The Secret Funeral Procession Of The First Qin Emperor of China

The conqueror of the warring states in ancient China, Qin Shi Huang Di (often abbreviated to Shihuangdi, or simply First Emperor), died in 210 BCE. According to Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), the First Emperor supposedly fell ill while traveling through his empire in pursuit of herbs that he thought would make him immortal. Whether or not this was true, or if he was simply on tour, the emperor did indeed die away from the Qin capital city of Xianyang. The First Emperor reportedly breathed his last at the Ping Terrace in either Shaqiu or Sand Hill. Li Si, the chancellor at the time, rightly feared that if word of the emperor’s death leaked out, then regions throughout the empire might be tempted to rebel. Therefore, the chancellor decided it was best to pretend that the emperor had never died, at least until the party had returned to Xianyang.

Prior to his death, the First Emperor had been notoriously reclusive in his final years, limiting his personal contact to a small number of select officials. As a result, the chancellor was apparently able to keep knowledge of the emperor’s death suppressed to all except a privileged few. One of these men was the emperor’s son, Prince Huhai. The prince’s friend and mentor, Zhao Gao was also brought in on the secret. The only other people who knew of the emperor’s death were five or six senior eunuchs in the royal entourage.

As if nothing had happened, the Qin officials placed the emperor’s body in a royal carriage and headed for the city of Xianyang in a calm and normal manner. No information regarding the health of the monarch was sent out and no calls for mourning were issued—they wanted the rest of China to think that the emperor was still alive. While they were on the road, the eunuchs and officials who were in the know delivered meals to the carriage, as well as documents and orders that needed the emperor’s approval. Once inside, they would dispose of the plates and forge the documents to look as if the emperor was still actively running the empire.

After multiple hot days on the road, as could be expected, the body of the First Emperor began to smell. This unpleasant odor became especially worrisome for Li Si and his accomplices when the party was traveling from Jingxing to Jiuyuan. After musing over possible solutions, the officials came up with an ingenious plan. They went into the carriage with the body and, after a convincing amount of time, they emerged from the vehicle with an imperial edict. The emperor, it seemed, suddenly had a craving for fish and directed all of his attendants to load their carts with heaps of dried fish. Thus, masked by the fumes of dehydrated seafood, the emperor’s body was successfully smuggled back to the capital in Xianyang.

Sometime while Prince Huhai, Li Si and Zhao Gao were orchestrating the secret movements of the emperor’s body, they also began to expand their conspiracy to encompass the succession of imperial rule. Shortly before the First Emperor had died, he had given a written statement to Zhao Gao, stating that Prince Huhai’s brother, Prince Fusu, would succeed to the throne upon the First Emperor’s death. Nevertheless, Zhao Gao, Li Si and especially Prince Huhai did not agree with the First Emperor’s decision, so they altered the emperor’s statement in favor of Huhai. They also cruelly sent a fake message to Prince Fusu, stating that the emperor believed him to be a traitor and that he should commit suicide for his crimes.

When the entourage arrived at Xianyang, the secret was finally revealed and the First Emperor was pronounced to have died. His body was entombed in a magnificent compound at Mt. Li that included replicas of palaces, officials, soldiers (the Terracotta Army) and livestock, among other things. The elaborate tomb even contained rivers of mercury that were constructed to look like they were constantly flowing. According to Sima Qian, Prince Huhai (who had now assumed the title of Second Emperor) had many of his father’s concubines killed and entombed with the deceased emperor. The craftsmen who had worked on the tomb were also allegedly locked away to die inside their creation. Although the validity of Sima Qian’s account of the tomb has been called into question, modern archaeologists have indeed found several ancient mass graves situated around the burial complex of the First Emperor.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Carriage from the Ming Dynasty Departure Herald, from the Jiajing reign period in China (1522-1566 AD), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. 
• https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2016/10/china-first-emperor-terra-cotta-warriors-tomb/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Shihuangdi  

Holy Roman Emperor Vs. Holy Roman Father—Henry IV Against The Popes

Henry IV (c. 1050-1106), an emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, lived quite an extraordinarily chaotic life in the Middle Ages. Although he was ruler the Holy Roman Empire for most of his reign, he had a dismal relationship with the spiritual leaders of Christendom, the popes. Even so, the Christian religion played an extremely prominent role in Henry’s life.

Henry IV became the ruler of the Germany-centered Holy Roman Empire in 1056, upon the death of his father, Henry III. As the child-emperor was too young to rule, his mother, Empress Agnes, served as the regent ruler, with helpful aid and advice from Pope Victor II. Unfortunately, the helpful pope only lived until 1057, and after his death, the empress had no luck acquiring competent and loyal advisors. For the next few years, Empress Agnes allowed the regional rulers of the empire to dramatically strengthen themselves against the crown. It would have been an odd childhood experience for Henry IV—the young ruler was even kidnapped in 1062 by the archbishop of Cologne, a man named Anno, who consequently replaced Empress Agnes as regent. The empress was not injured in the change of power, but she did retire to a convent soon after the event.

When Henry IV became old enough to rule by himself in 1065, he shed himself of the regents and other influencers, but found himself in charge of an unstable realm. Nevertheless, he quickly asserted his rule and soon the relationship between the monarch and his vassals began to strain. He announced that he wanted to divorce his wife of three years and also launched building projects at the expense of his vassals in the Harz Mountains. Unfortunately, the emperor’s desire for a divorce caused outrage among the religious circles, and the his construction projects in the Harz Mountains set the region of Saxony on a course toward rebellion.

Henry IV was eventually talked out of pursuing divorce, but the threat of a Saxon uprising persisted. Despite, or possibly because of, the arrest of Duke Magnus of Saxony, the Saxons rebelled in 1073, beginning the first of many military challenges to the rule of Henry IV. The rebels were initially successful. In 1074, they had Henry IV momentarily ready to concede to their demands, but he was able to come back and crush the rebellion in 1075.

While Henry IV was dealing with the Saxons, he was also negotiating with Pope Gregory VII over who should become archbishop of Milan. The Pope and the emperor had separate nominees for the position. While Henry IV had been preoccupied with the Saxon rebellion, he had seemed willing to follow the Pope’s lead on the nomination. After the rebellion was defeated, however, Henry IV defied the Pope’s wishes and named a chaplain from the German court as the archbishop of Milan.

The fiasco over the archbishop of Milan caused an ongoing feud between Henry IV and Pope Gregory VII. In response to Henry’s decision in Milan, the Pope excommunicated the emperor from the Catholic Church in 1076 and revoked Henry’s divine right to rule, basically giving the regional nobility of the Holy Roman Empire a religious reason to rebel against their king.

The pope’s ploy worked—regions of the empire became so hostile to Henry IV that he was forced to sneak through the Alps to meet with Pope Gregory VII at Canossa, within the realm of Mathilda of Tuscany. There, in 1077, Henry IV put on a grand display of humble penitence for Pope Gregory VII, reportedly even including the wearing of sackcloth clothing. Whatever happened at Canossa, it was convincing enough that Pope Gregory readmitted Henry IV to the Catholic Church and restored his divine right to rule.

With the pope’s forgiveness, Henry IV won back the support of many of his countrymen. Even so, plots were already in motion and factions began to coalesce behind their own claimants to the throne. The most important of these rebels was Rudolf, the Duke of Swabia, who fought against Henry IV for around three years. Pope Gregory VII eventually decided to give official support to Rudolf in 1080, when he once again excommunicated Henry IV and voided his right to rule. Unfortunately for Pope Gregory VII, he backed the wrong faction—Rudolf died in battle before the end of the year.

Henry IV did not forgive the papacy for its meddling. He convened his own religious synod, where he denounced Pope Gregory VII and set up a man named Guibert, the archbishop of Ravenna, as a rival pope. Once Henry IV had contained the rebellions in his own empire, he turned his forces against Rome, where he sieged the city unsuccessfully in 1081 and 1082, but finally forced his way into the city in 1084. In Rome, Henry’s anti-pope, Guibert, took the name Clement III and attempted to replace the exiled Pope Gregory VII as the head of the Catholic Church. Henry also took advantage of the occasion to officially receive the lofty title of Holy Roman Emperor, which had until then been withheld from him by the pope.

Even though the anti-pope, Clement III, was residing in Rome, the legitimate line of popes was still maneuvering behind the scenes to undermine Henry IV. Pope Urban II (r. 1088-1099) incited and supported leagues and rebellions against Henry IV, managing to even turn the emperor’s sons (Conrad and Henry V) against their father.

Understandably, Henry IV tried to calm relations, both with his vassals and the Catholic Church. He tried to enforce peace between feuding lords and hoped to gain a pardon from the Church in exchange for going on crusade. His son, however, decided it was time to break away from his controversial father—Henry V rebelled in 1104 and successfully forced his father to abdicate in 1105. Nevertheless, the stubborn Henry IV somehow escaped, raised an army and defeated his son in battle, shortly before dying suddenly in 1106.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Top picture: (Emperor Henry IV (by John Foxe, c. 1563) and Pope Gregory VII (printed 1891), both [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Introduction to Medieval Europe, 300-1500 (Second Edition) by Wim Blockmans and Peter Hoppenbrouwers. New York: Routledge, 2014. 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-IV-Holy-Roman-emperor 
• https://www.biography.com/people/henry-iv-9335166 
• http://www.encyclopedia.com/people/history/spanish-and-portuguese-history-biographies/henry-iv-holy-roman-empire 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-III-Holy-Roman-emperor 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Gregory-VII 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Clement-III-antipope  

The Scythians Of Herodotus Versus The Scythians Discovered By Archaeologists

Much of what we know about the Scythians comes from Herodotus, the 5th-century BCE father of history from Halicarnassus. In book four of The Histories, Herodotus described what he had found out about the origin story of the Scythian people, their military exploits and what he perceived to be their daily lifestyle.

The framework of Herodotus’ history of the Scythians is fairly accurate. He wrote that the Scythians were a fierce nomadic tribe that specialized in horsemanship and archery. As warriors, they were powerful enough to strike fear into the hearts of both the Greeks and the Persians. They even successfully repelled a massive invasion led by the Persian King Darius I in the late 6th-century, years before the Persians decided to launch their ill-fated campaigns against Greece.

On the other hand, Herodotus wrote about more (fair warning) rather graphic and disturbing accounts, where truth became increasingly merged with folklore. Among other statements, Herodotus claimed that the Scythians held annual sacrifices to their gods, where horses, cattle and prisoners of war were ceremoniously slaughtered. During this ritual, Herodotus claimed that the Scythians cut off the right arms of the human sacrifices and sometimes drank the blood of their victims.

The ancient historian elaborated on the subject of what the Scythians did to their fallen enemies—he claimed that they severed the heads of their foes for the purpose of using them as tokens to determine the size of their share in war loot. According to Herodotus, the Scythians did not let these heads go to waste. The historian matter-of-factly claimed that the Scythians transformed the scalps into handkerchiefs, and after accumulating a number of these macabre trophies, they would be sewn into forms of clothing. Herodotus went on to say that skulls of the slain were particularly important. He claimed that the Scythians made grisly chalices or bowls from the skullcaps, covered with hide on the outside and sometimes gilded on the interior.

While Herodotus’s account is a fascinating read, archaeologists have found little evidence to back up his claims. For example, at least 5,700 golden artifacts were uncovered in a Scythian burial mound (called a kurgan) excavated in Tuva, Siberia, yet not a single skull chalice was found among the horde of treasure. Similarly, furs and the fragments of cloth garments were discovered in the mound, but no evidence of clothing made from human skin was found. Even so, some of Herodotus’ other claims are plausible. The killing of prisoners and the keeping of unsettling war trophies was, unfortunately, a fairly common practice in many areas of the ancient world. As for sacrifices, archaeologists did indeed find horses, servants and concubines who were killed and buried along with fallen Scythian kings in their burial grounds, but this tragic practice, too, was not uncommon in other areas of the world.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture attribution: (Decoration from the top of a Scythian comb. Found in the Soloha kurgan. Now resides in the Hermitage museum, St. Petersburg, Russia, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• From The Histories by Herodotus (Book IV), translated by Aubrey De Sélincourt and revised by John Marincola (Penguin Classics, 2002). 
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Scythian 
• https://www.ancient.eu/timeline/Scythians/ 
• http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/features/world/europe/russia/scythians-text/1  
• https://www.archaeology.org/slideshow/4562-russia-scythian-burial-mound-slideshow 
• https://www.realmofhistory.com/2016/07/09/10-facts-scythians-warfare/  
• http://listverse.com/2010/01/05/top-10-interesting-facts-about-the-scythians/

Destruction And Censorship Of Education In the Qin Dynasty

Over hundreds of years, the Chinese state of Qin grew more and more powerful under the loose, feudal and relatively weak rule of the Zhou Dynasty (c. 1046-256 BCE). As the Zhou decreased in power, and the states they lorded over increased in strength, the Warring States Period began, lasting from 426-221 BCE. It was a period during which the numerous kingdoms in China fought for supremacy. The Qin, under King Yeng Zheng, emerged victorious with the help of no-nonsense laws and merciless warfare. By 221 BCE, Yeng Zheng had risen to become the undisputed ruler of China. He then took the name Shihuangdi (Qin Shi Huang Di, “first emperor of Qin”) and founded the Qin Dynasty, the first true authoritarian empire in China.

The extreme legalist policies of the Qin Dynasty had some dramatic effects on China. Legalism in Shihuangdi’s empire elevated the rule of law above other sources of morality and ethics, including religion and Confucian philosophy. This coincided with the attempted censorship and possible eradication of any knowledge and education that did not align with the will of the Qin Dynasty.

In 213 BCE, Shihuangdi began the Burning of the Books, which saw to the destruction (or at least banning) of literature, history and records, often targeting works that referenced any state or dynasty other than the Qin. The burning was thorough enough to give the Han Dynasty historian, Sima Qian (c. 145-90 BCE), a tough time gathering information on the Warring States Period. In the end, he had to rely heavily upon a highly fictionalized text that survived the Qin Dynasty, known as the Zhanguo ce, or The Intrigues of the Warring States Period. The Intrigues severely dramatized the lives of protagonists from the Warring States Period, but at least it preserved many of the important names that may have been otherwise lost. By 212 BCE, the censorship policies had become so drastic that numerous scholars were allegedly executed.

Thankfully, the Qin Dynasty was short-lived. The extreme legalism proved to be excellent for winning an empire during a time of perpetual war, yet it was much less effective at keeping the empire stable and happy after the war was won. When Shihuangdi died in 210 BCE, his dynasty began to immediately collapse. In the following years, Shihuangdi’s heir and advisors were defeated and replaced by the Han Dynasty, which used many of the policies utilized by the Qin, but watered them down for the longevity of their rule.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture attribution: (18th century depiction of the Qin Dynasty Burning of the Books, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Records of the Grand Historian (Shi ji) by Sima Qian, translated by Burton Watson. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Qin_Dynasty/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/topic/Qin-dynasty 
• http://www.history.com/topics/qin-dynasty  

A 9th-Century Abbot In Anglo-Saxon England Fought Off Armed Assassins With His Bare Hands

King Alfred the Great (King of Wessex, r. 871-899) is known to have constructed at least two monastic compounds during his reign. Alfred’s earliest biographer, a Welsh monk named Asser from the king’s court, wrote about these religious institutions in his unfinished work, the Life of King Alfred, which he began around 893. One of the monastic compounds was a convent at Shaftesbury, where King Alfred arranged for his own daughter, Æthelgifu, to become one of its first abbesses. The other compound was the monastery at Athelney, constructed at an unknown time after 878.

When Asser wrote about the monastery’s founding in his book, he soon digressed into an interesting story. At first, he began by describing the diverse, multicultural atmosphere of the monastery at Athelney. Monks from Germany (or Old Saxony, as Asser described it), France (Gaul) and Scandinavia were known to reside there. The man who led this colorful group of monks was known simply as John—a Germanic scholar that King Alfred personally imported from mainland Europe. John was one of several learned men that King Alfred hired in the 880s to improve education in Wessex (the king, himself, was one of his first students) and to assist in translating important texts into Old English. John is known to have assisted King Alfred in translating the Regula Pastoralis (Pastoral Care), written by Pope Gregory I. In the preface to the translation, King Alfred gave written thanks and acknowledgement to John for his help in completing the project.

As it happened, Abbot John had quite a dramatic experience during his stay at Athelney. According to Asser, two men within the monastery, one a priest and the other a deacon, somehow grew to loathe the abbot. Eventually, their loathing developed into conspiracy to commit murder.  The two clergymen eventually recruited two slaves into their conspiracy, tasking them with the actual dirty work.

Asser recorded the plan of these would-be killers in great detail. The conspirators knew that John was a man that liked his privacy—he often went into the sanctuary at night, after all of the other monks went to sleep, in order to pray in peace and quiet. The conspirators decided that John’s nightly prayers would be the perfect time and place to strike. Therefore, the nefarious clergymen instructed the two slaves to hide in the sanctuary and wait for Abbot John to wander in for his private worship. Once he lost himself in prayer and meditation, the assassins were to quickly kill him and then carefully transport the body to the home of a nearby prostitute. With the remains left in that environment, the conspirators hoped the murder would be pinned on the woman or on other people of ill repute living in that location.

With their plan set, the two assassins crept into the church and waited for sundown. As they had hoped, after the monks of the monastery had filed off for bed, Abbot John did indeed tip toe into the sanctuary for a late night prayer. The assassins waited as John reverently stepped up to the alter and knelt down to pray. When the slaves thought that John was thoroughly distracted, they drew their swords and sprung their ambush.

Abbot John, however, was not the average monk. Asser, one of the abbot’s contemporaries, believed that John had a great deal of military experience in his background before he had been called to religion. Whatever the case, John apparently heard the assassins approaching. His mind effortlessly snapped back from his meditations and he quickly turned to meet his assailants. Instead of being frozen by shock, or cowering in fear, the trained and seasoned abbot apparently let out a loud shout and charged the armed assassins. His mind must have still been somewhat on his interrupted prayers, because he was reported to have yelled that devils were attacking him. The abbot’s shouting woke up the nearby monks of the monastery, but John’s word choice of “devils” apparently made many of them apprehensive of rushing into the sanctuary to aid their leader. Nevertheless, the unarmed Abbot John (helped by his military training) was able to fight off the assault of the two assassins until the rest of the monks worked up the nerve to fight alongside their abbot against the supposed demons. When the assassin’s realized that the monastery was bustling with activity, they fled from the compound and hid in the nearby marshlands. Abbot John had managed to stay alive, but he had nevertheless sustained significant injuries.

The monks (including the deacon and priest who had instigated the plot) carried the wounded man out of the church and saw to his recovery. The slaves who had fled to the marsh were eventually captured, and the role of the two clergymen in the conspiracy also was, in due time, unearthed. In the end, John survived the attack, but all four conspirators were executed after (or by) long sessions of painful torture.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribute: (Image of St Benedict from France, Monastery of St. Gilles, Nimes, 1129, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Alfred’s translation of Pastoral Care, translated by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge in their anthology, Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004.  

The Dramatic Naval Battle Between Vikings And King Alfred the Great’s New Anglo-Saxon Longships

By 896, King Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) was considered the leader of all Anglo-Saxons in England that had survived the persistent Scandinavian invasions of Britain during the 9th century. At the beginning of his reign, King Alfred had little time to do anything but  keep his Kingdom of Wessex from collapsing under the onslaught of Vikings armies. Yet, over time, he eventually set in motion programs that would improve the defensibility of his kingdom against the Viking raids, which could appear with little warning from the sea or from Scandinavian-controlled regions in Britain, such as Northumbria and East Anglia.

Alfred successfully increased the security of his realm by constructing a network of defensive fortifications in his kingdom and reorganizing his military. Under the new military scheme, if an invader entered Alfred’s domain in the south or west of England (as well as some of Wales), then garrisons of Anglo-Saxon forces would never be too far way. Even if the individual garrisons found that they could not defeat the Vikings forces by themselves, they could still play a vital role by bogging down the enemy until friendly troops arrived to better the odds. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, not all of Alfred’s defenses were in place when a great Viking army arrived from mainland Europe and landed in the region of Kent, England. Even so, King Alfred’s defensive network was successful—he was able to constantly pursue the Vikings, drawing them into multiple battles and sieges in 893 and 894 at places such at Farnham, Benfleet, Buttingham, Wirral and Chichester. None of the battles led to a total defeat of the Viking forces, but the fighting was consistent and persistent enough to give the Vikings some real concerns. The defenses were effective enough to convince the frustrated Viking armies to withdraw from Alfred’s kingdom in 896 and head instead for safer parts of Britain or continental Europe.

Despite the dispersal of the major Viking force to seek out softer targets, or to settle down in the Scandinavian-held lands in England (known as the Danelaw), small raids continued to be a problem for the coastlines and islands under King Alfred’s control. Alfred, however, had an answer to this—he decided to fight fire with fire. Or more appropriately, he fought water with water. To respond to the Viking threat, King Alfred developed his own modified fleet of Anglo-Saxon longships. According to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, these vessels were twice as long as their average Scandinavian counterpart, as well as faster, taller and more stable on the water.

One of the several unnamed chroniclers who worked on the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded one of the earliest naval battles between a small Viking fleet and a contingent of the new English longships. As the chronicler told it, six Vikings ships ravaged the Isle of Wight and the southern coast of England in 896. When King Alfred heard of the raid, he dispatched nine of his own longships to hunt down the Vikings. Before the year was done, the Anglo-Saxon fleet found and blockaded the Vikings in an unknown estuary and awaited surrender or battle.

This particular band of Vikings must not have had much respect for Alfred’s longships, as only three ships (half of the Viking force) sailed out to challenge the blockade—the rest remained behind, beached in the estuary. One of the Viking ships actually succeeded in punching through the Anglo-Saxon blockade and managed to escape, although most of the crew on that ship was injured while accomplishing that feat. The other two Viking ships, however, were less successful. Alfred’s sailors captured them without too much difficulty and the Viking crews were executed.

Yet, all did not go well for the Anglo-Saxon sailors. Alfred’s men must have still been in the process of learning how best to operate their new ships, for every single one of the nine English longships apparently ran aground in the shallow waters of the estuary while they chased after the one Viking ship that broke through the blockade. Six of the Anglo-Saxon ships became stuck near the mouth of the estuary. The other three remaining Anglo-Saxon ships, however, found themselves unfortunately stranded right beside the Vikings that had remained on the beach.

With crewmen from three Viking longships and three Anglo-Saxon longships all squeezed onto a beach together, a bloody battle quickly erupted—one in which the Vikings emerged battered, but victorious. The wounded Vikings then set sail on their three ships while the rest of the grounded Anglo-Saxon crewmen could only watch in frustration as the Vikings left the estuary. The surviving English ships were stuck until the high tide thankfully lifted their ships off the riverbed.

The Vikings who survived the battle on the beach apparently suffered severe injuries during the fighting. The crews of two out of the three Viking ships from the beach evidently were so wounded that they lost their ability to sail. According to the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, the ships belonging to the two worst injured Viking crews washed up in Sussex. The unfortunate wounded Vikings inside those ships were quickly captured by the locals and hauled back to King Alfred, who had the raiders summarily hanged.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Nicholas Roerich "Guests from Overseas". From the series "Beginnings of Rus'. The Slavs." 1901, cropped, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Annals 893-896), translated by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge in their anthology, Alfred the Great: Asser’s Life of King Alfred and Other Contemporary Sources. New York: Penguin Classics, 2004.
•   https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-king-of-Wessex

The Mountain That Gave The Ancient Greek City Of Athens Its Iconic Look

From the Parthenon in the Acropolis to Plato’s Academy, one mountain provided most of the marble that gave Athens its iconic look—Mount Pentelicus. During ancient times, there may have been as many as 25 quarries on the south slope of the mountain, producing carved blocks of exquisite white Pentelic marble for use in the city of Athens. To accentuate the relationship between the mountain and the city of Athens, a sanctuary to the goddess, Athena, was housed at the summit of Mount Pentelicus.

                                   

The Pentelic marble that was used in places such as the Acropolis in Athens would have been requisitioned from a quarry on Mount Pentelicus, or from the surrounding town of Penteli. After the stone was mined, it was hauled—presumably by mules, ramps and pulleys—until it reached the construction site. An estimated 20,000 tons of marble from Mount Pentelicus was moved to Athens by this method for the construction of the Parthenon. The blocks of marble that made up the Parthenon were placed upon a limestone foundation and held together by iron clamps (sealed with molten lead) and wooden pins, for added earthquake resistance.

Although quarrying on the southern slope of Mount Pentelicus was banned in Greece during the 1960, mining is still active in other regions. Historical preservationists and restorers have taken advantage of this—newly quarried blocks of Pentelic marble are being used to keep the ancient structures of Athens standing tall and proud.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture attribution: (The Acropolis at Athens painted by Leo von Klenze (1784–1864), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• Unearthed, “Summit of the gods.”  Documentary, 2016. 
• https://www.britannica.com/place/Mount-Pentelicus
• http://www.miningreece.com/mining-greece/mining-history/the-marbles-of-parthenon/ 
• http://www.miningreece.com/mining-greece/minerals/marble/