Here are some posts I enjoyed this week, including Babylonian omens in lunar eclipses, the true demise of the Library of Alexandria, early cultic finds at the Cretan palace of Zominthos and sleuthing out a fake cuneiform tablet.
One of Crete’s finest palaces, Zominthos, dating back to the paleopalatial period (1900-1700 BCE), revealed more of its secrets during this season’s excavations. The rock upon which the foundations of the buildings were constructed served as a place of earliest worship of the cult of Zeus. Small cups on disc bases and other artifacts reveal the practices, indicating ritual meals. This palace and its cult areas was very important to the religious life of the island, particularly when snow limited access to the sacred caves. Among the most intriguing finds are a rhyton (libation) cup shaped like a bull’s head and a rock crystal workshop, whose products may have been viewed as having magical properties. This site has layers from this remarkable earliest one up through Roman and even Venetian traders, so it is gratifying that the remains from the Minoan layers are still intact to this extent, including walls that were part of 2 and 3 story buildings. Have any of you visited any of Crete’s amazing Minoan remains? Click here for Archaeology News Network “In the footsteps of Minoan worshippers at Zominthos”
The Babylonians understood the mechanisms and timing of lunar eclipses. They could accurately predict when they’d occur, but that didn’t stop them from viewing eclipses as omens, and particularly as omens of impending death to their king. So they developed substitute rituals where some unlucky slave was dressed up as the king and then killed so the prophecy could be fulfilled but the real king was safe. The Hittite records have this ritual in them also. Similar equations of eclipses and danger to rulers occurs in Chinese annals. This is an interesting post that discusses eclipse omens in Mesopotamia and elsewhere. How does this connection get started in the human experience? Click here for the ASOR blog “Eclipses as Omens”
How to Spot Fake Cuneiform Tablets. Stolen and faked antiquities have been in the news lately for good reason. I found this discussion of the features of an authentic tablet intriguing—although I grant this is a really history-geek sort of interest. Cuneiform looks singularly indecipherable to those of us (i.e. the vast majority of people) who are untrained. I’ve had my fictional characters make jokes about the bird track look of them. This post makes those palm-sized pillows of clay a little more approachable. I have characters creating and reading such tablets all the time, so I’m always glad to hear more from experts about them, although those lessons are not always in as simple and straightforward as this post! Click here for AZOR blog “How to Spot Fake Cuneiform Tablets”
Ever wonder what really happened to the Library of Alexandria? This Ted-Ed video is pretty interesting and more than a little chilling given some parallels to attitudes toward knowledge today. Click here for TED Ed video on Alexandria