From my Fantasy Writing Desk:
Sorcery in Alpara, Book 2 in the Tesha series, launches on October 14! I’m giving you two big reasons to preorder right now.
For a short time, I’ve dropped the price of all my books to $2.99, including Sorcery in Alpara. I wanted to give my readers access to the best deal right away.
Even more exciting, I’ve written a new short story, “Sheltering a Sorcerer” that you can only get by preordering Sorcery in Alpara. It’s the second Anna story, prequel to my novels. (You’ve read the first story if you signed up for my newsletter. If not, you can still sign up & get that story free.)
Sheltering a Sorcerer
In the Hitolian Empire, sorcerers, and all who protect them, are marked for death by the Great King. Sheltering a magical child is lethally dangerous. That doesn’t stop Anna.
How to receive the short story free:
1. Before Oct 14, preorder Sorcery in Alpara
2. Email me at offers@JudithStarkston.com and attach a copy of your Amazon preorder receipt (or screenshot) before October 14th. The story will be emailed to you on 10/14.
Here’s the handy page on my website for this preorder special.
Archaeology I enjoyed:
Han Dragons among the Xiongnu
Lovely silver dragons gilded with gold revealed themselves in a tomb of a Xiongnu aristocrat in north-central Mongolia.
They may have been attached to a decorative vessel. These small dragons are in the style of the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-25 CE) and show cultural exchange between the two people.
During the Han the Chinese court and the Xiongnu clashed several times, so apparently not all the “exchanges” were sociable—but then dragons often aren’t either. Since I don’t have the rights to display the photos, click here to see in Archaeology News Network “Gilded silver dragons among treasures found in Mongolian tomb”
Face Down Female Residential Grave
Archaeologists noted an “anomalous” female burial in the Bronze Age site of Erimi on Cyprus. Such is the dry term in the excavation season report.
The report describes the expansion of the dig this season into a large, organized workshop complex devoted to dyed textile production, but also into a residential area. That’s where they found the “anomaly.”
Outside the settlement’s fortification walls, there is a cemetery. But one burial was found inside a house. “The body was set face down near a pre-existing stone basin set into the floor, where two single red polished hemispherical bowls were deposited as possible offerings. Preliminary analysis of the human remains confirmed that her age at death was between 15 and 20 years old.”
I don’t know about you, but I want to know why a young woman was buried face down in the house with various possibly ritual objects nearby. She isn’t going to tell us, sadly. Imagination armed with what we know of this culture is about all that can be done.
One interesting fact the article includes: archaeologists in Cyprus have documented other similar cases of women buried inside residential spaces.
Tell me your idea about this woman’s burial below in the comments. Click here for Archaeology News Network “New Finds at Erimi-Laonin Tou Porakou in Cyprus”