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 FROM THE EDITOR

In the last year, the world has begun to revisit the legacy of
European colonialism. This August marks the 500th anniversary of one of
its most significant events: the fall of Tenochtitlan to the Spanish in 1521.

I thought I was pretty familiar with that milestone—National Geographic

History published a story about Hernán Cortés a few years back—but as
the anniversary approached and we considered story ideas, it hit me that
I really only knew one side of the story, that of the Spanish. I didn’t even
know the proper name for the people of Mexico who took on Cortés (the
term “Aztec” was coined by a European in the 1800s who derived it from
the name of an ancestral homeland, Aztlán).

Rather than Aztec, they are the Mexica, a Nahuatl-speaking people who
rose to dominate 15th-century Mexico. Rather than a monolithic empire,
they were a complex alliance built on diplomacy and military strength.
Rather than extinction in 1521, they survived 300 years of colonization to
gain independence and defeat Spain in September 1821.

History only grows richer when more voices enter the narrative. More
perspectives grace our understanding of humanity. It is our intention at
History magazine to keep seeking out those histories, listening to those
stories, and folding them into the past we all share.

Amy Briggs, Executive Editor

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 1

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Ludwig II of Bavaria in 1869, sits atop
a crag near the Ammergau Alps on
Germany’s border with Austria.

Features Departments

20 Karnak’s Temple of the Sun 8 PROFILES

Pharaoh after pharaoh honored the god Amun at this sacred center of Robert Koch identified
ancient Egypt. Rulers created new temples and art, while priests enacted the bacteria behind the
daily rituals to court the favor of this most powerful deity. 19th-century’s deadliest diseases—anthrax,
cholera, and tuberculosis.

34 War Elephants of Carthage 12 DAILY LIFE

Crossing the Alps with elephants became Hannibal’s most celebrated Hot dogs became an iconic
feat in his campaign against Rome. Elephants had been part of Carthage’s American food, thanks to
arsenal for generations, earning victories across North Africa and Europe. immigrants’ love of sausages and the
ingenuity of the industrial revolution.

48 The Trung Sisters 16 WORK OF ART

Celebrated today as national heroes, Trung Trac and her sister Nhi led a The vivid details in Bronzino’s
rebellion nearly 2,000 years ago that ended the Han dynasty’s centuries- 1545 portrait of Eleanor of Toledo
long occupation of the lands of northern Vietnam. persuaded Florentines to accept the foreign
bride of their duke, Cosimo I de’ Medici.
60 Who Were the Aztec? 18 INVENTIONS
Before Tenochtitlan fell in August 1521, the Aztec Samuel Morse’s code of dashes
were a dominant political alliance who rose to and dots was first transmitted in
power through persistence, diplomacy, and war. 1844 via telegraph, ushering in an electric
new era of long-distance communication.
76 Castles for the Swan King 92 DISCOVERIES
After his kingdom became a part of modern Unearthed in 1910, a majestic
Germany in 1871, the unhappy and unstable metal bust from Ife, Nigeria,
Ludwig II of Bavaria retreated into the music of challenged Western biases against African
Wagner and the building of breathtaking palaces. art with its exquisite craftsmanship and
detail fashioned by the Yoruba people.

HEAD OF AN OONI (RULER), 12TH-15TH CENTURIES.

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IFE, NIGERIA
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 NEWS

DISCOVERED IN 1897, Marsoulas Cave (above) in the

French Pyrenees holds the first cave art discovered in
RED DOTS ON BOTH THE CONCH HORN
the region. The conch horn was found near the entrance AND THE CAVE’S WALL ART (BEHIND THE
about 35 years later. Home to a small nomadic tribe, FIGURE) ARE INDICATIONS, SCHOLARS
the cave has provided insight into Magdalenian culture, BELIEVE, THAT MUSIC PLAYED A MAJOR
PART IN SOCIAL PRACTICES AND RITUALS
through its wall art and now its musical instruments. IN THE MAGDALENIAN PERIOD.
CAROLE FRITZ ILLUSTRATION: GILLES TOSELLO

U .K.
h.
BEL. WORLD’S OLDEST CONCH HORN
lish C
Eng

Paris

FRA NC E
Stone Age Seashell
Makes Music From the Past
Bay of
Biscay

Marsoulas
Cave Toulouse
PYR
ENE Med.
Stored in a museum for decades, a seashell was reexamined, providing
S PA IN ES
NG MAPS

Sea new insight on the role of music in Upper Paleolithic societies.

N
MARSOULAS CAVE early a century scholars revisited the cave ar- famous for its prehistoric wall
is 50 miles from ago, archaeologists tifacts and realized there had art created by a nomadic group
Toulouse in the working in France’s been a mistake. Rather than of Upper Paleolithic hunters
Haute-Garonne re- Pyrenean foothills a cup, they had a prehistoric in the Magdalenian epoch.
gion of France. It lies discovered a seashell in Mar- musical instrument around Fritz’s colleagues noted that
150 miles from the soulas Cave. They identified 12,000 to 18,000 years old. the pointy end of the shell, or
Atlantic coast, where
the conch shell as a shared In 2019 Carole Fritz, an ar- apex, was missing; they theo-
the Magdalenians
traveled in summer ceremonial drinking vessel chaeologist with the French rized that perhaps it was pur-
and likely found the and put it into storage at the National Center for Scientific posely broken off—a modi-
conch shell. Natural History Museum of Research, conducted a review fication seen in conch horns
Toulouse. Nine decades later, of objects found in the cave, from much later times.

6 JULY/AUGUST 2021
 STONE AGE
SYMPHONICS
CONVERTING SEASHELLS into wind instruments has
a long history around the world, but the Marsoulas
conch is the only prehistoric shell horn found to
date. It is impossible to know if the residents of the
Marsoulas Cave had copied an existing instrument
or if they made their own innovations when they
removed the apex (left-hand illustration), carefully
winnowed out a shaft, and inserted a tube—per-
haps a reed or hollow bird bone—in the opening
(right-hand illustration). Evidence of a brownish
residue, likely a resin or wax, was detected on the
apex edge and inside the shell, which could have
helped hold the mouthpiece in place. The sound
of the Marsoulas horn is deep, like that of a large
animal; some speculate it sounded like a bison. Due
to the artifact’s age, there are no plans to have more
modern musicians play the actual shell; when the
horn was played for the first time after its iden-
tification, the musician had to be gentle and not
too aggressive when producing sounds. To further
investigate the conch’s range, 3D replicas of the in-
strument will be produced to get a fuller sense of its
capabilities. Team member Gilles Tosello described
hearing the horn as like having “the soundtrack to
CONVERTING A SHELL INTO A WIND INSTRUMENT the cave images from 18,000 years ago. They don’t
INVOLVED DELICATE MODIFICATIONS WITHOUT METAL
TOOLS, TESTIFYING TO MAGDALENIAN SKILL. feel so distant now.”
ILLUSTRATIONS: GILLES TOSELLO; PHOTO: CAROLE FRITZ

The observation triggered in the paintings on the Mar- instrument of its kind. Other
a flash of recognition in Fritz. soulas cave walls. Scholars in- conch horns discovered out-
“Sometimes it’s necessary terpreted the markings as an side Europe date to more re-
to bring a new perspective to indication that the shell was a cent times. Only flutes found
artifacts,” she said. Together so-called prestige object, in Germany are more ancient:
with researchers from the A CT scan of the shell’s around 40,000 years old.
Natural History Museum of interior revealed a structure “This gets our foot a little
Toulouse, the University of conducive to producing sound. further into the door of the
Toulouse–Jean Jaurès, and the Fritz also found a surprise: a mysterious underworld life in
Quai Branly–Jacques Chirac hole made near the apex, Paleolithic caves,” said Nich-
Museum, Fritz announced the where a mouthpiece could olas J. Conard, professor of
identification of the world’s have been placed. To test the early prehistory at Germany’s
oldest conch horn in Science horn theory, a musician was University of Tübingen, dis-
Advances. able to play the shell and pro- coverer of the German Paleo-
duce three tones, close in range lithic flutes in 2009.
Seashell’s Secrets to the notes C, C sharp, and D.
Analysis of the shell’s exterior Carbon dating places the —Braden Phillips
revealed traces of red pigment. shell’s creation between
This decoration, made by the 12,000 and 18,000 years ago, WORLD’S OLDEST CONCH HORN
FOUND IN THE MARSOULAS CAVE, THE HORN
artist’s fingertips, formed the which makes the Marsou- IS MADE FROM THE SHELL OF THE SEA SNAIL
same geometric pattern seen las conch the oldest wind SPECIES CHARONIA LAMPAS. CAROLE FRITZ

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 7

PROFILES

Robert Koch,
The Bacteria Hunter
One of the founding fathers of microbiology, Koch used scientific rigor and hands-on
experiments to identify the bacterial causes of several illnesses that ravaged the 19th century.

W
hether called phthi- doctor and microbiologist named Robert
Disease sis (Greek for
“wasting away”),
Koch methodically and in great detail
used more than 200 microscopic prepa-
Detective the white plague, rations to identify the bacterium that
or consumption, causes tuberculosis: tubercle bacillus. It
1866 tuberculosis has been plaguing humani- was the latest discovery in an astonishing
Born in December 1843, ty all over the world for thousands of career that would land Koch a Nobel
Robert Koch graduates from years. Texts describe the disease in India Prize, honoring him as one of the most
the University of Göttingen, 3,300 years ago and in China a millenni- effective warriors in humanity’s long
earning a degree in medicine. um later. In ancient Greece, Hippocrates fight to curb infectious diseases.
called it “the most considerable of the
1876 diseases which then prevailed.” In 1680 First Successes
Koch’s innovative work the English writer John Bunyan ranked Born in 1843 in Clausthal, a mining town
identifies the bacterium tuberculosis among other diseases as “the in Lower Saxony (now part of Germany),
responsible for anthrax, a captain of all these men of death.” Robert Koch was the third of 13 children.
serious infectious disease.
In 19th-century Europe and the Unit- He was a lively child, bright and curious.
1882 ed States, tuberculosis epidemics were At age five, he taught himself to read us-
raging, killing an estimated one out of ing newspapers left around the house.
In Berlin, Koch presents his seven people. Those infected seemed to Koch studied medicine at the Univer-
discovery of the tubercle waste away, as if consumed. “Consump- sity of Göttingen and earned his doctor-
bacillus and his scientific
testing methods. tion” so traumatized society that its rav- ate in 1866. He married in 1867 and
ages were featured in some of the great became a father in 1868, all while working
1905 works of art from the time, including in several hospitals. In 1870 he volun-
Puccini’s opera La Bohème, Fyodor teered as a surgeon in the German army
For his decades of contributions
to medicine and the study of Dostoyevsky’s novel Crime and Punish- during the Franco-Prussian War.
epidemiology, Koch wins the ment, and Edvard Munch’s painting “The When the war ended, Koch took up the
Nobel Prize. Sick Child.” post of district physician in what is today
The fight against tuberculo- Wolsztyn, Poland. His patients, many of
sis reached a turning point on them farmers, were dying from anthrax,
March 24, 1882, in a small meet- an illness that devastated their livestock;
ing room of the Berlin Physio- over the course of four years, 528 people
logical Society. A 38-year-old and 56,000 animals died in this district.

Koch’s career began with his

study of anthrax, a disease that
struck humans and livestock.
ROBERT KOCH’S MICROSCOPE, FROM HIS TIME IN WOLSZTYN, POLAND, CA 1872
AKG/ALBUM
 PROFESSIONAL
RIVALS
KOCH and the French biologist
Louis Pasteur clashed over the mer-
its of each other’s work. Both broke
significant new ground in the field
of epidemiology and enjoyed an
early cordial relationship. Compe-
tition between the two scientists
and their nations led to tension.
Nearly a decade after the Franco-
Prussian War (which France lost), a
translation error at an 1881 medical
congress worsened matters. In his
presentation, Pasteur referred to
Koch’s published studies as a recueil
allemand—a compilation of Ger-
man works. Pasteur’s phrase was
mistranslated for Koch as orgeuil
allemand—German arrogance. The
damage was done, but the rivalry
helped spur medical advances.
ROBERT KOCH PEERS INTO A MICROSCOPE IN
HIS LABORATORY AROUND 1900.
SÜDDEUTSCHE ZEITUNG PHOTO/AGE FOTOSTOCK

Despite the demands of a busy medical First, Koch visited anthrax-stricken To see if the bacteria were the cause of
practice, Koch made a makeshift labora- farms to observe the cows and sheep. He the illness, Koch devised his own testing
tory in his office and set out to solve the witnessed how a healthy animal would methods. First he soaked a wood splinter
anthrax riddle. die in a matter of days as its blood turned with an infected animal’s blood; then he
Koch’s work would draw on recent ad- into a blackish paste. People in close con- made a small incision at the base of a
vances made in the study of epidemiol- tact with sick cows and sheep also fell ill, mouse’s tail and inserted the splinter in-
ogy. One of Koch’s teachers at Göttingen, many dying of pneumonia. to the body. The next morning, the ro-
Friedrich Gustav Jacob Henle, argued in Examining drops of black blood from dents were dead. When Koch dissected
1840 that infectious diseases are caused dead cows under his microscope, Koch their bodies, he found the same micro-
by minute living organisms. In the early spotted structures shaped like thin grains scopic rodlike structures in their blood.
1860s, French biologist Louis Pasteur of rice, which blood from healthy animals Koch not only found that the rods did
proved that disease was transmitted by did not have. These germs were Bacillus play a key role in the disease’s progress;
these tiny germs. Identifying and isolat- anthracis, which had been first observed he also established that the bacteria-
ing the specific ones responsible for each in the 1850s but not scientifically proven laden blood could only infect new victims
disease, however, seemed a distant hope. as the organism that caused anthrax. for two days. Koch explored further and

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 9

PROFILES

THE RIDDLE OF
TYPHOID MARY
INVESTIGATING typhoid outbreaks
in Germany in 1902, Robert Koch
found that some people can carry
and spread infections without falling
ill. Perhaps the most famous of these
asymptomatic carriers was Mary
Mallon, a New York City cook in the
1900s whose wealthy clients fell ill
with typhoid (caused by Salmonella
typhi). After being identified as a car-
rier, Mallon was first quarantined and
released on the condition that she not
work in a kitchen. However, she did
return to work as a cook and infect-
ed more people; through two out-
breaks, Mallon infected as many as
51 people, of whom 3 died. Detained
a second time, Typhoid Mary, as she
was nicknamed, spent 21 years in a
sanatorium until her death in 1938.
MARY MALLON (CENTER) IN THE SANATORIUM
WHERE SHE SPENT THE LAST YEARS OF HER LIFE
SCIENCE SOURCE/ALBUM

was able to observe how the anthrax certain fields became ill while others did anthrax. One of the attendees enthused
bacilli pass through a life cycle when not. that Koch, despite his lack of academic
they are active and dormant. The rod- In 1876, after three years of painstaking training, “has done everything himself
shaped cells develop within themselves work, Koch shared his findings with Fer- . . . I regard this as the greatest discovery
spores that can lie dormant in soil for dinand Julius Cohn, Germany’s leading in the field of pathology.”While other
years. When the right conditions are in botanist, and colleagues at the Universi- scientists had pioneered germ theory,
place, they grow again into the deadly ty of Breslau. In three days of presenta- Koch’s identification of a specific bacte-
cells and infect creatures grazing there, tions, he laid out the complete life cycle rium as the cause of a disease launched
which explains why some animals in of the bacterium and proved it caused the field of medical bacteriology.

Finding the Culprit

In 1880 the German government opened
a new bacteriological research institute
BIDING ITS TIME in Berlin, and Koch was placed in charge.
Now with a fully equipped laboratory and
WHILE STUDYING anthrax, Koch detected shiny, skilled research assistants, he could bet-
bead-like spores in samples under his micro- ter control the conditions in his research
scope. Under certain conditions, the spores into infectious diseases. For instance, in
grew into the rodlike anthrax bacilli that cause the ensuing months, his team perfected
the disease. Such spores can survive in soil for his plate technique for generating pure
years before springing back to deadly life. cultures of bacteria, a key advance since
uncontaminated cultures could show
ANTHRAX BACILLI WITH THE SPORES COLORED IN RED
SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK that only the bacillus contained in them
caused a disease.

10 JULY/AUGUST 2021
 TUBERCULIN, developed by Koch in
1890, promised to be a single cure for
tuberculosis. Although the drug was
not successful, it is now used in testing
patients for the disease.
AKG/ALBUM

This technique was crucial in perhaps outbreaks of cholera. It had been known reduce its spread through improved hy-
the most important discovery of Koch’s that cholera spread through contaminat- giene, and to hasten the search for treat-
career: identifying the cause of tubercu- ed water, and Koch’s techniques were ments. Koch’s groundbreaking work also
losis. He began by obtaining a culture of able to isolate and identify the bacterium. resulted in valuable methodology that all
human tissue infected with tuberculosis. The bacteria Koch described as “a little scientists could employ. These rules,
Then he injected samples of the tissue bent, like a comma,” was later dubbed known as Koch’s postulates, provide a
into 217 animals. Not only did they sick- Vibrio cholerae. checklist in identifying bacterial patho-
en, but their infected tissue teemed with As well as tracking down the origins of gens. First, the germ must be found in
the same bacillus taken from the human deadly epidemics, Koch believed he could every case of the sickness. Next, a sample
tissue. The tubercle bacillus had been find cures. In 1890 he announced he had of the microorganism must be taken from
identified. found the cure for tuberculosis. He called an infected host and grown in a pure cul-
When Koch presented his findings to the drug tuberculin, a substance derived ture. Then, a healthy subject inoculated
the Berlin medical establishment in from tubercle bacilli. The news gave rise with this lab-grown bacterium must be-
March 1882, they were stunned by not to enormous hope around the world, but come ill with the same disease. Last, the
only Koch’s identification of the bacillus, tuberculin turned out to be a major dis- bacteria must be obtainable from the ex-
but also his technical advancements: the appointment. More than ineffective, it perimentally infected subject.
use of pure testing cultures; the new even contributed to the death of some In recognition of all his work, Koch was
methods of staining samples that made patients. To this day, no completely ef- awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology
bacteria easier to see and identify; and the fective vaccine for tuberculosis has been or Medicine in 1905. As Paul de Kruif
first photography of bacteria, which made found, but tuberculin has become a cru- notes in Microbe Hunters, Koch advanced
it possible to share and confirm results. cial part of testing for the disease. medicine from “foolish hocus-pocus” to
Koch continued his work to identify Koch’s legacy, however, was secure. “an intelligent fight where science in-
bacterial origins of diseases. In 1883 he By identifying the cause of tuberculosis, stead of superstition was the weapon.”
went to Egypt and then India to study he made it possible to diagnose it, to —Raul Rivas

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 11

DA I LY L I F E

The Hot Dog:

American Icon
It’s hard to imagine the United States without hot dogs,
perfect for baseball games and cookouts, but before
the industrial revolution, they were just a taste of the
old country for German immigrants in the 19th century.

H
ot dogs have been an icon- would become an American symbol.
ic American food for more Two main kinds of German sausage—
than a hundred years. The the frankfurter, a pork sausage from the
United States’ love affair Frankfurt region, and the wiener, a sausage
with this meal on a bun made with pork and beef from Vienna—
began sometime in the late 19th cen- conquered the American palate, accord-
tury. A few places across the United ing to Bruce Kraig, co-author with Patty
States claim to be the birthplace of the Carroll of Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Cul-
hot dog, and all trace their origins to ture in America. Kraig wrote: “They were
German immigrants and the preferred a tasty, portable, cheap meat protein on
sausages of their hometowns. the go. That’s American culinary culture
The sausage is at the heart of many right there.”
German cuisines. The central German
city of Weimar, for example, issued qual- Sausages, Buns, and Dogs
ity standards for its Thuringian sausage During the industrial revolution in the
in 1432. Consequently, when German im- States, the first steam-run meat grinders
migrants arrived in American cities in the were put into use in 1868. This technolo-
mid to late 19th century, especially in the gy industrialized production of sausages
Midwest, neighborhood butchers began and brought down prices, making the
churning out handmade sausages like the meat product more affordable. In cities and beer appealed to a mainly working-
ones back home. Sold locally in the 1850s with German enclaves, frankfurters and class clientele. In the late 1860s and early
and 1860s, those sausages were the pre- wieners were served at beer gardens, 1870s, popular entertainment in America
decessors of what whose festive atmosphere, hearty food, began to boom in the summer months,
as amusement parks, beaches, fairs, fes-
tivals, and baseball games filled with
people. German pushcart vendors were
VIENNA OR FRANKFURT? happy to sell affordable sausages to this
new market of young customers.
THE VIENNA WIENER, also called the weenie, was first Food historians like Kraig say there
made in Vienna in 1805 by Johann Georg Lahner, is no single person to credit for the in-
a German butcher from Frankfurt. Unlike the all- vention of the hot dog. The cuisine was
pork frankfurter, the Lahner wiener was the first to developing in different cities across the
combine pork and beef. United States around the same time, but
if the hot dog has a birthplace in terms
A NOVELTY TRADE CARD FOR TINNED, ALL-PORK FRANKFURTERS PRODUCED
BY HEINRICH BAUER OF FRANKFURT, GERMANY, CIRCA 1895 UIG/ALBUM of where it first achieved iconic status,
Coney Island is as close as it gets. Thanks
 HUNGRY CROWDS line the food counter
at Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island in
summer 1947. Beginning life as a hot
dog stand in 1916, Nathan Handwerker’s
enterprise would propel the hot dog to
gastronomic superstardom.
AL AUMULLER/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Most
to new railroad lines built in the late 19th
American Food
century, during the summer the Brook- GERMAN SAUSAGES received some bad press once they began
lyn neighborhood attracted legions of
New Yorkers of all social classes who
to be industrially produced in America in the 1860s to
strolled along the beaches and board- 1870s. In 1929 journalist H.L. Mencken called them “rubber,
walks. The hot dog vendor had the ideal indigestible pseudo-sausages,” or even worse, “a casing filled
market.
A native of Hanover, Charles Felt- with the sweeping of abattoirs.” reinforcing a sense of common
man owned a Brooklyn bakery in 1870 Hot dog historian Bruce Kraig identity. Even so, this homogenized
and is believed to have started out says that Americans of the late hot dog also allowed for individual
selling baked pies to Coney Island 19th century were suspicious of expression from region to region.
bathers and strollers. His customers the frankfurters hanging in shop According to Kraig: “You can
told him hot sandwiches would be easier windows of German butchers, argue the hot dog is the most
to eat than pies, so he had his cart adapted while the uniform factory-made American of foods, more so
to sell hot dogs tucked in long buns. hot dog seemed more American, than hamburgers and apple pie.”
The formula was a hit, allowing him
to open a seafood restaurant in 1871,

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 13

DA I LY L I F E

SAUSAGE AN EMPLOYEE of the

Chicago Armour
FACTORIES and Company
meatpacking firm
operates an industrial
THE MEAT INDUSTRY in the United grinder in 1893.
States underwent extensive devel- GRANGER/ALBUM

opment after the Civil War to meet

the demands of increasingly popu-
lated cities. Chicago, well connected
to cattle centers by rail, became the
heart of the industry. The meatpack-
ing giant Armour and Company was
founded in the city in 1867.

A MACHINE TO CUT HOT DOGS, IN USE

FROM AROUND 1890. LISZT COLLECTION
QUINTLOX/ALBUM

Feltman’s Ocean Pavilion, which catered eat their sausages. When no one returned the world’s largest hot dog enterprise and
to a wealthier clientele. Skeptics of this them, he asked his brother to make a sponsor of an annual hot dog eating con-
story point to the fact that articles found bun—and the hot dog roll was born. test, held every Fourth of July at Nathan’s
in the newspaper archives of the Brooklyn Other accounts have more historical on Coney Island.
Eagle suggest he never pedaled hot dogs grounding. Ignatz Fischmann has a strong The origins of the name “hot dog” are
along the boardwalk, although he did sell claim as inventor of the bun. An Austrian just as murky as the food itself. “Hot” is
them from a stand outside his restau- baker, his obituary in the Brooklyn Daily believed to have evolved from “red hot,”
rant. Tellingly, Feltman’s obituary in 1910 Times of March 7, 1904, credits him with either because of the heat to cook them
makes no mention of hot dogs. creating “the oblong roll that the frank- or their color; in the late 19th century,
Food historians like Kraig say there furter men needed in their business.” makers added red
is no single person to credit for the in- All these cooks built up the beginnings food coloring to
vention of the hot dog bun, either. In of hot dog culture, but it was a Polish im- make them look
Germany sausages were generally eaten migrant who first worked at Feltman’s “meatier.”
with bread on the side, never on a roll. that made it an icon: Nathan Handwerk-
Some food historians believe hot dog er, the founder of Nathan’s Famous, later
buns evolved from German weissbrot
(white bread) and adapted by German
bakers in America. The true origins of
One popular origin story (that has nev-
er been proven) involves Anton Feucht-
the name “hot dog”
wanger, a German immigrant who sold are just as murky as
hot snacks at the St. Louis World’s Fair the food itself.
in 1904 (in some versions of the story,
it’s the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair). He A MAN ENJOYS A HOT DOG AND A DRINK
reputedly gave customers white gloves to ON CONEY ISLAND IN 1936. GRANGER/ALBUM

14 JULY/AUGUST 2021
 A NEW YORK
street vendor
serves frankfurters
and lemonade at
his stand in 1926.
BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

A plausible explanation for “dog” is Hot Dog Variations the West Coast’s answer to Nathan’s,
the dachshund shape of the sausage. True to its German roots, the first hot claims to have invented the chili dog in
One popular tale recounts that cartoon- dogs in the United States were garnished 1939. The Seattle dog is slathered with
ist Thomas Aloysius “Tad” Dorgan heard with mustard or sauerkraut, or both. In cream cheese, while in the South locals
vendors shout “Get your red hot dachs- 1929 journalist H.L. Mencken called for swear by the slaw dog, with coleslaw, on-
hund sausages!” at the Polo Grounds more creativity. “The hot dog should be ion, and minced chili.
during a baseball game in 1906. Dorgan elevated to the level of an art form,” he Most recently, a hot debate over
then used “hot dog” in a cartoon because said. Little did he know how prescient whether a hot dog is a sandwich has
he allegedly could not spell dachshund. he would be. arisen, with experts weighing in on both
It is a nice story, but historians have The simple hot dog and bun have be- sides. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary
debunked it: No such drawing has been come a canvas for regional specialties. stated its position in 2016, declaring on
found, and “hot dog” already had ap- New York and Chicago switched to the its website that the hot dog is a sandwich,
peared a decade earlier. By 1894 college all-beef variety early in the 20th centu- defined as “two or more slices of bread or
publications at Yale may have been the ry, a trend driven by growing numbers of a split roll having a filling in between,”
first to jokingly call vendors’ carts “dog Jewish immigrants, whose faith forbids but the National Hot Dog and Sausage
wagons” that sold “little dogs,” or “hot pork. While New Yorkers stuck to the Council disagrees. It declared: “Limiting
dogs.” At the time, there was a popular classic preparation, Chicagoans innovat- the hot dog’s significance by saying it’s
belief that dog meat could turn up in sau- ed and made their hot dogs in a “garden ‘just a sandwich’ category is like calling
sages (not totally without reason), so the on a bun” style, including pickle relish, the Dalai Lama ‘just a guy.’”
Ivy League origins of the term are satir- tomatoes, and sport peppers.
ical, scholars say. The dog-meat rumor In Detroit and other parts of the Mid- —Juan José Sánchez
prompted the Coney Island Chamber of west, the Coney is top dog—served with Learn more
Commerce in 1913 to forbid vendors from beanless chili traditionally made with
using the term “hot dogs”—evidently beef heart, mustard, chopped onions, and BOOK
Man Bites Dog: Hot Dog Culture in America
without long-term success. shredded cheddar. In Los Angeles, Pink’s, Bruce Kraig and Patty Carroll, AltaMira Press, 2014.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 15

WORK OF ART

Eleanor of Toledo:
Power of a Portrait
Bronzino’s 16th-century portrait won the hearts and minds of Florentines who
were suspicious of a young duchess born in Spain and married to a Medici.

J
ewels dripping over her brocaded Decadent Details the duchess wears a golden net studded
gown, the serene Duchess of Flor- The portrait was created as part of a with pearls. A similar web covers her
ence sits with her young son in Medici campaign to win the affections shoulders, and strands of pearls encircle
this circa 1545 work by Florentine of Florence for the duchess. Some crit- her neck. Around her waist is a gold belt
artist Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano Tori, icized Eleanor’s foreign origins, and embedded with precious stones. The tex-
better known by the name Bronzino. Born Bronzino’s portrait of her is considered tures of her pale skin, the jewelry, and the
in Florence in 1503, Bronzino was one of a political statement that reflects and fabrics of her gown rendered in Bronzi-
the greatest practitioners of mannerism, accentuates the prosperity and political no’s controlled strokes and meticulous
an artistic movement that turned away stability that she brought to the Medici technique lend the work a sculptural
from the naturalism of High Renaissance dynasty in Florence. dimension typical of mannerism.
art to embrace a more formal, idealized In the work, Eleanor sits on a balcony Eleanor’s strategic choice of a gown
approach to its subjects. with son Giovanni at her side. Rosy- made of Florentine silk emphasizes her
His subject, Eleanor of Toledo (also cheeked Giovanni, the second son of the dedication to the local textile indus-
known as Leonor), was a wealthy Span- family, is the picture of health. Many try, which experienced a revival under
ish noblewoman with ancestral ties to art historians believe the child’s inclu- the leadership of the ducal couple. Her
the thrones of Spain and Portugal; she sion in his mother’s portrait emphasizes Spanish roots are indicated by means
married into the Medici family at age 17 Eleanor’s fertility. Since she has deliv- of the cut of her dress around the raised
when the new Duke of Florence, Cosimo I ered more than one heir to continue the neckline, which was the fashion of the
de’Medici, took her for his bride in 1539. lineage of Cosimo I, her role as mother Spanish court. The dress both nods to
The union began as a political match, will ensure future generations of Medici Eleanor’s heritage and proclaims her
but by all reports it became a loving part- leaders. While the composition may allegiance to Florence.
nership that lasted until Eleanor’s death seem that of a Madonna and Child, The duchess’s portrait succeeded in
in 1562. The two had 11 children, eight their expressions betray no emotion, gaining her more public acceptance
of whom survived infancy. During her true to the mannerist style. Their faces in Florence. The painting hangs today in
marriage, Eleanor was involved in civ- are as cool and calm as the blue sky in the Uffizi Gallery, at the heart of the city
ic life. Her husband treated her as an the background. that learned to embrace her.
adviser, leading historians to consider The rich details of Eleanor’s costume
her as an early model of a “first lady.” dominate the painting. Over her hair, —Monica Walker

the jewels Eleanor of Toledo wears in her portrait

were carefully selected to reflect her social status
and wealth. It is thought that the renowned
goldsmith Benvenuto Cellini created the intricate
gold belt that is embedded with precious stones and
ends with a pearl tassel. Eleanor proved to be an
excellent administrator of her extensive wealth; with
her resources she supported and promoted both
the Medici family and many of the most important
artists of the time.
ERICH LESSING/ALBUM

16 JULY/AUGUST 2021
“ELEANOR OF TOLEDO
WITH HER SON GIOVANNI”
BY BRONZINO, CIRCA 1545.
UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE
ERICH LESSING/ALBUM
INVENTIONS

Morse Code:
1844
Communication
Goes Electric
Scientific advances gave Samuel Morse and his collaborators SAMUEL MORSE, AMERICAN INVENTOR,
the opportunity to invent a faster form of long-distance com- PHOTOGRAPHED CIRCA 1840
ALAMY/CORDON PRESS
munication: the telegraph and its electronic alphabet.

L
ong-distance communication had communications could flow from Paris current, the needles could be pointed
been talked about for centuries to the far corners of the country in three around a panel of letters and numbers to
before Samuel Morse. English or four hours, much faster than the sev- spell out messages.
astronomer Robert Hooke was eral days it would take on horseback. In the United States, painter turned
the first to describe visual teleg- It was the first important step in the his- inventor Samuel Morse, working with
raphy in a speech to the Royal Society in tory of long-distance communication. Leonard Gale and Alfred Vail, took a
1684, referring to it as a “Method of dis- much simpler approach. Morse’s idea was
coursing at Distance, not by Sound, but Dots and Dashes to use a single wire to pass electric cur-
by Sight.” He was talking about sema- Visual telegraphy was replaced by rent through an electromagnet to trigger
phore, a messaging system that was final- electronic telegraphy thanks to two sci- a pencil on a receiver that would record
ly developed in 1794, thanks to the French entific developments. Italian physicist marks on paper. To render such markings
engineer Claude Chappe. Amid the tur- Alessandro Volta’s invention of the bat- useful, Morse devised a code. Originally,
moil of the French Revolution, with en- tery in 1800 allowed for reliable storage it consisted of numbers corresponding
emy forces advancing on its borders, the of electricity. The phenomenon of elec- to words in an English dictionary, but this
French government desperately needed tromagnetism was discovered by Danish cumbersome method didn’t work for
a fast and reliable communication system scientist Hans Christian Ørsted in 1820 proper names of people and places.
for its army. when he observed how an electric current Morse and Vail worked on an easier
Chappe’s semaphore consisted of running through a wire could move a way to code the transmitted messages.
movable wooden arms—a horizontal compass needle. Instead of groups of numerals represent-
beam and two vertical arms—that could In the 1830s two teams of researchers ing words, they decided to use combina-
be moved into nearly 200 standard incorporated both of those advances in tions of symbols made of dots and dash-
positions, each with an assigned mean- their pursuit of the electric telegraph. In es to represent letters and numbers. The
ing. From hilltop stations positioned as England, Sir William Cooke and Sir most common characters were assigned
far as 20 miles apart, messages were Charles Wheatstone started with a sys- the simplest combinations. For example,
read by telescope, then forwarded. tem of five magnetic needles (requiring the letter e is represented by a single dot
Using a network of 556 semaphores, five separate wires). Using an electric and t is one dash. (In 1848 German

“WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT” THE FIRST MESSAGE SENT IN MORSE CODE, MAY 1844
EDWARD LIND MORSE/NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY

18 JULY/AUGUST 2021
 MORSE CODE AND APPARATUS SHOWN ON A 19TH-
CENTURY PRINT. THE CODE SHOWN HERE IS THE
REVISED VERSION OF MORSE’S SYSTEM. CREATED
IN 1848, IT WAS LATER CALLED INTERNATIONAL
MORSE CODE. GRANGER/ACI

THE TELEGRAPH
TRANSMITTER USED BY
MORSE AND VAIL IN 1844
SCIENCE SOURCE/ALBUM

ELECTRONIC
ALPHABET
1832
During a boat trip, Samuel
Morse conceives the idea of the
electromagnetic telegraph after
talking with a passenger.

1837
Alfred Vail sees a demonstration
of the telegraph; he joins Morse
as a partner, providing financial
resources and mechanical skills.

1840
Morse obtains a patent for the
telegraph. Three years later, the
U.S. Congress funds the creation
of a 40-mile-long telegraph line.

1844
On May 24, Morse sends a
message by telegraph—“What
Friedrich Clemens Gerke would revise Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, Mary- hath God wrought”—the first
sent in Morse code.
Morse’s version, creating what became land. On May 24, 1844, Morse and his
known as International Morse code. It team transmitted the first telegraph mes-
would eventually replace Morse’s Amer- sage, quoting the biblical book of Num-
ican version.) bers: “What hath God wrought.” What
By mutual agreement Morse’s name took hours to communicate by semaphore,
ended up on all the patents. Vail, who re- would now take minutes by telegraph.
ceived a financial stake, played an im- The telegraph itself began to spread
portant, if not primary, role in revising quickly: Within a decade, more than
the original code. He also created an im- 23,000 miles of telegraph cable criss-
proved telegraph key in which brief crossed the United States. In 1856 West- ALFRED VAIL,
MORSE’S CLOSE
touches produced a dot, while longer ern Union began sending telegrams ASSOCIATE ON
ones yielded dashes. For his part, Gale across America that arrived in less than THE TELEGRAPH
PROJECT.
added a transmitting relay to extend the a day. In 1858 the first transatlantic cable 19TH-CENTURY
ILLUSTRATION
range of the telegraph signal. was laid stretching from Newfoundland, AKG/ALBUM
In 1843 Morse received $30,000 from Canada, to Ireland. The electronic infor-
the U.S. Congress to demonstrate the mation age had officially begun.
electric telegraph. The team set up a
40-mile telegraph line between —Alfonso López
 ADORING
AMUN SACRED RITUALS
AT KARNAK
For millennia, the temple complex at Karnak stood at the
spiritual center of Egypt, where priests performed sacred
rituals to honor Amun, the powerful god on whom the
pharaohs’ fortunes depended.

ELISA CASTEL
HOUSES OF THE HOLY
The Temple of Amun and its
surrounding structures bear the
marks of the pharaohs who built
them. The Great Hypostyle Hall
of Seti I and Ramses II (center) is
perhaps one of the most iconic.
KENNETH GARRETT
 E
TEMPLE very day at dawn more than This sacred space occupied the
COMPLEX 3,000 years ago, at the height Memphis northern part of the ancient city
Karnak’s sacred of Egypt’s New Kingdom, of Thebes. The modern name of
.
e R

spaces (above) the high priest of Amun, Karnak is derived from the Arabic
Nil

extend from its first Karnak

also called the “first prophet,” term meaning“fortified town,”but
RED

pylon all the way Temple

bathed in the sacred lake of the Temple Complex the ancient Egyptians called the
to the obelisk of
SEA

Hatshepsut. of Karnak at Thebes. Then, followed by site Ipet-Isut, meaning“chosen of

KENNETH GARRETT
THEBES
servants carrying trays of food, he would places.” Dominated by the temple
approach the naos, the shrine containing complexes of Amun, his consort,
a statue of Amun, Egypt’s state god. Mut, and their son, Khons, Karnak spreads
It was a tense moment: The god could strike across roughly 250 acres, comprising one of the
down the high priest. To avoid this fate, he would largest religious sites anywhere in the world.
deliver a series of prayers, humbling himself
before the god and praising Amun’s name. A New Dawn
These daily rituals continued for millenia in the Beginning in the 1800s, excavations at Kar-
hallowed halls of Karnak. nak revealed a rich repository of 2,000 years

ca 1870 b.c. 1493–1482 b.c. 1473-1426 b.c.

MAKING SENWOSRET I builds THUTMOSE I builds HATSHEPSUT builds
THEIR a chapel at Karnak, a site
already sacred to Amun.
pylons and a retaining
wall at Karnak. These
a red quartzite chapel to
house the sacred barks,
MARK The chapel will later works reflect the growing which her heir, Thutmose III,
be demolished, and its national importance of demolishes and replaces
stones repurposed. Thebes and Amun. with his own.

GOLDEN GOD. AMUN STATUE FROM KARNAK, TENTH TO EIGHTH

CENTURY B.C. METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
SCALA, FLORENCE
 GODS AND KINGS
In the Temple of Amun at Karnak,
the god Amun-Re wears a double
crown symbolizing Upper and
Lower Egypt. The god stands next
to a king, whose face is badly
damaged. Inscriptions identify
him as Ramses II, one of the many
pharaohs who built at Karnak.
SHUTTERSTOCK

1290-1213 b.c. 1104–1075 b.c.

SETI I begins the Great RAMSES XI rules as
Hypostyle Hall, consisting the last king of the New
of 134 pillars. He dies Kingdom. Instability will
before its completion, weaken Thebes, but Amun
leaving his son, Ramses II, will be worshipped there for
to complete it. many centuries to come.
 PHARAONIC
RENOVATIONS
many pharaohs who ruled during the New Kingdom based
their administration in Thebes and exercised power from 4 GREAT HYPOSTYLE HALL
there. As church and state were intertwined, Egyptian rulers Perhaps Karnak’s best known feature, this
expressed their piety by embellishing the Temple of Amun at massive hall was begun by Pharaoh Seti I
Karnak. The complex grew to include a porticoed courtyard, and finished by his son, Ramses II. The hall
a hypostyle hall, two small courtyards with obelisks, and was so large that some estimate that it could
the inner sanctum. The main axis of the temple accommodate Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral.
(shown here, facing roughly west to east)
was modified by pharaohs, who made both
their own additions and tore down their pre-
decessors’ monuments. Perhaps the most
egregious was Thutmose III, who leveled the
contributions to Karnak of his predecessor,
Hatshepsut. This renovation process contin-
ued past the time of the New Kingdom through
the reign of Taharqa in the seventh century b.c.
4
A LIBATION VESSEL, ENGRAVED WITH THE NAME
AMENEMOPE, A PRIEST OF AMUN. FAIENCE,
CIRCA 1193-1080 B.C. ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM, OXFORD
BRIDGEMAN/ACI

1 GREAT PYLON
This monumental gateway
into the temple was where
Amun’s statue would begin EW
S
:4 DN
sacred processions in a N : 3D
IO
AT
bark, carried by priests. U ST R
ILL
 6 FESTIVAL HALL
Built in the time of Thutmose III, this
space measured more than 130 by 250
feet with 20 columns supporting a ceiling
painted blue and decorated with stars to
resemble the night sky.

6
5

5 INNER SANCTUM
Within this chamber behind a sealed
door was housed the sacred statue of
Amun, which was often stored within
a hollowed-out niche in a monolithic
block of stone.

3 GREAT COURT
This area of the temple complex contains
one of its most recent additions. The
Nubian pharaoh Taharqa built a central
kiosk of two rows of five columns in the
seventh century b.c.

2
2 RESTING PLACES
Circa 1200 b.c., Seti II erected a chapel (far
left), and a few decades later Ramses III
built another one across the Great Court.
The barks carrying likenesses of the gods
would rest in these spaces during rites.
HATSHEPSUT’S LIKENESS ON A
KARNAK RELIEF WAS DEFACED,
MOST LIKELY ON THE ORDERS OF
HER HEIR, THUTMOSE III.
TIMOTHY HELLUM/ALAMY/ACI

of Egyptian history. A shrine to the god Amun ancient Egypt, Thebes also became a spiritual
was first built at the site around 2000 b.c. More center focused on the worship of Amun. One
than a century later Pharaoh Senwosret I built a powerful pharaoh after another left their mark
jubilee shrine there, a sign of the site’s increasing on the temple complex at Karnak, and sacred
significance. Nevertheless, it took a major politi- rituals developed to ensure divine favor for the
cal shift to exalt Amun to the most important pharaoh, and the protection of the state.
god of the Egyptian pantheon. One of the most important rites was a pro-
In the middle of the second cession centered on the sacred boat (or bark) of
millennium b.c., a long period of Amun. A female pharaoh, Hatshepsut (ca 1508-
disunity came to an end in Egypt. 1458 b.c.), created major structures there that
The Theban pharaoh Ahmose I served as both her living quarters and a shrine
expelled an occupying people for the sacred barks. Her heir, Thutmose III,
known as the Hyksos around built the temple’s sacred lake as well as reliefs
1539 b.c., reuniting Upper depicting plants brought back from his imperial
and Lower Egypt under the expansion into Syria.
same crown for the first During the 19th dynasty in the 13th cen-
time in a century. He be- tury b.c., more massive monuments rose to the
came the first king of the west of Hatshepsut’s complex, crowned by the
so-called 18th dynasty, who mighty Great Hypostyle Hall with its 134 col-
ruled their kingdom from umns. These works were begun by Seti I and
Thebes. completed by his son Ramses II.
As political and spiritual
power were closely linked in A Living Temple
Amun first emerged as a lesser god to a Theban
AANEN, SECOND PRIEST OF AMUN, SERVED creation deity. His name means “the hidden
DURING THE REIGN OF AMENHOTEP III. 14TH- one,”and his divine dominion was rather open-
CENTURY B.C. STATUE. EGYPTIAN MUSEUM,
TURIN, ITALY ALAMY/ACI ended. Historians theorize that this enabled him
SACRED WATERS
First excavated during Thutmose III’s
reign, the sacred lake at Karnak
provided a place where priests of
Amun would bathe themselves
before their daily rituals.
JANE SWEENEY/AWL IMAGES
MYTHS AND COLUMNS
Decorated with reliefs, the
columns in Karnak’s Great
Hypostyle Hall were built by
Seti I and his son Ramses II in
the 13th century b.c. They echo a
creation myth, in which a papyrus
grove grows around an island
that emerged from Nun, the
primordial sea.
J. BANKS/AWL IMAGES
AMUN ACROSS
THE CENTURIES
THE EGYPTIAN MUSEUM of Berlin holds three papyri from Karnak that
contain valuable details about the cult of Amun and his consort Mut
and son Khons. The documents date to the beginning of the 10th cen-
tury b.c. and are written in hieratic script
(a simplified hieroglyphic writing), using
black ink with red headings. Arranged in
37 columns, the ritual related to Amun is
divided into 66 stages, with a title, an ex-
planation of the rite’s purpose, and prayers
and recitations. At Abydos, the Temple
of Seti I has scenes from the daily offer-
ing ritual that date to the 13th century b.c.
Although the Abydos depictions are not ROYAL
identical to those from Karnak, they ap- OFFERING
pear to have the same intentions. Even A relief from the
though three centuries separate these temple of Pharaoh
Seti I at Abydos
writings, remarkable consistency is shown (left) shows the
across time. sovereign making
offerings to the
god Amun.
SHUTTERSTOCK

to embody more aspects of creation and absorb worked at Karnak, consisting of an elite priest-
different divine characteristics. This ability to hood and servants. Some of the rituals were per-
adapt allowed him to rise to the head of the local formed during annual rituals such as the Opet
pantheon in Thebes, where he was worshipped festival, in which the bark of Amun was taken
with his consort, Mut, and their son, Khons. upriver to the Temple of Luxor.
As he acquired greater national power, Amun Other rituals had to be performed daily and
was incorporated into a parallel triad, consist- were thought essential for maintaining cosmic
ing of the solar deity Re—with whom he is of- order. These included the daily offering ritual,
ten combined as Amun-Re—and the creator detailed in the papyri manuscripts from the 10th
god, Ptah. Nurtured through the dark days of century b.c., now held by the Egyptian Museum
the Hyksos occupation of Lower Egypt, his cult of Berlin. Although the rites described in the
rose in tandem with papyri date to circa 1539 b.c., they are likely to be
the fortunes of Thebes similar to those performed in the time of Seti I
at the dawn of the New and Ramses II in the 13th century b.c. when
Kingdom. As the The- Egypt was at the height of its imperial power.
ban pharaohs became The Berlin Papyri recount how, having bro-
increasingly powerful, ken the clay seal, the first prophet opened the
Amun gained suffi- naos containing the statue of Amun, prostrated
cient stature to become himself, and kissed the ground. Then he reas-
Egypt’s supreme deity. sured the god that nothing had been stolen from
By the end of the him, and no mischief had occurred:“Hail to you,
New Kingdom, sev- Amun-Ra, Lord of the thrones of the Two Lands.
eral thousand people I have done nothing with your secretions, I have
not removed your dignity; I have not shaped your
DIVINE OFFERINGS. PAPYRUS, skin for another God.”
10TH CENTURY B.C. BRITISH
MUSEUM, LONDON
The priests would present trays of food to
RMN/GRAND PALAIS Amun, including such offerings as fresh fruit,

30 JULY/AUGUST 2021
BARK SHRINES
Pharaoh Seti II erected this triple
chapel in the first courtyard of the
Karnak temple to house the sacred
barks of Amun, Mut, and Khons,
the Theban triad.
ROB COLE/ALAMY/ACI
RITES AND
RESPONSIBILITIES
THE PRIESTS at the Temple of Amun at Karnak were
responsible not only for the sacred ceremonies in hon-
or of Amun and his family, but also for civic duties.
Ramessenakht, a first prophet of Amun who lived
toward the end of the 20th dynasty, is represented
as the largest figure in a black granite statue (right)
who presents the holy family. In addition to these
pious duties, Ramessenakht was heavily involved
in other aspects of state power: Records attest
he led a complex and lucrative quarrying expedi-
tion to the desert. His sons, also high priests at
Karnak, were closely involved in administrat-
ing royal lands and the taxation system. The
growing power of the priests of Amun led to a
growing crisis in Thebes; by the end of the 20th
dynasty in 1075 b.c., the power of the priests
would outstrip that of the pharaohs, precipitat-
ing the end of the New Kingdom.
SCALA, FLORENCE

poultry and beef, legumes, breads, water, milk, tensions grew among different powerful fac-
wine, beer, and honey. Amun, it was believed, tions. Following Ramses II and his immediate
later consumed the food’s essence. Each day, heirs and successors, succession crises weak-
the statue would be adorned with garments. In ened the New Kingdom and Theban rule. Part
the mornings, priests would remove the prior of this process was hastened by a power struggle
day’s clothing and then replace them with new between the pharaohs and the Amun priesthood
attire. at Karnak, who started to intervene more and
Reliefs on the walls of the temple at Karnak more in the secular affairs of state.
include depictions of the statue’s clothes in After Ramses XI died in 1075 b.c., Egypt en-
the form of linen bindings of different colors: tered a 400-year era of instability, now called
white as an emblem of purity; blue represent- the Third Intermediate Period. During the 21st
ing water and sky; green for health and vitality; dynasty, power shifted to the city of Tanis in
and red for blood and strength. As well as the northern Egypt.
linen robe, the priest applied makeup and per- Pharaohs would, nevertheless, continue to
fume and adorned the statue with gold neck- build new structures at Karnak. The last was
laces, pectorals, and bracelets from Karnak’s raised in the seventh century b.c. by Pharaoh
treasury, as well as the divine insignia. Taharqa of the 25th dynasty. Even after this last
After Amun had been fed and clothed and major addition, the worship of Amun would en-
the proper prayers uttered, the naos would be dure for centuries more at the ancient temple.
resealed. Facing forward so as not to turn his The cult would only formally end in the fourth
back to Amun, the first prophet walked backward century a.d., when Roman emperors ordered the
toward the exit, sweeping the floor as he went, closing of pagan temples, bringing to an end a
to erase any footprints he may have left. pattern of worship that had lasted for more than
two millennia.
Priests Versus Pharaohs
The cult of Amun had risen with the New King-
EGYPTOLOGIST ELISA CASTEL RESEARCHES AND WRITES ON
dom and would later factor in its decline as EGYPTIAN MYTHOLOGY AND WRITING SYSTEMS.

32 JULY/AUGUST 2021
AVENUE OF AMUN
The ram was sacred to Amun, who
was sometimes depicted with a
ram’s head. These ram-headed
sphinxes line an approach to his
temple at Karnak.
SHUTTERSTOCK
PICTURE PERFECT
Hannibal’s invasion of Italy after
crossing the Alps has long been a
popular subject for artists. 16th-
century fresco, Jacopo Ripanda,
Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome
DAGLI ORTI/AURIMAGES
HANNIBAL’S ALPINE ASSAULT

WAR ELEPHANTS
OF CARTHAGE
Carthaginian leader Hannibal marched war
elephants over the Alps, a feat that earned
him eternal fame, but using elephants in
military campaigns has a long history that
goes back to the time of Alexander the Great.

FERNANDO QUESADA SANZ

R
omans and Carthaginians had long been at odds with each
other, but Rome grew comfortable with the protection of
their powerful navy and the sea that separated the two
lands. In late 218 b.c. came news that made Italy shudder:
Led by the brilliant Hannibal, the Carthaginians were on
the march. Thousands of troops had crossed the Mediterranean
and marched over the Alps, bringing war elephants with them.
After arriving in northern Italy, Hannibal scored and rent temples . . . and mounted by trained
some notable victories but eventually was de- warriors skilled in fight, followed the king like
feated. Rome’s forces were able to drive the huge, moving hills.”
Carthaginians from Italy, but Hannibal’s war One of the earliest encounters between Eu-
elephants left a deep impression on the Roman, ropeans and war elephants took place during
and later European, imaginations. Alexander the Great’s final campaigns. The
First-century a.d. historian Livy wrote in his Indian king Porus and his war elephants met
history of Rome of the impact of the beasts on Alexander’s forces at the Battle of the Hydas-
the Gallic tribes who tried to harry Hannibal’s pes in 326 b.c. Writing centuries later, Roman
columns as they headed into the Alps:“The en- historian Quintus Curtius wrote of the intimi-
emy were terrified by the elephants’strange ap- dating spectacle of “elephants of extraordinary
pearance, and never dared to approach the part strength of body [which] when they were pur-
of the column in which they were stationed.” posely irritated, wearied the ears with their hid-
eous trumpeting.”Porus himself, Curtius wrote,
The First War Elephants “was mounted on an elephant towering above
The potential for pachyderms not just to carry the rest of the brutes.”
and lift but also to fight is first attested in Syr- Alexander never employed elephants in battle,
ian sources from 1500 b.c., although the practice but his successors did. The Ptolemies in Egypt
could be older. Elephants were also trained and and the Seleucids in the Middle East sourced
used by the Shang dynasty, which dominated their war elephants from India. This practice
China for much of the second millennium b.c. was in turn adopted by their allies as well as their
Some of the most vivid accounts of elephants enemies in the region.
on the front line are found in the Sanskrit epic Pyrrhus, the Hellenist ruler of Epirus (modern
Mahabharata, set in India during the tenth to Albania), a land that enjoyed a brief flush of re-
eighth centuries b.c. It describes an army con- gional power at the start of the third century b.c.,
sisting of “infuriate elephants of terrible mien, used elephants in his army. They were deployed
with shapely tusks against Rome when he invaded southern Italy in

BEASTS 326 b.c. 280-279 b.c.

OF
Alexander the Great faces Pyrrhus, king of Epirus,
King Porus’s war elephants defeats Roman legions
in India. Military use of on Italian soil using war
WAR elephants will later spread
to the Mediterranean.
elephants in the battles of
Heraclea and Asculum.

ASIAN WAR ELEPHANT, GILDED SILVER PLAQUE, FROM IRAN, THIRD-SECOND CENTURY B.C.
HERMITAGE MUSEUM, SAINT PETERSBURG THE STATE HERMITAGE MUSEUM/V. TEREBENIN
 FIRST ENCOUNTER
The Indian king Porus and his elephants
nearly defeated Alexander the Great at
the Battle of the Hydaspes in 326 b.c.
20th-century painting, Tom Lovell
TOM LOVELL/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC IMAGE COLLECTION

264-241 b.c. 238 b.c. 218 b.c. 202 b.c.

In the First Punic War, Carthaginian general The Second Punic War Expelled from Italy,
fought with Rome in a Hamilcar Barca challenges begins over control of Iberia. Hannibal deploys 80
struggle to control Sicily, Rome by brandishing Hamilcar’s son Hannibal elephants in the Battle of
Carthage regularly deploys his forces, including war leads elephants over the Zama near Carthage but is
war elephants. elephants, in Iberia. Alps to invade Italy. decisively defeated.
Charging Known as the First Punic War, the struggle
Against Rome for Sicily that began in 264 b.c. also involved
elephants. Drawing on sizable African elephant

W
HEN CITIZENS of the Greek colony of Tarentum populations from the Atlas Mountains near Car-
in southern Italy faced attack from Rome, thage, the Carthaginians were well placed to put
they called Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to their aid. them to fighting use. According to the histo-
Landing in Italy in 280 b.c., Pyrrhus engaged rian Appian and the geographer Strabo, in the
with the Romans at Heraclea. It was the first time the Ro- third century b.c. the walled city of Carthage
man legions had encountered elephants in battle. The 20 or contained stables for 300 elephants. As fight-
so huge animals frightened the Roman horses, sowed panic ing began, the Carthaginians brought elephants
among the ranks, and handed Pyrrhus a victory. across the Mediterranean to Sicily and deployed
them against the Romans at the Battle of Agri-
gentum in 261 b.c.
As both sides slugged it out on land, the Roman
state was building a navy to break Carthaginian
naval power. When the Roman consul Marcus
Atilius Regulus made the bold move of landing
in Africa at the beginning of 256 b.c., it looked
like the end of the war: Carthage, overwhelmed,
sued for peace. But then, outraged by the Ro-
mans’ conditions, the Carthaginians decided
to fight on under the command of the Spartan
mercenary, Xanthippus.
The Carthaginians’ elephants proved to be
highly effective at the Battle of the Bagradas
in 255 b.c. Along with Livy, much of the infor-
PYRRHUS’S ELEPHANTS IN HERACLEA. OIL ON BOARD, KONSTANTIN KONSTANTINOVICH
FLEROV, 1942, STATE DARWIN MUSEUM, MOSCOW AGE FOTOSTOCK mation historians draw on of the Punic wars
was written down by the second-century b.c.
Greek historian Polybius. He recounts how the
Carthaginian general Hamilcar Barca, father
of Hannibal, placed his elephants at the front
A BIG IMPRESSION 280 b.c. Pyrrhus scored early victories against of his cavalry. Having tricked the Romans into
Romans depicted the Romans but sustained heavy losses. He breaking rank, a section of the Roman infantry
elephants on their abandoned the fight against Rome and turned line “were trampled to death by the elephants.”
money, like the aes his attention to Sicily, where Carthage had Back in Sicily, both sides continued their
signatum, a bronze
ingot used as currency established a strong foothold, much to the dis- struggle for control of the island, where the
(below), which was may of Greek colonists living there. Romans were steadily advancing. The Car-
minted in the early thaginians deployed a large force of fighting
third century b.c. British The First Punic War elephants in Panormus (Palermo) in 250 b.c.,
Museum, London
BRITISH MUSEUM/SCALA, FLORENCE
Sicily had been controlled by Greece for cen- but the Romans managed to panic the animals,
turies, but Carthage (modern Tunis in North who then trampled Carthaginian troops. Many
Africa) had gained control of part of the island. beasts were captured and later displayed in a
Pyrrhus invaded and controlled triumphal procession in Rome.
Sicily for a short time before
being ousted. Rome moved in Carthage Comeback
to the former Greek portions The First Punic War ended with the defeat of
of the island in the third cen- the Carthaginians, and the rise of Rome as the
tury b.c. The Greek colonists naval power of the western Mediterranean. The
were starting to accept Roman Carthaginians had to not only surrender Sicily
control, but the Carthaginians to the Romans but also face their own rebel-
(known in Latin as Punics) were lious mercenaries in a bloody civil war. State
very much against it. war elephants were deployed in several battles

38 JULY/AUGUST 2021
EARLY BATTLES
The Temple of Concordia still stands in
Agrigentum (present-day Agrigento),
Sicily, where the first pitched battle
of the First Punic War took place. The
Carthaginians employed war elephants
but were defeated by Rome.
DAGLI ORTI/AURIMAGES
ELEPHANTINE
DEBATES
HISTORIANS ARE NOT SURE what kind of elephants
Hannibal took over the Alps. Currently, three spe-
cies are recognized: the Asian elephant (Elephas
maximus), the African savanna elephant (Loxodonta
africana), and the African forest elephant (Loxodonta
cyclotis). At a maximum height of 13 feet, the African
savanna elephant is the tallest, while the forest el-
ephant is the smallest. The Seleucids in Syria, along
with Indian and Persian generals, used Asian war
elephants, while the Ptolemies and Carthaginians in
Africa likely used African savanna elephants.

THE QUESTION of who used what kind of elephant .

became confused in ancient sources: In describing
a battle, historian Polybius claims the Ptolemies’ Af-
rican elephants were afraid of the Seleucids’ bigger
animals, which flies in the face of current biology. AN AFRICAN ELEPHANT IN A SECOND-CENTURY B.C. MOSAIC FROM UTHINA (PRESENT-DAY
OUDNA, IN TUNISIA). BARDO MUSEUM, TUNISIA
Some historians have argued that Polybius’s smaller ALBUM

elephants could have been African forest elephants,

even though their habitat is very far from North Af-
rica. Another theory is that both Ptolemies and
Carthaginians used a smaller local elephant
species that has since become extinct.

HANNIBAL, its most likely, brought either

savanna, forest, or the smaller, extinct
elephants over the Alps. There is,
however, one possible piece of evi-
dence that points in another direc-
tion: Hannibal’s personal elephant
was called Surus, possibly meaning
“the Syrian.” If so, this creature was
perhaps an Asian elephant.

AFRICAN FOREST ELEPHANT

Loxodonta cyclotis
Males can reach a shoulder height
of more than nine feet. African forest
elephants dwell in the rainforests of
central and western Africa. Because
of habitat loss, their populations are
classified as critically endangered.
SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK
ASIAN ELEPHANT
Elephas maximus
An endangered species owing to
poaching and habitat loss, Asian
elephants stand as tall as 10 feet
and weigh more than five tons.
Wild populations live in forested
areas across Asia, including
India, Myanmar, Thailand,
Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos.
SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK

AFRICAN SAVANNA ELEPHANT

Loxodonta africana
Standing up to 13 feet tall at the
shoulder and weighing as much
as seven tons, the African savanna
elephant is Earth’s biggest land creature.
Populations of this endangered species
can be found today in areas of sub-
Saharan, central, and eastern Africa.
SPL/AGE FOTOSTOCK
 He founded the city of Akra Leuka (Alicante)
while Hasdrubal the Fair founded Qart Hadasht
(Cartagena).
Hamilcar was killed in action in 228 b.c., and
his son-in-law in 221 b.c. After their deaths,
Hamilcar’s sons would carry forward the mis-
sion: Hasdrubal Barca inherited a wealthy Ibe-
rian base from which to newly engage Rome in
war, and Hannibal was made supreme com-
mander in Iberia at age 26.
From the beginning to the end of his career,
Hannibal relied on war elephants. They par-
ticipated in one of his earliest victories, de-
stroying a Celtic force crossing the Tagus River.
Polybius describes the scene: “For when [the
Celts] attempted to force a crossing at several
points of the river at once, the greater number
of them were killed as they left the water by the
elephants, who marched up and down along the
bank and caught them as they were coming out.”

Hannibal’s War
Hannibal’s decisive victory over the Celtic
stronghold of Saguntum in eastern Spain in
THE CROSSING OF THE ALPS BY HANNIBAL’S
219 b.c. consolidated his grip on the peninsula
ELEPHANTS HAS INSPIRED ALL KINDS OF and signaled to the Romans that he was now
REPRESENTATIONS, INCLUDING THIS FANCIFUL
INTERPRETATION IN PASTEL BY 20TH- a major threat. The Second Punic War would
CENTURY ARTIST RAYMOND SHEPPARD. soon begin, and Hannibal decided to take it to
SCALA, FLORENCE
the heart of the Roman state.
Leaving his brother Hasdrubal Barca with a
smaller force of elephants to keep the peoples of
LONE RIDER commanded by Hamilcar Barca. The revolt was Iberia under control, in 218 b.c. he set out from
A Carthaginian silver finally quelled in 238 b.c. A year later, Carthage Cartagena on his long march to invade Italy with
coin (below) was lost its possessions on the island of Sardinia to at least 50,000 men, including Numidian troops,
minted in Iberia when an ever more emboldened Rome. and 37 elephants. After crossing the Ebro River,
Hannibal became
commander there, Determined to challenge Rome’s western ad- and then the Pyrenees, his army, horses, mules,
around 221-218 b.c. It vance and rebuild Carthage’s fortunes, Hamilcar and elephants crossed the mouth of the Rhône
depicts a long-tusked Barca went west with his son-in-law Hasdrubal River, west of modern-day Marseille, by raft.
African elephant with the Fair along the coast of North Africa. At the These feats paled in comparison to the cross-
a sole rider. Strait of Gibraltar, he transported his army ing of the Alps in fall 218 b.c. As Livy recounts,
ORONOZ/ALBUM
and war elephants across to Cádiz in Iberia. the sheer size of the mountains awed them:
Historians are unsure as to whether he
brought the elephants with him from The dreadful vision was now before their eyes:
Carthage, or whether he procured The towering peaks, the snow-clad pinnacles
the beasts later. soaring to the sky, the rude huts clinging to the
Hamilcar’s objective was clear: rocks, beasts and cattle shriveled and parched
He wanted to make the Iberian with cold, the people with their wild and ragged
Peninsula a new, western bas- hair, and all nature—animate and inanimate—
tion against Rome. Hamilcar stiff with frost . . .
used his war elephants to sub-
due the Celtic tribes living there The nine-day ascent was grueling. Local tribes-
and build up reserves of silver. men attacked them from the rear, and in the
 CARTHAGINIANS WRANGLE
ELEPHANTS ACROSS THE RHÔNE
RIVER ON RAFTS, ONE OF SEVERAL
LOGISTICALLY FRAUGHT OPERATIONS
THEY UNDERTOOK ON THEIR
JOURNEY TOWARD THE ALPS.
20TH-CENTURY WATERCOLOR, PETER
CONNOLLY
AKG/ALBUM

THE LONG
Hannibal’s March SWITZ.
P
S
AUST.

SLOV.
HUNG.
SERB.
MARCH

I
218 B.C. to 202 B.C. F R ANCE
L CROATIA

Route of Hannibal A Placentia N LATE SPRING 218 B.C. Hannibal,

A
P Metaurus BOSN. &
Roman territory, 218 B.C.
Arles Trebbia
E (207 B.C.) HERZG. at least 50,000 troops, and 37 el-
Rhône

(218 B.C.) (218 B.C.) Ad

Carthaginian territory, 218 B.C. ephants set off from Cartagena on
N

ria
IN

Battle tic
ES

Ebr PY REN Lake Trasimeno Se a 1,000-mile trek across the Alps to

o EES Massilia (217 B.C.) a
(Marseille) IT AL Y
Corsica Rome Cannae the plains of northern Italy. In addition
(216 B.C.)
to the grueling mountain passage, the
L

Capua
UGA

Tarentum five-month journey required the ford-

(212 B.C.)
PORT

SP AI N Saguntum Sardinia Tyrrhenian Croton

ing of men, supplies, and elephants
Sea across two major rivers, the Ebro and
Alicante the Rhône. Historians are certain that
e a Panormus Rhegium
n e a n S (Palermo) Sicily Syracuse
Qart Hadasht
(Cartagena) t e r r a Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees at the
Cádiz
d i Carthage Col du Perthus, where a highway links
M e Zama
Caesarea
Tingis (202 B.C.) France with Spain today. Despite nu-
Rusaddir 0 100 mi
T UNI S IA merous theories proposed over the last
AL G ERI A 0 100 km
MOR OC CO
Present-day country boundaries century, his exact Alpine route remains
and names shown in gray
a matter of heated debate.

NG MAPS
Elephant victory against the Romans at Lake Trasimeno

Endgame at Zama in 217 b.c. When the Battle of Cannae took place
in southeast Italy the following year—in which

I
Hannibal butchered the Roman troops—he no
N 202 B.C. HANNIBAL suffered a devastating defeat at the
longer had any of his original elephants left, al-
Battle of Zama in North Africa, which ended the Second Pu-
though in the course of his long campaign in It-
nic War. According to Livy, Hannibal had war elephants. As
aly, he acquired more. Some of these came from
intimidating as they might have looked, the elephants not
his brother Hasdrubal, who himself crossed the
only were of no use to him but also likely made matters worse.
From the beginning of the battle, the cacophony from the Ro- Alps in spring 207 b.c. with war elephants from
mans’ horns and trumpets panicked the beasts, who turned Spain, a feat that has excited less attention from
on the Carthaginian troops. The Roman legionaries then historians, partly because he benefited from the
put into practice the strategy devised by their leader, Scipio trail his brother had already blazed.
Africanus the Elder. They opened up corridors in their for- Military historians question the efficacy of
mations and when Hannibal’s and Hasdrubal’s elephants in Italy.
the elephants As an experienced general, Hannibal knew that
passed through, they could be decisive as weapons against in-
they wounded experienced troops, with the same destructive
them with spears. potential as modern tanks. The brothers also
The injured ani- knew all too well that the beasts could panic and
mals then crashed trample anyone in their path, including their
back through their handlers. To avert this, Hasdrubal employed a
own lines, wreak- technique in which an elephant that seemed to
ing havoc. be turning violent would be killed with a chisel
blow to the back of the neck.
THE ROUT OF THE
CARTHAGINIAN ELEPHANTS “Scuttling”their own elephants was a feature
AT ZAMA. 16TH-CENTURY in the brothers’ catastrophic 207 b.c. defeat at
TAPESTRY, ROYAL PALACE
MADRID ALBUM the Battle of the Metaurus. Livy describes what
happened: “As the conflict and the shouting
increased, the elephants were no longer un-
der control and roamed about between the two
battle-lines, as though uncertain to whom they
LAST LEG confusion, Hannibal lost many mules and horses, belonged, not unlike ships drifting without
A bronze elephant leg some falling from the precipices. their steering-oars.”
remnant of a third- Having rallied his men at the sight of Italy Hasdrubal was killed in the fray, leaving the
century b.c. Sicilian lying below them, the cavalcade started to de- Carthaginian campaign in ruins. After holding
statue (below) is almost
life size. Museum of the scend, but a landslide blocked the track, mak- out for four more years, in 203 b.c. Hannibal
Dancing Satyr, Mazara ing it impassable for the elephants. In freez- fled by sea for Carthage, where the Romans
del Vallo, Sicily ing conditions, Hannibal’s troops widened the pursued him. Despite deploying 80 elephants at
BRITISH MUSEUM/SCALA, FLORENCE
path. Polybius writes: “After three days of this the final Battle of Zama in 202 b.c., Hannibal’s
effort he succeeded in getting his elephants troops were doomed when they lost control of
across, but they were in a miserable condition the elephants who turned on them.
from hunger.” The brilliant general whose rise in Spain
They arrived on the plain of Italy five months was helped by these animals was brought low
after setting out from Iberia. Half of Hannibal’s by them in a last, decisive defeat. The Second
troops had perished, according to Polybius. It Punic War was over. Carthage’s imperial power
is not clear how many elephants survived, but was crushed, and Iberia fell under Roman rule,
it was recorded that, following his victory over paving the way for Roman domination of the
the Romans at Trebbia in December, only one entire Mediterranean.
elephant was left: Hannibal’s personal mount,
Surus. Atop this last surviving elephant and
ailing with an infection that later led to the
FERNANDO QUESADA SANZ IS PROFESSOR OF ARCHAEOLOGY
loss of an eye, Hannibal pulled off a resounding AT THE AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF MADRID.
RUINS OF AN EMPIRE
The ruins of Roman-era
Carthage overlook the
Mediterranean near the
modern-day capital of Tunis,
in Tunisia, North Africa.
The Carthaginian city was
destroyed by the Romans in
the second century b.c. and
later rebuilt as a Roman colony.
CHARLES BOWMAN/ALAMY
A female war elephant and her calf
grace this ceramic plate from Capena,
Italy. Dated to around 275 b.c., it is
believed to commemorate a Roman
victory over the army of Pyrrhus that
had invaded Italy with around 20
war elephants in 280 b.c. National
Etruscan Museum, Rome
BRIDGEMAN/ACI
 A TOWERING
MYSTERY
the elephants used by Pyrrhus during his in- elephants presented from a distance the appear-
vasion of Italy (280-275 b.c.) were likely ance of forts.”
to have carried crenellated towers on
their backs occupied by fighters. The classicist and military historian Dr. Philip
plate (above) in the National Etrus- Rance has attempted to solve the mystery by
can Museum of Villa Giulia, in Rome, focusing on language. He examined an ancient
shows one such tower-equipped Greek word meaning “turret” that appears in the
elephant, and other examples can be Suda, a 10th-century a.d. Byzantine encyclopedia
found in figurines in the Louvre Muse- that has preserved fragments of lost and par-
um in Paris, as well as in the Naples National tial texts. Rance found that the word was being
Archaeological Museum (left). Imagery of Asian used expressly in connection with Hannibal’s el-
war elephants from India and Iran often feature ephants and believes that the quotation comes
these structures as well. from the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus and ul-
timately from Sosylus, the Greek chronicler who
there is, however, a debate as to whether accompanied Hannibal on his campaigns in the
Carthage’s elephants ever bore towers. Cartha- third century b.c. If so, it seems likely that tow-
ginian silver coins, minted in what is today Spain, ers with combatants in them were sometimes—
show elephants with single riders and no towers. but not always—placed on the war elephants in
Even so, written sources contradict this conclu- Hannibal’s army. Unfortunately, the Suda does
WAR ELEPHANT FIGURINE, FOUND IN THE HOUSE OF sion, including the historian Livy, describing the not reveal the type of elephant on which this
MARCO PUPIUS RUFUS, POMPEII, FIRST CENTURY B.C. Roman-Carthaginian Battle of Ilipa (206 b.c.): “The structure was mounted.
NATIONAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL MUSEUM, NAPLES
SCALA, FLORENCE
NATIONAL
HEROES
For nearly 2,000
years, the Trung
sisters and their
elephants have been
popular subjects
in Vietnamese
art, like this 1999
embroidery from
Tam Coc, Vietnam.
HALIA TRAN-ADAMS
 WARRIORS
FOR INDEPENDENCE

THE
TRUNG
SISTERS
Descendants of dragons
and riders of elephants, the
sisters Trung Trac and Trung
Nhi became national heroes
by uniting ancient Vietnam
to expel the powerful
Han dynasty.

NHUNG TUYET TRAN

 F
LANDS OF rom the grounds of a modest temple in commemorations of their uprising. Historical
VIETNAM the suburbs of Hanoi, Vietnam, to the sources show that for nearly 2,000 years, the
Before the Trung streets of Southern California, Paris, sisters have served as spirit guardians to their
sisters’ rebellion, France, and Sydney, Australia, Viet- homeland, which has called on the Trung sisters
the Han Chinese
namese people across four continents in times of need.
had infiltrated lands
surrounding the Red celebrate the lives of two women from the first Despite dramatically different political alle-
River Delta (above), century a.d., the Trung sisters, on their death giances in the present, why do contemporary
part of northern anniversary every year, the sixth day of the sec- Vietnamese, at home and in the diaspora, con-
Vietnam today. ond lunar month. Often depicted as mounted tinue to pay homage to the Trung sisters? The
NG MAPS
on elephants, these two women commanded a answers lie in the country’s long and complex
successful rebellion against the Han (Chinese) relationship with its neighbors to the north,
dynasty (206 b.c.-a.d. 220) in a.d. 40. To honor legacies of foreign intervention, an agonizing
these national heroes, Vietnamese peoples, past civil war that split families and dispersed them
and present, make offerings and put on parades throughout the world, and a presumed heritage
with colorful elephant floats, waving the flags of of matrilineal origins, which coalesce to focus
the respective national regimes collective awe and pride upon two women who
to which they profess allegiance. lived nearly two millennia ago.
They reenact the uprising,
sometimes with live elephants, to The Sisters Rebel
celebrate two women who defied the The historical name for the people who lived
power of the Han state and defeated in what is now Vietnam is unknown, but many
them nearly a thousand years before an historians refer to them as the Viet. In the first
independent state emerged. These perfor- century, the Han dynasty extended into the Red
mances remind the participants, their descen- River Delta and the plains to its south, which
dants, and audiences of the sisters’contribution they called Giao Chi Prefecture. Control of this
to the country now known as Vietnam. The sis- territory gave them access to the region’s har-
ters live on in much more than these ephemeral bors and natural resources while providing an
ELEPHANT EWER BRONZE, LATE SECOND-THIRD CENTURY, VIETNAM
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK
CELEBRATING THE
TRUNG SISTERS
Photographed in Saigon in
1957, women portray the
Trung sisters in the Hai Ba
Trung Parade that honors
the national heroines.
HISTORY/ALAMY IMAGES

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 51

 important buffer zone between their empire and
that of the Cham polities to the south.In a.d. 40
Trung Trac, the eldest daughter of a local chief-
tain, and her sister, Nhi, rallied an army of their
fellow aristocrats to protest new taxes imposed
by the Han authorities. Riding war elephants,
they marched upon the capital of Giao Chi Pre-
fecture, gaining support in more than 65 towns
and districts across the Red River Valley. The
local Han governor, known in historical sources
as having been“cruel and avaricious,”barely had
time to escape with his life.
The sisters declared themselves rulers of the
land and abolished the governor’s new taxes. The
rebellion posed such a threat to Han authority on
its southern frontiers that the emperor issued an
edict to prepare for war. He sent his best generals,
including “Wave Pacifier” Ma Huan and “Tower
Ship” Duan Zhi to end it.
These generals, with the support of the power-
ful Han state, ordered the districts from southern
reaches of the empire to provide“carts and boats,
to repair boats and bridges, and to open up water-
ways, and to replenish grain stockpiles”as part of
BRONZE the war effort. Though they brought with them
DAGGER PROTECTED
more than 10,000 soldiers, it still took more than PARKS
Known for exquisite
two years to defeat the Trung sisters. Thong Ngan, a rescued
work in bronze,
the Dong Son No one knows exactly what happened to the elephant with a broken
culture flourished sisters. Some sources suggest that they killed tusk, walks in Yok Don
in Vietnam’s Red themselves rather than suffer capture by the en- National Park, Dak Lak
River Delta between emy. Others record that Ma Huan captured and Province.
600 b.c. and a.d. 300. THANH NGUYEN/GETTY IMAGES

ALBUM/QUINTLOX
beheaded the sisters and sent their heads to the
emperor. He captured and enslaved more than
300 other leaders around the Red River Delta
and took them to the Hunan district. and a matrilineal past. Viet historians for cen-
Whatever precisely befell the sisters and their turies have traced the sisters’ lineage through
followers, Ma Huan’s victory over the Trung sis- the dynastic kingdoms, through the mythical
ters in a.d. 43 also marks a turning point in Han rulers of their lands, to Shen Nong, a mythologi-
imperial rule in the region. After he quelled the cal ruler important to Vietnamese and Chinese
uprising, Ma Huan implemented reforms that histories alike.
brought the territory under direct military rule. Vietnamese history, myth, and legend record
For nearly 900 years after that, the Viet lived as that Shen Nong had two sons (or grandsons),
subjects of successive Chinese imperial states and though he wanted to bequeath his lands
until they finally gained independence in 939, to his more capable younger son, the younger
but the legend of the Trung sisters reminded deferred to his older brother. Shen Nong thus
them of the possibilities. gave the elder son control of the northern lands,
and sent the younger one to rule over the Lac
Genealogies of Greatness people of southern coastal lands (in the vicinity
The Trung sisters’ heroic story has deep roots of the Red River Delta). Kinh Duong Vuong, is
that can be traced back to the central origin recorded in the dynastic chronicles as the first
myth of the Viet people, one rooted in an sovereign of the Lac people. He descended to
inheritance of resistance to foreign aggression the Palace of the Seas, where he encountered

52 JULY/AUGUST 2021
the princess of that realm, and he sired Lac Long
Quan the “dragon lord.” Recognizing his son’s
talent, Kinh Duong Vuong left Lac Long Quan to ENDANGERED
govern and teach the people to farm and clothe
themselves. Once complete, the Dragon Lord
ELEPHANTS
returned to the seas.
the trung sisters are most often depicted riding war ele-
Meanwhile, a king from the north, seeing that
phants, the largest land mammals on Earth. The Viet have long
the Lac people were without a ruler, invaded the
used elephants—as valued commodities for trade and tribute
southern lands. That northern invader king, and as important tools in warfare. One Ly dynasty (1009-1225)
having no love for the people, traveled the cor- emperor even claimed that he was the embodiment of a
ners of the world in search of riches and left magical white elephant, making his claim as a universal ruler.
behind his wife, Au Co, a mountain fairy, among Today wild elephants still live in the forests of Vietnam, but
the Lac people. The suffering Lac people called their populations are endangered by habitat loss and poach-
to their Dragon Lord to return and save them. ing. In the 1990s an estimated 1,500 to 2,000 elephants lived
Hearing their distress, Lac Long Quan ascended in Vietnam; by 2013 that number was as low as 70. To help
from the seas to protect his people. The invader reverse the trend, the Elephant Habitat and Species Conserva-
king retreated back north, where his line, and tion Area was established in 2017 in Quang Nam with more
Shen Nong’s northern lineage, would die out. than 46,000 acres set aside for elephant conservation.
HA LONG BAY
This natural wonder is known as
the “bay of the descending dragon.”
Per legend, the Dragon Lord’s tail
created these rocky islands as he
descended into the waters off the
coast of northern Vietnam.
THNH CHUNG NGUYN/EYEEM/GETTY IMAGES
 Meanwhile, the mountain fairy Au Co fell
in love with the magnificent Dragon Lord.
Out of the union of the Dragon Lord and
Au Co was born a sack of a hundred eggs,
which hatched into a hundred healthy,
strong sons.
Their union did not last. The Dragon
Lord told Au Co,“I come from dragon stock
and emerged from the people of the sea; you
are of fairy stock and belong to the people of
the lands. We cannot live together forever.”
The Dragon Lord took 50 sons into the water to
THERE BE govern the seas. Legend has it that when he de-
DRAGONS scended into the waters, his flapping tail created
Dragons often appear the land formations that make up the magnifi-
in Vietnamese works cent islands of Ha Long Bay today. The remaining
of art, like a bronze 50 sons stayed on the land with their mother
incense burner and became the Hung kings of the Lac people,
(above) from the first
to third century. from whom the Viet believe they are descended.
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM The legend of the Dragon Lord and Mountain
OF ART, NEW YORK
Fairy is the founding myth of the Viet people
and establishes ancestral origins even more
illustrious than that of their Chinese neighbors. FOUNDING MYTHS
It highlights two prominent themes in Vietnam’s Little Saigon in Orange
County, California,
history: resistance to foreign aggression and is home to a large
claims of a matrilineal prehistory. Connecting Vietnamese-American
the Trung sisters’ lineage to the mythical Dragon community and a mural
Lord and Au Co transformed them into ances- that depicts the origin
tors of the Viet people, who bequeathed to their story of Vietnamese
people and the union
descendants this spirit of resistance. How much between the Dragon Lord
of the Trung sisters’ story is history, myth, or and Mountain Fairy.
legend depends who the storytellers were, and MADELEINE TRAN

the goals they hoped to accomplish.

History and Legends Viet historians in later dynasties immortalized

What has been preserved about the Trung fe- the Trung sisters for their bravery and resilience
male kings, as they are known in apocryphal, against the Han occupation and for the creation
Buddhist, and historical texts, provides hints to of the short-lived republic. While valorizing the
their hold on the Vietnamese imagination. The sisters’contributions, they also used them as ex-
Trung sisters first enter the historical sources amples for the relevant lessons of the day. In 1272
four centuries after their short-lived victory Le Van Huu, the court historian of the Tran dy-
when the Chinese historian Fan Ye (398-445) nasty (1225-1400), wrote the Trung sisters into
compiled the Historical Records of the Later Han the official dynastic histories, as one of the earli-
[Dynasty]. He identified the sisters by name est Viet kingdoms, and historians since then have
and described Trac as “exceedingly heroic and followed suit. Le Van Huu repeated the masculine
brave,” a phrase generally associated with men. characteristics for Trac—“exceedingly heroic
He noted that Trung Trac’s husband was alive and brave”—and referred to her as a female king.
at the time of the rebellion, suggesting that he Le Van Huu probably used the same sources
followed the sisters into battle. The possibility as Fan Ye did to tell his story, but he wrote for a
that a husband followed his wife into battle has Viet dynasty that faced foreign threats of its own,
led some scholars to suggest that there was evi- so he embellished it with details. Huu reasoned
dence for a matrilineal and a matriarchal past. that the Trung sisters ultimately failed because

56 JULY/AUGUST 2021
of the strength of the Han forces and the lack
of fortitude of their followers who abandoned
them because they did not believe that the wom-
KINGDOMS
en warriors could defeat the invaders. To that OF THE PAST
point, he marveled that while the sisters could
envision an independent republic and inspire the trung sisters’ rebellion coincided with the historical
period known as the Dong Son culture (600 b.c.-a.d. 300) in
the inhabitants of 65 towns to rise up against the
the Red River Delta. Skilled artisans cast intricately designed
Han administrators, for nearly a thousand years,
bronze drums, which archaeologists link to the sisters’ Lac-
until independence in 939,“the lot of men simply
Viet society. After the sisters’ defeat, Chinese military rule
bowed their heads and became the servants of
extended over Giao Chi, which lasted until the Viet gained
the people to the north.”
independence in a.d. 939. The first two post-independence
In 1479 the Le dynasty (1428-1789) historian dynasties, the Ly (1009-1225) and the Tran (1225-1400),
Ngo Si Lien, who edited Le Van Huu’s original relied heavily on Mahayana Buddhist traditions. Following
chronicle, spoke of the sisters’ legacy. Just three the expulsion of the Ming dynasty’s occupying forces (1407-
years after their defeat, locals built a temple to 1427), the Le dynasty (1428-1789) established a bureaucratic
honor the sisters, and in times of need, they state with allegiances to neo-Confucian political thought.
came there to ask for assistance. Even in death, This reliance on neo-Confucian bureaucratic models reached
the Trung sisters protected the Viet people. its apogee in the Nguyen dynasty (1802-1945).
 Court historians like Le Van Huu and Ngo Si
Lien manipulated details of the story to project
particular visions of gender. Rather than follow
Fan Ye’s story that Trac’s husband was alive,
these historians claimed that she initiated the
uprising to avenge her husband’s death. In doing
so, they transformed the “fierce and brave” Trac
into a “virtuous and devoted” wife. Valorizing
Trac’s wifely virtues also enabled them to con-
demn men who did not meet expectations of
military prowess and bravery. The men who did
TIES TO not, or could not, rise up against foreign invad-
THE PAST ers could not hold a candle to the warrior sisters.
The sister-in-law and Buddhist texts suggest that the Trung sis-
de facto first lady of ters and their rebellion played an important role
South Vietnam until in the local Thien (Zen) community in the 14th
1963, Madame Nhu century. Around 1379 Le Te Xuyen, a Buddhist
erected a statue of
the Trung sisters to official and caretaker of religious texts, compiled
strengthen her ties to a text he called the “Departed Spirits of the Viet
their legacy, as shown Realm.”In it, he told stories of ghosts and spirits
on a 1963 postage who had protected the Vietnamese people, their
stamp (above, lands, and the Buddhist world against invaders.
Madame Nhu in SISTERS’
Following the sisters’ deaths in battle, Le Te
the foreground). SHRINES
ALAMY/CORDON PRESS Xuyen recounts that the local people erected a
A temple to the Trung
temple so that they could make offerings to the sisters was erected
sisters’spirits. One year, during a great drought, in their traditional
Emperor Ly Anh Tong (r. 1138-1145) ordered birthplace, Me Linh,
Thien masters to perform rituals to pray for rain; northwest of Hanoi in the
Red River Delta.
after it came, the king was content. One night, he ALAMY/ACI
dreamed of two women dressed in green tunics
and red trousers and hats, who rode steel horses
and pulled the rains behind them. Responding
to his query about who they were, they said:“We
are the Trung sisters, and we have responded to inscribed the Trung sisters’story into the histo-
your request and have made the rain.” When he ries of their country. Later writers—from court
awoke, the king ordered the restoration of their historians to Catholic priests to nationalist
temple and made offerings to honor their spirits. writers and postcolonial scholars—continued
The sisters appeared to him again, and he built to draw on the details of their story as a rallying
them another temple and gave them the honor- call to resist foreign aggression.
ific title “Divine Chaste Ladies.” The practice continued well into the mod-
In subsequent centuries, emperors added to ern era. In the mid-20th century, when the state
the Trung sisters’ titles, indicating the lasting was separated into the Democratic Republic of
legacy of the spirit cult. Other writers confirmed (North) Vietnam and the Republic of (South)
the popularity of the Trung sisters and their Vietnam, and the inhabitants of both countries
cult. In 1492 the Confucian scholar Vu Quynh vied for competing visions of their country’s
repeated the details of the Ly emperor’s sight- future, they found common ground in the heroic
ing. Tales such as that of the Trung sisters, Vu acts of the Trung sisters. On both sides of the
Quynh claimed, had not been written“in books, 17th parallel, the demarcation line established
but kept in the hearts of the people and had been in the Geneva Accords in 1954, the sisters’ bat-
inscribed in the tongues of men.” tle imagery became a favorite artistic motif for
Vu Quynh was only partly correct, for be- propaganda posters, monuments, and postage
fore and after his writing, many Viet historians stamps. When the locals made offerings to the

58 JULY/AUGUST 2021
sisters in temples in the Red River Valley, city FIGHTING
dwellers in Saigon hosted a parade, complete with
live elephants. The de facto first lady of South TRADITIONS
Vietnam, Madame Nhu (Tran Le Xuan), erected
a statue commemorating the Trung sisters’ con- in vietnamese histories and popular discourse, women stand
tributions and likened herself to them. out as a key marker of cultural identity. The myth of Au Co
After the country was unified in 1975 in the raising the first Viet kings has led some scholars to suggest
language of the northern regime, or lost, accord- that the Viet came from matrilineal and matriarchal tradi-
ing to those from the south, the Trung sisters tions. Military figures like the Trung sisters and Lady Trieu,
have continued to play important roles in the who, in 246, rejected marriage to lead a rebellion against the
historical imagination. Although Vietnamese Eastern Wu state (220-280), seemed to bolster these ideas.
people in the diaspora may not necessarily share Other scholars suggest that the property claims some Viet
in the political vision of the current national women enjoyed in later dynasties, even during the peak of
state, they have found common ground in cel- Chinese cultural influence, suggest that indigenous society
afforded women more autonomy than China. Many of these
ebrating an iconic moment in their past, when
claims about Viet women’s historical situations implicitly
two sisters defeated the foreign aggressors.
position them as foils against ahistorical representations
of Chinese women, who stand for that country’s patrilineal
NHUNG TUYET TRAN IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR AT THE and patriarchal positions. More recently, some scholars
UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO SPECIALIZING IN THE HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST ASIA.
have challenged these representations.
TEMPLO MAYOR
A feathered serpent bares its teeth at the
site of the Great Temple of Tenochtitlan, in
Mexico City. The massive temple complex
was dedicated to Tlaloc, god of rain, and to
Huitzilopochtli, god of war.
KENNETH GARRETT

60 JULY/AUGUST 2021
RISE AND FALL OF

THE
AZTEC
Before their defeat in 1521, the Mexica people, known
today as the Aztec, had evolved from a nomadic people
to Mesoamerica’s dominant power in less than a century.

JOSÉ LUIS DE ROJAS

THE FOUNDING OF TENOCHTITLAN. AN EAGLE LANDS ON A PRICKLY PEAR,
INDICATING WHERE THE MEXICA SHOULD FOUND THEIR CITY.
CODEX MENDOZA, 16TH CENTURY, BODLEIAN LIBRARY, OXFORD, ENGLAND
DAGLI ORTI/AURIMAGES

F
ollowing the fall of Tenochtitlan,
an Aztec poet composed a searing
account of the capture of the capital
city. Written in the Nahuatl language,

LANDS OF
using the Latin alphabet of the Span-
ish invaders, it is the earliest native account
of the sufferings of the Aztec people and their

THE AZTEC
defeat 500 years ago in 1521:

Our inheritance, our city, is lost and dead.

The shields of our warriors could not save it.
The Triple Alliance (popularly known as the
We have chewed dry twigs and salt grasses;
we have eaten lizards, rats and worms . . . Aztec) conquered lands so as to be able
to control trade routes and raw materials.
Today what remains of Tenochtitlan lies Scholars believe religion also played a large role
underneath Mexico’s thriving capital, Mexico in expansion since the Aztec required human
City, one of the most populous cities in the
sacrifices to maintain the cosmic order.
world. Surrounded by modern architecture, NG MAPS

the archaeological site of Templo Mayor is

revealing more and more about the Aztec city
and its inhabitants—a reminder of the people
and culture who were subdued and absorbed
by the colony of New Spain.
Many European chroniclers focused atten-
circa 1325 1428
The nomadic Mexica The cities of Tenochtitlan,
tion on the conquistador Hernán Cortés, but
people (later called the Texcoco, and Tlacopan
renewed focus on the events of 1521 is placing Aztec by Europeans) defeat the city of
more attention on the Aztec themselves. What settle on an island in Azcapotzalco. They unite
has unfolded is a compelling, complex story of Lake Texcoco and found into a Triple Alliance and
how an alliance among Mesoamerican city- Tenochtitlan, which will begin their territorial
states quickly rose to power, only to lose it. become their capital city. expansion.

62 JULY/AUGUST 2021
1440 1486 1504 1519-1521
Moctezuma I accedes as Ahuitzotl comes to power Hernán Cortés first travels After Cortés lands in
ruler of the Mexica, now and will make major to the Americas, reaching Mexica territory in 1519,
the dominant power of territorial gains, reaching Santo Domingo, the capital local leader Moctezuma II
the Triple Alliance. He and as far as present-day of Hispaniola. He will go to vainly attempts diplomacy
his successors wage ritual Guatemala. His successor, Cuba in 1511 before setting but dies a Spanish prisoner
wars, especially against the Moctezuma II, will expand his sights on the American in 1520. A year later,
Tlaxcallán people. control to the west. mainland. Tenochtitlan falls.
Colorful Chronicles
The name Aztec was first coined by an out-
sider—the Aztec called themselves the Mexica
(also Culhua-Mexica). In the early 1800s,
German scientist and explorer Alexander
von Humboldt coined the term for the people
of Tenochtitlan based on the word “Aztlán,”
the traditional name of the Mexica’s ancestral
homeland. Archaeologists have not been able
to identify the exact location of Aztlán, but
most place it in northern Mexico.
Much of what is understood about Meso-
america during the time of the Aztec comes from
either sources written by the Mexica them-
selves or by the Spanish after 1519. The region
was rich with other cultures and city-states, but
more is specifically known about Aztec culture
because of these plentiful sources. The Mexica
portray themselves in their records as a people
predestined for power, who, after overcoming
numerous obstacles, eventually control a wide-
ranging empire.
These accounts were created by the Mexica
in recorded histories known as codices. They
took note of their ancestors, their deeds, their
faith, and their practices in these documents.
Many were destroyed during the Spanish
invasion, but five survived. These were pillaged
by the Spanish and sent to Europe, where they
are now held in several museums.
Production of such works resumed after
Tenochtitlan’s fall. Some were commissioned
by Spanish colonists as a means to better
understand and control the Mesoameri-
can peoples. One of the most famous is the
Mendoza Codex, which was created in 1542
for Charles V, King of Spain and Holy Roman
Emperor. The document features Aztec glyphs
accompanied by texts written in Spanish, al-
lowing for translation. The first part of the co-
dex lists a series of wars or conquests grouped
by each Aztec leader. The second part lists the
tributes received.

The Mexica portray

themselves in their records
as a people predestined for
power, and for control of a
wide-ranging empire.
64 JULY/AUGUST 2021
CAPITAL FIND
The priest Cuauhtlequetzqui points out the
place where the Mexica should found their city
in around 1325. The prickly pear evokes the
story that the name Tenochtitlan means “place
among the prickly pears.” Mexican artist José
María Jara painted the scene in 1889. National
Museum of Art, Mexico City
DAGLI ORTI/AURIMAGES
 SACRED STONES
Located in Mexico City, the temple of
Tlatelolco belonged to a city separate from
In addition to tributes, the Aztec state en- Tenochtitlan. When the Spanish gained
riched itself through trade. Much of what his- control of the region, they dismantled the
torians know about the Triple Alliance is drawn temple and used its stones to build the
Church of Santiago Tlatelolco (right).
from the tributary codices of Tenochtitlan. CAVAN/ALAMY/ACI
Although the picture is incomplete—no
record of this type has been found concern-
ing Texcoco and Tlacopan—the sources pro-
vide a fascinating window into how the huge
population (between 150,000 and 300,000)
of Tenochtitlan was provisioned. Food, raw
materials, and fabrics came from areas close
to the city, while luxuries such as gold, sweet
gum resin, cocoa, and precious feathers came
from distant corners of the sprawling empire.

Centers of Power
The people of Aztlán were originally nomadic
and had migrated to several locations before
settling on the islands of Lake Texcoco, in the
Valley of Mexico, which was controlled by
the nearby city of Azcapotzalco. The Mexica
served as mercenaries and built a reputation
for ferocity in combat. They spoke Nahuatl, the
same tongue of the mighty Toltec civilization
who dominated the region between the 10th and
12th centuries, and sought to connect to their
illustrious ancestors.
Around 1325, the Mexica founded Tenochti-
tlan and made it their capital. Although the new
city prospered, along with other cities, including
Texcoco, it remained subject to Azcapotzalco
until the lord of Azcapotzalco died in the early
15th century. As disputes arose over his suc-
cessor, the dominion of Azcapotzalco ended. In
1428 a new power emerged, formed by the cities
of Tenochtitlan, Texcoco, and Tlacopan. It was
called the Triple Alliance.
At first, Texcoco and Tenochtitlan occupied
the top of the hierarchy, with Tlacopan sub-
ordinate to both of them. Over time, Tenoch-
titlan became the most powerful, and its ruler
Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (Moctezuma II) was
the most powerful member of the federation
in the 1500s when the Spanish arrived. They
observed that Moctezuma’s people were the
most powerful of the Triple Alliance and put
forth the idea of an empire centered around the
Mexica, one which later became widely known
as the Aztec Empire.
In the early 1400s, the Triple Alliance took
control of Azcapotzalco and other subject peo-
ples. Some willingly accepted this transition of

66 JULY/AUGUST 2021
WINDS OF CHANGE
The circular Temple of Ehécatl,
dedicated to the god of the wind,
stands in Calixtlahuaca to the west of
Mexico City. Built by the Matlatzinca
people, the city was conquered by the
Triple Alliance in 1478.
CAVAN/ALAMY/ACI
power, but others had to be convinced by force.
There was no major expansion of territory until
CONQUEST
a great famine occurred in the Valley of Mexico
between 1450 and 1454. The alliance needed
AND SACRIFICE
more land for food production and began con- AN IMPOSING DISK of basalt, three feet
quests of city-states. high and more than eight feet wide, is
This process accelerated under Axayacatl, known as the Stone of Tizoc—an Aztec
the tlatoani (ruler) of Tenochtitlan, the de facto monument to one of its leaders. A
ruler of the alliance. Although often translated priest saved the stone from destruction
as “king” or “emperor,” the role of tlatoani was after it was unearthed in Mexico City
less absolute in nature and required multifaceted in the late 1700s. Scholars found that
leadership. He actively intervened in the army, it was carved during the short reign
state religion, and governing, as a kind of com- of Tizoc, the seventh Aztec tlatoani
mander in chief and head priest rolled into one. (1481-86). On the top, arrows point to
Other powerful city-states remained inde- the cardinal directions of the compass
pendent from, though not necessarily hostile around a representation of the sun
to, Tenochtitlan’s domination. Tlaxcala, which (below). Scenes on the side show Tizoc
lay fairly close to Tenochtitlan, was a major cen- dressed as the war god Huitzilopochtli
ter of active resistance. Historians are divided in a headdress of hummingbird feathers
as to whether the Tlaxcallán people remained and pulling an enemy’s hair (right).
Each enemy represents one of the 15
independent through military strength or con-
cities conquered in his reign (seven are
venience: Mexica sources justified leaving it
identified below). Today the altar can
alone because it left a nearby state available for
be seen in the National Museum of
important ritual warfare contests known as the
Anthropology in Mexico City.
“flower wars,”in which inconclusive battles pro-
vided a source of prisoners to sacrifice to the
gods. The fact that the Tlaxcallán allied with the
Spanish against Tenochtitlan, however, seems
to contradict that account. In 1521 the city-state
became Hernán Cortés’ local ally in his cam-
paign against Moctezuma.

Building an Empire
In 1481 Axayacatl was succeeded as tlatoani
by his brother Tizoc, whose reign is celebrated
on the huge sacrificial Stone of Tizoc. Carved
reliefs show him subduing 15 cities. His short
PHOTOS ABOVE AND RIGHT: ALAMY/ACI; ILLUSTRATION BELOW: UIG/ALBUM
reign saw revolts against his regime, and gained
limited territory. Even so, power was still dra-
matically proclaimed through such impressive
Tochpán Ahuilizapán Huexotzinco
monuments.
Ahuitzotl, probably the greatest of all the
Aztec rulers, came to power next. He expanded the

Carved reliefs on the huge

sacrificial Stone of Tizoc
show the ruler subduing 15
cities, even though he only
reigned for five years.
70 JULY/AUGUST 2021
 A SACRIFICIAL ALTAR?
As well as commemorating Tizoc’s exploits, the stone may also have
functioned as a temalácatl, a platform on which gladiatorial victims
fought to the death. An image of gladiatorial sacrifice in the Codex
Florentine shows a temalácatl similar to the Stone of Tizoc. A channel
carved into these kinds of altars may have collected the victims’ blood,
which then flowed into a carving of the mouth of the god Tlaltecuhtili.

Culhuacán Tenayuca Xochimilco Chalco

 The death of Moquihuix.
Defeated by Axayacatl,
the ruler of Tlatilulco
empire’s borders as far as present-day Guatemala, (Tlatelolco) takes refuge
coming into contact with Maya lands. When in the city temple and
Ahuitzotl died in 1502, Moctezuma II became leaps to his death from
the walls.
tlatoani and expanded the alliance’s influence
significantly into the Zapotec areas toward the
Axayacatl.
Pacific. He was still ruling when Cortés made The tlatoani appears
his fateful landing and founded the colony of wrapped in a white cloak
Veracruz on April 22, 1519. and blue headband.
War was not the only means by which the Above appears the
pictogram of his name,
alliance expanded. City-states and their lands Water Face.
could be gained through diplomacy and inheri-
tance. The death of a lord of a dominion within
the alliance’s territory was an opportunity. A
tense succession process would often follow.
If a candidate resisted the alliance’s power, he
could be replaced by a close relative more ame-
nable to the Mexica. Putting him in control of a
local territory allowed the Aztec to accumulate
more power.
This system led to the creation of com-
plex power networks within the alliance: One
local lord might be subject to the overlord of
Tenochtitlan, while others might be subject to
those of Texcoco or Tlacopan. Despite these
complexities, the Triple Alliance was able to
grow quickly over the course of a few decades;
however, it was these kinds of struggles that
contributed to Tenochtitlan’s downfall.
Problems arose when several candidates had
the same relationship with the overlord and
he had to choose among them. This happened
shortly before the arrival of Cortés, when A conquered city.
To the left of a
Nezahualpilli, lord of the second most impor- temple that has
tant city of the Texcoco empire, died. Three been burned down,
potential successors all had mothers who a pictogram of an
belonged to the aristocracy of Tenochtitlan. ocote tree appears,
indicating the city’s
Moctezuma, therefore, had to reject two fac- name: Ocoyoacac.
tions and risk alienating them, which is exactly
what happened. One of the rejected candidates,
Ixtlilxochitl, later formed an alliance with the
Spanish.
Alienation and local rivalries were factors
in the fall of Tenochtitlan. In the face of the
invading Spanish, the city-states of Mesoamer-
ica chose different paths to survival. Some, like
Tlaxcala, chose to ally with Spain, while oth-
ers, like the Mexica, chose to fight. As the world
revisits the events of 1521, much remains to be
explored about the story of the Mexica and their
fate when Spain came to the Americas.
A SPECIALIST IN AZTEC HISTORY, JOSÉ LUIS DE ROJAS IS ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR
OF HISTORY AT THE COMPLUTENSE UNIVERSITY OF MADRID.

72 JULY/AUGUST 2021
CODEX
FOR A KING
THE CODEX MENDOZA, preserved today in the Bodleian
Library in Oxford, England, was commissioned by
Antonio de Mendoza, first viceroy of New Spain,
after the conquest. Mendoza ordered the creation
of the codex to inform Charles V, King of Spain and
Holy Roman Emperor, about the people living there.
The codex is the work of an Aztec tlacuilo, or scribe,
and uses pictograms. To make it comprehensible to
Charles V, a Spanish priest familiar with Nahuatl wrote
an explanation in Spanish. The first part of the codex
is a list of the Tenochtitlan tlatoanis, or rulers, with the
cities that they had conquered. The two pages pictured
here correspond to the sixth tlatoani, Axayacatl
(r. 1469-1481), and include representations of the
37 cities he captured.
BODLEIAN LIBRARY OXFORD/DAGLI ORTI/AURIMAGES
ROYAL
TRIBUTES
the codex mendoza contains a section that details the
tributes received by Moctezuma II, who ruled Tenoch-
titlan between 1502 and 1520. From the 400 cities
under his control, he received a plethora of gifts. In
the codex, pictograms correspond to city names and
the images next to them show their tributes to Moc-
tezuma. Above each object is a translation in Spanish.
BODLEIAN LIBRARY OXFORD/DAGLI ORTI/AURIMAGES

1 GOLD AND PRECIOUS STONES

In addition to gold necklaces and bracelets, strings of
chalchihuitl, precious or semiprecious stones such as
emerald and jade, were also requested as tribute by rulers
in Tenochtitlan.

2 QUETZAL FEATHERS 1
This bird’s long and brightly colored tail feathers were
symbols of abundance, fertility, and life. Highly valued,
they were used for all kinds of decorative items, such as
ceremonial headdresses and banners.

3 SWEET GUM RESIN

The resin of the sweet gum tree had an important ritual
application for the Mexica, who burned it in the course of
their ceremonies. It also had medical uses—for instance,
as a topical application to treat skin infections.

4 TEXTILES
A variety of colors and motifs have been carefully depicted
on the different types of blankets offered in tribute. 2
The texts in Spanish above note the skilled and time-
consuming labor required to produce them.

5 ARMOR AND SHIELDS 3

Battle gear—such as the chimalli, a
wooden shield covered with fur and
feathers, and the tlahuiztli, a battle
suit worn over a cotton armor—were
popular items of tribute.

CHIMALLI (AZTEC SHIELD) WÜRTTEMBERG STATE

MUSEUM, THE OLD CASTLE, STUTTGART
SCALA, FLORENCE
 4

5
CASTLE NEUSCHWANSTEIN
Ludwig II began the construction of this
iconic palace in Bavaria (southeastern
Germany) in 1869. It was one of several
fantastical palace-building projects that
Ludwig undertook in the course of his reign.
MARA BRANDL/AWL IMAGES
 LUDWIG II OF BAVARIA

THE FAIRY-
TALE KING
As modern Germany began to rise, King Ludwig II of
Bavaria withdrew from politics. He buried himself in
the past by building magnificent castles.

ISABEL HERNÁNDEZ
F
amous the world over, Neuschwanstein Castle is the
epitome of a fairy-tale palace. Its soaring turrets inspired
the designs of both Walt Disney’s Sleeping Beauty and
Cinderella’s castles*, but Neuschwanstein’s creator, King
Ludwig II, did not have a charmed life. His reign coincided
with the rise of modern Germany, but rather than rule, he retreated
to an idealized past by building elaborate castles all over Bavaria.
Born in 1845 to the House of Wittelsbach, the artworks commissioned and collected by his
ruling family of Bavaria, Ludwig came to power royal ancestors. His mania for building castles
during a period of immense upheaval in Eu- surely had its origins in the splendid palaces
rope. Even so, his legacy would not be state- of his childhood.
craft, but the arts. Nicknamed the “swan king,” Although the winds of modernity were begin-
Ludwig is remembered for his castles and his ning to blow in Ludwig’s childhood, his father’s
obsessive patronage of the German composer kingdom was imbued with the glories and ro-
of epic operas, Richard Wagner. mance of the past: a land of Alpine scenery, lakes,
From a young age, Ludwig was a dreamer. As medieval towns, and castles perched atop crags.
a child, he was fascinated by Bible stories, the Today Bavaria is the largest of the federal states
plays of Shakespeare, and the work of the 18th- of modern Germany, but it has a long history as
century German dramatist Friedrich Schiller. an independent kingdom. In the 10th century,
The Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, where Bavaria became part of the Holy Roman Empire,
he was born, was crammed with treasures and the federation of states that dominated Cen-
tral Europe. Ludwig’s ancestors came to power
shortly thereafter, and the family would retain
LUDWIG II OF BAVARIA. power until 1918. During the Protestant Ref-
PORTRAIT BY WILHELM ormation in the 16th century, Bavaria differ-
TAUBNER, 1864. KING
LUDWIG II MUSEUM, entiated itself from other Germanic states by
HERRENCHIEMSEE
PALACE adhering to Catholicism, and at Ludwig’s birth
BRIDGEMAN/ACI Bavaria was a key actor in German unification.
A large part of Ludwig II’s legacy lies in linger-
ing questions of his mental state. The House of
Wittelsbach did have a family history of mental
illness;Ludwig’s younger brother, Otto, suffered
from schizophrenia. His eccentric reign deviated
from royal norms at the time. He never married
or had children. Rather than actively rule, he
preferred to retreat to his castles, which were
lavishly decorated with fantastical scenes from
Germanic folklore and myth. Biographers have
long debated if this reclusiveness and obsessive
nature were caused by a mental illness. Some
claim that the king may have been homo-
sexual and that a combination of his faith
and pressures to marry could have led to
anxiety and depression.
* The Walt Disney Company is majority owner of National
Geographic Partners.
BUILDING
CASTLES
IN THE AIR
1845
Prince Ludwig is born on
August 25, the eldest son of
Maximilian, who will ascend
the throne of Bavaria in
1848.

1864
Maximilian II dies, and
Ludwig is crowned. The
young king meets German
composer Richard Wagner,
and becomes his patron.

1867
In January Ludwig
becomes engaged to his
cousin, Duchess Sophie
Charlotte. He breaks off the
engagement in October.

1870
Ludwig backs the creation
of a German empire,
dominated by Prussia.
He withdraws increasingly
from public life.

1878
While still building a lavish
residence at Linderhof,
Ludwig embarks on the
Herrenchiemsee Palace,
a tribute to Versailles.

1886
Judged insane, Ludwig
is deposed. Several
days later, he is found
dead under mysterious
circumstances.

MARBLE HALLS
Ludwig II was born in
1845 in the Nymphenburg
Palace, Munich, Bavaria,
whose Stone Hall (left)
was designed in 18th-
century rococo style by
François de Cuvilliés.
STEFANO POLITI/AWL
NATIONAL IMAGES
GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 79
Soaring Castles In March 1864 King Maximilian II died, and
Ludwig became king of Bavaria. Significantly,
and Empty Coffers one of Ludwig II’s first royal acts was to invite
Wagner to the court at Munich that spring.

L
UDWIG’S REIGN began with rumblings of unease. Theolo-
Wagner had just left Austria. He was crippled
gian Ignaz von Döllinger, the king’s former tutor, confided by debt and unable to find a theater willing to
privately in 1866: “Our Royal Majesty lives only in the perform his very expensive operas. Ludwig’s
realms of legend, poetry, music, and drama . . . Of the rest invitation offered a breakthrough moment in
of the world, he wishes to know nothing.” By the early 1880s his career.
this combination of unworldliness and lavish castle building The king, then age 18, set him up with country
had pushed Bavaria into financial crisis. The king threatened and city residences and paid all his debts, which
to take out more loans. When told by his finance minister that allowed Wagner to focus on his music. Ludwig’s
creditors might seize his castles to claw back their debt, an obsession with the composer intensified; on
enraged Ludwig is said to have threatened suicide. numerous occasions the king told him that he
felt a oneness with Wagner that Ludwig believed
would continue even after death. Wagner’s uto-
pian lands, ruled by idealized rulers who brought
redemption to their people resonated deeply
with the teen monarch.
Wagner’s soaring compositions, however,
could not drown out the din of European politics
nor the discontent at home at Ludwig’s prefer-
LUDWIG II AND ence for art and music over the affairs of state.
HIS TOY SWAN
CONFRONT EMPTY
The situation facing Ludwig was grave: The very
STATE COFFERS. existence of Bavaria as an independent state was
SATIRICAL
CARTOON, 1886 threatened by the rise of the northern kingdom
BRIDGEMAN/ACI
of Prussia, which, under Prime Minister Otto
von Bismarck, sought to bring about the unifi-
cation of all German states.
In 1866 Austria went to war against Prussia,
and Ludwig provided Austria, Bavaria’s tradi-
tional ally, with military backing. Fortunately,
Kingly Patronage he did not commit too many resources; when
The artistic passion that would define the Prussians defeated Austria, the conse-
Ludwig II’s life began at the opera. In 1861, quences for Bavaria were not too grave.
age 15, he attended a performance of Lo- In 1870 Ludwig reached a reconciliation with
hengrin, by Richard Wagner. The opera re- Prussia and publicly voiced his support for the
counts how a divided kingdom is visited by creation of a new German Empire. In return he
the eponymous knight, in a boat led by a swan. hoped to obtain privileges for Bavaria. Having
The future king’s passion for Wagner knew no conceded so much power to Prussia, especially
bounds.“The day I first heard the Lohengrin I in foreign policy, Ludwig then withdrew even
began to live,” he wrote years later to more from political affairs.
Cosima von Bülow, the composer’s
lover and future wife. It was the A King’s Retreat
beginning of a lifelong rela- Like his political life, the king’s personal life was
tionship between Ludwig marked by retreat. Ludwig had been betrothed to
and Wagner. his cousin Duchess Sophie Charlotte of Bavaria,
sister of the empress of Austria (known by her
nickname, Sisi). Sophie shared Ludwig’s adora-
RICHARD WAGNER, tion for Wagner. Despite their mutual interests,
GERMAN COMPOSER, IN 1877. Ludwig became troubled by the prospect of the
BRITISH LIBRARY, LONDON
BRITISH LIBRARY/ALBUM marriage and broke off the engagement in 1867.
 A SWAN LEADS THE TITULAR HERO
TO HIS LOVE IN A SCENE FROM
WAGNER’S OPERA LOHENGRIN.
OIL PAINTING, AUGUST VON HECKEL,
1882-83. NEUSCHWANSTEIN CASTLE
BRIDGEMAN/ACI

KNIGHTLY LUDWIG II AND SOPHIE

CHARLOTTE OF BAVARIA
DURING THEIR ENGAGEMENT,

PASSIONS
EARLY 1867
MARY EVANS/SCALA, FLORENCE

ohengrin, Wagner’s 1850 opera, is based

on a 13th-century German poem about
a knight, Lohengrin, who travels to me-
dieval Antwerp in a boat guided by a swan. His
mission is to save Princess Elsa, falsely accused of
fratricide by an evil nobleman, Count Telramund.
After securing a promise from Elsa that she will
never ask him his identity, Lohengrin marries Elsa
and kills Telramund. But when Elsa breaks her vow,
asking him to reveal his name, tragedy ensues.
Ludwig nicknamed Sophie Charlotte of Bavaria
“Elsa” during their courtship. Their shared passion
for Wagner was not enough, however, to save their
engagement, which Ludwig broke off in 1867.
82 JULY/AUGUST 2021
ROYAL REPLICA
Located on an island in Lake Chiem,
southeast of Munich, Germany,
Herrenchiemsee Palace was erected
by Ludwig II between 1878 and 1886.
It was planned to be an exact replica
of the Palace of Versailles, but funds
ran out before it could be completed.
IMAGE PROFESSIONALS GMBH/ALAMY
 love and duty. Ludwig’s appetite was whetted for
even more ambitious undertakings. He started
to plan entirely new palaces to give full rein to
his romantic instincts.

Builder of Castles
In 1867, having seen the architectural projects
on display at the Exposition Universelle in Par-
is, Ludwig was inspired to build an elaborate,
medieval-style castle in the mountains of Ba-
varia. It was initially named Neu Hohen-
schwangau, and only later became known as
Neuschwanstein, meaning“new swan stone,”in
recognition of Ludwig’s association with the
Wagnerian bird.
The setting he chose was truly dramatic: high
on a rock above the Pöllat Gorge, with a waterfall
to the south and sweeping views of the valley
to the north. Although Ludwig is sometimes
characterized as being stuck in the past, he was
also fascinated by the up-to-date architectural
techniques showcased in the Exposition Uni-
verselle, the last word in modernity.
LUDWIG II IS ROWED
THROUGH THE CAVE OF
These advances in iron and glass engineer-
VENUS ON THE GROUNDS ing enabled him to translate his flights of fancy
OF LINDERHOF PALACE.
ENGRAVING BY ROBERT into reality. Although the structure was not
ASSMUS, 1886 completed in his lifetime, he was able to spend
AKG/ALBUM
time in the castle. Living conditions in the fin-
ished areas were hardly medieval. Hot water
ran in the kitchen and bathrooms. The artwork
inside the castle depicts scenes from some of
His lifelong refusal to marry and have children Wagner’s greatest operas, including Tristan
led to whispers of homosexuality, which would and Isolde (1865); the four operas that consti-
further complicate the king’s rule. tute The Ring of the Nibelung (1848-1876); and
After he broke off his engagement, Ludwig Parsifal (1882).
took refuge in a magnificent castle rebuilt by Ludwig’s sights, however, were set well be-
his father near the Austrian border: Hohen- yond this one castle. Even while huge resources
schwangau.“A spirit of poetry is flowing through were being lavished on Neuschwanstein, he had
the magnificent Hohenschwangau,” he plans to build a vast Byzantine-style palace on
wrote to Cosima von Bülow in 1867. the site of an old hunting lodge once used by his
He ordered lavish improvements, in- father. The Linderhof Palace in southern Bavaria
cluding the redecoration of the royal evolved into a somewhat more modest rococo-
bedchamber with scenes from the style palace with carefully landscaped gardens. It
epic poem Jerusalem Delivered by is the only construction project Ludwig actually
the Renaissance Italian poet Tas- completed in his lifetime.
so. A story of a Christian knight Yet neither this, nor Neuschwanstein, sated
and a Muslim woman, the work his building urges. From 1878, the king began
centers on the struggles between a third great palace, the Herrenchiemsee on
an island in a lake in southeastern Bavaria. Its
style was in homage to the Palace of Versailles
POCKET WATCH, DECORATED WITH RUBIES, GOLD, in France, built by King Louis XIV, with whom
AND DIAMONDS. IT WAS MADE FOR LUDWIG II IN 1880.
BRIDGEMAN/ACI Ludwig obsessively identified.

84 JULY/AUGUST 2021
SOUND SLEEP
Ludwig II’s bedroom in
Neuschwanstein Castle is richly
decorated with ornate woodcarving
and murals of scenes from Wagner’s
1865 opera, Tristan and Isolde.
BOB KRIST/GETTY IMAGES
Midnight Runner
TROUBLED BY INSOMNIA and constant headaches and tooth-
aches (that he tried to soothe with alcohol), Ludwig adopted the
habit of making night trips by carriage or sled. He and his retinue
would race through Bavarian villages and forests surrounding
his residences, undeterred by cold or snow. One stormy night,
he came close to crashing over a cliff in the darkness, part of
a pattern of increasingly risky behavior that marked the later
years of his reign.
A NIGHT JOURNEY IN LUDWIG II’S
SLED THROUGH THE AMMERGAU ALPS.
OIL PAINTING BY RICHARD WENIG.
NYMPHENBURG PALACE, MUNICH
ERICH LESSING/ALBUM
Unsolved On June 9, 1886, the Bavarian government

Royal Mystery voted to depose him, and Ludwig’s uncle, Prince

Leopold of Bavaria, agreed to act as a regent. On

O
N THE LAST DAY of his life, Ludwig had a good din-
June 12 he was forcibly transferred from
ner, and then went walking on the grounds of Berg Neuschwanstein to Berg Castle, on Lake Starn-
Castle with his physician Bernhard von Gudden. berg, where he was cared for by Gudden.
When they failed to return, a search party was sent Tragedy would follow just days after Lud-
out in heavy rain, and that same evening the bodies of Ludwig wig’s deposal. On June 13, 1886, he proposed an
and Gudden were found in Lake Starnberg. Although the king after-dinner walk with Gudden. The two men
was ruled to have died by drowning, the definitive cause of his did not return, and later that evening, in gale-
death is the focus of a long-running mystery. Despite being force winds and driving rain, a search party
only 40 and a strong swimmer, Ludwig died in water that was found the bodies of both men in the shallow
only waist deep. Examination of the body did not indicate any waters of Lake Starnberg. The king’s demise
water in the lungs. Such findings have fueled speculation that
was ruled as death by drowning, but no of-
murder or suicide may have played a role in Ludwig’s demise.
ficial cause of death was given for the doctor.
These murky circumstances have led many to
THE BODY OF theorize different scenarios—none of which
LUDWIG II LIES IN
STATE, JUNE 1886. can be proven—including Ludwig murdering
BPK/SCALA, FLORENCE Gudden in revenge and then being killed while
trying to escape himself.
In addition to the mysterious circumstances
of his death, historians have speculated whether
the king really was as mentally unwell as Gud-
den claimed. A recent psychiatric review of
Ludwig II’s case carried out by the University of
Munich considers that Ludwig’s diagnosis may
not have been due to psychosis but more to do
with socially unacceptable behaviors. Even so,
the report concludes that Gudden’s diagno-
sis of “paranoia” was well founded. Studies
of Ludwig’s brain have shown extensive dam-
More castles were planned, but the spree was age to his frontal lobes, the areas of the brain
proving ruinous, as debt and Bavarian discontent responsible for decision-making, emotional
were piling up. By the early 1880s the project regulation, and impulse control. Most likely
of German unification under the mantle of a incurred during a bout with meningitis in
now mighty Prussia was not giving Bavaria the infancy, this brain damage could be the root of
advantages Ludwig had promised in 1870. Ludwig’s condition.
“I wish to remain an eternal enigma to my-
A Mysterious End self and to others,” Ludwig once said. His wish
Ludwig’s reclusiveness worsened the political seems to have been fully granted, as mystery
situation, and his eccentric behavior was inten- continues to surround the Swan King. His cas-
sifying. Accounts show how he frequently put tles, opened to the public following his death,
himself in physical danger through midnight attract hordes of visitors, and his life has been
rides in the countryside. He started making the subject of numerous literary, theatrical, and
grandiose claims, such as being a direct descen- film portrayals. Despite his financial incom-
dant of Louis XIV of France. The king’s private petence in life, his many debts have been more
physician, Bernhard von Gudden, an eminent than paid off from the enormous income that
psychiatrist, declared Ludwig II unfit to govern. his fantastical castles have generated.

THE SEAL OF LUDWIG II. CARVED AMETHYST FORMS THE

HANDLE, WHILE THE SEAL ITSELF IS MOUNTED ON EMBOSSED
GOLD DECORATED WITH LIONS ARMED WITH SWORDS. ISABEL HERNÁNDEZ IS PROFESSOR OF GERMAN LITERATURE
ALAMY/ACI AT THE COMPLUTENSE UNIVERSITY OF MADRID

88 JULY/AUGUST 2021
CASTLE ACCOMPLISHED
The only major project of Ludwig’s to
be completed in his lifetime, Linderhof,
near Bavaria’s southern border with
Austria, was built on the site of an old
hunting lodge. Its extensive grounds
are inspired by gardens in England,
France, and Spain.
REINHARD SCHMID/FOTOTECA 9X12
 THE
KING’S
QUARTERS
udwig’s living quarters at Neuschwanstein
were completed shortly before his death
in 1886, after which the castle was
opened to the public. All the rooms in the king’s
quarters were lavishly decorated with Wagnerian
themes: The bedroom centers on Tristan and Isolde,
and the throne room is dedicated to Parsifal. Lud-
wig’s personal dining room (photographed here in
1900, 14 years after the king’s death) honors the
medieval German works that Wagner used as a
basis for his operatic works.

POETS AND PRIZES

Above the door (far right), the author Wolfram von
Eschenbach is shown as a scribe. The works of this
12th- to 13th-century author were adapted by Wag-
ner for Parsifal (1882) and Lohengrin (1850). The
larger paintings around the room depict a celebrated
contest among minstrels—known in German as the
Sängerkrieg—that was held in the German castle of
Wartburg in 1207, a high point of German medieval
literature. Wagner’s early 1845 opera Tannhäuser
centers on this event.

DRAGON SLAYER
A marble and gilt bronze centerpiece sits on the
dining room table (center). It depicts Germanic
hero Siegfried (the title character of the third opera
of Wagner’s Ring cycle) fighting the dragon Fafner,
who guarded the treasure of the Nibelungs.

SWAN
Above the fireplace (near right) sits a life-size majolica
figure of a swan. The creature was associated with
Lohengrin, the Swan Knight and the lead character
in Wagner’s opera of the same name. It was also the
heraldic animal of the Counts of Schwangau, of whom
Ludwig considered himself a successor.

LUDWIG II’S PERSONAL DINING ROOM, NEUSCHWANSTEIN.

COLORED PHOTOGRAPH, TAKEN AROUND 1900
AKG/ALBUM

90 JULY/AUGUST 2021
DISCOVERIES

Nigerian Treasures:
The Majestic Art of Ife
In 1910 a majestic bronze sculpture was found in the Nigerian city of Ife. It obsessed a
German ethnologist, but his racist assumptions about Africa and its people kept him
from exploring the true artistic genius of the Yoruba culture and its creations.

T
he Yoruba people African continent. Starting Although Frobenius’s
of Nigeria believe in 1904, Frobenius traveled knowledge of local culture
Ife to be a sacred to Africa, returning from was thin, he had learned of
city founded by trips with thousands of cul- an artwork in Ife that he
the gods and the tural items that he sold to believed to be dedicated to
birthplace of humanity. Ly- German museums. the god Olokun, a Yoruba
ing 135 miles northeast of In 1910 he began his sea deity. He asked to see
the Nigerian capital Lagos, fourth expedition, passing it and was escorted to a sa-
Ife was where archaeolo- through the territory of the cred palm grove, where the
gists uncovered a series of Yoruba, then controlled by object lay ritually buried.
sculptures that revealed a British Nigeria. Emerging His hosts unearthed it for
rich yet overlooked histo- in 1910. Although his the- around 1,000 years ago, him to inspect.
ry of Yoruba culture to the ories regarding the heads’ Yoruba culture flowered in He described it as “a
world. origins were underpinned the region, and its people head of marvelous beau-
While some were made by entrenched, racist ideas, founded many kingdoms ty, wonderfully cast in an-
of metal and others of terra- his fascination for Yoruba and cities. Today the Yoruba tique bronze, true to life,
cotta, the heads of Ife share artworks began a change still make up one of the larg- encrusted with a patina of
a highly symmetrical style. in how the Western world est ethnic groups in Nigeria. glorious dark green.” Nam-
Some faces are adorned regarded African cultures. Frobenius spent about ing it the “Olokun Head,”
with lines and designs, three weeks in the city of Frobenius pressured the
and elaborate hair styles The Sacred Grove Ife. Established around the priest of the grove to sell
top their heads. All con- Born to a middle-class fam- 11th century, Ife was well it, reportedly for a price of
vey a dignified and impos- ily in Berlin in 1873, then known for the skill of its six British pounds.
ing majesty. the capital of the new Ger- artisans. Frobenius knew of The sale caused conster-
The importance of the man Empire, Frobenius the rich culture of the wid- nation among the Yoru-
human head in the Yoruba spent his childhood and er area because in 1897 the ba elders, and the matter
cosmology was unknown youth reading the chroni- British had taken elaborate reached the ears of the
to the German ethnologist cles of 19th-century ex- bronzes from the palace of British administration. As
Leo Frobenius, who first plorers, which awakened the Kingdom of Benin, a Germany was a rival colo-
saw one of these artworks his fascination for the neighbor of the Yoruba. nial power in West Africa,

1897 1910 1938 1948

RACISM Britain’s plunder of Leo Frobenius concocts More than a dozen The Ife heads are
Nigeria’s Benin bronzes a racist theory that stunning copper-alloy temporarily exhibited
AND raises awareness Greeks from Atlantis heads and many lifelike in the British Museum,
REVISION of West Africa’s created the stunning art terra-cotta heads are leading to Frobenius’s
metalworking treasures. found in Ife, Nigeria. uncovered in Ife. theories to be discarded.

92 JULY/AUGUST 2021
 SECURING
THEIR PLACE
NIGERIAN archaeologist
Ekpo Eyo not only cele-
brated the Yoruba bronze
sculptures and other
works of art from Nigerian
cultures; he also explained
European tendencies to
minimize African art:

Those in power in Europe in

previous centuries resorted
to dividing humanity into
two strongly divergent
groups: the Western world
and the non-Western one
. . . These issues evidently
so beclouded the minds
of scholars that for a long
time, indeed until the late
20th century, they denied
the art of Africa a proper
place in the history of
universal human creative
endeavor.
BRONZE OONI HEAD, 12TH-15TH CENTURY.
NATIONAL MUSEUM OF IFE, NIGERIA
ANDREA JEMOLO/SCALA, FLORENCE

Frobenius’s activities were of Atlantis brought their representative of European

attracting attention. He was Greek civilization to Afri- thinking in the early 20th
forced to return the Olokun ca, which could be seen in century. Nigerian archaeol-
Head to Ife. He did, how- Yoruba art. The Yoruba god ogist Ekpo Eyo later wrote
ever, manage to return Olokun, supposedly the that preconceived notions
to Germany with several figure depicted by the head, of so-called Western civ-
terra-cotta heads from the was, he said, the Greek sea ilization blinded non-
city. god Poseidon. African scholars to the fact
Despite his admira- The Olokun Head, he that complex sophisticat-
tion for these sculptures, wrote, had “a symmetry, ed works of art and culture
Frobenius could not accept a vitality, reminiscent of could come from Africa.
that they had been made by Greece and a proof that,
Africans. His racism led once upon a time, a race, Revealing the Ife
him to concoct a ludicrous ON THE ROAD TO ATLANTIS, far superior in strain to Because the Olokun Head
theory that survivors from LEO FROBENIUS’S ACCOUNT OF HIS the Negro, had been settled disappeared after its return,
EXPEDITION TO AFRICA IN 1908-1910
the legendary Greek island ALAMY/ACI here.” These ideas were it is difficult to know with

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC HISTORY 93

DISCOVERIES

Royal Portraits
These heads of Yoruba rulers were all produced
in Ife. During its heyday, the city was famous for
the skill of its artisans, who sculpted terra-cotta
and also worked copper imported from Europe. Terra-cotta
male head. 12th-
15th century.
Ethnological
Museum, Berlin.
Collection of Leo
Frobenius

Terra-cotta male head.

12th-15th century.
Ethnological Museum,
Berlin. Collection of Leo
Frobenius

Terra-cotta Copper-alloy head.

head. 12th-15th 14th-15th century.
century. National British Museum,
Museums and London. The holes
Monuments may have once held a
Commission, Nigeria beaded veil.

ABOVE: BPK/SCALA, FLORENCE; BELOW: BRIDGEMAN/ACI

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DISCOVERIES

PHOTOGRAPHED in 1910,
the Olokun Head was lost
after Leo Frobenius was
forced to return it to Ife.
FROBENIUS INSTITUTE

certainty its age. Scholars terra-cotta heads, many of not people from Atlantis. Yoruba kingdoms. Wealthy
believe it most likely dated which were taken to mu- The Ife heads played a ooni obtained the metals
to around 1350. seums. The most signifi- key role in overturning for the artworks by trading
European scholars re- cant find occurred in 1938, prejudices that Africa pro- gold and ivory along the Sa-
turned to Ife in search of when more than a dozen duced only “primitive” art. haran routes to Europe.
more bronzes. From rit- heads were found. Like the Responding to a 1948 ex- To the Yoruba, the heads
ual resting places, they lost Olokun Head, these hibition of the heads at the are more than just beauti-
unearthed numerous were made of a copper al- British Museum, a London ful objects. In Yoruba belief,
loy but widely referred to publication declared: “This the head is the home of the
as bronzes. Many can be African art is worthy to Ori, the seat of the soul and
seen today in Ife’s Muse- rank with the finest works the place where a person’s
um of Antiquities. By 1948 of Italy and Greece.” fate is determined.
archaeologists had accept- Study has shown that the Because of the deep spir-
ed that the heads were the regal heads are not gods but itual significance of these
work of Yoruba artisans and men—the ooni, rulers of and other objects produced
in Ife, many Nigerians are
The regal heads of Ife do not depict advocating for the Ife
heads’ repatriation, part of
gods but men—the ooni, past rulers a wider debate as to wheth-
of Yoruba kingdoms. er African artifacts should
be returned to the land that
ROYAL SYMBOLS. A 1953 NIGERIAN POSTAGE STAMP, ISSUED SEVEN YEARS BEFORE created them.
INDEPENDENCE FROM GREAT BRITAIN, BEARS THE LIKENESS OF A NOBLE IFE HEAD.
GETTY IMAGES —Eric García

96 JULY/AUGUST 2021
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