Mesopotamia

Mesopotamia (pronounced mes-uh-puh-tey-mee-uh)

An ancient region of West Asia between the lower and middle reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers; the site of several ancient civilizations including the Sumerians, Akkadians, Hittites and Assyrians.

Pre AD: From the Classical Latin Mesopotamia, from the Koine Greek Μεσοποταμία (Mesopotamía), a feminine substantive form of the adjective μεσοποτάμιος (mesopotámios) (between rivers), from the Ancient Greek μέσος (mésos) (between) + ποτᾰμός (potamós) (river) + -ιος (-ios), so called because Mesopotamia is located between the Tigris & Euphrates Rivers.  It was also used as a translation of the Biblical Hebrew נַהֲרַיִם‎ (naharáyim), the dual form of נָהָר‎ (nahár) (river).  The Arabic forms were بِلَاد ٱلرَّافِدَيْن‎‎ (Bilād ar-Rāfidayn) or بَيْن ٱلنَّهْرَيْن‎ (Bayn an-Nahrayn), the Persian was میان‌رودان‎ (miyân rudân), and the Syriac ܒܝܬ ܢܗܪܝܢ‎ (Beth Nahrain) (land of rivers) also come from the ancient Greek root words mesos and potamos, translating to “land between rivers”.  It was used throughout the Greek Septuagint (circa 250 BC) to translate the Hebrew and Aramaic equivalent Naharaim but an even earlier Greek usage is evident from The Anabasis of Alexander, written in the late second century AD, but specifically referring to sources from the time of Alexander the Great.  In the Xenophon’s (circa 430 BC-354 BC) Anabasis (circa 370 BC), Mesopotamia was used to designate the land east of the Euphrates in north Syria.

The Aramaic term biritum (or birit narim) corresponded to a similar geographical concept but Mesopotamia later came generally to be applied to all the lands between the Euphrates and the Tigris, thereby incorporating not only parts of Syria but also almost all of Iraq and southeastern Turkey, the neighboring steppes to the west of the Euphrates and the western part of the Zagros Mountains also often included.  A further distinction is usually made between Northern or Upper Mesopotamia and Southern or Lower Mesopotamia.  Upper Mesopotamia, also known as the Jazira, is the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris from their sources down to Baghdad. Lower Mesopotamia is the area from Baghdad to the Persian Gulf and includes Kuwait and parts of western Iran.  In modern academic use, Mesopotamia often also has a chronological connotation, used to designate the area until the Muslim conquests, with names like Syria, Jazira, and Iraq being used to describe the region after that date although some revisionist critics argue these later euphemisms are Eurocentric terms attributed to the region in the milieu of the nineteenth century colonial and other Western encroachments.

The Mandate for Mesopotamia

The Mandate for Mesopotamia (الانتداب البريطاني على العراق‎ in the Arabic) was a proposed League of Nations mandate to cover Ottoman Iraq (Mesopotamia); it would have been entrusted to the British but was superseded by the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty, an agreement with some similarities to the proposed mandate.  The proposed mandate was not formalised and although in accordance with the Sykes–Picot Agreement (1916; negotiated between English politician Colonel Sir Mark Sykes (1879–1919) & French Diplomat François Georges-Picot (1870–1951), was never documented or defined beyond a draft paper prepared by the UK's Colonial Office (and an exhaustive publication of those would run to several volumes).

The proposed Mandate for Mesopotamia (a 1920 map from the archives of the UK's Colonial Office).

London’s plans included the annexation of Mesopotamia to India "as a colony of the Indians” and of course included the typically cynical British colonial fix: support for the minorities: the Jewish community in Baghdad, the notables in Baghdad and Basar, the rich landowning Arabs and Jews, and the Shaikhs of sedentary tribes.  The British Empire might have been theft on history's grandest scale achieved by the splutter of musketry, but along the way, by means of mutual back-scratching, some others did OK and as an afterthought, Mosul was bolted on to the British sphere of influence, the spoils of a deal between French prime minister Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929; French prime minister 1906-1909 & 1917-1920) and his British counterpart, David Lloyd George (1863–1945; UK prime-minister 1916-1922).  The mandate was never established as unrest overtook Iraqi so the Kingdom of Iraq under British Administration, or Mandatory Iraq (الانتداب البريطاني على العراق‎) (al-Intidāb al-Brīṭānī ‘Alá al-‘Irāq) was instead created, pursuant to the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty (1922), full independence granted in 1932.  The sweep of territories from Rangoon to the Rock of Gibraltar continue to reverberate from the lines the colonial powers drew on maps.

Ziggurat

Ziggurat (pronounced zik-kur-at, zik-u-rat or zig-oo-rat)

(1) In the architecture of the ancient Babylonians and Assyrians, a temple of Sumerian origin in the form of a pyramidal tower, consisting of a number of stories and having about the outside a broad ascent winding round the structure, presenting the appearance of a series of terraces.

(2) In architecture, any structure similar in appearance.

(3) In statistics and mathematical modeling, as ziggurat algorithm, an algorithm for pseudorandom number sampling, relying on an underlying source of uniformly-distributed random numbers as well as computed tables.

1875–1880: Various cited as from the Akkadian word ziqquratu; from the Assyrian ziqqurati (summit, height) or from an extinct Semitic language, derived from a verb meaning "to build on a flat space." The various spellings were zikkurrat, ziqqurrat, ziqqurat (rare) and ziggurat.  Ziggurat is a noun and zigguratic & zigguratical are adjectives; the noun plural is ziggurate or ziggurats.

The Chogha Zanbil ziggurat was built circa 1250 BC by Untash-Napirisha, King of Elam, probably to honour the Elamite god Inshushinak.  Destroyed in 640 BC by Ashurbanipal, King of Assyria, part of it was excavated between 1951-1961 by Roman Ghirshman (1895-1979), a Ukrainian-born French archeologist who specialized in ancient Persia.  It was the first Iranian site to be added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List.

Ziggurats were massive structures with particular architectural characteristics.  They served as part of a temple complex in the various local religions of Mesopotamia and the flat highlands of what is now western Iran.  Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria were home to about twenty-five ziggurats.  The shape of a ziggurat makes it clearly identifiable.  It has a platform base which is close to square with sides that recede inward as the structure rises and a flat top presumed to have supported some form of a shrine.  Sun-baked bricks form the core of a ziggurat, with fire-baked bricks used for the outer faces and unlike the Egyptian pyramids, a ziggurat was a solid structure with no internal chambers, an external staircase or spiral ramp provided access to the top platform.  The handful of ziggurats still visible are ruins, but, based on the dimensions of their bases, it’s estimated they may have been as much as 150 feet (46m) high.  It’s possible the terraced sides were planted with shrubs and flowering plants, and some scholars have suggested the legendary Hanging Gardens of Babylon (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), was a ziggurat.  Ziggurats were some of the oldest structures of ancient religions, the first examples dating from circa 2200 BC and the last circa 500 BC; only a few of the Egyptian pyramids predate the oldest ziggurats.  The Tower of Babel is thought to have been a ziggurat.

Depiction of Lindsay Lohan in ziggurat dress, part of the Autumn-Winter 1994-1995 "Staircase Pleats" collection by Japanese designer Issey Miyake (1938-2022).  Miyake San was noted for his technology-focused clothing designs.

Antediluvian

Antediluvian (pronounced an-tee-di-loo-vee-uhn)

(1) In biblical scholarship, of or belonging to the period before the biblical flood of Noah (Genesis chapters 6-9); a person who lived before the biblical great flood, particularly one of the biblical patriarchs (in some translations used as "prediluvian" which for all purposes is synonymous.

(2) In figurative use, anyone with attitudes though old-fashioned, or out of date, antiquated, primitive, outdated, outmoded, ancient, archaic, antique, superannuated, anachronistic, outworn, behind the times, medieval, quaint, old-fangled, obsolescent, obsolete, prehistoric, passé, fossilized etc; those views as held or expressed.

(3) In figurative use, someone very old (in use, an alternative to "Methuselian". 

(4) By extension (used loosely), of animals and plants: long extinct; prehistoric. 

1640-1650: The construct was the ante- (before (in the sense of "prior to in time")) +‎ dīluvium (a flood) so understood as "the time before the great flood".  The ante- prefix was from the Latin preposition and prefix ante, from the primitive Indo-European hénti, locative singular of the root noun hent- (front, front side).  It was cognate with the Ancient Greek ἀντί (antí) (opposite, facing), the Old Armenian ընդ (ənd), the Tocharian Bānte, the English and, the Sanskrit अन्ति (anti), the Gothic and- & (in compounds) anda- & ōnd- and the German ant- & (in compounds) ent-.  The word was coined by English physician Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682).  Dīluvium was from dīluō (to wash away), the construct being dis- (the prefix here used in the sense of "apart; tear asunder; in two) + lavō (to wash), from the primitive Indo-European lewh- (to wash) + -ium (the suffix used to form abstract nouns).  The use to refer to long extinct animals & plants began in orthodox science because it was once held all must have perished under the waters of the biblical flood.  The spelling antedeluvian is obsolete.  Antediluvian is a noun & adjective, antediluvianism is a noun, antediluvial is an adjective and antediluvially & antediluvianly are adverbs; the noun plural is antediluvians.

Handy adjective: politicians and others

Though sometimes casually treated as such, prehistoric and antediluvian are not synonyms.  Prehistoric has a precise (though culturally and geographically variable) meaning.  It means "before history was written down", hence before writing which emerged some five millennia ago in Mesopotamia.  Historians note the pivot has to be the creation of writing with some historic meaning and that earlier (usually financial) records don’t fulfil this criterion.  Representational forms predated writing, most famously as cave paintings, but these, while helpful in the interpretation of the archaeological record, don’t impart meaning and record events with the detail or accuracy inherent in the use of a written text.

Literal: The Subsiding of the Waters of the Deluge (1829), oil on canvas by Thomas Cole (1801-1848).

Antediluvian (before the flood) is a word from biblical scholarship.  Historically, it referred to the time prior to the biblical flood of Noah but in modern use it's used also of the notion of a monumental flood preserved in the folklore of a remarkable number of cultures although there is nothing in the geological record to suggest there was ever a global flood quite as described in the Old Testament.  Although usually used figuratively, for biblical-literalists (many of them south of the Mason-Dixon line), antediluvian means the actual time before the flood described in chapters 6–9 in the Book of Genesis.  The literalists invented their own field of study called "diluvial geology" (also labelled the "flood or creation geology") and regard the text in Genesis 6–9 as a scientific record; they date the great flood to within the last five thousand years.  The term is used also in the field of Assyriology for kings (those, according to the Sumerian king list, supposed to have reigned before the great flood).

Figurative: Scott Morrison (b 1968; Australian prime-minister 2018-2022, right ) showing an admiring Barnaby Joyce (b 1967; thrice (between local difficulties) deputy prime minister of Australia 2016-2022, left) a lump of coal (varnished by a dutiful staffer to avoid any dust from the little store of carbon), Parliament House, Canberra, February 2017.  Mr Morrison and Mr Joyce, for a variety of reasons, were doughty advocates of the burning of fossil fuels and great supports of the mining industry.

As a pejorative adjective, antediluvian is sometimes used figuratively although the choice is not always most appropriate.  "Ancient" is probably better to describe something old or "antiquated" if so old as to lack functionality; "Methuselan" (an allusion to Methuselah, the oldest person in the Hebrew Bible who lived an impressive 969 years) works best for those who seem perilously old.  The 2024 US presidential election looks Methuselaic because, in the style of 1964 when it was "crooked old Lyndon vs crazy old Barry, we'll be able to enjoy "sleazy old Donald vs senile old Joe".  Antediluvian is best reserved to describe the archaic or outdated views and opinions held by people, regardless of their age.  Mr Morrison (a fundamentalist Christian who, presumably, believes the flood happened exactly as described in the Book of Genesis) and Mr Joyce maintained their antediluvian attitudes to the burning of fossil fuels even when buried under the weight of their own absurdity.  In 2024, the Liberal party, now under new management, switched tactics and began to advocate the construction of multiple nuclear power-plants, opening a new theatre in the culture wars of energy policy.

Supporting the move away from burning fossils: Lindsay Lohan in Russia for the Formula R ePrix race, Moscow, June 2015.

On paper, while not without challenges, the country does enjoy certain advantages in making nuclear part of the energy mix: (1)  With abundant potential further to develop wind and solar generation, the nuclear plants would need only to provide the baseload power required when renewable sources were either inadequate or unavailable; (2) the country would be self-sufficient in raw uranium ore (although it has no enrichment capacity) and (3) the place is vast and geologically stable so in a rational world it would be nominated as the planet's repository of spent nuclear fuel and other waste.  The debate as it unfolds is likely to focus on other matters and nobody images any such plant can in the West be functioning in less than twenty-odd years (the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) gets things done much more quickly) so there's plenty of time to squabble and plenty of people anxious to join in.  Mr Joyce has with alacrity become a champion of all things nuclear (electricity, submarines and probably bombs although, publicly, he's never discussed the latter) and the National Party has never approved of solar panels and wind turbines because they associate them with feminism, seed-eating vegans, homosexuals and other symbols of all which is wrong with modern society.  While in his coal-black heart Mr Joyce's world view probably remains as antediluvian as ever, he can sniff the political wind in a country now beset by wildfires, floods and heatwaves and talks less of the beauty of burning fossil fuels.

Plague

Plague (pronounced pleyg)

(1) An infectious, epidemic disease caused by a bacterium, Yersinia pestis (trans transmitted to man by the bite of the rat flea (Xenopsylla cheopis)) characterized by fever, chills, and prostration.

(2) In casual use, any epidemic disease that causes high mortality; pestilence.

(3) Any widespread affliction, calamity, or evil, especially one regarded as divine retribution.

(4) Any cause of trouble, annoyance, or vexation; torment; to pester.

(5) As in “… a plague upon…”, to curse another, wishing any evil upon them.  The variation “a plague upon both your houses” suggests an unwillingness to take sides, an implication one thinks both parties are in the wrong. 

1350-1400: From the Middle English plage, a borrowing from the Old French plage, from the Latin plāga (blow, wound, (and pestilence in Late Latin), from plangō or plangere (to strike), the ultimate root being the Ancient Greek plēgē (a stroke).  It was cognate with the Middle Dutch plāghe (from the Dutch plaag) & plāghen (from the Dutch plagen), the Middle Low German plāge, the Middle High German plāge & pflāge (from the German plage) & plāgen (from the German plagen), the Swedish plåga, the French plaie and the Occitan plaga.  Plague exists as verb and noun, plaguer being the other noun, plaguing & plagued the verbs.  Other derived forms exist but are rarely seen except in historic or technical writing: plagioclase, plagioclimax, plagiohedral, plagiotropic and plagiotropism, plaguesome & plaguy.  For the actual disease there’s no actual synonym but many words tend to be used interchangeably in any context: invasion, scourge, contagion, pandemic, epidemic, curse, infection, outbreak, influenza, infestation, blight, calamity, pest, cancer, bedevil, afflict, beleaguer, bother, haunt, torment.

The famous phrase "A plague of both your houses" is from William Shakespeare's  (1564–1616) Romeo and Juliet (1597) .  When Mercutio says a "plague o' both your houses", he is damning both the Montagues and Capulets, asking fate to visit upon the families some awful fate because he blames both for his imminent death.  In modern use, it's used to suggest an unwillingness to take sides, the implication being one thinks both parties are in the wrong:

Mercutio. Help me into some house, Benvolio,

Or I shall faint. A plague o' both your houses!

They have made worms' meat of me: I have it,

And soundly too: your houses!

Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 1

Plagues and the Plague

Masked-up: Lindsay Lohan avoiding plague.

Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and exists in three strains: Bubonic plague, Septicemic plague & Pneumonic plague, the former two usually contracted by the handling of an infected animal or the bite of a flea, the last by contact between people via infectious droplets in the air.  Typically, several hundred cases are reported annually, mostly in India, the Congo, Madagascar & Peru and cases have been reported in the US but historically, outbreaks were large-scale events lasting months or years, the best known of which include the fourteenth century Black Death, estimated to have killed some fifty-million and the Great Plague of London which, in 1665-1666, caused the death of one in five of the city's population.  COVID-19 was thus a plague but not the plague.  A common noun, plague is written with an initial capital only at the beginning of a sentence, or (as in the Great Plague of London) when it has become a thing.  Notable epidemics have included:

The Black Death (1346-1353)

Death Toll: 75 – 200 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

The Plague ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia, with a death toll of 75-200 million, killing up to half the population of some European countries.  Thought to have originated in Asia, Plague was most likely spread by fleas living on the rats of merchant ships and in some countries, populations didn’t recover until the nineteenth century.  Now unknown in most parts of the world, outbreaks still happen in various places.

Plague of Justianian (541-542)

Death Toll: 25 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

Thought to have killed perhaps half the population of Europe, the Plague of Justinian afflicted the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean port cities.  The first verified and well-documented incident of the Bubonic Plague, it reduced the population of the Eastern Mediterranean by a quarter and devastated Constantinople, where, at the height of the pandemic, 5,000 a day were dying.

Antonine Plague (165 AD)

Death Toll: 5 million; Cause: Unknown

Also known as the Plague of Galen, the Antonine Plague affected Asia Minor (the modern Republic of Türkiye), Egypt, Greece, and Italy and is thought to have been either Smallpox or Measles, though the true cause is unknown. The disease was brought to Rome by soldiers returning from Mesopotamia.  The pandemic significantly weakened the Roman army.

London and the plagues of Plague

A London Bill of Mortality, 1665.

During the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries when "bubonic plague was abroad", the authorities compiled "Bills of Mortality" listing the causes of death recorded that week.  It's now believed the statistics are not wholly reliable (Plague numbers, like the global toll from Covid-19, believed greatly to have been understated) but the startling ratio of deaths attributed to Plague compared with other causes is indicative of the deadly nature of the epidemic.  In one week 3880 residents of London were reported as having succumbed to Plague, dwarfing the number recorded as dying by other causes including Old Age (54), Consumption (Tuberculous) (174), Small Pox (10), Fright (1), Grief (1), Spotted Fever and the Purples (190), Griping in the Guts (74), Lethargy (1), Rifing of the Lights (19) and Wind (1).  Like the Covid-19 statistics, there was likely some overlap in the numbers but the disparity remains striking.

After the Black Death, London's major plague epidemics occurred in 1563, 1593, 1625 and 1665 and although the last is best-known (associated as it was with the Great Fire of 1666), it's believed it was during the 1563 event the city suffered the greatest proportional mortality with between a quarter and a third of the populating dying; losses have been estimated to be as high as 18,000 and in some weeks the toll exceeded 1000.  From there, the disease spread around the nation the following year, the fleas which were the primary vector of transmission having hibernated through what was a comparatively mild winter.  Echoing the political and military effects of epidemics noted since Antiquity, it was at this time England was compelled to give up their last French possession, Le Havre, which was being held as a hostage for Calais.  Plague broke out in the occupying garrison and few troops escaped infection so the town had to be surrendered.

There were small, manageable outbreaks in 1603 & 1610-1611 but the epidemic of 1625 was severe and associated with a notable internal migration as those with the means to leave London did not, the reduction in the number of magistrates & doctors noted as inducing the predicable social consequences although as time passed, it was clear the disease was becoming less virulent and the mortality rate had fallen, something now attributed at least partially to the so-called "harvesting effect".  After 1666, the Plague didn't vanish and there were periodic outbreaks but the lessons had been well-learned and the efficiency of communications and the still embryonic public-health infrastructure operated well, even if little progress had been made in actual medical techniques.  The Hull (an East Yorkshire port city) Plague of 1699 was contained with little spread and when an outbreak of fever was reported in Marseilles in 1720, stricter quarantine measures  were imposed in English ports which successfully prevented any great spread.  Throughout the eighteenth & nineteenth centuries (as late as 1896-1897) there were occasional isolated cases and small outbreaks of plague in various parts of England but none ever remotely approached the scale of the 1665-1666 epidemic.

Werner Herzog's Nosferatu (1979) 

Werner Herzog's (b 1942) 1979 remake of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's (1888–1931) masterpiece of Weimar expressionism (Nosferatu (1922)) takes place mostly in a small German city afflicted suddenly by Plague, Herzog rendering something chilling and darkly austere, despite the stylistic flourishes.  The 1979 film delivered the definitive screen Dracula and was a piece to enjoy when living in the social isolation of the Covid era.

Scene from Werner Herzog's Nosferatu (1979)

Terpsichore

Terpsichore (pronounced turp-sik-uh-ree)

(1) In Classical Mythology, the goddess of dancing and choral song and one of the nine Muses who were daughters of Zeus (god of sky and thunder) & Mnemosyne (the goddess of memory).

(2) In choreography; the art of dancing (should always be lowercase).

(3) In astronomy (as 81 Terpsichore), a main belt asteroid.

Circa 1760: From the Classical Latin Terpsichorē from the Ancient Greek Τερψιχόρη (Terpsikhórē) (literally “enjoyment of dance”), noun use of the feminine of terpsíchoros (delighting in the dance), the construct being τέρψις (térpsis; térpein) (to delight; enjoyment) + χορός (khorós) (dance; chorus); it’s from terpsíchoros that English gained chorus.  The Greek was térpein was from the primitive Indo-European root terp- (to satisfy) source also of Sanskrit trpyati (takes one's fill) and the Lithuanian tarpstu & tarpti (to thrive, prosper).

The adjective terpsichorean (pertaining to dancing (literally “of Terpsichore”)) dates from 1869, and was from the Latinized form of the Greek noun terpsikhore (Muse of dancing and dramatic chorus).  From this came the theatrical slang terp (stage dancer, chorus girl) noted since 1937.  The adjectival form terpsichorean often appears with an initial capital letter because of its etymology from a proper noun.  Either is acceptable but the conventions of Modern English tend eventually to prevail which suggests use of the capital T will reduce with time but, given the rarity of the word except in a few technical and historical disciplines, the classic form is likely to endure among those few who enjoy its use.

In the mythology of Ancient Greece, nine goddesses ruled over art and literature.  The Greeks called them Muses and the Muse of dance and choral music was Terpsichore.  Of late she’s been of interest to astronomers who adopted her as a metaphor for the rhythm and ordered movement in the universe, such as mechanical oscillations.  In Archaic Greece, there were but three Muses, all associated with song and dance; it was only in the classical period they became nine and assigned to distinct spheres: Calliope of epic poetry, Clio of history, Euterpe of lyric poetry, Erato of love poetry, Melpomene of tragedy, Polyhymnia of hymns, Thalia of comedy, Urania of astronomy, and Terpsichore of dance and choral music.  The daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, they dwelt in the land of Pieria in the foothills of Mount Olympus.  In later mythology, writers tended to compare the Muses to the sirens but while both were young nymphs famous for their beautiful songs, the Muses sang to enrich men’s souls while the sirens were chthonic and sang to lure them to their deaths.

The Greek historian Herodotus (circa 484-425 BC) wrote his Ἱστορίαι (historíai̯; in the West styled variously as The History or The Histories of Herodotus)) as an account of the Greco-Persian Wars (499-449 BC).  Although there was once some doubt about the veracity as a historical document (reflecting more the scepticism about medieval editors and translators than the original texts), modern research has concluded the work is one of the most reliable histories from antiquity.  Herodotus was called “The Father of History” by the Roman orator Cicero (103-46 BC) because of the quality of his writing but he's also now acknowledged as the father of historiography's modern structural form.  Written histories had existed prior to Herodotus but he was the first to adopt a recognizably modern thematic form.  At some unknown time, one or more editors reorganized The History into nine chapters, each name after a Muse, one of which was Terpsichore:  Book I (Clio), Book II (Euterpe), Book III (Thalia), Book IIII (Melpomene), Book V (Terpsichore), Book VI (Erato), Book VII (Polymnia), Book VIII (Urania) & Book IX (Calliope).

The Muse Terpsichore In Ancient & Modern Greece.  Allegory of the Muse Terpsichore playing a harp, from the Florentine School of the eighteenth century, oil on canvas by an unknown artist (left) and Lindsay Lohan dancing The Lilo, Lohan Beach House, Mykonos, Greece, 2018 (right).

Despite the similarity, there’s no verified connection between khorós (dance; chorus) and χώρᾱς (khṓrās), inflection of χώρᾱ (khṓrā) (location, place, spot; the proper place; one's place in life; piece of land: tract, land, field; country (as opposed to a city or town), countryside; country, nation.  The origin of khôra is unknown and it may be from a Pre-Greek substrate or other regional language although speculative links have been suggested including χᾰ́ος (kháos) (empty space, abyss, chasm) and χατέω (khatéō) (to lack, miss, need, desire) but few etymologists have supported either and the lack of cognates beyond the Greek rendered research a dead end.  Khōra had been adopted as the ancient name for the land lying between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers north of Babylon (modern-day Iraq), from the Greek mesopotamia (khōra (literally "a country between two rivers)), from the feminine of mesopotamos, the construct being mesos (middle), from the primitive Indo-European root medhyo- (middle") + potamos (river).  That use borrowed directly from the discussions from Antiquity.

However, khôra did attract the interest of those scourges of late twentieth century linguistics: the French deconstructionists.  Their attention seems to have been excited by the concept of khôra in the sense of “the territory of the Ancient Greek polis which lay beyond the city proper”.  The philosophers of Antiquity, noting the idea of khôra simultaneously as (1) the physical space between city & the wilderness, (2) the time it takes to transverse the space and (3) one’s state of mind while in the space.  It was very much a concept of the indeterminate, a triton genos (third kind), being neither civilization nor the state of nature and city nor wilderness and few things so appealed to the deconstructionists as the indeterminate.

Of course, one attraction of deconstruction was that it was in itself a layer of indeterminacy and Jacques Derrida (1930-2004), post-modernism’s most famous explorer of khôra in the context of apophatism or negative theology, was interested not how the word had been understood in the traditions of metaphysics & metaphorics but what meaning could be constructed for something which is neither present or absent, passive or active.  The findings from khôra’s time on post-modernism’s autopsy table did illustrate why deconstruction gained a special role in language because there was surely no other way that Plato’s entirely cosmological concept could become psycho-linguistic and produce, in all seriousness, the idea of khôra as “container of the uncontainable”.  Plato (circa 425-circa 347 BC) had imagined khôra as that space through which something could pass but in which nothing could remain so thus to a French deconstructionist the very essence of tout autre (fully other) and from there it wasn’t very far to the idea of khôra also as time and space interacting.  At that point, in the tradition of post-modernism, khôra meant whatever the observer decided it meant.

The Terpsichore in Modern Greece: Lindsay Lohan dancing The Lilo, Lohan Beach House, Mykonos, Greece, 2018.

Pandemic & Epidemic

Pandemic (pronounced pan-dem-ik)

(1) Of a disease, prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area (in modern use, now usually restricted to diseases spread over several continents, reaching epidemic level in at least two.

(2) In figurative use, general; universal.

1660-1670: From the Late Latin pandēmus (affecting all the people, public, general) from the Ancient Greek pandēmos (general) and the Ancient Greek πᾶν (pân) (all; equivalent to English pan-) + δῆμος (dêmos) (the people); the suffix –os was the adjectival form.  The suffix –ic is from the Middle English -ik, from the Old French -ique, from the Latin -icus, from the primitive Indo-European –kos.  The form existed in the Ancient Greek as -ικός (ikós), in the Sanskritas as श (śa) & क (ka) and in the Old Church Slavonic as -ъкъ (-ŭkŭ); a doublet of -y.  The suffix –ic is often added to words of Greek or Latin origin, but may be used regardless of source.  In modern English, there is sometimes the creation of redundant forms such as veganic (from vegan).  Related words include the nouns pandemia & pandemicity and the adjective interpandemic.

Epidemic (pronounced ep-i-dem-ik)

(1) Of a disease and affecting many persons at the same time, and spreading from person to person in a locality where the disease is not permanently prevalent.

(2) Extremely prevalent; widespread; a rapid spread or increase in the occurrence of something.

1595-1605: From the French épidémique, from épidémie, from the Latin epidemia, from the Ancient Greek ἐπιδήμιος (epidḗmios), from ἐπί (epí) (upon) + δῆμος (dêmos) (people) the Ancient Greek epidēmía translates literally as “among the people” but is often cited as “staying in one place”.  The early alternative forms epidemy and epidemick are long obsolete and related forms include the noun epidemicity, the adjectives interepidemic & preepidemic and the adverb epidemically.

Noted Pandemics

HIV/AIDS Pandemic (2005-2012)

Death Toll: 36 million; Cause: HIV/AIDS

First identified in Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1976, HIV/AIDS is a global pandemic with some 35 million people living with HIV, the vast majority in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 5% of the population (circa 21 million) is infected.  The AIDS death toll is thought to be understated because (1) dubious validity of statistical record-keeping in some countries (there are places where many deaths are not accompanied by a death certificate) and (2) a cultural reluctance among families to have AIDS recorded as the cause because of the association with homosexuality and IV drug use, hence the 1980s spike in recorded deaths from pneumonia.     

Flu Pandemic (1968)

Death Toll: 1 million; Cause: Influenza

A category 2 Flu also known as “Hong Kong Flu,” it was caused by the H3N2 strain of the Influenza A virus, an offshoot of H2N2.  It took only days to reach Singapore and Vietnam, and, within three months, had spread to The Philippines, India, Australia, Europe, and the US.  Although wide-spread, it had a low mortality rate under 1%.  Worst affected was Hong Kong where 500,000 died, some 15% of the population.

Lindsay Lohan thanking the Dubai Police for their helpfulness during COVID-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.  Note the proxemics.

Asian Flu (1956-1958)

Death Toll: 2 million; Cause: Influenza

A pandemic of Influenza A of the H2N2 subtype, it originated in China, spreading from the province of Guizhou to Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.  Estimates for the death toll vary but the World Health Organization (WHO) lists 2 million deaths, 69,800 of them in the US.

Flu pandemic (1918-1919)

Death Toll: 20-50 million; Cause: Influenza

The best known pandemic, it infected over a third of the world’s population, killing between 20–50 million.  The mortality rate was a high 10-20% and unusually, where influenza had previously killed mostly juveniles, the elderly or already weakened patients, the 1918 pandemic disproportionally killed robust and healthy young adults, leaving children and those with weaker immune systems still alive.  The movement of vast numbers of people around the world at the end of WWI assisted the spread.

Sixth Cholera pandemic (1910-1911)

Death Toll: 800,000+; Cause: Cholera

Like its previous five incarnations, the Sixth Cholera Pandemic originated in India where it killed over 800,000, before spreading to the Middle East, North Africa, Eastern Europe and Russia.  It was the source of the last American outbreak of Cholera although effective public health measures there restricted the death toll to eleven.  Cholera, a classic Medieval disease, remains endemic in India.

Flu pandemic (1889-1890)

Death Toll: 1 million; Cause: Influenza

Know at the time as Asiatic or Russian Flu and though once to be a strain of the Influenza A H2N2, it was an outbreak of H3N8.   The first cases were observed in May 1889 in three distant locations, Bukhara in Central Asia (Turkestan), Athabasca in north-western Canada, and Greenland. The rapid growth in urban populations provided vectors for the spread and although the first true pandemic in the era of bacteriology, while much was learned from it, it claimed over a million lives.

Lindsay Lohan thanking the Dubai Police for their helpfulness during COVID-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.

Third Cholera pandemic (1852–1860)

Death Toll: 1 million; Cause: Cholera

Probably the most deadly of the seven cholera pandemics, it was the third major outbreak in the 19th century.  Like the first and second, the third originated in India, before spreading with extraordinary rapidity through Asia, Europe, North America and Africa.  A physician in England, where over 20,000 died, discovered contaminated water was the means of transmission.

Lindsay Lohan mugshot facemasks available through Redbibble.

The Black Death (1346-1353)

Death Toll: 75 – 200 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

The Plague ravaged Europe, Africa, and Asia, with a death toll of 75-200 million, killing up to half the population of some European countries.  Thought to have originated in Asia, Plague was most likely spread by fleas living on the rats of merchant ships and in some countries, populations didn’t recover until the nineteenth century.  Now unknown in most parts of the world, outbreaks still happen in various places.

Plague of Justianian (541-542)

Death Toll: 25 million; Cause: Bubonic Plague

Thought to have killed perhaps half the population of Europe, the Plague of Justinian afflicted the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean port cities.  The first verified and well-documented incident of the Bubonic Plague, it reduced the population of the Eastern Mediterranean by a quarter and devastated Constantinople, where, at the height of the pandemic, 5,000 a day were dying.

Lindsay Lohan thanking the Dubai Police for their helpfulness during COVID-19 pandemic, Dubai, April 2020.

Antonine Plague (165 AD)

Death Toll: 5 million; Cause: Unknown

Also known as the Plague of Galen, the Antonine Plague affected Asia Minor (modern Turkey), Egypt, Greece, and Italy and is thought to have been either Smallpox or Measles, though the true cause is unknown. The disease was brought to Rome by soldiers returning from Mesopotamia.  The pandemic significantly weakened the Roman army.