New discoveries into how an ancient civilization conserved water

Collection, storage and management of water were top priorities for the ancient Maya, whose sites in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala were forced to endure seven months out of the year with very little rainfall. As researchers expand their explorations of the civilization outside of large, elite-focused research site centers, aerial imagery technology is helping them locate and study areas that are showing them how less urbanized populations conserved water for drinking and irrigation. The NSF-supported research by Jeffrey Brewer, a doctoral student in the University of Cincinnati's Department of Geography, and Christopher Carr, a UC research assistant professor of geography, was presented at the 81st annual meeting of the Society of American Archaeology. The meeting takes place April 6-10, in Orlando, Florida.

The UC researchers used a surveying technology called LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) - along with excavation data - to examine the spatial characteristics, cultural modifications and function of residential-scale water tanks - a little-investigated component of Maya water management by commoners versus the more powerful and visible elites, says Brewer.

LiDAR is a remote sensing technology that collects high-resolution imagery shot from an airplane at 30,000 points per second, allowing researchers to map ground surfaces through dense vegetation. The technology saves a significant amount of time in the field, compared with trekking through forests to locate these small depressions at ground level.

The specific area under study is the ancient Maya site of Yaxnohcah, located in the Central Yucatan. "One of the unique aspects of this particular site is that it appears to date a little earlier than many regional sites of the same size in terms of displaying significant cultural activity," says Brewer. "So, we're still at ground level with our discoveries here."

Although the LiDAR analysis revealed more than 100 potential small reservoirs scattered throughout the site, only five have been excavated so far. Brewer says three out of the five reservoirs appear to be water features based on the archaeological evidence.

"We looked specifically at small depressions that were adjacent to residential structures, and we could assume they were household accessible," explains Brewer. "We found modified reservoirs, a limestone quarry that would have served as a resultant water tank, and a depression that appears to have served as an area for localized horticulture or agriculture.

"Based on recovered ceramic material, we know that some of these residential-scale reservoirs at Yaxnohcah date to the Middle Preclassic period (around 900 B.C.). We also have evidence from the soil layers that shows these systems were lined with a thick, clay 'plaster' that would help them hold water," Brewer says. "The geology in this region is all limestone, so if they hadn't been modified or sealed in some way, the water would have just seeped through them."

Agricultural communities also would have needed water to farm maize, cotton and possibly even tubers, so Brewer says future examination will explore how the water features would have been used for agricultural purposes. "If the reservoir was elevated, it could have released water into agricultural fields for irrigation. If it was lower, it could have collected runoff from a paved surface or a field. We're still examining the elevation profiles."

Brewer adds that one of the depressions appears to have originated as a quarry for limestone, which would have been used in construction at the adjacent residential complex. Although not lined with clay, the resulting limestone tank floor could opportunistically hold water for the extended annual period that the region received very little rainfall - extremely useful for agricultural purposes if not for drinking water.

Brewer says investigating how the commoners existed at these ancient sites is becoming a growing trend in research among archaeologists, anthropologists and geographers.
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Reference:

EurekAlert. 2016. “New discoveries into how an ancient civilization conserved water”. EurekAlert. Posted: April 8, 2016. Available online: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-04/uoc-ndi040816.php

Rare Incan 'Calculators' Found in Peru

Photo source: WikiMedia Commons/Claus Ableiter

Archaeologists working in Peru have discovered 25 well-preserved quipus, an ancient string-based device used to solve mathematical problems and to assist in record-keeping.

The find was made in the archaeological complex of Incahuasi, south of Lima, Alejandro Chu, reports Peru This Week. The items were found in ancient warehouses, or kallancas, and not in a funerary context as is the norm, making this a rather unique find. The placement of the quipus suggests they were used for administrative purposes. Incahuasi was one of the most important strategic cities built by the Incas in the valley of Lunahuana.

Quipu (also called "khipus" or "talking knots") typically consisted of colored, spun, and plied thread or strings from llama or alpaca hair. They aided in data collection and record-keeping, including the monitoring of tax obligations, census records, calendrical information, and military organization. The cords contained numeric and other values encoded on knots in a base-10 positional system. Some quipu had as many as 2,000 cords.

The Khipu Database Project describes quipus and how they worked:

Most of the existing khipu are from the Inka period, approx 1400 – 1532 CE. The Inka empire stretched from Ecuador through central Chile, with its heart in Cuzco, a city in the high Andes of southern Peru. Colonial documents indicate that khipu were used for record keeping and sending messages by runner throughout the empire. There are approximately 600 khipu surviving in museums and private collections around the world.

The word khipu comes from the Quechua word for "knot" and denotes both singular and plural. Khipu are textile artifacts composed of cords of cotton or occasionally camelid fiber. The cords are arranged such that there is one main cord, called a primary cord, from which many pendant cords hang. There may be additional cords attached to a pendant cord; these are termed subsidiaries. Some khipu have up to 10 or 12 levels of subsidiaries. Khipu are often displayed with the primary cord stretched horizontally, so that the pendants appear to form a curtain of parallel cords, or with the primary cord in a curve, so that the pendants radiate out from their points of attachment. When khipu were in use, they were transported and stored with the primary cord rolled into a spiral. In this configuration khipu have been compared to string mops.

Each khipu cord may have one or many knots. Leland Locke was the first to show that the knots had numerical significance. The Inkas used a decimal system of counting. Numbers of varying magnitude could be indicated by knot type and the position of the knot on its cord. Beginning in the 1970's, Marcia and Robert Ascher conducted invaluable research into the numeric significance of khipu, and developed a system of recording khipu details which is still in wide use today among khipu researchers. More recently, researchers such as Gary Urton have recognized the depth of information contained in non-numeric, structural elements of khipu.

Regrettably, many of these quipus were destroyed by the Spanish conquistadors in the 16th century, making this recent find all the more precious.
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References:

Dvorsky, George. 2014. “Rare Incan 'Calculators' Found in Peru”. Discovery News. Posted: June 27, 2014. Available online: http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/rare-incan-calculators-found-in-peru-140627.htm

Body, soul and gold: quests for perfection in English alchemy

We are often told that ‘balance’ is the key to life – work/family balance, a balanced diet, and so on. But in early modern England, the quest for the perfect balance was thought to lead to prolonged life, more gold than could be dreamed of, and even the possibility of surviving the apocalypse.

Alchemy was the science that made these goals seem possible. We think of alchemists as fixated on precious metals, but alchemy overlapped with a field with which we are all familiar – medicine, and the fight to stay alive.

For Dr Jennifer Rampling, from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, the origins of English alchemy are bound up with beliefs about medicine and disease. Rampling’s research, funded by the Wellcome Trust, takes a long-term view, spanning centuries – from 1300 to 1700 – and tracing the thread of English alchemy through hundreds of texts and manuscripts, taking in medicine, religion and culture.

The four humours

At the start of this period, medicine was still guided by Ancient Greek and Roman notions about the need to balance the body’s four humours – black bile, yellow bile, blood and phlegm. If a person was sick, an ‘imbalance’ of the humours was assumed, and it was the physician’s job to rectify the situation by restoring equality.

“According to conventional academic medicine, illness wasn’t something that invaded your body from outside. Everyone had their own individual ‘complexion’ of humours, and to rebalance this required a more-tailored, systemic healing method,” explained Rampling.

“A common approach was to try and forcibly ‘purge’ excess humours, often considered the cause of illness, in order to rebalance. Bleeding and vomiting were routine forms of treatment.”

Alchemy offered hope

But some diseases did not fit this ancient framework, and when the Black Death ravaged 14th-century Europe, killing tens of thousands regardless of individual complexions, physicians needed a new kind of medicine. Alchemy offered hope for a last-ditch cure.

A new alchemical medicine came into vogue – known as ‘quintessence’ – which went beyond conventional remedies, aspiring instead to the celestial. Made by repeatedly distilling alcohol, quintessence was used to extract essences from plants and metals, particularly gold.

In the medieval world view, the Earth was composed of the four Aristotelian elements: earth, air, fire and water. However, the heavens were made of a perfect, fifth element, immune to change and corruption. For alchemists, their distilled quintessences echoed this heavenly element, offering a potential cure by ejecting imperfection from the body.

“Plague was supposed to kill by poisoning the heart. But these elixirs were so perfect that they couldn’t coexist with poison. The corruption would be literally forced out of the body – restoring the balance of health.”

Chemical medicine began to catch on. Today, we aim for medication without violent side-effects. But in early modern England, the fact that powerful bodily reactions could be produced by ingesting tiny amounts of a chemical substance was seen as hugely impressive.

“Patients often welcomed strong, physical reactions to remedies – such as antimony compounds, which make you projectile vomit – because they saw them as indicators of effectiveness; perhaps that some blockage was being cleared,” said Rampling. “If you think of your body as a sack of fluid humours, you will probably want to see, and feel, movement.”

The vegetable stone

But if such concoctions could transform the flesh, why not metals as well? Rampling talks of ‘slippage’ between medical and metallurgical alchemy, and the most sought- after elixirs – such as the ‘vegetable stone’, a focus of her research – were believed to both heal sickness and transmute metals, purging impurity to leave only perfection.

Rampling has been in the lab with Dr Peter Wothers, from the Department of Chemistry, attempting to decipher an encrypted recipe for the vegetable stone by 15th-century alchemist George Ripley, perhaps the most influential of all English alchemists.

“If you distil vinegar several times, you can use it to dissolve lead. That results in a gum that Ripley called the ‘Green Lion’, but that modern chemists would think of as lead acetate,” explained Rampling. “Distil this, and a white smoke is produced which – if you collect and condense it – forms a clear fluid. Ripley thought this ‘menstruum’ was the basis for the vegetable stone.” But the recipe fades into opacity as the alchemist’s language becomes increasingly enigmatic.

Otherworldly secrets

Alchemical practices and ingredients were often concealed using symbolic, riddling language, enticing with their hint of otherworldly secrets, but ultimately difficult to decipher. This language is magnificently displayed in the ‘Ripley Scrolls’ – emblematic scrolls full of dazzling imagery, depicting dragons, angels, turrets in the clouds and giant droplets of blood.

These scrolls baffle at every level. The design is probably not by Ripley at all – it was attributed to him after his death, when his fame had spread. Their meaning was also subject to distortion over time. For 300 years, copyists emphasised different aspects of the scrolls’ imagery, struggling to make sense of their source.

Knowledge is power

Such eye-catching manuscripts offered alchemical practitioners one way of marketing their expertise. Knowledge is power, and the natural and medical knowledge promised by alchemical treatises could be used as a bartering chip for social mobility by those who claimed to be its gatekeepers.

“A lot of the alchemists’ rhetoric is about protecting the secret: knowledge that is too dangerous to fall into the hands of the ignorant or rapacious,” said Rampling. “In reality, they had to be discreet with this knowledge, since it was their livelihood.

“Practitioners could use this knowledge to win the patronage of princes and nobles, by dangling the possibility of long life, riches and secret wisdom. The imagery of the Ripley Scrolls refers to medicine as well as transmutation – all in a very glamorous package.”

Earth lacked the unchanging perfection of the heavens

Besides prolonged life and wealth, alchemy also offered insight into the secrets of nature, and even divine power. In Aristotelian cosmology, the Earth itself was flawed as it lacked the unchanging perfection of the heavens. As Rampling points out, this model “mapped very nicely” onto a Christian theology that viewed the natural world as damaged by original sin: “If nature was poisoned by the Fall, then alchemy promised to redeem it. It’s no coincidence that the Ripley Scroll (pictured) shows the Garden of Eden.”

By generating perfection on Earth, alchemists could claim they were doing God’s work. The quest for the perfect elixir, able to purge both man and metal, had a powerful apocalyptic resonance.

Surviving Judgement Day

For hundreds of years, Christian prophets claimed that the end of the world was close. On Judgement Day, God was expected to ‘purify’ the Earth with divine fire – only the perfect could survive. Some alchemists argued that the possessor of the elixir would play an important role. This idea resurfaced in Elizabethan England, and was presented to Queen Elizabeth I a number of times.

But corruption and redemption were also allegories for material processes. Tellingly, the Scroll’s Adam and Eve are not eating the biblical apple, but bunches of grapes. Rampling has an answer: “Wine made from grapes produces both vinegar and the quintessence – key ingredients of the vegetable stone.”

For all its striving for perfection, alchemy remained grounded in the physical, requiring its practitioners to get their hands dirty. For Rampling, there is a romance in the alchemists’ relationship with the world, one we have perhaps lost.

“These people knew materials in an intimate way – they would taste them, smell them, listen to them. There are lots of descriptions in manuscripts of substances making cracking sounds, or producing a heavenly odour or bitter taste. Alchemists were early explorers of the material world. With only their senses and imagination to guide them, they had to be attuned to the slightest variation.”
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References:

Past Horizons. 2012. “Body, soul and gold: quests for perfection in English alchemy”. Past Horizons. Posted: November 11, 2012. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/11/2012/body-soul-and-gold-quests-for-perfection-in-english-alchemy