Endless fuss over the tomb of Alexander the Great

As theories about the final resting place of Alexander the Great abound, it may be a good time to summarize what we know. 

After being embalmed in Babylon, Alexander’s mummified body was transported with due pomp to Pella, where he was born and where all Macedonian kings were traditionally buried. However, Ptolemy, now ruling over Egypt, decided to intercept the splendid coffin as it passed through Syria. He said that Alexander had wanted to be buried in Egypt, in his first city of Alexandria. 

At that time, Alexandria was still under construction, and the king’s mummy was temporarily deposited in Memphis, the hitherto capital of Egypt. Ptolemy eventually transferred Alexander’s remains to Alexandria. Ancient sources are almost silent about the size and location of this first tomb. 

Ptolemy IV Philopator built a grand mausoleum for Alexander around 215-214 BC, probably as imagined by his great-grandfather, Ptolemy I. This Philopator transferred Alexander’s mummy during a splendidly organized ceremony. With Philopator’s lineage of predecessors, Alexander was put to rest somewhere in the center of Alexandria, later called the Soma, i.e., within the Palace District. 

At some point, the mummy was protected by a glass surrounding it. That is how Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, saw it. His example was followed by at least Caesar (assassinated in 41 BC), Caligula (ruled 12-41 AD), Hadrian (ruled 117-138 AD), Septimius Severus (ruled 193-211 AD), and Caracalla (ruled 198-217 AD), who were all great admirers of Alexander. After 391 AD, when paganism was entirely outlawed, history lost track of the mummy after being on display for almost seven centuries. 

Strangely, no picture and no full description of Alexander’s last resting place has survived – not even of the Soma and/or Royal Palace. However, we do have coins and mosaics representing the Pharos built by Ptolemy I. One would logically assume that the Soma was far more important than the lighthouse. It remains everyone’s guess why we don’t have any description of the Soma and its location inside Alexandria? 

Northern Africa suffered severely from a devastating earthquake in 365 AD, causing the entire coastline to drop by four meters (see: Apollonia in Cyrenaica (eastern Libya) after Alexander). The consequences of the ensuing tsunami may not have flooded the Soma immediately, and it may have sunk slowly till it disappeared around 391 AD, as mentioned above. The tomb of Alexander obviously drowned together with the Palace of the Ptolemies. 

The big question is, what happened to the remains of Alexander, supposing they could be saved, either from the flooding or from unrest inside Egypt? Theories are endless. 

The analysis made by Andrew Chugg centered around the Mosque of Nabi Daniel, which would have hidden Alexander’s corpse in a sarcophagus way beneath the present street level. Chugg claims that these remains were taken to Venice in 828 AD as being those of St Mark. They are now in St Mark’s Cathedral (see: The Lost Tomb of Alexander the Great by Andrew Chugg). 

Greek archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi assumed that at some point, the king’s mummy was transferred to Siwah as Ptolemy fulfilled Alexander’s wish. The recorded visits of the Roman emperors to Alexandria, for instance, are merely ignored in her theory. Liana Souvaltzi started excavating the Temple of Amon-Ra in Siwah in 1989, but in 1995, the Greek and Egyptian governments suddenly blocked her permit. Today, she still fights to resume her excavations; however, without success. 

When the Kasta Hill tomb in Amphipolis was discovered a few years ago, one of the many supposed occupants was Alexander the Great (see: Amphipolis/Kasta Hill … here we go again!) Here is the list of possible candidates: 

Roxane, Alexander IV, the son of Alexander, Olympias, Cleopatra, sister of Alexander, Cassander (son of Antipater), Antigonus Monophthalmus, Hephaistion, Heracles (the illegitimate son of Alexander and Barsine), Polyandrion, Polyperchon, Philip-Arrhidaeus (half-brother of Alexander), Philip II (Alexander’s father, as many still doubt that he lies in the tumulus of Aegae).

The most recent theory here is that it was supposed to be the last resting place for Hephaistion. 

More news came from the Hellenic Institute for the Research of Alexandria Culture in 2017 (see: Magnificent Alexander statue found in Alexandria). They are working in the Shalallat Gardens area, where they claim to have located remains from the Royal Quarters of the Ptolemies. More exciting is the discovery of a unique marble statue of Alexander the Great in these gardens, fueling new theories about the king’s tomb once again.

Earlier this year, while discussing the presumed Tomb of Queen Olympias near Pydna (see: The tomb of Olympias found?), the leading Professor claimed that this tomb was similar to the one attributed to Alexander at Siwah.  

In the end, there have been many more theories, as I am not including those expressed in the widespread versions of the Alexander Romance (see: Le Roman d’Alexandre, traduit du grec par A Tallet-Bonvalot). None of them was satisfactory.

Two statues of a Kouros unearthed at Euromos

Since my post Euromos, just a bowshot away, the Temple of Zeus is steadily being excavated. This year, it made headlines when two Kouros statues were unearthed together with an inscription. 

One of the statues is naked while the other one is wearing a short skirt and leather armor. Remarkably, both Kouros are holding a lion on their hands – a unique feature so far. In the case of the naked Kouros, the lion may indicate that Apollo is represented here. These statues constitute an important link in the history of sculptures in ancient Caria. 

The inscription is written in Greek and dates from Hellenistic times. The text has not yet been deciphered entirely but experts are hopeful that it will largely contribute to the history of Caria. 

Beside the Agora, the Baths and the city walls, the excavations are centered on the Temple of Zeus. Until now, some 250 blocks had been carefully stacked at the south end of the temple. They are now moved to their respective locations in order to start restoration works. As soon as this parcel of ground is cleared, archaeologists will look below the surface for more missing architectural blocks. 

I always experienced the location of the temple of Euromos as very serene with the whispering pine trees that surround it. I hope that these excavations will not spoil that special atmosphere.

[Top picture with the Kouros is from the Hurriyet Daily News]

The tomb of Olympias found?

Last month, the Greek City Times published an article with the resonating title “Professor Bidas: Tomb of Alexander the Great’s mother was found in Korinos.” The news is worth making headlines, and I’m puzzled because it didn’t. 

It is all about one of the tombs of Korinos, some 13 kilometers south of Pydna. These tombs were discovered back in 1860 by the French archaeologists L Heuzey and H Domet, who named them A and B. Both tombs had been plundered in antiquity, and the artifacts left behind were recuperated by Heuzey to be sent to the Louvre in Paris. The tombs, which were covered by a tumulus, are dated to the 4th century BC. 

[Entrance to the tomb by Daumet 1855. Picture from Greek City Times]

In 1991, the Greek archaeologist, M Besios, restarted the excavations and concentrated on the largest tomb. The burial complex is 22 meters long compared to the 9.5 meters of King Philip’s tomb in Aegae. The size alone is enough to raise the question of the possible occupant of such a large gravesite. 

As he uncovered a rare construction of three consecutive burial chambers, M Besios concluded that the grave was intended for an important person. He found a marble case in the burial chamber that once held the vessel with the cremated remains on the east side. This result indicates that the remains belonged to a woman since women were buried with their heads facing east. 

The logical conclusion was that this tomb must have belonged to Queen Olympias. She had been assassinated by Cassander in 316 BC at the issue of the siege of Pydna and buried outside the city. 

At the tomb's entrance are the building remains of what seems to refer to a temple in honor of the deceased. Three epitaphs were found in the area. They mention the Aiakides, who were relatives of Olympias living in the outskirts of Pydna. A good reason for choosing this location for the burial. Remarkably, one of the epitaphs refers to a memorial dedicated to Neoptolemus I that stood opposite the tomb attributed to his daughter Olympias, the spouse of Philip II of Macedon. A wide road separated both constructions. 

In light of the above, Emeritus Professor Athanasios Bidas claimed to have located the tomb of Queen Olympias here in Korinos (see also: Is the Mother of Alexander the Great in the Tomb at Kasta Hill near Amphipolis?) The announcement was made public in December 2019, but competent authorities in Greece remain reticent to accept his argumentation. 

This lack of reaction is as surprising as the one that followed the discovery of the (doubtful) grave of Alexander the Great in Siwah in 1995. At that time, archaeologist Liana Souvaltzi substantiated her finds, but her digging permit was blocked by the Greek government as soon as she did. They sent an advisor of the Greek Embassy to the Egyptian government to withdraw her excavation permit and prevent her further excavations of the tomb. Twenty-five years later, Liana Souvaltzi still fights to return to Siwah and resume her excavations. 

It makes one wonder if nobody in the world wants to know the truth about what happened to the remains of Alexander the Great, his mother Olympias, his wife Roxane and their son Alexander IV, as well as those of Heracles and his mother, Barsine. Until now, it remains unsure whether the tomb of the young prince discovered next to the grave of Philip in Aegae belongs to Alexander IV.

Alexander as the sun god Helios

Once again, there is a legal fight about an ancient artifact. This time it is about a marble bust of Alexander the Great from 300 BC. It represents the king as Helios, the god of the sun. 

[From the Art Newspaper, Courtesy of Safani Gallery]

The NY District Attorney Court document states that the bust was unearthed during excavations of the Basilica Aemilia in Rome in the early 1900s. It may have been stolen from the Antiquarium Forense in Rome and surfaced in 1974 at an auction at Sotheby’s. In 2011 it was again auctioned at Sotheby’s and sold to a private collector. The latter sold it again to its present owner, the Safani Gallery in New York, in 2017. Early 2018, the Italian Ministry of Culture claimed that the head was stolen and rightfully belonged to Italy. 

That’s how this lawsuit started in 2019 – one of many such cases worldwide. Why does it take more than a century to declare a theft and to raise the question of provenance, more so since, in this case, the Alexander head passed through the renowned auction house of Sotheby’s twice? Such auctions are usually attended by Italian officials as well. 

Anyway, the ownership of the precious artifact remains unresolved for now, and the head stays in the custody of the D.A.

Remains of an almost unique warship discovered in Thonis-Heracleion

In an earlier blog (see: Heracleion, ancient Greek port in Egypt), I summarized the outcome of years of underwater excavations at the modern site of Abukir Bay, roughly 37 kiometers east of Alexandria. The city reached its peak between the 6th and the 4th century BC. 

By 2019, excavations exposed 70 ancient shipwrecks (see: A unique Egyptian baris found at Thonis-Heracleion). We should remember that pending the completion of Alexander’s Alexandria, which started in 331 BC, Thonis-Heracleion was the largest harbor in Egypt. 

[A diver examines the remains of an ancient military vessel discovered in the Mediterranean sunken city of Thonis-Heracleion off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Reuters]

Today, the city made headlines once again as the remains of an ancient Greek warship were exposed. They have been dated to the 2^nd century BC, i.e., in Ptolemaic times. This find is almost unique because until now, only one other warship from this period exists. It is a Punic ship called Marsala found in western Sicily. 

The warship was discovered beneath the remains of a funerary temple from the 4th century BC. Archaeologists have established that the temple was destroyed by a strong earthquake in the 2nd century BC. As a result, the building blocks of this sanctuary fell on the warship, which sank into the muddy seabed. This muddy bottom solidified, and, in the process, it contributed to preserving the ship. 

Despite the damage caused by the crumbling temple, a preliminary study helped to determine that the vessel was approximately 25 meters long. Based on the wood and shipbuilding fashion, the study also revealed that the ship was built in Egypt using a mixture of Greek and Egyptian techniques and decoration styles. 

[Picture from the National News]

The solid layer of mud also yielded some artifacts and bits of stone and rubble from the temple as it collapsed. 

Year after year, the submerged port of Thonis-Heracleion exposes ever more secrets buried for twenty centuries. With each and every archaeological investigation, we obtain a closer view of how this coastline looked in Alexander’s day before he opted to build an entirely new harbor that still exists today.

My one thousandth post and there are more to come

This is my 1000th post about Alexander the Great and the heritage he left us. It is fascinating that although so much of his personality has been said, written, discussed, and criticized, there is still so much to be discovered and revealed! 

Over the years, I have commented on 78 books related to or about Alexander the Great, ranging from ancient authors to modern and contemporary writers. All have their own opinion of who Alexander was. All have their own critics, while others merely glorify him. 

Alexander has literally been taken apart, from his personality to his generalship. Every king, general, archaeologist, historian, and blogger believes he knows him best. 

This last conviction may transpire from my own book Alexander the Great was here, and so was I. It was inevitable since I met so many people who admire him as if they met him personally during my travels. Many sites and regions still carry his heritage and often brag about the legends that surround him. 

Despite our best efforts, Alexander has always eluded us and always will. That means that I’ll continue writing about him, his world and the world he left us.

Alexander missed Eratosthenes by less than a century

Eratosthenes was born in Cyrene in c.275 BC, less than fifty years after the death of Alexander the Great. I can’t help wondering about the impact this mathematician, astronomer, and geographer would have had on Alexander and his campaign had both men known each other!

When Eratosthenes was about forty years old, Ptolemy III appointed him as chief librarian at the Library of Alexandria – a position he occupied until he died in c.195 BC. The Library was attached to the Museum, and together they were meant to be a university and research center. One may wonder whether the initial idea came from Alexander himself or was developed by Ptolemy I Soter. 

On the other hand, Eratosthenes was the first to write a chronology of Greek history and literature. Some people do live an amazingly well-filled life! 

The reason for bringing Alexander into the picture is double. Firstly, he was the founder of his major city of Alexandria, in 331 BC. His architect, Dinocrates of Rhodes, had roughly been planned, who complied with Alexander’s wish to create a megapolis. That is precisely what happened as the two main streets were designed to be 30 meters wide and all the other streets 15 meters. They were oriented in such a way as to profit from the sea breeze, while at the same time, they would provide shelter from the wind.  

The city walls were impressive also and ran over a distance of 15 kilometers. A mole had to be constructed to link the island of Pharos to the mainland. As a result, Alexandria would have two large harbors protected from the northerly winds. From experience in Libya, I can confirm that the strength of those winds cannot be underestimated! 

The second reason for mentioning Alexander is because of the great merit of Eratosthenes to be the first to draw a map of the world based on the imaginary lines of longitude and latitude, which enabled him to calculate the circumference of the earth.  

Pythagoras was the first to declare that the earth was a sphere, but he could not calculate its size. This is what Eratosthenes did. At noon on the summer solstice, he recorded simultaneous measurements at  Alexandria and at Syeme (close to Aswan) 5,000 stadia further south. The sun stood straight overhead in Syeme but not in Alexandria. Using a stick to measure the shadow, Eratosthenes found none in Syeme, whereas, in Alexandria, it cast a shadow with 7 degrees. Both cities lie near the same longitude line encircling the earth, 360 degrees. At this point, Eratosthenes calculated that 7 degrees are about 1/50 of 360 degrees. In other words, this means that the distance between the two cities must be 1/50 of the entire meridian. Hence, he multiplied the 5,000 stadia by 50, and he obtained an estimate of the earth’s circumference of 250,000 stadia. To simplify calculations, he rounded this figure up to 252,000, which is evenly divisible by 360. Although scholars cannot agree on the length of a stadium, their best estimate is 157 meters. As a result, Eratosthenes’ calculation of the earth’s circumference was 39,250 kilometers against 40,000 kilometers today.

 

That is an astonishing result given the lack of instruments and means Eratosthenes had at his disposal. 

Now imagine that less than a century earlier, all Alexander knew was that the earth was flat and surrounded by the Outer Ocean. How would he have looked at our planet, and how would this knowledge influence his campaigning? Had he known, his plans could have been designed in quite a different way!

The role of Cyprus in Alexander’s campaign

Because of its copper mines, Cyprus was famous for producing armor, swords, and other objects in bronze since early antiquity. Another richness of the island was its shipbuilding and its navy, which made it the envy of many nations and kings. Besides, the island occupies a strategic position for those conquerors who aimed to control Asia Minor and Egypt. 

With more or less success, the Persians ruled over Cyprus since the 6th century BC. This situation changed after Alexander’s battle at Issus and his victorious campaigns on the coast of Asia Minor, Syria, and Phoenicia. The Cypriots realized that sooner or later, the Macedonian king would occupy their island too. They decided to make their fleet, which hitherto had been at the service of the Persians, available to Alexander. In exchange, they acquired their political independence. 

It is probably around this time that the King of Citium (the ancient name for Larnaca) gave Alexander a masterly executed sword, which Plutarch described as exceptionally light and well-tempered (see: Alexander’s battle outfit) 

As Alexander approached Tyre in 332 BC, he was not welcome to enter the city. He had no choice but to lay siege to Tyre, which was situated on an offshore island. This would not stop Alexander, who built a mole of 750 meters to connect the island to the mainland. All that time, the Tyrenians continued to defend their city by all means available. Besides, they received help from the sea as the Persian fleet had free access to both the north and south harbors. 

Since Alexander’s own reduced fleet was no match against the Persians, he called upon his allies to assist him. Eighty Phoenician triremes arrived along with nine from Rhodes, three from Soli and Mallus, ten from Lycia, and fifty-oared vessels from Macedonia joined in. Cyprus dispatched 120 warships, a substantial number to efficiently swell Alexander’s naval force. With his fleet in position, the king was ready to launch his joint land and naval operation, and he successfully captured Tyre. He thus ended a siege that had lasted for nine months. 

The seafaring experience of the Cypriots was a precious asset for Alexander, even during his later campaigns. He cut the ships into manageable sections and hauled them overland all the way to India. More than anywhere else, the crafts were handy to cross the many rivers of the Punjab and their tributaries. When the king decided to sail down the Indus to the Outer Ocean, he had his engineers (many of them from Cyprus) build ships of different sizes and shapes to transport troops and animals downstream. Shipbuilders and rowers from Egypt, Phoenicia, and Caria joined the Cypriot forces to create this flotilla led by the specially appointed admiral Nearchus. 

After the death of Alexander in 323 BC, Cyprus fell under Ptolemaic rule and eventually became fully Hellenized. 

[Picture from Heritage Daily, credit Anna Kubicka] 

Today, archaeologists have discovered a unique rock-cut banqueting site in Paphos. It is located close to a temple near the top of Fabrika Hill. Such a place would be used to share the meat of the animals sacrificed on the adjacent monumental altar. Such rituals were common in Cyprus and in other Mediterranean cultures like the Nabataeans in Petra, Jordan. However, this is the first such example unearthed in Cyprus. Religious banquets in the open air are usually held in semi-circular constructions and present a round depression in the center to drain the libations in honor of the gods. 

So far, archaeologists have not been able to identify with certainty which God was worshiped, but Aphrodite is the most likely candidate since she was born from the sea, not far from Paphos. The banqueting site and the temple were used from the 2nd century BC onward. The city, however, was founded earlier, sometime during the 4^th century BC. It was abandoned probably after the earthquake of circa 150 AD.

Highlighting Freya Stark, her life and her oeuvre

Many Alexander-fans and interested travellers are familiar with Freya Stark's extensive literature about the world she discovered and disclosed to her readers all through the 20th century.

I greatly enjoyed and used her book Alexander’s Path, where she explores every single road, pass, river and trail of Lycia to find the best-fitted passage for Alexander to take his army across that mountain backbone. I commented on her book in detail in an earlier blog Alexander’s Path by Freya Stark.

Another chapter of her extensive travel is mentioned on my blog under The Minaret of Djam by Freya Stark.

These two books are only a small sample of her extensive writing. Yet the person of Freya Stark is worth being known more closely.

That is precisely the article's content written by Joshua J.  Mark on World History as he illustrates and underscores Freya Stark's remarkable life. I simply copied his post hereafter, but the original can also be read directly on World History.

 

 Freya Stark

Definition

by Joshua J. Mark
published on 30 June 2021

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Shibam

Will De Freitas (CC BY-NC-ND)

Freya Stark (l. 1893-1993) was an English explorer, writer, and political influencer who chronicled world events, especially in the Near East, throughout the 20th century. Stark both reported on and made the news as her travels, described in her books, made her a celebrity author.

One of Stark's biographers, Jane Fletcher Geniesse, writes, "Freya never lost a rapturous sense that the earth and everything on it were marvelous" (xvii). She was injured as a child and reading became an escape and comfort to her. Stories of faraway places and adventures thrilled her, and she vowed to one day visit the places she read about.

Throughout her life she pursued what she referred to as the "ecstasy of discovery", always looking forward to the next adventure in some new place with new people to meet. She was frequently the first westerner to visit a locale in the Near East and the first to accurately report on the people and their customs. She began traveling in 1912 and was still taking off on journeys in her 80s. Her influence on other travelers and writers, especially women, was profound and continues to be in the present.

Early Life

Freya Stark was born 31 January 1893 in Paris where her English bohemian parents, Robert and Flora, were living while they studied painting. She had a younger sister, Vera, and the two children spent their early years moving about according to their parents' whims. She lived in Devon, England, in a house her father (who may not have been her biological parent) built where she would go to sleep in a bed her mother had painted with images of tall sailing ships but spent much of her childhood between England and Italy.

FREYA TOOK TO READING EARLY, & WHEN SHE WAS NINE, SHE WAS GIVEN A TRANSLATION OF ONE THOUSAND & ONE NIGHTS, WHICH INSTANTLY ENTRANCED HER.

Her parents had an unhappy marriage, which ended when Flora ran off in 1903 with the young Italian Count Mario di Roascio and took the girls with her. She grew up in Dronero, Italy, where her mother and her live-in boyfriend ran a carpet factory. There was little to do in the town, and the girls were given only the most rudimentary education by the nuns who lived nearby. Freya took to reading early, and when she was nine, she was given a translation of One Thousand and One Nights, which instantly entranced her and turned her thoughts to Arabia and all the magical places it seemed to offer.

Shortly before her 13th birthday, while visiting her mother's factory, her hair was caught in a machine, which tore open her scalp and ripped off her right ear. She had to endure painful skin grafts to repair her face and scalp and always thought of herself as disfigured afterwards. She took solace in books and the worlds they opened for her and dreamed of leaving Dronero behind, but she had no resources for travel.

Travels & Languages

Travel was in her blood, however, and she later wrote how "There is a certain madness comes over one at the mere sight of a good map”, but she did not have the means for even a short trip, much less the grand adventures she dreamed of. In 1912 she was allowed by her parents to leave Italy to attend college in London where she concentrated her studies on languages (she would eventually be fluent in English, Italian, French, Arabic, and Persian). When World War I broke out in 1914, she returned home and served with the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment) as a nurse on the Italian front caring for the wounded.

After the war, she began making plans to travel to the east. She knew she had to learn Arabic, however, to experience the culture completely. The only man who could teach her the language lived many miles away, but this was no obstacle; twice a week Stark walked an hour to the train, which took her to San Remo, and then walked another two miles to her teacher's home. Before long, she was reading the Quran in Arabic.

The Arabian Nights

K.C. Tang (Public Domain)

She had been given a sum of money by her father which she had turned to a profit through careful investments which generated about 300 pounds a year. Against the advice of her banker, she invested almost all of what she had in an enterprise both her father and the banker considered too risky: the Canadian Grand Trunk Railway. Freya's instincts paid off, however, as the returns from her investment were significant enough to finally allow her to travel. The banker was so impressed by her confidence, he later told her, the whole staff invested following her example and made handsome returns.

In a strange turn of events, which friends and acquaintances found scandalous, her sister Vera wound up marrying Count di Roascio who had been their mother's lover. When Vera and the count were married, Flora refused to quit the residence and retained her position as head of the household, relegating Vera to the status of a kind of servant in her own home. Vera died of a miscarriage in 1926, and Freya, afraid her mother would somehow trap her in the same kind of prison her sister had died in, booked ship to Lebanon and left Italy behind a year later in 1927. She would return to Italy to look after her mother and her niece, but she was finally free to travel as she wished.

The Near East

ALL SHE WAS INTERESTED IN WAS CONTINUING HER STUDY OF ARABIC & TRAVEL FOR THE SAKE OF TRAVEL.

She found the people of Beirut warm and welcoming, claiming this was most likely because she had come "neither to improve nor rob" them. All she was interested in was continuing her study of Arabic and travel for the sake of travel. Throughout her life, she was prone to illness and arrived in the city in poor health. She quickly improved in the warm climate, however, and began to explore the area as soon as she was able, traveling through Lebanon to Syria. Syria at this time was under the control of the French who brutally suppressed the native Druse and severely restricted travel. Stark refused to be controlled by what she saw as arbitrary laws enacted by an illegal occupying force and hired a Druse guide to lead her and her friend, Venetia Buddicom, from Damascus to explore the area.

They were quickly arrested by the French and detained for three days but, with her typical wit and charisma, Stark charmed the French soldiers so completely, in her fluent French, that the two women - and, to a lesser degree, their guide - were treated more as guests of the compound than prisoners. Having been detained by the French made her all the more welcome to the Druse she later met, and she was able to gain insights into the people and their culture, which would have been difficult or impossible otherwise. In this instance, as in many others, Stark was able to turn an unpleasant event to her advantage and make friends of potential adversaries.

Early Books

Her first article was published in 1928 (under the name Tharaya, Arabic for "She Who Illuminates the World"), and her first book, Baghdad Sketches, in 1933 which was an account of her explorations in Iraq. Her second, The Valleys of the Assassins and Other Persian Tales (1934), related her experiences in Iran in 1929 and, especially, in the remote Elburz Mountains where she visited the castle of the cult of the Assassins.

To reach the mountains she had only some sketchy maps supplied by her friend Captain Vyvyan Holt (the man who had replaced Gertrude Bell as Britain's Oriental Secretary) whom she had met earlier through mutual acquaintances. Along with these rough maps, she also had the help of two guides who had no idea where the Rock of Alamut, the assassins' castle, was located as no one ever had any cause to visit it.

The Assassins Alamut Castle, Iran

Alireza Javaheri (CC BY)

Stark was unconcerned; for her, reaching the castle was not as important as the adventure of getting there. She waded through rushing streams, passed through fields thick with wildflowers, slept in a thin tent under mosquito netting with her guides on either side, and climbed up to 10,250 feet (3,124 m) to see the whole sweep of the mountain range.

She instantly recognized that the official maps were wrong, to the extent that the mountain range on the map was on the wrong side of the valley, and promptly corrected them. When she returned from her travels with the revised maps, Captain Holt and his colleagues commended her on her "brave work", and she would eventually be awarded the Founder's Gold Medal by the Royal Geographical Society for her contributions.

Travel & Illness

Throughout the 1930s, Stark continued to travel, write, and publish. Her works were immensely popular and translated into a number of languages. She traveled through Luristan, photographing and talking with the Lurs, a culture virtually unknown to the outside world at that time. She heard from some of them of a great treasure of gold, statuary, and rare gems hidden in a cave outside of the city of Nihavend and set out to find it with a guide who, like her earlier guides, had no knowledge of the cave or how to find it.

She separated from her guide to search alone but was turned back by local police. Pursuing what she called "a lovely blank on the map" she traveled to Masanderan on the Caspian Sea to fill in that blank for herself. She was struck along the way with dysentery and malaria and would have died if not for the intervention of a local woman who was a healer.

Shabwa

BluesyPete (CC BY-SA)

Once back on her feet, she set out for Shabwa in Yemen, an ancient trade center and oasis famously associated with frankincense. Unlike her earlier expedition to Alamut, no European had ever visited Shabwa. She traveled this time with two female archaeologists and reached the city of Shibam, "the oldest skyscraper city in the world" before, one by one, they fell ill with fever. Stark had contracted the measles shortly before leaving and now became seriously ill. She had to be airlifted to the hospital facilities in Aden by the RAF, an event which quickly became the news of the day when the media learned that the famous explorer and author Freya Stark had only barely cheated death.

Influence as a Writer

Her books were so popular not just because of the exotic subject matter but because of her unique voice. The narrative of Stark's works is alive with experience and wonder as she recounts her travels to ancient sites and natural wonders but, like many of the best travel writers, her greatest gift is in describing the most common-place moments in her travels: an evening talking around the fire, the time a man came to her asking for medicine for his sick wife, the scent of the cool morning breeze before starting off into a day trekking across the desert, or a moment of silence alone gazing across a landscape of flowers, hills, and streams at the distant mountains.

In addition to these kinds of reflections and sketches of everyday life and the people she encountered, Stark routinely condemned western interference in the politics of the region. Her commentary on the western mandates were given through her eyewitness accounts of the French using Druse labor for their building projects, noting the injustice of enslaving an indigenous people for one's own ends.

The Brotherhood of Freedom

When World War II began, Stark volunteered for the British Middle East Propaganda Section of the Ministry of Information and slipped into Yemen with a projector and a few cans of film. Her intent was to keep Yemen from siding with the Nazi cause and since, as a woman, she had free access to the harems of the rulers, she thought that, by showing her propaganda films to the ladies of the court, she could influence the men in control.

SHE FORMED THE BROTHERHOOD OF FREEDOM, A NETWORK OF UNITED BRITISH & ARAB NATIONALS WHO SPREAD THE IDEALS OF PERSONAL FREEDOM & EQUALITY.

Her plan worked, and Yemen remained neutral, denying the Nazis a strategic ground from which they'd hoped to launch attacks. She then formed the Brotherhood of Freedom, a network of united British and Arab nationals who spread the ideals of personal freedom and equality and whose numbers rose to 40,000 members.

The Brotherhood of Freedom is generally considered instrumental in solidifying Egyptian and Arab loyalty to the allied cause. Stark travelled extensively throughout the Middle East at this time as part of her job and more than once relied on her cleverness, and the male perception of women, to get to where she wanted to go or get out of trouble.

Stark in Iran

A famous example of this happened in April of 1941 when the government of Iraq allied itself with the Nazi cause. Stark had been in Tehran and was travelling back to the British Embassy in Baghdad when she was arrested at the border between Iran and Iraq. British citizens were no longer allowed free travel, she was told, and she would be detained. She was imprisoned in the railroad rest house while her guards decided how best to deal with her and, listening to their conversations, she learned others in her position had been sent to prison camps.

Stark instantly conjured all her charm and sweet-talked her guard into bringing her tea. When it was brought, he could not resist her invitation to share some with her and sit awhile in conversation. Stark asked his help with a serious problem which, as a refined man she said, she knew he would be able to appreciate: it was simply impossible for her, as a lady, to remain in their custody without a proper ladies' maid. Her guard did not immediately relent, but Stark kept at him, persistently, flattering him as a civilized man who surely understood how weak and incapable women were and what his obligation, as a gentleman of culture, called on him to do.

The guard set her free and arranged for her trip by train to Baghdad; where she then seems to have cajoled her way into a horse-drawn carriage, which brought her to the British Embassy. She was the last person admitted to the embassy before the Siege of Baghdad began. In reflecting on the many moments throughout her life she had managed to get her way by playing the role of the helpless damsel, Stark wrote, "The great and almost only comfort about being a woman is that one can always pretend to be more stupid than one is and no one will be surprised” (Geniesse, 136).

Marriage & Further Travels

After a speaking tour in the United States, she returned to Italy to a cottage in Asolo she had inherited from Henry Young, an old family friend, many years before. She used her Italian cottage as a home base from which to launch her travels after the war. She married a man named Stewart Perowne in 1947, but they quickly separated (never divorced) as they found themselves more suitable as friends than lovers.

Villa Freya, Asolo

F. Tronchin (CC BY-NC-ND)

In 1951, at the age of 58, she traveled through Greece, Turkey, and Syria. She was away from home most of the time for the next 14 years. In her seventies, she traveled to China, and when she was 76 made a tour of some the more remote areas of Afghanistan. In the 1970s she explored Nepal on the back of a pony and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1972.

She lived in her small cottage in Asolo, writing her books (she would publish over two dozen) and entertaining guests whenever she was not traveling. In 1984 the town awarded her the key to the city as their most illustrious citizen. She continued to write and receive visitors for the next nine years until her death on 9 May 1993, a few months past her 100th birthday.

Conclusion

In a letter to a friend in 1929, Stark wrote, "One life is an absurdly small allowance" but, as with everything handed to her, she took what she had been given and turned it to her advantage. She very much wanted to be loved, and to be married (she even called herself 'Mrs. Stark' after her separation from Perowne) but came to understand she could not have everything, and a conventional life would have meant settling for less than her ideal.

Critics have pointed out that Stark's actual achievements as an explorer were technically minimal: she was not the first European to visit or write about the Elburz mountains, she was prevented from reaching Shabwa by illness, was denied access to Luristan's treasures by authorities, and in several other instances, she failed in her immediate objectives.

She succeeded, however, in conveying the vitality of the region and the people and in leaving behind a chronicle of the Middle East in the first part of the 20th century in a voice which still holds all the charm and vigor which made her famous while she lived. In every respect, Freya Stark lived her life completely through the allowance she was given - the whole hundred years of it - and even won the love she desired through her work, which touched the lives of so many around the world and continues to do so today.