The “other trulli”: the beehive houses of Harran

Driving down the road south from the city of Urfa in Turkey, once known as Edessa, towards the nearby Syrian border, we approach the ancient town of Harran. The landscape is flat, a vast and dry plain, with light brown being the predominant color, apart from the bright blue sky from which a scorching sun...

My novel about Apulia is now available in German

I am happy to announce the publication of my book "Die Spur des Emirs", featuring a quest for old manuscripts, believed to be lost, in Apulia, together with lots of details about traditional life and a forgotten chapter of Southern Italian history. The book is currently being translated into Italian and will be soon published...

Archery

Archery is a pleasant and relaxing sport. It has been practised forever, or so it seems. When did humans really start using bow and arrow? And how did all the different types of bows develop: recurve bow, flatbow, longbow (that's what I use), self bow, or the composite bow? Bow and arrow have been used by...

The history of the yurt

The yurt is a portable round tent used by the nomads of the Central Asian steppes, nowadays notably in Mongolia where it is called a ger. It consists of an assembly of wooden or bamboo structures with elaborately carved and painted doors, which are covered with felt or skin, leaving a round opening in the...

Mundus Patet – Ancient Roman Halloween

Already in ancient Rome a kind of Halloween - Mundus Patet - was celebrated. Three times a year, end of August, beginning of October and beginning of November, the festival of the dead took place. The name Mundus Patet can be translated as "the earth is open", meaning that the the boundaries between the world of...

About the Origin of Wine

Who actually made the first wine? And where? Several Middle Eastern and Caucasus countries have been competing for the oldest traces of winemaking, even China is among the top five. But let's start from the beginning: Answering the question of the cradle of winemaking depends on how you define wine. A 9,000 year old residue...

Trullo symbols

The domes of many trulli are painted with different symbols of mostly apotropaic (= defense against evil) nature. Some of these symbols go back to antiquity but most used today are of Christian religious nature. According to Notarnicola (G. Notarnicola, I Trulli di Alberobello dalla Preistoria al Presente, Roma 1940.), the symbols can be divided...

The origin of the trullo

The origin of the trullo is unclear. It is often claimed that the shape of the trullo goes back to a 17th century tax evading scheme by the Counts of Acquaviva, ruling the County of Conversano – which included Alberobello – since 1481. According to this narrative, drystone architecture was imposed upon settlers so that...

Southern Italy for National Geographic

Last year, my husband and I published an article about the history of Islam in Southern Italy in the Italian edition of the National Geographic Magazine, which was published unter the title Quando Eravamo Arabi ("When we were Arabs"). Below is the English original text. Doing research for this article inspired me to write the...