From my fantasy writing desk:
Not so much writing news here. The daily battle with getting words on the page. I had to sort out how to show Tesha pulling off some new magic. It is a bit like a truth serum without the serum. Suffice to say I read a lot about hypnosis for some “reality” and then I went for some Hittite “rules” of magic.
But mostly I spent my week trying to keep the tension high in some dialogue passages and to maintain some “surprises” for the reader by not giving in to my teacher instincts and explaining what is ahead before it happens.
That always seems abundantly obvious except so many writers, myself most of all, give away the mini surprises all the time. I found myself following the advice I’d written in the San Diego Writer Conference workshop I’m teaching in a couple weeks. Apparently I needed the refresher course. Guess it’s good I’m practicing what I preach.
Archaeology and history posts I enjoyed:
Sleuthing artifacts stolen from Iraq
This is a story of archaeological sleuthing. In 2003 London’s Metropolitan Police seized a number of illicitly gained artifacts from an antiquities dealer. Until 2017, they languished in police holding for lack of knowledge of where they’d come from, etc.
When looters dig up and steal, they separate the “treasure” from its context and usually the items, however beautiful or fascinating in and of themselves, become orphans, lost without identity of their origins, use in situ, date, etc. It’s a tragedy.
But these items found a happy ending because of serendipity and the knowledge of two archaeologists at the British Museum.
This story involves a dig in southern Iraq with some signature hallmarks of size and multi-period settlement. There’s the extremely lucky coincidence of an archaeologist recently returned from a dig with just those hallmarks. He got a close look at the artifacts and they matched what he’d seen in Iraq.
Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum
Now we know where they are from. I especially like knowing what the purpose was of the most intriguing of the artifacts, “three ceramic cones.” The cones are inscribed with a temple dedication message in cuneiform to say for eternity that the king built this temple for his god. They were embedded in the Sumerian temple walls facing upward so the god could conveniently read the message. How’s that for product placement? And there were lots of them because you don’t want your message to get overlooked.
Because the stolen cones and the properly excavated cones were identical, the provenance and context could be established. The looting holes were still visible and the dates of said looting could be narrowly determined. The looted goods are now in the national museum of Iraq. Click here for Archaeology Magazine “The Case of the Stolen Sumerian Antiquities”
Marvel Meets Mesopotamia
Marvel Meets Mesopotamia: How Modern Comics Preserve Ancient Myths. Fun post on the ASOR blog. Here’s to Gilgamesh and Captain America joining forces in the world of comics! I like that Gilgamesh is known as the “Forgotten One.” The entire world I use as the setting for my fiction is forgotten! And what better place to find a superhero than the poem Gilgamesh? What would we do without mythology to supply the best plots and characters? Click here for ASOR blog “Marvel Meets Mesopotamia”