Aegina - Britomartis Finds Safety on the Island, Huntress. Name Migrations?

Topic:  The roots of our names, and the course those names follow from culture to culture.

Tracing Bradamante, Female Knight. We were looking up the "Renaissance Guerriera" tradition, the autonomous female knight of beauty and great strength (some then portrayed as a virago), who then may or may not eventually settle down with her lover.  We met Bradamante. For the context and other issues, see Italy Road Ways, Order of the Glorious Saint Mary. 

Name derivation.  Bradamante had been translated as a name, to suggest an untamed one, especially in love. See ://babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com/meaning_of_Bradamante.html/. Wild lover.

Finding Britomartis.  However, the Bradamante name also was suggested as rooted in the ancient Minoan myths of Britomartis, huntress of small game, says this site.  The king, Minos of Crete, wanted her and chased. She fled, leaped into the sea where she became entangled in fishing nets, and the fishermen carried her to safety to the Island of Aegina. See ://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Britomartis.html/

However, other versions of the story at that same site have Britomartis as slayer of stags.  And a goodly archer. 

 That story comes to us from the 1st century BC.

Must everything be watered by down by later cultures, so that the stag-slayer becomes a huntress of chipmunks?

Enjoy the description of the stag slayers, other nymphs of the hunt, perhaps as Britomartis morphed into Diana:

"These were the first who wore gallant bow and arrow-holding quivers on their shoulders; their right shoulders bore the quiver strap, and always the right breast showed bare."

That also from ://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Britomartis.html/

Is this why she is reduced later to a mere "wild lover"?

But yet another story cited there has Britomartis avoiding the company of men. She does escape their ravaging intentions over and over.

Britomartis:  from words meaning sweet or blessing, or sweet or blessed maiden.  See later blends of characteristics with Artemis, or Diana.  It may have been Artemis who saved her (Artemis also loved her) and who made her into a goddess.  This gets complex.  See site.

Lovely Aegina, island with the grilled octopus to die for.  Another reason to love it, wildly.

New Parthenon Museum

The Parthenon, 5th Century BC, and finally its own Museum at its feet, by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi. Do an images search right now to appreciate it. Thank you, Greece. We have not seen it yet (parts of columns and other items were there on the grounds, but under shelters, so we have an idea where it is) but the descriptions put it among the great designs for museums, we think. See the article in the NYT 10/28/2007, article about p. 31 by Nicolai Ouroussoff: building was raised on columns to preserve an ancient village discovered below, "overscale concrete canopy" over the entrance, concrete and glass grid, corners of the top floor cantilever slightly, all creating an "instability" that serves the narrative as the goer goes through the exhibits. Yet, "calm and unobtrusive." Forms growing more precarious, says the article. "A montage of visual experience." The article directs us to slide show at nytimes.com/design.

Wish we had this for the old Iraq museum. We have little idea, and now it is too late, thanks to us.

Much of Greece's treasure of antiquities were taken to other countries in the last century, and even probably to now, with even half of the famous Elgin Marbles still at the British Museum in London - taken there by one Lord Elgin - still in London. Read about Lord Elgin at ://www.athensguide.com/elginmarbles/lordelgin.html; and the Elgin Marbles at ://www.athensguide.com/elginmarbles/index.html#menu. Mr. Ouroussoff went to London immediately after Athens, saw the Elgin Marbles there, and said they looked homesick.

Theft of heritage. See ://www.museum-security.org/artifacts-saz.htmWas Elgin the one who saved the marbles by taking them? See ://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/greeks/parthenon_debate_01.shtml.

Iraq. See ://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/middle_east/jan-june07/artifacts_04-30.html. The US not concerned or safeguarding another nation's heritage.

What is in our cultural narrative that so degrades the past. Even our own. Do we teach our real history. Read "Mayflower," by Nathaniel Philbrick, at ://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/04/books/review/04shorto.html?ex=1307073600&en=3ff4700633a5d05c&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss.

Human opportunism, here, in politics, there, and elsewhere. Mr.Ouroussoff writes that even he could see little reason at this late date to do any returning, but he changed his mind after entering the New Acropolis Museum.

A village was discovered during construction, and that is preserved because the structure is elevated above - excellent.

Parthenon and its Outlying Neighborhoods - Life Uncropped

Travel photos.

Most that show the Parthenon will focus on its antiquity and leave out its environment, its present context. Subjectivity: what is the reality desired, and what can be done, like PR, to coax someone into a point of view. Cherry pick what you want out of the whole, and push that, like in politics, and hope nobody looks behind the curtain.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh: a quote somewhere that all writing is a lie, that the act of squeezing reality into words itself distorts.

The Parthenon - put past with present and for us the Parthenon becomes even more magnetic. What is the role of greatness in the past to the present. How does our present compare to the past - our present ability to build with beauty and balance, compared to present pressures.

Archeology can tell us that there was indeed crowding and disease then, as we have now, see //www.archaeology.org/online/news/kerameikos, so enjoy the Parthenon in a fuller setting here, it is as it stands, with its neighborhoods, the warren of the market, the housing, rooftops, awnings against the sun, real people living nearby. Their houses, their colors at sunset. Hear the sounds, the smells of food - not just a sterile, if magnificent, ruin. Look for both. Know the hype of the cropped photo. Enjoy the reality.

But cropping sells. What else sells, despite negatives that you learn about later. Selling goods:

1. Our kitchens: sell granite. Shiny. Durable. But hard, expensive, cold to the touch, noisy. Wake up the house with a dropped cup. The ideal is sold as a cropped reality. Dear little pot lights, dear little appliance garages. But they are glarey, the garages for kitchen toys take up counterspace. Why not use Formica or something like it, resilient, warm and inexpensive, easy to replace if you burn a spot (use a mat!), and put our appliances away, or buy fewer appliances.

2. Our baths: sell double sinks. Everybody can spit together. Showers for three with shooting multiple jets! Lounge chairs! Do you really want a companion in there. And who is going to clean both sinks, all the bidets, showers, huge tubs. Guess. Why not simply turn around in our shower.

3. History: sell an epic about events, when the facts are not clear. When facts are not well recorded at the time, but events struck people's imaginations and hearts, the telling and retelling takes over. Belief in the cropped epic becomes the reality. Like religions. Truth in there somewhere, of course, but hard to say just where. The epic takes over.

4. Specific on selling history and epics: Thinking here about Kosovo - its actual battle, Serbian Christians against Muslims at Kosovo Plain, 1389. Who really won? Who did the epics say won, and why? Later interpretation and need for myth, filling in where the facts are not at all clear. See Europe Road Ways Themes, Kosovo I and Kosovo II.

The difficulty is that we cannot get back to the actual past to compare. So the tellers of tales dominate any time facts are concealed or cannot be accessed. Politics?

Nafplio or Nafplion - Peloponnese, Venetians

Update August 2007 - with the fires in the news, but I think mostly inland.

Nafplion is on the Peloponnese Peninsula, coast, southeast of Athens and the mainland. This is a beautiful resort destination. Imagine great romance. Not difficult in this setting. It was occupied by the Venetians, look up the place names associated with the old Venetian empire at //romeartlover.tripod.com/Salmglos., then to the History of Venice, then down to Napili di Romania, Port of Morea on the Gulf of Argos (Argos was the ancient town there), and see that its current name is Nafplion.

Click on the links there for the port and the fortress --there is a 15th century fort at the top of the hill. See //romeartlover.tripod.com/Argo; and //romeartlover.tripod.com/Nauplia.

The modern town: elegant Greek-Venetian architecture. Splendid for a cruise stop. See www.greecetravel.com/nafplio/ For other history and photos, see www.delboy85.tripod.com/ppenese/id6.

On the way: artichoke fields. In bloom. Read the historian Herodotus on the ancient world 450BC. or so, for an idea of the vibrancy and movement among peoples. Artichokes at that time in Mauritania, says Strabo - huge. //www.fordham.edu/Halsall/ancient/anc-nafrica.

Meteora - clifftop monasteries

Monasteries on cliff-tops, many are free-standing geological formations. Air islands. If you look closely, you can see the ropes hanging down, that suspended the baskets that were the only way up for people and goods in the old days. There also was a suspended rope between the monastery and the cliff on the other side, for a way over. See www.in2greece.com/english/places/historical/mainland/acropolis.

This would be an excellent geo-tourism site because of the geological sites and attractions. See book "Geotourism" by Ross Dowling at this site: elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/706060/description#description.



These monasteries were built around 1100 AD and thereafter, by hermits and monastics fleeing from the invading Ottomans, or for their own reasons - preferring isolation. There is an entire area of these. See www.orthodox-monasteries.com/greece/index5. See also www.in2greece.com/english/places/historical/mainland/meteora.








How built: there are many stories. One is that a hermit made his way to the top of one summit, and wondered just that. An eagle came by and dropped him a feather. Then a piece of twig, and then enough materals to fashion a rope. Most are accessible by car to a reasonably close place, then you walk long steps up or over on pedestrian bridges. We had two pairs of day shoes - one to get muddy and then let dry, while the other pair saved the day. Sneakers are not good. Too slippery on wet smooth stone. In bad weather, we got used to taking off our shoes in the bathrooms and rinsing off the soles.

These are World Heritage Sites. The area is on the list for many tour groups. See www.great-adventures.com/destinations/greece/meteora.

This is also an orthodox area. Ladies, wear a skirt (I had a denim one, mid-calf, for easier climbing), or bring a light shawl wrap, square-ish, to wrap like a sarong and cover your jeans. If you are dressed inappropriately, and that means long pants or shorts, the monastery will loan you a shawl from a large stack in the corner. Ladies in shorts or pants not allowed. Also, cover your shoulders. Easier to carry around your own silky covering, jammed in your shoulder bag in case. Also helpful for sudden rain, or wind, or using as a picnic tablecloth, or on your lap as you snack in the car. Just wash it out, use the back seat as a dryer.