More on Gladstone

A couple of days ago I mentioned Burkert's reference to William Ewart Gladstone's noticing of the connection between the Enuma Elish and Homer in Burkert's article 'The Logic of Cosmogony'. His footnote to that passage directs the reader's attention to a place in his 1992 book The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, an English translation and revision of a work first published in German in 1984. In that book (pp. 92-3), he writes:

Ti-amat is the form normally written in the text of Enuma Elish for the mother "who bore them all." The Akkadian word which lies behind this, however, is just tiamtu or tamtu, the normal word for the sea. The name can also be written in this more phonetic orthography; but in the Enuma Elish we also find the form taw(a)tu. If one proceeds from Tawtu, then Tethys is an exact transcription. The different reproductions of the dentals, t and th, might disturb the purist; but Sophilos wrote Thethys, which, in normal Greek orthography, would automatically yield Tethys. In fact the Enuma Elish became known to Eudemos, the pupil of Aristotle, in translation; here we find Tiamat transcribed as Tauthe, which is still closer to the reconstructed form Tawtu. That the long vowel a is changed to e in the Ionian dialect even in borrowed words has parallels in Kubaba becoming Kybebe, Baal becoming Belos, and Mada known as Medes. Thus the proof seems complete that here, right in the middle of the Iliad, the influence of two Akkadian classics can be detected down to a mythical name.

In one of the footnotes in this passage [14], we find a reference to Gladstone:

The first to see the connection between Enuma Elish and Homer, Tiamat and Tethys was W.E. Gladstone, Landmarks of Homeric study (1890), appendix... .

'The Roman World: Religions and Everday Life'/Dayton Art Institute

Not sure if this has already been posted elsewhere, but in case it hasn't...

Mosaics to highlight Rome exhibit

By Meredith Moss

Staff Writer

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

This Rome exhibit wasn't built in a day.

In fact, The Dayton Art Institute's first major exhibition on ancient Rome has been in the works since 2005 when Dr. Sally Struthers, a dean at Sinclair Community College, was first approached to serve as guest curator for a collection that would transport visitors back to the ancient Roman Empire.

"The Roman World: Religions and Everyday Life" officially opens to the public Saturday, with a series of preview openings slated this week for the press and DAI members.

"I like this whole idea of visual motifs that meant different things to different religions in the Roman world," says Struthers, who delights in pointing out specific symbols — the peacock, the palm leaf, the shell, the fish — that were adapted and used in ancient times by Polytheism, Judaism and Christianity.

The showcase of the exhibition is a group of colorful mosaic panels that were once part of a synagogue floor discovered in North Africa.

In order to give visitors a better appreciation of the art, the entire mosaic floor has been re-created, with the original mosaics positioned precisely where they would have been originally.

That portion of the exhibit, titled "Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire," is on loan from the Brooklyn Museum in New York. Curator Edward Bleiberg, who wrote the catalog that will be sold in conjunction with the show, will come to Dayton for a lecture Sept. 30. Ancient meets modern when Struthers and Bleiberg provide online streaming audio commentary for the exhibit and a podcast that DAI guests can download and play as they tour it.

Struthers, who visited Rome recently to photograph ancient sites for the exhibit, also has gathered favorite works from other museums dating from fifth century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. and beyond: ancient sculptures of the gods, gold jewelry, coins, vases of Roman glass and textiles so sensitive to light that DAI patrons will lift a protective cloth to view them.

The museum has developed a variety of special programs to complement "The Roman World." Kids will "Meet the Romans" at the Experiencenter, teachers can request learning guides, and there are a number of lectures and special programs.

How to go

WHAT: "The Roman World: Religions and Everyday Life" featuring the Brooklyn Museum exhibition "Tree of Paradise: Jewish Mosaics from the Roman Empire"

WHEN: Saturday through Jan. 6

WHERE: Dayton Art Institute, 456 Belmonte Park North

HOURS: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with extended hours on Thursdays until 8 p.m. Closed holidays.

ADMISSION: $14 for adults, $12 for seniors and students, $7 for youth. $12 for groups of 10 or more. Members free.

TOURS: Docent-led tours at 2 and 6 p.m. Thursdays and 2 p.m. Sundays.

INFO: (937) 223-4ART or www.daytonartinstitute.org

When Politicians Knew Homer

In his article called 'The Logic of Cosmogony', Walter Burkert writes, in a passage regarding how ancients attempted to tell the tale about 'the beginning' of 'everything' (pp. 92-3):

The most common response...is: in the beginning there was Water. This is not limited to the ancient world: it is also reported from America, e.g. the Popol Vuh of the Quiche/ Maya. The Egyptians developed water-cosmogonies in diverse variants, having the yearly flood of the Nile before their eyes; but Enuma elish too has ground water and salt water, Apsu the begetter and Tiamat who bore them all, as the first parents of everything. Surprisingly enough, this recurs in the midst of Homer's Iliad with Oceanus and Tethys, 'begetting of everything'; this may be direct influence. (It was William Ewart Gladstone, better known as British Prime Minister, who first saw this connection.)