From My Fantasy Writing Desk
When I do the rough layout for a new book, there are often spots in those approximations of plot that hide big chasms which I’ve papered over with some vague phrase that such and such will happen here. I have no idea how, mind you. I just trust that some brilliant idea will occur to me before I get to that part of the layout.
This week I was homing in on one of these chasms and nothing was lighting up in my brain. My usual way of solving this problem is to take myself and some good food over to my friend Diane’s house. She patiently listens as I try to explain what’s going on in that part of the projected novel and what problem I need to solve.
Of course, I couldn’t go over to her house this time around. We’re all isolated these days. So I wrote out my muddled sense of what happens up to the problem spot and then listed my four problems to solve. I sent those somewhat baffling notes her way. Confusion ensued, but somehow that didn’t matter. Confusion might be a form of muse, in fact. Somehow between emails and a long phone conversation we got my plotting holes filled. There will be a few bumps as I work our ideas into scene, but I am content. And we gave another role to one of favorite characters in this manuscript—although I’ll use character loosely since this little guy isn’t human. Lots of fun coming. Photo at left is a little hint.
Archaeology I Enjoyed
Keeping up Appearances in the Afterlife
The Egyptians sent “servants” to assist the dead—at least for high status burials. The remains of 20 or more high priests found in a large burial ground at the site of Tuna el-Gebel (170 south of Cairo) demonstrates this practice.
Thus far they’ve excavated 20 mummies in “very good quality” limestone sarcophagi. To assist these 20 priests, the burials included more than 10,000 faience shabti figurines. These small, glazed ceramic statuettes are intended to “come to life” in the afterlife in some sense and do all the chores for the honored dead. It’s an interesting reflection of how many assistants a high-status ancient Egyptian had during the living part of life, although I suspect people arranged for a bumped-up number in the afterlife.
The Hittites transferred useful objects into the afterlife also, such as a square of “meadow” for sheep to graze on. However, the Hittites appear to have burned these items as the way to get them to “pass over” into the world below (which is where the Hittites thought of it). We mostly know about these practices from written records. As far as I can sort out the evidence, they sent no servants along to herd those sheep etc. But the gaps in what we know are large and maybe the tablet describing the transfer of symbolic servants didn’t survive. Click here for Live Science “Mummies of ancient Egyptian priests found buried with thousands of afterlife ‘servants'”
Roman Mosaics in Turkey
Beautiful Roman mosaics from Zeugma, Turkey for your enjoyment. The 9 muses—in case your stay-home projects require some inspiration—and Ocean, the anthropomorphic depiction complete with some lobster-tail-looking “horns” on his head.
Anyone know why a Roman Ocean had horns? The much, much earlier Hittites in the same geography put horns on pointed hats to indicate divinity (and then lower on the pecking order by extension, royalty), but I find it hard to believe there’s any connection to that notion going on here. I forget if there’s a myth to explain them, so share it if you have a theory.
This post also displays a dreamy-eyed (and just plain dreamy) young man mosaic, also. The 1 min video gives a great sense of the mosaics in situ, with the excavation level way below the current ground level. And one of the excavators does the lovely trick of wetting the mosaic to bring the colors up brightly—the muses come to life right in front of you. A lot of the Zeugma Roman era mosaics are collected in a museum there, but it was closed when we were there, so I haven’t seen it. (Photo at top of post is one of the Zeugma mosaics, Dionysus’s lions, photo by Dosseman Wiki) This is fun. Click here for CanYouActually “Archaeologists Unearth 2,200-Year-Old Mosaics In An Ancient Greek City”