I had a great time speaking at East Fishkill Public Library. I wish I had taken pictures.
My event at the Goshen Public Library has been rescheduled for May 9.
My talk at the Turning Page has been arranged for March 7. Looking forward to both.
Tag Archives: murder mysteries
Circus Acrobats
Acrobats are another piece of the circus story that has a long history. The first known depictions of acrobats jugglers appeared about 5000 years ago, in Egypt, in the early dynastic period (3000 B.C.). The Egyptians developed a strong tradition of these arts and later taught them to the Greeks. They in turn taught the arts to the Romans.
The Romans spread them throughout their Empire via itinerant troupes of performers.
Acrobatics rose independently in China.
Although the earliest performances had religious overtones, the entertainers soon realized the audiences enjoyed the performances as entertainment. This created tension with the religious powers, culminating in the Middle Ages who accused the performers of being in league with the devil. During the Reformation in England during the 1660s, all such forms of frivolity was forbidden.
Diabetes circa 1800
As Rees investigates murders, he invariably meets people who are ill. Illness and death was a constant companion. Illnesses: measles, mumps, diphtheria carried off infants and children; about one in five. Tuberculosis was epidemic. Women succumbed to childbirth. Simple accidents caused death, if not by the accident itself by sepsis.
Diseases we think of as modern, such as cancer or diabetes were present but not identified by name.
How do we know diabetes existed. About 3000 years ago the Egyptians described an illness with excessive thirst, urination and weight loss, the symptoms of Type I diabetes. In India they discovered they could use ants to detect the disease because the ants were drawn to the sweetness. And the Greeks called the disease diabetes mellitus ; diabetes for siphon or pass through and mellitus for sweet.
Early treatments included a diet of whole grains, milk and starchy foods, rancid animal meat, veal and mutton, green vegetables. Other treatments recommended exercising, reducing stress, wearing flannel – seriously. As one might expect, the true causes of Diabetes and possible treatments were not identified until modern times. In 1889, Joseph von Mering and Oskar Minkowski found that removing the pancreas from dogs led them to develop diabetes. In 1910 Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer named the missing chemical, without which the body could not survive, insulin. That means island because the cells in the islets of Langerhans in the pancreas produce it.
The first human subject took an insulin injection in 1922. So, although this illness has been with us a long time, its identification and the treatment is recent.
Why am I so interested in diabetes? Read Simply Dead and find out.
Lumbering in Maine
Simply Dead is set against the mountains and the lumbering industry in Maine.
In the spring, logging camps were set up in the woods and the massive trees were cut down with nothing more than human sweat and axes. Lumber was important for building, yes, but this was also the era of sailing ships and tall masts were a requirement.
The loggers would ‘drive’ the logs down one of the many rivers to Falmouth. The men would ‘roll’ the logs down the rivers by standing on them. I describe this more fully in my book. The lumber drive would end in Falmouth with a celebration. (I’ll bet. Talk about dangerous work!)
Paul Bunyan and his blue ox are part of the American myth and he is based on the real lumber men. In Bangor there is a statue of Paul Bunyan.
Demonstrations of log rolling are a feature of some of the Maine shows.
The Shaker Murders
Very excited to post the cover for the next Will Rees. Although it will be published in Great Britain this fall, it will come out here in the States next spring.
New Will Rees books coming!
I am excited and very happy to announce that two new Will Rees books have been accepted for publication. “The Shaker Murders”, Rees number 6, will be coming out next spring. Number 7, working title “Simply Dead” (Not crazy about it), will be after that.
I am working on the next Will Rees; “A Circle of Dead Girls” which is set against the beginnings of the circus in the new United States.
Snakes and serpents, oh my
The iconic statuettes from Bronze Age Crete are of women (priestesses probably although some scholars claim they are the Goddess) with snakes twining up their arms and around their waists. Snakes were sacred in this Bronze Age religion.
Snake Goddess describes a number of figurines of a woman holding a serpent in each hand found during excavation of Minoan archaeological sites in Crete dating from approximately 1600 BCE. By implication, the term ‘goddess’ also describes the deity depicted; although little more is known about her identity apart from that gained from the figurines. The ‘Snake Goddess’ figure first discovered was found by the British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1903. The figurine found by Arthur Evans uses the faience technique, for glazing earthenware and other ceramic vessels by using a quartz paste. After firing this produces bright colors and a lustrous sheen. The figurine is today exibited at the Herakleion Archeological Museum in Crete. The snake’s close connection with the Minoan house is believed to indicate that the goddesses shown in these figures are Household Goddesses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_Goddess
The shedding of their skins was a symbol of rebirth and regeneration. One of the resources I read said that the snakes were allowed to live in the houses. (I am not sure how she knows that.) If so, I’m sure that the presence of the snakes kept down the mice.
Currently Crete does not have native venomous snakes and it is thought that there no venomous snakes in Crete during the Bronze either. So, of course I had to wonder if the asp was ever imported from Egypt.
(I think everyone knows that Cleopatra is supposed to have committed suicide with an asp. According to my research, however, it was a mixture of poisons including opium and wolfsbane. But I digress.)
The asp’s bite is very venomous. The victim dies in about four minutes.
The Magnificent Horse and its importance – Part I
The horse has arguably been more important to human history than even the dog. Both have served as work animals, that is true, but the horse has altered the course of civilization.
Yes, the horse has drawn the plow. Certainly very important but oxen also were used to pull plows as well as other vehicles – carts, wagons and the like. But the major importance of horses, unlike any other animal, was their use in war.
I previously blogged about the Botai – the Eurasian nomads of the steppes. They have been credited with domestication of the horse and its gradual transformation from the wild genus to the domesticated one. The horse gave the steppe dwellers a tremendous advantage: mobility as well as an elevated position from which to rain down blows. They were fast and could travel great distances. And they did. Successive waves of these warriors swept into India and across Europe, right up to and including recorded time. Think Genghis Khan.
This culture had no arts to speak of. Their pottery, according to famed archaeologist Maria Gimbutas, was poor quality, especially when compared to the pottery of Crete. But they had weapons and with horses they were almost unbeatable.
What were the civilizations they swept across? Almost all were agrarian, peaceful and Goddess worshipping. They made sacrifices for good harvests and easy births. They didn’t have a chance. Crete ‘s culture survived because it was on an island. (And on the island it was peaceful- their cities were not walled.). A remnant survived in the British Isles. (the Picts – remember Hadrian’s Wall? Built by the Romans, it was designed to keep the Picts away.) And the Basques who still speak a non Indo-European language. And Scandinavia managed to hold on to their culture. They successfully resisted Christianity for hundreds of years, converting at the point of a sword, and then grafting their sacred pantheon on to the Christian God.
But I digress.
This is what these mounted nomads brought with them.
Language
Almost all of the languages spoken now, especially across Europe, is classed as Indo-European, although pockets of the earlier languages remain. Basque, for example, is still spoken today. According to Gimbutas, the Basques continue some of the traditions as well that stretch all the way back, probably to the Neolithic. In Crete and Anatolia place names from the early civilizations remain. Knossos, for example, is not Indo-European.
Written languages too were affected. The Cretans had three languages. A form of hieroglyphics (and yes, Crete and Egypt were neighbors and trading partners so probably there was some cross-fertilization), Linear A and Linear B. B is newer and was deciphered in the fifties. It is a form of early Greek, an Indo-European language. The other two remain mysterious.
With the Indo-European invasion, writing disappeared along with the fine pottery and many other examples of the civilization.
Let’s talk about money
As I mentioned before in the previous post, at least my character Will Rees was used to money. Of course, in the early U.S., the people used French sous, Spanish pieces of eight, and British pence as well as the new coinage: the American dollar.
In the new series, in Bronze Age Crete, I am not sure how common money was.
No longer nomadic, the civilizations of the Middle East had settled homes where they grew food. Financial interchanges probably began with barter – but that must have taken some dickering. “I’ll give you a bracelet for so many bags of wheat” for example.
By the period of my new series, the civilizations did have metal – hence the name Bronze Age. Bronze is a mixture of tin and copper. I suspect, since they had metal, they had some form of coinage – or at least metal that was used as money. Was it per weight? Who knows.
Many many clay tablets have been found on Crete and of course where the great civilizations of Mesopotamia were located. Most of them are lists: lists of products or a name of a person who will pay so many pieces of silver. One theory suggests that writing began so as to keep track of money.
But we would probably not recognize the money. In some cases the money was based on measures of barley that is the shekel. As we might expect, gold was rare and valuable – but also heavy – so silver and electrum (a combination of gold and silver) were also used. Egypt used copper as money.
And with the trade that took place at this time, I expect Egyptian copper money, shekels and other coins were used as well.
True coins, by the way, were not created until around 600 BCE. A great leap forward because, if you have consistent coinage, the money offered does not have to be weighed every time a financial transaction too place. Of course gold and silver would have been good for valuable items such as a slave or a bull but what about food?Thousands of less valuable coins made of copper or bronze have been found at places like Athens where there were markets and shops.
There is a lot more history about money – the role of kings, banking, lending and interest and so forth – features we take for granted to day. Hard to believe it all had to be invented and is actually quite complicated.
Ancient Crete
Although I am planning to continue the Will Rees mystery series, I also want to begin a new and very different series. These mysteries will be set in Ancient Bronze Age Crete.
Needless to say, the research has been intense!
I have learned so much. (There is still a lot more to learn, not just for me but for the archeologists too. All that we know now is from the archeological record, myths and various interpretations.)
But I digress.
These ancient Minoans were a civilized society with indoor toilets, beautiful art, and some very intriguing cultural differences. For one thing, they worshipped a Goddess and appear to be matrilineal as well as matrilocal. (That means inheritance went through the mother and when she married the man lived with her.) They worshipped snakes and apparently snake handling was part of the ceremonies.
Like most of the Goddesses then, she was the deity of fertility. Women enjoyed a high rank, something that many of the early archeologists found hard to believe.
The bull was revered. A symbol of the male principle, the bull was sacrificed at important ceremonies. Yes, this is the culture with bull-leaping. Probably most people know of this from the myth of Theseus, Ariadne and the Minotaur in the labyrinth. It turns out that the people who became the Classical Greeks interpreted the Minoan culture through the lens of their own beliefs.