Apollo's Smile
Notes: hmmmph...distracted with thoughts and errands, missed most of the game...Mariners and Angels...finally tuned in top of ninth...Angels 8-1...final score: Angels 8-6!...eesh...at least this time Mariners the ones disappointed their comeback fell short...just the worst!...anyway, that Nat Geo story in my thoughts...the smiling Apollo at Delphi...early Greek statues have expressions sorta smiling...this evolved, the smile attached itself to Apollo, and the Etruscans seem to have adopted the smile for their statues/paintings...or so my reach...thought to fill this in, and thought to fill in by seeing what Pausanias had to say about Delphi, and, and got diverted to goddess Isis...stepping stones so far:..(on the tablet waiting for the laptop to warm up!)...brb...
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10.32.13] About forty stades distant from Asclepius is a precinct and shrine sacred to Isis, the holiest of all those made by the Greeks for the Egyptian goddess. For the Tithoreans think it wrong to dwell round about it, and no one may enter the shrine except those whom Isis herself has honored by inviting them in dreams. The same rule is observed in the cities above the Maeander by the gods of the lower world; for to all whom they wish to enter their shrines they send visions seen in dreams.
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nowadays, one can take a snipping from Pausanias, and fill it out...seeing this I thought whimsically to find this Temple to Isis...and searched: Tithorea Isis...hmmph...now I'm much diverted from the smile of Apollo!...but maybe can loop back...anyway, here is the next step in the search, a site giving history time line of Isis worship in time of Pausanias, and on forward to the times of the Red Monastery, and Saint Catheryn's Monastery...see previous post's mention of these...brb...
link
http://www.maat.it/livello2-i/iside-01-i.htm
Isis "Regina Caeli"
end link
I'm getting better opening windows on the tablet!...move to laptop now...brb...
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The names of the Great Mother are so many: Inanna for the Sumerians, Ishtar for the Akkadians, Anat at Ugarit, Atargatis in Syria, Artemide-Diana at Ephesus, Baubo at Priene, Aphrodite-Venus at Cyprus, Rhea or Dictynna at Crete, Demeter at Eleusis, Orthia at Sparta, Bendis in Thrace, Cybele at Pessinus, Ma in Cappadocia, Bellona in Rome.
In Egypt her name is Isis. Daughter of Nut, goddess of the Sky, and of Geb, god of the Earth. Bride of Osiris, killed by Seth, god of the desert, and risen from the death thanks to the same Isis.
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Testimonies of the cult of Isis are found in Athens, at Tithorea near Delphi (where there was the most sacred of the Greek sanctuaries of Isis), in many centers of Greece, in the islands of the Aegean Sea (particularly at Delos), in Asia Minor, in Northern Africa, in Sicily, in Sardinia, in Spain, in Italy (especially in Campania at Pompeii, Pozzuoli, Ercolano), in Gaul and in Germany.
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In 415 a group of Christian monks, followers of the patriarch of Alexandria, saint Cyril (375-444), lynched Hypatia (370-415), woman who had reached a great fame in philosophy and in mathematics, remarkable figure of the Neo-Platonic school, leading figure of the pagan intellectual world. With her death it began the decline of Alexandria as a cultural center.
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that site is as thick with things as Pausanias!...but that last bit in the timeline, the timeline a must see, caught my eye...brb...
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Saint Catherine of Alexandria, or Saint Katharine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine (Coptic: Ⲙⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲕⲁⲧⲧⲣⲓⲛ; Greek: ἡ Ἁγία Αἰκατερίνη ἡ Μεγαλομάρτυς "Holy Catherine the Great Martyr"; Latin: Catharina Alexandrina), is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius. According to her hagiography, she was both a princess and a noted scholar, who became a Christian around the age of 14, converted hundreds of people to Christianity, and was martyred around the age of 18. More than 1,100 years following her martyrdom, Saint Joan of Arc identified Catherine as one of the Saints who appeared to her and counselled her.[4]
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seems odd two women were martyred with similar scholarly attributes at near same time...
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Towards the end of her life, Hypatia advised Orestes, the Roman prefect of Alexandria, who was in the midst of a political feud with Cyril, the bishop of Alexandria. Rumors spread accusing her of preventing Orestes from reconciling with Cyril and, in March 415 AD, she was murdered by a mob of Christians led by a lector named Peter.
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Hypatia was co-opted as a symbol of Christian virtue and scholars believe she was part of the basis for the legend of Saint Catherine of Alexandria.
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Saint Catherine's Monastery wasn't originally named after her...
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According to tradition, Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr sentenced to death on the breaking wheel. When this failed to kill her, she was beheaded. According to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains.
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The oldest record of monastic life at Sinai comes from the travel journal written in Latin by a woman named Egeria about 381–384.[6] She visited many places around the Holy Land and Mount Sinai, where, according to the Old Testament, Moses received the Ten Commandments from God.[7] The monastery was built by order of Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565), enclosing the Chapel of the Burning Bush (also known as "Saint Helen's Chapel") ordered to be built by Empress Consort Helena, mother of Constantine the Great, at the site where Moses is supposed to have seen the burning bush.[8] The living bush on the grounds is purportedly the one seen by Moses.[9] Structurally the monastery's king post truss is the oldest known surviving roof truss in the world.[10] The site is sacred to Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.[11]
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hmmph..at first it was named after the Virgin Mary...an annoyance is Cyril...brb...
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Orestes (fl. 415) was the Praefectus augustalis of the Diocese of Egypt, that is, the Roman governor of the province of Egypt, in 415. He clashed against the bishop of Alexandria, Cyril, and their opposition precipitated the death of the philosopher and scientist Hypatia.
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This refusal almost cost Orestes his life. Nitrian monks came from the desert and instigated a riot against Orestes among the population of Alexandria. These monks' violence had already been used, 15 years before, by Theophilus against the "Tall Brothers"; furthermore, it is said that Cyril had spent five years among them in ascetic training.
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wth!...history is a miserable ball of yarn...pull on a thread, and regret...Nitran Monks?...brb...oh!...there's a movie...
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Orestes is portrayed in Ki Longfellow's Flow Down Like Silver, Hypatia of Alexandria in a highly imaginative way. In the 2009 movie Agora, by Alejandro Amenábar, Orestes is interpreted by Oscar Isaac.
same as above
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The alkali lakes of the Natron Valley provided the Ancient Egyptians with the sodium bicarbonate used in mummification and in Egyptian faience, and later by the Romans as a flux for glass making.
(odd, I've visited this place before, tracking the making of glass in ancient world, but it is in desert on West side of Nile...the Red and Catheryn's Monasteries are in the Sinai...a bit further east from them is Petra...what am I reaching for?...a diaspora of the followers of Isis...)
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For a brief period of time, Macarius was banished to an island in the Nile
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island in the Nile?...there's two named Macarius, both exiled to the island together...brb...
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Having learned of the extremely strict rule for monastic life observed at the Tabbenesiot Monastery, whose prior was Venerable St. Pachomios the Great (+ 348), St. Macarius disguised himself in secular clothing, and over the course of the entire Quadragesima [the 40-day Great Lent] neither ate bread nor drank water.[3] No one saw him eating or sitting down. He was making baskets of palm leaves while he was standing. The monks said to Saint Pachomius: "Cast out this man from here, for he is not human." A divine inspiration subsequently revealed Macarius' identity to him, and the monks rushed to receive his blessings.[2] Having demonstrated humility and taught a lesson to all, St. Macarius returned to his own monastery.
not like the Nile is full of notable islands...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Islands_of_the_Nile
brb...
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hmmph...I don't know if the Monks went to Philae...their followers at least did...
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In 536 the emperor Justinian (483-565) ordered the closing of the last temple of Isis, situated in the island of Philae on the Nile at the borders with the Nubia, and made it turn into a Christian church.
(same as site up above a bit...from the timeline...the timeline has a curious tag at end...)
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In 431 the Christian bishops had gathered at Ephesus, the sacred city to the goddess Artemis, one of the manifestations of the Great Mother. The Council decreed that Mary, mother of Jesus, had to be called Theotokos, Mater Dei, God's Mother. The ancient title of the great goddess Isis.
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Isis and Child beside Mary and Child...I'm being rhetorical somewhat in this post, maybe the whole blog!...presenting questions I already know the answer to...students of poetry early on are brought to Isis and Mary iconography...how one is superimposed over the other...this being gone on about, I'm far away from the bit about Pausanias!...the temple of Isis, and Tithorea...at least for now, as I've rambled enough for a post...bit like a bag of cheetoes...or popcorn...oh, one more thing...lapping over from yesterday's post, I tried to find more step motifs in the Coptic realm...no luck...happy luck to find the ones I did...but there was one more in a youtube clip...maybe I can snag that one...brb...
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Greek-Orthodox: Monastery Of St.Catherien, Sinai (Egypt) • Abbeys and Monasteries
(still from 17:41)
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so, I've come to a caption: Step Motifs in Saint's Halo at Saint Catherin's Monestary, Sinai, Egypt...not bad for an "uninitiated commoner"...Yankees in town tomorrow...try to get a ticket...off to see a movie...with popcorn...
:)
DavidDavid
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