Jeff—Saturday
I bet there are very few of us who don’t have a metaphorical
skeleton or two hanging around in some closet. Just look at the US Presidential
candidates. Those two have skeletons
dancing all over the place. Though to be fair, one candidate looks to have far
more skeletons haunting it than the other, while the other seems hell bent on
becoming a skeleton to haunt us all.
I’ll let you work out the appropriate labels for yourselves.
Prescinding from any further discussion of politics, I think
we can all agree it’s truly rare when a “skeleton in the closet” turns out to
actually exist.
Well, once again Greece has astounded the world.
This week, world newspapers reported on an archaeological
find disclosed by Greece’s Minister of Culture. The headline in Ekathimerini—Greece’s equivalent of The New York Times—read, “Ancient
Teenage Skeleton Unearthed on Mountaintop Could Confirm Darkest Greek Legend.” Here’s a photo of the discovery.
That headline caught my eye, because up until that moment I
thought the darkest Greek legend was being written this year on Mykonos. Just goes to show what I knew.
That discovery undoubtedly will further fuel a long raging
debate over the role of classical writings in evaluating archaeological
evidence. And here’s why (quoting from Ekathimerini):
“Excavators say it’s too early to speculate on the nature
of the teenager’s death but the discovery is remarkable because the remote
Mount Lykaion [in central Peloponnese] was for centuries associated with the
most nefarious of Greek cults: Ancient writers — including Plato — linked it
with human sacrifice to Zeus, a practice which has very rarely been confirmed
by archaeologists anywhere in the Greek world and never on mainland Greece.”
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| A dig site on Mount Lykaion |
Human Sacrifice in Greece! Wow,
imagine all the stories that will spawn. Forget Game of Thrones and vampires, a whole new genre of Hellenic Horror
fiction awaits!
This is not the first time archaeologists have unearthed
what’s been claimed to be evidence of human sacrifice here, but alternative
explanations always seemed to spring up to send those theories off into the
shadows, and supporting literary references were dismissed as just that—fiction;
even though archaeologists such as the legendary Heinrich Schliemann used Homer
and Virgil as engines for some of his most spectacular discoveries.
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| Heinrich Schliemann |
What makes this week’s announcement so remarkable is that
the literary and physical evidence appears to strongly support one another.
According to legend, a boy was sacrificed with the
animals and all the meat was cooked and eaten together. Whoever ate the human
part would become a wolf for nine years.
“Several ancient literary sources mention rumours that human sacrifice took place at the altar, but up until a few weeks ago there has been no trace whatsoever of human bones discovered at the site,” said excavator David Gilman Romano, professor of Greek archaeology at the University of Arizona.
“Whether it’s a sacrifice or not, this is a sacrificial altar ... so it’s not a place where you would bury an individual. It’s not a cemetery,” Romano told The Associated Press.
“Several ancient literary sources mention rumours that human sacrifice took place at the altar, but up until a few weeks ago there has been no trace whatsoever of human bones discovered at the site,” said excavator David Gilman Romano, professor of Greek archaeology at the University of Arizona.
“Whether it’s a sacrifice or not, this is a sacrificial altar ... so it’s not a place where you would bury an individual. It’s not a cemetery,” Romano told The Associated Press.
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| Zeus on His Altar on Mount Lykaion (Giovanni Tiepolo) |
For those of you interested in reading more on the discovery
here’s a link to the AP story appearing in The Guardian.
If your interests run more to human sacrifice of the
political sort, just turn on any television, anytime, anywhere.
I’m off to find a legend of my own. She arrives Monday. :)
—Jeff
