Geek break!

We now take a break from our scheduled programming to bring you a special segment on Geekery.

I got a blog award! And not just any blog award, but a Geeky one. And not just any Geeky award, but a girly one, too. So great!

Eleni, my awesome geeky friend over at RPG Called Life, awarded me this the other day:

Which makes me so happy, because 1) Eleni is an awesome geeky girl whose blog I love and 2) I am a geek and proud of it!

The rules:
List ten geeky facts about yourself and…
Pass this award onto your favorite female geeks!

1. I met four of my best friends online, through various RPG clubs based on the Tamora Pierce books that I read when I was a pre-teen. I was obsessed with these books and spent a lot of my time writing and talking about them with Fae, Ali, Kitty and Lea. I wanted them to be real. Hell, I still want them to be real. And Fae and I still write using characters that trace back to those books original.

2. I speak a bit of Quenya (a Tolkien Elvish language) with Fae. We used to know more, because we wrote characters who spoke it. Now we just speak it to each other - our conversations, emails and letters nearly always end with “Namaarie melamin vanima” (”Farewell my love, beautiful [Fae]“) or “Amin mela lle”(”I love you”).

3. I can recite the entire Rent soundtrack from beginning to end. I’m obsessed with musicals - particularly Rent, Wicked, Spring Awakening and Aida.

4. I am a huge Diablo II freak. I love that game and have spent many, many nights playing multiplayer with my friend Kaitlyn. I also loved Neverwinter Nights, but my computer wasn’t good enough to run it. I recently became obsessed with Fable II. I love fantasy rpgs.

5. I correct people’s grammar and spelling constantly. In person and on Facebook. Also, one time I was bored an took a red pen and corrected all the sentence structure errors in our local newspaper. It was appalling. There are few things in life that make me as happy as a red pen and someone else’s hard work.

6. I watched all ten seasons of Stargate SG-1 and all five of Stargate Atlantis between September and December of last year.

7. I’m a huge history Greek. I’ve studied Greek and Latin (albeit poorly). I’ve read most of the Greek and Latin authors (Homer, Ovid, Seneca, Aeschylus, Plautus, Herodotus, etc.) I can go on for ages about mythology.

8. I was a huge Pokemon fan as a kid. Enough said.

9. I once had a conversation with Chandra about the Julio-Claudian dynasty as we were getting ready for the day, before 9am. I know this is similar to #7, but it’s too good of an example.

10. My favourite part of working in a museum was dressing up in the period costumes. I firmly believe that I was born in the wrong time period. I also love Renn Faires and anything else that involves dressing up and pretending.

And now I want to award this to:

My friend Kitty, who I mentioned in #1, who is a fellow fantasy geek and classicist.

The Chris from Always Standing, who plays WOW, among other geeky things.

My Faerie, fellow Elvish speaker who loves all the geeky things I do, plus comics and more video games.

Also, if you haven’t read it yet, read why I think Geeky girls are so awesome: Top Ten Reasons to Love a Geeky Girl.

Athens

Before New York City, London and Rome, there was Athens. Athens was the centre of the Greek world for a long time. It was the centre of the beginning of what we like to call Western civilization - home of philosophers like Plato and Socrates, of playwrights like Aeschylus, Eurypides and Sophocles. It was the birth place of democracy. There is no denying that our cultural and intellectual roots can be traced back to Athens.

I fell in love with this city, almost immediately. I say almost because our first impression was largely biased by the fact that it was 9pm, we hadn’t eaten since 1 and we were incredibly lost (more on this later!). But as soon as we found our hotel, dropped off our bags and walked through the Plaka to a great restaurant nearby, I knew that I was going to love Athens.

You could see the Acropolis from our hotel balcony.

It was pretty freaking cool.

But that wasn’t the only thing.

The Theatre of Dionysus, where you can imagine a stunning performance of Antigone or Oedipus the King:

The Erechtheion, the other temple on the Acropolis:

The Karameikos, the earliest Athenian cemetery:

The massive Olympieion, temple to Olympian Zeus:

And the beautiful Hephaisteion, overlooking the Agora:

Just to name a few. We were only in Athens for four days. I could have stayed weeks.

The labyrinth city

One of the main reasons I chose Newcastle for my MA was the two study trips with Greek and Roman Archaeology. In January, we went to Rome for four days. The planned trip to Greece was only Athens for two days, but since I have dreamed of visiting Greece since I was a six year old reading mythology picture books, I had to see more than just Athens.

And so, Chandra and I planned a ten day trip designed to see as much of Greece as possible - and still spend a bit of time in the sun.

The first place we went was Crete. We flew from Manchester to Heraklion, the modern city from which you can visit ancient Knossos.

Instead of staying in the city, we stayed outside at a nice little hotel with a pool and a short walk to the beach. After all, us Canadians (pale as we might be) are used to a warm summer that we’re fairly certain not to get in the Northeast of England this year, so we had to get some much needed Vitamin D while we could.

Our first discovery from Greece was the wonderful food:

And a beer named Mythos, which is like, perfect!

The next day we headed into Heraklion to find our way to Knossos, the ruins of the legendary Minoan city that dates back to about 1700 BCE. It’s the famous city of King Minos and the Minotaur, of the Labyrinth built by Daedalus. It was excavated by the infamous Sir Arthur Evans, starting in about 1900 CE.

And why is Evans infamous?

It has to do with both archaeological theory and the ethics of restoration. Evans restored and reconstructed a number of buildings on the site, something that no archaeologist would dare to do nowadays. It wasn’t long before his British colleagues were pronouncing the reconstructions as wrong. To this day, Evans is used as a bad example in archaeology textbooks.

But the people of Crete see Evans in a different light. Unlike many of the antiquarian archaeologists of the early 20th century, Evans didn’t expropriate the artefacts from Knossos to a fancy cabinet of curiosities in England. He left the site and all its finds to the people of Crete. So they kind of love him.

Part of me disagrees with Evans’ reconstructions, but the other part of me recognizes that it makes the site a hell of a lot more interesting to visit. And to take photos of. Like our tour guide said, it’s easy to imagine yourself back in ancient Knossos.

After an educational morning, we retired to spend our next day and a half on the beach and swimming in the Sea of Crete.

Greece is officially my favourite holiday spot because you get archaeology and history and sun and sand.

Where beauty is existence

I’m not an art historian. Or, at least I thought I wasn’t. I seem to have turned into one recently, since my current essay and dissertation topics both rely heavily on Greek art.

I’ve never been the one to suggest a visit to an art gallery. But I have a lot of friends who love art, and I find their passion contagious. I enjoy visiting with them, but I when I go alone I just get bored. Which is why I was surprised to realize that some of my favourite experiences on my trip last month were art galleries.

That might be because I visited some of the best galleries in the world.

I finally got to go back to the Louvre, and see the sculpture that I fell in love with six years ago.

When I first saw Eros and Psyche by Antonio Canova, I was amazed. I didn’t know that a piece of marble could be so beautiful. I never dreamed that a sculpture could be so real, could evoke so much emotion.

Undoubtedly, half of what I fell in love with was the portrayal of the myth. The Eros and Psyche story is one of my favourite Greek myths. It’s a tragic love story with a beautiful ending, and I think the sculpture captures that perfectly. One of those “love conquers all” stories.

It wasn’t until recently that I realized that I kind of love renaissance art. Especially sculptures. It isn’t that surprising, considering the renaissance was about reviving classical themes. Classical themes which I love. And classical art, which according to my choice in topics this semester (the emergence of Hellenistic portraiture and portraits of Alexander the Great), I apparently love too. Like this:

And this:

Though I don’t love Rome, there’s no arguing that it has some of the best museums in the world. I could spend days in the Capitoline Museum. Or the Vatican Museum. It was amazing to finally see things I had been studying in class for years, like the statue above of Laocoon and his sons. I saw all of those in January. It was amazing.

This time, we went to a different kind of museum.

The Borghese Gallery is a privately owned collection. They get to make up their own rules. Rules that I’m not a huge fan of. You have a scheduled time you’re allowed to go in. You have to leave ALL bags, including purses, at the coat check. And you can’t take photos of the art.

It’s a good thing they have such an amazing collection.

Bernini was the second sculptor I fell in love with. The Borghese has some absolutely amazing pieces by him. Since I couldn’t take pictures, these aren’t my own.

The Borghese is set up in a different way, too. It occupies a 17th century villa, and the building itself is a work of art. The rooms are all different. But each one has a centrepiece, or two. The masterpieces are here, and the lesser (but still amazing) works are on or against the walls.

And my absolute favourite was this one:

A close up:

Breathtaking.

Clashing theologies

So, the other day I started watching the History Channel’s series Clash of the Gods. Apparently it’s been out for a while, but I don’t normally watch documentaries. I couldn’t resist this one when I found it.

I’ve only seen the first episode, so far, which is about Zeus. The History Channel advertised the series as “the truth behind the myths.” I must say that they were really grabbling for this “truth.”

What “truth” really means, apparently, is finding the Judeo-Christian tradition in ancient myths. Sort of.

I tried to watch this with a grain of salt. I know that these documentaries are produced for the masses, not for someone like me who actually studies classical mythology.

They seem to be trying desperately to relate this to a Christian audience. They continuously referred to Tartarus and Hades as “hell” and Mount Olympus as “heaven.” They have it mixed up here, you see. Because in Greek mythology, all the dead go to Hades, regardless of the lives they led. True, Tartarus is the place for the ἄθεος (godless), but surely there’s a way to say that without the loaded Christianized word. Mount Olympus, on the other hand, is definitely nothing like the Christian heaven, though the documentary refers to it as such on more than one occasion. Mortals don’t go to Mount Olympus when they die. It’s just where the gods live. The ideal afterlife in the Greek World was spent in the Elysian fields, reserved for heroes and other virtuous mortals. The ancient Greek word οὐρανός, which roughly translates to “heaven” means the heavens, as in, the sky. Not as in the paradisaical afterlife.

The Oracle at Delphi is referred to as “a direct line to God.” God. In the singular. Really? Maybe they’re talking about a direct line to Zeus, right? Since they’ve been building him up to be the One True God (though the Greeks were polytheistic, there were some places where Zeus was the only important god, according to the documentary.) But this isn’t even true. The Oracle at Delphi was dedicated to Apollo. Questions asked at Delphi went to him, not to Zeus. It was Apollo who had the gift of prophecy. Failed to mention that little bit.

They try to find a monotheist tradition from the get-go. They start by comparing the birth and childhood of Zeus to that of Jesus or Moses (an important child born and hidden away in order to safely grow up and fulfill his destiny.) There are certainly similarities, but ever heard of Joseph Campbell? All traditional “heroes” have a mysterious birth or childhood. Perhaps that would have been worth mentioning, rather than tossing in a picture of Jesus in the manger and Moses in the rushes.

Next, they talk about Zeus’ destruction of the first race of man, with “a massive flood, one that may even be linked to the Biblical story of Noah.” It’s true that the archaeological and geological data point to the probability of a flood in and around the Mediterranean world at a time that was close enough for the Greeks to remember. And it could also very well date to the same flood as the Old Testament tells of Noah. It’s in mythology from all over the world, from the Epic of Gilgamesh to Aztec, Hindu and even Irish tradition. This does not mean, as it was implied, that at heart the ancient Greeks were little monotheists waiting to happen.

The Greeks were polytheists, through and through. Their gods could not have been more different from the Judeo-Christian idea of God. Greek gods are not omniscient. They are basically like really powerful humans. With flaws and weaknesses, tempers and desires. And there are a lot of them, too. They liked it that way. Each little city state could have their own, that way.

As my friend and fellow classicist Kitty said: “Dear History channel: Zeus? Never really succeeded at the monotheism thing.”

And how do they finish it all off, you might ask?

“But there was one more challenger Zeus didn’t count on. Jesus Christ.”

Give me a break.

I understand the importance of drawing parallels between different mythologies. In fact, I love doing it. But they didn’t bother comparing it to any accept the Christian mythology. And this is the “truth” that they were promising us? What I don’t understand is why they don’t seem to think that these stories, which have lasted thousands of years already, can’t stand on their own? That people won’t understand them unless they’re Christianized?