I show my Japanese friends a donkey. They are quite taken with how cute it is.
Me: What do you call this animal?
Japanese friends (in unison): Don-kee!
Me: No, I mean what is it in Japanese?
Them: Oh. We don’t have these in Japan.
Author: Jennifer Mugrage
I'm a wife, mother, Christian, closet Luddite, Neanderthal advocate, incurable book hound.
I'm also the author of The Scattering Trilogy, which is set in 10,000 B.C. Buy, read, pass it on!
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New Ancient Civilization Just Dropped
… well, new to me, anyway.
The Nuragic civilization on Sardinia features:
- dry-stone towers (10,000 of them!)
- megalithic “giants'” tombs
- cool little bronzes that look sort of like the ones from Canaan
- large limestone statues that look like the bronzes
- wells with intricate shrine-like things around them
Behold, Creepy
“There is only one journey,” [the lady] said, “that all men make. They go forth from the Mother, and do what men are born to do, till she stretches forth her hand, and calls them home.”
Plainly this land was of the old religion. Touching my brow in respect, I said, “We are all her children.”
“But some,” she said, “are called to a higher destiny. As you are, stranger, who come here fulfilling the omens, on the day when the King must die.”
Now I understood. But I would not show it. My wits were stunned and I needed time.
“High Lady,” I said, “if your lord’s sign calls him, what has that to do with me? … if he needs me to serve his death, he will send for me himself.”
She drew herself up frowning. “What is a man to choose? Woman bears him; he grows up and seeds like grass, and falls into the furrow. Only the Mother, who brings forth men and gods and gathers them again, sits at the hearthstone of the universe and lives for ever.”
–The King Must Die, p. 66
Father Abraham
Before his family moved to Haran, Abraham lived in Ur, a Sumerian city. This painting imagines him looking like a member of the culture that he arose from.
Sumerians, the “black-headed ones,” wore skirts of leaves or grasses. After all, their environment was hot and humid, and air flow was important. I am sure that, after he went on the road as a nomadic pastoral warrior-patriarch, Abraham started wearing the woolen robes we are accustomed to seeing. Probably some armor as well, which we are not accustomed to seeing, but it would make a great painting too.
The Sumerians also portrayed themselves as wearing Southeast-Asian-style, cone-shaped hats, but this is a shot of Abraham indoors.
Amazing Historical Re-creations
My brother put me on to this web site:
The Greek Phalanx: Recreating the Hoplite
Under the tab Impression Elements are photojournalistic articles documenting the process that the author and others went through to re-create the armor and accoutrements of Archaic to Classical period Greek warriors.
I read the Archaic Bell Cuirass page, and can I say, I was impressed. This man is Hephaistos. We are talking months of work to get the cuirass (“breastplate” to an amateur like me, though I’m sure there is a difference) into the right shape. Then, he wore it and discovered how it works on the battlefield, which in turn yields some theories about how battle was carried out in the era when this style of cuirass was popular.
As so often happens, the Bell Cuirass (Archaic) only looks simpler than the Muscle Cuirass (Classical). Turns out, it is much harder to make. Its fastenings, too, are simple and elegant in design, harder to make than the fastenings for the Muscle Cuirass, but easier to use. So we have the older artifact being more what we would call “advanced,” and requiring more skill to fashion. Score another point for ancient people.
One last observation: My first glimpse of the Bell Cuirass gave me strong Spanish Conquistador vibes. Apparently, the flared collar and cinched, flared waist in men’s armor has been in fashion more than once throughout history.
Anyway, I highly recommend this web page. Up to now, my perusal of re-created ancient clothing perhaps leaned too much towards female clothing.
And that’s Catharsis
… in all those parts there is no rite in the year that moves and holds the people like the death of the King. So solemn is the day, he said, that if anyone who watches has grief or fear or trouble of his own, it is all purged out of him by pity and terror; he comes away calmed, and falls into a sleep.
-The King Must Die, p. 67
Lunes Latin: Origin of the Word April
Venus was the spirit of desire, mating, fertility; sacred to her was April, the month of opening buds (“aperire“).
–Caesar and Christ, by Will Durant, p. 61
Aperire means “to open” in Latin.
Book Review: Seeing Green by Tilly Dillehay
After the extremely long last Friday’s post, on which I labored for weeks, this will be just a short quick review.
I love the Archie-style eyes on the cover of this book. It’s addressing a very ugly sin, but the fact that the eyes on the cover are pretty makes it easier for the reader to accept the rebuke.
Tilly Dillehay is an awesome writer. Nevertheless, she spent much of her young adult years consumed with poisonous, immiserating envy for her younger sisters, who were thinner and had developed their musical talents more than she had. Dillehay writes with blistering honesty about this sin, the ins and out of it, the effect it had on her relationships, and above all, the cure.
When Dilley writes of the natural gifts that God gives unequally to people, and that we are tempted to envy, she calls them “glories.” There is the glory of being good-looking, of talent, of being a warm and charming person, and so on. She brings out how, when God gives someone a gift like this, it is there for the rest of us to enjoy. It makes the world a more beautiful place, and ultimately, shows forth His glory. It is wise of her not to denigrate the things that we envy (which is one thing envious people tend to do), but to fully admit that they are praiseworthy. She points out that, in the new heavens and the new earth, there will still be inequality among us when it comes to beauty, talent, and other such features. But though there will still be inequality, there will no longer be any envy.
Quote: “He’s born!”
I had seen often enough before what met us there: the great mob, shouting, “He is born! He is born!” and whirling their rattles, and throwing wheat-seed into the air, all sweaty and struggling and climbing on one another’s backs to get a sight of Arnom and the rest of us. Today it struck me in a new way. It was the joy of the people that amazed me. There they stood where they had waited for hours, so pressed together they could hardly breathe, each doubtless with a dozen cares and sorrows upon him (who has not?), yet every man and woman and the very children looking as if all the world was well because a man dressed up as a bird had walked out of a door after striking a few blows with a wooden sword.
Till We Have Faces, p. 273
Behold, Turkeys
These were spotted last week, in Spring. Mating season? The toms all had their tails fanned, as you see, but they were behaving themselves … just walking around and grazing.
In the background, sage and juniper. I live in a semiarid climate.
