The woman who nearly cracked Linear B

Early on in my pagan/Classical studies (they were all mushed together for me), I came across Linear B and got hooked. I’m really not sure why, but I do love languages, and mysteries. I even got a word in Linear B tattooed on the back of my neck (di-pi-si-jo-i, or the thirsty ones, a reference to the dead). Linear B is the written language of the Mycenaeans, a sort of proto-Greek written out syllabically, which was not deciphered until the 1950′s – by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, as I’d always heard it (and I read Chadwick’s book). But turns out that a woman actually set the stage for that decipherment, a woman whose story was mostly forgotten, not surprisingly. My father just sent me this article from the New York Times, and it’s worth a read:

Alice E. Kober, 43, Lost to History No More

I do love obsessive people.

England Miscellany

This will be my last England post – just a random collection of photos that didn’t fit into any of the previous posts, but I wanted to share:

from the Lewis chessmen, British Museum

Roman bearded snake figure, British Museum

mask/face carved in bone, from the Ice Age Art exhibit, British Museum

taxidermied pink fairy armadillo, Natural History Museum (I’ve posted on this before, it’s a magically ridiculous creature)

tree pangolin taxidermy, Natural History Museum

Victorian case of dozens of taxidermied hummingbirds, Natural History Museum

Artisan gallery in Chagford, where I stopped to see Rima Staines‘ work in person

inside Merlin’s Cave, Tintagel

looking out from Merlin’s Cave, Tintagel

Bacchus Hotel and Bistro Bar, Salisbury (we did not stay or eat there, it looked pretty sketchy)

Tomb in Salisbury Cathedral, covered in very old carved grafitti

rooks at Stonehenge

one of the awesome sculptures along the Animal Wall, Cardiff Castle

Orpheus charms Cerberus at the entrance to the Underworld, Ashmolean Museum

The Eagle and Child Pub, where C.S. Lewis and Tolkien used to meet, Oxford

accordionist busking on May Day, Oxford

Animal jewelry, c. 1870 – earrings made of taxidermied bird heads, necklace of monkey teeth – Museum of Childhood, London

Statue of Eros, Piccadilly Circus, London

West Wycombe

Our final stop of the trip, West Wycombe, was an unusual one, and I’m lucky my mother indulged me to go there. I had discovered something quite remarkable in my planning research – the same crazy rich 18th century baron responsible for the notorious Hellfire Caves (already on my list of potential places to visit) also owned the estate on which the very first scene of my most cherished favorite movie, Labyrinth, was filmed. (There will be a post on my Girls Underground blog very soon about that – I found the exact spot where Sarah says her opening lines, and it was awesome.) He also had a bunch of those pseudo-Greek temples and Classical statuary that were so popular amongst the elite at the time. Of course, I had to go there.

This is Sir Francis Dashwood. Looks like a fun fellow, eh?

While we waited for the caves to open, we climbed up the hill to see the Mausoleum, another wonderful product of Dashwood’s money and insanity. There’s a 13th century church behind it, because there always seems to be a 13th century church wherever you go in England (seriously, that seems to be all that they did that century – build churches, and amazingly so many have survived and are still in use).

Then back down to the caves entrance, appropriately grand and kind of intentionally ruined-looking, even if the effect is somewhat marred by the cafe tables and umbrellas outside.

I dragged my mother into the dark underground passages of the “caves” – really manmade chalk excavations – where the infamous Hellfire Club held their pagan-ish and possible licentious meetings. That is, until one practical joke gone wrong ruined everything. According to a descriptive plaque in the caves:

The Club flourished until 1763 when it broke up owning to political disagreements and the famous baboon incident. John Wilkes had dressed up the baboon, which Sir Henry Vansittart had brought from India, to look like the devil and had hidden it in a box in the Chapel at Medmendham Abbey. When he let it out, the poor animal jumped onto the back of Lord Sandwich, who cried out, “Spare me, gracious devil: thou knowest I was only fooling. I am not half as wicked as I pretended.” Both then rushed out of the chapel in a panic.

I seriously wish I could have partied with these guys.

The place was filled with cheesy lifesize dioramas with tinned dialogue playing over them (including one featuring Benjamin Franklin, who was apparently friends with these folks and visited), which was fun in its way, but I was really there for one thing: the grand hall. The low-ceilinged passages suddenly open up into a large circular cavern, with niches running along the walls containing statues of Greek gods. In particular, one amazing, moss-covered statue of Dionysos I have long loved – I even have a photo of it on His shrine. And now I have my own photographs.

  

There were also statues of Venus, and a great one of Herakles that cast a creepy shadow on the wall behind it.

  

Later in the journey through the caves, we were looped around the back of the cavern, and found ourselves looking into it from behind one of the statues of Venus, which was kind of eerie.

After the caves, we went to see Dashwood’s estate, and to find the spot from Labyrinth. It’s a gorgeous property.

Temple of Music (you can see the mausoleum rising up behind it)

two sleeping women bookend the rushing stream

Temple of Venus, with “grotto” room built into the hill below it

Temple of Daphne

The house, which was closed that day.

sphinx outside the Temple of Diana

Temple of Apollo

And, more Bacchus/Dionysos!

   

All this on one man’s estate. Impressive. I think I would have liked him.

Wistman’s Wood

Aside from May Day in Oxford, the highlight of my trip was Wistman’s Wood in Dartmoor. This is a small, ancient copse of gnarled oak trees and moss-covered boulders, associated in local legend with the Wisht hounds, black dogs of the Wild Hunt. Armed with somewhat shoddy directions from the internet, and the more useful directive of the man at the nearby hotel to just follow the Dart River the whole way, we set off on the moor.

 

We looked all around in the distance for the wood, tentatively identifying a smudge on the landscape that seemed much too far away – but we were to discover that distance can be deceiving out there. As we neared it and became more sure of our destination, a heavy mist descended, further obscuring the copse. In fact, it wasn’t until we were right upon it that we could see it clearly – and then it was if no fog existed at all, and the brilliant greens of moss and lichen emerged.

   

You’ll notice in the picture above – even though I felt I was standing perfectly vertically, and my mother had the camera straight… somehow everything is at an angle. Really captures the feeling of the whole place.

I took a few moments by myself and sat in the natural shelter made by some of the boulders (below). Someone else had felt drawn to this spot recently, as there was a single daffodil laid there like an offering. I made my own offering, which turned out to be unexpectedly powerful. While it had the air of forboding common in such numinous places, I would have stayed there much longer, but some German tourists came along (and immediately, one of them slipped and fell rather badly), and I felt it best to move on.

  

On the way back, I too slipped and fell in a way that would have been rather bad (could have easily sprained an ankle) if I hadn’t thought fast enough to let myself fall properly, avoiding injury but not a bit of pain (and mud). I considered it my sacrifice to the spirits of the place. In return, I picked up a rock I found nearby (not in the wood itself, which did not feel right), that turned out to be very alive, and became both a companion and helper spirit for the rest of the trip.

We saw tracks and scat from several animals out there on the moor, but the only ones we saw in the flesh were the numerous sheep grazing about. This last one came through a hole in the stone wall to watch us as we passed.

 

Already I find that when I think of my trip, and all the many amazing sights we saw, I keep coming back over and over again to Wistman’s Wood. I hope someday to spend much more time there, and in the surrounding area. It was deeply powerful.

Glastonbury

Ah, Glastonbury. It reminded me a bit of Eugene, actually – if Eugene had a 7th century monastery and world-renowned holy well and other neat stuff like that. But it was the first place I went in England where there were dreadlocked white people and Tibetan clothing shops, and that made me feel at home. It’s got that cheesy pagan veneer like Salem, Mass., but more hippy and less witchy.

case in point

this is guy is busking with a HARP – seriously awesome

pretty impressive mural down a side alley

In addition to the many shops filled with mass-produced pagan-ish trinkets, there were some halfway decent bookstores, and also a hell of a lot of taxidermy, which was a pleasant surprise.

This is a great shelf of merchandise

so jealous – you can’t have any of these in the U.S.

The store pictured above turned out to be a jackpot for me – I procured a dried crow’s foot (which I can legally possess because it is a carrion crow rather than American crow, and not on the prohibited species list), and a flute made from a sheep’s bone (which is going immediately in my spirit-work kit, but also may serve as a model if I want to try making my own).

Then of course, there’s the ruined abbey, which is beautiful:

note: another beautiful day

the tour guides dress in medieval garb, I was kind of embarrassed for them

And the Chalice Well – one of those places (like the Tor) where I don’t really care what the origin of it was, it’s been imbued with so much power over the centuries from believers, it has mojo either way. I took a small bottle of water back with me.

water with high iron content stains everything red

the well itself is surprisingly modestly tucked into a pleasant garden setting

And finally, the Tor. Of all the legends associated with this place, part of what drew me was that it was said to be a gateway to the realm of Gwyn ap Nudd. But admittedly, surrounded by tourists on the very windy peak, I mostly just found it beautiful.

the tower of a church might seem like an annoying encroachment on an earlier pagan site, but it does add some drama to the landscape

looking out from the tower

Interesting to be in a place that has such deep spiritual meaning for so many people, but not really for myself. Everywhere you looked there were circles of folks meditating together earnestly. I admit I can be snarky at times about stuff like that, but at least it’s a hell of a lot better than most ways modern people spend their time.

Stone Circles

We saw two stone circles while in England, in very different contexts. We went back and forth on this one a bit during the planning process, but decided we really ought to see Stonehenge – even though it’s roped off now. I won’t show a million photos since you’ve all seen it before, but it was pretty impressive (although a bit smaller in diameter than I expected), and we had good weather (actually we were lucky in that regard for the whole trip) so here are a few nice ones:

   

But for me, the more powerful experience was a set of much smaller, more modest stone circles we found near Bodmin Moor in Cornwall, called The Hurlers. It was a fiercely windy day on the moor, but we had it all to ourselves for a brief time (other than the grazing cows), and we could get much closer and more personal with the stones.

    

 

There is definitely energy in this place, and deep, deep history, and stunning, solitary beauty.

Dionysos at the British Museum

The British Museum was definitely one of the highlights for me. I mean, it’s the British Museum. Home of the Rosetta Stone, the Sutton Hoo hoard, the Lewis chessmen, the Elgin Marbles (grumble grumble) and a ton of other famous artefacts. I even got to see a special exhibit on Ice Age art, which was incredible.

How could you not be excited walking into this?

But it really ended up being all about Dionysos for me. I found Him everywhere – mosaics, vases, sculptures, masks…. it was like a sacred treasure hunt. Here are some of the pieces I saw:

Hellenistic mask. Has always been one of my favorites.

Bas-relief of mainadic procession

East pediment of the Parthenon

statue

Hermes and Dionysos from the Parthenon Frieze (inset: 3-D model reconstruction)

Red-figured calyx-krater with the madness of Lycurgus (hovering above the scene: Lyssa, personification of madness) – Apulia, c. 350 BC.

Red-figure vase, mainad and satyr

Red-figure vase

Black-figured amphora: Dionysos and Ikarios – Athens, c. 540 BC.

Black-figured amphora: Dionysos and Ikarios – Athens, c. 540 BC.

Black-figured plate

Kyathos (drinking cup)

Black-figured amphora

Red-figured cup

Supposedly Dionysos holding a drinking horn (maybe featuring mainads?), which for some reason has been cut down

I believe this is a faun with the baby Dionysos.

The Leadenhall Street Mosaic, early Roman Britain: Bacchus riding a tiger

Etruscan mirror: Fufluns (Etruscan Dionysos) revelling with Eros and a seilenos, 250-150 BC

Etruscan mirror: Fufluns holding a thyrsos, supported by Eros, with a mainad, 250-150 BC

Colossal limestone mask of Dionysos, Cyprus, 100 BC – 100 AD

The mask above might have been my favorite, just because it is possible it was used in cultus as one of those big mask idols draped in ivy, and because it was BIG. To show you the scale, here I am happily standing beside it: