Thanks to Joseph Goebbels, the film director Georg Wilhelm Pabst luxuriated in a massive budget for the dramatised documentary he shot in occupied Prague during the autumn of 1942. Commissioned to celebrate the long history of Germanic culture, its central character was a 16th-century demagogue, a revisionary doctor who toured the country inciting enthusiastic crowds to dispense with conventional practices and adopt his own inspiring visions for a utopian future.

The starring role was played by Werner Krauss, a fine actor but also a fervent Nazi supporter. Bearing only a loose relationship to historical fact, the plot revolved around attempts to ward off an infectious plague – or, metaphorically, to cleanse society of undesirable parasites. A clear piece of propaganda, Pabst’s Paracelsus was a box-office flop, although – in contrast with Krauss – the director managed to salvage his reputation after the Third Reich collapsed.

Becoming Paracelsus

The real Paracelsus (c.1493-1541) was, indeed, an unorthodox and controversial physician, a confrontational iconoclast only later glorified for introducing modern medical techniques. Depending on which artist you believe, he may (or may not) have been fat, but he certainly had a substantial name: Theophrastus Philippus Aureolus Bombastus von Hohenheim. Ironically, the original Theophrastus had been the immediate successor of Aristotle, one of the ancient Greek authorities the Renaissance radical was determined to overthrow.

Refashioned as Paracelsus, he excelled at rhetorical oratory, winning popular acclaim by using vernacular language to lambast the tortuous prose of conventional experts. Recalling Martin Luther’s flamboyant gesture, on St John’s Day (24 June) 1527 he threw a collection of canonical books onto a public bonfire. ‘I tell you’, he ranted to a scholarly audience, ‘one hair on my neck knows more than all you authors, and my shoe-buckles contain more wisdom than both Galen and Avicenna.’ In one fell swoop, Paracelsus had dismissed two of Europe’s reigning medical authorities.

Consistency was not his strong point: this showman who publicly consigned books to the flames was himself a prodigious author. Openly contemptuous of scholarly learning – ‘not even a dog-killer can learn his trade from books’ – he wrote copiously about the importance of abandoning libraries to learn from the great ‘Book of Nature’. Only a small proportion of his output was published during his lifetime, but his ideas spread rapidly and 50 years after his death the first collection of his works ran to ten volumes. Another favourite theme was to boast about his humble origins and plebeian influences – ‘I have not been ashamed to learn from tramps, butchers and barbers’ – even though he had benefited from a sound education as a child and gained a doctorate in medicine from the University of Ferrara.

As a young man, Paracelsus travelled around Europe for several years before falling into a pattern of behaviour that repeated itself for the rest of his life. Wherever he temporarily took up residence, he baited his fellow academics by donning an alchemist’s leather apron to lecture in German rather than Latin, as well as deliberately insulting recognised experts, vociferously condemning orthodox treatments and acquiring a reputation for drunkenness and gluttony. As a consequence, every time he established himself as a professor or physician – first at Basel, then at Nuremberg and elsewhere – he rapidly antagonised his colleagues and was forced to move on.

Chemical cure

According to the views of the time, each individual body is characterised by its own finely tuned balance of four different humours that affect behaviour as well as appearance: sickness results not from invasion by germs, but from an internal humoral imbalance. Doctors therefore emphasised the importance of restoring a patient’s natural equilibrium. In the absence of antibiotics or anaesthetics, they proceeded cautiously, their most frequent interventions being to let blood or smell urine.

Paracelsus, in contrast, taught that external agents could produce specific disorders. For example, gout – one of the period’s more common maladies – was routinely attributed to a surplus of humoral fluid, but Paracelsus regarded it as a dietary disease. Bragging about the low incidence of gout in his native Switzerland (according to his characteristically overblown rhetoric, the country was ‘superior to … all Western and Eastern Europe’), he suggested that salts in the water supply were coagulating inside the joints to produce painful nodules resembling gallstones or dental tartar.

Paracelsus’ main innovation was to prescribe chemical treatments. Although that might sound like a precursor of modern medicine, it was rooted in ancient alchemical lore. Alchemists deliberately couched their precepts in arcane mystical terms, both to protect their techniques from being copied and to preserve their aura of esoteric superiority; as a result, many of Paracelsus’ ideas defy easy interpretation. Fundamentally, he maintained that there are three primary idealised principles corresponding to different aspects of existence. Confusingly, the members of this ‘tria prima’ are referred to as salt, sulphur and mercury, which, although different from the physical substances carrying the same labels, can imbue metals and minerals with therapeutic or poisonous qualities.

Paracelsus is frequently celebrated as the ‘father of toxicology’ because he recognised the principle that the same substance can have either deleterious or beneficial effects, depending on the quantity imbibed – or, as he put it: ‘Solely the dose determines that a thing is not a poison.’ Some of his other recommendations are preserved in modern medical practices, although these are often picked out selectively to give him more credit than he merits. Thus he insisted that wounds should be kept clean rather than covered in cow dung or feathers, and he provided recipes for various liniments and skin balms. After studying syphilis, he concluded that it could be inherited or acquired through contact, and his prescription of mercury was still being used in the 20th century. Often said to have introduced opium into Europe, he also suggested that iron was beneficial for blood and endorsed drinking water from mineral springs.

The doctrine of signatures

Like many self-professed revolutionaries, Paracelsus was less radical than he claimed. In particular, he endorsed an ancient religious philosophy known as ‘the doctrine of signatures’, which maintained that God had coded the natural world with symbols so that it could be interpreted for human benefit. Plants that resembled parts of the body could be used therapeutically: ‘Nature marks each growth … according to its curative benefit’, he declared.

St John’s Wort, for instance, was recommended for dermatological complaints, because its leaves are punctured with little holes like the pores of the skin, while the large growths of tree fungi were prescribed for tumours. Some vernacular names of plants still convey their herbal significance, such as eyebright (euphrasia), traditionally used for soothing conjunctivitis because the flowers look like blue eyes. Even some Latinised Linnean labels carry this cultural memory, including toothwort (dentaria) and lungwort (pulmonaria); conversely, orchitis – inflammation of the testicles – gained its name from the shape of orchid roots, which were used to treat venereal diseases and improve potency.

Regarded superficially, the doctrine of signatures can be made to sound ridiculous. Taken more seriously, it expressed a profound faith in a universe imbued with God’s intentions. Philosophically, it played on the close interaction of the microcosm and the macrocosm, the view that the very small has similar characteristics to the larger structure in which it is embedded. Thus the human body was often said to be the microcosm of the universe, while Isaac Newton professed that the dimensions of King Solomon’s temple as deduced from biblical sources would guide him towards God’s blueprint for the macrocosm of creation.

Look for yourself

Paracelsus stressed that a successful physician must lead a virtuous life and pray for God’s guidance in searching out divine signs in the world. Close observation was of paramount importance, whether deciphering the symbolic language of the plants or tracking the course of an illness. ‘The patients are your text book, the sickbed is your study’, he admonished his rivals.

Just two years after Paracelsus died Andreas Vesalius – the most famous anatomist of the Renaissance – delivered the same message through his extraordinary drawings. Until then, students had learnt about the human body by listening to professors as they read aloud from books perpetuating ideas that were more than 1,000 years old. Like Paracelsus, Vesalius insisted that for physicians of the future, the way forward lay in looking for themselves and learning from their experience.

Patricia Fara is an Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge. Her most recent book is Life after Gravity: The London Career of Isaac Newton (Oxford University Press, 2021).

Conny Waters – AncientPages.com – Are you going to celebrate Halloween on October 31? If so, you may already know it originated with the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. During Samhain, lighting bonfires and wearing costumes were essential to ward off ghosts. These traditions were not just rituals; they served as tools to protect communities from supernatural forces.

You may have noticed that apples are important in Halloween festivities, but do you know why? Samhain marked the Celtic New Year and blended various symbols from agricultural, pastoral, and supernatural beliefs. It linked harvest fruits with concepts of the afterlife and otherworldly realms. As it coincided with the beginning of winter and concluded the farming year, ensuring all crops like corn, hay, potatoes, turnips, and apples were harvested and stored properly was crucial for enduring the harsh season ahead.

Apples have held religious significance since the time of Adam and Eve. While contemporary society tends to downplay the superstitions and religious connotations associated with apples, the fruit remains integral to Halloween celebrations, utilized in various ways. Although some attribute the apple’s significance during Halloween to Pomona, a Roman harvest deity, its importance is more likely rooted in Celtic traditions.

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A new study by an international team of scientists has found evidence that ancient elephant fossils recovered in the Kashmir Valley of South Asia were butchered by archaic human ancestors. This would have happened between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene epoch. As of now this is the oldest example of animal butchery ever found in India, predating the previous oldest example (from 8,000 BC) by a significant amount.

The elephant fossils were unearthed in 2000 near the town of Pampore, Kashmir. It is believed there are at least three elephants represented in the fossil collection, all of which had died near the Jhelum River and were eventually buried deeply in sediment, which kept them well-preserved as they fossilized. Most of the bones found belonged to one large male specimen, and that included the one elephant skull that was recovered.

Just a short distance away from the fossils many ancient stone tools were also excavated. At the time of this discovery, however, it wasn’t clear if this was related in any way to the presence of the animals, or if it was just a coincidence.

Tracking Down the Mysterious Meat Eaters of Pleistocene India

In 2019, a team of researchers from India and the United Kingdom worked together on a fresh study of the fossils, and were eventually able to identify them as belonging to a long-extinct species of giant elephant known as the Palaeoloxodon. This huge animal was twice as large as the modern African elephant, yet it lived so long ago that fossil finds of it have been rare. In fact, only one other Palaeoloxodon skeleton has ever been found, which is why it took so long to discover the true identity of the Pampore creatures.

The researchers explained how they identified this elephant in a recent article published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. But it was a second article they published, in Quaternary Science Reviews, that revealed their most eye-opening discovery, which is that the fossilized elephant bones showed clear signs of having been butchered by human hands—or in this case, by the hands of ancient hominin ancestors of humans.

In the latter article, the researchers described their identification of elephant bone flakes, which would have been created when archaic humans cracked open the bones of the animal to extract the marrow, an energy-dense fatty tissue with high nutritional value. In total the study authors identified 87 stone tools of the elephant excavation near Pampore, and they now believe that these tools would have been used to extract the bone marrow from the dead elephants, and presumably to remove the meat from the bones as well.

Skull of largest Palaeoloxodon specimen, kept in glass case since its discovery in 2000. (Advait Jukar/Florida Museum of Natural History)

This is by far the earliest evidence of animal butchery ever found in India, which is what makes this such a significant discovery from an anthropological perspective.

“So, the question is, who are these hominins?” said study lead author Advait Jukar, a curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, in a press release from that institution. “What are they doing on the landscape and are they going after big game or not? Now we know for sure, at least in the Kashmir Valley, these hominins are eating elephants.”

Up to now, ancient hominin fossils found in India have all been linked to just one individual from one species, known as the Narmada human. The first of these fossils was found near the Narmada River in central India in 1982, with more bones having been recovered at the same site in later excavations.

Notably, the tools from the Pampore site were made from basalt, a rock that is not found in the local area. The researchers think the raw materials were carried to the site from elsewhere, and then chipped to create the tools that have been found. The researchers have dated the site to between 300,000 and 400,000 years ago based on the way the tools were shaped, since other evidence has linked this style of work to the Middle Pleistocene.

This is an extraordinary discovery, given that the previous oldest evidence of butchery of animals in India only dated back about 10,000 years.

“It might just that people haven’t looked closely enough or are sampling in the wrong place,” Jukar offered. “But up until now, there hasn’t been any direct evidence of humans feeding on large animals in India.”

Is There More Evidence of Ancient Butchery Out There?

While there is evidence of butchery in the fossils, there is nothing to suggest that the Narmada humans hunted the Palaeoloxodon. There is no signs of spear point marks on the fossilized bones, suggesting the humans who butchered the animal acted as scavengers, opportunistically harvesting the remains of animals that had died of natural causes.

Paleontologist Advait Jukar cleans giant elephant head found in Kashmir Valley in 2000. (Advait Jukar/Florida Museum of Natural History)

There was more than one elephant at the same location, which does leave an open question as to how they all ended up dying in the same place. Perhaps they all died from a disease they shared, had all gotten stuck in the mud near the river together and had not been able to escape, or had in fact been killed as a group by hunters, despite the lack of any clear evidence of this happening.

Despite the unusual nature of this discovery, it fits with what scientists already know about the dietary habits of ancient hominins. Meat eating has been a human practice for millions of years, and the fact that evidence of it would emerge in a new location is not really all that surprising.

For his part, Advait Jukar is certain that ample evidence of humans butchering and consuming animals of all sizes must exist and still be waiting to be discovered.

“The thing I’ve come to realize after many years is that you just need a lot more effort to go and find the sites, and you need to essentially survey and collect everything,” Jukar said. “Back in the day when people collected fossils, they only collected the good skulls or limb bones. They didn’t collect all the shattered bone, which might be more indicative of flakes or breakage made by people.”

Top image: Indian scientists survey Palaeoloxodon (elephant) fossil and stone tools excavated nearby.

Source: Advait Jukar/Florida Museum of Natural History

By Nathan Falde

Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com – Since their initial discovery in 1927, scientists have identified 430 figurative Nazca geoglyphs across over 130 miles of desert. These geoglyphs are smaller and older than the Nazca lines. 

Geoglyphs are large designs or motifs created on the ground by rearranging surface stones or gravel, and they are prominently found across the Nazca Pampa.  Situated approximately 50 kilometers inland from Peru’s southern coast, these geoglyphs lie on a desert plateau about 500 meters above sea level. Their longevity is attributed to their location in an area not prone to flooding and unsuitable for agriculture, allowing them to endure through the ages.

Fifteen of a total of 303 newly discovered relief-type figurative geoglyphs from the AI-assisted survey. Drone images taken during the field survey that confirmed the geoglyphs as authentic. The scale bars are 5 m. Outlines have been added as a guide to the eye.  The figurative geoglyphs depict humanoids, head, domesticated animal (camelid), killer whales, birds, feline, ceremonial scene, and human/animal interaction. Credit: Sakai et al., PNAS, 2024

These formations offer archaeologists valuable insights into the cultures and beliefs of ancient civilizations that began using them over 2,000 years ago, but finding the geoglyphs takes a long time. However, AI has now significantly accelerated this decoding process.

Recently, archaeologists from Yamagata University in Japan and researchers from IBM have leveraged artificial intelligence to uncover hundreds more large-scale drawings. Among these unusual depictions are figures such as llamas, decapitated human heads, and killer whales wielding knives.

These new symbols were created by the early South American Nazca people between 200 BC and 500 AD.

According to Masato Sakai, the lead author of a recent study, artificial intelligence has played a significant role in identifying over half of the newly discovered symbols. Sakai and his team utilized AI to locate smaller geoglyphs by training a model to analyze aerial photographs. These high-resolution images covered an area approximately ten times the size of Manhattan, including the Nazca Pampa desert plateau and its surroundings, part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site known for the Nazca lines. The AI-generated a gridded map that assessed the likelihood of each grid square containing geoglyphs.

Credit: Sakai et al., PNAS, 2024

Despite limited training, AI effectively detected smaller relief-type lines, which average about nine meters long, compared to major Nazca lines, which are around 90 meters long. This research is detailed in their study published in PNAS. Masato Sakai from Yamagata University also highlights cultural insights from pottery depicting orcas with knives decapitating humans during the Nazca period, suggesting orcas were perceived as entities involved in human sacrifice.

What Was The Purpose Of The Nazca Geoglyphs?

“As to the purpose of the geoglyph construction, there are at least five distinct, if not totally unrelated, hypotheses These are i) calendar and astronomy, ii) geometry, iii) agriculture and irrigation, iv) movement or communication, including walking, running, and dancing, and v) artistic expression. The predominant opinion is that linear geoglyphs “were an integral part of the Nasca sacred space,”” the study’s authors write.

Numerous lines either radiate from or converge at a central point, with some linked to pilgrimage routes to and from Cahuachi, socioreligious territories of specific social groups, or subterranean water sources.

See also: More Archaeology News

Similarly, in Peru’s Chincha Valley on the south coast, paired line segments marked the setting sun during the June solstice and formed part of a trade route. The hypothesis that line-type figurative geoglyphs relate to calendars and astronomy has garnered interest. It suggests that animal-shaped geoglyphs correspond to constellations; however, this idea has faced criticism for relying on a Western interpretation of constellations without ethnohistorical or ethnographic support. Relief-type geoglyphs might have been designed for distant viewing since they are often found on hill slopes where they can be seen from afar.

Preserving The Nazca Geoglyphs For Future Generations

“Nazca geoglyphs are part of the human cultural heritage, and they are protected by the UNESCO and the Peruvian Ministry of Culture. Accidental or malicious destruction of geoglyphs has been occurring in the past. Climate change poses new threats to Nazca geoglyphs today, amplifying extreme weather events and potentially triggering more devastating flash floods in desert areas. We hope that efforts like ours to accelerate geoglyph identification and documentation with the help of AI may lead to better strategies to mitigate damage and manage cultural resources in desert environments,” the research team says.

The study was published in the journal PNAS

Written by Jan Bartek – AncientPages.com Staff Writer