Dave; Valerio, you’ve just come back from East Africa, tell me about it…

Valerio; I went to northern Kenya to a place called Koobi Fora, very close to the Ethiopian border, travelling with a military escort because bandits infest the area. I met Louise Leakey there, the anthropologist, who showed me her research camp - a fantastic place with a wealth of fossils I’ve never seen before. There were whole petrified fossil animals just lying on the ground, or half buried in ancient sediments. Once when I went to the showers I found myself face to face with a hyena. The night before our cooks had butchered a goat and she was probably attracted by the smell of the blood. It was a thrilling moment… I flattened myself against the wall and waited until she went by.

Then I went to Loyangalani and visited a village of the Elmolo tribe, the smallest nation in Africa, with a population of only a few hundred. I asked the Chief for permission to visit their sanctuary on a small island on Lake Turkana. When we got close to the island’s shore the boat got stuck in the mud and couldn’t move in any direction. My guide said that I should jump out and pull the boat to shore. There were lots of crocodiles all around, but not too big, so I jumped in the water and started shaking the boat to loosen it. The guide was very calm so I figured there was no danger. At least it seemed so. Later when we went back to Loyangalani I was shown a photo of a giant crocodile, nine meters long, that had been killed a year or so before in exactly that spot. Impressive….

D; Before this you travelled to Mt Ararat. Were you searching for the Ark?

V; Far from it. I was following the traces of the Ten Thousand, famous in ancient history as the band of Greek mercenaries and described by an Athenian writer called Xenophon who left to posterity a complete and accurate diary called ‘Anabasis’. Mount Ararat, as in the myth of the Ark, doesn’t really exist and all those adventurers climbing its flanks are ‘Raiders of the Wrong Ark’.

D; Why?

V; It’s all based on a mistranslation. When the famous ‘Seventy’ translated the Bible into Greek for the Great Library at Alexandria, they read that Noah’s Ark, after forty days on the waters, landed ‘on the mountains of “r r t”’ (the original Aramaic doesn’t transcribe vowels, only consonants). Not knowing what vowels to put between these consonants, they choose the first, alpha or A, and made it ‘Ararat’. In fact it was Urartu, an archaic name of Armenia, lost in time at the point the Bible was being translated into Greek. The Bible continues that, after landing, Noah planted a vine, a plant that couldn’t grow on glaciers at 4000 or 5000 meters, while the foothills of Urartu, i.e. modern Kurdistan, are perfect. As I said: a mistranslation.

D; I read that you had some strange experiences with the weather in Israel’s Negev desert…

V; I worked in the Negev for five different archaeological expeditions, led by the Italian palaeontologist, Emmanuel Anati, who had pinpointed a mountain called Har Karkom. He felt the evidence found at this site could identify it as the real Mount Sinai of the Bible. The general environmental conditions of this place, some 30 km south of Mitzpe Ramon, are extreme. At one time in a 24-hour span we had a sand storm, then rain, hail and finally snow. We had to evacuate almost everyone working in the camp because the tents couldn’t protect them from the heavy rain or the snow. The area is also infested with a number of poisonous creatures such as scorpions and snakes. One night we were so cold we decided to start a campfire, but firewood was very scarce. To find some I went down the wadi and uprooted an old dry tamarisk tree, and carried it on my shoulder to the camp where I threw it on the fire. Immediately a very poisonous snake slid out of the tree roots and disappeared into the darkness. He was probably lethargic from the cold and was awoken by the heat. I could easily have been bitten since the roots of the tree were very close to my neck when I carried it. Lucky I wasn’t: if I had been bitten I had no more than 15 minutes to reach a hospital before I would have died.

D; You also nearly died in an Assyrian pyramid…

V; Yes, it was during my research on Xenophon’s Anabasis, which I mentioned earlier. We were at Nimrud, an ancient Assyrian city in northern Iraq, and I wanted to check if 400 men could really fit inside the step pyramid there, as Xenophon had described in his diary. I entered the pyramid, with my flashlight, to explore the interior, and, doing so, I disturbed a huge number of bats who started flapping their wings in a frenzy. They raised such a dense cloud of dust that it choked me and I realized I had only a few seconds to get outside without breathing. I managed to get out and my heart was beating wildly and my chest bursting. It was terribly claustrophobic.

D; One of my favourite journeys involved hiking across Mount Lykaion in the Greek Peloponnese and stumbling across the Roman city of Gortys, a jumble of ruins untouched by tourism. Have you had many experiences like this, where you have found yourself in places forgotten by the modern world?

V; Many times: one of my most memorable is at the top of Nemrut Dag in Turkey. There is the huge monumental tomb of King Antiochus of Commagene, still intact. Fourteen colossal statues guard the monument: seven looking east and seven looking west. Their enormous heads have crumbled over the centuries but they still seem to look at the setting sun or the rising. It is one of the most magical and impressive sites in the world. Sadly a recent restoration has ruined the eastern terrace: a real disaster.

D; If people are in search of a historically based adventure, that is, an adventure where the past can be felt and seen in the surroundings as keenly as the present, where might they best find it?

V; Go to the hill that faces the rock of Mycenae at sunset, as the setting sun bathes the great royal hall with red light. As you stand there, read the eleventh chant of the Odyssey, where Agamemnon describes to Ulysses in the Underworld how he and his companions were assassinated in that very hall as they returned from Troy. You will see the blood in the livid, scarlet light.

D; What the most memorable thing that has happened to you whilst travelling?

V; I was camping in eastern Anatolia near the Russian border and a young English girl asked to join us (we were two) because she had had bad experiences travelling alone in that territory. I accepted but soon after the man whose land we were camping on appeared and invited us for dinner. I had to accept, but when he started getting drunk he decided he wanted the girl. I said: if she says yes, fine, if she says no, it’s no. He became more and more insistent and aggressive. At the end I said: alright, you can have her but I want your daughter in exchange. He grew furious and threatened me with his knife. We where in a very isolated place and if he killed us nobody would ever know. I didn’t move or speak. In the end he calmed down and we became friends again. Nothing happened. If I had shown weakness or fear it could have been much worse.

D; And the thing you’d like to forget?

V; I was very young and I was travelling in a dangerous area of the Middle East and I had a gun with me. I was cleaning it and was sure it was empty but it went off, accidentally. Nothing actually happened, but it could have been much worst.

D; You were arrested in Northern Syria. When, what were you doing there, and why were you arrested?

V; It was during a scientific expedition and I was taking photos in a forbidden area just over the Turkish border, because I wanted to document my theory. I was arrested by Turkish soldiers and kept under custody for 5 or 6 hours until the commander came back. When he realized the reason for my transgression he became very interested in my research and wanted to keep talking to me!

D; What’s the most memorable natural sight you’ve seen?

V; The five waterfalls one on top of the other in the island of La Reunion in the Indian Ocean. It is so beautiful that it doesn’t seem real. It looks like a film set.

D; And the most memorable man-made sight?

V; The tomb of King Antiochus of Commagene on Nemrut Dag in Eastern Anatolia that I mentioned before. Before the restoration, of course.

D; How do you most like to move, on foot, car, camel, boat…

V; On foot, but the problem is time. Walking is great but you need a week to cover 60 miles.

D; Is there any piece of equipment that you take on every expedition with you?

V; My hunting knife. It’s a gift from an old friend.

D; What do you look for in an ideal travelling companion?

V; My best friend Giorgio; he doesn’t know what fear is. He’s never tired, never nervous, and never tense.

D; I’d like your opinion on…Where is the sight of Eden?

V; Eden was our planet before the expansion of mankind.

D; Where is the sight of Atlantis?

V; Atlantis never existed. Not even Aristoteles believed in it. It was a collage of different traditions concerning lost civilizations and natural disasters, and possibly rumours among ancient mariners who might have stumbled across America.

D; What happened to the army of Cambysses that disappeared in the Sahara?

V; Nobody knows and we must accept that the tale of Herodotus is partly fantasy, probably transmitted by Egyptian priests who hated the Persians. And he wanted really to demonstrate that hubris (arrogance) brings ruin.

D; What did Alexander ask of the Siwan oracle?

V; He asked first if all the assassins of his father had been killed or if somebody survived, but we could imagine also that he might have asked another question, more intimate and personal: if he could defeat the invincible enemy: death.

D; Where is Alexander buried?

V; In Alexandria where the Latin cemetery is now. An Italian archaeologist, Achille Adriani, discovered elements of the corridor (dromos) that led to the burial chamber

D; What other mysteries would you like to stay mysteries, and why?

V; All of history is partially a mystery because it has a chaotic component that cannot be understood or explained. We tend to search for the ‘truth’ but we know that we will never reach it.