Weekly Roundup of Archaeology, History and Historical Fiction Nov 26-Dec 2

Here are some posts I enjoyed this week from around the web:

Clay figurine described as a Bronze Age version of Rodin’s Thinker found dating to 3800 yrs ago in Israel. At 7” tall, he’s a small version, sitting on a jug. The archaeologists at the site stress how unusual and detailed the little guy is. I find myself thinking he is very similar to clay figurines found on Cyprus from roughly the same period. There was lots of trade between the Levantine area and Cyprus, so not sure why this isn’t leaping into this archaeologist’s mind, but perhaps my sense of the similarities is off. I do like his wide-eyed confusion while pondering the nature of the world. Or perhaps this pose means something else entirely. Click here for Time of Israel “Clay Figurine si Bronze Age ancestor of Rodin’s Thinker”

And I thought Hittite “medicines” were bizarre! Here’s a highly entertaining post about Venetian Treacle, said to cure everything from ingrown toenails to plague, and produced with as much fanfare and ritual as anything I’ve found in my far more ancient Hittites. And true to Italian politics, bribery was an essential ingredient also. From the History Girls, a fun blog to follow. What’s your favorite tale of medical quackery? Click here for The History Girls “The Great Venice Boil Off”

Fashion design crops up in some unexpected places and times. In an article “Otzi’s Sartorial Splendor” Archaeology Magazine notes that the clothes of the 5,300 ice mummy show deliberate choices as to which kind of animal skin to use for each of the many parts of his attire. I like the deerskin for the arrow quiver. Seems like a kind of magic that would make the quiver help the hunter bring down more deer. But maybe I’m thinking too much like a Hittite, which this guy isn’t! Click here for Archaeology Magazine From the Trenches “Otzi’s Sartorial Splendor”

Ah, Turkey, tourism and archaeology. Always a complicated story. In southeast Turkey there is the Zeugma museum with an extensive collection of mosaics. It was closed for repairs when I was there. They announced a website with an online 3D tour. That was exciting news, so I clicked through. Alas, communicating with the outside world is not always something that Turkish tourism efforts succeed at. You can see photos of many of the mosaics and for that it’s worth a look. But the photo gallery has no annotation of what the mosaics depict and in another section where there is some commentary about the mosaics in the Gaziantep Museum, you get English the likes of the quote below (when you’ve found the tiny language choice menu at the top of the homepage and have switched to English). It makes for great comedic entertainment, but not much historic enlightenment. This quote was the explanation about one mosaic that from the photo seems to portray on the left a large gold cup and on the right two reclining figures, male and female, the male pouring something from a height into a cup held by the female: “Zeugma Kelekağzı mevkisinde rescue excavations took place in the day light. Akratos and Euphrosyne sat on the kite, Akratos filling the cup of Euphrosyne (Riton) from the venom of the deer head. On the left is a large drinkable crater. Euphrosyne means joy, joy is joy, joy is one of the three gods that symbolize the pleasant, shine, warmth, beauty. Zeus and Eurynome’s daughter. Akratos, on the other hand, is a god that depicts incapable man in the face of women.”

Hard not to like the phrase “depicts incapable man in the face of women.” And always good to know that joy is joy. But I’m still scratching my head at the venom of the deer head. Probably the cup is a rhyton in the shape of a deer’s upper parts—that’s a familiar Hittite figure if you’ve read my novel Hand of Fire (although the mosaics are much later), but it’s hard to make out in the photo, so I’m only guessing from the weird Turklish. Always out to brighten your day with some archaeological humor…. however unintentional. Click here for the Zeugma Museum website 

Anyone found some stray legs? Apparently so. Nerfertari, wife of Ramses II (who has a off-scene cameo in a book I’m working on, Ramses not Nerfertari) had the indignity of having her tomb and mummy looted in antiquity. And now someone thinks they’ve identified her legs, although not without some ambiguity (200 years!) in the dating. What a relief. She’s no doubt tired of getting around the afterlife in an ancient version of a wheelchair. Although it doesn’t sound like they have the rest of her mummy. Just the legs. Poor woman. She did have a “well-made pair of sandals” with the legs, so that’s a relief. The trials and tribulations of civilizations that want immortality through body preservation. It’s a tough act to sustain for a few millennia. Archaeology Magazine “Mummified Legs May have been Queen Nefertari’s”