From My Fantasy Writing Desk
I’ve spent more time working in my daughter’s garden this week than reworking my current manuscript. The photo shows me on my field of victory—weeded and dug to ready it for grass seed. We still have to do the leveling and smoothing. Putting in a lawn strikes me as similar to writing. There’s always another step of revision to do before you can declare it good to go.
Fortunately, before my husband and I packed the car full of landscaping equipment and headed out, I did a fun interview for a favorite fantasy website.
The Fantasy Hive is featuring an excellent series of Women in SFF author spotlights this month, including one on me. Kudos to this collaborative group for aiming the focus on women. We don’t always get our due share in the genre. Go exploring on their site: “Our official tagline – ‘Fantasy, together’ – embodies our goal: to unify fans of SFF through shared enthusiasm and appreciation of the genre.”
Click here for The Fantasy Hive WOMEN IN SFF AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT – JUDITH STARKSTON
Archaeology I Enjoyed
A decidedly cold case
Who dunnit?
They’ve uncovered an Iron Age murder mystery on a farm in Buckinghamshire during construction of highspeed rail line. Archaeologists found a skeleton with bound hands found face down at the bottom of a ditch. The 2,000-year-old adult male appears to have come to a violent end, but osteologists may find some more clues to the mystery. Someone hid the body well enough to avoid discovery. The site overall has signs of occupation from Neolithic through Medieval. There’s a Roman cemetery with high status burials. Also, a Neolithic circular monument with wooden posts reminiscent of Stonehenge or other stone circles. Click here for Archaeology News Network “Iron Age ‘Mystery’ Murder Victim Found During Roadworks In England”
Ancient recipes from Babylonian cuneiform tablets
Many of us have tried some intriguing cooking during lockdown, but this Cambridge University professor of Conservation Biology launched into cooking from the oldest recipes in the world, Mesopotamian recipes from cuneiform tablets published in the Yale Babylonian Collection. He did have to fill in some gaps in the recipe instructions. For example, the lamb stew instructions were as follows: Meat is used. You prepare water. You add fat. You add fine-grained salt, barley cakes, onions, Persian shallot, and milk. You crush and add leek and garlic.
Lots of room for creative interpretation! His strategies were not always as historically accurate as they might have been, but he gets praise for giving ancient cooking a try and enjoying the results.
If you want a great source for “kitchen-ready” ancient recipes from Mesopotamia and the rest of the ancient Near East, that already have the interpretive leaps filled in–and by a pro–I recommend spending some time on Laura Kelley’s blog, Silk Road Gourmet. She has also published a book of modern recipes from that region called The Silk Road Gourmet.