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Home » Roundup of Archaeology and History Jan 9-19

Roundup of Archaeology and History Jan 9-19

Here are some posts I enjoyed the last couple weeks:

Because you can never have too many griffins: From the Getty Villa, Gryphon detail on Sarcophagus (Klazomenian, 480-470 BC) - Terracotta
Because you can never have too many: Griffin detail on Sarcophagus fr Getty Villa, (Klazomenian, 480-470 BC)

A late Roman game board was unearthed in a Germanic prince’s tomb. The prince apparently had a reverence for all things Roman. This one is wooden with squares, a bit like chess or checkers, and has green and yellow game pieces of varying sizes made of Roman glass (from Syria). I’m personally terrible at playing games of such sorts, but I love to use them in my fiction. I invented a game called Sphinx and Griffin after looking at the available evidence of ancient games. I needed a much more complicated game than what I found. Maybe someday someone will make workable rules and strategies and the parts (including hunters, griffins and sphinxes—how’s that for fun?) for my fictionalized game. Way beyond me. I did have a great time integrating the play of the game into a courtship conversation. Click here for Archaeology News Network “1,600 year old Roman game board found in Slovakia”

Learning about non-elite people in the ancient world is really hard. A new technique used on Egyptian mummy cases allows researchers to read the waste papyrus they are made from (ancient paper mache, I guess). Apparently, grocery lists and tax returns are among the finds. Humble bits and pieces which also reveal, I think, a remarkable level of literacy, given who would be using something like a shopping list. Similar humble writing finds in Roman contexts (wooden tablets) have also revealed higher levels of literacy than expected. So interesting. I want to see the grocery list translations. What piece of everyday info from the past would you love to have access to? Click here for Archaeology News Network: “Scan technique reveals secret writing in mummy cases”

The Great temple at Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire, photo by China Crisis, Wikimedia
The Great temple at Hattusa, capital of the Hittite Empire, photo by China Crisis, Wikimedia

Here’s an overview post about the Hittites and 5 key archaeological sites important to Hittite history (On the website Ancient History etc). If you’ve been wondering about this lost empire or contemplate historical travels, this is a good outline. Some of the information is stated as unambiguous fact that scholars would admit are interpretations, but that’s how it goes with a civilization that got buried and has been reconstructed from the archaeological discoveries (which include lots of written records, but those are never as clear cut as one would love). I use this world as the inspiration for my fiction. Click here for Ancient History, Et Cetera “5 Key Sites of the Hittite Empire”

The casting of a Black Achilles in the upcoming BBC/Netflix Troy: Fall of a City has the racist assumptions about the classical world popping out all over. Twitter is abuzz with silliness and ugliness. I’m greatly pleased at the choice of actor and am looking forward to this show. I’m sure it will have any number of problems with historical accuracy and suitability, but this issue isn’t one of them. I found an excellent website by Classics professor Rebecca Kennedy. The link below is a post of hers about the false notions about the Dorian Invasion and the long tradition of ascribing all that is good and worthwhile in Greek history to the Germans, who supposedly invaded way back when and got everything in civilization going in the right direction. Yes, it’s as silly as it sounds and as unsupported by evidence, but people in the general public still say things that come right out of this idea and a constellation of related racist misconceptions. So, if you want a smart read on the subject, click on through. Entirely approachable writing, not long or dense at all. If the subject of race/ethnicity in the ancient world is of interest to you, Professor Kennedy has an incredible bibliography on her site. I cannot claim to being well read on this subject, but I am very glad to know where to look to fix this failing. An outstanding resource. Her own publications on this subject sound excellent, also. Look around on her website. Well worth it. Click here for Rebecca Kennedy’s webiste “The Dorian Invasion and White Ownership”

Athena coming fr a head of Zeus (I love this, perhaps posed, photo fr Stuttgart, Attribution: Stefan Frerichs (SteFre at de.wikipedia)
Athena coming fr a head of Zeus (I love this, perhaps posed, photo fr Stuttgart, Attribution: Stefan Frerichs (SteFre at de.wikipedia)

A fragment of pottery was excavated in Galilee depicting the birth of Athena and modeled after the Parthenon freeze. It’s the only copy of the Parthenon’s artwork found outside of Greece, so that’s intriguing and shows that the building was iconic way back when. It’s from 4th century BCE and made in Apulia Italy but found in a Phoenician city in the Levant, so it reflects far flung trade patterns and the financial success of the Phoenician textile dyeing industry that allowed the buying of such luxury goods. They could only recently discern the artwork on the pottery shard through the use of imaging tools and software. The scene follows Homer’s version of Athena’s birth with Aphrodite and Dione standing on either side of Zeus while Athena emerges from his head. That’s always been one of the more curious myths to me. An odd male appropriation of a distinctly female power—to give birth. Athena herself is an intriguing combination of skills, warfare and weaving, city destroying and city building, perhaps reflecting Greek awareness that civilization building in human history is as much about destruction as it is about construction. A pessimistic view. What do you think, is Athena’s duality a reflection of reality or does she reflect what happens to the world when the female side is completely shunted aside, as Zeus succeeded in doing with the production of this daughter? Athena seems like a pretty interesting symbol of the world today, brought to us by Homer and some archaeology in Israel. Thoughts? Click here for Haaretz “Archaeologists Uncover Pottery With Parthenon Scene in Biblical Village”