The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7175 p760
24 November 2001

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Light on ancient art [more]
Preservation for eternity [more]
Civilisation on trial [more]

Light on ancient art

In the Cussac cave in the valley of the Dordogne human remains have been discovered that are probably contemporaneous with a series of engravings of animals and human beings etched on the cavern walls. There can be no guarantee, of course, that the remains are those of the artists themselves, but it is thought that they may offer a clue to the cave's oldest inhabitants or visitors and why the cave held a special significance for them.

According to a report published in Science for 5 October, experts believe that this is the first discovery of a collection of human skeletons deep in a decorated cave that offers no evidence of being occupied on a permanent basis. The cave itself was discovered in September 2000 but kept secret until July.

The decorations depict fantasy animals with deformed heads and gaping mouths, and a striking female profile, and have been assigned to the Gravettian period of human prehistory on the basis of their stylistic similarity to other dated cave art. On this reckoning they are 22,000 to 28,000 years old.

Skeletons of four or five adults and one adolescent were retrieved from hollows in the floor of the cave, and the bones are being investigated by radiocarbon examination. One bone sample yielded a date of 25,120 years plus or minus 120 years, which places it firmly within the Gravettian period, but conclusive results have not yet been reported from two more samples.

Archaeologists from the National Centre for Prehistory in Périgueux are undertaking the excavation of the burials, including stone tools and other artefacts and also the engravings on the walls. Unless the excavators discover artists' materials ceremonially buried alongside the skeletons, they can only speculate on the connection between the human remains and the artwork. The humans might have been the artists or the guardians placed in the cave to defend it against defilement. Alternatively, they might have been criminals so feared that they were isolated from their neighbours and placed under the guard of the spirits depicted.

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Preservation for eternity

Two contributions to Nature for 25 October report investigations into some of the natural substances used by the ancient Egyptians in embalming the bodies of their dead. In the past we have been handicapped by the need to avoid taking too many samples of mummified persons and thus destroying valuable archaeological evidence. Today much is being learned through techniques that employ little material and are almost non-destructive. It has been found that the Egyptian embalmers had recourse to a far wider variety of natural products than used to be recognised. As preservatives, cheap and readily available plant essential oils and animal fats were used, sometimes incorporating more costly and exotic resins and fragrances when the expense was no serious obstacle.

It was essential, in the Egyptian mind, that the physical body and its attendant spirit be protected from decay and be perpetuated in a physically recognisable form. Only by this means could existence in an after-life be assured. Accordingly, the embalmers took care to remove parts of the body liable to swift putrefaction, such as intestines, liver, lungs and stomach, and treated the residue with salts, resins, oils, myrrh, cassia, gums, honey and sometimes bitumen. Tomb robbers and collectors were a force in depriving us of much knowledge, and some mummies were even ground up to make medicines by their descendants. It was inevitable that steps be taken to develop special analytical techniques requiring only traces of material, such as gas chromatography and mass spectrometry.

The use of resins and beeswax shows an increase in later mummies, indicating that conifer resins, wood pitch, essential oils and animal fats were achieving greater recognition as preservatives. There are considerable doubts over the status and source of bitumen, which came to be used more freely during the early Roman period in Egypt. Why cedar wood oil came to be valued above juniper wood oil remains obscure, but it may have been determined by relative cost rather than preservative potency.

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Civilisation on trial

Civilisation is a concept that is almost impossible to define. Indeed, James Boswell tells us that Samuel Johnson, while compiling his celebrated dictionary in 1772, remarked that he could not include civilisation but only civility. To which Boswell replied: "With great deference to him, I thought civilisation from to civilise better in the sense opposed to barbarity than civility." Chambers' Etymological Dictionary of 1882 defined civilisation as "the state of being civilised", which is no help to anyone. The Oxford English Dictionary did better in defining civilisation as an ''advanced stage or system of social development."

Despite conceptual difficulties, many writers have criticised or praised this mysterious quality. Thomas Babington Macaulay in 1843 claimed that "As civilisation advances, poetry almost necessarily declines", thus implying that civilisation is the enemy of imagination.

G. M. Trevelyan remarked in 1942 that the life-blood of a real civilisation is disinterested intellectual curiosity, thus identifying it with science. Bertrand Russell in 'The conquest of happiness' (1930) was optimistic in his view that "To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation." Benjamin Disraeli in 1872 claimed: "Increased means and increased leisure are the two civilisers of man."

Then there have been the down-to-earth commentators. The mathematician Alfred North Whitehead claimed in 1911 that "Civilisation advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them". The American president Calvin Coolidge was typically blunt when in 1920 he said: "Civilisation and profits go hand in hand." Thomas Carlyle was cynical when in 1828 he wrote: "The three great elements of modern civilisation are Gunpowder, Printing and the Protestant Religion."

When we look around at the world today we might well wonder what our own civilisation, or culture, means to us. We see unlimited injustice, violence and greed ruling the world, and our politicians defending their role in promoting these evils. We see fanaticism guiding ever larger sections of society and stimulating contrary fanaticisms that render the lives of millions of citizens a continuing nightmare. Perhaps we should sober ourselves by reflecting that other civilisations and cultures of which our ancestors were part have perished and passed into the history books. We might gain comfort from the reflection of the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, who wrote in 1930: "Civilisation is nothing more than the effort to reduce the use of force to the last resort." Those who wield power in our global civilisation would do well to ponder those wise words before it is too late.

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