Saturday, January 23, 2016

Another Ancient Eqyptian Queen Discovered, Another "History" as "Wife" Blown Up

Hola darlings!

Here is an article forwarded from Michelle, daughter of Georgia, my cohort here at Goddesschess, about the unmasking of yet another historical myth about the role a female played in the ancient Egyptian hierarchy of rulers.  When Mr. Don was alive he fondly referred to us as "his" three Goddesses :)

Georgia, Michelle and Yours Truly, New York en route to Statue of Liberty, 2009.
Chess Goddesses :)
Yet another one down (historic myth accepted as fact) and another one down, another one bites the dust...

Early Egyptian Queen Revealed in 5,000 Year Old Hieroglyphs
from Yahoo, as reported at Live Science by Owen Jarus

January 21, 2016:

About 60 drawings and hieroglyphic inscriptions, dating back around 5,000 years, have been discovered at a site called Wadi Ameyra in Egypt’s Sinai Desert. Carved in stone, they were created by mining expeditions sent out by early Egyptian pharaohs, archaeologists say.

They reveal new information on the early pharaohs. For instance, one inscription the researchers found tells of a queen named Neith-Hotep who ruled Egypt 5,000 years ago as regent to a young pharaoh named Djer.
Archaeologists estimate that the earliest carvings at Wadi Ameyra date back around 5,200 years, while the most recent date to the reign of a pharaoh named Nebre, who ruled about 4,800 years ago.
The "inscriptions are probably a way to proclaim that the Egyptian state owned the area," team leader Pierre Tallet, a professor at Université Paris-Sorbonne, told Live Science.
He explained that south of Wadi Ameyra, the ancient expeditions would have mined turquoise and copper. Sometime after Nebre's rule, the route of the expeditions changed, bypassing Wadi Ameyra, he said.
Early female ruler
The inscriptions carved by a mining expedition show that queen Neith-Hotep stepped up as ruler about 5,000 years ago, millennia before Hatshepsut or Cleopatra VII ruled the country.
While Egyptologists knew that Neith-Hotep existed, they believed she was married to a pharaoh named Narmer. "The inscriptions demonstrate that she [Neith-Hotep] was not [emphasis added] the wife of Narmer, but a regent queen at the beginning of the reign of Djer," Tallet said.
 'The White Walls'
An inscription found at Wadi Ameyra shows that Memphis, an ancient capital of Egypt that was also called "the White Walls," is older than originally believed.
Ancient Greek and Roman writers claimed that Memphis was constructed by a mythical king named Menes, whom Egyptologists often consider to be a real-life pharaoh named Narmer, Tallet explained.
The new inscription shows that Memphis actually existed before Narmer was even born.
"We have in Wadi Ameyra an inscription giving for the first time the name of this city, the White Walls,and it is associated to the name of Iry-Hor, a king who ruled Egypt two generations before Narmer," Tallet said. The inscription shows that the ancient capital was around during the time of Iry-Hor and could have been built before even he was pharaoh. [Could "The White Walls" be a reference to the prehistoric White Goddess, who later cropped up in culture after culture, in many different forms?]

Board Game Pieces Found in Ancient Roman Settlement in Germany

Board game pieces found in ancient Roman settlement

The remnants of ancient water wells, pearls and hairpins are proof that a group of villagers set up a settlement on top of a military fort in ancient Roman times.
About 1,900 years ago, a group of Roman soldiers lived in a fort in what is now Gernsheim, a German town located on the Rhine River about 31 miles (50 kilometers) south of Frankfurt. Shortly after the soldiers left the fort in about A.D. 120, another group of people moved in and built a village literally on top of the settlement, researchers found.
Archaeologists have known about the site itself since the 1800s, but the new finding sheds light on its inhabitants and what they did for fun. (An ancient die and game piece were among the discoveries.) 
Image credit: Thomas Maurer

Chess, Gambling, and Cards: Tudor Indoor Pasttimes

Maybe the Saudi Mufti read this article before he issued his condemnation of chess as "gambling" (typical silly male religious nonsense -- see post below).

From BBC History Magazine online:


Hundreds of years before the invention of radio or television, how did the Tudors occupy themselves of an evening, or during long, winter nights? Melita Thomas, the editor of 
Tudor Times, investigates…
Wandering around a Tudor house or garden on a sunny day is a delightful experience. We can imagine the lady of the house in her velvets and French hood picking flowers and herbs, or the maid turning those herbs into cooking ingredients or medicine. Visiting during the day, we seldom think of what the evenings must have been like – long hours, with no entertainment other than what the household could provide. How did they while away the evenings? The answer is board games – some of which we still play to similar rules today, and some that have been adapted over time. 

Chess

The most enduring game of all is chess, which has been played in western Europe since the early Middle Ages – witness the beautiful Lewis Chessmen (chess pieces of walrus ivory, found on Lewis in 1831, but likely made in Norway in around AD 1150–1200). The rules of chess, however, underwent a significant change in the mid-to-late 15th century when the queen, originally a weak piece, became the most dominant figure on the board. 
From The Book of Chess and Games commissioned by
King Alphonso X of Castile, c. 1283.  Two ladies playing.
Hand/finger positions indicate clues to moves.  Source.
The romantic among us might date the change to the emergence of powerful  female rulers, such as Isabella I of Castile or Anne of Beaujeu, regent of France from 1483-91.
Chess-playing was an essential social skill for the upper classes in the Tudor period. The inventory of goods belonging to Catherine of Aragon, taken after she had been banished from court in 1531, revealed two ivory chess-boards with pieces; a set of red and ivory chess men; and a further box of ivory chessmen. These were all commandeered by Henry VIII.
Katherine Parr, Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I are also known to have played chess. The game was so much a part of court life that Henry VIII’s accounts show a payment made to a cook for creating two chessboards and men of sugar, decorated with gold, for a banquet. 

Again? Islam Prohibits Playing Chess

Let's see, how many times, over the course of Herstory have males in their long flowy feminine robes from various "religions" attempted to outlaw/ban chess as somehow "sinful?"  Need you any further proof that chess is, indeed, The Game of the Goddess?  But try as they might, the religious patriarchs have not succeeded in abolishing Her, and they never will.

Checkmate: Saudi grand mufti makes move against chess

By Don Melvin, CNN
January 22, 2016

(CNN)   So does everyone need to roll up their rooks and box up their bishops?  Maybe not, but some people in Saudi Arabia might be wondering.
    Saudi's grand mufti, the kingdom's top cleric, was appearing on a religious TV channel, taking questions about faith and sin and that sort of thing.  And he got one about chess.
    Not one to hesitate, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin-Abdullah al-Sheikh said chess and similar games are "forbidden" in Islam because they're a form of gambling.  He supported his statement with a verse from the Quran: "Indeed wine, gambling, idols and the divining arrows are abominations of Satan's doing, so avoid them, so that you may be felicitous." [But dressing pre-puberty boys like girls and making them dance for adult males and then sexually assaulting them with anal intercourse is just fine.]
    The grand mufti called chess "a waste of time, money and a reason for the enmity between players."
    The clip was posted on YouTube last month. It is unclear when it aired on TV; CNN was trying to reach the channel, Saudi station Al-Majd, for comment.
    A member of the Saudi Chess Association said the group was surprised by the video but had received no formal notification, and the group is hoping for clarification.  The chess association began a two-day championship in Mecca on Friday. Another two-day tournament, the Riyadh Chess Championship, is scheduled for early June.
    Twitter users reacted to the comments with humor and sarcasm. [Comments omitted.]
    CNN's Hamdi Alkhshali and Melissa Gray contributed to this report.
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