I've gotten really tired of trying to scroll my mp3 player to where I left off on a 2-hour podcast. So perhaps Audible would do a better job?
Took a browse at their history collection. Ancient history. On the first page a book caught my eye; a lecture series on daily life in the ancient world! But then I checked the reviews. Besides failing to deliver (aka the book is your basic overview of each selected culture, not a focused view of those details of daily life that are so difficult to extract from the usual sources), it had horribly basic errors in physical anthropology, and worse, betrayed a certain anti-science attitude.
The next book displayed was by Graham Hancock.
I'm not saying Audible is a bad service, but their grasp of what belongs in "history" appears on a par with the understanding shown by cable TV.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
I am my own programming language
Half way through the massive book of analysis of some of the Linear B archives. Bunch of other papers to read, prime among them an argument that depictions in The Odyssey can illuminate coastal raiders in the LBA, in particular those by the Sherdana.
I think I'm kicking my timeline back. The subject is both more complex and more contentious but basically the wave of destructions (for which, in an earlier age, the Sea People were often blamed) occur around the middle of the 13th century. This is apparently when the records at Pylos were baked in the destructive fires. It is also closer to the most likely historical analogs of the Trojan War.
Actually, I've got a pet theory. Just as I'm borrowing some names from the Pylos archives and moving them to Knossos, I think Homer may have borrowed Alexandros and Piyamarados (err...Priam) from the Hittite records, displacing them in time and changing some details to make a better story.
(The final wave which sweeps down along the coast and dashes itself against Egyptian shores is roughly 1190 too 1170 BCE, or some fifty years later).
I think I want to start after the Battle of Kadesh, and preferably after the death of Rameses II, but if I were to bracket my choices now I'd say the latest date I'd pick to start the story would be the year Rameses III comes to the throne. (There's two or three Pharaohs in the middle there, BTW. We don't get into the endless Rameses' until later in the Ramesid era).
A big reason is that I'm understanding the changes that happen in the Easter Mediterranean better. By the time Ugarit is sacked there's very little in the way of functional governments anywhere and sea trade has essentially collapsed. I want to tell a story of the storm, and of the coming storm, not of the debris field left after the storm.
I'm also backing away from the slippery slope of modern conception. I really do like the idea of people feeling they are living at the end of the world, and there are ways this is supportable, but they wouldn't and shouldn't construct it as the "Late Bronze Age Collapse" and they certainly won't construct the causes the way we do. Not to call it a simpler time -- it isn't, no time is simpler, just different -- but just as later historians came up with facile explanations that fit the preoccupations of their time, the locals should construct causes that fit their view of the world.
I'm still in a huge ball of fuzz about the relationship between the Mycenae, the Acheans (or whoever actually fought at Wilusa/Troy), the Sea Peoples, the Minoans, the eteocretans/pelasgians, the Dorians v. Ionians/Attic, etc. And folding all that in with whatever is happening on Crete, between the Palace, a Peasant's Revolt, and the Black Ships. Who represents or is connected to what? There are so many potential links, subtle as they are, but no single coherent pattern is coming out of it.
It has been suggested, for instance, that the Dorians are essentially the lower classes and military conscripts, who after central collapse moved out as a colonizing/invading force. Except the language map largely works in the wrong directions and paints in the wrong places. Similar for any connections between named Sea Peoples and any of the Mycenae locations; they sort of work, but then there's a counter-fact to blow it up again.
I'm willing to believe at this point that the evidence is thin enough that you could make convincing argument for just about anything. If that is so, though, I still have a big problem; I haven't decided what I want to be saying, and what kind of patterns best supports the story logically and dramatically.
All I'm sure of is I'm against the obvious; peaceful Minoans over-run by warlike Mycenae, and rising up to throw off their yoke. Or coalition of Mycenae try to take over a vassal state of the weakening Hittite Empire but end up destroying it. Of course in rejecting what appears to be trite I may be forcing my plot to reach for strained but equally trite alternatives.
And another thing. I've realized there's no-one in my cast who really lives and believes the Homeric Ethos. The situation on Crete is almost in terms of how it contrasts with the society of the mainland, and in any case is told from the point of view of people far down enough in the social scale they aren't forced to grapple with honor the same way Achilles did.
So, sure. I could go back to giving my Athenian-born mercenary more of a story, and let him have a character arc in which he understands, even embraces the code before abandoning it.
However. The whole Achilles in his tent business makes me think of chivalry; specifically, how the epic poems going on and on about knights-errant and courtly love were essentially written in the gunpowder era; long after those modes of behavior could be called descriptive. And, yes, we are well aware Homer was writing in a Greece that was coming out of the Greek Dark Ages, an iron-age world far from the world his poems described. Point I'm making is there's no reason to assume the elaborate Homeric codes of honor are reflective of actual LBA society.
I think Homer gives insight into how things work when it is boiled down to small warrior bands without a unified government. And there are elements that last through into classical society; but again one must be careful, as The Iliad became functionally a bible for the Classical Greeks; it is difficult to untangle where some cultural habit is carried over from history and where it is consciously adopted.
In any case, it amplifies again for me what I want to do with this book. Homer has been done...first by Homer and that's a hard bar to clear. Actual historical Mycenaean society is less explored.
And for all the questions I'm struggling to answer, all the subtle details about how to date the multiple Knossos archives (there appears to have been more than one fire) on so forth, I have to write for an audience who is lucky to have even heard of the Sea People or the LBA Collapse.
I think I'm kicking my timeline back. The subject is both more complex and more contentious but basically the wave of destructions (for which, in an earlier age, the Sea People were often blamed) occur around the middle of the 13th century. This is apparently when the records at Pylos were baked in the destructive fires. It is also closer to the most likely historical analogs of the Trojan War.
Actually, I've got a pet theory. Just as I'm borrowing some names from the Pylos archives and moving them to Knossos, I think Homer may have borrowed Alexandros and Piyamarados (err...Priam) from the Hittite records, displacing them in time and changing some details to make a better story.
(The final wave which sweeps down along the coast and dashes itself against Egyptian shores is roughly 1190 too 1170 BCE, or some fifty years later).
I think I want to start after the Battle of Kadesh, and preferably after the death of Rameses II, but if I were to bracket my choices now I'd say the latest date I'd pick to start the story would be the year Rameses III comes to the throne. (There's two or three Pharaohs in the middle there, BTW. We don't get into the endless Rameses' until later in the Ramesid era).
A big reason is that I'm understanding the changes that happen in the Easter Mediterranean better. By the time Ugarit is sacked there's very little in the way of functional governments anywhere and sea trade has essentially collapsed. I want to tell a story of the storm, and of the coming storm, not of the debris field left after the storm.
I'm also backing away from the slippery slope of modern conception. I really do like the idea of people feeling they are living at the end of the world, and there are ways this is supportable, but they wouldn't and shouldn't construct it as the "Late Bronze Age Collapse" and they certainly won't construct the causes the way we do. Not to call it a simpler time -- it isn't, no time is simpler, just different -- but just as later historians came up with facile explanations that fit the preoccupations of their time, the locals should construct causes that fit their view of the world.
I'm still in a huge ball of fuzz about the relationship between the Mycenae, the Acheans (or whoever actually fought at Wilusa/Troy), the Sea Peoples, the Minoans, the eteocretans/pelasgians, the Dorians v. Ionians/Attic, etc. And folding all that in with whatever is happening on Crete, between the Palace, a Peasant's Revolt, and the Black Ships. Who represents or is connected to what? There are so many potential links, subtle as they are, but no single coherent pattern is coming out of it.
It has been suggested, for instance, that the Dorians are essentially the lower classes and military conscripts, who after central collapse moved out as a colonizing/invading force. Except the language map largely works in the wrong directions and paints in the wrong places. Similar for any connections between named Sea Peoples and any of the Mycenae locations; they sort of work, but then there's a counter-fact to blow it up again.
I'm willing to believe at this point that the evidence is thin enough that you could make convincing argument for just about anything. If that is so, though, I still have a big problem; I haven't decided what I want to be saying, and what kind of patterns best supports the story logically and dramatically.
All I'm sure of is I'm against the obvious; peaceful Minoans over-run by warlike Mycenae, and rising up to throw off their yoke. Or coalition of Mycenae try to take over a vassal state of the weakening Hittite Empire but end up destroying it. Of course in rejecting what appears to be trite I may be forcing my plot to reach for strained but equally trite alternatives.
And another thing. I've realized there's no-one in my cast who really lives and believes the Homeric Ethos. The situation on Crete is almost in terms of how it contrasts with the society of the mainland, and in any case is told from the point of view of people far down enough in the social scale they aren't forced to grapple with honor the same way Achilles did.
So, sure. I could go back to giving my Athenian-born mercenary more of a story, and let him have a character arc in which he understands, even embraces the code before abandoning it.
However. The whole Achilles in his tent business makes me think of chivalry; specifically, how the epic poems going on and on about knights-errant and courtly love were essentially written in the gunpowder era; long after those modes of behavior could be called descriptive. And, yes, we are well aware Homer was writing in a Greece that was coming out of the Greek Dark Ages, an iron-age world far from the world his poems described. Point I'm making is there's no reason to assume the elaborate Homeric codes of honor are reflective of actual LBA society.
I think Homer gives insight into how things work when it is boiled down to small warrior bands without a unified government. And there are elements that last through into classical society; but again one must be careful, as The Iliad became functionally a bible for the Classical Greeks; it is difficult to untangle where some cultural habit is carried over from history and where it is consciously adopted.
In any case, it amplifies again for me what I want to do with this book. Homer has been done...first by Homer and that's a hard bar to clear. Actual historical Mycenaean society is less explored.
And for all the questions I'm struggling to answer, all the subtle details about how to date the multiple Knossos archives (there appears to have been more than one fire) on so forth, I have to write for an audience who is lucky to have even heard of the Sea People or the LBA Collapse.
Sunday, August 26, 2018
Good Vibrations
Vibrato, technically "a periodic change in pitch," is standard practice for classical violin. So much so that playing without vibrato is considered a special instruction to the musician. Traditional fiddle music and early music performance may omit the vibrato -- there is lively debate on the subject!
Violin vibrato is physically achieved by rolling the pad of the finger along the string -- towards the scroll, properly, so pitch is lowered. The performer accomplishes this roll by rotating the hand backwards at the wrist, or by moving the hand and forearm as a unit, or by a combination of the above (depending on speed, taste, depth, position on the fingerboard, and so forth).
On guitar and bass the wrist rotates in order to vary the position on the fretboard and thus change the pitch. There is another technique, however, and that is bending; the performer pushes or drags the string sideways whilst remaining on the same fret. This increases the tension thus raising the pitch. Bending is usually slower and more dramatic. Standard practice is to bend an accurate half-tone -- instructors get annoyed at students who can't consistently hit their pitch on a bend.
In singing, vibrato comes from the vocal chords but there is also a related pulsation that comes from the diaphragm. Essentially, vocal vibrato is a pitch change and has a higher periodic frequency, whilst diaphragm motion produces a slower change that is predominately volume. The two interact, giving a wide variety of tonal colors (and as well a wide variety in the ability of the singer to find and stay on their pitch, or to, as the detractors would have it, to attempt to disguise their failure.)
The recorder and tin whistle both respond to diaphragm vibrato, although it is considered non-traditional on the latter instrument. In addition they can practice something that is better called a trill; a fast fingered change of note. Unlike the other examples, a trill if not indicated otherwise is performed above the written note. The tin whistle adds an interesting idiomatic variant; on notes higher on the body of the instrument, a finger can be flicked over but not touching a lower finger hole, thus providing a subtler (and rapid) pitch shift.
There are many possible ways to execute these sorts of variations and color on the brass and single-reed families. I have found on the soprano saxophone (or, rather, the Yamaha Venova) diaphragm vibrato provides interest, fast finger trills are more than possible, but there is also a unique technique that involves small changes to the size and shape of the mouth cavity and shape and pressure of the embouchure by moving the jaw in a regular fashion.
Diaphragm vibrato is difficult to control especially at speed and is best suited for deep slow volume shifts during long sustained notes. The "lip trill" is fast and easy to employ and changes of speed and depth are extremely easy.
On the trumpet, a similar approach is used. Different players have approached this in different ways, from a jaw motion similar to that used on the single-reed (my current approach) to physically shifting the instrument against the performer's face. There appears to be at least one school out there that teaches holding down a valve and wiggling the finger on it as if it were a guitar string; the result, one presumes, being to shift the trumpet in and out of the selected embouchure and thus create a change of tone and/or pitch.
The trumpet of course has a variety of techniques to similar ends (many shared with the saxophone), such as the shake, the growl, flutter tongue (possible on single reed if you are careful), and -- a trumpet particular -- rapidly shifting between alternate fingering of the same note.
Vibrato adds color and interest and an additional expression to notes you want to give prominence. It can provide an emotional swell within a held note that is otherwise kept at a stable pitch and volume.
The downside? Once you learn how to do it (getting to arm vibrato on the violin is a good year's work), it is very, very hard not to use it all the time.
Violin vibrato is physically achieved by rolling the pad of the finger along the string -- towards the scroll, properly, so pitch is lowered. The performer accomplishes this roll by rotating the hand backwards at the wrist, or by moving the hand and forearm as a unit, or by a combination of the above (depending on speed, taste, depth, position on the fingerboard, and so forth).
On guitar and bass the wrist rotates in order to vary the position on the fretboard and thus change the pitch. There is another technique, however, and that is bending; the performer pushes or drags the string sideways whilst remaining on the same fret. This increases the tension thus raising the pitch. Bending is usually slower and more dramatic. Standard practice is to bend an accurate half-tone -- instructors get annoyed at students who can't consistently hit their pitch on a bend.
In singing, vibrato comes from the vocal chords but there is also a related pulsation that comes from the diaphragm. Essentially, vocal vibrato is a pitch change and has a higher periodic frequency, whilst diaphragm motion produces a slower change that is predominately volume. The two interact, giving a wide variety of tonal colors (and as well a wide variety in the ability of the singer to find and stay on their pitch, or to, as the detractors would have it, to attempt to disguise their failure.)
The recorder and tin whistle both respond to diaphragm vibrato, although it is considered non-traditional on the latter instrument. In addition they can practice something that is better called a trill; a fast fingered change of note. Unlike the other examples, a trill if not indicated otherwise is performed above the written note. The tin whistle adds an interesting idiomatic variant; on notes higher on the body of the instrument, a finger can be flicked over but not touching a lower finger hole, thus providing a subtler (and rapid) pitch shift.
There are many possible ways to execute these sorts of variations and color on the brass and single-reed families. I have found on the soprano saxophone (or, rather, the Yamaha Venova) diaphragm vibrato provides interest, fast finger trills are more than possible, but there is also a unique technique that involves small changes to the size and shape of the mouth cavity and shape and pressure of the embouchure by moving the jaw in a regular fashion.
Diaphragm vibrato is difficult to control especially at speed and is best suited for deep slow volume shifts during long sustained notes. The "lip trill" is fast and easy to employ and changes of speed and depth are extremely easy.
On the trumpet, a similar approach is used. Different players have approached this in different ways, from a jaw motion similar to that used on the single-reed (my current approach) to physically shifting the instrument against the performer's face. There appears to be at least one school out there that teaches holding down a valve and wiggling the finger on it as if it were a guitar string; the result, one presumes, being to shift the trumpet in and out of the selected embouchure and thus create a change of tone and/or pitch.
The trumpet of course has a variety of techniques to similar ends (many shared with the saxophone), such as the shake, the growl, flutter tongue (possible on single reed if you are careful), and -- a trumpet particular -- rapidly shifting between alternate fingering of the same note.
Vibrato adds color and interest and an additional expression to notes you want to give prominence. It can provide an emotional swell within a held note that is otherwise kept at a stable pitch and volume.
The downside? Once you learn how to do it (getting to arm vibrato on the violin is a good year's work), it is very, very hard not to use it all the time.
My dog has no nose
When I was on Prednisone my sense of smell returned for a brief time. That was interesting. The world became more real to me. It underlined the way I'd been feeling disconnected for a time, feeling as if I was watching a movie instead of being in a real place.
Post surgery, however, the sense of smell is returning much more slowly. And subtly. Unfortunately my state is on fire again (a condition I'm afraid will be with us every year now). All that soot in the air probably not the best prescription for a healing nose. By Friday I could smell it. By that point, it smelled less of wood smoke and more like a dumpster fire.
So so far it has been bad smells that have made it past the threshold. This weekend, though, I was at a barbecue, and I was so happy to able to smell grilling onions. The literature is unclear whether I will ever get the full sense of smell back but I've finally confirmed I have some. (Another weird effect; the taste of the coffee I've been drinking at work has changed.)
Ah, but there's always something. I got so used to the way my voice sounded with a stuffy nose and ears. Now it isn't trapped inside my head any more. I'm hearing it from outside, and it's weird. Half the time I'm talking I think I'm listening to someone else.
Isn't the psychology of senses fun?
Post surgery, however, the sense of smell is returning much more slowly. And subtly. Unfortunately my state is on fire again (a condition I'm afraid will be with us every year now). All that soot in the air probably not the best prescription for a healing nose. By Friday I could smell it. By that point, it smelled less of wood smoke and more like a dumpster fire.
So so far it has been bad smells that have made it past the threshold. This weekend, though, I was at a barbecue, and I was so happy to able to smell grilling onions. The literature is unclear whether I will ever get the full sense of smell back but I've finally confirmed I have some. (Another weird effect; the taste of the coffee I've been drinking at work has changed.)
Ah, but there's always something. I got so used to the way my voice sounded with a stuffy nose and ears. Now it isn't trapped inside my head any more. I'm hearing it from outside, and it's weird. Half the time I'm talking I think I'm listening to someone else.
Isn't the psychology of senses fun?
Thursday, August 23, 2018
We have reserves
I'm back to walking to work a couple days a week. Today I was conscious of having strength I wasn't using; of having reserves. But I was also conscious of how shallow those reserves were. I feel like I am healthy for the first time in at least a year, but I also feel really out of training.
I was in the Army Airborne and that kind of physical demand gives a young man a ridiculous physical reserve. I kept up a significant percentage of that with weight training and cross country running after I got out. It is an interesting way to be. You are always conscious of having a lot more strength available than you need for activity of the moment.
There were times when I would chose to "drop" an extension ladder, or climb on top of a piece of scenery, or move a piano by myself, but even then, I wasn't peaking out.
It's like working with free weights. When you work a weight machine those clever cams balance the load to what your muscles can provide at the extension of the moment, and all those pivots and slides guide the weight, keeping it just where it needs to be. In free weights, you don't press your ultimate limit. You can't. You have to have that extra bit of strength to balance and support.
Running, even walking with a reserve, means you have strength left to support your ankle and cushion the heel strike and otherwise protect and ease the motion. When you lose that reserve, a walk becomes a process of letting each foot slam down in front of you just before you would topple over. You don't have enough left to deal with an unexpected curb or even a crack in the sidewalk.
The only thing I've done that I was conscious of finding that exact point where my muscles could give no more is in rock climbing. Specifically, in bouldering, which places the crux (the hardest moment of the climb) in a position of prominence. Even doing a gym pitch of less than a hundred feet on top rope you husband your strength and move smart so as to save yourself. On a bouldering problem, there might be only a dozen moves total. So the climb becomes much more about that one place where you either can hold it, or you can't.
So I'll never have what I had when I was still in the Army; that overabundance of strength and endurance that made every walk a dance, that sometimes made moving and working feel like you were on tiptoes in a china shop -- a "World of Cardboard" perspective. But I look forward to having, again, more than the minimum needed to put one foot in front of another. Or to make it through a work day without having to collapse at a desk and take as long as possible to catch up on emails.
I was in the Army Airborne and that kind of physical demand gives a young man a ridiculous physical reserve. I kept up a significant percentage of that with weight training and cross country running after I got out. It is an interesting way to be. You are always conscious of having a lot more strength available than you need for activity of the moment.
There were times when I would chose to "drop" an extension ladder, or climb on top of a piece of scenery, or move a piano by myself, but even then, I wasn't peaking out.
It's like working with free weights. When you work a weight machine those clever cams balance the load to what your muscles can provide at the extension of the moment, and all those pivots and slides guide the weight, keeping it just where it needs to be. In free weights, you don't press your ultimate limit. You can't. You have to have that extra bit of strength to balance and support.
Running, even walking with a reserve, means you have strength left to support your ankle and cushion the heel strike and otherwise protect and ease the motion. When you lose that reserve, a walk becomes a process of letting each foot slam down in front of you just before you would topple over. You don't have enough left to deal with an unexpected curb or even a crack in the sidewalk.
The only thing I've done that I was conscious of finding that exact point where my muscles could give no more is in rock climbing. Specifically, in bouldering, which places the crux (the hardest moment of the climb) in a position of prominence. Even doing a gym pitch of less than a hundred feet on top rope you husband your strength and move smart so as to save yourself. On a bouldering problem, there might be only a dozen moves total. So the climb becomes much more about that one place where you either can hold it, or you can't.
So I'll never have what I had when I was still in the Army; that overabundance of strength and endurance that made every walk a dance, that sometimes made moving and working feel like you were on tiptoes in a china shop -- a "World of Cardboard" perspective. But I look forward to having, again, more than the minimum needed to put one foot in front of another. Or to make it through a work day without having to collapse at a desk and take as long as possible to catch up on emails.
Wednesday, August 22, 2018
Bull Session
I had the idea for so long this was titled "A Tribute to Georgia O'Keefe" but, really, Picasso was classier than that.
We more-or-less know the Greek gods. They were often regional, sometimes celebrated in veiled cults, but the playwrights and the philosophers alike wrote about them. We know significantly less about the Mycenaean gods. Homer and Hesiod are describing the Archaic gods, the gods (as far as we can tell) of their own time.
Some of the same names appear on the Linear B inscriptions, but so do unfamiliar names. Some of these names (or some of their attributes) appear oddly similar to Mesopotamian gods. But Linear B is always a narrow window. It records nothing of myth or philosophy; it records only when some temple with connections to the palace gave some valuable goods in or in the name of a god.
There are also frescoes and other illustrations, statuary that seems to have no other purpose but ritualistic, and the ruins of what appear to be places of worship. All the detailed reconstruction is conjecture, and it is thinly supported indeed.
The Minoans wrote in Linear A. The best that we have of Minoan worship is that there appears to have been some continuity from their time to Mycenaean; some of the same practices seem to have continued, even though some evidence points towards the Mycenae recognizing a difference. And there are some distinct changes in practice (the most major and obvious being that the Minoans appeared to have shrines in natural settings -- mountains and caves -- and though images of this kind of worship continue in frescoes and other decoration those shrines which have been recovered by archaeology show they fell into disuse during Mycenaean times.)
So, yeah.
Poseidon appears to have been in a place of prominence. He is a chthonic figure and associated with earthquakes, but not -- until Homer and Hesiod -- with the sea per se. He seems a more rooted fertility figure but that gets very odd in the early worship as pretty much everything seems to figure in some sort of death/life cycle, fertility and animals, sort of thing.
Zeus is appearing on the scene, perhaps a new guy, and there are various myths important to his birth and early years that are placed in specific locations in Crete. A place he comes back to again and again; he drags Europa there, to what in Roman times was Gortyns. He's a bull at the time, and I'll come back to that.
There is at least something of Potnia, but this name, meaning "mistress" and generally attached to a variety of goddesses, could mean practically anything in this period. Tantalizing mention is made in some places, for instance, of a Mistress of the Winds. There is also, unsurprisingly, a fluidity of relationship; sometimes Hera is a goddess equal to and/or consort of Zeus, or perhaps Poseidon, or there is a male "Hera" in addition to her.
And there are a whole set of images of a boy god seemingly worshipping an elder/more powerful goddess; possibly the young Zeus, or possibly some completely other character. This Boy Zeus stuff in particular makes me think of the Silver Age Wonder Woman; originally Wonder Girl and Wonder Tot were presented as stories from Diana's earlier days, but then they started showing up in the same timeline and having adventures together and now nobody knows how they are actually related any more.
Gods. They can do stuff like that.
Let's not even start on the whole Minoan snake thing (except to mention that the famous "Snake Goddess" figurine is almost certainly a priestess, not the goddess being worshipped). Bulls. Snakes. Oh, and boobs. The Minoans also seem to have been into boobs -- that is to say in a ceremonial/religious context -- and yeah once again the same iconography shows up in Mycenaean art but we can't tell if they kept the religious practices (and the outfits) or just liked painting topless women. Same thing for the bull-leaping. We assume the Minoans did it. The Mycenaeans painted it. They may have even done it -- but we have no idea what religious significance (if any) they gave to it.
Of course there's bulls. Bulls figure prominently in various Mesopotamian religions as well. The Mycenae seemed as fond of them -- at least decoratively -- as the Minoans. They also kept the Labrys, although it looks a lot more like just a decoration in Mycenaean times. And they seemed to have lost the Horns of Consecration that the Minoans put on every available roofline. But we can't read too much from Mycenaean figurative art. In Mycenaean art it is more likely to find the lions and other animals hunting or being hunted. Man is in the picture now, and He usually has a sword. And they kept the sea life -- but for some reason the Mycenae were really into octopus. Like, way into octopus as a motif. I'm pretty sure octopus-leaping was never a thing, so...does it mean anything other than "cool thing to paint on walls and make into really nice pieces of gold jewelry?"
So I'm playing with some very odd ideas. I want to reference The Chalice and the Blade but as a pleasant dream, not as a past reality. For the middle part of the book I am basically doing Berkeley in the 60's. (What? I went to school there.) So a people's revolution that has all of that wonderful illusion that within their reach might be a change in consciousness, a reshaping of the very paradigms of power and control. And some of the inner struggles too, a revolution that believes it is for everyone but is not always there for all the disenfranchised. As, for instance, so many women have written in oral histories of the Peace Movement; "First we stop The Man from trampling on our rights. Then we'll get around to your issues." A story which alas is familiar to anyone in the Atheist movement today.
Or to put it in the most simplistic terms; some of the revolutionaries see their struggle as returning the power and prestige of the Minoans (and their gods). A subset among them like to think that perhaps that this age of glory had also been a matriarchy.
(And, yes, this is very much going to run into realpolitik. Among my odd ideas for the politics of the time is the weak rulership is in a Devil's bargain with the Black Ships. If the revolution actually overthrew the palace...there would be nothing to stop the raiders from cleaning up before they left for greener pastures.)
How this works with what we know or conjecture about actual worship practices is, well... Heck, I have a lot of trouble trying to work out what the people of Knossos in 1200 BCE even know about what was happening in 1450, much less in 1700. (Those being roughly, the time the Mycenaeans came to prominence in Crete and a time of widespread destruction, and the time of the Thera eruption and, similarly, widespread destruction. And rebuilding into what is likely the Minoan Golden Age.)
Among the really odd directions I'm tempted by is that the bull of so much Minoan decoration is not being worshipped, per se. It is being feared. It is The Sleeping God, a power they keep propitiated lest it rise up and destroy them. Part of my reason for this is the bull motifs and the goddess figures of the peak shrines, surrounded by animals, don't seem to have anything to do with each other. The bull just sort of appears, sus generis. Or is that os generis?
And somewhere here, also, is the possibility of a change in order. Poseidon and Zeus have changed character by Hesiod's time. Was that happening already in 1200 BCE? Was it visible to worshippers of the time? Can you describe this as one religion being supplanted by another?
Oh, yeah. And everything I know of the actual iconography and historical traces of the old forms and plausible reconstructions says no way, but I can't shake a mental image of the bull of the Labyrinth, a massive and mysterious chthonic figure whose stamping hooves shake the earth...
Sunday, August 19, 2018
Equipotential Point
On the good side, I'm largely finished with general research. On the bad side, I've barely started focused research.
Hopefully, if the outline holds together as I flesh it out, it will generate mostly specific questions. But, oh, so very many questions. I've been putting off worrying about stuff like what do people wear, what do people eat, because there are things I need to know that have a greater influence on my characters. Is Kes freeborn, a bondservant, a slave? I assume she's non-Greek but what does she think she is and how does that change her position in society? Is she a corvée worker who lives in a village when not called to the palace, or is she of an isolated group kept in a dormitory?*
I'm not to the point of describing pots yet. I'm watching the establishing shot come into focus. The palace...where I seem to be going is that the labyrinth (aka almost everything but the central court) was destroyed long ago, the Mycenae put up a few walls here and there (Evans tore most of these down, but at least he spared the griffons), but the Mycenae use it as an administrative center only. The royalty, whatever they are at Knossos, may be next door at the "Little Palace."
And that cascades in a number of directions. The red tide is back in the picture (an invention of mine, totally unmentioned in any actual history). It is harbinger and what causes at least some of my cast to go into motion. Oh and yeah...if the Egyptian noble is going to be able to do half the things I want him to do, he has to be pretty awesome. Speak and write a dozen languages for a starter. Which means my etocretan weaver needs to step up her game, too, reaching that larger-than-life status of genre protagonists and other heroes before she leaves Crete.
And either that, or some other recent surfing through the blogs of Classics folks and ancient language nuts** and historical fiction writers has made me think that the Hittite Empire is not off the table. Nor is Cyprus, but boy is that place complicated. Even explaining the situation in Enkomi would be a massive info-dump. And I still need to leave room for some Sea People.
Hopefully, if the outline holds together as I flesh it out, it will generate mostly specific questions. But, oh, so very many questions. I've been putting off worrying about stuff like what do people wear, what do people eat, because there are things I need to know that have a greater influence on my characters. Is Kes freeborn, a bondservant, a slave? I assume she's non-Greek but what does she think she is and how does that change her position in society? Is she a corvée worker who lives in a village when not called to the palace, or is she of an isolated group kept in a dormitory?*
I'm not to the point of describing pots yet. I'm watching the establishing shot come into focus. The palace...where I seem to be going is that the labyrinth (aka almost everything but the central court) was destroyed long ago, the Mycenae put up a few walls here and there (Evans tore most of these down, but at least he spared the griffons), but the Mycenae use it as an administrative center only. The royalty, whatever they are at Knossos, may be next door at the "Little Palace."
Phillip Boyes posted this wonderful LEGO Minoan Temple on his site Ancient Words
In an only slightly related question, I'm going to accept the isotope analysis of a sectioned stalactite that was done a few years back and say there was a previous drought -- this is the one that caused those, err, floods of letters back and forth between Ugarit and Hattusha and Egypt asking for grain to help their starving peoples. Then a period of recovery which very roughly corresponds with the cyclopean wall building in some of the Mycenaean cities. And then the real bad news; this is the year where the drought comes back, the drought the Navarino Environmental Observatory believes stretches a hundred years through the heart of the Greek Dark Ages.And that cascades in a number of directions. The red tide is back in the picture (an invention of mine, totally unmentioned in any actual history). It is harbinger and what causes at least some of my cast to go into motion. Oh and yeah...if the Egyptian noble is going to be able to do half the things I want him to do, he has to be pretty awesome. Speak and write a dozen languages for a starter. Which means my etocretan weaver needs to step up her game, too, reaching that larger-than-life status of genre protagonists and other heroes before she leaves Crete.
And either that, or some other recent surfing through the blogs of Classics folks and ancient language nuts** and historical fiction writers has made me think that the Hittite Empire is not off the table. Nor is Cyprus, but boy is that place complicated. Even explaining the situation in Enkomi would be a massive info-dump. And I still need to leave room for some Sea People.
Frowsivitch, at DeviantArt. I dunno which I like most; the authentic armor and helmets, or the cats fighting lobsters.
*I've got a book that may answer those questions, but it is seven hundred pages long and I'm only in the first chapters. On the plus side, I'm beginning to read (transliterated) Linear B. "pu-ro ri-ne-ja MU 9 ko-wo 3 ko-wa 3 TA" would be typical of a "PY Aa" series tablet, a documentation of personnel describing a work group of 9 adult women and 6 children of both sexes at Pylos or the Hither Provinces.
(MU is the ideogram for "woman," named as are all Linear B ideograms in an abbreviation for a Latin descriptor. TA is an ideogram that is inferred in context to mean some sort of supervisor. Pu-ro is how you have to transliterate Pylos to get it into Linear B -- see why we hate the stuff?)
And as for "ri-ne-ja," Olson calls this "etymologically transparent," with that dry academic humor I'm getting so accustomed to. It means "Linen Workers"; from the Greek lineiai of course, plus the -ja worker suffix.
** I've found the blogs of two different people who do ancient scripts baked goods, like Phaistos Biscuits or cakes with cuneiform frosting decorations.
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