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Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It
Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It | Emily Hauser
4 posts | 2 read | 8 to read
Weaving together literary and archaeological evidence, Emily Hauser illuminates the rich, intriguing lives of the real women behind Homer's Iliad and Odyssey. Achilles. Agamemnon. Odysseus. Hector. The lives of these and many other men in the greatest epics of ancient Greece have been pored over endlessly in the past three millennia. But these are not just tales about heroic men. There are scores of women as well--complex, fascinating women whose stories have gone unexplored for far too long. In Penelope's Bones, award-winning classicist and historian Emily Hauser pieces together compelling evidence from archaeological excavations and scientific discoveries to unearth the richly textured lives of women in Bronze Age Greece--the era of Homer's heroes. Here, for the first time, we come to understand the everyday lives and experiences of the real women who stand behind the legends of Helen, Briseis, Cassandra, Aphrodite, Circe, Athena, Hera, Calypso, Penelope, and more. In this captivating journey through Homer's world, Hauser explains era-defining discoveries, such as the excavation of Troy and the decipherment of Linear B tablets that reveal thousands of captive women and their children; more recent finds like the tomb of the Griffin Warrior at Pylos, whose tomb contents challenge traditional gender attributes; DNA evidence showing that groups of warriors buried near the Black Sea with their weapons and steeds were, in fact, Amazon-like female fighters; a prehistoric dye workshop on Crete that casts fresh light on "women's work" of dyeing, spinning, and weaving textiles; and a superbly preserved shipwreck off the coast of Turkey whose contents tell of the economic and diplomatic networks crisscrossing the Bronze Age Mediterranean. Essential reading for fans of Madeline Miller or Natalie Haynes, this riveting new history brings to life the women of the Bronze Age Aegean as never before, offering a groundbreaking reassessment of the ancient world.
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RowReads1
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BookmarkTavern
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Pickpick

Using all sorts of resources, from DNA testing to old translations of Homer‘s epics to archaeological ruins, Hauser recontextualizes the women of the Iliad & the Odyssey within history.

As a recovering Greek mythology obsessive elementary kid, I really appreciated seeing all the ways that there is historical evidence behind the characters. Maybe not these specific women, but similar enough. A little dry sometimes, but very informative!🌕🌕🌕🌕🌑

BookmarkTavern CW 👇🏻 1w
BookmarkTavern General warning throughout for brief references to rape, incest, and child death 1w
tpixie This book sounds very interesting. Maybe I need to save it for when I retire so I can do a deep dive. 1w
Karisa Oooh! Thanks for the recommendation! You might also like A Thousand Ships. I absolutely loved it last year. The fantastic audio version is read by the author 😍 1w
BookmarkTavern @Karisa That‘s on my TBR! I‘ll need to bump it up the line! 1w
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1. The above. The subject and mentions of Mary Beard usually get me.

2. Stand alone. I‘m more likely to read a stand alone based on preferences.

@TheSpineView #Two4Tuesday

TheSpineView Thanks for playing! ❤️📖 2w
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Greek myths were a big part of the literary landscape I had growing up. And they were always deeply misogynistic. But, like the male archeologists thinking every grave with weapons in it must be a man‘s, generations of scientists, storytellers, artists and philosophers stripped women of meaningful places and stories in myths.