History

Irish Harp

A part of the long history of harps in Ireland, the Irish coat of arms and the Guinness logo are modeled after the same harp at Trinity College. The harp has been a part of Irish culture & mythology for millennia. The Irish goddess/mortal woman Cana Cludhmor (aka Canola) is said to have fallen asleep to the sound of music by the sea. When she awoke she realized the music was being made by sinews attached to the ribs of a rotting whale. From this she created the first harp (... or possibly her husband did). The Dagda, the chief god of Irish mythology, was said to own a magic oak harp named Uaithne that could fly to him when called. Playing this harp The Dagda could summon the seasons, bring peace, and more. (That said Uaithne may have been the name of his harpist and not the instrument itself.) Henry VIII and Elizabeth I both admired the Irish harp while also stamping it out in Ireland. An instrument of politics The coat of arms of Ireland is a gold harp set on a blue background. It’s the only country to have a musical instrument as its national symbol. The harp had been the heraldic symbol of Ireland since at least the 13th century but Henry VIII officially made the harp the symbol of the Kingdom of Ireland when he declared himself king of the land in the 16th century. Also Henry was apparently quite the musician himself, playing the harp among other instruments. While the harp was an emblematic part of the British crown it was also a symbol of Irish resistance. In the 16th and 17th centuries harp music was enjoyed in the English royal court while simultaneously being outlawed in Ireland. The English government looked to stamp out Irish culture in order to control the people. In 1603 Queen Elizabeth I ordered harpists to be executed and their instruments destroyed. In 1652 the Act for the Settlement of Ireland was intended to subjugate and ethnically cleanse the Irish people which, among other things, again outlawed Irish harp playing. Irish republicanism and militant groups have long used the harp as a symbol. In 1642 Owen Roe O’Neil used a gold winged harp on a field of green as his flag. The Irish forces in the Rebellion of 1798 used a similar flag. In America the Fighting 69th were a Union regiment in the American Civil War, made up up of mostly Irish immigrants, who had a flag of a sunburst and a harp. During the Irish War of Independence in the early 20th century a green flag with a simpler golden harp, along with the tricolor flag and the plough & stars flag, were used by the Irish fighting against the British. The Trinity College harp, aka Brian Boru's harp, is the oldest Irish harp in existence and the basis for many logos. Brian Boru's harp / Trinity College harp The modern harp design on Ireland’s coat of…

Bog Bodies of Ireland

Peatlands are beneficial watery environments (… with the occasional human body hidden away). Around Ireland you find peatlands – wetlands where, over thousands of years, Sphagnum moss and other plant matter have accumulated and degraded. These areas have watery, acidic, and anaerobic conditions so the organic material within peat lands break down but never fully degrades. This long drawn out layered accumulation & compression of vegetation means peatlands are a carbon sink. Despite covering only 3% of the Earth’s surface peatlands store more carbon than all the world’s forests combined. Peatlands have been a source of fuel in Ireland for centuries. Beyond the environmental benefit, peat (aka “turf” in Ireland) can be a building material as well as a fuel source. Peat has been harvested for centuries in Ireland where it is cut from the ground into long rectangular briquettes, dried (it’s 80% moisture when fresh), and then burned. A special shovel called a sleán is used when cutting by hand, but tractors and other industrial machinery can do the job faster. That said by the 1970s most people in Ireland were running their homes with coal, electric, or oil heating, no longer relying on turf. It's during the cutting of the turf, digging out sections of peat, that people occasionally find human bodies. Bog bodies Bog bodies are naturally mummified human remains found in peatlands. Because of the ground conditions the bodies are remarkably well preserved (considering their age). Tollund Man, who was found in Denmark in 1950, looks as if he is sleeping he is so well preserved (despite having died around 405–384 BCE). Ireland has numerous bog bodies, most of whom are men having died between the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. Some examples include: Cashel Man, died circa 2000 BCE Early Bronze Age, found in 2011 Gallagh Man, 400-200 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 1821 Clonycavan Man, 392-201 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 2003 Old Croughan Man, 362-175 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 2003 Ballymacombs More Woman, 343-1 BCE Early Iron Age, found in 2023 Baronstown West Man, 200-400 CE Early Iron Age, found in 1953 Many Irish bog bodies share another characteristic – they suffered violent deaths. Old Croghan Man was stabbed in the chest and later decapitated as well as cut in half. Clonycavan Man’s skull was split open and then disembowelled. The consistent pattern of violence & mutilation leads researchers to believe that these people were ritualistically killed as human sacrifices. Celtic bog bodies, and some objects, discovered in the peatlands of Ireland. Looking for clues The ancient Celts did not keep written records so it is uncertain exactly why these bodies were placed out in the peatlands, or why they died as they did, but there are clues. From the 2nd century BCE onward cremation was the standard burial practice, so non-cremated remains of people who met violent ends is unusual and purposeful. The next clue is where these bodies were placed. The distribution of bodies is frequently at the…

Ea-nasir’s Bad Copper Ingots

The timeless appeal of the world’s oldest customer complaint. Around 1750 BCE a customer named Nanni was purchasing copper ingots from Ea-nasir, a Mesopotamian copper dealer. However, Ea-nasir tried to give Nanni poorer quality ingots than he had ordered. After the fact Nanni wrote an angry cuneiform complaint letter and sent it to Ea-nasir. It turns out this wasn’t Ea-nasir’s only customer complaint. The ancient city of Ur, where Ea-nasir lived, was first excavated in 1853-54 but a later excavation by Sir Charles Woolley in 1922-34 unearthed the Nanni complaint letter among others. For example another customer named Arbituram also wrote to Ea-nasir complaining about poor quality copper. The letters, which are actually clay tablets, were found in what is thought to be Ea-nasir’s home. Today the Nanni letter is object 1953,0411.71 at the British Museum and The Guinness Book of World Records has deemed it the Oldest written customer complaint. This fairly forgettable commonplace correspondence went relatively unnoticed until 2015 when the internet got a hold of it. The tablet is on display at the British Museum. On the right is the translation by A. Leo Oppenheim. Poor copper memes In 2015 a photo of the tablet on display at the British Museum, along with an English translation of the tablet, was uploaded to Reddit. People found it humorous and from there they were off & running with jokes and memes. The “Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir” is now its own meme category, there are a host of products available on Amazon making fun of Ea-nasir’s bad copper ingots, a 3D printed recreation of the tablet is on Etsy, there’s a product idea to make a Lego version of the tablet, Ea-nasir’s house can be found on Google Maps, etc. The legacy of Ea-nasir and his bad copper ingots have long outlived the legacy of the merchants selling good copper ingots (or selling anything else for that matter). Like many memes, the Complaint Tablet to Ea-nasir memes are now memes within memes, references within references. Times change, people don’t Perhaps the humor lies in the anachronistic nature of the complaint – that nobody today would complain about something using a cuneiform clay tablet. But there is also the universal appeal that even as times and technology change, human nature is the same. People 3,800 years ago were complaining about shady businesses just like we do today. Times change but humans don’t. Added info: it seems Ea-nasir's shady business practices eventually caught up with him as he later turned to less profitable lines of business including land speculation and selling second-hand clothes.

Humbug

Humbug the fraud, the hoax, the mint candy. A humbug is another name for a hoax, a trick, a fraud, something that presents as one thing but is really something else. It was a mid 18th century English slang word that today is perhaps most closely associated with the character of Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’s 1843 A Christmas Carol (the most famous Christmas ghost story of all time). When Scrooge barks "Bah! Humbug!" he’s commenting on how Christmas is duplicitous, that he feels Christmas tells people they should be happy when they may have nothing to be happy about. To Scrooge, Christmas presents a face of cheer when beneath the surface the world is still as corrupt and as problematic as before. Scrooge the misanthrope, Scrooge the cantankerous grump. His “Bah! Humbug” establishes a baseline of Scrooge’s dislike of the season, his dim view of humanity, and how much work the three spirits will have to do to redeem him. While today we think of the word "humbug" mostly with A Christmas Carol, it used to be a popular word for charlatans, fraudsters, and hoaxes. P.T. Barnum, the Prince of Humbug One man who knew a thing or two about fraud was P.T. Barnum. Nicknamed the Prince of Humbugs, Barnum drew a fine line between what was and wasn’t an acceptable deception. He felt humbugs were acceptable tricks, that it was fine to trick the audience as long as they received something fun in return. One example of this was the Fiji Mermaid which he advertised as a beautiful woman rather than the monstrous animal hybrid he had on display (which was fake either way). If the ends justified the means it was all ok in Barnum’s opinion. Barnum’s 1865 book The Humbugs of the World documents historic deceptions and the universality of hoaxes. For Barnum his style of humbug tricks were acceptable (not surprisingly) but hoaxes that tricked people out of their money with nothing in return were wrong. He spoke out publicly against psychics and other frauds who tricked and hurt people. Humbug the striped candies have been popular since the 19th century, but unfortunately were the source of a poisoning scandal in 1858. Mint Candy Something that’s not a trick, but is a treat, are humbug candies. Humbugs are striped candies, typically mint flavored, most commonly found in English speaking countries (except the US). While they are probably English in origin, and have existed since at least the 1820s, it’s unknown exactly who invented them or why they are called humbugs. In the mid 19th century humbugs gained an unwanted spotlight. On October 30, 1858 a batch of humbugs in Bradford, England were accidentally made with arsenic trioxide instead of daft (a filler agent made with powdered limestone & plaster of Paris, used as a sugar replacement to cut cost). A junior druggist scooped the wrong powder and gave it to the assistant candy maker who didn’t notice. This mistake killed 20 people (13 of whom…

Pilgrims, Puritans, and Persecution

The Pilgrims and the Puritans shaped early America, not always for the better. After Henry VIII renounced the Catholic Church in 1534 it set England on a path towards total separation from Rome. The religious direction of the country swung back and forth between Catholicism and Protestantism until Elizabeth I finalized the direction of the country making England a protestant country through the Church of England. Religious dissent was not tolerated in Elizabeth’s England. During her reign the government ratcheted up the pressure for religious compliance. People were fined if they did not attend Church of England masses, Catholics practicing in secret risked possible execution if caught, etc. However, once the precedent of rejecting established beliefs had been set, others followed suit. The Pilgrims and the Puritans moved to North America seeking religious freedom and greater control. Pilgrims During this unstable religious period some people began to create new faith ideas. In Nottinghamshire people started separatist congregations, turning away from the Church of England. To escape English persecution these separatists moved to the Netherlands in the early 17th century. While Holland was more religiously tolerant, it was foreign and had limited economic opportunities since the English separatists were classified as unskilled laborers. They wanted a place to call their own with a new start. In 1620 they left the Netherlands for Southampton where they boarded the Mayflower and the Speedwell sailing to North America. These congregational separatists would become known as the Pilgrims. Theologically the Pilgrims completely separated themselves from the Church of England. They were largely Calvinists. They believed in a direct personal relationship with God, they rejected a hierarchical church leadership, they rejected most of the sacraments, and they believed in the predestination of souls (that God had already decided who goes to Heaven or Hell). After 66 days at sea the Pilgrims arrived in Provincetown Harbor, at the tip of Cape Cod. A month later they moved across the harbor to Plymouth founding the Plymouth Colony. Incidentally it wasn’t until 121 years later in 1741 that a boulder was identified as “Plymouth Rock”, the alleged landing spot of the Pilgrims. In 1621 the Pilgrims worked with the Wampanoag to celebrate the first Thanksgiving, the thing they are perhaps most famous for (and an idea they probably borrowed from the Dutch). Puritans So who were the Puritans? In a nutshell they were better financed and a lot less tolerant than the Pilgrims. The Puritans arrived in Massachusetts in 1630, 10 years after the Pilgrims, on 17 ships, with a lot more money and a lot more people. By 1640 the Puritans were around 20,000 in number while the Pilgrims of Plymouth were about 2,600. Unlike the Pilgrims, the Puritans did not see themselves as separatists. In fact, they felt the Church of England didn’t go far enough to separate itself from Catholicism and worked to “purify” the faith (hence the name “Puritans”). In a case of the persecuted becoming the persecutor, early settlers used their religious beliefs to…

Goths and the Gothic

Long before Goths were dressing in all black they were Germanic warriors who brought about the Dark Ages. The original Goths were a host of 4th century Germanic tribes. As the Huns invaded from the east some Goths joined the Huns (later becoming the Ostrogoths) while others moved west invading areas controlled by the Romans. As the Roman empire split in two becoming the Eastern Roman Empire and the Western Roman Empire, some Goths joined the Romans while others remained independent. Many goths moved west to avoid the Huns, eventually invading and overthrowing the Roman empire. On September 4th, 476 CE the Goth warrior Odoacer led an invasion of Rome and successfully deposed the 16 year old Roman Emperor Romulus Augustulus. In so doing he brought about the end of the Western Roman Empire, an end of Roman control, and the beginning of the Dark Ages. Gothic architecture soared to new pointy heights. Gothic architecture With the fall of the Western Roman Empire the continent fractured into various local powers. This change in power also led to a change in culture, turning away from Roman influence. Out of this came (what we call today) Gothic architecture. This new style featured pointed arches (instead of the rounded Roman style), flying buttresses, rib vault ceilings, stained glass, tall pointed spires, and more. In actuality the Goths had nothing to do with Gothic architecture. The name was applied later as an insult by Renaissance painter & architect Giorgio Vasari. The Renaissance swung the cultural pendulum back towards all things Roman and Vasari applied “Gothic” to the interregnum medieval style that had turned away from the Rome. He blamed the Goths for the destruction of Rome (and Roman culture) and so “Gothic” was his name for this non-Roman architectural style. Perhaps if Vasari had been less biased he would have credited the Middle Eastern / Islamic architectural influence more and named the style accordingly. A division of the Romanticism movement, Gothic fiction focused on the supernatural and the darkness. Gothic literature Fast forward to the 18th century and the Goths appear again (or their name at least). Gothic fiction grew out of Romanticism which was broadly emotional with a spiritual reverence for nature. Gothic fiction took that but focused on the supernatural and darker feelings – fear & loathing if you will. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole is considered the first gothic novel. Published in 1764 it features a family in a haunted castle, an ancient prophecy, death, and sorrow. These elements are typical of Gothic fiction which by the Victorian era included literary classics such as 1818’s Frankenstein, 1845’s The Raven, 1886’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and 1897’s Dracula among others. Gothic fiction got its name from Walpole whose The Castle of Otranto was subtitled “A Gothic Story”, in reference to Gothic architecture. Gothic stories were frequently set in spooky old Gothic castles & ruins. Simultaneously the Gothic Revival architectural movement brought Gothic architecture back into fashion – what’s…

Conical Hats

The pointy headwear for eccentrics, geniuses, deities, and dullards. Some of the oldest conical hats come from Egypt in the form of the hedjet. Egypt Some of the oldest conical headwear come from ancient Egypt. The Pharaohs and their deities wore a variety of headdress crowns (the hedjet, the deshret, the pschent) depending on the individual and the era. These tall conical crowns were of religious significance, thought to connect the pharaohs to the gods, with the hedjet being the most conical of the group appearing between 3200 BCE to 3100 BCE. We only know of these crowns through Egyptian art because none of them have been found, suggesting they were either handed down from ruler to ruler (so there aren’t many of them to be found) and or they were made with perishable materials. The golden hats are the oldest known European conical hats. The decorative markings along the cone is coded calendar information. Golden hats of Central Europe The golden hats of central Europe are four tall conical hats made of gold from the Bronze Age originating sometime between 1400 BCE to 800 BCE. It’s unknown exactly who made them but it’s most likely people of the Tumulus or Urnfield cultures (as the hats are in the right area, time, and styling as other artifacts from these groups). As to what purpose they served the hats were most likely religious for high-status individuals but nobody is certain. They vary in height but the line & ring ornamentation along the cone portion of each hat is thought to be lunisolar calendrical information, documenting a skilled understanding of the sun & moon’s cycles. Similar hats (although not so tall) have been found in Ireland and Spain, which probably made their way there by Urnfield people or the Celts. The pileus of Greece eventually made its way to Rome where it later transformed into the Phrygian cap. Greece & Rome The ancient Greeks had the pileus, which was a soft rounded conical hat made of felt or leather. Unlike other conical hats of the ancient world it wasn’t associated with religion and instead was a hat of the common people. It’s estimated to have been worn between 800 BCE and 300 BCE with a bronze helmet version, looking not unlike the top of a bullet, having been introduced around 500 BCE. The Romans, always borrowing from the Greeks, also had the pileus but it wasn’t worn in the same way. When a Roman slave was to be freed they participated in a ceremony where their head was shaved and a pileus hat was placed on their head. This hat became a symbol of freedom & liberty which later morphed into the Phrygian cap and became a symbol of liberty particularly during the French and American revolutions. The mitre worn by Christian bishops got its name from Judaism but its design from Roman judges. The Mitre of Christianity Back to religion however, ancient Jewish priests had a variety of headwear depending on…

Whoopee Caps

The fun second life of fedoras. The fedora hat was created sometime in the late 19th century. Its name comes from the title of the 1882 play Fédora, which starred Sarah Bernhardt. Interestingly, because of Bernhardt the hat was originally popular with women, only later becoming a staple of men’s fashion. By the early 20th century, a time when basically all adults wore hats, the fedora was thee hat for men. Its popularity lasted up until the middle of the century when it faded out (for example President Kennedy famously broke with tradition and tended to not wear hats, unlike his predecessors). But with so many men were wearing so many fedoras, many of these hats took on second lives as hand-me-downs. Bruised and battered fedoras found a second life as whoopee caps. Jughead As fathers gave their sons their beat up old fedoras, kids would modify them as an expression of their personalities. Old fedoras would be turned inside-out, the brim would be upturned and cut to create interesting patterns. Kids would further customize these creations with pins and other trinkets. These fun repurposed fedoras came to be known as whoopee caps. By 1929, with the increasing popularity of whoopee caps, the Six Jumping Jacks released the song The Whoopee Hat Brigade. By the 1930s manufactured versions became available for sale – for those who didn’t want to go the DIY route. Whoopee caps spread to pop culture with two of the most famous whoopee cap wearers being Goober Pyle from The Andy Griffith Show, and Jughead Jones from Archie comics. Over time Jughead’s hat became so stylized it became more of a crown than a whoopee cap. Thanks to the 2017 Archie TV show Riverdale the Jughead whoopee cap has evolved again taking on more of a knit beanie style. Added info: the name Fedora is the feminine version of the Russian name Fedor, which is the equivalent of the Greek Theodore, which means “gift of the gods”.

Pink Doughnut Boxes

Pink doughnut boxes exist because of Cambodian immigrants. In movies and TV shows doughnut boxes are frequently pink. This is in part because many of the doughnut boxes in the Los Angeles area are pink. These pink boxes are a subtle hint that, if you spot them in a story set in New York City or somewhere, it was actually shot in LA. The reason these doughnut boxes are pink is because of Cambodian immigrant Ted Ngoy and his doughnut shop empire. In 1975 Ngoy and his family fled the Khmer Rouge on the last flight out of Phenom Penh and emigrated to America. He started life over as a janitor in a Lutheran Church but eventually noticed how popular the doughnut shop was near his other job as a gas station attendant. Ngoy enrolled in Winchell’s training program learning the ins & outs of running a doughnut shop. Taking what he learned Ngoy started his own doughnut shop, Christy's Donuts, in the La Habra area in 1977. Eventually this sole shop begat others and Ted & his wife owned over 50 locations in southern California. Along the way he would sponsor other Cambodian immigrants, setting them up for business in his doughnut shops. But it was during the scrappy early days that he came upon the idea for pink boxes. The Pulp Fiction character of Marsellus Wallace carries a pink box of doughnuts across the street just before his day gets much much worse. Pretty in Pink Supposedly Ngoy wanted red boxes as red is the color of luck for Chinese-Cambodians. White on the other hand is the color of mourning & death. The closest his box vendor Westco had were leftover pink boxes which sold for a few cents cheaper than white boxes. For the price and the symbolism(ish) pink became the color of boxes for Ngoy’s shops. Soon Ngoy’s competitors were using pink boxes as well. In 2003 these boxes inspired Kenneth “Cat Daddy” Pogson for the box design of his new company Voodoo Doughnut in Portland, Oregon who have some of the most famous pink doughnut boxes around. Today you still see pink doughnut boxes around LA. They’re so connected to southeast Asian immigrants that they became a canvas for Cambodian American artists in 2022. As of 2020 it’s estimated around 80% of the independent doughnut shops in California are owned by Cambodian-Americans, many of whom credit “Uncle Ted” for getting them started. Added info: similar to how Ted Ngoy's influence helped Cambodian immigrants dominate the LA doughnut scene, Tippi Hedren is credited with helping Vietnamese immigrants dominate the nail salon industry. Also, the highs & lows of Ted Ngoy’s life story are enough to fill multiple lifetimes. You can learn more about him in the 2020 documentary The Donut King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJX-EvZk8To The wild ride of the highs & lows of Ted Ngoy's life as The Donut King. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=YSR98NfW4zs Sunday Morning reports on the Cambodian history of California doughnut shops.

Breakfast, Lunch, & Dinner (Supper, & Tea)

The names and details of our daily meals are relatively recent creations. Breakfast The clue being in the name, breakfast is the first meal of the day, the meal where you “break your fast” (the fast of not eating overnight in your sleep). That said this first meal of the day wasn’t always first thing in the morning like it is today. Up through the early Middle Ages people would rise and do without eating until after they had worked for several hours. Eventually laborers began to eat a meal early in the day and by Elizabethan England most people ate breakfast. Further complicating things this late morning first meal of the day, before being called "breakfast", was called "dinner". From the Old French “disner” meaning “to break one’s fast” the first meal of the day only became “breakfast” in the 15th century. This early meal would be bread, maybe some cheese, and some alcohol (alcohol being safer to drink than water). Dinner and Supper As breakfast became the first meal of the day, dinner moved from the 1st time slot to the 2nd. You would eat a small meal upon waking (breakfast), eat a large meal in the late morning to give you energy for the rest of your work (dinner), and then a small meal in the evening. The small meal at the end of the day was supper, from the French “souper”. This was typically a soup that you supped, a soup that was slow cooked throughout the day to be ready in the evening. But dinner wasn’t done moving and moved again from the 2nd time slot to the 3rd, replacing supper as the last meal of the day. This change wasn’t all at once. The dinner shift in time slot was due to several reasons not least of which was the changing nature of how people worked. When people worked out of their homes or in an agrarian lifestyle in the fields near their homes, it was easier to prepare & eat a large meal in the middle of the day. Through the Industrial Revolution work moved to factories & offices and it became impractical to have a large meal in the middle of the day. As such dinner continued to be the biggest meal of the day but it moved to the end of the day when people returned from work. That said, while “dinner” is the term most people use for the big meal at the end of the day some people (particularly those of agricultural backgrounds) still call this meal supper. Generally speaking though “dinner” and “supper” are seen as synonymous terms for the same meal. As such the Last Supper could have been the Last Dinner. Lunch With breakfast at the start of the day, and dinner now the last meal of the day, this left a time slot opening in the middle of the day. Lunch is essentially if dinner and supper switched places and supper changed its name (a…