Archaeology Odyssey, July/August 2000
Features
It seems no work of Man’s creative hand, By labor wrought as wavering fancy planned; But from the rock as if by magic grown, Eternal, silent, beautiful, alone! Not virgin-white like that old Doric shrine, Where erst Athena her rites divine; Not saintly-grey, like many a minster fane, That crowns the hill and consecrates […]
“See the tablet-box of cedar, Release its clasps of bronze! Lift the lid of its secret, Pick up the tablet of lapis lazuli and read out the Travails of Gilgamesh, all that he went through.” (SB Tablet I, 24–28) No figure is more familiar—or more fascinating—in ancient Near Eastern mythology than the hero called […]
Ares and Orpheus—the belligerent Greek war god and the greatest of mythical poets—might seem like polar opposites. But they have one thing in common: Their legendary birthplace was ancient Thrace. That Ares was linked to Thrace is not surprising. Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides all praised the fierce, warlike Thracians, tribes that inhabited the towering […]