Here are some posts I enjoyed around the web this week:
Pompeii’s tragic casts of human and animal victims are getting a close inside look and some much needed preservation. This is an interesting update in Archaeology Magazine about one of the most poignant sets of remains from the past. For those of you who’ve read A Day of Fire and other books set on the day Vesuvius buried Pompeii, you’ll already have felt a deep emotional response to the human costs, but these silent plasters tell a tear-bringing tale on their own, also. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Giving New Life to Some of Pompeii’s Dead”
The archaeological record shows that cats were domesticated in the Near East as long ago as 9000 BCE to 7000 BCE. Cats appear later in China and the question arose—were they imported domesticated or did a parallel process of domestication develop? Now we know. Separate domestication in China. Humans developed this relationship more than once in human development. It happens in conjunction with the rise of agriculture. Want to guess why? Rodents. That’s why. Store grain and you get rodents. Rodents draw wild cats and the rest is prehistory. I think this calls for cat tales (get the pun?) and pictures. Your personal domestication attempts or the failure thereof. Best rodent catching stories. Go for it, cat people. Personally I’m not convinced we domesticated cats. They just play along for the food and luxury. Click here for “Cats Domesticated in China Earlier than 3000 BC”
From a new friend I met at the San Diego State University Writers’ Conference, lovely photographs of Mayan texts and commentary about them that will make it easy to see why I so enjoyed talking to Elle Jauffret. We share some great interests in common!
—A Day at the Museum of Natural History—
Did you know that, around 300 BCE, the Maya made books? They developed a hieroglyphic script—signs representing words or sounds that could be combined and/or merged in different ways. They recorded their knowledge in codices (ancient manuscript texts in book form—sometimes illustrated with images). This written language survived until about 1700 CE. Click here for Elle Jauffret “The Beautiful Books of Ancient Maya: Codices”
So Vikings got around by sea quite a bit and they didn’t have compasses, but they might have used crystals. Huh? you ask. Me too, but apparently polarization of light through certain crystals allows some navigational guidance and may explain the references in Viking sagas to “sunstones.” If you want to understand it, you’ll have to click through. My eyes glaze over at words like “polarization” and “crystalline chunks of calcium carbonate.” Although I like the alliteration. What’s your favorite Viking fact? They seem to have grabbed the popular imagination lately. Read Patricia Bracewell if you’re a Viking fan (and I don’t mean football). Click here for “Viking Sunstones put to the Test”
And speaking of Vikings, Pat Bracewell sent me this link about an exhibit designed to show Viking life as it really was and bust up some myths—like the total absence of horned helmets. That’s pretty funny because horned helmets (lots of horns, not just two) were very much the thing among my Hittites but reserved for the gods and the Great King. It was a sign of divinity and royalty and as such is depicted all over Hittite carvings etc. Click here for New York Times “‘Vikings,’ Here to set the record straight”