Some posts I enjoyed this week:
Modern mystery about an ancient face. Whose head is this? A faience figure, golden diadem-crown around thick black hair and a bearded face, found in a dig in Israel, dating to the 9th C BCE strongly resembles a Near Eastern king, as they were generally depicted in Egyptian and Near Eastern art. The dig is located in the Biblical city of Abel Beth Maacah, but that find location doesn’t answer which king or what kingdom he might have ruled. Israel, Judah, Tyre and Aramea are all possibilities. He’s already on display in the Israel Museum, if anyone is going there. Figurative art from this time period in Israel is unheard of, so this stands out. While such art is often “generic” in the way it styles faces, etc., I can’t help but see a lot of emotion and character in this gorgeous piece. It certainly looks like a portrait of a particular person, caught in the throes of heavy moral burdens, tragedy and loss. As I look at this king, I do not see a rash or bloodthirsty man. I do see a man who may have lost everything because he chose to do the right thing, not the pragmatic thing. Anyone else see a man’s story in this face? Click here for NBC News “Sculpted head of mystery Biblical king found in Israel”
My offering today: a poem called “Even Homer Nods” by Rowan Ricardo Phillips on Poetry Daily (originally published in the Paris Review). On being a parent, the shield of Achilles, and the madness of the world today. It’s gorgeous and resonant. Many thanks to Dot DiRienzi for sending this my way. There are many reasons why the Iliad is my heart’s delight of literature, but one of them is: the many layers that writers (centuries of them) find in the Iliad and then incorporate and elaborate on. Click here for Poetry Daily “Even Homer Nods” by Rowan Ricardo Phillips
So why have new finds been coming from Pompeii lately? There’s a moratorium on excavations of the remaining unexcavated parts of the city still buried since the eruption of Vesuvius (about 1/3 of the overall city). But for the sake of stability of previously dug buildings, some restoration, conservation had to be done in the 1,200 square yard strip where the various bodies, garden etc. have been coming to light. And first they had to remove dirt thrown there by 19th C and early 20th C excavating. And in that “rubbish” they found fragments of frescoes, amphoras and loom weights. Not so different from the modern dig at Troy, where the one and only piece of writing found at Troy (on a seal) was lost in Schliemann’s cast off dirt. This gradual progression and scientific advances, and the vulnerability of excavated buildings/finds, explains, I assume, the moratorium. We don’t want to ruin something now that we will be able to preserve and interpret much better later. Interesting restraint an archaeologist has to practice, isn’t it? Click here for Archaeology Magazine “Pompeii Revisited”