Buried Alive?

There has been a lot of speculation over the centuries concerning the death of Alexander the Great (d.323 BC), perhaps the world’s most successful lgbt emperor. In recent years the question has centred round the possibility that he may have been buried alive. The truth is much more horrific.

The manner and cause of Alexander’s death have been theorised for centuries based on the few records that have survived. One popularly believed cause of death can be dismissed immediately. Alexander did not died from intense grief after the death of his lover Hephaestion in 324BC. He showed no signs of grief in the days before his death. In fact he partied for days, as he often did before and after Hephaestion died.

The historical accounts don’t tell us very much, or at least not enough for us to name a definitive cause of death. The symptoms recorded in the decades and centuries after his death have been interpreted as being due to many different ailments. Here is a short list of those that have been suggested: liver disease caused by alcoholism, typhoid, malaria, pancreatitis, leukaemia, arsenic poisoning, and strychnine poisoning (these last two suggesting murder).

One particularly rare condition which was suggested is Guillain-Barré Syndrome, or GBS. This is a condition that affects the nervous system. It causes a gradual paralysis of muscles and very often reduces the heart rate and breathing.

I think the first suggestion that Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) may have played a part in Alexander’s death came in a paper called “A Mysterious Death” presented to the Historical Clinopathological Conference 1996 at the University of Maryland. Its authors, three doctors at the university and one from Pennsylvania State University, suggested that Alexander died of typhoid “complicated by bowel perforation and ascending paralysis”. They interpreted this paralysis as a symptom of GBS. They didn’t say explicitly that GBS was responsible for Alexander’s death, but it was enough for others to latch on to and develop the suggestion further.

What later commentators have theorised is that because GBS causes paralysis Alexander the Great was still alive when he was examined by his physicians and pronounced dead.

In ancient times physicians didn’t know about the circulation of blood and didn’t check anyone’s pulse to see if they were alive. They relied on a person’s breathing, and GBS slows down the breathing rate to a point where it is virtually undetectable. Naturally, this has led to sensationalised click-baiting headlines across the media (like those shown below, and, I suppose, the title I gave above!) saying that Alexander was buried alive. This is not the case, but one implication of the GBS diagnosis means that Alexander suffered from what I think is a worse fate.

There are no surviving documents form Alexander’s time that tell us exactly how he died or what he died from. But there are fragments of the Ephemerides of Alexander, which are royal journals written at the time. These formed the basis of later biographies of Alexander by writers such as the Roman historian Quintus Curtius Rufus, and the Greek philosopher Plutarch, both of the 1st century.

Quintus Curtius Rufus describes how Alexander’s body didn’t start to putrefy for six days despite the heat of the Mesopotamian summer (Alexander died in Babylon). Plutarch writes that embalmers were brought from Egypt to preserve Alexander’s body while preparations were made for his burial in Egypt. The embalmers, who arrived six days after the emperor’s death, remarked how lifelike his body still appeared. So, if Alexander did suffer from GBS brought on by something like typhoid he may have been conscious for most of those 6 days.

I hope for his sake that he wasn’t, because I’m sure you’re aware of the methods Egyptians used to embalm bodies. The body was drained of blood, the brain was pulled out of the skull through the nose, and the lungs, stomach, liver and intestines were cut out. Then the body was placed in a salt called nitron for 40 days to remove all moisture, and then wrapped in bandages. Imagine being fully conscious and unable to move or speak as you experienced your blood being drained from your body.

Another ancient story says that Alexander’s body was preserved in honey until it could be buried. This implies that Alexander, if he had GBS and was still alive, drowned in honey.

But this is all speculation. No-one has come up with proof of the exact cause of Alexander’s death, and without examination of his bodily remains (which haven’t been found) we probably never will. All we can say after thinking about what could have happened is Rest In Peace.

What a Way To Go!

The covid pandemic has made a lot of us think about death more often, especially, as in my case, close members of your family have passed away in the last twelve months. Most of us hope for a peaceful and painless death but some are less fortunate. Some of the most horrific deaths have been caused by war, murder or natural accident. The lgbt community still suffers murderous attacks because of our genders and sexual identities.

There’ll never be an appropriate time to ignore death and it’s more ironic and unusual causes, those that are so weird, bizarre or unique that they stand out. No doubt you’ve heard of the Darwin Awards. Named after Charles Darwin these are imaginary awards given to people who, through their own mistakes, have removed themselves from the human gene pool permanently.

Below are examples of unusual causes of deaths in the lgbt community. Not all of them qualify for a Darwin Award but are no less notable. With one exception I am excluding murders and suicides that were deliberate or premeditated.

Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St. Alban (1561-1626) – statesman, scientist and philosopher. Perhaps Bacon’s death is one of the most famous Darwin Awards, despite it being questioned in recent years. It was Bacon’s scientific curiosity that led to his demise. On a cold and snowy afternoon in March 1626 Bacon was riding in his carriage just outside London when he had an idea. Could snow preserve meat? So, he stopped the carriage and obtained a dead chicken for a nearby household (most people kept chickens in those days) and began stuffing and packing it with snow. I suppose he took the chicken back home with him to observe the effects, but he never got to find out if he was right. He caught a chill which soon developed into bronchitis and he died about a week later.

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687) – French composer, pioneer of modern opera and military bands. Lully was Master of the King’s Music to Louis XIV of France. In those days the conductor of an orchestra didn’t wave a baton around. They kept time by tapping a staff on the floor (orchestras were quite small in those days so musicians could easily see and hear the staff tapping). This staff evolved into the big ornamental staffs that leaders of marching bands carry today. In late 1686 King Louis XIV recovered from surgery and Lully decided to celebrate by organising a performance of his “Te Deum”. During a rehearsal he stabbed himself in the foot with his conducting staff. Blood poisoning and gangrene set in and he died. This cause of death, like that of Sir Francis Bacon’s, has been questioned in recent years.

Arrhichion (d.564 BC) – Olympic champion in the sport of pankration, a mixture of boxing and wrestling in which virtually anything goes. Arrhichion was a native of the city of Phigalia. Like all ancient Greek athletes he would undoubtedly have become the boy-lover of an older athlete during his training and took a boy-lover of his own when he got older. At the 52nd Olympic Games in 572 BC he became champion for the first time. He successfully defended his title at the next games and was hot favourite to win it three times in a row. He made it to his third Olympic final in 564 BC. His opponent, whose name we don’t know, got the upper hand in the final round. He wrapped his legs around Arrhichion and put him in a strangle hold. Arrhichion managed to free one of his legs and trapped his opponent’s foot behind his knee. He twisted his leg so sharply that his opponent was in so much agony that he surrendered. Arrhichion had won his third title. Unfortunately, by this time he had lost consciousness due to the strangle hold and died. The victor’s wreath was placed on his dead body. Incidentally, the oldest known statue of an Olympic champion is believed to be of Arrhichion. It is currently on display at the museum at Olympia.

Tiberius, Emperor of Rome (42 BC- 37 AD) died twice – sort of. This is the exception to my “no premeditated murder” rule. Despite being emperor he lived his final years in semi-retirement at his villa on Capri. There he allegedly trained young boys to nibble at bits of him when he went swimming! He was an old man by this time, and as he was approaching his 78th birthday he began to show signs that he was dying. Courtiers gathered around his bed and watched him breathe his last breath. At the villa was Caligula and the courtiers wasted no time in proclaiming him the new emperor. Meanwhile, Tiberius began to revive! Reports of what happened next vary but they all agree on one thing. To ensure that Caligula was the legal emperor someone smothered Tiberius with his own bedclothes. This time they made sure he was dead.

Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) was an Italian satirist, playwright, blackmailer and self-proclaimed sodomite. He was once described as the Father of Pornographic Literature. His death, like that of Tiberius, has several variations but the ultimate cause is the same in all of them. One account says that he was at a party hosted by his sister when someone told a very risqué or rude joke. Pietro laughed so much that he couldn’t breathe. He fell backwards off his chair and smashed his head on the floor. Whether is was his inability to breathe or his head smashing on the floor that caused his death at least he died with a smile on his face.

The same cannot be said of Isadora Duncan (1877-1727), the bisexual American dancer and dance teacher whose death is one of the most well-known in the theatrical world. She was staying in the south of France and accepted a lift in an open-topped car. One of her friends advised her to put on a coat because the evening was a bit chilly, but Isadora refused, preferring instead to wear a long scarf. As the car sped away the flowing end of the scarf got caught in the spokes of a rear wheel and yanked Isadora from the back seat, throwing her onto the road, breaking her neck.

I’m sure none of us would like to endure these death, except perhaps Pietro Aretino’s. The world will never be short of unusual deaths as long as there is an infinite number of possibilities of passing away. I hope I “meet my maker” in the same manner as my grandfather – peacefully in bed at the age of 101.

Transgender Dragons

Now and again there’s a report in the media which raises questions about gender determination – not in humans but in animals. In December there were reports that a lizard in an Australian aquarium had changed from female to male at the beginning of last year and scientists don’t know how or why.

Gender switching is not uncommon outside our hominid family. In fact it is well documented among reptiles and fish, including lizards and even crocodiles. Several years ago I wrote about gender-switching in chickens which may have led to the origin of stories about the legendary creature the basilisk or cockatrice. The gender determination process in lizards is similar, especially in several species that are named after another legendary creature, the dragon.

Like chickens and birds lizards’ chromosomes are given the names ZZ, which normally indicates a male lizard, and ZW, which normally indicates a female lizard. High environmental temperatures seem to trigger a sex change in embryos in pre-hatched eggs. It is the temperature of the eggs that determines whether the ZZ embryo of a male lizard develops into a female before it hatches. These female lizards with ZZ male chromosomes are even capable of producing normal offspring, all of them normal ZZ males.

In 2015 this type of gender determination was studied in a species of lizard called the central bearded dragon. This dragon lives in the tropical regions of Australia and despite their monstrous name they are no bigger than a domestic cat. Researchers found that around 10% of the dragons they examined were females with ZZ male chromosomes and no ZW female chromosomes. It was the first time that genetic gender differences of these lizards had been found in the wild.

But what is puzzling biologists is that one species of lizard closely related to the central bearded dragon called the Boyd’s forest dragon has unexpectedly changed sex from female to male in adulthood. The dragon in question lives in the Sea Life aquarium in Melbourne, where she had been given the name Doris.

Doris had lived as the aquarium for the past 6 years and has laid many eggs and produced many young. She lived in a tropical forest exhibit with two other Boyd’s forest dragons, a male and a female. Sadly the male dragon, called Old Mate, died in 2019 and the two female dragons were transferred to a new tropical exhibit in early 2020. Shortly afterwards Doris began exhibiting behaviour that was not typical for her gender. She began to eat regularly. Female Boyd’s forest dragon’s usually only binge eat in one short period prior to laying eggs, but Doris was eating like a male dragon. Then Doris started to change skin colour and develop a more prominent crest and she began to grow larger, just like a male dragon.

Doris the Boyd’s forest dragon.
Photo from the Sea Life Aquarium’s Facebook page.

These changes were noticeable to the aquarium staff particularly the reptile keeper Tom Fair (who is openly gay, by the way, but that’s not relevant to this story). The animals at the aquarium are given a medical check regularly and during one of them Tom took Doris to the aquarium vet. An ultrasound confirmed that Doris was a female dragon. Ovaries and underdeveloped eggs were detected. Then, a month later at the next check Doris was given another ultrasound. This time there were no ovaries and no eggs, and instead Doris had developed testicles. Doris was now a male dragon.

Scientists are both mystified and sceptical. Adult reptiles had not been known to change gender before. As explained above sex changed has only been found in embryos in unhatched eggs. The only other species known to change sex in adulthood is the clownfish (yes, the same fish as Marlin in “Finding Nemo” – I wonder if Disney will ever make a sequel about Marlin as an adult suddenly changes sex. I doubt it – you know how prudish the American are on these subjects).

There are several tentative theories about how Doris (I suppose we should start calling him Boris now) changed gender. A lot of research and observation will have to be done before any proper theory can be formulated. Over a year later scientists are no nearer to providing an answer. Until we know for sure that Doris won’t or can’t change back he goes down in history as the world’s first transgender dragon.

Star-Gayzing: Thrilled

In June I was contacted by Ruth Anderson, a staff writer at Thrillist, the culture and lifestyle website, about my Star-Gayzing articles. Ruth was writing an article for Thrillist about the relationship between the lgbt community and the cosmos. She was “absolutely fascinated” by my posts and asked if I could help with providing some insight into my relationship to astronomy. I was asked how I became interested in astronomy, what lgbt figures have influenced science, and what facts I would like to share.

What resulted was this article.

Whenever I’m asked to provide information I make sure I give more than may be required. It all depends on what the article’s writer needs and what their angle on the subject happens to be. Providing too much is better than providing too little is what I always say. I was delighted with the article and thank Ruth for the opportunity to tell people about myself.

What follows is the information I provided to Ruth, with a few additions. You can find many of the people mentioned below on this blog – put the name in the search box.

I was fortunate to be raised in a rural village where there was virtually no light pollution and my family often went outside in the winter evenings to look at the stars. I remember us all going out to look at Halley’s Comet when I came around last time. Unfortunately, I now live in Nottingham city centre and see very little, and didn’t get to see Comet NEOWISE this summer.

Stargazing with my family got me interested in the planets and from there I became interested in the asteroids. I remember copying out a list of asteroids from an encyclopedia when I was about 8. I was also fascinated by the stories and legends behind the planets and constellations and that got me interested in Greek and Roman mythology.

Most modern lgbt scientists work with many non-lgbt colleagues and their work is often a team effort. In the past scientists tended to work alone and, as with every other scientist that came up with a new theory, were often met with opposition or even ridicule from fellow scientists.

Perhaps the earliest example is Parmenides of Elea from the 5th century BC. He was the first to suggest that space was infinite and not the inside of a crystal sphere with stars attached to it. He also suggested that the Earth was spherical (Pythagoras is often claimed to be the first to suggest this but there’s no real evidence he did). Nobody took Parmenides seriously. Both of his theories were championed after his death by his former boy-lover Zeno of Elea.

Many centuries later Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), ex-priest, mathematician and spy (under the code-name Henri Fagot), expanded Parmenides theory by saying that in an infinite universe there’s an infinite number of planets inhabited by humans. Bruno was executed for heresy. Anti-Christian propaganda claims this is proof of the Church’s opposition to science and its homophobia, but Bruno wasn’t executed because of his science or sexuality. The Church accepted the existence of infinite space and planets. Bruno was executed because he said that these planets meant there was an infinite number of Christs, and the Church taught that there was only one. Effectively, the Church said that inhabitants of other planets are not human, which is just what scientists began to say 300 years after them.

The famous Copernicus didn’t believe in an infinite universe. He still believed that the stars were attached to spheres like everyone else. His theory of a Sun-centred solar system wasn’t new, he just used more maths to perfect the model, and he didn’t think scientists would be interested in reading about something they already knew. However, his protégé, Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574), a professor who made my life hell by developing trigonometry, disagreed. After being sentenced to exile from Leipzig for having sex with a male student Rheticus visited Copernicus. He persuaded Copernicus to publish his work, otherwise nobody would ever have heard of Copernicus.

There’s an interesting side-story to Copernicus. Someone once discussed Copernicus with the gay philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The person mocked the people of Copernicus’s time for believing that the Sun went around the Earth, to which Wittgenstein replied “Yes, but what would it have looked like if the Sun DID go round the Earth?” His point being that it would look exactly the same. What people, and scientists, believed before the discovery of the movements of the planets around the Sun didn’t make them stupid.

Below are some discoveries made by lgbt scientists in astronomy. They may not be well-known but they are significant in the field of astronomy.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and the nature of rainbows.

Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer discovered the first brown dwarf star.

Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Jessica Mink discovered the rings around the planet Uranus.

Dr. Martin Lo discovered the gravitational highways through the solar system that make the voyages of interplanetary probes and satellites quicker and shorter.

Sir Arthur Eddington proved Einstein’s theory that gravity bends light during a total eclipse in 1919.

Dr. Nergis Mavalvala proved Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves.

Dr. Franck Marchis and Dr. Mike Wong discovered the first double asteroid. Both have since discovered many other asteroids and even the first moons around asteroids.

Dr. James Pollack’s study of dust storms on Mars led to research into climate change on Earth. His team came up with the term “nuclear winter”.

Dr. Lisa Harvey Smith was the first lead scientist on the construction of the Square Kilometre Array telescope, which will be the largest Earth-bound international telescope array when completed.

Dr. Andrew Chael was one of the scientists who worked on the first photo of a black hole that was released last year.

Dr. Jeremy Bailin discovered that the warp of our Milky Way galaxy was caused by the gravitational pull of the Sagittarius Galaxy as it passed us billions of years ago.

Dr. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, and the first of only two lgbt astronauts. She went on two shuttle missions and led the investigations into the two shuttle disasters.

In 132 the Roman Emperor Hadrian created a constellation in memory of his dead lover Antinous. After 1786 a constellation was created in memory of the gay German emperor Frederick the Great. Both constellations have since been split up and their stars reassigned to other constellations.

Thousands of asteroids and planetary features throughout the solar system have been named after members of the lgbt community, from craters on Mercury to mountains on Venus, and from asteroids to moons of Jupiter.

Many openly lgbt astronomers are involved in outreach work, popularising astronomy, and working in public planetaria. There is also an increasing number of openly lgbt students who are registering on lgbt science and university “out lists”, and there are many lgbt astronomy professors.

Several meteorites were worshipped as gods, and their priests were often third gender, intersex or eunuch. Perhaps the most famous third gender priests were the Three Wise Men or Three Kings who followed a star from the east in the Christmas story.

Speaking of Christmas, a Swedish theologian and historian called Nils Vilhelm Ljungberg (1818-1872) was the first to take an astronomical approach to calculating the year Christ was born. Using ancient chronologies, records of eclipses, and star and planetary charts he came up with the date of 1st October 7 BC. It’s the date that is still often quoted today.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 17) Going South

Last time of “80 More Gays”: 44) Jack Larson (1928-2015) was the co-star of the 1950s television series about Superman, who was revitalised with the 1978 film for which 34) Neal Pozner (1955-1994) designed a promotional magazine before redesigning Aquaman, a superhero from Atlantis whose supernatural culture was a vital influence on the Theosophical belief of 46) Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934), and a continent that was proven not to exist in the Atlantic by geomagnetic evidence provided by 47) Allan Cox (1926-1987).

47) Allan Cox is one of the scientists who proved that continental drift existed. Very few other scientists believed in it at the time, despite evidence dating back 50 years. In an article I wrote back in 2013 called “Rock Solid Couple” I mentioned that Allan Cox was lucky to be mentored by one of the few scientists in the 1950s who believed in continental drift. Looking back on that article I don’t think I properly explained the process, but Allan proved that the changing magnetism preserved in rock proved that the earth’s crust was splitting apart. Once scientists began to realise that Allan and other continental drift supporters might be on to something they began research into plate tectonics.

Before Cox published his research palaeontologists had long recognised that fossils of the same species of animal were found on opposite sides of the Atlantic. Originally they believed there was an ancient intercontinental landmass over which the animals travelled which had long since been submerged, not unlike Atlantis (thus science suggesting its possible existence).

The evidence of plant species evolving on continents that may once have been connected was suggested by a British botanist called 48) Elke Mackenzie (1911-1990). Although not explicitly expressed Mackenzie noted that the same species of lichens existed on different continents in her 1942 doctoral thesis which dealt with lichens from the Antarctic and South Atlantic. Her massive contribution to the study of lichens is marked in the botanical names of several species that are named after her, including Buella lambii and Verrucaria Mackenzie-lambii.

You’ll notice that these species are called “lambii”. This is because they were named before Elke began to transition to female in 1971. She was baptised Ivan Mackenzie Lamb. During her career Elke was Assistant Keeper at the British Natural History Museum, Professor of Cryptogamic (i.e. spore-reproducing) Botany at the National Institute of Tucumán (Argentina), and Director of the Farlow Herbarium of Cryptogamic Botany at Harvard, among other appointments. Elke retired from her Harvard post in 1973 and turned to translating German botanical texts. She died of Lou Gehrig’s disease in 1983.

Elke’s work on lichens could fill several articles but it is her Antarctic studies which takes us on our next path of connections.

During World War II there were fears that Nazi u-boats were targeting shipping in the southern hemisphere. The British government were also worried that there were signs that neutral Argentina was sending ships to uninhabited South Atlantic islands that were recognised in international law as British territories.

The British response was to launch a secret expedition to reassert British sovereignty of those territories, disguising it behind a real scientific research expedition called Operation Tabarin. The ship had a crew of 27 Canadian Arctic seaman, and among the handful of scientists was botanist Elke Mackenzie. Once in the South Atlantic Operation Tabarin proceeded to establish bases on several islands to deter Argentine settlement, carrying out their scientific research all the time. Elke wrote a book about the operation and her part it in called “The Secret South”.

Operation Tabarin succeeded in deterring Argentinian reprisals for the time being, but once the war was over Argentina and Chile signed a defence agreement over Antarctic land claims. From Operation Tabarin came the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey, now called the British Antarctic Survey.

Antarctica (the continental ice shelf) showing the disputed territories. The area within the pie segment is the British Antarctic Territory. The area in pink is the region claimed by Chile, and area in red in claimed by both Chile and Argentina

Those of us who live in the UK are constantly aware of the dispute over territorial claims in the South Atlantic, most famously over the Falkland Islands, or Malvinas as the South Americans call them. The legal and historical roots of this dispute are themselves debated, and I won’t go into them here. But the dispute is very much alive. Just seven weeks ago the Argentine government proposed new measures to protect and enforce their territorial claims to the Falklands and British South Atlantic and Antarctic possessions. One of the initiatives is the establishing of a National Advisory Council of Malvinas Policy. A member of that council is the current provincial governor whose area covers the Falklands/Malvinas, Argentina’s first openly gay governor 49) Gustavo Mellela (b.1970).

Gustavo Mellela’s full title (in English) is Governor of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the Southern Atlantic Islands. Although this province is the least populated in Argentina it covers the largest area, the majority of it being in the Atlantic Ocean. Its Antarctic territory covers most of the British Antarctic Territory (the rest is claimed by Chile, who also claims most of the Argentine territory).

Gustavo is not the first openly gay governor in that particular part of the world. In 2016-17 the Commissioner (governor) of the British Antarctic Territory was John Kittmer, also openly gay.

Gustavo Melella was elected Governor of Tierra del Fuego in June 2019, taking up office in December. He didn’t run for office as an openly gay candidate, and came out publicly shortly afterwards. He had previously been Mayor of Rio Grande.

I don’t think Gustavo has a very high opinion of us Brits. In 2014 when he was Mayor of Rio Grande he signed a twinning agreement with Algeciras, the city which faces Gibraltar across the Bay of Gibraltar. Now, I’m sure you’re aware that Gibraltar is another British possession. In a very undiplomatic move Gustavo signed the twinning agreement on the anniversary of the 1982 Argentine occupation of the Falklands.

Until Gustavo came out publicly a year ago the most recent openly gay provincial or state governor was the Governor of Colorado in the USA, 50) Jared Polis (b.1975).

Next time on “80 More Gays”: We discover that being in the governor’s mansion is truly iconic, which leads us to some really smashing Byzantines.