Appendices

1. The Minotaur's Land
2. La Parisienne
3. Women of Stone and Clay and Bronze
4. Elemental Helen -- She-Gods and She-Devils
5. Royal Purple -- The Colour of Congealed Blood

Epilogue -- Myth, History and Historia

Appendix Five: Royal Purple -- The Colour of Congealed Blood

Matala, Crete: westward facing; bay on south shore of Crete; nice way stop between Troy and Sparta for Helen on her way home after the Trojan War

Kommos: archaeological site; a sizeable Bronze Age port; excavations only began in 1976;

Perhaps it was the port servicing the palatial complex of Phaistos which lies 6 km inland.

A center for the production of purple.

Murex: a snail; harvest, dismemberment, and then boiling -- sometimes in urine.
12,000 snails to colour the hem of a single garment. 

Pliny described the dye from murex as being the colour of congealed blood.

Late Bronze Age: Hittites, Egyptians, and Mycenaeans -- all three societies -- purple was the colour of royalty.

Linear B tablets may provide one of our first records of the concept of Royal Purple, on a table which describes what seem to be textiles as porphyreos, 'of the color purple', and wanakteros, 'royal, kingly'.

Helen spent the war weaving, ten years, as did Penelope, ten years fighting off suitors when Odysseus was on his way home.

Troy was famous for textile production and tons of murex shells have been in Troy.

Part Ten: The FaceThat Launced A Thousand Ships

Part Ten: the face that launched a thousand ships --perfect iambic pentameter.

37. Helen in Athens
38. Helen Lost and Helen Found
39. Helen, Homer and the Chances of Survival
40. Veyn Fables (Vain Fables)
41. Helen of Troy and the Bad Samaritan
42. 'Perpulchra' -- More Than Beautiful
43. Dancing with the Devil
44. Helen's Nemesis

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The Chapters

37. Helen in Athens

• of the three great playwrights (ASE), it was Euripides whose plays of Helen played to the largest crowds in Athens. Notable: The Trojan Women, first produced in 415 BC, (Hecuba vs her daughter-in-law, Helen) and Helen, 412 BC. 
• last page: "thyrsus" -- (in ancient Greece and Rome) a staff or spear tipped with an ornament like a pine cone, carried by Bacchus and his followers.

38. Helen Lost and Helen Found


39. Helen, Homer and the Chances of Survival


40. Veyn Fables


41. Helen of Troy and the Bad Samaritan


42. 'Perpulchra' -- More Than Beautiful


43. Dancing with the Devil


44. Helen's Nemesis

Part Nine: Immortal Helen

32: Home to Sparta
33. The Death of a Queen
34. The Age of Heroes Ends
35. 'Fragrant Treasures'
36. The Daughter of the Ocean

Part Eight: Troy Besieged

28. Helen -- Destroyer of Cities
29. Death's Dark Cloud
30. A Beautiful Death -- Kalos Thanatos
31. The Fall of Troy

Part Seven: Troy Beckons

23. East Is East and West Is West
24. The Fair Troad
25. The Topless Towers of Ilium
26. The Golden Houses of the East
27. A Fleet Sets Sail

Part Six: Eros And Eris

20. Helen the Whore
21. The Pain of Aphrodite
22. The Sea's Foaming Lanes

Part Five: A Lover's Game

16. The Golden Apple
17. Bearing Gifts
18. Alexander Helenam Rapuit
19. The Female of the Species Is More Deadly Than The Male

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16: The Golden Apple

It is interesting that the "apple" plays a "central" role in this tale just as the "apple" played a "central" role in the Garden of Eden.

17. Bearing Gifts

18. Alexander Helenam Rapuit

This is where taking two years of Latin really helps out.
Alexander: nominative, Paris was also known as Alexander by some writers
Helanam: the accusative of feminine" Helen
rapuit: verb; "to rape"
in Latin, one could put those three words in any order and it would still make sense

19. The Female of the Species Is More Deadly Than The Male

Part Four: Kourotrophos

12. Hermione
13. A Welcome Burden
14. Helen, High Priestess
15. La Belle Hélène

Part Three: The World's Desire

9. A Trophy For Heroes
10. The Kingmaker
11. A Royal Wedding

Part Two: The Land Of Beautiful Women

6. The Rape of 'Fair Hellen'
7. Sparte Kalligynaika
8. Tender-eyed Girls

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6. The Rape of 'Fair Hellen'

Note spelling of "Hellen" (Hellenic, Hellenist) 

7. Sparte Kalligynaika

Sparte: Sparta, of course
kalli: beautiful
gynaika: girls

8. Tender-eyed Girls

Part One: Helen's Birth In Pre-History

1. A Dangerous Landscape
2. A Rape, a Birth
3. The Lost Citadel
4. The Mycenaeans
5. The Pre-historic Princess

Introduction

Cherchez la Femme

An Evil Destiny

Helen-Hunting

Goddess, Princess, Whore

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Cherchez la Femme (Look For The Woman)

Helen is faceless. There is no picture, painting, drawing, representation of any sort of Helen produced during her life. There are endless numbers of striking Bronze Age death masks, but only of men.

By the 7th century BC, 500 years after her death, artists do start to paint pictures of Helen, but they are stylised, copybook approximations.

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An Evil Destiny

Not just beauty, but also charismatic.

Iliad composed in the 8th century BC by Homer. Thirty years later, the Odyssey.

The epics were written down, probably within three generations (60 years?) of the Greeks learning to write, a Semitic adaptation to the Phoenician alphabet.

Bettany Hughes provides good background to the epics. This caught my eye: "created at a time before good and evl were regarded as distinct entities." That may be true, but it is interesting that for almost every god one one side of the issue there is an "opposite" god.

For example, Hughes suggests that the Greeks expected a "balance in the nature of things." If that balance was upset, retribution was necessary. And the goddess for retribution was "Nemesis."

More examples later.

The epoch came to be known as "the Age of Heroes."

Interestingly enough, Homer does not say much about Helen's history. He assumes contemporary readers already knew all about her. The writings that would have these "Helen stories" have been long lost. We are aware of them based on others (like Hesiod and Herodotus) referring to them.

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Helen-Hunting

Helen to Troy, back to Sparta, via Egypt? Throughout the eastern Mediterranean. 

Illustrations, Maps, Foreword

aryballos: p. xii
pyxis: p. xiii

Linear B: Bronze Age version of Ancient Greec, p. xxxvi.

Linear A: has never been deciphered; translated; Crete, Minoan, King Minos

Bronze Age Greeks (Homer):
Achaio (Achaeans)
Danaoi (Danaans)
Argeioi (Argives) -- Helen was an Argive nymph.

Mycenaeans: not coined until 19th century.

Linear B -- example: PA - MA - CO
        transliteration: PHAR - MA - CON -- pharmacon ("useful little things")
        "p" must be a "ph"

How to measure beauty, New Scientist: millihelen

Homer's characters: they think like modern man; dress like cavemen
Helen: created at a time before GOOD and EVIL were regarded as distinct entities

Helen: embraces both. 

Is it safe to say that Helen was "invented" by Homer?

800 BC: all societies were experimental, p. 5
        these experimental societies were all being measured again the "Age of Heroes"
        the "Age of Heroes":  the Iliad and the Odyssey

            the epoch of Helen
            the epoch of the Gods

    *** most important figure of this age = Helen; female;
        orea Elena: beautiful Helen

Printing press to England, Westminster, 1476
    the first book printed in English
    The Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, p. 7
        recuyell: collection

Helen-Hunting

pre-histroy:
Helen: of the pre-history age
1300 - 1000: Linear B
1000 - 800: no writing
800 -- : Greek writing

Linear B clay tablets: accidentally preserved by fires!!

Linear B: Bronze Age: bureaucracy

Helen's Age: pre-history

Linear B considered pre-history.

Troad: coastal buffer zone of modern day Turkey 

        

Primary Sources

Primary sources:
Helen Of Troy: The Story Behind the Most Beautiful Woman in the World, Bettany Hughes, c. 2005.