it is a wonderful day in the LBA aegean…

and you are a horrible horrible achaean

[doloneia]

welcome to my symposium (alcibiades dni)

about me:

dipylon oinochoe guy 👍

my name is jack (he/him), my main is @nethnad. english is my first language and i am somewhat fluent in ancient greek

i majored in ancient history & archaeology, did my dissertation on late geometric pottery.

ultimately plan to be an archaeologist with a focus on the late bronze age/early iron age aegean (LHIIIC to geometric period my beloved). i have done some field work in the past so if anyone’s curious abt that feel free to ask

if arzawa has 0 friends then i am dead. i would die for tarkasnawa

useful compilation of database links here, and goofy uquiz i made about late bronze age mediterranean states here

we get a little silly here. a little goofy even. perhaps we even steal some horses and swim in the sea and don't look at the thracian camp its totally fine :) its fine guys :)

interests/image credits below the cut

interests:

late bronze age/early iron age anatolia (especially miletus & sardis, but the hittites are cool too). do not ask or inquire about my opinions of the alaksandu letter. i prefer to avoid flaming dumpsterfires.

the dumpsterfire that is provenance studies

industrial spaces in the early iron age (mostly metallurgy/forges, but quarries are also cool)

greek tragedy (especially the ajax + philoctetes).

greek historiography (herodotus+xenophon). big herodotus defender. but i dont like thucydides. i don't like his prose. dni thucydides. "but he's dead" dni thucydides.

homeric tradition (especially the telemachy & posthomerica). i want to study teucer and telemachus like bugs.

odysseus is my favorite campy villain/problem causer, i love him and want him 10000 ft away from me at all times.

my thoughts on traditional pottery classification systems are many and complex and i will not elaborate

pfp is from a vase of telemachus from the beazley pottery database, specifically this skyphos where he's standing with his spears by penelope and her loom. header on mobile/browser is from the ship procession fresco of house 5 from akotiri, thera/santorini because it is a timeless masterpiece and mmm Boat

[doloneia]

mfw the regular copper shipment from alashiya doesn't arrive to my palace-citadel complex on schedule

[dramatic-dolphin]

and if i said nolan's odyssey starring no greek actors and with no recognizable aspects of greek culture or involvement by greeks, is the direct legacy of white supremacist colonialism that treated ancient greece as not just the pinnacle of ancient culture, but of an artificially created "european" culture, which white western europeans and their settler descendants, as the new pinnacle of culture, were the sole spiritual inheritors of.

[to-find-out-what-happens]

I would agree and so would Fariya Faraji in this good youtube video

[doloneia]

Possibly atrang equearion but you appeared on my dash talking about nolan's odyssey and seem very knowledgeable. I on the other hand, would say I have more knowledge about Homer's work than the average person, but not a whole lot at all. I'm wondering if you think itbs worth it to see the movie cause I'm on the fence. I don't think some of the smaller details would piss me off because I don't know them, but I'm wondering if it's just like overall not worth seeing.

i mean if you turn your brain off its alright i guess? odysseus’ parts tended to drag on a bit but nolan did portray a pretty solid start to the telemachy compared to most other adaptations (the telemachy doesnt even fuckin happen in epic the musical so the bar’s in hell, but still). like i will say that although i’ve seen some criticism of anne hathaway’s penelope, her performance was very enjoyable to watch overall and i enjoyed all of her sections with telemachus (and her convo with odysseus at night before the contest). also the bow stringing scene was kinda fire ngl. the sound guy COOKED with that part.

but considering the cost of movie theaters these days you should probably just wait for it to be available on piracy sites or something

[doloneia]

did nodyssey (nolan odyssey) at least have odysseus and his dog reunion …. please tell me there’s at least that

yes argos did appear!! he appears a few times ❤️ a couple times he’s with telemachus and telemachus is very protective of him, then when he dies odysseus is actually petting him and giving him belly-rubs too, it genuinely made me a little emotional

and nolan also made that scene the moment where telemachus recognizes odysseus?? which was a bit confusing but in the spirit of “Their Dog Just Died Holyyy Fuck The Dog Died” i accepted it. like shit that random beggar did just give argos the best pats of his long doggone life, he’s gotta be telemachus’ missing dad

[jeyneofpoole]

ALSO ODYSSEUS LITERALLY JUST GOES TO TROY HE JUST GOESSSSSSSS they don’t even TRY to put baby telemachus in the paper shredder he just dips without a fuss. they change odysseus hanging the maids to penelope kicking melantho out for girlboss reasons and they TOOK AWAY MY BAG OF WIND #mybagofwind they also took away the dipshit that falls off of circe’s roof and dies. deeply shallow meaningless movie.

[aeide]

By day I wove the web, and in the night by torchlight, I unwove it // ἔνθα καὶ ἠματίη μὲν ὑφαίνεσκον μέγαν ἱστόν νύκτας δ᾽ ἀλλύεσκον, ἐπεὶ δαΐδας παραθείμην

Odyssey 19.149–150. Emily Wilson translation.

a weaving based on Dora Wheeler's "Penelope Unraveling Her Work at Night", which is one of my favorite works that looks woven but is actually embroidered. I wanted to try out deborah silver's split-shed weaving technique, so I chose polychrome taqueté with linen and cashmere. I maybe should have chosen an easier technique with fewer colors to start, but here we are! on the right side, I left the uppermost warp threads bare to show the unraveling.

reference below the cut:

[doloneia]

your post reminded me of how telemachus really cant win. If Odysseus returns then he is eclipsed by his fathers glory. And if Odysseus doesnt return then things get Real Dicey At Home (to put it mildly). I feel bad for the guy. It feels like his whole narrative thread is this constant tension that never really gets resolved

YES!!! i swear to god i’ve seen a post or an article abt this SOMEWHERE but i can never find it but shit let me just copy-paste some thoughts i’ve had abt this but from the lens of penelope & telemachus’ dynamic — its been in my drafts for a while (like. 2024 😭) but since i never found the source i was trying to bounce off of, i just ended up letting it rot until i could find it?? but since we’re on this topic i may as well post my thoughts here:

“telemachus & penelope's dynamic is often overlooked/boiled down to "telemachus is a momma's boy" which is sad to me because the dynamic between the two is. very complicated but also fascinating to think about. like, he's his mother's son in a lot of ways but there's an undercurrent of tension between them that often goes unnoticed.

when he's introduced in book 1, telemachus acts very similar to penelope. he's cautious, collected. he confines all his loathing towards the suitors to daydreams. he's on the margins of the household (similar to homeric women, who tend to remain in their specific quarters). i would associate all these characteristics with penelope than odysseus. of course penelope would emphasize to telemachus the importance of quietly observing a situation from afar and of keeping ones emotions/internal thoughts in check. because 1) these are aspects of her own life she is deeply familiar with and indeed utilizing heavily throughout his upbringing and 2) emulating femininity gives telemachus protection in a way. it makes him seem less of a threat.

he’s also uncomfortable with expected norms of masculinity/kingship. i wouldn't say he's unwilling to participate - he calls together the council in book 2, and is willing to confront the suitors when necessary - but in talking to nestor and to menelaus, he’s very reserved. in pylos, he defers to athena-as-mentor. in sparta, he defers to peisistratus. he struggles to interact in these spheres that his mother (and he, by proxy) have been largely absent from.

i’ve seen one article that notes that telemachus never really comes into his own in the odyssey because it creates tension with odysseus’ nostos and repossession of his household. i would agree with this as a doylist perspective on the narrative, but from a watsonian angle i would argue that in telemachus' case such tension does not lie with odysseus.

odysseus is, in telemachus’ eyes, almost like a fable. he is the lost father, he is a bundle of stories from his mother and mentor and the songs they sing about troy in the palace. he is not a person, he is a legend. and so of course telemachus defers to his judgement. there is little tension between the two because telemachus does not consider assuming odysseus’ role as the head of household a priority. he is more concerned with being legitimated by odysseus.

but penelope? penelope has - for the better part of 20 years - assumed this role as the head of the household. mentor was given the task of overseeing it, but it’s penelope who works closely with eurynome and eurycleia to administrate it. telemachus is nominally odysseus' heir, but it’s penelope who’s associated with odysseus’ title and land and wealth.

and this makes her valuable to the suitors but it creates tension between her and telemachus, because as an adult telemachus is expected to fill both these roles. when telemachus leaves for pylos and starts on his allegorical journey into adulthood, it is penelope who he comes into conflict with and who he reacts against in her assertion of control over the household.”

[doloneia]

ok ive seen nolans odyssey and what the fuck was that actually

[doloneia]

Parts that made me tweak in a dim-lit movie theater:

1. Every time we meet a woman or enslaved individual that, y’know, had some semblance of agency in the text, Nolan has just… removed that? Circe’s commanding presence & how she genuinely overpowers Odysseus? Gone. Helen actually stealing the show in Book 4 where she walks down into the room and controls the conversation re: Odysseus & Troy? Gone. Utterly Gone. Lupita Nyong’o gets 0 chance to speak on her own terms and its actually so depressing. Athena doesnt get to do ANYTHING it was actually shocking. Telemachus is instead accompanied by Real Mentor for fuck knows how long. Athena is the one who pushes him to leave in the first place??? But not in Nolan’s adaptation ifg 😭 Also I’m genuinely unsure here but it seemed like Circe & Calypso’s divine status was… nonexistent?? They’re both goddesses but apparently not to Christopher Nolan 🫤

And this treatment extends to Odysseus’ slaves, specifically Eumaeus & Eurycleia (eurynome & philoetius not appearing in this goddamn film ifg). Almost every action taken by Eurycleia in the Odyssey is attributed to someone else in Nolan’s adaptation, she gets 0.2 seconds of screentime, its actually absurd. I think she has two lines in the whole movie. Eurycleia. Odysseus and Telemachus’ nurse. The woman who canonically organizes the doors to be locked during the suitor’s slaughter? Who canonically helps secure Telemachus’ provisions for Pylos? fuckin. Not There. And Eumaeus (who literally perfectly models xenia to a disguised Odysseys while living in extreme poverty) notably Does Not Get To Do That in Nolan’s odyssey, instead he’s like. injured I guess? I’m so fuckin confused as to why that happened, it just made the plot more convoluted. Medon is also just not there at all. Medon who is actually the fuckin best?? My underestimated king??? Where Is He.

2. oh my god everything abt the scene with Polyphemus makes me want to claw my eyes out (except maybe his eye? that looked kinda cool idfk). yknow how polyphemus appears, speaks to the crew, and they let their guard down? how the polyphemus episode represents the world outside of greek customs like xenia? how he fucking talks to them? he talks to them and his neighbors? yeah. in Nolan’s odyssey, there are no neighbors. there is no existential mirror/cyclopean foil to ithacan society. there are no other cyclopes. He doesnt even fucking talk 😭😭 <- i mean he gets one line but the audios so distorted that without captions i had no idea what he said

3. Anticleia reunion scene? Nonexistent. Laertes? Nonexistent. Allegedly still around. Sir Not-Appearing In-This-Film. Book 15 reunion between Telemachus and Odysseus? Nonexistent. Reunion between Odysseus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius? Not there. The fucking marriage bed scene? The goddamn marriage bed? NOT THERE. screams into a bag

4. ODYSSEUS “DIDNT WANT TO RETURN HOME” 😭 they keep fucking saying this over and over again too and. No he very much did. No home means no guaranteed kleos guys. his sons life is in jeopardy but Ok christopher shitlan do whatever the fuck you want, i guess

5. every time i heard them say “our civilization is collapsing” or “they say the peoples from the sea are attacking” or “our age of bronze is ending” not only did i feel my soul die a little more inside but i also kept thinking “man, this sounds a lot like the white supremacist belief in ‘western civilization’ just superimposed onto a falsified image of the late bronze age” and thats because It Is.

strange decisions:

1. boar scar apparently occurred when odysseus was an adult???

2. elliot page’s sinon gets one helluva backstory which i guess was kinda cool if you ignore elliot page getting brutally slaughtered in the first 30 seconds of the movie? not sure how to feel about that

3. travis scott kept showing up randomly which was like. fine i guess? genuinely im not sure what the difference between him & phemius was supposed to be. i didnt even see phemius. tbf i was taking notes this whole time so maybe i missed him? but travis scott shouldve just been phemius idfk why he wasnt

4. The Phaecians are just not there guys and i have no idea why. odysseus’ wanderings are being narrated to calypso?

5. the crew mutinies at scylla instead? odysseus tries to sail towards charybdis??? this was a bizarre sequence

6. no nestor or peisistratus. somehow telemachus sails to the 100% inland palace of menelaus. who needs a chariot when you’ve got a Boat i guess

7. half of my notes just say “what happened to show, don’t tell” because the amount of exposition made me want to slam my head into the wall

highlights:

1. anne hathaway and tom holland had a very good dynamic, i feel like they really captured some of the tension between penelope & telemachus, ie penelope running the house for 20 years and still assuming some of that authority vs. telemachus trying to grow up/assume control of the household/establish his own kleos. loved that dynamic tbh. one of the better parts of the telemachy sections

2. lupita nyong’o was great in the uh. 30 seconds she had on screen. im so serious helen was fucking robbed in this movie

3. himesh patel fucking carried every scene he was in on his Back

4. rare cicones appearance

maybe the real sea peoples was the troy we sacked along the way

[doloneia]

some may wonder. if no phaecians, how does odysseus talk about his wanderings? well ☝️

nolan has decided to merge calypso’s island with the lotus-eaters and the phaecians. Somehow. its basically an amnesiac odysseus explaining to calypso what happened but its really unclear when or how he lost his memory i guess he was too hopped up on lotus

[doloneia]

also they were not lying when they said there was a massive strobe sequence during the destruction of odysseus’ ship. it was like 5 minutes of violently flashing lights. i barely saw eurylochus die because i was like “Man This Feels A Bit Risky, And I’m Not Even Photosensitive”

[doloneia]

ok ive seen nolans odyssey and what the fuck was that actually

[doloneia]

Parts that made me tweak in a dim-lit movie theater:

1. Every time we meet a woman or enslaved individual that, y’know, had some semblance of agency in the text, Nolan has just… removed that? Circe’s commanding presence & how she genuinely overpowers Odysseus? Gone. Helen actually stealing the show in Book 4 where she walks down into the room and controls the conversation re: Odysseus & Troy? Gone. Utterly Gone. Lupita Nyong’o gets 0 chance to speak on her own terms and its actually so depressing. Athena doesnt get to do ANYTHING it was actually shocking. Telemachus is instead accompanied by Real Mentor for fuck knows how long. Athena is the one who pushes him to leave in the first place??? But not in Nolan’s adaptation ifg 😭 Also I’m genuinely unsure here but it seemed like Circe & Calypso’s divine status was… nonexistent?? They’re both goddesses but apparently not to Christopher Nolan 🫤

And this treatment extends to Odysseus’ slaves, specifically Eumaeus & Eurycleia (eurynome & philoetius not appearing in this goddamn film ifg). Almost every action taken by Eurycleia in the Odyssey is attributed to someone else in Nolan’s adaptation, she gets 0.2 seconds of screentime, its actually absurd. I think she has two lines in the whole movie. Eurycleia. Odysseus and Telemachus’ nurse. The woman who canonically organizes the doors to be locked during the suitor’s slaughter? Who canonically helps secure Telemachus’ provisions for Pylos? fuckin. Not There. And Eumaeus (who literally perfectly models xenia to a disguised Odysseys while living in extreme poverty) notably Does Not Get To Do That in Nolan’s odyssey, instead he’s like. injured I guess? I’m so fuckin confused as to why that happened, it just made the plot more convoluted. Medon is also just not there at all. Medon who is actually the fuckin best?? My underestimated king??? Where Is He.

2. oh my god everything abt the scene with Polyphemus makes me want to claw my eyes out (except maybe his eye? that looked kinda cool idfk). yknow how polyphemus appears, speaks to the crew, and they let their guard down? how the polyphemus episode represents the world outside of greek customs like xenia? how he fucking talks to them? he talks to them and his neighbors? yeah. in Nolan’s odyssey, there are no neighbors. there is no existential mirror/cyclopean foil to ithacan society. there are no other cyclopes. He doesnt even fucking talk 😭😭 <- i mean he gets one line but the audios so distorted that without captions i had no idea what he said

3. Anticleia reunion scene? Nonexistent. Laertes? Nonexistent. Allegedly still around. Sir Not-Appearing In-This-Film. Book 15 reunion between Telemachus and Odysseus? Nonexistent. Reunion between Odysseus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius? Not there. The fucking marriage bed scene? The goddamn marriage bed? NOT THERE. screams into a bag

4. ODYSSEUS “DIDNT WANT TO RETURN HOME” 😭 they keep fucking saying this over and over again too and. No he very much did. No home means no guaranteed kleos guys. his sons life is in jeopardy but Ok christopher shitlan do whatever the fuck you want, i guess

5. every time i heard them say “our civilization is collapsing” or “they say the peoples from the sea are attacking” or “our age of bronze is ending” not only did i feel my soul die a little more inside but i also kept thinking “man, this sounds a lot like the white supremacist belief in ‘western civilization’ just superimposed onto a falsified image of the late bronze age” and thats because It Is.

strange decisions:

1. boar scar apparently occurred when odysseus was an adult???

2. elliot page’s sinon gets one helluva backstory which i guess was kinda cool if you ignore elliot page getting brutally slaughtered in the first 30 seconds of the movie? not sure how to feel about that

3. travis scott kept showing up randomly which was like. fine i guess? genuinely im not sure what the difference between him & phemius was supposed to be. i didnt even see phemius. tbf i was taking notes this whole time so maybe i missed him? but travis scott shouldve just been phemius idfk why he wasnt

4. The Phaecians are just not there guys and i have no idea why. odysseus’ wanderings are being narrated to calypso?

5. the crew mutinies at scylla instead? odysseus tries to sail towards charybdis??? this was a bizarre sequence

6. no nestor or peisistratus. somehow telemachus sails to the 100% inland palace of menelaus. who needs a chariot when you’ve got a Boat i guess

7. half of my notes just say “what happened to show, don’t tell” because the amount of exposition made me want to slam my head into the wall

highlights:

1. anne hathaway and tom holland had a very good dynamic, i feel like they really captured some of the tension between penelope & telemachus, ie penelope running the house for 20 years and still assuming some of that authority vs. telemachus trying to grow up/assume control of the household/establish his own kleos. loved that dynamic tbh. one of the better parts of the telemachy sections

2. lupita nyong’o was great in the uh. 30 seconds she had on screen. im so serious helen was fucking robbed in this movie

3. himesh patel fucking carried every scene he was in on his Back

4. rare cicones appearance

maybe the real sea peoples was the troy we sacked along the way

[aster-aspera]

I can forgive historical inaccuracy, but I cannot forgive being boring

[aster-aspera]

I can forgive historical inaccuracy, but I cannot forgive being boring

[doloneia]

ok ive seen nolans odyssey and what the fuck was that actually

[kebriones]

omg it's the terrible goblin himself

[harpertheidiot]

I saw a post like this recently so I'm making a classics version

Spin the wheel. This Greek mythological figure is trying to kill you

Spin the wheel again. This Greek mythological figure is trying to protect you

Are you surviving?

100% no, my corpse is desecrated

100% no, but I am given a proper burial

Yes, but with major injuries

Yes, but with minor injuries

100% yes, not a scratch on me

Other (explain in tags)

Remaining time: 1 day 16 hours

[ryebreadgf]

zendaya wearing real 3000-year old ancient iranian earrings with no known track of provenance to the odyssey premiere. nasty work. even worse than the kim kardashian marilyn dress to me. they could have promoted modern greek jewelry designers but chose to do this instead. very tacky at best. especially in this geopolitical climate

[dapurinthos]

encyclopaedia iranica entry on 'ziwiye', covering the alleged discovery of the site and the subsequent plunder of it.