THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 27, 1996 TAG: 9601270001
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines
``Moa'' and ``ard'' two words you don't come across much these days except in crossword puzzles. But they show up on one of my recent lists, the kind I accumulate sometimes from some book or other that I happen to be reading.
This particular collection was culled from a handsome volume lent me by Bud and Jennette Franklin, history and travel buffs whom I know through our local archaeological chapter. The title: Timelines of the Ancient World, a Smithsonian Institution project put together under the direction of editor in chief Chris Scarre.
For me, much of the fun of browsing through something like this lies, quite often, in little details that surprise, either because they weren't in the standard texts of my younger years or because I wasn't paying attention.
Here are some of the items that caught my eye in Timelines:
From crosswording, I knew that a moa was a big, extinct bird and that ard was a nice, short synonym for plow. My borrowed book gave unexpected enlightenment on both. It seems that not only was there a giant, flightless moa roaming New Zealand before the first humans landed in the 9th or 10th centuries, A.D., but there were actually 13 species of moa, some as much as 10 feet tall. Easy prey to the newly arrived hunters, all 13 species were wiped out by 1500 A.D. As to the ard, this was an ox-drawn, earth-turning implement introduced in Europe about 4000 B.C. to replace the hand-wielded hoe.
Very early on (back in Celtic Britain for one place, where they made neck rings of this alloy) gold and silver were mixed to form ``electrum.'' Another alloy unfamiliar to me and noted in the book was ``tumbaga,'' a South American mingling of gold, silver and copper for the crafting - about 1300 A.D. - of such personal adornments as nose rings.
I knew that opossums and kangaroos belong to the same family of pouch-equipped mammals. But my eyes popped on reading that one now-extinct marsupial, diprotodon, grew to weigh as much as 2 tons and was on hand in kangaroo-land (Australia) when the first people arrived 50,000 years ago.
The Chinese invention of firecrackers is often thought of in connection with gunpowder, also first formulated in China (about the 9th century, A.D.). But it turns out the very first Chinese firecrackers didn't use a chemical explosive at all. They consisted of hollow sections of bamboo, plugged at both ends, which burst with a bang when thrown into fire. They were used for chasing away evil spirits.
China was the scene of another achievement right up there with the wheel in the field of locomotion, but which hasn't had much publicity. This was the invention, around 1,500 years ago, of the first true stirrups (made of metal-sheathed wood). These gave horse-riders firm control over their mounts, immense superiority over unmounted rivals in war, and changed the world.
It used to be that when I came across a reference to something written long ago in a ``codex,'' I assumed it was part of some complicated communication system in ancient times. But now I learn that codex simply means book, something with pages as distinguished from a sheet, say papyrus, rolled into a scroll. (I could have looked it up in the dictionary all along, but no matter.)
An artistic technique of about 3500 B.C., in the Middle East, was the ``cone mosaic.'' Clay cones, in various colors and baked hard, were pressed into wet plaster to form various, long-lasting designs.
I might cite as a final curiosity the original Greek meaning of our lofty word ``symposium.'' Such an event in ancient Athens wasn't a sober-sided affair at all. The word described a wine-drinking party.
Alongside this, obviously, what I discovered about moas and ards is pretty pale stuff. MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk.
by CNB