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Home » Weekly Roundup of History, Archaeology and Writing Wisdom August 22-28

Weekly Roundup of History, Archaeology and Writing Wisdom August 22-28

 

image of Socrates the canine writer
Socrates the canine writer

Here are some posts I enjoyed this week. Since Socrates, my canine writing partner, starred on my Facebook page this week and I don’t have many pictures to supplement my post this week, I’ve included my assistant here. He’s very good at pinning me to my chair by wrapping himself around the legs. Who could disturb a face like this? Not I! An essential for all writers. Highly recommended 🙂

Mexico is not my usual area of archaeological focus, but this story is so intriguing and hair-raising that I have to share. In an Aztec ruin being dug in Mexico City they have found a “head rack,” a platform formed of the severed heads of sacrifice victims mortared into the structure. They believe it was used to intimidate friends and foes alike. The possibilities for historical fiction are so tempting. Anyone want to grab this for an Aztec book? The archaeologist had to lie on their stomachs in six-foot shafts to get this uncovered and they anticipate many more skulls. Apparently the Spanish reported seeing such things, but archaeology had not confirmed it until now, so they were on the look out. Quite the message to the world about one’s empire. Do we have parallels in the modern world? Click here for “Mexico Finds Human Skull ‘Trophy Rack’ at Aztec Temple Complex” in Archaeology News Network

image of Archaeological site of Troy
Archaeological site of Troy

This year the excavations at Troy are being overseen by a Turkish team and funded by a Turkish corporation after more than two decades of supervision by the German University Tübingen. I notice in a Hurriyet News article some good and some worrisome news. One potentially good piece is they are working on increasing accessibility to the site. The possible downside is that they may destroy a lot while building these wooden walkways. There is always pressure to increase tourism at archaeological sites by the Turkish government. The worrisome bit in this article, if it is accurate, is that the stated major goal of the dig is now apparently “to prove the Trojan War.” While Korfmann’s decades-long dig and the work after his death strengthened the case for historical events that could be interpreted as a version of the Trojan War, no one set out with that single-minded purpose. The site encompasses millennia of inhabitation and there is far more to be understood than did a particular war happen. What degree of war would constitute this “proof”? Does it have to be the ten years etc that Homer describes? This is just silly and bad archaeology. Much as I wrote my novel as if such a war took place, the historian in me gets that I was working with legend with some history blended in. I hope Troy is in good hands. This is only a newspaper article and they often get the complex totally bollixed up. We can hope. I’d hate to see this essential site turned into a sort of Disney version for tourism and no real continuing valid excavation. Click here for “Accessible Travel Area to Open in Troy” in Hurriyet Daily News

Mycenaean palace excavated near Sparta. They’ve found figurines, fragments of frescoes, a cup adorned with bull’s head and Linear B inscriptions describing religious rites, which sounds like unusual Linear B material to me. Usually Linear B is used to list how many workers or temple donations etc. I’m accustomed to details of religious rites in the Hittite context in cuneiform but this intrigues me. The dig’s been going since 2009 and it sounds like they’re getting fascinating results. Click here for “Ancient Greek Palace Unearthed Near Sparta Dates Back to 17th Century BC” in The Guardian 

Image Linear B tablet from the Palace of Mycenae, copyright Gautier Poupeau Wikimedia Commons
Linear B tablet from Mycenae, © Gautier Poupeau Wikimedia

Update on Mycenaean Palace: Archaeology Magazine also reported about the Mycenaean palace I posted about (from an article in the Guardian). I believe the mystery of the unusual contents for Linear B tablets can be attributed to inaccurate reporting rather than exciting archaeological anomalies. Here’s Archaeology Mag’s description of the contents of the Linear B found at the site (all quite normal and expected sorts of things for Linear B): “Records of commercial transactions, sanctuary offerings, male and female names, and names of places were among the documents written on unbaked clay”

Several of the palace buildings were burnt and thus preserved the tablets by firing them. Destruction as kiln. You may not have realized that clay tablets only survive if they’ve been in a giant fire. Rarely were writing tablets fired in the ordinary course of things—dust to dust works for tablets as well as humans, alas!

Also the dating of this palace in Archaeology Mag is much more plausibly dated to 15th or early 14th C BCE, not 17th C. as reported in Guardian. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Mycenaean Palace Laconia”

Here’s a post about writing internal dialogue that I found very insightful. Marcy Kennedy talks about solving three common problems by making sure all internal dialogue arises from a stimulus. On Jami Gold’s excellent website for writers.As a reader do you tune in or out when a character reveals his or her inner turmoils silently? What holds you? I agree with Marcy, but it mostly strikes me as a problem of voice–the stronger the voice of the character, the happier we are listening in. Click here for “Internal Dialogue: the Secret Sauce to Fixing Problems” by Marcy Kennedy on Jami Gold’s website

 

 

 

1 thought on “Weekly Roundup of History, Archaeology and Writing Wisdom August 22-28”

  1. Thanks for the shout out to Marcy’s guest post on my blog! 🙂

    Hmm, that’s an interesting point about voice. I *have* read a story once with a VERY strong voice that I didn’t care for. To me, the voice was so “chatty” that it slowed down the pace of the story, just as much as a plot tangent would do. So I’m hesitant to say any absolutes about how strong voice alone solves problems. A strong voice is good, but we still need to keep the story moving forward. 🙂

    (And I know that’s not what you were advocating, but I just thought it was so interesting when I ran into that “too much voice” problem that I wanted to share. LOL!)

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