Funeral Wisdom of the World

I learned about the battle of Karanberes by chance while going through the archives of my local web analytics company.  There will be no mistake, if I call the this battle one of the most bizarre thing that ever took place on a battle field. The Ottoman army was victorious without even making a single shot or facing the enemy. It all happened during Austrian-Turkish war of  1787-1791.

Gigantic Austrian army which exceeded a hundred thousand men set up a camp new the town of Karansebes, that is located nowadays in modern Romania, on September of 1788. Naturally, Austrian army represented all nations of the empire. There were Italians from Lombardy, Balkan Slavs, Austrians, Germans and other minorities that could not understand each other.

Several units of hussars were scouting for the presence of the Turks and crossed the nearby river. Hussars did not find the Turks but they met a group of Gypsies that had in their possession a lot of hard liquor. They decided to have a little party and helped themselves to a drink. While they were having fun relaxing from the horrors of war, a contingent of infantry men crossed the river too. They were war-weary too and wanted to join the party as well.  Hussars refused to share schnapps with them and got into the argument that got to its peak when one of the infantry guys fired a shot.

This led to an open combat between infantry and hussars. For some unknown reason, some infantry men started screaming the word “Turks” in Romanian.  This scared the hussars who promptly left the scenery thinking that infantry spotted an approaching Turkish army.  Galloping men rushed into the peacefully resting camp shooting and waving sabers.

Some Austrian officers quickly figured out that men on horses were hussars and not the Ottoman cavalry. Trying to restore the order they were yelling “Halt!” . This made situation even worse, because non-German speaking soldiers decided these were definitely the Turks because they misheard the word “halt” and thought that it was the word “Allah”.

The army commander got confused too because he though that Turkish cavalry is attacking the camp. He ordered the artillery fire. Without understanding what the situation was, the whole gigantic camp got up and fled in different directions. In the clouds of dust soldiers were shooting at everything that moved, including their shadows.  People were killing each other thinking that they were fighting with the enemy.  During these stampeded even the Austrian emperor Joseph II got hurt. He survived by pure chance when his own soldiers pushed him off his horse into a small creek.

Very soon the whole place was empty except for piles of dead, dying and wounded men and lots of treasure, thrown around ammunition, food and guns.  Only two days later the vanguard of the Ottoman army appeared in the area and took the city of  Karansebes and the surrounding area under its control . Astonished Turks discovered on field of the battle that never took place, over ten thousand troops that were killed and wounded by their own fellows.

Since the beginning of the 10th century till almost the end of 17th century many people were tried, tortured, mutilated and burnt at the stake because they were accused of participation in the Witches’ Sabbath. This accusation was extremely popular during practically each and every witchcraft trials. I found extremely wild accounts of it during my research on witch hunts at the local web analytics company.

During the witch craze, Witches’ Sabbath was thought to be some kind of gathering of witches, warlocks, demons and sometimes Satan in the special places. Naturally, this was a product of popular imagination, ignorance and fear which became extremely popular during European Renaissance.

The belief in Witches’ Sabbath started with the publication of fake manuscript Canon Episcopi in 905. In several paragraphs the anonymous author was condemning Pagan worship of goddess Diana  and her cult of her wild hunt. Canon Episcopi was included in many religious collections of works and soon became a canon law in Catholic church.

Generations of theologists and inquisitors with vivid and sick imagination throughout centuries created sick descriptions of Witches’ Sabbath.  Tortured victims under extreme pain would add more fuel to the fire by adding numerous weird details. Here is some stuff that you would find interesting.

Witches would be piloting the brooms or were carried by demons to the place of meeting. The gathering itself would start at midnight and end at dawn. There were accounts of witches and warlocks eating human flesh, preferably children. Usually the Satan would be present in a form of a humongous goat . It was an honor for  each witch and warlock to kiss this goat in the butt.

In other accounts whole variety of demons would be present at the Sabbath too. Munching in all-you-can-eat buffet of human flesh was accompanied by wild dances and transitioned into Black Mass which was depicted as some kind of parody on Christian Mass.  Then it would often culminate with sexual orgies where demons would copulate with witches and warlocks in every possible way.

If you think that witch hunts ended several hundred years ago, think again. Do you know that up to 1951 there was a Witchcraft Act in England which provided penalties for the practice of witchcraft? And that the last case when this act was enforced was not in Medieval times but in 1944? I found the name of the last victim of 20 century witch hunt in the archives of my local web analytics company.

The name of a poor woman who was the last one to be sent to jail because of the Witchcraft Act  in 1944 was  Helen Duncan. This lady honestly believed that she could summon spirits.

These were the tough days of World War 2  Who knows, maybe Helen Duncan was really a clairvoyant or a true medium? Authorities learned about her existence when she tried to summon the spirit of a sailor who served on a war ship HMS Barham. By the way, the sinking of this ship with a crew was hidden from the general public at the time.

The alleged witch punishment did not take long. Intelligence officers were so scared of this lady’s medium powers they they caught  and quickly prosecuted her.  They were scared that she, as a powerful witch, would be able to learn through spirits of secret war plans. Their superstition cost Helen Duncan nine months in prison.

On May 11 we will be celebrating Mother’s Day in the US. In some ways it is our own unique holiday. This holiday is one of the most popular and commercially successful US holidays. It is the most popular day of the year to dine out at a restaurant in America. And it still remains heavily marketed concept.

But originally this holiday was intended as a call to unite women against the war in 19th century. A social activist Julia Ward Howe horrified by casualties of the American Civil War wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. Her call for peace and disarmament failed and did not get formal recognition at first. Only many years later some states started celebrating Mother’s Day and, eventually, Woodrow Wilson made it into a national holiday in 1914.

However, the idea of the holiday was loosely imported from the old British holiday that has the identical name. The original Mother’s Day started in England somewhere in the sixteenth century. At first it was not viewed as a holiday but more as a Christian practice of visiting one’s mother church annually. Then it grew into a day when mothers had a chance to reunite with their children. It was especially important for young working women and apprentices who were allowed by their masters to visit their families.

Nowadays, in Britain this holiday partially lost its religious meaning. On Mother’s Day people celebrate and give thanks for mothers. The holiday falls on the fourth Sunday of Lent which exactly three weeks before Easter Sunday.

Elvis Presley funeral took place in 1977.  Thousands of Elvis’s fans participated in funeral services. They lined the streets to see an open casket. Funeral pictures appeared on the cover of National Enquirer making it the fastest selling issue of that publication. Presley was buried next to his mother at Forest Hill Cemetery, Memphis.  Later, there were several attempts to still his remains, so he and his mother were  reburied at Graceland.

Over thirty years passed but the persistent rumor that the rock star did not die still consume imagination of people, creating some kind of national phenomenon and unusual funeral tradition.  Although the idea that the Presley is alive and kicking and live in hiding for so many years seem bizarre, to say the least, it does not go away even in XXI century.

If he were alive, Elvis would be in his seventies and would most likely be amazed at all the stories about him circling the country .  Rumors and gossip reached the new heights by adding all possible conspiracy theories - from an empty casket  to extraterrestrial involvement.  An army of impersonators seem to spread these stories around for publicity and advertising reasons.  It is a sure bet that any tv program or show about Las Vegas will have Presley’s song or a short tune in it.

I wish there would be simple answer, why people just don’t let Elvis rest in peace.  His former fans - baby boomers,  have already retired or in the process of retiring.  I don’t think that they are the ones who perpetuate the stories about undead Elvis Presley.  Generations of talented musicians that came after him, respect the “king”, but don’t spread the rumors either.  Except, maybe, the guy from Oasis who claimed in 2007 that he was drowning but Elvis Presley saved him.

I believe there is only one Museum of Funeral Customs in the world. It is located in Springfield, Illinois, near Oak Ridge Cemetery, the site of Abraham Lincoln’s tomb. Our team of  web analysts,  came to visit the museum along with the rest of the staff.  The museum contained exhibits dealing with American funerary and mourning customs and various related collections. Basically, it provides resources to scholars for researching funeral customs, hosts tours and special events.

We were amazed to find all kinds of funeral paraphernalia from various cultures and times. Personally, I liked rare books collection on embalming dating as early as the 16th century. We saw at the museum recreated 19th century middle class American home funeral setting, recreated embalming room from Jazz generation of the 1920s. There were exhibits of embalming equipment and instruments, examples of postmortem photography and even the scale models of Lincoln’s tomb and funeral train.

Naturally, there is humor in everything, even death. We found confirmation of this when we visited museum’s gift shop. It did not make much sense to us that this shop was selling plain polo shirts or sweatshirts. But my co-workers and I purchased plenty of hilarious stuff, like milk chocolate coffins, wooden and silver casket key rings, casket-shaped paper weights. One of our guys still wears at work the t-shirt with a morbid sign that says “Everybody’s Gotta Go Sometime…”

During the Han Dynasty (206 BC-220 AD), China officially became a Confucian state and prospered domestically: agriculture, handicrafts and commerce flourished, and the population reached over 55 million people. It lasted over four hundred years and it is one of the greatest periods in the history of China. In the 1st century BC China made numerous attempts to consolidate a road to the Western world and India, both through direct and diplomatic relations with the countries located further west. This is when Silk Road network of routes came into existence.

Chinese army regularly policed the trade route against nomadic bandit forces. In the 1st century AD China even sent an army of seventy thousand soldiers and light cavalry troops to secure the trade routes far west across central Asia to the doorstep of Europe. It even set up base on the shores of the Caspian Sea to cooperate with Parthia. China subsequently sent numerous embassies, around ten every year, to other countries reaching as far as Syria.

Around 36 BC Chinese forces encountered and clashed with Roman soldiers in Sogdiana for the first time in the recorded history. These Roman legionaries may have been either irregular warriors or a part of Mark Antony’s army invading Parthia. Chinese got out of this battle victorious, thanks to their crossbows, whose bolts and darts seem easily to have penetrated Roman shields and armor.

In spite of this within several years an intense trade between China and Rome soon followed, probably with Parthians as middlemen. Famous Chinese silk became in fashion among Romans, who thought that it was obtained from the trees. This obsession with silk went so far that its importation caused a huge outflow of gold out of Rome. There is evidence that the The Senate issued, in vain, several edicts to prohibit the wearing of silk, on economic and moral grounds. Senate proclaimed that silk clothes were decadent and immoral.

Romans borrowed Greek crossbows and utilized it in their military campaigns to a certain degree. After the fall of Roman empire when the Dark Ages came, there is not much evidence related to crossbows. Obviously, they were used by medieval soldiers, because we have extensive evidence on fights with crossbows during the battle of Hastings.

Crossbow soldier had numerous advantages in comparison to longbow archer. It was one of the reasons why European armies used crossbows extensively till sixteen century.
It was extremely easy to train anybody to use a crossbow within a week or so, while it took years of practice and for an archer to master shooting from a longbow.

The late medieval version of a crossbow which was called an arbalest completely pushed the longbow out of the battles. Arbalests were much larger than original crossbows and had greater strength and force. These weapons could easily penetrate most knights’ armor. Arbalests were sometimes considered inhumane or unfair weapons, since an inexperienced crossbowman could use one to kill a knight who had a lifetime of training.

In 1139 Pope Innocent II even put a ban on arbalest, but medieval crossbowmen still existed, and continued to kill knights.  Mercenary troops of crossbowmen were in high demand those days because of their skills - they could shoot two bolts per minute easily.  And the commanding officer of the crossbowmen corps was one of the highest and privileged person in any army.

Later development of a crossbow allowed to use it in the cavalry. But the times of gunpowder weapons already began. Musketeers replaced crossbowmen and proved to be deadly against cavalry of heavy armored knights.  Muskets could neutralize even the most heavily armored cavalry forces. Their widespread use put an end to the rule of a crossbow and completely changed the face of warfare.

When we think of the crossbow we imagine all those great medieval battles and sieges of castles. But, in fact, crossbow was invented at least a thousand years before the arrival of Middle Ages. The mystery of its origins still remains, but most historians agree that crossbow first appeared in China or cultures neighboring it. Earliest Chinese manuscripts describe the giant crossbow catapult used in military campaigns around sixth century BC. Other manuscripts state that crossbow was not just used as a military weapon but also as a toy and for setting up traps for hunting purposes.

A century later Chinese manuscripts already describe a crossbow as a hand held military weapon used for ambush. And in the third century BC, Chinese crossbow was already well developed and used quite widely all over the empire. Archaeologists unearthed the remains of multiple crossbows during the discovery of the famous Terracotta Army in the tomb of Chinese emperor who ruled in the third century BC.

It seems that somehow, Chinese crossbows found their way to Greece. This might have happened even before the establishment of the empire of Alexander the Great. Anyways, some type of crossbows called gastraphetes were widely used by ancient Carthaginians in Sicily as far as 397 BC . And during siege of Tyre in 332 BC by Alexander the Great, reliable sources describe the use of these weapons by the Greek besiegers.

Alexander the Great and his Macedon generals had great impact in the development and extension of the Silk Road network of routes. Their campaigns are thought to be the first major step in opening the big connection between the East and the West. Alexander’s empire extended from Greece to Central Asia. In Fergana Valley, which is located in modern Tajikistan, he founded the famous city Alexandria Eschate which later became the major point of northern Silk Road.

After his death Alexander’s general Ptolemy and his descendants got Egypt and became first Greek pharaohs. Egypt heavily depended on trade, it had large sea ports on Red Sea and established routes to the Middle East and India and to the South, reaching East Africa.

As for Greek kingdoms in Central Asia, they lasted for the next three hundred years. They were trying to continue the expansion to Sogdiana and India and set up new Greco-Indian kingdoms there. Ancient historians noted not once that Greek kingdoms led their expeditions to China and Chinese Turkestan around 200 BC, which constitutes the first verified by documents contact between China and the West.