A Short Look at Transnistria

Transnistria is the last of the disputed territories we're going to cover this week. We've touched on Kosovo, Northern Cyprus and the Caucusus' states of Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and South Ossetia already. Transnistria is not a member of the Caucusus region, but Transnistria's independence claims stem from the collapse of the USSR like these Caucusus would-be nations. Transnistria is sandwiched between the Ukraine and Moldova. Moldova, from whom they claimed independence, doesn't not recognize them and still holds Transnistria as part of its sovereign territory. Transnistria has a much older history though than the current independent or not state.

In prehistoric times and antiquity it was occupied Dacian and Scythian tribes, settled by Greek colonists at Tyras and eventually became a Thracian homeland to a branch of the Getae. The area would fall under the sway of the Roman Empire in 56 AD when Rome rebuilt the city of Tyras along the Black Sea. Tyras would become an important minting city for Rome and over a couple of centuries this city in what Rome called Lower Moesia. Numerous copper coins would go out from Tyras throughout the whole empire.

As the Western Roman Empire was collapsing the area would see a whole host of people groups swing through, including the Goths and the Huns. The Huns would destroy the city of Tyras but the Goths would stick around for centuries and live throughout Transnistria. Then the Slavic peoples migrated through the area, both Southern and Eastern tribes. Also various Turkic peoples would settle and then move sometimes living alongside Slavic tribes and other times displacing them. The area would eventually become dominated by a Turkic confederation by a tribe called the Cumans. Cumania, a land more or less controlled by this semi-nomadic confederation stretched from the Balkans in the west to the Caucusus and further east into modern Iran. This large swathe of land brought them into conflict with the new threat from the east, the Mongols. But the Mongols didn't establish any tangible permanent legacy and the region entered part of the Kievan Rus' sphere of influence.

At about the turn of the 15th century the area became part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and then part of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth. This would last for nearly 300 years until the area was taken over by the Russian Empire in 1792 and 1793. By this time the area was occupied primarily ethnic Moldavian, ethnic Ukrainian and a number of various Tatar peoples (one of the few holdovers from Mongol invasions). Under Russian influence which lasted from 1793 until the Russian Revolution in 1917 the area was heavily colonized. Russian peasants were moved there to be given land (as all of the Russian land was in the hands of noble Russians). Also, Jews and Germans were moved to the region to help build up the economy.

After the fall of the Russian Empire and the dawn of the USSR, Transnistria became a part of the Socialist Republic of Moldova under the power of the Kremlin. The area was not given any rest though as it was invaded during World War II when it came under the control of Romania. Romania instituted a strict Romanianization program over the area and a multitude of Ukrainian and Moldovan Jews were either killed or sent to concentration camps by combined Romanian and German forces. Other ethnic groups were relocated and forced to move. After the war the Soviets reacquired the region but took a page out of German/Romanian playbook and relocated numerous Moldovan and Romanian families, often eastward to places like Kazakhstan and Siberia.

In the late 1980's as the USSR was coming apart at the seams the Moldovan authorities pushed for more autonomy and power. They readopted the Latin alphabet, declared Moldovan to be the only official language of the region and declared the closeness of Moldovan and Romanian linguistic heritage. This nationalism and ethnic posturing caused many Russian speaking and Slavic ethnic groups to become very uncomfortable. They were worried about two major things. First, the rhetoric of some of the Moldovan groups was very damning to non-Moldovan/Romanian people living within Moldova. Second, they were terrified by a reunification of Romania and Moldova.

In response to all of this war broke out as the people who did not want to return to a Romanian-Moldovan alliance attempted to break away from Moldova. From 1990 - 1992 war between Moldovan and Romanian forces against the breakaway region raged. Transnistria would have been easily crushed had it not been for support they received from official elements of the Russian army, Russian volunteers and Ukrainian volunteers. As a result of the war Transnistria has been a de facto state since 1992, only it has been almost entirely recognized as a part of Moldova by the international community.

Since 1992, the government of the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic (Transnistria) has been ruled from its capital of Tiraspol, a city built on or near the ruins of the Greek settlement of Tyras by the Russians in 1792. The population of Transnistria is over 30% Moldovan, making it the largest percentage of the population. However, ethnic Russians and Ukrainians combine for a near 60% of the population. Thus, they speak Slavic based Russian language and use the Cyrillic alphabet in Transnistria as opposed to the Romance based Moldovan language and Latin alphabet used in Moldova. Tensions still simmer in this disputed region, especially given the fact that FC Sheriff Tiraspol dominates the Moldovan Football League. In a recent BBC World Football report it was noted that crossing the border from Moldova to Transnistria for a football match was a lot like crossing the border back into the days of the USSR, murals, police checkpoints, complete with hammer & sickle and all. It is a starkly different place than both Moldova and Ukraine which border it.

The Vinča culture

The Lady

The Vinča culture is also called the Turdaș-Vinča culture or simply the Turdaș culture. Whatever name you give it its hard to write it on an American English keyboard because of the silly č and ș. Part of me wants to name my first son Çḩṙîṧẗöῥḫἐṟ so that he works on his handwriting and it is better than mine. The other part of me thinks that this would be unduly cruel.

Anyway, the Vinča culture existed in Southeastern Europe from around 5500 BC - 4500 BC, specifically in modern Kosovo, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece. The origins of the Vinča culture are debated. Some think that they migrated to the Balkans from Anatolia while others think they developed naturally out of the rich Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş culture and were local to the area. Either way they were a Neolithic culture that farmed, made pottery, raised livestock and supplemented it all with hunting and gathering. The Vinča are best known because of the Vinča symbols we discussed earlier.  But when they weren't making pre or proto-language they were carving fantastic figurines.

The Vinča produced a number of fascinating sculptures, including the Lady of the Vinča. This idol, that dates to around 5000 BC was found near Belgrade in 1929. It shows a sophisticated craftsmanship. If you remember the Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş culture was a rich religious culture that was fascinated with fish gods. It produced troves of fish-men statues associated with a river religion. The Vinča seems to have continued in this religious vein, but switched from river deities to a fertility cult.

When they weren't practicing religion the Vinča were busy developing the first copper tools of Europe. The Vinča site at Pločnik in Serbia unearthed the earliest copper tools in Europe when people were setting up the railroad in the 1920's. Pločnik was inhabited from around 5500 - 4700 BC until the settlement was burned to the ground. But, before the fire took the settlement the people used fire to forge some great prehistoric weaponry.

Sesklo - The First Neolithic Culture of Europe

The Sesklo Culture is famous for being one of the first Neolithic cultures in Europe. If you remember, a culture becomes a Neolithic one when it discovers how to do one of two things or both. It leaves the Mesolithic to join the the Neolithic when it masters farming or starts building pottery. The Sesklo seem to have done this as early as 6850 BC give or take a margin of error. They did this in what is modern day Greece in the regions of Thessaly and Macedonia. Confusingly, the culture seems to arisen out of two cultures, the Pre-Sesklo and Proto-Sesklo cultures. The distinction is so ridiculously nuanced that I can't seem to wrap my head around it, let alone explain it. But, that's where they come from.

They became Neolithic by learning how to farm wheat and barley. Because Nabisco's Wheat Thins and barley laden Rye Whiskey cannot sustain a man (trust me on this one), the Sesklo culture also kept herds of sheep, goats and a few cows and pigs. They completed the double Neolithic by fashioning bowls and cups to eat and drink out of. The Rye Whiskey though they liked to drink straight from the bottle like a boss.

The Sesklo would have been a minor footnote in history had they not influenced other cultures though. In this they seem to have been prolific. They influenced the Karanovo and the Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş in the Balkans. The Starčevo–Kőrös–Criş would then go on to influence the Danubian cultures that stretched all over Southeastern and Central Europe. The Sesklo also seem to have been the origin for the Cardium pottery Culture that dotted the southern coastal region of much of Europe stretching from Croatia to Italy to France and to Spain. For this reason, the minor city of Sesklo, played a major role in spreading the Neolithic Revolution to much of Europe.

On this day in History, The Battle of Rovine

The highly unstable region of Wallachia (modern day Romania) grew out of a rebellion against the first king of Hungary sometime in the late 13th, early 14th century. This independence was all fine and dandy but they found themselves in the middle of constant competition for land. The Hungarians, the Serbian Empire, the Bulgarians, the encroaching Ottomans and even the decrepit Byzantines were all players in the area. But at the time of the Battle of Rovine, May 17, 1395, Wallachia was about as stable as she was ever going to get, under the good care of the Warlord Mircea the Elder. But, the good warlord had managed to enrage the Ottoman Empire by aiding the Christian Hungarians against the Muslim Turks.

Well, Sultan Bayezid I wasn't too thrilled with this and took up 40,000 men and impressed 8,000 or so Serbian vassals to go up into Wallachia to teach Mircea a lesson. Mircea was able only to muster 10,000 troops so he avoided open conflict for awhile until the jig was up on May 17. The battle was fought along the banks of the Argeș River in Southern Romania in a spot where the numbers game wouldn't absolutely hobble the overmatched Wallachians. As the Ottomans and Serbs advanced, the Wallachians unleashed a hail of arrows that decimated Ottoman lines. After another hail of arrows the Wallachian cavalry came in and caused mass panic. Some of the Ottomans fled over the Danube to the south. The most powerful lord of the Serbs at the time, Marko Mrnjavčević was killed in battle. But, many Wallachian troops were lost in the fighting. While the Ottomans and Serbs were thoroughly routed, the undermanned Mircea was forced to flea Wallachia after the battle. The Ottomans were able to install an usurper to throne named Vlad Uzurpatorul (I'll let you guess what Uzurpatorul means...). Within three years time Mircea was able, with the backing of the Hungarians to crush Vlad and retake Wallachia. During his reign over Wallachia, Mircea consistently stopped the onslaught of Ottomans crossing the Danube. And, at a time of political turmoil in the Ottoman Empire, teamed up with some fellow Christians and actually marched into Ottoman territory. At the height of his power, Mircea was actually able to install his candidate as a co-Sultan of the Ottomans. For all of his success against the Empire though, Mircea was wise and made peace, ensuring the independence of Wallachia for a short spell.

Burning down the house, A Talking Heads approach to society

Burning down the House is one of my favorite Talking Heads songs, behind Psycho Killer, Give me back my name and Stay up Late. Stay up Late has sentimental value to me as my uncle used to sing it to me as a child. It might be this incident that has caused me to be a bit off kilter. Exposure to David Byrne at age 3 or 4 is bound to have repercussions. But, this is neither here nor there. We're talking about the most fascinating Neolithic European culture in the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture of Romania, Moldova and the Ukraine.

The Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture was glossed over on episode 4 of the podcast, Neolithic Part I. Basically, I could have created an entire podcast dedicated to this fascinating culture, but lumped it in with a bunch of other Neolithic cultures. There are 3000+ sites dedicated to this culture that spanned the three modern countries of Romania, Moldova and Ukraine. The culture was one that flourished on trade, but had a whole lot of other things going for it. First, it was immensely huge. Some of their settlements had more than 10,000 people living in them, making them much larger than their way more famous contemporaries in Mesopotamia. Second, they had an incredibly rich religious life. One aspect of this religious life can be seen in their desire to burn down the house.

Every 70-80 years or so, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture would leave their village, burn it to the ground and then reconstruct it in the exact same fashion as it stood before the burning. Most modern people would say that this is crazy and counterproductive. But a study of their religious convictions would indicate that they did this because of their belief in the cyclical nature of life. Many of the tombs of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture were egg shaped. Marija Gimbutas, an expert on this, states that these tombs and the burning indicate a belief in some sort of religion that advocated for rebirth. The burning of the settlements was a celebration of death. This wasn't, according to her theory, a morbid religion, but that death was necessary element for a rebirth, and thus something to be celebrated. If this theory is to be believed, then the burning of the villages was a religious celebration intended to bring lost loved ones back to life. Most of the sites show this ritual burning, but none more so than Poduri site in Romania which is believed to have been burned thirteen times. This shows a remarkable dedication to this ritual that most modern cultures could never accomplish.

Barter tokens of the Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture

The Cucuteni-Trypillian Culture is probably the most fascinating Neolithic culture of Europe. It existed from around 5500 BC - 2750 BC. They built massive settlements that served as prototypes for cities, some of which grew to an immense size of 15,000 people. They are fascinating because of a number of reasons, including their religious curiosities, their giant cities, their pottery and sculptures, their use of the earlier Vinča symbols and their barter tokens. We'll cover a couple of these items on the blog shortly, but for now we'll focus on the barter tokens.

There are about 3000 sites of Cucuteni-Trypillian inhabitation across Ukraine, Moldova and Romania. This has provided an immense amount of artifacts. Some of the most prevalent artifacts are these barter tokens. The exact usage of the barter tokens is unknown, but it is presumed that they started out as tools to keep count of things in storage. Basically, if the typical Cucuteni-Trypillian farmer had 200 lbs of wheat to trade he could carry around these barter tokens to represent he had 200 lbs of wheat to trade with people. Carrying a number of tokens would have been easier than carrying the wheat and so he would trade 10 lbs of wheat for say a vase or decorative textile for his wife and instead of giving the aforementioned 10 lbs of wheat up front he'd give his trading partner a token. That token would later be exchanged for the actual wheat. This made trading a whole lot easier for the Cucutenit-Trypillian.

All of those 3000 sites indicate a shared cultural heritage, but not a a formalized country or empire. Each site was probably something like a city-state, in that they were independent from all of the others. But, each "city" was about 3-4 km apart from one another and this allowed for extensive trade routs. By making trading easier for people, the various "cities" were able to prosper. This innovation and lack of government insight explains the longevity of the society. Current politicians would do well to see the effectiveness in letting businesses do what they're best at. Current politics aside though, these barter tokens show an evolution in business. Eventually things like barter tokens would transform into currency and we'd end up with the system we have today, which is working super. Just ask the Greeks...

History's Mysteries: The Vinča symbols

The known Vinča symbols 

The Vinča culture thrived in much of Southeastern Europe and the Balkans in modern day Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Greece from around 5500-4500 BC. We touched on the Vinča in the Neolithic Part 1 podcast and mentioned the intriguing Vinča symbols found on pottery and artifacts all over the Vinča world. There is a lot of craziness associated with these symbols out there on the web. One of the craziest linked the Vinča symbols to pre-chauvinistic society, fibonacci numbers and the importance 25/55/25/55, the end of the world, how Jesus Christ was a serpent and how we all must become one with the swastika, a symbol of how everything is a black hole - a remarkable theory of everything. Reading it made my eyes bleed and yet, I couldn't look away. I'm serious a vein burst and caused my eyes to become bloodshot. Maybe that is somehow connected to the eternality of bird Goddesses and my newfound ability to rise above the lies being fed to us by historians and politicians. I'm not kidding. I'm suddenly enlightened.

Personal revelations (or devolving into temporary madness) aside, the Vinča symbols are fascinating bits of history. There has been some debate over what exactly there are. Some think they are actual symbols for a written language. Some think they are proto-writing (symbols used to convey a message that are not codified in any way). Others state they are neither of these things, but merely artistic renditions on ancient pottery. Most of these people however don't disagree that the symbols are often found on things that have some connection to religious life. We'll discuss three of the more spectacular discoveries of things with the Vinča symbols on them, 1) the Tărtăria tablets, 2) the Gradeshnitsa tablets and 3) the Dispilio tablet.

The Tărtăria tablets were found in Tărtăria, Romania in 1961. The tablets date to around 5300 BC and were found with a host of stone and clay figurines, a bracelet and the burnt remains of an adult male. The tablets were originally made of unbaked clay. When they were discovered they had to be baked in order to preserve them for future generations of bloggers to comment on for the twelve or so readers he thinks he has. As you can see from the picture, two of the tablets are rectangular, while one is a circle.  The bottom rectangle has some horned animal and some other pictograph symbols on it. The other two have mostly abstract symbols on them. It's the abstract symbols that make some believe this has to be written language, or proto-writing. There isn't much debate though over the importance of the burnt man whose grave had the tablets. He was important. Other Vinča graves don't have such nice grave goods, ergo, the man was important. Some have speculated he was a shaman and these tablets, along with the idols and bracelet had some sort of religious significance. However, as I look at them now and study them, the explanation is simple. The top rectangular tablet is a recipe for dog soup. On the far left is an indecipherable symbol, but the second from the left is a chalice. Next to it is saffron. Next to it, is a symbol of a dog. Next to it is the instructions to put it all in the pot to boil over medium heat. I say medium heat because if you compare it to the cooking symbol on the circular tablet you see the circular cooking has three heat lines coming out of, indicating that it's recipe should be cooked on high heat. Mystery solved.


The Gradeshnitsa tablet was found in the Vratsa Province of Bulgaria in 1969 and date to around the time of the Tărtăria tablets, but are probably a few hundred years newer. Unlike the Tărtăria tablets, which have markings on only one side, the Gradeshnitsta tablet has the symbols on both sides of the clay tablets. Unlike the Tărtăria tablets which clearly indicate cooking recipes and butchery techniques the Gradeshnitsa tablet is much more difficult to decipher. But, in 2006, a Bulgarian-American decided he had deciphered the code. This led to more crazy and in 2012 when I read about it, my eyes bled again. I might need to see an apothecary about this phenomena. It's possible that I could take the bloody tears to the alchemist and we could cook up some gold... What is going on? Is the Vinča script making me crazy or pushing me to a whole new plane of existence? Focus. In short, the Bulgarian-American who decided he had decoded the tablet was debunked. I will say this about them though, one side certainly looks a lot like writing. While it may not be formalized and thus should be categorized as proto-writing, the combination of the Tărtăria tablets and this one give a whole lot of anecdotal evidence to this being proto-writing.

Lastly, the Dispilio tablet was discovered in Greece in 1993. It is roughly contemporaneous to the  Tărtăria tablets and the Gradeshnitsa tablet having been carbon dated to 5260 BC. We're not sure of the exact day it was made, but if we actually are right on the year that's pretty damn impressive. What makes the Dispilio tablet different than the  Tărtăria tablets or the Gradeshnitsa tablet is that the Dispilio tablet is wooden and not clay. The wooden tablet had long been preserved in the mud around the Greek village of Dispilio so when it was unearthed it suffered serious damage. It's currently undergoing surgery to preserve it. The markings on this tablet are hard to make out, but many of the known Vinča symbols are on it, so we know that it came from that culture. The site has produced a number of interesting finds, including the oldest known flute in Europe. But all of this pales to the intrigue that another Vinča tablet provides. Coupled with the aforementioned tablets the arguement for proto-writing among this Neolithic people just keeps getting stronger. The idea that this is somehow related to a foolish theory of everything hypothesis that makes people's eyes bleed gets weaker with every discovery. Thankfully, pupils everywhere can relax in peace, for now...

Dimitar's Prehistoric Bulgaria

Prehistoric Bulgaria was a fascinating place. Long before the most sensual man alive according to himself via a the dirty tackle, Dimitar Berbatov was born there was the Bacho Kiro Cave, Stara Zagora and the Varna Culture. Dimitar however is pointing us in the right direction.

The Bacho Kiro Cave is an ancient cave formed by the Andaka and Dryanovska Rivers. The cave became inhabited by the prehistoric peoples of Bulgaria in the Paleolithic period. Well, that might actually be a misnomer. The cave was actually the habitat of the Cave Bears that roamed the earth during the late Paleolithic. Had Dimitar Berbatov, the scorer of erotic goals been born 30,000 years ago he could've very well ended up as a snack for this Prehistoric Bulgarian Bear. The vast majority of the early remains in Bulgaria, aren't constructions by early modern humans known as Cro-Magnon man, rather their gnawed on skeletal remains. It's rather grizzly stuff... ah ha, that was a terrible pun!

As man became more dominant on the Eurasian land mass and the cave bears died out, prehistoric Bulgaria began to flourish. Stara Zagora, Bulgaria's 6th largest city grew into a prehistoric hotbed of early human burial grounds. The city of Stara Zagora is actually one of Europe's oldest, having been populated for the last 8000 years continuously. The earliest copper mines in all of Europe date to Star Zagora in the 5th millennium BC. It is my belief that Dimitar is pointing back all those many millennia in this picture. That's why his eyes are so rapturing. They are truly breathtaking in this picture... I suddenly have an inexplicable urge for mayonnaise!

Bulgaria would eventually become over run by the Vinča Culture in the Neolithic era. The Vinča Culture would span 5500 BC - 4500 BC and revolutionize the area and drag it into the pottery making farming industry that would, through various evolutions become today's Bulgaria. The Vinča Culture, at its height would cover regions of modern day Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Romania and Greece. The Vinča Culture arose is Serbia, but it played out in Bulgaria. The early Bulgarians were split between history and progress. Some liked to live in newish devices like houses, either built of wood and earth (See Wattle-and-Daub) or dug into the ground like hobbit holes. Others preferred to stay in the caves of their ancestors. These latter types of folks dedicated their spare time to painting their home caves, such as the Magura Cave, nearby present day Rabisha. Both the house dwelling and cave folk would coallece to form the Vinča, who in turn would provide the world with pure sensuality, in Dimitar. Man I love his widow's peak! It almost makes me pine for dignity in old age....

The Mighty Tasty Aurochs

Throughout the podcast series I plan on supplementing the episodes with some blog posts about some of the more interesting features of European history that I leave out of the episodes. I'm going to have to leave some things out for time concerns, so I'll try to make it up with these supplemental blogs.

An aurochs skeleton that dates to around 7500 BC. It
was found in Denmark along with another near full
skeleton. Notice the horns and how they point out. Those
were the horns that early modern humans had to deal with
in order to get a descent burger. Thank heavens for Five Guys.

On Episode 2 Paleolithic Europe, we mentioned the mighty tasty Aurochs. These guys are so fascinating that they deserve a blog post.  Aurochs were the ancestors to most of today's many species of domesticated cattle. They were truly massive animals, growing as tall as 5'11. Though, the northern Aurochs grew to be a bit larger than their southern cousins. They also weighed over 1500 lbs on average. But a number of specimens found put the weight of the beast at well over a ton and a British ton at that (2204 lbs, not the measly American ton of 2000 lbs).

If we were transported back in time to see an Aurochs we'd easily recognize it as a species of cow, but it had some major differences to today's varieties. First, the horns were enormous and why not? It had the muscle mass to support them. Might as well go big. The legs of the aurochs were skinnier than modern cows and longer too. This gave them a very broad look up front, sort of like a cartoon version of a bull.

How aurochs behaved is a bit of a mystery and causes some disagreement between scientists. Some think that aurochs basically behaved like modern cows and other creatures like Buffalo and Bison. Others think they might have been different and more solitary creatures. This line of thinking comes from observing the tail end of aurochs existence on earth. But, this could have been because of limited numbers and the loss of the wild open plains and forests they once roamed so freely in. Before domestication, the aurochs roamed all over Europe (excluding Ireland and Iceland) throughout Asia and into North Africa.

The taming of Aurochs would happen independently in various regions around the world. This can explain some of the wide varieties of cattle we have throughout Europe and Asia. The domestication began somewhere around 10,000 years ago in the Indian Subcontinent and around the same time in parts of the Near East. The taming of the Aurochs happened a little later around 6000 BC in the Caucasian Mountains and Mesopotamia.  Then the domestication would travel into other parts of Europe and slowly most of the wild aurochs were no longer wild.

The few surviving Aurochs found their movement restricted by civilization and climate change so they holed up in Lithuania, Moldavia, Transylvania, East Prussia, and Poland. Hunting of the last wild aurochs became an activity that would become limited. First, only nobles could hunt them and finally only the royal houses. The 1% only could enjoy the tasty hamburgers. But as the population still dwindled we see an early attempt at ecological activism. Kings hired people as gamekeepers to help the remaining aurochs survive. But it was too late. The population dwindled further and further until the last aurochs died in 1627 in the Jaktorów Forest in Poland. I joked on the podcast about the Swedes taking offense to this and invading Poland in response. The Swedes did invade Poland shortly the death of the last aurochs, but this was because of a combination of some uppity Polish Cossacks and Ukrainian peasants distrust of the Lithuanian-Polish rule and Swedish opportunism. However, in the looting that came out of the war the skull of the last aurochs found its way into the hands of the Swedes and remains in a Swedish museum to this day.

I keep referring to the aurochs as tasty and there is a reason for this. Obviously the kings and nobles wanted to keep all the meat to themselves and then tried to preserve it when it was running out. But the aurochs has been depicted throughout history.

 Here is a picture of some petroglyphs of the aurochs in a cave in Bourdeilles, France that date back some 18,000 years ago.

Here is a picture of the famous cave painting in Lascaux, France that date around 17,000 years ago. The aurochs were still prevalent enough when Julius Caesar was tromping around Gaul that he mentions them in his book The Gallic War.







Another reason I think that they must have been so tasty is that people have been trying to bring them back into existence since the 1920's. A couple of German brothers starting breeding aurochs descendants in the hope of being able to make an aurochswurst sandwich to enjoy with a bit of sauerkraut. It didn't quite work, but the resulting Heck Cattle does have some of aurochs' features.

Polish scientists are hoping to reconstruct aurochs from extracting DNA from the ancient remains of some of the aurochs they have in their possession. I don't believe there are any plans in Sweden to give them back the Jaktorów head. Another group of scientists have started the TaurOs project, a Danish effort to bring back the aurochs into existence. With any luck, we'll be able to sit down to an aurochs cheeseburger with our grandkids.