There is a story of the excavation on Knossos, the great Minoan city in Crete. The site showed an extraordinary culture with advanced urban life. The royal chambers contained a room apparently built for leisure but all the artistic walls had fallen to pieces. Archeologists spent years piecing the fragments together and finally reconstructed the room. The designs were shocking: The motif was of blue monkeys. No one realized that the Minoans had access that deep in Africa to see and examine the blue monkey. Papers were written explaining the presumed trade routes and economy such blue monkey walls implied.
Until it was revealed the puzzle had been put together incorrectly. With the exact same pieces you could construct the walls in the apparently original way: Blue Dolphins. The Blue Monkey Room became the Blue Dolphin room as soon as the adjustments could be made. The brochure was rewritten in a flash.
In the 13th and 14th Centuries drawings of knights in battle (usually losing) with snails--yes, snails--became popular in the margins of non-historical texts such as Psalters or Books of Hours. It has provoked some debate. Is the snail a symbol of the struggles of the poor? The hated Lombards? Is it a Resurrection theme? Perhaps the knights fought and defeated alien snails invading the planet and that information has been hidden from us to preserve confidence in our culture and future.
What are we to make of history? Can we really analyze the past with accuracy? More, can we use the past as our guide? Can we examine the past to predict the future, even spill blood in its fulfillment?
Or, do we have the vaguest idea of what we are doomed to repeat?
Knight v Snail V: Revenge of the Snail (from the Smithfield Decretals, southern France (probably Toulouse), with marginal scenes added in England (London), c. 1300-c. 1340
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