realwhiteculture:
eboni-health-advisor:
#Blackhealth #BlackHistory
So true. Infact, before soap was made Africans had been using a special type of leaf to bath with which suds up on contact with water. The other side of the story was that Europeans didn’t bath because Most of Europe is cold and they were unaware that soap existed as well as undeveloped heating technology. The only people that bathed were the Japanese and Africans and eventually the Greeks.
Did you know that Africans don’t get head lice because Our hair follicle unlike Asian and European hair is shaped like a bean as opposed to a round circle or oval shape. Lice can’t attach to our odd shaped hair follicles.
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Unsurprisingly there are no sources wonder why? perhaps because you’re lying
(pictures are at bottom)
"The other side of the story was that Europeans didn’t bath because Most of Europe is cold and they were unaware that soap existed as well as undeveloped heating technology." Deary let me introduce you to the vikings
People kept a neat appearance during the Viking age. One of the few naturalistic renderings of the human face from the Viking age is the antler carving shown to the left. The figure depicts a man wearing a helmet, with his hair neat and trim. On his face, he wears a beard and a long moustache.
In chapter 3 of Vatnsdæla saga, Jökull is described as a large man with fair, shoulder-length hair. People thought him handsome.
Literary evidence suggests that women wore their hair long. When Hallgerður met Gunnar in chapter 33 of Brennu-Njáls saga, she is said to have thick, fair hair that came down to her breasts. In addition, the medieval lawbook Grágás (K254) prohibited women from wearing their hair short, one of several masculine traits that was specifically forbidden by the laws.
We know little about the details of face and body features, but it is safe to say that Scandinavians in the Viking age had features that closely resembled modern Scandinavians today.
The average height of men in Norway in the Viking era, based on skeletal measurements, was 176cm (5ft 9in), with a range from 170-181cm (5ft 7in to 5ft 11in), which was taller than other Europeans during this time. The average height of women was 160cm (5ft 3in), with a range from 149-164cm (4ft 11in to 5ft 5in).
Ibn Fadlan, an Arab who met Viking traders in Russia in the year 921, commented that the men were tall like palm trees. He also noted that “Each man, from the tip of his toes to his neck, is covered in dark-green lines, pictures, and such like.” To many people, this description suggests that Vikings wore tattoos. I remain unconvinced.
The word used in the original is obscure and is more commonly used to describe the decorations inside of mosques. Additionally, Ibn Fadlan described many other aspect of the Rus traders that are not supported by other sources. That these descriptions of body decorations do not show up in other early medieval Scandinavian sources, and that they seem not to have been used by other Viking-age northern Europeans makes me think it unlikely that Viking people commonly wore tattoos.
One form of body decoration that is better supported is modifications to the teeth. A number of Viking-age skeletal remains have been found in Denmark and Sweden with horizontal grooves carefully filed into the front surfaces of the most visible teeth. It’s been suggested that these grooves were filled with a pigment or dye to color them. It’s been further suggested that the Danish king Haraldr blátönn (Harald Bluetooth) received his name not from teeth darkened from decay, but rather from intentional modifications and colors applied to his teeth.
It is likely that all men had facial hair. The stories say that men who were unable to grow a beard were mocked. For example, Brennu-Njáls saga tells the story of Njáll Þorgeirsson, who was beardless. Chapter 20 says that he was married, with six children, and that he was wealthy and handsome, but that he had a peculiarity: he could not grow a beard. In chapter 44, Hallgerðr asked some gossiping beggarwomen what was going on at Njál’s farm at Bergþórshváll. The women said that Njál’s sons were preparing for battle, and his farmhands were spreading manure on the hayfield to fertilize it. Hallgerðr wondered why they didn’t spread it on Njál’s chin, so his beard would grow. She gave Njáll the name “Old Beardless”, and his sons “Little-Dungbeards”. Sigmundr composed scandalous poetry using the new names.
Njál’s son, Skarpheðinn, repaid Sigmundr for the verses by driving his axe through Sigmund’s shoulder, forcing him to his knees, and then by splitting Sigmund’s head with his next blow.
Hair washing and cutting was a function performed by women for men and seems to have usually been performed outdoors. In chapter 18 of Víglundar saga, Víglundur asked Ketilríður to cut and wash his hair before he left for Norway. After the job was done, he promised her to permit no one else to cut and wash his hair as long as she was alive.
In chapter 21 of Heiðarvíga saga, Barði stopped to collect Odd to ride to the heath where the revenge killings were to take place. Barði found that Odd’s wife was washing his hair. Odd’s horse was saddled, and his weapons were prepared. But the final preparation for the trip was a cleansing. Barði asked Odd’s wife to finish the job properly before their departure.
The medieval Icelandic lawbook Grágás (St 361) calls for the most severe penalties for a man who makes someone dirty in order to disgrace him. Similarly, pushing a man into water or urine or food or dirt resulted in the same penalties, whatever the reason.
personal grooming aids
A variety of grooming aids are common archaeological finds in virtually every occupied site. They’re so common that one has to conclude that they were in wide use, and they are found in both male and female graves.
Shown to the left are modern reproductions of a comb (top), and from left to right below, an ear wax scraper, a toothpick, and a pair of tweezers. These reproduction items are made from bone or antler, although some luxury items from the Norse era were made from ivory. In addition, a variety of wash basins have been found at archaeological sites.
A historical comb from the 9th century is shown in the sketch to the right and another in the photo below. Like most of the historical combs, they have much finer teeth than the reproduction shown to the left. It has been suggested that comb-making was a specialized activity in the Viking age performed by skilled craftsmen, rather than at home by individual farmers.
comb
Grooming. Evidence from both literary sources and archaeological sources shows that cleanliness, good hygiene, and regular grooming were a part of Norse life. The Norse poetic literature emphasizes the need for cleanliness and regular grooming. Here are two examples:
From Reginsmál (25):
Kemðr ok þveginn skal kœnna hverr | Combed and washed every thoughtful man should be
ok at morni mettr; | and fed in the morning;
þvíat ósýnt er, hvarat apni kømr; | for one cannot foresee where one will be by evening;
illt er fyr heill at hrapa. | it is bad to rush headlong before one’s fate.
From Hávamál (61):
Þveginn ok mettr ríði maðr þingi at, | Washed and fed, a man should ride to the Assembly
þótt hann séð væddr til vel; | though he may not be very well dressed;
skúa ok bróka skammiz engi maðr, | of his shoes and breeches no man should be ashamed
né hestz in heldr, þótt hann hafit góðan. | nor of his horse, though he doesn’t have a good one.
Snorri’s bath
Besides the comments in the poems and stories, there is other evidence that the Norse were regular bathers. Hot spring baths built in the Norse era still exist in modern Iceland. The photo to the left shows the bath built by Snorri Sturluson at his farm at Reykholt, around the year 1210. It’s fed by water piped from separate hot and cold water springs, so the temperature can be adjusted to suit. The door in the hillside behind the bath leads to a tunnel which probably led back to Snorri’s farmhouse.
The sketch shows the appearance of Snorralaug (Snorri’s bath) as it looked in the 19th century. The farm of Reykholt is on the hill above the bath.
The bath is about 4 meters in diameter (13 feet), with stone steps leading down into the pool. There are bench seats around the periphery below the water for comfortable lounging.
Even in winter, the bath at Reykholt was probably very inviting, warm and relaxing. Snorri apparently spent many hours in the bath daily.
Snorralaug view
Not surprisingly, hot springs baths drew bathers from a wide area. Shelters built at the bath served not only bathers, but also women who were washing clothes in the hot water. Bathing in the hot springs was also a social activity. While Kjartan was wooing Guðrún, he timed his visits to the hot springs bath to coincide with hers, as described in chapter 39 of Laxdæla saga.
Guðrúnslaug
Until recently, Kjartan and Guðrún wouldn’t recognize the bath at Laugar; the hot water is collected and piped to the nearby school and community center (right). However, in the fall of 2009, a new stone-lined bath was built (left), which might more closely resemble the bath enjoyed by Kjartan and Guðrún.
Laugar
Grettislaug and Drangey
The reconstructed hot bath Grettislaug is shown to the left. After Grettir swam from his island hideaway Drangey across the cold waters of Skagafjörður, his first stop was at the hot bath to warm up, as described in chapter 75 of Grettis saga.
The bath is regularly used by Icelanders and visitors, even if they didn’t just swim from Drangey.
Not all baths were as nicely turned out as Grettislaug. The hot spring bath at Heydalur in Mjóifjörður is shown to the right. A depression in the ground collects the water from the hot spring. Despite the simple setup, it is a relaxing place to soak.
The photo to the left shows the hot springs on the hillside at Laugarhús in Hrafnkelsdalur. When turf is added to the dam in the foreground, warm water collects in the muddy depression around the source of the hot spring in the background. Today, the water is collected and used for drinking water for the sheep at Laugarhús.
Heydalur hot springs bath
Another form of Icelandic bathhouse is described in chapter 28 of Eyrbyggja saga. It was an outbuilding, dug into the ground. It had a window set above a stone oven so that water could be thrown onto the oven from the outside, making the bathhouse very hot.
Some longhouses had rooms which are thought to have been used as sweatrooms, an early precursor to the modern Swedish sauna.
I would like you argue against primary sources
The Anglo-Saxon defenders of England realized that the Norse invaders took regular baths, and were known to delay their attack until Norse bath time, when the Norseman had shed their clothes (and their weapons).
John of Wallingford, the abbot of St. Albans Abbey wrote in his chronicles that the Norse invaders in England were far more attractive to Anglo-Saxon women since, unlike Anglo-Saxon men, they combed their hair daily, took baths weekly, and laundered their clothing regularly.
A treaty negotiated in the year 907 between the Byzantine Empire and the Rus (the Norse people from Sweden and the east Baltic area who traded with Byzantium) contained most of the usual provisions one might expect: the Byzantium empire was obliged to give the Rus traders food, drink, and supplies for their ships. However, an unusual condition in the treaty was that Byzantium was required to provide baths for the Rus “as often as they want them”.
At Alþing, people bathed in the Öxará river, below the bridge. In the time of the sagas, the bridge was probably situated about where the modern church is located (the left-most building in the photo). The bathing area was probably to the right of the modern farm house, where the river widens as it approaches the adjacent lake.
In chapter 8 of Hrafnkels saga, Sámr and Þorbjörn bathed in the river early one morning. While washing, they saw Þorkell for the first time, who later agreed to help them in their dispute with Hrafnkell.
Oxara
Birka grave sketch
Health. Studies of burial remains from the Viking age suggest that good health and long life were possible for at least some of the population. For example, a recent study of 11th and 12th century skeletal remains from Skeljastaðir in Iceland showed that the population was generally healthy. But that is not to say that life was free of disease and pestilence.
The Skeljastaðir remains also suggest that oral health was generally good. Compared to modern western diets, the Viking-age diet had more coarse food, fewer refined foods, and much less sugar. Accordingly, the Viking-age teeth show considerable wear, but few instances of dental caries or decay.
In trading towns, where dense population made adequate sanitation difficult, many people probably routinely suffered from ill-health. The sediment off-shore from the trading town at Birka contains eggs of human parasites. The mature parasites would have caused nausea, diarrhea, and other illnesses among the residents of the town.
Good health was seen as an extension of good luck. So preventative medicine consisted primarily of chants and charms that would maintain one’s good fortune. The eddaic poetry is full of charms for the maintenance of health in daily life, such as those in Hávamál.
Runic inscriptions were used as magic to maintain health. Chapters 73 and 77 of Egils saga Skalla-grímssonar tell how a young woman’s health was first ruined through the use of improper runes, and then restored by correct runes. The runes were carved on a whalebone placed under the woman’s bed.
Medicine. In addition to magical arts, the medical arts were also practiced in the Norse era. Classical herbal remedies appear to have been known, along with local herbs specific to the Norse region. Medical treatments consisted of: lancing; cleaning wounds; anointing; bandaging; setting broken bones; the preparation of herbal remedies; and midwifery. The 13th century Icelandic law book Grágás says that one must hold harmless a person who bleeds or cauterizes someone for the good of their health [St364], suggesting those techniques were also known and used.
Studies of skeletal remains from the Viking age show evidence of fractures that have healed in ribs, and bones of the arms and legs. The stories also provide evidence of broken limbs that were manipulated to allow the bones to knit more satisfactorily. In chapter 10 of Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu, Gunnlaug’s ankle was twisted out of joint in a wrestling match. Later, his foot was bandaged and the joint re-set. (Þá var vafiður fóturinn og í liðinn færður.) In Íslendinga saga (which takes place after the Viking age, in 12th century Iceland), it is said that Loptr broke his leg one summer (chapter 40). When it was set, Loptr thought it too weak to stand on. He had the leg broken a second time and instructed how it should be set. When the leg knit a second time, Loptr was not very lame. In chapter 45 of Eyrbyggja saga, Þóroddr was wounded in the neck. As the wound healed, his head drooped to one side. He asked Snorri goði to reopen the wound and reset his head straighter.
In the early part of the Norse era, most of the population had to rely on themselves or on local people with special abilities. Educated medical specialists were rare. Chapter 6 of Eiríks saga rauða tells of an protracted period of disease at Lysufjorður in Greenland. The sick lay in bed in the hall, while the healthy helped them prepare for death.
An inured person sought a healer (læknir) for medical assistance. In chapter 6 of Þórðar saga hreðu, Indriði suffered gaping wounds during a battle. When asked if he might pull through, he said, “I think there is some hope of it, if a healer sees me.”
Later in the Norse era, it appears that certain men chose the practice of medicine as their livelihood. In chapter 28 of Magnúss saga ins góða, King Magnús the Good chose twelve men to bandage men’s wounds after the battle on Lyrskov Moor in 1043. These men subsequently acquired reputations as medical men. From these men, several notable families of physicians descended, including the Icelander Hrafn Sveinbjarnarson (died 1213), who was highly regarded for his healing skills. A memorial stone is located on his farm at Hrafnseyri (right).
Hrafn’s grave marker
Archaeological evidence from grave sites shows that surgery was performed from time to time, some of which was successful (i.e., the patient lived for a time after the procedure). In addition, some of the late literature (e.g., Biskupa sogur) suggests that surgery was occasionally performed.
In more densely settled areas, such as trading towns, epidemics must have been occasional occurrences. Smallpox, dysentery, and leprosy are recorded in the literature. The Norse must have faced these with resignation, since little could be done to control them. The attitude towards the sick is reflected in an incident from chapter 28 of Ljósvetninga saga. Már booked a passage from Iceland to Norway on a ship. While the captain waited for favorable winds, a boat drew up to the ship and asked if Már was aboard. The boat carried Már’s kinsman, Þorvaldur the leper, and the men in the boat insisted that Már take his sick kinsman with him. Már took Þorvaldur back to shore and returned to the ship without him, telling the crew he had made arrangements. Later, it was discovered Már had murdered his kinsman to avoid having to deal with him.
A mass grave at the winter camp of the Viking Great Army in Repton (England) suggests that the people buried there succumbed to an epidemic of some sort. Of the several hundred individuals buried there, most were adult males with no indications that they died of battle injuries. The Viking invaders wintered over in this camp during the winter of 873-874.
Skeletal remains show that at least some people lived to old age in the Viking era, but they also show that degenerative joint disease was common in old age. The stories tell of other conditions due to old age, such as blindness and deafness. Egils saga (chapter 85) says that when Egill was an old man, he grew frail, with stiff legs, and that both his vision and hearing failed. His skill in composing poetry seems to have been unimpaired, based on the poetry he composed mocking his infirmities in old age. He was more than 80 years old then.
Battle Injuries and First Aid. Both the saga literature and forensic studies of skeletal remains suggest that battle injuries could be horrific. The skull shown to the left is from a man who died of battle injuries in the 11th century. The top of the skull was removed by a blow from a sword. The terminus of the blow is indicated in the photo by the clear blade.
The femur (leg bone) shown to the right is from another man who died of battle injuries in the 11th century. The bone shows clear marks of the impact of ring mail against the bone, suggesting his upper leg was hit with a sword blow so powerful as to force the rings of his mail shirt through the muscles of his leg into contact with the bone. Astonishingly, this injury was not the cause of his death. His skeletal remains show other serious injuries received in that battle. However, it was a cut that partially severed his spine at the neck that killed him.
The sagas tell of several types of first aid used during a fight. Shields were thrown over fallen men to protect them from further injury (Brennu-Njáls saga chapter 150). During Gísli’s last battle (Gísla saga Súrssonar chapter 36), Eyjólf’s men thrust at Gísli with spears until his guts fell out. Gísli bound his guts up in his shirt with a cord and continued fighting. When fights continued for a long time (for example Heiðarvíga saga chapter 31), a pause was called in the fighting to allow men to bind up their wounds.
An example of battlefield medicine is described in chapter 234 of Óláfs saga helga. Þormóðr was wounded by an arrow in his side. He broke off the shaft and supported his companions in the fight as best he could. After the battle had been lost, he left the field and entered the hut where the healer women were tending the wounded. One of the women inspected the wound and could see the iron arrow head, but could not determine its path to determine what internal organs it had struck. She gave Þormóðr a hot broth, containing leeks and onions and other herbs. If, after eating it, she could smell the broth from his wound, she would know that vital parts had been injured, and that the wound was fatal.
Þormóðr refused the broth. Instead, he directed the woman to cut into the wound to expose the iron arrow head. He grabbed hold of the arrow head with pincers and pulled it out. Seeing fatty fibers on the arrow head, Þormóðr said, “See how well the king keeps his men. There is fat by my heart,” and he died.
Blood from a wound was examined to determine the extent of the injuries. In chapter 45 of Eyrbyggja saga, Snorri goði examined the snow where Bergþór had lain after being injured in battle. Snorri picked up the bloody snow, squeezed it, and put it in his mouth. Realizing that it was blood from an internal wound, Snorri said that Bergþór was a dead man and there was no need to chase after him.
Saga evidence suggests that some men who suffered serious wounds continued to fight and were praised for their courage. In chapter 30 of Heiðarvíga saga, Þóroddur cut off Þorbjörn’s foot at the ankle. Þorbjörn continued to fight, killing Þóroddur, then turning to fight Barði.
Both the saga literature and forensic studies of skeletal remains show that people survived serious battle injuries and lived to fight again after their wounds healed. In chapter 23 of Víga-Glúms saga, Þórarinn was struck by a blow that cut through his shoulder such that his lungs fell out. He was bound up, and Halldóra watched over him until the battle was over. Þórarinn was carried home where his wounds were treated, and over the summer, he recovered.
The brothers Víglundur and Trausti were severely wounded in a fight described in chapter 16 of Víglundar saga. Their father helped them home and Ólof bound their wounds. It took them twelve months to recover their health.
Some skeletal remains show both unhealed battle injuries and healed battle injuries in the same skeleton, confirming the stories in the sagas. The injuries suggest that the man suffered a wound, recovered, and then fought again later in his life.
Magic was used to heal the injuries received in a duel, as described in chapter 22 of Kormáks saga. Þórdís advised Þorvarðr to speed his recovery by reddening a nearby hill with the blood of the sacrificial bull killed by Kormákr after the duel, and by making a feast out of the meat from the bull for the elves living in the hill.
Magic was used to prevent a wound from healing, as well. In chapter 57 of Laxdæla saga, Eiður says that a wound inflicted by his sword Sköfnung would not heal unless rubbed with the sword’s healing stone (lyfsteinn).
(“filthy Europeans creating spring baths” “Europeans didn’t bathe”)
The ancient Greeks and Romans had the wisdom and insight to know that bodily cleanliness was an essential component of good hygiene and good health. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Europe was plunged into the ignorance of the Dark Ages, and this simple and self evident hygienic truth was obscured and covered over by a plethora of unfounded superstitions about the dangers of bathing.
Bathing is also a way of caring for and loving the body by taking good care of it. This ran counter to the Church’s prevailing attitude of ascetic denial and despising of the body and its needs.
In Western civilization, bathing practices suffered somewhat of a disruption or hiatus due to the ignorance and superstition that prevailed in the Dark Ages and medieval times. And so, bathing had to reinvent itself in the modern era. Consequently, the way we bathe today is quite different from the way the ancient Greeks and Romans bathed. Let’s see how:
Bathing: A Way of Life
The most important thing to understand about the classical approach to bathing is that it was a way of life. The Greek and Roman baths incorporated not only the mere cleansing of the body, but also exercise and sports, socializing, lectures and entertainment, and even snacks and delicacies. Most importantly, it was a great way to relax and chill out after a hard day’s work.
Aquae Sulis The Romans are most famous for the magnificent baths they built, like the imperial baths at Caracalla; they were perhaps the most ardent devotees of the bath. But the Greeks also loved bathing, although the baths they constructed were much simpler affairs. In the ancient Greek baths, we can see the origins of the later Roman baths.
The ancient Greeks and Romans lived a more communal lifestyle than we do today, and weren’t as ashamed to expose their bodies. Some baths were sexually segregated, but many others weren’t.
Toilets at the public baths consisted of a series of slots in a long slab of marble. Underneath the marble slab, an inclined sewage ditch with running water carried away the excrements. The users of these toilets sat next to each other, unseparated and unhidden by any partitioning walls or stalls.
A gymnasium or palaestra adjoined many public baths. This was used for athletics and sporting activities. Many athletes worked out in the nude at sports like running, wrestling and weightlifting; for women, the preferred activities were swimming and running while driving a rolling hoop with a stick.
Nowadays, bathing is a private matter for most people, as most homes have their own lavatory and bathing facilities, but in ancient times, bathing was a communal affair. In addition to promoting a public spirit of health awareness, the public baths were centers for socializing and entertainment.
Food vendors hawked their wares of light snacks and delicacies. Strolling musicians, acrobats and jugglers offered entertainment. One could even listen to the discourses and dialogs of philosophers; even the likes of Plato obliged the public at the baths.
Types of Baths
An ancient Greek steam bath was called a Laconia. It was usually a circular room with a large, conical domed roof. It was heated either by fires underneath the floor, or by rocks heated in a fire, which were then brought into the bath with pitchforks and placed into a central tray. Water was then poured onto the hot rocks to create steam. Sometimes, the leaves or branches of Bay Laurel, Fir, Pine, or Juniper were added for their therapeutic essences. Or, the infusions or essential oils of these plants were used.
The sweating process could be enhanced by previously massaging the body with oils medicated with these or other essences, or by quaffing a cup of hot diaphoretic herb tea like Peppermint or Elder flowers before entering the steam bath.
At the Roman public baths, bathers would usually first soak in the warm waters of the Tepidarium bath to relax and unwind. Once the body was relaxed, and the pores had started to open, the bather then entered into the pool of the Caldarium, where water temperatures could reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit, or 40 degrees Celsius or more. And finally, a quick dip into the cold water pool of a Frigidarium was needed to brace the body and close the pores.
The warm waters of the Tepidarium relax the muscles and joints, and improve the circulation, digestion and appetite. The hot waters of the Caldarium fully open the capillaries and provoke a good sweat. A final quick dip in the Frigidarium closes the pores, which protects the organism from incoming drafts and chills.
Cleaning the Body
Nowadays, soap, in one form or another, is almost universally used to clean the body, but it wasn’t always so. The ancient Greeks and Romans first smeared their wet bodies with a mixture of pumice and ashes, and then applied a liberal dose of olive oil over that. Then, they used a curved metal scraper called a strigil to scrape of this “muck”, which would take the dirt and grime that had accumulated on the skin along with it. The body, thus cleaned, was ready to immerse itself in the large warm or hot water pools for a long soak.
Although soap-like substances have been found in artifacts in archeological excavations of ancient Egyptian and Babylonian sites dating back to almost 3,000 BCE, according to Roman legend, soap, called sapon, was invented quite by accident on a sacred mountain, Mount Sapo. There, the fat or tallow from sacrificially slaughtered animals accidentally mixed with ashy water that flowed over the ashes of sacrificial fires to create the world’s first soap. Or at least that’s how we got the word.
That’s the basic chemistry of soapmaking. The water and ashes, when mixed together, create alkaline potassium salts which, when mixed with oils or fats, transforms them into a detergent, or soap, in a process called saponification. A detergent, which all soaps are, is a substance capable of emulsifying fats, grease and grime, so it can be washed away or cleansed by water.
In ancient Greece, a soap or detergent was called smegma. In modern medical terminology, smegma means a cheesy, foul-smelling exudate that collects on the genitals of both sexes. By the second century AD, Galen was recommending soap for cleansing and therapeutic purposes.
An auxiliary cleansing procedure that was sometimes used before the rubdown with oil or soap was rubbing the wet body with a mitt made of coarse muslin cloth. This not only stimulated and opened up the capillary circulation, but it also removed any residual dead skin on the surface of the epidermis.
Galen also recommended this treatment on the dry, clean body prior to massage. It would open the pores, stimulate the peripheral circulation, and prepare the body to receive the oil. Nowadays, the traditional coarse muslin cloth has been replaced, in most cases, by the loofa sponge or the bristle brush, which are used for the same purposes.
Healing Spas and Curative Waters
The ancient Greeks were great believers in the therapeutic powers of bathing. Hippocrates recommends daily bathing and massage with fragrant oils for optimum health.
The ancient Greeks also used medicinal baths of minerals, salts and herbal infusions for therapeutic purposes. A bath of clay water or epsom salts can draw toxins out of the body. A bath in an infusion of Bay Laurel leaves or essence stimulates the circulation and relieves rheumatic aches and pains. A bath in Lavender scented water soothes the nerves and helps one relax.
The ancient Greeks and Romans went to certain natural hot springs resorts to “take the waters”, because these waters had special healing properties. Different hot springs resorts were indicated for different conditions, and each had their own specialties.
Wherever the Romans went in expanding their far-flung empire, they took their baths with them. The Roman baths at Bath, England are preserved even to this day. In Dacia, or present day Romania, Baile Herculane, or The bath of Hercules, is still functioning, drawing many to seek out its curative waters.
In European countries like Romania, in which many of the old Greek and Roman spas are still functioning, balneotherapy, or medicinal bathing, is a recognized subspecialty of medicine. I will go into hydrotherapy and balneotherapy in more detail in my article on the Water Cure, in the Therapies section of this website.
Bathing, whether for cleansing or therapeutic purposes, makes use of the Expulsive Virtue of the Water element. That’s the whole principle behind it, and the secret of its efficacy.
also It was the ancient Greeks who first built public baths but it was the Romans who made the bathhouse the centre of their social lives - the bath was a large part of communal life in the Roman Empire and the buildings they created for the purpose were architectural marvels. Washing was a daily ritual, even for slaves, with olive oil being used as a kind of soap. The rich enjoyed running water in their palaces and mansions from lead pipes connected to the aqueducts, with waste water piped away into the sewer or a trench.
And on another note The moors weren’t a black or a black society(they were a minority)
In this illustration from medieval Spain, a Muslim witnesses a miracle and decides to convert to Christianity. Click on the thumbnail to open the full image, and observe that the medieval writing above the picture (written in the old Galician-Portuguese dialect) describes the man, who is not black, as a “mouro” (Moor). As demonstrated here and below, the word mouro is used in the Cantigas to describe all Muslims regardless of race or ethnic origin. The definitions of the word “Moor” and its cognates have varied considerably throughout different ages, places, cultures, and languages! Just because “Moor” acquired a racial connotation in Elizabethan England does not mean that it had the same connotation in medieval Spain.
Muslim soldiers under Almanzor (al-Mansur) attack San Esteban de Gormaz, in 989 CE.
Muslim (“Moor”) troops from North Africa kidnap a German nobleman from the Portuguese coast and force him onto a ship. The crew is mostly light-skinned as a whole — the Black African soldiers that are present among the crew members are obviously a minority. Even so, it was the exotic-looking “black” contingent of these armies that stirred the hearts and imaginations of medieval Europe, and sometimes appear prominently as symbols in medieval art, literature, and heraldry. However, that kind of “blackamoor” symbolism (such as black African heads on coat-of-arms) does not constitute evidence that most Muslim occupiers of southern Europe looked like sub-Saharan Africans, or that black Africans were the driving force behind Islamic civilization in Europe. In fact, the evidence on this page suggests that wasn’t the case at all.
The naval force of mouros turn their attention to Arrendaffe, their admiral. Although a black African rower is visible, the rest of the crew including the admiral is obviously of a paler shade.
An army of Muslims approaches a Christian city. Again, the troops are described as mouros in the Old Galician writing at the top of the clicked-on picture (Como os mouros veneron cercar huna cidade).
This shows an army of Muslims, mostly pale but with a dark-skinned minority, especially among the foot soldiers and servants in the rear.
Muslims ask their king to have a church removed from La Arrijaca.
Moroccan soldiers in a tent.
King Umar al-Murtada, the Almohad ruler of Morocco, is persuaded to ally with Christians.
Moroccan soldiers and Christian allies, readying for battle in the city of Marrakech. Moroccan Arabs and Berbers accounted for a large part of the Muslim settlers of Spain. Although Berber tribes can exhibit various skin tones, as a whole they are not normally considered black in the sense of Sub-Saharan Africans either by themselves or others.
The Moroccan army of king Umar al-Murtada, with the help of Christian allies, routs a rival army of Moroccans under Abu Yusuf.
Five mouros in Portugal, throwing a statue of the Virgin Mary into the sea. This miniature, together with the rest, depicts the Muslim population of Spain as predominantly light-skinned. (Like before, the medieval writing atop the full image explicitly refers to them as Moors: Como os mouros deytaron a omagen de Sancta Maria no mar por desonrala.)
The king of Granada holds court.
Muslim troops from Granada, on their way to attack a Spanish castle.
This picture depicts a Spanish woman manipulating her blackamoor servant as a pawn in a plot against her daughter-in-law. At least one site I saw displays this picture as if it supports the “Moors = black” theory. It doesn’t.
Alphonso X’s Book of Games, 13th century
(from the Alphonso X Book of Games page)
The above picture of particularly dark-skinned Muslims is shown on various “Afrocentric” web pages attempting to prove that Black Africans dominated Spanish society during the Muslim occupation. But further examination of more pictures from the same Book of Games reveals the same pattern as in the Cantigas: the component of the Muslim population that approached “black African” in appearance seems to have been a small minority. If the pictures are any indication, then the bedrock of Islamic society in Spain consisted of people who resembled European or Middle Eastern types.
Problem No. 13: Three Arab scholars consulting manuscript
Problem No. 19: Three Arab ladies, one playing lute
Problem No. 55: Two veiled Arab ladies
Problem No. 69: Two Arabs with manuscript
Problem No. 86: An Arab and a Spanish girl
Problem No. 102: A Jew and an Arab
Problem No. 103: A Spaniard and an Arab playing in a tent
Note: I use the label “Arab” because the Book of Games web page does. However the figures also qualify as Mouros/Moors as noted previously.
Muslims of Spain as they depicted themselves
Illustrations from the Tale of Bayad and Riyad, Islamic Spain, early 13th century
Pyxis of al-Mughira, Cordoba, 968 AD
Hispano-Arabic Casket, Pamplona, 1004-1005 AD
The Skylitzes Chronicle
The illustrated manuscript of the medieval Byzantine historian Johannes Skylitzes covers three centuries of Byzantine history (811-1057), including accounts of Muslim invasions of Mediterranean Europe. The illustrations, dating from the late 12th century, contradict the myth in popular culture that the invaders were mostly Black Africans (for example, as put forth in Quentin Tarantino’s film True Romance).
Capua and Benevento in Southern Italy besieged by the Muslims. The emir speaks with an ambassador of the besieged cities who had been sent to Constantinople to seek help but was captured by the emir’s forces.
Combat between Saracens (aka Moors/Muslims/Arabs) and Byzantine troops commanded by Procopios.
The southern Italian town of Taranto (which begat Quentin Tarantino’s surname) is retaken from the Saracens by Byzantine troops. A group of imperial soldiers is about to enter into the reconquered city as the Muslims leave.
Assault of the Sicilian city of Syracuse by Muslim forces (878 AD?)
The conquest of Tauromenion (in Sicily) by Islamic forces, who take the inhabitants as prisoners and massacre some of them.
Sack of the Greek city of Thessaloniki by Muslims who kill some of the inhabitants and force others on their ships as prisoners.
The Byzantine emperor sends back the North African princes (who were sent by Fatlum) with gifts.
Defeat of the Byzantine imperials by Muslims in Sicily.
Defeat of Manuel in Sicily. The Byzantines are flanked by two groups of Muslim soldiers.
The emir of Tripolitania (in Libya), Pinjarah, passing beside the imperials, is received by the Byzantine emperor Romanus III Argyrus (1028-1034). The emir is accompanied by three of his men.
Conquests of George Maniakes in Sicily (1037-40). The Byzantine troops, headed by Maniakes, start to unload on the coast of Sicily. They attack the town of Remata, which is defended by Muslim soldiers. Some of the defenders escape and others are scattered on the ground, out of combat.
Grandes Chroniques de France de Charles V (1370-1380)
The Grandes Chroniques de France of Charles V is an example of a manuscript in which the Muslims are portrayed in a notably darker color than in the Spanish and Byzantine manuscripts. The two images above show (1) a peace treaty between Philippe III and the Sultan of Tunis, and (2) a scene from the 3rd crusade in the city of Acre in Palestine. The artist’s style of emphasizing the color contrast between Muslims and Christians is not reason to believe the North Africans were in general “black,” since the presumably non-black Middle Eastern Arabs are portrayed in exactly the same manner.
What about textual references?
Certain sites on the web ballyhoo examples of indigenous North African peoples being described as “black” by certain medieval Arab and European sources, while omitting other sources that distinguish them from “black,” or even call them “white.” A commonly overlooked fact is that “black” and “white” are culturally dependent terms which, in earlier times, sometimes meant “dark-complexioned” or “light-complexioned” rather than the strict racial definition in common use today. According to the anthropologist Peter Frost:
This older, more relative sense has been noted in other culture areas. The Japanese once used the terms shiroi (white) and kuroi (black) to describe their skin and its gradations of color. The Ibos of Nigeria employed ocha (white) and ojii (black) in the same way, so that nwoko ocha (white man) simply meant an Ibo with a lighter complexion. In French Canada, the older generation still refers to a swarthy Canadien as noir (black). Vestiges of this older usage persist in family names. Mr. White, Mr. Brown, and Mr. Black were individuals within the normal color spectrum of English people. Ditto for Leblanc, Lebrun, and Lenoir among the French or Weiss and Schwartz among the Germans.1
Another example of this usage comes from Joseph ben Nathan of 13th century Europe who quoted his father as saying “we Jews come from a pure, white source, and so our faces are black.”2 Of course Jews weren’t black African, as medieval manuscripts show them looking little different from Europeans.
Old Arab descriptions of “blacks” also reveal that what they meant by “black” is not necessarily what we understand it to mean today. Some medieval Arab writers such as al-Jahiz applied the term “blacks” to practically all peoples darker than the average Arab, and “whites” to peoples lighter than the norm:
"The blacks are more numerous than the whites. The whites at most consist of the people of Persia, Jibal, and Khurasan, the Greeks, Slavs, Franks, and Avars, and some few others, not very numerous; the blacks include the Zanj, Ethiopians, the people of Fazzan, the Berbers, the Copts, and Nubians, the people of Zaghawa, Marw, Sind and India, Qamar and Dabila, China, and Masin… the islands in the seas between China and Africa are full of blacks, such as Ceylon, Kalah, Amal, Zabij, and their islands, as far as India, China, Kabul, and those shores."3
Jahiz’s inclusion of Indians, Sindhi, and Chinese as “blacks” reinforces the point that color terms taken out of their cultural contexts are too ambiguous to determine the physical characteristics of peoples with much accuracy. One Afrocentric web page offered an opinion that Jahiz was only referring to minority Negroid tribes in India or China, not to the population at large. But then, couldn’t the same be said about his descriptions of North Africa?
It bears mention that the term Sudan (“Black”) in classical Arabic usage did not usually encompass such a broad range of peoples. In fact the Arabic term Bilad al-Sudan (“lands of the Blacks”) denoted the whole area of Africa south of the Sahara desert — from the Atlantic Ocean in the West to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean in the East — but did not normally include Egypt or the Maghrib (Northwest Africa).4
The 14th century historian Ibn Khaldun divided the known world from the equator to the northernmost lands into seven zones, by climate, south to north. The zones in the middle — the third, fourth and fifth zones — were the temperate ones. He wrote:
"The human inhabitants of these zones are more temperate in their bodies, color, character qualities… Such are the inhabitants of the Maghrib, of Syria, the two ‘Iraqs, Western India, and China, as well as of Spain; also the European Christians nearby, the Galicians, and all those who live together with these peoples or near them in the three temperate zones.”5
Later he goes on to write that “the inhabitants of the first and second zones in the south are called the Abyssinians, the Zanj, and the Sudanese. These are synonyms used to designate the particular nation that has turned black.”6 So it is clear that in his view the people of North Africa are not black; the people to the south of them are. Ibn Khaldun, unlike some Arab writers, was himself a Maghribi and thus was presumably familiar with what people looked like in that region.
The Tunisian traveler Ibn Battuta specified a boundary of the Black lands when he wrote “We then arrived at the town of Iwalatan… Iwalatan is the northernmost province of the Blacks.”7 Iwalatan, presently Walata/Oualata near the southeast corner of Mauritania, sits near the southern limit of the Sahara desert. The lands north of that, which make up the main bulk of Berber territory, were not counted by Ibn Battuta as among the black lands.
In the course of his travels, he observed a notably pale Berber tribe which he described as follows:
"At length we arrived among the Bardama. They are a Berber tribe. […] The Bardama women are the most perfect in beauty, most remarkable in their appearance, of the purest white in their complexion and very fat."8
The writer al-‘Umari counted even the southernmost Berber tribes as white:
"In the north of the country of Mali, there are Berber tribes who are white and are under [the Sultan of Mali’s] dominion …. They are: the Yatansir, the Shagharasan, the Maddusa and the Lamtuna."9
and,
"The country of the Blacks also contains three independent kings, white Muslims, belonging to the Berber race: the sultan of Aïr, the sultan of Damushuh and the sultan of Tadmakka. These three white Muslim kings are in the southwest area ranging between the Barr al ‘Adwa, empire of the sultan Abu l-Hasan, and the country of Mali and its dependencies."10
A source of misunderstanding about the identity of “Moors” in Europe is the Frankish epic Song of Roland, in which a contingent of one of the Saracen armies is described as “black as pitch” and “broad in the nose.” But this shouldn’t be too surprising, considering that the army included Ethiopians:
"but what avail? Though fled be Marsilies,
He’s left behind his uncle, the alcaliph
Who holds Alferne, Kartagene, Garmalie,
And Ethiope, a cursed land indeed;
The blackamoors from there are in his keep,
Broad in the nose they are and flat in the ear,
Fifty thousand and more in company. …11”
Coins Depicting North African Rulers
Numidia and Mauretania
MasinissaSyphax
Vermina
HiarbasJuba IJuba II
Carthage
Hamilcar BarcaHannibal
Hasdrubal BarcaThought to be Hasdrubal or Mago
Just check out the guys instagram page. A typical afro-centric idiot trying to create a glorious history for his race that doesn’t exist.