Here are the posts I enjoyed from around the web this week:
Hollywood gets it goofy again. That manly Roman armshake thing is hooey. Take it from Alison Morton, who knows her Romans. She checked the reliefs. What has Hollywood made up that has you annoyed or amused in your historical period? I’d have to say the entire film Troy, even with all that eye-candy in the form of Brad Pitt. Click here for “Roman Forearm Handshake: True gesture or Hollywood Codswallop” on Alison Morton
Interesting bit of Turkish archaeology news. The government has decided to reconstruct a Roman triumphal arch, celebrating a victory over the Parthians. The original stones are going to be put back in place, they say, and the whole thing made to look like it once did. This is always a dicey proposition and can do more harm than good. The goal here is to bring tourism to the area of Adana with an impressive tourist attraction. Adana is the area where I spent a lot of time last spring and is the setting of the mystery I’m working on now—a Bronze Age site called Tatarli near Adana. The director of that site would love tourists to come, and that would be great, but he isn’t ruining his site to bring them in. I keep thinking of Evans’ reconstructions of Knossos that we know are so far from what they were originally. Such processes destroy while they “reconstruct” Click here for “Triumphal Arch of Ancient City to Return to Former Glory” on Archaeology News Network
Since I’m in the editing mode, I found this list of 6 ways to add tension to every scene a timely reminder, but it would be particularly handy in the drafting stage. And as a reader I enjoy getting behind the curtain—just how did that author keep me flipping the pages? Click here for “When your Scene is Dragging: 6 Ways to Add Tension” by Anna Elliot on Writer Unboxed.
New words added to the dictionary. What do these words tell us about our current state of being? I note a lot of words regarding gender identification and video gaming/computer hacking/online id & privacy issues and other technology related words—both topics that make sense as generating new words in our current society. Both the gender id issues and the online id issues have some interesting intersections, perhaps. Worth thinking about. But this is the word that has me both scratching my head and also highly intrigued: “ship: to take an interest in a romantic relationship between fictional characters or famous people.”
Entirely made up guesses are, of course, entirely welcome.
Click here for Dictionary.com “New Words”