Author Archives: Eleanor Kuhns

About Eleanor Kuhns

Librarian and Writer Published A Simple Murder, May 2012

Currently Reading

Posted on by

The first book I read this past week was The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths. I have read everything she has written and really enjoy her work. I read something that indicates this is the final Ruth Galloway and I am sorry to hear it. What a great series.

The body of a young woman is found behind a wall in a cafe. Nelson is called in to investigate and is horrified to learn this case involves his old friend Cathbad.

Ruth, besides her connection to Cathbad, also knows another suspect, a fellow researcher/lecturer. At the same time, her beloved archaeology department is under threat of being dissolved.

Another winner from Griffiths. And the on again, off again relationship with Nelson is finally resolved satisfactorily.

Cold Reign is number 11 in 15 Jane Yellowrock books. The European vamps are still slated to come to New Orleans, threatening Jane’s boss Leo Pellissier’s governance. But Clan Yellowrock (which includes besides Eli and Alex Younger, Edmund the primo vamp, Brute the werewolf, Bruiser) has a new scary threat. Vampires who’ve already died and been beheaded and buried are returning to life as revenants. Besides being superfast and difficult to kill, they have bottom fangs as well as top.

At the same time, magical lightning storms are plaguing the city. And Ricky-Bo, the were leopard who broke Jane’s heart, is back on the scene.

Another winner in this great urban fantasy series.

Thera/ Santorini

Posted on by

What led to the end of the Minoan culture? As you might expect, there are several theories. War? Invasion? Natural Disaster? The current favorite is a combination of the final two.

The Mediterranean basin has, in a sense, its own small ring of fire. Because the African tectonic plate is colliding with the western portion of the Eurasian plate, the area is subject to earthquakes and to volcanoes. Two famous volcanoes are situated in Italy: Vesuvius and Etna. Both have erupted more than once during human history. Think Pompeii.

Next to Crete is a small island named Thera but now called Thera. In ancient times, it was a small circular island with a caldera in the center. Santorini now looks quite different, more like a comma with another piece a short distance away. Thera is the site of a volcano which blew in approximately 1450 B.C.E. It blew out the center of the island, depositing ash as far away as Turkey and causing a tsunami that, it is theorized, swamped the boats of the Minoan Navy. (This is where the second part – invasion – comes in. The Cretan society would have been seriously damaged and in disarray after such a catastrophe and would have been easy pickings for the early Mainland Greeks.)

This volcano is still active. It is under the ocean but continues to erupt, sending lava to the surface. The small piece separated from the larger island? It is now growing as the lava pushed up from below cools and is added to the baby island. Walking on the black volcanic stone is a strange feeling.

A cataclysm of such magnitude would not be easily forgotten. In fact it has been suggested, by Velikovsky and others, that this explosion was the germ of the Atlantis tale. Plato wrote about Atlantis and Velikovsky suggested the dimensions from Atlantis fit Crete if divided by 100.

Currently Reading

Posted on by

I finished The Secrets of Hartwood Hall.

This reminded me of the romantic suspense that was popular a number of years ago. With that said, the ending was quite different than it would have been in one of those books. I did not guess the mystery at all. It was fun, although I thought it was longer than it needed to be.

I also read Murder under a Red Moon by Harini Nagenra.

This is her second book (after the Bangalore Detectives Club ) and I really hope she continues with this series. Kaveri is a great character and this mystery is even better than the last. The setting (India in the 1920s) is very well drawn and she adds a dose of social commentary. In this one, she includes a few recipes, and not a common curry either. Truly excellent.

Labyrinths, part 2

Posted on by

Is there a kernel of truth to the legend of the Minotaur? We already know there are many theories regarding the location of a labyrinth as described in the Greek myth. One theory mentioned previously is the complicated floor plan of the Knossos palace complex. Many of the Achaeans, the early mainland Greeks, would have come from halls with much fewer rooms so it is possible they saw the complicated and many roomed palace and were overwhelmed.

. A fragment of a floor with a labyrinth has been found during the excavation at Knossos. Was it decoration? Or something more? No one knows.

Or perhaps the maze as described in the myth hasn’t been found. Pieces of tablets from Knossos, talk about a place with a labyrinth. So far, no one knows where that might be. Or even if it was a different location.

What about the minotaur, a bull-headed man? Considering the number of ancient cultures who used masks to represent animals and/or Gods, it doesn’t take much imagination to guess a man wearing a mask played the part of the Minotaur in religious rites. Bulls were very important; sacred in fact in this Bronze Age culture.

Finally, we come to the core of the Theseus and Minotaur myth. The tribute of young men and women were chased through the labyrinth and consumed. The Minoans have the reputation for being a peaceful society. It is probably true that, because they were an island with an excellent Navy, they were well defended from outside invaders. But certain finds have suggested this society was not as peaceful as it appears to us now. Bones of children mixed in with the bones of bovines and sheep, and bearing the same cut marks, suggest they were eaten as the animals were. Were these ancient Cretans cannibals? Was eating human flesh part of their religious rites?

Another finding suggests human sacrifice. Three bodies, crushed by falling debris during an earthquake, seem to indicate the sacrifice of a young man by a priest. Many cultures sacrificed to appease the Gods. However, if they were sacrificing this young man to prevent an earthquake, they left it to late.

Currently Reading – and More

Posted on by

I read only one and a half books this week, but for a good reason. U received the edits for the second in the Bronze Age Crete Mysteries, On the Horns of Death. No cover or pub date yet.

The Lindbergh Nanny. by Mariah Fredericks, tells the story of the kidnapping, but from the perspective of the baby’s nanny. Although the first few chapters are a little slow moving, it picks up and by the time the kidnapping happens. the book is captivating. The characters, Ollie and Elsie Whately who also help in the Lindbergh household, and the various members of the people below stairs are well drawn and memorable. Although I knew who the kidnapper was, I followed along as Betty tried to determine the inside man.

I can only imagine how much research the author had to do. Fact and fiction are well woven together so it is impossible to tell the difference. (I appreciated the author’s note at the back.) Charles Lindbergh does not come off very well, among other things, he was a Nazi sympathizer. The depiction of celebrity was terrifying. This book deserved its nomination for the Agatha Award.

The second book is The Secrets of Harwood Hall.

The one is more suspense, at least so far. Mrs. Lennox, a young widow, takes a post as governess for a young boy, Louis. From the first, she has questions. Why such a small staff? Why does the family never go to the village? What business is the mistress of the house engaged in?

Then she is awakened late one night. Thinking Louis needs her, she goes out into the hall and follows someone or something creeping through the house. I am looking forward to finishing this captivating story.

Labyrinths

Posted on by

The word labyrinth is from Bronze Age Crete. Labrys refers to the double-headed axe used in religious rituals. It definitely was not a tool. Labyrinth did not refer to a maze. (Perhaps to a place of labors?)

The labyrinth in Knossos was made famous in the Theseus and Minotaur myth. To recap, Athens was required to send fourteen kids (seven girls and seven boys) to Crete to be consumed by the bull-headed monster the Minotaur. The monster is confined to a maze underneath the city so that neither he, nor the tributes, can escape. Theseus, the son of the Athens’ King, is included in one of the tributes. Ariadne, King Minos’ daughter, falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of string and a sword. Theseus successfully kills the Minotaur and uses the string to find his, and the other captives, out of the maze.

Was there a maze under Knossos? It is true that Crete is a nation of mountains and caves. Perhaps there was, exactly as the myth describes, and through the years the earthquakes and of course the volcanic explosion of Thera on Santorini has erased it.

Another theory posits that the interlocking rooms of the palace in Knossos, which comprised workshops, storage rooms, meeting rooms as well as apartments, was the original labyrinth.

Current excavations, however, have turned up a floor mosaic of a maze, as well as a fragment of pottery decorated with a maze. So, mazes were important to this society.

This is not unlikely, Mazes have been found in other long ago societies. A maze carved into rock has been found near Tintagel, Cornwall and spirals carved into rock at Newgrange. One author makes the claim that Glastonbury Tor is a maze.

Why Mazes? Were they a metaphor for birth and renewal? A quest to reach the center as a symbol of finding enlightenment? Or did the mazes in Ancient Crete have some religious purpose we don’t yet know?

On thing we can be sure of: a Minotaur did not sit at the center to eat the tributes for Athens.

Currently Reading

Posted on by

This week I read two books.

One might be surprising: Number the Stars by Lois Lowry. I remember reading this many years ago, Now my fourth grade grandson had read it so I reread it so I could talk about it with him. What an amazing book! It rightfully deserved the Newbery Award it won.

In Denmark, 1943, there are German soldiers on the corners. Annemarie Johansen is ten, living with her parents and five year old sister in Copenhagen. Denmark, a small country and with a small army, surrendered to Germany. Annemarie does not consider the war very much until the parents of her best friend Ellen Rosen are told in the synagogue that the Germans are planning to round up all the Jews and ‘relocate’ them. While Ellen’s parents disappear, Ellen comes to stay with Annemarie. The first night, the soldiers come searching for them and threaten Annemarie’s parents too.

Annemarie’s mother, Inge, takes the girls to her brother’s farm on the coast where Henrik is one of the fishermen who smuggle the Jews to Sweden. This book brought me to tears more than once. I appreciated it even more as an adult than as a child.

The second book is The Way of the Bear by Anne Hillerman.

Bernie is hiking at Bears Ears National Park while Chee has some business nearby. While hiking, she spots some vandalism of some old petroglyphs and falls into a trench. As she climbs out, a pickup truck chases her and someone shoots at her from the cab.

Bernie is already blue. She lost a coveted promotion to detective and also miscarried. Chee finds he has to stay longer since the big donor he was supposed to meet with has disappeared. The body of an unknown man, murdered, is found shot to death on the driveway. And the body of another man, a paleontologist, is found shot in the wilds.

An intriguing mystery with an ending I did not see coming. Although I feel Tony Hillerman’s books were more interesting and unique, his daughter is just as respectful of this culture and her books are very good. Definitely worth reading!

Status of women in Bronze Age Crete

Posted on by

One of the topics that came up regularly in my research concerned the status of women. Was this a matriarchal society that worshipped a Goddess? Did the women enjoy high status?

Here is what we know. The murals and the seals portray many women and on the seals the female figure is several times larger than the male figure.

As one might expect, scholars differed on the question. Some of the early archaeologists assert that women could not have had such high status because, well, they were women. How then to explain the prevalence of women in the murals? How to explain the large female figure in the seals?

One explanation is that this culture worshipped a Goddess, along with other Gods such as Poseidon and Dionysus. But the worship of a feminine Goddess did not translate into high status for women in general.

The discussion continues today with the disagreement over the gender of the bull leapers. A famous mosaic depicts both white and red figures jumping over the bull. Some scholars posit that the white figures were female, following the Egyptian fashion of painting male and female figures different colors. This theory is supported by the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in which seven girls and seven boys are sent to Knossos from Athens as tribute.

In my opinion, and based on the evidence offered by the mosaics, the seals and the myth ( the mainland Greeks tried to portray the Minoans in as negative light as possible), I believe women enjoyed a high status in this culture. Goddess worship is almost universally accepted.

Right or wrong, that is how I envision this culture in my mystery, In the Shadow of the Bull.

Currently Reading

Posted on by

This past week I read Shadow Rites, Number ten in the Jane Yellowrock series and The Fourth Enemy by Anne Perry.

Shadow Rites opens with a bang. Jane wakes to a magical green fog sweeping through the house and her hand hurting. She awakens her partner Eli Younger and they go out. Jane senses two witches bespelling her house.

Not long after, she is summoned to Vamp HQ, where she is attacked by Gee, the Mercy Blade. Jane is almost killed. Seeing Gee’s eyes are green, and a similar green eye in the palm of her left hand, alerts her to a magic spell.

It is particularly important nothing interrupt the conference between the witches and the vampires in preparation for the arrival of the European vamps.

Another winner.

I also read The Fourth Enemy by Anne Perry.

Daniel Pitt’s friend Ian Frobisher confides in Daniel that the police are investigating Malcolm Vayne, a wealthy philanthropist who Frobisher believes is engaged in an elaborate pyramid scheme. They do not have enough evidence to arrest him – and they they do a few days later.

At the same time, Miriam becomes deeply involved in the suffrage movement and sees up close the efforts of those who would keep women in their place.

At its core, this book is about courage; the courage to confront the wealthy and powerful or the courage to fight the status quo.

Another enjoyable read. But a bittersweet one since Perry recently passed away (at the age of 84) and there will be no more mysteries from her.

Sophisticated Ancient Crete

Posted on by

The society in Bronze Age Crete was extremely sophisticated. Besides toilets with running water, they had bathtubs. (found during digs).The mosaics and frescos with which they decorated their homes were expertly done and elegant. Examples of their jewelry, sculpture, metal working found in the digs display expertise. Rytons (drinking vessels) in the shape of bulls’ heads, bull dancers as they fly over a bull’s back – both types of works have been found. Gold seals with the bull and/or the Goddess have been found among the burial goods in mainland Greece as well as other places so we know that trade was going on and that these goods were valued. Crete had a robust trade in pottery, which has been found all over the Mediterranean including in Egypt.

It seems also as though when the Achaeans expanded into Crete, after the society was severely wounded by the explosion of the nearby volcano, they copied the jewelry, buildings, and religious beliefs.

Greece has been called the cradle of the theater (and probably poetry as well.) The God connected with the theater and the one who is credited with inventing it is Dionysus. He is a very old God and his name has been discovered in the texts. (Linear B was deciphered in the fifties. Linear A is still a mystery. Linear B was a very early form of Greek. But I digress.) So, if any culture can be praised for the invention of the performing arts, it would be this Bronze Age society on Crete.theater