Here are some posts I enjoyed this week:
Not all excavations have quite the pedigree of Carchemish, an ancient city on the Turkish Syrian border (the ancient city spans across both countries’ borders). Not only was it a major city in the Hittite Empire and before (2000 BCE), and Sargon II’s palace (Assyrian king around 700 BC), but the site was first dug by T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). An ongoing 7-year current dig has just completed for this season, with the Turkish government also making plans to build walking paths, gift shops and other tourist park amenities so that they can open the site up for visitors. The Turkish government sees value in archaeology in direct proportion to a site’s ability to draw tourists, so I wish this venerable excavation well with that for its own sake, but location and various other obvious factors might keep tour busses away. You can see what’s left of Lawrence’s old excavation house, though. Click here for Hurriet Daily News “Excavation works in ancient Karkamis end”
A mosaic depicting the sacrifice of Iphigenia during the preparations for the Trojan War has been uncovered in the ancient city of Perge in the Antalya region of Turkey. The site was expanding the gift shop and discovered a 1800 year old mosaic instead. It isn’t surprising that so many artists chose to depict Iphigenia on vases, mosaics and frescoes. Sacrificing your daughter, with lots of deception involved, to get your army afloat certainly does put Agamemnon in a category of his own. Actually if you’ve been watching/reading Game of Thrones, I’m thinking Agamemnon might have been the inspiration for Stannis Baratheon, another guy who killed his daughter for the fighting strength of his troops. It’s such an appalling tale, both versions. Click here for the Hurriyet Daily News “1800 year old mosaic found in the ancient city of Perge”
Netflix has announced some intriguing casting choices for Troy: Fall of a City. I can see some of these choices (not that I know anything about film production…), Johnny Harris as Agamemnon, Joseph Mawle as Odysseus, and David Gyasi as Achilles—this last might be their most inspired/creative pick. Figuring out a visual representation for that mythic icon is intimidating. What do you think? Click here for “Netflix announces cast for new epic Troy: Fall of a City” on Streaming Observer
How can historical fiction be feminist? In this article Greer Macallister rejects Hilary Mantel’s reduction of historical fiction about women to two possibilities, reinforcing women as victims or misrepresenting the past by portraying the victims as winners. Macallister discusses a number of books that show how false Mantel’s dichotomy is. And we can all think of countless others. She also discusses a range of subtleties of portrayal that can encompass feminist ideas without that being the single-minded preachy point. Persuasion and expanding the way people think happens effectively through fiction, although rarely when anyone hits the reader over the head with something.