Here are some posts I enjoyed from around the web this week. I’m enjoying the resurgence of interest in the Trojan War. Bring on the shows! This October 13th the Secrets of the Dead program dedicated to the Trojan War will be particularly excellent. The scholars they have included are the best. I highly recommend this show. Probably either 8:00 or 9:00 on your PBS station on Tuesday Oct 13.
A new piece of the Gilgamesh epic comes to light on a new tablet find. Smugglers in Iraq had a group of tablets, some fake, some very exciting. The Sulaymaniyah Museum intercepted the tablets. In the new parts, Gilgamesh and Enkidu come across monkeys in the Cedar Forest and we learn more about Humbaba. The tablet includes lines that connect it to previous parts so it is clear where the new lines fit within the poem. Over time this poem has grown from new finds. It’s a sign of the times that the new tablet comes from smugglers who, from the condition of the tablets, had clearly dug them up themselves and, of course, there’s no find spot recorded or any of the other details that would be ever so useful. But I love this epic, so I’ll celebrate the addition of new lines. Click here for “The Newly Discovered Tablet V of the Epic of Gilgamesh” on Ancient History et cetera blog.
Regarding the BBC production of the Trojan War, here’s an opinion piece by Harry Mount—“I don’t mind if the pure beauty of the original Homeric hexameters is turned into a sex ’n’ sandals saga. I take it as a tribute to the father of Western European literature that, 2,750 or so years after he wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, his eternal stories are constantly being reinterpreted.” He says we don’t object to the “butchery” of Homer the way we would of Austen or Dickens because there’s something elemental about Homer that suits to constant reinterpretation and reworking. What do you think? Ready for sex and sandals on the screen? Click here for The Evening Standard “Harry Mount: A Sex ‘n Sandals take on the Trojan War? It will be worth every penny”
Another Trojan War show, this one already produced, showing Oct 13th. PBS NY station Thirteen’s “Secrets of the Dead: the Real Trojan Horse”. Publicity write up on the show includes this quote: “I want to find out whether there was any real history behind that myth and in particular whether there was any real history behind the Trojan Horse,” says Edith Hall, professor of classics at Kings College London. That sounds promising and fun. They try out, apparently, various siege weapons against Troy-like walls (no one was very good at this yet is my sense of the evidence and even less so in the area of Troy) and examine the evidence of a “Homeric” Troy being destroyed by war. I just freshened up my memory of all this evidence to prep for a class I’m teaching, and from the sound of it, they’ve looked at the correct stuff and are maybe exaggerating what it shows a bit. So if you come away totally convinced that the Trojan War was a historical moment that we can clearly pinpoint, back off a bit! But otherwise, this sounds like a great show. And perhaps the publicity write up is overstating things. That wouldn’t be surprising.
Once I posted this I heard back from Eric Cline and others who contributed–great scholars all. Not to be missed!
Click here for Thirteen’s “Secrets of the Dead: the Read Trojan Horse”
In case you’ve been taking your history too seriously, here’s the Onion’s spoof on how they made up all of Greek history, including an overnighter during which the Iliad was written. Darn, and here I thought I was being historically accurate in my fiction! Click here for The Onion “Historians Admit to Inventing the Ancient Greeks”
More humor for you. What if Strunk and White tried to solve a murder case? On The Millions “Scenes from Our Unproduced Screenplay: Strunk and White, Grammar Police”. For those of you who love grammar and cringe at language used incorrectly, have a long laugh. Click here for The Millions “Scenes from our Unproduced Screenplay: Strunk and White Grammar Police”
A moving look quite literally inside the plaster casts of Pompeii. I came away thankful that, at least, the little 4 yr old boy was found next to a man and woman who must have been his parents. The casts have always been an emotionally deep glimpse into the destruction, but these new scans raise that to a new level. Click here for The Daily Mail “Peering Inside Pompeii’s Tragic Victims CT Scans reveal bodies”