Early museums began as private collections of wealthy individuals, families or institutions. They displayed rare or curious natural objects and artefacts in so-called wonder rooms or cabinets of curiosities. The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/791/capitoline-museums">Capitoline Museums</a> are the oldest public collection of art in the world. It began in 1471 when Pope Sixtus IV donated a group of important ancient sculptures to the people of Rome. You can see medieval and Renaissance art, ancient Roman statues, coin and jewellery collections, etc.

The Capitoline Museums

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/785/vatican-museums">Vatican Museums</a> are a group of museums located inside the Vatican City. It traces its origins to the sculptural collection begun in 1506 by Pope Julius II. It displays works from the collection built up by the Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries and includes masterpieces of Renaissance art.

The Vatican Museums (Musei Vaticani)

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/16117/royal-armouries-tower-of-london">Royal Armouries in the Tower of London</a> is the oldest museum in Britain. It opened to the public in 1660. Royal Armouries is located at three sites across England:<ul><li>In a purpose-built museum in <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/1402/royal-armouries-museum-leeds">Leeds</a>, West Yorkshire</li><li>A Victorian fort at <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/7396/royal-armouries-museum-fort-nelson">Fort Nelson</a>, Portsmouth, Hampshire</li><li>Its historic home at the <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/16117/royal-armouries-tower-of-london">Tower of London in the White Tower</a></li></ul>

The Royal Armouries in the Tower of London

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/1364/ashmolean-museum">Ashmolean Museum</a> in Britain is the oldest university museum in the world. In 1677, it received the cabinet of curiosities from Elias Ashmole. The museum houses an extensive collection of items with artistic and archaeological significance. Notable exhibitions include biblical manuscripts, drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo, watercolours by Turner, a ceremonial dress owned by Lawrence of Arabia, and more.

The Ashmolean Museum

The private collection was bought by the university and city of Basel in 1661 and opened to the public in 1671. The collection is now part of a rich historical and cultural heritage in the city of Basel. The main focus is on paintings and drawings by artists active in the Upper Rhine region between 1400 and 1600 and in the 19th and 21st centuries.

The Amerbach Cabinet

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/5711/muse-des-beauxarts-et-darchologie">Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'archéologie</a> in Besançon was established in 1694 when an abbot, Jean-Baptiste Boisot, gave his personal collection to the Benedictines of the city to create a museum open to the public. The museum is famous for its extensive collections of archaeology, paintings, and drawing cabinet and includes Egyptian mummies and works of art from famous Italian, French, and Spanish painters.

 The Musée des Beaux-Arts et d'archéologie

Founded in 1717, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (<a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/15970/kunstkamera">Kunstkamera</a>) in St. Petersburg is one of the richest ethnographical museums in the world.

The Kunstkamera 

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/418/british-museum">British Museum</a> in London was founded in 1753. Sir Hans Sloane's personal collection of curios provided the initial collection. Today its collections number more than seven million objects from around the world and illustrate and documented the story of human culture.

The British Museum

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/5340/uffizi-gallery">Uffizi Gallery</a> in Florence started in the 15th century by Cosimo de’ Medici. It is one of the most famous museums of paintings and sculpture globally, containing universally acclaimed Primitive and Renaissance paintings. It includes works by Giotto, Simone Martini, Piero della Francesca, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio.

The Uffizi Gallery

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/15967/the-state-hermitage-museum">State Hermitage Museum</a> in St. Petersburg, founded in 1764 by Catherine the Great, contains over three million works of art and artefacts of the world culture. It includes paintings, graphic works, sculptures and works of applied art, archaeological finds and numismatic material.

The State Hermitage Museum

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/773/museo-nacional-del-prado">Museo del Prado</a> in Madrid. Founded in 1785 by Charles III of Spain, the significant royal collection represents the foundation of the Museum's collection as we know it today. Today, we can see great masterpieces such as The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosh, The Nobleman with his hand on his Chest by El Greco, Death of the Virgin by Mantegna, The Holy Family known as The Pearl by Raphael, Emperor Carlos V on Horseback by Titian, The Foot Washing by Tintoretto, Self-portrait by Durër, Las Meninas by Velázquez, The Three Graces by Rubens, and The Family of Carlos IV by Goya.

Museo del Prado

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/358/belvedere">Belvedere</a> Palace of the Habsburg monarchs in Vienna opened in 1781 with a collection of art. It holds the greatest collection of Austrian art dating from the Middle Ages to today.

The Belvedere Palace of the Habsburg monarchs

The <a href="http://museums.eu/museum/details/702/louvre-museum">Louvre Museum</a> opened to the public in 1793. It contains nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 19th century.

The Louvre Museum in Paris

The first collection was established around 1790. The collections were officially opened to the public in 1817, making it the oldest institution of its kind in Romania. The museum comprises:<ul><li>European Art, Romanian Art and the Library (in the Brukenthal Palace),</li><li>Contemporary Art and the Museum of History (in the Altemberger House),</li><li>the Museum of Natural History, Museum of Pharmacy and Museum of Hunting.</li></ul>

The Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu, Transylvania

The Museum was founded in 1773. It is the oldest in Latvia and the whole of the Baltics. The Museum is situated in Old Riga, in a remarkable architectural monument of the 13th–20th centuries - the ensemble of the Riga Dom. The rich and diverse collections of the Museum came from an art and natural sciences collection of a Riga doctor, Nikolaus von Himsel (1729–1764). It houses over 5000 000 items, grouped in about 80 collections.

The Museum of the History of Riga and Navigation

A list of some of the oldest and finest museums in Europe that you can still visit.

history

History

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

The world’s oldest museums

This scene, photographed by Mathew Brady during the U.S. Civil War, shows a deserted camp and wounded soldier, circa 1865.

Mathew Brady (1822-1896)

Ernest Brooks became known for his striking silhouetted photos, including this one taken during the World War I Battle of Broodseinde in 1917 near Ypres in Belgium. It shows a group of soldiers from the 8th East Yorkshire Regiment moving up to the front, silhouetted against the skyline.

Ernest Brooks (1876-1957)

A Polish concentration camp survivor weeps near the charred corpse of a friend at the Leipzig-Thekla subcamp of Buchenwald in 1945. The Nazi SS guards set fire to barracks No. 5 there with approximately 300 prisoners locked inside just before the army's 69th Infantry Division liberated the camp.

Margaret White-Bourke (1904-1971)

Robert Capa was the only photographer to land on Omaha Beach with U.S. troops during the D-Day invasion. Only eight images from the landing were salvageable.

Robert Capa (1913-1954)

Dickey Chapelle photographed Vietnam while embedded with the U.S. Marines. She was killed by a landmine while on patrol, making her the first war correspondent to die in the Vietnam War.

Dickey Chapelle (1918-1965)

Kevin Carter worked tirelessly to photograph the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa in the 1990s. Here he photographed members of the African National Congress (ANC) who had staged an attack during a funeral for a member of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).

Kevin Carter (1960-1994)

Catherine Leroy's moving image of U.S. Marine Vernon Wike grieving over his fallen comrade on Battle of Hill 881, is one of her most famous. Forty years later, she photographed Wike again in his home in Colorado. It was her last assignment before she died of cancer in 2006.

Catherine Leroy (1944-2006)

This image from 1980 by Philip Jones Griffith shows a West Somalia Liberation Front fighter in Somalia likely high from consuming 'khat,' a leaf containing an amphetamine-like substance. To compensate for food shortages, the soldiers ate large quantities of khat, which made them undisciplined and easy targets for the enemy.

Philip Jones Griffith (1936-2008)

Chris Hondros' image of Samar Hassan, 5, shows how fast things can go wrong during war. Hassan is screaming and covered in blood after her parents were killed by U.S. soldiers in a 2005 shooting in Tal Afar, Iraq. The troops fired on the Hassan family car when it unwittingly approached them during a dusk patrol in the tense northern Iraqi town.

Chris Hondros (1970-2011)

9 War Photographers and Their Images That Moved Millions

Photographers have been risking their lives since the Civil War to bring back images from the front lines. Not just to document history, but to show the uncensored, gritty version of battle to those of us who never have to face danger.

Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.

Sun Tzu- The Art of War

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.

Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt.

Book One of The Warrior Series Sun Tzu and Sun Pin's timeless strategic masterpieces are constantly analyzed and interpreted by leaders worldwide. For the first time ever, author D.E. Tarver explains the classic texts, The Art of War by Sun Tzu and The Art of Warfare by Sun Pin, in plain English. War is the perfect training ground for teaching Sun Tzu's ancient philosophies to attaining victory over an opponent. The Art of War outlines the steps for outwitting the enemy, be it an army of 10,000 or an unresponsive client. The Art of War teaches leaders strategies to attain victory by: Knowing when to stand up to an opponent, and when to back down. How to be confident without being overly confident. Considering the cost of the campaign before launching an attack. Avoiding an opponent's strengths and striking his weaknesses. "The one who is first to the field of battle has time to rest, while his opponent rushes into the conflict weary and confused. The first will be fresh and alert. The second will waste most of his energy trying to catch up." Be the first to the battlefield with The Art of War.

strategy

Strategy

books

Books

"There's not a dated maxim or vague prescription in it." — Newsweek Regarded as the world's oldest military treatise, this compact volume has instructed officers and tacticians for more than 2,000 years. From its origins in China, The Art of War traveled the world to inform the strategies of Napoleon and World War II generals. More recently, it has taken on a new life as a guide to competing successfully in business, law, and sports. All of The Art of War's concepts retain their value to modern readers, from the prudence of circumventing a strong opponent and taking advantage of a weak one to the wisdom of preparedness and flexibility. Other topics include strategy, tactics, maneuvering, communications, the treatment of soldiers, and the worth of well-trained officers. History enthusiasts, business thought leaders, and anyone intrigued by competition and rivalry will appreciate this elegant edition of the classic work.

Sun Tzu (孫子; pinyin: Sūnzǐ) is a honorific title bestowed upon Sūn Wu (孫武 c. 544-496 BC), the author of The Art of War (孫子兵法), an immensely influential ancient Chinese book on military strategy. Sun Tzu believed in the use of the military sciences to effect outcomes that would result in peace.In the author's name, Sūn Wu, the character wu, meaning "military", is the same as the character in wu shu, or martial art. Sun Wu also has a courtesy name, Chang Qing (Cháng Qīng).

Sun Tzu

The Art of War

Heroes of old had encountered Amazons in the martial women’s kingdom, Themiscyra, on the southern shores of the Black Sea. Amazons had invaded Greece, their advance halted in a great battle. Herodotus related how they had been captured, carried away in Greek ships and escaped to the banks of the river Don, where they intermarried with Scythian tribesmen.No one knew where the name ‘Amazon’ came from, so the Greeks claimed it was derived from a-mazdos – without a breast: these fearsome women cut off their right breasts to remove an obstruction to the bowstring, it was claimed.

Amazon Women: History Vs Folklore

In the grasslands of inner Asia, from the Black Sea to western China, Scythian women had the same skills as their men: wielding bows, riding and herding animals, fighting – and dying from their injuries. Their remains have been found in tomb-mounds from the Crimea to western China.For centuries, women warriors en masse have been dubbed ‘Amazons’. Regiments of such women existed in Dahomey (in what’s now Benin) and in the Soviet air force, and the female fighters of Kurdistan have a formidable reputation.

Wonder Women: The Facts

<ul><li>These warrior women, it is reputed, lived on the river Thermedon (today's Terme), on the southern shores of the Black Sea.</li><li>In legend, they captured men and used them as studs, rearing only female children and killing the males.</li><li>The Amazon nation was the ultimate imagined threat to Greek machismo.</li></ul>

Hippolyte, Queen of The Amazons

<ul><li>There is no direct evidence that Greeks actually met any 'Amazons', but a story about Alexander the Great suggests that they did</li><li>In 330 BC, the ambitious Macedonian warrior had conquered Persia and was advancing eastward along the shores of the Caspian Sea (in present-day Iran).</li><li>Alexander was approached by a group of Scythians who included women, one of whom was their leader.</li><li>The group then vanished back into the heart of inner Asia, leaving the way open for the creation of a dramatic tale that provided a Greek name for a sex-hunting Scythian queen.</li></ul>

Scythian Women: An Encounter With Alexander The Great

<ul><li>Around 1500, a Spaniard named Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo wrote or adapted a series of novels about Amadís, a knight-errant from the fairytale country of Gaula (unconnected with Gaul or Wales).</li><li>In the stories, Califia was a formidable warrior, with a menagerie of 500 griffins that were fed on human flesh.</li><li>She lived in a realm called California or Califerne, an island-state near the lands newly discovered by Christopher Columbus.</li></ul>

Queen Califia: Amazonian women in the Middle Ages

<ul><li>Archaeological finds have raised intriguing questions about the status of Scythian women.</li><li>In 1969, a farmer noticed something glinting in newly ploughed earth near a 6-metre-high burial mound: a small piece of patterned gold.</li><li>Renowned Soviet archaeologist Kemal Akishev came to investigate and, excavating the burial mound, discovered a small skeleton surrounded by treasures.</li><li>The skull was too badly damaged for its sex to be determined, but the 'Golden Man' became the symbol of the nation when Kazakhstan emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union.</li></ul>

The Golden Wo-Man

<ul><li>In 1993, Russian archaeologist Natalia Polosmak unearthed a body embalmed with a mix of herbs, grasses, and wool, along with a tall headdress, revealing that the body was that of a woman.</li><li>The mummy became known as the 'Ice Maiden' or the 'Ukok Princess'.</li><li>She was taken to Novosibirsk for further study, and then on tour internationally.</li></ul>

The Ice Maiden of Siberia

<ul><li>This name has been applied to several all-female fighting groups, among them the regiment of female Soviet bomber pilots who fought in the Second World War, the most famous of whom was their founder, Marina Rasksova.</li><li>In the 1930s, the Soviet Union was recovering from years of war, revolution, and famine, and women were given opportunities in aviation, with the new government seeing this as an opportunity to unite and defend this vast nation</li><li>She became the first female Soviet navigator, and led a volunteer unit of 400 women fliers in three regiments: fighters, heavy bombers and night bombers</li></ul>

The Night Witch

In 2017, Hollywood remade the Amazon myth in a film with the tagline: “Before she was Wonder Woman, she was Diana, Princess of the Amazons.” The link between the two legends makes a convoluted story, its origins stretching back a century to the struggle for women’s rights.Wonder Woman made her debut in All Star Comics in December 1941, introduced with a semi-Greek backstory as the Amazonian princess of Paradise Island (later Themiscyra).

Wonder Woman: Diana, Princess of the Amazons

The Fearsome Ladies Of History: Amazonian Women

For centuries, women warriors en masse have been dubbed ‘Amazons’. But were Amazonian women real? Discover the truth here

movies

Movies & Shows

Amazonian Women: The Truth About These Real Female Warriors Who Inspired Wonder Woman | History Extra

Bone by bone and study by study, palaeontologists are learning more than ever before about dinosaurs. But there are still many aspects of prehistoric biology that we know little about. In fact, some of the simplest facets of dinosaur lives remain elusive, like how they slept.A handful of fossils have shown us that at least some dinosaurs curled up just like birds.Many articulated dinosaur skeletons are found in the classic dinosaur death pose, with their tails tilted up and their necks thrown over their backs.

The Way The Dinosaurs Slept

Mei Long was a tiny, early Cretaceous, a feathery troodontid dinosaur with big eyes and a little switchblade claw on each foot. The foot-long dinosaur rested its head over its folded arms, and its tail wrapped around the dinosaur’s torso. Mei died sleeping in a roosting position similar to that of modern birds. The dinosaur’s name, which means “sleeping dragon,” is a tribute to the behavior.

Mei Long

Another Mei specimen has confirmed that the first find was not a fluke. Palaeontologists have described a second, slightly smaller Mei that was preserved in a nearly identical sleeping position. Much like the first, this Mei probably died in a prehistoric ashfall that both killed and preserved the dinosaur in delicate detail without jarring the snoozing troodontid out of position. Some feathery, non-avian dinosaurs not only looked like birds, but they slept like them, too.

The Second Finding

scienceandnature

Science & Nature

How Did Dinosaurs Sleep?

From the outside, the Humber Refinery does not look like a part of Britain's green future - and that's putting it mildly.This is the very image of the country's fossil fuel industry, a mammoth plant that churns out petrol, aviation fuel and other such products.But it will also feature aspects we might be a little less comfortable with: digging vast quantities of stuff out of the ground, racing to secure resources before other countries do; and relying on oil refineries like this, both in the short term and potentially the long term too.

From the outside, the Humber Refinery does not look like a part of Britain's green future - and that's putting it mildly.This is the very image of the country's fossil fuel industry, a mammoth plant that churns out petrol, aviation fuel and other such products. It is a spaghetti junction of pipes - thousands of miles of shiny steel tubes snaking from canister to tank and back again.But it will also feature aspects we might be a little less comfortable with: digging vast quantities of stuff out of the ground, racing to secure resources before other countries do; and relying on oil refineries li<warningtag>ke this, both in the short term and potentially the long term too.</warningtag>

Just over a hundred miles north of the Humber Refinery is the town of Blyth. Here on the glorious Northumberland coast, at a site which was once the coal store for a now defunct power station, work is under way on one of the most important projects in contemporary UK industrial history.This is the site where Britishvolt, a battery startup, is building its gigafactory. in broad terms it means a very big battery factory.

Britishvolt - the gigafactory in Blyth

Britishvolt remains a new, untested company, attempting to take on an Asian industry which has successfully dominated the sector for years. Only last year Johnson Matthey, the catalyst specialist which was until then one of the great hopes of the UK's nascent cell sector, abruptly pulled out of its plans to make battery materials.According to a dossier of figures submitted privately to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and seen by Sky News, gigafactory capacity is forecast to be barely half the needed level by the end of the decade.

Much is made these days about the lithium inside batteries or the cobalt that also goes into the cathodes. Far less is said about the other end of the battery. Yet without the kind of graphite produced from Humberside coke (and this refinery turns out to be one of the world's most important producers of the stuff - and the only one in Europe) net zero will remain a pipe dream.

What do they make at the Humber Refinery?

This country is unlikely to outdo Germany on gigafactories. It is unlikely to compete with Belgium's Umicore on cathode materials. It is unlikely, despite the best efforts of British Lithium, to outdo Chile or Australia. But it could plausibly be the most important hub in Europe for anode production. If there were a factory beside this refinery turning the coke here into anodes, which are then sent a few hundred miles up north to Britishvolt, well then a lot of Britain's problems might be answered.

From the outside, the Humber Refinery does not look like a part of Britain's green future - and that's putting it mildly.

Humber Refinery gigafactory: Britain's best-kept industrial secret is an unexpected solution to saving the planet

Most experts agree that our species, Homo sapiens (Latin for “wise men”), is the ninth and youngest human species. The lives of the other eight species tell a story of how humans slowly evolved away from the other apes, developing the ability to walk, eat meat, hunt, build shelters, and perform symbolic acts. Our ancestors probably pushed our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, to extinction. Wise guys finish last.

Our Species Are Not The First Humans On Earth

Around 6 million years ago, a branch of apes evolved to become the first species of the genus Homo. These early humans ditched the long arms of apes for stronger legs. While they could no longer swing around on trees, they could stand upright, walk, and colonize new ecosystems, away from the forest. The brains of early humans grew until we were using complex tools to hunt large animals, build fires, and construct shelters.

Planet Of The Apes

By the time Homo sapiens arrived on the scene some 300,000 years ago, we were the ninth Homo species, joining habilis, erectus, rudolfensis, heidelbergensis, floresiensis, neanderthalensis, naledi, and luzonensis. Many of these species lived for much longer periods of time than we have, yet we get all the attention. It is time for a family reunion.

We Are The Ninth Species

H. Habilis was small, clocking in around 70 pounds and standing somewhere between 3.5 feet and 4.5 feet tall. We also know that H. habilis made complex tools, including stones used to butcher animals. H. Habilis lived as the only member of our genus for nearly a million years.

H. Habilis: The Handy Man (2.4 Million – 1.4 Million Years Ago)

H. erectus is the first human with a significantly larger braincase than that of apes. They also had smaller teeth. The latter adaptation probably helped H. erectus eat meat and quickly digestible protein. This would fuel the increased nutritional requirements that came with taller bodies and larger brains. H. erectus was a very successful species. They walked the Earth for a period lasting nearly nine times as long as our current reign.

H. Erectus: The Enduring Hiker (1.89 Million to 110,000 Years Ago)

We know little about Homo rudolfensis, a hominid discovered near Kenya’s Lake Rudolf (now known as Lake Turkana). H. rudolfensis had a considerably greater braincase than Homo habilis — a good indicator that the species was human. However, some scientists argue it may be better placed with the genus Australopithecus, a close relative of Homo, because of its smaller size and similarities in the pelvis and shoulder.

H. Rudolfensis: The Stranger (1.9 Million to 1.8 Million Years Ago) 

Around 700,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis (sometimes referred to as Homo rhodesiensis) arrived on the scene in Europe and eastern Africa. Scientists think that these smaller, wider humans were the first to live in cold places.The remains of animals like horses, elephants, hippopotamuses, and rhinoceroses, were found together with H. heidelbergensis. That proximity suggests that this group of humans was the first to hunt larger animals with spears. To stay warm, these humans also learned how to control fire, and they built simple shelters out of wood and rock.

H. Heidelbergensis: The Hunter (700,000 to 200,000 Years Ago)

Homo floresiensis is known only from remains found in 2003 on the Island of Flores, Indonesia. Along with the remains of H. floresiensis were some stone tools, dwarf elephants and komodo dragons — a discovery that paints quite a scene of the island life of these small humans.The isolation of H. floresiensis likely contributed to its small brains and stature (estimated at approximately 3 feet, 6 inches from a female specimen).

H. Floresiensis: The Hobbit (100,000 to 50,000 Years Ago)

Neanderthals were shorter and stockier than us but had brains that were as big, or even bigger, than our own. Neanderthals lived a tough life. We find bones riddled with fractures, suggesting they did not always succeed when they hunted large animals. They also lived in seriously cold environments in Europe and in southeastern and central Asia. To cope, they made fires and lived in sophisticated shelters. They also made clothing, using complex tools such as sewing needles crafted from bone.

H. Neanderthalensis: The Neanderthal Thinkers (400,000 – 40,000 Years Ago)

Homo naledi were small hominids that lived in South Africa. We do not know much about H. naledi, because they were only discovered in late 2015. In a single expedition, scientists excavated an astounding 1,550 specimens from at least 15 individuals. These specimens show us that H. naledi were small (around 4 feet, 9 inches). While the excavation unearthed a treasure trove of human fossils, the researchers found no tools or other animals alongside H. naledi, so their lifestyle remains a mystery.

H. Naledi: The Enigmatic Newcomer (335,000 to 236,000 Years Ago) 

In 2019, researchers visited a small cave on an island in northern Indonesia. Inspired by the discovery of H. floresiensis, the scientists wondered whether other islands also had human dwellers. The researchers struck gold — kind of. Though they found human remains, they only unearthed seven teeth, three foot bones, two finger bones, and a fragment of a thighbone. Still, due to its geographic isolation and small size, the scientists felt confident in declaring that this <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01152-3">species was unknown to science</a>. They named it luzonensis after Luzon, the island on which it was found.

H. Luzonensis: A Polemic Finding (at Least 67,000 Years Ago)

Not all these extinct humans coexisted with our H. sapiens ancestors. Most of them probably went extinct due to intense changes in climate. After humans moved into Europe, Neanderthal numbers began to dwindle. We competed for space and food, and we outmatched our closest relatives. The fact that they held on for so long suggests the tides could have turned easily against us.

Wise Guys Finish Last

There were at least eight other human species, some of whom existed for far longer than we have. Who were they?

technologyandthefuture

Technology & The Future

Homo sapiens is #9. Who were the eight other human species?

In 2022, the world will likely hit a momentous milestone-a population of eight billion. The dramatic increase in the world's human population is relatively new. For thousands of years, the world population would live in a mid-sized city today. But knowing how many humans came before us is a question demographers like Toshiko Kaneda and Carl Haub have tried to answer.

The world's human population in 2022

Quantifying all of humanity requires a firm starting date for when humans became human. For this exercise, the two demographers chose 190,000 BCE as the cutoff. The demographers estimate that 109 billion people have lived and died over the course of 192,000 years. So adding the people alive today, we get 117 billion people that have ever lived. That means that for every person alive today, there are about 14 people who are not.

The combined human population

This impactful hour glass visualization shows all of humanity, including the 7% of humans who are alive today

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

How Many Humans Have Ever Lived?

Animated corpses appear in stories all over the world throughout recorded history. But zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa.

Zombie’s African Origins 

The first clue is in the word “zombie” itself. Its exact etymological origins are unknown, but there are several candidates. The Mitsogho people of Gabon, for example, use the word “ndzumbi” for corpse. The Kikongo word “nzambi” refers variously to the supreme being, an ancestor with superhuman abilities, or another deity. And, in certain languages spoken in Angola and the Congo, “zumbi” refers to an object inhabited by a spirit, or someone returned from the dead.

Zombie’s Types And Varieties

Between 1517 and 1804, France and Spain enslaved hundreds of thousands of African people, taking them to the Caribbean island that now contains Haiti and the Dominican Republic. There, the religious beliefs of enslaved African people mixed with the Catholic traditions of colonial authorities and a religion known as “vodou” developed.

How Vodou Developed

According to some vodou beliefs, a person’s soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less “zombi.” Alternatively, if a body isn’t properly attended to soon after death, a sorcerer called a “bokor” can capture a corpse and turn it into a soulless zombi that will perform their bidding. Historically, these zombis were said to be put to work as laborers who needed neither food nor rest and would enrich their captor’s fortune.

Zombis: The No-Fuss Laborers

In other words, zombification seemed to represent the horrors of enslavement that many Haitian people experienced. It was the worst possible fate: a form of enslavement that not even death could free you from. The zombi was deprived of an afterlife and trapped in eternal subjugation. Because of this, in Haitian culture, zombis are commonly seen as victims deserving of sympathy and care.

Zombis: The Eternal Slaves

The zombie underwent a transformation after the US occupation of Haiti began in 1915— this time, through the lens of Western pop culture. During the occupation, US citizens propagated many racist beliefs about Black Haitian people. Among false accounts of devil worship and human sacrifice, zombie stories captured the American imagination.

The First Transformation: Occupation

And in 1932, zombies debuted on the big screen in a film called “White Zombie.” Set in Haiti, the film’s protagonist must rescue his fiancée from an evil vodou master who runs a sugar mill using zombi labor. Notably, the film's main object of sympathy isn't the enslaved workforce, but the victimized white woman.

The Second Transformation: Film

Over the following decades, zombies appeared in many American films, usually with loose references to Haitian culture, though some veered off to involve aliens and Nazis. Then came the wildly influential 1968 film “Night of the Living Dead,” in which a group of strangers tries to survive an onslaught of slow-moving, flesh-eating monsters. The film’s director remarked that he never envisioned his living dead as zombies. Instead, it was the audience who recognized them as such.

The Zombification Of The Zombis

But from then on, zombies became linked to an insatiable craving for flesh— with a particular taste for brains added in 1985′s “The Return of the Living Dead.” In these and many subsequent films, no sorcerer controls the zombies; they’re the monsters. And in many iterations, later fueled by 2002′s “28 Days Later,” zombification became a contagious phenomenon.

A Monster And A Disease

For decades now, artists around the world have used zombies to shine a light on the social ills and anxieties of their moment— from consumer culture to the global lack of disaster preparedness. But, in effect, American pop culture also initially erased the zombies origins—cannibalizing its original significance and transforming the victim into the monster.

World-Famous And Defamed

On voodoo and zombies, or on the effects of perspective distortion and/or false representation: how Vodou went from diasporic religion to sensationalized pop-culture caricature and how zombis went from victims to monsters.

Zombies have a distinct lineage— one that traces back to Equatorial and Central Africa. For three centuries, African people were enslaved and brought to the Caribbean Islands. There, a religion known as vodou developed, along with the belief that a person's soul can be captured and stored, becoming a body-less zombie. Christopher M. Moreman uncovers the true origins of the undead. [Directed by Kaspar Jancis, narrated by Addison Anderson, music by Salil Bhayani, cAMP Studio].

philosophy

Philosophy

religionandspirituality

Religion & Spirituality

mindfulness

Mindfulness

The Dark History Of Zombies

<ul><li>In the not-so-distant past, most American and European cities reeked of death, decay, and waste.  </li><li>However, these are just some of the many smells, both foul and fragrant, that helped determine the course of history.</li><li>From Roman funerals to Aztec chewing gum, the historic role of smell was much more important than we realize.</li></ul>

Key Takeaways

<ul><li>Most 19th century cities smelled like a combination of raw sewage, horse manure, piles of uncollected garbage baking in the sun, and, last but not least, the "odorous slaughtering and processing of animals"</li><li>Things weren't much better in Paris which, despite its reputation as the city of love, smelled like anything except roses</li></ul>

The Nose Knows It All

The Scientific Revolution introduced the now disproven but once widely accepted notion that illnesses spread through foul odours like those emanating from cesspools, garbage dumps, and animal carcasses. Doctors advised their patients to avoid these odours — known as “miasmas” — like the plague, and they continued to do so until germ theory became more widely accepted in the later half of the 19th century.

Foul Smell And Germs: The Miasma Theory

Miasma theory affected nearly every part of civilization, from politics to the economy. Perfumes made from animal musk — common in Europe since the early Middle Ages — disappeared in favour of floral scents. Instead of sniffing their own latrines, people now covered their apartments with various sweet-smelling plants to block out noxious gases from the outside world.

Bad Smells Everywhere

<ul><li>William Tullett, a history professor at Anglia Ruskin University, thinks modern media may have exaggerated the stench of past centuries.</li><li>Our obsession with stench may be rooted in some contorted form of xenophobia.</li><li>Recent global research suggests that the current literature on smell in history is not only too simplistic but also too Eurocentric.</li><li>While particular smells demarcated certain social standings in pre-revolutionary France, the same standards did not apply to other countries.</li></ul>

Smell Beyond Stench

<ul><li>Romans treated their dead with perfumes, ointments, and incense while they lay in state.</li><li>These fragrances combated the “pollution” inside the corpse.</li><li>Perfuming the dead was so important to ancient Romans that it often took precedence over other social customs.</li></ul>

Perfuming The Dead

Most cities reeked of death, decay, and waste. But these were only some of the smells that helped shape human history.

The foul and the fragrant: what did the past smell like?

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