A Thing of Beauty

The above is a carved gemstone ring found in a Mycenaean tomb, (In 2015), dated to c. 1650 - 1500 B.C.E. It is believed that this gemstone came originally from the island of Crete. It is only about 1 and a half inch long in size.

The ring is an absolutely stunning example of fine detailed craftsmanship.

For a more detailed picture click on the photo.

Pierre Cloutier

Oh My Goddess!*

The Great Mother of Teotihuacan

A Note

Near Mexico City is the great ruin of the city of Teotihuacan, which was a major metropolitan centre from c. 0-650 C.E. The city with its quite impressive architecture and its two huge pyramids, one called the pyramid of the Sun, the other the Pyramid of the Moon, has been the object of much speculation and an enormous amount of spade work over the years. One of the perennial questions has been the nature of its chief God. Well it appears we have an answer its chief God was a Goddess.

Finding Odin



The God Odin



In several postings I have reffered to the works of Thor Heyerdahl and in particular I mentioned that he shortly before he died (2002) he published two books about his hunt for the “real” Odin.1 I also mentioned a devastating review that was published in 2002 shortly after his death, concerning Thor Heyerdahl’s efforts in this area. The review was originally published in Norwegian, but a English translation of the piece was put on the web. Sadly it appears that it is no longer obtainable on the web. I have therefore decided to post the piece in its entirety.

In a previous posting I quoted an author who said concerning Thor Heyerdahl:

Rather than classifying him [Thor Heyerdahl] as a pseudo historian it would be more fair and accurate to call him a careful scholar who sincerely holds some highly speculative hypotheses that are widely viewed as wrong.2

The idea that Thor Heyerdahl can be described as a "careful scholar" is actually quite risible as the following will show in abundance.

 

(In this piece my stuff is in italics, the rest in regular script)

The Fall of Rome

A Note on Britain

Late Roman British Villa

The Fall of Rome is considered one of the great mysteries of history. In fact Edward Gibbon wrote one of the great masterpieces of historical literature in his The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.1 In it Edward Gibbon says remarkably little about "big causes" of the decline and instead gives, in very great detail, a narrative of events regarding the fall.2