Niobe: More Than an Invented Cautionary Tale?

I was checking out the Tapestry of Bronze website to see which Olympian god their current poetry contest is dedicated, and wouldn’t you know, it’s Apollo. (For anyone interested, the deadline is April 30th- I know, so soon!) I may try to write something, or submit one that I’ve written in the past. a

But anyway, on their site was linked this interview: Apollo on Trial Investigating Mass Murder in Greece (I tried to embed the file into this post, but failed several times.)

I wish this was in Podcast form so that I could actually download it and give it a really good listen while I’m not wanting to be doing other things, but this will have to do.  It talks about a historical basis for the myth of Apollo and Artemis killing the family of Niobe for her insult of their mother, Leto.  Now, I’ve listened to it once so far, but I was also in the midst of remembering my old addiction for podcasts and combing the iTunes store and iTunes U for podcasts on topics of interest- such as the gods- so I was only really half paying attention and therefore, cannot offer commentary at this point on the quality of the information.

I find this especially interesting in the exploration of the idea of there being some sort of literality to mythology- or some of it, at least. I have no problem with the idea that some of the myths may be stories that were made up or inspired by the gods with no historical basis whatsoever. But as many stories as there are, I have a very hard time accepting the idea that none of them have any real history to them. After all, as it is pointed out in this interview, it was once upon a time thought that the city of Troy was a mythical city that never really existed. It has since been proven otherwise.

Should anyone else give this a listen and have any opinions to share, please do!

I have found some other podcasts that, once I get a chance to listen to them, and assuming I think that they’re worth the ones and zeros of which they’re comprised, I will post more about.

Advertisement

Another Bit Of Archaeology

Apollo Discovery Tells a New Story

ScienceDaily (Sep. 20, 2010) — A rare bronze signet ring with the impression of the face of the Greek sun god, Apollo, has been discovered at Tel Dor, in northern Israel, by University of Haifa diggers.

“A piece of high-quality art such as this, doubtlessly created by a top-of-the-line artist, indicates that local elites developing a taste for fine art and the ability to afford it were also living in provincial towns, and not only in the capital cities of the Hellenistic kingdoms,” explains Dr. Ayelet Gilboa, Head of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who headed the excavations at Dor along with Dr. Ilan Sharon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

When the ring was recovered from a waste pit near Hellenistic structures, it was covered with layers of earth and corrosion, and the archaeologists had no indication whatsoever that it would reveal the shape of a legendary figure. Only after the ring was cleaned up at the Restoration and Conservation laboratory at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology, was the profile of a beardless young male with long hair, clean shaven and adorned with a laurel wreath, revealed. The ring was examined by Dr. Jessica Nitschke, professor of classical archaeology at Georgetown University in Washington DC, and by Dr. Rebecca Martin, assistant professor of art at Southeast Missouri State University, both of whom are partners in the Tel Dor excavations. Both confirmed that the image is that of Apollo — one of the most important of the Olympian gods in Greek mythology, god of the sun, of light, music and song.

Read the rest of the story (including a picture of the ring!) here.

Ancient Hymns

I’ve had a few things that I wanted to write about, but for various reasons have not gotten much computer time aside from the time spent job searching since my last post. I may very well just give myself a break from job applications for today.

Last night, in a fit of being unable to sleep, I spent a brief few minutes poking around forums for something to do for a short bit that didn’t require a lot of thought on my part. I found a post over at Hellenistai forums where someone was inquiring about the Delphic hymns, the second of which was composed for the Pythian games,  which are dated 138 and 128 BC

I remember hearing about these hymns a couple of years ago, and at the time, spending a night at work googling them, hoping to find a translation of the text into English. At the time, I found a Wikipedia article, complete with photos of the stone containing the surviving fragments and a um, translation, of the music of the first Delphic hymn into modern musical notation…but no translation of the text.

So last night, I decided to give it another quick whirl and within a minute or two, I found this page of a musician promoting his CD of ancient lyre music played on a modern replica of a ten-stringed Lyre of the Ancient Hebrews. The musician, Michael Levy, also has his official website here- looks like an interesting resource for anyone interested in all things having to do with the lyre, including building your own and some online lessons. (Note: I don’t know anything about the guy, I’m getting nothing for promoting his site, I just thought that since I was mentioning the other page, and because the lyre is Apollo’s instrument, that it was relevant and possibly of interest to some of my readers.  speaking of interest to some of my readers, some of his recordings are of ancient Egyptian and Syrian songs, you can see more about them on the linked pages. )

Anyway…this was particularly cool because he provides an English translation of the text of the first hymn. (He does not indicate who the translator is)

“Hear me, you who posses deep-wooded Helicon,
fair-armed daughters of Zeus the magnificent!
Fly to beguile with your accents your brother,
golden-tressed Phoebus who, on the twin peak of this rock of Parnassus,
escorted by illustrious maidens of Delphi,
sets out for the limpid streams of Castalia, traversing,
on the Delphic promontory, the prophetic pinnacle.
Behold glorious Attica, nation of the great city which,
thanks to the prayers of the Tritonid warrior,
occupies a hillside sheltered from all harm.
On the holy alters Hephaestos consumes the thighs of young bullocks,
mingled with the flames, the Arabian vapor rises towards Olympos.
The shrill rustling lotus murmurs its swelling song, and the golden kithara,
the sweet-sounding kithara, answers the voice of men.
And all the host of poets, dwellers in Attica, sing your glory, God,
famed for playing the kithara, son of great Zeus,
beside this snow-crowned peak, oh you who reveal to all mortals
the eternal and infallible oracles.
They sing how you conquered the prophetic tripod
guarded by a fierce dragon when, with your darts
you pierced the gaudy, tortuously coiling monster,
so that, uttering many fearful hisses, the beast expired.
They sing too, . . . .”

He also provides a translation of the text of another surviving fragment of a hymn (titled here as Hymn to the Muse)

‘Sing for me, dear Muse, begin my tuneful strain; a breeze blow from your groves to stir my listless brain…Skillful Calliope, leader of the delightful Muses, and you, skillful priest of our rites, son of Leto, Paean of Delos, be at my side’. (translation by J. G. Landels).

There is a lot of information on these historical hymns within this page- the Delphic hymns and the Hymn to the Muse, of course, are the most interesting to me- and relevant to this blog- and so I will not go into detail about the other pieces but anyone interested should certainly go and check out the sites linked.

As his tracks are available for purchase online on several sites, I think I might have to acquire the ones I mentioned here.

New Blog

In the interest of keeping this blog in devotion to Apollo, I’ve started a new one for other, mostly religious sort of writing, including the development of a few writing projects that I have in mind. So, if it should interest you, please check out and feel free to add Presque Vu.

A Bit Of Archaeology

Colossal Apollo Statue Unearthed in Turkey
Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

Sept. 8, 2009 — A colossal statue of Apollo, the Greek god of the sun, light, music and poetry, has emerged from white calcified cliffs in southwestern Turkey, Italian archaeologists announced.

Colossal statues were very popular in antiquity, as evidenced by the lost giant statues of the Colossus of Rhodes and the Colossus of Nero. Most of them vanished long ago — their material re-used in other building projects.

“This colossal statue of Apollo is really a unique finding. Such statues are extremely rare in Asia Minor. Only a dozen still survive,” team leader Francesco D’Andria, director of the Institute of Archaeological Heritage, Monuments and Sites at Italy’s National Research Council in Lecce, told Discovery News.

Read the rest of the story here.

New Hellenic Web Forum

Well RJ over at Urban Hellenistos decided to make himself a Hellenic web forum.  Asked me to be moderator so he could slack off.

What does that mean?

That, my dear readers means that yours truly is going crazy stickying threads and compiling lists of links and ancient hymns and stuff.  So go “ooh” and “ahh” over my efforts already.

Oh, um, and RJ might have something to do with it too.  I think this is going to be a rather cool forum.  It’s basically aimed at anyone with any sort of Hellenic religious interest from the pure Hellenic reconstructionists to the Hellenic-inspired neopagans to Greco-something else syncretists. And we’ve got a sense of humor about ourselves too. So come check it out.Doesn’t matter if you’re so new you’ve never even heard of Homer, or you’ve been around the block a few times, it’s turning out really well so far and it’s only been a few days.

The Hazards of Devoted Cultus

I ran across this blog post yesterday at Of Thespiae yesterday while surfing blogs. At this point in time, I have no need, want or right to jab indignantly at this post and say “See, I worship all the gods too! I don’t ignore them in favor of Apollo!!!!!”* But I think it’s worth linking because there people out there who are under the impression that everyone or at least most who is highly devoted to a specific deity or small group thereof is ignoring all the rest in the pantheon.

The Hazards of Devoted Cultus

One of the problems I’ve encountered with having highly devoted cult reverence to Eros, Apollon, and The Muses (of course, it seems that Apollon bloggers are a dime-a-dozen these days, heck, I list three of them in my side-bar) is that there are going to be misconceptions amongst co-religionists who do not participate in your cult reverence. Oi Theoi. Here are two of the most highly misconceived things about cult practise:

*I confess myself extremely Apollo-centric, in case you haven’t noticed. I do not worship Him exclusively, but very close to it lately.