National Geographic - February 2022

02.2022

NOTRE DAME
REBUILDING AN ICON

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FURTHER FEBRUARY 2022

CONTENTS On the Cover

During preparation for
a faithful restoration of
Notre Dame Cathedral in
Paris, white canopies pro-
tect gaping wounds left by
the devastating 2019 fire.

TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE

PROOF EXPLORE

17
THE BIG IDEA
8 24
On the Trail
A Family’s Valor of Julius Caesar ADVENTURE
With the timeless We might imagine
look of tintypes to meeting the Roman Water Garden
bind the past and emperor face-to-face— The Mekong River is
present, a photogra- but how do we know home to rafts of water
pher pays tribute to what he actually lilies—and, increasingly,
the armed forces looked like? plastic pollution. The
members in his family. National Geographic
BY MARY BEARD Society is helping fund
PHOTOGRAPHS BY research on the issue.
BREAKTHROUGHS
RASHOD TAYLOR BY RACHEL NG; PHOTO-
Scat Scan Discovery
Scientists could iden- GRAPH BY KHÁNH PHAN
tify beetle fossils as a
new species because
they were preserved
so well in 230-million-
year-old … feces.

BY HICKS WOGAN

ALSO THROUGH THE LENS

A Shrew’s Brain The Conflict Zone
Mulch From Coffee? Ugandan villagers’
clashes with chimps
raise tricky questions
about conservation
and coexistence.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS

BY RONAN DONOVAN

F E B R U A R Y | CONTENTS

F E AT U R E S Notre Dame The Adapters Crops and Climate
After the Fire Cichlids in Lake The toll that climate
The cathedral was still Tanganyika could be change takes on food
smoldering in April poster fish for diversity, crops deserves a micro-
2019 as French leaders exhibiting many sizes, scopically close look.
vowed to rebuild it— colors, and behaviors.
by 2024. As restoration TEXT AND IMAGES BY
proceeds, unrivaled BY N ATA S H A DA LY
access allowed National ROBERT DASH
Geographic to witness PHOTOGRAPHS BY
the efforts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 102
ANGEL FITOR
BY ROBERT KUNZIG Sudan’s Reckoning
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 72 A new generation dis-
PHOTOGRAPHS BY covers a proud past and
A Climb for History faces an unsure future.
TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE An all-Nepali team pre-
vails on the world’s sec- BY KRISTIN ROMEY
ART BY FERNANDO G. ond highest mountain.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY
B A P T I S TA BY FREDDIE WILKINSON
NICHOLE SOBECKI
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 36 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 80
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . P. 110

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F E B R U A R Y | FROM THE EDITOR

Deciding What

HISTORIC

MONUMENTS to Preserve—and How

BY SUSAN GOLDBERG

CULTURAL HERITAGE sites are a city to rubble. As Dresden, then in East Since its principal con-
nonrenewable resource. When they Germany, slowly rebuilt after the war, struction from 1163 to 1350,
disappear, they’re gone forever, a loss the Frauenkirche remained in ruins. Notre Dame Cathedral
akin to the extinction of species. But after German reunification, the repeatedly has been dam-
church was reconstructed using many aged and repaired, includ-
Today architectural and archaeologi- of its original stones, as a statement of ing desecration during
cal heritage sites are being destroyed or peace and harmony. the French Revolution and
imperiled at an alarming rate. They’re major restoration in the
threatened by rising seas (Venice), Berlin’s Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial mid-1800s. On April 15, 2019,
pollution (the Taj Mahal), overtourism Church, better known as the Gedächt- the landmark’s roof caught
(Angkor Wat), encroaching develop- niskirche, also fell to bombing but met fire (above). After 15 hours
ment (the Pyramids at Giza), conflict a different fate. Its spire has been left a ablaze, the cathedral’s spire
(Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra)… ruin on purpose, to be what Germans had collapsed, most of its
call a mahnmal—a “warning monu- roof was destroyed, and its
And by accidents. ment” against war and destruction. upper walls were severely
In this issue, we explore the hercu- damaged. Work on the
lean efforts to rebuild the roof and spire Like the Frauenkirche, Notre Dame site began quickly; even
of Notre Dame Cathedral, part of the is being rebuilt as close as possible to the COVID-19 pandemic
Banks of the Seine UNESCO World Heri- how it was before, including using the caused only a two-month
tage site in Paris. Before it was wracked original, toxic metal—lead—for the delay. Architects have said
by fire in spring 2019, the landmark roof. That choice was controversial, the project is on track to be
drew some 12 million visitors a year. as future choices are bound to be in completed in 2024.
We’ll take you behind the scenes of the the debate about how to restore and
rebuilding, through the work of pho- maintain historic buildings.
tographer Tomas van Houtryve, writer
Robert Kunzig, and artist Fernando We at National Geographic don’t
Baptista. You’ll see debris cleared, chap- claim to have the “right” answers on
els restored, statuary saved. preservation; there may not even be
You’ll also confront thorny ques- right answers. What we will do is con-
tions about cultural heritage sites. As tinue to monitor the care of cultural
Kunzig writes, “What part of the past heritage sites, as a matter of significance
is worth preserving and transmitting to humanity’s past, present, and future.
to posterity? What duty do we owe
the creations of our ancestors, what Thank you for reading National
strength and stability do we draw Geographic. j
from their presence—and when, on
the contrary, do they become a lead
weight, preventing us from projecting
ourselves into the future?”
Humankind has answered that
query differently in different places.
In Dresden, Germany, the Frauen-
kirche was an 18th-century baroque
church whose bell-shaped dome was
a landmark. In February 1945, one of
the most destructive Allied bombing
attacks of World War II killed an esti-
mated 25,000 people and reduced the

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Photographer Rashod
Taylor’s cousin Valerie
Lewis—at right, with
her parents, Ernest and
Modester—is one of
Taylor’s relatives who’ve
served in the U.S. military
dating to World War II.

8 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

PROOF

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
VOL. 241 NO. 2

A FAMILY’S
VALOR

LOOKING PHOTOGRAPHS BY
AT THE RA S H O D TAY LO R
EARTH
FROM Evocative tintype images create
E V E RY a visual link between present and
POSSIBLE past in a tribute to one family’s
ANGLE history in the U.S. armed forces.

FEBRUARY 2022 9

PROOF

Ernest Lewis (top left) saw two daughters deploy with the Army: Valerie (bottom left) to Afghanistan and Iraq, Vanessa Lewis
Williams (top right) to Iraq and Qatar. Here his daughter Melissa’s children, Ania and Eric Jr. (bottom right), wear military
caps belonging to their father, Eric Kelsey, a Navy combat veteran.
10 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Vanessa is now maintenance supervisor in the 848th Engineer Company (Sapper), a Georgia Army National Guard unit
located in Douglasville. She says it’s “true about being a female in the military facing discrimination and favoritism for your
sex and color,” but she’s proud to be a servicewoman.

F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 2 11

PROOF

Taylor’s great-uncle
Lecky Taylor served in
the Army during World
War II and is buried at
the Marietta National
Cemetery in Georgia.
12 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 2 13

PROOF

THE BACKSTORY

A PHOTOGRAPHER TRAINS HIS LENS ON FAMILY TO ILLUSTRATE
THE COMPLEX HISTORY OF BLACK MILITARY SERVICE.

A S PA RT O F H I S My America project the 1770s, many of them dealt—and
highlighting Black people’s experiences, still deal—with unequal treatment.
photographer Rashod Taylor focused Taylor’s relatives have benefited from
on a subject that had influenced his life: opportunities that the military offers.
Black military service. Though Taylor At the same time, they’ve faced hostil-
himself never joined the armed forces, ity and discrimination while on active
members of his family did. And he lis- duty and as citizens.
tened intently to their stories.
Taylor chose tintype photography,
“I really found this new apprecia- using metal plates in a process that
tion for what kind of sacrifices they’ve was popular from the mid-1800s to
made,” Taylor says. “Not only in the the early 1900s, as a way to bridge the
military in general but just being Black gap between former and current ser-
in the military and still having to go vice members. Despite being decades
through those extra layers of life liv- apart, their similar experiences unite
ing as a person of color in the United them. The images reflect a compli-
States.” Although Black Americans cated legacy, one of disparity, pride,
have fought for their country since and endurance. —T U C K E R C . TO O L E

Valerie (top) feels a special bond with her great-uncle Lecky. Both were Army medics.

EXPLORE IN THIS SECTION

Scat Scan Discovery
Water Lily Harvest
Mentoring Fossil Hunters
Chimp-Human Conflict

ILLUMINATING THE MYSTERIES—AND WONDERS—ALL AROUND US EVERY DAY

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VOL. 241 NO. 2

On the Trail of
Julius Caesar

WE’D LOVE TO MEET THIS MOST FAMOUS ROMAN FACE-TO-FACE,
BUT HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT HE ACTUALLY LOOKED LIKE?

I BY MARY BEARD

I N S E P T E M B E R 2 0 07 one French archaeologist got
lucky. He was diving in the murky waters of the Rhône
River at Arles, in the south of France, in search of
ancient remains on the riverbed. He emerged holding
a finely carved, life-size marble head. As he lifted it
up out of the water, in one of those classic discovery
moments, the director of the team shouted, “Putain,
mais c’est César—Damn, it’s Caesar.”

It was, in other words, a portrait of arguably the
most famous Roman who ever lived: Julius Caesar,
conqueror of Gaul, charismatic dictator, populist
autocrat, and, finally, victim of assassination on
the ides of March, 44 B.C. (an event immortalized
by William Shakespeare, among many other writers
and painters). He is one of the people from antiquity
who—alongside Cleopatra, perhaps—later gen-
erations have most wanted to meet face-to-face.
Tracking down the likeness of the real Caesar has
proved an irresistible sport.

F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 2 17

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

In the 15 years since it was pulled from the water, Will the real
this head from the Rhône1 (see next page) has Julius Caesar
achieved celebrity status. It has been the subject of please stand up?
special art exhibitions and television programs, and
it even ended up on a French postage stamp. There is only one ancient physical
description of Julius Caesar, by
Currently, it stands proudly as the star of an Arles his original biographer Suetonius,
museum, captured in countless selfies by admiring writing 163 years after Caesar’s
visitors. One possible backstory is that it was put death. “He was particularly fastid-
up to honor Caesar during his lifetime by the loyal ious over his body image,” writes
citizens of Arles, but it was chucked into the river Suetonius, adding that Caesar
after his assassination when the changed political used to pluck his body hair. And
climate made it seem too hot a property. As soon as he considered his baldness a
Caesar was yesterday’s man, no one wanted a statue terrible disfigurement, finding
of him. It was only some two millennia later that it exposed him to the gibes of
it was dramatically rescued from its watery grave. abusers. So, he used to brush
forward his thinning hair from the
So far, so good. But the big question is: How on crown of his head in order to con-
earth do we know it is Julius Caesar? There’s no ceal his bald patch—an intriguing
name attached to the head. So, why do we think it early use of the comb-over.
is him? There are nearly 80 ancient heads found all
over Europe and the United States that have been T O M A K E T H I S P O RT R A I T, artist David Samuel
claimed to be a true portrait of Caesar. How do we Stern photographed a bust of Caesar, circa
decide which are and which are not? Ancient writers 1512, at New York’s Metropolitan Museum
note that, as a mark of his power, Caesar flooded the of Art. Three photos were converted to red,
Roman world with his image. But can we recognize green, and blue tonal ranges, printed on
his head out of the estimated hundreds of thousands translucent vellum, cut into strips, woven
of other Roman portraits that still survive, lined up by hand, and then backlit to create this final
on our museum shelves? image. “Our collective mental picture of
Caesar is almost certainly not what he really
This problem has kept archaeologists busy for looked like,” Stern says.
centuries and is made all the trickier because none
of the potential candidates carry a name. (As a rule locations around Italy. He moved the original into
of thumb, if a marble portrait is neatly inscribed the council chamber of the city of Rome—where
with the name Julius Caesar, it’s a fake.) The only it remains, presiding over discussions of planning
firm evidence that survives for what Caesar looked regulations and traffic control. But no serious his-
like is a series of silver coins2 minted just before his torian now thinks it a statue of Caesar, certainly not
assassination. These show a characterful, gaunt sculpted from life.
face, with a wrinkled neck and a prominent Adam’s
apple and a laurel wreath crown. According to his There is even another that was dragged up from
biographer, writing a century and a half after his a riverbed, this time from the Hudson in New York,
death, Caesar would position the laurels artfully to in 1925. How it got there is anyone’s guess—presum-
conceal the bald patch of which he was ashamed. ably “lost overboard” while traveling by boat, rather
The problem for archaeologists has been to try to than being the clinching piece of evidence that the
match up the three-dimensional busts with the tiny Romans really did reach America. But for a while it
images on the coins. was hailed as America’s own Julius Caesar. Not for
long. It ended up in a Swedish museum, demoted to
The array of may-be-Caesar portraits in the round “unknown Roman.”
is much more varied than you might expect. One is
a particularly luscious “Green Caesar,”3 originally
from Egypt and now—after passing through the
hands of the Prussian royal family—on display in
Berlin. It is made out of polished green stone and so
impressive that some overoptimistic historians and
archaeologists have imagined that it might have been
commissioned by Cleopatra herself, who had briefly
been Caesar’s lover. (Equally likely, as more sober
scholars have suggested, it was a portrait of some
Egyptian bigwig who was aping the style of Caesar.)

Another is a full-length portrait statue, which
was the favorite of the Italian Fascist leader Benito
Mussolini, who saw Julius Caesar as his ideological
ancestor. He liked the statue so much that he had
full-scale replicas made and displayed in prominent

18 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

WOVEN PORTRAIT: DAVID SAMUEL STERN. PHOTOGRAPHED AT THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK 19

E X P L O R E | THE BIG IDEA

But two pieces in particular have been the stars dictator, firmly identified it as a portrait of Julius
of the Caesar show, and through much of the 19th Caesar, taken from life. So accurate was it, he claimed,
and 20th centuries they held sway as the real face of that the strange shape of the head, which you might
Julius Caesar. The first,4 bought in 1818 from a British easily put down to an incompetent sculptor, was in
collector who had picked it up in Italy, is in the British fact the reflection of congenital deformations of
Museum. It entered as an unknown Roman, but by Caesar’s skull (clinocephaly and plagiocephaly, to
the 1840s it was confidently identified as Julius Cae- use the technical terms). Never mind that there was
sar himself and given pride of place in the museum something circular here (there is no evidence for
display—thanks to its wrinkly neck, Adam’s apple, Caesar’s skull conditions apart from this sculpture);
and hollowed cheeks that seemed a close match for the Bonaparte portrait has not only prompted the
the silver coins. same kind of purple prose as the British Museum
head, it has given us the illusion that we are doing
For decades this face decorated the cover of almost more than looking the man in the eye—we are taking
every book on Caesar, and it was lauded in rapturous his medical notes.
prose by Caesar’s modern fans. “This bust represents,”
wrote one, “the strongest personality that has ever But this head too is falling. That is not so much
lived...In the profile it is impossible to detect a flaw.” because it is thought to be a fake, or not to be Caesar
John Buchan—scholar, diplomat, and author of The at all, but because beyond all the hype it is in fact a
Thirty-Nine Steps—judged it “the noblest presentment rather rough-and-ready piece. Our best guess now is
of the human countenance known to me.” that it might be a later Roman copy of some contem-
porary head of Caesar, but certainly not a product of
This bust was an early modern celebrity, but its careful observation (and the odd shape of the skull
authenticity was eventually toppled. After decades of is probably just that, an odd shape).
increasing doubts, in the early 1960s it was officially
declared a fake; there were traces of abrasion and Enter, just in time, the head from the Rhône. The
artificial staining designed to make it look centuries city of Arles had political connections with Caesar (he
older than it really was. It certainly was meant to be settled some of his veteran troops there). The neck
Julius Caesar, copying the head on those coins (no of the sculpture has the required wrinkles, and the
unknown Roman here), but it was made in the late Adam’s apple is prominent enough (though it hardly
18th century. It has been relegated to a traveling has the gaunt aspect of the coins). It will be the face
exhibit on ancient Rome and occasionally emerges of Caesar for a few decades and will decorate any
in exhibitions of notorious fakes. number of glossy book jackets. Indeed, it may be
him. But my guess is that sooner or later, doubts will
There was, however, another head of Caesar wait- grow, and a quite different head will be rediscovered
ing in the wings to take its place in the limelight. It to take its place.
had been excavated near Rome by Lucien Bonaparte,
Napoleon’s younger brother, who was a keen archae- The true image of Julius Caesar is always just out-
ologist. But when he hit hard times, it was sold and side our grasp. Each generation finds a new Caesar
taken to its new owner’s estate outside Turin, where for themselves. j
it remained anonymously (“unknown old man”) for a
hundred years. In the 1930s an Italian archaeologist, Mary Beard is Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge.
perhaps playing to Mussolini’s enthusiasm for the She is the author of many books about ancient Rome, including
the best-selling SPQR. Her most recent book is Twelve Caesars.

FACE OF AN EMPEROR?

Rhône Caesar Silver Coin Caesar 'Green Caesar' British Museum Caesar
Rescued from the Rhône Before Caesar’s death in Some archaeologists spec- Once given pride of place
River, this celebrated bust 44 B.C., a series of silver ulated that this green stone at the museum, this likeness
(it’s appeared on a French coins was minted, the only head, originally from Egypt, was declared a fake in the
postage stamp) resides at firm surviving evidence of was commissioned by 1960s and is now relegated
an Arles museum. what he looked like. Cleopatra, Caesar’s lover. to a traveling exhibit.

1 234

PHOTOS (FROM LEFT): BORIS HORVAT, AFP/GETTY IMAGES; ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM/HERITAGE
IMAGES/GETTY IMAGES; DEAGOSTINI, GETTY IMAGES; THE TRUSTEES OF THE BRITISH MUSEUM

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E X P L O R E | BREAKTHROUGHS

D I S PATC H E S The saving of the shrew
FROM THE FRONT LINES
Unlike seasonal hibernators, the Etruscan
OF SCIENCE shrew—one of Earth’s smallest mammals—
AND INNOVATION must eat heartily year-round to stay
alive. But the insectivore may have a
different way to conserve energy
in winter: It shrinks a section of
its brain by more than 25 per-
cent. The lost cells regrow by
summertime. — H I C K S WO GA N

PA L E O N TO L O GY R E F O R E S TAT I O N

SCAT SCAN DISCOVERY New forests
benefit from
FOUND IN TRIASSIC FECES: A NEW BEETLE SPECIES coffee’s jolt

S O M E V E RY O L D O B J E C T S come in exquisite containers—gilded Just like us, forests
sarcophagi, carved chests—and others, in less appealing packages. move a bit faster
The newfound beetle Triamyxa coprolithica is among the latter. A when there’s cof-
team of scientists reported discovering the species in a coprolite, fee on hand. An
aka fossilized feces. The team used synchrotron microtomography, experiment in a
a powerful x-ray technique, to scan an ancient dropping that the Costa Rican rain-
scientists had unearthed in Poland. Inside the 230-million-year-old forest covered
scat, nickel size in diameter, were partial and whole specimens of deforested land
the tiny beetle (above). Study lead author Martin Qvarnström says with pulp that’s a
that to see 3D scans of the bugs, “it’s like they’re becoming alive in by-product of the
front of you.” With even some of the delicate legs and antennae coffeemaking pro-
intact, the remains were preserved well enough to identify the bee- cess, to see how
tles as a previously unknown, now extinct species—the first time an it affected forest
insect species has been described from a coprolite. The researchers regrowth. After
theorized that the dung came from Silesaurus opolensis—a dino- two years, the
saur relative up to eight feet long—and hope their discovery will pulp-covered
encourage more stool sampling by paleontologists. — H W forest plots were
doing much better
PHOTOS: MARTIN QVARNSTRÖM (BEETLES); JOEL SARTORE, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PHOTO ARK (SHREW); than untreated
EDWIN REMSBERG, VW PICS/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES (TREES) ones—giving coffee
producers a new,
sustainable alter-
native to dumping
their waste.

—SARAH GIBBENS

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E X P L O R E | ADVENTURE

The Mekong Delta brims with life in southwestern Vietnam.

BEHIND THE SCENE THE LIFE AQUATIC RIVER WATCH

Before entering the South Water lilies are among The Mekong has long
China Sea, the Mekong more than 20,000 species sustained locals and
River fans out into a net- of plants that grow in attracted travelers. But
work of waterways. During the Mekong. The world’s its natural and cultural
flood season (June to second most biodiverse wonders are threatened
November), women steer river, after the Amazon, by environmental stresses
long-tail boats to har- supports animals such as such as discarded plastic.
vest water lilies. Wading the endangered Irrawaddy With funding from the
into waist-deep water, dolphin, the hairy-nosed National Geographic
they rinse and bundle the otter, and the giant fresh- Society, researchers at
plants for sale at markets water stingray. Human life England’s University of
and to restaurants. These bustles along the river in Hull are studying how this
women learned boating floating markets, villages pollution ends up in the
from their mothers and perched on stilts, and river; the United Nations
grandmothers, says Khánh delta floodplains where Environment Programme
Phan, who captured the farmers harvest more than has plans to evaluate
image by drone. She likens half of Vietnam’s rice. the effects of plastic on
the circle of lilies to one migratory species.
big blossom on which “the
women are like bees.”

WATER
GARDEN

24 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

BY THE NUMBERS

6

COUNTRIES THROUGH WHICH
THE MEKONG RIVER FLOWS

24.7

MILLION METRIC TONS OF RICE
GROWN PER YEAR IN THE DELTA

2,700

APPROXIMATE LENGTH, IN MILES,
OF THE MEKONG RIVER

ASIA
Mekong
River

VIETNAM
Mekong
River Delta

BY RACHEL NG PHOTOGRAPH BY KHÁNH PHAN

NGM MAPS F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 2 25

IF YOU HAVE DIABETES—
YOUR EYES NEED ATTENTION

If you have diabetes, excess blood sugar can damage the
blood vessels inside your eyes—a condition known as diabetic
retinopathy. Even if your vision seems fine and you don’t notice
it happening, there still may be damage that could lead to vision
loss. Fortunately, an eye doctor may be able to help your eyes
and protect against vision loss.
Just say to yourself, “Now Eye See.”

Make eye care a priority and talk to an eye care professional today.
Learn more at NOWEYESEE.com.

© 2021, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
NOW EYE SEE is a trademark owned by Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

August 2021 OPH.21.07.0014

E X P L O R E | PLANET POSSIBLE PLANET
For more stories about how
This month, appreciate
your loved ones—and the to help the planet, go to
environment—with gestures natgeo.com/planet.
designed for lasting impact.
PHOTO: REBECCA HALE, NGM STAFF
BY CHRISTINA NUNEZ

Say It With Seeds

Instead of traditional
greeting cards, get
plantable ones that will
transform your Valen-
tine’s Day message into
blooms of garden color.

Choose the Flowers
Without the Foam

Before you grab that
bouquet, take a peek at
the base: Many arrange-
ments are packed with
floral foam, a crumbly
plastic that often ends
up in waterways. Avoid it
when possible—and never
wash it down the sink.

Let Love Take Root

Most of the cut flowers
sold in the United States
are imported, meaning
they’ve probably flown
more miles than you have
lately. A locally grown
plant is an eco-friendly and
longer-lasting alternative.

Sweet and Sustainable

Farming the cacao beans
used in chocolaty treats can
have a bitter side: razed
forests and mistreated,
underpaid labor. To confirm
that the cacao meets envi-
ronmental, social, and
sustainability standards,
look for the seal of third-
party certifiers such as
the Rainforest Alliance.

Sow Joy, Skip Plastic

Don’t buy seedlings and
the disposable plastic
containers that come
with them. Start plants at
home. The Old Farmer’s
Almanac has a handy cal-
endar that tells you when:
almanac.com/gardening/
planting-calendar.

INNOVATOR EXPLORE

ISAIAH NENGO

BY HICKS WOGAN PHOTO GRAPH BY MARK THIESSEN

In his native Kenya, he
recruits students to help
unearth human history.

Nairobi-born Isaiah Nengo was in high
school when he found his life’s work,
on a trip to the National Museums of
Kenya. A lecture that day by renowned
paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey
captivated Nengo. After college he vol-
unteered there, and Leakey helped him
get into a Ph.D. program at Harvard
University.

Nengo began fieldwork in the
mid-1980s in western Kenya, where
the first fossil he excavated was the
pelvis of a 17-million-year-old ape. “I
didn’t know at the time just how lucky
I was,” he says, laughing. In 2014 he
led an expedition in Kenya’s Turkana
Basin that discovered the most com-
plete fossil skull of an ape ever found, a
13-million-year-old ancestor of today’s
apes and humans. The team gave the
skull’s owner the nickname Alesi, from
the Turkana word for “ancestor.”

Nengo teaches at New York’s Stony
Brook University and Kenya’s Turkana
University College. He also runs a mas-
ter’s program in human evolutionary
biology that was launched at Turkana
University in 2017. Aiming to build local
expertise and research capacity, the
program has admitted eight students
so far, all Kenyans, six of them women.
Nengo would like to add students from
neighboring countries in future years.
“Training Africans from East Africa
is not charity,” he says. “It’s actually
essential to the science.” j

The National Geographic Society has
funded the work of paleoanthropolo-
gist Isaiah Nengo since 2018. Learn more
about its support of Explorers researching
history and culture at natgeo.com/impact.

E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS

The
Conflict
Zone

WHEN HUMANS AND CHIMPS
CLASH IN A UGANDAN

VILLAGE, A PHOTOGRAPHER
SEES FEAR, GRIEF—AND

ULTIMATELY ACCEPTANCE.

STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS
B Y RONAN DONOVAN

I TOOK THIS PHOTOGRAPH through the window of an Yosemite National Park, marine mammals off the
abandoned home in a village in western Uganda. As I coast of Africa, and wild chimpanzees in Uganda’s
watched, one wild chimpanzee entered the yard, then Kibale National Park. Primatologist Richard Wrang-
another. Though they stared hard at the windows, ham’s long-term research project there sought to
I knew they couldn’t see me behind the mirrored understand wild chimpanzee behaviors, and possible
glass—and I was glad. human and environmental impacts.

During past fieldwork, I’d been around scores of For most of 2011, I followed chimps that had been
wild chimpanzees and shadowed them at close range. habituated to human presence, gathering data
Yet until this photo assignment in 2017, I had never throughout the day. They were trusting animals after
tried to hide from chimps. I had never even imagined decades of neutral encounters with their observers.
writing such a sentence. Having never been fed or directly hurt by a person,
they were indifferent to me.
That was before I met the Semata family and saw
firsthand how depleted land and forest, and scarce But as Wrangham’s Kibale research confirmed,
food and crops, can unleash competition between behavior—human and chimpanzee—will change
primates, those inside houses and those outside. as circumstances demand. Like us, chimps adapt to
exploit new food sources if existing ones disappear.
F O R A S LO N G A S I C A N remember, I’ve felt at home Also like us, chimps are omnivores that defend their
in the natural world. After college I worked for eight home territory from other groups of their species.
years as a field biologist, studying spotted owls in Chimps understand aggression: Throw a rock at a

30 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Wild chimpanzees
whose natural
habitat has shrunk
approach a home
in Kyamajaka.

habituated chimp, the chimp will often throw one basis. These chimps are in competition with their
back. Unless you are larger or outnumber them, human neighbors. The native forests that supported
chimps that have been chased may chase you. And the chimps have been cleared for farming, so they
provided the opportunity, chimps will hunt for meat. now feed primarily on human-grown crops. They go
on evening food raids near homes before returning
S I X Y E A R S A F T E R I ’ D WO R K E D in western Uganda as to the sliver of forest where perhaps 20 mature trees
a field biologist, I returned as a wildlife and conser- are their refuge from the human world.
vation photographer. My assignment for National
Geographic, with writer David Quammen, was to tell The forays don’t stop there. The house where I took
the story of human-chimpanzee conflict. this picture belonged to the Semata family—farmer
Omuhereza, his wife, Ntegeka, and their four young
Though the village of Kyamajaka isn’t far from the children. To live there was to feel constantly at risk
Kibale research project, the chimps around Kyama- of attack by chimps, Ntegeka told me. She described
jaka are habituated to humans in a different way. how the animals would show up in their front yard
They are wary of the people they encounter on a daily and peer into their windows, scaring the family.

The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminat- The unthinkable occurred on July 20, 2014. As
ing and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Ntegeka worked in the garden, she kept the chil-
Explorer Ronan Donovan’s work since 2014. A Montana-based dren with her. But in an instant when her back was
wildlife photographer, Donovan is also a filmmaker, an artist, turned, a large chimp grabbed her toddler son,
and a mountaineer. Mujuni, and ran. Villagers who gave chase found

F E B R U A RY 2 0 2 2 31

E X P L O R E | THROUGH THE LENS

the two-year-old’s eviscerated body stashed under a on two legs grabbed a fistful of vegetation and shook

nearby bush. He died en route to a regional hospital. it while striding toward the house. As he picked

Months became years, and the chimp raids contin- up speed, he reached the house at a run, dropped

ued. Finally, the Sematas broke. Though the house the branches, leaped into the air, and pounded the

was their prized possession, in August 2017 they side of the house with his heels in quick succession.

abandoned it. I visited shortly after they moved into Bah-boom! The entire house shook.

temporary lodgings—cramped, no garden, but also The group’s biggest male, the one I presumed to

no aggressive wild apes. be the alpha, stood and swung his arms, warming up

The Sematas’ losses embodied the worst of the for his show of prowess. He broke into a run, picked

human-chimp conflict that National Geographic up a softball-size rock along the way, and hurled it.

sent Quammen and me to document. My images Skipping once off the ground, the rock slammed

would help tell that story. But I also hoped they might thunderously into the house. My heart raced as I

honor the human tragedies and spur change, such as photographed this behavior. I knew the chimps

moving the chimps, to end this conflict. were only shadowboxing their reflections,

Omuhereza and Ntegeka gave me their but it did feel like an attack. Eventually, as

empty home’s key and permission to take U G A N D A the daylight faded, the chimps returned

photos there. To get in, I had to push my Kyamajaka to their tiny forest and I was able to leave
shoulder against the door, which hadn’t the house.
been opened in months. Several win- Kampala
dowpanes were broken—by the chimps, Lake I was eager to share the images with my
National Geographic colleagues, and those
Victoria

Ntegeka had said. As I stood in the dark officials who preach peaceful coexistence,

and dusty room, I thought of Mujuni’s but I worried about showing the images to

grisly fate and wondered whether his parents had the Sematas, for fear of stirring up their grief and pain.

relived it every time they’d seen chimp faces at On my last visit with them, in November 2017,

the windows. Ntegeka asked if I had photos of the chimps. Reluc-

Officials of local governments and international tantly I presented the image below, on my phone. She

NGOs have urged the farmers here to learn to live began to laugh—and laugh—finally pausing to say,

alongside chimpanzees—but do they know what “My God, they look like humans.” I pulled up more

that’s like? I wanted to capture some sense of how the photos. “I know all of them, aside from the babies.

Sematas felt inside their home during chimp visits. Look at that baby; it’s light-skinned,” she said, chuck-

ling. Then the family proudly showed me their new

I WALKED FROM ONE window to the next, waiting for plot of land and the large pile of bricks that would

chimps to arrive. I saw a single chimp sitting quietly become their new home. They were rebuilding. And

at the edge of the yard. Soon more came, also quietly. with Ntegeka’s laughter, I felt they had moved on in

Then the mood changed. A teenage male standing more ways than one. j

Gathering outside the family’s abandoned house, the chimpanzees see their reflections in the windows as a challenge.

NGM MAPS

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC FEBRUARY 2022

F EAT U R E S Notre Dame Revival.... P. 36
Extraordinary Fish....... P. 72
K2 Winter Climb . . . . . . . . . P. 80
Plants in Detail. . . . . . . . . . . P. 102
Sudan’s Future . . . . . . . . . . . P. 110

102 HOW CAN CROPS WITHSTAND
THE PERILS OF CLIMATE CHANGE?
MICROGRAPHS, LIKE THIS ONE
OF A CORN TASSEL FLORET,
INVITE US TO LOOK CLOSER
FOR SOLUTIONS.

IMAGE: ROBERT DASH

Notre Dame

The jagged wound torn towering spire fell
in Notre Dame’s heart through the stone
by the April 2019 fire vaulting, crushed a
that destroyed its spire modern altar, and left
and roof is seen from a hole fringed by
above. The cathedral’s charred roof timbers.

After the Fire

The iconic Paris cathedral’s restoration will
honor its medieval roots—and the once vilified

architect who saved the church in the 1800s.

BY ROBERT KUNZIG
PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOMAS VAN HOUTRYVE

GRAPHICS BY FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA

37

First came
the rescue.
Now, the
restoration.

It took more than two
years after the fire just
to remove the burnt
timbers and other
debris and to shore
up the vaults and
buttresses against a
catastrophic collapse.
Now scaffolding fills
the cathedral, and the
restoration is finally
beginning. The first
step: cleaning all
surfaces of dust and
toxic residue from
the lead roof, which
melted in the fire.



Inside, most
of what’s holy
or beautiful
is unscathed.

Burning roof timbers,
large blocks of lime-
stone, and 800-plus
tons of oak and lead
from the spire all
crashed into Notre
Dame. And yet no art
of historical signifi-
cance was damaged
and very little of the
stained glass. “It was a
miracle,” says conser-
vator Marie-Hélène
Didier. Side chapels
like this one—Our Lady
of Seven Sorrows—will
get a cleaning and res-
toration, which most
needed before the fire.





From outside, wire surrounds the
the sorrows site. But the church has
of Our Lady recovered from trauma
are glaring.
before. In 1831, from
Scaffolding and a giant this vantage point
crane now mock the across the Seine,

cathedral’s aspiration Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
to loftiness; a metal watched a mob attack

wall topped with razor it. Later he directed
the first restoration of
Notre Dame, preserv-

ing the landmark the
world knows today.

The fire in 1831

spared the

Cathedral of Notre

Dame itself. The

rioters scrambled

up the roof and

toppled a giant

iron cross; Charles Barbero of
Carpenters Without
they shattered stained glass, took axes to a statue Borders puts a finishing
of Jesus, smashed one of the Virgin Mary. But touch on a replica of
they were really after the archbishop of Paris, one of Notre Dame’s
who wasn’t there—and so they sacked his pal- roof trusses. The
ace, which stood south of the church, facing the volunteer group built
Seine River. Then they set fire to it. The palace the truss in a week
is gone now. A 250-foot-tall construction crane using only medieval
stands on that spot. tools, hewing each
beam from a single oak
There’s a drawing of the scene that night, log. The oak frame-
February 14, 1831, viewed from the Quai de work destroyed in the
Montebello, across the Seine. It was made by fire is to be restored as
Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc—the man it was—with an assist
who, 13 years later, would undertake a 20-year from sawmills.
restoration of the cathedral. Viollet-le-Duc was
only 17 when he witnessed the mob attack. In his
hasty pencil sketch, agitated stick figures swarm

44 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

the palace, hurling furniture and other valuables is about to begin. In more ways than one, Ville-
out the windows and into the river. Behind all neuve owes his current mission, the fight of his
that stands Notre Dame, then six centuries old. professional life, to his ingenious predecessor,
Viollet-le-Duc.
In 1980, also at age 17, Philippe Villeneuve
saw an exhibit about Viollet-le-Duc at the Grand “He invented the restoration of historic mon-
Palais. He knew he wanted to be an architect— uments,” Villeneuve said. “That didn’t happen
he was already building an elaborate model of before. Before, people repaired them, and they
Notre Dame—but he didn’t know you could spe- repaired them in the style of their day.” Or they
cialize in historic buildings. Today he’s one of didn’t repair them, and tore them down.
35 “chief architects of historic monuments” in
France, a profession most famously embodied In 19th-century France, a government first
by Viollet-le-Duc. Villeneuve has directed resto- established institutions to grapple systemati-
ration work at Notre Dame since 2013, and with cally with a question that concerns us all: What
terrible urgency since the spring of 2019, when part of the past is worth preserving and trans-
a fire ripped the top off the cathedral. The build- mitting to posterity? What duty do we owe the
ing has been stabilized at last; reconstruction creations of our ancestors, what strength and
stability do we draw from their presence—and

N O T R E D A M E A F T E R T H E F I R E 45



Some damage stones in the vaults
done by the along the central hole
fire was
insidious. left by the spire. The
fire, which got as hot
Wearing respirators to as 1400°F, ate into the
shield themselves from
lead dust, rope techni- tops of some vaults
and into the two-foot-
cians prepare to use
plaster to secure loose thick limestone walls
above them, peeling
off inches of stone and
creating internal fis-
sures. Some stones will
need to be replaced.

Notre Dame always had the light to flood in. Jealous Italians named it
gargoyle rainspouts, “Gothic,” by which they meant “barbarian,” but
the French style conquered Europe. In the tall
but its purely decora- light, people felt the presence of God.
tive grotesques sprang
By the early 19th century, though, Notre Dame
from the 19th-century was in trouble. Decades of attack and neglect,
imagination of Viollet- beginning even before the Revolution of 1789,
had left it dangerously dilapidated. Victor Hugo
le-Duc. He added 54 was so incensed, he set an entire novel around
to the upper gallery the cathedral, folding a polemic on abuse of his-
encircling the towers tory into a potboiler about a repressed priest, a
on the west facade. hunchbacked bell ringer, and the girl they both
desired. Notre-Dame de Paris was published in
when, on the contrary, do they become a lead 1831, the month after the archbishop’s palace was
weight, preventing us from projecting our- burned down. All over France, ancient church
selves into the future, from creating a world of buildings seized during the revolution were
our own? The question is one each of us faces being plundered for the stones. Hugo helped
in microcosm, in our work and in our life. Each start a movement that said, Enough. Viollet-le-
of us has a service des monuments historiques in Duc was swept up in it.
our head, struggling to decide what to hold on
to and what to toss, which change to resist and He saved Notre Dame. He rebuilt buttresses
which to embrace. It’s just we’re often not very and stained glass, replaced statues demolished
conscious of it. And we’re often not conscious by revolutionaries, and added more: The cathe-
of our stake in the preservation decisions made dral’s beloved grotesques are his. And when he
by governments—of how old buildings touch us. built a new wooden spire, 50 feet taller than the
Until they are threatened. medieval original, he added larger-than-life cop-
per statues of the Twelve Apostles in steps up
In its day, Notre Dame was revolutionary. It its base. Eleven looked outward, watching over
was built in the late 12th and 13th centuries, as the city; the 12th was St. Thomas, the Apostle
France was becoming a nation, and Paris, its who doubted. Viollet-le-Duc gave Thomas his
capital, the largest city in Europe. Notre Dame own face and had him gaze up at the spire, his
was the first grand masterpiece of a new French masterwork. He was a nonbeliever who saved
architecture—one in which pointed arches and the queen of French cathedrals.
flying buttresses allowed the walls to be soar-
ing and thin, the windows to be enormous, and Now that church, a house of worship for more
than 800 years, is being saved again. It’s being
saved after a half century in which the practice
of Catholicism in France has collapsed, while the
number of tourists has exploded. In Villeneuve’s
office behind the cathedral, in the second story
of a stack of modular containers, the desk faces a
print of Viollet-le-Duc’s 1843 drawing of the west
front of Notre Dame. A trickle of congealed lead
from the roof, melted by the 2019 fire, is wedged
into a corner of the frame. Since the night of
the fire, it has been Villeneuve’s intention to
rebuild the church exactly as Viollet-le-Duc left
it, including the lead roof and the “forest” of
massive oak timbers that supported it.

“We are restoring the restorer,” he said.
A little before seven on the evening of April 15,
2019, as Villeneuve was racing from his home on
the Atlantic coast to catch the last high-speed
train for Paris, I was in a taxi crossing the Seine.
The traffic was crawling. My wife looked out the

48 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

OISE AISNE City extent 12th-century Paris
today
Paris Seine City extent
Paris Limestone
R. quarry
Bercé Île de la Cité
Forest 2 mi
Seine
FRANCE 2 km

Sourcing the stones and wood

Île de la Cité was an important center of city life when construc-
tion began on Notre Dame in the 12th century. Back then, stone
came from quarries that now lie beneath modern Paris. For
today’s renovation, limestone of similar geologic composition
is being quarried in Oise and Aisne, while centuries-old trees
are being felled in the Bercé Forest and elsewhere in France.

window. “Is Notre Dame burning?” she asked. Dame, got through the firefighters’ perimeter,
The patch of flickering orange on the roof made most of the precious artifacts had already been
no sense. I’m sure they’ll put it out soon, I mut- extracted and placed in the yard. “It looked like
tered. Moments later we saw the flames shoot a big flea market,” she said. Late that night, she
up the wooden spire and engulf it. escorted some of the treasures in a city van to
a vault at the Hôtel de Ville. The linen tunic of
E VERYONE IN FRANCE REMEMBERS St. Louis, the 13th-century king and crusader,
was on Didier’s lap. Next to her, her boss held
where they were when Notre Dame the Crown of Thorns.
burned that April night—in that
way, though no one died, it’s like President Emmanuel Macron was at the Élysée
Palace, where he had just recorded a televised
9/11. Bernard Hermann, a retired national address for that evening responding
to the “yellow vests”—the protest movement
photographer, was in his garret on the Place du against his government. He canceled the speech
and rushed to the cathedral. Notre Dame is “our
Petit Pont, facing the cathedral. A book of his, history, our literature, our imagination…the epi-
center of our life,” he said, speaking into the TV
called Paris, km 00—on French maps, distances cameras. “This cathedral, we will rebuild it, all
of us together.”
are measured from a zero point in front of Notre
Dorothée Chaoui-Derieux, a conservator who
Dame—consists of photographs taken from his oversees archaeological digs in Paris, read the
news on Twitter as she made dinner for her three
windows. “The drama of Notre Dame was for children. She’d never taken them to Notre Dame,
she realized. It didn’t occur to her that she’d be
me the end of the world,” Hermann said. “I was spending nearly every day for the next two years
in the empty cathedral, sifting through debris—
thunderstruck. I closed the curtains.” what she calls vestiges—that Notre Dame itself
would become an archaeological site.
Jean-Michel Leniaud, a historian of architec-
As the church was still burning, TV networks
ture, was at a reception at the Palace of Versailles. offered talking heads. “Stupidly, I stayed in front
of the TV, even though I live in Paris and should
He rushed back to Paris and watched the drama. have gone to see it,” said Philippe Gourmain,
a forestry expert. With rising fury, he heard
“People were crying. People were praying. People

were kneeling in the street,” he said.

Six miles to the west, Faycal Aït Saïd, who now

operates the crane that towers over the wounded

cathedral, was finishing his shift on an even

taller crane, building a new office tower. Alone

in the sky at 425 feet, he saw the giant plume of

smoke on the horizon, beginning to drift west.

By the time Marie-Hélène Didier, the culture

ministry conservator responsible for Notre

ROSEMARY WARDLEY, NGM STAFF. SOURCE: INSPECTION GÉNÉRALE DES CARRIÈRES N O T R E D A M E A F T E R T H E F I R E 49

From the Dame’s new spire—a
ashes of the faithful reproduction
old, a new in oak and lead of the
spire will rise. one built by Viollet-
le-Duc, which was
By 2024, if all goes destroyed in the fire.
according to plan, a The new spire will be
drone in this position erected piece by piece
would be hovering just through the hole in the
above the tip of Notre stone vaulting left by
the old one. Mean-
while, white canopies
block the rain.



Gargoyle Bells, encased in 21ST-CENTURY LOSS
19th century two towers, her- Fire broke out under the roof o
alded activities cathedral on April 15, 2019, and
NOTRE DAME IN throughout the day. for 15 hours. The roof and spire
THE 14TH CENTURY lost, but firefighters saved the
The cathedral was Fearsome and whim- ing and precious relics.
commissioned in sical, grotesques, or
1163 by a landowning chimeras, are 19th- The medieval spire, dis-
clergy with power century additions. mantled in the 1700s,
over much of Paris. was replaced with a
By the 1300s, the city taller one in the 1800s.
had become France’s
royal, judicial, and
intellectual center.

The 28 colossal stat- ROSE
ues of biblical kings WINDOW
were beheaded in
the French Revolu-
tion and replaced in
the 19th century.

CHOIR

AISLE TRANSEPT
NAVE
Chapels between
AISLE the 16-foot-deep
buttresses were
A Divine Ambition added after 1225.

Notre Dame Cathedral has endured for more than eight centuries. Built 1840s to ’60s, MAJOR RESTORATION
to reflect the church’s spiritual reach, its audacious, towering walls and In 1831, The Hunchback of Notre Dame revive
buttresses remain as much a marvel today as they were in the Middle Ages. interest in the site. Renovations (in green) by
architects Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc
and his early partner, Jean-Baptiste Lassus,
reflect their interpretations of medieval style