[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] Imaginary Book Review: The 10,000 Year Telephone Game

    The vast variety of proposed nuclear waste warnings, from 10-foot tall granite spikes to glowing cats, is instantly intriguing; however, many of the solutions seem to exist in isolation from the others, with a clear gap between the odd-ball marker proposals and the DOE proposals. The only sources which seem to discuss the entire breadth of the proposals are news and magazine articles, which barely scratch the surface of the topic so as not to bore the average reader. Nuclear Semiotics: The 10,000 Year Telephone Game bridges this gap, offering comprehensive background to the solutions, as well as their relationships to each other. It opens on an almost-narrative cautionary note, describing how millennia-old monuments such as Stonehenge and the serpent mound have become all but meaningless today, a wonder to behold but impossible to interpret. Proceeding in a chronological order, it first gives background to the field of semiotics and some of the previous work of those on the human interference task force, supplying the reader with context as to how the team arrived at their conclusions. When it finally describes the off-color solutions prompted by the Zeitschrift für Semiotik poll in 1984, it highlights the skeptical response of the Human Interference Task Force to each idea, and the solutions are referenced often in later chapters on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant report in 1993, tracing the inspirations for the Sandia team’s menacing earthworks back to previous research in the field. With a particular focus on how each solution can influence a network of other marker proposals, The 10,000 Year Telephone Game gives its reader a full understanding of the small world of nuclear semiotics. 

[The Knightly Hub] The Livonian Brothers of the Sword

 The Livonian Brothers of the Sword

   Commonly referred to in modern times as the Livonian Brothers of the Sword, Livonian Knights, or the Sword Brethren, this order began in 1202 as the Order of the Knights of the Sword. The order was founded by Albert von Buxhoevden, third bishop of Livonia, with approval from Pope Innocent III. Its primary goal was to make Christianity the dominant religion by forcibly converting Livonian pagans. The order was officially blessed in 1204, and (like many others) shaped itself in the image of the Knights Templar. The Knights of the Sword all hailed from nobility, accepting vows of obedience, poverty, and celibacy. The grand master, once elected by an assembly of knights, would serve for life with the ability to dictate most aspects of the order. The order also consisted of clerics and artisans, who observed no fighting role. 

    The Swordbrothers became the dominant military force in its area of focus. Regardless, it still faced strong resistance from certain peoples, including the Semigallians who, together with Samogitians, would later deliver a crushing defeat to the order at the Battle of Saule (1236). Grand master Volquin was killed in the fight, leading to an abrupt loss of the Knights' military authority. Additionally, both the Holy Roman emperor (Frederick II) and Pope Gregory IX criticized the order for abuse of both pagans and recent Christian converts. 

    It seemed that the Swordbrothers' primary intent was to develop its own fiefdom rather than contribute to the Catholic Church. As a result, in 1237, Gregory IX disbanded the order and forced it to integrate into the Teutonic Knights. This gave the grand master of the Teutonic Knights the authority to determine who looked after the Livonian branch, which maintained its hold on the region despite earlier losses. This hierarchy persisted until 1525 when the Teutonic Knights were forced to give up Prussia, granting autonomy to the Livonian Brothers of the Sword as the former began to shrink in on itself. Sadly, the order was forced to disband (again) in 1561 after it lost control of Livonia during the Livonian War (1558-1583) due to neighboring states striking an interest in the area- or rather, in not letting other states control the area.

Further Reading: 

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Livonia.” Encyclopædia Britannica. ©2020 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 13 August 2010. Accessed 9 December 2020. <https://www.britannica.com/place/Livonia-historical-region-Europe>.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Order of the Brothers of the Sword.” Encyclopædia Britannica. ©2020 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 25 October 2011. Accessed 8 December 2020. <https://www.britannica.com/topic/Order-of-the-Brothers-of-the-Sword>. 

Anonymous. “Livonian Order of Knights / Order of the Brothers of the Sword.” The History Files. Copyright © 1999-2020 Kessler Associates. All rights reserved. Publication Unknown. Accessed 8 December 2020. <https://www.historyfiles.co.uk/KingListsEurope/EasternLivonianKnights.htm#top>.

Smirl, J.D. “A Wayward Crusade: The Short Life of the Livonian Swordbrothers.” J.D. Smirl: Graphic Art, Illustration, Writing, and Bookbinding. © Jordan D. Smirl. Published 27 May 2019. Accessed 8 December 2020. <https://jdsmirl.wordpress.com/writing/livonian_swordbrothers/>. - I’m somewhat surprised I didn’t come across this source sooner. While the majority of Smirl’s work doesn’t directly coincide with what I myself am doing, I’d imagine his blog to be rather fascinating to other lovers of art, history, and art history. I don’t have any experience commissioning him, so I can’t review that aspect of his work, but I recommend clicking through some of his galleries if nothing else. There is a specific one I found intriguing in which he compiles references for medieval armor. Here's a link for those interested.

[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] History Repeats Itself: Archeological Models for Nuclear Markers

  One of the greatest challenges in designing warning markers for a future so distant as (at least) 10 millennia is that it is impossible to run an accurate simulation to determine how a message will be received through years of cultural, political and societal change. Yet there are already plenty of experimental results which display the survival of meaning in a structure over thousands of years; we only need to look in the past. When considering their marker designs, the Human Interference Task Force, and later the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant team, used lessons learned from monuments throughout history to model their requirements. 

    Serving as the foremost archeology consultant for the HITF was Maureen Kaplan, who later contributed to the design panel of the WIPP project as well. The first distinction she used in her research was that historical markers were composed of 3 communication elements: Language, pictures, and symbols. Outlined in her report were 6 different historical examples of ancient markers surviving at least 1,000 years, including information on their location, history, material composition, intended purpose, state of preservation, and relevance to repository marker construction. 

    The first and likely most famous of the archeological examples are the Pyramids of Giza. One of the most impressive features of the already breathtakingly enormous structures is how long they’ve lasted, 5,000 years, which is half of the nuclear semiotic time frame, and for the most part they’ve remained both physically intact and recognizable in purpose: tombs for the rulers who constructed them. If records of Egyptian culture in historical documents, like the writings of Herodotus, Pliny the Elder, and Abd el Latif weren’t available to designate the intent of the great pyramids, the same intent could be gleaned from the numerous markers and writings inside the tombs themselves, displaying the efficacy of redundant linguistic and pictorial markers used in tandem with physical and symbolic ones. The structure of the pyramids has remained untarnished for a number of reasons, but mainly their immense bulk, which dampens the effects of erosion and discourages the quarrying of its materials or removal under new governments. 

    Utilizing size works for the pyramids, as they’re built to designate a certain spot, however, a nuclear repository would have to cover an area at least 14 times the size of a pyramid, and the devotion of resources to a pyramid of that size is impossible, or at the very least impossibly uneconomic. Additionally, over the centuries the tombs have been entered through under the pyramids and looted, aided by the fact that the written tradition around the pyramids informed people of the treasures inside. Hopefully any writing about nuclear waste repositories will avoid conveying the impression of having valuable contents, though this presents the possible benefit of adding buried markers to the system to discourage digging under the site (we’ll get back to this later in the post). Though nuclear waste markers with a pyramid’s shape and size would be inefficient, the pyramids are a testament to the longevity of a structure’s purpose through surrounding information. 

    The next archeological marker Kaplan examined are the Stonehenge megaliths in England. Out of the 6 archeological examples, these are the most similar in shape to the eventual waste marker proposals, and for good reason; a pattern of numerous standing stones around 13 feet high is physically imposing whilst still requiring less building resources as the pyramids, and even though around a third of the stones have been lost in the roughly 3500 years since the monument was finished, you can still tell each one is part of a greater formation due to their redundancy and proximity to each other. Stone seems to be a favorable material choice for markers, as proven by this example, which has survived both an unfavorably moist climate and an unfavorable political climate, standing strong amidst multiple invasions, the wars of the roses, and the two world wars. The glaring downside to Stonehenge’s success (for our purposes) is that despite its physical longevity, historians are still unclear about its original function due to a lack of inscriptions or records regarding the monument.

    Inverting the pros and cons of Stonehenge would give you the Acropolis of Athens, Greece. Its religious significance, and the specific purposes of several structures within the Acropolis, is apparent throughout the building’s sculptures, art and reliefs, as well as through extensive documentation, through which we know extremely specific information such as the architects and sculptors who contributed to the project, and even how the money was raised to build it. It may prove to be a useful model for archiving nuclear information on the site, a relevance recognized later by the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant team. 

    There’s been a great deal of structural damage to the Acropolis, for the most part due to human interference. In Maureen Kaplan’s words, “The Acropolis is an excellent example of ancient monuments that have suffered far more from the hands of man than from the ravages of nature.” Over the years the structures have been corroded by acid rain and pollution, the caryatids on the Porch of the Maidens have had to be replaced by casts, and the old iron bolts holding up the building were replaced by steel ones, which then expanded causing fractures in the surrounding marble. Some of this damage is attributed to its political proximity, such as the Venetian bombardment in the 17th century which triggered gunpowder explosions from inside the Acropolis and caused a great deal of structural damage, though if not for constant upkeep and restoration it is doubtful the Acropolis would still be standing.

    There are other historical structures which have survived due to consistent maintenance, though, perhaps implying that a nuclear waste warning structure could see a similar treatment from future civilizations. For instance, the Great Wall of China, another monument lasting over 2,000 years. Throughout its history it’s been breached in battle numerous times, then repaired with new materials, giving it a patchwork construction that remains structurally sound. The defensive purpose it serves, as well as oral and literary tradition remarking on its impressive creation and duty have incentivized its restoration. This may be a good indicator that nuclear waste repository markers will be maintained, as both structures are designed to protect the people surrounding them. 

    Damages to these monuments seem to occur most often when they are built close to civilization, as apparent by the continued survival of the Nazca Lines in Southern Peru, built around 100 BCE. The Nazca Lines are a series of immense pictures of animals and geometric shapes on the ground, drawn by removing the dark-colored rocky “pavement” that was formed naturally over thousands of years by erosion and rock decomposition in the desert. Due to its remote location, the lines had remained unbothered for some time, though in the recent few decades they’ve seen a good deal of degradation from tourist activity, and the patterns have been found to be quite fragile. Nuclear waste markers are to be much more durable, though the Nazca Lines prove that a sufficiently unpopulated location greatly increases the survivability of a marker, and that nature itself is not as likely to damage a marker as human interference. 

    The last structure Kaplan examined was mostly an example of what not to do: The Serpent Mound in Peebles, Ohio. The structure is a large line of gathered earth with a stone and clay core which forms the shape of an uncoiling serpent, assumed to be built by either the Adena or Fort Ancient Native Americans. This is about all that is known for certain about The Serpent Mound. There are many theories about when the structure was built, ranging from 3rd century BCE to 11th century CE, and without any existing oral tradition or written records about the site, historians are puzzled as to what the snake symbol means, or what the structure could have been used for. This loss of record is not the fault of the mound’s creators, but the structure is completely unique in the US, and without any point of reference from any signs or additional symbols on the site it’s impossible to firmly interpret. The serpent mound might be another convincing piece of argument against the use of the trefoil symbol in a marker, as though it may mean something to modern civilizations, a unique symbol alone is difficult to glean significance from without cultural context in the future. Additionally, the mound is very low to the ground, making it difficult to see the shape from eye level, a problem it shares with the Nazca lines. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the significance of the designs in both have been lost over time, implying there may be a correlation between symbolic memory and visibility. 

    In addition to the six examples here, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant team expanded on a few other archeological examples as models for more specific functions of the repository, such as the Vatican’s archives as a model for onsite long-term records storage. There are more than enough extra examples to include here, many of which are redundant with Kaplan’s research in the 80’s, though one of the more interesting references is to using a general feature of archeological digs to mark the site, that is, burying shards of ceramic pottery printed with pictographs and information which will convey that there was civilization on the site. Distributing these shards randomly may ensure that even if some pieces are removed for future archeological digs, there will be some left over for intruders to encounter as they dig or build on the site. These would certainly be in addition to larger physical markers, as sort of a backup plan, the kind of repetitive message delivery that is everywhere within the field of nuclear semiotics. It’s debatable whether buried pottery might inspire civilizations to excavate the repository for museums or archaeological purposes, spurring unnecessary activity on the site, though the reference to buried pottery has influenced many other ideas on underground nuclear markers, such as burying small bits of radioactive material on the outskirts of the repository almost as a “sample” of the contents deeper within.

    All in all, there are a few clear trends within these structures. The most survivable designs are made of stone, such as basalt or granite rather than marble or limestone, and have redundant patterns that can function even if part of the whole is removed. Kaplan’s 6 examples are all constructed from natural materials, which contributes to their lifespan, as metals have a tendency to be looted, recycled, or corroded (as is the case with the Acropolis). Additionally, it seems the longevity of the meaning behind these structures is dependent on written and pictorial markers, both on and off the site itself, and that structures serving a specific purpose to the civilization or community are more likely to be renewed, though also more likely to be damaged. Building the markers so that the entire system can be seen at once at eye level, rather than relying on an aerial perspective for the message’s reception, may play a part in reinforcing its cultural and symbolic memory. 

    Using archeology as a reference for deep-time structural design is an intriguing inversion of the study to me. Rather than examining a physical structure to design the narrative of the past, Nuclear Semiotics is examining the past (and potential futures) to design the narrative of a physical structure. 



References:

Trauth, Kathleen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1993. https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf

United States, Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation. Reducing the Likelihood of Future Human Activities That Could Affect Geologic High-level Waste Repositories. Columbus, Ohio, Government Printing Office, 1984. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6799619

Trauth, Kathleen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Effectiveness of Passive Institutional Controls in Reducing Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for Use in Performance Assessments. Columbus, Ohio, Government Printing Office,1996. https://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/cra/baselinetool/documents/Appendices/EPIC%20Revison%201.PDF 

[This paper was published as part of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant project. It discusses the requirements of passive institutional controls, and lists a number of historical examples of long-term information preservation, assessing what we can learn from the past in order to create effective future markers.]

Joyce, Rosemary A. The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us About Securing the World’s Most Hazardous Material. New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2020. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=R8XLDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=art+in+nuclear+waste+warning+messages&ots=Xj5VaDwT9W&sig=yZVml2hgfFBG-rBRLCNV1nLggqE#v=onepage&q=art%20in%20nuclear%20waste%20warning%20messages&f=false 
Anderson, Kelli. Designing for Deep Time: How Art History is Used to Mark Nuclear Waste. Pratt Institute, Master’s Thesis, 2005. http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf 

Kaplan, Maureen F and Adams, Mel. “Using the Past to Protect the Future.” Archeology, vol. 39, no. 5, Sept 1986, pp. 51-54. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41731805 

Kaplan, Maureen. United States, Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation. Archeological Data as a Basis For Repository Marker Design. Columbus, Ohio, Government Printing Office, 1982. https://books.google.com/books?id=RxMCF4ncI-8C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false  

Engler, Miriam. “Post-nuclear Monuments, Museums, and Gardens.” Landscape Review, vol. 9, no. 2, 2005, pp. 45-58. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/38935797.pdf

[The Knightly Hub] A Very Brief Overview of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre

 The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre

    The Church of the Holy Sepulchre was originally constructed circa 336, and is considered the holiest place on Earth even today. This church's liberation was the primary reason the Crusades began in the first place, as the Muslims were preventing Christians from entering. Legends commonly date the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre back to the time of Godfrey de Bouillon (circa 1099, the capture of Jerusalem from the Muslims after the First Crusade) due to his desire to be called a defender of the church. However, the EOHSJ was never much of a knightly order at all.  In fact, it was more or less restricted to an independent brotherhood. 

    The order still wound up adopting knighthood in order to defend the church, a position often heavily sought after. In fact, all those who were dubbed a knight and fought in the church's honor could be dubbed a Knight of the Holy Sepulchre. Sergeants were often selected from large troops of crusaders on account of their commitment and strength, falling under the command of the current King of Jerusalem. Like many other knights of the era, they accepted vows of poverty and obedience.

    The already limited military aspect of this order began to crumble after Saladin reclaimed Jerusalem, ceasing completely by 1291 after the fall of Acre. Despite everything, the first documented note of this order's existence as the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre arose from 1336 with significant papal interest as a candidate for the Holy See. The Church then proceeded to reorganize and adjust it multiple times under various popes. When Pope Clement allowed the Franciscans to be the official caretakers of the Holy Land in 1342, all members of the EOHSJ were required to be a member of this group. 

    While I have been referring to it as if it were a proper order thus far, in a technical sense, it should not be considered as such since it lacked a monastic rule and any regular possessions or organization. What belonged to the Holy Sepulchre actually belonged to the Canons, not the Knights. This was, however, the most inclusive of groups. When one was asked about their financial origin they were not obligated to answer and even the commander was meant to dress as an ordinary knight - with a white cloak adorned with the cross of Jerusalem in red. The order still exists with papal recognition today, largely to promote faith in Christianity, defend the Catholic Church in Jerusalem, and provide for the needy, like so many other modern knights.

Further Reading:

Anonymous. “History.” Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem - Northern Lieutenancy. © 2020 The Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. All Rights Reserved. Publication Unknown. Accessed 17 November 2020. <https://www.eohsjnorthern.com/history.html>.

Moeller, Charles. “Knights of the Holy Sepulchre.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. 1910. Accessed 3 November 2020. <https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07427c.htm>.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Church of the Holy Sepulchre.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc. 28 May 2020. Accessed 17 November 2020. <https://www.britannica.com/place/Holy-Sepulchre>.

Other Sites:

http://www.oessh.va/content/ordineequestresantosepolcro/en.html

https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/institutions_connected/oessh/index_en.htm

https://eohsjeastern.org/

https://www.diocesealex.org/our-faith/lay-organizations/equestrian-order-of-the-holy-sepulchre/

[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Used)

    My parents bought a Harry Potter book box set for my older sister when we were in second grade, and since then each of those books has been read front to back at least a cumulative 10 times by my family. The first three books had around 200-300 pages, which wasn’t unreasonable for me at the time I read it, though the fourth, the Goblet of Fire, was a daunting 636. It took me the longest to read out of all the books, but I loved it the most, and you can certainly tell from our copy’s battered state. First of all, the frayed cardboard cover of the book is visible through the corners, and the cloth spine is pilled, stretched and caked in dust. The pages themselves have held up only half decently: there aren’t a lot of tears, though the first 30 or so pages have some water damage, and most every page has been dogeared, had their bottom corners bent upwards, and have a crease near the spine where my sisters or I would fold them into place. Yet the most noticeable wear and tear is that a few sections of the book have fallen out completely, and the footband of the book has come unstuck from the spine, revealing more flimsy cardboard and brittle chunks of dry glue, the first 250-something pages of the book only hanging on by the front cover.

    Our copy is somewhat inhibiting to read, and it has to be handled gently to keep the pages from falling out, making it impossible to quickly hide it under the covers when reading with a flashlight past your bedtime. I can’t remember when exactly the book got to be in this sorry state, though it would be somewhere between 6 and 8 years ago. I’ve reread the entire series around 5 or 6 times, and each time I briefly consider purchasing another copy when I reach book 4, until the thought is dispelled by nostalgia. Plus, on recent rereads of The Goblet of Fire, when I reached page 245, I could just put the severed chunk I was reading from in my bag rather than toting around a heavy book. Convenient!

[The Knightly Hub - But Not] Spooky Old Tree

 Regard the image below for a moment.

There is nothing particularly valuable nor unique about this 2002 Bright and Early Books copy of The Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree. I would be lying outright if I told you that when I held up Stan and Jan Berenstain’s book I saw the eyes of God discreetly printed on the pages. In fact, this particular cover is the second result on Google images. However, the value of this book is drawn from its imperfections. From the dents in the cover to the fading and misprints in the images, it’s something special. Each page is creased ever so slightly by thumbprints from countless readings in my very early years. In fact, despite my illiteracy, I managed to memorize the entire book simply because I heard my parents read it so many times. Despite all of this, the US $8.99 price tag remains almost perfectly intact on the back of the book. The price seems to have stayed pretty consistent over the years. Nowadays, I believe my fascination was drawn from the images rather than the story.

“Do they dare go up that twisty old stair?” 

“Yes. They dare.”

[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] Aesthetic Omens Part 1: Conflicting Opinions on Beautiful Warnings

     The primary objective of a nuclear waste warning marker is to deter future humans from intruding on the site, and to that end, many of the marker proposals, whether physical, symbolic, or cultural, aim to intimidate or unnerve their audience. Physical structures proposed for the Waste Isolation power plant feature purposeful asymmetry, such as the leaning spikes or the thorn field, or are built to purposefully inhibit use of the land, such as patches of rubble or a “black hole” field of land that discourages agriculture or travel over such a sun-absorptive plain. Yet these repulsing structures or images threaten a marker’s secondary objective, that of self-preservation. If a marker is visibly revolting, even a culture still aware of its purpose might seek to tear it down, and if a culture isn’t aware of its purpose, the markers are constructed to appear unsacred and insignificant, offering no incentive to keep them there. 

    Then, perhaps creating an aesthetically pleasing or visually compelling marker could counteract the possibility of its removal by unwelcoming institutions. Whether nuclear waste warning messages should have artistic intentions is a highly debated topic in the field of nuclear semiotics, and it certainly has its pros and cons. The Human interference task force report was still in the early stages of nuclear semiotics, so the question wasn’t given much detail, though they did argue that having some intrinsic aesthetic or educational purpose to the markers might discredit the marker’s portent of danger. Additionally, using artistic markers on the smaller scale-- pictographs and images artistically depicting nuclear waste rather than large-scale architecture-- might implore humans to excavate the site for curatorial or anthropological purposes, reading the signs as “there is art buried here” rather than “there are harmful materials buried here”. Jon Lomberg, of the members of the WIPP markers panel team B and a professional artist himself, urged against symbolic art for waste markers, firstly because art is ambiguous, and though it can be a powerful tool in nonverbal communication, the artistic intent is not always as clear as the art’s depictions themselves. As an example, he referenced how ancient cave paintings clearly depict animals and people, though offers little clue as to why they might have been created, other than simply to create art, which leads into his next counterpoint: art in itself is a purpose. Creating waste markers to be pieces of art might cause its future viewers to believe their purpose is creative expression, not that the art is simply a means to an end. Furthermore, it could attract tourists eager to see the site, encouraging business and settlement around the site, which could lead to more opportunities for inadvertent intrusion. 

    Yet there are many in the field of nuclear semiotics who recognize the potential benefits of aesthetic markers. David Givens, a member of the HITF debated that attractiveness could discourage future societies from destroying the markers, and furthermore, artistic representations of importance, “such as regularity of arrangement, amount of material, homogeneity of elements, regularity of shape, congruity, number of independent elements, symmetry, and degree of random-ness in distribution, show "impressive similarities'' among cultures”. Art history is notoriously adept at preserving cultural memory. One of the members of the WIPP markers panel team A, Dieter Ast, stated “Beauty is conserved, ugliness discarded,” and that creating markers that instill awe in their audience might mitigate the possibility of their removal. 

    Additionally, one of the arguments against aesthetic designs could be construed in their favor; calling attention to the site may reinforce its meaning for a longer period of time, and tourism may even encourage future societies to monitor or protect the WIPP from intrusion. In fact, the Boston group of the WIPP futures panel modeled a scenario where a museum/theme park/permanent world’s fair à la EPCOT is built around the plant, and a fictional character, named Nickey Nuke (a little on the nose to be honest) preserves the memory of the site’s importance through education and entertainment accessible to the public. This was one of the team’s few scenarios in which they concluded no human intrusion should occur, and though it’s an extremely specific scenario, it models the possible benefits of creating the site to be appealing or attractive. 

    In the end, the stance of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant group was that an aesthetically attractive marker might incur unnecessary risk, or cause the warning to be misinterpreted or discredited. Another reasoning (briefly) given for this position was that using artistic platforms to create a marker would make it extremely difficult to establish any sort of international standard, which would be ideal in ensuring that the message is interpreted as intended (although the task of standardizing the designs from this many interdisciplinary groups is difficult on just a national scale, there is still much work to be done in coordinating any international directive). 

    Somewhat ironically, this lack of an international standard contributes to the fact that other nuclear waste warning projects worldwide don’t share the DOE’s general assumption that marker designs should be unappealing. In 2015, The National Agency for the Management of Radioactive Waste in France, or ANDRA, launched a call for art projects “Imagining the memory of radioactive waste storage centers for future generations", which has since become a recurring contest. A similar agency handling Dutch radioactive waste, COVRA, commissioned artist William Verstraeten to paint their facilities bright orange and create a series of photographs depicting nuclear decay for the interior of the building. The first project was for a (relatively) short term period of ten years, for the purpose of making the facilities understood and accepted by the public, and it seemed to work; they reported the public response to the facilities had gone from mistrustful to welcoming due to the project. Furthermore, independent artists, in national as well as international scenes, have been exploring solutions to the waste warning problem in their own work, creating a wider range of approaches and results than can be found in the DOE reports. These artistic techniques for conveying nuclear danger, as well as whether they can be considered successful, will be covered in a later post.

References

United States, Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation. Reducing the Likelihood of Future Human Activities That Could Affect Geologic High-level Waste Repositories. Columbus, Ohio, Government Printing Office, 1984. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6799619

[The Human Interference Task Force, formed in 1981, was the first real effort to create nuclear waste warning messages for the long-term future. Though the majority of their solutions have yet to be implemented, and the Yucca Mountain storage facility project (for which the report was originally intended) has indefinitely stalled, these ideas circa 1984 are the Nuclear Semiotics equivalent of The Old Testament, the original DOE proposals for long-term nuclear waste warning messages.]

Trauth, Kathleen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1993. https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf

[If the HITF report of 1984 is the Old Testament of Nuclear Semiotics, the Sandia report is the New Testament. It branches off of the ideas set into motion by the Task force, and presents some of the most circulated solutions in the field, such as hostile architecture and certain pictographs. Additionally, it took an interesting approach to diversifying its ideas by splitting its team into two focus groups; you’ll find the individual reports from each team as well as a general report here.]

Hora, Stephen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1991. https://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/cca/CCA_1996_References/Chapter%207/CREL3329.PDF [This is the final report of the Futures Panel for the WIPP project. It summarizes the teams' findings, methodology and conclusions, and in its appendix you'll find all four individual team reports.]

Codée, Hans D. K. “Give the Public Something, Something More Interesting than Radioactive Waste.” WM’03 Conference, Tucson, Arizona, February 23-27, 2003. https://xcdsystem.com/wmsym/archives//2003/pdfs/37.pdf 

[A conference paper by a representative of COVRA, the facility holding radioactive waste in The Netherlands, detailing the first ten years of their site and the effects of artistically interesting facilities on their public appreciation.]

Choi, Harry. “Nuclear Semiotics.” Medium, Oct 24, 2019. https://medium.com/@mhscho0096/nuclear-semiotics-c10c434a0407 Accessed Nov 14, 2020.

[A more mainstream news source overview of Nuclear Semiotics, though I’d highly recommend this one over other similar sources, as it tends to cover a wide variety of solutions concisely yet thoughtfully, explaining why a certain method may not work in a comprehensive, almost narrative fashion.]

“Preserve and Transmit Memory.” ANDRA, 2018. https://www.andra.fr/nos-expertises/conserver-et-transmettre-la-memoire Accessed Nov 14, 2020. 

Anderson, Kelli. Designing for Deep Time: How Art History is Used to Mark Nuclear Waste. Pratt Institute, Master’s Thesis, 2005. http://www.kellianderson.com/MSthesis.pdf 

Joyce, Rosemary A. The Future of Nuclear Waste: What Art and Archaeology Can Tell Us About Securing the World’s Most Hazardous Material. New York, NY, Oxford University Press, 2020. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=R8XLDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=art+in+nuclear+waste+warning+messages&ots=Xj5VaDwT9W&sig=yZVml2hgfFBG-rBRLCNV1nLggqE#v=onepage&q=art%20in%20nuclear%20waste%20warning%20messages&f=false 

Carpenter, Ele. “The Nuclear Anthropocene.” Fluid Encounters Between Art and Science Conference, Umea, Sweden, October 2-3, 2014. https://www.academia.edu/10113931/Ele_Carpenter_The_Nuclear_Anthropocene 

[The Knightly Hub] A Discussion: Crusade Documentation & Research

 Introduction:

    The very nature of the Crusades as a series of military escapades implies that records exist, detailing the events of each whether by a state or by an individual involved. Along these same lines, each organization which arose around this time was bound to be recorded at least once. Whether these records survive, however, is an entirely different matter which leads to gaps in information and thus, interpretation. Where there is room for interpretation, there is also room for more outlandish theories that gradually slip into the realm of conspiracy. 

    Such speculation has existed since the dawn of the Crusading era to some degree or another, as it is unreasonable to assume all literate members of society were constantly and fully aware of the precise details of each distant battle. The presence of gaps and speculation also leads into different derivatives of lesser known stories which can all be equally valuable, although there is generally one favored telling of each history. Such is the case with the Knights of Saint Lazarus, as is mentioned in my personal telling linked here. Even the Knights Templar, one of the most documented orders, has significant gaps in the minutiae of its history due to the sheer vastness of its influence. Evidence of Templar strongholds has been found in North America with little to no documentation of how or why those artifacts came to rest there. Again, with an organization so influential and known even to particularly avoidant scholars and casual movie goers, it invites conspiracy.

Conspiracy:

    Before I begin to list particular scholars and whatnot, I would like to elaborate a bit upon my personal beliefs when it comes to conspiracy theorists and the validity of their work. If this segment seems uninteresting or irrelevant, feel free to skip to the next subtitle.

    I find certain aspects of conspiracy regarding the Knights Templar and related topics interesting. Do I believe every piece of information that arises from such discussions? Absolutely not. I tend to stick as exclusively as I can to interpretations of events that reoccur throughout different official/scholarly texts and, generally, have the strongest and most convincing place in an overall timeline. However, the vast majority of history seems inane when isolated, and history is often proven wrong and altered. Thus, I find it difficult to ignore this aspect of study completely.

    The Conversation  does a decent job explaining exactly how many popular connections formed between the Knights Templar and other exclusive organizations. In this article, it is stated that the Freemason-Templar connection first arose after Andrew Ramsey, a Frenchman, referred to the Knights Hospitallers (St. John) as the ancestors of the Freemasons. This was easily disproven, as the Knights Hospitaller were still very much in existence, and thus he altered his claim to be the Knights Templar. Knights, much like modern-day soldiers, fascinated many individuals who were unable to claim the title for themselves. Fiction surrounding the Knights Templar specifically can be dated as early as the 13th century, where an associating with the Holy Grail was popularized (click here for the true downfall of the Templars). This, of course, is why I personally cannot become too invested in such theories, as many are traced directly to fictional texts. Although, as with many things, it is somewhat fun to become lost among more intriguing stories when the reality of organizations such as the Templars can be almost painfully sobering.

Early Histories:

    Clear documentation of the Crusades is fairly limited, although historians began to interpret and publish their own recollections as soon as the zeal began to die. Fordham University provides an incredibly comprehensive list of sources from the contemporary era, linked here. This particular site also has directories to other topics and eras for those interested. A book I recently purchased is the third volume of Vertot's Hospitaller series: The History of the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem: Styled Afterwards, the Knights of Rhodes, and at Present, the Knights of Malta. I found this text particularly intriguing as it was originally dated 1726. The particular edition I have acquired is a 2017 UK reprint of the original text from the publisher Forgotten Books (ISBN 978-1-331-27248-9 if one wishes to uncover it for them self).

Modern Study:

    Modern study has changed drastically due to the internet, giving ordinary people access to countless rare and unique texts, but in the circles of historians there are certainly texts which stand out among the rest. In the following list I will include a compilation of bibliographies outside of my own which name influential novels and a few of my favorite sources outside of what I have already mentioned.

Andrew Hold, Ph.D. - Historians Rank the "Most Important" Books on the Crusades - A list I will certainly return to and attempt to judge on my own in the future.

ThoughtCo. - 8 Best Books on the Knights Templar - Based on a brief scan of the contents of these novels, I have to agree that these books are certainly among the more reliable. 

Jones, Dan. The Templars: The Rise and Spectacular Fall of God’s Holy Warriors. Penguin Publishing Group; 19 September 2017. (428 Pages). - This is certainly not the most scholarly of texts, as it is very much written to be used for pleasure. The portrayal of the figures mentioned and their descriptions in the novel's appendix is remarkably accurate, although it is worth noting that Jones, again, anglicizes the majority of the names within the novel for readability (this is not a complaint, he even discloses such in the introduction).

Medieval Warfare - Monastic Orders: Knights Templar, Knights Hospitaller and others - I am only linking to this specific page because it relates most strongly to what I have already covered, but there are many other topics explored from the Medieval times (armor, torture, life in general, etc). So far, everything I have read is remarkably accurate and I highly recommend giving this site a read.

ABSOLUTE MUST READ (or at least scan)!!! 

In relation to Fordham University's sourcebook, here is a bibliography by Paul Halsall (18 years of updates!) - https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/crusades-bibliography.pdf - This mentions the Encyclopedia Britannica as an incredibly trustworthy resource, and I must agree although the articles can be rather vague and useless without a subscription to view the full contents. At the very least, I recommend it as a beneficial starting ground for determining the validity of other sources, but certainly not a stopping point for the general exploration of a topic.

[This Place is Not a Place of Honor] The Futures Panel: Writing Sci-Fi on the Government Dime

 The comprehensive report created by Sandia National Laboratories in 1993 was and still remains one of the foremost studies on nuclear waste warning markers. It utilized guidelines and research done by the HITF in 1984, though the iconic hostile architecture design proposals, tiered system of information delivery, and infamous written waste warning (This place is not a place of honor etc.) all arrived from that effort to prevent long-term human intrusion on the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Up to now, when we’ve discussed the Sandia Report we’ve been mostly examining the proposals and guidelines put forth by the markers panel. However, another crucial aspect of the process, one which informed the markers panel to create their innovative and adaptable solutions, was the preliminary “futures panel”, whose task it was to chart future methods of human intrusion into the WIPP, examine the probability of various types of intrusion, and model scenarios for the development of human societies over the next ten millennia. This is where we find science fiction bleeding into nuclear semiotics. 

    The Futures Panel, like the HITF and the markers panel, was composed of a wide variety of disciplines: physics, social science, law, science fiction, climatology, and futures research (a deeply intriguing field of study I hadn’t heard of until now) to name a few. They hired 16 consultants, and to fully exhaust every possible scenario, divided them into 4 groups of 4 based on geographical location, each group containing experts in different fields. Due to this split, the panel ended up with a variety of methodologies carried out by each team and differentiating factors for intrusion projected by each one. Specified in the issue statement was the need for broad-based knowledge and creativity in the projections for future societies, and a call for “scenario analysis” of future civilizations, and the product was a vast, interdisciplinary range of detailed, vaguely science fiction-sounding concepts. 

    The Futures Panel first determined the different modes of inadvertent intrusion into the WIPP. Some are what you might already know or expect, such as archaeological or construction-based excavation of a site, drilling for oil, mining, or water impoundment, though a few of these methods may appear less obvious. The Boston team raised the possibility of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant being reopened for the storage of additional waste materials, and a few of the teams realized inadvertent intrusion could occur from digging transportation tunnels. 

    They then examined potential influencing factors which could lead a society to forget the danger of the site, misinterpret or ignore markers, and pursue these methods of intrusion. All four teams agreed that technological advancement or regression would be a great determining factor in future intrusion, and the patterns of technology might switch back and forth in a variety of ways. The Boston team argued that both technological innovation and stagnation might both increase the likelihood of interference, as more advanced and less dangerous mining tech might increase the incentive to drill on a site, and technological stagnation might promote excavation when resources are scarce. The Washington A team, on the other hand, identified a scenario in which technology stagnates due to 100% efficiency energy recycling, which would make intrusion for resources unnecessary and unlikely. 

    Additionally, population growth would create incentives to excavate the site for potential resources. Economic growth was of foremost concern to only the Washington B team, which argued that other factors such as a need for resources and the industrialization of the future would vary based on wealth, and that trade might cause less technologically advanced communities to have access to drilling technology, without knowledge of the risks drilling at a site would pose. As expected, a lack of awareness would be key, and improper records would largely increase the probability of intrusion, especially if there is only partial memory of the WIPP, as an understanding of the site’s location but not its dangers could incentivize archeologists or salvagers. Two of the four teams asked for consideration of not marking the site whatsoever in order to discourage deliberate exploration by “treasure-hunters”, though the Markers team concluded from their overall recommendations that possibilities of inadvertent intrusion through mining might increase if the WIPP is left unmarked. 

    The last influencing factor is government control, something guaranteed by all four teams, as cultural transitions caused by political change would discontinue the perpetuating information or mythology surrounding the WIPP and cause markers to become lost in translation. Strangely enough, three out of four of the teams modelled specific scenarios in which New Mexico secedes from the United States, two of which predict its annexation by Mexico. 

    These established factors were displayed in a number of scenarios, the variety of which is too great to cover in a single post, but I’ve cherry picked some of the more influential or intriguing ones. 

    The Boston team presented ten highly detailed “point scenarios”, and for each one determined the probability of each of its most important features occurring. A scenario titled “Mysticism and Religion- 2091” projected that an anti-science cult would dig into the site to discover alternate realities and the meaning of life, describing the scenario in a notably detailed style, even explaining the ideologies of the cult and the names of several priests. Of course, the probability is astronomically low that the scenario would take place word for word, down to the religious epiphanies and childhood experiences of a cultist named Senoj, though this scenario echoes some concerns raised against Sebeok’s atomic priesthood, in that the propagation of warnings surrounding nuclear waste may lead some to misinterpret it as religious significance. 

    Also created by the Boston team, “A Feminist World- 2091” presented an extremist female-dominated society, which disregards all science from the 20th century as byproducts of male arrogance, and dismisses the warnings because they discovered they were all created by white middle aged men. The writing arguably villainizes feminism as a movement to reject all men and all scientific knowledge associated with men, rather than it being a push for equality between genders, though this is beyond the scope of my analysis. One thing to gain from the exploration of this scenario is that it does highlight some biases of the WIPP team, and in the conclusions section, the Boston team proposed consulting more women or members of ethnic minorities. 

    A “seesaw scenario” in which technology fluxes between advancement and regression was deemed one of the most dangerous by the Southwest team. In this particular model, an energy crisis after the exhaustion of fossil fuels causes machinery to become unusable, and plunges society into a technological dark age. Overtime, the languages we use today fall out of practice (though, in an interesting detail, they are maintained exclusively by the scholars of religious institutions). Society builds back up to around the level of the 18th or 19th century, until old machinery is rediscovered which is deemed to be much more efficient, and the search for a source of energy to power them up again causes people to drill for oil in New Mexico and eventually breach the WIPP. The rise, fall, and remembrance of technology is a common device in many science fiction stories, and it’s one the Southwest team argued would be both likely and dangerous

    The Washington A team centered their research around the availability of resources in the future, and presented four possible scenarios. The fourth is presented as an optimistic best-case scenario, and many of their recommendations aim to spur societal change in that direction. The ideal that population growth and technological advancement regardless of environmental consequence is disregarded, and humans enter an era of constant harmony and coexistence with the environment. The spare technological efforts are to develop renewable energy to the point of 100% efficiency, and the population remains stagnant to reduce stress on the environment. In this scenario, there would be no need to drill for oil, as no energy shortage or demand is present. It’s a lofty goal, though it does provide a beneficial end goal to their recommendations, one of which is to focus efforts on propagating renewable energy technologies around the site such as solar panels or wind turbines, so there will be no future energy hunger.  

    The Washington B team did not model a highly specific scenario like the other teams, though their “general” projections were arguably the most narrow of all 4 teams, notably affixed to the idea that capitalism is going to be a constant in all human society for the next ten millennia. The majority of their report detailed the projections for the GDP per capita and population growth. Inflation of oil costs would be the most dangerous possibility for the future and the most likely incentive for intrusion, though they argued the lowest possible scenario would be a rejection or erosion of Western powers. If such a “social shock” were to cut people off from Capitalist Western civilization, it would either be due to fanatic religious extremists forcing people to reject capitalist ideologies, or due to some unknown disease afflicting the mind or emotions which would alter human behavior to inflict such an unprecedented “civilization break”. I am by no means exaggerating; these two situations are their only modelled instances in which society would de-Westernize, and of course, both were deemed unlikely. 

    It’s apparent some of these projections are pretty tongue-and-cheek, as the Boston team prefaced their “point scenarios” section with, “Even though we have written the scenarios with an occasional attempt at humor, they have a serious purpose.” Though, as these researchers emphasize, just because a scenario is wildly improbable does not mean it can’t be useful. The same result of intrusion could result from a vast number of societies, and 10,000 years from now there are bound to be aspects of society which sound absurd to us today. Absurd fictional models of the future may be just what we need to provoke creative solutions for an existentially long-term problem, and as a result, their suggestions were relied upon and referenced often in the markers panel report. 

References:

Trauth, Kathleen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1993. https://prod-ng.sandia.gov/techlib-noauth/access-control.cgi/1992/921382.pdf

Hora, Stephen, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Expert Judgment on Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1991. https://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/cca/CCA_1996_References/Chapter%207/CREL3329.PDF
[This is the final report of the Futures Panel for the WIPP project. It summarizes the teams' findings, methodology and conclusions, and in its appendix you'll find all four individual team reports.]

Gordon, Theodore, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Inadvertent Intrusion into WIPP: Some Potential Futures. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
[The Future Panels Boston team report. It takes a double sided approach, offering general suggestions for what could cause a breach in the WIPP, then adds 10 highly specific narrative scenarios. I would argue that out of the four teams, this one explores the most absurdly creative possibilities.]

Benford, Gregory, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Ten Thousand Years of Solitude? On Inadvertent Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Project Repository. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
https://inis.iaea.org/collection/NCLCollectionStore/_Public/22/064/22064107.pdf
[The Futures Panel Southwest team report. Their research revolved around a few predicted patterns of technological advancement or regression and models at least one highly specific society for each pattern.]

Chapman Duane, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. Inadvertent Intrusion into the WIPP Repository: Report of Washington Area Team A to the Sandia National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
[The Futures Panel Washington A team report. Their focus was placed on availability of energy resources in the future, and modelled 4 general possibilities for technological and societal development due to the society's access to fuel.]

Glickman, Theodore, et al. United States, Department of Energy, Sandia National Laboratories. The Report of the Washington Area Second Team on Future Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the WIPP Repository. Albuquerque, New Mexico, Government Printing Office, 1990.
[The Futures Panel Washington B team report. It's mostly concerned with the state of the economy 10,000 years into the future and how the market's demands might incite intrusion onto the WIPP in search for oil.]

Glenn, Jerome C. “Introduction to the Futures Research Methods Series.” The Millennium Project, Futures Research Methodology—V3.0, April 30 2009. 

Benford, Gregory. Deep Time: How Humanity Communicates Across Millennia. New York, NY: Harper Perennial, 2000. 
[Gregory Benford is a science fiction author who consulted on the Southwest team of the Futures Panel; his first nonfiction book, Deep Time, explores various ways in which humanity has attempted to send messages to future societies, and it recounts his experiences working on the WIPP project. It provides an intriguing personal perspective that's hard to come by between cut and dry government report sources, and you really get insight into the thought process of the panelists, plus his background as an author contributes to its readability.]

[The Knightly Hub] The Hospitallers of Saint Lazarus: The Leper Knights

     Finally, we begin delving into more obscure territory as we fill out our historical map. I would like to point out the "History" tab, where I am attempting to group these more minor Orders together to make them easier to locate in the future. While the Hospitallers of Saint Lazarus can be considered as a more major military organization, information on future projects shall become more and more sparse --- "History" will be extremely beneficial for locating and connecting information. 

    Onwards.

The Hospitallers of Saint Lazarus: The Leper Knights

    The Knights of Saint Lazarus may not reside in the pit of unknown, but even placing one foot in the cusp leads to significant gaps in information. The birth of this organization alone is heavily convoluted due to an absence of proper documentation for many of its early years. The common tale goes a little bit like this:

    During the 1130s, the order arose just outside the walls of Jerusalem, close to the St Lazarus postern (a small, inconspicuous door in a city's fortification), as a hospital for those who had contracted leprosy. In 1142, land within Jerusalem was given to the "Church of Saint Lazarus" in order to provide a more secure location to care for the sick. They were certainly not the first organization of their kind, although they claimed to be a continuation of past legacies in order to appear older and more respectable. 

    The order saw an influx of former sergeants and knights from various neighboring organizations, including the Knights of Saint John and Templars who had contracted leprosy during the thirteenth century, as neither group wanted to risk further infection (although, it is worth noting that the Knights of Saint John never made an explicit rule that lepers should/could defect, as they felt capable of handling the sick by themselves). Due to this, the Knights of Saint Lazarus are often depicted as a sort of diseased love-hate child between the Templars and Knights of Saint John. However, key differences exist, especially in regard to the hospitals of Saint John v Saint Lazarus. The Hospitallers of Saint John took the sick in as temporary additions to nurse them back to health, but those taken by the Hospitallers of Saint Lazarus were oft condemned to a permanent, secluded residency due to the nature of Leprosy. Once under the care of the OSLJ, individuals were treated as a member of the greater house and referred to as "brother" or "sister," subject to the same rules as their caretakers. Often, the master of the order was chosen from among the lepers. Despite this, the first master whose name has not been lost to time, Bartholomew, is suggested to have been a Templar who abandoned his original order to bask in the glory of being a minister for the terminally ill. 

    The connection with the Templars grows ever stronger when one considers that, after the Templars were forced to give up Acre by Saladin, the Knights of Saint Lazarus took over former Templar claims and refortified them. During the war of Saint Sabas (a conflict between Italian city-states that pitted the Knights of Saint John and the Templars against each other), the grandmaster of the Templars even took refuge with the OSLJ. Finally, in 1260 it was absolutely required that all leprous Templars defect to the Knights of Saint Lazarus. 

    Although it was pulling from incredibly successful pools of warriors, the sickly Knights of Saint Lazarus were not particularly successful on the battlefield. They were often forced into precarious positions, separated from the main, protective body of their allies, due to their disease. Their will to continue battling is something worth admiring, but nevertheless, they were often the most severely diminished force on the battlefield. Their introduction was largely out of necessity since manpower had begun to dwindle with the fall of the overall crusading spirit, and they were far from a first choice. The Knights of Saint Lazarus finally followed the example of similar organizations at the time and abandoned Jerusalem in 1291. 

    As they gradually shifted to a military order alone, the Knights of Saint Lazarus were deemed rather useless. They began to leech off of Christian charity organizations until, in 1490, Pope Innocent VIII attempted to pass their properties to the Hospitallers of Saint John, who had little interest in OSLJ holdings outside of Germany. Despite this, the Order of Saint Lazarus was gradually reinstated as an organization, facing only minor conflict in regaining their claims from the Knights of Saint John, who had decided to cling to earlier declarations to preserve their power. The Knights of Saint Lazarus still exist today as a charity organization against poverty, disease, and intolerance.

Further Reading:

Friedman, Matti. “After 700 years, the Knights of St. Lazarus return to Jerusalem… riding electric buggies.” The Times of Israel. © 2020 The Times of Israel , All Rights Reserved. 18 April 2013. Accessed 3 November 2020. <https://www.timesofisrael.com/after-700-years-the-knights-of-st-lazarus-return-to-jerusalem-riding-electric-buggies/>.

Marcombe, David. Leper Knights: The Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, C.1150-1544. Boydell Press; 7 May 2003. (342 Pages). 

Moeller, Charles. “Order of St. Lazarus of Jerusalem.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Copyright © 2020 by Kevin Knight. 1910. Accessed 3 November 2020. <https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09096b.htm>.

Schrader, Helena P. “The Forgotten Military Order: The Knights of St. Lazarus.” Balian d'Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Copyright © Helena P. Schrader. All rights reserved. Publication Unknown. Accessed 3 November 2020. <https://www.defenderofjerusalem.com/knights-of-st.-lazarus.html>.

Unknown. “The History of the Order (12th - 13th Centuries).” History. The Military and Hospitaller Order of Saint Lazarus of Jerusalem, Grand Priory in Canada

COPYRIGHT © 2020 - stlazarus.ca. Publication Unknown. Accessed 3 November 2020. <https://www.stlazarus.ca/content/oslj-history-12-13-centuries.php>.

Official Sites: http://ordersaintlazarususa.com/

https://www.stlazarus.ca/main.php?LANG=en