80 Gays Around the World: Part 6) Greek Beauties

Last time on “80 Gays”: 15) Father Markus Furhman (b.1971) became the first openly gay Franciscan “bishop” after ministering in Cologne, home of the alleged relics of the Three Kings, 16) Caspar, 17) Melchior, and 18) Balthazar, the latter’s gift to the Baby Jesus traditionally being myrrh, an aromatic resin from a plant named after the mother of 18) Adonis.

The name of 18) Adonis has become a byword for male physical beauty. With the ancient Greeks putting so much emphasis on same-sex activity in the training of athletes and soldiers, it comes as no surprise that Adonis was the sexual partner of both male and female deities.

As a young teenager Adonis was the lover of two Greek gods with many gay connections of their own – Apollo (who features many times on this blog), and Dionysos (also featured several times).

Perhaps Adonis’s most well-known lover was the goddess 19) Aphrodite. It may seem strange that the goddess of love and feminine beauty should have some queer connections, but in this other “Star-Gayzing” entry I point out the dual nature of Aphrodite’s sexuality. There I explain how her birth from the severed genitals of Uranus led her to become a kind of patron goddess of same-sex couples.

At the beginning of this series of “80 Gays” I commented that a lot of botanical connections cropped up. Last time I mentioned how Adonis’s mother Myrrha gave her name to the plant myrrh. Another plant connection comes in one of the annual festivals in Athens called Adonia, which was named after him. This was a female-only festival. Women would go up onto their rooves, singing and dancing, mourning the death of Adonis. On the roof they planted lettuce and fennel seeds into pottery sherds (both plants were considered to be aphrodisiacs – there’s Aphrodite’s name again), which they called Gardens of Adonis. The women then went down into the streets and formed a procession which went to the sea shore (or a stream, it varied depending on how far away they lived from the sea), and buried, or planted, the “gardens” along with little effigies of Adonis.

Aphrodite’s floral connection also involves a garden. This time it comes in the form of one of her patronages. Aphrodite was the patron god of vegetation and fertility, and thus she was known as Aphrodite of the Gardens. There was a shrine and sanctuary to her under this name near the Acropolis in Athens. There were two statues of her, one of which was a herm.

Herm is the term given to a tall square or rectangular column with a carved head (and sometimes a torso) at the top, with a carved penis at the proportional height sticking out of the square column. The Aphrodite herm had her head at the top and a penis further down. There’s a herm statue of Aphrodite in the national museum in Stockholm, Sweden, which depicts her as fully female from the waist upwards. She is holding her dress up to reveal a square column underneath with a penis.

It is from herm statues like this that Aphrodite evolved into a separate deity – 21) Aphroditus.

Historically, Aphroditus was probably based on an earlier deity in Cyprus. Once the cult of Aphroditus made it to Greece it was assimilated into that of Aphrodite Urania, the goddess of spiritual love. What makes things more complicated is that some modern websites confuse Aphroditus with the more familiar 22) Hermaphroditus,

The more I read about both Aphroditus and Hermaphroditus the more I realise that they are not the same. I think that the confusion comes from “herm” in Hermaphrodite, and the fact that the name Aphroditus was first used in reference to herm statues of Aphrodite. Hermaphroditus seems to be a later addition to the pantheon of Greek deities. I wrote about both Aphroditus and Hermaphroditus several years ago (see here), so I won’t go into it in detail here. Suffice it to say that in the later Roman period the image of Hermaphroditus as intersex developed from Greek myths about him being the son of Aphrodite and Hermes, a god not really “invented” until a century or two after the first herm statues of Aphrodite were made. If you’re not already confused, Hermes got his name from originally being a herm statue.

But let’s get back to Aphrodite. As well as two statues of her near the Acropolis as Aphrodite of the Gardens (one of which had male genitalia, remember), the goddess had another temple and shrine in Athens dedicated to her as Aphrodite Urania, the goddess of spiritual love.

The temple was in the agora, the inner-city public square and meeting place. In the sanctuary was a statue of her made by a famous sculptor called Phidias (no. 8 in the 2020 “80 Gays” series). I’ll return to Phidias in a later entry in this current series.

Whenever ancient Athens is mentioned Adonis and Aphrodite are not the first names that spring to mind, Athena is, of course. Another thing that springs to mind is the founding of Greek democracy. So it is not surprising that on the other side of the agora there were once statues of the couple who are regarded as being the people who inspired the creation of Athenian democracy. They were 23) Harmodius and 24) Aristogeiton.

Next time: We carry a torch against tyranny, untangle a gay “incestuous” dynasty, and remove a few statues.

An Emperor Leaves His Mark

With all the various anniversaries being celebrated in the UK this year one significant anniversary in British heritage has been overshadowed.

Hadrian’s Wall is one of the UK’s most famous historical sites. It is named after the Roman Emperor Hadrian who ordered it to be built when he visited Britain in 122 AD, 1,900 years ago this year. Construction began almost immediately and it probably took six years to complete in its original form. So, Happy 19th Centenary Hadrian’s Wall.

When Donald Trump declared that he was going to build a wall along the US-Mexico border people laughed at the idea and said it would be impracticable, but the idea of building a wall to separate communities isn’t new. Look at the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall.

In 2017 I wrote about another significant legacy made by Hadrian during his visit to Britain – the establishment of Britannia as the female personification of the island.

There’s actually very little recorded information about Hadrian’s visit, though some details can be surmised by what happened and what changed after he left. First of all, we don’t know what time of year he visited. It was probably in June, and he didn’t come alone. As with all imperial visits there was a huge retinue of officials and servants and around 3,000 soldiers. There was also the Regio VI Victrix, the Victorious 6th Legion. Hadrian’s choice to bring the 6th Legion was significant because some historians believe that part of this legion was already stationed in northern England helping the diminishing 9th Legion (the alleged “lost” legion) to defend the empire’s northern border.

The Romans had ventured into the Scottish Lowlands, but withdrew south of a Roman road called Stanegate which ran horizontally across part of northern England. Hadrian was aware of the various skirmishes his army had with tribes from the Lowlands. These skirmishes had died down by the time he arrived in Britain, but it is clear that he intended to mark the northern border of the Roman Empire with a wall.

Hadrian’s movements in Britain are very uncertain. We have no surviving itinerary or full account. We are fairly sure that he visited York, or Eboracum as the Romans called it, because he ordered the building of a temple to the new goddess Britannia. This may have been on his way up to, or down from, Vindolanda.

Vindolanda was a major fort on Stanegate. It was a wooden fort which had just been rebuilt to house the Cohort of Tungrians, a thousand infantry men from the region of Belgium. There’s archaeological evidence that a luxurious new building was being constructed around the time of Hadrian’s British visit. It was too lavish for even a provincial governor so it must have been intended for someone of the highest importance – like the emperor.

Hadrian and his massive entourage sailed from Boulogne to the south coast of Britain and went by carriage train to London. The 6th Legion, however, continued to sail up the coast to the River Tyne.

When he arrived at Vindolanda, Hadrian had a look at the defences, and even though he probably didn’t need it, he decided to have a wall built across the country just north of the Stanegate road. Historians think this was a means of marking the northern border of the Roman Empire rather than a defence measure to keep the northern tribes out of England. There are indications that there was some movement of people, for trade and immigration to some degree, both ways across the wall.

The 6th Legion began to construct the wall almost immediately. Hadrian didn’t hang around long after that. The wall took about six years to complete and there were another ten years of modifications. It may seem strange to us today, but originally there were no forts planned for the wall. They were thought of as building progressed.

Since its first completion Hadrian’s Wall has been a significant structure on the landscape, earning an iconic place in British history. So iconic, in fact, that the great walls featured in “Game of Thrones” is based on it, and it is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

After the Romans left Britain in 410 AD the wall fell into disrepair. It was an ideal source for building stone by the local Britons. Thankfully, it was such a substantial structure that large parts of it remain, helped by the fact that there is very few settlements in that part of the country. The remains of many of the wall’s structure exist underground and archaeologists are constantly discovering new facts about the wall and Roman life.

Needless to day, there have been anniversary events held along the whole length of the wall this year. There are also several re-enactment groups who stage several events every year. Hadrian’s Wall is one of the places I have yet to visit even though it has been on by bucket list of British heritage sites I want to see.

So happy 1900th birthday, Hadrian’s Wall.

The 2 Billion Dollar Funeral

Could this have been the most expensive funeral in history? I haven’t looked closely at all the funerals of all the heads of world powers (i.e. Russian tsars, Egyptian pharaohs, etc.) but I suspect their costs would reach into the millions. The funeral we look at today cost billions, and it’s the funeral of Alexander the Great’s male lover/companion, Hephaestion.

Some historians doubt there was a sexual relationship between Alexander and Hephaestion. They both grew up in societies where same-sex activity was a part of their youth and it is certain they both would have participated willingly in it. But we’ll leave that debate for another time. There is no doubt that their friendship was strong enough for Alexander the Great to organise a funeral for Hephaestion that was more spectacular than his own father’s, which was spectacular enough. As the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus wrote in his 1st century BC: “He showed such zeal about the funeral that it not only surpassed all those previously celebrated on earth but also left no possibility for anything greater in later years”.

There’s one slight problem with Diodorus’ statement. He wrote it two centuries after Hephaestion’s funeral took place. He was copying earlier, now lost, sources. The earliest known account is by a contemporary of Alexander’s called Cleitarchus. However, Cleitarchus was a bit of a sensationalist and historians believe most of the events his included in his biography of Alexander were over-embellished. Having said that, there’s nothing to indicate that Cleitarchus was making it up.

Depending on which ancient historian you read a total of between 10,000 and 12,000 talents were spent on the funeral. Estimates put this as equivalent today of between 2 and 3 billion US dollars. Not all of this came out of Alexander’s own “pocket”. He sent messengers to every city in his conquered territories of Persia requesting them to send as much money as they could to help give Hephaestion the send-off he thought he deserved. The cities seemed to have had no problem with this and responded enthusiastically and generously.

At the same time Alexander ordered that all sacred fires should be put out in Persia until after the funeral. This was a custom when a Persian king died, which gives another indication of Alexander’s feelings for Hephaestion.

Now that the financing had been arranged Alexander began panning the funeral itself. As Diodorus wrote (in the quote given above) he threw himself into the arrangements with zeal. A couple of years ago I mentioned that the ancient Greeks often celebrated someone’s death with funeral games – athletics and sport. The funeral games in honour of Hephaestion were held in Ecbatana, the city in which he died in October 324 BC. During this time a huge funeral procession was being gathered and Hephaestion’s body was being prepared and embalmed. When the games were over the funeral procession made its way to Babylon City.

The huge procession arrived, perhaps around what our modern calendar would call New Year. The funeral pyre on which Hephaestion’s body would be burned was still under construction. It was massive. Alexander had chosen an architect called Stasicrates (sometimes called Cheirocrates and Dinocrates) to design and build the pyre. Stasicrates was well-known for laying out the plan of Alexandria in Egypt, reconstructing the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus (turning it into one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), and he even planned to carve a huge statue of Alexander the Great into the side of Mount Athos until Alexander himself objected. So, you can see what sort of funeral pyre Stasicrates was likely to come up with, and he didn’t disappoint.

Stasicrates’ plans were so big that he needed to knock down about a kilometre of the city walls to make enough room for it and the surrounding “spectator” area. The pyre itself was a square structure, each side being about 180 meters (590 feet) in length. On top of that were five more square structures, one on top of the other like a ziggurat, a stepped pyramid. When complete the structure was said to have been 58 meters (193 feet) tall.

Each side of the pyre was richly decorated in statues and sculptures made from wood and clay. Most of these were painted and gilded so that the whole thing shone and gleamed in the daylight. All around the ground floor were carved 240 life-size ships’ prows with statues of archers and armed men on the decks.

On the level above torches about 8 meters (26 feet) tall were attached to the walls, with golden wreaths around their handles, snakes coiled around the base of each one, and huge eagles with outstretched wings hovering over them.

On the next level up were carved animals representing a wild hunt.

On the next level was a scene representing a legendary battle between the centaurs and a tribe called the Lapiths. All of which was covered in gold.

The penultimate level also had gold statues – bulls alternating with lions.

Around the top level were arms and armour of the Greek and Persian armies.

Right on top were statues of sirens. These were hollow to allow the attendants who sang the funerary laments to stand inside. No doubt there were ladders running up through the whole structure for them to get up and down before the whole thing was set on fire.

None of the ancient sources say that the pyre was actually lit, and several modern historians, including the eminent ancient historian Robin Lane-Fox, doubt the funeral ever took place as planned. However, back in 1904 the archaeologist Robert Koldeway uncovered areas of burnt ground among the ruins of Babylon. This, he theorised, might have been the site of the pyre and that the funeral took place as intended.

After the pyre had been extinguished Hephaestion’s remains were placed in a magnificent tomb. The mystery is where? No-one is sure, but we do know that Alexander the Great had little time to continue to mourn for his lover as he himself died a couple of months after the pyre was built. Some archaeologists have suggested that Hephaestion’s tomb is in Greece.

The image at the top shows an artist’s impression of what Hephaestion’s funeral pyre might have looked like. It was painted around 1900 by F. Buracz and Franz Jeffe. Even though it was a temporary structure it would have been a magnificent sight, situated on the banks of the River Euphrates in the shadow of the famous Wonder, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (though some historians doubt the Gardens existed in the form most popularly imagined).

In an age long before inner-city skyscrapers any structure towering as high as Hephaestion’s pyre would have struck awe into the Babylonians, It could easily be called the 8th Wonder of the Ancient World.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 27) Guiding the Way

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950) lived in the same house (though not at the same time) as 75) Margaret Mead (1901-1978), a leading influence on queer anthropology and its related subject of queer archaeology, continued by 76) Chelsea Blackmore).

76) Chelsea Blackmore was appointed Senior Archaeologist at Albion Environmental Inc. in July last year. Albion is a California company that advises and participates in construction and environmental projects, anything from highways, hydroelectric plants and nature reserves, to ensure that the local ecological and cultural properties of each site are handled appropriately. Prior to joining Albion Environmental Chelsea was Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of California Santa Cruz.

Chelsea’s doctoral thesis was “Challenging ‘Commoner’: An Examination of the Status and Identity at the Ancient Maya Village of Chan, Belize”, which was one of the first studies into social identity in the Mayan civilisation. She has specialised in Mesoamerican culture and aspects of identity relating to gender, social status and sexuality.

Chelsea Blackmore has been open about her sexuality all her professional career. The lack of visible lgbt archaeologists in her undergraduate years and lack of a queer network inspired her to use gender and sexuality as possible factors in her choice of studies. Shortly afterwards she founded “Queer Archaeology”, a blog aimed at lgbt archaeologists and the study of queer archaeology. Chelsea went on to co-found the Queer Archaeology Interest Group of the Society of American Archaeologists in 2014, though attempts to create such a group had been tried before.

Two publications can be said to have pioneered queer archaeology. The first is “Out in the Field: Reflections of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists” by Ellen Lewin and William Heap (1996), and the queer-themed issue of “World Archaeology” (2000) edited by 77) Thomas Dowson.

In February 2017 I wrote this article about Thomas Dowson and his contribution to the growth of queer archaeology. Not only is he a pioneer in the subject but he is also a leading authority in rock art.

Another aspect of Thomas’s work harks back to the “old days” of the Grand Tour of Europe undertaken by the wealthy in the 17th to 19th centuries. Among these “archaeological tourists” were Amelia Edwards (more of her on Sunday) and Johann Joachim Winckelmann, the gay librarian who made Pompeii a popular place to visit. Both of these people saw the importance of careful scientific study of archaeological sites and their preservation.

For many years archaeologists discouraged tourism of digs and sites. Then the heritage industry took off and governments saw a need to protect many ancient sites. In my childhood archaeology was seen as a very dull subject and you rarely saw the subject covered on television. Only the Egyptian pyramids seem to be of interest. Then came the Viking excavations in Yorvik (York) and the raising of King Henry VIII’s flagship the Mary Rose and the public began to show more interest. Next came unexpectedly popular programmes like “Time Team”, a surprise hit archaeology series that ran for twenty years. The public were now aware of how an archaeological site should be treated and what facts about our past can be uncovered. Today, archaeological programmes are everywhere on almost every channel.

The public’s interest in archaeology has led to tourist companies offering tours of monument and ancient sites like never before. The public are more aware of their responsibilities of visiting these sites. Thomas Dowson was one of the early leaders in modern archaeological tourism. When he moved to France he was naturally interested in the archaeology of the area. There was very little information which was reliable or up-to-date. He thought other people might be interested in the local archaeology so he set up the website “Archaeology Travel” in 2010.

Archaeological tourism among tour companies and institutions has blossomed, and with the help of guidelines produced by the Archaeological Institute of America ancient sites will be better protected and understood. National Geographic organised tours and expeditions for students, including tours took of the San cave paintings which Thomas Dowson studied. One of the tour leaders was 78) Thomas Egli.

Thomas is an experienced tour guide having worked for a variety of companies, including Bali Hai Diving Adventures in Indonesia and Discover Tours Canada. Thomas has Swiss and Canadian citizenship and is currently working in Zurich as a marine ecologist (yes, a marine ecologist in land-locked Switzerland). His claim to fame, though, is that he was voted Mr. Gay Canada in 2012. However, that’s not the connection I’m going to take towards our final steps on this chain of “80 More Gays”.

In 2010 Thomas was a volunteer with VANOC, the Vancouver Organising Committee of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games. He was a supervisor at the Rogers Arena where the ice hockey tournament was held. Ice hockey is the most hotly contested sport at the Winter Olympics with Canada and the USA always vying for the gold medal. The men’s ice hockey final between them was the last medal event of the games. The women’s ice hockey final, also between Canada and the USA, was held three days earlier. Canada won both finals.

The women’s ice hockey team final at Rogers Arena contained the team with the most lgbt players at the Vancouver Olympics, and I want to group them all together for the penultimate “80 Gay”. That team was the winning 79) Canadian Women’s Ice Hockey team.

Next time in our last “80 More Gays Around the World”: We discover how we link back to 1) k d lang.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 26) Homes Destroyed, Homes Discovered

Last time on “80 More Gays”: The true gender of 71) Dr. James Barry (c.1795-1865) was a secret known to few in his lifetime, including a South American independence fighter who was a compatriot of 71) Carlos de Montúfar (1780-1816) and Simon Bolivar after whom Bolivia is named, a country which attracted many German settlers and military advisors including, 73) Ernst Röhm (1887-1937) who was assassinated on evidence faked by an SS officer who was himself killed, leading to the Lidice Massacre memorialised by 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).

The Lidice Massacre, ordered by Hitler in retaliation for the killing of the Protector of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia (the modern Czech Republic), shocked the world. Hitler believed the village of Lidice, 14 miles from Prague, had harboured some of the assassins. He ordered the execution of every man in the village on 10th June 1942. The women were either sent to concentration camps or sent for “Germanisation”, and most of the children were “adopted” by SS officers. Children not accepted for adoption were killed. The village itself was razed to the ground, even the cemetery (the bodies were dug up and burned, the gravestones pulverised). Only one person survived, a man who was in prison for manslaughter. He was released in December 1942 and went home, only to find that the village, his family, friends and fellow villagers, had all gone. No-one had told him of the massacre.

The international response was quick and long-lasting. In Stoke-on-Trent, a town just a few miles down the river from where I live, the local doctor and future Member of Parliament began a fund-raising campaign to rebuild Lidice. In other countries towns added Lidice to their names, and various streets and memorials were named after it.

The world’s press covered the massacre extensively, and 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote an article in The New York Times magazine. This inspired her to write a verse play called “Murder of Lidice”.

Before World War II Edna was an active pacifist and in 1919 she wrote “Aria de Capo”, an anti-war play. From 1940 she began writing poems for the Writer’s War Board and openly supported the Allied Forces. This caused her reputation to tarnish a little, at least with the critics who saw Edna’s war writings as too political.

Edna’s writing career began when her mother persuaded her to enter a poetry contest in “The Lyric Year” magazine in 1912. Edna’s poem came fourth though many people, including the contest’s winner, thought it should have come first. The controversy led to Edna’s introduction to New York literary circles and a scholarship to Vassar College.

From then on Edna’s poetry and plays became popular and she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. It was at this time that she entered into a loving, open marriage with Eugen Jan Boissevain (1880-1949) and they lived together until his death. Edna died the following year.

The couple moved into a house in New York, number 75½ Bedford Street (pictured below), said to be the narrowest house in the city, being only 9½ feet wide (3 meters). Its narrowness results from it originally being a carriage entrance between two buildings. Edna and Jan only lived there a year. Many others have occupied the narrow house at various times, including 75) Margaret Mead (1901-1978).

Margaret Mead was a leading anthropologist of her generation. I wrote about a book she and her partner wrote in 1977 called “An Interview with Santa Claus”. This is an example of how she helped to popularise anthropology among the public. Santa Claus? Anthropology? Yes, because Margaret used her knowledge of culture and history to give an explanation for the evolution of this Christmas icon in a way that children could understand without destroying the seasonal magic.

The field of anthropology goes hand in hand with archaeology. Through archaeology ancient communities are revealed and their ways of life are revealed through anthropology. The growth of interest in gender and sexuality in non-Western cultures was pioneered by Margaret Mead. She was a panellist at the first meeting to discuss homosexuality in anthropology called by the American Anthropological Association in 1974. Since then there has been a growth in queer anthropology and queer archaeology.

In April 2013 I chose archaeology for my “Ology of the Month” in a year where I wrote many science-based articles. Have a look at them. I wrote about several queer discoveries and lgbt archaeologists including the discovery of the most northern civilisation near the North Pole by a gay Danish archaeologist. I’ve also written since then about other queer archaeologists and anthropologists and their historic discoveries, like the discovery of a whole new humanoid species and the discovery of Europe’s oldest known urban community. I’ve even written about Lawrence of Arabia’s contribution to archaeology.

One of those 2013 articles for my Ology of the Month was about Mayan cave paintings and their sexual nature. Studies into Mayan gender and culture have been continued by other archaeologists and anthropologists like 76) Chelsea Blackmore.

Next time on “80 More Gays”: From the jungles of Central America and the deserts of South Africa we are guided to the snows of Canada.

The Godmother of Egyptology

Today is International Archaeology Day. Arguably the most influential archaeological subject is Egyptology. The names of ancient pharaohs and gods are household names. It has influenced everything from Napoleonic furniture to Hallowe’en costumes. Hundreds of films and books based on ancient Egypt are highly popular.

Last Hallowe’en I revealed how the curse of the Egyptian mummy was created by the most popular Victorian novelist, the bisexual Maria Correlli (1855-1924). The establishing of Egyptology as a separate science owes a great deal to another Victorian queer novelist, the openly lesbian Amelia Edwards (1831-1892).

Amelia Ann Blanford Edwards was the only child of Thomas and Alicia Edwards, a retired army officer and the daughter of an Irish barrister. Amelia was home-schooled by her mother and governesses and was a prodigious child, writing poetry and stories before she was 14 years old. She was also a very talented artist, a skill she would later utilise to illustrate her popular travel books.

Amelia’s popularity as a writer began long before her interest in Egyptology. Her fiction – novels and short stories – made her a celebrity to rival Maria Correlli (both outsold Charles Dickens). I’ll return to Amelia’s fiction writing in December, specifically her ghost stories, but for today let’s concentrate on her “Egyptian period”.

Amelia came from an era and social background in which well-educated, reasonably well-off ladies like herself would travel around Europe with a female companion. One year, 1873, she and a companion were in France during a particularly miserable wet summer, so they decided to head south to warmer climes and Egypt. Amelia was instantly entranced by the whole Egyptian culture. She sailed up the Nile with a group of fellow travellers to Abu Simbel (in its original location before being relocated block by block in the 1960s).

Amelia discovered a small chamber buried in the sand and proceeded to records its contents and draw the vivid wall paintings in her sketch book. Amelia wrote up her Egyptian experiences in published them in “A Thousands Miles Up the Nile” in 1877, containing many of her own drawings, including the one below of Abu Simbel. This book is probably the biggest best-seller she ever wrote.

As with the majority of European travellers to Egypt Amelia collected and bought many ancient artefacts, including several mummified hands. It wasn’t long, however, before she realised the danger of this popular “hobby”. In her book she wrote that many Egyptian site were being spoiled or destroyed by the actions of travellers and tourists and the neglect of local authorities.

At that time in Egypt’s history the country was in economic decline and couldn’t afford to pay for serious excavations and research. In 1882 Amelia banded together with Reginald Stewart Poole, the Curator of Coins and Medals at the British Museum, to found the Egypt Exploration Fund. Both were elected honorary joint secretaries. Donations trickled in and by January 1883 the fund was able to send its first expedition to Egypt.

One of the archaeologists to benefit from the Fund was Flinders Petrie, who would go on to become Britain’s greatest Egyptologist and founder of modern archaeological methods. He and Amelia became firm friends and in her will Amelia ensured that Petrie would be the first person to be appointed the first ever Professor of Egyptology.

The appointment has a very interesting back story. Amelia, being a woman in Victorian England, found it difficult to get support from the male-dominated academic and scientific establishment. She got no help from the British Museum other than the voluntary assistance from Reginald Poole. At the time of her death University College London was the only institution which offered and gave the same degrees to woman as it did to men. Amelia laid down in her will that £2,500 should go towards setting up a chair in Egyptology there – as long as it wasn’t held by anyone from the British Museum. Shortly before her death, when she became seriously ill, she added a clause stipulating that the post should not go to anyone over the age of 40. Flinders Petrie was 39 and the only experienced archaeologist who fit the criteria.

Apart from being hugely popular for her Egyptology, travel writing and ghost stories Amelia also enjoyed an equally hugely successful lecture tour of the USA in 1889-90. This raised a lot of money for the Egypt Exploration Fund.

Amelia spent her last years in a little village called Westbury-on-Trym with her partner and companion Ellen Drew Braysher (1804-1892). They were buried together in Henbury near Bristol, their graves later being designated Grade II listed status. Historic England, the country’s leading heritage organisation, placed the grave on their Pride of Place list of significant lgbt sites in 2016.

As well as leaving £2,500 to University College London for the chair in Egyptology Amelia also left them her personal collection of artefacts and library. They formed the basis of what is now called the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology. Obviously, it is named after Flinders Petrie, or Sir Flinders Petrie as he became, but the museum would not exist at all if Amelia Edwards hadn’t given her collection to found it. It annoys me that the museum isn’t named after her.

The Petrie Museum has long been a place I have wanted to visit. Back in 2010 it produced a special museum trail called “Beyond Isis and Osiris: Alternate Sexualities in Ancient Egypt”. Although comparatively small in area the museum has thousands of items on display and the trail picked out 14 of them that illustrate the variety of sexual and gender attitudes among the Egyptians, from their ancient gods to Alexander the Great.

The trail originated in a series of talks given in February 2008 for LGBT History Month UK by John J. Johnston, who was a teaching assistant at University College London while studying there for a PhD in Egyptology. The talks proved so popular that Johnston formed them into the “Beyond Isis and Osiris” trail. Below is a video of Johnston talking about his trai. Johnston became Vice-Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society (to which the Egypt Exploration Fund had been renamed in 1919) shortly afterwards and held the position until 2015.

Perhaps when covid restrictions are lifted and we can move around freely once more I’ll finally make it down to London and visit the museum founded by Amelia Edwards, the woman known as the Godmother of Egyptology.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 5) Tourists and Taurus

Last time on “80 More Gays”: 9) Polycrates of Samos (d.522 BC) lent his name to a psychological complex exhibited by 10) Paul Morphy (1837-1884), who played a game of chess during “Norma”, an opera which inspired 11) Marion Bradley Zimmer (1930-1999) to write an Arthurian novel, a genre popularised by the Victorians including 12) Charles Robert Ashbee (1863-1942).

12) Charles Robert Ashbee was an architect and designer though he also wrote several novels. One of these was an Arthurian Utopian fantasy, “From Whitechapel to Camelot”. Ashbee founded the Essex House Press after William Morris’s more famous Kelmscott Press closed. Many books were published by Essex House and Ashbee created the type faces called Endeavour and Prayer Book.

With William Morris Ashbee was the major player in the Arts and Crafts Movement. He established several Arts and Crafts School in London which produced furniture, jewellery and metal work.

On several occasions Ashbee was asked to design buildings. After renovating the country home of Col. Thomas Shaw-Hellier in the 1890s the colonel invited Ashbee to design and build him a villa in Taormina, a popular tourist destination on Sicily. It was especially popular with gay men.

Oscar Wilde sampled the delights of Taormina and a gay photographer, Wilhelm von Gloeden, a friend of Shaw-Hellier, spent most of his life there building up a large portfolio of photos of young male nudes. A lot of British men visits the town escaping the anti-gay-sex laws in the UK. One of them, Sir Harold Acton, once described Taormina as “a polite synonym for Sodom”.

It is assumed that Col. Shaw-Hellier was homosexual. He married very late in life (at the age of 63) and was friends with many of the gay men who visited Taormina. Charles Ashbee was certainly gay, even though he tried to uphold Victorian respectability by marrying and having four children.

The site of Shaw-Hellier’s new villa in Taormina was on the site of an old temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis. The villa was built in 1907 and became known as the Villa San Giorgio. Shaw-Hellier died in 1910 and his villa is now the Hotel Ashbee.

Ashbee and Shaw-Hellier had a mutual gay friend on Taormina, 13) Robert Hawthorn Kitson (1873-1947). Kitson had just built his own villa in the town, the Casa Cuseni, in 1905. It became a magnet for visiting celebrities – Chanel, Picasso and Garbo, amongst others. Roald Dahl is said to have got the idea for “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” when he stayed there.

Today Casa Cuseni is an Italian national monument and museum. In 2018 one of the original frescoes was “revealed” to the public as part of a tour of the town. It depicts a real event in Kitson’s life. In 1908 an earthquake hit Messina, half an hour’s drive up the coast, killing around 80,000 people and creating many orphans. Kitson and his lover, an artist called Carlo Siligato, decided to adopt one of the orphans. The depiction in the fresco is the first known example in art of gay adoption. This website includes a YouTube video which gives a detailed look at this fresco.

As mentioned earlier Charles Robert Ashbee’s villa, now the Hotel Ashbee, was built on the site of an ancient temple. So was the town’s main church. It was built on the site of a temple to a Greco-Egyptian god who was created through the deliberate merging of Isis’ husband Osiris and the chief Greek god. The new deity can be called 14) Zeus-Serapis.

Zeus-Serapis was “created” by the Ptolemys of Egypt in the 3rd century BC in an attempt to unit the Egyptians and Greek communities. It became a popular cult and lasted for 700 years and a sacred bull had an important influence on it.

In Egypt there was a cult to Apis, a sacred bull who was transformed into the god Osiris when it was sacrificed – Osiris-Apis (a name which developed into Serapis). The Ptolemys, being Greek, knew that their Greek subjects wouldn’t worship an animal god, or even a mixture of bull and man like Osiris-Apis. So they depicted the bull god in the form of their own chief god Zeus, and Zeus-Serapis was “born”.

Zeus has strong links to bulls himself, most famously in the story of Europa. I wrote about the multiple bull connections in the Europa myths in my article on Taurus back in 2012. Being immortal Zeus was actually Europa’s great-great-grandfather, she being descended from his lover Io who was transformed into a cow to keep her a secret from his wife Hera. It’s interesting to know that Zeus was also great-great-grandfather to his male lover, Ganymede.

Back to Sicily and the town of Taormina, the location of a temple to Zeus-Serapis. The town’s name actually translates roughly as “I stay with the bull”, and a mythical creature, half woman, half cow, called a bucentaur, appears in the town’s coat of arms (below) which was adopted in 1928. And the town itself sits in the shadow of Monte Tauro – Mount Taurus.

Taurus is, of course, one of the major constellations. Within the constellation is a group of stars called the Pleiades. I also wrote about them a couple of years ago, of their link to drag queens, and their connection to Dionysos, the god of wine and cross-dressing who is also known as the Bull God (there’s that animal again).

The Pleiades, representing a group of sisters, have provided the inspiration behind an initiative within astronomy aimed at improving the status and inclusion of women. There is also a set of awards which accompany the initiative called the Pleiades Awards. These was given to organisations, universities or observatories which champion female equality within astronomy.

The initiative and the awards were launched in 2014 by the Women in Astronomy Chapter of the Astronomical Society of Australia. The Chair of the chapter at the time was 15) Dr. Lisa Harvey-Smith (b.1979).

Next time of “80 More Gays”: We meet the Rainbow Serpent of the southern skies and celebrate the millennium with a centenary.

King Tut and the Mummy's Curse

Its Hallowe’en and time to scare ourselves silly with the 20th century interpretation of the many traditional global ancestor worship festivals held at this time of year. Today I’m writing about one of the most popular supernatural elements often included in 20th century Hallowe’en celebrations, the curse of the Egyptian mummy, and why we have to thank a member of the lgbt community for it.

Today the mummy’s curse has come to include that of any real or fictional Egyptian mummy but for most of the 20th century the curse was associated with one Egyptian in particular, the world famous Tutankhamun.

The fabulous treasures of Tutankhamun, not to mention the story behind its discovery, still captivates the world. A new touring exhibition of some of the treasures is currently making its way around the globe. It is being billed as the first and last chance to see these treasures outside Egypt.

The attraction of Tutankhamun is not only in the treasures and his own life story but what is alleged to have happened to those who were involved in the opening of his tomb in 1922. It didn’t take long for the media to start labelling the series of supposedly unexplained deaths as the curse of Tutankhamun. But where did that idea come from?

Curses are, of course, not a modern concept. They’ve been around for as long as humanity has. Yet none of them refer specifically to any revenge from a mummy. Even the idea of an Egyptian mummy going on the rampage to eke out its revenge wasn’t a new one in 1922.

Ever since ancient Egypt became “fashionable” during the Napoleonic era in the early 19th century there have been novels written about mummies coming alive. The first was “The Mummy!” published in 1827. Even such authors as Louisa May Alcott of “Little Women” fame tried her hand at Egyptian gothic horror in 1869 with “Lost in a Pyramid, or The Mummy’s Curse”.

The discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb sparked a revival in Egyptology. Improvements in international communications in the early 20th century made it a worldwide phenomenon. Similarly, the mummy’s curse became known worldwide, and it was after 1922 that the curse became associated with one pharaoh in particular. There were letters published in the world’s press at the time that voiced objection to the desecration of Tutankhamun’s tomb. One letter, published on 24th March 1923, stated that the Earl of Carnarvon, leader of the Tutankhamun excavation, was the victim of a curse. Carnarvon had been seriously ill just a few months after the tomb was opened. Very few people took much notice of this opinion – until the Earl of Carnarvon died two weeks later.

The press went into overdrive. They reported Carnarvon’s death as the result of the curse of Tutankhamun. Many other people on Carnarvon’s excavation team were also reported to have become victims of the curse when they died, irrespective of any proven natural cause. I won’t go into all the details but you can discover more for yourself on the internet.

Let’s return to that specific letter in 1923 which linked the mummy’s curse to Tutankhamun. It was written by the most popular novelist in Victorian England. Not Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, or even Charles Dickens, but Marie Corelli (1855-1924).

Marie was born Mary Mackay in London, the illegitimate daughter of a Scottish song-writing poet and his house servant. Mary inherited her father’s musical talents and began giving piano recitals under the more romantic name of Marie Correlli. It was under that name that she wrote dozens of novels and short stories. He novels were extremely popular, though a little melodramatic (very reminiscent of the extreme camp melodrama of television series like “Game of Thrones”).

Although Marie fell in love with a married man the love was not returned and she never fell in love with another man after that. At the time she was living with Bertha Vyver (1854-1941). They had attended school together before Bertha became housekeeper and nurse to Marie’s father. They lived together for over forty years. There’s nothing to prove a physical lesbian relationship between them, though several of Marie’s biographers have remarked that some of her novels contain many erotic descriptions of feminine beauty which they suggest may be an indication of her own bisexuality. Bertha was an inspiration to Marie and became her literary executor. After their deaths they were buried together.

What interested Marie Correlli in the mummy’s curse and Tutankhamun was her fascination for the supernatural and esoteric subjects. The Victorian era saw a growth in a variety of beliefs and practices whether it was Spiritualism or reincarnation. The mummy’s curse was just one of the supernatural beliefs that she supported.

In her letter to the press in 1923 Marie said that the illness that had descended upon the Earl of Carnarvon was foretold in a book she owned called “An Egyptian History of the Pyramids”. She claimed it described various methods the ancient Egyptians used to poison any intruder into tombs, and that a supernatural curse is implied. It didn’t matter that the book in question was mainly fiction.

To the general public and the press what Marie said was important because she was so popular. She wondered if Carnarvon’s illness was really caused by a mosquito bite (which it actually was). Carnarvon was just one of the hundreds of people who died in Cairo from an infected mosquito bite.

The press started circulating rumours of death warnings found on the walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb (there were none) and Marie Correlli confounded the issue by starting her own rumour by claiming that there was an inscription carrying the famous warning “death comes on wings to he who enters the tomb of a pharaoh” (evidence suggests she made this up herself).

But, like urban legends and modern fake news reports the public and press came to believe it as fact. They believed that the mummy’s curse and Tutankhamun’s curse in particularly were true. Those who said it wasn’t true were ridiculed and were accused of proving there was a cover-up.

And so we arrive in 2019 and the mummy’s curse and Tutankhamun still has a mysteriously strange grip on society, thanks in no small part to Marie Correlli, a bisexual best-selling Victorian novelist.


I’m having another short break now. I’ll be back on 15th November.

Urban Spacemen?

After the depressingly dark heritage of the swastika last week we need something more uplifting to read. So, how about an openly gay archaeologist who uncovered Europe’s oldest urban settlement, a site so old and relatively more advanced than anything else in that period that some people think it was built by aliens! Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Hardly.

The archaeological site of Lepenski Vir was discovered in August 1960 in what is now Serbia, which was part of Yugoslavia. Very little excavation was undertaken, probably because the Communist government of Yugoslavia had very little interest in financing it. It was only when they decided to build a hydroelectric power station and dam that would flood the area that archaeologists began to push for funding for a proper excavation before it was lost forever.

After a survey of the site and initial investigations were carried out it was discovered that it seemed to be a sizeable settlement which could date back about 5,500 years. The subsequent report that was submitted to the Belgrade Institute for Archaeology in 1961 intrigued one of the academics there. His name was Dr. Dragolav Srejović (1931-1996).

Dragoslav was born in the city of Kragujevac though he had little love for the place. He sought escape from his miserable childhood by immersing himself in art, theatre, a love of Church ceremonial and Greek mythology.

After leaving school he developed tuberculosis and spent over a year in hospital. During this period he recognised his homosexual feelings. He fell in love with one of his friends, the only friend who visited him in hospital. Dragoslav’s illness prevented him from having any sort of physical relationship and it ended when his boyfriend decide to enter the homophobic League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia.

After his recovery from tuberculosis Dragoslav went to study archaeology in Belgrade. He became an assistant in the Department of Archaeology at the Faculty of Philosophy. In 1964 he earned his doctorate with a thesis on Stone Age anthropomorphic sculptures in Yugoslavia. By the time the report on Lepenski Vir arrived at the Institute of Archaeology Dragoslav was an assistant professor.

Funding for a proper excavation of Lepinski Vir was obtained and Dragoslav and his team began work there on 6th August 1965. It was believed that the site dated back to the Starčevo Culture which flourished in Serbia along the River Danube from about 5,500 BC for a thousand years at the end of the Mesolithic Age.

After two years Dragoslav came down to a layer which proved to be truly ancient and threw back the age of the site another thousand years. Sculptures were found which could be dated even earlier than the Starčevo Culture. These were the oldest sculptures known in Europe.

What was even more astonishing was the number of dwellings that were discovered. In total 136 buildings were identified during the whole five years of the excavation. Even assuming that only half of them were inhabited, each by a family of two parents and one child, the settlement at Lepenski Vir would have had a larger population than any other known settlement from the same period in Europe.

What makes Lepenski Vir even more historically significant is that most of the dwellings were arranged so that their entrances all faced a central open area. This meant they were planned. It was not the sporadic spread of dwellings that is found in the early settlements of the Mesolithic Age but were deliberately arranged. This makes Lepenski Vir the first known incident of “urban planning” in Europe.

Also on the site was a necropolis where the community placed their dead. The bones of the dead provided enough DNA to be analysed in more recent years. It was found that these first “town-dwellers” had mixed European and Asia Minor ancestry. This has led to the theory that migrants from the first agricultural communities in Asia Minor travelled along the Danube and interbred with the local Europeans. This could be the reason why Lepenski Vir became the first “town”. The Europeans had previously been hunter-gatherers with no real settled location. The migrants from Asia Minor introduced permanent settlements.

There’s a marvellous article giving a more detailed explanation of the significance of this site on the “Discover” magazine website here.

Once the excavations were completed in 1970 the whole site was flooded by the construction of the hydroelectric power station and dam. Dragoslav Srejovič had discovered enough at Lepenski Vir for the whole site to be considered of global importance and, just like Abu Simbel in Egypt, the whole site was moved to higher ground as a means of preservation.

That’s where Lepenski Vir is situated today and you can visit it for yourself. Even though it’s not on its original location it still remains an impressive site with remains of buildings and remarkable little statues.

Dragoslav Srejovič received several honours and awards for his work at Lepenski Vir. He followed this up with further archaeological projects, the most important of which was the excavation of a half-forgotten imperial Roman palace and spa at Gamzigrad not far south of Lepenski Vir. The site had been excavated before but was virtually ignored after the 1950s once the Communists took over the country. Dragolsav brought Gamzigrad back into the archaeological world with new excavations and research. He is credited with being the person responsible for Gamzigrad gaining UNESCO World Heritage status in 2007. Lepenski Vir has yet to receive this status, partly due to it not being on its original site.

Dr. Dragoslav Srejovič at Lepenski Vir sitting beside one of the many sculptures found on the site.

Dragoslav was often annoyed at the way some people interpreted his discoveries at Lepenski Vir. Which is where the aliens come in.

Because the technology, sculptural style and social organisation of Lepenski Vir was so far advanced compared to the rest of Europe some people began to claim that it could only have been made possible by the arrival of aliens to the site (despite there being equally advanced settlements in Asia).

These people found it hard to accept that humans could be so advanced that far back in time without alien intervention. They even named their fake alien race the Lepensians. Several prominent ufologists and alien visitation specialists such as Eric von Daniken supported the various claims. As recently as 2007 ufologists were reporting a triangular formation of “lights in the sky” moving towards Lepenski Vir.

Even though the alien visitation idea is, to me, a load of crap, I have to admit that its adds an extra layer of fascination to the whole site. However, as a historian I hope that Lepenski Vir will never turn into a place of pilgrimage for ufologists and alien hunters. I’m sure Dragolav Srejovič would have thought so as well.