From My Fantasy Writing Desk:
If you haven’t read Priestess of Ishana, Book 1 of my Tesha series, I’m helping you fix that oversight right now before Book 2 launches on October 14.
Priestess of Ishana is FREE on Amazon through Oct 6. Download it now. No excuses!
Don’t forget this opportunity for some more free fiction from the Bronze Age:
Preorder Sorcery in Alpara and also get the free short story, “Sheltering a Sorcerer” It’s simple:
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 or before 10/14.
Here’s the handy page on my website for this preorder special.
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.
Archaeology I Enjoyed:
Dionysus Lost His Head
Dionysus took an unexpected trip to the market (of Trajan) in Rome. Worse, he seems to have suffered decapitation.
In order to reconnect Trajan’s forum with the same emperor’s market, they are clearing a Renaissance neighborhood. Only in a place like Rome would a Renaissance neighborhood get outranked by some other layer of history.
But during this construction project, what did they find stuck in a sixteenth century wall? A marble of Dionysus’ head had been repurposed as filler for the wall.
This brief article implies the director of the Archaeological Superintendency of Rome has decided this is the god of wine by the tilt of the head and shape of the mouth, from which he also decided that it is from a very fine Greek-style workshop and dates to the first or second century AD. I can’t read that much into the head position and mouth of anything. I’m impressed. The superintendency’s restoration lab will conserve the remaining red, yellow and ochre pigments so people will be able to see what the original would have looked like. All those Greek sculptures (and elsewhere) sported bright colors—you have to banish that idea of white marble everything.
I wonder about the god’s divine revenge for being stuffed into a wall. Some poor mason in Renaissance Rome probably got chased down and shredded by maddened Maenads! Click here for Archaeology Magazine “A God Goes Shopping”
A Mythology Book Fair
I’m participating in this book fair of books with mythological elements. Click through for a look.
