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Cultures, societies and governments live their moment of plenitude only to end up falling irrevocably. For future generations only more or less obvious traces of its past remain.
Silver and exploitation. In 1545, just over half a century after the arrival of Europeans to America, the fabulous silver deposit of Potosí was discovered. Its history is a story of exploitation of the indigenous population that ran parallel to the disappearance of Inca power after the conquest. American silver allowed the Spanish empire to take off, but in that wealth was also the embryo of its decline.
The last hieroglyph. In the south of Egypt are the temples of Philae, which are not found on the major tourist circuits but which contain within them the last known hieroglyph. Written by the priest Esmet-Akhom at the end of the 4th century, it seems to be the last cry for help in the face of the pressure of Christianity. A pressure that, in the opinion of historian Catherine Nixey, was actually a persecution throughout the late Roman world.
Who were the barbarians? Precisely the Western Roman world fell decades later at the hands of barbarian invasions. The Germanic and other peoples had already turned that half of the empire into a sieve throughout the 4th century, to whose defense enormous resources were allocated without the expected results. Decadence was an obvious fact for many Romans of that time. Who were the towns that would take over?
End of an era. Another fall, although of a different kind, was that of the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlevi, in 1979. The pro-American regime that ran a markedly Westernized country gave way to a radical change in which a theocratic system of government took power. Almost half a century later, the broken promises of Khomeini’s revolution are still remembered.
Small artifacts. Through small and often modest objects you can follow the trail of history. It is the philosophy of the Museum of Artifacts, a virtual exhibition that shows hundreds of them, from weapons to furniture or art from all eras. It is another way of contemplating human evolution. On Instagram and Twitter.
After Capa and Taro. The missing El Madrid twitter account of Penny and Julio Gª. Moutón has been gathering historical images of the city for years. Some of them correspond to the Civil War and are shown geolocated, such as those taken by Robert Capa or Gerda Taro or those that show the defenses built during the conflict. To tour the city carefully.
Isochronous maps. The world is big or small, depending on how you look at it, and some events have the effect of increasing or reducing distances practically from one day to the next. Under normal conditions, the Suez Canal allows a product manufactured on the eastern coast of China or in Taiwan to reach Europe in 25 days, but the Red Sea crisis has caused a significant part of freight transport to opt for the route that goes around Africa. The result is an increase in travel time of nine days, although other estimates put the delay up to twenty.
In these circumstances, the mirage of closeness and immediacy offered by the current capitalist economic model seems to be called into question. The fact that ships are forced to change their routes for longer ones brings to mind the isochronous maps, which proliferated in the 19th century and which served to show the duration of journeys between the Western world, basically Europe and especially the United Kingdom, and the most remote points of the planet. According to Francis Galton, one of the authors of these maps, in 1881 traveling from Europe to the United States could cost up to 20 days, and traveling to Australia, 40 days. In 1914, the situation had improved but, from London, Oceania was still the same days away, and getting from the City to the heart of Africa also cost almost a month and a half.
Comparing the data from these maps with the present shows more pronounced contrasts, logically, the further back in time you go. This other map shows that in the year 1800 the trip between New York and what years later would be Chicago cost around six weeks, a journey that today can be covered in just under two hours. This article published a few years ago by Xataka explains how isochronous maps are also a witness to technological evolution over the years.
These are distant times, but the data they show reminds us that, despite all the current advances, geography is stubborn.
