Yaddith Times

Powerful Women Who Ruled the Ancient World by Kara Cooney

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This short (12 lectures) Audible Great Courses offering was actually even more interesting -- & less conventionally feminist -- than I'd expected. Cooney, an Egyptologist, devotes two lectures each to Hatshepsut & Cleopatra VII, plus two each to Greece & Rome. This still allows a little scope for ancient China (one lecture, featuring a dowager empress I do not recommend learning about while eating . . . she made Game of Thrones look like kindergarten), Biblical women, Boudica, & ancient Mesopotamia.

Rather than simply narrating the fascinating lives of these women, Cooney does an excellent job of explaining how they achieved power, what limits were placed upon this (none of them ruled or otherwise held power without a man somewhere in the picture), & what those around them gained from their elevated status. This makes the course nearly as much ancient political science as women's studies -- and, possibly, of interest to a wider audience.

This course is being offered as an "Audible Plus" selection, free with membership. As such, it's well worth the time investment for anyone looking to wind up Women's History Month with some solid academic information.



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Fans of Robert Bloch, Egyptology, & / or H.P. Lovecraft will not want to miss this recent article on the Lovecraft eZine site. Entitled “The Egyptian Tales of Robert Bloch,” and penned by none other than Robert M. Price, it offers a comprehensive look at Bloch’s 1936-1938 Weird Tales offerings in this department, plus much interesting background material. Howard Carter’s 1922 discovery of Tut’s tomb? Karloff’s 1932 classic horror film The Mummy? It’s all there – along with Dr. Price’s evaluation of what Bloch may have altered in the standard mythological canon, and what he borrowed from Lovecraft himself.

This article is a generous serving of the sort of literary analysis only a critic of Price’s stature can bring to so-called pulp fiction – and, like everything offered on editor Mike Davis’s eZine, it’s free for all to read. Find it here.

I’m very happy to report that Nate Pederson’s Starry Wisdom Library anthology is finally complete! It has been handed over to Andrew Leman (H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society), who will be doing the design.

PS Publishing has scheduled the book launch for September, at FantasyCon 2014.

Check out the competed TOC – and all things Starry Wisdom Library - on their Web site.

My own contribution to this anthology concerns Robert Bloch’s The Black Rites. Egyptophile geekery, anyone?

Over at Innsmouth Free Press, they're posting a series of micro-interviews to promote Candle in the Attic Window, their brand new Gothic horror anthology. 

Today was my day in the tank!  Read on here for more than you probably ever wanted to know about the parts of the ancient Egyptian soul, & other matters relating to my dark sonnet "The Ba-Curse."

Archaeology Magazine online is offering a nice interview article with the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Department of Egyptian Art curator.  The Met's got a new exhibit focused on "Tutankhamun's Funeral," complete with lots & lots of morbid little leftovers from the embalming process.

Whether you are a true Tut-ophile or not (and I'm generally not . . . my favorite pharaoh is another 18th Dynasty notable,  Hatshepsut), this article offers a concise rundown of events leading up to the discovery of that famous tomb.   

According to an article which will be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the 19 year old King Tutankhamun (Dynasty 18, around 1323 BC) died from a combination of injury & infection, though some of his underlying trouble was very likely genetic. 

The Associated Press has a detailed article:  A frail King Tut died from malaria, broken leg

Thanks to recent DNA testing, this article has quite a lot of chewy information -- and some speculation -- about Tut's parentage, as well.

I've been fascinated by Egyptology for years,  but much of the material here is new to me.  I'll be sure to post again as more of this (continuing) Amarna mystery is unraveled by science & peer-reviewed journals.