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17 Nov 03 - 06:55 AM (#1055341) Subject: BS: staging ancient play: text found in mummy From: Helen In Oz news yesterday: Ancient play to be shown after text found in mummy. 16/11/2003. ABC News Online [This is the print version of story http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s990050.htm] Last Update: Sunday, November 16, 2003. 9:34am (AEDT) Ancient play to be shown after text found in mummy A ancient play is to be staged for the first time in more than 2,050 years after fragments of the text were found stuffed in an Egyptian mummy. Cyprus's national theatre company, Thoc, plans a modern-day world premiere of Aeschylus's Trojan War story Achilles in Cyprus next summer. The play will then be performed in Cyprus and Greece. Scholars had believed the trilogy to be lost forever when the Library of Alexandria burnt to ashes in 48 BC. "But in the last decades archaeologists found mummies in Egypt which were stuffed with papyrus, containing excerpts of the original plays of Aeschylus," Thoc director Andy Bargilly said. Drawing on references to the trilogy by other ancient playwrights and the recently discovered papyrus texts, Thoc and researchers believe they have the closest possible adaptation of Aeschylus's masterpiece. "This is a new production, based on a very ancient text," Mr Bargilly said. The play revolves around Achilles, the supposedly invincible Greek warrior who was killed by Paris with a poisoned arrow at his only vulnerable spot, the heel. Achilles recounts the warrior's many brushes with death and the slaying of Hector, son of Priam, the King of Troy. "People working on ancient texts knew that the trilogy existed because it was mentioned in Aristophanes and other writers of ancient Greece," Mr Bargilly said. A Greek author, Elias Malandris, worked on the project for a decade, using the ancient texts, excerpts of Homer's Iliad and references to Achilles found in other Greek plays. "We do think it is a faithful adaptation to a large extent, but nobody can say 100 percent," Mr Bargilly said. Stuffing mummies with papyrus scrolls, or creating a papier mache mixture to encase a corpse was a common practice in ancient Egypt dating from at least the third century BC. "Papyrus was a good material for stuffing mummies, fortunately for us," Mr Bargilly said. Described as the Father of Tragedy, Aeschylus is said to have written some 90 plays but only a handful survive. -- Reuters © 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation Copyright information: http://abc.net.au/common/copyrigh.htm Privacy information: http://abc.net.au/privacy.htm |
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17 Nov 03 - 07:53 AM (#1055364) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee Wow. This is cool. Where can I get a reading copy of the play? |
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17 Nov 03 - 08:29 AM (#1055393) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: GUEST,Shelley C at work Yes, this is exceptionally cool. I wonder if they intend to stage it at the re-constructed ancient theatre at Curium near Lemesos,Cyprus? We visited the site last year and found it to be extraordinary and stunning. To see an ancient, re-discovered play performed there with the mediterranean sea as a backdrop would be a truly magical experience. I'll have to try to get out to see it - although finances may not permit the trip two years running. I guess the Cyprus tourist board would know when its going to be on? Shelley |
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17 Nov 03 - 09:51 AM (#1055436) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Dave Bryant It must be a Mummies Play - does the King of Egypt's son or Turkish Knight beat St George in this version ? |
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18 Nov 03 - 01:07 AM (#1055965) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: LadyJean Serious big time major league WOW! By the way, Mr. Bryant, your pun was attrocious. You should be proud. |
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18 Nov 03 - 09:50 AM (#1056188) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee Could be worse -- could be that the play found in the mummy was "Oedipus Rex." |
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18 Nov 03 - 12:02 PM (#1056280) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Mark Clark Rapaire, You may not be as far off as you think. Emanuel Velikovsky in his 1960 book Oedipus and Akhnaton makes a credible case that the Oedipus legend is based on the real life of the Egyptian Pharoh Akhnaton (Amenhotep IV). The story became transported from the great Egyptian capital called Thebes to the insignificant Greek village of the same name. Even the graves in Egypt's Valley of the Kings attest to this identification. - Mark |
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18 Nov 03 - 12:55 PM (#1056336) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Amos Mummy said there'd be plays like this, there's be plays like this my mummy said.... I am delighted that some small portion of the losses at ALexandria have been restored. A |
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18 Nov 03 - 02:31 PM (#1056406) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Helen Amos said: "I am delighted that some small portion of the losses at Alexandria have been restored." .....even though via the internal cavities of someone who may or may not have wanted "yesterday's news" stuffed inside her/himself! Was it the Aeschylus wot killed him, or he who killed the Aeschylus? Was he Aeschylus' harshest critic or greatest fan? Or was it just a pile of old papers collected specifically for the purpose? Was it the drama critic's equivalent of using the script for toilet paper, or was it an organic time capsule? so many questions.... For me, this is spine-tinglingly amazing. I would love to see the play, too. Helen |
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18 Nov 03 - 02:34 PM (#1056412) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee Remember what Bacon said, that some works are meant to be digested.... |
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18 Nov 03 - 02:36 PM (#1056414) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Amos Well, let's reflect: it isn't as though just anyone could get their hands on a manuscript back then, good or bad. Because they were literally scriptus manus, and thus labor-intensive and costly to have. The mummy might have been the author, I suppose. Or a wealthy patron? I doubt anyone acting as critic could haver gotten a copy tucked up inside his mummy, except perhaps BY the author in a murderous fit of pique. A |
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18 Nov 03 - 05:30 PM (#1056500) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee So, Amos, are you positing that this was a case of murder? "Biggy Alpha" (as the author was known in the Greek Underworld) decides to write a play, see? And this critic don't like it, see? So Biggy Alpha tells his guys to off the critic in a way that will make sure that critics will ALWAYS like Biggy's plays, see? I was sitting at my sarcaphagous, cleaning my nails and knocking back a little bourbon, when this dame comes in. Wrapped tight in all the right places, too. I'm a real mummy's boy, and she was just my type. |
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18 Nov 03 - 05:43 PM (#1056505) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: harvey andrews Good news indeed! Shelley C I once had the pleasure of playing the ancient open air Curium Theatre, Cyprus to a full house. The stars sparkled above us and the Med reflected the crescent moon. The feeling of history, of playing in a venue that had seen so much was overpowering. My pianist and partner was Graham Cooper and when he started to play the opening of our first song I immediately heard something slightly different in his touch. I turned around and saw tears rolling down his cheeks...pure joy for both of us. As you've been there you can imagine what a moment it was! |
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18 Nov 03 - 05:52 PM (#1056509) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: harvey andrews Funny how language changes...."partner" today has a different connotation to a few years ago so maybe I should say "musical collaborator"! |
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18 Nov 03 - 07:05 PM (#1056552) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Amos Rap: If I'da hadda bottle in my hand you'd'a owed me a new keyboard about now, see? LOL!! A |
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18 Nov 03 - 11:15 PM (#1056678) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Helen I can see a story challenge coming on. Who's up for it? Helen |
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19 Nov 03 - 03:57 AM (#1056748) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: GUEST,Sheley C at work Wow, Harvey, I would have love to have been there! What an experience for performers and audience alike. Shelley |
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19 Nov 03 - 04:58 AM (#1056783) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Dave Bryant In come I, old Anubis Be I welcome, be I not I hope that old Anubis never be forgot |
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19 Nov 03 - 08:37 AM (#1056902) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee I think I went to school with Anne Nubis. She was always turning up unexpectedly, and could just kill a party. |
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19 Nov 03 - 08:49 AM (#1056917) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: artbrooks Hey, Rap...wasn't that ole Nubile Annie? I think I knew her too...the Highland High (SLC) Homecoming Queen in 1964. |
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19 Nov 03 - 08:56 AM (#1056922) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee SLC? Slow Learners' Class? |
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19 Nov 03 - 09:03 AM (#1056926) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: artbrooks Rap, stand up, face the rising sun, do a right face, walk forward about a hundred-fifty miles...where are you...SLC!! |
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19 Nov 03 - 09:33 AM (#1056949) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee Yeah, like I said.... |
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20 Nov 03 - 12:22 AM (#1057515) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Helen Clever, Rapaire. I like it. And Harvey, that is just the sort of feeling I imagine people will get when they watch this play, even if it is a flop in every other dramatic way. Helen |
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20 Nov 03 - 09:17 AM (#1057743) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee One could say with truth that this was, indeed, mummy dearest. |
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20 Nov 03 - 09:52 AM (#1057760) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Dave Bryant I think I know why it was found inside the mummy. The ancient egyptian had written the play and it was truly awful. He read it out to his friends (well they were his friends before he read it) and then asked them "What do you think I should do with it ?" - so they showed him . . . . . . |
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20 Nov 03 - 10:23 AM (#1057780) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Peter T. I wonder if it is the Myrmidons? We have a couple of fragments of it. All I remember is that Achilles sits in mourning for the dead Patroclus throughout the play without saying a word. yours, Peter T. |
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20 Nov 03 - 04:25 PM (#1058020) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Charley Noble My favorite type of Mudcat thread, extraordinary information and wit! Now it's off to brekie in OZ! Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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21 Nov 03 - 09:18 AM (#1058476) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee But if Achilles sat long enough in his tent, wouldn't he have to anticipate Hamlet as say, "To pee or not to pee, that is the question?" |
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21 Nov 03 - 10:02 AM (#1058504) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Amos The Myrmidons -- a whole citizenry raised up from ants to replenish a population laid low by plague -- may well have been the source at some DNA level of the suicide bomber impulse so popular in the Middle East: "The ultimate sacrifice in public service is to destroy enemies by committing suicide in defense of the colony. Many kinds of ants are prepared to assume this kamikaze role in one way or another, but none more dramatically than workers of a species of Camponotus of the saundersi group living in the rains forests of Malaysia. Discovered in the 1970s by the German entomologists Eleanore and Ulrich Maschwitz, these ants are anatomically and behaviorally programmed to be walking bombs. Two huge glands, filled with toxic secretions, run from the bases of the mandibles all the way to the posterior tip of the body. When the ants are pressed hard during combat, either by enemy ants or by an attacking predator, they contract their abdominal muscles violently, bursting open the body wall and spraying the secretions into the foe. (Hölldobler and Wilson 67). " From http://www.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/myrmidons.html Regards, A |
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21 Nov 03 - 10:05 PM (#1058924) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee It just occured to me that you're supposed to find daddy in mummy. |
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22 Nov 03 - 05:02 PM (#1059229) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: The Fooles Troupe Highly amusing guys... But the reason why old manuscipts are found in mummies: Mummies were stuffed with whatever second hand appropriate materials were availabale (called recycling). Papryus from unwanted books was financially worth recycling - cf modern 3rd world countries where people make a living from the rubbish tips. Books were written by hand - no printing press - China's use of hand carved wooden blocks for pages predates Western Europe's Gutenberg by centuries - but such magic was unknown in the time of mummy-stuffing.. (and that was not meant to be any sort of humourous statement... get your mind out of the gutter and let mine float past!) A client would approach a scibe and request a copy of some work. Not every body was rich enough to keep all the books HE owned (very few women read - and certainly not all males did so) so he would often trade the book back to the scribe for another one, if he did not trade it on to someone else. If a "book" was popular, the scribe now had a "stock" which could be used again for another similar request - if not, vellum books were often scraped to allow reuse of the valuable writing material - if a papryus book was "obsolete", the mummy stuffers gave a good price. I have also heard that the material was used as mummy wrappings. Another use of old writing material was as "dunny paper" - a well known Victorian novelist who was a daughter of a vicar has a section where she notes that the family spent the day cutting up old reading materials to hang on wire behind the dunny door. Robin (Well Read Source of Useless Information - you should see behind MY toilet door...) |
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22 Nov 03 - 05:07 PM (#1059233) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee Yup, Robin. And sometimes the paper was reused by scraping off the previous writing and reusing the paper (or vellum or parchment). The Walters Gallery in Baltimore is currently working on a known-but-no-copy-of-it book by Archimedes which was discovered this way. I can only say, with my nieces and nephews, WAY COOL!!! |
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22 Nov 03 - 06:08 PM (#1059258) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Amos Palimpsest! I love it when the docs uncover palimpsest! It fills my weary academic heart with zest, It really is the best! Palimpsest!! It makes me want to shed my tunic, pants and vest!! Go on and scrape it bare Down to another lay'r, 'Cuz there's nothing quite like pal-immmmp-seeeest! A |
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22 Nov 03 - 06:35 PM (#1059267) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Helen Amos, in the pithy way of expressing oneself in Oz-lish, all I can say is, "Smart arse!" :-> Helen |
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22 Nov 03 - 06:51 PM (#1059268) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Amos I am going to take it as a compliment, Helen, as a rebuke would be too much to bear... |
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22 Nov 03 - 07:55 PM (#1059289) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: The Fooles Troupe Yes, Rapaire, saw the TV documentary about it recently... They are using infra red and other tricks to recover the text and drawings... BTW this Archimedes text was overwritten by a Christian prayer book... some idiot painted fakes of illuminations over some of the pages to increase the sale price seems like we could have landed on the moon about 1000 years ago if 1) the library at Alexandria hadn't been destroyed 2) Western Society hadn't been "enlightened" by Christianity during the Middle Ages... Robin |
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22 Nov 03 - 08:09 PM (#1059298) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee I sort of suspect that SOME of Christianity was a glue that managed to hold things together, at least out on the edges. The whole fall of the Roman Empire thing was a horrible mess of strands, not one single thing. When illiteracy is the order of the day, when armed men ride over you (literally), when rapine and slaughter rule, there's little time for art, mathematics, scientific thought. The fact that some small spark was kept alive in some monasteries is, in many ways, remarkable and to be cherished. Note that in the above I have used qualifiers. The Roman church wasn't the best show in town! But let's not forget the Eastern Christian churches, or the Coptic Christians, or the Celtic Christian church (until the Synod of Whitby, when the Pope got his way). I have a sneaking suspicion that Ignorance, Fear, and the like aren't gone, but hiding just out of sight, waiting for their turn again. Read Edward Miller's "A Canticle for Leibowitz." |
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22 Nov 03 - 08:15 PM (#1059307) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: The Fooles Troupe Yeah Rapaire Did you know that the original meaning of the word "Danger" meant to be under protection of the local "Warlord" - as in "Living within the Danger of the Baron"... Hmmm, that reminds me of lots of those BS threads abut "How the USA is the Friend of the World"... :-) Robin The Thread Creep... |
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22 Nov 03 - 08:31 PM (#1059320) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee And they also had the "Truce of God" and the "Peace of God" and neither one was. Just like the "Pax Romana" and the "Pax Americana" -- neither was or is Pax, unless you realize that there's nothing quite so peaceful as a corpse. But I give credit where it is due: without some monk using Archimedes as a palimpsest, we wouldn't have the manuscript at all (most likely). Without marginalia in prayerbooks, in scriptures, and in other manuscripts, we'd be without a lot of stuff like short poems, observations on life, and so on. Without scribes copying manuscripts just because they are there (and yes, making errors) we'd be without a lot of stuff. I'm not praising the burning of "witches" or the crackdown on Copernicus or the Inquisition or the crusade against the Albegensians or the Index Librorum Prohibitorum or the squelching of Roger Bacon or any of the rest. God, no!! I'm simply giving a little credit where it is due, and much of the "Dark Ages" only deserves credit because our ancestors managed to survive. |
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22 Nov 03 - 08:43 PM (#1059327) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: The Fooles Troupe But the best thing from the past, as judged by a BBC program Best 10 Treasures in the British Museum or similar are the little birch postcards found near one of the Roman forts on Hadrian's Wall - delightful gems like a formal message about the garrison, with a P.S. We are also out of beer, send some urgently... :-) Robin |
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22 Nov 03 - 10:17 PM (#1059358) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Rapparee Back some years ago I had the opportunity to catalog a book printed entirely on birch bark. It was a rebuke by Simon Pokagon, a Potawatomie, to the white man, printed in the late 1800s in New Jersey. Needless to say we carefully made a copy of the book, wrapped the original in archival tissue, and put it safely away. I'd never seen a book printed on bark before (or since) and to learn that the Romans in Britain used the same sort of thing as "postcards" is fascinating. |
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22 Nov 03 - 11:41 PM (#1059370) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: Helen Yes, Amos, it is a compliment. Usually said with a mischievous smile, though. In my personal phrasebook it is a way of saying, "I wish I had said that!" Helen |
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23 Nov 03 - 05:38 PM (#1059548) Subject: RE: BS: Ancient play: text found in mummy From: The Fooles Troupe Rapaire, I THINK it was birch, I may have got it wrong, but it was pieces of split wood, 2 - approx palm size, tied together with a leather thong, with message inside and address on outside - a postcard? These ones are so delicate from age that they blacken on contact with air. Infrared techniques are used to read them. They are not on display, but some recreations are. It seems that they were dumped in a pile to be burnt.. Tough Army Voice: I'm not takin' all that crap with us! Burn It! .... Yes Sir! Then one of the regular bits of Northern British "Weather" happened... Well Sod It! Just leave it then, it'll smoulder and destroy it anyway... Move Out! :-) Robin |