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That at least is the traditional story. But taking a closer look, does a strictly religious motive hold up. Hypatia reigned as not only the greatest philosopher of her native Alexandria in the late fourth and early fifth centuries a d. But also as one of late Antiquity's greatest thinkers. These feats alone would merit sufficient preservation of her name through the ages, yet this is not history's account. Instead, Hypatia is remembered mostly for her earth murder in eighty four

fifteen at the hands of a fanatical Christian mob. Contemporaneous sources recount the murder and detail the Christian authors Socrates, Scholasticus, and John of Nikiu, as well as pagan authors including the Greek neoplatonist philosopher Damascius, agree in their descriptions of her death. She was forcibly dragged from her chariot in Alexandria and brought to a church called Caesareum. There she was stripped, naked, flayed, and brutally murdered. After dismembering her body,

the mob burned her remains. Other accounts state she was giving a lecture when the mob found her, and after taking her to the church, she was dragged through the streets. Cyril, Patriarch, archbishop of Alexandria, plotted her murder and ordered it carried out.

Whichever version is more accurate, it has long been believed she was assassinated by the rabble of Christian fanatics for her philosophical beliefs, that is, she didn't support Christianity in a world in world which Christians and Pagans were at odds. But there's more to the story. Ancient Alexandria at the time of Hypatia's birth around eighty three sixty, the important cultural intellectual center of her native Alexandria was Waning, founded

by Alexander the Great in three thirty one BC. This great city was the site of the Pharaoh's Lighthouse, one of the ancient world's Seven Wonders, and the Musayan, which included the famous Library of Alexandria, said to have served as a training ground for the ancient world's best writers, doctors, scientists, and philosophers. After Julius Caesar conquered Alexandria in forty eight BC and burned part of the city's great library, Alexandria

began a slow decline. In AD three sixty four, the Roman Empires split into and Alexandria remained in the eastern portion, controlled by Constantinople modern Istanbul. Around this time, disputes erupted between the cities. Christian Denys, one ancient writer, noted that there were no people who loved to fight more than those of Alexandria. Then, in AD three eighty, Emperor Theodosius the First declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire,

including Alexandria, mandating punishment to non believers. Tensions rose between Christians and non Christians. Against this backdrop of religious and political strife, Hypatia received an excellent education under the guidance of her father, the renowned mathematician and astronomer Theon, who taught at the Mousayon. He introduced her to a wide

range of subjects, including mathematics, astronomy, philosophy, and literature. Early on, Hypatia demonstrated exceptional intellectual abilities and a passion for learning. She delivered detailed commentaries on the great works of mathematics and astronomy that had been produced in the Alexandria centuries earlier in the times of the Ptolemies three o five PC to eighty thirty. However, it wasn't Hypatia's talent for mathematics and astronomy, or even her inventions that had the

greatest impact. She would earn renown. Primarily as a philosopher, Hypatia espoused a school of thought known as Neoplatonism, re interpreting the ideas of ancient Greek philosopher Plato. This teaching emerged in the third century a d combining spirituality in science. It applied mathematics and astronomy to philosophy as a way to understand the universe and the individual's place in it. These scientific disciplines were all roots to knowledge of the One,

the supreme being from which all things emanate. While Hypatia's philosophy was seen as pagan, Christians identified the One with their God, and as such both Pagans and Christians could abide this philosophical framework. Hypatia taught at the Neoplatonist's School of Philosophy and drew large crowds of Pagans and Christians to her lectures. She didn't appear to have been a devout pagan ann didn't practice theogy, the use of magic and oracles that many Neoplatonists saw as another path to

the One. While all around here Christians and Pagans were involved in clashes that were tearing the city of Alexandria part, she seemingly maintained a neutral position. Hypatia certainly remained distance from the events that in AD three ninety one culminated in the ancient Serapium Temple of Alexandria being destroyed by Christians. Other pagan intellectuals, meanwhile, were active in defending the great Temple dedicated to the god Serapis, and even boasted of

murdering Christians. So the traditional view that Hypatia's violent death was the result of ideological conflict between Pagans and Christians, doesn't tell the whole story. Instead, there's another angle that makes more sense. One clear thing stands out in regard to Hypatia's murder. The act was highly ritualized, a feature it has in common with the violent deaths of two Alexandrian patriarchs, the extreme Arion George of Cappadocia, who was killed in AD three sixty one, and Protarius, who was

killed in A D four five seven. Although the circumstances surrounding each of the deaths of these bishops differ from Hypatius, all three murders do fit similar patterns. The patriarch's corpses were, like Hypatias, paraded by their murderers along the Canopic Way, Alexandria's main thoroughfare. The victim's bodies were dismembered in portions of their remains transferred to each of the city's districts

for subsequent cremation. It's interesting to note that in AD three ninety one, after the assault on the ancient Serapium Temple, the statue of the Greco Egyptian deity Serrapus itself was subjected to the same ritualized violence seen in this context, hypatius death could be interpreted as a premeditated assassination rather than a spontaneous act by a bloodthirsty mob. It's possible she was used as a pawn in the political maneuvering of the moment, and there is one very clear political

standoff that fits. Hypatia became involved in the showdown between two men who were both Christians, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Orestes, Alexandrius, Roman governor. Their motives at the time, Cyril engaged in ruthless power politics to stamp out pagan influences in Alexandria. He wasn't afraid to use violence to achieve his goals. Hilso was involved in the expulsion of

the Jews from Alexandria following their attacks on Christians. Entered the Roman prefect Orestes, who, in the Imperial administration's efforts to preserve Alexandria's stability, had to count on support from

the municipal aristocracy, who mostly worshiped pagan gods. Orestes also needed to avoid sparking opposition from the Jews, while garnering support from the Christians who opposed Cyril and his violent lias methods Arrestes, Unlike Cyril, needed to appeal to a diverse group of people, Orestes turned to his friend Hypatia. She was a suitable intermediary because of her status as a philosopher and because she had stayed at arm's length

from actively defending Holytheism. She was well regarded by those across the Alexandrian elite, who were neither agitators for one side or the other, nor favored violence. Another aspect that made Hypatia stand out was that over many years, she had cultivated a network. Her contacts included former students within powerful Christian circles, both in Constantinople, seat of the Roman Empire, and in Alexandria. Cyril thus viewed Hypatia as a possible

threat to his hold over the city's Christians. The plot to neutralize Hypatia, it seems that Cyril mounted a smear campaign, accusing Hypatia of black magic and describing her as a dangerous witch using spells to lure people to her lectures. It was claimed she had enstared arrestees into skipping masts

and allowing non Christians into his house. Socrates Scolasticus notes that as she Hypatia had frequent interviews with Orestes, it was calominously reported among the Christian populace that it was by her influence he was prevented from being reconciled to Cyril. All these cliches, which have been used through the ages to discredit women who occupy positions other than the traditional ones of wife and mother, were intended to frame Hypatia

as a dangerous public enemy. Cyril couldn't commit the murder himself, nor did he have to. He instead relied on his prabalani. Originally, this group of lay Christians acted as a charitable organization caring for the city's neediest people, but by the time Cyril was in charge, the pirabalani had become more like an armed militia in the patriarch's service. Although there is no proof that Cyril ordered Hypatia's murder, everything suggests that Cyril had much to gain from her death, and that

the peribalani did the deed on his behalf. Her assassination ended the threat she posed to Cyril through her support for orestes policy of tolerance. Her death served as the breaking point between religious authority embedded by Patriarch Cyril and civil authority embodied by Prefect Orestes. It was Cyril who run the day. Hypatia's death, however, was not a defeat for the Pagans. Christians and Pagans continued to coexist in

Alexandria for more than a century. Eoplatonism thrived until the Arab conquest of Egypt in the seventh century, encountered both Christians and Pagans among its adherents. In the sixth century, the director of the school was a Pagan Ammonius Hermi Hermia, while his deputy and the editor of his works was a Christian John Philipponos. After Hypatia's killing, no more was

heard of Orestes. Though the Christian leaders didn't eradicate pagan philosophy from the city, they did crack down on secular authorities. Hypacious story lived on. Her character and intellect were noted even by hostile Christian writers. In the eighteenth century. Voltaire wrote about her to condemn an over zealous church. The Christian clergyman Charles Kingsley and of Victorian romance about her.

She is the heroine of the two thousand nine Spanish movie Agoras, whose fictitious plot has her saving the Alexandria Library from Christian fanatics. Her endurance in a patriarchal society makes her a feminist hero up to the present day, and she merits more recognition in history beyond the sensation

of her horrific murder hiding in plain sight. When Raphael showed a draft drawing of his school of Athens Fresco to the Church fathers in the sixteenth century, the bishop allegedly asked him to remove Hypatia in the front and center. Knowledge of her runs counter to the belief of the faithful, he said. Rafael obliged, but in an act of unflinching deception, he covertly moved her to the left, disguising her face

to resemble that of the ruling pope's nephew. But there she sits, the only figure among fifty of the greatest minds, staring straight out at the viewer, as if beseeching you not to forget that she too belongs in this venerable gathering of scholars, Or does she. Rafael never admitted he did this. Others claimed the figure as actually Marguerita Luti Rafael's mistress, Francesco Maria de la Rovert, Duke of Urbino,

or even Rafael himself. Death of a God. The chain of attacks that culminated in the Serapium's destruction in AD three ninety one started when Christians began erecting a church on an abandoned sight. According to theologian and monk Tyranius Rufinus, workers unearthed the remains of Grotto's and ritual objects linked to the Mithras cult. When they treated the artifacts disrespectfully, Pagans became infuriating infuriated, sparking a clash that killed several people.

The Polytheius sought refuge in the Serapium and to prevent an escalation of violence. The authorities showed clemency to both sides, but the Christians launched an assault on the temple, beheading, smashing and burning the statue Cyril of Alexandria. The appointment of Cyril as patriarch of Alexandria in eighteen for a d. Four twelve was controversial. He had not been expected to succeed his uncle, so he made a show of his authority in an attempt to gain the loyalty of the

city's Christian community. Despite the opposition of some Christians, he attacked Polytheius and Jews in the city, expelling or massacring the latter in a d four fourteen Cyril was initially backed by a band of monks from the Nirian desert, where he had trained in an isolated monastic community. He then used the Carabalani, who originally cared for the sick, to carry out his acts of violence. He was declared

a doctor of the Church in eighteen eighty three. Alexandria's greatest mind, Hypatia, lived at a time when women were not given status equal to men, no matter how brilliant they were. Yet this largely unsung scholar is considered one of Antiquity's last great philosophers before the Middle Ages. She is the first known woman to study and teach mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, and she drew students from far and wide

across the Roman Empire. Many scholars believe she edited the surviving text of Ptolemy's Armaguest, based on the title of her father's commentary on Book three of the Armaguest. She even donned the robes of the academic elite, even though

men only were allowed this honor at the time. Michael Dieton, in his two thousand seven book Hypatia of Alexandria, wrote, almost alone, virtually the last academic she stood for intellectual values, for rigorous mathematics, ascetic neoplatonism, the crucial role of the mind and the voice of temperance and moderation, and in

civic life. Next, the poisonous price of beauty. Blonde hair, of pale complexion and outrageously red cheeks made the fashionable look that Spanish women saw it in the sixteen hundreds, despite the dangers hidden in their cosmetics. Writing her travels into Spain in sixteen seventy nine, French author Marie Catharine de Humein de Barneville, known as Madame d'Al noi, recorded her less than flattering impressions of the complexions of Spanish women.

I've never seen boiled crayfish of a more beautiful color. The effect of redness that startled Madame d'l noi was produced by rouge blush, applied in staggering quantities elsewhere. Madame d'l noi requotes how a Spanish lady took a cupful of rouge, and with a big paintbrush. She put it on not only her cheeks, her chin, under her nose, under her eyebrows, and under ears, but she also re daubed the inside of her hands, her fingers, and her shoulders.

But Madame del Nois was looking back on her experiences of living in Spain. In the sixteen seventies, the final years of what historians traditionally called Spain's dad do Oral or Golden Age, beginning with Spain's rise as a European superpower and its colonization of swaths of Central and South America from fourteen ninety two, the Golden Age waned as Spain's economic problems worsened in the late sixteen hundreds, While the last in many aspects of Spanish culture, including literature

and theater, were lavishly celebrated. Traveler's accounts note how the country's great wealth and power were reflected in women's appearances. Richard Wynn, a politician who accompanied Prince Charles the First of England on a trip to Spain in sixteen twenty three, wrote that of all these women, I dare take my oath, there was not one unpainted so visibly that you would think they rather wore wizard's masks than their own faces

extreme makeopers. According to ural historian Amanda Vunder, author of the book Spanish Fashion in the Age of Lusca's Yale University Press, in terms of fashion and beauty, Spain was going in a different direction than the rest of the European continent. Whereas the French and English leaned toward natural complexions, Spanish beauty was all about being the fanciest and most elaborately made up. She explained, the Spanish court set the

standard for the rest of society. By then, the wealthy were much more visible in public than they had been in the Middle Ages. Nobility and royalty appeared regularly at the theater or hung their likenesses in portraits in public spaces during festivals. The ideas of beauty they projected spread down through the different levels of society. Everyone was putting on layers of make up, from the queen downward. This

was a cross class phenomenon, explained Wunder. To achieve the sought after appearance in Spain's Golden Age, ladies would put themselves through a long and complex grooming process. They even had special room set aside for this purpose. A kind of boudoir known in Spanish as a togador. The term was originally used to designate the cap that men and women wore to bed, but it later came to refer to the room itself. The togador was where ladies would dress and take care of their hair and make up.

It was here that ladies kept their skin and hair treatments, make up, and beauty paraphernalia. The box used to store this beauty kit was also called a togador. Some of these boxes were beautifully crafted. Inside, cosmetics were kept in pots and bottles, and in the center was a small mirror. Depending on a lady's wealth, the mirrors might come in lavish frames of Indian ebony, stained wood, or even silver.

Beyond the pale In seventeenth century Spain and beyond the ideal of feminine beauty was blonde hair and a deathly paler. In Spain, it was a relatively common practice for women to bleach their faces. Suleiman, a cosmetic made from mercury preparations, was used for this purpose. Its chemical composition could do lasting damage to the skin. Meanwhile, bleaches diluted to varying strengths were used to lighten hair, as Madame Delnois had

so memorably observed. The staple in the Spanish tuggador at the time was rouge, known in Spanish as color de granada pomegranate color. It was sold wrapped in sheets of paper that were kept in small cuffs called sarsaias. Having made their faces very pale, women then painted their lips and cheeks with this rouge and darkened their eyebrows with

a mix of alcohol and black minerals. To keep their hands white and soft, they would apply a paste made from almonds, mustard, and honey, Among other chemicals used in products, Sulfur was perhaps the most widespread. Some of these components were harmful. Women occasionally whitened their faces with bismuth oxychloride, sometimes known as Spanish white, a skin and eye irritant,

or they used lead precipitates, which are toxic. The composition of ruse rouge has changed over the centuries, but in Spain's Golden Age it was often made from charred sulfur, mercury, lead, minium, a lead compound, and other substances. These preparations could cause headaches, permanently alter the skin and damage eyesight because of their toxicity, dangerous effects that were noted at the time. Commentators saw

that saw other toxic effects in beauty products. To the mainly male writers of the period, make up was tantamount to deceit. A literary trope of the time was to reproach a women who artificially embellished herself. When the time came for her to be seen without a doormance, her lover would be disappointed. The moralist Juan de Zabaleta, in his book Eldea de fes fiesta purromagnana ipuracarde, published in sixteen fifty four, attack these of cosmetics on religious grounds.

He said, the action in the Tugadore of a lady getting ready on the morning of a holiday, she places at her right hand side the box of beauty medicines and begins to improve her face with them. This woman does not consider that if God wanted her to be as she paints herself, he would have painted her first. God gave her the face that suited her, and she takes on the face that does not suit her. Saboletta's work is part of the history of misogynous literature that

condemns women's beauty rituals as tampering with God's creation. Some women agreed that such rituals were fatuous, but for very different reasons. Maria Desiaus, a golden aged Spanish writer today considered a proto feminist, viewed the social pressures on women to apply make up as a means to prevent them

from emancipating themselves. In a novel from the sixteen thirties, she has one of her characters say that if women applied themselves to training with weapons and studying the sciences instead of growing their hair and shading their faces, they could already have surpassed men in menay things. As Spain's imperial fortunes waned in the late sixteen hundreds in the Golden Age ended, the heavy use of make up in

Spain also diminished. With the French Revolution in seventeen eighty nine, a more natural look swept through Europe, and elaborate wings and make up were shunned. Attitudes towards make up, however, are often cyclical. Safer zinc oxide based powders later replaced toxic lead based recipes, and make up's usage rebounded in Europe. Then in the mid eighteen hundreds, heavy make up fell out of fashion, associated with actresses and prostitutes facial artifice.

Artifice came back to the forefront with the advance of theatrical cosmetics and became widely commercialized in Europe and North America in the nineteen twenties. Since then, its use in the context of femininity and feminism has been as heatedly discussed as it was in the Golden Age of Spain. This article by Barbara Roussillo. The Spanish Infanta, the eldest princess of King Philip four Maria Theresa, is depicted in Diego Velasquez's sixteen fifty one to fifty four portrait. She

is in her early teens. The viewer's gaze is arrested both by her elaborate headdress, as adorned with butterflies, and the heavy amounts of rouge applied to her whitened face. Participating in the royal delegation to Spain in sixteen twenty three, English courtier Richard Wynne commented on very young women at the Spanish court being made up. They were painted more than the ordinary women, though some of them were not thirteen years old. The purpose of Velaska's famous portrait was

to attract a future husband. In sixteen sixteen sixteen sixty, at age twenty two, Maria Theresa married Louis the fourteenth of France. The dressing table gets a makeover. The room where Spanish ladies beautified themselves was called the tocador, as was the box in which they kept their products and accessory. Another key piece of furniture was the table where ladies sat for their toilette, the act of getting ready for the day. In the seventeenth century Dutch interior, the woman

is being dressed and beautified at a normal table. Soon after this piece of furniture became a status symbol in Europe, the wealthy began to commission luxurious, specialized furniture, and dressing tables started looking like the more vertical units familiar today. New features included folding tops, basins to wash off makeup, and of course, a built in mirror. In the twentieth century, the dressing tables, glamour and luxury were often reflected in

the movies of the nineteen twenties and thirties. Later, the use of dressing tables waned as beautifying shifted to the bathroom. Today, social influencers have brought the dressing table back, albeit in a compact form. Next, Percy fawcett tragic search for the Lost City of Z. Convinced by old documents that a lost civilization lay in the Amazon Rainfall, Percy Fawcet set out to find it in nineteen twenty five. His disappearance

sparked a century of speculation as to his fate. When the Spanish first ventured into the Amazon Basin in the fifteen forties, they recorded indigenous accounts of a lost city of fantastic wealth that they called El Dorado, the Golden Over the centuries, many vain attempts were made to locate a lost civilization in the Amazon forest. The last significant attempt to find such a culture was undertaken by British

explorer Percy Fawcet. Between nineteen o six and nineteen twenty four, Fawcet made seven expeditions across the Amazon Basin, concluding with this doomed quest to find the city he called Z. Fawcet was inspired by his extensive reading of historical sources, including a mysterious document known as Manuscript five twelve. A

man of extraordinary mental and physical stamina. Fawcett was working at a time when the Amazon region was still largely undocumented by Europeans who sought to explore its jungles and waterways, seeking ancient cities and riches. His disappearance during his search for z in nineteen twenty five in the Matto Grosso

region of Brazil continues to intrigue writers and filmmakers. Perzy Harrison Fawcett was born in eighteen sixty seven in Torquay, Devon, the English county that had produced many famous explorers and mariners, including Francis Drake and Walter Rawleigh. The son of an aristocrat who had lost his fortune, Fawcett described his childhood as lacking in affection. At age nineteen, he was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Royal Artillery and sent to

outposts of the British Empire. In nineteen oh one, Fawcett joined the Royal Geographical Society of London and traveled to Africa as a surveyor in the service of the British State, tasked with gathering military intelligence. In nineteen o six, he was commissioned by the Society to lead an expedition to the Amazon. Arriving in South America was the moment to

ina whole life changed. Setting out from LAPAs to map the vast territory on the borderlands of Bolivia and Brazil, Faucet often faced hostility from indigenous peoples angered by rubber Bereans who had invaded their lands to extract rubber free use in car and train manufacturing. For nearly a decade he roamed the Amazon Basin, often the first European to

record geographical features such as waterfalls. His writing gives a sense of the awe he experienced above us wrote the Ricardo Franco Hills flat topped and mysterious, their flanks scarred by deep quibrads ravines, they stood like a lost world, forested to their tops, and the imagination could picture the last vessiges of an age long vanquished. The outbreak of World War One interrupted this rich period of exploration, forcing

him to return to Europe. Although in his fifties, Fawcet was in peak physical condition and he proved to be an outstanding soldier. This concludes readings from National Geographic History Magazine for to day. Your reader has been Marshall. Thank you for listening. Keep on listening and have a great day.