Clues to an ancient death: bacteria

Gillian Mohney made this report for ABC News in January 2017:

This woman's post-mortem was 800 years in the making, with ancient bacteria providing the critical clue for her likely cause of death, and offering a tantalizing glimpse into the lives of our forebears in the Near East.

In the 800-year-old remains of a Byzantine woman found in Turkey, in what used to be Troy, an archaeologist discovered some nodules the size of strawberries — leading to initial speculation that the woman died of tuberculosis. But the story turned out to be much more complex.

“We speculate that human infections in the ancient world were acquired from a pool of bacteria that moved readily between humans, livestock and the environment,” she said.

Read entire article here @ ABC News

Read more about ancient diseases @ the Scientific American and @ the Science Museum

Black Death maps reveal how the plague devastated medieval Britain

Black Death maps reveal how the plague devastated medieval Britain

An in-depth analysis of pottery shards has revealed the "eye-watering" impact the Black Death had across rural medieval England.

Towns, villages and hamlets were ravaged by the peak of the plague between 1346 and 1351, and between 75 and 200 million people are said to have been killed across Europe and Asia during several centuries of the disease. Now a series of maps has been released which reveal the "devastating" and "eye-watering" effect the disease had across the UK as populations fell. 

The research was led by Professor Carenza Lewis from the University of Lincoln.

"The true scale of devastation wrought by the Black Death during the 'calamitous' fourteenth century has been a topic of much debate among historians and archaeologists," said Lewis. "Recent studies have led to mortality estimates being revised upwards, but the discussion remains hampered by a lack of consistent and scalable population data for the period." "This new research offers a novel solution to that evidential challenge, using finds of pottery - a highly durable indicator of human presence."

Venetian Lazaretto

A lazaretto or lazaret is a quarantine station for maritime travellers. Lazarets can be ships permanently at anchor, isolated islands, or mainland buildings. Between 1348 and 1359 the Black Death wiped out an estimated 30% of Europe's population, as well as a significant percentage of Asia's population. The original document from 1377, which is kept in the Archives of Dubrovnik, states that before entering the city, newcomers had to spend 30 days (a trentine) in a restricted location (originally nearby islands) waiting to see whether the symptoms of plague would develop. Later on, isolation was prolonged to 40 days and was called quarantine.

Venice took the lead in measures to check the spread of plague, having appointed three guardians of the public health in the first years of the Black Death (1348). The first lazaret was founded by Venice in 1403, on a small island adjoining the city – the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth (also known as Lazaretum or Nazaretum). Today this island is known as the Lazzaretto Vecchio.

Originally, the “Lazzaretto Vecchio” was home to hermits who had erected a church dedicated to St. Mary of Nazareth and a shelter for pilgrims going or returning from the Holy Land (c.1240s). When the monks and novices died out, and on the advice of San Bernardino of Siena, the Senate voted to allocate the island as a shelter for people and goods from infected countries.

The Lazzaretto even then consisted of two islands joined by a bridge to the smallest housed the garrison whilst the larger housed the hospital which incorporated the original monastic buildings. Originally built of timber, these would be later rebuilt in stone. In 1468, the Lazzaretto Nuovo or new settlement was established. The Lazzaretto was enlarged with the adjacent lagoon being reclaimed in 1580s; and a boathouse entrance was built from the canal (1586).

In November, 1631, the plague was definitively eradicated, but at a terrible cost: almost 47,000 died in the city (more than a quarter of the population) and 95,000 in the area comprising Murano, Malamocco and Chioggia.

I was inspired to find out more from this article that appeared in the Independent in 2007:

Archaeologists are now exploring "the graves of Lazzaretto, an island in the Venetian lagoon which became the world's first isolation hospital."

The Independent reports that: "Following an outbreak of the plague in 1348, the Doge and his advisers put their minds to thinking up a way to prevent a recurrence. The upshot, at the beginning of the 15th century, was the world's first isolation hospital occupying the entire small island."

" .. archaeologists have uncovered more than 1,500 skeletons of Lazzaretto patients. Luigi Fozzatti, who is in charge of excavations, said: "It wasn't difficult to imagine that some people would have been buried on the island but we had no idea we would find so many." "

Research is continuing.

Venetian Lazzaretto

A lazaretto or lazaret is a quarantine station for maritime travellers. Lazarets can be ships permanently at anchor, isolated islands, or mainland buildings. Between 1348 and 1359 the Black Death wiped out an estimated 30% of Europe's population, as well as a significant percentage of Asia's population. The original document from 1377, which is kept in the Archives of Dubrovnik, states that before entering the city, newcomers had to spend 30 days (a trentine) in a restricted location (originally nearby islands) waiting to see whether the symptoms of plague would develop. Later on, isolation was prolonged to 40 days and was called quarantine.

Venice took the lead in measures to check the spread of plague, having appointed three guardians of the public health in the first years of the Black Death (1348). The first lazaret was founded by Venice in 1403, on a small island adjoining the city – the island of Santa Maria di Nazareth (also known as Lazaretum or Nazaretum).  Today this island is known as the Lazzaretto Vecchio.

Originally, the “Lazzaretto Vecchio” was home to hermits who had erected a church dedicated to St. Mary of Nazareth and a shelter for pilgrims going or returning from the Holy Land (c.1240s).  When the monks and novices died out, and on the advice of San Bernardino of Siena, the Senate voted to allocate the island as a shelter for people and goods from infected countries.

The Lazzaretto even then consisted of two islands joined by a bridge to the smallest housed the garrison whilst the larger housed the hospital which incorporated the original monastic buildings.  Originally built of timber, these would be later rebuilt in stone.  In 1468, the Lazzaretto Nuovo or new settlement was established.  The Lazzaretto was enlarged with the adjacent lagoon being reclaimed in 1580s; and a boathouse entrance was built from the canal (1586).

In November, 1631, the plague was definitively eradicated, but at a terrible cost: almost 47,000 died in the city (more than a quarter of the population) and 95,000 in the area comprising Murano, Malamocco and Chioggia.

 

I was inspired to find out more from this article that appeared in the Independent in 2007:

Archaeologists are now exploring "the graves of Lazzaretto, an island in the Venetian lagoon which became the world's first isolation hospital."

The Independent reports that: "Following an outbreak of the plague in 1348, the Doge and his advisers put their minds to thinking up a way to prevent a recurrence. The upshot, at the beginning of the 15th century, was the world's first isolation hospital occupying the entire small island."

" .. archaeologists have uncovered more than 1,500 skeletons of Lazzaretto patients. Luigi Fozzatti, who is in charge of excavations, said: "It wasn't difficult to imagine that some people would have been buried on the island but we had no idea we would find so many." "

Research is continuing.

Black Death Came From China

From Global Times:

Teams of medical geneticists and biologists have determined that the great waves of plague that have ravaged Europe, dating back to medieval times, originated in China, according to a New York Times report.

The plagues have claimed millions of lives, and the worst wiped out an estimated 30 percent of the European population.

"The results indicate that the plague appeared in China more than 2,600 years ago," said a statement from the French Museum of Natural History that took part in the research.

It then spread toward Western Europe along the Silk Road, starting more than 600 years ago, and then to Africa, probably by an expedition led by Chinese seafarer Zheng He in the 15th century, the statement added.

The plague came to the US from China via Hawaii in the late 19th century, according to the molecular evidence.

Black Death: New Theory

From Discovery News:

Anthropologists said on Friday they had confirmed long-running suspicions that a germ called Yersinia pestis caused the plague that wiped out an estimated third of Europe's population in the Middle Ages.

Teeth and bones sampled from 76 skeletons found in "plague pits" in France, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands and sequenced for DNA intrusion are conclusive evidence that Y. pestis was to blame, they said.

Y. pestis has been in the dock for more than a century as the source of so-called Black Death, which gripped Europe in successive outbreaks from the 14th to the 18th century.

But scientific data to convict the bacterium have until now been sketchy or debatable.

As a result, a clutch of rival theories have blossomed, including the contention that an Ebola-style virus or the anthrax germ were to blame.

London: Sin City

I came across this ever so interesting article on London, 18th century city of vice and immorality posted on Canadian Content. Hope you enjoy this snippet:

Sin City: One in five women in 1700s London was a prostitute

Eighteenth century London evokes images of fine Georgian buildings, many of which are still standing, and fine art.But in reality, it more of was a modern day Sodom, the biblical city synonymous with sexual depravity, and from which English gets the word "sodomy" (to North Americans, the eighteenth century is ancient history, but to the British it is relatively recent).

It was a city of depravity and vileness (as for it high crime and murder rate, and the brutal methods of punishment, that's another story).It is thought that there were almost 63,000 prostitutes in London in the 1700s and that a staggering one in five of London's women were "harlots."In fact, London's prostitutes generated an estimated gross turnover of around £20 million (£1.5 billion in today's money).

This was big business. Famous prostitutes became the celebrities of their time in Britain, including Lady Hamilton, the mistress of Lord Nelson. The fictional Moll Flanders is reputedly based on the real life Moll King. One of her customers was the author of Moll Flanders, Daniel defoe.The 18th Century British artist William Hogarth, who painted scenes of London that were as accurate as he could get them (18th Century London is often referred to as Hogarthian London), immortalised London's prostitution industry in A Rake's Progress (1732-33).

Grotesquely (though, remember, only to the eyes of someone in the 21st Century) child prostitutes also plied their trade in London, some as young as eight. The British even believed that sexual intercourse with a child cured veneral diseases.And, of course, veneral diseases were rife, such as syphilis and gonorrhea.