The Dome of the Rock

When the First Crusade captured Jerusalem, they took over the Dome of the Rock, a temple built on the site where tradition said God created the world and Adam. Also, it was the traditional site where Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac. For Muslims, it is believed to be the site from which Muhammad began the spiritual Night Journey around the world.

It had been the site of the Second Jewish Temple (c.516BCE) that was built to replace Solomon's Temple (between 10th and 6th centuries BCE). The Second Jewish Temple had been destroyed by the Romans in 70CE. The 5th Umayyad Caliph built on that site the Qubbat aṣ-Ṣaḵra, the Dome of the Rock, the oldest surviving work of Islamic architecture. The leaders of the Crusade in 1099 called it the Templum Domini, the "Temple of the Lord," and handed the management of it over to the Augustinians.

The actual rock was originally left exposed, but later covered with white marble. In 1138 the Temple Domini was given the status of an abbey. A few years later, on 1 April 1141, the church was dedicated by the papal legate Alberic of Ostia (on pilgrimage there with Armenian Catholicos Grigor III Pahlavuni).

An adjacent mosque became a royal palace for the King of Jerusalem and the image of the dome became an important symbol of the Jerusalem royalty. When a new royal palace was built, the old palace became the local headquarters of the Knights Templar, who provided protection to pilgrims. The design of the Dome of the Rock became copied by the Templars for their round churches across Europe.

The general shape has not changed over 13+ centuries. It is an octagonal structure with a dome. It displays the earliest public inscriptions of the sayings of Islam and Muhammad. The traveler Ibn Battuta in 1326 said:

Any viewer's tongue will grow shorter trying to describe it. This is one of the most fantastic of all buildings, of the most perfect in architecture and strangest in shape.

 It is still one of the most visited places on earth.

This is the second time that the papal legate Alberic of Ostia has appeared (although in reference to the same event), and I'd like to look at his life and travels next time.

Dog-headedness

Folklores from all over the world include tales of dog-headed humanoids. The phenomenon is referred to as cynocephaly, from the Greek words for "dog" and "head."

The Greeks may have been influenced by Egyptian gods with canine heads, and not just the jackal-headed Anubis; Wepwawet (originally a war deity) had a wolf head, and Duamutef (a son of Horus) had a jackal's head. The Greek physician Ctesias wrote two books in the 5th century BCE, Indica and Persica, about Persian and Indian lands, of a tribe of Cynocephali:

They speak no language, but bark like dogs, and in this manner make themselves understood by each other. Their teeth are larger than those of dogs, their nails like those of these animals, but longer and rounder. They inhabit the mountains as far as the river Indus. Their complexion is swarthy. They are extremely just, like the rest of the Indians with whom they associate. They understand the Indian language but are unable to converse, only barking or making signs with their hands and fingers by way of reply... They live on raw meat. They number about 120,000.

Other Ancient Greek writers including Herodotus, likely influenced by Ctesias, reinforced this knowledge, encouraging the Middle Ages to accept that there were strange races living beyond Europe. (Greek writers also say there was a type of monkey that was cynocephalic; we now assume they had seen baboons.)

With this "knowledge" in hand, it was easy to accept that Cynocephali would appear in other accounts, such as that of two dog-headed saints, Ahrakas and Augani, who served the Coptic Saint Mercurius (3rd century).

The best-known dog-headed personage was St. Christopher, who was sometimes depicted in the Eastern Orthodox tradition as dog-headed. This was likely a misunderstanding of an expanded history for him that referred to him as a Canaanite; this was mis-read as "canine-ish" and resulted in him being portrayed as a Cynocephalus who came from their tribe.

St. Augustine of Hippo in his The City of God addressed the topic of the Cynocephali. He accepted that they might not exist, but if they did exist, were the human (which to him meant mortal and rational). If they were both mortal and rational, then they were human, and therefore could have come from nowhere but a line of descendants from Adam.

Ratramnus (died c.868), a Frankish theologian, was concerned about the Cynocephali, because if they were human, then it was obligatory to bring Christianity to them. 

Even Marco Polo mentions them:

Angamanain is a very large Island. The people are without a king and are Idolaters, and no better than wild beasts. And I assure you all the men of this Island of Angamanain have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise; in fact, in the face they are all just like big mastiff dogs! They have a quantity of spices; but they are a most cruel generation, and eat everybody that they can catch, if not of their own race.

The one medieval writer who personally encountered anything approaching Cynocephali was Ibn Battuta (who was mentioned in passing a week ago regarding the Richest Man of All Time):

Fifteen days after leaving Sunaridwan we reached the country of the Barahnakar, whose mouths are like those of dogs. This tribe is a rabble, professing neither the religion of the Hindus nor any other. They live in reed huts roofed with grasses on the seashore, and have abundant banana, areca, and betel trees. Their men are shaped like ourselves, except that their mouths are shaped like those of dogs; this is not the case with their womenfolk, however, who are endowed with surpassing beauty.

Between India and Sumatra is a tribe, the Mentawai, who practice the art of tooth sharpening. He may have encountered them.

Dog-headed humanoids were widespread in literature, mentioned in the Nowell Codex (that contains Beowulf); in a Welsh poem where King Arthur fights them in Edinburgh; lamented at by Charlemagne (in his biography) that he never had a chance to go to war against such a foe; in a Flemish Dominican's popular encyclopedic work corroborating their existence; and many more examples. After the European discovery of the continents west of the Atlantic Ocean, assumptions that the Cynocephali would be found were renewed.

But enough of that. Lots of options to move on from here, but I want to explore that Flemish Dominican who wrote some works that became very popular, based on the number of surviving manuscripts. Next time we will talk about Thomas of Cantimpré.

The Richest Man of All Time

Current estimates of the richest people living today show Elon Musk topping the chart at 200+ billion dollars, but I'm going to tell you about someone who had twice that (adjusted for modern values).

Mansa Musa (reigned 1312 - 1337) was the ninth mansa (Mandinka word, generally translated "king") of the Mali Empire. The Mali Empire of West Africa thrived from 1235 - 1670 and included what is now Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Senegal, and of course Mali.

Much of the history and lore that has come down to us about the Mali Empire is from the 14th century North African traveler Ibn Khaldun and 14th century Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta.

Mali had two resources for which the world hungered: salt and gold (and to a certain extent, copper). Salt was sometimes more important than gold, especially south of Mali where it was scarce and needed for people's diet. Ibn Battuta reported that the salt mines were in the desert where there was nothing else, no trees. Those who worked the mines cut the salt into slabs from which they built their huts, roofed over with camel skins. Salt was sold in slabs—two slabs per camel—and cost more the further it had to be transported.

All gold mined or found was legally the property of the mansa; it was illegal to trade gold within the borders, and all gold had to be turned over to the Mali imperial treasury. Gold as converted to gold dust, carefully measured and bagged and counted as a mithqal, equivalent to 4.5 grams. Mithqal was used interchangeably with dinar, although dinar usually referred to a coin. There are no Mali coins.

Mansa Musa became well-known across Northern Africa and the Middle East for his generosity when he, a faithful Muslim, made a pilgrimage to Mecca. This hajj covered 2700 miles between 1324 and 1325, and supposedly consisted of 60,000 men in fine clothing, accompanied by 12,000 slaves, each of whom carried four pounds of gold bars, and 80 camels, each of which carried up to 300 pounds of gold dust.

Along the way, Musa paid for all the necessary provisions for his caravan. He also (it is reported) built a mosque each Friday, and gave gold and gifts to the poor and cities as he passed. He also bought souvenirs. Once reaching Medina and Mecca, he continued to give gifts of gold everywhere, knowing that he had plenty at home.  Unfortunately, he gave so much gold along the way that it became devalued, inflation rose, and it took awhile for prices of gold to increase again.

His generosity also meant that, on the way back home, he ran out of money and had to sell many of his possessions and souvenirs to get back to Mali.

The date of his death is recorded by Ibn Khaldun, but there is some confusion  when comparing it to other sources. It seems likely that his reign ended in 1337, and that is the likeliest year of his death. Khaldun was writing years later and doing his best from the available sources, most of which was oral stories from those who knew Musa.

Still, Ibn Khaldun was known for his contractions to philosophy and history, etc., and worth a closer look...next time