Unruly History in the News #36

Hey folks,

News is kind of light on the ground this week, so it’s going to be a short one this time. I guess everyone was too worried about the looming government shutdown, at least in the US, to publish anything.

This week, in history acting unruly…

• A 16-year-old has been arrested in connection with this week’s felling of the famous 300-year-old ‘Sycamore Gap Tree’ near Hadrian’s Wall. The tree was famous in part because it was featured in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, though it is also just an iconic feature of the landscape.

  

  Photographed this past June, the tree is possibly the most photographed tree in the UK. Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images

• In good news, a stunning 16th-century Turkish bath has been reopened in Istanbul. Not only will it have a bathing section, but it will also feature a museum.

• Extensive video of three sunk aircraft carriers tells us more about how the Battle of Midway turned the tides of World War II. The videos were made possible by the Ocean Exploration Trust.

• Why do toxic histories get hidden—especially ones that still impact us today?

• Evidence suggests that the first American cowboys may have been enslaved Africans. DNA from cattle shows that cattle was brought to the US on slave ships in addition to enslaved people, and the enslaved people were responsible for herding them.

• These life-size camel drawings discovered in Saudi Arabia’s Nafud desert are a huge mystery to the archaeologists who uncovered them. They are at a remote site called Sahout, which has been named before but barely explored.

  

  White lines have been drawn (virtually!) to help viewers see the carvings of camels at Sahout. Image credit: Maria Guagnin, et al

• Manhattan’s Tenement Museum has reopened to visitors after a year-long restoration. The museum focuses on the everyday lives of working people in the 19th and early 20th centuries, like “recreations of the apartments that once housed garment factory worker Ramonita Rivera Saez, a single Puerto Rican mother who lived with her two sons at 103 Orchard Street, and German immigrants John and Caroline Schneider, who ran a saloon at 97 Orchard Street.”

• The largest Roman cemetery found in Gaza has been uncovered with dozens of graves, including two rare lead sarcophagi. This is an incredibly important find as the history of the Gaza Strip is not as understood as we’d like, and ongoing warfare in the area has led to the destruction of many archaeological and historical sites.

• Two gorgeous Celtic necklaces have been discovered in Spain. They’re at least 2,500 years old and tell us about the Celtic people who lived there before the Romans pushed them out.

This intact gold torc was discovered in northwest Spain in August 2023. Image source: Archaeological Museum of Asturias.