(no subject)

[bedlamsbard]

Man, if I ever really want an alien-sounding name, I'm going with Etruscan names, the non-Latinized version. Larth Tetnie and his wife Tanchvil Tarnai, anyone? (Sarcophagus of Larth Tetnie and wife Tanchvil Tarnai, alabaster, Vulci, c. 350 BCE. agh, studying.)

I guess while I'm talking about the sarcophagus, I should link to a picture of it. That's the lid.

Latin test is over, now I've moved on to studying for my Etruscans & Early Rome test at 1:00. Slide ID, baby. (That's actually all there is, which means I need to memorize these slides, ah, fairly quickly.)

Eh, while I'm here, have one more sarcophagus: The Old Couple, an ash urn lid from Volterra, from the 1st century BCE. Lids with couples on them aren't that common; the oldest we have dates from the late sixth century (Sarcophagus of the Married Couple, Banditaccia Necropolis, Caere, 530-510 BCE), and they don't appear again until the mid-4th century, though it could just be that we haven't found any examples from the fifth century. With the sarcophagus of Larth Tetnie and his wife Tanchvil, as well as the Sarcophagus of the Married Couple, note that they're both young and handsome, relatively speaking. The Old Couple isn't; there's a trend towards realistic portrayals, although not always -- with the sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa (Sarcophagus of Seianti Hanunia Tlesnasa, Poggio Cantarello, terracotta, c. 150-140 BCE), she's portrayed as young and bridal, but (and this is a rare case) the remains that were found in the sarcophagus are those of a much older woman, so she probably chose her portrayal. But then we have the Old Couple. Maybe it's just the angle they're at, but they look pretty happy, don't they?

Anyway. That bit was kind of like studying, yeah? Since those are all sarcophagi that might be on my final. (You'll notice that I also kept noting the material as well as the location, date, and name. Yes. I kept accidentally typing "tufa and pain" on my notes, instead of "tufa and paint." WELL IT'S PAIN TO ME OKAY.)

*

I'm keyed up and stressed out; I'm starting to get into pre-packing stress because I KEEP FINDING STUFF OMG and I have more books than anybody reasonably needs to have -- I'm selling back (hopefully) some of them, taking some to the used bookstore on Maple Street, but the vast majority are going to need to be shipped home and I'm estimating four boxes of just books. Plus all my other stuff. AND MY PANTRY. ARGH.

If I'd gotten enough sleep last night I'd probably be slightly less stressed; right now I'm in one of those moods where food is repugnant, which is less than helpful. And I know I've been more stressed than usual over the past couple weeks because I picked up some kind of jaw-popping tic -- not the one I had all through last year where my jaw kept locking, thank the gods, a different one -- and because I've been picking my lips a lot more recently, which is bad, bad, very bad. (It's a bad habit I've had since middle school -- peeling the skin off my lips, sometimes until they bleed. I've gotten better over the past couple years because of frenzied application of lip balm, but when I'm stressed I go right back to doing it. And then I have to explain to people why my lip is all bloody.)

Anyway, back to the Etruscans.

Comments

[pinesandmaples]

You can store some of your books with us, if you can bear to part with them for the summer.

Good luck on your exam.

[bedlamsbard]

The exam went well! (I assume so, anyway, because I didn't blank out on anything in it.)

Thanks -- some of my books will probably end up in my boxes of kitchens 'n' linens stuff, and I'm shedding a bunch of them to Maple Street Books. (I think. I hope. Some of them I don't want to, but I haven't touched them in several years, so they're probably going.) A lot of them I just want to go home so I hopefully have fewer books to deal with next year. (Trufax: I have one particular box of books in my closet and in storage since freshman year. *weeps softly*)

Actually, do y'all want a copy of Stitch 'n' Bitch Nation? I have it, but I almost never use it, so I might as well get rid of it.

[pinesandmaples]

Aliyah would love a copy of S&BN. She says THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!

[bedlamsbard]

Oh good! It shall be going into excellent knitterly hands. *resists urge to try and pawn off all the other books*

Er, on a similar note, and hopefully this doesn't come out sounding weird, but I have a bunch of pantry items that I'm not going to get through before I move out, like various pastas and an almost-full box of kosher salt and a bottle of soy sauce and so on. I don't suppose you'd want it? Most of it's open, so I can't donate it, unfortunately.

[pinesandmaples]

Please, please don't offer rooibos random books. I've been fighting with her bookshelves for years. (She's a collector.) I'm trying not to live in a house of books. Plus, Maple Street could use the income when Aliyah buys all of your books from them anyway.

Not weird at all to offer food. We did that all the time in college because it's a pity to toss perfectly good stuff. Are you sure the salt won't keep? (I have no idea if it will.) The one hitch is that we can't take any fridge staples because we will actually be gone when you drop the stuff off. (Did I mention that? No. Okay. We're leaving town tomorrow around lunchtime, and we won't be back until the 15th. Never fear! Our building has staff in the lobby 24/7 so you will be able to leave boxes with the front desk. Just tell the desk staff that the boxes are for the folks in 209, and you can be on your merry way. We have friends who drop random stuff off here all the time: hammers, Christmas cards, books, paint samples...)

[bedlamsbard]

Book-collecting. *nods sagely* I'm up to four boxes of books full and probably one more, with one box to get rid of. That's not counting all the books at home, since every year I ship boxes and boxes of books home and we have a whole LIBRARY, plus several dozen other bookshelves scattered throughout the house. (Really. We have a room called the library at home. It always struck me as strange that not everyone lives in a house with a library.)

Oh good! I don't have much in the way of fridge staples, it's mostly stuff in the cupboards. The salt will probably keep, yeah. (Note to self: salt goes in the box, when you figure out what box it is. I keep remembering I have to store things like, you know, my trash can. *sighs* Don't worry, it will be empty.)

*twitches* AND I STILL HAVE A FINAL LEFT. (Sorry, I'm kind of in one of those headspaces. Plus, book tetris.)

[gmh]

I suspect you're going to love the British Museum...

[bedlamsbard]

I have the same suspicion. :)

[gmh]

During the first week of my first year at University College London (UCL) - just up the road from the British Museum - I had no place to stay in a college hall of residence. While a pain in the whatnots (commuting to and from Bath every day is not fun!), it meant that I had a couple of hours every lunchtime for a week with nothing to do - and the British Museum about 300 yards away.

I spent all of them in the British Museum; a different bit of it every day. There's plenty of stuff I still didn't see in that time (and saw on later visits); the British Museum, like the Smithsonian, has an incredibly high incidence of 'ooo! I saw something like that in a book! ... no, wait, it *was* that...and holy shit, that's the original!'

You already know many of the really big names; Rosetta Stone, Parthenon marbles, Warren Cup, Ur, mummies, et cetera; but there are other things; friezes from the palace of Sennacherib showing his capture of the rebellious cities of Israel. Or Mycenean pottery and blades. Or Arabic and Chinese ceramics. Or Saxon jewellery and Viking hacksilver.

*sigh*

I can understand the accusations of cultural theft; because - frankly - that is what it was; we typically gave a suitable amount of money to someone who had no right to be selling an item in the first place; and the more controversial items may well have to go back to their originating countries sooner or later.

But for now, they're still there, and you can spend many happy hours wandering through the history of the world, as expressed in monuments and trivia.

I love the place; it's my favourite museum in the world.

[bedlamsbard]

I am so excited to see it! The last time I went to a major museum (maybe the Metropolitan Museum, in NYC? back in middle school?) I was with a group from my school, and I got told off for leaving the group to, gasp, look at things. *sighs*

[aella_irene]

I am a Member of the British Museum. You know. If there are any Member-and-Guest events you want to go to.

[gmh]

Classic example; we had a Chilean fan staying with us for a couple of weeks a decade ago, so we took her to the Museum.

She stops in the Great Court, looks at one of the exhibits and goes 'Hey! They've got a replica of an Easter Island moai!'

Us: 'er... this being the British Museum, that's probably not a replica.'

Her: 'Oh, come on! - what are the odds of them a) getting one and b) shipping it halfway across the world?'

We went and investigated.

Needless to say, it was.

[harpers_child]

have you seen this wondermark comic? http://wondermark.com/442/

for shipping books there are book rates. i love them.

[bedlamsbard]

Aww, that's adorable.

Media mail is made of win. I also have three large flat-rate boxes mostly filled with books, right now. (Yes. I have FOUR BOXES OF BOOKS and I might head into five.)

[harpers_child]

that seems like a completely rational number of books and i do not see how you don't have more. for reference, i lived in the same city as my parents while in college and still brought home four boxes of books from the dorm at the end of the semester.

[bedlamsbard]

I also have a whole 'nother box of books that I'm going to try to (a) sell back or (b) sell to the used bookshop on Maple Street. Because I honestly truly can't haul around all these books all the time. (Although with some of them I'm staring at them and going, "But maybe I want to keep this?")