Wood from Newton's apple tree back from space

by Kathryn Hadley,

The piece of wood engraved with Sir Isaac Newton’s initials from the tree which inspired him to formulate the theory of gravitation was returned, yesterday, to its home at the Royal Society.

The section of wood from the tree from which Newton famously saw the apple fall was taken into space, on May 14th, by the astronaut Piers Sellers on the NASA mission STS 132. Sellers also took with him an image of Sir Isaac Newton, a former president of the Royal Society, as part of the 350th anniversary celebrations of the Royal Society. The piece of wood and the picture spent 12 days in space with Sellers who videoed them floating in the space station.

They are now on display in the Royal Society’s exhibition 'The Royal Society: 350 Years of Science'.



Images:

- Piers Sellers presents wood back to Professor Lorna Casselton, Foreign Secretary of the Royal Society (Royal Society)
- Piers Sellers holding the tree fragment (Royal Society/ NASA)

Wood from the tree that inspired Newton’s theory of gravitation travels into space

by Kathryn Hadley

A piece of wood engraved with Sir Isaac Newton’s initials from the tree which inspired him to formulate the theory of gravitation will travel into space on the next NASA mission STS 132, this Friday May 14th. The sections of wood pictured here are from the tree from which Newton (1643-1727) famously saw the apple fall at some time during 1665 or 1666. The tree still stands in Newton’s former home, Woolsthorpe Manor, in Lincolnshire. The Royal Society, of which Newton was a former president, has entrusted the section of wood to the British-born astronaut Piers Sellers as part of its 350th anniversary celebrations. He will be flying with the larger piece of wood as well as with a portrait of Sir Isaac Newton.

Piers Sellers described the mission:

‘We’re delighted to take this piece of Sir Isaac Newton’s apple tree to orbit.
While it’s up there, it will be experiencing no gravity, so if it had an apple
on it, the apple wouldn’t fall. I’m pretty sure that Sir Isaac would have loved
to see this, assuming he wasn’t spacesick, as it would have proved his first law
of motion to be correct. After the flight, we will be returning the piece of
tree and a flown picture of Sir Isaac Newton back to The Royal Society.’

The NASA mission will last 12 days. The piece of wood will thereafter be held as a permanent exhibit at the Royal Society.

Earlier this year, the Royal Society made available online, for the first time, the original manuscript of William Stukeley’s biography of Newton. Stukeley was one of the first biographers of Newton and was also a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The true story of Newton’s falling apple

by Kathryn Hadley

Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) was allegedly inspired for his theory of gravitation from seeing a falling apple in his garden. In his 1752 biography of Newton entitled Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton’s Life the antiquary and scientist William Stukeley (1687-1765) recalled Newton’s telling of the apple-tree story:

‘After dinner, the weather being warm, we went into the garden and drank tea,
under the shade of some apple trees… he told me, he was just in the same
situation, as when formerly, the notion of gravitation came into his mind. It
was occasion’d by the fall of an apple, as he sat in a contemplative mood. Why
should that apple always descend perpendicularly to the ground, thought he to
himself…’

Today, for the first time, the Royal Society has made available online the original manuscript of Stukeley’s biography in a ‘turning the pages format’ (www.royalsociety.org/turning-the-pages). The online publication forms part of the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary celebrations this year.

Stukeley was one of the first biographers of Isaac Newton. He lived in London for a decade, from 1717, where he befriended Newton and became a Fellow of the Royal Society. He collected Newton’s reflections on his own life, but also gathered material about his childhood from residents of the King’s School in Grantham where he went to school.

Stukeley’s biography is just one of seven manuscripts to be published online to mark the Royal Society’s 350th anniversary. Other manuscripts from the Royal Society’s archive are also now available in an interactive format, including a 1789 description of an iron bridge design by Thomas Paine and John Locke’s contribution to one of the earliest American state constitution documents in the fundamental constitutions of Carolina from 1681.

Seeing Further: The Story of Science and the Royal Society edited by Bill Bryson, a new book charting the story of science and the Royal Society from 1660 to the present, is also published today.

Further information about this year’s 350th anniversary events is available on the website of the Royal Society http://www.royalsociety.org/


In Genius Eclipsed: The Fate of Robert Boyle Michael Hunter explains why, within half a century of his death, the natural philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle was almost forgotten, overshadowed by his contemporary Isaac Newton.

Images (the Royal Society):

- title page from William Stukeley's 1752 work Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life
- extract from William Stukeley's 1752 work Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton's Life, the first time the famous story of Newton and the apple was written down
- portrait of Isaac Newton by Charles Jervas, 18th century

The Archimedes Codex: Neumann Prize Winner and the story of Archimedes’ lost manuscripts

by Kathryn Hadley

Last Saturday, September 19th, at the autumn meeting of the British Society for the History of Mathematics (BSHM), The Archimedes Codex by Reviel Netz and William Noel was awarded the Neumann Prize for the best book in the history of mathematics aimed a broad audience. Reviel Netz is Professor of Classics at Stanford University, California, and Dr William Noel is the curator of manuscripts and rare books at The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

The prize was awarded for the first time this year and will henceforth be bestowed every two years. The prize is named after Dr Peter Neumann, Emeritus Fellow of The Queen’s College, Oxford, and a former president of the BSHM. He was awarded the OBE in 2008 for his services to education.

The Archimedes Codex is a biography of one of the ancient world’s greatest mathematicians Archimedes of Syracuse (c.287 BC – c.212 BC) and tells the story of the rediscovery of a 10th-century copy of some of his writings and drawings, which were found hidden beneath a 13th-century prayer book.

The only historic sources about Archimedes are three manuscripts, two of which have disappeared. The third is the Archimedes Palimpsest. The word palimpsest comes from the Greek palimpsestos meaning ‘scraped again’ and is a manuscript from which the text has been erased and the parchment re-used. In the case of the Archimedes Palimpsest, the manuscript containing the mathematician’s work was erased and re-used as a Byzantine prayer book written in Greek and completed in 1229. It contains seven treatises by Archimedes, including The Method of Mechanical Theorems and the Stomachion, which allegedly exist nowhere else in the world.

In October 1998, the manuscript was sold at auction to a private collector who deposited it at The Walters Art Museum. The Archimedes Codex chronicles the project led by William Noel to recover and decipher the erased text and investigates why the text is so important. The Walters Art Museum also created a digital version of the text, which is available on the Archimedes Palimpsest project website.

Professor Martin Campbell-Kelly from the University of Warwick was the chair of the judging panel. He said that:

‘although the panel was faced with a strong shortlist of books The Archimedes
Codex, with its readable combination of history and modern scientific sleuthing,
emerged as a clear winner’.

The British Society for the History of Mathematics was founded in 1971 to promote and encourage research in the history of mathematics and its use at all levels of mathematics education. The annual joint BSHM / Gresham College lecture will be held at Gresham College on November 2nd. Professor Jeremy Gray from the University of Warwick will give a talk entitled ‘Mathematics, motion and truth: the Earth goes round the Sun’ in which he will address the debates surrounding the reality of the Earth’s motion around the Sun from the early 17th century to the time of Poincare.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/
www.dcs.warwick.ac.uk/bshm

For further information on the making and the history of the palimpsest and on the project itself visit the Archimedes palimpsest website
http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/

Archimedes was one of the first mathematicians to approximate the value of π (pi). The mathematics teacher William Jones was the first, however, to use a symbol to represent the concept of pi. In William Jones and his Circle: The Man who invented Pi Patricia Rothman discusses Jones’s significance among his contemporaries and the unique archive that forms his legacy.

For further information on the history of science, visit our History of Science focus page. For further information on ancient Greece, visit our Ancient History focus page.

25 Years Since The Discovery of DNA Fingerprinting

by Kathryn Hadley

The technique of genetic fingerprinting was discovered 25 years ago today, on September 10th 1984, by Alec Jeffreys’ from the Department of Genetics at the University of Leicester. To mark the anniversary, the University of Leicester have created an anniversary website featuring interviews and information about Sir Alec’s life and work.

Sir Alec described the discovery in an interview published on the new website:

‘My life changed on Monday morning at 9.05 am, 10 September 1984. What emerged was the world's first genetic fingerprint. In science it is unusual to have such a 'eureka' moment. We were getting extraordinarily variable patterns of DNA,
including from our technician and her mother and father, as well as from non
human samples. My first reaction to the results was 'this is too complicated',
and then the penny dropped and I realised we had genetic fingerprinting.’

Genetic fingerprinting has since been applied to crime, paternity and immigration disputes. In the UK there now exists a national database of over 5 million genetic profiles and the number of recorded profiles has risen by 40% over the past two years. According to an article published on the website of the BBC, over 17,600 offences were solved last year using a DNA match, including 83 killings and 184 rapes.

The University of Leicester website has reprinted a lecture delivered by Sir Alec Jeffreys at the Leicester Medical Society Bicentenary during which he outlined the history of human genetics. Genetics is defined as the study of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics. He cited two key individuals. In 1900, the Austrian physician Karl Landsteiner discovered the ABO blood group system. This was the first example of a variable human characteristic to be discovered that was inherited according to the simple rules of Mendel. Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) was an Austrian priest and scientist who discovered the basic principles of heredity based on his work with pea plants. Two years later, the English physician Sir Archibald Garrod, who was working at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London on the inherited disorder Alkaptonuria, discovered the first example of a human inherited disease.

The 1950s saw the rise of genomics, the study of the organisation of genes and chromosomes and structure of DNA. The first human gene was isolated in 1977 and today we now have the final draft of the entire human genome sequence.

On the anniversary of the discovery of DNA fingerprinting, Sir Alec Jeffreys called for changes to the laws governing DNA databases. In England and Wales the DNA profiles of people who have never been convicted are kept alongside those of convicted criminals. In the article published on the BBC website, Jeffreys argued:

‘Innocent people do not belong on that database. Branding them as future
criminals is not proportionate response in the fight against crime. And I've met
a fair number of these people and some of these people are very, very upset and
are distressed by the fact that their DNA is on that database. They cannot get
it off and they feel as if they're branded as criminals.’

For further information, visit www2.le.ac.uk
For further information on the 20th-century scientific-technical revolution and how it produced a new world culture and global organisation, read our article The 20th-Century Scientific-Technical Revolution

A Short History of Milk Drinking

by Kathryn Hadley

It was previously believed that milk drinking began in dairy farming communities in northern Europe. Through a process of natural selection to compensate for vitamin D deficiencies due to a lack of daylight, communities in northern Europe were believed to have undergone a genetic mutation which enabled them produce the enzyme lactase necessary to digest the milk sugar lactose. The production of lactase is a characteristic known as lactase persistence. Although the majority of Europeans produce lactase throughout their life, most adults worldwide do not produce the enzyme lactase. However, the latest research by scientists from University College London has revealed that this genetic mutation first occurred, instead, in dairy farming communities in central Europe 7,500 years ago, in the region between the central Balkans and central Europe.

According to previous studies, dairying developed in south-eastern Europe soon after the arrival of farming. Milk proteins have been discovered, for example, in present-day Romania and Hungary in ceramic vessels which date back between 7,900 and 7,450 years. Traces of fats have also suggested that dairying began in England some 6,100 years ago. It is believed that Germanic and Celtic people practiced cattle dairying and drank significant amounts of fresh milk, however, it is most likely that milk was first used to make cheese, butter and yoghurt rather than drunk fresh.

Professor Mark Thomas, UCL Genetics, Evolution and Environment, explained:

‘Most Europeans continue to produce lactase throughout their life, a
characteristic known as lactase persistence. In Europe, a single genetic change
(13,910*T) is strongly associated with lactase persistence and appears to have
given people with it a big survival advantage. Since adult consumption of fresh
milk was only possible after the domestication of animals, it is likely that
lactase persistence co-evolved with the cultural practice of dairying, although
it was not known when it first arose in Europe or what factors drove its rapid
spread. Our study simulated the spread of lactase persistence and farming in
Europe, and found that lactase persistence appears to have begun around 7,500
years ago between the central Balkans and central Europe, probably among people
of the Linearbandkeramik culture. But contrary to popular belief, we also found
that a need for dietary vitamin D was not necessary to explain why lactase
persistence is common in northern Europe today.’

The results of the study were published last week in the journal PLoS Computational Biology in ‘The Origins of Lactose Persistence in Europe’ by Yuval Itan, Adam Powell, Mark Beaumont, Joachim Burger and Mark Thomas. The article is available on the website of PLoS Computational Biology. http://www.ploscompbiol.org/

Picture:

Map showing origin of milk drinking in Europe (UCL)

Safety belt is 50 years old

by Kathryn Hadley

Almost exactly 50 years ago today, the first car to be produced with a standard fitted three-point safety belt rolled off the Volvo production lines in Sweden, on August 13th 1959. The three-point safety belt was invented by the Swedish engineer Nils Bohlin (1920-2002) who was employed at the time as Volvo’s first ever safety engineer.

It is estimated that there are 600 million cars on the roads today. Over the past 50 years the safety belt is believed to have saved one million lives. In reality, Bohlin’s invention was not entirely novel and the history of the safety belt dates back more than 50 years.

The safety belt was first invented at the beginning of the 19th century by the English aeronautical engineer Sir George Cayley (1773-1857) for his glider, which successfully transported human beings for the first time. Over a century later, in 1949, the American car company Nash began to offer seatbelts to consumers and they were fitted as an option in some Ford models for the first time in 1955. In 1958, the Swedish firm Saab was the first to fit seatbelts as standard, but they were two-point belts that simply restrained the chest. An early three-point safety belt restraining the chest and the lap by an additional belt had, however, previously been designed by two Americans, Roger Griswold and Hugh De Haven, in 1951. However, once again, the buckle remained in the middle.

Nils Bohlin was the first to design a three-point safety belt that fastened by the occupant’s hip rather than over the abdomen. Buckles, which were previously placed over the abdomen, often caused internal injuries in high-speed crashes. Bohlin had previously worked for the aircraft maker Saab where he helped to develop ejection seats and used his experience there to design a model that would be easy and fast to use.

Bohlin was quoted in an article on the website of The Independent:

‘I realised both the upper and lower body must be held securely in place with
one strap across the chest and one across the hips. The belt also needed an
immovable anchorage point for the buckle by the occupant's hip, so it could hold
the body properly during a collision. It was a matter of finding a solution that
was simple, effective and could be put on conveniently with one hand.’

Consumers remained reluctant to pay for safety belts and Volvo’s system was initially only fitted to cars for the Swedish market. In 1963, three-point safety belts were fitted as standard for the first time worldwide. It became compulsory to wear a seatbelt in Britain in 1983. It became compulsory for rear passengers to wear seatbelts in 1989, for children, and 1991, for adults. Bohlin was inducted in the Automotive Hall of Fame for his invention in 1999. In 2002 he was also inducted in the National Inventors Hall of Fame.

For further information on the beginnings of the motor car industry, read our article The Early Days of Motoring

Essential History: 27th July

by Derry Nairn

Here's a quick look at some historical headlines making the British press, both over the weekend and today.

Guardian: Brutalist London Housing Estate threatened with demolition

Architectural History

The JoePublic blog at the Guardian today puts forward a case for the 1970s Robin Hood housing estate in east London to be saved from demolition. The key question from the debate is a hugely relevant one - how do we decide what historical buildings are worthwhile and which aren't?

Scotsman: Women's beauty evolving; men remain Neanderthal

Pre-history

The Scotsman today quotes a University of Helsinki report, stating that evolution is forcing women to become more attractive, while men remain rooted to their caveman genes. Raises a smile, but also makes you think...

Iranian periods of mourning have signalled great events

20th Century

Michael Purcell in the Times on the historical resonance of mourning ceremonies and martyrdom in Iranian culture. We have a related overview of recent Iranian history in the current August issue.

Confucianism enjoys a revival in China

Chinese History

Steven A Bell in the Guardian assesses recent uses of Confucianism beyond the realm of Chinese government. Academic spheres such as economics and psychology have been incresingly referring to its principles over the past decade. But did it ever go away, I wonder?

New efforts to record and protect ancient trees

Environmental History

The Times reports on a new campaign to protect Britain's ancient trees, described here rather nicely, as 'cathedrals of the ancient world'.

30,000 tribesmen invade Edinburgh for the Highland Games

British History

The Independent reports on this year's Highland Games in Scotland via several interlocking historical themes: record numbers of attendees; the 250th anniversary year of Robert Burns; inverse levels of interest in Scottish tribal history in Scotland and abroad. This article on Sir Walter Scott, '1822 spin doctor supreme', offers some helpful context.

Heritage site descriptions dumbing down?

British History

The Times reports on new efforts by English Heritage, the state body responsible for managing and promoting historic sites such as Stonehenge, to make its literature coherent to 'all intellectual levels'.

100 years since Bleriót flew the Channel

Science & Technology

The Daily Express remembers when Louis Bleriót flew the English Channel, and marks the occasion by talking to a Swede intent on replicating the historic journey

Profile of our very own Andrew Roberts

Authors

The Observer goes all rock'n'roll over one of our most consistent and interesting contributors, Andrew Roberts. He's 'a social animal of epic proportions'. Allegedly. Check out his last piece for History Today, A Woman at Waterloo.

The Nazi-hunting Jewish Brigade of the British Army

Second World War

The Times compares the exaggerated pulp history of Tarantino's new film with the real story behind Britain's postwar Nazi-hunters.

Science Museum Centenary

by Kathryn Hadley

The Science Museum turns 100 today! Special events will be organised this weekend and centenary celebrations will continue over the coming 12 months to celebrate a century of science.

The history of the Science Museum dates back more than a century to the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations held in Hyde Park in 1851. The Great Exhibition ensured a large financial surplus, which Prince Albert, the patron of the Great Exhibition, decided should be used to found a number of educational establishments. The South Kensington Museum was founded as a result, in 1857, primarily as a museum of the industrial and decorative arts. It also included various science collections as well as a separate exhibition of machinery. In 1864, a collection of ship models and marine engines was formed. In 1876, a special exhibition was organised featuring scientific instruments on loan from various countries.

The museum was soon unable to accommodate its growing collection and, in 1899, Queen Victoria laid the foundation stone of a new range of buildings. The new buildings opened in 1909 and on June 26th, 1909, the museum was reorganised into two independent institutions, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Science Museum.

Soon after, work began to expand the Science Museum with the building of the East Block beginning in 1913. Work was interrupted, however, by the First World War. It was eventually inaugurated by King George V in 1928. A ‘Children’s Gallery’ was thereafter opened in 1931. The life of the Museum was further disrupted during the Second World War. The museum was closed and most of its collections were put into storage. It was transformed into a radio repair school and the library and theatre became centres for wartime research. It was not until 1950 that the Science Museum became a settled institution once more.

For further information, visit the Science Museum website www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

To read more about the history of science, visit our Science Focus page.

Rediscovery of flint axe that shattered the theory of Creationism

by Kathryn Hadley

Over the past months, news headlines have been dominated by events marking the bicentenary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his Origins of Species. Six months prior to Darwin’s publication, however, another hugely significant discovery was made, when a flint axe was found in northern France. The discovery challenged traditional Biblical explanations of evolution before Darwin’s theory was made public. The axe had been presumed lost for the past 150 years, but at the beginning of the week, it was rediscovered by Professor Clive Gamble, an archaeologist in the Department of Geography at Royal Holloway, and Dr Robert Kruszynski of the Natural History Museum.

The implement is considered the most important stone tool in the establishment of the geological antiquity of human kind. In April 1859, two English businessmen, Joseph Prestwich and John Evans, respectively interested in geology and archaeology, travelled to Amiens to search for evidence to prove the great antiquity of humans. They were searching for a specific type of stone tool which they wanted to extract themselves from undisturbed ground and which had to come from the same geological levels as the bones of extinct animals such as wooly mammoth and rhino. Accompanied by scientific witnesses and a photographer, they eventually discovered a flint axe, on April 27th 1859, in a gravel pit in St Acheul near Amiens.

Although it was impossible to date the implement precisely, the discovery dispelled the biblical view of Creation and provided evidence for a far more remote human antiquity than had hitherto been imagined. Our ancestors did not date back just 6,000 years; but to the era of ice age mammoths. The implement was exhibited at the Royal Society and the Society of Antiquaries in London, in May 1859, alongside the photograph of its discovery. On June 2nd, six months before Darwin’s publication of his Origin of Species, Sir John Evans (1823—1908) presented the stone in a lecture to the Society of Antiquaries. The axe thereafter disappeared, however, for 150 years.

In 2008, Professor Gamble began to research the axe for the 150th anniversary of Prestwich and Evans’ discovery. He explained why it had been forgotten for so long:

‘The answer is simple […]. As stone handaxes go it is an unfinished piece,
roughly made by a human ancestor 400,000 years ago. Prestwich and Evans would
have been amazed at such an age, but they had the task of convincing the
doubters in London and Paris that it was indeed a human artefact. Subsequently,
they found many better-made pieces, some entirely symmetrical that left no doubt
that these were produced by design and not accident’.

The Natural History Museum had received Prestwich’s collection in 1896. Dr Robert Kruszynski eventually discovered a triangular shaped tool with a small label with the words ‘St. Acheul Amiens April 27 – 59’ in the museum's collection.

For the first time since Evans presented his finds to the Society of Antiquaries in June 1859, the original flint stone will be displayed during a conference at the Society of Antiquaries on June 2nd. To mark the 150th anniversary of Evans’ lecture, speakers will discuss the circumstances of the famous discovery, the place of the find in Victorian science and the establishment of human antiquity. An article on the discovery is published in the June issue of the journal Antiquity. An entire section of the journal is notably devoted to the work of Charles Darwin and to the discovery of the axe.

For further information on the conference, visit http://www.sal.org.uk/

The website of the journal Antiquity is http://antiquity.ac.uk/

In our article published in May 2008, Clive Gamble revisits the time of the discovery of the flint axe and links this to contemporary debates about the antiquity of the human mind

Breaking the Time Barrier

For further information on Darwin and on the conflict between supporters of Darwin's theory of evolution and Creationists, read our articles The Descent of Genius: Charles Darwin's Brilliant Career and America's Difficulty with Darwin

Darwin’s University Days

by Kathryn Hadley

Six record books of the bills paid by Charles Darwin during his time as a student at Christ’s College, Cambridge, were published online, yesterday, at The Complete Work Of Charles Darwin Online. The bills were recently discovered by the Honorary Keeper of the Archives and Fellow Commoner, Professor Geoffrey Thorndike Martin, and provide a unique insight into Darwin’s expenditure as a student, from 1828 to 1831, filling in previous gaps in knowledge about this period of his life.

The record books state, for example, the exact date of Darwin’s arrival at the university on January 26th, 1828, as well as the date of his enrollment at Christ’s College on October 15th, 1827. At the time, students did not pay for many things in cash. Instead, they paid local tradesmen by account and the individual bills were then reported to the college, which charged the students on a quarterly basis. Over the course of the three years, Darwin’s bills amounted to £636.0.9½ (six hundred and thirty-six pounds, zero shillings and 91/2 pence). In addition, he spent £14 on his BA degree in 1831 and a further £12, in 1836, to collect his MA following his return from his Beagle voyage. Darwin allegedly spent very little of his time at Cambridge studying, instead preferring to shoot, ride, collect insects and socialise and his bills reveal very scarce expenditure on books.

He paid extra, however, in order to be served vegetables with his meals and also employed a bed-maker, shoe-polisher and someone to bring in the coal for his fire! The books also include Darwin’s accounts for the barber, grocer, tailor, chimney-sweep, apothecary, porter, and laundress, for example. Darwin allegedly later recalled his student years as ‘the most joyful of my happy life’.

In the words of Dr John van Wyhe, Director of The Complete Work Of Charles Darwin Online:

‘Before this we didn't really know very much about Darwin's daily life at
Cambridge at all. It had been assumed that there were no significant traces of
his time here left to discover, which meant that we were ironically short of
information about one of the most formative parts of his life. Now, in his 200th
anniversary year, we have found a real treasure-trove right in the middle of
Cambridge.’

The record books are available on the website of The Complete Works Of Charles Darwin Online: http://darwin-online.org.uk/

For further information on the conflict between supporters of Darwin’s theory of evolution and Creationists, read Thomas Dixon’s article published in our February issue America's Difficulty with Darwin
Published in 1982, Roy Porter’s article also provides a fascinating insight into his view of Darwin’s genius at the time The Descent of Genius: Charles Darwin's Brilliant Career

Mummies: The dream of everlasting life

by Kathryn Hadley

‘Mummies: The dream of everlasting life’ opened last week at the South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology in Bolzano, Italy. The exhibition includes a display of over 60 mummies, both human and animal, from all over the world, providing an insight into mummification from prehistory to the present day. Mummification is a phenomenon which occurred, and still occurs today, in different periods in time and in places all over the world. The mummies on display range from bog bodies discovered in northern Europe, to an Egyptian mummy complete with its sarcophagus, to mummies from Asia, Oceania and South America and include naturally mummified bodies, as well as mummies which are the result of human intervention. The main feature of the exhibition is the body of the 5,300 year-old Iceman Oetzi, discovered in the Alps in 1991. The mummies are displayed along with artefacts used in rituals and thus showcased in their cultural context. Interactive features also complete the exhibits with information on the origins, living conditions, nutrition and illnesses of the mummies, which extensive research and examination of the cadavers has revealed.

Mummies tend to be traditionally associated with Ancient Egypt and, for a long time, the term only referred to these embalmed corpses from Egypt. Mummification, however, describes the general process whereby the natural decomposition process of a body is inhibited and the corpse is preserved as a result of certain specific chemical, physical and climatic circumstances. Mummification can be applied to human bodies as well as animals and to bodies from any age in which the soft tissue has been preserved.

A distinction should be made between natural and artificial or intentional mummification, which involves an embalming process or laying the body in a natural area favorable to mummification. Natural mummification can occur in various environments, such as caves, deserts, ice and bogs. In caves, for example, the constant temperature, humidity and darkness prevents the growth of bacteria and mummies have notably been discovered in caves in desert areas, Siberia and in Central Europe. In desert areas, both hot and cold, bodies are naturally stripped of their fluids by aridity and wind and preserved as a result. Mummified corpses have also been discovered in salt deserts, salt lakes and seas, where the salt has dried out the body, preventing bacterial growth and eventually mummifying the corpse, as well as in bogs, where bodies are depleted from oxygen due to an excess of water and preserved by certain acidic and antibacterial substances.

Mummies have been discovered across the world, from Ancient Egypt, to Asia, South America and Europe. In Asia, both naturally and artificially mummified bodies have been found, primarily in desert areas. In South America, mummies have similarly been discovered mostly in desert areas on the Pacific coast and in the Andean mountain range. In some areas mummies were also intentionally mummified in accordance with the beliefs and cults of local Andean culture groups. In Europe, prehistoric groups did not practice mummification and mummified bodies were the result of natural preservation. In the late Middle Ages, however, mummies were brought to Europe from Egypt along with medical knowledge from the Orient and at the end of the 19th century, Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition gave rise to a second wave of imported mummies. Whilst in the Middle Ages in Europe only the bodies of emperors, kings and popes were embalmed, the process subsequently spread to members of the nobility as the practice of organising large and lavish funerals also developed. The practice continued during the 20th century. Lenin’s body has been preserved, for example, in a mausoleum in the Red Square since 1925; Eva Péron, who died in 1953, was also embalmed.

For further information about the process of mummification, read our article The Making of a Modern Mummy

Mummies: The dream of everlasting life
Until October 25th

South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology
Via Museo 43
I-39100 Bolzano
Italy
Telephone: 00 39 0471 320 100
http://www.archaeologiemuseum.it/

Photos: South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology. From top to bottom: Ancient Peruvian Mummy from the Inca period (Native American Dept. of Bonn University); Howler Monkey, Gran Chaco, Argentina (Schleswig Holstein Museum Found.); woman with two children, pre-Columbian period, South America (Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums, Mannheim); Michael Orlovits (1765-1806), Dominican Church of Vác, Hungary (Hungarian Natural History Museum).

Galileo : Blinded by the Light

by Kathryn Hadley

A group of Italian and British scientists have recently renewed their appeal to exhume the body of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) to carry out DNA tests in order to determine the extent to which his vision problems affected his findings. The scientists told Reuters last Thursday that the tests would help to resolve some of the unanswered questions about the health of the Tuscan physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher.

Throughout the second half of his life Galileo suffered from intermittent eye problems and the last two years of his life he was totally blind. His findings and his presentation of heliocentrism as a proven fact in particular, resulted in a papal trial in October 1632. He was accused of heresy and spent the last years of his life under house arrest on orders of the Roman Inquisition. Dr Peter Watson, president of the Academia Ophthalmologica Internationalis and consultant to Addenbrooke's University Hospital, Cambridge, suspects that he may have suffered from unilateral myopia, uveitis (an inflammation of the eye’s middle layer) or a condition called creeping angle closure glaucoma. Watson believes that:

"There were periods when he saw very well and periods when he did not see very well […] A DNA test will allow us to determine to what measure the pathology of the eye may have 'tricked' him".

According to Paolo Galuzzi, director of the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence, who has published widely on the scientists and engineers of the Renaissance, including Galileo, and on the birth and history of the historiography of science, such illnesses may have been the source of one of Galileo’s most significant errors. Galileo believed that Saturn was not round, but had an irregular inflated side. His bad eyesight may have caused him to mistake Saturn’s gaseous ring and to conclude instead that Saturn was a planet with two moons as satellites. In Galuzzi’s words:

"This was probably a combination of errors. He probably expected to find satellites and his eyesight may have contributed to some confusion [...] If we knew exactly what was wrong with his eyes we could use computer models to recreate what he saw in his telescope [...] We can formulate a mathematical model that simulates the effects it would have had on what he saw and using the same type of telescope he used we can get closer to what he actually saw […] We only have sketches of what he saw. If we were able to see what he saw that would be extraordinary".

During the first 100 years after his death, Galileo’s remains were hidden in a bell tower room of Santa Croce Basilica in Florence because the Church opposed a proper burial. He was reburied in the main body of the basilica in 1737 where a monument was erected in his honour. His bones were stored together with those of his disciple, Vicenzo Viviani, and those of an unknown woman. DNA tests would also help to determine if they are, as Galuzzi believes, those of one of his three illegitimate children, Sister Maria Celeste .

The scientists are still waiting for permission from the Church to exhume the body. The Institute of the History of Science will then require 300 000 Euros to finance the tests.

For more information on the links between Galileo’s discoveries and the paintings of his Italian contemporaries, read our article

A New Heaven - Galileo and the Artists
Who was the real inventor of the telescope, the crucial instrument in all Galileo’s observations? Find out more in our article Who Invented the Telescope?
Visit our History of Science focus page to find out more about the History of Science and some of its greatest icons.

The Wonders of Science

by Derry Nairn

In his latest history column for the Economist's Intelligent Life magazine, Andrew Marr puts forward the case for increased study of great scientists. He has been working on a forthcoming BBC series about Darwin's wider social impact, and has become convinced of the both the importance and romance associated with science and its many heroes:-

The lives of Lavoisier, Curie, Turing or Fermi were as dramatic and human as those of Roosevelt, Byron, Montgomery, Jane Austen or Queen Victoria.

Later in the piece he proclaims:-

We need ways of writing that illuminate something of the science for the general reader. This is not intrinsically more difficult than bringing alive 19th-century diplomacy or the disputes between renaissance painters over patronage and subject matter.

Well, right on time Andy, here comes History Today to the rescue!! On our new new history of science page, you can get an exclusive preview of Thomas Dixon's article on America's view of evolution from our forthcoming February issue. Plus, find out about all the latest Darwin-related books alongside a range of archived articles and reviews from years past.

Darwin recipes for Christmas

Original recipes from the wife of Charles Darwin have been brought together in a new book to offer an insight into a Victorian Christmas. Mrs Charles Darwin’s Recipe Book by Dusha Bateson and Weslie Janeway includes 40 dishes from the notebooks of Emma Darwin, including Lady Skymaston’s pudding, cranberry sauce, and compote of apples and Italian cream. Cambridge University Library, which houses Emma Darwin’s original notebook in its archives, released the recipes to the authors. A proportion of the book sales will go towards the University’s Darwin Correspondence Project.

Dr Alison Pearn, assistant director at the Project, stated: ‘Darwin built up an impressive network of correspondents who provided him with data about plants, animals, and peoples from all over the world, and with whom he discussed his ideas as they were developing. The letters are a remarkable window onto his life and mind, and a chance to eavesdrop on conversations between some of the leading thinkers of the 19th century.’

See History Today articles on Charles Darwin at www.historytoday.com/Darwin

Darwin shouted at and played piano to worms

by Derry Nairn

A lesser well-known book of Darwin's (his last, in fact) is ‘The formation of vegetable mould through the action of worms: with observations on their habits’, wherein the famous Victorian scientist concluded that worms had no sense of hearing. This was the result of the creatures making no response to

“shrill notes from a metal whistle, which was repeatedly sounded near them; nor did they hear the deepest and loudest tones of a bassoon. They were indifferent to shouts, if care was taken that the breath did not strike them. When placed on a table close to the keys of a piano, which was played as loudly as possible, they remained perfectly quiet.”

A new exhibition opens next week in the main library at University College London, where Darwin lived for a period. Included is a first edition of the Origin of Species and personal correspondence with the polymath Galton. There is also a talk on the opening night: UCL Professor Steve Jones will expand on the topic of what Darwinism tells us – and does not tell us – about our own place in nature.

More information can be found on this website.

Its all part of Darwin200: a national programme of events celebrating Charles Darwin’s scientific ideas and their impact, leading up to his two hundredth birthday on 12 February 2009. More information about the event programme can be discovered by clicking here.