(Originally published here on 10/17/09)
Halloween is commonly thought to have pagan origins, even though its etymology is Christian. Halloween is, quite literally, the popular derivative of All Hallow Even, or the eve of All Saints’ Day (1 November). Taken together with All Souls’ Day, which falls on 2 November, it is a time
assigned in the Christian calendar for honoring the saints and the newly departed. In past centuries, it was also the occasion for praying for souls in purgatory. Yet because Halloween is popularly associated with the supernatural, it is often believed to have strong pagan roots that were never eliminated by the holiday’s subsequent Christianization.
Some folklorists have detected its origins in the Roman feast of Pomona, the goddess of fruits and seeds, or in the festival of the dead called Parentalia. More typically, it has been linked to the Celtic festival of Samhain or Samuin (pronounced sow-an or sow-in) meaning summer’s end.
(excerpt from Halloween- From Pagan Ritual to Party Night by Nicholas Rogers)
All Souls by Edith Wharton (published in Scribner’s Magazine 1909)
A thin moon faints in the sky o'erhead,
And dumb in the churchyard lie the dead.
Walk we not, Sweet, by garden ways,
Where the late rose hangs and the phlox delays,
But forth of the gate and down the road,
Past the church and the yews, to their dim abode.
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
Fear not that sound like wind in the trees:
It is only their call that comes on the breeze;
Fear not the shudder that seems to pass:
It is only the tread of their feet on the grass;
Fear not the drip of the bough as you stoop:
It is only the touch of their hands that grope--
For the year's on the turn and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can yearn and the dead can smite.
And where should a man bring his sweet to woo
But here, where such hundreds were lovers too?
Where lie the dead lips that thirst to kiss,
The empty hands that their fellows miss,
Where the maid and her lover, from sere to green,
Sleep bed by bed, with the worm between?
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight.
And now they rise and walk in the cold,
Let us warm their blood and give youth to the old.
Let them see us and hear us, and say: "Ah, thus
In the prime of the year it went with us!"
Till their lips drawn close, and so long unkist,
Forget they are mist that mingles with mist!
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the dead can burn and the dead can smite.
Till they say, as they hear us--poor dead, poor dead!--
"Just an hour of this, and our age-long bed--
Just a thrill of the old remembered pains
To kindle a flame in our frozen veins,
A touch, and a sight, and a floating apart,
As the chill of dawn strikes each phantom heart--
For it's turn of the year and All Souls' night,
When the dead can hear and the dead have sight."
And where should the living feel alive
But here in this wan white humming hive,
As the moon wastes down, and the dawn turns cold,
And one by one they creep back to the fold?
And where should a man hold his mate and say:
"One more, one more, ere we go their way"?
For the year's on the turn, and it's All Souls' night,
When the living can learn by the churchyard light.
And how should we break faith who have seen
Those dead lips plight with the mist between,
And how forget, who have seen how soon
They lie thus chambered and cold to the moon?
How scorn, how hate, how strive, we too,
Who must do so soon as those others do?
For it's All Souls' night, and break of the day,
And behold, with the light the dead are away. . .
Classics From The Crypt- A Halloween Play List:
Night on Bald Mountain- Mussorgsky (superb 1940 Disney animated version)
The Sorcerer's Apprentice- Dukas (also from Disney's Fantasia)
Funeral March of a Marionette- Gounod (interesting stop-motion playlet)
The Witches' Ride from Hansel & Gretel- Humperdinck
Have a Happy Halloween, everyone!
-Maureen Lang
ALASKA: In a pit house dating to around A.D. 1200, archaeologists uncovered a cast-bronze buckle that appears to be East Asian in origin and older than the house in which it was found. The oldest known cast bronze in Alaska, the artifact may have been part of a horse fitting, perhaps traded in from as far away as Manchuria. It was probably used as a charm or noisemaker by a local Inupiat shaman.
TEXAS: The last issue of Archaeology detailed sites at risk (
GRENADA: People on the tiny island of Carriacou may have feasted on animals imported from South America over 1,000 years ago. Remains of South American animals, including piglike peccaries, armadillos, and guinea pigs—none of which are native to the island today—were excavated from prehistoric middens. The find suggests regular contact between natives and people on other islands and the mainland, but because the bones are scarce, archaeologists think only a select, high-status few got to eat these exotic treats.
ENGLAND: Using stable isotope analysis, researchers examined remains of infants from the crypt at Christ Church in Spitalfields, London, to study breastfeeding in the 18th and 19th centuries. They found that prolonged breastfeeding was common in the 19th century among this relatively well-off population, which does not necessarily agree with the idea that more women were entering the workforce at the time as a result of industrialization. The breastfeeding mothers of these infants may have had the means to hire wet nurses—or they may have been homebound due to an economic downturn.
SWITZERLAND: High-end Swiss watchmaker Hublot has created a wrist-mounted version of the Antikythera Mechanism, the mysterious 2,000-yearold astronomical machine recovered from a Greek shipwreck in 1901. It contains 495 precision elements in a 3x4-centimeter package. The manufacturers claim that it is the first watch inspired by an archaeological finding. Would a wrist-mounted sundial count?
CHINA: A cracked skull may be the oldest known evidence of interpersonal aggression among modern humans. A CT scan of the skull, which is around 130,000 years old and known as Maba Man, revealed evidence of severe blunt force trauma, possibly from a clubbing. Remodeling of the bone around the injury, however, shows that he survived the blow and possibly was well cared for after his injury—for months or even years.
JAPAN: An excavation at a train yard in Dazaifu has revealed the remains of two large, prestigious buildings, as well as expensive eating utensils and pottery. The finds, including tin and copper alloy spoons, Chinese and Korean pots, and Nara tricolored ware (the finest tableware in Japan at the time), date to the 8th and 9th centuries. The assemblage appears to identify the site as a diplomatic facility, mentioned in ancient documents, that housed and fed envoys from China and Korea.
PAKISTAN: 4,500-year-old Indus city of Harappa is thought to have been relatively peaceful. A new analysis of human remains excavated at the site found that while the overall level of violence in the city was on the low side for a statelevel society, it was not evenly distributed. Some communities endured much higher levels of trauma, inflicted on women in particular, suggesting a potentially brutal social hierarchy.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA: The seafaring Lapita, who settled the South Pacific more than 3,000 years ago, were not thought to have lived in Papua New Guinea. Findings from a new dig there have overturned that idea. The remains of several villages, including stone tools, shell ornaments, and thousands of pottery fragments have been discovered. The site is both unusually deep—including pre- and post-Lapita sequences—and perhaps the largest Lapita landscape yet discovered. According to researchers, the site opens a whole new chapter in Pacific history.
OMAN: It's often thought that modern humans emerged from Africa through the Arabian Peninsula by hugging its shores, which may have protected them from swings in climate. However, 100,000-year-old stone tools found in the Dhofar Mountains suggest that some people traveled over the now arid—though once wet—interior. The find adds another layer of complexity and understanding to the path that modern humans took on their way around the world.
CALIFORNIA: Over 7,500 years, the skulls of the Chumash people and those of their ancestors gradually shrank. Scientists think that these people, who inhabited coastal California for over 10,000 years, might have suffered a long-term health decline and growth impairment from exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), common pollutants found in oil and coal. The Chumash had extensive and increasing exposure to PAHs through tar, which they used to seal baskets and canoes, applied to the body as medicine, and even chewed like gum.
NEW YORK:During demolition at what was once Bellevue Hospital Medical College, a 15-pound metal box, sealed on November 14, 1897, was discovered. Among student registries and notebooks found in the time capsule was a vial containing spores of Clostridium perfringens, bacteria that live in the intestine. Bacteriologist Edward Dunham included them so future generations could check if they were still viable. They weren't, but doctors today might be able to observe how bacteria have changed since the introduction of antibiotics in the late 1920s.
LOUISIANA: In the time before bridges made the bayou more accessible, small rafts and cable ferries were the only path into the swamps and between plantations. Now, in a few tarred wooden platforms and some rusted gearwork, a river guide might have located the remains of Vester's Crossing, one of the last cable ferries—a boat pulled back and forth via cable—in the area. The site may become part of a heritage paddle trail.
NORWAY: As glaciers recede, hundreds of artifacts are discovered each year. One of the latest finds was a men's tunic or coat that emerged from a glacier in Breheimen National Park. Dating to the 4th century A.D., the wool garment—made with an advanced technique called diamond twill—is one of very few known from this period in Europe. Without close attention, many of the artifacts that emerge from melting ice will be lost—decomposed or washed away—before they can be studied.
SPACE: One of the next frontiers for archaeology is out of this world. Scientists in England are attempting to contact Prospero, a satellite launched in 1971, to see how its circuits have held up. First, they have had to rummage for the satellite's communications codes and build custom equipment, and now they are attempting to make contact by sending a simple signal. NASA has also begun drafting guidelines to protect three dozen lunar sites, including the Apollo 11 and 17 landing sites. The guidelines could include ground-level boundaries and no-fly zones—for when private spaceships (and even tourists) start arriving.
AUSTRALIA: Hanged for the murder of three policemen 131 years ago, Ned Kelly—the country's most notorious bushranger and outlaw—is considered both folk hero and killer. He robbed banks, wore homemade armor to his final confrontation with police, and reflected the tension between poor Irish settlers and the wealthy Anglo elite. Following his execution, Kelly was buried in a mass grave. Forensic scientists, ending decades of speculation, have identified his bones by comparing DNA with a descendant's. But his skull, perhaps separated as a souvenir, remains at large.
TURKEY: On the Gallipoli battlefield of World War I, where Allied armies, including soldiers from Australia and New Zealand called Anzacs, were defeated by Ottoman forces, archaeological surveys have revealed some of the battlefield conditions, which historical sources state were quite dreadful. In particular, it appears the Anzacs were eating canned or stale food, while the Turkish forces had frontline kitchens, suggesting they had access to hot meals. Other artifacts found include water bottles with bullet holes in them, fragments of barbed wire, and expended ammunition.
KENYA: From the banks of Lake Turkana archaeologists have excavated what they believe are the oldest "advanced" stone tools yet discovered. At 1.78 million years old, the handaxes are the oldest known examples of Acheulean tools, probably made by Homo erectus, and predate other examples by 300,000 years. Compared with older, cruder stone tools, the handaxes are heavier and have sharp edges for butchering, scraping, and smashing. The find raises interesting questions about which early humans first left Africa and what tool technologies they took with them.
EGYPT: An analysis of 15 mummy hair samples shows just how important styling was more than 2,000 years ago. To understand how the complex hairdos were achieved and maintained after death, scientists studied coatings on the hair with electron microscopy and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. They found that the ancient Egyptians used a kind of fatty hair gel to keep their hair coiffed in both life and the afterlife. The absence of embalming materials in the hair suggests that it was covered during mummification.
EL SALVADOR:Under 17 feet of volcanic ash at the ancient Maya city of Ceren, archaeologists have discovered a raised road called a sacbe. Usually these roads, connecting temples, plazas, or towns, were lined with stone, but this one, which probably led to two ceremonial buildings nearby, was not. In the absence of the stones, the rapid burial by the eruption of the Loma Caldera volcano helped keep it intact for identification. 

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