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Links September 2015
'Witchcraft' Island [Blå Jungfrun, an island off the east coast of Sweden] Reveals Evidence of Stone Age Rituals (livescience.com, 22 September 2015)
Paleo People Were Making Flour 32,000 Years Ago (NPR, 14 September 2015)
Breakthrough in world's oldest undeciphered writing [Proto-Elamite] (BBC, 25 October 2012)
Nail Polish History Dates Back to ( Read more... ) -
Gallus and Gala
Will Roscoe's article "Priests of the Goddess" compares the Graeco-Roman gallus, the Mesopotamian gala (and similar cultic performers), and the Indian and Pakistani hijra.
They have several things in common:
- they are priests of a goddess (or goddesses)
- they're organised into groups, and employed by temples
- they dance, sing, and play ( Read more... )
- they are priests of a goddess (or goddesses)
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Links, November 2010
From the BBC: From Warrior Women to Female Pharaohs: Careers for Women in Ancient Egypt
35,000-year-old axe head places Aboriginal ancestors at the cutting edge of technology
Food for thought: Cooking in human evolution
Man's hand-to-mouth evolution
Tortoise banquet: Remains of the oldest feast found
Navaratri: Season of purgation and regalia
( Read more... ) -
I've been awake since 3 am. Have some links
Pharaonic-Era Sacred Lake Unearthed in Egypt, ABC News 15 October 2009 [Temple of Mut at Tanis]
Messages from the past become easy to read: USC researchers are producing crisp images of inscriptions and artifacts from biblical Israel and other Near Eastern locales and putting the pictures online. [Using a thing that looks like the Large Hadron ( Read more... ) -
The Love Goddess in Western Semitic Tradition
A large number of recorded public lectures given at the California Museum of Ancient Art are available on CD. I hugely enjoyed a 1987 talk by Dr William Fulco titled "The Love Goddess in Western Semitic Tradition" - here are a few notes from that ( Read more... ) -
Miscellany
- An ABC Radio National podcast, The Religion Report, describes the first complete Bible translation in an indigenous language. One of the translators remarks on the similarities between traditional Aboriginal life and the nomadic Hebrews, but what caught my attention was this remark: "Some have taken quite a bit of talking around, just to try and ( Read more... )
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In no particular order
2003: 7,000-year-old statue discovery 'is first male fertility symbol'
2003: Senua, Britain's unknown goddess unearthed
2008: Bhagavati and the Blessed Virgin Mary worshipped side by side in India
Iran's Cultural Heritage News Agency
Cloacina, the Roman sewer goddess
2008: Greece: Pagans call on Athena to protect the Acropolis
2009: Iraq, and ( Read more... ) -
Exhibitions
The Art Gallery of NSW is currently running a magnificent exhibition of Indian, Tibetan, and Nepali art, Goddess: Divine Energy - just the most gobsmacking collection of paintings and sculptures of Buddhist, Hindu, and related goddesses. It's on until January.
Lloyd sent me clippings on three exhibitions Up Over: Devi: The Great Goddess, shown at ( Read more... )