Wednesday, August 21, 2013
"Luminous Mystery"
6:51pm

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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.


Color Test

Planning Stage

Finished Stage

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 Perfect Weekend"
5:38am

It really was a perfect weekend. Saturday began with basic tasks. I finally cleared the stuff off the sewing machine table in the library, and straightened things up a bit in there. We did the usual grocery shopping and then turned in the PO Box keys, getting a whole two dollar refund for the remaining couple of weeks left on its rental.

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."

That got me off and looking for the tomb of Mena. By now, that tomb's occupant is given another name, Aha, I think. But that brought up a book by W. M. F. P., aka Petrie. Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty, Part II did indeed feature illustrations of ivory bulls' legs.

There were two in perfect shape, however Petrie identifies them as being from the tomb of Zer-ta:

By matching up the serekhs with a more recently photographed example, I find today's Egyptologists refer to this king as DJER, who was buried at what we now call Umm el Qa'ab in Abydos.

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???

The leg identified as that from Semerkhet's tomb is in the first part of 'Royal Tombs', along with another ivory leg, on plate XII. Also, Geoffrey Killen, who wrote _Egyptian Woodworking and Furniture_ spoke of "a fine example" at Fitzwilliam museum. The Fitzwilliam museum doesn't have a photo of their acc. #E.46.1900, but do note it belonged to Djer . Also, they have another leg, #E.47.1900, tomb not identified.

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:

Yes, a 'geek' like me loves the research! But that's not all I enjoyed this weekend. We had a very lovely visit with Carol, a friend we haven't seen in quite a few years. We had delightful conversations. Carol, too, loves to research things, and has applied that to her career as a geological engineer. She was able to further explain those worrisome illustrations in the National Geographic magazine of the submerged lands. There are two operating factors present. Not only are the sea waters rising, the land surface is falling. All the drilling for oil creates a vacuum when the oil is removed. That vacuum causes the land to settle down, taking up the empty space.

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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