Ligabue Magazine 60

We learn about this breakthrough in an article by Rodolfo Fattovich, joint leader on the expedition. The excavated site is an area where Egyptian ships left from and returned to on their voyages to the land of Punt. Proof of this comes from some spectacular finds, such as coils of rope, still intact after 3,700 years, cargo crates used on expeditions, and the remains of ships that were assembled in the area. The site also yielded materials imported from Punt, such as African ebony, Yemenite obsidian, pottery from the Eritrean-Sudanese area and the Eritrean coast, but also from Yemen. In short, these finds led to the conclusion that the land of Punt was more of an extensive geographical area than a well-defined country and that it straddled the Red Sea, embracing both the African and Yemen coasts. Duccio Canestrini also takes us on a very intriguing journey as he tackles one of the touchiest issues for anyone travelling to distant lands: how much of what you see is authentic when you encounter little-known peoples?

There have been many examples of fake primitives’ peoples both in the field (such as the false Vedda that the author encountered on his travels) and in literature. At times even anthropologists, such as Margaret Mead, have unwittingly created false myths in their field studies. But there have also been cases of deliberate hoaxes and even celebrated 18th-century Enlightenment writers who resorted to them as a way of criticising Western society and its morality. But in any case, these fake savages end up serving an unexpected function: they help us understand ourselves, our own way of life and our outlook. For example, why do we still try to capture non-existent loincloth clad primitives in photos? If you do meet a native, he will probably be wearing a cool LCD watch and has a pickup parked behind the hut… Given that the Ligabue Study and Research Centre is based in Venice, it’s hardly surprising the lagoon city often features in its magazine. In this issue we explore Venice’s best-known icon: the gondola. You may not have noticed at first glance, but the gondola is actually bent. If you look more closely, you’ll see that it is completely asymmetric. Why? Because it allows the gondolier to stand on one side without upsetting the boat and ending up in the canal. But this is just one of the gondola’s secrets.

Gianfranco Munerotto fills us in with a lot more details, starting from one simple question: has the gondola always looked like it does today? In his article he takes us on a colourful trip through the centuries aboard a truly unique vessel. On the subject of vessels, an equally famous but completely different one changed the history of humanity: the Caravel. Exactly 520 years ago Columbus discovered America. But why does the New World not bear his name? Why was it named after Amerigo Vespucci? And who was Amerigo Vespucci? Given the scarce documentary information available about him, it is difficult to reconstruct his life with any accuracy. Adriano Favaro makes a prodigious attempt to do so as he explores the figure of this remarkable navigator in a fascinating article. A friend of Botticelli and well connected at the Medici court, Vespucci probably used to run into Michelangelo and Poliziano in the streets of Florence. He went to America twice (or possibly four times) and he wrote about his adventures. He published a short book (Mundus Novus) which brought him great fame and made his name, which was then given to the new continent. Vespucci seems to have been an unusual man, ahead of his times. His realistic, almost scientific reports are very different from Columbus’ more idealistic writings. And indeed, Favaro stresses this by quoting a famous remark that Columbus was a man of the Middle Ages, Vespucci of the Renaissance.

Carlo Barbante and Natalie Kehrwald describe another kind of discovery that concerns both the past and the future: climate change caused by human activities. It’s difficult to separate natural changes (we might call them Nature’s breaths) from those caused by humans. But now assessing how much human activity has affected the climate has become essential. The two researchers illustrate the problem simply and clearly and also the importance of a crucial programme of ice core sampling in various significant places in the world. Ice cores will update our knowledge of the earliest human impact, which may date back to prehistory, when the invention of agriculture led to a huge process of deforestation of the planet with -possibly- very serious consequences for the climate. The industrial age was still a very long way off. The last journey in this issue is described by Federico Kauffmann Doig. For years he has been conducting excavations and searches in the Andes and has uncovered some neglected pages of their history. His article deals with the expedition that he led to the remains of the lost city of the Incas at Vilcabamba. The city was associated with the deeds of Manco Inca. After being set on the throne by Pizarro, this Inca ruler then led an ill-fated uprising against the Spanish. Although the ruins of the lost city are buried in the forest, we can still find out a good deal about this little-known period in Inca history from the site, as the author reveals. In the article he also illustrates some very special places of worship, such as the rock altar where an Inca princess used to sit and urinate, thus symbolically fertilising the Earth so that it would yield fruit. Or the cave in which Manco Inca’s mummy was concealed, only to be eventually discovered by the Spanish and burnt. Through his explorations Kauffman Doig has very knowledgably interpreted another little-known chapter of our past and has shared his conclusions with us here.

Bon Voyage!