Will the Great Cleopatra Please Stand Up? (Updated)

The controversy rages on: is this Cleopatra VII in the nude, or not?

As always, there are two schools of thought on such serious matters. One school says 'Yes' and the other says 'No'. Luckily Zenobia is at hand to settle the isssue.

But, first, the story so far.

This beauty (left) is known as the Esquiline Venus, a marble statue dating to the middle of the first century AD, found in Rome in 1874 in the grounds of the imperial Lamian gardens on the Esquiline hill (hence her name). In trying to account for several peculiarities of the statue -- like her un-Roman curly hair and the Egyptian-looking rearing snake winding around the vase beside her (below right) -- the Italian historian Licinio Glori proposed to identify this Venus as Cleopatra.*

Important evidence were remarks by Appian (Civil Wars 2, 102) and Cassius Dio (51) about a "beautiful statue" of Cleopatra in the temple of Venus put on display by Julius Caesar about 46 BC, the year of the inauguration of the Temple of Venus on the Forum Iulium (remember, the Julian family believed that their house descended from Venus). Appian, writing around 150 AD adds that the statue still was visible on the spot -- "next to Venus", he says -- in his day.

The statue may originally have shown a woman binding her hair with a strip of fabric in preparation for a bath, because the remains of the little finger of her left hand are visible on the back of her head, suggesting her left arm was raised to hold her hair in place, while the right hand wound the fabric. She is, in any case, at least two removes from the original source of inspiration, a lost classical Greek bronze. As Kenneth Clark put it in his famous book on The Nude,

“...there was produced a bronze figure of a nude girl, perhaps a priestess of Isis, binding her hair, which must have been a masterpiece. It is known to us in two marble replicas, of which the more complete is the statue in Rome known as the Esquiline Venus ....

No doubt the original has been changed and elaborated by translation into marble, yet the copies have not lost the unity of the first idea. Somewhere not very far behind them is the work of [a 5th C BC] individual artist who, on the surviving evidence, must be reckoned the creator of the female nude. Not that the Esquiline girl represents an evolved notion of feminine beauty [emphasis mine]. She is short and square, with high pelvis and small breasts far apart, a stocky little peasant such as might be found still in any Mediterranean village....

But she is solidly desirable, compact, proportionate, and in fact, her proportions have been calculated on a simple mathematical scale. The unit of measurement is her head. She is seven heads tall, there is a length of one head between her breasts, one from breast to navel, and one from the navel to the division of her legs. More important than these calculations... the sculptor has discovered what we may call the plastic essentials of the female body. Breasts will become fuller, waists narrower, and hips will describe a more generous arc; but fundamentally this is the architecture of the body that will control the observations of classically minded artists till the end of the nineteenth century.

Yes, but is she Cleopatra?

Yes! she is! Now another eminent art historian, Bernard Andreae, has taken up the cudgels on Cleopatra's behalf: ** Andreae argues that 1. the statue of the Esquiline Venus is not an ordinary Venus but must be interpreted as representing an individual, and that 2. Cleopatra must be this individual.

No! she's not! "Die Venus vom Esquilin ist nicht Kleopatra", says Guy Weill Goudchaux in the very same book.**

One of the strongest arguments against the identification is that no Queen of Egypt would ever have let herself be pictured naked in public, not even if Julius Caesar had gone down on his knees and begged her. Nudity is against all norms of Egyptian decorum.

Or so we thought, until this statue of Queen Arsinoe II (3rd C BC), represented as Isis-Aphrodite, came out of the water in the harbour of Alexandria in 2000. Sculpted in black granite, the life-size headless statue appears as if wearing a diaphanous cloth held together by knots at her breast. It is a magnificent example of Graeco-Egyptian art , mingling Greek-style draped clothing and traditional pharaonic posture. Her robes fall off her shoulders so easily, the characteristic Isis knot is tied so elegantly over her half-covered breast, the cloth drapes over the navel, hips and knees so subtly that the stony dress seems almost transparent. The gown folds over her sensuous body like a wet translucent slip, casting a sheen on the hard black granite that makes it appear as voluptuous as folds of silk.

So that argument goes 'plop' in the water. While Andreae's theory gets a specific- gravity boost since he can now maintain that Cleopatra may actually be clothed in an invisible sheer garment on the model of Ptolemaic queens.

What's a perfect female nude?

The idealized nude can be traced to the Aphrodite of Cnidus by Praxiteles (330 B.C.). In this scheme of things, the Esquiline Venus is not the ideal of feminine beauty but a starting point. At only seven heads tall, she is indeed a stocky little figure. Praxiteles' Aphrodite, on the other hand, was made to accentuate these same proportions, and became the standard mathematical formula for representing the figure whether male or female

The proportions haven't changed much through the centuries:

- An average person is generally 7-and-a-half heads tall.

- An ideal figure, used when aiming for an impression of nobility or grace, is 8 heads tall.

- An heroic figure, used for depicting gods and superheroes, is eight-and-a-half heads tall (which is why giant figures sometimes look like pinheads!).

The ideal figure, then, has a noticeably smaller head -- one eighth instead of one seventh of the total height of the figure: smaller head plus longer legs make the figure appear more elegant. Longer legs are sadly lacking in the Esquiline Venus. Is she perhaps a little quirky because she is partly modelled on a real human being, not quite the divine ideal but a Cleopatra/Isis/Venus?

Even if not a fully-fledged goddess, she does not deserve Kenneth Clark's rebuke that her notion of female beauty is 'not evolved' . We are so used to see the statue reproduced from the front that perhaps we do not fully appreciate her charms.

[All the luscious photographs of the Esquiline Venus are made by Kalervo Koskimies].

Go see her yourself. You can explore her every angle in the huge new Julius Caesar show -- from 24 October to 5 April 5 2009 -- in Rome at the Chiostro del Bramante.

Caesar To Dazzle Rome Once More

Rome is celebrating one of its most famous political and military leaders, Julius Caesar (100-44 BC). A sweeping exhibition in the Chiostro del Bramante commemorates the life, times and achievements of Ancient Rome's best known figure.

The first ever exhibit to focus solely on Caesar, it showcases just about everything related to Caesar: 180 items of archaeological, artistic and cultural interest, from ancient times until the 20th century.

The Esquiline Venus is on the spot, just in case it is Cleopatra.

And what does Zenobia say? Is she modelled on Cleopatra or not?

"Maybe, decidedly maybe. There's simply no way of knowing."

But that's no reason not to think she might be.


Photo credits for the statue of Arsinoe: Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation - Photos: Christophe Gerigk.

* Cleopatra, Venere Esquilina (Rome 1955).

** Bernard Andreae, Karin Rhein, Kleopatra und die Caesaren. Katalog einer Ausstellung des Bucerius Kunst Forums, Hamburg, 28. Oktober 2006 bis 4. Februar 2007 ( Munich 2006). Reviewed by Miguel John Versluys at BMCR 28/09/2008.


Update 2 October 2008: Speaking of Arsinoe II, it looks like she might have a new home when she gets back to Alexandria (she's on a world tour at the moment, now temporarily residing in Madrid; see comment on this post by 100Swallows).

Underwater Museum for Egypt Sunken Treasures?

Evoking sails of Nile feluccas (left, lit in the distance) and the cardinal directions, the glassy, towering "four points will be like the Lighthouse of Alexandria that illuminated the ancient library and the world," said Jacques Rougerie, lead architect for the feasibility study. "I want to do the same thing with this museum."

Fiberglass tunnels would connect above-ground galleries, near the New Library of Alexandria to the underwater facility, where antiquities would be visible in their natural resting places (as in the artist's conception, bottom left) at the site of Cleopatra's now sunken palace.

The proposed museum's underwater facility will be difficult and expensive to build and is the focus of the just launched two-year feasibility study aided by the UN. But planners believe that the benefits of plunging visitors into the historical context of the objects -- on the sunken island that once held Cleopatra's palace -- will be worth the trouble. It would certainly be memorable!

Wonderful photographs and more information at the National Geographic News (with thanks to Robert Blau, via imperialrome2@yahoogroups.co.uk).

Illustration courtesy Jacques Rougerie

First Uppity Woman (Updated)

This angry-looking Neanderthal woman had pale skin, freckles, and was a fiery red-head too.

This is the first reconstruction of a female Neanderthal to be based in part on ancient DNA evidence. Anthropologists have now gone beyond fossils and are reading the actual genes of an extinct species of human.

Neanderthals appeared in Europe about 300,000 years ago but mysteriously vanished ca. 35,000 years ago, shortly after the arrival of modern humans in Europe.

Meet Wilma*

Artists and scientists created Wilma (cutely named for the Flintstones character) using analysis of DNA from 43,000-year-old bones that had been cannibalized. No wonder she looks so peeved. Who wants to go down in history as a half-chewed bone?

The genes associated with pigmentation suggest that at least some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and possibly freckles. The traits were likely more common in European Neanderthals, just as they are often seen in modern humans of European descent.

Wilma's genes showed an unknown mutation in a key gene called MC1R, also present in modern humans, said the study's lead author Carles Lalueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona. MC1R regulates a protein that guides the production of melanin, which pigments hair and skin and protects from UV rays.

"European [humans] have quite a lot of variation in this gene — not only red hair variants but also others," he explained, adding that humans have been in Europe for only about 40,000 years. "The Neanderthals, being there at least 400,000 [years], likely accumulated ten times more variation."

Wilma Didn't Mate with Modern Humans

Wilma's particular mutation is not known to occur in modern humans so it gives no evidence of interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans.

Other Neanderthal enthusiasts have come to the same conclusion: Wilma didn't mix with the new guys in the neighbourhood. So, we'll have to remove the third figure in the famous cartoon (left) -- whether ascent or descent of Man or Ape.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology have now sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome — genetic information passed down from mothers — of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal thigh bone found in a cave in Croatia. The sequence contains 16,565 DNA bases, or "letters," representing 13 genes, making it the longest stretch of Neanderthal DNA ever examined.

The new study shows that at least for the maternal lineage, there are no traceable genetic markers that suggest admixture of Neanderthals and modern humans.

The study author, Richard Green, points out that Neanderthals exhibited a greater number of letter substitutions than modern humans due to mutations in their mitochondrial DNA, although they seem to have undergone fewer evolutionary changes overall. The fact that so many mutations — some of which may have been harmful — persisted in the Neanderthal genome could indicate the species suffered from a limited gene pool. This might be because the Neanderthal population was smaller than that of Homo sapiens living in Europe at the time.

The researchers estimate the Neanderthal population living in Europe 38,000 years ago never reached more than 10,000 at any one time.

"If there were only a few, small bands of Neanderthals, barely hanging on, then any change to their way of life could have been enough to drive them to extinction," Green said. "One obvious change would have been the introduction of another large hominid—modern humans." And he added, "a small population size can diminish the power of natural selection to remove slightly deleterious evolutionary changes."

In short, inbreeding.

Wilma is more than just a token thigh bone.

Created for an October 2008 National Geographic magazine article, Wilma has a skeleton made from replicas of pelvis and skull bones from Neanderthal females. Copies of male Neanderthal bones — resized to female dimensions — filled in the gaps. She is thus the first full-size Neanderthal female reconstructed using the latest information from genetics, fossil evidence, and archaeology.

The shape of her eyes rings especially true: like many modern cold-adapted populations, they seem to have an extra fold of skin which produces a hooded eye appearance: in Asians the fold spreads from the nose side of the eye outward, and in NW Europeans, it spreads from the outside of the eye inward. Wilma is also chubby-cheeked: her facial padding is another cold-adapted feature.

Was her pelvis the death of her?

Meanwhile, at the University of Zurich, Marcia Ponce de León and colleagues pieced together three Neanderthal baby skeletons: one newborn from a cave in Russia and two infants aged 19 and 24 months,from a Syrian cave. In addition, the scientists reconstructed the pelvis of an adult female Neanderthal skeleton found in Israel.

By analysing the skeletons, the team found that Neanderthal babies were born with similar-size skulls to those of modern human babies. However, the shape of the face was different. Even in a newborn baby, the conspicuous protrusion of the forehead that distinguishes Neanderthals was evident.

Putting the baby and the mother together, the birthing process would have been at the limit of what was possible, and the baby's head would have had to turn by a quarter … in order to get through the narrow lower pelvis. According to the scientists, this may explain why modern humans eventually trumped Neanderthals.

Poor Wilma.

Cannibalism wouldn't have helped either!

Update: 24 September 2008

(Left) A National Geographer puts the finishing touches to Wilma's reconstruction. The October 2008 issue of National Geographic is now available on-line and it should not be missed by anyone keen on Neanderthals. From this issue:

Since 2000, some 1,500 bone fragments have been unearthed from this side gallery [of El Sidrón cave], representing the remains of at least nine Neanderthals—five young adults, two adolescents, a child of about eight, and a three-year-old toddler. All showed signs of nutritional stress in their teeth—not unusual in young Neanderthals late in their time on Earth. But a deeper desperation is etched in their bones. Antonio Rosas [of the National Museum of Natural Sciences, Madrid] picked up a recently unearthed fragment of a skull and another of a long bone of an arm, both with jagged edges.

"These fractures were— clop— made by humans," Rosas said, imitating the blow of a stone tool. "It means these fellows went after the brains and into long bones for the marrow."

In addition to the fractures, cut marks left on the bones by stone tools clearly indicate that the individuals were cannibalized. Whoever ate their flesh, and for whatever reason—starvation? ritual?—the subsequent fate of their remains bestowed upon them a distinct and marvelous kind of immortality.

See also Chris Sloan's blog, Stones, Bones 'n Things (Chris was for 12 years Art Director and Paleontology specialist at National Geographic; he's now "responsible for for keeping track of a bunch of scientists" on Society-funded projects). On his blog today, he talks about some of the pitfalls -- and pleasures -- of reconstructing how ancient people looked from their bare bones. In Wilma's case, of course, we now have added genetic information which gives real life to her skin colour and hair. He has this to say about her body reconstruction:

The model's beat up appearance and "hunting" pose is consistent with the notion that Neandertal life was rough, injuries were high, and we have no reason to believe that females did not participate in hunts, in one way or the other.

A game old girl -- beat-up but immortal: that's Wilma for you.



* First read about on Dienekes' Anthropology Blog (with interesting comments by Kosmo).

Zenobia, too, is a banker to the poor!

Yes, we really can (and not just words)

Remember the Nobel Prize in 2006 - Muhammad Yunus and Grameen Bank "for their efforts to create economic and social development from below"? Those efforts were microlending: small loans to entrepreneurs - $1500, perhaps, or even less. It can turn someone's world around.*

But you had to have money to lend. Now, thanks to an organization called Kiva, you can get involved in microlending with as little as twenty-five extra dollars (twice nothing in Euro's or GBP!). For the price of a DVD or a good book or a lunch, you can help someone start on the road out of poverty.

Watch the video

Loans that change lives

Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website. By enabling people to connect with and bundle personal loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world, Kiva is revolutionizing the fight against global poverty. You can make a direct loan of $25 or more to an entrepreneur to purchase business-related items such as sewing machines or livestock. This can dramatically improve the life of an entrepreneur and her family, empowering them to earn their way out of poverty.

This week 19,288 lenders have made a loan.

It's on the straight and narrow too. From the New York Times:

“You, Too, Can Be a Banker to the Poor”

“For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier. That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.”**

A little money goes a long way

You can go to Kiva's website and lend to someone in the developing world who needs a loan for their business - like raising goats, selling vegetables at market or making bricks. Each loan has a picture of the entrepreneur, a description of their business and how they plan to use the loan so you know exactly how your money is being spent - and you get updates letting you know how the entrepreneur is going.

The best part is, when the entrepreneur pays back their loan you get your money back - and Kiva's loans are managed by microfinance institutions on the ground who have a lot of experience doing this, so you can trust that your money is being handled responsibly.

Although Kiva's clients have a pretty good repayment rate (currently 98.47%), you should always remember that , there are no guarantees. But that's actually one of the things that makes this so attractive (and probably so successful): if you lend out $25 and don't get it back, it's not a tragedy. And if you do - it's such a success.

Zenobia and her friends will be giving Kiva gift certificates this Christmas. How about you?


Photo of Houndjénouko ADANOU from www.Kiva.org. Born in 1967 in Tokplitomé, Togo, Mrs Adanou lives with her husband in the villge of Tékponou. The mother of five children, she manages a business of rams (buying and selling). She purchases rams and re-sells them at the Saturday market.


* Thank you Ridger of The Greenbelt for alerting me to this brilliant plan.

** Nicholas Kristof, 27 March 2007

Zeus Rains on Pagan Protest (Updated)

LATEST UPDATE (20 April 2017): 

GREEK STATE RECOGNIZES PAGANISM AS RELIGION

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece, according to the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE).
YSEE is a religious organization claiming they work to restore the indigenous religion of Hellas. The organization put out a statement saying that Greek polytheism has received legal status in Greece.
Until now, Greek Pagans did not enjoy religious freedoms such as the right to buy land in order to build houses of worship nor could Pagan priests perform marriage ceremonies.
Now the Greek State, through a decision of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, recognizes the Hellenic Religion as a “Known Religion,” according to paragraph 17, the only form of recognition for a religion in Greece. The paragraph includes the permission to build a temple as well as the right of public liturgies of any recognized religion.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/04/20/greek-state-recognizes-paganism-as-religion/#sthash.xcJpICgt.dpuf

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece.

Until now, Greek Pagans did not enjoy religious freedoms such as the right to buy land in order to build houses of worship nor could Pagan priests perform marriage ceremonies.

Now the Greek State, through a decision of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, recognizes the Hellenic Religion as a “Known Religion,” according to paragraph 17, the only form of recognition for a religion in Greece. The paragraph includes the permission to build a temple as well as the right of public liturgies of any recognized religion.
 
The Greek Reporter has more....

And the background to this breakthrough.

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece, according to the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE).
YSEE is a religious organization claiming they work to restore the indigenous religion of Hellas. The organization put out a statement saying that Greek polytheism has received legal status in Greece.
Until now, Greek Pagans did not enjoy religious freedoms such as the right to buy land in order to build houses of worship nor could Pagan priests perform marriage ceremonies.
Now the Greek State, through a decision of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, recognizes the Hellenic Religion as a “Known Religion,” according to paragraph 17, the only form of recognition for a religion in Greece. The paragraph includes the permission to build a temple as well as the right of public liturgies of any recognized religion.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/04/20/greek-state-recognizes-paganism-as-religion/#sthash.xcJpICgt.dpuf

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece, according to the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE).
YSEE is a religious organization claiming they work to restore the indigenous religion of Hellas. The organization put out a statement saying that Greek polytheism has received legal status in Greece.
Until now, Greek Pagans did not enjoy religious freedoms such as the right to buy land in order to build houses of worship nor could Pagan priests perform marriage ceremonies.
Now the Greek State, through a decision of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, recognizes the Hellenic Religion as a “Known Religion,” according to paragraph 17, the only form of recognition for a religion in Greece. The paragraph includes the permission to build a temple as well as the right of public liturgies of any recognized religion.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/04/20/greek-state-recognizes-paganism-as-religion/#sthash.xcJpICgt.dpuf

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece, according to the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE).
YSEE is a religious organization claiming they work to restore the indigenous religion of Hellas. The organization put out a statement saying that Greek polytheism has received legal status in Greece.
Until now, Greek Pagans did not enjoy religious freedoms such as the right to buy land in order to build houses of worship nor could Pagan priests perform marriage ceremonies.
Now the Greek State, through a decision of the Greek Ministry of Education, Research and Religious Affairs, recognizes the Hellenic Religion as a “Known Religion,” according to paragraph 17, the only form of recognition for a religion in Greece. The paragraph includes the permission to build a temple as well as the right of public liturgies of any recognized religion.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/04/20/greek-state-recognizes-paganism-as-religion/#sthash.xcJpICgt.dpuf

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece, according to the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE).
YSEE is a religious organization claiming they work to restore the indigenous religion of Hellas. The organization put out a statement saying that Greek polytheism has received legal status in Greece.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/04/20/greek-state-recognizes-paganism-as-religion/#sthash.xcJpICgt.dpuf

Greek Pagans are granted legal status as polytheism is officially a religion in Greece, according to the Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes (YSEE).
YSEE is a religious organization claiming they work to restore the indigenous religion of Hellas. The organization put out a statement saying that Greek polytheism has received legal status in Greece.
- See more at: http://greece.greekreporter.com/2017/04/20/greek-state-recognizes-paganism-as-religion/#sthash.xcJpICgt.dpuf

 
'Just as Zeus sends rain so as to grow the crops', (Aristotle, Phys. 2.8 198b), the ancient gods sent a much-needed downpour to Athens yesterday. That's the high priestess of the Olympians, Doretta Peppa (below) raising a fist perhaps in response to this mark of divine favour.


“This was the first [pagan] prayer ceremony on the Acropolis since the Parthenon was converted into a church,” [in the 5th C AD] Peppa said. "Is it a coincidence that rain started falling when the ceremony started and ended at the same time as the ceremony? I think not."

Pagans Pray at Parthenon

Thrusting their arms skywards and chanting Orphic hymns, about 200 Greek pagans made a comeback at the Acropolis yesterday. The Guardian reports

After a break of 16 centuries, Greek pagans are worshipping the ancient gods again - despite furious opposition from the Orthodox church.

Yesterday's ceremony represented a major coup for Greek polytheists whose faith, which is described by the powerful Orthodox church as a "miserable resuscitation of a degenerate dead religion", has long been banned in the country that gave birth to the gods of Mount Olympus.

This is the second public prayer meeting of the Greek pagans (who call themselves Ellenais*) in a little more than a year. I've been following the movement since last January (The Gods Revived, Pagan Revival II, More on the Pagan Revival) when they first appeared among the giant Corinthian columns of the Sanctuary of Olympian Zeus in Athens to pray for world peace (and for rain as well!). Since then, Greek Orthodox priests have redirected the venom they usually reserve for homosexuals, Catholics, Jews, Jehovah's Witnesses, masons and the barbaric Turks at these "satanic" New Ageists and fulminated against their idols.

Peppa said officials have also harassed believers in the Olympian gods. Despite this, the pagan revivalists recently won a court battle for state recognition of the ancient religion. Now, flexing their muscles, the devotees gathered yesterday at Greece's most sacred site on the Acropolis. Although the Culture Ministry forbids ceremonies of any sort at archaeological sites, the small band entered the Acropolis’s heavily guarded grounds as tourists and then persuaded guards to allow the 20-minute rite. Before the east wing of the Parthenon, they prayed to Athena, goddess of wisdom and patron of Athens:

“Oh, goddess,” high priestess Peppa said over an offering of water and olive oil, “we are ready to defend your grounds.”

Defend the Acropolis, that is, from the cultural barbarity of the New Acropolis Museum.

Last year, the government moved hundreds of sculptures from a tiny museum on the Acropolis to a Euro 129 million (US$190 m; £94m) new museum below the citadel. The building is where Greece hopes one day to display the Elgin Marbles alongside the other Parthenon sculptures. Greek officials have said the new museum will open next month, displaying some 4,000 artifacts.

"Neither the Romans nor the Ottomans or any other occupational force ever took anything from this holy site," said Yannis Kontopidis, one of the high priests who officiated over the affair.  "It's scandalous that antiquities of such value, carved in honour of Athena, should be wrested from their natural environment and moved to a new locale."

The glass and concrete edifice, designed by the Swiss-American architect Bernard Tschumi in collaboration with Greece's Michalis Photiadis, has divided Greeks.

Supporters praise its cavernous space and have claimed the building will offer better protection of the antiquities and a superior viewing space for spectators, who previously had to negotiate the confines of a tiny museum atop the hill.

However, opponents, including architectural purists, have argued that the new museum is in the wrong location and far too big in grandeur and scale.

Ellenais described the new glass and concrete structure as "an incredible architectural monstrosity that insults [Greece's] cultural heritage," and thus he adds the strength of the polytheists to protests against the imminent inauguration of the new Museum.

Perhaps the nationality, too, of the architect sticks in the craw of worshippers of ancient Greek gods.
Although he himself is denounced by the state church, high-priest Kontopidis declares, "Moving these sculptures to a museum that is foreign and hostile to the Greek environment is like breaking up a family.'' 

And high-priestess Peppa frets, "We believe that the structural elements of a temple should not be moved and we worry about the consequences."

What, I wondered, could those consequences possibly be?

The Delphic Oracle

Being a Classical Archaeologist, I immediately consulted the Delphic Oracle.

I asked: Has the fated time of Athens' destruction come upon it?

And the goodly Pythia responded: They should not be too much troubled in spirit; a wineskin floats on the sea.**

You can't say fairer than that!


* an acronym in Greek for "Sacred Society of Greek Ancient Religionists".

** Q247 from Joseph Fontenrose, The Delphic Oracle, 1978.

Photograph of Doretta Peppa (top of post) via AP News

Photographs of the New Acropolis Museum from its website: above, Looking at the Acropolis with the cranes removing sculptures and pieces of temples through the glass walls of the Parthenon Gallery; middle, Architect's Conception of the Museum floating on a pilotis over the archaeological excavations; below, Architect's conception of the future Archaic Gallery.


Updated 28 September 2008 : I should have guessed that even a society dedicated to reviving the ancient religion would have a website ... and so it does: DODECATHEON (with information in Greek, English, French, and German). Interesting features on the Society, Hellenic religion, its journal Pantheon (in Greek only) and Greek rites -- including useful tips on how to have an Hellenic Wedding: it seems necessary to veil the bride and have a handy temple on the hill behind, which may make it hard to replicate in the diaspora.

Zenobia Survives!

Collateral Damage takes out Queen of Sweden instead.

British readers of this blog may well have already heard the news but, for those located elsewhere, the casualties in the Royal Academy of Art might come as a shock.

Last month, a ceramic sculpture -- one of five by Costa Rican artist Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez on display at the “Summer Exhibition 2008″ (left) -- collided with an unsteady visitor. The 9-foot/3 m.-tall piece named Christina toppled over and smashed into hundreds of pieces.

Before the fall, there were five little Frauleins Christina, Panthea, Zenobia, Semiramis and Guinevere.

We'll come back to these names in a moment, but first an eye-witness report.

Claire San Martin watched it happen and tells us, "It was an enormous crash, like pottery smashing.

"Everyone was just standing around not knowing what to do at all, and one woman in a white top, who I assume had knocked it over, was standing with her hand on her head."

The lady in white thus joins the friendly-fire brigade along with an Englishman who, in 2006, tripped over his shoelaces at the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge and smashed a hefty 99lb (45kg) Qing dynasty vase. The 113 pieces of the Chinese porcelain vase have been reassembled. Christina's future fate remains unknown.

But the best (or worst) is yet to come.

The staff reacted with the stiffest of upper lips in the expected, unhurried manner: "After a while," says our star witness, "a person who was in charge of the room ran off to get help and someone came in with a dustpan and brush to clean it up."

Meanwhile, while the dust was still settling, other patrons -- who had heard the loud crash and saw the scattering pieces -- thought it was all part of the show: "They were taking pictures, " Claire continues. " I think they thought it was meant to be like that. It was quite funny."

Well, yes. This was a contemporary art exhibition. How would one know?

The Five Queens

It took me a little while to find the common denominator between Christina, Panthea, Zenobia, Semiramis and Guinevere because I think of Panthea as the beautiful mistress of Lucius Verus (about whom I've written in the 'All-Divine' Girl and Emperor Lucius Verus, I, and a second part as well). But no, the artist didn't have in mind the emperor's mistress; when the penny finally dropped, it had to be the 'Other Panthea', wife of Abradates, king of Susa.

Thus, Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez had created five ceramic totems of queens: three ancient (Panthea, Zenobia, and Semiramis), one medieval (Guinevere) and one early modern (Christina of Sweden).

But not five Frauleins.

Frauleins in German means 'young ladies' or 'unmarried women' -- and that wasn't the case.

What then was the connecting thread?

Faithfulness and Chastity?

Certainly the 'Other Panthea' gets top marks in the Chastity stakes.

"Reportedly the most beautiful woman in Asia" (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 4.6), Panthea had been taken prisoner by the Persian king, Cyrus the Great. Despite attempted pimping by his vassal, Araspas, whom she virtuously rebuffed, Cyrus respected her honour and kept her inviolate. That's Cyrus in blue on the left, telling Arapas that he won't be tempted by lust but will keep his mind on his army. Hence, he's pointing to his soldiers and not looking at Panthea's bare breasts.

The great king sends Panthea back to her husband as chaste as ever. In return for this favour, Abradates surrenders himself and his troops to the conqueror. He swears loyalty to Cyrus and goes off to fight against the Egyptians on his behalf (c. 401 B.C.). When he is killed in the very first battle, Panthea stabs herself and mingles her blood with his before she dies. This was so emotional that three of her eunuchs immediately killed themselves over her body.

As dedicated readers of this blog will know, Zenobia , too, was extremely chaste:

Such was her continence, it is said, that she would not know even her own husband save for the purpose of conception. For when once she had lain with him, she would refrain until the time of menstruation to see if she were pregnant; if not, she would again grant him an opportunity of begetting children. [Hist. Aug. TT XXX 12]

However unlikely and stereotypical this story, a statement by five queens in favour of chastity would be a refreshing antidote to postmodern licentiousness; wouldn't it? Especially in a show curated by the artist Tracey Emin. My favourite Emin artwork is Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1995), a tent containing the embroidered names of the various persons within this privileged category. But, hold on. Curator Emin said she was searching for works that would make her feel "excited and feverish". There was even a sign outside the gallery warning visitors that some of the exhibits “may cause offence”. The may is optimistic.

That's Emin (right) standing between the five queens -- which she called the 'star of the show' . The exhibit, when intactus, must have had, in her eyes, something titillating.

What can that be?

We must look elsewhere for the connecting thread.

Cuckolded?

The story of the legendary Guinevere, wife of King Arthur, and her love affair with Lancelot is too well known to need retelling. Guinevere, naturally, is also surpassingly beautiful and desirable, but, alas, morally lax. Whether she is forced into or conceives and engineers her extra-marital relationship with Lancelot, her faithlessness triggers the fall of Arthur and the end of the Golden Age of Camelot.

Silly cow.

But at least she didn't murder her husband.

Murder?

Semiramis, a semi-legendary Assyrian queen, is probably a dim reflection of the historical queen Shammuramat (ruled 811-808 BC), the Babylonian wife of Shamshi-Adad V. After her husband's death, she appears to have served as regent for several years for her son.

In most stories, she is the wife of King Ninus of Babylon. He became captivated by her beauty (of course!) and after her first husband conveniently committed suicide, he married her.

As they say, "Love's a bitch", so that was the first of his two biggest mistakes. The second came when Semiramis, now Queen of Babylon, convinced Ninus to make her "Regent for a Day." He did so - and on that day, she had him executed, and she seized the throne.

Clever, really.

This, of course, is only one small part of her story. On the left, Edgar Degas paints her as she dreamily builds the city of Babylon. She is often remembered as a founder of cities: the characteristic tells in the Near East were even known as 'mounds of Semiramis' and said to cover the ruins of one or another of her mighty works.

There are so many different tales told of her -- and I shall certainly write about Semiramis one day, for she is the archetypal eastern queen; and Zenobia is often compared to her. But little seems relevant to Tatiana Echeverri Fernandez's ceramic totem. Unless the artist is thinking of the inevitable rumours of Semiramis' sexual misconduct -- a long string of one-night-stands with handsome soldiers. To ensure that her power would not be threatened by any man presuming on their relationship, she had each lover killed after a night of passion.

Chastity, if I may say so, is not in the offing here.

Gutsiness?

When she abdicated the throne of Sweden, Queen Christina explained one of her reasons:*

... it is impossible for me to marry. That is the way it is for me....My temper is a mortal enemy to this horrible yoke [marriage], which I would not accept, even if I thus would become the ruler of the world. Which crime has the female sex committed to be sentenced to the harsh necessity which consists of being locked up all life either as a prisoner or a slave? I call the nuns prisoners and the married women slaves.

Although still only 29 years of age, she had occupied the throne for 23years. She had excuse enough to call it a day. Her heroic father, Gustav Adolph, had died when she was only six. Her mother, Maria Eleonora, consumed by grief, "mourned day and night, relieved only by her troupe of dwarves and hunchbacks, dancing in the candlelight".

When Christina put down her sceptre, she also abandoned the religion of her powerful father, the northern champion of Protestantism, and converted to Catholicism. Her subsequent lax observance of Catholic rituals, however, suggests this was not an overpowering preoccupation. Perhaps she just got bored of her cold and constricted homeland and hankered for the brighter lights and wider cultures of Rome. So, in 1654, disguised as a man, she left Sweden on horseback with several of her male supporters.

Her life in exile, even more than her years on the throne, showed that she was a formidable figure ... extravagant, quarrelsome, petulant, usually indiscreet and sometimes scandalous in her words and behaviour, she was an infernal nuisance to the countries she honoured by her presence. "I love the storm and fear the calm," she told France's Cardinal Mazarin ....

Yet usually she was accepted at her own valuation and fêted lavishly. When she arrived in Paris, 22,000 men paraded to greet her - "130 companies of knights and gentlemen, bedecked with swords and feathers, and mounted on gleaming horses". Two hundred thousand people lined the streets.

Typically, she rejected the elaborate dais on which she was supposed to be carried and elected to enter Paris on horseback. When she moved on to Rome, even though her reputation had been badly tarnished by the brutal execution of her erring servant, Monaldeschi, 24 cardinals assembled to greet her and the Pope sent a mountain of flowers to show his pleasure at her arrival.**

Christina entered Rome through the Porta del Popolo on horseback and dressed in the costume of an Amazon to boot. Needless to say, her arrival created a sensation. She spent most of the remaining 34 years of her life in the Eternal City occupied with court intrigues and the cultivation of mathematics and the sciences, as well as literature and the fine arts, for all of which her unisex education had given her a taste. She gathered poets, essayists, and philosophers of both sexes in her salon for "scientific discourse on all useful and agreeable, erudite and celestial subjects."

If you've got it, flaunt it

She undoubtedly had a taste for cross-dressing. When still sovereign of Sweden, she had Justus van Egmont paint her clad in full armour (1654). A champagne glass commemorating her visit to the Low Countries with two engravings cut by a diamond shows two busts of Christina, one dressed as a woman, the other as a man. The Duc de Guise described her thus:

She wears men's shoes and her voice and nearly all her actions are masculine. She loves to show off her mastery of horses, and she glories in it....

And Madame de Motteville:

She's completely extraordinary....Nearly all her action are in some way extravagant...in no way does she resemble a woman, she hasn't even the necessary modesty. She seems rough, brusque...and libertine in all she says.

This might just be one of the reasons (mightn't it?) that she remained a Fraulein -- the only Fraulein, in fact, among the Five Queens. So, what holds this diverse group of royal ladies together? Not much, I'm afraid. Artists are always doing this, mixing their periods, and picking and choosing subjects by whim, or the sound of their names.

At least, I'm sure of one thing: goodness had nothing to do it with it.

But it isn't really surprising that it was Christina that got smashed.

* A wonderful website on the life of Queen Christina is kept by Tracy Marks at Windweaver; quotations about and by Christina are from the same source, including, in her own words: the wise observation, "The soul has no gender."

** From Philip Ziegler's review of Christina, Queen of Sweden by Veronica Buckley.

Illustrations

Top Photograph RA: Peter Macdiarmid/Getty.

Emin among the Fernandez sculptures, Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

Guinevere and Lancelot Together for the Last Time [book illustration of Tennyson's Idylls of the King, 1911, by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale, (1872-1945)

Panthea, Cyrus and Araspas, [painting by Laurent de la Hyre (1606-1656), Art Institute of Chicago]

Semiramis Building Babylon [painting by Edgar Degas, 1861; Paris, Musée d'Orsay, © photo RMN, Hervé Lewandowski]

Bottom right: Greta Garbo as Christina in the 1933 MGM film, Queen Christina (adapted from Faith Compton MacKenzie's Sybil of the North).

The Other Story of Abelard and Heloise

I don't generally link to blogs outside Zenobia's time or place, but I'll just dip my toe in Medieval Europe, if I may, and ring the bell for this book review by Natalie Bennett at Philobiblon:

Abelard and Heloise is normally told as a great love story, a sort of medieval Romeo and Juliet. But there was much more to the story - Abelard was a rebel, and perhaps surprisingly a proponent of women’s ordination, at least in some forms.

This story is told in Gary Macy’s The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination: Female Clergy in the Medieval West.

... Abelard was far from alone in this in his time, but by the end of the 12th century, the memory of women’s ordination was being written out of church history.

Read the rest at The Other Story of Abelard and Heloise.


Slow blogging at the moment, not only because of summer lethargy, but I've been busy at the Third International Colloquium of Egyptology at Montepulciano, "Artists and Painting in Ancient Egypt". The colloquium began, of course, with a tasting of local products and the famed Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, but then it was serious stuff with wonderful lectures organized by Francesco Tiradritti, native son of that Tuscan hill town. Well worth noting on the international calendar! Tomorrow, back to Zenobia.

New Italian Explorations at Palmyra

Not a very great distance from the Temple of Bel lies a huge blank unexcavated area on the map of Palmyra (coloured reddish-brown on the aerial photograph, left). Now, archaeologists from the University of Milan have started exploring this almost empty quarter on the south-east side of the city.

Until recently, Palmyra was treated like a vast treasure trove. Archaeologists dug up the glory monuments: temples, the theatre, agora, senate, and baths -- not to mention their immense task of reconstructing the 1,000 metre/3,000'-long Great Colonnade; and they concentrated, too, on the magnificent tombs, often stuffed full of funerary goods and effigies of the dead. Now, La Professoressa Maria Teresa Grassi, team leader of the Archaeological Mission to Syria, intends to change that: as her team fills in the blank, we're almost certain to see rising one of the human-scale residential quarters of the city.

It's a huge area to excavate -- 114,000 square metres/345,000 sq. feet. And it all looks quite desolate. But there are riches below the bleak surface. That's not just a guess any more: the first phase of the Italian project looked under the earth, using the most modern electronic imaging instruments: CAD, GIS, and 3D Photogrammers.

These brought to light the graphic bones of a town -- blocks of stone buildings with columns, pediments, thresholds, and door jambs still in situ. Most of the buildings seem to be modest residences separated by small open areas but one structure is larger and boasts a peristyle courtyard with six columns on each side. Still, there's nothing as grand as the patrician houses behind the Temple of Bel (just visible on the lower side of the photograph).

Two small streets run through the neighbourhood, one north/south, another east/west. And we also now see a diagonal row of deep circular depressions (such as the one, I think, that I've marked outside the area with a yellow arrow), part of a system of canals or aqueducts that may date back to pre-Roman times. That would explain a great deal about the development of Palmyra from an oasis town into a city-state.

There's a lot to learn. And years of excavating ahead. But it will be wonderful, one day, to walk down the streets of this quarter of Palmyra and feel that we are getting closer to some of the people whose poignant portraits have become so familiar to us.

And then we should also know a great deal more about how the Palmyrans -- not just the aristocrats but the middle classes, the more modest merchants and their wives-- actually lived.




Report on the first year's results here (in Italian, thanks to Antonio Lombatti). The aerial photograph is from the University of Milan news page. Much more information on the Italian campaign will be given at a special session 'Palmira tra Oriente e Occidente' at the 17th International Congress of Classical Archaeology, MEETINGS BETWEEN CULTURES IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN, to be held in Rome 22-26 September 2008. Session Organizer: Maria Teresa Grassi ( Università di Milano) , Speakers: Maria Teresa Grassi & Marianna Castracane, Lilia Palmieri, Gioia Zenoni, Francesca Ossorio, Andrea Baudini, Alberto Bacchetta & Ivan Bonardi.
Palmyran woman's portrait bust in the Smithsonian, Freer-Sackler Gallery, Credits: Ann Raia, 2006; man's portrait bust © 2006 David Monniaux (via Wikipedia Commons).

EXCELLENT BLOG AWARD

Tucked in between the life stories of two Scandalous Women -- Elizabeth Bentley (Soviet spymaster) and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall (no introduction needed) -- was the announcement that the titillating Scandalous Women had received an Excellent Blog Award.

And had duly passed the prize on to other centres of bloggy excellence,* among which Zenobia, Empress of the East. I love the idea of Scandalous Women -- where murderesses rub shoulders, so to speak, with les grandes horizontales -- giving an award to Zenobia, whose own impropriety still resonates:

boasting herself to be of the family of the Cleopatras and the Ptolemies, [she] proceeded upon the death of her husband Odenathus to cast about her shoulders the imperial mantle; and arrayed in the robes of Dido and even assuming the diadem, she held the imperial power ... ruling longer than could be endured from one of the female sex.

I thank SW on behalf of Zenobia, and all our uppity readers.

* A condition of the award is to pass it on, but I just tagged six unprotesting blogs a week or so ago and shouldn't make a habit of it. So I'll hold this power in reserve. And, if anyone reproaches me, let those whom nothing pleases keep the venom of their own tongues to themselves. (Aurelian, Hist. Aug. TT XXX ; a little after the quote above)

Zenobia and the Marxist Gramscians (Updated)

Here we are again at the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day -- and it's now Robbert Woltering's turn to strut the blogging stage. Robbert (that's Dutch, with two b's) teaches Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Amsterdam. He is also editor of ZemZem, a journal about the Middle-East, North Africa, and Islam.

And what, I asked myself, is a ZemZem? Undoubtedly you, too, would like to know.

ZemZem, as some clever readers of my previous post were quick to spot, is the name of the sacred well at Mecca. It surges close to the Ka'ba, which houses the renowned Black Stone -- the holiest site of Islam. ZemZem may be an onomatopoeic word mimicking the bubbling sound of the waters, or perhaps it comes from the root z-m-z-m, which, I'm told, means 'swallowing in small drops' or, I suppose, sipping.

Naturally, an abundant source of water in the middle of the semi-arid Saudi desert is a miracle waiting for a legend to attach. Wait no more. Hagar and her son (by Abraham), Ishmael, were wandering thereabouts:

[ZemZem] sprung when Hagar left her infant Ishmael crying for water and shuttled between Safa and Marwa trying to see if people are coming up to provide water for the thirsty infant. Ishmael was kicking the ground when this well sprung out and she came on telling the water "zimi zimi "meaning 'come close together'. She was trying to get the water in one place to be able to give her son a drink.

Long before Islam, Arab storytellers were telling tales such as this about how things began. Poets streamlined the many contradictory traditions as tribes moved about, and created heroic origins for peripheral places and local events. Just so, Arab and Persian chroniclers, as preserved by Tabari, blended elements of folklore and fiction into a barely remembered history of Zenobia and Palmyra. Many of Tabari's tales rely on pre-Islamic sources and, together, they tell a story entirely different from that familiar to us from the late 4th C Latin Historiae Augustae (we've written about Tabari twice, so go first, if you will, to The Zenobia Romance I and II).

In Tabari's tale, there are no Romans at all. There is no Roman empire, no legions and no Emperor Aurelian. Even the Persians and the King of Kings are hardly mentioned. It is rather an almost timeless world with Arab tribes battling each other -- a pot-boiler of war and intrigue -- in the desert.

Zenobia Lives: the modern Arab reception of al-Zabba

By the time that Arab intellectuals began to revive interest in the Palmryan queen, a millennium or so after Tabari, it came about as part of the cult of Westernization that swept the Arab world in the late 19th/early 20th century.

Alexandria 1927

A good example is the Egyptian romantic poet Ahmad Zaky Abû Shâdy. Abû Shâdy composed an historical opera in 4 acts, Al-Zabbâ or Zenobia, Queen of Tadmor. It was published (in Alexandria?) by the Free Masons.

The Free Masons, I think, says it all.

Abû Shâdy, a Coptic Christian,* was a member of the liberal Egyptian bourgeoisie, that small elite in the process of Westernization in the early 20th century. Egypt was in the vanguard of this movement, which was often expressed by the transformation of Arabic literature through the Western forms of the novel and drama. Abû Shâdy was the founder of the Apollo Society, which aimed to introduce a fresh atmosphere in poetry especially romanticism, and establish modern aesthetics. It must have been quite difficult to produce modernized fictional work which would not enrage the Muslim conservative element but would, at the same time, not dissatisfy the modernists. Although non-political, he was constantly under attack and finally emigrated to America where he died in 1955.

Given Abû Shâdy's background, his time and place, you will not be surprised to learn that his opera follows the Historiae Augustae version of events -- a conflict between Rome and Palmyra and between Aurelian and Zenobia -- and not at all Tabari's Arab story of war between desert tribes. His Zenobia opera, as far as I know, was never performed.

Beirut 1969
Adnan Mardam Bey's Queen Zenobia (left), a play in 4 acts, also depends on the Historiae Augustae; and there is no trace of Tabari's folkloric tales nor of the Arab heroes, Jadhima or Amr ibn Adi.

While searching on-line for information on Mardan Bey (a hopeless task: I think he may be a son of the famous poet Khalil Mardam Bey , an assumption based on the fact that he edited that poet's diplomatic papers), I stumbled across a most serendipitous discovery.

I'm sure Robbert knows about it, but quite unknown to me was Zanûbyâ Malikat Tadmur (1871) by Salim al-Bustani (1846-1884) of Beirut.

Zenobia, Queen of Tadmur is the first-ever Arabic historical novel -- and the second novel written by this almost forgotten 'father of the modern Arabic novel'.** Before al-Bustani (and, in truth, until the 1950's), poetry remained the leading Arabic literary genre; the novel was perceived as a lower form.

Even the new Beiruti bourgeois reading public was still used to the oral techniques of the hakawati (storyteller) and the sira sha'biyya (popular tales). Al-Bustani had to adopt a style suitable for this readership.

He wrote three historical novels, all with fiery, patriotic Syrian heroines at the centre of the action. While his Zanûbyâ also follows the outline of the Historiae Augustae (and not Tabari), he is not so much interested in historical facts as in inculcating moral virtues. He admits to leaving out the depressing bits of her story in order not to sadden his readers.

Zenobia and her (non-existent) daughter Julia are captured by Aurelian and taken to Rome. That's sad, so the story concentrates instead on the Palmyran conquest of Egypt, a love affair between Julia and Pisa, a Roman prince, and Zenobia's war with the Romans. Al-Bustani often interrupts the narrative to criticize indirectly the customs, morals, and actions of the Ottoman rulers of Egypt. To avoid the Ottoman censors, criticism is implicit: contrast, he seems to say, today's governors with Zenobia, a model of beauty, courage, and political wisdom. Most of his characters are rather flat and pale, mere mouthpieces for the author's opinions and values. In fact, he emphasizes the fictitiousness of the novel to show that fiction is a vehicle for a worthy purpose. So, the only nail-biting part of the story is what will happen between Julia and Pisa, the classic story of lovers belonging to two hostile camps.

Beirut 1975

This Zenûbyâ emerges from a series of books on Arab heroes (Vol. 14: cover at the top of this post) as an Arab freedom fighter. Her hair is modestly covered to the very last curl. Hadn't the anonymous author ever seen Palmyran statues of women? They wore loose veils over the hair, rather like Benazir Bhutto. No matter.

The purpose of the book is educational and it is going to update Zenobia entirely. At one point in the story, Zenobia turns to her Greek philosopher friend, Longinus ( who may, or may not, be the author of On The Sublime), and says,

We have forty gods and they all do nothing. Find me one god, Longinus, in your wisdom.

Well, yes. Just a trifle anachronistic. But not nearly as anachronistic as her devotion to Marxist Gramscianism:

(Above, left) With her army mustered behind her, she is telling her broken-nosed commanding general, Zabda,

Yes, the empire needs to have a strong army, but we also need knowledge ... provided this knowledge is related to work (or labour).

In other words, as Robbert put it, the book is meant to project the Gramscian concept of the organic intellectual, a quite common ingredient in the Arab leftist ideologies of the time. "Leftist" in this context, designates both the Marxist and Arab Socialist/Nationalist trends in Arab political thought. Gramsci's political theory, and in particular his version of civil society, would, it was hoped, provide a vision to bridge the gap between leftist intellectuals and the people they claimed to represent.

Gramsci is a Marxist: that's why the bad guys in this book are not so much the Romans as the Palmyran sheikhs and merchants who refused to give Zenobia horses, and thus are to blame for making her rebellion a hopeless endeavour; but he is an alternative kind of Marxist -- who adapts the ideas of Marx to his own situation. For Gramsci, that was southern Italy, but, surely, it might equally apply to the backwardness of the Arab masses.

At the end of the book, the Roman Senators insist that Aurelian put Zenobia to death so that Roman women will not be corrupted by her uppity example. Aurelian is cleverer: "No," he says, "it's better to make her marry and be a proper woman -- wife, mother, and cook!"

So much for Marxist equality of the sexes ....

As far back as 1847, in Lebanon, Butrus al-Bustani (the father of Salim) had called for the education of women. He launched a fierce diatribe against the prevailing notion that education of women was dangerous and would lead to atheism and to madness. He stressed women's inalienable right to become men's equals in feeling, opinions, and work.

Hoorah! But let's not get carried away. Here's how he ended his famous speech:

Before concluding this discussion, I would like to say a word to the cultured woman: being such a useful and important member in the world and society does not need to let woman fall into the plight of vanity and pride or lead her to feel superior to her huband even if she is more knowledgeable than he, since nonessentials do not nullify the intrinsic.***

Quite So.

Dubai 2007

For a perfect finish, don't miss The Best Yet Mansour Rabani Zenobia Video (with English subtitles) shown by Robbert at the Amsterdam All-Zenobia Day; and my comments on that epic production, Zenobia Receives Royal Patronage and Zenobia's Terrible Curved Sword.

And still not a hint of Tabari and his Arabic tales!

Has the whole world outgrown the hakawati and the sira sha'biyya?

Save this date:

On September 11th, Johan Weststeijn and Robbert Woltering will give their lectures once again, in an expanded version at the Klein Zenobia Congres voor Arabisten (Little Zenobia Congress for Arabists).

I trust the 'Little' refers to the size of the congress and not to our dear Queen.



*  His granddaughter, Joy Garnett, wrote in (see comment below) to correct this information.  Abû Shâdy was Muslim.  My apologies.

** His first novel and the very first Arabic novel was al-Huyam fi jinan al-Sham (Love in a Damascene Garden, 1870). Massi Moosa, The Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction, Ch. 7, stresses al-Bustani's belief that the goal of fiction is to reform and regenerate society. While his themes pertain to the Arab world, he often uses a European setting to speak of Western ideology (socialism), "or to convey to his readers that the West can and must be learned from." (183); a summary of Zanûbyâ and al-Bustani's other historical novel appears in Ch. 8.

*** Quoted from Joseph T. Zeidan, Juzif Zaydan, Arab Women Novelists: The Formative Years and Beyond (24).

Update: 29 July 2008:

Kung Fu at Palmyra


In his comment on this post, Robbert Woltering points out that both of my images of Zenobia from the Beiruti Arab Hero series (1975) show the queen dressed "in her fighting gear. (In the book, Zenobia constantly engages in physical combat herself.)".

I hadn't realized that the anonymous author had put Zenobia so literally into battle.

Like this Kung Fu lady of modern imagination (below, right).*

So I was wrong to give the impression that Zenobia with her hair tucked away was a model of Muslim modesty. Not at all!

Robbert kindly sent me another picture from this book (left) of Zenobia wearing her crown, and with flowing locks of hair. While this hairstyle, too, is non-canonical for a Palmyran woman, it's AOK for late 20th C Beirut. In fact, she looks a little like the 2007 beauty queen, Miss Lebanon (below, left), with a similar sort of tinsel crown.

And the Arabic text on the same page could not be more politically correct (translation, needless to say, due to Robbert, too):

Zenobia, the warrior who battled against the enemies of the Arabs before the coming of Islam, and who demonstrated that a woman is capable of nobly engaging in combat, and of taking up position in the centre of power with firmness and the strength of her resolve and self-discipline.

I have just one quibble (I'm a great quibbler).

No, not about her battling "the enemies of the Arabs", though she didn't do any such thing.

But rather that she looks about 17 years old -- even Miss Lebanon 2007 looks older; and she was nineteen at the time.

We don't know when Zenobia was born, or how old she was when she died; but she certainly wasn't an adolescent when she became Empress of the East. In Zenobia: The Rebel Queen, she was in her late thirties; but I could be wrong.

It would not be the first time.


* Kung Fu Female Fighter © James E. Porter at Elfwood.com