I'm now back home in Santa Rosa.

This has been such a great trip, on many levels--both personally and professionally. I hardly know where to begin synthesizing all the stuff I saw and learned.

In the coming days I will begin to upload and deal with all of the photos I took. And I'll talk about where I went and what I saw and did, here at the forum.

Making a pilgrimage to Ephesus to see the statue of "Artemis" remains one of my peak experiences. Since I brought it up, engage the link below to go to a site that displays a photograph of one of the three statues I saw. Unfortunately, the accompanying text at that site is basically confused and mistaken, so I would tend to disregard what it has to say.

The statues from antiquity that are now identified as "Artemis" (still one of my favorite goddesses) are conveniently so-identified to make connections between early and later concepts. The statue is not really Artemis (nor the Diana of the Romans), but represents an earlier mother/fertility goddess—whose name is no longer known. Her temple at Ephesus was one of the Ancient Wonders of the World, but sadly no longer remains. I viewed and photographed what is left—this being a single column. The rest of the temple was scavenged and used to construct other buildings. And even here, the first temple had been destroyed in antiquity, by fire, by a madman (looking to create an infamy to preserve his name). It is said that the temple was burnt down the night Alexander the Great was born. (Another of my favorite historical persons.) When people used to say "Isn't your goddess powerful enough to protect her temple?"—the reply was, "Our goddess wanted to be present at the birth of Alexander, so she was not here to prevent the disaster"—which I think is a nice story.

Getting back to the statue. When I was first exposed to this and similar images, I made the mistaken assumption that the lobes between her chest and waist are "breasts." (Lots of people have presumed this in various interpretations that you can read about—including at the link I post here.) It's a natural mistake. It seems logical that this is the Great Mother who feeds the world—and that was my assumption too. However, I have read a lot about this in the past couple of years, and I have had to change my interpretation to one that initially is less pleasant and more surprising. The girdle of rounded items that she wears are actually bull testicles. They do not symbolize nourishing, but rather fecundity. And they are not part of her anatomy, but rather are like a garment that she is wearing. The testicles are connected to something like a leather harness that she is wearing below a series of necklaces (that cover her breasts). This is fairly apparent when you see the actual statues. Also, the dress she wears, which has a long narrow skirt, is richly ornamented with deeply carved animals—of which the bull is seen in several places, emphasizing her association and symbolism. I hope to read even more about all this in my ongoing research.

I had hoped to see a different (but related) statue while I was in Naples. However, it was on-loan to a different museum, and not at the Archaeological Museum of Napoli the days I visited there. I have to be happy with the post card and catalogue I bought..., until I can return. The Neapolitan statue is similar to those from Ephesus, but is less than life size (—I'm not sure how tall, since I didn't see it), and it is richly ornamented with gold. Plus, her face and hands are black—which is beautiful and interesting. Her head gear is also different. I'll post a scan when I get to that, in the near future.

Anyway, it's time for me to rest again, and get back on to local time.

Have a good day. Jamey