What are the Horns of Consecration? I mention them over and over in my mysteries. (In the shadow of the Bull and On the Horns of Death)
The horns, a symbolic representation of the horns of the sacred bull, were everywhere in Minoan Crete. They ranged in size from smaller ones that edged walkways and stairs to larger ones.
As I’ve discussed, one of the features of his culture was the bull leaping which, in my opinion, probably bridged sport and religion.
I met Mindy Quigley at Malice Domestic and, as usual, following my practice of reading something by every author I meet. I read Six Feet Deep Dish.
And what fun it was too.
Delilah O’Leary can’t wait to open her gourmet pizza restaurant in beautiful Geneva Bay, Wisconsin.. This has always been her dream. But the day before opening, her wealthy boyfriend dumps her, leaving her with an armful of bills.
Then, on opening night, Delilah finds her aunt’s caregiver Jeremy shot dead – and her aunt holding the gun.
To make matters worse, the detective, Calvin Capone (yes, the great grandson of THAT Capone) closes the restaurant while the investigation is ongoing. Needless to say, sparks fly between Delilah and Capone.
Written in a snappy style with several engaging characters – Delilah’s Aunt Biz is my favorite – this cozy is a treat.
Highly Recommended.
I read two books this past week, but will save the one for Heather Weidner. She is on the panel at Malice Domestic that I am moderating. I will blog about all four of those books at the same time.
Speaking of conferences, I read the first in a series of my table mate at the Suffolk Mystery Festival.
Home is where the murder is
is the first in the Hometown Mysteries series.
Tessa Tresswell returns to Idaho after a twenty year career in the armed forces. Although Tessa is struggling to adapt to civilian life, she enjoys working on fixing cars with her Aunt Edna. Her family hopes she will stay, but Tessa isn’t sure.
Then Tessa finds a dead body in the park. She doesn’t know Augie That but her family does; he claimed that their property, including the garage and the store, was half his.
To make matters worse, the sheriff just happens to be Tessa’s high school love.
When Aunt Edna is arrested, Tessa knows she will have to investigate and make sure justice is done.
Lots of fun at the same time it deals with a serious subject: returning vets. Highly Recommended.
Let me begin by saying that, although there are plenty of theories about burial practices, there are very few facts we know for certain. However, I gleaned what I could and imagined the rest. Since I write murder mysteries, I have to include something about funeral and burial practices.
Excavations have found human remains put in jars and secreted in caves but treatment of human remains began to transition to tombs. When Martis’s sister is interred In the Shadow of the Bull
I describe what I imagined the scene to look like: the giant stone covering the entrance and the remains of many family members in one tomb.
I also include in both the Crete books, the above and also On the Horns of Death
some other descriptions that might or might not be true.
A fresco from Crete show a musician playing a flute in front of what looks like a funeral cortege so I added that to my description. Martis carries gifts to add to the caskets: a small ship for her sister and a small clay figure of a bull for her friend. We know grave goods were included and during the Classical period, small ships were added to carry the departed over the River Styx. I theorized that this was a practice that began in the Bronze Age.
The professional mourners were also a feature in Classical Greece so I thought it was possible they were important before that era. I described them, in groups of a few to many depending on the wealth of the family, in both books.
Finally, I include a meal, a funeral dinner, if you will, connected to the services. I thought this was a reasonable supposition since, even now, food is offered to the mourners after a service. Descriptions of such meals are also part of Homer’s works so a decision to include them seemed safe.
I finished the L.A. Chandlar series (so far). I read the Pearl Dagger.
Lane and Finn continue their search for the heir to the Red Scroll gang – Daphne – following her to London. Lane meets Finn’s family and together they uncover the secret behind the accident that almost killed Finn.
A meeting in a pub also reveals the secret behind the pearl dagger.
I hope Chandlar writes a fourth since there are still loose ends remaining.
Lots of fun.
I also read The Murder in Trastevere by Jen Collins Moore.
Fran, an expat who has lived in Rome for ten years, has made it her mission to meet all the new expats. Her parties are legendary. But now her husband is divorcing her and running off to California with his new girlfriend. Now Fran is throwing a party for Rowena, who has achieved a promotion. But Rowena, a vegan, dies from poison and Fran is the prime suspect.
And someone is trying to kill her. She is pushed into the street right in front of a bus.
Finally, realizing she has to take charge of her own investigation, Fran begins to look into Rowena, her husband, her assistant and more. Along the way, Fran discovers who her real friends are.
Nicely framed around Frans study of Caraveggio, the investigation takes Fran all around Rome. I did not see the solution coming. Highly recommended.
In Greek legends, the Amazons were formidable women warriors who lived on the edge of the known world. Hercules had to obtain the magic girdle of the Amazonian queen Hippolyte in one of his 12 labours, and Achilles killed another queen, Penthesilea, only to fall in love with her when he saw her face. (Kind of ironic that.)
These horseback-riding, bow-wielding nomads, who fought and hunted just like men, have long been shrouded in myth. (Remember, one of the stories claims these fierce female warriors also cut off one breast so as to be able to shoot a bow more effectively.
Now archaeologists are discovering increasing evidence that they really did exist.
Excavations of graves within a bronze age necropolis in Nakhchivan in Akzbaijan revealed that women had been buried with weapons such as razor-sharp arrowheads, a bronze dagger and a mace, as well as jewellery.
These fearsome women from 4000 years ago were famed for their male-free society and their prowess on the battlefield, particularly with a bow and arrow. (The men were, according to one theory, out fighting themselves. To another, that the men were tending the herds.)
Recent issues of Archaeology Magazine and World Archaeology have discussed the excavations leading up to the conclusion that the women from the Caucasus could have been the legendary Amazons.
In 2019, the remains of four female warriors buried with arrowheads and spears were found in Russia and, in 2017, Armenian archaeologists unearthed the remains of a woman who appeared to have died from battle injuries, as an arrowhead was buried in her leg. In the early 1990s, the remains of a woman buried with a dagger were found near the Kazakhstan border.
Some of the skeletons reveal that the women had used bows and arrows extensively. Historian Bettany Hughes observed that “Their fingers are warped because they’re using arrows so much. Changes on the finger joints wouldn’t just happen from hunting. That is some sustained, big practice. What’s very exciting is that a lot of the bone evidence is also showing clear evidence of sustained time in the saddle. Women’s pelvises are basically opened up because they’re riding horses. [Their] bones are just shaped by their lifestyle.”
This is particularly interesting to me since current theory suggests patriarchy came from the steppes with the adoption of the horse. Maybe the story isn’t as cut and dried as it appears.
A documentary detailing some of these finds will be broadcast on the BBC in April. In it, Hughes visits the mountain village of Khinalig. This is the highest inhabited place in Europe. There has been a settlement there since the Bronze Age, and stories handed down through their generations tell of women who fought like men but covered their faces with scarves.
Women, it appears, enjoyed more varied lives in the ancient past than those brought about by patriarchy in our more recent cultural history.
The Gold Pawn in L. A. Chandler’s second Art Deco mystery, after The Silver Gun, and continues the story of Lane Sanders.
Lane continues investigating the mystery of her parents, as well as of their deaths. To do that, she travels to Rochester to visit her childhood home. But, once there, she experiences such a powerful and negative emotion that she rushes back to New York City. A banker, Mr. Hambro, has disappeared. Fio wants Lane to look into it.
Meanwhile Finn, on assignment in Great Britain, is learning more about Rex Ruby and the Red Scroll gang.
The action bounces back and forth as both Lane and Finn piece together the dangerous mobster and the possibility of an heir to him.
Lots of fun. I admire Chandler’s ability to keep the story light and amusing while underpinning the mystery with a serious nod to Jeyll and Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Since March is Women’s History month, I thought I would discuss the women of Bronze Age Crete. In my series, I chose to write about this advanced society from about 2600 to approximately 1100 B.C.E. where women played pivotal roles in religion, culture and possibly even the governing of the cities. (In my previous series, I had a male protagonist, a traveling weaver, because women had a much inferior role in the United States of the late 1700s. They couldn’t own property or vote and if their husbands died, their sons took on the responsibility for their care. I wrote about the Shakers extensively, however, since in that society, women were equal and shared equal power in governance of the community.)
Frescoes and artifacts unearthed portray women in positions of reverence and power, suggesting a society where gender roles were viewed differently from contemporaneous civilizations.
Religion was female-centric, with goddess worship at its core. The male figures were always pictured as smaller than a central and large female figure. Women – or priestesses – were often depicted with open arms in a gesture of divine power. I imagined them as influential figures, managing religious ceremonies and advising on state affairs.
Although the myths about Minos and the Minotaur are what we know today, one has to remember they were told by the Classical Greeks, a very patriarchal society. On Crete, real women likely held sway in the Minoan court. Administrative records and luxurious goods designed for female use display their influence, hinting at the wealth and status women enjoyed. I previously blogged about textiles and the elaborate clothing women wore.
Archaeological findings suggest that queens may have ruled alongside kings or even independently. The opulent grave goods of priestess-queens, often buried with symbols of power, reveal the respect and reverence these women commanded. I imagined a male consort who managed administrative details, under the Queen who was also the High Priestess.
The archeology suggests women’s influence extended beyond the spiritual realm into economics and craftsmanship. The intricately designed pottery, seal stones, and frescoes feature women in prominent roles. We know the intricate textiles, woven by the women, were traded all over the Aegean.
Emerging evidence further suggests that women in Minoan society received an education. In my books, I talk about the agoge, an initiation into society. I based it on what we know of the ancient Spartans who also educated their women. They spent a year minimum in a dorm with other women before marriage and children. (Boys, we think, went into a dorm at the age of seven.)
These ancient Minoans were a progressive culture ahead of its time.
Circles of Death by Marcia Talley is the twentieth book in her Hannah Ives series.
Noel, a young friend of Hannah’s, appeals to her for help. Noel and her sister both took a DNA test and discovered that, not only are they not sisters, but they are not related at all.
Hannah uses her genealogical skills to begin tracking down relatives of Noel’s. With those relatives, they can begin finding someone who might be able to shed some light on the mystery.
At the same time, Noel and Hannah look into the poisoning of several eagles nearby and discover a farm that is using a banned pesticide. The man Hannah suspects of using that pesticide is murdered, his body floating to her dock.
The twin investigations lead to a long ago murder. Although the identity of one of the murderers is not difficult to figure out, the identity of the other was a total surprise.
I’ve read that this might be the last of the Hannah Ives mysteries. I am sorry to hear it. I so enjoy spending time with her and her family and friends.
I am fascinated by words and language. I’m not sure if that is because I’m a big reader or I became a reader and eventually an author because of it.
In any event, when I began researching the Minoans for my latest series, (In the shadow of the Bull and On the Horns of Death),
I quickly ran into the question of these old, probably the oldest, written languages. Unlike the hieroglyphics, which were finally deciphered thanks to the Rosetta Stone, Linear A and B resisted decoding.
Linear A, which was used by the Minoans, still has not been deciphered. And Linear B was not deciphered until the 1950s. An Englishman from Hertfordshire, Michael Ventris, finally succeeded, using a multi-disciplinary approach.
Tablets with this writing have been found in Knossos and Pylos, as well as other places, and was very early on recognized as the earliest form of Greek. Deciphering changed the way we understand the Aegean Bronze Age, especially the complex societal structures and the far flung trade networks. Linear B has been determined to be a very early form of Greek
I suspect when Linear A is deciphered, it will include primarily trade information but we can hope it will open a window into this exotic and still mysterious culture.