Protocol:
- The board is a chance for you to express your own opinions and personalities, so you can go off in different directions, as long as you’re clearly responding to the chosen topics.
- You must choose one topic from each module listed (there are always two). For this week, therefore, if your main response is from Module 3, your second (short) response must be from Module 4 (or vice versa). You will lose credit if you don't follow this policy, no matter how lengthy or well-written your posts.
- Do NOT attach a separate document with your typed comments. Instead, write/reply directly in the thread.
- Always title your post with the name of the article or a brief summary of its content, so people know at a glance your focus (e.g., "Thera mega-eruption," "My reaction to Heinrich Schliemann," etc.). See Module 3 or 4 for the original articles/videos.
- Feel free to post articles, images, etc. I might award extra points to clever and relevant links (I gave a couple of examples in the slides that followed Stonehenge in the Module 1 slideshow). But please – no tired memes or tweets, and absolutely nothing cruel or off-color.
Grading:
- Before you start writing, you're expected to read all topics, which are testable on the exam.
- You get an initial 5 points for writing a post on-topic (as opposed to chatting about your love life, your favorite bands, etc.). You get a further 10 points for writing a coherent and reflective consideration of that chosen topic. Take it seriously; think of it as a mini-essay. This initial post must be at least 300 words and must include a word count at the end. Once posted, it will allow the board to open and connect you with your peers.
- Then you get 5 points each for a response to a topic from the other module, and one response to a student post on any topic (you're welcome to talk to multiple students too, of course). That way you're always discussing at least two different topics from two different modules. These second and third posts must be at least 100 words each.
- If there's no second topic yet under discussion, be the first and start a new thread!
- You should be sympathetic to and interested in what your peers have to say, and it should be clear from your response that you've read the article(s) in question. Frivolous, dishonest, or obviously undeveloped responses will earn No Credit.
- I want everyone to feel their opinions are respected and equally valid (whether you consider yourself a “good” writer or not), so as long as you do this to my satisfaction, you’ll usually get full credit. However, you'll lose points for any missing, off-topic, or poorly developed elements (initial post/second post/peer response). Therefore, follow the directions and you'll get the points: it's Either/Or!
Let's review:
- Using the questions below as a jump-off point, respond to one of these assigned readings (300 words minimum). Once you've done that, the board will open up and you can see what everyone else has written, including initial comments from me.
- Take your time to absorb what other people have to say, which may help you choose a second topic or focus your thoughts.
- When you're ready, comment on a second topic, chosen from the other module. This can be a new thread that you start or in response to another student's comment on that second topic. Then you must comment on at least one other student post (topic/module open).
- At least 400 words total are expected (be sure to add word count).
- Refer back to the particular module (3 or 4, in this case) for the relevant material.
- REMINDER: all readings are assigned and testable on the exam, whether or not you write on them as your D-Board response.
Module 3 options (choose one):
Option #A: Cyrus Cylinder - How a Persian monarch inspired Jefferson
After reading, you should be able to answer at least one of these questions. In all cases you'll need to express an opinion about the topic:
- What two key historical figures are discussed in the article, and what’s their connection?
- How and why is the Cyrus Cylinder important to the kinds of freedom enjoyed in liberal Western-style democracies such as Britain and the United States?
- What are its specific connections to American history, and given contemporary politics (see recent US-Iran news stories, for example), why is it fitting – and ironic – that it should have toured the United States?
Option #B: Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Sheba's wealth
After reading the article page, you should be able to answer at least three of these questions. In all cases you'll need to express an opinion about the topic:
- How was the lost mine rediscovered, and by whom?
- What is the image of the queen in popular culture, and what is the source?
- Why was the queen’s wealth important to that connection?
- What is an example of her influence in art?
- What was the relationship between Sheba and ancient Israel? (Hint: read the Module page and watch Heritage.)
Module 4 options (choose one):
Option #C: Alice Kober, Unsung heroine who helped decode Linear B
After reading the article page, you should be able to answer at least three of these questions. In all cases you'll need to express an opinion about the topic:
What specific details (2 or 3, at least) did Alice Kober determine about Linear B before her death? How was she know for organizing her ideas? When did Michael Ventris first become interested in Linear B? How does he describe the puzzle of translating it? What's one example of the result of his efforts? How did he and Kober get along? How did each of them die? Finally, as also noted in the Bettany Hughes documentary, what have we learned from the Linear B translations? And what kind of cultural record did NOT emerge from them? This last point allows you to use some imagination!
Option #D: Thera eruption was bigger still
After reading the article page, you should be able to answer at least three of these questions. In all cases you'll need to express an opinion about the topic:
The destruction of Thera over 3500 year ago probably inspired Plato’s account from 1000 years later (not mentioned in the article) of what popular cultural myth? (Hint: it's in the video!) What evidence has emerged to further corroborate the eruption? What further effects would have been felt then, and where? In what specific ways might this story differ from the recent theory about the Kofels event?
Option #E: Heinrich Schliemann - visionary archaeologist or scoundrel?
After reviewing the story at the Un-Museum, you should be able to answer all these questions. In all cases you'll need to express an opinion about the topic:
Explain what ancient ruins Heinrich Schliemann discovered, and how. What did he do at the first site in particular, what happened, and what do you think of his actions and methods?
Module 3: Egypt
Overview:
This time you’ll study ancient Egypt, an early agricultural society that evolved a powerful yet static civilization. Egypt lasted 3000 years -- spanning the entire Bronze Age and more -- with little change in its rigidly hierarchical social structure but with a cultural influence that has lasted ever since. Egypt expanded through military campaigns along the Eastern Mediterranean and interactions with its neighbors to the East and West (Mesopotamia, Ethiopia, Libya, and Sudan, geographically). The ancient Hebrews experienced firsthand the monolithic rule of Egypt and, later, of the Assyrian and Persian kings who would conquer much of the neighboring region.
Egyptian sculptural and architectural forms would eventually inspire the Greeks, and both they and the Romans after them would absorb Egypt into their respective empires. In the modern world, Egyptian queens like Cleopatra and Nefertiti are as familiar to us as the Pharaohs of the Biblical accounts in Genesis and Exodus, and Ancient Egypt lives on through literature and film (Shakespeare, Biblical epics, mummy movies), music (Paul Horn, Miles Davis, the Bangles), fashion (from Theda Bara to Siouxsie Sue), and collections of its artifacts in all the world's great museums.
Objectives:
- Review the slideshows to better understand Egyptian culture and the overall content of the Henry Sayre reading. The two slideshows contain some other materials that are not addressed by Sayre, including the Myth of Isis & Osiris.
- Read the linked biography of Jean-Francois Champollion.
- View the Heritage documentary, Civilization & the Jews: A People Is Born.
- Once that's all done, read/view the linked essays and news video, and then join the discussion board, using the questions posed there for a jump-off point as directed. Go there using the Discussions tab on the left.
- Take the module exam (posted at the end of the week). Expect questions on all of this material as part of it.
Jean-Francois Champollion was an early 19th-century French linguist and scholar who translated Egyptian hieroglyphics. A polyglot possessing an intuitive brilliance, Champollion noticed similarities between ancient Egyptian symbols and modern Coptic script and determined that the latter was a linguistic and artistic/symbolic descendant of the older language, which led to his eventual deciphering of Egyptian writing, previously a mystery and source of much speculation as to its secrets (as in the Ogdoad and Ennead, and the Book of the Dead). He was helped in part by the discovery, during the Napoleonic Wars, of the Rosetta Stone (from 196 BCE), a celebrated trilingual stele in ancient Greek, Demotic script – and hieroglyphs!
See links for a pair of useful biographies of the great scholar, one simpler and one more involved:
https://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_97-01/993_champollion.htmlLinks to an external site.
Tomb relief of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae
Read this related news story concerning the Cyrus Cylinder and the end of the Babylonian Exile mentioned in Heritage. With the Founding Fathers back in the forefront of pop culture (Hamilton), this is a timely explanation of the Cylinder, King Cyrus the Great, and Xenophon's Cyropedia, with its connections to Thomas Jefferson, America’s most famous Enlightenment thinker.
Hormuzd Rassam was an archaeologist whose area of expertise was Assyria. He worked with Austen Henry Layard and, though of Iraqi ethnicity, was employed by the British government, who made sure any unearthed artifacts ended up in the UK -- hence the Cyrus Cylinder's home in the British Museum. The irony of the Cylinder touring America and, earlier, Iran is that the two countries are mortal enemies yet share a common heritage: Jefferson was inspired in his democratic ideals by reading the Cyropedia and learning of Cyrus the Great, the enlightened ruler of Persia, the ancestral culture of modern-day Iran.
The curator being interviewed by reporter Will Gompertz is none other than Neil MacGregor, at the time the Director of the British Museum -- a pinnacle position in the field. Check out his book A History of the World In 100 Objects. Coincidentally, he was the President of the University of Reading when I did my doctoral studies there. Go White Knights!
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-21747567Links to an external site.
3.7: Dalya Alberge - Archaeologists strike gold in quest to find Queen of Sheba's wealth (READ)This Guardian piece details the hard work required of a field archaeologist and how one woman, Louise Schofield, made it pay off by her persistence and vision. The Biblical Tale (1 Kings) that inspired her search recounts how, the Queen of Sheba (Ethiopia) paid a state visit to King Solomon, son of David, the defender and previous ruler of the nation of Israel. Solomon is famed for his wisdom but was evidently also pragmatic, given his approach to leading the Israelite state through turbulent times (around 1000 BC, as described in the Heritage documentary), and also demonstrated by his marriage to the visiting queen, who came laden with a fortune in gold. Their romance is one of the great love stories, and she bore him a son, Menelik, according to the Biblical narrative. It could be just a legend – but the gold's real, evidently, and the queen has become a fixture in art ever since, as the article describes.
- Michael Wood provides a history of the region, with its Biblical World and Ethiopian associations in the Old Testament:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/cultures/sheba_01.shtmlLinks to an external site.
More Ethiopian history here:
- Some recommended viewing/listening on the broader subject: Joseph (1995 mini-series) starring Ben Kingsley, and Abraham starring Richard Harris, for two good modern dramatizations of early Biblical narratives; Cecil B. de Mille’s The Ten Commandments (obviously); the Tim Rice-Andrew Lloyd Webber rock musical Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and, on a grander scale, Giuseppe Verdi’s opera Nabucco, for original and melodic retellings.
- For a whole different story, with Biblical affiliations (of a kind), the North African location of the mine site reminds me of the setting for the two Exorcist prequels. Both are worth watching, especially Dominion (dir. Paul Schrader, 2005, rated R) -- as is the original film directed by the late, great William Friedkin (RIP), of course!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtkQeQ84owgLinks to an external site.
Cast & credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449086/Links to an external site.
[Image unavailable: Lorenzo Ghiberti, Meeting of Solomon & Sheba]
Detail from The Meeting of Solomon and Sheba by Lorenzo Ghiberti, an Italian Renaissance sculptor. This is one of his door panels (made 1425-37 AD) for the Gates of Paradise (East Doors) of the Baptistry in Florence, Italy.
Speculative reconstruction, based on the musicological research of Dr. Richard Dumbrill, of this quite beautiful melody from the Ancient World (c. 1400 BCE). The archaeological source is Ugarit (Syria), but the Hurrian Hymn would have been native to Anatolia (eastern Turkey) so might have been played by Hittites or even Trojans. The modern stringed instrument used is comparable to the lyre (harp) that was extant in ancient Egypt. A lovely period slideshow has been made to accompany the music, too, showing examples of Eqyptian and Mesopotamian art and architecture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBhB9gRnIHELinks to an external site.
[Image unavailable: Potiphar, his wife, & Joseph.jpg]
The story of Joseph, son of Jacob, provides the final phase of the events described in the Book of Genesis (the first book of the Old Testament). Despite its placement in a religious text, it has relatively little mythic or supernatural elements and reads more like a novel: the timeline extends over decades (with some point well before 1500 BC being the possible time of events, according to scholars), characters experience life in multiple locations or settings (physical and social) and are driven by differing motivations, and a stirring conclusion and resolution encapsulates the spiritual message. The story gives us a glimpse into the inner workings of two separate ancient societies: the nomadic extended families of the Hebrews and the elite rulers of Egypt, the Pharaonic class whose reign lasted three thousand years.
You can see the story brought to life in the film and read it here, though you may find this two-part summary that I've prepared a useful guide to the Biblical text:
Joseph pts. 1 & 2.pdfDownload Joseph pts. 1 & 2.pdf
Joseph 3 (& conclusion).pdfDownload Joseph 3 (& conclusion).pdf
Read: Genesis 37-50 (King James version). The link opens to chapter 37; use the right arrow to continue.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-Chapter-37/Links to an external site.
Or use this text version and scroll to chapter 37:
https://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/k/kjv/kjv-idx?type=DIV1&byte=1477Links to an external site.
The 1995 mini-series (dir. Roger Young) has an excellent cast (Ben Kingsley, Martin Landau, Lesley Ann Warren, Alice Krige, and Paul Mercurio as the grown-up Joseph) and features music by the late, great Ennio Morricone. Joseph adapts the Biblical story quite effectively, including the recreation of a believable Bronze Age Egypt. You can view it for free at this link, in reasonable image quality.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZczKjpbm_Ow&t=6932sLinks to an external site.
Otherwise, you can rent it/purchase it on various streaming services (here are several options):
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb2vEvjdWx8Links to an external site.
Netflix: https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/The-Bible-Collection-Joseph/70004656Links to an external site.
DirecTV: https://www.directv.com/movies/Joseph-aDlKbEE5ZWFvZTN6TkcrOWttSDVNZz09Links to an external site.
Cast and production details here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0113483/Links to an external site.
EX CR options:
EITHER: pick three scenes from the film (one from each hour, approximately beginning, middle, and end) and explain how they parallel and differ from the text in Genesis. This may be either plot or characterization: in other words, what’s similar and/or different about what happens or how people behave?
OR: identify and discuss the specific scenes relating to Joseph's ability to interpret dreams, and describe how they are staged (performed and directed) and how they differ (or don't) from the Biblical text.
These two options could overlap, obviously. You’re advised to read the two-part summary first to give you a complete grounding in the Biblical narrative before beginning your paper. 1000 words/3 pages, double-spaced. 12-pt. type. Submit through the EX CR essay portal under Assignments (once it becomes available) for an extra 10 points!
This optional assignment is a good means to make up points lost from a missed assignment or poor exam score. Note that the deadline is not until the end of term, so always focus on the required materials first and foremost. You may choose this or The Odyssey TV adaptation (offered later) as your EX CR submission. Good luck!
4.1: Module 4 overview (READ)Kleophrades, The Sack of Troy
[Image unavailable: Kleophrades, The Sack of Troy (vase scene).jpg]
IV: THE HEROIC AGE
Overview:
- In this module, you’ll study the Aegean World, source of myth and revealed by archeology as the home of the Bronze Age cultures of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Aegean Sea comprises the north-east corner of the Mediterranean and takes its name from the legendary Athenian king Aegeus, father of the hero-adventurer Theseus. The early peoples of the region include the mysterious, colorful Minoans who thrived in elegant comfort on ancient Crete but, after enduring natural disaster and invasion, vanished without a trace except for references in Greek mythology.
- That same mythological world also celebrated the exploits and customs of the Mycenaeans, the confederation of powerful warrior tribes from the Greek Peloponnesus who, we are told, conquered stately Troy and, as the Philistines, pillaged the ancient Israelites, thus living on in the foundations of Western literature: the Homeric epics and the Old Testament.
- Thus, the subject is broken into two phases, which we'll call the Minoan and Mycenaean Worlds.
Objectives:
- Review the first slideshow to better understand Minoan culture and the overall content of the Sayre reading (39-46).
- Next, read/view the linked essays and news audio/video on the discoveries of Heinrich Schliemann, the destruction of ancient Thera, and the translation of the lost alphabet Linear B – plus the personalities involved – and then join the discussion, considering the prompts posed for a jump-off point.
- Back to the module materials: review the second slideshow to better understand Mycenaean culture and Homer’s Iliad (+ Sayre reading, 47-50).
- View the linked Bettany Hughes documentary Helen of Troy, and her recent interview on the subject.
- Explore the inks to the Iliad and Odyssey for your reading pleasure and to help with paper options.
- Spend an entertaining afternoon or evening watching the film version of The Odyssey. It's free.
- Write an extra-credit essay on The Odyssey. See the page later in the module for prompts (details and instructions) on the topic (optional). You can choose this or Joseph as an EX CR topic.
This is an even richer, denser cultural period than before, and clearly there'll be plenty to read, watch, and write.
4.3: Elli Leadbeater, Thera eruption was bigger still (READ)Good story explaining (in more precise detail than the textbook) the volcanic destruction of Thera and its effects on the Minoan World. Read this in conjunction with watching The Mystery of the Missing Minoans (4.5):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/5287124.stm
4.4.1: Michael Ventris, a life (READ)Respectful summation of the life and scholarship of Michael Ventris, translator of Linear B.
https://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/mycep/decipherment/ventrisLinks to an external site.
4.4.2: Alex Gallafent - Alice Kober, Unsung heroine who helped decode Linear B (READ)Story by Alex Gallafent on the two brilliant minds, Alice Kober and Michael Ventris (the acknowledged translator), involved in cracking Linear B, the long-undeciphered Minoan/Mycenaean written language: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22782620Links to an external site.
Having read the biography in 4.4.1, scroll down the page (to "From the BBC archive") to listen to the interview excerpt with linguist/architect/auto-didact genius Michael Ventris, where he recounts his own "Eureka!" moment with this lost language.
4.4.3: Heroic Alphabet: Linear A and B (READ)Encyclopaedia entry written by Cristian Violatti explaining the core of knowledge about these two Bronze Age scripts: https://www.ancient.eu/Linear_B_Script/Links to an external site.
4.5: Documentary - The Real Atlantis: Mystery of the Missing Minoans (VIEW)The eruption of Thera over 3500 years ago, and the mortal blow it dealt the Minoans, probably inspired Plato’s account from 1000 years later of the destruction of the mythical Atlantis: a great civilization sunk beneath the waves. Despite its melodramatic voice-over and title (there is no mystery now), this program does a solid job explaining the impact the mega-volcano must have had around the Aegean World, and connecting the event to mythology and aspects of Minoan culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd6qhnQYUf8Links to an external site.
Heinrich Schliemann's excavations discussed at this engrossing site, the Unmuseum!
http://www.unmuseum.org/troy.htm
4.11: Skidmore & Fiore - the Illustrated Odyssey (READ/VIEW)A good Odyssey summary by Joel Skidmore, and delightfully illustrated by Mark Fiore, who's best known for his shrewd editorial cartooning in New York’s now legendary Village Voice:
https://www.mythweb.com/Odyssey/index.htmlLinks to an external site.