SKULL TOWER

The Skull Tower is a stone monument, embedded with human skulls that was constructed by soldiers of the Ottoman Empire after the Battle of Cegar in 1809.
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The Battle of Cegar, (also called the Battle of Kamenica) was a conflict during the First Serbian Uprising in the Sanjak of Smederevo (an Ottoman administrative division) between the Serbian Revolutionaries and Ottoman forces on Cegar hill near the city of Nis in Serbia.
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Before the battle, the Serbian Revolutionaries had constructed six large defensive positions to force the Ottoman’s defending from the Nis fortress to capitulate, but the Ottoman’s used the negotiations to delay the conflict in time for 20,000 reinforcements from Rumelia.
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The battle lasted a whole day, with fierce hand-to-hand fighting resulting in thousands of losses on both sides and concluding in the Serbian Revolutionaries being forced to retreat in defeat to the town of Deligrad.
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As a warning to further revolutionaries in the region, the Ottomans collected the heads from the Serbian dead and peeled off the skin.

The heads were stuffed with straw and sent to the Ottoman sultan, Mahmud II at the Imperial Palace in Istanbul to celebrate the victory.
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The skulls were then returned to Nis and built into a 4.5-metre-tall tower, embedded on all sides with over 950 skulls across 14 rows.

With the Ottoman withdrawal in 1878, the Royal Serbian Army searched the town for the missing skulls,
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finding some buried nearby and one found embedded deep inside the tower walls. The tower became a monument to Serbian resistance and was capped with a roof baldachin topped with a cross to honour the fallen dead.
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This was followed by the construction of a chapel in 1892 around the tower, which now contains 58 of the skulls embedded in the tower walls.

In 1948, the Skull Tower and the chapel enclosing it were declared Cultural Monuments of Exceptional
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Importance and was placed under the protection of the Socialist Republic of Serbia as a site of Serb pilgrimage.
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More from History

**Thread on Bravery of Sikhs**
(I am forced to do this due to continuous hounding of Sikh Extremists since yesterday)

Rani Jindan Kaur, wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh had illegitimate relations with Lal Singh (PM of Ranjit Singh). Along with Lal Singh, she attacked Jammu, burnt - https://t.co/EfjAq59AyI


Hindu villages of Jasrota, caused rebellion in Jammu, attacked Kishtwar.

Ancestors of Raja Ranjit Singh, The Sansi Tribe used to give daughters as concubines to Jahangir.


The Ludhiana Political Agency (Later NW Fronties Prov) was formed by less than 4000 British soldiers who advanced from Delhi and reached Ludhiana, receiving submissions of all sikh chiefs along the way. The submission of the troops of Raja of Lahore (Ranjit Singh) at Ambala.

Dabistan a contemporary book on Sikh History tells us that Guru Hargobind broke Naina devi Idol Same source describes Guru Hargobind serving a eunuch
YarKhan. (ref was proudly shared by a sikh on twitter)
Gobind Singh followed Bahadur Shah to Deccan to fight for him.


In Zafarnama, Guru Gobind Singh states that the reason he was in conflict with the Hill Rajas was that while they were worshiping idols, while he was an idol-breaker.

And idiot Hindus place him along Maharana, Prithviraj and Shivaji as saviours of Dharma.
Thank you so much to the incredible @gregjenner and his team for having me on "You're Dead to Me" and to @kaekurd for being so hilarious and bringing Gilgamesh the restaurant into my life!

Here’s a thread of some of the stuff referenced in the podcast for those interested


First of all, what even is cuneiform?

It’s a writing system from the ancient Middle East, used to write several languages like Sumerian and Akkadian. Cuneiform signs can stand for whole words or syllables. Here’s a little primer of its evolution
https://t.co/7CVjLCHwkS


What kinds of texts was cuneiform used to write?

Initially, accounting records and lists.

Eventually, literature, astronomy, medicine, maps, architectural plans, omens, letters, contracts, law collections, and more.


Texts from the Library of Ashurbanipal, who ruled the ancient Assyrian empire when it was at its largest in the 7th century BCE, represent many of the genres of cuneiform texts and scholarship.

Here’s a short intro to the library via @opencuneiform https://t.co/wjnaxpMRrC


The Library of Ashurbanipal has a complicated modern and ancient history, which you can read about in this brilliant (and open access) book by Prof @Eleanor_Robson

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