The Forum

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I read with interest your Fall 1998 Origins section (“Inventing Time”) and the letters on the sexagesimal system and the origins of the 60-minute hour (The Forum, AO 02:01). The Babylonians inherited the sexagesimal system from the Sumerians, and I would love to see more information on this intriguing, ancient culture.

The Sumerians, alas, may even have invented interest rates. See this issue’s Origins.—Ed.

Odyssey on the Sly

My wife has never shown any patience with me when I try to get her to read something in Biblical Archaeology Review—but recently, on more than one occasion, I’ve caught her reading the Winter 1999 issue of Archaeology Odyssey.

Why Not Biblical Archaeology?

As a new subscriber to your magazine, I think articles on biblical archaeology, particularly the life of St. Paul, would have widespread appeal.

You’ve come to the right address, wrong suite. Our sister publications Biblical Archaeology Review and Bible Review run articles on biblical material. You can subscribe to these magazines, order back issues or purchase our index by calling 1–800-221–4644.—Ed.

What’s in a Name?

In “Opium for the Masses,” AO 02:01, Robert Merrillees makes two claims that are mutually exclusive, at least without qualification. First, he states that the Greek word for the poppy plant, mekon, comes from an Indo-European root, since it has cognates in other languages of that group. Then he goes on to say that the origin of this plant was probably in western or central Europe.

If the ancestral homeland of Indo-Europeans was in the vicinity of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, however, it would be impossible to have an Indo-European root for a plant that was first cultivated in west-central Europe. Had the Indo-Europeans known about the poppy plant, all their descendants, not just the western ones, would be familiar with it.

Robert S. Merrillees replies:

There is sound logic in Gilles Willard’s arguments, though there is often little logic in historical processes. It is not certain that mekon was of Indo-European origin—I was careful to qualify its possible linguistic ancestry—and some authorities consider it of Germanic or Slavic extraction. Nor can it be demonstrated that mekon initially designated the opium poppy, whose antecedents are equally unknown. 011Just where and how Papaver somniferum evolved is unclear, though the earliest extant evidence comes from western Europe. Unfortunately, palaeoethnobotany is by its very nature an inexact science.

Disturbing Reflections

In “Floating in the Desert,” AO 02:01, Ehud Netzer concludes that the purpose of the Qasr el-Abd pool was to reflect the building in the mirror surface of the water. I do not dispute this point, but a little wind would have disrupted that mirror into a moving, pulsating piece of modern art.

See Ehud Netzer’s response following Mr. Tameanko’s letter.—Ed.

Ancient Air Conditioning

Ehud Netzer missed an opportunity to explore another possible use of the pool surrounding the palace. Could it have been an air-conditioning system? The ancients had developed several techniques to construct cool buildings. Herod’s architects, for example, built the northern palace-villa of Masada on the difficult and precipitous slope below the plateau simply because it was the only place that would receive any shade.

The open second floor, the central rooms surrounded by corridors and the north-facing portico were probably designed to allow cool air to circulate through the structure. The palace’s many windows, moreover, were likely placed to catch the cool breezes blowing over the water.

Ehud Netzer replies:

Certainly in strong winds the pool’s reflected images would have been disturbed. But often there is no wind or mild wind. That is why, I believe, very large animals were carved: Even when mild winds were blowing, visitors would have seen the bobbing reflections of animals in the water.

As for the “air conditioning” theory, Iraq al Amir has a mild climate, even in summer, making it unlikely that Hyrcanus would undertake such a tremendous project (the dam required 6,000,000 cubic feet of dirt) for cooling alone. On the other hand, ancient rulers did put a good deal of effort into providing grandiose entertainment—a lesson Hyrcanus probably learned in Alexandria.

Who Was Apella the Jew?

Horace’s Satire 1.5 (See “From Rome to Brindisi,” Past Perfect, AO 02:01) makes an intriguing reference to a Jew named Apella: “Let Apella the Jew believe it. I won’t.”

Apparently, the reference is to the Jews’ credulity. In view of the reputation that Jews in the Talmud and in modern times have for critical thinking, this would seem to be surprising. To the Greeks, credulity was an embarrassment. Hecataeus of Abdera (c. 300 B.C.E.), who is generally sympathetic to the Jews, reported that the Jews were so docile that they fell to the ground and paid homage to the high priest when he expounded the commandments to them. Greeks, presumably, would have questioned such rules. Horace suggests that only the gullible Jew Apella could believe that frankincense can melt without fire.

We know of no Jew named Apella in Rome, despite the fact that we have over 500 tombstone inscriptions containing a host of names. There is a Christian named Apelles mentioned in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (16:10), as well as a Jew named Apella in a first-century C.E. ostracon from Egypt (see V.A. Tcherikover and A. Fuks, Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum 2 [Cambridge, MA, 1960], p. 126 no. 188), and another named Apella in an inscription from Phrygia (see J. B. Frey, Corpus Incriptionum Iudaicarum 2 [Rome, 1952], no. 761). J Reynolds and R. Tannenbaum, in Jews and God-fearers at Aphrodisias (Cambridge, UK, 1987), note that the name Apella appears 28 times in third-century C.E. Rome—but all are names of non-Jews, the majority being slaves or freedmen.

As befitting a satire, Horace may also be ironically suggesting a connection between Apella and the god Apollo. Here, we should recall that in Horace’s Satire 9, the poet is advised by a friend not to offend the “circumcised Jews” on their Sabbath—especially since the Sabbath is accompanied by a new moon. Moments later, the poet is rescued from a talkative bore (perhaps a Jew) by Apollo.

The similarity of the names Apella and Apollo has gone unnoticed by modern commentators. But the late third-century C.E. historian Plutarch, himself a priest of Apollo, wrote that “Apollo” derives from apella, the very name of Horace’s credulous Jew.

This connection takes on added significance when we consider the etymology of “Apella.” The third-century C.E. scholar Porphyry derives Apella from the Greek letter alpha and the Latin word pellis, meaning “without a foreskin.” Ancient writers frequently make snide remarks about Jews and circumcision. That circumcision was indeed considered the most characteristic sign of the Jews is indicated by the title of a lost comedy by the third-century B.C.E. Roman playwright Gnaeus Naevius: Appella (or Apella), the Greco-Latin equivalent of sine pelle, “without a foreskin” (see J. Geiger, “The Earliest Reference to Jews in Latin Literature,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 15 [1984], pp. 145–147). Josephus tells of the conversion of the early first-century C.E. ruler Izates, king of the Adiabene (in Parthia), who realized that he was not a full-fledged Jew until he had himself circumcised.

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Hence the irony of having Apollo, whose name sounds like Apella, rescue Horace from “the circumcised Jews” after the reference to the Jews’ new-moon Sabbath.

Horace may also be guilty of a pun. In the ninth satire, the poet, after being advised to defer to the Jews’ religious sensibilities, says he was left “under the knife” (cultro). Although the word culter is not found in extant classical Latin literature in the specific sense of the surgical knife, it is employed (by Cato, for instance) with reference to a knife used in slaughtering an animal. So this usage may be part of a double entendre.

Assyrian Frogmen

The picture in “Tubing on the Euphrates” (Ancient Life, AO 01:03) seems to depict early frogmen using air-filled bags to breath underwater. One figure is swimming above water, but the other two are submerged and breathing through pipes.

William W. Hallo replies:

The two men at the left and bottom of the relief are not breathing through a pipe but rather into one leg of the goatskin in order to keep it inflated as they cross the river. To quote George F. Bass, “such skins were a normal part of a soldier’s issue. At first, the neck and three legs of the hide were tied tightly, allowing the swimmer to blow from time to time into the open fourth leg to keep the float buoyant. After about 700 B.C.E., however, larger skins were used with all four legs tightly tied” (Civilizations of the Ancient Near East vol. 3, ed. J.M. Sasson, p. 1,421).

The top swimmer doesn’t use any artificial aids. He is doing a fairly good imitation of a freestyle stroke.

Assyrian soldiers are more often shown crossing rivers in full battle-gear. The present relief in its more complete form depicts enemy fugitives escaping by swimming while Assyrian troops shoot at them with bows and arrows from the river bank.

Infanticide

Your exchange on infanticide (The Forum, AO 02:01) left out two obvious examples: Mexico and Peru.

In Yucatan and Teotihuacan, the shattered remains of sacrificed children are sometimes found in the foundations of buildings. And dozens of Peruvian volcano mummies are 14 years old or younger.

In Tenochtitlan, the Tlaloc sacrifices—of which we have written records confirmed by excavation—a boy and girl, often the children of slaves, were dressed up and borne on a litter through a waiting crowd. Then the children’s faces were painted with liquid rubber (extremely hot), which cooled into an airtight mask when the children were thrown into a tub of water and suffocated.

Suggesting that any period of time was more or less barbaric than ours is ethnocentric (horocentric?).

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