I wasn't going to report this but Sis was right, this is important news regarding a world-renowned chessplayer - the first modern-day World Chess Champion who was an American, excluding Paul Morph. Morphy, a young troubled American (sound familiar?) was considered World Chess Champion by some before the title became 'officially' established and before there was anything called FIDE which is something like d' Federicion Internationale d'Echecs. It should be called the World Chess Federation. English IS still the language of international trade and exchange, is it not? So why is the name of the international chess federation in French instead of English? Who knows? I sure don't.
People will be interested in this news. Here's the report that she sent me a few days ago, from CNN - I have since seen that it was one of the briefest and most factual available, with a minimum of sensationalism:
Chess icon's body exhumed in paternity case
By the CNN Wire Staff
July 6, 2010 11:42 a.m. EDT
The body of chess legend Bobby Fischer was exhumed Monday (July 5, 2010) in Iceland, law enforcement officials have told CNN. His body was reburied shortly after DNA samples were taken, the officials said.
Iceland's supreme court ruled last month in favor of a request by Jinky Young, Fischer's alleged daughter, to exhume his remains in order to settle a paternity question.
A doctor, a priest and other officials were present during the procedure, according to the police department in Selfoss, Iceland.
Fischer was 64 when he died in January 2008.
Fischer was a child prodigy and chess master by the time he was 15. He achieved international fame in 1972 when he defeated chess grandmaster Boris Spassky of Russia during the height of the Cold War, to become world champion.
The tournament was considered a symbolic battle between the two greatest powers in the world. It was held in Iceland, midway between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Soviet chess masters had held the title since World War II -- until Fischer won. The victory, unequaled by an American since, was followed by tens of millions of chess fans around the world.
But Fischer's genius proved eccentric. Years after his historic win, Fischer gave up the title in 1975 and refused to defend it. He vanished and lived in a self-imposed exile for decades. He resurfaced in Yugoslavia in 1992 for a rematch against Spassky. It was another victory for Fischer, one that earned him $3.5 million.
But the U.S. government claimed Fischer's participation had violated UN sanctions against Yugoslavia, imposed to punish Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic, and revoked his U.S. passport.
Fischer again disappeared.
He was not heard from again until 2004, when he was arrested in Japan for traveling on an expired passport. When Iceland granted Fischer citizenship in 2005, he moved to that country and lived there until his death in a hospital.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Squirrels Make The New York Times!
From The New York Times
SCIENCE
Basics
Nut? What Nut? The Squirrel Outwits to Survive
By NATALIE ANGIER
Published: July 5, 2010
I was walking through the neighborhood one afternoon when, on turning a corner, I nearly tripped over a gray squirrel that was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, eating a nut. Startled by my sudden appearance, the squirrel dashed out to the road — right in front of an oncoming car.
Before I had time to scream, the squirrel had gotten caught in the car’s front hubcap, had spun around once like a cartoon character in a clothes dryer, and was spat back off. When the car drove away, the squirrel picked itself up, wobbled for a moment or two, and then resolutely hopped across the street.
You don’t get to be one of the most widely disseminated mammals in the world — equally at home in the woods, a suburban backyard or any city “green space” bigger than a mousepad — if you’re crushed by every Acme anvil that happens to drop your way.
“When people call me squirrely,” said John L. Koprowski, a squirrel expert and professor of wildlife conservation and management at the University of Arizona, “I am flattered by the term.”
The Eastern gray tree squirrel, or Sciurus carolinensis, has been so spectacularly successful that it is often considered a pest. The International Union for Conservation of Nature includes the squirrel on its list of the top 100 invasive species. The British and Italians hate gray squirrels for outcompeting their beloved native red squirrels. Manhattanites hate gray squirrels for reminding them of pigeons, and that goes for the black, brown and latte squirrel morphs, too.
Yet researchers who study gray squirrels argue that their subject is far more compelling than most people realize, and that behind the squirrel’s success lies a phenomenal elasticity of body, brain and behavior. Squirrels can leap a span 10 times the length of their body, roughly double what the best human long jumper can manage. They can rotate their ankles 180 degrees, and so keep a grip while climbing no matter which way they’re facing. Squirrels can learn by watching others — cross-phyletically, if need be. In their book “Squirrels: The Animal Answer Guide,” Richard W. Thorington Jr. and Katie Ferrell of the Smithsonian Institution described the safe-pedestrian approach of a gray squirrel eager to traverse a busy avenue near the White House. The squirrel waited on the grass near a crosswalk until people began to cross the street, said the authors, “and then it crossed the street behind them.”
In the acuity of their visual system, the sensitivity and deftness with which they can manipulate objects, their sociability, chattiness and willingness to deceive, squirrels turn out to be surprisingly similar to primates. They nest communally as multigenerational, matrilineal clans, and at the end of a hard day’s forage, they greet each other with a mutual nuzzling of cheek and lip glands that looks decidedly like a kiss. Dr. Koprowski said that when he was growing up in Cleveland, squirrels were the only wild mammals to which he was exposed. “When I got to college, I thought I’d study polar bears or mountain lions,” he said. “Luckily I ended up doing my master’s and Ph.D. on squirrels instead.”
The Eastern gray is one of about 278 squirrelly species alive today, a lineage that split off from other rodents about 40 million years ago and that includes chipmunks, marmots, woodchucks — a k a groundhogs — and prairie dogs. Squirrels are found on all continents save Antarctica and Australia, and in some of the harshest settings: the Himalayan marmot, found at up to 18,000 feet above sea level, is among the highest-living mammals of the world.
A good part of a squirrel’s strength can be traced to its elaborately veined tail, which, among other things, serves as a thermoregulatory device, in winter helping to shunt warm blood toward the squirrel’s core and in summer to wick excess heat off into the air. Rodents like rats and mice are nocturnal and have poor vision, relying on whiskers to navigate their world. The gray squirrel is diurnal and has the keen eyesight to match. “Its primary visual cortex is huge,” said Jon H. Kaas, a comparative neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University, A squirrel’s peripheral vision is as sharp as its focal eyesight, which means it can see what’s above and beside it without moving its head. While its color vision may only be so-so, akin to a person with red-green colorblindness who can tell green and red from other colors but not from each other, a squirrel has the benefit of natural sunglasses, pale yellow lenses that cut down on glare.
Gray squirrels use their sharp, shaded vision to keep an eye on each other. Michael A. Steele of Wilkes University in Pennsylvania and his colleagues have studied the squirrels’ hoarding behavior, which turns out to be remarkably calculated and rococo. Squirrels may be opportunistic feeders, able to make a meal of a discarded cheeseburger, crickets or a baby sparrow if need be, but in the main they are granivores and seed hoarders. They’ll gather acorns and other nuts, assess which are in danger of germinating and using up stored nutrients, remove the offending tree embryos with a few quick slices of their incisors, and then cache the sterilized treasure for later consumption, one seed per inch-deep hole.
But the squirrels don’t just bury an acorn and come back in winter. They bury the seed, dig it up shortly afterward, rebury it elsewhere, dig it up again. “We’ve seen seeds that were recached as many as five times,” said Dr. Steele. The squirrels recache to deter theft, lest another squirrel spied the burial the first X times. Reporting in the journal Animal Behaviour, the Steele team showed that when squirrels are certain that they are being watched, they will actively seek to deceive the would-be thieves. They’ll dig a hole, pretend to push an acorn in, and then cover it over, all the while keeping the prized seed hidden in their mouth. “Deceptive caching involves some pretty serious decision making,” Dr. Steele said. “It meets the criteria of tactical deception, which previously was thought to only occur in primates.”
Squirrels are also master kvetchers, modulating their utterances to convey the nature and severity of their complaint: a moaning “kuk” for mild discomfort, a buzzing sound for more pressing distress, and a short scream for extreme dismay. During the one or two days a year that a female is fertile, she will be chased by every male in the vicinity, all of them hounding her round and round a tree with sneezelike calls, and her on top, refusing to say gesundheit. A squirrel threatened by a serious predator like a cat, dog, hawk or wayward toddler will issue a multimodal alarm, barking out a series of loud chuk-chuk-chuks with a nasally, penetrating “whaa” at the end, while simultaneously performing a tail flag — lifting its fluffy baton high over its head and flicking it back and forth rhythmically.
Sarah R. Partan of Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass., and her students have used a custom-built squirrel robot to track how real squirrels respond to the components of an alarm signal. The robot looks and sounds like a squirrel, its tail moves sort of like a squirrel’s, but because its plastic body is covered in rabbit fur it doesn’t smell like a squirrel. Yet squirrels tested in Florida and New England have responded to the knockoff appropriately, with alarm barks of their own or by running up a tree. Human passers-by have likewise been enchanted. “People are always coming over, asking what we’re doing,” said Dr. Partan. “We’ve had to abandon many trials halfway through.” An iSquirrel? Now that’s something even a New Yorker might love.
Southwest Chess Club: 2010 Championship!
Hola darlings!
The members of the SWCC take their championship very seriously, evidenced by the number of players who participate each year in an event that, because of the Club's meeting schedule, is carried out over several weeks!
The 2010 SWCC Championship begins tomorrow, and this year is named in honor of the Club's recently deceased President, Joe Crothers.
6-Round Swiss in One Section. Game/100. USCF Rated.
EF: $7. (must be a member to participate). SWCC Membership $10 (can join prior to first round).
(Two ½-point byes available in rounds 1 through 5 if requested at least 2 days in advance; no byes available for round 6.)
TD is Becker; ATD is Grochowski.
The members of the SWCC take their championship very seriously, evidenced by the number of players who participate each year in an event that, because of the Club's meeting schedule, is carried out over several weeks!
The 2010 SWCC Championship begins tomorrow, and this year is named in honor of the Club's recently deceased President, Joe Crothers.
The Joe Crothers Memorial SWCC Championship
July 8, 15, 22, 29 & August 5 & 12
6-Round Swiss in One Section. Game/100. USCF Rated.
EF: $7. (must be a member to participate). SWCC Membership $10 (can join prior to first round).
(Two ½-point byes available in rounds 1 through 5 if requested at least 2 days in advance; no byes available for round 6.)
TD is Becker; ATD is Grochowski.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Evidence of Early Successful Amputation
Another fascinating article.
When Mr. Don and took a special guided tour at the Met during our last visit in 2009 that focused on ancient Egyptian medicine, it was impressive to learn just how much practical wisdom the Egyptians had acquired in prevention of certain conditions (such as using khol around the eyes, which had chemical properties that repelled a species of fly that carried a virus that could cause blindness) and considerable expertise in other areas. From the treatment of wounds to birth control, the Egyptians had solutions that worked. They also performed various surgeries, as surviving collections of sophisticated and delicate medical instruments and medical texts attest.
Egyptian physicians (who were of both sexes, females were not excluded from the profession) knew about what we today call sepsis, that is, infection, which kills a person who otherwise would likely survive a surgery. They had various precautions against it, such as the use of vinegar, which kills bacteria. But what the survival rate of surgeries was? I cannot tell you. Even today, in what we consider our advanced times, patients die after surgery by the thousands every year, many of them from sepsis!
And so this article is particularly impressive. Mind, I don't know if it actually represents that neolithic people were routinely carrying out successful amputations! But at least in this instance, someone did, and the patient evidently received excellent care and was treated over a period of time in order to prevent the development of infection while the wound left by the surgery healed. How long would that have taken? It sounds as if the patient was rather 'old' at the time, suffering from advanced arthritis. We know that older people take longer to heal - so the effort to keep this patient alive and infection-free was quite an undertaking. Wow, I'm impressed just thinking about it --
From The Epoch Times
Sophisticated Amputation Methods Used During Stone Age
By Zubyre Parvez
Epoch Times Staff Created: Jun 28, 2010
Stone Age doctors prove to be more medically advanced than we first imagined, as new evidence of surgery undertaken almost 7,000 years ago comes to light. Confirming advanced medical knowledge in 4900 B.C., the findings challenge the existing history of surgery and its development.
In a Neolithic site excavated in 2005 at Buthiers-Boulancourt, 40 miles south of Paris, scientists found the skeleton of an old man buried almost 7,000 years ago. Tests showed an intentional and successful amputation in which a sharpened flint was used to cut the man’s humerus bone above the trochlea indent.
Impressively, the patient was even anesthetized. The limb was cleanly cut off, and the wound was treated in sterile conditions. It has been common knowledge that Stone Age doctors performed trephinations (that is, cutting through the skull), but amputations have been unheard of up until now.
According to a research paper published in the Antiquity Journal, the macroscopic examination has not revealed any infection in contact with this amputation, suggesting that it was conducted in relatively aseptic conditions.
Scientists found that the patient survived the operation, and although he suffered from osteoarthritis, he lived for months if not years afterward.
According to the Daily Mail, researcher Cécile Buquet-Marcon said that pain-killing plants such as the hallucinogenic Datura were possibly used, and other plants such as sage were probably used to clean the wound.
The loss of the patient’s forearm did not exclude him from the community. His grave measures an above average 6.5 feet and contains a schist axe, a flint pick, and the remains of a young animal, which point to a high social rank.
When Mr. Don and took a special guided tour at the Met during our last visit in 2009 that focused on ancient Egyptian medicine, it was impressive to learn just how much practical wisdom the Egyptians had acquired in prevention of certain conditions (such as using khol around the eyes, which had chemical properties that repelled a species of fly that carried a virus that could cause blindness) and considerable expertise in other areas. From the treatment of wounds to birth control, the Egyptians had solutions that worked. They also performed various surgeries, as surviving collections of sophisticated and delicate medical instruments and medical texts attest.
Egyptian physicians (who were of both sexes, females were not excluded from the profession) knew about what we today call sepsis, that is, infection, which kills a person who otherwise would likely survive a surgery. They had various precautions against it, such as the use of vinegar, which kills bacteria. But what the survival rate of surgeries was? I cannot tell you. Even today, in what we consider our advanced times, patients die after surgery by the thousands every year, many of them from sepsis!
And so this article is particularly impressive. Mind, I don't know if it actually represents that neolithic people were routinely carrying out successful amputations! But at least in this instance, someone did, and the patient evidently received excellent care and was treated over a period of time in order to prevent the development of infection while the wound left by the surgery healed. How long would that have taken? It sounds as if the patient was rather 'old' at the time, suffering from advanced arthritis. We know that older people take longer to heal - so the effort to keep this patient alive and infection-free was quite an undertaking. Wow, I'm impressed just thinking about it --
From The Epoch Times
Sophisticated Amputation Methods Used During Stone Age
By Zubyre Parvez
Epoch Times Staff Created: Jun 28, 2010
Stone Age doctors prove to be more medically advanced than we first imagined, as new evidence of surgery undertaken almost 7,000 years ago comes to light. Confirming advanced medical knowledge in 4900 B.C., the findings challenge the existing history of surgery and its development.
In a Neolithic site excavated in 2005 at Buthiers-Boulancourt, 40 miles south of Paris, scientists found the skeleton of an old man buried almost 7,000 years ago. Tests showed an intentional and successful amputation in which a sharpened flint was used to cut the man’s humerus bone above the trochlea indent.
Impressively, the patient was even anesthetized. The limb was cleanly cut off, and the wound was treated in sterile conditions. It has been common knowledge that Stone Age doctors performed trephinations (that is, cutting through the skull), but amputations have been unheard of up until now.
According to a research paper published in the Antiquity Journal, the macroscopic examination has not revealed any infection in contact with this amputation, suggesting that it was conducted in relatively aseptic conditions.
Scientists found that the patient survived the operation, and although he suffered from osteoarthritis, he lived for months if not years afterward.
According to the Daily Mail, researcher Cécile Buquet-Marcon said that pain-killing plants such as the hallucinogenic Datura were possibly used, and other plants such as sage were probably used to clean the wound.
The loss of the patient’s forearm did not exclude him from the community. His grave measures an above average 6.5 feet and contains a schist axe, a flint pick, and the remains of a young animal, which point to a high social rank.
Was Armenia the Cradle of Civilization?
Well, I've always thought so :) Regardless of whether you believe the biblical account of a great flood that wiped out nearly everyone except a chosen few who took to a large vessel with animals and supplies and survived to land somewhere in the mountains of Ararat (the biblical account does NOT say that the vessel landed on Mount Ararat), there is plenty of archaeological evidence to show that agriculture got it's start in the highlands of that borderland region between Turkey and Armenia and that grapes were first grown there, about 11,500 years ago or so. The pattern of the spread of agriculture, and civilization, shows a steady southwards progression, eventually creating a great arc called the Fertile Crescent. That Crescent, which is what most people concentrate on when they think of ancient civilizations, ignores evidence of other equally ancient civilizations northwest of the Caucusus Mountains and those areas settled to the West, in the area called "old Europe."
Armenia was the site of development of the first spoke-wheel and light-weight but sturdy chariot chasse. The people were expert horse-breeders and horse-trainers, who were in demand all across the Fertile Crescent to staff the fledgling calvary corps of potentates in Anatolia, Egypt and Mesopotamia with the spread of this new technology beginning about 1850 BCE. If I remember my linguistics correctly, the Armenian language, along with ancient Sanskrit, are the 'purest' remaining examples of the ancient proto-Indo-European language. So, I found this article interesting.
From panarmenian.net
Mesopotamia’s civilization originated in Armenia
July 2, 2010 - 15:43 AMT 10:43 GMTPanARMENIAN.Net - Unique discoveries revealed as a result of excavations at Shengavit (4000-3000 B.C.) confirm that Armenia is the motherland of metallurgy, jeweler’s art, wine-making and horse breeding.
A group of archaeologists studying the ancient city concluded that 4000-3000 B.C. Armenia was a highly developed state with exclusive culture. The excavations are carried out by an Armenian-American archaeological expedition.
Director of the Scientific and Research Institute of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the RA Ministry of Culture Simonyan said that for example, the glass beads discovered at the territory of Shengavit are of a higher quality than the Egypt samples.
Meanwhile, the amount of revealed horse bones at the territory has exceeded all expectations of the researchers. With respect to this, German paleozoologist Hans Peter Wertman stated that he has not observed such a quantity of horses in the entire Ancient East.
A great number of stone tools have been found in workrooms. While the discovered evidences of copper production prove that a systematized iron production was established in Armenia, said Simonyan, adding that many surprises are still awaiting us.
For his part, Mitchell S. Rothman, a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and founder of the Anthropology Department at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, said that all the discoveries prove that around 6,000 years ago the culture of Shengavit has spread over the ancient world. “All that was known in Mesopotamia came from Armenia. Armenia is the absent fragment in the entire mosaics of the ancient world’s civilizations construction. Shengavit has supplemented the lacking chains, that we had been facing while studying the ancient culture of Mesopotamia,” concluded Rothman.
Armenia was the site of development of the first spoke-wheel and light-weight but sturdy chariot chasse. The people were expert horse-breeders and horse-trainers, who were in demand all across the Fertile Crescent to staff the fledgling calvary corps of potentates in Anatolia, Egypt and Mesopotamia with the spread of this new technology beginning about 1850 BCE. If I remember my linguistics correctly, the Armenian language, along with ancient Sanskrit, are the 'purest' remaining examples of the ancient proto-Indo-European language. So, I found this article interesting.
From panarmenian.net
Mesopotamia’s civilization originated in Armenia
July 2, 2010 - 15:43 AMT 10:43 GMTPanARMENIAN.Net - Unique discoveries revealed as a result of excavations at Shengavit (4000-3000 B.C.) confirm that Armenia is the motherland of metallurgy, jeweler’s art, wine-making and horse breeding.
A group of archaeologists studying the ancient city concluded that 4000-3000 B.C. Armenia was a highly developed state with exclusive culture. The excavations are carried out by an Armenian-American archaeological expedition.
Director of the Scientific and Research Institute of Historical and Cultural Heritage of the RA Ministry of Culture Simonyan said that for example, the glass beads discovered at the territory of Shengavit are of a higher quality than the Egypt samples.
Meanwhile, the amount of revealed horse bones at the territory has exceeded all expectations of the researchers. With respect to this, German paleozoologist Hans Peter Wertman stated that he has not observed such a quantity of horses in the entire Ancient East.
A great number of stone tools have been found in workrooms. While the discovered evidences of copper production prove that a systematized iron production was established in Armenia, said Simonyan, adding that many surprises are still awaiting us.
For his part, Mitchell S. Rothman, a Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology and founder of the Anthropology Department at Widener University in Chester, Pennsylvania, said that all the discoveries prove that around 6,000 years ago the culture of Shengavit has spread over the ancient world. “All that was known in Mesopotamia came from Armenia. Armenia is the absent fragment in the entire mosaics of the ancient world’s civilizations construction. Shengavit has supplemented the lacking chains, that we had been facing while studying the ancient culture of Mesopotamia,” concluded Rothman.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Compuer Labs for Kids - South Central Los Angeles Project!
I've blogged about this exiciting new project earlier.
It's a horse of a different color. The newest program involves only a small number of young people and volunteers, but is taking place over a period of several weeks, so the children will receive intensive instruction. Each child who completes the program will receive his or her own laptop computer.
Shira Evans, the founder of Computer Labs for Kids (she played competitive OTB chess in Wyoming when I first met her, back in 2001 or so, but nowadays she restricts herself to online play, mostly blitz) is exploring new territory with this newly-designed program.
Let's face it - fund-raising has been an issue from day one. I suspect, although she would never admit it, that Shira has been mostly footing the bill for her prior programs in India, Israel, Portugal, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas, out of her own earnings. Now, in this world-wide time of financial hardship for average people, funding has come to the forefront. Rich people don't give to organizations like Shira's - it's too small, not on the radar, not apt to get publicity for the donor, etc. etc. It's average peole who hear about her programs through word-of-mouth who volunteer and dig deep to give. And average people are hurting financially.
Lo and behold, seemingly out of the blue a sorority that somehow hears about Shira's Foundation work decides to hold a fundraiser and donates the money to her cause! Unbeknownst to Shira, this happened while Shira heard about and made contact with a group in Los Angeles who were interested in putting on a program. The money the sorority raised is just enough to put on this new program in south-central Los Angeles. I love it when a plan comes together :)
Shira has started a blog about her Foundation's work and the first project featured is the latest venture in Los Angeles. She has promised to update it with weekly reports during the program's progress - I will ride her unmercifully to make sure she does! I can be such a beyatch when I need to be, ahem.
It's a horse of a different color. The newest program involves only a small number of young people and volunteers, but is taking place over a period of several weeks, so the children will receive intensive instruction. Each child who completes the program will receive his or her own laptop computer.
Shira Evans, the founder of Computer Labs for Kids (she played competitive OTB chess in Wyoming when I first met her, back in 2001 or so, but nowadays she restricts herself to online play, mostly blitz) is exploring new territory with this newly-designed program.
Let's face it - fund-raising has been an issue from day one. I suspect, although she would never admit it, that Shira has been mostly footing the bill for her prior programs in India, Israel, Portugal, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas, out of her own earnings. Now, in this world-wide time of financial hardship for average people, funding has come to the forefront. Rich people don't give to organizations like Shira's - it's too small, not on the radar, not apt to get publicity for the donor, etc. etc. It's average peole who hear about her programs through word-of-mouth who volunteer and dig deep to give. And average people are hurting financially.
Lo and behold, seemingly out of the blue a sorority that somehow hears about Shira's Foundation work decides to hold a fundraiser and donates the money to her cause! Unbeknownst to Shira, this happened while Shira heard about and made contact with a group in Los Angeles who were interested in putting on a program. The money the sorority raised is just enough to put on this new program in south-central Los Angeles. I love it when a plan comes together :)
Shira has started a blog about her Foundation's work and the first project featured is the latest venture in Los Angeles. She has promised to update it with weekly reports during the program's progress - I will ride her unmercifully to make sure she does! I can be such a beyatch when I need to be, ahem.
4th of July!
It's so fricking hot and humid here today, I'm sure we broke a record. Last time I checked, which was about noon, not even approaching the hot of the day, it was 90 degrees F. Don't know what the dew point was, don't care. My knees are telling me it's very high. As it my level of sweat. The official temperature is taken at the airport, which is smack dab on Lake Michigan, our local refrigerator. Did it moderate the temperature at all today - perhaps for a block or two :) Out here where I live, about 5-6 miles due west as the crow flies, the sun's intensity was absolutely burning. I wouldn't be surprised if it was 97 or 98 around here.
I got outside to do the front yard grass trimming at 8 a.m. when it was still shady cast from the trees across the road, but could only hack it 20 minutes. By that time I'd already worked up a dripping sweat and enough CO2 to attract lots of bugs. Fortunately, I was basically finished with the trimming at that point, if one does not look too carefully, and called it a morning! I went inside and thanked Goddess for central AC! Two days ago I was sleeping comfortably with the windows open, but yesterday afternoon the weather took a turn for the hotter and way more humid ( dew point of 60 and above now) - of course, the day I dedicated to getting the lawn cut front yard and back so I wouldn't have to putz with it today or tomorrow, with the threat of possible severe weather hanging over my head like an axe - I shut up the house and turned on the AC about 7 p.m. Any dew point in the high 50's and above is decidedly uncomfortable for me. But the tropical dew points in the 70's - I can't even breathe!
Lots of fireworks displays planned for tonight, but the weather is problematical. When it gets this hot and humid, thunderstorms are always a threat and can crop up in nothing flat. That breeze I mentioned, it's gusting at 20 to 25 mph which can make shooting off fireworks downright dangerous. I hope everyone will get to see their local fireworks. I'm more concerned about trees crashing on to my roof!
There is no summer get-together this year for Goddesschess, alas. I don't know if that will ever happen again. Time changes things. Relationships change. The Great Recession, which is actually the second Great Depression although no one will admit it, has taken its toll on all of us. I have contented myself with looking at and posting some photographs from our May, 2009 get-together in New York - hope you enjoy them. The weather was crazy that day, reminds me of here :) One minute it was sunny and hot as hell; the next minute it was clouded over and foggy and the temperature dropped 20 degrees and you needed your jacket. We had that weather during our entire outing from Battery Park to Ellis Island and back, but back on Manhattan, it was hot and no fog to be seen. What a wonderful trip that was. I'm so glad we were able to visit again after our first visit in - what was it - 2006?
Photo 1: Statue of Liberty taken at Ellis Island, May, 2009 Goddesschess Anniversary Trip
Photo 2: Jan, Mr. Don and Isis taken at the base of the Statute of Liberty, Ellis Island, May 2009. Guess you can tell I was more than a little upset with Mr. Don at that point in time as I'm - no, that is not a hug, I'm actually choking him...
Photo 3: Jan looking toward the skyline of Manhattan, off camera, in the distance. I was in a contemplative mood. I made a wish and threw some coins over the railing.
A Skeleton Comes Home
How about a skeleton who has her own Facebook page? And Twitter, too. Rather ghoulish the way they've got her displayed, but the article is interesting.
From the BBC
Skeleton Blodwen, aged 5,500, comes home to Llandudno
Saturday, 3 July 2010 14:12 UK
The skeleton of a woman who lived 5,500 years ago has gone on display in her home town, more than a century after she was discovered.
Blodwen is the nickname given to a Neolithic skeleton found on Little Orme in Llandudno, Conwy county, in 1891.
Until now, the remains have been housed at a museum in Bacup, Lancashire.
The exhibition forms part of a three-month tomb builders' display at Llandudno Museum.
It also celebrates the Council for British Archaeology's national festival in the last two weeks of July.
The skeleton was discovered in a fissure by an engineer excavating quarry works, who then donated her to the museum in his home town of Bacup.
Carbon dating tests carried out at Oxford University have revealed that Blodwen died around 3510 BC, aged somewhere between her late fifties and early sixties.
Orthopaedic examinations show that she was about 5ft (1.52m), powerfully built, and her bone structure suggests she was accustomed to carrying heavy loads, both on her head and in her arms.
There are signs, however, that this lifestyle took its toll on Blodwen, with clear evidence of severe arthritis in her neck and knees.
At the time of her death she was also suffering from secondary cancer, although it is not obvious whether it was this which killed her.
Pig bones dating from the same period found close to Blodwen's skeleton would seem to suggest that she came from a farming background.
'Pastoral life'
Shirley Williams, Museum Education Officer for Llandudno Museum, organised the exhibition to form part of the Festival of British Archaeology, including getting the Bacup Natural History Society to agree to the loan of Blodwen.
She, said: "She was found in a deep fissure on the Little Orme, and way down below her were the bones of ancient animals - hyena, rhinoceros, bear.
"She was found midway and above her there was a bronze age spear head but the radio carbon testing found she was actually older than the spear head."
Ms Williams said it would be "great" if she could stay in Llandudno, but said Bacup was very interested in keeping Blodwen.
Adele Thackray, the field monument warden for north west Wales for Cadw, the Welsh heritage body, said: "During the Neolithic period we start to see a cross-over from a semi-nomadic hunter-gathering society to a more settled, pastoral way of life.
"The pig bones found with Blodwen seem to suggest that she was part of this new farming society, and that impression is backed up by isotope tests on her bones which show that she ate more meat and cultivated crops than fish and wild plants."
She added that the manner of Blodwen's burial pointed towards "a more settled society, fixed around a locality". [What manner - no description provided!]
"Her extraordinary age for the time could also have a lot to do with her memorial - at 60 or so, she would almost certainly have been an elder of her community, and someone who would have been looked up to a great deal."
She also has a presence on both Facebook and Twitter, as Blodwen Chardon, named after the Chardon Trust, which runs the museum.
From the BBC
Skeleton Blodwen, aged 5,500, comes home to Llandudno
Saturday, 3 July 2010 14:12 UK
The skeleton of a woman who lived 5,500 years ago has gone on display in her home town, more than a century after she was discovered.
Blodwen is the nickname given to a Neolithic skeleton found on Little Orme in Llandudno, Conwy county, in 1891.
Until now, the remains have been housed at a museum in Bacup, Lancashire.
The exhibition forms part of a three-month tomb builders' display at Llandudno Museum.
It also celebrates the Council for British Archaeology's national festival in the last two weeks of July.
The skeleton was discovered in a fissure by an engineer excavating quarry works, who then donated her to the museum in his home town of Bacup.
Carbon dating tests carried out at Oxford University have revealed that Blodwen died around 3510 BC, aged somewhere between her late fifties and early sixties.
Orthopaedic examinations show that she was about 5ft (1.52m), powerfully built, and her bone structure suggests she was accustomed to carrying heavy loads, both on her head and in her arms.
There are signs, however, that this lifestyle took its toll on Blodwen, with clear evidence of severe arthritis in her neck and knees.
At the time of her death she was also suffering from secondary cancer, although it is not obvious whether it was this which killed her.
Pig bones dating from the same period found close to Blodwen's skeleton would seem to suggest that she came from a farming background.
'Pastoral life'
Shirley Williams, Museum Education Officer for Llandudno Museum, organised the exhibition to form part of the Festival of British Archaeology, including getting the Bacup Natural History Society to agree to the loan of Blodwen.
She, said: "She was found in a deep fissure on the Little Orme, and way down below her were the bones of ancient animals - hyena, rhinoceros, bear.
"She was found midway and above her there was a bronze age spear head but the radio carbon testing found she was actually older than the spear head."
Ms Williams said it would be "great" if she could stay in Llandudno, but said Bacup was very interested in keeping Blodwen.
Adele Thackray, the field monument warden for north west Wales for Cadw, the Welsh heritage body, said: "During the Neolithic period we start to see a cross-over from a semi-nomadic hunter-gathering society to a more settled, pastoral way of life.
"The pig bones found with Blodwen seem to suggest that she was part of this new farming society, and that impression is backed up by isotope tests on her bones which show that she ate more meat and cultivated crops than fish and wild plants."
She added that the manner of Blodwen's burial pointed towards "a more settled society, fixed around a locality". [What manner - no description provided!]
"Her extraordinary age for the time could also have a lot to do with her memorial - at 60 or so, she would almost certainly have been an elder of her community, and someone who would have been looked up to a great deal."
She also has a presence on both Facebook and Twitter, as Blodwen Chardon, named after the Chardon Trust, which runs the museum.
**********************************************************
Are the pig bones taken as evidence that the woman had been buried with food offerings? Was her body dumped into this fissure (whatever that means - to me a fissure is just a large crack in rock, not like it's a cave where people could walk in and arrange a burial and then walk out), or was it discovered carefully buried with evidence of food and some prize possessions left in the burial, and was she wrapped or her body arranged in a certain position? Were the pig bones just tossed into the fissure as so much refuse, i.e., it was used as a garbage disposal?
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Jezebel, oh Jezebel... Part 2
Just a brief note from Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets."
Jezebel
Sidonian queen of Israel, maligned in the Bible for worshipping Astarte instead of Yahweh. (1) Jezebel and her husband King Ahab were murdered in a civil war fomented by Yahweh's devotees. Her daughter, Athaliah became queen, but seven years later she too was murdered by treachery. (2 Kings 11:16). Thus, worship of the Goddess was abandoned.(2)
Notes:
(1) Boulding, 236.
(2) Stone, 188.
Many of the ancient sacred spots of the Goddess survive today, under a gloss whatever religion happens to hold sway in the particular country in which the Goddess' sacred places are located.
Jezebel
Sidonian queen of Israel, maligned in the Bible for worshipping Astarte instead of Yahweh. (1) Jezebel and her husband King Ahab were murdered in a civil war fomented by Yahweh's devotees. Her daughter, Athaliah became queen, but seven years later she too was murdered by treachery. (2 Kings 11:16). Thus, worship of the Goddess was abandoned.(2)
Notes:
(1) Boulding, 236.
(2) Stone, 188.
*************************************************************
Well - not really. The worship of Astarte a/k/a Ashtoreth a/k/a Asherah never totally disappeared. Her "poles" and sacred groves of trees remained on scattered sacred high areass in Israel as well as throughout the Middle East (and elsewhere all through Europe and Asia) right through the time of Buddha, Zoaroaster, Confucius, Christ, Mohammed, and thereafter. The Goddess gave the early 'founding fathers' of Christendom fits because women would insist, year after year, on producing their 'hot cross buns' at Easter as well as promoting such symbols of the ancient fertility goddess as eggs and rabbits! Across the world, the fathers of various patriarchal-oriented religions tried to wipe out the worship of the Goddess - to no avail. Even today, in the Islamic Republic of Iran the festivities of Nowruz, harking back to celebrations surrounding the Persian version of the fertility/warrior goddess is popularly celebrated throughout the countrby Muslims. Many of the ancient sacred spots of the Goddess survive today, under a gloss whatever religion happens to hold sway in the particular country in which the Goddess' sacred places are located.
Jezebel, oh Jezebel...
I've written about this famous, er, infamous lady from biblical time before at this blog but do you think I can find that information now? Nope. I did find one blog entry related to Jezebel but it's not the entire biblical account of her 'final' days that I distinctly recall typing out. Oh well. Just remember darlings, the patriarchs were doing all of the writing back then and they didn't take too kindly to 'uppity' females. Personally, Jezebel is a hero of mine, despite the absolute horrid casting of - gasp - Bette Davis - as a 19th century Jezebel (a southern belle) opposite equally bad casting of Henry Fonda in the winpiest role I'ver ever seen him do, ever (he was so much more appealing in his later years, particularly in his role as primo bad guy in "Once Upon a Time in the West" where he downright sizzled on the screen). Pay attention - Bette Davis' Jezebel is mentioned later in the article. You'll also have to read the entire article and the notes afterward to appreciate the reference to the "woman in the window" which should remind you of a post I did a few days back...
Queen Jezebel's Seal, prior post. For the life of me I can't find the other stuff I know I wrote about Jezebel, including the scriptural account of her last day. Perhaps it wasn't here I posted that info.
From Biblical Archaeology Review's website:
How Bad Was Jezebel?
by Janet Howe Gaines
June, 2010
For more than two thousand years, Jezebel has been saddled with a reputation as the bad girl of the Bible, the wickedest of women. This ancient queen has been denounced as a murderer, prostitute and enemy of God, and her name has been adopted for lingerie lines and World War II missiles alike. But just how depraved was Jezebel?
In recent years, scholars have tried to reclaim the shadowy female figures whose tales are often only partially told in the Bible. Rehabilitating Jezebel’s stained reputation is an arduous task, however, for she is a difficult woman to like. She is not a heroic fighter like Deborah, a devoted sister like Miriam or a cherished wife like Ruth. Jezebel cannot even be compared with the Bible’s other bad girls—Potiphar’s wife and Delilah—for no good comes from Jezebel’s deeds. These other women may be bad, but Jezebel is the worst.1
Yet there is more to this complex ruler than the standard interpretation would allow. To attain a more positive assessment of Jezebel’s troubled reign and a deeper understanding of her role, we must evaluate the motives of the biblical authors who condemn the queen. Furthermore, we must reread the narrative from the queen’s vantage point. As we piece together the world in which Jezebel lived, a fuller picture of this fascinating woman begins to emerge. The story is not a pretty one, and some—perhaps most—readers will remain disturbed by Jezebel’s actions. But her character might not be as dark as we are accustomed to think ng. Her evilness is not always as obvious, undisputed and unrivaled as the biblical writer wants it to appear. [Painting: John Byam Liston Shaw. From article: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library. Israel’s most accursed queen carefully fixes a pink rose in her red locks, in John Byam Liston Shaw’s “Jezebel,” from 1896. In the foreground, the peacock with its spread tail in the lower right corner represents Jezebel’s vanity; the black cat perched at her feet hints at Jezebel’s darker side.
Jezebel’s long-standing reputation as the most dangerous seductress in the Bible stems from her final appearance on the biblical scene: Jezebel’s husband King Ahab is dead; her son has been murdered by the usurper Jehu; Jezebel is waiting as Jehu’s chariot races toward the palace, where he will kill Jezebel. As the horses approach, “[Jezebel] painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30).
But is this a sign of vanity or a display of strength when facing certain death? In the accompanying article, Janet Howe Gaines questions the common characterization of Jezebel as the wickedest woman in the Bible.]
The story of Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of Israel, is recounted in several brief passages scattered throughout the Books of Kings. Scholars generally identify 1 and 2 Kings as part of the Deuteronomistic History, attributed either to a single author or to a group of authors and editors collectively known as the Deuteronomist. One of the main purposes of the entire Deuteronomistic History, which includes the seven books from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings, is to explain Israel’s fate in terms of its apostasy. As the Israelites settle into the Promised Land, establish a monarchy and separate into a northern and a southern kingdom after the reign of Solomon, God’s chosen people continually go astray. They sin against Yahweh in many ways, the worst of which is by worshiping alien deities. The first commandments from Sinai demand monotheism, but the people are attracted to foreign gods and goddesses. When Jezebel enters the scene in the ninth century B.C.E., she provides a perfect opportunity for the Bible writer to teach a moral lesson about the evil outcomes of idolatry, for she is a foreign idol worshiper who seems to be the power behind her husband. From the Deuteronomist’s viewpoint, Jezebel embodies everything that must be eliminated from Israel so that the purity of the cult of Yahweh will not be further contaminated.
As the Books of Kings recount, the princess Jezebel is brought to the northern kingdom of Israel to wed the newly crowned King Ahab, son of Omri (1 Kings 16:31). Her father is Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians, a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites. Phoenicia consisted of a loose confederation of city-states, including the sophisticated maritime trade centers of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. The Bible writer’s antagonism stems primarily from Jezebel’s religion. The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal, the general term for “lord” given to the head fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites. As king of Phoenicia, it is likely that Ethbaal was also a high priest or had other important religious duties. According to the first-century C.E. historian Josephus, who drew on a Greek translation of the now-lost Annals of Tyre, Ethbaal served as a priest of Astarte, the primary Phoenician goddess. Jezebel, as the king’s daughter, may have served as a priestess as she was growing up. In any case, she was certainly raised to honor the deities of her native land.
When Jezebel comes to Israel, she brings her foreign gods and goddesses—especially Baal and his consort Asherah (Canaanite Astarte, often translated in the Bible as “sacred post”)—with her. This seems to have an immediate effect on her new husband, for just as soon as the queen is introduced, we are told that Ahab builds a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Israel, within his capital city of Samaria: “He took as wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a ‘sacred post’”a (1 Kings 16:31–33).2
Jezebel does not accept Ahab’s God, Yahweh. Rather, she leads Ahab to tolerate Baal. This is why she is vilified by the Deuteronomist, whose goal is to stamp out polytheism. She represents a view of womanhood that is the opposite of the one extolled in characters such as Ruth the Moabite, who is also a foreigner. Ruth surrenders her identity and submerges herself in Israelite ways; she adopts the religious and social norms of the Israelites and is universally praised for her conversion to God. Jezebel steadfastly remains true to her own beliefs.
Jezebel’s marriage to Ahab was a political alliance. The union provided both peoples with military protection from powerful enemies as well as valuable trade routes: Israel gained access to the Phoenician ports; Phoenicia gained passage through Israel’s central hill country to Transjordan and especially to the King’s Highway, the heavily traveled inland route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba in the south with Damascus in the north. But although the marriage is sound foreign policy, it is intolerable to the Deuteronomist because of Jezebel’s idol worship.
The Bible does not comment on what the young Jezebel thinks about marrying Ahab and moving to Israel. Her feelings are of no interest to the Deuteronomist, nor are they germane to the story’s didactic purpose.
We are not told whether Ethbaal consults his daughter, if she departs Phoenicia with trepidation or enthusiasm, or what she expects from her role as ruler. Like other highborn daughters of her time, Jezebel is probably a pawn, packed off to the highest bidder.
Israel’s topography, customs and religion would certainly be very different from those of Jezebel’s native land. Instead of the lushness of the moist seacoast, she would find Israel to be an arid, desert nation. Furthermore, the Torah shows the Israelites to be an ethnocentric, xenophobic people. In biblical narratives, foreigners are sometimes unwelcome, and prejudice against intermarriage is seen since the day Abraham sought a woman from his own people to marry his son Isaac (Genesis 24:4). In contrast to the familiar gods and goddesses that Jezebel is accustomed to petitioning, Israel is home to a state religion featuring a lone, masculine deity. Perhaps Jezebel optimistically believes that she can encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of those Baalites who already reside in Israel. Perhaps Jezebel sees herself as an ambassador who could help unite the two lands and bring about cultural pluralism, regional peace and economic prosperity.
What spurs Jezebel to action is unknown and unknowable, but the motives of the Deuteronomist come through plainly in the text. Jezebel is a bold and impious interloper who has to be stopped. From her own point of view, however, she is no apostate. She remains loyal to her religious upbringing and is determined to maintain her cultural identity.
According to the Deuteronomist, however, Jezebel’s desire is not merely confined to achieving ethnic or religious parity. She also seems driven to eliminate Israel’s faithful servants of God. Evidence of Jezebel’s cruel desire to wipe out Yahweh worship in Israel is reported in 1 Kings 18:4, at the Bible’s second mention of her name: “Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord.”
The threat of Jezebel is so great that later in the same chapter, the mythic prophet Elijah summons the acolytes of Jezebel to a tournament on Mt. Carmel to determine which deity is supreme: God or Baal.
Whichever deity is capable of setting a sacrificial bull on fire will be the winner, the one true God. It is only then that we learn just how many followers of Jezebel’s gods and goddesses are near her at court. Elijah challenges them: “Now summon all Israel to join me at Mount Carmel, together with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:19). Whether the grand total of 850 is a symbolic or literal number, it is impressive.
Yet their superior numbers can do nothing to ensure victory; nor can petitions to their god. The prophets of Baal “performed a hopping dance about the altar” and “kept raving” (1 Kings 18:26, 29) all day long in a vain attempt to rouse Baal. They even gash themselves with knives and whoop it up in a heightened emotional state, hoping to incite Baal to unleash a great fire. But Baal does not respond to the ecstatic ranting of Jezebel’s prophets. At the end of the day, it is Elijah’s single plea to God that is answered.
Standing alone before Jezebel’s host of visionaries, Elijah cries out: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel! Let it be known today that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God; for You have turned their hearts backward” (1 Kings 18:36–37). At once, “fire from the Lord descended and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones and the earth;...When they saw this, all the people flung themselves on their faces and cried out: ‘The Lord alone is God, the Lord alone is God!’” (1 Kings 18:38–39). Elijah’s solitary entreaty to Yahweh serves as a foil to the hours of appeals made by Baal’s followers.
Jezebel herself is absent during this all-male event. Nevertheless, her presence is felt and the Deuteronomist’s message is clear. Jezebel’s deities and the huge number of prophets loyal to her are powerless against the omnipotent Yahweh, who is proven by the tournament to be ruler of all the forces of nature.
Ironically, at the conclusion of the Carmel episode, Elijah proves capable of the same murderous inclinations that have previously characterized Jezebel, though it is only she that the Deuteronomist criticizes. After winning the Carmel contest, Elijah immediately orders the assembly to capture all of Jezebel’s prophets. Elijah emphatically declares: “Seize the prophets of Baal, let not a single one of them get away” (1 Kings 18:40). Elijah leads his 450 prisoners to the Wadi Kishon, where he slaughters them (1 Kings 18:40). Though they will never meet in person, Elijah and Jezebel are engaged in a hard-fought struggle for religious supremacy. Here Elijah reveals that he and Jezebel possess a similar religious fervor, though their loyalties differ greatly. They are also equally determined to eliminate one another’s followers, even if it means murdering them. The difference is that the Deuteronomist decries Jezebel’s killing of God’s servants (at 1 Kings 18:4) but now sanctions Elijah’s decision to massacre hundreds of Jezebel’s prophets. Indeed, once Elijah kills Jezebel’s prophets, God rewards him by sending a much-needed rain, ending a three-year drought in Israel. There is a definite double standard here. Murder seems to be accepted, even venerated, as long as it is done in the name of the right deity.
After Elijah’s triumph on Mt. Carmel, King Ahab returns home to give his queen the news that Baal is defeated, Yahweh is the undisputed master of the universe and Jezebel’s prophets are dead. Jezebel sends Elijah a menacing message, threatening to slaughter him just as he has slaughtered her prophets: “Thus and more may the gods do if by this time tomorrow I have not made you like one of them” (1 Kings 19:2). The Septuagint, a third- to second-century B.C.E. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, prefaces Jezebel’s threat with an additional insult to the prophet. Here Jezebel establishes herself as Elijah’s equal: “If you are Elijah, so I am Jezebel” (1 Kings 19:2b).3 In both versions the queen’s meaning is unmistakable: Elijah should fear for his life.
These are the first words the Deuteronomist records from Jezebel, and they are filled with venom. Unlike the many voiceless biblical wives and concubines whose muteness reminds us of the powerlessness of women in ancient Israel, Jezebel has a tongue. While her verbal acuity shows that she is more daring, clever and independent than most women of her time, her withering words also demonstrate her sinfulness. Jezebel transforms the precious instrument of language into an evil device to blaspheme God and defy the prophet.
So frightened is Elijah by Jezebel’s threatening words that he flees to Mt. Horeb (Sinai). Despite what he has witnessed on Carmel, Elijah seems to falter in his faith that the Almighty will protect him. As a literary device, Elijah’s sojourn at Horeb gives the Deuteronomist an opportunity to imply parallels between the careers of Moses and Elijah, thus reinforcing Elijah’s exalted reputation. Nevertheless, the timing of Elijah’s flight south makes him look suspiciously like he is afraid of a mere woman.
Jezebel indeed shows herself as a person to be feared in the next episode. The story of Naboth, an Israelite who owns a plot of land adjacent to the royal palace in Jezreel, provides an excellent occasion for the Deuteronomist to propose that Jezebel is not only the foe of Israel’s God, but an enemy of the government.
In 1 Kings 21:2, Ahab requests that Naboth give him his vineyard: “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it as a vegetable garden, since it is right next to my palace.” Ahab promises to pay Naboth for the land or to provide him with an even better vineyard. But at 1 Kings 21:3, Naboth refuses to sell or trade: “The Lord forbid that I should give up to you what I have inherited from my fathers!” The king whines and refuses to eat after Naboth’s rebuff: “Ahab went home dispirited and sullen because of the answer that Naboth the Jezreelite had given him...He lay down on his bed and turned away his face, and he would not eat” (1 Kings 21:4). Apparently perturbed by her husband’s political impotence and sulking demeanor, Jezebel steps in, proudly asserting: “Now is the time to show yourself king over Israel. Rise and eat something, and be cheerful; I will get the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for you” (1 Kings 21:7).
Naboth is fully within his rights to hold onto his family plot. Israelite law and custom dictate that his family should maintain their land (nachalah) in perpetuity (Numbers 27:5–11). As a Torah-bound king of Israel, Ahab should understand Naboth’s legitimate desire to keep his inheritance. Jezebel, on the other hand, hails from Phoenicia, where a monarch’s whim is often tantamount to law.4 Having been raised in a land of absolute autocrats, where few dared to question a ruler’s wish or decree, Jezebel might naturally feel annoyance and frustration at Naboth’s resistance to his sovereign’s proposal. In this context, Jezebel’s reaction becomes more understandable, though perhaps no more admirable, for she behaves according to her upbringing and expectations regarding royal prerogative.
Without Ahab’s direct knowledge, Jezebel writes letters to her townsmen, enlisting them in an elaborate ruse to frame the innocent Naboth. To ensure their compliance, she signs Ahab’s name and stamps the letters with the king’s seal. Jezebel encourages the townsmen to publicly (and falsely) accuse Naboth of blaspheming God and king. “Then take him out and stone him to death,” she commands (1 Kings 21:10). So Naboth is murdered, and the vineyard automatically escheats to the throne, as is customary when a person is found guilty of a serious crime. If Naboth has relatives, they are now in no position to protest the passing of their family land to Ahab.
Yet the details of Jezebel’s underhanded plot against Naboth do not always ring true. The Bible maintains that “the elders and nobles who lived in [Naboth’s] town...did as Jezebel had instructed them” (1 Kings 21:11). If the trickster queen is able to enlist the support of so many people, none of whom betrays her, to kill a man whom they have probably known all their lives and whom they realize is innocent, then she has astonishing power.
The fantastical tale of Naboth’s death—in which something could go wrong at any moment but somehow does not—stretches the reader’s credulity. If Jezebel were as hateful as the Deuteronomist claims, surely at least one nobleman in Jezreel would have refused to assist in the nefarious scheme. Surely one individual would have had the courage to expose the detestable deed and become the Deuteronomist’s hero by spoiling the plan.5
Perhaps the biblical compiler is using Jezebel as a scapegoat for his outrage at her influence over the king, meaning that she herself is being framed in the tale. Traditionally thought to be a narrative about how innocent Naboth is falsely accused, the story could instead be an exaggeration of fact, fabricated to demonstrate the Deuteronomist’s continued wrath against Jezebel.
As a result of this incident, Elijah reappears on the scene. First Yahweh tells Elijah how Ahab will die: “The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Go down and confront King Ahab of Israel who [resides] in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard; he has gone down there to take possession of it. Say to him, “Thus said the Lord: Would you murder and take possession? Thus said the Lord: In the very place where the dogs lapped up Naboth’s blood, the dogs will lap up your blood too”’” (1 Kings 21:17–19). But when Elijah confronts Ahab, the prophet predicts instead how the queen will die: “The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the field of Jezreel” (1 Kings 21:23).c Poetic justice, as the Deuteronomist sees it, demands that Jezebel end up as dog food. Ashamed of what has happened and fearful of the future, Ahab humbles himself by assuming outward signs of mourning, fasting and donning sackcloth. Prayer accompanies fasting, whether the Bible explicitly says so or not, so we may assume that Ahab raises his penitential voice to a forgiving Yahweh. For once, Jezebel does not speak; her lack of repentance is implicit in her silence.
When Jezebel’s name is mentioned again, the Bible writer makes his most alarming accusation against her. Ahab has died, as has the couple’s eldest son, who followed his father to the throne. Their second son, Joram, rules. But even though Israel has a sitting monarch, a servant of the prophet Elisha crowns Jehu, Joram’s military commander, king of Israel and commissions Jehu to eradicate the House of Ahab: “I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. You shall strike down the House of Ahab your master; thus will I avenge on Jezebel the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of the other servants of the Lord” (2 Kings 9:6–7).
King Joram and General Jehu meet on the battlefield. Unaware that he is about to be usurped by his military commander, Joram calls out: “Is all well, Jehu?” Jehu responds: “How can all be well as long as your mother Jezebel carries on her countless harlotries and sorceries?” (2 Kings 9:22). Jehu then shoots an arrow through Joram’s heart and, in a moment of stinging irony, orders the body to be dumped on Naboth’s land.
From these words alone—uttered by the man who is about to kill Jezebel’s son—stems Jezebel’s long-standing reputation as a witch and a whore. The Bible occasionally connects harlotry and idol worship, as in Hosea 1:3, where the prophet is told to marry a “wife of whoredom,” who symbolically represents the people who “stray from following the Lord” (Hosea 1:3). Lusting after false “lords” can be seen as either adulterous or idolatrous. Yet throughout the millennia, Jezebel’s harlotry has not been identified as mere dolatry. Rather, she has been considered the slut of Samaria, the lecherous wife of a pouting potentate. The 1938 film Jezebel, starring Bette Davis as the destructive temptress who leads a man to his death, is evidence that this ancient judgment against Jezebel has been transmitted to this century. Nevertheless, the Bible never offers evidence that Jezebel is unfaithful to her husband while he is alive or loose in her morals after his death. In fact, she is always shown to be a loyal and helpful spouse, though her brand of assistance is deplored by the Deuteronomist. Jehu’s charge of harlotry is unsubstantiated, but it has stuck anyway and her reputation has been egregiously damaged by the allegation.
When Jezebel herself finally appears again in the pages of the Bible, it is for her death scene. Jehu, with the blood of Joram still on his hands, races his chariot into Jezreel to continue the insurrection by assassinating Jezebel. Ironically, this is her finest hour, though the Deuteronomist intends the queen to appear haughty and imperious to the end. Realizing that Jehu is on his way to kill her, Jezebel does not disguise herself and flee the city, as a more cowardly person might do. Instead, she calmly prepares for his arrival by performing three acts: “She painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30). The traditional interpretation is that Jezebel primps and coquettishly looks out the window in an effort to seduce Jehu, that she wishes to win his favor and become part of his harem in order to save her own life, such treachery indicating Jezebel’s dastardly betrayal of deceased family members. According to this reading, Jezebel sheds familial loyalty as easily as a snake sheds its skin in an attempt to ensure her continued pleasure and safety at court.
Applying eye makeup (kohl) and brushing one’s hair are often connected to flirting in Hebraic thinking. Isaiah 3:16, Jeremiah 4:30, Ezekiel 23:40 and Proverbs 6:24–26 provide examples of women who bat their painted eyes to lure innocent men into adulterous beds. Black kohl is widely incorporated in Bible passages as a symbol of feminine deception and trickery, and its use to paint the area above and below the eyelids is generally considered part of a woman’s arsenal of artifice. In Jezebel’s case, however, the cosmetic is more than just an attempt to accentuate the eyes. Jezebel is donning the female version of armor as she prepares to do battle. She is a woman warrior, waging war in the only way a woman can. Whatever fear she may have of Jehu is camouflaged by her war paint.
Her grooming continues as she dresses her hair, symbol of a woman’s seductive power. When she dies, she wants to look her queenly best. She is in control here, choosing the manner in which her attacker will last see and remember her.
The third action Jezebel takes before Jehu arrives is to sit at her upper window. The Deuteronomist may be deliberately conjuring up images to associate Jezebel with other disfavored women. For example, contained within Deborah’s victory ode is the story of the unfortunate mother of the enemy general Sisera. Waiting at home, Sisera’s unnamed mother looks out the window for her son to return: “Through the window peered Sisera’s mother, behind the lattice she whined” (Judges 5:28). Her ladies-in-waiting express the hope that Sisera is detained because he is raping Israelite women and collecting booty (Judges 5:29–30). In truth, Sisera is already dead, his skull shattered by Jael and her tent peg (Judges 5:24–27). King David’s wife Michal also looks through her window, watching her husband dance around the Ark of the Covenant as it is triumphantly brought into Jerusalem, “and she despised him for it” (2 Samuel 6:16). Michal does not understand the people’s euphoria over the arrival of the Ark in David’s new capital; she can only feel anger that her husband is dancing about like one of the “riffraff” (2 Samuel 6:20). Generations later, Jezebel also appears at her window, conjuring up images of Sisera’s mother and Michal, two unpopular biblical women.
The image of the woman at the window also suggests fertility goddesses, abominations to the Deuteronomist and well known to the general public in ancient Israel. Ivory plaques, dating to the Iron Age and depicting a woman peering through a window, have been discovered in Khorsabad, Nimrud and Samaria, Jezebel’s second home.6 The connection between idol worship, goddesses and the woman seated at the window would not have been lost on the Deuteronomist’s audience.
Sitting at her window, Jezebel is seemingly rendered powerless while the active patriarchal world functions beyond her reach.7 But a more sympathetic reading of the situation suggests that Jezebel has determined the superior angle from which she will be viewed by Jehu, thus giving the queen mastery of the situation.
Positioned at the balcony window, the queen does not remain silent as the usurper Jehu arrives into town. She taunts him by calling him Zimri, the name of the unscrupulous predecessor of Omri, Jezebel’s father-in-law. Zimri ruled Israel for only seven days after murdering the king (Elah) and usurping the throne. “Is all well, Zimri, murderer of your master?” Jezebel asks Jehu (2 Kings 9:31). Jezebel knows that all is not well, and her sarcastic, sharp-tongued insult of Jehu disproves any interpretation that she has dressed in her finest to seduce him. She has contempt for Jehu. Unlike many biblical wives, who remain silent, Jezebel has a distinct voice, and she is unafraid to articulate her view of Jehu as a renegade and regicide.
To demonstrate his authority, Jehu orders Jezebel’s eunuchs to throw her out of the window: “They threw her down; and her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled her. Then [Jehu] went inside and ate and drank” (2 Kings 9:33–34). In this highly symbolic political action, the once mighty Jezebel is shoved out of her high station to the ground below. Her ejection from the window represents an eternal demotion from her proper place as one of the Bible’s most influential women.
Jezebel’s body is left in the street as Jehu celebrates his victory. Later, perhaps because the new monarch does not wish to begin his reign with such a disrespectful act against a woman, or perhaps because he realizes the danger in setting a precedent for ill treatment of a dead ruler’s remains, Jehu orders Jezebel’s burial: “Attend to that cursed woman and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter” (2 Kings 9:34). Jezebel is not to be remembered as a queen or even as the wife of a king. She is only the daughter of a foreign despot. This is intended as another blow by the Deuteronomist, an attempt to marginalize a formidable woman. When the king’s men come to bury Jezebel, it is too late: “All they found of her were the skull, the feet, and the hands” (2 Kings 9:35). Jehu’s men inform the king that Elijah’s prophecies have been fulfilled: “It is just as the Lord spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: The dogs shall devour the flesh of Jezebel in the field of Jezreel; and the carcass of Jezebel shall be like dung on the ground, in the field of Jezreel, so that none will be able to say: ‘This was Jezebel’” (2 Kings 9:36–37).
While the biblical storyteller wants the final images of Jezebel to memorialize her as a brazen hussy, a sympathetic interpretation of her behavior has more credibility. When all a person has left in life is the way she faces her death, her final actions speak volumes about her character. Jezebel departs this earth every inch a queen. Now an aging grandmother, it is highly unlikely that she has libidinous designs on Jehu or even entertains the notion of becoming the young king’s paramour. As the daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother of kings, Jezebel would understand court politics well enough to realize that Jehu has far more to gain by killing her than by keeping her alive. Alive, the dowager queen could always serve as a rallying point for anyone unhappy with Jehu’s reign. The queen harbors no illusions about her chances of surviving Jehu’s bloody coup d’état.
How bad was Jezebel? The Deuteronomist uses every possible argument to make the case against her. When Ahab dies, the Deuteronomist is determined to show that “there never was anyone like Ahab, who committed himself to doing what was displeasing to the Lord, at the instigation of his wife Jezebel” (1 Kings 21:25). It is interesting that Ahab is not held responsible for his own actions.8 He goes astray because of a wicked woman. Someone has to bear the writer’s vituperation concerning Israel’s apostasy, and Jezebel is chosen for the job.
Every biblical word condemns her: Jezebel is an outspoken woman in a time when females have little status and few rights; a foreigner in a xenophobic land; an idol worshiper in a place with a Yahweh-based, state-sponsored religion; a murderer and meddler in political affairs in a nation of strong patriarchs; a traitor in a country where no ruler is above the law; and a whore in the territory where the Ten Commandments originate.
Yet there is much to admire in this ancient queen. In a kinder analysis, Jezebel emerges as a fiery and determined person, with an intensity matched only by Elijah’s. She is true to her native religion and customs. She is even more loyal to her husband. Throughout her reign, she boldly exercises what power she has. And in the end, having lived her life on her own terms, Jezebel faces certain death with dignity.
Notes
1. For a fuller treatment of Jezebel, see Janet Howe Gaines, Music in the Old Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1999).
2. All references to the Bible, unless otherwise noted, are to Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).
3. The translation of the Greek text is my own. According to Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton (The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English, 3rd ed. [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990], p. 478), the translation of the entire line is “And Jezabel sent to Eliu, and said, If thou art Eliu and I am Jezabel, God do so to me, and more also, if I do not make thy life by this time tomorrow as the life of one of them.”
4. For a discussion of Phoenician customs, see George Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia(London: Longmans, 1889).
5. As corroborating evidence, see the story of David’s plot to kill Uriah the Hittite in 2 Samuel 11:14–17. Like Jezebel, David writes letters that contain details of his scheme. David intends to enlist help from the entire regiment as confederates who are to “draw back from” Uriah, but Joab makes a shrewd and subtle change in the plan so that it is less likely to be discovered.
6. Eleanor Ferris Beach, “The Samaria Ivories, Marzeah, and Biblical Text,” Biblical Archaeologist 56:2 (1993), pp. 94–104.
7. For an excellent, detailed discussion of biblical imagery concerning women seated at windows, see Nehama Aschkenasy, Woman at the Window (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1998).
8. For a reassessment of Ahab’s character based on the archaeological remains of his building projects and extrabiblical texts, see Ephraim Stern, “The Many Masters of Dor, Part 2: How Bad Was Ahab?” BAR 19:02.
a. Asherah is the biblical name for Astarte, a Canaanite fertility goddess and consort of Baal. The term asherah, which appears at least 50 times in the Hebrew Bible (it is often translated as “sacred post”), is used to refer to three manifestations of this goddess: an image (probably a figurine) of the goddess (eg., 2 Kings 21:7); a tree (Deuteronomy 16:21); and a tree trunk, or sacred post (Deuteronomy 7:5, 12:3). See Ruth Hestrin, “Understanding Asherah—Exploring Semitic Iconography,” BAR 17:05.
b. In the Septuagint, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings are all included in Kings, which therefore has four books, 1–4 Kings.
c. A similar statement is made by the unnamed prophet who anoints Jehu king of Israel in 2 Kings 9:10.
Queen Jezebel's Seal, prior post. For the life of me I can't find the other stuff I know I wrote about Jezebel, including the scriptural account of her last day. Perhaps it wasn't here I posted that info.
From Biblical Archaeology Review's website:
How Bad Was Jezebel?
by Janet Howe Gaines
June, 2010
In recent years, scholars have tried to reclaim the shadowy female figures whose tales are often only partially told in the Bible. Rehabilitating Jezebel’s stained reputation is an arduous task, however, for she is a difficult woman to like. She is not a heroic fighter like Deborah, a devoted sister like Miriam or a cherished wife like Ruth. Jezebel cannot even be compared with the Bible’s other bad girls—Potiphar’s wife and Delilah—for no good comes from Jezebel’s deeds. These other women may be bad, but Jezebel is the worst.1
Yet there is more to this complex ruler than the standard interpretation would allow. To attain a more positive assessment of Jezebel’s troubled reign and a deeper understanding of her role, we must evaluate the motives of the biblical authors who condemn the queen. Furthermore, we must reread the narrative from the queen’s vantage point. As we piece together the world in which Jezebel lived, a fuller picture of this fascinating woman begins to emerge. The story is not a pretty one, and some—perhaps most—readers will remain disturbed by Jezebel’s actions. But her character might not be as dark as we are accustomed to think ng. Her evilness is not always as obvious, undisputed and unrivaled as the biblical writer wants it to appear. [Painting: John Byam Liston Shaw. From article: Russell-Cotes Art Gallery and Museum, Bournemouth, UK/Bridgeman Art Library. Israel’s most accursed queen carefully fixes a pink rose in her red locks, in John Byam Liston Shaw’s “Jezebel,” from 1896. In the foreground, the peacock with its spread tail in the lower right corner represents Jezebel’s vanity; the black cat perched at her feet hints at Jezebel’s darker side.
Jezebel’s long-standing reputation as the most dangerous seductress in the Bible stems from her final appearance on the biblical scene: Jezebel’s husband King Ahab is dead; her son has been murdered by the usurper Jehu; Jezebel is waiting as Jehu’s chariot races toward the palace, where he will kill Jezebel. As the horses approach, “[Jezebel] painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30).
But is this a sign of vanity or a display of strength when facing certain death? In the accompanying article, Janet Howe Gaines questions the common characterization of Jezebel as the wickedest woman in the Bible.]
The story of Jezebel, the Phoenician wife of King Ahab of Israel, is recounted in several brief passages scattered throughout the Books of Kings. Scholars generally identify 1 and 2 Kings as part of the Deuteronomistic History, attributed either to a single author or to a group of authors and editors collectively known as the Deuteronomist. One of the main purposes of the entire Deuteronomistic History, which includes the seven books from Deuteronomy through 2 Kings, is to explain Israel’s fate in terms of its apostasy. As the Israelites settle into the Promised Land, establish a monarchy and separate into a northern and a southern kingdom after the reign of Solomon, God’s chosen people continually go astray. They sin against Yahweh in many ways, the worst of which is by worshiping alien deities. The first commandments from Sinai demand monotheism, but the people are attracted to foreign gods and goddesses. When Jezebel enters the scene in the ninth century B.C.E., she provides a perfect opportunity for the Bible writer to teach a moral lesson about the evil outcomes of idolatry, for she is a foreign idol worshiper who seems to be the power behind her husband. From the Deuteronomist’s viewpoint, Jezebel embodies everything that must be eliminated from Israel so that the purity of the cult of Yahweh will not be further contaminated.
As the Books of Kings recount, the princess Jezebel is brought to the northern kingdom of Israel to wed the newly crowned King Ahab, son of Omri (1 Kings 16:31). Her father is Ethbaal of Tyre, king of the Phoenicians, a group of Semites whose ancestors were Canaanites. Phoenicia consisted of a loose confederation of city-states, including the sophisticated maritime trade centers of Tyre and Sidon on the Mediterranean coast. The Bible writer’s antagonism stems primarily from Jezebel’s religion. The Phoenicians worshiped a swarm of gods and goddesses, chief among them Baal, the general term for “lord” given to the head fertility and agricultural god of the Canaanites. As king of Phoenicia, it is likely that Ethbaal was also a high priest or had other important religious duties. According to the first-century C.E. historian Josephus, who drew on a Greek translation of the now-lost Annals of Tyre, Ethbaal served as a priest of Astarte, the primary Phoenician goddess. Jezebel, as the king’s daughter, may have served as a priestess as she was growing up. In any case, she was certainly raised to honor the deities of her native land.
When Jezebel comes to Israel, she brings her foreign gods and goddesses—especially Baal and his consort Asherah (Canaanite Astarte, often translated in the Bible as “sacred post”)—with her. This seems to have an immediate effect on her new husband, for just as soon as the queen is introduced, we are told that Ahab builds a sanctuary for Baal in the very heart of Israel, within his capital city of Samaria: “He took as wife Jezebel daughter of King Ethbaal of the Phoenicians, and he went and served Baal and worshiped him. He erected an altar to Baal in the temple of Baal which he built in Samaria. Ahab also made a ‘sacred post’”a (1 Kings 16:31–33).2
Jezebel does not accept Ahab’s God, Yahweh. Rather, she leads Ahab to tolerate Baal. This is why she is vilified by the Deuteronomist, whose goal is to stamp out polytheism. She represents a view of womanhood that is the opposite of the one extolled in characters such as Ruth the Moabite, who is also a foreigner. Ruth surrenders her identity and submerges herself in Israelite ways; she adopts the religious and social norms of the Israelites and is universally praised for her conversion to God. Jezebel steadfastly remains true to her own beliefs.
Jezebel’s marriage to Ahab was a political alliance. The union provided both peoples with military protection from powerful enemies as well as valuable trade routes: Israel gained access to the Phoenician ports; Phoenicia gained passage through Israel’s central hill country to Transjordan and especially to the King’s Highway, the heavily traveled inland route connecting the Gulf of Aqaba in the south with Damascus in the north. But although the marriage is sound foreign policy, it is intolerable to the Deuteronomist because of Jezebel’s idol worship.
The Bible does not comment on what the young Jezebel thinks about marrying Ahab and moving to Israel. Her feelings are of no interest to the Deuteronomist, nor are they germane to the story’s didactic purpose.
We are not told whether Ethbaal consults his daughter, if she departs Phoenicia with trepidation or enthusiasm, or what she expects from her role as ruler. Like other highborn daughters of her time, Jezebel is probably a pawn, packed off to the highest bidder.
Israel’s topography, customs and religion would certainly be very different from those of Jezebel’s native land. Instead of the lushness of the moist seacoast, she would find Israel to be an arid, desert nation. Furthermore, the Torah shows the Israelites to be an ethnocentric, xenophobic people. In biblical narratives, foreigners are sometimes unwelcome, and prejudice against intermarriage is seen since the day Abraham sought a woman from his own people to marry his son Isaac (Genesis 24:4). In contrast to the familiar gods and goddesses that Jezebel is accustomed to petitioning, Israel is home to a state religion featuring a lone, masculine deity. Perhaps Jezebel optimistically believes that she can encourage religious tolerance and give legitimacy to the worship habits of those Baalites who already reside in Israel. Perhaps Jezebel sees herself as an ambassador who could help unite the two lands and bring about cultural pluralism, regional peace and economic prosperity.
What spurs Jezebel to action is unknown and unknowable, but the motives of the Deuteronomist come through plainly in the text. Jezebel is a bold and impious interloper who has to be stopped. From her own point of view, however, she is no apostate. She remains loyal to her religious upbringing and is determined to maintain her cultural identity.
According to the Deuteronomist, however, Jezebel’s desire is not merely confined to achieving ethnic or religious parity. She also seems driven to eliminate Israel’s faithful servants of God. Evidence of Jezebel’s cruel desire to wipe out Yahweh worship in Israel is reported in 1 Kings 18:4, at the Bible’s second mention of her name: “Jezebel was killing off the prophets of the Lord.”
The threat of Jezebel is so great that later in the same chapter, the mythic prophet Elijah summons the acolytes of Jezebel to a tournament on Mt. Carmel to determine which deity is supreme: God or Baal.
Whichever deity is capable of setting a sacrificial bull on fire will be the winner, the one true God. It is only then that we learn just how many followers of Jezebel’s gods and goddesses are near her at court. Elijah challenges them: “Now summon all Israel to join me at Mount Carmel, together with the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah who eat at Jezebel’s table” (1 Kings 18:19). Whether the grand total of 850 is a symbolic or literal number, it is impressive.
Yet their superior numbers can do nothing to ensure victory; nor can petitions to their god. The prophets of Baal “performed a hopping dance about the altar” and “kept raving” (1 Kings 18:26, 29) all day long in a vain attempt to rouse Baal. They even gash themselves with knives and whoop it up in a heightened emotional state, hoping to incite Baal to unleash a great fire. But Baal does not respond to the ecstatic ranting of Jezebel’s prophets. At the end of the day, it is Elijah’s single plea to God that is answered.
Standing alone before Jezebel’s host of visionaries, Elijah cries out: “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel! Let it be known today that You are God in Israel and that I am Your servant, and that I have done all these things at Your bidding. Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that You, O Lord, are God; for You have turned their hearts backward” (1 Kings 18:36–37). At once, “fire from the Lord descended and consumed the burnt offering, the wood, the stones and the earth;...When they saw this, all the people flung themselves on their faces and cried out: ‘The Lord alone is God, the Lord alone is God!’” (1 Kings 18:38–39). Elijah’s solitary entreaty to Yahweh serves as a foil to the hours of appeals made by Baal’s followers.
Jezebel herself is absent during this all-male event. Nevertheless, her presence is felt and the Deuteronomist’s message is clear. Jezebel’s deities and the huge number of prophets loyal to her are powerless against the omnipotent Yahweh, who is proven by the tournament to be ruler of all the forces of nature.
Ironically, at the conclusion of the Carmel episode, Elijah proves capable of the same murderous inclinations that have previously characterized Jezebel, though it is only she that the Deuteronomist criticizes. After winning the Carmel contest, Elijah immediately orders the assembly to capture all of Jezebel’s prophets. Elijah emphatically declares: “Seize the prophets of Baal, let not a single one of them get away” (1 Kings 18:40). Elijah leads his 450 prisoners to the Wadi Kishon, where he slaughters them (1 Kings 18:40). Though they will never meet in person, Elijah and Jezebel are engaged in a hard-fought struggle for religious supremacy. Here Elijah reveals that he and Jezebel possess a similar religious fervor, though their loyalties differ greatly. They are also equally determined to eliminate one another’s followers, even if it means murdering them. The difference is that the Deuteronomist decries Jezebel’s killing of God’s servants (at 1 Kings 18:4) but now sanctions Elijah’s decision to massacre hundreds of Jezebel’s prophets. Indeed, once Elijah kills Jezebel’s prophets, God rewards him by sending a much-needed rain, ending a three-year drought in Israel. There is a definite double standard here. Murder seems to be accepted, even venerated, as long as it is done in the name of the right deity.
After Elijah’s triumph on Mt. Carmel, King Ahab returns home to give his queen the news that Baal is defeated, Yahweh is the undisputed master of the universe and Jezebel’s prophets are dead. Jezebel sends Elijah a menacing message, threatening to slaughter him just as he has slaughtered her prophets: “Thus and more may the gods do if by this time tomorrow I have not made you like one of them” (1 Kings 19:2). The Septuagint, a third- to second-century B.C.E. Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible, prefaces Jezebel’s threat with an additional insult to the prophet. Here Jezebel establishes herself as Elijah’s equal: “If you are Elijah, so I am Jezebel” (1 Kings 19:2b).3 In both versions the queen’s meaning is unmistakable: Elijah should fear for his life.
These are the first words the Deuteronomist records from Jezebel, and they are filled with venom. Unlike the many voiceless biblical wives and concubines whose muteness reminds us of the powerlessness of women in ancient Israel, Jezebel has a tongue. While her verbal acuity shows that she is more daring, clever and independent than most women of her time, her withering words also demonstrate her sinfulness. Jezebel transforms the precious instrument of language into an evil device to blaspheme God and defy the prophet.
So frightened is Elijah by Jezebel’s threatening words that he flees to Mt. Horeb (Sinai). Despite what he has witnessed on Carmel, Elijah seems to falter in his faith that the Almighty will protect him. As a literary device, Elijah’s sojourn at Horeb gives the Deuteronomist an opportunity to imply parallels between the careers of Moses and Elijah, thus reinforcing Elijah’s exalted reputation. Nevertheless, the timing of Elijah’s flight south makes him look suspiciously like he is afraid of a mere woman.
Jezebel indeed shows herself as a person to be feared in the next episode. The story of Naboth, an Israelite who owns a plot of land adjacent to the royal palace in Jezreel, provides an excellent occasion for the Deuteronomist to propose that Jezebel is not only the foe of Israel’s God, but an enemy of the government.
In 1 Kings 21:2, Ahab requests that Naboth give him his vineyard: “Give me your vineyard, so that I may have it as a vegetable garden, since it is right next to my palace.” Ahab promises to pay Naboth for the land or to provide him with an even better vineyard. But at 1 Kings 21:3, Naboth refuses to sell or trade: “The Lord forbid that I should give up to you what I have inherited from my fathers!” The king whines and refuses to eat after Naboth’s rebuff: “Ahab went home dispirited and sullen because of the answer that Naboth the Jezreelite had given him...He lay down on his bed and turned away his face, and he would not eat” (1 Kings 21:4). Apparently perturbed by her husband’s political impotence and sulking demeanor, Jezebel steps in, proudly asserting: “Now is the time to show yourself king over Israel. Rise and eat something, and be cheerful; I will get the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite for you” (1 Kings 21:7).
Naboth is fully within his rights to hold onto his family plot. Israelite law and custom dictate that his family should maintain their land (nachalah) in perpetuity (Numbers 27:5–11). As a Torah-bound king of Israel, Ahab should understand Naboth’s legitimate desire to keep his inheritance. Jezebel, on the other hand, hails from Phoenicia, where a monarch’s whim is often tantamount to law.4 Having been raised in a land of absolute autocrats, where few dared to question a ruler’s wish or decree, Jezebel might naturally feel annoyance and frustration at Naboth’s resistance to his sovereign’s proposal. In this context, Jezebel’s reaction becomes more understandable, though perhaps no more admirable, for she behaves according to her upbringing and expectations regarding royal prerogative.
Without Ahab’s direct knowledge, Jezebel writes letters to her townsmen, enlisting them in an elaborate ruse to frame the innocent Naboth. To ensure their compliance, she signs Ahab’s name and stamps the letters with the king’s seal. Jezebel encourages the townsmen to publicly (and falsely) accuse Naboth of blaspheming God and king. “Then take him out and stone him to death,” she commands (1 Kings 21:10). So Naboth is murdered, and the vineyard automatically escheats to the throne, as is customary when a person is found guilty of a serious crime. If Naboth has relatives, they are now in no position to protest the passing of their family land to Ahab.
Yet the details of Jezebel’s underhanded plot against Naboth do not always ring true. The Bible maintains that “the elders and nobles who lived in [Naboth’s] town...did as Jezebel had instructed them” (1 Kings 21:11). If the trickster queen is able to enlist the support of so many people, none of whom betrays her, to kill a man whom they have probably known all their lives and whom they realize is innocent, then she has astonishing power.
The fantastical tale of Naboth’s death—in which something could go wrong at any moment but somehow does not—stretches the reader’s credulity. If Jezebel were as hateful as the Deuteronomist claims, surely at least one nobleman in Jezreel would have refused to assist in the nefarious scheme. Surely one individual would have had the courage to expose the detestable deed and become the Deuteronomist’s hero by spoiling the plan.5
Perhaps the biblical compiler is using Jezebel as a scapegoat for his outrage at her influence over the king, meaning that she herself is being framed in the tale. Traditionally thought to be a narrative about how innocent Naboth is falsely accused, the story could instead be an exaggeration of fact, fabricated to demonstrate the Deuteronomist’s continued wrath against Jezebel.
As a result of this incident, Elijah reappears on the scene. First Yahweh tells Elijah how Ahab will die: “The word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite: ‘Go down and confront King Ahab of Israel who [resides] in Samaria. He is now in Naboth’s vineyard; he has gone down there to take possession of it. Say to him, “Thus said the Lord: Would you murder and take possession? Thus said the Lord: In the very place where the dogs lapped up Naboth’s blood, the dogs will lap up your blood too”’” (1 Kings 21:17–19). But when Elijah confronts Ahab, the prophet predicts instead how the queen will die: “The dogs shall devour Jezebel in the field of Jezreel” (1 Kings 21:23).c Poetic justice, as the Deuteronomist sees it, demands that Jezebel end up as dog food. Ashamed of what has happened and fearful of the future, Ahab humbles himself by assuming outward signs of mourning, fasting and donning sackcloth. Prayer accompanies fasting, whether the Bible explicitly says so or not, so we may assume that Ahab raises his penitential voice to a forgiving Yahweh. For once, Jezebel does not speak; her lack of repentance is implicit in her silence.
When Jezebel’s name is mentioned again, the Bible writer makes his most alarming accusation against her. Ahab has died, as has the couple’s eldest son, who followed his father to the throne. Their second son, Joram, rules. But even though Israel has a sitting monarch, a servant of the prophet Elisha crowns Jehu, Joram’s military commander, king of Israel and commissions Jehu to eradicate the House of Ahab: “I anoint you king over the people of the Lord, over Israel. You shall strike down the House of Ahab your master; thus will I avenge on Jezebel the blood of My servants the prophets, and the blood of the other servants of the Lord” (2 Kings 9:6–7).
King Joram and General Jehu meet on the battlefield. Unaware that he is about to be usurped by his military commander, Joram calls out: “Is all well, Jehu?” Jehu responds: “How can all be well as long as your mother Jezebel carries on her countless harlotries and sorceries?” (2 Kings 9:22). Jehu then shoots an arrow through Joram’s heart and, in a moment of stinging irony, orders the body to be dumped on Naboth’s land.
From these words alone—uttered by the man who is about to kill Jezebel’s son—stems Jezebel’s long-standing reputation as a witch and a whore. The Bible occasionally connects harlotry and idol worship, as in Hosea 1:3, where the prophet is told to marry a “wife of whoredom,” who symbolically represents the people who “stray from following the Lord” (Hosea 1:3). Lusting after false “lords” can be seen as either adulterous or idolatrous. Yet throughout the millennia, Jezebel’s harlotry has not been identified as mere dolatry. Rather, she has been considered the slut of Samaria, the lecherous wife of a pouting potentate. The 1938 film Jezebel, starring Bette Davis as the destructive temptress who leads a man to his death, is evidence that this ancient judgment against Jezebel has been transmitted to this century. Nevertheless, the Bible never offers evidence that Jezebel is unfaithful to her husband while he is alive or loose in her morals after his death. In fact, she is always shown to be a loyal and helpful spouse, though her brand of assistance is deplored by the Deuteronomist. Jehu’s charge of harlotry is unsubstantiated, but it has stuck anyway and her reputation has been egregiously damaged by the allegation.
When Jezebel herself finally appears again in the pages of the Bible, it is for her death scene. Jehu, with the blood of Joram still on his hands, races his chariot into Jezreel to continue the insurrection by assassinating Jezebel. Ironically, this is her finest hour, though the Deuteronomist intends the queen to appear haughty and imperious to the end. Realizing that Jehu is on his way to kill her, Jezebel does not disguise herself and flee the city, as a more cowardly person might do. Instead, she calmly prepares for his arrival by performing three acts: “She painted her eyes with kohl and dressed her hair, and she looked out of the window” (2 Kings 9:30). The traditional interpretation is that Jezebel primps and coquettishly looks out the window in an effort to seduce Jehu, that she wishes to win his favor and become part of his harem in order to save her own life, such treachery indicating Jezebel’s dastardly betrayal of deceased family members. According to this reading, Jezebel sheds familial loyalty as easily as a snake sheds its skin in an attempt to ensure her continued pleasure and safety at court.
Applying eye makeup (kohl) and brushing one’s hair are often connected to flirting in Hebraic thinking. Isaiah 3:16, Jeremiah 4:30, Ezekiel 23:40 and Proverbs 6:24–26 provide examples of women who bat their painted eyes to lure innocent men into adulterous beds. Black kohl is widely incorporated in Bible passages as a symbol of feminine deception and trickery, and its use to paint the area above and below the eyelids is generally considered part of a woman’s arsenal of artifice. In Jezebel’s case, however, the cosmetic is more than just an attempt to accentuate the eyes. Jezebel is donning the female version of armor as she prepares to do battle. She is a woman warrior, waging war in the only way a woman can. Whatever fear she may have of Jehu is camouflaged by her war paint.
Her grooming continues as she dresses her hair, symbol of a woman’s seductive power. When she dies, she wants to look her queenly best. She is in control here, choosing the manner in which her attacker will last see and remember her.
The third action Jezebel takes before Jehu arrives is to sit at her upper window. The Deuteronomist may be deliberately conjuring up images to associate Jezebel with other disfavored women. For example, contained within Deborah’s victory ode is the story of the unfortunate mother of the enemy general Sisera. Waiting at home, Sisera’s unnamed mother looks out the window for her son to return: “Through the window peered Sisera’s mother, behind the lattice she whined” (Judges 5:28). Her ladies-in-waiting express the hope that Sisera is detained because he is raping Israelite women and collecting booty (Judges 5:29–30). In truth, Sisera is already dead, his skull shattered by Jael and her tent peg (Judges 5:24–27). King David’s wife Michal also looks through her window, watching her husband dance around the Ark of the Covenant as it is triumphantly brought into Jerusalem, “and she despised him for it” (2 Samuel 6:16). Michal does not understand the people’s euphoria over the arrival of the Ark in David’s new capital; she can only feel anger that her husband is dancing about like one of the “riffraff” (2 Samuel 6:20). Generations later, Jezebel also appears at her window, conjuring up images of Sisera’s mother and Michal, two unpopular biblical women.
The image of the woman at the window also suggests fertility goddesses, abominations to the Deuteronomist and well known to the general public in ancient Israel. Ivory plaques, dating to the Iron Age and depicting a woman peering through a window, have been discovered in Khorsabad, Nimrud and Samaria, Jezebel’s second home.6 The connection between idol worship, goddesses and the woman seated at the window would not have been lost on the Deuteronomist’s audience.
Sitting at her window, Jezebel is seemingly rendered powerless while the active patriarchal world functions beyond her reach.7 But a more sympathetic reading of the situation suggests that Jezebel has determined the superior angle from which she will be viewed by Jehu, thus giving the queen mastery of the situation.
Positioned at the balcony window, the queen does not remain silent as the usurper Jehu arrives into town. She taunts him by calling him Zimri, the name of the unscrupulous predecessor of Omri, Jezebel’s father-in-law. Zimri ruled Israel for only seven days after murdering the king (Elah) and usurping the throne. “Is all well, Zimri, murderer of your master?” Jezebel asks Jehu (2 Kings 9:31). Jezebel knows that all is not well, and her sarcastic, sharp-tongued insult of Jehu disproves any interpretation that she has dressed in her finest to seduce him. She has contempt for Jehu. Unlike many biblical wives, who remain silent, Jezebel has a distinct voice, and she is unafraid to articulate her view of Jehu as a renegade and regicide.
To demonstrate his authority, Jehu orders Jezebel’s eunuchs to throw her out of the window: “They threw her down; and her blood spattered on the wall and on the horses, and they trampled her. Then [Jehu] went inside and ate and drank” (2 Kings 9:33–34). In this highly symbolic political action, the once mighty Jezebel is shoved out of her high station to the ground below. Her ejection from the window represents an eternal demotion from her proper place as one of the Bible’s most influential women.
Jezebel’s body is left in the street as Jehu celebrates his victory. Later, perhaps because the new monarch does not wish to begin his reign with such a disrespectful act against a woman, or perhaps because he realizes the danger in setting a precedent for ill treatment of a dead ruler’s remains, Jehu orders Jezebel’s burial: “Attend to that cursed woman and bury her, for she was a king’s daughter” (2 Kings 9:34). Jezebel is not to be remembered as a queen or even as the wife of a king. She is only the daughter of a foreign despot. This is intended as another blow by the Deuteronomist, an attempt to marginalize a formidable woman. When the king’s men come to bury Jezebel, it is too late: “All they found of her were the skull, the feet, and the hands” (2 Kings 9:35). Jehu’s men inform the king that Elijah’s prophecies have been fulfilled: “It is just as the Lord spoke through His servant Elijah the Tishbite: The dogs shall devour the flesh of Jezebel in the field of Jezreel; and the carcass of Jezebel shall be like dung on the ground, in the field of Jezreel, so that none will be able to say: ‘This was Jezebel’” (2 Kings 9:36–37).
While the biblical storyteller wants the final images of Jezebel to memorialize her as a brazen hussy, a sympathetic interpretation of her behavior has more credibility. When all a person has left in life is the way she faces her death, her final actions speak volumes about her character. Jezebel departs this earth every inch a queen. Now an aging grandmother, it is highly unlikely that she has libidinous designs on Jehu or even entertains the notion of becoming the young king’s paramour. As the daughter, wife, mother, mother-in-law and grandmother of kings, Jezebel would understand court politics well enough to realize that Jehu has far more to gain by killing her than by keeping her alive. Alive, the dowager queen could always serve as a rallying point for anyone unhappy with Jehu’s reign. The queen harbors no illusions about her chances of surviving Jehu’s bloody coup d’état.
How bad was Jezebel? The Deuteronomist uses every possible argument to make the case against her. When Ahab dies, the Deuteronomist is determined to show that “there never was anyone like Ahab, who committed himself to doing what was displeasing to the Lord, at the instigation of his wife Jezebel” (1 Kings 21:25). It is interesting that Ahab is not held responsible for his own actions.8 He goes astray because of a wicked woman. Someone has to bear the writer’s vituperation concerning Israel’s apostasy, and Jezebel is chosen for the job.
Every biblical word condemns her: Jezebel is an outspoken woman in a time when females have little status and few rights; a foreigner in a xenophobic land; an idol worshiper in a place with a Yahweh-based, state-sponsored religion; a murderer and meddler in political affairs in a nation of strong patriarchs; a traitor in a country where no ruler is above the law; and a whore in the territory where the Ten Commandments originate.
Yet there is much to admire in this ancient queen. In a kinder analysis, Jezebel emerges as a fiery and determined person, with an intensity matched only by Elijah’s. She is true to her native religion and customs. She is even more loyal to her husband. Throughout her reign, she boldly exercises what power she has. And in the end, having lived her life on her own terms, Jezebel faces certain death with dignity.
Notes
1. For a fuller treatment of Jezebel, see Janet Howe Gaines, Music in the Old Bones: Jezebel Through the Ages (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press, 1999).
2. All references to the Bible, unless otherwise noted, are to Tanakh: The Holy Scriptures: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1985).
3. The translation of the Greek text is my own. According to Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton (The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English, 3rd ed. [Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1990], p. 478), the translation of the entire line is “And Jezabel sent to Eliu, and said, If thou art Eliu and I am Jezabel, God do so to me, and more also, if I do not make thy life by this time tomorrow as the life of one of them.”
4. For a discussion of Phoenician customs, see George Rawlinson, History of Phoenicia(London: Longmans, 1889).
5. As corroborating evidence, see the story of David’s plot to kill Uriah the Hittite in 2 Samuel 11:14–17. Like Jezebel, David writes letters that contain details of his scheme. David intends to enlist help from the entire regiment as confederates who are to “draw back from” Uriah, but Joab makes a shrewd and subtle change in the plan so that it is less likely to be discovered.
6. Eleanor Ferris Beach, “The Samaria Ivories, Marzeah, and Biblical Text,” Biblical Archaeologist 56:2 (1993), pp. 94–104.
7. For an excellent, detailed discussion of biblical imagery concerning women seated at windows, see Nehama Aschkenasy, Woman at the Window (Detroit: Wayne State Univ. Press, 1998).
8. For a reassessment of Ahab’s character based on the archaeological remains of his building projects and extrabiblical texts, see Ephraim Stern, “The Many Masters of Dor, Part 2: How Bad Was Ahab?” BAR 19:02.
a. Asherah is the biblical name for Astarte, a Canaanite fertility goddess and consort of Baal. The term asherah, which appears at least 50 times in the Hebrew Bible (it is often translated as “sacred post”), is used to refer to three manifestations of this goddess: an image (probably a figurine) of the goddess (eg., 2 Kings 21:7); a tree (Deuteronomy 16:21); and a tree trunk, or sacred post (Deuteronomy 7:5, 12:3). See Ruth Hestrin, “Understanding Asherah—Exploring Semitic Iconography,” BAR 17:05.
b. In the Septuagint, 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Kings are all included in Kings, which therefore has four books, 1–4 Kings.
c. A similar statement is made by the unnamed prophet who anoints Jehu king of Israel in 2 Kings 9:10.
Friday, July 2, 2010
The Expert Says She's Not a Female Gladiator
Read the article first, I have some pithy commentary at the end.
From heritage-key.com
Roman Mystery Woman Discovered Near Hereford: Not a Female Gladiator
Submitted by bija on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 13:21
An unusual Roman burial has been uncovered at a site near Hereford. The female, buried in the first or second century AD, was unusually strong and is buried in a well made coffin.
Robin Jackson, senior project manager from Worcestershire council's Historic Environment and Archaeology Service, was excavating at the site. He said: “We've been working on the site for three months now and four burials have been found under a building. One of these is slightly unusual, in that it contains the remains of a woman who was very strongly built. She had obviously done hard physical work during her life, suggesting possibly a peasant labourer, but the anomaly is that she is buried in a slightly higher status coffin.”
The explanation for this intriguing set of circumstances is not yet clear. At first it was thought the individual was male due to the long thigh bones. However, according to an archaeological osteologist at the site, the pelvis and skull show female characteristics, suggesting that the individual was in fact a tall female.
The experts were able to tell that she had been physically strong due to ridges and puckering on the bones where the muscles and tendons had been attached and had exerted pressure on the bone.
The bones need to be analysed at a laboratory to establish a more exact date of burial, the age of the woman and other information such as height, health and race or provenance. This process will take up to a year.
Roman Kenchester
The site being excavated is on the outskirts of Credenhill about 6km north-west of Hereford. It's at the site of the Roman town of Kenchester, known as Magnis to the Romans, which was an important market town for the Dobunni tribe. It's also near a Roman road built in the first century AD, which today runs between Stretton Sugwas and Burcott.
The excavations are being carried out in preparation for the Yazor Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme, which is diverting a local river in order to avert flooding at Hereford. The excavation is being carried out by Amey Consulting and Herefordshire Council's archaeology team.
Roman Burials
The woman is laid out in a foetal position and the remains of three metal straps and bronze decorative bindings suggest that the coffin may have been large and similar to a sea chest in shape.
Burial traditions during the four centuries of Roman occupation of Britain varied. Cremations, burial in pots, coffins and shrouds were all used. Robin Jackson said: “It was common to be buried in a coffin in Roman times, but it would indicate someone who had a bit of money.”
Pottery and a cow bone have also been found in the grave, suggesting that the woman was buried with an offering of beef – not uncommon, according to the site's excavators.
The Female Gladiator?
The BBC reported yesterday that the burial could possibly be that of a female gladiator.
This is highly unlikely, according to Robin Jackson. He said: “There are no weapons buried in the grave with her, nor are there any icons that gladiators often had buried with them. There isn't even any evidence of an arena at Kenchester, so there is no evidence suggesting this was a female gladiator.”
So there are few similarities between the strong woman buried near Hereford and the grave of the female gladiator excavated in London near the Roman arena.
Is there a more rational explanation for this female burial near Hereford?
At this stage, very little can be said with certainty but Mr Jackson would bet money on her not being a female gladiator: “That is very unlikely,” he said. “A much more likely explanation is that she was born into a peasant family in Roman-occupied Britain, but then made a good marriage and was buried in a well made coffin.”
Hellooooooooooo! Mr. Jackson is letting his prejudices show all too clearly. This out of the ordinary female burial indicates to me that the woman was probably NOT a farmer's daughter but was a gladiator or someone trained from a very early age on (enough to influence bone structure and the way musculature was attached) in whatever activities it took to develope such a body. We may never figure out her story but I can tell you that if hard work alone on a farm mucking cows, sowing, reaping, spinning, weaving, bearing children, cooking non-stop and building stone walls and houses and such as was a woman's life back then was enough to create a tall unusually muscled woman, then there should be millions of such women buried in the ground all around the world. But there aren't.
In any event, you can be sure she probably did not look like Pink, Beyonce or Britney Spears in the now classic "We Will Rock You" Pepsi commercial. Har!
From heritage-key.com
Roman Mystery Woman Discovered Near Hereford: Not a Female Gladiator
Submitted by bija on Fri, 07/02/2010 - 13:21
An unusual Roman burial has been uncovered at a site near Hereford. The female, buried in the first or second century AD, was unusually strong and is buried in a well made coffin.
Robin Jackson, senior project manager from Worcestershire council's Historic Environment and Archaeology Service, was excavating at the site. He said: “We've been working on the site for three months now and four burials have been found under a building. One of these is slightly unusual, in that it contains the remains of a woman who was very strongly built. She had obviously done hard physical work during her life, suggesting possibly a peasant labourer, but the anomaly is that she is buried in a slightly higher status coffin.”
The explanation for this intriguing set of circumstances is not yet clear. At first it was thought the individual was male due to the long thigh bones. However, according to an archaeological osteologist at the site, the pelvis and skull show female characteristics, suggesting that the individual was in fact a tall female.
The experts were able to tell that she had been physically strong due to ridges and puckering on the bones where the muscles and tendons had been attached and had exerted pressure on the bone.
The bones need to be analysed at a laboratory to establish a more exact date of burial, the age of the woman and other information such as height, health and race or provenance. This process will take up to a year.
Roman Kenchester
The site being excavated is on the outskirts of Credenhill about 6km north-west of Hereford. It's at the site of the Roman town of Kenchester, known as Magnis to the Romans, which was an important market town for the Dobunni tribe. It's also near a Roman road built in the first century AD, which today runs between Stretton Sugwas and Burcott.
The excavations are being carried out in preparation for the Yazor Brook Flood Alleviation Scheme, which is diverting a local river in order to avert flooding at Hereford. The excavation is being carried out by Amey Consulting and Herefordshire Council's archaeology team.
Roman Burials
The woman is laid out in a foetal position and the remains of three metal straps and bronze decorative bindings suggest that the coffin may have been large and similar to a sea chest in shape.
Burial traditions during the four centuries of Roman occupation of Britain varied. Cremations, burial in pots, coffins and shrouds were all used. Robin Jackson said: “It was common to be buried in a coffin in Roman times, but it would indicate someone who had a bit of money.”
Pottery and a cow bone have also been found in the grave, suggesting that the woman was buried with an offering of beef – not uncommon, according to the site's excavators.
The Female Gladiator?
The BBC reported yesterday that the burial could possibly be that of a female gladiator.
This is highly unlikely, according to Robin Jackson. He said: “There are no weapons buried in the grave with her, nor are there any icons that gladiators often had buried with them. There isn't even any evidence of an arena at Kenchester, so there is no evidence suggesting this was a female gladiator.”
So there are few similarities between the strong woman buried near Hereford and the grave of the female gladiator excavated in London near the Roman arena.
Is there a more rational explanation for this female burial near Hereford?
At this stage, very little can be said with certainty but Mr Jackson would bet money on her not being a female gladiator: “That is very unlikely,” he said. “A much more likely explanation is that she was born into a peasant family in Roman-occupied Britain, but then made a good marriage and was buried in a well made coffin.”
********************************
So, this tall muscular female was from a peasant family, used to hard work and a hard life that led to her developing such muscles and such height that she stood out from the 'ordinary,' but she made a good marriage. Okay. Fine. But where are the other uber-tall and uber-muscular female peasants - by the thousands - if hard work practically from the day they were born was the criteria for creating such a body? What is remarkable is the LACK of evidence to support Mr. Robin Jackson's suppositions.Hellooooooooooo! Mr. Jackson is letting his prejudices show all too clearly. This out of the ordinary female burial indicates to me that the woman was probably NOT a farmer's daughter but was a gladiator or someone trained from a very early age on (enough to influence bone structure and the way musculature was attached) in whatever activities it took to develope such a body. We may never figure out her story but I can tell you that if hard work alone on a farm mucking cows, sowing, reaping, spinning, weaving, bearing children, cooking non-stop and building stone walls and houses and such as was a woman's life back then was enough to create a tall unusually muscled woman, then there should be millions of such women buried in the ground all around the world. But there aren't.
In any event, you can be sure she probably did not look like Pink, Beyonce or Britney Spears in the now classic "We Will Rock You" Pepsi commercial. Har!
It's Friday Night and I'm Allright!
Yippee - my three day weekend is here!
I've a full agenda - like - yard work and house work. I haven't vacuumed since I removed the house from the market in February. Things are decidedly dusty and it's time to at least do a token cleaning. Sigh. I tell you, the only way this house is ever going to go on the market again is when I'm carried out feet first! I had it up to my forehead with constant cleaning and trying to keep a perfect house. Yeah - just me and no staff, no husband or kids to help out. Rush home from work and spend a couple of hours vacuuming and dusting and trying to figure out what to do with the day's mail (no clutter allowed, can't leave it on a countertop or, Goddess forbid, on the kitchen table!)
The weather has been good the past five days or so - no AC needed! But it's now getting progressively hotter and more humid and by Sunday will be back to tropical dew points and in the high 80's. That means - yep, you guessed it - the threat of severe weather on Monday, our "official" July 4th holiday. LOL! So many barbecues are going to be ruined - mark my words. So that means I've got to hustle my butt tomorrow and cut the front AND the back, which is extra long once again because I never did cut it last week. I'm getting decidedly lazy, that's not a good thing.
In my defense, I have been spending countless hours online doing genealogical research. I seem to be uniquely suited to sniffing out the smallest details that leads to clues about a person's ancestors, or some additional fact of interest (only to a person doing such work), sometimes after real gaffes! Well, enough of that. I'm uber-busy with it and I've got notebooks all over the messy kitchen table filled with my scribblings and print-outs and some pretty damn good family trees going.
Knowing I did not want to trek to the Pick 'n Save tomorrow (grass-cutting day), I stopped tonight after work and with my few small groceries I decided for the first time to use the recently-installed auto-check out thing. What is nice about it is that you usually don't have to wait in line and there is a cashier on duty to help out and also process beer, wine and alcohol purchases (must show ID, no exceptions, even if you are grey-haired, wrinkled and in a wheelchair).
So, I push my cart to one of the thingies and decide to get my boxed wine out of the way first - an experiment, as it were. I punch the start button and this mechanical female voice comes on and says SCAN FIRST ITEM.
So I scan the wine box and the machine beeps and stops. The on-duty clerk comes over and I show her my id, she waves a card in front of the machine and punches in something and voila, the wine is accepted. I pick it up and put it in a bag, then I put the bag into my cart.
The machine says PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I say I already did. The machine says PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I say I already did, look see? It's already been on the pad and it's already in a bag from the pad and now put into my cart. The machine says PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I tell the machine to do something nasty to itself. The machine says YOU ARE A BAD PERSON. PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I once again tell the machine what to do - I won't go into details. I wave the upc code of my next purchase at the machine glass eyes. It refuses to accept it.
By now I've got steam coming out of my ears and I'm ready to tear the machine apart with my bare hands. Such mechanical monsters must not be allowed to live! We'll all end up like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator." Egoddess, what a thought! The young clerk comes back over and asks me sweetly if I'm having a problem? I say yes, your machine is full of BLEEP. She waves another card in front of the machine and it is magically restored to civility.
The rest of the time I'm testing the machine to see if it is actually recording my purchases and their prices correctly. It does. I finish 'ringing up' my purchases and swipe my debit card, get my receipt. The machine says HAVE A NICE DAY. I say BLEEP YOU, MACHINE. I swear to you as I was leaving the machine made a rasberries sound at me.
Just wait until next time, machine. I'm bringing Mace, and will be fully prepared to use it.
I've a full agenda - like - yard work and house work. I haven't vacuumed since I removed the house from the market in February. Things are decidedly dusty and it's time to at least do a token cleaning. Sigh. I tell you, the only way this house is ever going to go on the market again is when I'm carried out feet first! I had it up to my forehead with constant cleaning and trying to keep a perfect house. Yeah - just me and no staff, no husband or kids to help out. Rush home from work and spend a couple of hours vacuuming and dusting and trying to figure out what to do with the day's mail (no clutter allowed, can't leave it on a countertop or, Goddess forbid, on the kitchen table!)
The weather has been good the past five days or so - no AC needed! But it's now getting progressively hotter and more humid and by Sunday will be back to tropical dew points and in the high 80's. That means - yep, you guessed it - the threat of severe weather on Monday, our "official" July 4th holiday. LOL! So many barbecues are going to be ruined - mark my words. So that means I've got to hustle my butt tomorrow and cut the front AND the back, which is extra long once again because I never did cut it last week. I'm getting decidedly lazy, that's not a good thing.
In my defense, I have been spending countless hours online doing genealogical research. I seem to be uniquely suited to sniffing out the smallest details that leads to clues about a person's ancestors, or some additional fact of interest (only to a person doing such work), sometimes after real gaffes! Well, enough of that. I'm uber-busy with it and I've got notebooks all over the messy kitchen table filled with my scribblings and print-outs and some pretty damn good family trees going.
Knowing I did not want to trek to the Pick 'n Save tomorrow (grass-cutting day), I stopped tonight after work and with my few small groceries I decided for the first time to use the recently-installed auto-check out thing. What is nice about it is that you usually don't have to wait in line and there is a cashier on duty to help out and also process beer, wine and alcohol purchases (must show ID, no exceptions, even if you are grey-haired, wrinkled and in a wheelchair).
So, I push my cart to one of the thingies and decide to get my boxed wine out of the way first - an experiment, as it were. I punch the start button and this mechanical female voice comes on and says SCAN FIRST ITEM.
So I scan the wine box and the machine beeps and stops. The on-duty clerk comes over and I show her my id, she waves a card in front of the machine and punches in something and voila, the wine is accepted. I pick it up and put it in a bag, then I put the bag into my cart.
The machine says PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I say I already did. The machine says PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I say I already did, look see? It's already been on the pad and it's already in a bag from the pad and now put into my cart. The machine says PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I tell the machine to do something nasty to itself. The machine says YOU ARE A BAD PERSON. PUT THE ITEM ON THE PAD. I once again tell the machine what to do - I won't go into details. I wave the upc code of my next purchase at the machine glass eyes. It refuses to accept it.
By now I've got steam coming out of my ears and I'm ready to tear the machine apart with my bare hands. Such mechanical monsters must not be allowed to live! We'll all end up like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Terminator." Egoddess, what a thought! The young clerk comes back over and asks me sweetly if I'm having a problem? I say yes, your machine is full of BLEEP. She waves another card in front of the machine and it is magically restored to civility.
The rest of the time I'm testing the machine to see if it is actually recording my purchases and their prices correctly. It does. I finish 'ringing up' my purchases and swipe my debit card, get my receipt. The machine says HAVE A NICE DAY. I say BLEEP YOU, MACHINE. I swear to you as I was leaving the machine made a rasberries sound at me.
Just wait until next time, machine. I'm bringing Mace, and will be fully prepared to use it.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Did Cleopatra Drug Herself to Death?
Unbelievable! Yet another article about THE Cleopatra, that is, Cleopatra VIII of the Ptolemy family. The last legit Queen of Egypt. Why do I get the feeling that Cleo would blend in quite seamlessley with today's "It" people? Too bad Cleo isn't getting residuals...
From Discovery News online
Cleopatra Killed by Drug Cocktail?
Legends allege that the last queen of Egypt died from a snakebite. But a new study could rewrite history.
By Rossella Lorenzi
Thu Jul 1, 2010 08:07 AM ET
Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, died from swallowing a lethal drug cocktail and not from a snake bite, a new study claims.
According to Christoph Schäfer, a German historian and professor at the University of Trier, the legendary beauty queen was unlikely to have committed suicide by letting an asp -- an Egyptian cobra -- sink into her flesh.
"There was no cobra in Cleopatra's death," Schäfer told Discovery News.
The author of a best-selling book in Germany, "Cleopatra," Schäfer searched historic writings for evidence to disprove the 2,000-year-old asp legend. His findings are to be featured on the German channel ZDF as part of a program on Cleopatra. [How much $$$ did he make?]
"The Roman historian Cassius Dio, writing about 200 years after Cleopatra's demise, stated that she died a quiet and pain-free death, which is not compatible with a cobra bite. Indeed, the snake's venom would have caused a painful and disfiguring death," Schäfer said.
According to German toxicologist Dietrich Mebs, a poison specialist taking part in the study, the symptoms occurring after an asp bite are very unpleasant, and include vomiting, diarrhea and respiratory failure.
"Death may occur within 45 minutes, but it may also be longer with painful edema at the bite site. At the end, the dead body does not look very nice with vomit, diarrhea, a swollen bite site," Mebs told Discovery News.
Ancient texts also record that Cleopatra's two handmaidens died with her -- something very unlikely if she had died of a snake bite, said Schäfer.
The Queen of the Nile committed suicide in August 30 B.C. at the age of 39, following the example of her lover, the Roman leader Marc Antony, who killed himself after losing the Battle of Actium.
At that time, temperatures in Egypt would have been so high that "it was almost impossible for a snake to stay still enough to bite," Schäfer said.
"The main problem with any snakebite are the unpredictable effects, because the venom of the snakes is highly variable. The amount they spent for the bite may be too low. Why taking a risk even to survive with such unpleasant symptoms?" Mebs said.
According to the researchers, who traveled to Alexandria where they consulted ancient medical texts, a plant poison mixture which is easily dosed and whose effects are very predictable could have worked much better.
"Ancient papyri show that the Egyptians knew about poisons, and one papyrus says Cleopatra actually tested them," Schaefer said.
Schaefer and Mebs believe that Cleopatra chose a drug cocktail made of opium, aconitum (also known as wolfsbane) and hemlock, a highly poisonous plant from the parsley family that is believed to have been used to poison Socrates.
The drug cocktail, Schäfer claims, was known at the time to cause a rather painless death within a few hours.
"Cleopatra reportedly carried out many toxicological experiments, an imitation of Mithradates VI. In her quest for the most peaceful and painless way to die, she would have observed the deaths of many condemned prisoners by many different poisons and combinations, including snakebite," Adrienne Mayor, author of the Mithridates biography "The Poison King," told Discovery News.
"In my opinion, Cleopatra would have taken a high dose of opium as a sedative and then succumb to a cobra bite within a half hour," Mayor said. "She would be sedated and calm, feeling no pain, as the cobra venom slows her respiration, and she breathes her last and dies."
According to Alain Touwaide, an international authority on medicinal plants of antiquity at the Smithsonian Institution and the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions in Washington , D.C., the drug cocktail would have technically worked well.
"A mixture of opium, aconitum and hemlock would have been a very intelligent combination. Opium and hemlock would have contributed to a painless death, easing the action of aconite, believed in antiquity to have deadly effects on the gastro-intestinal system. However, it wasn't common at all to mix vegetable poisons at Cleopatra's time," Touwaide told Discovery News.
"Cleopatra is a constant source of legends and theories, and is often credited with the writing of treatises on poisons, cosmetics and medicines," Touwaide said. "I believe finding her body and applying forensic methods of analysis would be the only way to solve the mystery of her death."
I have no doubt that after she died Cleopatra's remains were ruthlessly hunted down by the Romans, her body stripped of her queenly adornments and then either fed to the crocodiles or burned until there was nothing left, not even ashes.
Fnding Cleopatra VII's body is the ultimate Pipe Dream! It does not exist. All the baloney Zahi Hawass is feeding people about finding Cleopatra's "tomb" in Alexandria is just so much bullshit! Shame on you, Dr. Hawass, for pretending to believe such nonsense in the name of generating yet more tourist dollars for Egypt.
From Discovery News online
Cleopatra Killed by Drug Cocktail?
Legends allege that the last queen of Egypt died from a snakebite. But a new study could rewrite history.
By Rossella Lorenzi
Thu Jul 1, 2010 08:07 AM ET
Cleopatra, the last queen of Egypt, died from swallowing a lethal drug cocktail and not from a snake bite, a new study claims.
According to Christoph Schäfer, a German historian and professor at the University of Trier, the legendary beauty queen was unlikely to have committed suicide by letting an asp -- an Egyptian cobra -- sink into her flesh.
"There was no cobra in Cleopatra's death," Schäfer told Discovery News.
The author of a best-selling book in Germany, "Cleopatra," Schäfer searched historic writings for evidence to disprove the 2,000-year-old asp legend. His findings are to be featured on the German channel ZDF as part of a program on Cleopatra. [How much $$$ did he make?]
"The Roman historian Cassius Dio, writing about 200 years after Cleopatra's demise, stated that she died a quiet and pain-free death, which is not compatible with a cobra bite. Indeed, the snake's venom would have caused a painful and disfiguring death," Schäfer said.
According to German toxicologist Dietrich Mebs, a poison specialist taking part in the study, the symptoms occurring after an asp bite are very unpleasant, and include vomiting, diarrhea and respiratory failure.
"Death may occur within 45 minutes, but it may also be longer with painful edema at the bite site. At the end, the dead body does not look very nice with vomit, diarrhea, a swollen bite site," Mebs told Discovery News.
Ancient texts also record that Cleopatra's two handmaidens died with her -- something very unlikely if she had died of a snake bite, said Schäfer.
The Queen of the Nile committed suicide in August 30 B.C. at the age of 39, following the example of her lover, the Roman leader Marc Antony, who killed himself after losing the Battle of Actium.
At that time, temperatures in Egypt would have been so high that "it was almost impossible for a snake to stay still enough to bite," Schäfer said.
"The main problem with any snakebite are the unpredictable effects, because the venom of the snakes is highly variable. The amount they spent for the bite may be too low. Why taking a risk even to survive with such unpleasant symptoms?" Mebs said.
According to the researchers, who traveled to Alexandria where they consulted ancient medical texts, a plant poison mixture which is easily dosed and whose effects are very predictable could have worked much better.
"Ancient papyri show that the Egyptians knew about poisons, and one papyrus says Cleopatra actually tested them," Schaefer said.
Schaefer and Mebs believe that Cleopatra chose a drug cocktail made of opium, aconitum (also known as wolfsbane) and hemlock, a highly poisonous plant from the parsley family that is believed to have been used to poison Socrates.
The drug cocktail, Schäfer claims, was known at the time to cause a rather painless death within a few hours.
"Cleopatra reportedly carried out many toxicological experiments, an imitation of Mithradates VI. In her quest for the most peaceful and painless way to die, she would have observed the deaths of many condemned prisoners by many different poisons and combinations, including snakebite," Adrienne Mayor, author of the Mithridates biography "The Poison King," told Discovery News.
"In my opinion, Cleopatra would have taken a high dose of opium as a sedative and then succumb to a cobra bite within a half hour," Mayor said. "She would be sedated and calm, feeling no pain, as the cobra venom slows her respiration, and she breathes her last and dies."
According to Alain Touwaide, an international authority on medicinal plants of antiquity at the Smithsonian Institution and the Institute for the Preservation of Medical Traditions in Washington , D.C., the drug cocktail would have technically worked well.
"A mixture of opium, aconitum and hemlock would have been a very intelligent combination. Opium and hemlock would have contributed to a painless death, easing the action of aconite, believed in antiquity to have deadly effects on the gastro-intestinal system. However, it wasn't common at all to mix vegetable poisons at Cleopatra's time," Touwaide told Discovery News.
"Cleopatra is a constant source of legends and theories, and is often credited with the writing of treatises on poisons, cosmetics and medicines," Touwaide said. "I believe finding her body and applying forensic methods of analysis would be the only way to solve the mystery of her death."
*****************************************************************
Well, if anyone can come up with the body of THE Cleopatra, I'll fall off my bar stool in a dead faint. Darlings, do you really think the Roman barbarians of the day, particularly Octavian, who became Augustus Caesar (enough said), would have let Queen Cleopatra's body lie in state sacrosanct forever inside a tomb in Egypt? Oh please! I have no doubt that after she died Cleopatra's remains were ruthlessly hunted down by the Romans, her body stripped of her queenly adornments and then either fed to the crocodiles or burned until there was nothing left, not even ashes.
Fnding Cleopatra VII's body is the ultimate Pipe Dream! It does not exist. All the baloney Zahi Hawass is feeding people about finding Cleopatra's "tomb" in Alexandria is just so much bullshit! Shame on you, Dr. Hawass, for pretending to believe such nonsense in the name of generating yet more tourist dollars for Egypt.
So who is the woman on the linchpin of a Bronze Age chariot?
From the Universit of Haifa
Archaeological mystery solved
Published by Editor at 10:49 am under Press Releases
July 1, 2010
A 3,200-year-old round bronze tablet with a carved face of a woman, found at the El-ahwat excavation site near Katzir in central Israel, is part of a linchpin that held the wheel of a battle chariot in place. This was revealed by scientist Oren Cohen of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa. “Such an identification reinforces the claim that a high-ranking Egyptian or local ruler was based at this location, and is likely to support the theory that the site is Harosheth Haggoyim, the home town of Sisera, as mentioned in Judges 4-5,” says Prof. Zertal.
The El-ahwat site, near Nahal ‘Iron, was exposed by a cooperative delegation excavating there during 1993-2000 from the Universities of Haifa and Cagliari (Sardinia), headed by Prof. Zertal. The excavated city has been dated back to the end of the Bronze Age and early Iron Age (13th-12th centuries B.C.E.). The city’s uniqueness - its fortifications, passageways in the walls, and rounded huts - made it foreign amidst the Canaanite landscape. Prof. Zertal has proposed that based on these unusual features, the site may have been home to the Shardana tribe of the Sea-Peoples, who, according to some researchers, lived in Harosheth Haggoyim, Sisera’s capital city. The city is mentioned in the Bible’s narratives as Sisera’s capital, and it was from there that the army of chariots set out to fight the Israelites, who were being led by Deborah the prophetess and Barak, son of Avinoam. The full excavation and its conclusions have been summarized in Prof. Zertal’s book “Sisera’s Secret, A Journey following the Sea-Peoples and the Song of Deborah” (Dvir, Tel Aviv, 2010 [Hebrew]).
One of the objects uncovered at the site remained masked in mystery. The round, bronze tablet, about 2 cm. in diameter and 5 mm. thick, was found in a structure identified as the “Governor’s House”. The object features a carved face of a woman wearing a cap and earrings shaped as chariot wheels. When uncovered in 1997, it was already clear that the tablet was the broken end of an elongated object, but Mr. Cohen, who included the tablet in the final report of the excavations, did not manage to find its parallel in any other archaeological discoveries.
Now, 13 years later, the mystery has been solved. When carrying out a scrutinizing study of ancient Egyptian reliefs depicting chariot battles, Mr. Cohen discerned a unique decoration: the bronze linchpins fastening the chariot wheels were decorated with people’s faces - of captives, foreigners and enemies of Egypt. He also noticed that these decorations characterized those chariots that were used by royalty and distinguished people.
“This identification enhances the historical and archaeological value of the site and proves that chariots belonging to high-ranking individuals were found there. It provides support for the possibility, which has not yet been definitively established, that this was Sisera’s city of residence and that it was from there that the chariots set out on their way to the battle against the Israelite tribes, located between the ancient sites of Taanach and Megiddo,” Prof. Zertal concludes.
If this is a female head, how do we know that it is Egyptian and not "Sea Peoples?" What history tells us at present is that the Egptians were plagued by invasives waves of "Sea Peoples" the same as everyone else in the area! If this linchpin is Egyptian, what the hell was it doing there in what, I believe, the article suggests was a scene of a battle between Sea Peoples and Caananites? What is the author suggesting?
A separate inquiry: What evidence is there that this linchpin depicts "captives, foreigners and enemies of Egypt?" I don't know much about the Sea Peoples, but if this linchpin was from an Egyptian chariot of the period, how does the author know for sure that it was not depicting the head of an Egyptian female diety?
Think about it - if you were going into battle in a fragile battle chariot bouncing over rocky desert terrain pulled by a team of horses at full gallop, the bain of eight-spoked wheels and designed-for-speed chariot chassies, would you rather have a figurative head of an "enemy" holding your wheels together, or the figurative head of a favored goddess or god holding your wheels together?
Archaeological mystery solved
Published by Editor at 10:49 am under Press Releases
July 1, 2010
The El-ahwat site, near Nahal ‘Iron, was exposed by a cooperative delegation excavating there during 1993-2000 from the Universities of Haifa and Cagliari (Sardinia), headed by Prof. Zertal. The excavated city has been dated back to the end of the Bronze Age and early Iron Age (13th-12th centuries B.C.E.). The city’s uniqueness - its fortifications, passageways in the walls, and rounded huts - made it foreign amidst the Canaanite landscape. Prof. Zertal has proposed that based on these unusual features, the site may have been home to the Shardana tribe of the Sea-Peoples, who, according to some researchers, lived in Harosheth Haggoyim, Sisera’s capital city. The city is mentioned in the Bible’s narratives as Sisera’s capital, and it was from there that the army of chariots set out to fight the Israelites, who were being led by Deborah the prophetess and Barak, son of Avinoam. The full excavation and its conclusions have been summarized in Prof. Zertal’s book “Sisera’s Secret, A Journey following the Sea-Peoples and the Song of Deborah” (Dvir, Tel Aviv, 2010 [Hebrew]).
One of the objects uncovered at the site remained masked in mystery. The round, bronze tablet, about 2 cm. in diameter and 5 mm. thick, was found in a structure identified as the “Governor’s House”. The object features a carved face of a woman wearing a cap and earrings shaped as chariot wheels. When uncovered in 1997, it was already clear that the tablet was the broken end of an elongated object, but Mr. Cohen, who included the tablet in the final report of the excavations, did not manage to find its parallel in any other archaeological discoveries.
Now, 13 years later, the mystery has been solved. When carrying out a scrutinizing study of ancient Egyptian reliefs depicting chariot battles, Mr. Cohen discerned a unique decoration: the bronze linchpins fastening the chariot wheels were decorated with people’s faces - of captives, foreigners and enemies of Egypt. He also noticed that these decorations characterized those chariots that were used by royalty and distinguished people.
“This identification enhances the historical and archaeological value of the site and proves that chariots belonging to high-ranking individuals were found there. It provides support for the possibility, which has not yet been definitively established, that this was Sisera’s city of residence and that it was from there that the chariots set out on their way to the battle against the Israelite tribes, located between the ancient sites of Taanach and Megiddo,” Prof. Zertal concludes.
***************************************************************
Okay, darlings, I'm tired tonight and I'm in a real bitchy mood. First of all, I'm not at all sure this is a depiction of a female. I do not, frankly, see "earrings in the shape of chariot wheels" on this figure. I see big ears, which are usually the domain of males. I also see crossed arms under the chin and closed fists, rather like the classic figure of a deceased Egyptian depicted on the outside of a cartonnage or an outer coffin in richer and older burials. Did the Sea Peoples bury their dead in an identical fashion to the ancient Egyptians?If this is a female head, how do we know that it is Egyptian and not "Sea Peoples?" What history tells us at present is that the Egptians were plagued by invasives waves of "Sea Peoples" the same as everyone else in the area! If this linchpin is Egyptian, what the hell was it doing there in what, I believe, the article suggests was a scene of a battle between Sea Peoples and Caananites? What is the author suggesting?
A separate inquiry: What evidence is there that this linchpin depicts "captives, foreigners and enemies of Egypt?" I don't know much about the Sea Peoples, but if this linchpin was from an Egyptian chariot of the period, how does the author know for sure that it was not depicting the head of an Egyptian female diety?
Think about it - if you were going into battle in a fragile battle chariot bouncing over rocky desert terrain pulled by a team of horses at full gallop, the bain of eight-spoked wheels and designed-for-speed chariot chassies, would you rather have a figurative head of an "enemy" holding your wheels together, or the figurative head of a favored goddess or god holding your wheels together?
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