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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Alexander

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

Is Alexander the Great Actually Buried in Wisconsin?

 

In the dream, I'm attending a pagan festival, the main claim to fame of which is that the body of Alexander the Great—yes, that Alexander the Great—is buried on grounds.

Now, the ultimate fate of the sôma, body, of Alexander the Great, Talisman of Alexandria, remains one of history's enduring mysteries.

Said festival being held in Wisconsin, then, this strikes me—even in dream-logic—as unlikely in the extreme, to say the very least.

How he got there, the stories don't tell. A likely enough scenario readily presents itself, though: late Antiquity, the rising power of the Church, hostile to a rival Savior, an epic journey westward of the faithful across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and thence (presumably) up the Mississippi: fodder for a C-grade popular novel, one might think, with scenes switching back-and-forth between the ancient world, and an incredulous archaeological present.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The City of the Horned Apollo

If true, it's got to be one of history's more delicious ironies.

The ancient city of Cyrene, in what is now Libya, was founded in 620 BCE by colonists from the volcanic island of Thera (or Santorini), of Minoan archaeology fame.

Foremost among its patron gods was Apollo Kernaios, the Horned Apollo.

On the city's coinage, the god was shown in profile, with a crescent ram's horn curling around his ear. It was likely this image that gave rise to Lysimakhos' famous coins depicting the horned Alexander.

Over the centuries, the city was home to many famous statesmen, artists, and philosophers, but today its best-known resident (historic or not) is probably Simon of Cyrene, who is said in the Synoptic gospels to have carried the cross of Jesus when Jesus himself was too weak to carry it.

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PaganNewsBeagle Airy Monday Sept 8
It's Airy Monday with news of academic import for our various communities. This week: an important Hellenistic tomb discovery; another Stonehenge mystery solved; mysterious Arctic disappearences;. the archeology of religion; and how serotonin can actually poison you.
 
From northern Greece: the discovery of an important Hellenistic tomb from the time of Alexander the Great is exciting archeologists.
 
Meanwhile at Stonehenge: an extra-dry summer has (accidentally) solved one of the sites most-persistent mysteries.
 
Anthropologists have uncovered (through genetic evidence) an astonishing mystery: the first indigenous tribes that inhabited the Arctic apparently disappeared without a trace.
 
Pagan blogger Ethan Doyle White interviews a major religious studies academic researcher who specializes in the study of indigenous cultures and the archeology of religion.
 
Pleasure or pain? Evolutionary biologists are discovering the surprising ways in which serotonin (usually associated with maintaining our emotional balance) is also a potent pain-inducer used by a variety of venomous critters.
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Guilty Pleasures of a Devout Hellenist

Oh, Kevin Sorbo, you hot Norwegian-blooded Minnesotan human pec monster, you gave me much fap fodder during my teens.

Which reminds me: The series, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess did mythology wrong, so very wrong. They did ancient Greece even more wrong. They gave a more unflattering image of the gods than even Homer, but you know what else? They're something I genuinely enjoy watching.

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