggests that viruses must have split off from other forms of life very early on. There are even wilder possibilities: that viruses may have preceded cellular life on Earth or even arrived here from outer space.

The Monkey King was returned to the Crystal Palace by the heavenly troops and tied to a post.The Jade Emperor ordered Wu-k'ung cut into pieces.But neither sword nor spear could hurt even a hair on Wu-k'ung's body.	The gods were at a loss at what to do.Lao-chun had a suggestion, "Since he has eaten the fruit and elixir of immortality and has drunken the magic wine, he cannot be easily killed.We had better put him into the furnace and when his body is burned, the elixirs he has eaten will be left at the bottoms."
Lao-chun dragged Wu-k'ung to the Tou Shuai Palace.He pushed Wu-k'ung into the furnace and order the furnace keepers to fan the flames with great force.	Wu-k'ung was kept in the furnace for forty-nine days.Lao-chun was just about to open the furnace when the Monkey King leaped out.He had survived by standing in the draft of the fans.The flames never caught him, but the smoke had turned his eyes red.
The furnace keepers tried desperately to hold back Wu-k'ung, but he knocked them down.Then Wu-k'ung struck down lao-chun.	The Monkey King took the enchanted staff from his ear and strentched it wide.Then he made such a great disturbance in heaven that neither the gods nor the four great heavenly kings dared to fight with him again.
Wu-k'ung could not be stopped.Cheng Chun the on-duty god, nervously dispatched thirty-six generals to besiege him.The Jade Emperor hurriedly sent for Buddha	Buddha left the Lei Yin Temple and went to the Heavenly Palace accompanied by two gods.Buddha used his great powers to stop Wu-k'ung's attack.The Monkey King angrily cried, "Who dares to stop me?"

Here is an excerpt from the classic 16th century Chinese novel, Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-en. Ostensibly it's the story of the journey made by the (real) monk Xuan Zang to India in the 7th century to collect Buddhist scriptures but the monk is continually upstaged by the true protagonist of the tale, Sun Wukong, the supernatural monkey god.


>This story is one of my all time favourites. It's a fable that's simply awe inspiring in its scope but is also laced with lots of humour and lots of action. Despite the era in which it was written, it has a surprisingly cinematic quality about it which has lent itself to numerous screen adaptations over the years. I can heartily recommend this translation (however I'm now looking for a good unabridged version) and, if you can find it on cable or DVD, be sure to check out this terrific early 80's Japanese TV series dubbed by the BBC (though, admittedly, certain Chinese purists I know can't stand it).

More of the excerpt here.

Much crowing went on in the world media last year after Chinese Astronaut, Yang Liwei, admitted that he failed to see the Great Wall of China during his 21 hour mission in low earth orbit. As I noted at the time, it seemed that the hoary old myth that "the Great Wall of China was the only manmade structure visible from space" was in the process of being replaced by another myth that "the Great Wall of China was not visible from space".

The truth is that it is possible to see the Great Wall from space but that it is very hard to do so and only under the very best weather conditions and probably only with the aid of binoculars.

The difficulty with the Great Wall is that much of it was made from materials which are very similar in color to the surrounding countryside and that much of the wall (those bits not walked on by tourists i.e. nearly all of it) is in quite poor condition, looking in places more like a long pile of rubble rather than an actual wall.

The other problem is that it's quite narrow with an average width of only 5 metres. From Yang Liwei's perspective, flying at an altitude of more than 200 kilometres, the Great Wall's apparent width would be only about 5 seconds of arc. The moon by way of comparison is 30 minutes of arc (that's 360 times bigger) and much much brighter. Compounding Yang's problem is the fact that his space capsule was moving incredibly quickly, orbiting the earth 14 times in his 21 hours in space and for at least half of that time China would have been in complete darkness.

Update: Ahem... a little correction appears to be in order here.

In the comments section of this post Jason commented that he thought that the river in the shot looked like a ridge and we discussed the weirdness that happens to shadows in aerial photgraphs which leads to things appearing reversed (like, for example, the craters of the moon appearing like domes in this shot). Aaron then mentioned that the European Space Agency has retracted their claim of being able to see the Great Wall from 600 km up.

Apparently, they mistook a river for a ridge...

View of the city of Agen in Gascony in South-Western France. The cathedral which dominates this scene is St. Caprais which was built in the 12th century. In the foreground is the Canal des Deux Mers (Canal of the Two Seas) so named because it connects the Mediterranean to the Atlantic Ocean. Not far from where this picture was taken, the canal passes over the Garonne River, suspended high above its waters by a 580 metre long aqueduct.


This picture was taken taken by Louis Ducos du Hauron in or around 1877 and is one of the world's oldest colour photographs and the earliest one of an outdoor scene. Unlike the photography of Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii which, based upon the pioneering work of James Clerk Maxwell, worked by projecting and combining the light of a red, green and blue images, Ducos du Hauron used a colour subtractive system essentially identical to the one used in colour photography today.

Commenting on my earlier post about Abracadabra, Mike Brown points out that the magic word hocus pocus also has an interesting history. He quotes from a biography of Harry Houdini by Bernard C. Mayer that says that

When the unlettered congregations attending the sacrement of the Eucharist, heard the Latin 'hoc est corpus' chanted during the awesome transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, the words came out as 'hocus pocus', the traditional watchword of conjuring...

Searching around a bit further, I discovered that the first reference to the word hocus pocus was in a passage (displayed below) from a book written in 1656 by Thomas Ady and known as A Candle in the Dark (see p. 26). Ady's book was "A Treatise Concerning the Nature of Witches & Witchcraft: Being Advice to Judges, Sheriffes, Justices of the Peace, and Grand-Jury-men, what to do, before they passe Sentence on such as are Arraigned for their Lives as Witches" and in it he discusses, amongst other things, the art of the fairground conjurer who practices deceit rather than witchcraft.

The first is profitably seen in our common Juglers, that go up and down to play their Tricks in Fayrs and Markets, I will speak of one man more excelling in that craft than others, that went about in King James his time, and long since, who called himself, The Kings Majesties most excellent Hocus Pocus, and so was he called, because that at the playing of every Trick, he used to say, Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, a dark composure of words, to blinde the eyes of the beholders, to make his Trick pass the more currantly without discovery, because when the eye and the ear of the beholder are both earnestly busied, the Trick is not so easily discovered, nor the Imposture discerned...

"A soldier who wears the armor of the past appears in our era frightful but it is equally amazing that this costume is only complete with the addition of a fan! A respectable man does not meet with other gentlemen - let alone with an important official - without bringing with himself such a fan. With just a wave of this magic wand, the multitudes will bow down and bang their heads in humble submission!


"The mesh of the armour mesh is often of the finest execution. Some are constituted from innumerable steel chains sewn onto a jacket of leather, others from tiny sheets or scales of steel. The helmet comes in various shapes and under the slab that protects the chest is an inner protector formed from hundreds of sheets of paper, impenetrable to the blows and stabs of swords - such a simple invention that should make us reflect. The lance is a frightful weapon with a sharp tip and a cutting edge as keen as a razor."

Photograph and text by Felice Beato (translation humbly attempted by Yours Truly). Hand-coloured albumen print, circa 1870.