Wednesday, August 21, 2013
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"Luminous Mystery"
6:51pm
Mixed media, © Joan Ann Lansberry
I finally finished coloring the drawing I did a couple of weeks ago. I'd figured out a color scheme, then decided I wanted the person to be beholding a star (or star-like entity). Then I forgot about it while I did other things. Finally, I got back to it.
I suppose I should admit that I didn't re-draw it to a new bristol board, but just printed it out, colored it with colored pencils, scanned it, and smoothed it out digitally.
Monday, August 26, 2013
A visit to the library, and Julia has books to read, and we enjoyed reading a few magazine articles in The New Yorker and National Geographic. Okay, I just looked at a few pictures in the National Geo, but what pictures they were! Illustrations of predicted indundation should the polar ice caps completely melt warn us that among other things, all of Florida could be lost under water. Then a happy afternoon at home. Julia innocently posed a simple question, "What was the original name of Hierakonpolis in Ancient Egypt?" That set off me off researching. Up came _Hierakonpolis_, Part 1, by J. E. Quibell, B.A., With Notes by W. M. F. P., nicely downloadable. I found many interesting things in the pdf. They'd found some ivory bull's legs very similar to the one I'd seen at the Met museum:
PL. XVI. Carved ivory, Dyn. O. "Nos. 6,7,8 are bulls' legs from furniture, closely like those found, under the next reign, in the tomb of Mena."
There were two in perfect shape, however Petrie identifies them as being from the tomb of Zer-ta:
Yet the mystery doesn't end here. I've located an ivory bull's leg similar to #17 in Petrie's book at Chicago's Oriental Museum, via Before the Pyramids: the Origins of Egyptian Civilization. The authors of 'Before the Pyramids' say Petrie 'published' their leg. But their leg is said to have come from Semerkhet's tomb, a different First Dynasty king???
Furthermore, I found more illustrations of Peribsen's and Khasekhemwy's sealings. I'd already seen digital photos of Peribsen's stela at the British museum and noted the museum's website comments, "One of a pair which stood at the entrance to the king's tomb". Petries's book has a photo of the pair, for me the nicest find of all:
Yup! Meanwhile, it appears Yuma and Denver, where Carol lives, will be safe, at least from flooding. Who can tell what the future will really bring? All we can do is prepare as best able and just enjoy each moment we have. And we really enjoyed each moment of this weekend.
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