Two-Timing Nefertiti?

There are two Nefertiti stories making the rounds -- one important and one maybe not so much.

We'll start with the lesser news of the day, yet another attempt to tell us what the real Nefertiti really really looked like.

Two Italian scholars -- Franco Crevatin , an ethnologist at Trieste University, and Stefano Anselmo, an expert in the history of cosmetics -- have created a computer-generated image (left) which they believe is closer to Queen Nefertiti's actual face than the one shown in the famous painted bust (below left) displayed in Berlin's newly-opened Neues Museum.*

You may remember the hot news last March when the statue of the most beautiful woman in the world, Nefertiti, went through a CT scan [if you don't remember, have a look now at Vanity, Thy Name is Uppity Woman, which tells you all you need to know]. Briefly, the scan revealed a hidden face under the painted plaster: inside the bust was a limestone core that was, in fact, a highly detailed inner sculpture of the queen. And this limestone face differed in small but significant ways from the external plaster face:

The inner face had less prominent cheekbones, a slight bump on the ridge of the nose, marked wrinkles around the corner of the mouth and cheeks, and less depth at the corners of the eyelids.

Starting from the entirely reasonable assumption that the outer image had been idealized (for portrait painters have always smoothed away their client's blemishes, bumps, and wrinkles), the Italians took the inner core as the 'true' picture of the queen.

"To reconstruct the face," Stefano Anselmo says, "I studied the art of the 18th Dynasty, the epoch of Akhenaten: masterpieces which depict persons possibly physically related to the queen. The artists preferred curved lines for the faces. Taking account of the imperfections revealed by the CAT scan I created slight hints of sagging around the lips, similar to lines, and the first signs of circles under the eyes."

And, as cosmetician, he added, "I worked mainly on the complexion, replacing the greys of the CT scan with a biscuit-amber tone, which was presumably the skin colour of Nefertiti."

Biscuit-amber?

I can buy the subtle differences -- shallower eye sockets, less pronounced cheekbones, lines around the mouth and a tiny bump on the bridge of the nose. I'm less convinced by the thickening of her lips or rounding of the chin. (I see no justification for these changes: check back to scrutinize her scanned images on the earlier post).

But the skin colour truly shocks.

Compare the colour painted on the plaster bust as she now appears (left). The artist certainly didn't idealistically lighten her skin (or she would have been chalk-white, as women often are on wall paintings). Rather, her skin has very much the tone you see on Egyptian women today.

You don't believe me?

Have a good look at the luscious Khadiga el-Gamal (right), wife of the heir to the Egyptian throne; oops, sorry, I mean wife of President Hosni Mubarak's son.

''Reproducing the face of a queen who is surrounded by such mystery required months of painstaking, detailed work,'' Franco Crevatin said.

Yes, indeed. Perhaps they should have spent more of this time travelling in Egypt. And less time contemplating Black Athena.

Lovely earrings, though.

Who Two-Timed Whom?

The new reconstruction will add just one more controversy to the many Nefertiti disputes that continue more than 3,500 years after her death.

Hot right now is the issue of repatriation: does she stay in Berlin or hotfoot it back to Egypt? This tug-of-war plagued her triumphant exhibition as the über Meisterwerk in Berlin's Museum Island's Neues Museum. The Egyptian Antiquities Department allege that she was exported illegally by the German excavation team in 1912. "Entirely legal!" huff and puff the Germans.

More on "Two-Timing Nefertiti?" in the next post.

Meanwhile, here she is in all her outer glory:






* Their findings were published this month in Focus Storia, an online history journal.

Illustrations:

Upper left: Reconstruction of the 'true face' of Nefertiti, © Stefano Anselmo, Casa della Vita

Centre left: Image of the bust of Nefertiti courtesy the Neues Museum

Lower right: Photograph of Khadiga el-Gamal from ArabianBusiness.com

Video of the bust in the Neues Museum: Eine Kurzfilm von Kathrin Rosi Würtz (via YouTube.com)

The Persian No Spin Zone

Early in 244 CE, the hapless Emperor Gordian III led the Roman army into Mesopotamia to wage war against the second Sassanian-Persian King of Kings, Shapur. Their armies met in battle near the city of Misikhe (modern Fallujah in Iraq).

In the ensuing battle, the Roman army was obliterated -- or was it?

Gordian died in the battle -- or did he?

It depends whose propaganda you believe.

The Case for the Persians

The Persian version of events, carved in stone with a trilingual inscription (at Naqsh-e Rustam near Persepolis in Iran) , claims that Gordian III was killed in the battle:

When at first we [Shapur] had become established in the Empire, Gordian Caesar raised in all of the Roman Empire a force from the Goth and German realms and marched on Babylonia against the Empire of [Persia] and against us. On the border of Babylonia at Misikhe, a great frontal battle occurred. Gordian Caesar was killed and the Roman force was destroyed.

An elaborate rock carving of Shapur's triumph at Bishapur in the Shiraz region of Iran, pictured left, makes the same point: it shows Gordian III trampled under the hooves of Shapur's horse (that's his head you see beneath its forelegs).

Then Philip Caesar came to us for terms, and to ransom their lives, gave us 500,000 denarii, and became tributary to us.

Whether or not Shapur is truthful in reporting that Philip acknowledged his suzerainty (he's the one kneeling before the Persian king's horse), a peace of sorts was concluded. What is certain at least is that the Romans built a cenotaph for Gordian at a place on the Persian side of the Euphrates river, some 50 miles (70 km) north of Dura Europos, and then Philip departed for Rome (see our report on his 'Short, Sad Dynasty').

The Roman Spin on Events

Roman sources do not mention the battle of Misikhe at all. Instead, Philip, while still Praetorian Prefect, is universally blamed for causing Gordian III's death, either having him murdered or stirring up mutiny by deliberately cutting off the troops' food supplies. In these truncated editions, it was only after the Roman army withdrew to the Euphrates that Gordian was assassinated and Philip took his place.

To make matters murkier, some late sources actually add the claim that Gordian was victorious in the Mesopotamian campaign:

While returning in triumph, [Gordian] was killed by the treachery of Philip ... when he was not far from Roman territory (Jordanes, Hist. Rom. 282)

[Gordian] engaged the barbarians and through conducting the war in a most brilliant manner, he defeated the [Persians] in a series of fierce battles. Then ... as he was returning to the frontiers of his own empire, he was murdered by Philip.... (John of Antioch, frag. 147)

Gordian ... routed Shapur, the king of the Persians in battle. But as he was approaching Ctesiphon [the Persian capital], he was murdered by his own troops at the instigation of the Prefect Philip.... (Syncellus 443).

Were the Romans defeated, or not? Historians ever since have been divided on the issue.

No more. A lucky find in Fars settles the matter.

‘If it is possible for me, then I shall establish a fire here.’

So begins the inscription of a man called Abnun, who was master of ceremonies of Shapur's harem.* It is written on a stone fire altar (left), found near Barm-e Dilak in Fars province, a short distance south of Old Shiraz. The stone has a round depression on the top to hold the sacred fire. Human busts in niches and texts are carved on all four sides. Winged 'angels' flutter between the four human figures. The faces of the figures and 'angels' have been erased, presumably at the hands of iconoclastic Muslims, and its lower part broken off and lost.

This type of fire altar is unique but it is, in fact, the very earliest altar known from the Sassanian Empire so, perhaps, we just didn't know what they looked like at this date.

Happily, we do know for certain its date. The year was 244 CE:

When in the year 3 of Shapur, King of kings―when the Romans were coming against Persia and Parthia, then I [Abnun] was here in all-happy Frayosh.

The place name 'Frayosh' is a bit of a guess as some of the letters are missing. But what follows is entirely clear:

When it was heard that the Romans were coming, then I entreated the gods, saying, ‘If Shapur the King of kings [is victorious, and] the Romans are smitten and worsted, so that they fall into our captivity, then I shall allow myself to establish a fire here.’

So, when Abnun heard that the Romans had invaded the empire, he prayed to the gods for Shapur's victory. As an incentive to get the gods on his side, he vowed to dedicate a sacred fire at Frayosh if his king won

That did the trick.

Then, when it was heard that the Romans had come and Shapur the King of kings had smitten them and had worsted them [so that they fell into our captivity, then I began to] establish [a fire], and its name was made ‘Remain (i.e., live long) Shapur and Abnun’.

You don't get better historical evidence that that! Gordian III was defeated at Misikhe and Abnun dedicated this fire altar to his sovereign.

The Romans were economical with the truth.

Q.E.D.


* Translation of “The Fire Altar of Happy *Frayosh” by D.N.Mackenzie, via the Sasanika website.

Illustrations

Upper left: Photograph credit to Livius Picture Archive.

Lower left: M. Tavoosi, 'An inscribed capital dating from the time of Shapur I', Bulletin of the Asia Institute 3, 1989, Figs ii, iii. Originally described as a capital of a building, it has since been recognized and accepted as a fire altar, albeit of a new type; see R.N. Frye, 'Historical Interpretations in Middle Iranian', in (W. Skalmowski & A. Van Tongerloo, eds.) Medioiranica, 1993, 65-69.

HAPPY ST. ZENOBIA DAY

On this day at the Russian Imperial Court, we are told, they would chant this Troparion commemorating the Holy Martyrs Zenobia and Zenobius:

As brother and sister united in godliness
Together you struggled in contest, Zenobius and Zenobia.
You received incorruptible crowns and
Unending glory and shine forth with the grace
Of healing upon those in the world.

Since a saint's day is an annual event -- and I religiously celebrate St Zenobia's Day every year* -- I won't repeat her story here, but point you to my first post of 31 October 2007 (when I was also a day late. Shame!). Their history is complex -- not to say confused -- and it's all the fault of the 10th C Byzantine monk, Symeon Metaphrastes, who fully deserved his nickname, 'the Re-writer'.

Click over to that post -- Zenobia: Martyr Saint of Cilicia and her brother -- and see what you can make of it. Annual reflection has not made me any wiser. You might be luckier.



* Late again, I'm afraid, despite the best efforts of the 'Orthodox Church in America' webpage to remind me that it falls on the 30th of October, thanks to their October Liturgical Calendar (whence this image as well as the Troparion [translated and arranged in Western musical notation by ©I'vow Bakhmetev])

ZENOBIA IN HER AUTUMN COLOURS

Autumn colour isn't just for trees: Zenobia changes colour too.

Zenobia pulverulenta, I mean. And she's a shrub.

With nodding white bell-shaped flowers exuding an exotic, spicy, almost cinnamon-like Syrian scent.

This Zenobia, however, is no native of Syria.

The shrub grows wild only in the moist sandy areas and bogs of the south-east USA. Still, she's a true queen, with gracefully arching branches and blue-green leaves covered with a fine silvery down -- hence her nickname of "Dusty Zenobia". The leaves are now just changing into their autumn finery, a mix of orange, red, and purple colours.

The Genus of Zenobia

Zenobia has her very own genus. As you would expect of an empress, it's a terribly exclusive club -- containing just the single species of shrub that bears her name.

Restoring Zenobia to her proper rank.

The privilege of bestowing a name on a plant lies with the person who first classifies it and publishes an adequate description in botanical terms. He (rarely she) may name it more or less as he pleases within the rather broad limits of a few botanical rules. For one thing, it is frightfully bad form to name a discovery after oneself. For another, it must appear to be in Latin (the ending of nearly all genus names makes them look like Latin -- even when the word is Greek or commemorates modern people and places).

Not all names stick. They can be changed, for example, by someone who manages to uncover a case of faulty classification of a known plant.

Zenobia was once misclassified -- and therein lies a tale.

She belongs to the family of Ericaceae, subfamily Vaccinioideae, and was placed among the tribe of Andromedeae as a mere subgenus, as if she were just another bog standard Lily of the Valley.

Naming plants after classical figures was all the rage in the early years of scientific botanizing. In fact, it happened that botanists so often honoured the three Graces (Charities) or the minor goddess Charis when they described a new genus -- and were enchanted by the beautiful flowers or graceful growth forms -- that the name was given to five genera in five different families.

Andromeda was a popular choice, too.

Andromeda was the daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiope of Ethiopia, whose mother got the girl into terrible trouble by boasting of her beauty. She claimed that the princess was lovelier than the sea nymphs, thereby irritating their father, the god Poseidon. To punish this arrogance, Andromeda was chained naked to a rock as a sacrifice to a sea monster. She was saved by the hero Perseus, who became her husband. The image of a beautiful virgin in chains to be eaten by a beastly sea monster was an irresistible attraction for artists throughout the ages (such as Titian, right) -- and to 18th century botanists.

Andromeda was established as a plant genus in 1753 by the famous classifier and namer of plants and animals, Carl Linnaeus, who gave the name to a little heath he found in Lapland. Gradually, as more and more species were described and included in the genus (some having three or four hundred species), it became apparent that it contained much too heterogeneous a collection of species.

In 1834, the Scottish botanist David Don published "A New Arrangement of the Ericaceae," in which he separated a number of species from the genus Andromeda, creating at the same time several new genera -- which meant, of course, that he was now allowed to give them new names. He followed in Linnaeus' footsteps and created bevies of classical females, such as Cassandra (that didn't stick either; she's now Chamaedapkne), Cassiope (the bragging mother of Andromeda), Leucathoe (daughter of the king of Babylonia who was changed by Apollo into a sweet-scented shrub; perhaps incense), and our Zenobia. Clearly, he thought that plant names should be charming rather than descriptive. And believed that, somehow, the romance of plants could be hidden in their names.*

Why Zenobia?

David Don left no obvious clue to explain why this American shrub should be honoured by the name of the third-century warrior queen of Syria.

He did clarify, however -- albeit in scholarly Latin -- that he had named the new genus after the highly honoured queen of Palmyra, valorous (or virtuous; the word is the same), learned, and famous for her misfortunes.** Perhaps he thought that spoke for itself, and added "whatever opinion may be formed of [her] title to rank as [a] separate gen[us], the arrangement of the species will, I trust, be found to be more natural than any hitherto proposed."

We agree.

What God has joined together, let no man separate (Matt. 19.6).

Enter the Dutch

Of all the gardeners on earth, the Dutch variety are least likely to leave well enough alone.

So it is hardly a foolish boast when the Dutch Garden Centre Esveld says, "Nowhere else in Europe will you find as many garden plants!" Zenobia is the proof of the pudding.

They offer three different kinds of Zenobia shrubs.

Left: the Zenobia pulverulenta that we know and love.




Right: Zenobia pulverulenta "Raspberry Ripple", with rose-flecked flowers.

Below right: Zenobia pulverulenta "Blue Sky", with blue-green leaves.

True, they are still of the same species, pulverulenta (= Latin for "Dusty" Zenobia).






But how long, dear reader, do you think it will take the Dutch to make a new species?

They're working on yet another variety as we speak -- the mysterious unphotographed Zenobia pulverulenta viridis. I bet it's going to be greener than ever!

A pity they didn't make it Z.p. virilis, ' Dusty Zenobia, Brave and Manly' in honour of our warrior queen.




* All the dirt on The Gods and Goddesses in the Garden: Greco-Roman Mythology and the Scientific Names of Plants, by Peter Bernhardt, Rutgers Univ. Press, 2008; partially available on Google Books.

** The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, Vol. 17, 159.

Illustrations

Top left: SC Gardener

Right: Titian, Perseus and Andromeda (1553-1559), Wallace Collection, via Wikimedia Commons

Below left: I am most grateful to Nurseries PlantenTuin Esveld for this and the following two photographs. Credit Nurseries PlantenTuin Esveld, Boskoop, Netherlands.

Below right: Credit Kwekerij R. Bulk, Boskoop.

Bottom right: Credit Nurseries PlantenTuin Esveld, Boskoop, Netherlands.

The Double Duchess ... Into and Out of Babel

Like most bloggers, I'm used to having posts copied and put on someone else's website ... without getting so much as a mention. But never before has my blog been run through an automatic translator (twice, I believe) before being plagiarized.

That's what happened to The Double Duchess and Zenobia. The results are hilarious -- an entirely new language that must be called 'Babelish' -- and a joy to share with my more honest readers.

First, the Babelish (via The Jewerly Shop, as they spell it), which is italicized for its sins, followed by my original text:

Jewerly Babelish:

On Monday 21 June, a sector thanksgiving unmistakable 60 years of Ruler Victoria's find. And, for the opening beforehand since the liquidation of the Prince Consort in 1861, at the regal regale that evening, the beauty queen set excursion her widow's weeds and wore "a put on clothing of which the whole kit fa was embroidered in gold, which had been uniquely worked in India."

Zenobia Babel:

On Monday 21 June, a public thanksgiving marked 60 years of Queen Victoria's rule. And, for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort in 1861, at the state banquet that evening, the queen set aside her widow's weeds and wore "a dress of which the whole front was embroidered in gold, which had been especially worked in India."

Jewerly Babelish:

The skirt of gold pile was embroidered all all over in a comet-like intend in emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and other jewels outlined with gold, the corners where it opened in face existence opulently wrought in the verbatim at the same time jewels and gold to note peacocks outspread tails. This opened to reveal an underdress of goo crepe de chine, lightly embroidered in bright, gold, and pearls and sprinkled all settled with diamonds. The trail, which was devoted to to the shoulders by two slim points and was fastened at the waist with a at liberty diamond furbelow, was a grassy velvet of a pleasurable tinge, and was superbly embroidered in Oriental designs introducing the lotus bud in rubies, sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and diamonds, with four borderings on incongruent grounds, separated with gold twine. The trains was rocky with turquoise satin. The bodice was composed of gold chain to accord the skirt, and the face was of crepe de chine esoteric with a stomacher of verifiable diamonds, rubies and emeralds.

Zenobia Babel:

The skirt of gold tissue was embroidered all over in a star-like design in emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, and other jewels outlined with gold, the corners where it opened in front being elaborately wrought in the same jewels and gold to represent peacocks outspread tails. This opened to show an underdress of cream crepe de chine, delicately embroidered in silver, gold, and pearls and sprinkled all over with diamonds.

The train, which was attached to the shoulders by two slender points and was fastened at the waist with a large diamond ornament, was a green velvet of a lovely shade, and was superbly embroidered in Oriental designs introducing the lotus flower in rubies, sapphires, amethysts, emeralds, and diamonds, with four borderings on contrasting grounds, separated with gold cord. The trains was lined with turquoise satin.

The bodice was composed of gold tissue to match the skirt, and the front was of crepe de chine hidden with a stomacher of real diamonds, rubies and emeralds.

An Englishman in Paris

Jewerly Babelish:

Charles Frederick Benefit , who opened his look for on the Rue de la Paix in 1858. Lincolnshire natural, Quality had worked as a clerk for two London textile merchants, gaining a encyclopedic adeptness of fabrics and culture the affair of supplying dressmakers. Unusually pushy, he visited the Citizen Terrace to contemplation distinguished portraits. Elements of the sitters' dresses in these paintings would later contribute insight for Significance's own designs for both in fashion ensembles and masked ball costumes.

Zenobia Babel:

Charles Frederick Worth, who opened his shop on the Rue de la Paix in 1858. Lincolnshire born, Worth had worked as a clerk for two London textile merchants, gaining a thorough knowledge of fabrics and learning the business of supplying dressmakers. Unusually ambitious, he visited the National Gallery to study historic portraits. Elements of the sitters' dresses in these paintings would later provide inspiration for Worth's own designs for both fashionable ensembles and masquerade costumes.

Jewerly Babelish:

It was his ingenuity to use 'spend mannequins', our models of today (selected in Quality’s instance not for their knockout but for their resemblances to his best customers) to staged off the clothing -- so that his customers would see how the garments look when ragged. The Lodgings of Benefit was likewise the sooner to put forward seasonal collections, four respectively year, and event invented fashion shows, as we restful identify them.

Zenobia Babel:

It was his genius to use 'live mannequins', our models of today (selected in Worth’s case not for their beauty but for their resemblances to his best customers) to show off the clothes -- so that his clients would see how the garments look when worn. The House of Worth was also the first to present seasonal collections, four each year, and thus invented fashion shows, as we still know them.

Jewerly Babelish:

Anticyclone-upper classes women flocked to his classy, definitely uncommunicative salon; a literally of prologue was as a rule required. Charles Dickens, in 1863, reported slyly in stupefaction to his compatriots on both sides of the Aqueduct that a bearded man with his “rugged fingers” was formal to rip off “the wrest dimensions of the highest titled women in Paris — garb them, unrobe them, and get them apply to loath and back.”

Zenobia Babel:

High-society women flocked to his plush, very private salon; a letter of introduction was usually required. Charles Dickens, in 1863, reported back in astonishment to his compatriots across the Channel that a bearded man with his “solid fingers” was allowed to take “the exact dimensions of the highest titled women in Paris — robe them, unrobe them, and make them turn backward and forward.”

Plain Babel

“and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.”

(Gen 11:6)

Hypatia Hits the Big Screen

And who (if we may ask) is Hypatia?

Philosopher, mathematician, lecturer, astronomer. A pagan. And a woman.

An uppity woman.

Born before 370 CE in Alexandria in Egypt.

The ancient sources tell us little about Hypatia, the female astronomer and mathematician who was so much admired by her fellow pagans and so despised by the Christians.

A pagan poet, Palladas,who lived in Alexandria at about the same time as Hypatia, wrote this epigram, the first contribution to her literary legend.

Searching the zodiac, gazing on Virgo,
Knowing your province is really the heavens,
Finding your brilliance everywhere I look,
I render you homage, revered Hypatia,
Teaching’s bright star, unblemished, undimmed.*

But a Christian source remembers it differently:

AND IN THOSE DAYS there appeared in Alexandria a female philosopher, a pagan named Hypatia, and she was devoted at all times to magic, astrolabes and instruments of music, and she beguiled many people through (her) Satanic wiles.

The Background

Hypatia was the daughter of Theon, a mathematician who was the last attested member of the Museum (the "shrine of the Muses"). In its glory days, the libraries of the Museum had held some half a million books. Those days were long over and the last books probably went up in flames in 391 when the great temple of Serapis was razed to the ground and a Christian church built over its ruins.

She was taught mathematics by her father, but reached an excellence far above her teacher, especially in astronomy, and she instructed many [pupils] in mathematical studies.

She helped her father prepare his big book on Ptolemy's planetary models, the Almagest: Theon's second edition of this astronomy classic proudly acknowledges the contribution of "the philosopher, my daughter Hypatia."

Hypatia herself was a follower of the Neoplatonic tradition. We know that she taught publicly in Alexandria -- perhaps in the Museum and certainly in the Agora -- where (although a woman) she appeared dressed in a philosopher's cloak, expounding in public to those willing to listen on Plato or Aristotle or some other philosopher. She wrote a treatise on what we would today call 'numbers theory' and another on geometry.

All of her own works are now lost but we can glean something of her teaching from seven letters written to her by her most famous pupil, Synesius, who converted to Christianity and became Bishop of Cyrene in Libya. He had studied under Hypatia in the early 390's and his surviving letters span the years from 399 to 413. Indeed, she was the recipient of his final letter, penned from his deathbed:

I am dictating this letter to you from my bed, but may you receive it in good health, mother, sister, teacher, and benefactress, and whatsoever is honoured in name and deed. (Ep. 16)

A Neoplatonic Sanitary Napkin

Hypatia was "honest and chaste and throughout her life remained a virgin." Almost certainly she never married -- although she was "exceeding beautiful and fair of form". But boys will be boys and, needless to say, one of her pupils fell in love with her. Despite his best efforts, he could not control his passions and made his affections obvious to her.

Bringing out one of her [bloodstained] menstrual towels, she thrust it a him; and having displayed the evidence of her unclean nature said: "It is this you love, young man, not beauty."

Another version has her say , "In truth, this is the focus of your yearning, young man, but it is nothing beautiful!"

Whatever her exact words, the young man was seized with shame and horror and was brought to a change of heart and a return to chastity.

This is a difficult but well-reported scene, one which most scholars have ignored (or left in the original Greek so as not to have to deal with it). But Hypatia is not saying that her vagina is unclean, but that a philosopher -- and especially a Neoplatonist -- is above things of the body and should focus only on the soul's journey towards the infinite Truth. They must not descend into corporeality or allow themselves to be ensnared by lust. This may be implied by the Alexandrian-Greek word she uses for 'sanitary napkin', phylakeia ("shieldcloths"), which carries the added charge of preserving virginity, rather as a 'shield' for celibacy.

(Neo)Platonic Friendships

Another of her pupils, and a personal friend, was Orestes, the imperial prefect of Egypt and governor of the city, and nominally a Christian.

And the governor of the city [Orestes] honoured her exceedingly; for she had beguiled him through her magic. And he ceased attending church as had been his custom....And he not only did this, but he drew many believers to her, and he himself received the unbelievers at his house.

She had many other friends in high places, both private individuals and magistrates. Adherents of philosophy generally at this time were aristocrats. They formed a group unsympathetic to Christianity and potentially hostile to it. It was from these friends that Hypatia's danger came. In the eyes of the Church, and especially of the city’s patriarch Cyril, she was too big for her boots.

Cyril ... was passing Hypatia's house and noticed a hubbub at the door, 'a confusion of horses and of men', some coming, others going, and yet others standing and waiting. He asked what was the meaning of the gathering and why there was a commotion at the house. Then he heard from his attendants that they were there to greet the philosopher Hypatia and that this house was hers. This information gave his heart such a prick....

Religious tension in Alexandria was already running high with conflicts between Christian and pagan, between Christian and Jew, between orthodox and heretical views. Although the Christians were by now the dominant party and no longer persecuted, they were all too ready to persecute others. In 391, the Emperor Theodosius had forbidden all pagan cults everywhere in the Empire. That same year, rioting and civil disorder broke out when the temple of Serapis was destroyed. Violence erupted between Christians and Jews as well, so Cyril led a mob against the synagogues and drove the Jews out of Alexandria, a flagrantly illegal act and an usurpation of Orestes' authority as governor. Both men now became embroiled in a struggle for political power as Orestes resisted ecclesiastical encroachment upon his civil jurisdiction.

Prelude to Murder

When the prefect rebuffed any attempt at reconciliation, he was himself assaulted by armed monks "of a very fiery disposition" who had come into the city in support of the patriarch.

About five hundred of them therefore quitting their monasteries, came into the city; and meeting the prefect in his chariot, they called him a pagan idolater, and applied to him many abusive epithets.... A certain one of them named Ammonius threw a stone at Orestes which struck him in the head, and covered him with blood that flowed from the wound. All the guards with a few exceptions fled [but] the populace of Alexandria ran to the rescue of the governor, and put the rest of the monks to flight; having secured Ammonius they delivered him up to the prefect. He immediately put him publicly to the torture, which was inflicted with such severity that he died under the effects of it.

Orestes was lucky to escape with his life, but escape he did. In reply, Cyril recovered the body of Ammonius, deposited it in a church and, calling him the "Marvellous", enrolled him among the holy martyrs. But the more sober-minded Christians didn't buy this story and Cyril was forced into silence. The intense hostility between the civil and church authorities continued to simmer.

Meanwhile, fanatical monks were roaming Alexandria, prepared to murder if necessary.

Died March 415, a date set in horror

Hypatia was around 60 at the time and no longer the tantalizing beauty of earlier days.

What exactly happened on that day of doom depends of which source you believe: the 10^th-century Suda Lexicon (quoting an early 6^th C biography), the 5^th C Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, or the 7^th C Chronicle of the Coptic Bishop, John,Bishop of Nikui -- the negative voice in our records, who claims that she deserved everything that she got: as Cyril, too, would have put it (and probably did), she was a sorcerer and an enemy of Christ.

The version by Socrates Scholasticus (who, after all, lived through the events [c 379-450]) burned its way into literary legend. A mob of frenzied monks, certainly devoted to – and possibly acting under the orders of – the bishop Cyril ambushed Hypatia:

Some of them therefore, hurried away by a fierce and bigoted zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning home, and dragging her from her carriage, they took her to the church called Caesareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with roofing tiles (or sharpened oyster shells). After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron, and there burnt them.

"In this way the dream of Hellenic Reason ended, In this way, on the floor of Christ."**

For good measure, as we are told elsewhere, While she was still feebly twitching, they beat her eyes out. The extreme brutality of the monks may have been aggravated by fasting (it was during Lent that the murder occurred), which some consider a mitigating factor.

Whether Cyril was guilty or not, no-one was ever brought to trial for the crime and the Church authorities saw fit to canonize him in 1822.

Even though there shall be utter forgetfulness of the dead in Hades 'even there shall I remember thee,' my dear Hypatia.(Synesius, Ep. 124)

Fast forward to 2009

It's time for Agora.

A history pic telling the story of Hypatia is scheduled to be released to theatres.

The film is by Academy Award Winner Alejandro Amenábar (The Others, 2001, The Sea Inside 2004). After its showing at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, it is now scheduled to be released on December 18.

From what I've seen, Amenábar is way out of his depth.

British Oscar-winning actress Rachel Weisz is a smoldering, lipsticked Hypatia, juggling two fabricated love interests: Orestes (played by Oscar Isaac) and an entirely fictitious Davus, a Christian monk (Ashraf Barhom), a hairy-cloaked sizzler who never existed. That's the first clue that this is historical fiction.

According to promotional materials: "The brilliant astronomer Hypatia and her disciples fight to save the wisdom of the Ancient World." And the luscious Rachel has this to say, "The film is definitely the story about a woman who refuses to compromise her ideals .... She believes in reason and doubt and she is not willing to step down from that. It's pretty bold."

We shouldn't blame the actress for the words put in her mouth, but still, this is pretty grim. While shrieking mobs race across the screen, Hypatia utters the unlikely line: "Whatever may be going on in the streets, we are brothers."

Phew! And the 'voice over' rubs it in: "In the last days of the Roman Empire, at the fall of civilization, one woman, ahead of her time, stood to unite mankind."

She did? I hadn't noticed before just how modern Neoplatonists really were. Her knowledge of astronomy is equally trite: "Though the heavens should be simple, they are not."

No, I guess not. But she may not have had time to learn more since, as the photo shows (just above, left), she was awfully young at the time of her murder. No sagging 60-year-olds here.

A lesson for our time.

From the press release:

"Working on a grand scale with great confidence, Amenábar follows his characters through epochal changes. Christianity sweeps across Alexandria not just as a force of enlightenment but also simply as force. As Davus falls under the sway of extremism and Orestes struggles with his new faith, Agora takes up big themes of religion and allegiance, and how violence can enforce both. Driven by a questing intelligence, this film dramatizes ideas that are as relevant today as they were in Hypatia's lifetime."

That's all right then. It's relevant.

But it is not History.

Still, if the trailer is anything to go by, I can hardly wait for December 18th.

* Palladas, Poems a selection translated and introduced by Tony Harrison (London: Anvil in association with Rex Collings, 1975), 67. It can be argued that the epigram refers to another Hypatia entirely because Palladas may have lived earlier than our philosopher. Since the dating is unsure, we can only go by the poem itself. To my mind, it best fits a philosopher and astronomer who is also a virgin (Virgo); that is, Hypatia of Alexandria.

** Mario Luzi, Libro di Ipazia (Milano, 1978)

Thanks so much to Jone's History Women's blog for first notice of this film.

More information on Hypatia at the Penelope page , University of Chicago; on Hypatia as a feminist and racial icon, see the excellent Overheard blog post. Two books review the meagre evidence: Maria Dzielska, Hypatia of Alexandria (Harvard Univ. 1995), especially good on Hypatia in the literary tradition; Michael Deakin, Hypatia of Alexandria: Mathematician and Martyr (New York, 2007).

Zenobia Goes Off Piste

Off Piste ... but not entirely off topic. A short piece appearing in today's Times Higher Education.

Off Piste: A fortnightly series in which academics step outside their area of expertise

Digging deeper

24 September 2009

You might be thinking that I'm not going off-piste at all -- that I am, in fact, on a well-trodden piste as an archaeologist writing about living and working in the Middle East and North Africa. Just part of the job, really. But no, it's not like that. When I go to strange lands, I'm far removed from my own digging grounds. And the ruins of caravan cities that lure me year after year serve to switch on my aesthetic, rather than my professional, passions.

Yet today, when anyone can travel anywhere, and when everyone with a fondness for archaeological souvenirs can be a cultural tourist, it may be difficult to understand what I mean by my travels. They are certainly not visits to Petra or Palmyra for the day, with perhaps a night or two spent at a comfortable new hotel just off site; nor hardship journeys into remote areas still untravelled or hardly explored (usually with good reason).

Rather, they elicit the somewhat unfashionable notion that if you spend months at a time at one place, you can dig deeper, reaching beyond the tourist image towards its genius.

The reality of this travelling does mean accepting, if not especially seeking, the unpleasantness of an often-uncomfortable billet. But it's a fair trade-off to be on site in the empty moonlight, walking through temples in the utter stillness of the night and coming close to the unsayable.

There are some travelling rules, though, that I've learnt from living in Mediterranean lands -- my own near-abroad -- for more years than I ever lived at home.

"There are two things you don't need in an Arabian land," the Dutch Ambassador once told me. "Your heavy winter coat and the word why. Hang them both on a coat rack and leave them behind."

Despite the high authority of His Excellency, the former ambassador to Bahrain, Beirut and Tehran, I have never listened to this advice. Perhaps because the why of things is a driving force in my life -- it underlies my urge to travel, to cross chancy borders and to plonk myself down at the edge of another society, daring myself to become part of those bewitching lands: Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya.

Never have I asked why as often or as wistfully as in Libya. The question received an answer of sorts in a huge concrete block of a hotel sited in an overgrown village, 800km (500 miles) from Tripoli and almost as far as you can get from the inhabited world. Larger-than-life portraits of the Great Leader, Muammar Gaddafi, covered the walls. Lunch was in a monstrously grand dining hall with rococo chairs, plastic flowers on every table and bowing waiters. For whom? Not a soul sat there but a Dutch artist, an archaeologist and our driver.

"Why was this hotel built here?" I asked.

The driver replied knowingly: "Just in case."

This cryptic statement became my travelling leitmotiv. In the Arab world, you never know if you'll get your visa, if a minister will grant permission, or if the smiling colonel will always smile with you over tea. Never knowing, you'll be ready for anything, just in case.

"Pass the condiment tray," I said to the Dutch artist as I looked at the brown sludge quivering on my plate. It was Egypt during the winter of 1983-84. We had made ourselves at home at the Hotel Habu (now lamentably closed), in two rooms on a terrace overhanging the massive enclosure walls of Medinet Habu in a deserted West Thebes. From this height, I spent hours trying to catch the reliefs of Rameses III in the shifting of the light. The sharp sun made these walls dark; and out of this darkness, new forms constantly emerged.

Never travel without a condiment tray. However dispiriting the boiled camel meat or quivering sludge, there's nothing that can't be improved with a condiment tray: abundant garlic, sambal oelek (Indonesian chili and lime sauce), sambal udang (chili, oil, garlic and crushed shrimp), sambal badjak (the darkest there is, just like it sounds), and lime oil pickle. And Dutch water. Wherever you go, bring Dutch water (also known as genever). Even to Libya. Especially to Libya! But also for a nip at the roadside stalls with burnt unspeakable bits on the fire -- when you need all three sambals and an added slug of crystal-clear NL H2O.

Once, just outside Petra, we celebrated having survived three months alone in Nazal's Camp, a wonderful crumbling edifice, monastic in austerity and a good deal dirtier - a memorable winter of paraffin stoves, snow on the hills and distant wolves. A new restaurant was still in the project stage and would open, the owner averred, as soon as they fixed the plumbing; but for us, anything! So we ate roast lamb seated at a table and on real chairs, while on either side open sewers went sloshing through the soon-to-be dining room. This was nothing that NL H2O couldn't fix, and I still don't remember how we made it back to camp.

That was 1990. We had moved to Nazal's Camp to escape the goats. I needed to remind myself of the goats whenever, as was often, the generator sputtered and the lights went out. The previous year, we had rented a house in the Bedouin village of Umm Sehun, high above Petra. Instead of rent, we paid the village chief, the muktar, to repair the roof and walls and install kitchen and sanitary facilities -- the latter a contradiction in terms as the bathroom was the preferred cooling-off spot for the muktar's goats; there was no glass in the windows. As a rule, too, they were fed, loudly farting as goats will, on the terrace outside the bedrooms.

So we were now alone all winter at the end of the Roman road, nearly dwarfed by the massive Kasr el-Bint, temple of the god Dushara. We sat on his vast altar in companionable silence while the guards emptied the site of visitors, and twilight came.

When the Nabataeans began to build in Petra, they hacked the fabric out of the hillsides in such a way that the structures emerge from the sandstone as if they are part of the mountains themselves. Their theatres, houses, palaces, temples, tombs and the columns and pillars of their antechambers are all carved out of the same living rock.

It is a city of many colours. You walk over veins of red, white, yellow and blue, with stripes of purple or violet here and there. Small wonder that the Nabataeans knew their city as Raqmu, "the many-coloured"; it was the Greeks who called it Petra, "the rock". Both names are truths.

Two millennia ago, for the briefest historical moment, caravans came down these roads on their interminable way from China to Rome. The caravans arrived on the fringes of Western history only after taking to the sea off the Indian coast: two drawn-out routes of silks and spices, one coming to embellish Petra, the other to make the desert bloom at Palmyra.

In Palmyra, we found ourselves at the archaeological dig-house within the sanctuary of the Temple of Bel. This, too, had once been a muktar's dwelling, a handsome building surrounding a courtyard planted with date palms and terebinth trees; from the terrace the ruins spread out in front of us, and its other side looked out over the remains of the oasis.

We were lucky. When we first arrived in February, we were the only visitors and so could take all three rooms over the courtyard facing west, keeping the afternoon sun for ourselves. In the dig-house, we had a house servant who spent his days watering the garden and spying on our every move. This was a time when faxes were forbidden in Syria because the mukhabarat (secret police) hadn't figured out how to read them, as they were required to do with all foreign letters. Of course, our servant knew no Dutch -- it was our secret language. In English, we used codes. We would never refer to the unmentionable Zionist entity by name -- that could cause trouble - but to "Dixie" (the other side of the Mason-Dixon line) or "across the big J".

Occasionally, there were other guests, classicists or archaeologists. Grateful as we were for conversational company, we nonetheless put a lock on our shower and toilet door; yes, we expropriated it. It was Dutch-cleaned, and I have stayed in too many dig-houses to be charitable.

On 6 April 1996, the ancient Babylonian New Year, with a full moon looking down on us, we sat in the Temple of Bel reading aloud from the Epic of Creation:

When skies above were not yet named
Nor earth below pronounced by name

Illuminated by our candles, we sat in the high south chapel, reached by means of a purloined ladder.

The next year was remarkable for the two-tailed comet that hovered every night over the Temple of Bel until the very last weeks of our stay. Sitting on the terrace of the dig-house, staring out at the utterly dark and silent temple, it was easy to think of portents, and how the cosmic indifference of Hale-Bopp would once have foretold the death of kings and the fall of empires. We could almost reach out and touch that ancient world, when every sign was meaningful.

Leaving Palmyra in late 1998, as once freight-laden camels began the next lap of the Silk Road, we climbed up the Beq'a Valley to the temple city of Baalbek, set in a wide valley beneath snow-capped mountains, with cool rivulets of water and perpetually bubbling springs. The city of the Sun: Heliopolis. The vast temples of Baalbek, constructed in the course of the first two centuries of our era, were given over to Roman gods -- Jupiter, Venus, Mercury -- strangely transplanted to the highest ridge of the Beq'a. It is remarkable that, even after 1,000 years of Greek and Roman rule, Baal's name and dignity would return to his ancestral city.

In the end, a journey matters for the friends we meet -- warm friendships that do not grow from dropping in, but from returning. At Baalbek one night, our friend Haris exclaimed about our staying there: "Just a few of us stayed on in the years of war when almost nobody was here: drug dealers; some arms dealers; everybody else who could went to Europe or America; a few come back now, but Hezbollah ... you know."

Of course Baalbek, after 25 years of Lebanon's civil war, has added a strange tone to its beauty, like the light of a dead star. We are not fools. Baalbek is the headquarters of Hezbollah, and renting a house and staying there, two women alone, warranted careful consideration. But learned Western women and artists have the status of honorary men in the Middle East, seen as strong but aberrant -- a third gender, possibly. Nonetheless, whether empresses or charladies, whatever women do, in the Orient they are still women. So our good friend Hikmet, a journalist with an inside track to Hezbollah, would be our early-warning system ("just in case"): if we were no longer safe, we would expect a telephoned "pack up and get out quick".

We always listened to the BBC World Service. "No news is good news" when it comes to Baalbek, Lebanon or even Dixie for that matter. We may have been listening to world radio, but the BBC programmes were sporadically interrupted by flashes of a male voice reciting over and over: "Charlie, Bravo, Charlie, Bravo, Tango, Charlie, Bravo, Tango." Perhaps that was why, when the attack finally came, we were taken by surprise.

We had rented a house in what was once the Christian quarter of the town, overlooking some still-standing columns of the garbage-strewn Roman forum. Big and airy, but badly decayed, a house left to rot since its sale for a peppercorn when the Christians packed up and left. We made it habitable.

Work and study were punctuated by distant shellfire. I learnt willy-nilly to identify that famous artillery "crump", and the Israeli Air Force's retaliatory "ga-boom". Bombs fell one night in the Beq'a, about 25km (16 miles) from us, outside a Jesuit monastery, over the walls from its agricultural college, where they teach the care and feeding of 195 Dutch cows. Ten Hezbollah fighters were killed when Israeli smart bombs hit their base, so close that the cows stopped giving milk. Sensible animals! If only others would go on strike against such tit-for-tat slaughter -- a kind of mooing Lysistrata.

One night we were shaken out of bed by explosions. Grasping a bottle of French cognac, we sat outside on the terrace hearing the Israeli jets on their way to the electricity plant 1km (1100 yards) outside the town. The house shook when they hit their target and fireworks lit up the sky as Hezbollah responded with wild anti-aircraft fire from weapons everyone knew were hidden in the city's garbage dump. The display went on for an hour or more. The cognac finished, we went to bed. The Dutch Ambassador was not pleased that we had watched the show outdoors. "Young ladies," he scolded, "what goes up can come down."

A few days later, we drove past Hezbollah headquarters, a dim complex of buildings with black flags flying, next door to an ice-cream shop in the centre of town.

"Why?" I asked the Dutch artist.

"Put it back on the coat rack," she said.

Cicero says somewhere that there is nothing whatsoever so beautiful but that our imagination and our mind cannot conceive of something still more beautiful. And he was right: We surely can, and it's over that hill ... and in the next country.


Postscript :
_______________________________________________________________________________

Judith Weingarten is an Aegean archaeologist and member of the British School at Athens. She is the author of a number of books, including Sign of Taurus: The Archaeological Worlds of Gerti Bierenbroodspot (1998), which describes some of her travels with the Dutch painter.


Illustration

The intrepid author writing Chronicle of Zenobia: The Rebel Queen outside our house in Baalbek, with a Latin Loeb as prop, 1999. Credit: Gerti Bierenbroodspot

Zenobia gets to know Hubble

I know I'm almost a week late reporting this ...

but what's a week compared to 80,000,000 years?

NASA's newly-repaired Hubble Space Telescope snapped this panoramic view of a colourful assortment of 100,000 stars residing in the core of the giant star cluster, Omega Centauri.

And who cares if I'm off topic.* This is awesome.



Inside a globular star cluster

The image reveals a small region inside this massive globular cluster, a giant ball of millions of stars that orbits the Milky Way. All the dots are stars in the cluster, which orbits our galaxy. Omega Centuri boasts nearly 10 million stars, between 10 billion and 12 billion years old.

This image alone shows about 100,000 stars at all stages of evolution, from slowly glowing yellow to furiously churning red — stars at the ends of their lives, about to burn out out into tiny, hot white dwarfs (= the faint blue dots in the image). White dwarfs no longer generate energy and have gravitationally contracted to the size of Earth. Tiny, as they say. These will continue to cool and grow dimmer for many billions of years until they become dark cinders. The snap also shows sapphire blue stars, helium-rich objects also nearing cosmic senescence but having picked up a new lease on life when they collided and merged with other stars. Those encounters boost the stars' energy-production rate, making them appear bluer. All of these are phases of evolution that many stars eventually go through.

If anyone lived in Omega Centauri (which we should be thankful they don't), they would behold a star-saturated sky that is roughly 100 times brighter than Earth's sky. From our vantage point, on the other hand, this is one of the few clusters that can be seen even with the unaided eye -- the 24th brightest object in the constellation Centaurus, resembling a small cloud in the southern sky that might easily be mistaken for a comet.

Hubble's new view of a spiral galaxy in living colour


This is NGC 6217, a relatively close spiral galaxy (at a distance of roughly 80 million light years) in the north circumpolar constellation Ursa Major. You can easily spot huge numbers of glowing pink star-forming areas, where stars are being born in prodigious quantities. And even from this vast distance — 800 quintillion kilometres (500 quintillion miles) — Hubble can still pick out individual stars in the spiral arms. The brightest ones are the stars that will someday explode as monstrous supernovae.

Actually, since the light is 80 million years old, perhaps most of the big visible stars have already exploded and the light just hasn’t made it to Hubble yet.

To put this in a little perspective, you can see some other galaxies waaaay off in the distance behind NGC 6217.

Just a tiny Hubble piece of the universe, really.

Scientists seem to like to use the word Awesome. Zenobia can understand why.



*Next week I promise to get back on topic with the historical Zenobia in some guise or other. But 2,000 years ago suddenly seems such a piddling time scale. I'll have to get used to it again.

My thanks to Julianne at Cosmic Variance for awesome reporting and to Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy for much-needed background; and additional thanks to some of those who commented on both blogs.

Illustrations

Above: Omega Centauri from NASA.gov. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Below: NGC 6217 from NASA.gov. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team

Zoroastrianism in the Old Levant

Oxford Conference on Zoroastrianism 5-7 July 2010

The Aram Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies announces a new series of conferences on the subject of Zoroastrianism. The first, which will be held in Oxford on 5-7 July 2010, aims to study Zoroastrian religion and culture throughout the Levant. The emphasis will be on exploring how Zoroastrianism interacted with Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Gnosticism and ancient Near Eastern non-biblical religions. Cultural interaction is the keynote.

Who is Aram?

Aram takes its name from "Aramaic" -- the Semitic language which was a focal point of ancient Syro-Mesopotamian cultures from the 8th century BC, when it became the official and commercial lingua franca of the Near East,* until the 7th-10th century AD when it was extensively replaced by Arabic following the spread of Islam. Aramaic was influenced at first by Akkadian, then from the 5th century BC by Persian, and from the 3rd century BC onwards by Greek, as well as by Hebrew, especially in Palestine. In the time of Jesus, it was widely spoken (as well as written) throughout the Semitic area and it was, of course, the language of Zenobia and the main tongue of Palmyra. It still survives today (as Syriac and Mandaic), especially for religious rites, in some scattered places.

Aram is not confined solely to Aramaic studies, however, but deals with all the cultures that were influenced by Aramaic civilisation across the greater Syro-Mesopotamian region and the so-called Fertile Crescent -- a great swath of territory over thousands of years.



In fact, as we learn from their website, the Aram Society is building the foundation for the study of continuity between the Aramaic culture and other Syro-Mesopotamian civilisations. Past conferences showed how closely intertwined they are, and that Aramaic civilisation would not have flourished without this intellectual cross-fertilisation. The many connections between the different cultures demonstrate that the Syro-Mesopotamian man** is born out of a process of uninterrupted cultural continuity since the beginning of history.

Zoroastrianism is just one piece of the puzzle along this cultural continuum.

Zenobia and Zoroastrianism

Zenobia has not neglected Zoroastrianism either.

Some background on the tight links between the Sassanian-Persian Zoroastrian religion and the Kings of Kings (Church and state were born of one womb, joined together never to be sundered) is described in Zoroastrian Stuff.

Then, Zenobia told the story of Tansar, the chief 'teaching priest,' and how he restored the true faith after the depredations of Accursed Alexander and his successors, in Zoroastrian Stuff II:

Do not marvel, Tansar says, "at my zeal and ardour for promoting order in the world, that the foundations of the laws of the Faith may be made firm. It is as if I heard the voices [of the spirits of the virtuous dead] uttering praise, and saw the gladness and radiance of their countenances. When we are united we shall speak of what we have done and be glad.

And, finally, in Zoroastrian Stuff III , Zenobia covered the astonishing 'autobiography' written on a rock relief by the Chief Magus-Priest, Kirdir, who boasted of having established orthodoxy and persecuted heretics: From the beginning I, Kirdir, have laboured hard for the sake of the gods, rulers, and my own soul.

Cultural Interaction in Oxford

Scholars are invited to submit papers for the Aram Society's 2010 conference.

All queries should be addressed to the conference secretary Dr Shafiq Abouzayd
at the Aram Society for Syro-Mesopotamian Studies,
The Oriental Institute, Oxford University, Pusey Lane, Oxford OX1 2LE, England.
Tel. ++1865-514041. Fax ++1865-516824. Email: aram@orinst.ox.ac.uk

Dr Abouzayd has kindly confirmed to me that non-specialists interested in the subject will be welcome to attend. I hope to be there.



* Circa 700 BC, the ambassadors of the Assyrian King Sennacherib and the son of the Judaean King Hezekiah negotiated in Aramaic before the walls of Jerusalem when they didn't want to be understood by the population: "Speak, I pray thee, to thy servants in the [Aramaic] Syrian tongue; for we understand it: and talk not with us in the Jews' language in the ears of the people that are on the wall." (2 Kings 18:26). A few hundred years later, it was the language of the people.

** I trust that Aram includes the female sex under the rubric of 'the Syro-Mesopotamian man'.

My note on Aramaic is based on K. Beyer, The Aramaic Language: its distribution and sub-divisions, Göttingen, 1986.

Illustrations

Above: Farashband Fire Tower (Firuzabad, Iran)

Below: Kirdir pictured behind the investiture scene showing Ardashir I, founder of the dynasty, receiving 'Divine Grace' from Hormizd, the highest god. Kirdir salutes both king and god with his right fist and pointed index finger, a sign of respect and obedience. In front of him is a long text, which tells us who he is and something of what he did.