From My Fantasy Writing Desk:
In preparation for the Oct 14 launch of Sorcery in Alpara, the second book in my Tesha series, I’ve been writing the guest posts where I will be hosted on other writers’ websites. For my topic, I’ve focused on the life of Queen Puduhepa, the historic Hittite queen I used as the basis for Tesha. Perhaps this little-known but remarkable queen will become a little more widely recognized and understood. Her admirable leadership style is entirely worth attending to—after all, the topic of women as leaders has been on our collective minds lately. Puduhepa (and my version of her, Tesha) has a lot to offer. I’ll link here to these biographical guest posts as they go up around the web.
This weekend, August 30-Sept 2, I’ll be speaking at CokoCon, the local Phoenix comicon that focuses on authors. Come listen in on our panels and join in the various other activities—art, music, science/astronomy, movies, sword fighting, and gaming at the Doubletree Phoenix North, 10220 N Metro Parkway, Phoenix, AZ (by Metrocenter Mall right off I-17 at Peoria Ave). Here’s the link to the CokoCon website with the schedule of programming and everything else you’ll want to know.
Archaeology I Enjoyed:
Newly discovered unlooted Mycenaean Tombs
In the exciting department: archaeologists have discovered two unlooted Mycenaean chamber tombs (1400-1200 BCE) near Nemea in the Peloponnese, Greece. The tombs include five full burials and 14 skeletons who had been transferred from other tombs. They found an array of clay pots and figurines, although not some of the impressive weaponry, armor, and jewels of the earlier period of Mycenaean tombs excavated in the same Aidonia cemetery. The drop in the wealth of contents in itself makes a statement about the culture and daily life of the end of the Mycenaean period. Click here for Archaeology News Network, “Two unlooted Mycenaean chamber tombs unearthed in southern Greece”
The Griffin Warrior Mycenaean Tomb
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In contrast to the simple contents of the late Mycenaean unlooted tomb at Aidonia I talked about earlier this week, consider the fabulous contents of what is known as the Griffin Warrior tomb. Archaeologists also found it unlooted, only 200 yards from Pylos’ Palace of Nestor. The lessons from this extraordinary find are rich and many. One conclusion is that rather than seeing the cultures of mainland Myceanaeans and Cretan Minoans in conflict with each other we should understand them as blended and interdependent.
“Archaeologists have a way of cutting the world up into well-bounded cultural entities, but it seems that in the Late Bronze Age new identities were being formed,” says archaeologist Dimitri Nakassis of the University of Colorado Boulder. “There used to be clear lines between the Minoans and the Mycenaeans, but a lot of work now points out that these are our categories, not theirs.”
We can see instead of Mycenaean conquest a gradual cultural mixture that came to an end when the Mycenaeans took over Crete. This raises, for me, the point that the Mycenaeans may have lost far more than they gained when they went from interactive borrowers to colonizers. They killed the cultural golden goose, perhaps.
The discovery of this profoundly significant tomb occurred by a series of mishaps and delays, legal and logistical, that were infuriating at the time but now seem either comical or perhaps mystical. Forced away from where the team had planned to dig, the forty or so people excavated a spot they thought was nearly useless. Remarkably quickly they realized they’d found an unlooted grave. An ivory plaque decorated with a griffin gave a name to the 30 to 35 year old warrior buried with his bronze weapons, gold jewelry, carved seal stones, ivory inlays, beads and a great deal more. Most high-status burials of this Mycenaean’s time, in the 1500’s BCE, occur in huge, above-ground, beehive-shaped tholos tombs, which were easy targets for grave robbers. We must give thanks for the ancient choice for the quiet invisibility of a shaft burial that provided protection.
The extended article in Archaeology Magazine on this tomb is a worthwhile read. The artistry of the carved seal featured as a photo and a slideshow in the article is breathtaking. It’s only 1.4″ or so. I find utterly moving the interplay between the fallen warrior on the ground and the two men locked in a fatal, fraught moment. It’s as compelling as the best poetic moments of Homer. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “World of the Griffin Warrior”
There is also a website set up by the archaeologists of the Pylos excavation that features the Griffin Warrior as well as other parts of the dig.