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3 - How has climate responded to natural perturbations?
- Edited by Sarah E. Cornell, I. Colin Prentice, Macquarie University, Sydney, Joanna I. House, University of Bristol, Catherine J. Downy, European Space Agency
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- Understanding the Earth System
- Published online:
- 05 November 2012
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- 09 August 2012, pp 72-101
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Summary
In this chapter, we describe and explain some of the patterns observed in the behaviour of Earth’s climate system. We explain some of the causes of the climate’s natural variability, setting contemporary climate change in its longer-term context. We describe the various lines of evidence about climate forcing and the feedbacks that determine the responses to perturbations, and the way in which reconstructions of past climates can be used in combination with models and contemporary observations of change.
Introduction
Human activity is creating a major perturbation to the Earth, directly affecting the composition of the atmosphere, and the nature of the land surface . These direct effects are expected in turn to cause impacts on numerous aspects of the Earth: regional climates , the distribution of ice and vegetation types, and perhaps the circulation of the oceans. Numerous interactions within the Earth system must be understood to enable prediction of the effects of the imposed changes. Models used for prediction are underpinned by a physical understanding of the climate. Aspects of these models are generally tuned to the Earth we experience today, but it is their representation of Earth’s response to change that really interests us.
By observing the Earth, both directly in the present and indirectly in the past, we learn about processes and feedbacks that models need to represent; and we can test whether the real Earth has responded to perturbations with the speed and magnitude that our models display. The ultimate goal is to use such observations to test models quantitatively, and to calibrate some of their less-constrained parameters. This goal cannot be fully realized unless we have knowledge of both the perturbation and the spatial pattern and magnitude of the response. This chapter concentrates on observations of how the Earth’s climate has responded to perturbations in the past.
Contributors
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- By Rose Teteki Abbey, K. C. Abraham, David Tuesday Adamo, LeRoy H. Aden, Efrain Agosto, Victor Aguilan, Gillian T. W. Ahlgren, Charanjit Kaur AjitSingh, Dorothy B E A Akoto, Giuseppe Alberigo, Daniel E. Albrecht, Ruth Albrecht, Daniel O. Aleshire, Urs Altermatt, Anand Amaladass, Michael Amaladoss, James N. Amanze, Lesley G. Anderson, Thomas C. Anderson, Victor Anderson, Hope S. Antone, María Pilar Aquino, Paula Arai, Victorio Araya Guillén, S. Wesley Ariarajah, Ellen T. Armour, Brett Gregory Armstrong, Atsuhiro Asano, Naim Stifan Ateek, Mahmoud Ayoub, John Alembillah Azumah, Mercedes L. García Bachmann, Irena Backus, J. Wayne Baker, Mieke Bal, Lewis V. Baldwin, William Barbieri, António Barbosa da Silva, David Basinger, Bolaji Olukemi Bateye, Oswald Bayer, Daniel H. Bays, Rosalie Beck, Nancy Elizabeth Bedford, Guy-Thomas Bedouelle, Chorbishop Seely Beggiani, Wolfgang Behringer, Christopher M. Bellitto, Byard Bennett, Harold V. Bennett, Teresa Berger, Miguel A. Bernad, Henley Bernard, Alan E. Bernstein, Jon L. Berquist, Johannes Beutler, Ana María Bidegain, Matthew P. Binkewicz, Jennifer Bird, Joseph Blenkinsopp, Dmytro Bondarenko, Paulo Bonfatti, Riet en Pim Bons-Storm, Jessica A. Boon, Marcus J. Borg, Mark Bosco, Peter C. Bouteneff, François Bovon, William D. Bowman, Paul S. Boyer, David Brakke, Richard E. Brantley, Marcus Braybrooke, Ian Breward, Ênio José da Costa Brito, Jewel Spears Brooker, Johannes Brosseder, Nicholas Canfield Read Brown, Robert F. Brown, Pamela K. Brubaker, Walter Brueggemann, Bishop Colin O. Buchanan, Stanley M. Burgess, Amy Nelson Burnett, J. Patout Burns, David B. Burrell, David Buttrick, James P. Byrd, Lavinia Byrne, Gerado Caetano, Marcos Caldas, Alkiviadis Calivas, William J. Callahan, Salvatore Calomino, Euan K. Cameron, William S. Campbell, Marcelo Ayres Camurça, Daniel F. Caner, Paul E. Capetz, Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, Patrick W. Carey, Barbara Carvill, Hal Cauthron, Subhadra Mitra Channa, Mark D. Chapman, James H. Charlesworth, Kenneth R. Chase, Chen Zemin, Luciano Chianeque, Philip Chia Phin Yin, Francisca H. Chimhanda, Daniel Chiquete, John T. Chirban, Soobin Choi, Robert Choquette, Mita Choudhury, Gerald Christianson, John Chryssavgis, Sejong Chun, Esther Chung-Kim, Charles M. A. Clark, Elizabeth A. Clark, Sathianathan Clarke, Fred Cloud, John B. Cobb, W. Owen Cole, John A Coleman, John J. Collins, Sylvia Collins-Mayo, Paul K. Conkin, Beth A. Conklin, Sean Connolly, Demetrios J. Constantelos, Michael A. Conway, Paula M. Cooey, Austin Cooper, Michael L. Cooper-White, Pamela Cooper-White, L. William Countryman, Sérgio Coutinho, Pamela Couture, Shannon Craigo-Snell, James L. Crenshaw, David Crowner, Humberto Horacio Cucchetti, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Elizabeth Mason Currier, Emmanuel Cutrone, Mary L. Daniel, David D. Daniels, Robert Darden, Rolf Darge, Isaiah Dau, Jeffry C. Davis, Jane Dawson, Valentin Dedji, John W. de Gruchy, Paul DeHart, Wendy J. Deichmann Edwards, Miguel A. De La Torre, George E. Demacopoulos, Thomas de Mayo, Leah DeVun, Beatriz de Vasconcellos Dias, Dennis C. Dickerson, John M. Dillon, Luis Miguel Donatello, Igor Dorfmann-Lazarev, Susanna Drake, Jonathan A. Draper, N. Dreher Martin, Otto Dreydoppel, Angelyn Dries, A. J. Droge, Francis X. D'Sa, Marilyn Dunn, Nicole Wilkinson Duran, Rifaat Ebied, Mark J. Edwards, William H. Edwards, Leonard H. Ehrlich, Nancy L. Eiesland, Martin Elbel, J. Harold Ellens, Stephen Ellingson, Marvin M. Ellison, Robert Ellsberg, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Eldon Jay Epp, Peter C. Erb, Tassilo Erhardt, Maria Erling, Noel Leo Erskine, Gillian R. Evans, Virginia Fabella, Michael A. Fahey, Edward Farley, Margaret A. Farley, Wendy Farley, Robert Fastiggi, Seena Fazel, Duncan S. Ferguson, Helwar Figueroa, Paul Corby Finney, Kyriaki Karidoyanes FitzGerald, Thomas E. FitzGerald, John R. Fitzmier, Marie Therese Flanagan, Sabina Flanagan, Claude Flipo, Ronald B. Flowers, Carole Fontaine, David Ford, Mary Ford, Stephanie A. Ford, Jim Forest, William Franke, Robert M. Franklin, Ruth Franzén, Edward H. Friedman, Samuel Frouisou, Lorelei F. Fuchs, Jojo M. Fung, Inger Furseth, Richard R. Gaillardetz, Brandon Gallaher, China Galland, Mark Galli, Ismael García, Tharscisse Gatwa, Jean-Marie Gaudeul, Luis María Gavilanes del Castillo, Pavel L. Gavrilyuk, Volney P. Gay, Metropolitan Athanasios Geevargis, Kondothra M. George, Mary Gerhart, Simon Gikandi, Maurice Gilbert, Michael J. Gillgannon, Verónica Giménez Beliveau, Terryl Givens, Beth Glazier-McDonald, Philip Gleason, Menghun Goh, Brian Golding, Bishop Hilario M. Gomez, Michelle A. Gonzalez, Donald K. Gorrell, Roy Gottfried, Tamara Grdzelidze, Joel B. Green, Niels Henrik Gregersen, Cristina Grenholm, Herbert Griffiths, Eric W. Gritsch, Erich S. Gruen, Christoffer H. Grundmann, Paul H. Gundani, Jon P. Gunnemann, Petre Guran, Vidar L. Haanes, Jeremiah M. Hackett, Getatchew Haile, Douglas John Hall, Nicholas Hammond, Daphne Hampson, Jehu J. Hanciles, Barry Hankins, Jennifer Haraguchi, Stanley S. Harakas, Anthony John Harding, Conrad L. Harkins, J. William Harmless, Marjory Harper, Amir Harrak, Joel F. Harrington, Mark W. Harris, Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Van A. Harvey, R. Chris Hassel, Jione Havea, Daniel Hawk, Diana L. Hayes, Leslie Hayes, Priscilla Hayner, S. Mark Heim, Simo Heininen, Richard P. Heitzenrater, Eila Helander, David Hempton, Scott H. Hendrix, Jan-Olav Henriksen, Gina Hens-Piazza, Carter Heyward, Nicholas J. Higham, David Hilliard, Norman A. Hjelm, Peter C. Hodgson, Arthur Holder, M. Jan Holton, Dwight N. Hopkins, Ronnie Po-chia Hsia, Po-Ho Huang, James Hudnut-Beumler, Jennifer S. Hughes, Leonard M. Hummel, Mary E. Hunt, Laennec Hurbon, Mark Hutchinson, Susan E. Hylen, Mary Beth Ingham, H. Larry Ingle, Dale T. Irvin, Jon Isaak, Paul John Isaak, Ada María Isasi-Díaz, Hans Raun Iversen, Margaret C. Jacob, Arthur James, Maria Jansdotter-Samuelsson, David Jasper, Werner G. Jeanrond, Renée Jeffery, David Lyle Jeffrey, Theodore W. Jennings, David H. Jensen, Robin Margaret Jensen, David Jobling, Dale A. Johnson, Elizabeth A. Johnson, Maxwell E. Johnson, Sarah Johnson, Mark D. Johnston, F. Stanley Jones, James William Jones, John R. Jones, Alissa Jones Nelson, Inge Jonsson, Jan Joosten, Elizabeth Judd, Mulambya Peggy Kabonde, Robert Kaggwa, Sylvester Kahakwa, Isaac Kalimi, Ogbu U. Kalu, Eunice Kamaara, Wayne C. Kannaday, Musimbi Kanyoro, Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Frank Kaufmann, Léon Nguapitshi Kayongo, Richard Kearney, Alice A. Keefe, Ralph Keen, Catherine Keller, Anthony J. Kelly, Karen Kennelly, Kathi Lynn Kern, Fergus Kerr, Edward Kessler, George Kilcourse, Heup Young Kim, Kim Sung-Hae, Kim Yong-Bock, Kim Yung Suk, Richard King, Thomas M. King, Robert M. Kingdon, Ross Kinsler, Hans G. Kippenberg, Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Clifton Kirkpatrick, Leonid Kishkovsky, Nadieszda Kizenko, Jeffrey Klaiber, Hans-Josef Klauck, Sidney Knight, Samuel Kobia, Robert Kolb, Karla Ann Koll, Heikki Kotila, Donald Kraybill, Philip D. W. Krey, Yves Krumenacker, Jeffrey Kah-Jin Kuan, Simanga R. Kumalo, Peter Kuzmic, Simon Shui-Man Kwan, Kwok Pui-lan, André LaCocque, Stephen E. Lahey, John Tsz Pang Lai, Emiel Lamberts, Armando Lampe, Craig Lampe, Beverly J. Lanzetta, Eve LaPlante, Lizette Larson-Miller, Ariel Bybee Laughton, Leonard Lawlor, Bentley Layton, Robin A. Leaver, Karen Lebacqz, Archie Chi Chung Lee, Marilyn J. Legge, Hervé LeGrand, D. L. LeMahieu, Raymond Lemieux, Bill J. Leonard, Ellen M. Leonard, Outi Leppä, Jean Lesaulnier, Nantawan Boonprasat Lewis, Henrietta Leyser, Alexei Lidov, Bernard Lightman, Paul Chang-Ha Lim, Carter Lindberg, Mark R. Lindsay, James R. Linville, James C. Livingston, Ann Loades, David Loades, Jean-Claude Loba-Mkole, Lo Lung Kwong, Wati Longchar, Eleazar López, David W. Lotz, Andrew Louth, Robin W. Lovin, William Luis, Frank D. Macchia, Diarmaid N. J. MacCulloch, Kirk R. MacGregor, Marjory A. MacLean, Donald MacLeod, Tomas S. Maddela, Inge Mager, Laurenti Magesa, David G. Maillu, Fortunato Mallimaci, Philip Mamalakis, Kä Mana, Ukachukwu Chris Manus, Herbert Robinson Marbury, Reuel Norman Marigza, Jacqueline Mariña, Antti Marjanen, Luiz C. L. Marques, Madipoane Masenya (ngwan'a Mphahlele), Caleb J. D. Maskell, Steve Mason, Thomas Massaro, Fernando Matamoros Ponce, András Máté-Tóth, Odair Pedroso Mateus, Dinis Matsolo, Fumitaka Matsuoka, John D'Arcy May, Yelena Mazour-Matusevich, Theodore Mbazumutima, John S. McClure, Christian McConnell, Lee Martin McDonald, Gary B. McGee, Thomas McGowan, Alister E. McGrath, Richard J. McGregor, John A. McGuckin, Maud Burnett McInerney, Elsie Anne McKee, Mary B. McKinley, James F. McMillan, Ernan McMullin, Kathleen E. McVey, M. Douglas Meeks, Monica Jyotsna Melanchthon, Ilie Melniciuc-Puica, Everett Mendoza, Raymond A. Mentzer, William W. Menzies, Ina Merdjanova, Franziska Metzger, Constant J. Mews, Marvin Meyer, Carol Meyers, Vasile Mihoc, Gunner Bjerg Mikkelsen, Maria Inêz de Castro Millen, Clyde Lee Miller, Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore, Alexander Mirkovic, Paul Misner, Nozomu Miyahira, R. W. L. Moberly, Gerald Moede, Aloo Osotsi Mojola, Sunanda Mongia, Rebeca Montemayor, James Moore, Roger E. Moore, Craig E. Morrison O.Carm, Jeffry H. Morrison, Keith Morrison, Wilson J. Moses, Tefetso Henry Mothibe, Mokgethi Motlhabi, Fulata Moyo, Henry Mugabe, Jesse Ndwiga Kanyua Mugambi, Peggy Mulambya-Kabonde, Robert Bruce Mullin, Pamela Mullins Reaves, Saskia Murk Jansen, Heleen L. Murre-Van den Berg, Augustine Musopole, Isaac M. T. Mwase, Philomena Mwaura, Cecilia Nahnfeldt, Anne Nasimiyu Wasike, Carmiña Navia Velasco, Thulani Ndlazi, Alexander Negrov, James B. Nelson, David G. Newcombe, Carol Newsom, Helen J. Nicholson, George W. E. Nickelsburg, Tatyana Nikolskaya, Damayanthi M. A. Niles, Bertil Nilsson, Nyambura Njoroge, Fidelis Nkomazana, Mary Beth Norton, Christian Nottmeier, Sonene Nyawo, Anthère Nzabatsinda, Edward T. Oakes, Gerald O'Collins, Daniel O'Connell, David W. Odell-Scott, Mercy Amba Oduyoye, Kathleen O'Grady, Oyeronke Olajubu, Thomas O'Loughlin, Dennis T. Olson, J. Steven O'Malley, Cephas N. Omenyo, Muriel Orevillo-Montenegro, César Augusto Ornellas Ramos, Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator, Kenan B. Osborne, Carolyn Osiek, Javier Otaola Montagne, Douglas F. Ottati, Anna May Say Pa, Irina Paert, Jerry G. Pankhurst, Aristotle Papanikolaou, Samuele F. Pardini, Stefano Parenti, Peter Paris, Sung Bae Park, Cristián G. Parker, Raquel Pastor, Joseph Pathrapankal, Daniel Patte, W. Brown Patterson, Clive Pearson, Keith F. Pecklers, Nancy Cardoso Pereira, David Horace Perkins, Pheme Perkins, Edward N. Peters, Rebecca Todd Peters, Bishop Yeznik Petrossian, Raymond Pfister, Peter C. Phan, Isabel Apawo Phiri, William S. F. Pickering, Derrick G. Pitard, William Elvis Plata, Zlatko Plese, John Plummer, James Newton Poling, Ronald Popivchak, Andrew Porter, Ute Possekel, James M. Powell, Enos Das Pradhan, Devadasan Premnath, Jaime Adrían Prieto Valladares, Anne Primavesi, Randall Prior, María Alicia Puente Lutteroth, Eduardo Guzmão Quadros, Albert Rabil, Laurent William Ramambason, Apolonio M. Ranche, Vololona Randriamanantena Andriamitandrina, Lawrence R. Rast, Paul L. Redditt, Adele Reinhartz, Rolf Rendtorff, Pål Repstad, James N. Rhodes, John K. Riches, Joerg Rieger, Sharon H. Ringe, Sandra Rios, Tyler Roberts, David M. Robinson, James M. Robinson, Joanne Maguire Robinson, Richard A. H. Robinson, Roy R. Robson, Jack B. Rogers, Maria Roginska, Sidney Rooy, Rev. Garnett Roper, Maria José Fontelas Rosado-Nunes, Andrew C. Ross, Stefan Rossbach, François Rossier, John D. Roth, John K. Roth, Phillip Rothwell, Richard E. Rubenstein, Rosemary Radford Ruether, Markku Ruotsila, John E. Rybolt, Risto Saarinen, John Saillant, Juan Sanchez, Wagner Lopes Sanchez, Hugo N. Santos, Gerhard Sauter, Gloria L. Schaab, Sandra M. Schneiders, Quentin J. Schultze, Fernando F. Segovia, Turid Karlsen Seim, Carsten Selch Jensen, Alan P. F. Sell, Frank C. Senn, Kent Davis Sensenig, Damían Setton, Bal Krishna Sharma, Carolyn J. Sharp, Thomas Sheehan, N. Gerald Shenk, Christian Sheppard, Charles Sherlock, Tabona Shoko, Walter B. Shurden, Marguerite Shuster, B. Mark Sietsema, Batara Sihombing, Neil Silberman, Clodomiro Siller, Samuel Silva-Gotay, Heikki Silvet, John K. Simmons, Hagith Sivan, James C. Skedros, Abraham Smith, Ashley A. Smith, Ted A. Smith, Daud Soesilo, Pia Søltoft, Choan-Seng (C. S.) Song, Kathryn Spink, Bryan Spinks, Eric O. Springsted, Nicolas Standaert, Brian Stanley, Glen H. Stassen, Karel Steenbrink, Stephen J. Stein, Andrea Sterk, Gregory E. Sterling, Columba Stewart, Jacques Stewart, Robert B. Stewart, Cynthia Stokes Brown, Ken Stone, Anne Stott, Elizabeth Stuart, Monya Stubbs, Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki, David Kwang-sun Suh, Scott W. Sunquist, Keith Suter, Douglas Sweeney, Charles H. Talbert, Shawqi N. Talia, Elsa Tamez, Joseph B. Tamney, Jonathan Y. Tan, Yak-Hwee Tan, Kathryn Tanner, Feiya Tao, Elizabeth S. Tapia, Aquiline Tarimo, Claire Taylor, Mark Lewis Taylor, Bishop Abba Samuel Wolde Tekestebirhan, Eugene TeSelle, M. Thomas Thangaraj, David R. Thomas, Andrew Thornley, Scott Thumma, Marcelo Timotheo da Costa, George E. “Tink” Tinker, Ola Tjørhom, Karen Jo Torjesen, Iain R. Torrance, Fernando Torres-Londoño, Archbishop Demetrios [Trakatellis], Marit Trelstad, Christine Trevett, Phyllis Trible, Johannes Tromp, Paul Turner, Robert G. Tuttle, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Peter Tyler, Anders Tyrberg, Justin Ukpong, Javier Ulloa, Camillus Umoh, Kristi Upson-Saia, Martina Urban, Monica Uribe, Elochukwu Eugene Uzukwu, Richard Vaggione, Gabriel Vahanian, Paul Valliere, T. J. Van Bavel, Steven Vanderputten, Peter Van der Veer, Huub Van de Sandt, Louis Van Tongeren, Luke A. Veronis, Noel Villalba, Ramón Vinke, Tim Vivian, David Voas, Elena Volkova, Katharina von Kellenbach, Elina Vuola, Timothy Wadkins, Elaine M. Wainwright, Randi Jones Walker, Dewey D. Wallace, Jerry Walls, Michael J. Walsh, Philip Walters, Janet Walton, Jonathan L. Walton, Wang Xiaochao, Patricia A. Ward, David Harrington Watt, Herold D. Weiss, Laurence L. Welborn, Sharon D. Welch, Timothy Wengert, Traci C. West, Merold Westphal, David Wetherell, Barbara Wheeler, Carolinne White, Jean-Paul Wiest, Frans Wijsen, Terry L. Wilder, Felix Wilfred, Rebecca Wilkin, Daniel H. Williams, D. Newell Williams, Michael A. Williams, Vincent L. Wimbush, Gabriele Winkler, Anders Winroth, Lauri Emílio Wirth, James A. Wiseman, Ebba Witt-Brattström, Teofil Wojciechowski, John Wolffe, Kenman L. Wong, Wong Wai Ching, Linda Woodhead, Wendy M. Wright, Rose Wu, Keith E. Yandell, Gale A. Yee, Viktor Yelensky, Yeo Khiok-Khng, Gustav K. K. Yeung, Angela Yiu, Amos Yong, Yong Ting Jin, You Bin, Youhanna Nessim Youssef, Eliana Yunes, Robert Michael Zaller, Valarie H. Ziegler, Barbara Brown Zikmund, Joyce Ann Zimmerman, Aurora Zlotnik, Zhuo Xinping
- Edited by Daniel Patte, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee
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- The Cambridge Dictionary of Christianity
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- 05 August 2012
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- 20 September 2010, pp xi-xliv
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‘Schizoid’ personality and antisocial conduct: a retrospective case note study
- Sula Wolff, Ann Cull
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- Psychological Medicine / Volume 16 / Issue 3 / August 1986
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- 09 July 2009, pp. 677-687
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A retrospective case note analysis for 30 boys diagnosed as having a ‘schizoid’ personality disorder (Asperger's syndrome) in childhood, and for 30 matched clinic attenders (with systematic follow-up data for 19 matched pairs), showed the incidence of antisocial conduct to be the same in the two groups. However, the ‘schizoid’ boys stole less often and had fewer alcohol problems. In this group antisocial conduct was less related to family disruption and social disadvantage, and more to an unusual fantasy life. Clinical descriptions of a series of ‘schizoid’ boys and girls with conspicuous antisocial conduct follow. They suggest that characteristic patterns of antisocial conduct in such children are persistent expressions of hostility and, especially in girls, pathological lying, for which environmental circumstances provide no explanation.
Contributors
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- By Isabella Aboderin, W. Andrew Achenbaum, Katherine R. Allen, Toni C. Antonucci, Sara Arber, Claudine Attias‐Donfut, Paul B. Baltes, Sandhi Maria Barreto, Vern L. Bengtson, Simon Biggs, Joanna Bornat, Julie B. Boron, Mike Boulton, Clive E. Bowman, Marjolein Broese van Groenou, Edna Brown, Robert N. Butler, Bill Bytheway, Neena L. Chappell, Neil Charness, Kaare Christensen, Peter G. Coleman, Ingrid Arnet Connidis, Neal E. Cutler, Sara J. Czaja, Svein Olav Daatland, Lia Susana Daichman, Adam Davey, Bleddyn Davies, Freya Dittmann‐Kohli, Glen H. Elder, Carroll L. Estes, Mike Featherstone, Amy Fiske, Alexandra Freund, Daphna Gans, Linda K. George, Roseann Giarrusso, Chris Gilleard, Jay Ginn, Edlira Gjonça, Elena L. Grigorenko, Jaber F. Gubrium, Sarah Harper, Jutta Heckhausen, Akiko Hashimoto, Jon Hendricks, Mike Hepworth, Charlotte Ikels, James S. Jackson, Yuri Jang, Bernard Jeune, Malcolm L. Johnson, Randi S. Jones, Alexandre Kalache, Robert L. Kane, Rosalie A. Kane, Ingrid Keller, Rose Anne Kenny, Thomas B. L. Kirkwood, Kees Knipscheer, Martin Kohli, Gisela Labouvie‐Vief, Kristina Larsson, Shu‐Chen Li, Charles F. Longino, Ariela Lowenstein, Erick McCarthy, Gerald E. McClearn, Brendan McCormack, Elizabeth MacKinlay, Alfons Marcoen, Michael Marmot, Tom Margrain, Victor W. Marshall, Elizabeth A. Maylor, Ruud ter Meulen, Harry R. Moody, Robert A. Neimeyer, Demi Patsios, Margaret J. Penning, Stephen A. Petrill, Chris Phillipson, Leonard W. Poon, Norella M. Putney, Jill Quadagno, Pat Rabbitt, Jennifer Reid Keene, Sandra G. Reynolds, Steven R. Sabat, Clive Seale, Merril Silverstein, Hannes B. Staehelin, Ursula M. Staudinger, Robert J. Sternberg, Debra Street, Philip Taylor, Fleur Thomése, Mats Thorslund, Jinzhou Tian, Theo van Tilburg, Fernando M. Torres‐Gil, Josy Ubachs‐Moust, Christina Victor, K. Warner Shaie, Anthony M. Warnes, James L. Werth, Sherry L. Willis, François‐Charles Wolff, Bob Woods
- Edited by Malcolm L. Johnson, University of Bristol
- Edited in association with Vern L. Bengtson, University of Southern California, Peter G. Coleman, University of Southampton, Thomas B. L. Kirkwood, University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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- The Cambridge Handbook of Age and Ageing
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- 05 June 2016
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- 01 December 2005, pp xii-xvi
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Index
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- Liverpool University Press
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- 04 July 2017
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- 31 December 2003, pp 297-311
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5 - Cairo: ‘Meeting Place of Comer and Goer’
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- Liverpool University Press
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- 04 July 2017
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- 31 December 2003, pp 112-150
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Summary
While Syria had suffered from the onslaughts of the Mongols and the wars of the Crusades, Cairo had escaped almost unmolested. Peace had enabled her to become the fabled cultural city of the Arab world. Foreign visitors were uniformly astonished by the opulence that unfolded before them. Ibn Battuta (b. Tangiers 1304) surpassed himself with his mellifluous prose when he dictated his memoirs on his return to Fez to Muhammad Ibn Juzayy, the current secretary of the sultan:
I arrived at length at Cairo, mother of cities and seat of Pharaoh the tyrant, mistress of broad regions and fruitful lands, boundless in multitudes of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour. The meeting place of comer and goer, the halting place of feeble and mighty, whose throngs surge as the waves of the sea, and can scarce be contained in her for all her size and capacity.
Mamluk Cairo was the backdrop against which were played out the fictional stories from the Arabian Nights, those romantic imaginings that took the listeners by the hand and led them round the markets and houses, the high and low life of the streets, and all that touched on the texture of life among the people. The infinitely varied skyline of minarets and domes on view in the capital was remarkable to all European visitors, who hastened to compare Cairo's size with Milan, Venice, Paris, or whichever city was theirs:
Of the riches of Cairo it is unnecessary to write, for they cannot be enumerated on paper or described in speech. They consist of gold and silver, of cloth of gold and silk, cotton and linen embroidered wares, of gems, pearls and other precious stones, vases of gold, silver and bronze uncomparably decorated in the Saracen style, glass objects most beautifully ornamented commonly made in Damascus, balsam oil, honey, pepper, sugar and various spices, and innumerable jewels of all kinds.
By the beginning of the fourteenth century, Cairo had a population approximating 250,000, though the number could be exaggerated by visitors among the jostling crowds in the streets. But due to the high mortality caused by the bubonic and the (even more lethal) pneumonic plague, which erupted with depressing frequency every few years, this figure fluctuated widely.
Dedication
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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List of Illustrations
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- Liverpool University Press
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- 04 July 2017
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- 31 December 2003, pp xi-xiv
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Europeans in Egypt in the Reigns of the Mamluk Sultans up to 1517
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- Liverpool University Press
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- 04 July 2017
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- 31 December 2003, pp 285-285
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Europeans in Egypt in the Reigns of the Mamluk Sultans up to 1517
1 - The Mamluk Rulers of Egypt
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- Liverpool University Press
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- 04 July 2017
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- 31 December 2003, pp 14-39
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Even if the sporadic fires of the Crusades had mostly subsided by the end of the thirteenth century, the glowing embers occasionally erupted when they were fanned into life by mutual hostility. Arab and European versions of the Crusades differed since opinions on both sides were rooted in ignorance and suspicion. ‘Abd al-Rahman, known as Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406), the great Arab philosopher and historian, regarded the Franks as barbarians who lived without benefit of the sunlight of the Islamic world, the people dull of understanding and their tongues heavy. Born in Tunisia, Ibn Khaldun went to Cairo in 1382 and became chief judge. Though he had heard rumours that students were numerous in the country of Rome and the northern Mediterranean and that the arts and sciences flourished, he dismissed them by remarking merely that God knew best what went on in those parts. Muslims conceded that the Franks in general were brave warriors, but thought them crude and ignorant. The battles of Hattin near Tiberius, where Saladin defeated Reynald of Chatillon in 1186, and at ‘Ayn Jalut, when the sultan al-Muzaffar Qutuz and his general, the dark-skinned al-Zähir Baybars, outmanoeuvred the Mongols, are still very much alive in Arab memories today. On their side, medieval Christian travellers regarded with contempt such alien Muslim practices as circumcision, polygamy and the prohibitions against wine and pork.
The Mamluks were a military elite in a foreign land, nobodies from the Eurasian steppes. Nevertheless they gained respect because of their military prowess, which enabled them to defeat the Mongols and Christian invaders. Therefore when Europeans arrived in Egypt in the fourteenth century, they found the Mamluk slave sultans well estab lished as rulers of Syria and Egypt in the Cairo citadel, a fortress conceived under Saladin, whose wise administration had left traces for posterity in the construction of citadels, highways and canals. Even the Franks had acknowledged his chivalry, piety and sense of justice, while Dante accorded him an honourable place in limbo. Saladin died on 4 March 1193 aged 56. At the end of his life, due to his failing strength, the sultan constantly wore a coat lined with the furs of Bortàs and a number of tunics and sat on a very soft cushion and a pile of carpets.
Frontmatter
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- Liverpool University Press
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- 04 July 2017
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- 31 December 2003, pp i-iv
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Bibliography
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- 31 December 2003, pp 287-296
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3 - The Maritime Port of Alexandria
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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- 31 December 2003, pp 61-96
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At first sight, to those approaching the coast of northern Egypt, the low-lying country with its peculiar light suddenly seemed to rise out of the sea. In the greenish-yellow currents of the debouching Nile hippopotami could be seen swimming out to sea from the delta swamps. When passengers crowded the decks on arrival at Alexandria, the city appeared to be a shining noble place, surrounded by stout double walls protected by ‘towers, moats, warlike machines and having fair palaces within’. On closer inspection, however, the streets were narrow, ugly, tortuous and dark, full of dust and dirt.
Founded in 331 BC by the charismatic Macedonian, Alexander the Great, on the site of the ancient Egyptian town of Rhakotis, Alexandria was advantageously positioned between a natural deep harbour at the north and Lake Mareotis at the south. It had easy access to fresh water and the limestone materials used for its illustrious buildings. This sophisticated Hellenistic city, capital of Egypt for over 900 years, became renowned throughout the civilised world. Emulating that of Athens, the renowned library, initiated by the insatiable Ptolemies, housed the accumulated knowledge of scholars who bickered at will among its columns and porticos. After the rediscovery and translation of Latin and Greek classical literature by Italian humanists, and its subsequent dissemination through printing, a trawl through even the most incomplete Renaissance library lists indicates the numbers of books they contained by ancient authors who wrote about Egypt. The works of Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, Strabo, Theophrastus and Pliny were prominent. These accounts were woven about with tales of the fabulous Queen Cleopatra, ‘Egyptia femina, totius orbis fabula’ and the widely read disparate Alexander Romances, which resounded down the centuries that followed.
Alexandria became one of the earliest centres of Christian teaching and the seat of the senior bishop. Side by side with the classics on the shelves of Renaissance libraries were the works of the early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria (AD c.150–c.215) and his pupil Origen. In the mid-second century AD, the neo-Platonic Alexandrian school of philosophy nurtured such pupils as Longinus, Plotinus, and Theon, whose ideas influenced Renaissance philosophers such as the Florentine Marsilio Ficino. Marsilio subsequently translated the works of Plato, printed in 1484, and of Plotinus, printed in 1492.
7 - Exploring the Pyramids and Mummy Fields
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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Pliny the Elder (AD 23–79), whose works were universally read by the educated, wrote in withering terms that the pyramids were but vain and frivolous pieces of ostentation on the part of Egyptian monarchs (Natural History 36.16). But before the tide of works from classical authors permeated the libraries of European scholars, it was commonly thought that the pyramids were the granaries of the most holy Joseph, used for storing corn during the years of famine. As such, they were regarded as objects of reverence, and indulgences were awarded by the church to visiting pilgrims on a kind of points system. This pious belief, stoutly upheld by Sir John Mandeville, had almost evaporated by the end of the sixteenth century, when the structures were recognised as being the tombs of the ancient pharaohs.
Few monuments in Egypt have been surveyed and measured, for whatever reason, so often and with such care as the Great Pyramid of Cheops. In 1384, Simone Sigoli and his Tuscan friends Lionardo di Frescobaldi and Giorgio Gucci marvelled at the wisdom of Joseph in creating such immense storage for his bushels: ‘the width at the base, according to what we measured with the braccia, every side is 140 braccia: and each has four sides, and the corn was placed inside: just imagine the very great amount that inside would take’. Simone did not say if he climbed to the summit or ventured into the interior, though in his time a large opening had been roughly hacked into the core a little below the original entrance. According to Muslim tradition, in the latter part of the ninth century the caliph Ma'mun, son of Harun al-Rashid, had ordered this penetration as he coveted the fabled treasure rumoured to be hidden inside. Over one hundred years after the Tuscans went there, Father Francesco Suriano from Mount Sion in Jerusalem showed himself to be more intrepid. He did not reveal the date of his visit to the pyramids, but it probably took place while he was on business in Cairo in 1498 when he became acquainted with the wily Mamluk Taghribirdi (whom he called ‘Tagrebardin’ or ‘Tupolino’) who later went to Venice as the envoy of Qansuh al- Ghawri:
I climbed to the top of the big one, which is square and each side is a bow shot.
Permissions
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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2 - Egypt Imagined and the Realities of the Voyage
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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Even if Europeans felt some hostility towards the Muslims, this did not deter them from risking their lives on dangerous sea voyages, intent as they were on making pilgrimage to the Christian holy places and increasing the lucrative trade with the infidels. This mercantile outlook was typified by men such as Francesco di Marco Datini of Prato, a wealthy Florentine merchant who headed his account books ‘In the name of God and of profit’. Foreign travel too had a certain cachet: the traveller became a focus of attention, a person of importance on his return. It was considered that a Florentine who was not a merchant, and had not travelled through the world seeing foreign nations and peoples and afterwards returning to Florence with some wealth, was a man who enjoyed no esteem whatsoever. Boasting of achievements, however, did not win friends and displays of wealth could well attract unwelcome taxes; Cosimo de’ Medici (the Elder) (1389–1464), a cautious and somewhat secretive man, ever watchful of potential enemies, warned against winning too much attention, advising that envy is a weed that should not be watered.
Little was known about pharaonic Egypt in fourteenth-century Europe; it was considered as being shrouded in the mists of antiquity, full of mystery and wonders. But with the revival of classical learning a rather incomplete picture of that ancient country, composed of both fact and fantasy, gradually unfolded. In his preface to the Lives of the Artists, Giorgio Vasari was ‘fully aware that all who have written on the subject firmly and unanimously assert that the arts of sculpture and painting were first derived from nature by the people of Egypt’.
Biblical stories of Egypt told of Joseph the vizier of Pharaoh, and of Moses discovered in the bulrushes by Pharaoh's daughter. Egypt was the country that gave shelter to Mary, Joseph and Jesus when they fled from the persecutions of Herod; these narratives were familiar even to the illiterate who saw them as subjects of paintings, frescoes and mosaics in their churches. The artists who had never been to Egypt used local models, perhaps with a few idealised camels thrown in to give an Eastern flavour, painted against a background of their own familiar countryside.
9 - Adventures with the Mecca Caravan
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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Despite the recognised dangers, a few intrepid Europeans risked the desert journey to accompany the great company of Muslims on the yearly hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. In 1586 or thereabouts, 20 days after Ramadan, an anonymous Englishman joined the caravan from Cairo for the 40-day journey on the well-trodden route to ‘Aqaba across the northern Sinai desert. It was a brave venture, since if any Christian had been discovered in the Muslim holy places, he would undoubtedly have been summarily executed:
The Captain of the caravan and all his retinue and officers resort unto the castle (that is the citadel) of Cairo before the Pasha who gives every man a garment, and that of the Captain is wrought with gold, and the others are served according to their degree. Moreover he delivers unto him ye Chisva Talnabi [Kiswat al-Nabi] which signifies in the Arabian tongue ‘the garment of the Prophet’… This garment is made of purpose to cover from top to bottom a little house in Mecca standing in the midst of the Xesqita, the which house they say, was builded by Abraham or by his son Ishmael. After this he delivers to him a gate made of purpose for the aforesaid house, wrought all with fine gold and being of excellent workmanship and it is a thing of great value. Besides he delivers unto him a covering of green velvet made in the manner of a pyramid, about nine palms high, and artificially wrought with most fine gold, and this is to cover the tomb of their prophet within Medina. These precious objects are carried from the Pasha's residence on the Citadel to a mosque near the Bab al-Nasr. They are stored in this mosque until the pilgrim caravan begins to form at Birca.
‘Birca’ (Birkat al-Hajj) lay near Matariyya about four miles from Cairo. The so-called ‘Chisva Talnabi’, also known as the kiswa, the curtain veiling the exterior of the Ka‘ba, was by tradition manufactured in Egypt.
For the journey to Arabia, such caravans set out with wellharnessed horses, mules, camels with footmen and were sometimes accompanied by women and children in hooded litters.
8 - Pilgrims to the Monastery of St Catherine
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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After they had prayed in the old churches of Babylon, tasted the delights of Cairo and clambered round the pyramids, Christian pilgrims prepared for the journey through the Sinai desert to St Catherine's monastery, the supreme point of their Egyptian itinerary. It was an arduous and dangerous enterprise, taking on average about 22 days for the round trip through extremes of heat and cold. Almost everyone who wrote of his experiences made an effort to capture in words the loneliness and desolation of the peninsula. Felix Fabri, a Dominican friar from Ulm who went on pilgrimage with a group of German nobles in 1483 from Jerusalem via Gaza to St Catherine's monastery, described the great desert as follows: ‘No village nor town… neither house nor dwelling, neither field nor garden, tree or grass, nothing but sandy earth burnt up by the great heat of the sun.’
But whether they were Christians making for Sinai or Muslims on the 40-day pilgrimage to Mecca, the privations were much the same. Often travelling in darkness to avoid the sun's heat, they plodded on through the silence of the night under brilliant starlight which glittered in the velvet skies. Dawns rose coldly, sometimes in the teeth of bitter winds, which at the height of noon became stiflingly hot, whipping up clouds of choking sand that shrivelled the skin, dimmed the vision and parched the throat. Sometimes furious whirlwinds blackened the skies and scattered the camp fires, shuffling the sands about like running water so that newly filled ravines became deep traps for man and beast. ‘When a man finds himself there and the wind rises he can consider his journey at an end, because so great is the motion and the cloud of that sand that any man would be suffocated therein.’ Cleanliness was almost impossible and vermin pervaded the body. No one, however noble, was exempt. Felix Fabri spoke from experience: ‘Woe to those who wear long hair, for they carry with them a refuge and preserve of lice… and worse woe also to those who are too lazy to cleanse themselves at night, for at every moment [the lice] will multiply into enormous numbers.’
Preface
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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I think it is fair to say that one is always drawn to the country of one's birth and I am no exception. My father was a cotton merchant who operated in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria, selling cotton to the manufacturers of cloth in Manchester after World War I. Thus he followed in the footsteps of earlier traders who bought goods from Egypt to satisfy the European markets. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he learnt to speak and write Arabic during the five years he lived there.
Inspiration for How Many Miles to Babylon? (‘Babylon’ being the medieval European Christians’ name for Cairo) came first from reading the volumes of the Voyages en Egypte published by L'Institut Français Archéologie Orientale du Caire. I would like to thank the director for his kind permission in allowing me to quote from these sixteenth-century chronicles. I would also like to thank the editors of the Studium Biblicanum Franciscanum in Jerusalem for allowing me to quote from their publications of the writings of the early Franciscan friars in Palestine, Egypt and beyond. My thanks go to the librarians of the Map Room at the Cambridge University Library, who undertook valuable research on my behalf, and to Helen Tookey, who with Andrew Kirk oversaw the editing of the text at Liverpool University Press. Paul and Janet Starkey of Durham University gave up their time to advise on Arabic spelling and provided helpful suggestions.
Above all, I owe a great debt to the late Professor John Morrison, formerly fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and first President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, who read the manuscript chapter by chapter and sustained me with his encouragement.
10 - To the South
- Anne Wolff
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- How Many Miles to Babylon?
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A year after the Spanish Armada had suffered defeat and shipwreck on the shores of Britain, an anonymous Venetian fulfilled his desire to explore the southern provinces of Egypt. On 7 August 1589 he departed from Cairo with a crew of Nubian boatmen. For some years he had wanted to make that journey ‘for no profit whatsoever, but only to see the many splendid buildings, churches, statues, colossi, obelisks and columns and also to see the place where the above mentioned columns were dug out. In order to look at these excavations I had to journey further than I thought.’
He did not, as he says, travel there for profit; he was neither a pilgrim nor a missionary, and he did not pepper his account with quotations from classical authors like many of his contemporaries. Hardly anything is known of this Venetian except that he could speak Arabic, and had resided in Cairo for some time, though he did not say why he lived there. He did not mention the government, though in 1589 Egypt was ruled by the Turkish viceroy, ‘Uways Pasha, whose palace in the citadel had been sacked in a violent uprising by mutinous soldiers dissatisfied by their rates of pay. This traveller's rather truncated account, written in his native dialect, revealed that he was a practical man who cast an experienced eye over the mixture of building materials and ancient monuments he so carefully measured. The suspicious Mamluk rulers had always frowned on the Franks who struck off on their own, away from prescribed routes, and the Turks followed their example. So perhaps the Venetian who had lived in Cairo for many years was trusted by the authorities, who put no obstacles in his way.
Before setting off, he had been warned by well-meaning friends about the unknown dangers he could encounter and that he might not even return alive. But overcome by his great desire to see the rumoured splendours of Luxor and Karnak and the quarries where the obelisks were extracted, he brushed all their objections aside. On his return he belittled the sufferings and tribulations of the journey, caused by both the great heat and the lack of food, sometimes not having even an onion to eat, one of the staple foods of the local population.