Postcard 72: The Seventh Quarry (& The Women of Linear B)

The Archive Room [where Linear B tablets were found], Palace of Nestor, son of Neleus at sandy Pylos
[Top two photographs copyright David Gill]

Looking out over sandy Pylos

July 2010: my poem, 'The Women of Linear B' [ref. 15/2005] has just been published in 'The Seventh Quarry' [p.11, issue 12, Summer 2010, editor Peter Thabit Jones].

I have loved the adventurous tales of the Homeric hero Odysseus since childhood, so it is hardly surprising that I went on to take my degree in Classical Studies [at Newcastle upon Tyne]. It is perhaps not surprising either that I went on to marry a Mediterranean Archaeologist!

I have always been fascinated by the Homeric epithets [and here]: rosy-fingered Dawn and wine-dark Sea come immediately to mind. You may also be familiar with grey-eyed Athena or crafty Odysseus.

Many have heard of Penelope, wife of Odysseus, and her battle with the suitors while her husband was away at the war. The Olympian goddesses play their part in the Homeric epic, along with females of supernatural powers like Circe - and the alluring Sirens, whose songs drove sailors onto the rocks.

Such is the stuff of mythology and epic, but I wanted to look behind what we know as timeless literature (though it actually began as oral poetry, delivered in ring cycles by bards), to see what tasks were being undertaken by the real women - many of them slaves - who lived through most uncertain times.

Linear B tablets, deciphered by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick, provide some clues for the role of those women who beavered away behind the scenes in the area of sandy Pylos, in the western Peloponnese. This was the starting point for my poem.

A Linear B tablet, listing religious offerings of olive oil.
This one is in the British Museum.
This one was not from the mainland:
it was found at Knossos on Crete by Sir Arthur Evans,
and is Minoan [LMII].

N.B. If you would like to take out a subscription
to The Seventh Quarry poetry magazine, details can be found here.

Websites of interest:

• In Search of the Trojan War by Michael Wood (you may have watched the television series)
• David Gill's Pylos pictures
• The Linear B Tablets
  
• Pylos - site information
  
• Finds from Pylos in the Chora Museum
  
• Troy - the movie
• Linear B on heritage-key.com and here
  
• Resource on ancients scripts
  

Postcard 23: Horse Talk (& Chalk)

The Kilburn White Horse, Yorkshire, UK

White horses on chalk hillsides have long been a source of fascination. We visited this one last summer, on our way to see the house of The Mouseman, which I shall mention in a future posting. The Kilburn horse has the largest surface area - just over an acre - of any of our chalk horses, and is the most northerly one of its kind in Britain. It is not, however, a very ancient one: it was completed in 1857 by a school master, John Hodgson, whose friend, Thomas Taylor, had seen chalk figures on his travels in Wiltshire. Harrison Weir was responsible for the design, and the area was cleared by 31 assistants and the scree was given a lick of whitewash. The horse has had a chequered 'career', but stands in splendour for all to see today.

You may be wondering why I have chosen the white horse as a motif in this blog about landscape AND literature. Those of us of 'a certain age' (like me!) will remember those 'snowy white horses' on the television series of our youth, and the footage of them galloping through the waves. The signature tune still hums in my head, but it is actually a different white horse that I have in mind, The Little White Horse, in the children's fantasy novel by Elizabeth Goudge. The story has nothing to do with the Kilburn site, but is a charming tale in its own right. You can read a comment about it from the New York Times at the Happy Wonderer's blog. Goudge's tale has just been released (6 February 2009) as a film, The Secret of Moonacre. Apparently the allegorical tale was one of J.K. Rowling's favourite childhood books. It won a Carnegie Medal in 1946.

I have yet to see The Angel of the North in situ, but I read in The Guardian (11 February 2009) that Kent, the county of my childhood, is to have an enormous white horse on a hill. The horse icon is the brainchild of Turner prize-winner, Mark Wallinger, who won a recent contest to design a 'landmark sculpture' for Ebbsfleet. The sculpture is due to be over twice the height of its northern cousin, and the sheer expense is proving problematic in this climate of recession. Wallinger's horse was inspired to some extent by a horse painting by Stubbs: Jonathan Jones in The Guardian noted that its 'whiteness' recalls the chalk figures.

Wiltshire boasts thirteen white horse figures out of the twenty-four known in Britain. Soil samples from the Uffington White Horse have given three approximate dates for this Early Iron Age or Late Bronze Age creature: 1400-600 BC, 1240-360 BC and the latest 900-340BC. Modern white horses can be seen in places as diverse as South Africa and West Virginia, Morocco and New Zealand. The horse motif appears in Lascaux cave paintings of about 16000 years ago. The first domesticated horses have been attributed to the Botai Culture of Kazakhstan, of 'around 5500 years ago', according to research undertaken by the universities of Bristol and Exeter. Homer, of course, mentions the Trojan Horse, which concealed the soldiers. I particularly like the 7th century BC representation here, with all the faces peeping out!

• The Kilburn White Horse from the air (Multimap)
• The Homeric Way of Blogging - an intriguing approach
• You will find a poem about a chalk figure, The White Horse, on p.39 in The Poems of Rowan Williams (Perpetua Press 2002). There is an article about the Archbishop's writing here.
  

Postcard 5: Pope at Sherborne Castle

I visited Sherborne Castle in the footsteps of Alexander Pope, who came in 1724 and was inspired to write about the gardens. The stone bothy in the photograph would not have been in place at the time of Pope's visit, but the poet mentions the cascade and a 'rustic seat of stone'. Members of the Digby family decided to call the present alcove 'Pope's Seat' in the late eighteenth century.

The castle in the background, otherwise known as Sherborne Lodge (as opposed to the old 12th century castle, now a ruin) was built by Sir Walter Raleigh in 1594. The grounds and garden were landscaped by 'Capability' Brown.

Pope, the son of a Roman Catholic linen merchant and grandson of an Anglican clergyman, wrote his first verse when he was twelve years old. Pope made English translations in verse of the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer. His income from these volumes enabled him to move to Twickhenham, where his study of landscape gardening began. One of the first books I ever bought in a secondhand bookshop was a small brown copy of Pope's Iliad.

• Sherborne Castle
• Join the HHA, and visit Sherborne Castle under the scheme
• Sherborne Castle Garden
• University of York: Alexander Pope and Landscape Gardening
• Parks and Gardens: Alexander Pope
  
• Pope and Sherborne: Walking in Dorset by Alexander Roberts
• The Life of Pope by Samuel Johnson
  
• Poems of Sir Walter Raleigh
• 'Capability' Brown in the National Portrait Gallery