Santa and Those Reindeer

His eyes how they twinkled! His dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry.
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broadface and a little round belly
That shook, when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

Clement Clarke Moore,
"A Visit from St. Nicholas"

Where do you think Santa Claus is right now? Sitting with a glass of sherry in front of the glowing embers in a cozy wooden house while Arctic snow falls softly on his sleigh outside? Or maybe feeding the reindeer? Perhaps he has his maps out and is making adjustments to his route across the North Pole for Christmas Eve?

Not the real Santa. For the sake of accuracy, Christmas cards should show Santa in sunglasses, clad in red and white swimming trunks, and sipping a cool Coke next to a swimming pool. For the sake of completeness, a reindeer with a sunburned nose, called Rosie, should be panting nearby.

There is now evidence to suggest that Santa's abode lies not on the polar ice cap, but among Mediterranean olive groves on Gemiler, a tiny island off Turkey. It is there, historians believe, that St. Nicholas, a direct ancestor of Santa Claus, may have died.

Gemiler is well-known to tourists and has recently been the subject of a number of archaeological studies, most recently by the University of Osaka, and by a group of scholars including David Price-Williams, an archaeologist who lectures at London University. Though it is only half a mile long, it has at least five churches decorated with frescoes and mosaics and all the hallmarks of a major religious site—a holy city dedicated to St. Nicholas.

Medieval Venetian sailing instructions refer to Gemiler as the Island of San Nicolo. On a church door near the anchorage is a painting of "Osios Nikolaus"—St. Nicholas himself. The island also has a huge Byzantine ecclesiastical complex, with a magnificent 300-meter barrel-vaulted processional way. At other Byzantine sites processional roadways are often associated with monastic complexes dedicated to the veneration of major saints, but few ever reached the grandeur of the one at Gemiler.

Jump to: Page 1 (Santa and Those Reindeer)
2 (Who Was Santa?) | 3 (Modern Santa and Meaning)
4 (The Hallucinogenic Connection) | 5 (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer)

Copyright © 1998 by Roger Highfield. All rights reserved. Posted with permission of http://www.twbookmark.com. Click here for ordering information for "The Physics of Christmas" at Amazon.com.