The Creation of England–902-920

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RT admires this map on several levels: it is pleasing to look at; it conveys a great deal of information in a small space; and though labelled in German, it can easily be decoded by English speakers. Readers should also note the speed with which the Kingdom of Wessex conquered its Anglo-Saxon and Danish rivals, comprising an area far larger than itself. The Wessex king principally responsible for the actual conquest is Edward the Elder (r. 899-924 & son of Alfred the Great). But it seems that Alfred had laid the groundwork by preventing the Viking conquest of England and being the first to take the title, King of the Anglo-Saxons.

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RT’s Related Posts: 1) Metaphysical Maps.

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Map: Conquest of the Danelaw by the Kingdom of Wessex, 902-920. Author: S. Bollmann. WikiCmns, CC 1.0 Generic.

Dodos–Saving the World for Wildlife *and* People

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Well, there’s no point in getting angry over human appetite; Mauritius is not the largest of islands, and the dodos were big (3 ft. tall), flightless, and easy prey. Readers should also note that while the demise of the Dodo has become a cautionary tale, few people are aware that the Dodo’s closest genetic relative, the Rodriguez Solitaire, also went extinct soon after discovery.

So what can we make of this uncomfortable bit of history? Maybe the first place to look for an answer is the present. What’s remarkable, from RT’s perspective, is a) the survival of Mauritius’s ecosystem and b) the impressive prosperity enjoyed by its people. This is not to say that humankind’s toll on the island’s wildlife hasn’t been significant; over the course of four centuries, it has. More than 100 species of plants and animals have gone extinct, and less than 2 percent of the original forest cover remains. But here is the good news: conservation organizations, starting in the 1980s, have saved the Mauritius kestrel, Mauritius parakeet and pink pigeon; undertaken forest management and restoration; and established captive breeding programs and endemic nurseries. Three organizations are engaged in the effort: the National Parks and Conservation Service; the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation; and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The history of the nation is colorful, as we might imagine: discovered by the Portuguese, Mauritius was subsequently colonized by the Dutch, French, and British, the last of who granted independence to the country in 1968. The country has a political system modeled on the Westminster’s and a history of peaceful elections, despite its diverse demographic: the largest segment of the population is of Indian background, but the number of French-, Creole-, and Sino-Mauritians is also significant. Not surprisingly, the country is polyglot, with English and French being “unofficial” official languages, but Mauritian-Creole is the mother tongue of most citizens.

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As for the Dodo: recent efforts have led to the recovery of at least 17 Dodo skeletons, and, in 2007, the most complete Dodo skeleton yet recovered was found in a highlands cave. No DNA has been extracted so far, but these finds are rapidly advancing scientific study of the bird.

RT

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Image: top: Painting of a dodo head (1683); (one of the last images of the bird made from life). Cornelis Saftleven. bottom: Mauritius Pink Pigeon; Author, Trisha M. Shears. Both photos: WikiCmns; Public Domain.

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Lake Titicaca Water Frog–Critically Endangered

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The Lake Titicaca Water Frog is a critically endangered species of frog endemic to Lake Titicaca in South America. Unprepossessing in appearance, the LTWF is among the largest in the world, measuring up to 20 inches long and weighing as much as two pounds. The frog has a large skin surface, which helps it breath in its high-altitude environment.

Currently, there are 2,129 animals and 1,821 plants on the CE list.    RT

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Photo: A juvenile Lake Titicaca Frog in a stream on Isla del Sol, Bolivia. WikiCmns; CC 3.0 Unported; author: Joshua Stone.

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Tabula Peutingeriana: A 5th-Century Roadmap

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This map is a bit of an eye-bender. From the top, this section of the Tabula Peutingeriana shows Dalmatia, the heel and toe of Italy, and the northern coast of Africa. The map was made by a monk in Colmar (about 1300) and discovered around 1500 in Worms; it was published in 1598.

The Tabula is an itinerary and the only surviving map of the Roman public road system, and is thought to be descended from an original compiled during the reign of Augustus (though the map contains 5th-century corrections).

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Wow! Talk about mind-bending! But what may be most interesting about the Tabula is its combination of aesthetic and schematic qualities: it is attractive to the eye, and depicts the entire public road system (and thus the complete map covers the entire Roman Empire plus the Middle East, India, and Sri Lanka, even indicating the direction of China!) The original mapmaker distorted the shapes of landmasses in order to include the necessary information, yet produced a work of art that is pleasing to inspect. It may not be going to far to say that it represents the best qualities of the early Roman Empire. As RT has pointed out before, maps always represent the qualities of the people and age that produced them (in this case, accurate, comprehensive, useful, and pleasing).

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Map: Part of Tabula Peutingeriana, showing Dacia, Epirus, Macedonia, Dalmatia, Achaia, Sicily, Cyrenaica; facsimile, Konrad Miller (1887). WikiCmns; Public Domain.

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Standing Stones

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RT concludes this set of posts on beautiful things with a reflection on menhirs, or standing stones. Usually associated with Celtic countries, menhirs are in fact much more widely spread: about 50,000 standing stones are scattered across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some of these stones are also ancient, associated with the Beaker culture, which flourished between 2800 and 1800 B.C. The particular examples in the photograph are located in Sweden.

These stones exercised a powerful influence on people’s imaginations and beliefs. The idea that stone is the very stuff of creation was not easily shaken off, and some of the passages in the Pentateuch can be read as dealing with the struggle to eliminate the worship of menhirs. Still, as the photo reveals, many people today live their lives undisturbed besides these reminders of the ancient past.

RT

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Photo: Standing Stones, Sweden. WikiCmns; Public Domain.

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Cloud Forest–Oaxaca

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a view of cloud forest in Oaxaca, Mexico…enjoy!

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Photo: The Cloud Forest of Santiago Comaltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico, some of the best conserved in the world. WikiCmns; CC 3.0 share-alike unported; author: Prsjl.

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The K-T Event and Your Morning Cup of Coffee

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small, furry, and anonymous can have its advantages. Especially if you happened to be living 66 million years ago and somehow managed to survive the dinosaur K-T event, the impact of an asteroid at least 2½ miles in diameter (and perhaps as large as 12 miles) that killed 75% of all life on the planet–including, most famously, the dinosaurs.

The impact left behind a crater 110 miles across and generated a dust cloud that reduced sunlight by 10-20% for a year. Global firestorms caused by the collision’s heat pulse and a brief but intense burst of infrared radiation may have attended the event. As if all that were not enough, oxygen levels in the atmosphere plummeted, the O² consumed by the conflagrations.

You had to be tough to survive K-T.

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But why, finally, is this important? In fact, scientists distinguish five global extinctions that involved major loss of life. And when we think of the devastation wrought by the recent tsunamis that came ashore on Japan, Indonesia, and elsewhere, it’s hard to avoid the feeling that the status quo can be rather fragile.

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People are only too aware of the possibility of another asteroid hitting our planet, and what with global warming, seaside property has lost some of its allure. But what is seldom noted is that we are living in the midst of slow-motion boundary event, the development of speech, the rational mind, and modern people. RT believes that the nub of the problem lies in feeling and speech, integrating our emotions with our ego in a way that encourages respect for each other–and even love.

There is still the morning cup of coffee; RT never fails to be amazed by the way it stimulates conversation in people. We are discovering a new, interior landscape, one that may prove impervious to asteroids and global warming. If we are to get there, it helps to remember the importance of the seemingly unimportant–the crisis of speech that surrounds us and the coffee beans and other discoveries that may help us survive it.    RT

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Photo: Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton (the specimen AMNH 5027) at American Museum of Natural History. Author: J.M. Luijt. WikiCmns. CC Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Netherlands license.

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Scottish Gaelic, Manx, and the Crawling of Crabs

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Halò, fàilte gu Alba! Hello, welcome to Scotland!

Something about the Scottish Gaelic words is powerfully attractive to RT. Language in many respects is identity, the way that we think; it defines us in the world. And speaking a language is power, the ability to communicate, to become involved in community.

On the other hand, many obstacles lie in the way of eager learners. Pronunciation is certainly one of them. Consider this sound recording offered by the BBC to students of Scottish Gaelic.

Wow!!! It’s beautiful, but how long will it take to learn this phrase? And of course it’s just the start of becoming a SG speaker. As everyone knows, learning a language requires a serious investment of time and energy.

Why do people invest that kind of effort to learn a language? Certainly the biggest reason must be that they need to use it:  they are moving to or interacting with a new country or community within their own country. If the language they are learning is widespread and used often in business, so much the better–people can continue to use their new skill if circumstances take them elsewhere.

But there is a second reason, one that may take years or decades to bear fruit: maintaining or recreating a language community and its culture. A common language offers a powerful sense of cohesion to its speakers and makes accessible to them the culture’s written texts–in many ways, the hearts of the ancestors who spoke and wrote their language.

Here is a third reason: to gain access to a foreign culture’s knowledge and wisdom. Hebrew, Greek, and Latin all spring to mind in this context. But so do the poetic riches of the Gaelic-speaking nations. The past is much easier to forget if the important languages spoken at specific periods are forgotten. But RT suspects that this may be true even for the “unimportant” languages.

Take Manx, for instance. The Isle of Man covers 221 sq. miles; its population is 85,000. Manx as a first language went extinct in 1974, when its last speaker, Ned Maddrell, died. But recently attempts have been made to revive the language, and it is believed that about 100 people currently have a competent command of the tongue.

Why should they bother? On an island the size of Man, the indigenous language would give a powerful sense of solidarity, but beyond that, Manx speakers will be joining themselves to the larger world of Gaelic speakers in Ireland and Scotland (a combined total of 190,000 native speakers; for L2 speakers, a combined total of 1.9 million). With further effort, they could understand Welsh, a Brythonic language, currently spoken by 710,000 speakers. Check it out, folks: that’s 2.6 million speakers total. And what about reading the Mabinogion or the Ulster Cycle in the original language? Then there’s the Bible translated into Manx. They might even develop a fancy for Scottish Gaelic poetry.

And speaking of Scottish Gaelic poetry, if these lessons hold true for Manx, then surely the effort to save SG is worthwhile.

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RT will leave you (for the moment) with a bit of Manx spoken by Mr. Maddrell:

Dooyrt “Ballooilley” rish:

“Ballooilley” said to him:

“Vel ny partanyn snaue, Joe?”

“Are the crabs crawling, Joe?“

“Cha nel monney, cha nel monney,” dooyrt Joe. “T’ad feer ghoan.”

“Not much, not much,” said Joe. “They’re very scarce.”

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Anyone care for the audio version of this exchange? Here it is, recorded in 1948! (& pure poetry it is…)

RT

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Image: A Crab, 1495; Albrecht Durer, WikiCmns, Public Domain.

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Dinosaurs!

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Don’t mess with dinosaurs!    RT

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Chart: Giant Carnivore; WikiCmns; CC 3.0 Unported, SA-Attribution; author: Oktaytanhu.

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Mediterranean Vacation: Lost Landscapes

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The Mediterranean Sea offers more than a few beguiling aspects these days (as witnessed by the photo at left), attracting tourists in their thousands during the cold months farther north. All seems familiar, and even routine, about their vacations. But things were not always so; RT doesn’t have to venture as far as New Zealand or Madagascar to encounter the exotic in landscape and wildlife.

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Imagine, if you will, a very different Mediterranean. We have been transported back almost six million years. The Strait of Gibraltar has closed tight. Within a thousand years of this closing, the entire Mediterranean has almost completely evaporated, leaving behind huge salt and gypsum deposits and a few brine lakes, filled with Dead Sea-like water. The exposed sea-bed lies 2-3 miles below that era’s sea-level. The air pressure on the abyssal plain hovers at 1.7 times the air pressure at sea-level today.

Things are hot and dry: 176° F at the lowest levels and rainfall, if any, is extremely sparse. Little, of course, could survive in this inferno.

On the other hand, the desiccated basin did support life at higher altitudes. Following great rivers such as the Nile, antelopes, elephants, and hippopotamuses all migrated into the basin, eventually reaching highlands that subsequently were turned into islands by flooding: Malta, Cyprus, and Sicily. At this point, the various species underwent insular dwarfism, resulting, for instance, in the Cyprus Dwarf Elephant, which weighted about 200 kg. (or 2% of its 10,000 kg. ancestors) and is believed to have survived until about 11,000 years ago.

Other species included the Cretan Dwarf Deer (Candiacervus), the Sardinian Dhole (a dog-like animal), and a dwarf owl.

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All of this lasted only about half a million years. The Zanclean Flood, a gigantic inundation resulting from the sudden reopening of the Gibraltar strait, flooded the Mediterranean Basin, raising the water level at about 30 ft. a day. But readers should not assume that the reflooding straits took the form of a huge waterfall–the channel carved by the ocean waters was gradual, looking more like a river.

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And that’s it for the latest Lost Landscapes post…perhaps our next voyage will take us to South America…   RT

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Images: photo at top: Strait of Gibraltar, Manfred Werner (photographer), Tsui (user); topogr map at right, Roger Pibernat. Both images: WikiCmns, CC 3.0 Unported, attrib-share alike. Bottom photo: Skeleton of Cretan Dwarf Elephant, Peter Maas, WikiCmns; CC 2.5 Attrib-Share Alike.