Raven's Arrival with Genghis Khan

Raven and The Black Death 1347

I am a history nerd. I love history from the Middle Ages. The tragic history of the Black Plague is too colossal to comprehend. 

Genghis Khan

The year is 1346, and the place is Caffa on the Black Sea. The Mongolian Empire now covered 12 million square miles.   Years before Genghis Khan had unified the nomadic bands of Mongolian herders into the most fearsome fighting force in history. During his reign, Genghis was responsible for 40 million deaths. Over the next 130 years, hundreds of millions would die in Mongolian conquests, making it the bloodiest period in Human history. 

Mongols catapulted plague victims off city walls.

But the Mongolians were not finished, they were about to unleash the first biological weapon in history against Europeans. The Black Plague had most likely originated in the Far East and traveled with the Mongolian army, but it had recently mutated into a more horrifically vicious pestilence. The Mongols had to retreat but before they did they catapulted hundreds of plague-ridden corpses over the city wall, unleashing the worst natural disaster in history. By 1347 1/3 to nearly 1/2 of Europe was wiped out. The Mongols never returned, and Europe would never be the same.

Plague Doctor,

 I knew that I would have to do this image. Raven is associated with some of man’s highest achievements. Raven is also wrongfully connected to mankind's greatest disasters. The suit of the Plague Doctor was the first Bio-Hazard suit. The "Doctor" wore a long cloak, gloves, and a mask that resembled a bird beak because some believed the plague was brought by birds.

In medieval Europe Ravens and Crow were linked to death.  Perhaps they thought looking like a bird may protect the wearer. This strange mask was stuffed with medicinal herbs and acted like a germ filter.   

Raven’s Arrival 1347 AD., Raven is Disguised as a Plague Doctor with his pet. 

My Narration:
Raven has traveled with his pet rat from the Far East to Europe. He wears the protective clothing of a Plague Doctor to hide his identity. Raven heard that the Dark Ages were just about to end, he wanted them to linger a little bit longer...

A bird-like form stepped out of the murk and walked down the dark passage. Wearing a beak-like mask filled with pungent aromatic plants to cloak the malodorous smells of death that hung heavy in the air, the doctor looked like a hideous raven. As he shone the muted light of his lantern into the darkness, he saw entryways smeared with blood-red crosses, the sign that the street had been visited by a plague. 

Raven’s Arrival 1347 AD.  Intaglio 5 x 7inch 2010