The Triumph of the Sea Gods

The Triumph of the Sea Gods
Author: Steven Sora
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Total Pages: 229
Release: 2007-06-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1594777527

An investigation of the geographical incongruities in Homer’s epics locates Troy on the coast of Iberia, in a conflict that changed history • Cites the rise in sea level in 1200 B.C. as leading to the invasion and victory of the Atlantean sea people over the goddess-worshipping Trojans who ruled the coasts • Identifies Troia (Troy) as part of a tri-city area that later became Lisbon, Portugal In The Triumph of the Sea Gods, Steven Sora argues compellingly that Homer’s tales do not describe adventures in the Mediterranean, but are adaptations of Celtic myths that chronicle an Atlantic coastal war that took place off the Iberian Peninsula around 1200 B.C. It was a war between the pro-goddess Celtic culture that presided over what is now Portugal and the patriarchal culture of the sea-faring Atlanteans. The invasion of the Atlantean sea peoples brought destruction to the entire region stretching from Western Europe’s Atlantic border to Egypt, Syria, and Turkey. This was a turning point not only politically but also spiritually. The goddess became demonized, as seen in myths such as Pandora’s Box in which woman was seen as the source of evil, not the origin of life, and Homer’s tale of the epic Greek and Trojan war, which was triggered by the abduction of a woman. The actual historical struggle described in Homer’s stories, Sora explains, occurred during what was the last in a series of rises in sea level that inundated various land masses (Atlantis) and permitted sea passage to areas previously accessible only by land. The “Sea Gods” (Atlanteans) attacked the tri-city region of Troia (Troy), near present-day Lisbon, which, shortly thereafter, fell victim to a devastating series of seaquakes and tsunamis. The war and the subsequent destructive weather broke the power of this seaboard civilization, leading to a wholesale invasion by the sea peoples and the rapid decline of the region’s goddess-worshipping culture that had reigned there since Neolithic times. Sora shows how Homer’s tales allow the modern world to glimpse this ancient conflict, which has been obscured for centuries.

A World Full of Gods

A World Full of Gods
Author: Keith Hopkins
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 433
Release: 2001-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0452282616

“Evokes the sights and sounds of the ancient world with daring and imagination… An intellectual tour-de-force that challenges us to see the history of Christianity through the eyes of those who actually lived it.”—Los Angeles Times In this provocative, irresistibly entertaining book, Keith Hopkins takes readers back in time to explore the roots of Christianity in ancient Rome. Combining exacting scholarship with dazzling invention, Hopkins challenges our perceptions about religion, the historical Jesus, and the way history is written. He puts us in touch with what he calls "empathetic wonder"—imagining what Romans, pagans, Jews, and Christians thought, felt, experienced, and believed-by employing a series of engaging literary devices. These include a TV drama about the Dead Sea Scrolls; the first-person testimony of a pair of time-travelers to Pompeii; a meditation on Jesus' apocryphal twin brother; and an unusual letter on God, demons, and angels.

Raphael

Raphael
Author: Juliet Mofford
Publisher: Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc.
Total Pages: 52
Release: 2010-09
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1612287581

Although Raphael is best remembered today for his Madonna and Child paintings, he was in great demand during his lifetime to paint dukes, counts, and fashionable ladies. Popes, cardinals, and noblemen wanted Raphael to paint frescoes on their walls, design their villas, and decorate their chapels. Raphael spent his childhood in a palace surrounded by art, music, and poetry. Called "Prince of Painters," he represented the ideal "Renaissance Man," expressing the beauty, humanism, and culture that defined the age. Less familiar, yet revealed in this book, is Raphael's love of archaeology and his determination to preserve ancient Roman monuments. His life and art display a knowledge of classical architecture and philosophy. Raphael was amazingly productive in his short life and remains one of history's most admired artists.

The Ben Jonson Encyclopedia

The Ben Jonson Encyclopedia
Author: D. Heyward Brock
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 645
Release: 2016-05-12
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0810890755

Friend and rival of Shakespeare, Ben Jonson was one of the most learned and interesting men of his age. Throughout his fascinating life, he served not only as a bricklayer but also a soldier, an adventurer, an actor, a poet, and a playwright. The breadth of his experiences, acquaintances, friends, and enemies was legendary, and his literary canon is equally as diverse. The Ben Jonson Encyclopedia covers in detail the works, life, and times of this seminal figure of the English Renaissance. The cross-referenced entries include summaries of all Jonson’s plays, masques, and entertainments, as well as sketches of Jonson’s friends, enemies, patrons, disciples, actors, and fellow writers. In addition, the book identifies historical figures, mythological characters, and classical authors, as well as Jonson’s contemporaries and London place names mentioned in the works. Individuals who danced or participated in the masques and entertainments or tournaments for which Jonson wrote speeches are noted, as are the main actors known to have acted in the plays. All major scholars—from Jonson’s own day until the twenty-first century—who have commented on Jonson or his works are also included. An extensive bibliography completes this invaluable scholarly reference tool. Because of Jonson’s centrality to—and influence in and beyond—his age, this encyclopedia provides a dynamic, unparalleled vision of the English Renaissance literary scene. Capturing the depth and breadth of Jonson’s understanding of early Modern England, The Ben Jonson Encyclopedia will be especially useful for students, librarians, and academics interested in the literary and cultural scene from 1500 to 1650.

God Beneath The Sea

God Beneath The Sea
Author: Leon Garfield
Publisher: Random House
Total Pages: 225
Release: 2014-01-30
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 1448173841

Leon Garfield and Edward Blishen retells some of the most famous Greek myths in this classic of children's literature. This is the epic history of the Greek Gods told from their violent beginnings to the creation of man.

The Villa Farnesina

The Villa Farnesina
Author: James Grantham Turner
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 927
Release: 2022-10-06
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1009041630

The frescoes of Peruzzi, Raphael and Sodoma still dazzle visitors to the Villa Farnesina, but they survive in a stripped-down environment bereft of its landscape, sealed so it cannot breathe. Turner takes you outside that box, restoring these canonical images to their original context, when each element joined in a productive conversation. He is the first to reconstruct the architect-painter Peruzzi's original, well-proportioned, well-appointed building and to re-visualize his lost façade decoration‒erotic scenes and mythological figures who make it come alive and soar upward. More comprehensively than any previous scholar, he reintegrates painting, sculpture, architecture, garden design, topographical prints and drawings, archaeological discoveries and literature from the brilliant circle around the patron Agostino Chigi, the powerful banker who 'loved all virtuosi' and commissioned his villa-palazzo from the best talents in multiple arts. It can now be understood as a Palace of Venus, celebrating aesthetic, social and erotic pleasure.