From My Fantasy Writing Desk
Much of my writing attention this week went toward a workshop I’ll be teaching in February on how fantasy writers use historical elements to develop a rich world their readers believe in and feel emotionally engaged with.
Because I’m using passages from Tolkien, Le Guin, Martin and Jemisin, I had a great excuse to spend time rereading some excellent books and thinking about those writers’ craft. Sometimes feeding your own craft via immersion in others is a really good nourishment.
The workshop is part of the Piper Center’s Desert Nights, Rising Stars Conference held in Phoenix at ASU. Writers, check out the conference program and join me February 20-22.
Archaeology I Enjoyed
Pylos Tomb Treasure
The treasures coming out of the Bronze Age Mycenaean Pylos graves are so lovely. From the post I’ve linked to below, I love the agate seal stone with two upright figures who are part lion and part who knows what (horse, dog, man? Are those wings along their backsides or ?).
They are a familiar Near Eastern and Greek type called genii often portrayed in pairs making offerings. You have to click through to the post to see the copyrighted photos of this particular seal stone, but I’ve included here an Akkadian seal with some “combination” creatures who seem to be fighting rather than offering to the gods as the Mycenaean seal portrays. The seal impression from the land of Mitanni at the top of this post shows two priests offering at a similar tree of life.
We’ve all seen depictions of the Egyptian gods who are combinations of things, but less familiar are these types of sacred hybrid-creatures in many variations that are found all over the eastern Mediterranean area. These two are carrying a pitcher and what the article calls an incense burner. They stand around an altar that holds a sprouting tree (often the tree part is called a tree of life, although this is a modest version). The sprout is sitting on/between horns of consecration, a sacred image that is common on Crete and also in early Anatolian contexts and elsewhere.
I would love to be able to be inside the thoughts of whoever made this, used it to sign with or the priests who conducted the ceremonies this must be portraying. What impulse in human imaginations creates sacred creatures that are made up of two or three animals, a combination of man and animal? Where does this notion originate?
Facing the demons and doorkeepers
This Egyptian archaeology story has all the exciting elements. A tale of persistence and luck by an archaeologist who chose to document a tomb shaft deemed “thoroughly ransacked” 86 years earlier and thus ignored. And a coffin find with a text and illustrations “reminiscent of Dungeons and Dragons.” Just for an extra romantic touch, the Dutch archaeologist, Willem, loved Egyptian tales since childhood. What he found in this much-maligned, long-abandoned shaft were the wooden fragments of a coffin on which were portrayed parts of “The Book of Two Ways,” one of the mortuary guidebooks that helped the dead person’s spirit make a safe passage through the afterlife. This is a precursor to the texts known as the “Book of the Dead.”
According to Willems, “The Book of Two Ways” describes quite an exciting, harrowing set of adventures that the dead had to survive. The deceased had to contend with demons, scorching fire and armed doorkeepers, who protected the dead body of Osiris against gods bent on preventing his rebirth. Success in the afterlife required an aptitude for arcane theology, a command of potent resurrection spells and incantations, and a knowledge of the names not just of Underworld doorkeepers but also of door bolts and floorboards.
The richer you were the more detailed your version of this guidebook would be painted on the inside of your coffin. The two ways of the title refer to alternate land and sea routes on your journey to visit Osiris. But the bonus at the end of facing monsters and riddles: immortality among the gods. It’s possible Dungeons and Dragons is going to prove very useful in the next life. Click here for Archaeology News Network “Remains Of 4,000-Year-Old Egyptian Guide To The Underworld Discovered”