The HEIDELBERG Ion Therapy Center and the continuation of the Epic of Gilgamesh

Arriving at Heidelberg train station on a February afternoon not necessarily makes you believe that this place could somehow be linked to the eternal problem of mankind of how to conquer death, a question that is at least 5000 years old has echoes that since these ancient times have never died out. Still, the search for an answer and attempts to overcome the finiteness of life influences what we do and how we exploit our talents today and in the future.
I am on my way from Munich to the Heidelberg Ion Therapy center, through the snow covered abandoned fields of southern Germany, to attend a small informal meeting with pediatric oncologists. We are about to discuss the potential of novel accelerated particle beams in cancer therapy to find a better cure for some rare forms of childhood tumors. Whereas we are confident that scientific progress, medical research and innovation is the most promising way to finally overcome disease and death, 4 and half thousand years ago the most eloquent and free thinkers had less hope that the natural sequence of birth, life and death could be conquered by human innovation. But even then, long before Christian religion invented a fairy- tale of life after death for those who follow the holy bible and are positively selected at the gates of heaven, a narrative existed in Mesopotamia which appears very modern, complex and human from today’s perspective. 
In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the main hero initially falls into despair when he realizes that physical life will inevitably end one day. He first tries to get around this shocking frustration by adopting a wild life-style, fighting everyone whom he could define as an enemy, drinking and eating and celebrating bacchantic feasts every night. And of course he soon discovers the ultifmate remedy against the fear of death:  Sex as much as you can. So at least this seems to provide some solace, the hope that if not our own body and soul will gain immortality, at least the fruits of our loins could live on. And even people who understand little about reproduction, evolution of a species and human demographic instinctively know that when we love, death can loose its horror. And in the moment of highest sexual pleasure, death even becomes a joke. Why else does a loving couple cries “Kill me”, if not to show that love is so mighty, that even death is no thread any more. So death and love, in essence excluding each other, form a dipole in our unconsciousness, with the one being impossible without the other.

 I remember that for myself the starting point of puberty was not when I felt the first physical attraction to girls, but when at the age of fourteen after a traditional kids initiation feast I recognized at a silent moment and without any obvious reason that my own life is not infinite, that perhaps one day quite far away in the future, everything that I feel, think, watch, worry about, love, everything will end.  This was one of the most frightening discoveries that I ever made, and I remember that I locked myself in my room and cried bitterly. In particular, it seem absolutely absurd to me that all the guest at this party, my parents, relatives and invited friends celebrated my entry into adulthood, whereas at the very same moment I had discovered for myself the inevitable death. Now I know, that without this horrible recognition that life is not endless, I would have perhaps never discovered the thrill and fascination of love. But the inevitability of death is not only the ultima ratio for love, but vice versa the fight to conquer death is also the only unambigious proof of love. Same as medieval knights showed their love to a young lady by fighting her free from the claws of the evil dragon, we remember cases from more recent episodes of war and oppression when a father or a mother saved their kids life by shielding it with their own body from the bullets and shrapnels.

But the epic of Gilgamesh would have never become the book with by far the longest publication history in mankind (from the first edition of the verses written down on sumeric cuneiform clay plates between 1700 and 2000 B.C. till today with currently more than a hundred different editions listed in the english Amazon alone), if it would have described only the pleasures of love between man and woman. When Gilgamesh meets Enkidu, the uncivilized creature that arises from the wild, he has first to realize that his physical power is not unlimited, but that Enkidu is an respectable fighter as well. Later on he learns from him that sex is nothing that can distinguish a human being from all other animated creatures on earth, and that physical reproduction alone might only give us the illusion of eternal life. Gilgamesh and Enkidu finally decide that death can only be overruled by the active productivity of men, by their creativity and their desire to change to world it was there at a persons birth. Gilgamesh becomes the founder of many cities which give shelter and home and pleasure to many of his nation. In a famous journey, he travels to Libanon to bring from there the famous cedar wood, the strongest and most durable building material in ancient times to roof large palaces and temples. And here, at the gates of the cedar forest, fighting a hostile dragon is not a funny game any more to demonstrate his muscle power, but it has a clear practical purpose: to attain the material he needs for his architectural ambitions.

When Gilgamesh looses his friend Enkidu in the fight against the dragon he comes to the conclusion that the most durable legacy of Enkidus life are the results of his creativity. Reading how high Gilgamesh acknowledged the creative power of man to beat the horror of death, we are wondering today how J.W.Goethe or Karl Marx could have come to a very similar conclusion without knowing  about Gilgamesh’s epos. Its first English translation by the assyrologist and archeologist George Smith was published 1872, 64 years after Goethe’s Johan Faust discovered that “… only those deserves freedom and life, who has to fight for it day by day…” and 5 years after Karl Marx declared the productive labour as the source of all human assets and the driving force of historical progress.

The earliest parts of the epic of Gilagmesh have their origin in the 3^rd millennium B.C., perhaps predating the Jewish thora. It is more than 2000 years older than the Christian bible and about 3000 years older than the Quran. But in it admiration of the individual, of the values that a man sets for himself, in the complete absence of any dogmatic, divine rules or moral codices, the Epic could have been written by a modern philosopher. Unlike the thora, the bible or the holy Quran which today have little more than a historical or linguistic value and seem absurd by setting anachronistic standards of a righteous life, the epic of Gilgamesh still today reads like a contemporary essay about the sense and the purpose of human existence.

Epic of Gilgamesh: Cuneiform text on clay plate (British Museum, London)

One of the perhaps most impressive examples of human creativity can be visited next to the Heidelberg University pediatric hospital, where the most advanced technology for accelerated particle tumor therapy is in operation since 2009. Here, nuclei from carbon ions are first accelerated in a circular synchrophasotron with 65 m circumsphere, than guided through a couple of deflecting and focusing magnets and finally channeled through a 650 t, 16m broad and 35 m long so called gantry, which revolves around the patient like a giant wheel within only a few seconds. The accelerated particles finally reaches 3/4 the speed of light, befor they hit the patients tumor placed in the very center of the revolving steel mass, hopefully sterilizing each single of its malignant cells. The doctors place the patient on a tray mounted to a robotic arm such a way that the deadly tumor will always be in the focus point of the particle beam. Invisible to patient, hidden behind a thin designer plastic blinds the revolving giant machinery around him could remind one of the movie "Contact", where Ellie Arroway (played by Jodie Foster) sits in the center of three huge revolving steel rings that, as the story goes, can eliminate gravity and send her into another time . But in the very real world of the Heidelberg Ion Therapy facility, the hope is that the patient can soon be send home cancer free, whereas the life threatening tumor in his brain or somewhere else in his body is send into oblivion by the high-precision particle beam that has only the size of a straw but transfers hugh energy. Indeed, the idea to fight deadly tumor cells, each measuring just a few micrometer, by bombarding them with atomic nuclei, each being another 10000 fold smaller, but only after the latter have been accelerated in a machine that  measures several tens of meter in each dimension, weights several hundreds of tons and requires 30% of the electricity of the entire city of Heidelberg, such an idea would have sounded like a science fiction plot only 50 years ago. But opposing the paradigm that a deadly thread is an unavoidable destiny or, even worse a proof of Gods enigmatic logic, is what brings the scientists and medics at the Heidelberg Ion Therapy (HIT) center very close to the ideas of the author of Gilgamesh.
The writer Sin-leqe-unnini, believed to have collected and written down the Epos in the ancient sumeric city of Ninive, shows us Gilgamesh fighting against the ordinary sequelae of life, death, and eventually the quick disappearance of all traces that we left behind us. For the people who designed, constructed and operate HIT, their motivation was not so much to become famous. When the first plans of such a machine emerged, it was a long way to go and more than 30 years to test, redesign, optimize technologies, before the first tumor patient could be successfully treated. And it also was quite obvious, that such a complex, sophisticated and unique technical innovation will hardly ever become profitable, at least not in terms of a quick or predictable financial profit. The main driving force that kept all the people at HIT so passionate about their achievements is the feeling that by curing previously incurable cancer types, each single patient that can be send home disease-free is a clear victory over an otherwise inevitable death. 

The Ion Therapy Center (HIT) at the Heidelberg University Clinic. The irregular ring on the upper left is the synchrophasotron (65 m circumfere) to accelerate carbon and other heavy atom nuclei to 3/4 of the speed of light. These high energy nuclei are then deflected by a set of magnets before they enter an array of focussing magnets mounted to a so-called gantry. This giant wheel weights more than 600 tones (right side in blue) and revolves around the patient, targetting the particle beam to the tumor with highest precision (photo courtesy of HIT press-office).  

But Gilgamesh’s search for the purpose of life not only experiences this very transcendent form of continuation in Heidelberg, but has a pure physical dimension just a few kilometers south from HIT. Here, at the archeological institute of the university Stefan Maul, an assyrologist recently began to decipher newly excavated cuneiform clay plates which were recently found in Assur. So whether we will soon hold in hand a continuation of the epic of Gilgamesh, telling us in new chapters what happened after Enkidu died, or if we will soon learn something about Gilgamesh’s childhood and the origins of his restless odysses is not clear yet. But I would not be surprised to learn from these additional chapters of the Epic that it was not only the mythology of the deluge which both the Talmud and the Christian bible copy-pasted from the Sumerian epic. 

Forough Farrokhzad: A Poet that fell silent too soon

Recently I was invited by a friend in Munich to a reading of poetry by an Iranian writer, who died much too young in 1967, only reaching 32 years of age. Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967) was the most famous woman in modern Persian literature. She was exceptionally in the sense that only an extremely small number of Iranian women have achieved anything outside of the home without dependence upon a relationship with a man or male patronage.

From the poems of Forough Farrokhzad, which Kianoosh presented this evening I remember the verses from "Another Birth"

   ... Life may be that cloistered moment  

     When my gaze comes to ruin in your pupils 

     Wherein there lies a feeling 

     Which I shall blend ...

During her short life, Forough not only wrote some of the most influential, beautiful and ever-lasting poetries of modern Persian literature, but she also became a proponent of childrens right, in particular for those from the poor families. Her engagement for the children being isolated and hospitalized for leprosis laid in her honest sympathy with those who are suffering. Unlike modern celebrities, who too often present themself in public with an alibi "social" project, Foroughs activites to help the children with leprosis came from her very personal desire to make the world a little bit better. From the movie "Moon, Sun, Flower, Play" by the German director Claus Strigel one can listen to Foroughs voice, hear how colleagues and friends remember this extraordinary woman and watch scenes from the street-battle preceding the Shahs dismissal and from the childrens leprosis hospital.

The Empress and Me - Farah Diba in the eyes of an exiled Iranian Filmmaker

Nahid Persson-Sarvestani, a former activist of the student branch of the Tudeh party and in the late 70s among the demonstrators against Shah Reza Pahlevi, now lives in Sweden as a film-director. In her 3 parts documentary, she interviews Farah Diba, the last empress of Iran, who now lives in exil in Paris.

part 1

part 2

part 3

Farah Diba speaks with a broken voice, and Nahid Persson, although with a politically active background, seems to be more interested in the private life of the Shahs widow. The Shahbanou, however, is a professional when it comes to any media contacts. She only repeats the details of her life with the Shah, how they first met, how Reza Pahlevi asked her to become his wife - stories, she already told too often to be published in the yellow press. Sometimes, Farah Diba tries to shift the conversation more into a political and historical context, asking Mrs. Nahid Persson-Sarvestani on which side she was on during the 1979 revolution, the communists Tudeh people, or the peoples Mudjaheddin, or the violent islamists of the Fedajin. Persson apparently fears a clear confession at this point, since the blunt anti-Shah activities she was involved in prepared the ground for the most inhuman, hypocrite and stupid regimes ever seen in recent history: the so-called "Islamic Republic of Iran". So these two woman who 35 years ago were on opposite sites of the battle line in pre-revolutionary Iran, now find them self in exile, one in Paris the other in Stockholm, and both see with bitterness their lost dreams. If the two would be ready to give up their wounded pride, maybe they would find out how much in common they had in their youth. Both were dreaming of a modern and liberal society, with secular education, open to the rest of the world, liberated woman and social and economic prosperity. But each of the two, the aristocrats and the socialist, both were wrestling for leadership in this movement. And both were loosing everything. What arose after the Shah and his family had to leave in 1979, and the Tudeh for a short moment thought their triumph is in sight, was the worst nightmare of an extreme conservative, religious, anachronistic and brutal dictatorship of uneducated and corrupt Mullahs. The people of Iran have to suffer since 34 years under a totalitarian regime, that tortures, rapes, kills everybody who is not following its islamic hypocrisis and dares to question the political regime of the mullahs with their basidj thugs. It would have been nice to see in the documentary that both, Farah Diba and Mrs. Nahid Persson-Sarvestani would finally admit that the two blocks they belonged to, the progressive Tudeh party and the Shahs court, did a historical mistake by not finding a way to cooperate and anticipate how much their dreams had in common.

Thank you, Ninelia, for pointing me to this gem of political documentation.

Ich bin ein Berliner (says Nofretete)

Hello, my name is Nofretete, and I was born in Luxor in Egypt. 1912 some archeologists recovered me from this dark grave in the earth and brought me back to light. I, who together with my beloved husband Echnaton were so much fascinated by the divine nature of the sun had to spend 3400 years in the dark. When I was recovered and brought to Berlin, this not only caused a real Egyptomania and Nofretete-cult amongst the ordinary people, but the sun itself started to shine brighter and stronger for happiness to have me back.

The Egyptians were always afraid of my beauty. 3400 years ago they hated my preference of the sun against all the single, little minor gods they were worshipping. Thats why they banned my statue and burried me deep under ground. After the German archeologists under Ludwig Borchardt excavated me 100 years ago in the meter deep dust in Amarna, and brought me back to sunshine, the Egyption authorities several times attempted to get hold of me. They ordered reviews from French lawyers that should proof how the Germans had violated a contract with Egypt and insidiously betrayed them by highjacking me to Berlin. I have to admit, that my escape from Egypt to Berlin did not happened against my own will: Without exchanging words, both Borchardt and myself understood that the Berlin New Museum would provide a more adequate place for me than an Egyptian dust bin. We were afraid that in Egypt, they again would try to hide my beauty from the public views. Now, 2012, 100 years after my rebirth, they introduce in Egypt the Sharia, ordering every woman to hide her face and her beauty. In Egypt, wouldn't they put me under a hijab or a burka, before showing me to the public ? Or will the Salafists who occupied a couple of parlament seats and some governmental posts attack me altogether, destroy me as they did with other statues in Afghanistan and in Mali, because they fear that people will worship my beauty ? In Berlin in the New Museum, people from all over the world come only to see me, and yes, they worship my beauty. They like me, and I like them, and therefore I will stay in Berlin forever. I am nobodies property, I belong to the entire mankind. But in Berlin they toke always care of me, and they will do so forever. During the bombings of the 2. world war, when the city was turned into a ruin field, they found a saver shelter for me somewhere far away in a mountain village. They were so intrigued by Nofretete, that the emperor Wilhelm II and the East-Germans (who lost me to West-Berlin) both ordered identical copies of myself. I am nobodies property, not the Germans and not the Egyptians. But I am and will stay a Berliner. The local people call me a "Berliner Göre", and although this sounds turkish, it is their slang for "naughty little girl". Although this of course is a (typical Berlin) understatement of my beauty, I can life with it.

Pompeji - You only live twice

Hi Michael, Our walk through the ruins of Pompej during the Vietri-sul-Mare meeting, that finally had us loosing our way at night, and "being rescued" by this old Italian gentleman who gave us this very special guided tour with a torch-lamp, let me speculate if this glamourous roman population that lived there untill the year 79 ever had a second life after they all died and their house were buried in lava and ashes from the Vesuv volcano.

  

I found this video from the James Bond 007 film "You Only Live Twice", and therein are scenes showing the flood of lava. Maybe we, two visitors of the 21st century on their lonely walk through Pompeji, exactly 1933 years after the big catastrophy, were reincarnations of two of the victims of the eruption.

Omar Khayyam: Misinterpretation in the 20th century

Ghazal my Dear,

you might have asked why I wrote this recent critical post about an Indian guru (Yogananda), and why I suggested that a modern singer like Maryam Akhondy is a much better interprete of classical Persian poetry by Omar Khayyam. Here is an example of an original Omar Khayyam rubbayat and the silly Yogananda interpretation. Also, at the end of the post, don’t miss Nancy Sinatras song “You Only Live Twice”, and tell me if you see any similarity to Omar Khayyam.

Here is the Rubbayat No 41 from Omar Khayyam (1018-1113) Translated by E.Fitzgerald 1859)

AWAKE! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.

And here comes the

Keys To Meaning (Hic!!)  by Paramhansa Yogananda, (“Cristal Clear Publications” Hic!)

Morning — The dawn of awakening from delusive material existence.

Bowl of Night — The dark night of soul-ignorance.

Stone — Delusion-shattering acts of spiritual self-discipline.

Stars — Falsely attractive material desires.

Hunter of the East — Eastern wisdom, hunter and destroyer of delusion.

Sultan’s Turret — The kingly minaret of pride.

Noose of Light — The light of wisdom, which, like a lasso, haloes

Expanded Meaning  (For experts only !!)

Forsake delusion! Absorb into your innermost Self the calm light of wisdom.

Listen! your soul calls you to embrace a new adventure. As the sun travels from east to west across the sky, so does the light of civilization and of knowledge move across the earth. From the east comes Wisdom’s call: Awake! all you who sleep in ignorance.

What has pride brought you but melancholia and pain?—dark products of soul-ignorance. Dispel gloom forever: Abide from today onward in the light of inner peace.

What a rediculous attempt by this 20th century wanna-be spiritual leader to understand Omar Khayyams wunderful Rhubbayat. Since Yogananda has not the slightest clue of Omar Khayyams world of thoughts, his deep love for science, pure mathematics, astronomy, and his second love for wine, beauty and the attractions of woman, he can not do anything else than spoiling the clear language of Omar Khayyams rubbayat with “interpretations”.
Karl Marx, the great analytic of human society, would have called Yoganandas rediculous “Wine of the Mystic” the clearest example of “Religion as opium for the people”. But Marx died 10 years before Yogananda was born.

Omar Khayyam, this outstanding spirit of classical Persian poetry and science, did not only gave us the collections of rubbayats, but invented the binomial coefficients (important for combinatorial calculations), which in the west were attributed to B.Pascal.

Tomb of Omar Khayyam

Here is an interpretation of his rubbayat, that he would have definitely liked much more. It is the great song “YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE”, originally by Nancy Sinatra but this modern version by Bjoerk I like better .

In this 1967 title song for a 007 – James Bond movie one is indeed reminded of Omar Khayyams rubbayat. Read yourself, and build your own opinion. You don’t need a guru to understand this.

You Only Live Twice or so it seems,
One life for yourself and one for your dreams.
You drift through the years and life seems tame,
Till one dream appears and love is its name.

And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on,
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.
This dream is for you, so pay the price.
Make one dream come true, you only live twice.
And love is a stranger who’ll beckon you on,
Don’t think of the danger or the stranger is gone.

The Moon -- one year later, but more than one year elder

Ghazal my dear, 

What is age, and what is aging, if everyone uses a different measure for this. This came to my mind when I did another picture of the moon tonight. Tonight it was once again the night of the Persides meteor shower. But since nothing could top the spectacular meteor that we saw together with you at the same night in 2010, I put more attention to the moon again (1). A year ago at the same night, we have been at the Bulgarian blacksea coast, and then the Persides night fell together with the full moon. This year, however, the same day in the year (11th to 12th of August), the moon looked completely different. 

Its shape was already ascending to less than 25%, whereas full moon was already 10 days ago (exactly at August 2nd). So it is of some interest to understand why according to the solar calender exactly one year passed by (and even the Persides meteor showers declined to this (2), but the moon implies something different. As a proof, the picture on the left shows the shape of the moon as of tonight, and you can compare with the picture from a year ago.

The reason for this asynchrony is that the circular rotation of the moon around the earth and relative to the sun happens once every 29 days, 12h and ~4min. This means, that 12 month for the moon (or one year for it) take only 345 days, i.e. 11 days less than a normal year of 356 days. Therefore the full moon of August 2012 was visible 11 days earlier than the full moon of August 2011.

This means that for people who rely on the sun as their calender reference, a year has some 11 extra days, as compared to people who rely on the moon as a calender standard (like muslims). In the long term, after 33 solar years (which the western civilisation and the Persians use) an extra year has already accumulated for people in the islamic world. I have no clue if muslims indeed celebrate their birthdays according to the moons calender, and count one extra life year every 33 normal years. And it is not completely unlikely, that the processes of real biologically aging (or lets call it maturing) is influenced to some degree by the imagination of aging. Maybe somebody who really feels elder, if he or she suddenly discovers that instead of 33, he or she is already 34 years old. So therefore you might conclude (together with the early Beatles) that it is better to "....follow the sun":

Sun is definitely good for a couple of physiological functions (vitamin D synthesis, production of serotonin which makes us happy and satisfied), but in higher doses it is doing the opposite: You know better than anybody else how UV-A and UV-B can accelerate the entire aging process, since you work on this issue and even got a scientific price for this. The Isar island, where some black ashes might still mark the site of our camp-fire, and which looked pretty uncosy and barely populated three weeks ago, today saw masses of locals who followed the sun and took advice from the 1960 Beatles song, rather than from your 2011 publication in Mutation Research.

I guess that now you'd like to know why I waited for an entire year, before sending you another photograph of the moon again. The reason was that after the Persides night in Bulgaria last year, my camera broke. I somehow smashed the display, and from then on it was totally black. But I did not want to throw it in the waste bin right away, since this camera was always a brave and reliable companion to us. So I left it untouched on my desk, before in a quiet moment three weeks ago I started to take it apart (like I did it with your wrist-watch two years ago). I soon realized that the broken display can be removed carefully and replaced with a new one. And soon I found through Ebay a possibility to get even seperate display units for virtually every single digital camera. I quickly located a provider with the funny name of GLOBAL-SHINING (3). Mr. or Mrs. Global Shining appeared to be a Mr. Ho, living with his GLOBAL STAR SHINING in Flat S30 1/F, Shopping Arcade, Tsuen Wan Centre, Tsuen Wan, Hongkong (4).

When I received Mr. Ho's delivery, the small parcell contained not only the brand-new Samsung camery display, it also had as a little extra a special screw driver (not only fitting the microscopic steel screws that held together the camera back, but also of perfect size for chinese fingers) and a handwritten piece of paper saying "Thank you for considering GLOBAL SHINING as business partner". 

By help of the microscopic screw driver and some forceps from the lab I quickly managed to replace the camera display, and the pictures on todays post are the proof how well the whole camera is working again. Since I was so happy about revitalising the nice camera with the Mr. Ho's help, I decided not only to give him excellent reference points on Ebay, but also send him some words of gratitude on a postcard showing Castle Neuschwanstein. It is nice to imagine how Mr. Ho mounts the colourful postcard to the wall of his Flat S30 1/F in the shopping arcade of Tsue Wan, Hongkong.

Is there a final take-home message from this post for you, Ghazal ?
I hope you will find one.
Take Care my Dear

Michael




Footnotes: 
(1) Surely you know that the Moon symbolizes the pure, innocent beauty in Persian classicla poetry. This is independent of the exclusive role of the Sun in ancient, pre-islamic Persian culture, philosophy and science. But because poetry is very much influenced by arabic traditions, their spiritual preference for the moon as symbol in religion and arts got access into the poetry of Hafez, Rumi, Atta and Omar Khayyun.
(2) The Persides Meteor shower lives up to its name: same as the Persian people do, it follows precisely the sun's calender. I guess that it follows in a precise and constant time after Persian Nouruz.
(3) Initially I could not figure out, if the name of the company GLOBAL-SHINING was referring to the moon or the sun. But now that I know that it is a Hongkong based company, I guess they even mean the Shining Stars.
(4) I guess Mr. Ho wont mind having his business address published here on my blog. But it might further promoted his excellent business. Just that Tsuen Wan does not have a postcode might discourage Hongkong tourists to drop into his store and buy camera displays.

Omar Khayyam -- brought into music by Maryam Akhondy

On the occasion of the finissage of the "Servus and Salam - an insight to Iran" exhibition here in Munich, the great music singer Maryam Akhondy with her ensemble Barbad gave a concert in the Maximilian church. A strong voice, for which the term Diva would be approbiate, also she is anything else than diva-like. Her music and her very special kind of humor for me was the only valid interpretation of the Omar Khayyams poetry. When I read his rubbayat (naturally in the famous english translation by Fitzgerald) I was always touched by the wisdom, fine lyrics and human feelings that emanate from them. A very free author, great scientist, amazing spirit and precise observer put down in words how he saw his life, the pressure from the society, his love for beauty and for human desires, and all this about one thousand years ago in a poetic language that seems very clear, not modern, but of an ever lasting diction.

A while ago, however, I started to worry, if my unconditioned excitement by Omar Khayyams poetry might be the result of a very naiv misinterpretation. A friend of mine, a persian book-seller and philologist recommended to read Paramahansa Yogananda "The wine of the mystic", in which the author claim to provide the only valid interpretation (or better called decryption) of Omar Khayyams rubbayat. So for each 4-line rubbayat, Yogananda writes about 3 pages interpretation. Already in the introduction, the authors warns us that each time that Omar Khayyam mentions "Wine", he refers to the "Divine Spirit". Similarly, when Omar Khayyam writes about "Love to Girl", Yogananda wants us to believe that this means nothing more than "Love to the divine spirit". For me, this so-called spiritual interpretation of Omar Khayyams rubbayat is nothing more than a violent misinterpretation, a unsuccesful attempt to clear his most beautiful, human and real eternal poetry of all value and of all its real spirit. Yoganandas book is a bad example of the attempt to misuse a former great piece of literature for religious hypocracy, be it christian, islamic or this yoga-guru style of Yogananda (he later founded an organisation of Self-Realization Fellowship, which in my view is a religious cult like a million others, with the ambition to be in possession of the final truth). Eventhough I immediately developed a strong antipathy for this "modern" spiritual interpretation of Omar Khayyams lyrics, there was one strong argument. Yogananda was able to read Omar Khayyam as the original persian text, therefore claiming that his spiritual interpretaion is more authentic than the secular western ones (beginning by the english translation of Fitzgerald and later by the german version of Rosen). Yogananda complained that all western readers simply valued Omar Khayyam by the wrong idea that he praises love, wine and the beauty of the world in the way we used to do it in the west. Unfortunately, this was a strong argument, although for Yogananda Persian was a foreign language as well. It might even be that he did his "modern-spiritual" interpretation based on Fitzgeralds english translation as well, rather than reading the original text. Yogananda spoke hindi, and there are quite many similarities betwenn Hindi and Persian, two indo-european languages.

But to my greatest relieve, Maryam Akhondy, a true persian, a modern singer, a woman that does not need to attract followers like a guru, she obviously interpreted Omar Khayyam, one of the greatest representatives of classical persian poetry, in the same modern and human manner as I intuitively read his rubbayat. For me, Maryam Akhondys songs are the only valid interpretation of Omar Khayyam, but for the best and dedicated readers, his poetry is completely self-explained. Omar Khayyam does not need gurus (like Yogananda) who try to build an ideology around his beautiful and clear lyrics.

Bulgaria and Persia - some common styles in ancient arts

The ancient Bulgarians came to the Balkan peninsula from the south russian and and Kazakh grass lands, were they lived next to skyths. The Partians, i.e. the native persian people, came from the same area and from their brought to Iran the expertise of horse breeding and riding.
But the Black Sea basin, located between the Balkan peninsula, caucasus mountains, norther Anatolia and the Crimean peninsula, was perhaps the earliest site of neolithic settlements. Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, eminent geneticist, anthropologist and linguist located the site of the original proto-indoeuropean language there. An intriguing theory by Pitman and Ryan, based on geologic and archaeologic research even claims that the great deluge (Noahs flood in the old testament, but described much earlier in the epic of Gilgamesh) happened there at around 5600 B.C., leading to a migrational wave of the early agricultural settlements into various directions.
It is thus not difficult to understand that in Bulgaria some historical artefacts, that sometimes are still reproduced in common craftswork, resemble to a large degree the persian-sassanid style.

Riding Iran on a horse back

Hello Michael,
Such a nice horse! You trained her very well. Must be nice to have a horse, not so common i guess. I showed the video to my dad. He would like to know which breed it is. When he was a kid in Iran during Shah"s time, he liked to visit his uncle in a village who had several horses. He said they had traditional persian breeds, a very old race. They were very pretty and elegant, but strong and hot-blooded at the same time. Must be nice animals, this combination of power and beauty. What breed is your Penelope ?
regards
ghazal


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Dear Ghazal,

Penny is in fact a danish breed called Knappstrupper. My experience is that although she was very wild and stubborn initially, after I gave her a couple of lessons she quickly learned and now is pretty obidient. I guess, a persian breed would be much wilder (like you). Persian full-bloods (or studs) in fact were beside arabs and berber-horse the origin of the famous english breeds, which gave rises to the best racing horses ever (probably combining the physical power of old english races with the temper and slender body shape of the orientals).




If you come to Munich the next time, you might ride her a bit.


Take Care, Ghazal
Michael


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Hi Michael,
Yeah, a horse is something really nice, in particular at a time when there is so many unnecesarry violence around us (like this idiotic maniac who killed 78 childred in a norway youth camp last week).
I was following too many IC blogs over the last days that made me very sad indeed. There were talks about cultural genocide, iranian holocaust, very agressive discussions about Mozzadegh and the Shah and the Tudeh and the British and the Russians and the Germans and the Arabs and about whom of those to blame more for the current tragedy in Iran. I felt how all my confidence about a bright future for a new, free Iran vanished more and more, since a new Iran would require a pioneer spirits, rather than people feeling comfortable in their role as a victims. Don"t take me wrong, I think every nation should be aware of its history, but I would prefer this in a less emotional and more academic style. The worst example of how one could show historical awareness is probably the annual ʿĀšūrāʾ, where the feeling of martyrdom among Shiits is revitalized again and again and has a significant influence on the social life and political structure, usually not for the best.
In contrast to these very hate-loaded political blogs I mentioned above, there were - thanks God - also a few that showed the nice and beautiful side of life, like the poems by Soosan Khanoom and the JJs adventure with the horse. In particular the horse story and the very vivid discussion that followed made me wondering. Is there something left of the nice horse-riding tradition in Iran that my dad told me about ? Maybe this could help the people of Iran to find back to their tradition of philosophy, tolerance and culture.


Take Care
/ghazal
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Ghazal, my Dear,
Your last mail made me wonder if it is possible to travel Iran on a horses back, like a young australian recently crossed half of Eurasia, 6200 miles from Mongolia to Hungary ?

How are the iranian immigration rules for a horse , assuming I want to enter the country from the north (Armenia or Azerbaidshan). I have friends there and could get a horse in either of the two countries. Although I have a nice mare here in Germany, the long transport to Iran would be too stressful for her.
Will there be sufficient food for the horse ? Will people respect horses in Iran, assuming that I have to cross or even ride along a motor-way ? In Germany, horses have to wear a number-plate and a liability insurrance, if you ride them on a public road (not kidding). How is this in Iran ?
In Europe, dogs fouling is forbidden in public area (you can get fined up to about 1000 euro if your dog is messing up the street), whereas horse faeces (altholugh much bigger) are always tolerated and people walking-by even collect it to fertilize their rose gardens. How is this in Iran ? Will people hate my horse if it drops feces on the street ? (the recent blog petition about killing stray dogs in Teheran made me slightly pessimistic). Historically, the Parthian Empire was famous for its arts of horse riding in the whole southern and eastern hemisphere. Is there something of this heritage left ? Or is this just another issue for the fight between persians and arabs for historical and cultural hegemonie over the domestication of horses ? Did horses arrived together with the Partians from the inner-asian regions and came to Arabia later, where they started the famous breeding ? Or was it vice versa ? I will post this to IC and if the readers there have any suggestions, I"ll redirect them to my blog.


Take Care, my Dear
Michael

Why I don"t feel any sorrow for you, Basidj

Yesterday, I saw your face in this documentary about the elections and post-election demonstrations in Tehran in June 2009. I saw your coward eyes under the black helmet, Basidj. Like all of the other black-dressed and heavily armed puppets of your leaders, you seemed to enjoy this feeling of total power over the students on the streets of Tehran, who had nothing else to defend against you than their T-shirts, canvas slipper and hand-written posters.
You felt so much superior, when you started to beat them and kick those who were already laying on the ground. You felt so powerful, fed with drugs by your fat and conscienceless commanders and equipped with the newest high-tech guns and tear-gas bullets and batons from the top weapons factories of the world. How did you felt, when you did your so-called job out there ? I guess you wanted to impress your commanders and the other members of your squad by the ruthlessness of your beating, by the precision of your shooting. But we all know that you are just a bloddy coward. You think you are strong in the moment when you torture and kill unarmed young people, mostly students, young women but also children and elder people. Did you felt satisfied for pleasing your coward commanders and the heads of this criminal gouvernment.
And when you saw how the bullets from your guns made the streets turn red, didn”t you thought that this is more thrilling than your ego-shooter computer game ? And how does it feel if you kick your steel-armed boots into the belly of somebody whom you first chained feets and arms with a cable ? Does it gives you an emotional blow to imagine how the steel covers of your boots causes pain and internal bleeding in the person laying on the ground in front of you ? Did you considered kicking again and again, not just to score higher at your commanders record, but also to repeat this image of how your stupid steel boots so easily destroy the head of an intelligent young man or girl ? And later, when you throwed those who were wounded and could not escape anymore onto pick-ups and trucks to bring them to Evin Prison or Ghezel Hesar, I’m sure you knew that this was not a journey for medical treatment or recovery, but to further harras and rape and kill them. And if you later saw the pictures of Neda Agha-Soltan and Sohrab Arabi, cowardly killed by you and your commrades, how long did those pictures appeared in your dreams, before you got rid of them with more drugs and blood-money and more violence ?
But you should know, Basidj, that what you did 2009 on Tohid square wont be forgotten. You turned a peaceful demonstration into a blood shed. The hundred thousands that walked the streets those days, wearing green T-shirts and green shawls did not had enough phantasy to think that this day might end up in violence. The girls had put on their most beautiful jewelery and make-up and the men kept their expensive lap-tops with them in their bags. People were sure that this day would demonstrate the power of a peaceful political change and give hope for a better future of this country . The people on the streets felt the dawn of  a grey period of political speechlessness, and they were hoping to meet some of the political leaders to discuss the future of the country after the elections.
The millions who gave their vote in the 2009 election and later formed an endless band of the green movement in the streets of Tehran, they wont forget that their hope for a peaceful move was turned into a violent nightmare by Basidj cowards just like you. And the next time when they meet you on the same streets, don”t expect any more unarmed young intellectuals. The next time, Basidj, you will be attacked, there wont be an option for peaceful settlement any more. And when the magazin of your automatic gun is empty, and you again killed and wounded the first twenty of the protesters, than there will come another twenty and another twenty and the same to each other of your Basidj commrades. There will be hundred thousands again coming out of the universities, of the restaurants and shops and beauty-salons, from all the places they escaped to in 2009, when they had to run away from your guns and butons. But this time they wont run away any more, and they dont want to talk to you any more, but they will attack you and kill you. And then, the streets of Tehran will turn red again, but this time it will be your damned blood.
And if somebody will throw your dead corpse into the gateway of your house, there wont be anybody crying tears for your death. Your mother will come out at night and bring you corpse to the waste bin of the garden, together with the chicken-heads and rotten carrots and the bad smelling polo from last week. Your parents will be ashamed of you, there will be no mourning for you. And for all the cowardize of your life, Basidj, your children will forget your name. To avoid that others would point with fingers on them, they will tell everybody that they don’t know who their father was. Your name will be forgotten in a new, free Iran. And only the history text books will know a precise number of nameless Basidj cowards. And you will have been one of them, not more, but also not less.

Salman Rushdie about Chernobyl

Dear michael,
Finally, I gave the talk about my MSc thesis today here in the institute, and as you expected, people were much more interested to discuss the implications of the Fukushima accident (which of course also has to do with radio-iodine) than the genetic studies I did last year in Munich. I doubt if people could really estimate what we found out with you doing the genetic studies in mice.
Before giving the talk to my colleagues, I practised a bid at home and did the same presentation at home to my family. My parents were much more interested in the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, which I used as introduction to explaine the importance of the radio-iodine incorporation studies. I now understand why: When the Chernobyl disaster happened, I was exactly 10 month old, so according to all the studies that I read for my thesis, I was at the most sensitive age when the radioactive cloud reached Sweden. You see how differently people anticipate events: Nowadays everybody is worried about the Fukushima disaster from 3 weeks ago, whereas my parents are obviously still worried if their daughter might have been affected by the Chernobyl fall-out.
My dad, who is always very interested in names and their meaning wanted to know what this "Chernobyl" means. But my mom immediately shouted "Who cares about names, if the only daughter we have might have been irradiated". Thanks god I could relieve her anxiety by showing the graphs from my thesis about the latency time of thyroid-cancer, and she understoud that the danger is already very low for me cause I"m old enough ("Eh Vay, old enough for what? Who can tell me"). Now, Mom could lean back again and Dad came back to his question about the meaning of "Chernobyl". I still remembered that you once told me it is the russian and ukrainian word for Artemesia, a shrub used as herb for cooking and in traditional chinese medicine. Since dad is not so specialized in botanics, he looked it up in his precious Encyclopedia Iranica and found something interesting: Artemisia (or Wormwood) is called in turkish Shaybani, and this was also the name of an invader that came in the 16th century from middle asia (Usbekistan, where you got your Polou-recipie from) to Iran. His persian name was شیبک خان ازبک
and he defeated Barbur, the first ruler of the Moguln-empire. Since the persian Shah Ismail began to fear that Shaybani might look for other neighboured countries to conquer, he attacked him in the battle of Marv. Shaybani was killed in this battle and parts of his body send by Shah Ismail to other leaders of neighboured empires as a warning.
My Dad told us all these stories of wars, victories and defeates with great passion. But Mom and myself as usual questioned the meaning of this for the progress of civilization and for the goal of human happiness. We suspected that in all these heroic stories of the battles between nations and empires, the million tears and lost lives were forgotten. Neither my Dad nor the encyclopedia iranica knew anything about the families of Shaybani, Emir of Buchara, of Barbur, the first Moguln ruler or of Shah Ismail of Persia. During these persistent fights to expand their empires or to defend it against the attacks from enemies, they were virtually rarely at home. Who were looking after their wives and children ? If today a husband and father would be absent from home so frequently, I guess the department for child care or some family judges would fine hime.

Hope you don"t have these problems, and even though you spend much time in the lab and at scientific meetings, your family does not feel neglected.
Hope you are doing fine, Take Care
/ghazal

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Ghazal my Dear,

I think I am not as bad as the military leaders of these historical times you describe in your mail. At least I always stay in contact with home, using mobile phone or skype ;-)

The history of the rise and fall of the persian empire in the 16th century, its defeat by the ottoman empire in the west and its link with the rise of the Moguln empire in the east is the background of Salman Rushdie"s novel "The Enchanting Florentine". If you read it, you will be able to tell your dad the more private side of Shaybani, Barbur and Shah Ismail, because in this novel Rushie introduces a "lost" sister of Barbur. Her name is Qara Köz (or "black eyes") , and she first becomes wife of Shaybani, than of Shah Ismail and finally of the ottoman general Argul, who is originally italianian and defeats Shah Ismail. The novel uses this magic realismen to show how a young, beautiful woman always changes from one winning horse to the next. But it also shows the price she has to pay for it, that she never really builds a home for herself and never raises children. This at least is the state on page 367, and there are another 108 to come. Maybe I read them tonight, maybe there will be an happy end for her.

In case there wont be a happy end for Qara Köz, do you want me to tell you the rest of the novel ?
Hope you have a nice evening, enjoy the spring, relax and don"t use your brother automatic e-mail-response program to send me an answer.

Take Care, my Dear
Michael

Schah-Name. Heroic Times.

EXHIBITION IN BERLIN PRESENTS FERDOUSIS "BOOK OF THE KINGS" (opened till June18th 2011)

In 2010 the world celebrated the tenth centenary of the completion of the Persian "Book of Kings". Composed of more than 50,000 rhyming couplets, the "Shah-Nameh" is one of the greatest epics in the history of world literature. It is approximately twice as long as Homer"s epics and 20 times longer than the german "Nibelungenlied". The Persian epic poem covers a phenomenal time span, telling the entire history of the old kings of Iran, from their mythical beginnings right up to the conquest by the Arabs in 651 BCE. The epic was written by the Persian poet Ferdousi (sometimes spelled "Firdausi", 935-1020), who by his own estimation spent 25 years composing the work before completing it in 1010 BCE and dedicating it to the Ghaznavid ruler, Sultan Mahmud (r. 998-1020).

A Thousand Years of the Persian Book of Kings is held by the Museum of Islamic Art in Berlin and the Berlin National Library, to highlight the history of Firdousi's epic magnum opus and its significant role for the Persian national identity.

Shah-Nameh (The Book of Kings) is a classic among epic Persian poetry and recounts Iran's mythical and historical past. It was written in Persian at a time when Arabic was the main scientific and literary language of Iran.

The romance of Zal and Rudaba, the Seven Stages (or Labors) of Rostam, Rostam and Sohrab, Siavash and Soudabeh, Rostam and Akvan-e Div, the romance of Bizhan and Manizheh and Rostam and Esfandyar are among the most popular Shah-Nameh stories.

The exhibition, which will run until July 3, 2011, also displays a rich and extremely rare Sassanid collection of the Museum of Islamic Art, illuminating the historical past of the mythical legends, Artdaily reported.

Visitors will be able to see around 50 manuscripts and folios from the Keir Collection, the National Library, and the Museum of Islamic Art as well as medieval ceramics, textiles, metalwork, weapons, and artifacts from the Sassanid collection.

These are also works on loan from the Berlin Museum of Asian Arts, the Berlin Museum of Ethnology and the Deutsche Historische Museum (DHM) and two German private collections. 
Berlin State Library's Oriental Department and the Museum of Islamic Art have seized upon the commemorations as an opportunity to illustrate the epic's influence in more than 100 magnificent objects, among them loans from the Museum of Asian Art, the Ethnological Museum and the German Historical Museum. The city of Berlin happens to preside over a unique collection of 'Shah-Nameh' manuscripts and single sheets, many of which rank among the most spectacular treasures of Persian book art anywhere in the world. Also on display are examples of decorative art that illustrate the epic's influence on the various areas of daily life in Persia. The exhibition provides profound insight into the world of the great kings and courageous heroes and illustrates just what a central role this piece of world literature plays for the Persian national consciousness, even today.

Meeting of the Curly Haired in Teheran

Sometimes it does not need much more than this ...
And who will doubt that the future of Iran lays in the hand and hearts of its young generation
(پارک ملت‎ Pārk-e Mella).



source: http://naafass.blogspot.com

Hi Ghazal,

I can"t help myself, but this "Group of the Curly Haired"   is so amazing and beautiful.
I think you should become a member of this group.
It reminds me of the movie "You don"t mess with Zohan", where Zohan tries to explain to his friends why he wants to leave the army and become a hairdresser:
"Hair is just beautiful, it does not do any harm, it does not hurt anybody".

How are you ?
Tired ? Sad ? Disappointed ? Too busy ? Feel offended ? Fed up ? Sick ? Taken hostage ? Electricity cut off ?

I do worry a bid (But I hope without reason).

Michael

Sunlight and the genetics of skin-pigmentation

Dear Ghazal,

Do you remember that we once talked about UV-exposure and skin pigmentation ? Last year in July you send some papers about it, and how this is regulated during tanning after sun exposure.
There is an other aspect, and this relates more to inherited differences  in skin-pigmentation (i.e. a problem that is similar to your MSc project and the search for genetic variations). Recently I found an interesting article that came up with a nice explanation for the reduction of the skin pigmentation during the migration of humankind to the northern hemisphere (from their origin in Africa about 100 000 years ago).

The reason is that UV-radiation has not only a detrimental effect (by damaging the DNA and potentially causing skin cancer, as you perhaps know better than anybody else), but it is also essential for the production of vitamin D in our body (important for skelettal development and other biological processes).
If humans during their migration from africa to the north would have kept their dark skin, the lower UVB level in europe would have caused a severe vitamine D deficiency. Therefore, reducing skin pigmentation genetically gained a survival benefit (since with less dark skin, more UVB reaches the dermis and more vitamine D can be produced).
Therefore, if dark coloured people move to the northern hemisphere for longer time, they might start to suffer from vitamine D deficiency. There is only one exception, and these are the inuit living in northern Canada and Greenland. They have relatively dark skin, but live with low UVB level. Their only way to get sufficient vitamine D is by eating raw meat from seals (in particular their liver is full of vitamine D).

The full paper about this is here:

I hope, Ghazal, you will have a sunny weekend, so you get enough UV to produce vitamine D.
You are lucky anyhow, since your light skin is the best condition to live in the north and stay healthy.

Take Care, Enjoy everything

Michael

PS: Have I already wrote you "Thanks" for the Nowruz power-point presentation that you send ? I think I forgot, sorry for this.

PPS: There is an iranian movie in the cinema here, called "Darbareye Ely". I will probably go and watch. Have you seen it or heard about ?

The Genealogy of Mice

Hello Ghazal, my dear,

I interprete the missing answer to my last e-mail as a sign, that you got cought so much by Lee Silvers book on "Mouse Genetics". I hope that you find it not just scientifically interesting, but also entertaining.
To be honest, I always have problems seeing a lot of heroic activity in observations on how cells after irradiation battle to repair their DNA or commit suicide for the sake of the entire organism. It is either just a matter of adaptation, or opportunism as we would call in humans, or a battle between two armies fighting with unequal weapons (physical radiation and biological enzymes). Both, opportunism as well as stupid heroism in a war was definitely not what contributed a lot to progress during human evolution.
In case of the mouse genetics and antropology, however, the question which physiological and behavioural properties drive the development is realy fascinating. Did you red about the two dominant mouse sub-species (M.m.domesticus, or the west-european house-mouse and M.m.musculus or the eastern field-mouse). Most of the mice strains we keep in the laboratory world-wide are genetic recombinats between these two.

Now comes the exciting interrelation of the two sub-species: domesticus established its dominant area in south-western europe, from the mediterranean countries up to Germany. M.m.musculus, in contrast populated the old-world from central Germany further east (Poland, Czech, Russia, China to the Pacific ocean). Believe it or not, the boundary between the eastern and the western Mouse Hemisphere went from northern Germany down to the south at the Alp mountains, first along the river Elbe and then along the river Isar. Some even believe, that Neuherberg is located right on this very tiny zone where occasionally the eastern M.m.muscullus and the western M.m.domsticus encounter (B.t.w., if the whole mapping is 100% precise with the Isar-river representing the border-line, we here in Daglfing would belong to the M.m.musculus world, whereas you in Unterschleissheim would already live in M.m.domesticus hemisphere).
The small border stripe where animals of the both sub-species occupy a common area, occasionally see genetic mixing of the two. They can form hybrids, and in the laboratory it was shown that the hybridn offspring between musculus and domesticus are also fertile, i.e. in theory they could give rise to next generations and a whole new sub-specie. In nature, however, the occasional happening of matings between the two give rise to hybrid offspring, that seem to have a selective disadvantage. They are less fit and never increased in population size. So the mixing area remained restricted to this small stripe in central germany (good for science, of course, since therefor we got the relatively homogenous animals for laboratory strains).

What also gave me a shiver when I red this is the funny co-incidence of the above mentioned "demarcation line" between eastern M.m.musculus and western M.m.domesticus with the former iron curtain that devided the eastern, socialist part of Europe from the western, capitalist world. This iron curtain also run north to south along the river Elbe.
Could it be that this artifical devision into an eastern and an western world during the second half of the 20th century was already planned early in evolution. Strange idea, I must admit, but sometime we are much less self-determined as we always like to show, in particular if it is in politics and military activities, in which people sometimes follow instincts like an animal.

The connection between the geographic distribution of M.m.domesticus and M.m.musculus with human history has another, more peaceful aspect. The new world, i.e. North and South America, did not had mouse at all before the european occupation in the 15th century began. Mice were brought over to the new continent on board the ships of the conquerers. Since most of these ships came from western europe (Spain, Portugal, France, England), they importet M.m.domsticus in Amerika, where still today it is the dominant mouse. Only a very tine stripe along the pacific coast (California) was first occupied by settlers from asia (Russia, later Chinese and Japanese), which brought there M.m.musculus. Again, like in Europe, the geographic distribution of the two sub-species remains there very separated.

I hope you are well, and I hope you don"t mind getting e-mails from me.
(sorry, I don"t have a mailing list on which your address is just one among another million, and from which I could easily remove yours. The e-mails are always personally just for you. So if you find them boring or otherways annoying, you have to delete them right away. I will keep them anyhow in my outbox, they are like a diary).

Have a nice and sunny day

Michael

PS: You have not suggested a time to visit the castle Oberschleissheim today or tomorrow. In case I don"t hear from you I"ll come tomorrow afternoon.