CITIES AND THEIR STORIES

City Names Decoded: Do You Know The Significance Behind These 10?

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Does the word Honolulu just refer to its placement? What does Walla Walla, Washington really mean? And why did Mark Twain mention Yreka, California in his autobiography? Sometimes, names reveal much about the history of the lands as native communities and original settlers knew them. Arguments, infestations, practical arrangements, mythology, and landscapes, all inspired the current denominations of these ten cities that are thriving today. Read on to learn a dozen words in native languages and their meanings!

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Punxsutawney’s name might bring a certain charming groundhog to mind, but its origins are rooted in a less celebrated creature: sandflies. Derived from the Lenape word Punkwsutènay, which means "town of the sandflies" or "town of the mosquitoes," the name reflects the area’s early insect problem.

Originally a Native American campsite, Punxsutawney was strategically located between the Allegheny and Susquehanna Rivers. When German settlers arrived in 1772, they found that the Lenni-Lenape natives were already calling the swampy area Ponkis Utenink, meaning land of the ponkies (sandflies). Eventually, the swamps in the area were drained and the insects were exterminated. Today, the town is best known for its Groundhog Day celebrations featuring Punxsutawney Phil, whose weather predictions have become a beloved annual tradition.

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Tucson's name traces back to the O'odham language, with Cuk Ṣon translating to "black base" or "at the foot of the black mountain." This phrase refers to Sentinel Peak, also known as ‘A’ Mountain, which looms west of the city. The darker base of this volcanic peak compared to its summit gave rise to the descriptive name.

The derivation from Cuk Ṣon to Tucson wasn’t direct, however. Over time, it evolved to "Tuquison" when encountered by Spanish explorers. Later, early settlers called it "Toixon." Even today, there’s some dispute. Locals would like to remind everyone that the correct pronunciation is similar to "Two-sawn," not "Tack-sun."

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Pennsylvania’s largest city is famously called the "City of Brotherly Love." This name derives from the Greek words philos (love) and adelphos (brother). It was William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, who chose this name. Why? Possibly because he had made an effort to establish a peaceful friendship with Tammany, the chief of the native Lenape, and bought the land from his people. In fact, Penn and Tammany made their friendship oath under an elm tree at Shackamaxon –which is now part of the city's Fishtown neighborhood.

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A name with a beauty that goes with the views. In Hawaiian, Honolulu means "sheltered harbor" or "calm port." It comes from the combination of hono (bay) and lulu (sheltered), chosen to reflect the city's natural setting. Historically, the protected bay of Honolulu’s port, with its calm waters, was vital for fishing and trade, which allowed the village to grow into what is today Hawaii's vibrant capital.

It is said that its sheltering quality refers not just to the topography of the place, but to its hospitality as well. By the mid-19th century, as the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Honolulu was a significant hub for commerce and culture, and its name also symbolized a welcoming crossroads and sanctuary in the Pacific.

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Phoenix indeed refers to the mythological creature that is reborn from the ashes. The settlement that transformed into today’s metropolis was established on the land of a bygone Hohokam civilization. Early settlers originally called it Swilling's Mill, which then evolved into Mill City.

Later, new names were suggested, such as Stonewall (after Stonewall Jackson) and Salina. It was Phillip Darrell Duppa, a pioneer settler of the state of Arizona, who proposed Phoenix to signify how the new city had emerged from the ruins of the ancient Hohokam. The city was officially recognized in 1868.

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The capital of Louisiana, located by the Mississippi River, famously stands for "red stick" in French. The name was officially given by French explorer Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, who was making his way upriver in 1699 when he came across a particular sight by the riverbank. It was a bloodied, red cypress pole adorned with fish and bear heads as sacrifices, marking the boundary between the hunting grounds of two Native American tribes that resided there. The vivid image of the red pole reflected in the clear water was memorable enough to earn the area its current name.

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Mark Twain, in his autobiography, jokes about the origin of this name. He writes that it derives from a misreading of an incomplete sign that an early local bakeshop was painting. The word "Bakery" was stretched out to dry, but with the "B" hidden, a passerby read the reversed letters as "Yreka" and assumed it to be the town’s name. The settlers were satisfied and embraced this word.

The real story is more straightforward. Nestled in the shadow of Mount Shasta, the small city of Yreka boasts a name derived from the Shasta word Wai-rika, meaning "north mountain" or "white mountain." The name was intended to honor the majestic peak nearby, and the current spelling descends from Wai-rika’s pronunciation.

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This name has a very literal meaning and was chosen for a practical reason: it was a safe harbor. Established in 1914 as a tent city to support the construction of the Alaska Railroad, Anchorage quickly evolved into a crucial port. Its location offered ships and boats a reliable place to anchor and unload, making it a vital hub for transportation and trade in the region.

The name "Anchorage" reflects its essence as a safe refuge in the challenging Alaskan landscape. Originally known as "Knik Anchorage," the word also referenced its role as a waypoint for travelers heading across the water to Knik. Today, Anchorage stands as the largest city in Alaska.

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Walla Walla is often said to be a "town so nice they named it twice." The alliteration in its name apparently amused the writers of the Looney Tunes, who decided to adopt "Walla Walla, Washington" as a recurring reference sprinkled in fast speeches by characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

But what does Walla Walla mean? In the Native American Sahaptin language, the words stand for "running waters" or a confluence of streams, reflecting the valley's numerous rivers flowing into the Walla Walla River and eventually joining the Columbia River. Notably, the Lewis and Clark expedition camped near the "Wallahwollah River" in 1806, where they met the "honest and friendly" Walla Wallas.

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The sound of "Eek" might make some chuckle. In 2020, the census revealed that his small city in Alaska has 404 residents, most of whom are Alaska Natives. A nod to the town’s indigenous heritage is reflected in its name. It descends from the Central Alaskan Yup'ik word Iik, which translates to "two eyes." The name was first assigned to the Eek River, which would flood with the fall tide, and its water would reach the "eyes" of the riverbank. However, the Yup’ik name for Eek is Ekvicuaq, meaning "a small cliff", which refers to the hill upriver by which the community resides.

History Re-Written: 10 Palimpsests and Pentimenti you didn’t know existed

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A palimpsest is a manuscript that preserves traces of an earlier writing that was deliberately erased to make room for a new one. The origin of the term palimpsest can be traced to the Greek pálin, which means again, and psân, which is equivalent to erase. This technique became popular from the 7th century onwards due to the scarcity of Egyptian papyrus. Its use would continue for another five centuries until paper started to be mass-produced.

In recent years, new technologies have managed to recover and reveal to the world a multitude of manuscripts that were considered to be lost. This is not only true of writing; in painting, the examples of artworks veiling a previous version or even a totally different painting are striking, although common. The name of this practice is also evocative: pentimenti (from Italian pentire, to repent). In this article, we will walk you through some of the most incredible palimpsest and pentimenti discoveries that will surely leave you speechless.

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One of the most famous palimpsests is the Archimedes Palimpsest, a codex containing copies in Greek of various writings by Archimedes, the eminent mathematician, physicist, and engineer of Syracuse. In 1229, a Christian monk named Johannes Myronas scraped and washed the folios of the manuscript and then wrote liturgical texts like psalms and prayers on them. Fortunately, the wiping out was not complete and Archimedes' work was rescued just two decades ago, thanks to an elaborate scientific recovery process. The codex was found in the convent of the Holy Sepulcher in Constantinople —present-day Istanbul— and nowadays is kept at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

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The master of modernism, Pablo Picasso, once said: "There is only one way to see things until someone shows us how to see them with different eyes". In 2014, a group of researchers and art historians from the Phillips Collection, Cornell University, the National Gallery of Art, and the Winterthur Museum made a startling discovery. Beneath The Blue Room, one of Picasso’s most famous artworks lay a mysterious hidden painting. Restorers had suspected its existence for decades, but the technology to detect it was not sufficient until recently.

The reuse of canvases was a common practice for Picasso at the beginning of his career. This discovery revealed a great deal about the artist's early blue period work and is an excellent example of pentimenti.

Credit: Codex Ephraemi, manuscript of the Greek Bible, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus is an overwritten document that preserves a large part of the Christian Greek Scriptures. The original text, dating from the 5th century, was erased in the 12th century to overwrite the Greek translation of 38 sermons by the Syrian scholar Ephrem. In the early 1840s, a brilliant German linguist named Konstantin von Tischendorf succeeded in deciphering the codex after two years of intense study. It is not known for certain where the original text was written, although Tischendorf believed it came from Egypt.

This discovery is invaluable because it is one of the oldest surviving copies of this section of the Bible and is therefore among the most reliable sources for demonstrating biblical accuracy. The codex is now preserved in the National Library of France.

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In the 1870s the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge received a donation of Dutch landscape paintings. Among these works of art was a beach scene painted by Hendrick van Anthonissen in the 17th century. For more than 150 years the painting showing a number of people gathered at the beach seemed unremarkable. One day, a postgraduate student at the Hamilton Kerr Institute dedicated to the conservation and restoration of the painting discovered a secret underneath. After multiple analyses, he found the figure of a whale beached on the shore.

A conservator's job is always to respect the artist's intentions. However, in this case, it was discovered that van Anthonissen did not remove the whale himself. So in the end, they decided to uncover the original painting underneath in order to return the original image to the public.

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St. Catherine’s Monastery, standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, has one of the world’s largest number of palimpsests. In fact, the monastery’s library holds an exceptional collection of more than 160 reused texts from the 4th to the 12th century. Since 2011, the Sinai Palimpsests Project has been using state-of-the-art spectral imaging to recover erased texts from palimpsest manuscripts found in St. Catherine’s Monastery and has made some incredible discoveries.

Their findings include the Sinaitic Palimpsest, a late 4th-century manuscript of 358 pages containing a translation of the four canonical gospels of the New Testament into Syriac, which has been overwritten by a biography of saints and martyrs in 778 C.E. This palimpsest is considered the oldest copy of the Gospels in Syriac.

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In 2022, Man of Sorrows, a masterpiece by the celebrated Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli, was auctioned at Sotheby's in New York. The painting, however, concealed a secret. An infrared study revealed elements of a partial and unrelated underdrawing, confirming that the panel was originally prepared for a completely different painting. Although difficult to make out in an upright position, when rotating the image the outlines of what appear to be the early stages of the figures of the Virgin and Child become more visible. The figures can be seen near the top edge of the composition and seem to be stuck cheek to cheek in an endearing pose.

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Discovered in 2000, the Novgorod Codex is still being studied by experts, who continue to uncover new layers of hidden texts, accumulated over decades. In fact, due to the number of layers, the Novgorod is considered a hyper-palimpsest. The codex consists of three wooden boards containing four pages of wax on which the author, or authors, inscribed hundreds of texts over three decades, each time erasing the preceding text and writing over it again.

The original manuscript includes psalms written in Old ecclesiastical Slavonic, a language developed by Byzantine missionaries in the 9th century, the first Slavic dialect of a literary nature. Carbon dating established they were created at the end of the 10th century. The Novgorod Codex was discovered on July 13, 2000, in the excavations of the ancient Russian city of Novgorod, whose archaeological mission began in 1932.

Credit: Paul Cézanne, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It was recently discovered that underneath French Post-Impressionist Paul Cézanne's Still Life with Bread and Eggs was an earlier creation. The investigation began when the Cincinnati Art Museum's chief curator was examining the piece for possible treatment and cleaning and suddenly noticed some cracks. After X-raying it, she discovered a "well-defined" portrait below the known painting.

There are many theories that can explain why Cézanne decided to repaint the canvas. One of them is that the author, who in 1865 was only 20 years old and did not have many economic resources, reused an already painted base. Another possibility is that it was an artistic experiment that went wrong. Since many of Cézanne’s paintings have disappeared, this discovery allows us to get to know the artist’s process deeply.

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In 2023, thanks to ultraviolet light, scientists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences discovered a "hidden chapter" of a biblical text from more than 1,500 years ago that lay in the Vatican Library. According to experts who analyzed the manuscript, it consists of Christian stories and hymns that could provide key information about how the Bible changed over time. The original text is from the mid-3rd century but was erased in Palestine to be reused.

This discovery provides insight into what the earliest translations of the Bible were like. This text has passages from Matthew 11-12 in the New Testament written in the ancient Syriac language, which gives more details of the current Gospel.

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In the early 1800s, an important palimpsest was found at Bobbio Abbey, an Irish monastery located in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. The document, now preserved in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, is known to contain a Latin text of the Etymologies of St. Isidore of Seville, although it wasn’t completely deciphered until 2020. An international team of researchers from the Sorbonne and New York University discovered that the sheets of parchment had been erased in the 8th century to be reused, destroying a very important astronomical treatise written by Claudius Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD.

The document, which was thought to be lost, contains the oldest known description of the "Meteoroscope", a nine-ringed instrument used to determine the position of celestial bodies. This major discovery sheds new light on the history of astronomy in antiquity and the beginnings of the history of science.