Mermaiding: Be a Mermaid

🐬 “Always be yourself. Unless you can be a mermaid. Then, always be a mermaid.” – Anonymous 🐬 Ancient myths. Sworn accounts by seafaring folk. Timeless folktales. Modern fantasies like Children of the Pearl. Mermaids have enchanted us since the world was young. They spark our imagination and add their mystery to the sea. Since …

Aristeas of Proconnesus: The Disappearing Poet

🧿 What better way to launch a writing career than to stage a dramatic disappearing act? That’s exactly what Aristeas of Proconnesus did! His epic poem Arimaspea (7th century BC) relates the fantastic odyssey that inspired my novel Quest for Gryphon Gold. How his journey began is nearly as strange a tale as the journey itself: …

The Disappearing Poet Returns

🧿 Aristeas of Proconnesus (poet and mystic, 7th century BC) had a fine flare for theatrics. As described in my previous post, he began by dropping down dead in a fuller shop (which is something like a laundry), then disappeared for six years; reappeared with dramatic claims of having been traveling while possessed by Apollo, then …

The Fall (and Rise) of Ancient Babylon

🧿 Quest for Gryphon Gold begins in ancient Babylon, 553 BC. How do you rebuild a once-great city fallen to dust? Capital of the ancient land of Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia, Babylon was situated on the sacred Euphrates River. In the 6th century BC, she was riding the crest of her power and splendor, a city like …

Ancient Nineveh: A Fragile Treasure

🧿 Beloved of blessed Ishtar, ancient Nineveh once sat like a jewel upon the banks of the Tigris, where those sacred waters meet the river Khosr. In Quest for Gryphon Gold, the adventurer Samir leaves Babylon behind. The caravan with which he travels follows quick-flowing Tigris north, heading for the Taurus Mountains. Coming up to …

Naqia-Zakutu: Assyria’s Last Great Queen – Part 1

🧿 Research for Quest for Gryphon Gold turned up some interesting stories that did not make it into my book. This one about Assyria’s queen Naqia-Zakutu I especially like. For their magnificence, ancient Babylon and Nineveh are largely indebted to Assyria’s last great queen. Yet, her stellar rise to power from palace woman to queen …

Naqia-Zakutu: Assyria’s Last Great Queen—Part 2

🧿 A royal inscriptions venerating perhaps the most influential woman in ancient Assyria reads: Naqia-Zakutu, wife of Sennacherib, king of the world, king of Assyria, daughter-in-law of Sargon, king of the world, king of Assyria, mother of Esarhaddon, king of the world, king of Assyria…*   When we left Assyria’s Last Great Queen in Part …

Legendary Gardens of Mesopotamia: Coloring the Past – Part 1

🧿 The legendary gardens of Mesopotamia: What can they tell us about the Land Between Two Rivers?  In Quest for Gryphon Gold—a 6th century BC odyssey—my hero’s adventure begins and ends in his private garden in the Queen of Cities, Babylon. So come along and I’ll paint for you a picture of the all-important gardens of Mesopotamia. …