Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

S is for Ship

Grecian urn 475 BCE depicting Odysseus’ ship, a classic Greek merchant ship that plied the Mediterranean in ancient times. Photo by ArchaiOptix.

The oldest ship in the world that still survives is Dutch. The second oldest is from Africa. They date back to 8000-6000 BCE. This should seem curious because, as we have been looking at the big picture this month, we have seen ancient inventions that go back to the beginning of human existence. We know that somewhere, 100,000 to 30,000 ya, early humans migrated out of Africa, north to Europe, and east to Asia. They didn’t stop there. They kept going down through Southeast Asia and out into the Pacific Islands: Micronesia, Guinea, and Australia. Potentially, 60,000 years ago.

They didn’t walk.

You can talk about land bridges and ice bridges until you’re blue in the face. People did not walk all the way throughout or across the Pacific, even though that has been the dominant narrative for decades. Indonesia was inhabited 32,000 years ago, and at best it was 60 miles from the nearest bit of land back then. There are 10,000-year-old Japanese-style pots in Ecuador and Chilean sweet potatoes in Polynesia.

Continue reading “S is for Ship”
Posted on

P is for Poem

My name is Calypso And I have lived alone
I live on an island And I waken to the dawn
A long time ago I watched him struggle with the sea
I knew that he was drowning And I brought him into me
Now today Come morning light
He sails away
After one last night
I let him go

Calypso by Suzanne Vega, still telling tales of the hero Odysseus (800 BCE) in the 21st century.
The Sumerian love poem, “The Love Song for Shu-shin,” mentioned in L is for Library. Photo by Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg).

The ancient poems that we know were written down, which dates them from @2100 BCE onward. Few people actually read them aside from the kings, priests, or scribes, since very few could read. The earliest poems we know were meant to be said aloud, told as stories. Surely, you can picture the poet–man or woman–standing in the firelight, weaving words of magic in front of an audience as it dozes from the wine and the heat of a Mesopotamian summer night. Perhaps the poet’s eyes gaze at something above the listeners’ heads, maybe at the sparks of firelight that dance above the dark and form shapes of heroes and heroines, of lovers and fighters, whose tales sink into the dreams of the drowsy.

Most of the poems written long ago lost the battle of centuries. Much of what we have are cobbled-together bits and pieces from tablets crumbled away or papyrus half-shredded. None of it was originally written in English. Whatever we have is filtered: patched back together, translated, missing bits filled in, with interpretative decisions about lines, rhyme schemes, word choice. We have to accept it as is.

Continue reading “P is for Poem”
Posted on

The Paradoxical International Parade of Nations

Greece comes first, even if the nation of Greece bears little resemblance to the vision of ancient Olympia. Photo from Newscaststudio.com.

This is ultimately a story about flag dipping–or the lack thereof–and how the American media lied about it, until it turned into yet another “Land of the Free” myth based on false information. But in order to get there, we have to dig into another subject first, the underlying paradox of the Games.

Continue reading “The Paradoxical International Parade of Nations”