Currently Reading – and More

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

Currently Reading

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I was on vacation the last two weeks, coming back to summer. Although we were at Disney World, with all the busyness that suggests, I did read a lot.

The Unsettling Crime . . . by Terry Shames was the first of her books I read. And it was very very good. So good I have already ordered the first one in the series.

In this one, Craddock, a very young lawman in Texas, gets pulled into the execution style murders of a black family squatting nearby. No one will talk to him, When a friend from ‘Darktown’ is arrested by another agency, Craddock jumps in with both feet to free the innocent man and see justice done. A+

Another excellent mystery is Deborah Crombie’s A Killing of Innocents.

A young woman, a doctor in training, hurries across London. A man bumps into her, and a few steps later Sasha collapses and dies on the sidewalk. Who could possibly want to kill her? The roots of the crime are hidden in the past. Another stellar mystery.

Julia Kydd leaves London for New York City and her half-brother. Phillip controls her inheritance but she is due to receive it in a few weeks when she turns twenty-five. But Phillip has begun a legal case designed to show their father did not intend to leave half his estate to her. The murder of a suffragette offers Julia the chance to prove the death was murder and thus win a wager, and her inheritance, with her brother. Only the case proves much more involved than Julia could have guessed. Another great mystery.

Saffron Everleigh wants to be a botanist like her father but in the 1920s it is a struggle. But when her mentor, Dr. Maxwell, is accused of poisoning the wife of another academic, Saffron jumps in to prove his innocence, She almost dies trying. Light, frothy and with a dash of romance.

In 1920s Bangalore, the British are still a formidable presence. Kaveri’s husband Ramu is a doctor; they are invited to the Century Club for a mixed gathering. A man is found stabbed to death outside. That sends Kaveri on a hunt for the murderer.

Charming, joyful, exotic. I loved this book.

Finally, I read number fourteen of the Hannah Ives series and it is another winner. Hannah and her husband Paul buy a small cottage on the shore, While the renovations are going on, the mummified corpse of a baby is found hidden in the chimney. Hannah begins investigating, trying to determine the identity of the baby and understand exactly what happened. One of Talley’s strengths is weaving in serious subjects (in this case, racism) and still keeping the book fun and not too dark.

On to fifteen.

Theseus

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Bull leaping is probably one of the most well-known -if not the most well-known – image of the Minoan civilization. Most people believe the account written in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. It is important to remember the Greeks (the Mycenae and forward) borrowed a lot from other cultures. The civilization on Crete was very important. With that said, the Minoan civilization was Goddess centered while the Mycenae were patriarchal and that made a huge difference in how the invaders viewed the rites and rituals they saw.

In the Theseus myth, Minos exacts a tribute from Athens of 7 young men and 7 maidens to face the bull and perform bull-leaping. Minos’s daughter Ariadne falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of string to find his way through the labyrinth under the city and kill the Minotaur, (The creation of this beast is another story). Theseus does so, thereby freeing himself and the other tributes from Crete. He takes Ariadne with him but abandons her on another island. Great guy. She lands on her feet, though. Dionysus finds her there and marries her.

While tributes may have been pressed into service as bull-leapers, the bull-leaping was an integral part of the religious ceremonies. The bull was a sacred animal and the Cretan youth performed. Secondly, although there are caves, there are no labyrinths underneath Knossos and it is thought the pattern of building residences – all interlinked and connecting rooms – gave rise to the myth of a labyrinth.

And although labyrinth now means maze, the labys (the root of the word) was the iconic Cretan double axe. It had nothing to do with mazes.

Since the Classical Greeks seem to have been a dour lot, the ending of Theseus’ journey home has a sad ending. He’d told his father if he succeeded, and still lived, he would change the ship’s sails to white. But Theseus forgot so his father, seeing the black sails, thought his son had died. King Aegeus committed suicide

Currently Reading

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The first book I read was a novella by Gigi Pandien: The Lost Gargoyle of Paris. This is a spin off of the Accidental Alchemist, and I liked it so much I am now going to read the Accidental Alchemist series right from the beginning.

A sketch of a gargoyle, supposedly by Victor Hugo, and a journal by one of the stonemasons has been found at Notre Dame after the fire. Zoe Faust and her gargoyle sidekick journey to Paris to investigate the drawing. Then the sketch is stolen. How could that happen with such tight security?

Fun and charming.

I reread Styx and Stone by James Siskin, remembering how much I enjoyed this series.

Ellie Stone’s father is attacked. Ellie races to New York City and discovers a nest of secrets among the renowned scholars of Columbia University. The police at first think it is a random mugging but Ellie soon proves it was attempted murder.

Finally, I read A Mansion for Murder by Frances Brody. I’ve read quite a few of this author’s books and enjoyed them all. Lo

Ronnie Cresswell’s letter draws Kate Shackleton to Milner Field and the great house said to be cursed. But when Kate arrives, it is to hear the devastating news that Ronnie has been found drowned. Ronnie’s father is convinced it was murder and the postmortem proves him right. Then his younger sister Nancy goes missing.

Ancient Crete and the Minotaur

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While researching Bronze Age Crete and Greece for my mystery series: First book – In the Shadow of the Bull – I spent a lot of time reading the Greek myths.

Most of us have at least a passing knowledge of the Greek myths. These are from the Classical period, a millennia at least from the heyday of Bonze Age Crete. That does not mean, however, that Crete was not hugely influential in these myths.

Take the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, for example. Here’s the backstory. The Greeks revered Zeus. Poseidon wanted to be honored too so he sent a white bull to Minos, the King of Crete. Minos’s wife Parsiphae fell in love with the bull. She tasked Daedalus (yes, the inventor with the wax wings whose son was Icarus) to build a special wooden box in the shape of a cow. Once inside the box, she had intercourse with the bull. Nine months later she bore a half-man, half-bull. The Minotaur.

The myth reeks of patriarchy and a desire to, in modern parlance, throw shade on Cretan beliefs.

First, in Crete Zeus was not the primary God. He was an upstart, more akin to a harvest God, who died and was reborn.

We also don’t know if Crete had a King. Certainly it was a goddess centered, matrilineal culture. Many archeologists have assumed Crete had kings, but for decades these archeologists were men. Men, moreover, who lived with a strongly patriarchal structure. It is possible the Priestess’s consort acted as a wanax, or governor. Kingships came with the Mycenaeans, i.e. the mainland Greeks who finally occupied Crete.

Several ancient cultures revered the bull or, in Indo-Europe (the steppes) the horse. One of the rites was mock intercourse with this symbol of fertility by the Queen/Priestess. This act was supposed to guarantee good crops, lots of livestock and of course healthy children for the coming year.

But what about the Minotaur?

Well, many many ancient and not so ancient cultures employ masks in religious rites. Animals are a frequently the subject.  Is it so far a stretch to believe that the Minotaur is a masked man involved in a religious rite? I theorize that a rite performed in ancient Crete involved intercourse between the High Priestess’s consort who wore a bull mask.

Besides painting Theseus as a hero (which I dispute but more about that later), this myth spins Crete as decadent and deserving of conquest. By the Myceneans, naturally.