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Wednesday, October 5, 2016 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Bunkhouse
Chronicle
Craig Rullman
Columnist
From the
inside out
The discovery in 2013
of Roman coins under the
Japanese castle of Katsuren
on the island of Okinawa,
now on display at a museum
in the city of Uruma, is
another important reminder
that we never know as much
as we think we do.
Roman coins in Okinawa?
Wherever we may have
come from — and people
will likely argue about that
until our sun goes supernova
— humans have been on the
planet for a long time, and
have been far more intercon-
nected than we might fully
suspect.
The coins found at
Katsuren carry the stamp of
the Emperor Constantine,
who graciously lent his name
to the city of Constantinople,
capital of the Byzantine
Empire. Constantinople was
once the largest and wealthi-
est city in Europe. History
is at pains to tell us what a
mighty city it was, how its
famous walls offered effec-
tive defense for some 900
years. And, just to prove
another point about imper-
manence, we also know
that it eventually fell to the
Ottoman Turks, and is today
known as Istanbul.
By whatever name, this
city has been a principle
hinge-point of world history,
and is also home of the Hagia
Sophia, which has evolved
from a Christian basilica
to an imperial mosque to
its latest fitting iteration: a
museum.
Even more interesting is
the Viking graffiti carved
into its walls. There are two
instances of Viking vandal-
ism in the Hagia Sophia,
and though scholars argue
about precisely what is writ-
ten (only portions of the
runes are legible) it’s their
mere existence that I find
interesting.
We know that Vikings
had established a trade route
on the Volga, and that Arab
jewelry, Ottoman coinage,
and Persian metallurgy made
its way back to Scandinavia,
where its is frequently
unearthed in archaeological
digs. We know that Vikings
served as personal body-
guards to the Byzantine
emperor and were known as
the Varangian Guard.
The world was much bet-
ter travelled than we often
assume. The Arab Ibn Yacoub
Al Tartushi, from the Muslim
kingdom of Al Andalus —
modern Spain — wrote about
encountering Vikings on his
travels through Germany
over a thousand years ago.
He decried the “artificial
eye-makeup” worn by both
the men and women, and
wrote: “I never heard any
more awful singing than the
singing of the people… It is a
groan that comes out of their
throats, similar to the bark of
the dogs but even more like a
wild animal.”
Cultural prejudices were
as rich then as they are now.
All of this, and it is only
the tip of a very large iceberg,
has a point: The world has
been interconnected — flat,
as New York Times columnist
and author Thomas Friedman
might prefer — for much
longer than we generally sup-
pose. Empires of one kind or
another have long had incred-
ible reach. So today, when
we talk about globalization,
we might better remember it
isn’t precisely new.
Closer to home, we know
about the native rendezvous,
where even tribes hostile
to each other would “bury
the hatchet” long enough to
swap trade goods. We know
that native trade networks
extended from the Oregon
Coast to at least the Mandan
culture of the Great Plains, as
seashells that only grow in
Oregon have been found at
archaeological sites as far out
east as the Missouri River.
And it is quite likely those
networks extended even
further.
Why does any of this mat-
ter? Maybe it doesn’t, much,
except to illustrate some-
thing of the arrogance of our
assumption to have been the
first at everything, and our
own permanence.
But as I suffered through
the first presidential debate
last Monday, squirming at
the yawning vacuity of a
process that has produced
such hopelessly cardboard
candidates, I kept wonder-
ing about that Roman coin
found in Japan, how it got
there, who dropped it, and
about the centuries that have
washed over it as relentlessly
as the tide. I thought about
the empires that have risen
and fallen and vanished while
that coin sat there in the dirt,
the Emperor’s stamp slowly
rubbed away by the friction
of time.
I began to wonder how
our approach to preserving
this Republic might change
if we were able — or made
the simple choice — to see
something of ourselves, our
hopes, our designs, in the
history of that coin. I’m not
sure — and it may be a great
human failing — that we are
even capable of it.
As if to drive home that
message, an Ottoman coin
was also found under the
Katsuren Castle.
There is an argument to
be made that the Roman
empire, whose fingers once
touched the far reaches of
the globe, didn’t collapse in
a cataclysm, so much as it
began to slowly buckle under
the weight of patronage and
excess, leaving only traces of
its existence in architecture
and coins left scattered across
the planet.
On our present course it
seems fair enough to wonder
if we won’t also be remem-
bered as a great thing that
once was, our coins dug up
in the ruins of one city or
another. Not the first, but one
among many, to have simply
dissolved into the ages.
homecoming
parade set
for friday,
October 14
Sisters High School
will host their annual
Homecoming Parade Friday,
October 14, at 4:30 p.m.
The parade will showcase
many of the school’s sports
teams, several floats from
the high school, as well as
floats from the elementary
and middle schools and the
homecoming princes and
princesses.
The event will last about
half an hour and end in plenty
of time for viewers to head
over to the football game at 7
p.m. at Reed Stadium.
The parade will take place
on Hood Avenue, starting by
Ace Hardware and ending at
Blazin Saddles.
Come In…
Relax…Enjoy!
Tim Westcott
Ronnica Westcott
Jenny Duey
Mary Morgan
541-588-6611
220 W. Cascade Ave.
Come in, Relax, Enjoy!
sree Concert
Featuring the world-renowned
Pipa (Chinese Lute) Artist Zhou Yi
Welcome,
Amanda Murphy,
Registered
Pharmacist & Our
New Pharmacy
Manager!
Amanda always wanted to
work in a small-town pharmacy
to get to know the people in their
community & serve their needs.
FLU SHOT CLINIC
WED., OCT. 19
(Most insurance pays 100%)
Appointments encouraged.
Call 541-549-6221
211 E. Cascade Ave., Sisters, Oregon
sriday, October 7
Sisters High School.
Doors open
at 6 p.m.
Concert at 7 p.m.
Sisters Schools
Chinese Teachers will be
preparing tasty Chinese
eats served in the
commons before the
concert.