Rising Cost of Higher Ed
I think this graph could also use the average salary of non-tenure track positions, but the lines are quite alarming.
(courtesy of PHD Comics)
Am I Related to Nergal?
I followed this link and discovered that Glen Beck is questioning whether I am related to the ancient Mesopotamian god of the Netherworld. I am also, apparently, a “pinko commie leftocrat.” But I’m sure you already knew that…
Babylonian Magic and Sorcery online
Leonard W. King’s landmark volume Babylonian Magic And Sorcery (1896) is available for download by the Universal Digital Library. Definitely a pdf to download if you don’t already own the volume!
Where do gods go when they die?
I am dallying in several streams of research at the moment. These include (but are not limited to): Gilgamesh, Nergal, Adapa and Mesopotamian concepts of death more generally. A confluence of research occurred this morning while reading more of Dina Katz’s The Image of the Netherworld in the Sumerian Sources. It makes me wonder to what extent all dead gods go to heaven in late Mesopotamian sources. Read more…
Robotic Euthyphro
Just in time for my unit on Socrates, Robologues do Socrates’ dialog with Euthyphro:
(HT: Abnormal Interests)
Egyptian Superstars
On Sunday 28th Feb 2010, the Egyptian Culture Ministry announced the finding of a three-millennial-old gigantic head of Amenhotep III made of red granite.
Amenhotep III was the father of Amenhotep IV, aka Akhenaten, the heretic king who instituted what might have been the world’s first recorded attempt at monotheism, moved his capital to the new city of Akhetatan (modern Tel Amarna), and is well known to most historians because of the copious Akkadian tablets that his son Tutankhamen (originally name Tutankhaten) left behind in that city when he moved his capital back to Thebes after his father’s death, tablets that provide a incalculably important window into the political situation of the ancient Near East in the Late Bronze Age. All that to say, from an historian’s point of view Amenhotep III’s claim to fame was having sired the heretic king… or not.
Every report of the finding of Amenhotep III’s visage has had words to the affect of those by Carol Whyte at Examiner.com:
A team of archaeologists headed by Dr. Hourig Sourouzian, discovered the head of King Tut’s grandfather, Amenhotep III, who ruled from 1387 – 1348 B.C.
Now of course, this is statement is accurate. However, I am still miffed that King Tut seems to be more the Egyptian superstar than his illustrious father.
More on Seeing Dead People
I’m starting to think I’m obsessed with seeing dead people. I’m still trying to figure out the depiction of the dead in the Gilgamesh Epic:
to the house whose residents are deprived of light,
where soil is there sustenance and clay their food,
where they are clad like birds in coats of feathers,
and see no light, but dwell in darkness.
(Tablet VII: 187-90; Andrew George’s translation, p. 61)
I’ve finally gotten around to reading Dina Katz’s The Image of the Netherworld in the Sumerian Sources
The idea that spirits were clad in feathers like birds is perplexing. As far as we can gather from Sumerian literature and archaeological finds, the dead were dressed normally. Perhaps the image of birds derived from the notion that the spirit is in an ethereal state like the wind and by association it blows or flies. (p. 228 n. 92)
Katz’s hypothesis corresponds to one my own musings on the depiction of the dead in Gilgamesh (see previous discussion here).
However, I don’t see a lot of evidence for her (and my) theory in Katz’s text. On pp. 337-345 Katz transcribes, translates and comments on six Sumerian incantations against evil Netherworld spirits. None mention bird imagery, blowing or flying. Akkadian descriptions of such Netherworld figures as Ereshkigal and Lamashtu involve avian imagery, but most of this material is later than the Sumerian texts.
Probably it’s best to leave it with Katz’s first comment on these depiction: it certainly is perplexing.
New Assyrian Sports Drink
The Onion reports on a new spots drink inspired by an Assyrian deity:
Forgotten Assyrian God Revived To Name Sports Drink
Representatives from the sports drink manufacturer Powerade announced Wednesday that Nisroch, the ancient Assyrian god of agriculture, has been resurrected from the depths of Assyro-Babylonian mythology to serve as the key marketing figure for their newest product, Nisroch: Eagle Heart X-TREME WHIRLWIND! Read more…
Homeric Multitext Envy
Harvard’s Center for Hellenistic Studies has unveiled The Homer Multitext Project.
The Homer Multitext project, the first of its kind in Homeric studies, seeks to present the textual transmission of the Iliad and Odyssey in a historical framework. Such a framework is needed to account for the full reality of a complex medium of oral performance that underwent many changes over a long period of time. These changes, as reflected in the many texts of Homer, need to be understood in their many different historical contexts. The Homer Multitext provides ways to view these contexts both synchronically and diachronically.
While the project still seems to be in beta, its goals are laudable. Unfortunately, it also provides another instance of envy for those of us who deal in more fragmentary literary traditions. Again it is with envy that I stare at the resources of my colleagues who study those texts on the other side of the wine-dark sea.
(HT: AWOL)
Ark of the Covenant Revealed (again)
The BBC News has an article on a 700 year old artifact purported to be a replica of the biblical Ark of the Covenant. The Lemba people of Zimbabwe claim that the ngoma lungundu drum was created from the remains of the original Ark (for problems with concepts of an original Ark see this previous post). The artifact was feared lost, but had been found a few years back. Read more…
Ketuvim: the Writings of James R. Getz Jr. 