8 days of happiness

[essayel]

Yeah I forgot yesterday, but then yesterday was the type of day where I'd have put something like "I'm happy today because the dog wasn't sick on my shoes". yesterday was just - *snarl*.

But today - I saw this on vashtan's journal and it made me very happy because the song is called Atay, and my story about him [4th C BC Scythian warlord who told Phillip of Macedonia where to stick his phalanxes] is coming along fairly well, though I'm getting frustrated with things like not being able to find out the exact dimensions of the wagon they used to live in, and whether they had musical instruments and whether they WERE as tall as they appear to be from some of the pictorial evidence or is is just artistic exaggeration.

Still the video is fun, if 1500 years too late, and displays the level of ferocity I'm going to have to write a few times *practices grrrring*. It'll make a nice change from schmoop.

Comments

[essayel.livejournal.com]

My friend yakalskovich went to the same exhibition when it was in Munich. It sounds as though it was FANTASTIC.

Thanks so much for the links. I have bought what books I can afford, and a couple I couldn't really, but most of them seem very concerned with the decorative arts and everyday life is much less important. That funerary wagon you mention is almost exactly the same dimensions as the Victorian funeral bier in the museum where I work, so I'd think was built expressly for that single use. 40 days[approx] between death and burial is what Herodotus mentions which would be enough time to make the small wagon from scratch or cut a domestic one down to size.

You're perfectly right about the difference in heights between the peasant farmer population and the nomadic pastoralist/warrior elite. Sadly I can't remember the title of the book. I'll have to rake out my notes.

The pectoral on the front of the book is what got me into this. I saw those two men squabbling over making a sheepskin jacket and immediately had to account for them, why they were doing it and who they were. I've never been daft enough to start a project like this before. Really bad news for my bank account and bookshelves and sanity but occasionally one comes across a gem like this (http://i32.photobucket.com/albums/d41/Essayel/Ataiascoin.jpg). It's very unlikely that that is an actual portrait but - well developed musculature, just got out of bed hair etc - it would be nice if it was.

[wulfila.livejournal.com]

The exhibition was fantastic indeed (I went there three times because I could not get enough) and gave me the idea for the story I am currently working on (not quite as serious and sophisticated a project as yours).

It's very unlikely that that is an actual portrait but - well developed musculature, just got out of bed hair etc - it would be nice if it was.

It would be nice indeed, and basing your hero's appearance on it will certainly not do any harm. At least, it looks very realistic for a picture on a coin (right down to the gorytos).

And I like your idea to account for the sheepskin squabblers - now I am even more curious than before in regard to your story. So, good luck with it!

[essayel.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping that, at some stage, that exhibition will come to the UK. In the meantime, books and the internet fill in quite a lot of gaps and, if necessary, I can always put a disclaimer at the beginning.

Now I just need to get the words on the page! Always the 2nd hardest thing to do [the hardest is editing them off again afterwards].