Assassins!

You’ve probably heard that the word assassin comes from drugged up medieval murderers known as the hashishim.

It’s a good story, but it’s probably not true. Blame this guy…

This rather lovely mosaic of Marco Polo is in the Palazzo Doria-Tursi in Genoa, Italy.

Foreigners travelling through the Middle East like Marco Polo were told stories of a sect of fearsome murderers. Young Marco got the wrong end of the stick, and some of his misunderstandings stuck for centuries.

Misunderstood or not, the assassins were real. The original killers were known as Asāsiyyūn, which means ‘people who are faithful to the foundation of the faith’, which is a funny way to describe murderers. It only makes sense when you understand that they weren’t blades for hire. Like many of the most dangerous people, they did their killing for God.

The killers were members of a religious sect known as the Nizaris, who carved out a state within a state within the Seljuk Turkish empire. Their domain was a small, but impenetrable network of mountain fortresses.

The Nizari bases were enclaves rather than contiguous territory. They were spread between the south-west corner of the Caspian sea, and north-east of the Mediterranean.

Like many religious minorities throughout history, Nizaris within the Seljuk empire were subject to discrimination and stereotyping. The term ‘Hashishim’ is most likely an insult, used to label all adherents of the sect as dope-smokers. There’s no reason to think it has any basis in fact, but it stuck, and made it to the ears of Marco Polo.

The head of the Nizari order was known as ‘The Old Man of The Mountain’, and he claimed direct descent from the prophet Mohammed.

The first holder of the title was Hassan-i Sabbah. Hassan was a philosopher and scholar, widely resepected across the Middle East. He converted the people of the Rudbar region of northern Iran to his sect, before infiltrating and seizing the fortress of Alamut as a permanent base. From these small beginnings, he grew a kingdom, and an army.

He knew he stood no chance in a direct confrontation with the might of the Seljuk empire, so he used terror tactics and psychological warfare to defend his territory. Assassination was a key tool. Any ruler that threatened his power would be struck down. Caliphs, Sultans and Crusader lords died by the blades of his warriors.

This 14th century illustration shows the murder of a Seljuk emperor.

For two centuries, the Nizaris were untouchable, but eventually this immovable object met an unstoppable force – the Mongol Empire.

Möngke Khan, grandson of Genghis, launched a vast army to conquer the Middle East. The assassins met this new threat the same way they always had, but Mongol emperors were hard to kill. The enraged khan strengthened his army with 1000 siege engineers from China to reduce the Nizari mountain fortresses to rubble.

The Mongol army assaults Alamut. Note camel in foreground. They’re originally from central Asia (& later imported to Egypt) so their inclusion in a Mongol army shouldn’t be a surprise.

In 1256, the mountain headquarters of Alamut fell, and the Nizari state was wiped off the map, but the legacy lived on. Less than a hundred years later, the word ‘assassin’ was used in the stories of Florentine chronicler Giovanni Villani. From there, it spread across Europe.

All that remains: the rubble of a Nizari castle.

And incredibly, the descendants of the Old Man of the Mountain are still with us today! Shah Karim al-Hussaini is better known as The Aga Khan. He’s the head of the Nizari faith, he’s worth over a billion dollars, making him the tenth richest royal in the world.

I’m not sure why he counts as royal, given that his family haven’t ruled any territory for 800 years. I don’t make the rules. Blame Forbes magazine.

A billion dollars, and your family outlived the Mongol empire. No wonder he looks happy.

Lost In The Museum

Why do my stories always contain scenes in museum storage facilities?

Because they're the strangest, most fascinating places you'll ever see. Here are some drawers full of dead birds at the Smithsonian warehouse...

And the birds aren’t even the tip of the iceberg that is the Smithsonian’s natural history collection. Equivalent collections exist for insects, flowers, mammals & inverterbrates (snails etc). You can even find giant squid. It all seems rather extravagant until you understand what these collections are for.

These drawers full of dead things, along with similar collections in London, Paris, Berlin and St Petersburg, are the definitive record of man’s exploration of the natural world. They provide a baseline against which any new discovery can be compared. When an excited naturalist thinks they’ve discovered a new species of bat in the caves of New Guinea, they first have to check in the drawers to make sure there’s not another one just like it.

Different museums face different storage dilemmas, each fascinating in their own way…

Where do you keep your native American canoes? Next to the Burmese temple dog statues, obviously. This is Chicago’s Field Museum.

Is it possible to have too many terracotta heads? Ask the guys at the Larco museum in Lima, Peru

When you run a tank museum, storage is definitely an issue. This is Bovington, in Dorset, England.

Some museums adopt elegant high-tech solutions to make their storage facilities accessible to the public. This is the Museum an der Strom in Antwerp, Belgium.

But when a museum is strapped for cash, as many are, things can get a little out of hand.

Iraq's Vanished World

You don't need to invent fantasy worlds. This picture is a settlement of Marsh Arabs in southern Iraq. Unfortunately big ones like this no longer exist. The photograph was taken in 1974, two decades before Saddam Hussein devastated the region in retaliation for an uprising.

A closer look shows the distinctive architectural style. The huts are made of reeds and whatever other materials can be scavenged. They've probably been made like this for 5000 years, but reeds rot, so the archaeology is sketchy.

Marsh Arab reed architecture can be astonishingly elaborate. Sometimes the houses are built on islands in the marshes. Sometimes they build their own island, and the houses float! While it looks exquisite, living on these things is hard. Sewage systems are as basic as you would imagine, and connecting to the electrical grid is impossible.

The Arabs who have been resettling the area since Saddam’s downfall are doing things a little differently. They're building new homes on 43 man-made islands close to roads for amenities. One of them will have a school and water filtration plant. Power is still an issue, but portable generators could provide a partial solution. Solar would be great, but the cost is probably prohibitive.

Unfortunately, the current wave of settlers are fighting against the tide. This way of life has been disappearing for decades, and not just because of Saddam’s campaign of terror. The marshes lie between the Tigris and the Euphrates (nr Basrah on this map), and dams and irrigation projects as far upriver as Turkey have reduced the flow of fresh water. This alters the salinity of the marshes, which in turn affects the wildlife the marsh dwellers depend on.

Today the great rivers pass through 34 dams before they reach the sea.

But there is hope. An Iraqi American engineer, Azzam Alwash, has started a hugely ambitious project to restore the wetlands. The reed architecture is low-cost, sustainable, and the old people with the skills are still around. Peace might still give them a chance to rebuild. Forty-three man-made islands could be the beginning of something remarkable.

It would be fitting for this special place to get a second chance. In Babylonian mythology, the marshes were a place of creation and new life. All life on earth was the product of a union between Apsu (the river spirit) and Tiamat (Goddess of the seas). In a poetic sense, the myth reflects reality.

The great rivers that were the cradle of human civilization, the Tigris and the Euphrates, carry nutrient-rich sediments to the sea, providing the first link in the food-chain. Here, in these marshes, is where salt water meets fresh, and new life begins.

The Real(ish) Battle of Endor

Endor is a real place. It’s not in a galaxy far, far away. It’s in the Jezreel Valley in northern Israel. Also, there are no Ewoks, which could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your personal stance.

Personally, I’m ambivalent.

Unfortunately, visiting Endor is tricky. We know it existed because it’s mentioned three times in the bible, but archaeologists have been unable to agree on a precise location. Any one of five rival locations could be the site of the real Endor.

Somewhere around the middle of this map, near the words ‘Mount Tabor’ seems likely.

This map of ancient Galilee is basically just educated guesswork.

So, what is this battle I speak of?

Well, there are two, one literal, one more metaphorical.

The literal battle gets an oblique reference in the Old Testament in the Book of Joshua. The biblical hero famously won the battle of Jericho when he crumbled the walls of the city with sonic weaponry (magical trumpets). The book mentions that the Israelites failed to conquer some of the city-state’s dependencies. One of them is Endor. So, if follows that there must have been a battle.

Why would the Israelites lose, when they’d already beaten the powerhouse that was Jericho?

Because of dark magic, obviously.

And the walls came tumbling down…

Dark Magic? In the bible? Surely not?

I’m afraid so, and Endor is where it happens. The cursed place makes its second biblical appearance in the book of Samuel. The Israelite king, Saul, visits the village to consult with a fearsome figure, the Witch of Endor. He asks her to summon the spirits of the dead, to tell him what’s going to happen in a battle the next day.

“The Endorian Sorceress Causes the Shade of Samuel" (Martynov, Dmitry Nikiforovich, 1857)

This is a big deal. It’s necromancy, explicitly forbidden by Yahweh. Saul has sentenced his own people to death for practising it.

This is what I call the metaphorical battle of Endor – the battle for Saul’s soul.

The drama of the scene has inspired artists from William Blake to Gustave Dore. (left and right)

The metaphorical battle of Endor is a catastrophic defeat for Saul. The witch summons the spirit of the prophet Samuel, who tells him exactly what he didn’t want to hear. The next day he will face the Philistines at Gilboa and be killed.

And, because this is the bible, the prophecy is fulfilled – Saul is killed along with his sons. The Israelites suffer a terrible defeat.

And, because this is the bible, everything is Saul’s fault for being a BAD MAN.

The handsome young guy behind Saul is David. Keep an eye on him, he goes on to big things.

Saul turned to the witch of Endor for help because the Lord was punishing him for disobedience, and denying him the assistance he’d granted in previous battles. So, what did Saul do to incur God’s wrath?

He refused an order to commit genocide. God told him to slaughter a tribe called the Amalekites. He said ‘no’, and sealed his fate. That was the moment God elected to replace him with David.

So, I suppose the story of the real(ish) battle of Endor is a moral tale of the perils of working for a psychopathic boss.

And the handsome young guy behind Saul in the painting? Well, that’s David and he’s totally cool with murdering whole tribes for the Lord, so he becomes King David (after the business with that Goliath guy) and he’s obviously the real hero here. Maybe it’s an ancient metaphor for capitalism or something? I don’t know.

Memories of War

Perhaps the most emotional experience I’ve had in the cinema was watching a movie that’s not on anyone’s Oscars list this year. ‘Midway’ brought to life the experiences of war veterans I interviewed while making ‘Seconds from Disaster’ for National Geographic back in February 2011. I travelled 25,000 miles to listen to the stories of Takeo Shiro, Don Stratton and Mal Middlesworth. The journey changed my understanding of war.

The first stop on my journey was Colorado Springs, to speak to Don Stratton. Today, he is one of only three survivors still alive from the USS Arizona. I have vivid memories of sitting in Don’s living room as he described climbing a rope to escape the burning battleship. He kept losing grip because the skin was peeling off his hands. The scene was reproduced pretty faithfully in the movie, but obviously they don’t show the really gruesome stuff. By the time Don received medical attention, burns covered 65 percent of his body. He was 19 years old.

The USS Arizona exploded when a bomb detonated its forward ammunition stores. 1,177 men died.

I've interviewed a lot of war veterans over the years, and I never met anyone else who handled trauma like Don. Even though he’d told the story a hundred times, it was obvious during the interview that the memories were still painful, but he didn’t run away from them. I guess his way of coping was to embrace them, and accept them as the formative experience they must have been.

Don’s pride and joy - a 1965 Chevy truck, painted with a full colour scene of the Arizona.

From Colorado it was a short hop to Los Angeles to meet Mal Middlesworth. At the time of Pearl Harbor, Mal was a Marine serving on the heavy cruiser USS San Francsico. He was a cooler customer than Don. His ship hadn’t come under direct attack (The Japanese bombers concentrated on the larger battleships), so he was more of a first-hand witness to events than a direct participant. Even so, you could tell the experience had left its mark on him. He was a natural storyteller, and after the war, he became a film-maker, so he was a great interviewee. He welcomed me and my crew into his home, and made the whole day we spent with him light and fun. I'm 6'5" and by coincidence, both my cameraman and sound-recordist that day were pretty much as tall, so he called us 'The Basketball Team'.

The next stop was Pearl Harbor itself. I didn’t do interviews here. (One with the base’s current commander didn’t make the cut in the final film). The main goal was to shoot background plates of the real locations where the attack happened, so our graphics team could recreate it with CGI. It was possible only because most of the island’s infrastructure from 1941 has been left intact - control towers, hangars, offices, accomodation - it’s all still there. It’s a curious irony - the bombing of Pearl Harbor has effectively preserved it, by turning the whole site into a national historical monument. The period officers’ accomodation is particularly spectacular.

Apparently, the historic housing makes Pearl Harbor a popular posting for Navy wives.

From Hawaii, I flew to Japan to interview naval aviators who’d taken part in the attack (and a Japanese professor). I was surprised to discover that there are loads of flights covering this route, because Hawaii has become a massively popular tourist destination for the Japanese. I don’t quite get it, because Oahu didn’t particularly impress me as an island paradise, and they have Bali/Thailand etc in relatively easy reach, but it’s another curious irony of history.

Interviewing the Japanese naval aviators turned out to be a fascinating and fraught process. I drove my interpreter mad because I'd never worked in Japan before, and I hadn't brought business cards. The veterans are high status guys, and their families had to be convinced to permit the interview.

Takeo Shiro, in uniform as a torpedo bomber pilot

So before I could talk to Takeo Shiro, I had to be interviewed by his family so they could establish my worthiness to have an audience with the venerable elder. I faced a battery of questions about my age, heritage and wealth. This would obviously not be OK in the US and Europe, but as a film-maker, and a guest in their homes, you have to play by their rules.

I was 34, but I looked younger, (ha ha) which made life difficult. Basically my ass was saved by my interpreter, the fantastic Mai Nishiyama. I don’t know what I expected from Takeo, but it was striking how clearly he perceived his younger self. He remembered being that person, full of dreams of winning glory for Japan, but he’d grown up, and he could see those dreams for what they were. His entire generation had been brainwashed into thinking their lives had value only in service to the Emperor.

His account of the attack on Pearl Harbor was more technical and detached than the others. In a way, that’s not surprising - he was flying above all the chaos, but it is something I often find with aviators - they are calm and clinical, skilled operators of the machinery of death. After conducting his torpedo run, Takeo circled over the harbor to take this picture.

Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor. If you look closely, you can see the trails of other torpedoes in the water

In the end, my film didn't quite have the production values of a Hollywood feature, but I'm still proud of the work we did. For CGI that’s now 9 years old, our Japanese bombers hold up pretty well.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=hp1Zii

Sword of Mercy

In my darker moments, I sometimes cheer myself with the thought the Queen has a magic sword. And then I conjure up scenarios in which she and other members of the royal family have to wield it to kill demons. The legendary blade is called Cortana, or the Sword of Mercy.

An actual sword, not the virtual assistant for Windows 10, which inexplicably shares the name.

The Queen's magic weapon lives with the crown jewels in the Tower of London, which feels right. I mean, if you're going to find a legendary blade anywhere, it should be somewhere like this.

Of course, the other traditional option is the mystical lake, but they’re harder to find these days.

Why is it magical? I'm so glad you asked. Because of the stories of course. The first record we have of its existence is from the 13th century, where it is mentioned in the account of the coronation of Edward 1st. Edward had a couple of charming nicknames. He was variously known as ‘Longshanks’ or ‘Hammer of the Scots’. You may remember him from the movie ‘Braveheart’, in which he constantly despairs at his homosexual son’s lack of martial prowess. Pretty much everything else about that movie is inaccurate, but Edward did indeed murder a lot of Scots.

A fearsome warrior like Edward needed a suitable blade for his coronation (1274). Legend has it the sword was ancient even then, and over centuries, had found its way to England from the hand of the legendary knight Roland, hero of Charlemagne's campaign to drive the Moors from France. In his hands, it could cleave mountains in two. Excalibur eat your heart out.

The eight chapters of Le Chanson de Roland as depicted in a single painting.

So where did Roland acquire this Dark Ages WMD? From a blacksmith, obviously, but not just any blacksmith. The only craftsman capable of imbuing a weapon with such power was the legendary Weyland, who famously fashioned the weapons and armour for Beowulf to slay the Grendel.

Can the weapon you can see on display now really carve mountains in two? I like to think some part of its ancient potency remains. A curator at the royal armouries told me the sword's current shape only dates to the 1600's but the blade itself could be older. Ultimately, we just don't know.

Star Thinker

The best crazy ideas always come from scientists. One of my favourites comes from physicist, Freeman Dyson, who theorised that advanced civilizations might turn their stars into gigantic power stations In the '60s his work was purely theoretical, but in 2016 things got weird...

Theoretically, the power station would look something like this, but who knows?

Astronomers discovered a star with the catchy name of KIC 8462852 had been dimming for more than a hundred years, as far back as records went. Why does that matter? Because it’s exactly what would happen if aliens were doing the power station thing. The scientifically inclined can see what proper astronomers were saying about it here…

https://astronomynow.com/2016/08/08/kepler-finds-tabbys-star-is-mysteriously-dimming/

According to Dyson’s theory, aliens would use all the matter in a solar system to encase the star in something like a gargantuan spherical solar panel, providing functionally unlimited energy. But even if you’ve got the tech, one of these things isn’t going up overnight.

Building a Dyson sphere would take decades, and as the pieces came together they’d obstruct more and more light from the star. And over the last century or so KIC 8462852 (which fortunately has another name, Tabby’s star) has dimmed by 22 percent.

Various boring theories - comets, dust etc- have been put forward to explain the phenomenon, but thankfully none of them so far fit all the data. Of course, someone will one day find an answer, but until then, we can all look up and imagine life around Tabby's star.

When he wasn't dreaming up sci-fi concepts (which have been adapted by authors from Larry Niven to Iain M. Banks), Dyson did some theorising about colonising space. He felt it would only be viable when the cost per colonist came down to what around the Mayflower pilgrims paid.

Setting aside the dubious ethics of colonisation, Dyson's calculations on what it would take to make it work in space are interesting. He worked out the cost per Mayflower pilgrim was about $40,000 in 1970's money, which equates to around $150K today.

That's a lot of money, only achievable for prosperous adults prepared to bet the farm on a journey into the unknown. The Mayflower carried 135 pilgrims, so the total investment comes to around $20 million. The price tag for a single space shuttle mission is around $450 mil. Of course, that figure includes a lot of other costs besides the launch, but then so does a voyage of exploration.

And the shuttle is a long way from an interstellar vehicle. To make space colonisation viable, it would take something radical, like the space elevator concept, which eliminates launch costs. It is exactly what it sounds like - an elevator to space.

One of the little things that makes me happy is that the International Space Elevator Consortium actually exists IRL (https://isec.org) And the recent development of carbon nanotubes brings the dream one step closer to reality.

The space elevator guys reckon on a cost of $100 per kilo to get cargo into orbit, so even a big lump like me can get into space for $10K. Suddenly, Freeman Dyson's Mayflower pilgrim pricetag looks a lot more attainable...

Does that mean we're all heading for the stars as soon as we figure out how to build something massive out of carbon nanotubes? For now, they're still highly experimental, but I can't wait to find out where this story goes.

Thank you, Freeman Dyson, for all the crazy ideas.

The Best Heroes Wear Great Big Capes

One of my favourite figures from history is the Empress Theodora. Her life story is sometimes grim, but truly epic. She was born the daughter of a bear-trainer, and rose to become mistress of the Byzantine empire, the most powerful woman in the world, and a saint.

Theodora watching the games at Byzantium’s Hippodrome, which was the cauldron for the city’s politics

In the 19th century her life story was made into a play, and she was portrayed by one of the first globally famous actresses, Sarah Bernhardt. But in the 20th century Byzantine history fell out of fashion, and Theodora fell from historical megastar into undeserved obscurity.

A C19th theatre’s guess at Byzantine costume and decor. Accurate? No. Interesting? I think so.

The young Theodora’s father plied his unusual trade at the Constantinople Hippodrome. His trained bears probably featured in intermission shows between chariot races. In the sixth century, this was the most exciting place on the planet, but it’s not perfect for raising children.

Chariots raced for teams denoted by colour - Blues, Greens, Reds & Whites. Each team represented a powerful political faction in the city. The races were proxy wars as well as entertainment.

Her mum was an actress and dancer, and Theodora’s dad died when she was just four. At a young age, she went to work in a brothel. This doesn’t necessarily mean sex – Byzantine brothels employed stage performers and waitresses, but it was probably pretty grim.

She was about 16 when she travelled to North Africa (part of the Byzantine Empire) as the companion of a high-ranking official, who got bored of her, then dumped her thousands of miles from home. She made her way home via Alexandria and Anticoch, undergoing a religious conversion en route.

It’s an awful long way from Byzantium (Constantinople on this map) to the empire’s African provinces

That journey lasted years, and it must have been terrifying, but Theodora used it to forge connections in high society. We’re not sure exactly what she did we she got back in Constantinople, but somehow she met the young prince Justinian, heir to the Imperial throne.

Limited choice of haircuts in the Byzantine court.

He wanted to marry her, but there was a law against important people marrying actresses. Justininian got his father, the Emperor, to CHANGE THE LAW. What was so amazing about her to drive him to do this? We don’t know, but history proved she was worth the effort.

In 532AD, riots in Constantinople threatened to topple Justinian from the throne. A huge crowd gathered in the Hippodrome ready to crown a new emperor and storm the palace. Justinian was ready to flee. Theodora was having none of it.

It was the political power of one of the chariot-racing factions that threatened to topple Justinian

She told her husband "Those who have worn the crown should never survive its loss. Never will I see the day when I am not saluted as empress." Steeled by his wife’s words, Justinian came up with a plan, and bribed half the rebels, who slunk away with the money. His troops slaughtered the rest.

He went on the conquer vast new territories, with Theodora ruling in his place while he was on his travels. Many officials resented her authority, but she put them in their place, forcing them the prostrate themselves and kiss their own feet.

She fought corruption, promoted new (good) generals and oversaw construction of the spectacular Hagia Sophia cathedral – the largest building in the world at that time. When the Pope (Silverius) refused to obey one of her orders, she had him replaced.

The Hagia Sophia still dominates the skyline of Istanbul

When she died, Justinian was distraught at the loss of his co-regent. She was buried in the Church of the Holy Apostles which stood for a thousand years before the empire fell, and it was demolished by the city’s new rulers.

But her legacy lives on ins surprising ways. The Hagia Sophia still stands, and even finds its way in games like Assassin’s creed.

Or if you happen to catch 'Taken' when it's being repeated on TV or Netflix, take a moment to pause during that incredible rooftop chase, and think about the life of a truly remarkable woman…

The sun sets over Theodora’s incredible legacy.