Queens of Mesopotamia – Part II: Nitocris

‘Darius Opens the Tomb of Nitocris’

By Eustache Le Sueur

In the previous post, we discussed the Assyrian queen Semiramis, as described in the Histories of Herodotus and other works. Now we will take a look at Nitocris, another queen who ruled Babylon five generations after Semiramis.

(Another, perhaps better-known, Nitocris was also mentioned by Herodotus as a ruler of Egypt. She was said to be the last pharaoh of the Sixth dynasty. Today, scholars question her very existence.)

The Assyrian-origin Nitocris, sometimes called Nitocris of Babylon, is said to be either the wife or daughter of Nebuchadnezzar II. This Nebuchadnezzar (a major figure in the Bible’s Book of Daniel) was the son of Nabopolassar, founder of the Neo-Babylonian or Chaldean Empire, which broke free from Nineveh-based Assyria by forming an alliance with the Medes of Persia. After the destruction of Nineveh, the Babylonians began to worry about the ambitions of their erstwhile Persian allies.

Nitocris is introduced by Herodotus as follows (in George Rawlinson’s translation):

The later of the two queens, whose name was Nitocris, a wiser princess than her predecessor, not only left behind her, as memorials of her occupancy of the throne, the works which I shall presently describe, but also, observing the great power and restless enterprise of the Medes, who had taken so large a number of cities, and among them Nineveh, and expecting to be attacked in her turn, made all possible exertions to increase the defences of her empire.

Herodotus says Nitocris ordered a number of grand civil works aimed at creating defensive positions north of Babylon and thereby deterring attacks by the Medes. Among other things, Babylonian excavations transformed the Euphrates, formerly a straight river course flowing into Babylon from the north, turning it into a winding river with a number of sharp bends. She also ordered a huge lake to be dug to the north of her capital.

As Herodotus put it: “All these works were on that side of Babylon where the passes lay, and the roads into Media were the straightest, and the aim of the queen in making them was to prevent the Medes from holding intercourse with the Babylonians, and so to keep them in ignorance of her affairs.”

She also took advantage of the massive construction projects to temporarily redirect the Euphrates into the new lake basin and build a stone bridge across the riverbed inside the city of Babylon, for the first time linking the two sides of the capital.

Says Herodotus: “When the river had filled the cutting, and the bridge was finished, the Euphrates was turned back again into its ancient bed; and thus the basin, transformed suddenly into a lake, was seen to answer the purpose for which it was made, and the inhabitants, by help of the basin, obtained the advantage of a bridge.”

The location of the bridge of Nitocris has been uncovered by archaeologists at the site of the city of Babylon.

The Achaemenid Persian King Cyrus used Nitocris’ public works against her in his conquest of Babylon. He diverted the Euphrates into her artificial lake, lowering the river’s level to allow his troops to enter the city under the defensive walls beneath which the river passed.

Nitocris also created what Herodotus called “a remarkable deception” to prevent anyone from seizing her burial treasure after her death. She built her tomb above one of the main gates of Babylon, rendering the entrance unusable, because of a widespread cultural prohibition against passing beneath a dead body:

She had her tomb constructed in the upper part of one of the principal gateways of the city, high above the heads of the passers by, with this inscription cut upon it:- "If there be one among my successors on the throne of Babylon who is in want of treasure, let him open my tomb, and take as much as he chooses -- not, however, unless he be truly in want, for it will not be for his good." This tomb continued untouched until [the Achaemenid Persian king] Darius came to the kingdom. To him it seemed a monstrous thing that he should be unable to use one of the gates of the town, and that a sum of money should be lying idle, and moreover inviting his grasp, and he not seize upon it. Now he could not use the gate, because, as he drove through, the dead body would have been over his head. Accordingly he opened the tomb; but instead of money, found only the dead body, and a writing which said- "Hadst thou not been insatiate of pelf, and careless how thou gottest it, thou wouldst not have broken open the sepulchres of the dead."

Herodotus does not specifically say what happened to Nitocris’ treasure, but his account suggests none was buried with her – that, of course, would have been the centerpiece of the deception.

Classicist Deborah Levine Gera, author of Warrior Women: The Anonymous Tractatus De Mulieribus, says Nitocris of Babylon appears to be more intelligent than Semiramis, particularly because of her public works projects and her awareness of Median expansionism. But she notes that some scholars suspect the two queens, if they actually existed, were in fact the same person. Plutarch, for example confuses the two, and has Darius plunder Semiramis’ tomb. Also some accounts attribute the bridge-building and artificial lake to Semiramis.

There are other theories about Nitocris’ identity, including:

(1) She was Nebuchadnezzar II, whose name Herodotus mistook for a feminine form. 

(2) She was Adad-Guppi, mother of Nabonidus, last of the Neo-Babylonian rulers. The influential Adad-Guppi, who helped engineer her son’s rise to the throne, was born in about 649 B.C., 150 years or five generations after the queen thought to be Semiramis. 

(3) Nitocris was a powerful Assyrian queen named Naqi’a, wife of Sennacherib (who ruled from 704-681 B.C.) and mother of Esarhaddon (who ruled from 680-669 B.C.). Many of the public works completed during Naqi’a’s lifetime resembled those of Nitocris.

To sum up, as Levine Gera puts it:

Nitocris is an elusive figure. All of the attempts to identify the Babylonian queen with an historical personage lead to difficulties of one kind or another and we cannot establish whether, in fact, she ever existed. Real or not, Nitocris is a complex, ambiguous personality whose successes and failures are inextricably linked.  She builds magnificent, monumental waterworks, but these are used by Cyrus to capture her city. She tricks Darius into opening her tomb only to bring about the violation of her own grave. Nitocris is said to be clever, but the queen is, in Herodotus’ tale, her own worst enemy: ultimately, her building feats and artful epitaph – the outstanding products of her intelligence – do her no good.

The mystery of Nitocris, like that of Semiramis, continues….

Queens of Mesopotamia – Part I: Semiramis

In his Histories, Herodotus discusses two famous Assyrian women who ruled ancient Babylon (among many other cities in the Neo-Assyrian Empire): Semiramis and Nitocris. Our historical knowledge of these leaders is scant, but there are plenty of colorful legends. We will first take a look at Semiramis, and consider Nitocris in a later post.

Herodotus says of Semiramis:

Many sovereigns have ruled over this city of Babylon, and lent their aid to the building of its walls and the adornment of its temples, of whom I shall make mention in my Assyrian history. Among them were two women. Of these, the earlier, called Semiramis, held the throne five generations before the later princess. She raised certain embankments well worthy of inspection, in the plain near Babylon, to control the [Euphrates] river, which, till then, used to overflow, and flood the whole country round about.

George Rawlinson, translator of the above lines, says in a footnote that Semiramis was the wife of Rammannirari III (812-783 B.C.) and that she may have introduced the worship of Nebo (or Nabu), the Assyrian-Babylonian god of wisdom and writing, into the great northern Assyrian city of Nineveh, near modern-day Mosul in Iraq. He pointedly adds: “Herodotus gives none of the wild tales attached to the mythical Semiramis.”

Historians today believe Semiramis (or Shammuramat) was the wife and queen of Assyrian King Shamsi-Adad IV, who ruled from 824-811 B.C. Semiramis is said to have ruled on her own as regent for four years from the death of her husband until her son Adad-nirari III came of age. Scholars question whether Semiramis was formally named regent during this period, but there is no doubt she was an influential force in the Neo-Assyrian Empire of the day.

Diodorus Siculus and other historians who related the legends surrounding Semiramis apparently drew much of their information from the accounts of Ctesias of Cnidus.

Here is one description of the legends, which notes that Semiramis was believed to be the daughter of a fish-goddess and that she eventually became the wife of a mythical Assyrian king named Ninus:

According to the legend as related by Diodorus, Semiramis was of noble parents, the daughter of the fish-goddess Derketo of Ascalon in Syria and a mortal. Derketo abandoned her at birth and drowned herself. The child was fed by doves until she was found and brought up by Simmas, the royal shepherd.
 Afterwards she married Onnes or Menones, one of the generals of Ninus. Ninus was so struck by her bravery at the capture of Bactra that he married her, forcing Onnes to commit suicide.
 She and Ninus had a son named Ninyas. After King Ninus conquered Asia, including the Bactrians, he was fatally wounded by an arrow. Semiramis then masqueraded as her son and tricked her late husband's army into following her instructions because they thought these came from their new ruler. After Ninus's death she reigned as queen regnant, conquering much of Asia.
 Not only was she able to reign effectively, she also added Ethiopia to the empire. She restored ancient Babylon and protected it with a high brick wall that completely surrounded the city. She is also credited with inventing the chastity belt. Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus credits her as the first person to castrate a male youth into eunuch-hood: "Semiramis, that ancient queen who was the first person to castrate male youths of tender age" (Lib. XIV).

Edwin Murphy, translator of Diodorus Siculus, says of Semiramis:

It is probable that Semiramis was originally a Semi-Divine Syrian Empress, (part goddess part-human), perhaps the same who was linked to the [deity] worshipped at Ascalon under the name of Astarte, or the Oriental Aphrodite, associated with the Babylonia Ishtar, from the Sumerian Innana, the Persian Anaitis, and the Armenian Saris to whom the dove was sacred. Hence the stories of her voluptuousness which were current even in the time of Augustus. The historical figure behind this legendary queen is to be identified with, and almost certain, the real Queen "Sammura-mat", the palace wife of Shamsi-Adad V, king of Assyria, and mother of King Adad-Nirari III; she lived towards the end of the ninth century (regent to 810-805 B.C.), and is known to us from ancient Assyrian inscriptions. Numerous operas, plays, and novels are still current that celebrate the fame of this greatest of queens "Semiramis"... who never really lived.

Murphy explores even further the legend that Semiramis was the daughter of a fish-goddess (mermaid?), a concept also discussed by Lucian in his De Dea Syria:

Diodorus has preserved the traces of some authentic Semitic religious lore. Ascalon was the site of a famous temple to the goddess Atargatis, or Adargatis, of whose name Derceto is a variant. Atargatis herself was a combination of two deities: Athtar (contracted to Atar, an Aramaic form of Phoenician Astarte, Babylonian Ishtar, Old Testament Astoreth); and Athe, a Palmyrene divinity. The Talmudic and Armenian rendition, Tar'atha, shows this duality quite well. The worship of Atargatis was a goddess of increase and fertility, sometimes identified by Greek writers with Hellenic Aphrodite. She was linked with the ideas of the life-giving power of water and the fertility of fish, and associated, at least in Palestine, with the male deity Dagon, who was also represented as part fish, reminiscent of Oannes, the enigmatic amphibious culture-bringer of the Chaldaeans.
 Many Syrians reverence fish and observed taboos on eating them. Lucian, in the second century A.D., described the practice at Hieropolis in northern Syria, the other great center of Derceto worship: "Others think that Semiramis ... founded this site, not for Hera, but for her own mother ... Derceto. There was a likeness of Derceto in Phoenicia, a strange sight! It is a woman for half of her length, but from the thighs to the tip of the feet a fish's tail stretches out. The Derceto in Hieropolis, however, is entirely a woman... They consider fish sacred and never touch one... There is also a lake not far from the sanctuary, in which sacred fish of all kinds are raised" (De Dea Syria 14,15). A fragment of Mnaseas adds: "Whenever they pray to the goddess, they offer fishes made of silver and gold; each day the priests offer her real fish, delicately cooked, on a table". Many classical authors mention the Syrians' abstention from fish, and connect this in various ways with Atargatis, whom some rationalized simply as a cruel queen of ancient Syria who instituted this practice.

Interestingly, Murphy finds a possible connection between Onnes, husband of Semiramis, and Oannes, the part-man part-fish creature who according to ancient legend emerged from the Persian/Arabian Gulf  and brought knowledge and culture to ancient Mesopotamia:

It is possible that Onnes represents, in a disguised and attenuated form, Oannes, the semi-human fish-like being who, according to the Babylonian History of Berosus, brought culture to ancient Mesopotamia. Oannes was Berosus' name for the Babylonian god Ea (equivalent to Sumerian En-ki). His widespread cult was adopted by the Assyrians, among others, who erected a temple to him at Nineveh. Ea's special domain was water and the deep, and this plus his icthyomorphic appearance and his worship at Nineveh may reflect a flimsy connection with the Semiramis legend through the fish-goddess Derceto, her mother. But the point should not be pressed too far, the evidence is only inferential. The slight resemblance between the name Derceto and that of Damkina, Ea's consort, may be coincidental. But it is curious that Hydaspes, mentioned below as a son of Onnes, bears the same name as a river in India: for Ea was of the deep or abyss, the source of all streams.

Thus, as we often find, legends and myths about historical figures frequently have more importance than the so-called factual data. We find Semiramis has connections to the great goddess of the Middle East and to the mysterious knowledge-bringer of early Mesopotamia. As a mythic and metaphoric figure, she has survived to the present day, has been featured in numerous plays and works of literature, including Dante’s Inferno and the Snopes trilogy of William Faulkner.

The Manticore

The martikhora(s) or manticore is a mythical animal described in the Indica of Ctesias of Cnidus and a few other classical sources. 

The creature is said to derive its name from the Persian words for “man-eater.” It lives in the forests of India, has a lion-like body and a human face, and a tail that shoots lethal, meter-long stingers. It is also said to be able to mimic human speech. 

Some believe the martikhora is an exaggerated description of a man-eating Bengal tiger, which was hunted in early India in the same manner as Ctesias attributes to martikhoras. 

The people of Spain integrated the manticore into their mythology and transformed the creature into a child-snatching werewolf. 

The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder describes the manticore as living in Ethiopia, but he also quotes Ctesias, who said the beast was found in India. Ethiopia and India were often confused in ancient accounts. Here is what Ctesias had to say about the creature:

[§15] The martikhora is an animal found in this country. It has a face like a man's, a skin red as cinnabar, and is as large as a lion. It has three rows of teeth, ears and light-blue eyes like those of a man; its tail is like that of a land scorpion, containing a sting more than a cubit long at the end. It has other stings on each side of its tail and one on the top of its head, like the scorpion, with which it inflicts a wound that is always fatal. If it is attacked from a distance, it sets up its tail in front and discharges its stings as if from a bow; if attacked from behind, it straightens it out and launches its stings in a direct line to the distance of a thirty meter. The wound inflicted is fatal to all animals except the elephant. The stings are about a foot long and about as thick as a small rush. The martikhora is called in Greek anthropophagos [man-eater], because, although it preys upon other animals, it kills and devours a greater number of human beings. It fights with both its claws and stings, which, according to Ctesias, grow again after they have been discharged. There is a great number of these animals in India, which are hunted and killed with spears or arrows by natives mounted on elephants.

Aelian, a Greek military writer who lived in second-century Rome, has a similar account of the manticore, based on Ctesias but with more details: 

There is in India a wild beast, powerful, daring, as big as the largest lion, of a red colour like cinnabar, shaggy like a dog, and in the language of India it is called Martikhoras (Manticore) [Persian mardkhora ‘man-slayer’]. Its face however is not that of a wild beast but of a man, and it has three rows of teeth set in its upper jaw and three in the lower; these are exceedingly sharp and larger than the fangs of a hound. Its ears also resemble a man's except that they are larger and shaggy; its eyes are blue-grey and they too are like a man's, but its feet and claws, you must know, are those of a lion. To the end of its tail is attached the sting of a scorpion, and this might be over a cubit in length; and the tail has stings at intervals on either side. But the tip of the tail gives a fatal sting to anyone who encounters it, and death is immediate. If one pursued the beast it lets fly its stings, like arrows, sideways, and it can shoot a great distance; and when it discharges its stings straight ahead it bends bends its tail back; if however it shoots in a backward direction, as the Sakai (Sacae) do, then it stretches its tail to its full extent. Any creature that the missile hits it kills; the elephant alone it does not kill. These stings which it shoots are a foot long and the thickness of a bulrush. Now Ktesias asserts (and he says that the Indians confirm his words) that in the places where those stings have been let fly others spring up, so that this evil produces a crop. And according to the same writer the Martikhoras for a choice devours human beings; indeed it will slaughter a great number; and it lies in wait not for a single man but would set upon two or even three men, and alone overcomes even that number. All other animals it defeats: the lion alone it can never bring down. That this creature takes special delight in gorging human flesh its very name testifies, for in the Greek language its means androphagos (man-eater), and its name is derived from its activities. Like the stag it is extremely swift. 

Now the Indians hunt the young of these animals while they are still without stings in their tails, which they then crush with a stone to prevent them from growing stings. The sound of their voice is as near as possible that of a trumpet.
Ktesias (Ctesias) declares that he has actually seen this animal in Persia (it had been brought from India as a present to the Persian King)--if Ktesias is to be regarded as a sufficient authority on such matters. At any rate after hearing of the peculiarities of this animal, one must pay heed to the historian of Knidos.

A mythical creatures website offers a few more details:

Most commonly known as Manticore, this beast comes from the forests of India. It has the body of a lion, the face of a man with three rows of teeth and a notorious scorpion tail. Its tail is lined with poisonous stings that it throws at its victims immediately. It shoots by facing away from its enemy and flicking its tail backwards. The stings are one meter in length and are poisonous to all except the elephant. It creates newborn Manticores from the ground producing them quickly. Hunters kill the young of the Manticore before they grow their poisonous tail and crush its tails with a stone to prevent that from happening. The Manticore makes a sound like a trumpet and is vermilion red in colour. 

The Manticore was detailed by Pliny the Elder from ancient Greece in his book Historia Naturalis (77 AD) which derived from a description from King Artaxerxes Mnemon (404 – 359 BC). The Manticore also featured in medieval bestiaries and art. It has the Biblical connection as being the representative creature for the prophet Jeremiah. In Churches it is seen as a scaled covered woman. Later in Spanish folklore, the Manticore developed into a child-stealing Werewolf. 

 All in all, a wondrous creature....

Biche-de-Mer

While reading Edgar Allan Poe’s rather remarkable short novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838), I was struck by a bit of natural history involving a sea creature called “biche-de-mer.”

At this point in the narrative, Pym has become a crewman on a British sailing schooner called the Jane Guy, bound for the South Seas on a trading and sealing mission.

The captain decides to explore south of the Antarctic Circle, and they discover a strange island inhabited by a dark-skinned race. They decide to work with the islanders to harvest biche-de-mer from the shallow coastal waters, for eventual sale to the Chinese and others.

About six years before Poe’s novel appeared, American sea captain Benjamin Morrell had published an ostensibly true account of his nautical adventures entitled Narrative of Four Voyages (1832) in which he talks about the biche-de-mer. Morrell describes the creature as “an edible sea-slug” much in demand by the Chinese:

"Some of them are as much as a foot and a half long. The Chinese eat them, and think them a great luxury" (p97)

Poe is said to have borrowed extensively from Morrell’s account, though changing things significantly to suit his purposes.

Here is some of what Arthur Gordon Pym says about the biche-de-mer:

This mollusca is oblong, and of different sizes, from three to eighteen inches in length; and I have seen a few that were not less than two feet long. They are nearly round, a little flattish on one side, which lies next the ground, or bottom of the sea; and they are from one inch to eight inches thick. They crawl up into shallow water at particular seasons of the year, probably for the purpose of gendering, as we often find them in pairs. It is when the sun has the most power upon the water, rendering it tepid, that they approach the shore; and often into places so shallow, that on the tide's receding they are left dry on the coral reef, exposed to the heat of the sun. But they do not bring forth their young in shallow water, as we never see any of their progeny; and the full-grown ones are always seen coming in from deep water.  They feed principally on that class of zoophytes which produce the coral. 

 The biche-de-mer is generally taken in three or four feet water; after which they are taken to the shore, where they are split at one end with a knife, the incision being one inch or more, according to the size of the mollusca. Through this opening the entrails are forced out by pressure, and they are much like those of any other small tenant of the deep. The article is then washed, and afterward boiled to a certain degree, which must not be too much nor too little. They are then buried in the ground for four hours; then boiled again for a short time, after which they are dried, either by the fire or the sun. Those cured by the sun are worth the most; but where one picul (133 1/3lb.) can be cured that way, I can cure thirty picul by the fire. When once properly cured, they can be kept, in a dry place, for two or three years, without any risk; but they should be examined once every few months, say four times a year, to see if any dampness is likely to affect them. A picul, according to the Chinese weight, is 133 1/3, lb. avoirdupois. 

 The Chinese, as before stated, consider biche-de-mer a very great luxury; believing that it wonderfully strengthens and nourishes the system, and renews the exhausted vigour of the immoderate voluptuary. The first quality commands a high price in Canton, being worth ninety dollars a picul….

The creature Pym is describing is of course the sea cucumber, which was often called the “sea slug” in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

As our friends at Wikipedia tell us:

Sea cucumbers are echinoderms from the class Holothuroidea. They are marine animals with a leathery skin and an elongated body containing a single, branched gonad. Sea cucumbers are found on the sea floor worldwide. The number of holothurian species worldwide is about 1250 with the greatest number being in the Asia Pacific region. Many of these are gathered for human consumption and some species are cultivated in aquaculture systems. The harvested product is variously referred to as trepang, bêche-de-mer or balate. Sea cucumbers serve a useful purpose in the marine ecosystem as they help recycle nutrients, breaking down detritus and other organic matter after which bacteria can continue the degradation process….  

 In recent years, the sea cucumber industry in Alaska has increased due to increased export of the skins and muscles to China. 

 In China, sea cucumbers are farmed commercially in artificial ponds. These ponds can be as large as 1,000 acres (400 ha), and satisfy much of the local demand. Wild sea cucumbers are caught by divers and these wild Alaskan sea cucumbers have higher nutritional value and are larger than farmed Chinese sea cucumbers. Larger size and higher nutritional value has allowed the Alaskan fisheries to continue to compete for market share, despite the increase in local, Chinese sea cucumber farming.

Interestingly, a controversy has developed in Canada over a plan to begin sea cucumber farming in Baynes Sound, between Denman and Vancouver Islands on the Pacific coast. Baynes Sound is a popular recreation area, and local residents are worried that sea cucumber farming will lead to industrialization of the area.

Says one press account dated June 1:

A proposed underwater sea cucumber farm that will stretch for five kilometers along the shore of Baynes Sound has opponents raising the alarm and mobilizing to stop the application before it is approved, but they have only one month to do so…. 

 If tenure is granted, it means the applicants Dan Bowen and Eric Gant will be past the first and arguably biggest hurdle in gaining a license to seed and harvest the sea creatures, considered a delicacy in parts of Asia, for the next 10-30 years…. 

 Bowen said that the cultivation of sea cucumbers, which live in the permanently submerged subtidal zone, will not impact residents or recreational users. The animals grow below the surface, somewhere between two to 20 metres under water, and they are seeded and harvested by divers. During their first few months after seeding, divers, working from a 32-foot boat, will check on the sea cucumbers every couple of weeks. After that, they will return approximately once a month until the animals are harvested when they are two to three years old.

What do sea cucumbers taste like? One blogger reports:

Sea cucumber is like a ghost. It seems substantial but after a few bites it just disappears and gives very little in flavor and leaves even less in aftertaste. It’s as if you never ate anything, like el Bulli foam.

There you go.

When Giant Funguses Ruled the Earth

About 400 million years ago, during the Devonian period, the world was a very strange place.

Green plant life had begun to cover the land surfaces of the Earth, but these plants were small, most of them ferns, and they only grew a foot or two high at most. This was long before the age of the dinosaurs, and there were no animals with backbones anywhere on land.

In this placid setting, there arose a form of life that was stunning in its size and bizarre in its appearance. For more than a century, scientists have puzzled over its fossils, trying to figure out exactly what it was.

The fossils are large mineralized columns, like tree trunks, sometimes reaching eight or more meters (24 feet plus) in length. They have been found scattered around the globe, in places like Canada, Australia and Saudi Arabia.

At first these life forms were thought to be trees – conifers. Their name, Prototaxites (pronounced “pro-toe-tax-eye-tease”) means “early yew tree.” But they had no branches. They were eventually determined not to be “vascular plants,” the term used for higher plants with conducting tissues that allow resources like water, minerals and photosynthesis products to circulate throughout the organism. Later theories characterized Prototaxites as a lichen, or perhaps algae, or fungus.

In 2007, scientists from the University of Chicago and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., announced they had finally solved the mystery of “one of the weirdest organisms that ever lived”: Prototaxites was indeed a fungus – a giant, tree-trunk-like fungus.

The fungus theory had first been advanced in 1915 and was revived in 2001 by Francis Hueber of the Smithsonian. Hueber’s research has played a large part in the latest determination. The Chicago and Smithsonian researchers found independent evidence supporting Hueber’s contention that the life form was a fungus:

The team did so by analyzing two varieties—isotopes—of carbon contained in Prototaxites and the plants that lived in the same environment approximately 400 million years ago. The metabolism of plants is limited by photosynthesis. Deriving their energy from the sun and their carbon from carbon dioxide in the air, any given type of plant will typically contain a similar ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 as another plant of the same type. “But if you’re an animal, you will look like whatever you eat,” [Chicago’s C. Kevin] Boyce said. And Prototaxites displayed a much wider variation in its ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 content than would be expected in any plant. Geological processes can alter the isotopic composition of fossils, but Boyce and his colleagues conducted tests to verify that the carbon isotopic composition of the specimens they analyzed stemmed from organic rather than geologic factors. As for why these bizarre organisms grew so large, “I’ve wondered whether it enabled Prototaxites to distribute its spores widely, allowing it to occupy suitable marshy habitats that may have been patchily distributed on the landscape,” [the Smithsonian’s Carol] Hotton said. The relatively simple Devonian ecosystems certainly seemed to contain nothing to prevent them from growing slowly for a long time. Plant-eating animals had not yet evolved, Boyce said. But even if Prototaxites hadn’t been eaten by the dinosaurs and elephants that came much later, they probably grew too slowly to rebuild from regular disturbances of any kind, Boyce said. “It’s hard to imagine these things surviving in the modern world,” he said. 

So it’s official: The Devonian was the period when giant funguses ruled the Earth.

But wait a minute – someone has come up with another theory challenging the experts.

In 2010, Linda E. Graham of the University of Wisconsin and several colleagues published a paper presenting evidence that the tree-trunk-style fossils of Prototaxites were not towering columns of fungus after all, but rather rolled-up liverwort mats (similar to rolls of grass sod).

As a recent “Catalogue of Organisms” blog post describes the new theory:

In Graham et al.'s estimation, Prototaxites should not be classed with the fungi but with the liverworts. Liverworts are small, often mosslike plants of moist habitats. Members of one group of liverworts, the thallose liverworts, lack any distinction between leaves and stem but grow as a flattened thallus anchored to the ground by rhizoids (rootlets) on the lower surface…. But modern liverworts lack strong supporting tissue and would be pushing to reach an inch in height - how could they have produced the eight-metre columns recorded for Prototaxites? A transverse section of Prototaxites shows a ring structure like that found in a tree trunk. Hueber (2001), who interpreted Prototaxites as a perennial fungal fruiting body, felt that this ring structure also resembled tree rings in indicating discontinuous growth by the organism. Graham et al. (2010) interpret the ring structure differently. They suggest that large mats of thallose liverworts covered the Silurian landscape. These mats could become detached from their substrate by agents such as wind and rain, and start to roll up as they decayed. As they rolled, they would form the large columns that, after being compressed by burial and fossilised, would eventually be identified as Prototaxites.

The blog author, an entomologist, finds this new interpretation “intriguing, if a little difficult to accept outright.”

He adds:

Prototaxites is represented by a reasonable number of specimens (I don't know the actual number, but thirteen species have been named from numerous localities around the world) - were the conditions that would have lead to mat-rolling common enough to have produced that number of fossils? I wonder if it would be worth investigating how Prototaxites specimens compare in abundance to nematophyte specimens and what that might tell us about the likelihood of 'Prototaxites' formation from liverwort mats. Certainly, the only thing that could be more intriguing than the existence of these giant pillars from so early in the earth's history would be if it turned out that they never existed at all.

On a personal note, I’ve inspected large Prototaxites fossils recovered by Saudi Aramco geologists from an area in central Saudi Arabia. They do indeed resemble tree trunks, and one can easily imagine them standing tall, some 400 million years ago, in the region today called Najd, swaying slightly in the wind, dominating the ferny landscape for miles around.

It is much less easy to imagine them as the fossilized equivalent of fruit rollups….

Rich Folks

Visconti Coat of Arms

In these days of “class warfare” and politicized resentment of the rich, it’s good to remind ourselves that things have been worse.

Consider, for example, this description of the sumptuous wedding of Lionel of England, son of Edward III, and Violante Visconti, daughter of Galeazzo II, Lord of Milan, held in that city in June 1368:

On arrival in Milan, Lionel was accompanied, in addition to his own suite, by 1,500 mercenaries of the White Company, which had switched from the Pope’s service to that of the Visconti. Eighty ladies all dressed alike – as was customary to enhance the pageantry of great occasions – in gold-embroidered scarlet gowns with white sleeves and gold belts, and sixty mounted knights and squires also uniformly dressed came in the train of Galeazzo to greet him. In addition to a dowry for his daughter so extensive that it took two years to negotiate, Galeazzo paid expenses of 10,000 florins a month for five and a half months for the bridegroom and his retinue.  

The stupendous wedding banquet, held outdoors in June, left all accounts gasping. Its obvious purpose was to testify to “the Largeness of Duke Galeas his soul, the full satisfaction he had in this match and the abundance of his coffers.” Thirty double courses of meat and fish alternated with presentation of gifts after each course. Under the direction of the bride’s brother, Gian Galeazzo the younger, now seventeen and father of a two-year-old daughter, the gifts were distributed among Lionel’s party according to rank. They consisted of costly coats of mail, plumed and crested helmets, armor for horses, surcoats embroidered with gems, greyhounds in velvet collars, falcons wearing silver bells, enameled bottles of the choicest wine, purple and golden cloth and cloaks trimmed with ermine and pearls, 76 horses including six beautiful little palfreys caparisoned in green velvet with gold rosettes, and two others of extra quality named Lion and Abbott; also six fierce strong alaunts or war-dogs, sometimes used with cauldrons of flaming pitch strapped to their backs, and twelve splendid fat oxen.  

The meat and fish, all gilded,* paired suckling pigs with crabs, hare with pike, a whole calf with trout, quails and partridges with more trout, ducks and herons with carp, beef and capons with sturgeon, veal and capons with carp in lemon sauce, beef pies and cheese with eel pies, meat aspic with fish aspic, meat galantines with lamprey, and among the remaining courses, roasted kid, venison, peacocks with cabbage, French beans and pickled ox-tongue, junkets and cheese, cherries and other fruit. The leftover food brought away from the table, from which servants customarily made their meal, was enough, it was said, to feed a thousand men. Among those who shared the feast were Petrarch, an honored guest at the high table, and both Froissart and Chaucer among the company, although it is doubtful if the two young unknowns were introduced to the famous Italian laureate. 

 * With a paste of powdered egg yolk, saffron, and flour, sometimes mixed with real gold leaf.

This passage appears in A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara W. Tuchman.

Lest you think that following this magical wedding everyone lived happily ever after, Tuchman informs us that four months later Lionel died of an undiagnosed “fever.” Some suspected he was poisoned by his father-in-law, but Tuchman thinks it is more likely he died of delayed effects from all that gilded meat at the wedding banquet, served as it was during the heat of the Lombardy summer.

The bride, Violante, was married off subsequently to a “half-mad sadist,” the Marquis of Montferrat, who was given, we are told, to strangling boy servants with his own hands. He died a violent death. Violante proceeded to marry her first cousin, who was then murdered by her brother.  She died at age 31, three times a widow, Tuchman notes.

Not much to envy when it comes to those particular rich folks….

Global Warming and the Rub’ al-Khali

A respected geologist and desert expert says global warming could result in an improved climate for the Rub’ al-Khali and other great deserts of the world.

Kenneth W. Glennie, former Shell geologist and Arabian desert specialist, suggested a possible return to “the ideal conditions of the Climatic Optimum” of six to nine thousand years ago, when the Empty Quarter enjoyed milder temperatures and boasted freshwater lakes, thriving vegetation and wildlife.

If global warming causes a melting of major ice sheets, sea levels should rise and weather patterns should change, resulting in more rainfall in the major desert belts accompanied by milder temperatures, according to the geologist.

Glennie set forth this counter-intuitive theory in his book, The Desert of Southeast Arabia. He says oxygen isotope studies have shown that when glacial ice sheets expand, as during the Ice Ages, global sea levels drop, land aridity increases and deserts grow.

In his words:

To judge from climatic changes over the past million years or more, the long-term trend for the World ought to be a reversion to the extensive high-latitude glacial conditions, and this implies increasingly arid conditions over most of the desert belts. A new, and therefore incompletely proven factor, is the influence of ‘Global Warming’ and the ‘Greenhouse Effect’, which many scientists claim to be largely the result of man’s misuse of fuels and chemicals. If correct, this could have the opposite effect to the above prediction in that existing ice sheets would melt even further, a rise in global sea level would reduce the area of land, and the existing desert areas that remained above sea level would become less arid, perhaps with a return to the idyllic conditions of the Climatic Optimum. 

Glennie says oxygen isotope data indicates that after the interglacial peak of 120,000 years ago, the global sea level fell “rather erratically” until about 17,000 years ago, when a dramatic rise in sea level until about 6,000 years ago brought the level to slightly higher than today.

During the 100,000 years of falling sea level “we have little idea of the associated changes in climate that almost certainly occurred, although eventually it may be possible to piece together fragments of that history with accurate dating of some of the alluvial fan sequences,” Glennie says. “Globally, however, there is evidence that higher rainfall in today’s desert belts alternated with extremes of aridity…”

During periods of interglacial high sea level, Arabia’s climate was probably much more humid than now. “These high sea levels seem to have been relatively exceptional,” he says, “and alternated with generally longer periods of lower sea level with increased areas of land and enhanced aridity.”

Following the ideal conditions of the Climatic Optimum between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago, the world’s deserts seem to have become slightly more arid again. Rainfall and vegetation have decreased and winds have probably become slightly stronger and more persistent, or at least more effective at moving sand because the increased aridity, according to the geologist.

Former Aramco geologist Hal McClure described the formation of ancient lakes during “less arid” periods in the Rub’ al-Khali in his 1984 doctoral thesis for the University of London.  As reported in Aramco World magazine:

In fact, evidence indicates that lakes formed twice: once from roughly 37,000 to 17,000 years ago, and then again from around 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. In the interim, "hyper-arid," period, as today, rain was very rare.McClure theorizes that the lakes were created by cataclysmic rainfall, like that seen in the summer monsoons which today water the Indian subcontinent and, on the Arabian Peninsula, extreme southern Oman. He speculates that the summer monsoon moved to the north twice in recent geological history, most likely creating lakes in what he calls "one-time fill-up incidents."
"It would rain like hell one monsoon season and then not rain in a particular area for the next 10 or 100 years," he says. The lakes had no links with rivers, above or below ground, or any other source of continuous replenishment, and their bed sediments present no evidence of regular refilling.Rub' al-Khali lakes "weren't enormous lakes like in East Africa or like Lake Superior," explains McClure. They probably ranged in depth from two to 10 meters (six to 32 feet), he says, though some were only "ephemeral puddles." A few may have lasted several years, but most existed only "a few months to a few years."

Geologist Glennie was born in Scotland in the United Kingdom. He had a long career with Shell as a desert expert, and has won numerous academic and professional honors. In 2005 he received the Sidney Powers Memorial Award, the most distinguished honor of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG).