From My Fantasy Writing Desk:
This week I worked in a final layer of editing before sending Of Kings and Griffins off to my copyeditor. I added “grounding” details, usually aspects of setting, but any cues that put a reader solidly into my fictional world. With each book, I have needed to take a late look at each scene and add some of this detail. When I’m writing the conflicts and arc of each scene, it’s easy to put in a few scene “markers” and tell myself I’ll return to them.
Before I started this last stage, I reread various articles and chapters on city structures, Hittite architecture, furniture, and art motifs. I like to have a fresh sense of the possibilities. With each book, the specific requirements of those places and characters make different details jump out at me.
This time, for example, a line drawing of a typical motif of two “mirrored” leopards caught my eye. I knew exactly where I would use it—on the headboard of Tesha and Hattu’s bed. I modified the leopards’ postures a bit, using some of the many lion hunting scenes for historical accuracy (such as Mycenaean dagger above, photo AishaAbdel) and some photos of actual leopards to capture the feline fun. Tesha’s in bad shape when the reader first “sees” the bed, but that adds to the emotional tension and pathos of this scene.
Here’s a snippet:
“On the headboard above her slack visage, stretched two sinuous leopards inlaid in gold with obsidian spots and face details. They reached toward each other with straight front legs and lifted hind ends displaying curled tails. Their noses touched, and they seemed to smile at each other.”
Archaeology I Enjoyed
Revealing Monuments
Here’s a post—including Hittites!—on the subject of monuments as controversial commemorations that point to historical insecurities and crises rather than sources of useful historical education. At one point, the article draws an intriguing parallel between Confederate monuments put up in the 20th century and Neo-Hittite rock reliefs. Interested partisans put up the Confederate memorials considerably after the actual historical events they are supposed to “educate” about. Similarly, long after the fall of the Hittite empire Neo-Hittite commemorations dotted the Anatolian landscape.
In addition, from the actual Hittite period, the article discusses the most famous depiction of my two main characters (historical names Puduhepa and Hattusili) on a rock relief. They demonstrate an example of leaders who used monuments to add to their questionable legitimacy. Since Hattusili nudged his nephew from the throne, that seems a fair interpretation. I like to see Hattusili as primarily wise in his actions, but he did face those pesky questions afterwards. Click here for Ancient Near East Today “Are Monuments History? (Neo-) Hittite Meditations on Two Memes”
Raising a Buried Sword
An exciting archaeological moment: Lifting a Viking sword that hadn’t been touched by a human hand since Viking times about 1100 years ago. In Norway they’ve excavated a farm and extensive burial mound to make way for a highway.
The burials overlap each other in an intriguing way that perhaps indicates that each generation wanted to be near the most important ancestors. In this way the residents of the farm could share in the power of the ancestor companion spirits that live in the mound. This is similar to the Hittite belief in ancestors as guiding and protective and requiring special “homes”—as in many cultures.
The video clip in this post is fun. You watch Astrid, the Norwegian archaeologist, doing the final clearing away and then lifting the sword from the dirt into its protective box. You don’t have to understand the commentary in Norwegian (I didn’t) to have fun observing this moment. Click here for Archaeology News Network “Viking Sword Found In Grave In Central Norway”