Ligabue Magazine 18

The expression, redolent in gentle elysian connotations, was coined by Sir Borace Walpole, Fourth Count of Orford, in 1700. He used it to describe the then widespread notion that Ceylon had been accidentally discovered by Portuguese explorer Lourenào de Almeida in 1505 when he was sailing to try and reach the fabulous treasures of Borneo.

The name Ceylon is actually the English mispronunciation of the Sinhalese Selan or Simhala which in turn derives from the Sanskrit Sinhadnipa (island of lions). It was then changed by the Arabs to Sarandip or Serendip. The word is still in use in Colombo and Walpole was prompted to use it for any accidental discovery. It is a nice turn of phrase, but in fact the island has a much older linguistic root, for it was known by the ancient Greeks and Indians as Taprobane, also mentioned by Marco Polo as well as by the Moroccan Ibn Battuta who landed there in 1344, while a Bolognese explorer, Ludovico de Vertema, also visited and described it in 1502. The credit for its discovery went to the young Almeida probably because he was an admiral’s son, but above all because it was the Portuguese who eventually conquered the island in 1505.

Although frequently based on discoveries, it would be mistaken to consider the history of scientific progress as full of dramatic and serendipitous episodes. Of course, there is often an element of chance in scientific discoveries, and chance, luck and intuition have been part of the great conjunctures that have helped learned men further their erudite researches. The Lucy skeleton was found by chance. But by an anthropologist, and not any old tourist who just happened to be roaming round Ethiopia. X-rays were not invented by a science-fiction writer and penicillin wasn’t tried out by a magician.

Similarly, by 1492, Columbus had almost twenty years sailing experience behind him. He had studied the works of explorers and cartographers, and above all he knew he could rely on the Trade Winds. This brings us to a fundamental rule of thumb we use in preparing Ligabue Magazine, now in the year of its tenth anniversary: our contributors are chosen from experts who are prepared to explain their very specialised knowledge and who do not simply trust in chance. A case in point is our illustrious foreign contributor, J. Desmond Clark. Professor of anthropology for 25 years at the University of Berkeley, Desmond Clark, has been head or joint-leader of twenty archaeological expeditions to Africa and the Far East. He has written or contributed to eighteen books and two hundred and seventy memoirs on African and Asian prehistory, and we could fill a whole page with all the honours he has received. When he found out that in 1986 Giancarlo Ligabue and Gunter Konrad had made contact with Papaun pygmies who had no knowledge of metalworking but were still using stone axes in the central plateaus of New Guinea, he was absolutely “bowled over”, for he had dedicated long years of study to the stone industry of prehistoric man.

Accompanying the recent new expedition to New Guinea, he described finding these living examples of our past “an unrepeatable experience in terms of the data gathered, which will make a very valuable patrimony for experts of stone technology”. Any readers wishing to learn more about how those pygmies live and make their stone axes should turn to page 44. 32.

The word incense immediately conjures up images of lofty spiritual thought, originating with the texts of Exodus or Leviticus. For thousands of years incense has been used in the rites of many religions. As it burns it purifies, rises up to the heavens, and its spiralling fine smoke spreads a mystical aura. An exotic product of Southern Arabia, the story of incense has often been confused with legend, and it is told for us on page 92 by Paolo Maria Costa, a well-known archaeologist and Arab and Islamic expert, who has taught for many years in a great variety of places – Baghdad, Oman, Cambridge and the Oriental Institute of Naples.

In the article on page 60, the head of the Italo-Thai Lopburi Regional Archaeological Project since 1987, Roberto Ciarla, describes the archaeological “sensation” in the Thai village of Ban Chiang where objects datable to 1000-300 BC have been unearthed .

Regular readers will have noticed that I always leave the names of Viviano Domenici and Maurizio Leigheb until last. This happens because I have already written on them several times in previous issues, and I run the risk of burning too much incense in their honour. In this issue, on page 78, the ever-active chief scientific correspondent of the Corriere della Sera, Viviano Domenici, contributes a brilliant digression on the colourful subject of various mythological “monsters” such as the Minotaur, Hydra, Medusa, Centaur and Mermaid, the latter being particularly seductive! While on page 132 Maurizio Leigheb gives a careful ethnographic account of the Punan nomads from the Borneo jungle who – alas – are sadly being reduced to tourist attractions.

Finally, a long-due homage to Giovanni Miani (1810-1872) is made by Silvia Manzoni and Andrea Tagliapietra on page 108, describing the Rovigo-born explorer Miani who set off in search of the sources of the Nile. After various expeditions, he died of exhaustion at Numa near the River Uelle while exploring Central Africa.

The source for this article as well as for an accompanying film is a 1980-82 Ligabue Study and Research Centre expedition led by Gabriele Rossi-Osmida. Based on the indications in Miani’s Diary kept in the Museum of Natural History in Venice, the expedition followed in the footsteps of the explorer and found his last message engraved on a rock of the massive Regiaf volcano.