Here’s what I just posted on Huffington Post… and then, here’s the problem with it. Now if only there were about three hundred more 300‘s. Maybe not in blood and gore but movies with kick-ass women from ancient Persia and Greece. Then, more people would get what has so captivated me about Amytis, Cassandane, and …
300, Awesome Ancient Women, and the Perils of Historical Fiction Read More »
It was only when I began revising an essay that I discovered what it was about. I had thought the piece would be a simple meditation on what I’d learned about Cyrus the Great over these past few years – the sexy “messiah” byline, author of the first declaration of human rights, all that… and …
These mid-August days, some 2500 years ago, witnessed a violent turn-about in power — regicide followed by a week of king-less days. Imagine for a moment the uncertainty, the chaos. Imagine the mother of the assassinated king. Still alive, for the time being — a foreigner in a court conflicted about its cosmopolitan nature, a …
If I had to pick one grand architectural image to go with the Cyrus Cylinder, I think it would be the Ishtar Gate (though built by Nebuchadnezzar II, not Cyrus). Oddly enough, the best place to see the ruins from Babylon of a gate complex named for the Mesopotamian goddess of love and war is …
What should we do with knowledge that undermines a force for good? I attended the Cyrus Cylinder symposium at DC’s Freer Sackler Gallery, the artifact’s first stop on its U.S. tour. It was a sunny Saturday morning, yet the hall was packed, and no one was snoozing. Rightly so, as the presenters are among the …
Ancient Cyrus Cylinder Stirs Modern Passions and Debate Read More »
The Cyrus Cylinder has great potential for Iran-U.S. relations. So I was thinking: wouldn’t it be great if President Obama were to hike on down to the Freer Sackler Gallery, just a few blocks from the White House to take a look? Here’s my letter inviting him to do so. If you like it, feel …
Whatever possessed me to tell uber-expert Dr. Amelie Kuhrt that I’ve made Cambyses I a depressed opium addict subject to the clutches of an evil groundsman in ancient Persia?! It couldn’t have been the alcohol — I was drinking tea, she hot cocoa. But what what a thrill to be able to talk nonstop for …
Persian cuisine elevates rice to high art, but it wasn’t always so. When the ten-year-old Cyrus II sat down for his first meal in the palace of his father, Cambyses I, around 568 B.C. he probably didn’t eat rice. As I researched the foods available in ancient Anshan (probably Tel el-Malyan in the modern Iranian …
A princess betrothed to Nebuchadnezzar travels from her palace in Hamadan to Babylon. True story, and it’s angling to be the beginning of my historical novel. Amytis’ journey, 2500 years ago, from what is modern, northern Iran to what is modern, central Iraq passed through a changing landscape with a dizzying variety of flora and …
I know they look boring, but: ancient tablets discovered at Persepolis contain incredibly valuable information not only to scholars of the ancient Near East but to all of us. But they’re most valuable when considered together and publicly available as part of our collective human heritage. The book that I’m writing now has morphed from …
