Stone Age of Iron Gates

There were lots of breakthroughs in human history until this date. Some were instant and recognizable events or technological inventions, and some were slow evolutionary processes in the history of our species. Whatever they were, the outcome always reshaped the course of mankind entirely. In our own time, one of those is no doubt learning how to split the atom and invent the nuclear bomb. We are still living in the post-turbulence time of that latest breakthrough that has the potential to raise us from the Earth toward the stars. Some would say that it is still unknown whether this one is more of a civilization-killer event or a true entrance into another phase of humanity. We will wait and see. Either way, it is a breakthrough, nevertheless. In early human history there was one similar invention that had the same uncertainty. It was called the "Neolithic Revolution", and it happened in the middle of the Stone Age. And yes, even though we are still here, consequences of this invention are still very much all around us.

"Lepenski Vir" by Giovanni Caselli

Yes, the invention is, of course, agriculture along with domesticating wild animals. In this part of the world it happened around the year 5300 BC, and along with the Vinča culture, it was invented by one of the oldest civilizations that occupied Iron Gates, the great gorge of the mighty Danube, at the spot called Lepenski Vir (Lepen Whirlpool) near the Koršo hills at the right bank of the river. The gorge had everything for the rise of one medium-sized settlement for our Mesolithic predecessors. Large river with lots of fish; hills and valleys very near the bank with lots of small animals, deer, and especially easily hunted herds of aurochs (now extinct species of wild cows); and lots of water birds.

Many things happened in human minds with the agricultural way of life. If you ask me, it was the point when humans abandoned the 'natural' way of life, or, to better say it, it was the time when natural equilibrium with humans being just a part of the biodiversity microcosm of the inhabited area changed inevitably. We became the ultimate and the only player. Growing our own food and enslaving wild animals had raised us toward the godlike creatures, and we left our prehistorical ways for good. Just like with nuclear power, we made one great step in human evolution. And just like with the nuclear bomb, we invented all the side effects we are suffering to this day.

With agriculture we didn't just invent unlimited food supplies. We got ourselves envy and jealousy toward our own neighbor and cousin for simple things, like him having more food or land. We started to hunt for pleasure and not just for food. We started to steal and hate. We invented divine beings and prayers for them to spare our crops from natural hazards between planting and harvesting seasons. Let me just not repeat myself too much on the topic.

Anyway, yesterday I took my family to the Lepenski Vir and its wonderful museum to learn more of these great people and how and why, on Earth, they managed to survive several millenniums in tent-based settlements and lasted for maybe the longest period of time in human history. As for why, unfortunately I can't explain with words. You would have to visit Iron Gates and see it for yourself. In short, it is a beautiful site. The river is magnificent, and the gorge is one of a kind. The forests are still there, and the feeling is, well, if I were one of the Mesolithic explorers on foot, finding this place would be the same as finding heaven. Migrating it out would be, from one hunter and fisherman group's point of view, well, stupid.

Perhaps the only thing this place doesn't have is lots of room for large agriculture fields, and eventually these people left it as soon as they became too dependent on the Neolithic Revolution, and from that point in time in the fifth millennium before Christ, we have no idea where they went and spread. Probably upstream on the Danube in search of large plains for their crops is currently the most valuable scientific explanation. Maybe something more happened in addition to agricultural reasons to force them to leave, but we don't know. Today, one of the largest dams in the world, named 'Iron Gates I', created significant landscape change in the form of a long river lake and flooded the entire gorge and all the ancient settlements, preventing further exploration in search for more clues.

Perhaps, for me, these guys in pre-agricultural times were extremely interesting for many reasons. Anthropologically speaking, they were large compared to other humans in Europe at the time and lived longer and healthier lives. Thanks to their diet with most of the fish dishes on their stone tables, some of the prominent members of the society lived more than 60 years, and some of them were tall enough to play in the NBA with ease. Well, of course, most lived to about 40-50 years old, but with their average height of 165 for women and 172 for men, they might have origins in the old Cro-Magnon species from the Paleolithic. A fascinating story about all the skeletons in tombs was that no traces of violent deaths were found. Apparently, they were extremely peaceful people, and also, the interesting fact that all excavated skeletons (more than 150 in total) are missing only two teeth gives a clue that their amazing diet with almost 70% fish and the rest meat and berries was a fact that they literally lived in some sort of Mesolithic paradise.

At the end, all the main exploration and excavations of this site were made by Professor Dragoslav Srejović of the University of Belgrade. 136 buildings, settlements, and altars were found in the initial excavations in 1965-1970. I read somewhere that Dragoslav Srejović was a giant in a Newtonian way of definition, and I couldn't agree more. This short film above is the same one they played for us in the museum. I am sorry I couldn't find the one with English subtitles, but it was a great learning experience and an amazing documentary considering it was filmed in the same time lapse as the exploration. And as my wife noticed, it has even a romantic tale in the background that gives a special touch and feel of one typical archaeological life in the mid-sixties.

Refs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lepenski_Vir
http://www.donsmaps.com/lepenski.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs

Mammoths of Moesia Superior

Once, long, loong, loooooong ago in the days of the Late Jurassic period in the world of Pterodactylus, the famous flying dinosaur, Mother Earth was pretty busy with the work of creating continents, large mountains, seas, and oceans like we know today. At the time the place we know as Europe was mostly covered by a large sea by the name of Paratethys. About a hundred million years later, dramatic tectonic changes started producing large mountain formations today well known as the Alps and the Carpathians, which made Paratethys lose connection with the Mediterranean to the south and form a separate large inland sea in today's central Europe. Millions of years later, there are two remnant seas that still exist with the names of the Black and Caspian Seas. But there was one more in the nowadays Pannonian Basin that lasted almost 9 million years and finally disappeared in the middle of the Pleistocene Epoch, about 600,000 years ago, with remnant lakes here and there, especially in Hungary today. During its long life, the Pannonian Sea followed Earth's tectonic events and once covered almost the entire territory of present-day Serbia. Even the place where I am located right now was once pretty watery and wet. When I was a kid, I played a lot with digging in our front yard and from time to time got lucky with a couple of snail shells that sometimes forced me to think about their origin. They were small and white, and even though I doubt they were that old, they were very much familiar to the ones you can find in nowadays salty seas. Nothing like you can see today in our neighborhood.

Viminacium's Vika

Anyway, in the time of the Pannonian Sea and its old age, more or less around a million years ago, humans were a pretty timid species. That was the time of Homo heidelbergensis, an extinct species who was most likely the ancestor of both modern humans and Neanderthals and lived more or less in the time when the last drop of the Pannonian Sea evaporated or was moved away by the mighty Danube, leaving large plains in modern Central Europe. But the real boss of the time was not the man at all, and instead, after the last dinosaur disappeared for good, it was the large mammoth who adapted very well to the colder climate compared to their southern origins and, evolutionarily speaking, started to grow fur for protection. I am pretty sure that all Homo heidelbergensis and his grand-grand-grandfathers were terrified each time when a herd of mammoths was passing by their habitat, and they were probably hiding every time for as long as the last sound of their giant feet faded away for good. Mammoths were more than 5 meters long, 4 meters high, and about 10 tons in weight, and you can only imagine how, i.e., a set of 50 or more members of the big herd would look and sound when passing by near to your home. Well... a cave, to be exact, which was the most secure home of the time, but still, it must have been very interesting, to say the least.

Viktor and Vika

In central Serbia, just next to the old Roman city of Viminacium, in the prehistoric mouth of the river Morava, which was ending its flow into the Pannonian Sea, mammoths seemed to find a good place to die. Just like elephants do today, they had their graveyards, and one of them seemed to be right there, and archaeologists found numerous skeletons and fossils of mammoths from different periods in history. Among them, the almost fully preserved mammoth "Vika" was displayed in the Viminacium we visited last weekend. Even millions of years after her death, she still leaves a deep impression on all her human visitors.

Well, the ultimate fatal doomsday, similar to the dinosaurs', didn't avoid this species either. Eventually they got extinct due to many reasons. Humans helped a lot by hunting them out and using their meat, skin, ivory, and fur. The Pannonian Sea also vanished and is now perhaps waiting for some severe climate change to get back, and until then, it stays in legends and Djordje Balasević song. Without natural borders and animal bosses, the latest half a million years gave further evolution of humans, and they lived more or less peacefully in prehistoric Serbian land in their tribal societies. More migrations happened in the meantime, and the latest one brought another wave of humans from Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago, which are now considered to be the origin of all populations of humans on the planet. Modern civilization in this neighborhood came only two thousand years ago with the Roman Empire during the reign of the first emperor, Augustus, who conquered this area and established a Roman province called Moesia after the Thraco-Dacian peoples who lived there before. It happened around the year 6 AD, and eight decades later it was divided into two provinces, giving birth to Moesia Superior, the western part of the original province where Romans built several cities and army camps in places significant for cultural and economic exchange and also where tactical deployment of their legions was the most effective for defense of Roman borders and also for further conquest campaigns. Numerous famous emperors and political figures of Roman history were born in Moesia Superior, including Constantine the Great, who was probably one of the most important men in the Roman Empire after the old republic in BC. I tried to describe his life from the point of view of my (and his) birthplace in the post Constantine & Naissus last year during the celebration of Milan's Edict.

Mausoleum

While Naissus was one of the most important cities and army installations for the southern Moesia Superior (Roman Dardania), the most important one on the north was the city of Viminacium. Located near the Danube, it was a natural point for the deployment of one of the most effective legions, 'Legio Septima Claudia Pia Fidelis', which was situated here during the reign of Hadrian in AD 125. Viminacium grew into a large city of the time with more than 40,000 inhabitants and with all the benefits of one large Roman city and the infrastructure of water aqueducts, modern industry, and entertainment with a wooden amphitheater big enough to host more than 10,000 people. In the most flourished period of the time, in the third century AD, Viminacium earned the status of a Roman colony and the right to coin its own money. The most important family of rulers born in this Roman land and living in Viminacium was Emperor Trajan Decius, who was previously governor of the entire Moesia. During the battle of Abritus, he died along with his son Herennius, with whom he co-ruled in the reign. After their death the throne briefly went to his second son, Hostilian, but sadly the family misfortune ended here, this time with a deadly plague that killed both Hostilian and his mother.

The end of the city started with Attila the Hun and his raid in the fifth century, and even though it was rebuilt by Justinian I, it was finally destroyed by Avars in the late sixth century. After that, it started to fade, and after decades and centuries, it eventually got buried under the dirt and sand near the nowadays city of Kostolac and the villages of Old Kostolac and Drmno. However, even after so many years from the golden Roman era and contrary to almost all other ancient archaeological sites that lie deep under modern cities, Viminacium is today an open plain, and simply because of this fact, the only obstacle for further excavation is financial background. Other sites are not that lucky; for example, excavation of old Naissus is almost impossible, as all post-Roman settlements in the previous two millenniums were built on the same ground. Nevertheless, and even with modest funding, Viminacium is today one of the most explored Roman cities outside Italy. If you add all the mammoth bones found in the same area, this is today one great tourist and educational site.

Atrium at Domus scientiarum Viminacium

Archaeological excavation and scientific research started with more than modest funding—Mihailo Valtrović, one of the Serbian scientists, the first professor of archaeology, and the custodian of the National Museum in Belgrade, started digging Viminacium walls in the late nineteenth century with the help of 12 prisoners assigned by the Serbian government due to a lack of qualified workers and with a low amount of money reserved for archaeology. During the twentieth century, excavation was continued on several occasions, and finally, in the dawn of the 21st, Viminacium received the proper scientific and archaeological attention from the Serbian government and dedicated scientists.

The crown jewel of the site is no doubt 'Domus scientiarum Viminacium', a research and tourist center built as a Roman villa with several atriums, rooms, and laboratories for scientists; a hostel for visitors; and a beautiful museum dedicated to Viminacium, Moesia Superior, and, of course,recently, mammoths and their prehistoric life.

Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae

Especially interesting is the museum's exhibition of 'Itinerarium Romanum Serbiae', dedicated to 17 Roman emperors who were born within the current borders of Serbia, the second country after Italy itself. In recent years, especially after last year's celebration of 1700 years after Milan's Edict, it has been recognized as one of the national brands of Serbia and was founded by the Serbian government and the Ministry of Culture.

References and wikis:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moesia
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130207114602.htm
http://viminacium.org.rs/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viminacium
http://viminacium.org.rs/projekti/itinerarium-romanum-serbiae/

Constantine & Naissus

A couple of centuries after Christ, Constantine was a very popular name. Especially among soldiers in the Roman and Byzantine empires, along with Greeks during their Macedonian age. Within Latin, Cōnstantīnus, and Greek, Κωνσταντῖνος (Kōnstantînos), the name literally means the one who's constant and steadfast, especially within military properties related to strength and stamina. In those times the land of my current location was called Moesia Superior, with the city of Naissus in the role of its main trade center and biggest military outpost for the Roman army. Today's name of the city is "Niš", the largest city of southern Serbia and also the city where I was born and where I have lived ever since. The Serbian usage of the name is "Konstantin", and even though it is not related to the military anymore, the name is fairly popular nowadays among young Serbians. It was third on my list when my son was born simply because I really like names with strong inner "adjectivity" and history as well, but in our case my son's name, Viktor, won six years ago in the photo finish. If I had another son, his name would probably be Konstantin (Constantine) or Filip (Philip), but now it is certain that this will stay in my wish list only.

Constantine the Great*

Well, this post is not going to be just about names. Instead it will be equally about my birth town, the history of the Christian religion and the "Edict of Milan", a small glimpse of the Roman Empire, the end of the Classical era during violent events in ancient Alexandria, and a little photography along the way. But, for a moment, let's stay with names and their importance for this story. With mention of the "Edict of Milan", the city I was most probably named for, many of you probably guessed why I partly named this post "Constantine". Constantine I, or Constantine the Great, emperor of the western part of the Roman Empire, and Licinius I, his fellow emperor of the eastern part, in February of 313 BC, declared Christianity, the rising religion of the time, to be treated equal to all other official beliefs in the whole of southern Europe, northern Africa, and a big portion of eastern Asia ruled by Romans after the Crucifixion of Jesus, where the modern history we are living in started. But the early days (or, to better say, centuries) of "modern history", or what we love to call "AD," were, to call it the least, very disturbing. The probably best example of those violent "multi-religious" times happened at the end of the fourth century in the city of Alexandria. I am sure if Alexander the Great knew what would happen 700 years after he founded the city, he would never do it in the first place. In the classic BC times of great cities, free thought and scientific premises flourished in the most famous institution in the world at the time and probably ever since—the great Library of Alexandria. In those times, over a million scrolls from Assyria, Greece, Persia, Egypt, India, and many other nations were stored in the library, and comparing it to nowadays terminology, we can safely say that the entire ancient "internet" was located within one single library. More than a hundred scholars worked full-time within the library's walls, performing research, translating documents, giving lectures, and writing books. It was one of the shiniest periods of the whole world's history.

Then "Anno Domini" happened. Soon after the birth of Christianity, Alexandria became home for people of different beliefs but mainly Christians, Jews, and Pagans. One ancient writer claimed that there were no people who loved a fight more than those of Alexandria. Religious animosities rose to the edge in the time of Theophilus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and in his raid, around 391 AD, the Temple of Serapis, where one branch of the Alexandrian library was located, was demolished, documents were destroyed, and the temple was converted to a church. The rest of the library's treasure was probably lost a couple of years later when one of the most famous women who ever lived, Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer, was killed by Christians during some retaliation against both the Jews and the Pagans. That night was officially the end of Classical antiquity, or the era of prosperity I was talking about in the post Aegean Sea. If some document survived that night, when Hypatia was stripped, beaten, and hacked to pieces and her body burned to hide all traces of the crime, then it was destroyed centuries later, when Muslims took the city of Alexandria around the year of 640 AD, when all the remaining scrolls were proclaimed either heresy or superfluous.

Rachel Weisz as Hypatia of Alexandria in Agora (2009)

There is no doubt that Constantine the Great was one of those great visionaries who foresaw all possible futures of the Roman Empire and had enough courage to act and officially acknowledge the definite rise of Christians in order to avoid all the dangers that came with the first multicultural societies. Rome and Constantinople under his rule and the rules of many emperors that came later more or less managed to survive Alexandria's fate. At least until a couple of centuries later, when the third big player in the world of monotheistic religions appeared in the face of Islam. We all know what happened next. The Crusades. What happened to Alexandria in the fourth century started to happen to Jerusalem. Multiple times. During each crusade. Some would say it is not over yet.

If the story so far was not enough to demonstrate the cruelty of the first couple of centuries of the first millennium AD, I have some more historical facts, and they all originate way back to the point of the first founders of my hometown. The misfortune of Naissus was in the fact that its location was on the crossing road point between north and south and west and east. Whoever the warrior you were and whatever army or tribe you belonged to in those times, your path would lead through Naissus, and you were destined to raid it, no matter if you were a member of the Triballi tribes who invaded this area in the 4th century BC, a member of the Gallic groups who invaded the Balkan Peninsula during the 3rd century BC, or a Roman who gave the original name to the town and held it the longest period of them all, but with the price of thousands of men lost in numerous battles, with the most famous one called simply "Battle of Naissus", where Romans with the help of Dalmatians and Greeks finally defeated the enormous invasion by Goths and their allies. Later in the 5th and 6th centuries, the town was constantly in flames and devastated by Attila's Huns and barbarians, restored by Romans and Byzantine emperor Justinian I, and then demolished again by Avars and finally occupied by Serbian ancestors, the Slavs, in the year 540 AD or so. Serbians managed to hold it even longer than Romans, all the way into the next millennium, but also with frequent interruptions by various invasions in the face of Bulgarians and Ugri (Hungarian ancestors). The second millennium was no different, and the same area where I am sitting right now was under different rulers: firstly by Byzantine forces, the Hungarian kingdom, Greeks, Serbians again, the Ottoman Empire, Austrians... Phew... I probably forgot someone. Let's just finish with all the world wars, Germans, and the Nazis and hope that all the testosterone in the third millennium has devolved a little and we will witness no more wars like before.

Third-century Roman soldiers battling Gothic troops**

Naissus was a birth town for three Roman emperors in the 3rd century and after. The most famous one was, of course, Constantine the Great (272), but also Constantius III (360) and later Justin I (450). Within the suburb of Naissus, not far from the thermal water spa, during the reign of Constantine the Great, Romans built a luxurious residence with a highly organized economy by the name of Mediana***. Until it was fully destroyed by Attila's hordes in the year 442, the residence was used by several emperors after Constantine, including Julian the Apostate, who was best known for his attempts to restore paganism to the Roman Empire, and this time within Hellenistic polytheism (Julian was also one of the Neoplatonist philosophers, like Hypatia), and for several edicts in various laws, including the Tolerance Edict of 362. Obviously, his efforts were not successful for a longer period of time, and religions with gods seen in plural finally ended in Greek and Roman mythology and picturesque legends. But, perhaps the best-known role of the residence of Mediana, which is, by the way, only a couple of hundred meters from my home, was in the year 364 AD, when emperors Valentinian and Valens met there and divided the Roman Empire and ruled as co-emperors.

Well, in the history of humans, every separation between west and east was never without serious consequences. The separation of the Roman Empire, over time, moved the center of power from Rome to Constantinople, starting with Rome's fall on September 4, 476. The Christian Church suffered the same. Distance and differences did the math, and the Church finally separated in the so-called "Great Schism", culminating in the early 11th century and giving birth to the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church we all know today. The saddest thing is that one full millennium has passed since then, and both "grand" fractions of the same religion are still looking at each other over their shoulders. After all that time, I am positive that if we randomly select one Catholic cardinal and one Orthodox patriarch and ask them why the Church split up in the first place and why they didn't manage to even sit and talk for 1000 years and find the way to "un-schism" the lost millennium, I am sure that they would hardly be able to provide any meaningful answer. Giving up the throne is never easy, and I guess the only way to unite Christianity is for God to show himself once again and to cut the misery once and for all. But, this story is not the place for me to express all of my skepticism about this, and if you are eager to read more about my religious glimpse of the world, please go to Science of God.

In front of Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena

Well ok, let's stop with history now and continue with some more cheerful stories. For starters, please allow me to quote my favorite character from the movie "Kung Fu Panda". In the animated story, Master Oogway, among all his turtle wisdom, said exactly this: "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present." It is a beautiful one-liner, and after a little search online, I have to say that I failed to find the origin of this quote, but I am perfectly fine to credit it to Oogway himself. In that spirit, let's switch from history to the present and talk a little about my home city and the religious event happening this weekend.

This year is the 1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan, and this weekend is chosen in Serbia to be memorialized with special liturgy (λειτουργία), where all major patriarchs gathered in Niš, or Naissus if you will, to honor Constantine's efforts to stop persecuting Christians and give the rising new religion a chance to be equal with others. The liturgy took place in front of the Church of the Holy Emperor Constantine and Empress Helena in one of the biggest parks in the city, and for this occasion a piece of wood from Jesus's cross (fragmentary remains that are by tradition alleged to be those of the True Cross) and John the Baptist's right hand, with which he baptized Jesus, were transferred to Constantine's new church. Last night, two relics were moved to the new display, and we wanted to feel the atmosphere. The crowd was fantastic, and on the nearby cross section people formed the cross with candle lights in total darkness (below photo), while this morning was the official event for "VIPs", which was much less interesting. Perhaps the only shadow to the occasion was the presence of a zillion policemen fully armored and spread everywhere. I guess they will never learn that the same job can be done without uniforms and with hidden guns, but that's a topic for another story.

1,700th anniversary of the Edict of Milan in Niš, Serbia

After 1700 years, I guess lots of things changed. There is no Roman Empire anymore or big crusades, but religiosity is still there, without much disturbance by the passed centuries. We can say about the Christian church in general whatever we want, but one thing is for sure. A society of people can't live without protocols and rituals. This is what we are, and I will just repeat what I said two years ago in relation to Orthodox Christian rituals: "From the point when we are born until we die, there are many occasions requiring many events to be performed. I mean, I can't imagine a wedding here in Serbia without the church involved. They have very nice protocols. Funerals too. Anything that requires more than two people to participate with, religious organizations are doing this just right."

They proved it once again.

Image ref:
https://philipstanfield.com/tag/mysticism-2/

* Constantine the Great
https://relevancy22.blogspot.rs/2015_03_02_archive.html

** Battle of Naissus
http://www.crystalinks.com/CrisisoftheThirdCentury.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Naissus
http://artnumisma.com/2013/05/20/battle-of-naissus-268ad/
http://www.geocities.ws/reginheim/battles.html

*** Mediana
http://www.panacomp.net/serbia?mesto=srbija_medijana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediana

More references
http://www.math.wichita.edu/history/women/hypatia.html
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bb/Roman_Empire_125.png
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niš
http://www.ni.rs/index.php?language=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edict_of_Milan