3 coutumes anciennes étonnantes - Nota Bene #28

• Sparta is ruled by the Ephors, a group of citizens elected for one year with no possibility of re-election • Citizens over 60 can join the Gerousia, a Council of Elders that dispenses justice and submits proposals to the Ephors • Two kings from royal families (Agiads and Eurypontids) serve as hereditary generals with religious, military, and some legal functions • Kings can be judged by the Ephors if they act wrongly and cannot access the State's coffers

• Citizens must be sons of two citizens, similar to bloodline requirements • From age 7, boys enter the Agoge, a 13-year military initiation where they live in groups and undergo rigorous training • Training includes stealing for food, fighting between groups, flogging to endure pain, and survival in mountains • Full citizenship is only achieved at age 30, after living in military barracks for 10 additional years

Citizens had to be skinny and were inspected for body condition. Wealth was not forbidden but society hid differences. Cowardly soldiers became 'Tresantes' and were forbidden to smile, forced to wear patched clothes and shave half their beards as punishment.

• Perioeci lived outside Sparta, managed their own cities, farmed and crafted but had no civic or political rights and paid taxes • Helots were slaves who constituted the majority of the population, each with a house and family but obligated to give their harvest to masters • Citizens distinguished Helots through clothing style and by forcing them to wear dog fur coats • Strong or pretty Helots were killed to prevent revolt; young citizens were shown drunken Helots as a warning against intoxication

• Religion was central to both private and public Roman life • The Republican Roman calendar contained 45 religious holidays per year • Games were organized to celebrate the Gods and temples were built for worship • Priests had different specialties including reading animal entrails and interpreting bird flights

Sacrifices could involve plants, animals, or humans depending on the deity. Roman literature explains rituals precisely but provides limited information on killing methods. Human sacrifices were performed, likely for the last time during the Second Punic War towards the end of the third century BC.

• Hierapolis in present-day Turkey was built by Romans starting in the 2nd century BC and was renowned for hot springs • Apollo had a dedicated temple, but Pluto's sanctuary was forbidden to the public and spat out foul-smelling boiling water • Priests led sacrificial animals to the cave entrance and they dropped dead without being touched, which was attributed to Pluto's clemency

• Hierapolis was built on seismic fault lines releasing large quantities of CO² and toxic gases • A research team led by volcanologist Hardy Pfanz confirmed that gas layers about 40cm thick at dawn were enough to asphyxiate animals in minutes • Priests likely survived by being taller and less exposed to the gas layer, covering their faces, or holding their breath

• The Incas settled in Cusco between the 12th and 13th century and expanded through war and diplomacy • At their peak, their territory covered around 950,000 km² (about 1.5 times the size of modern France) • The empire lasted only 2-3 centuries due to its war-prone history • Cusco was inhabited by more than 60,000 people and the empire welcomed no less than 12 million individuals at its height

• The empire was hyper-centralized and pyramidal, with all power flowing from the top down • Villages were organized around extended family groups called Ayllu, with a dominant Ayllu called a Chiefdom • The Curaca was the chief of a Chiefdom, accountable to the regional governor Tucuyricuy • Four regional governors (Apukunas) served the Emperor, who was called the Inca and incarnated the Solar God Inti

The Incas spoke Quechua to communicate between peoples but not everyone shared the same language. Each Ayllu had its own local deity (Wak'a) alongside common core deities, and local religious practices were customized.

• In 1532, conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro invaded Incan territory • Spanish military superiority and the diseases brought by Europeans created a bacteriological shockwave that decimated the local population • The Incan population dropped from approximately 12 million to only 600,000 within a century due to slaughter, slavery, and illness

• Conquistadors were surprised to see Incas with excessively flat or elongated skulls • The Incas practiced voluntary skull deformation using tight fabric strips or wooden vices to exert constant pressure on children's skulls • The practice was applied until age 6 when skull bones were still malleable, creating flattened, elongated, square, or triangular shapes

• For the Incas, the head was the seat of spiritual energy and it was vital to protect that spirit from escaping the body • Deforming a child's head was believed to protect him and his soul • The deformation could mark a rite of passage, dedicating the child's social integration into adulthood

Skull deformation served as a social marker, allowing individuals to claim belonging to specific groups permanently since the deformation was irreversible. Each group had its own deformation style.

• Voluntary skull deformation was not unique to the Incas but found in many civilizations across time and geography • Evidence exists in Iraq from 45,000 BC, Mexico from 7,000 BC, and South America from 3,000 BC • The practice was also found in Asia among the Huns from the 1st century, in Africa, and in Europe among Germanic clans like the Burgundians and Franks • Even in 19th-century France near Toulouse, cranium deformation was practiced