Theresa was googling around and stumbled across this article, which sounds suspiciously like what was going on at our house yesterday.
Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis, "Animal Sacrifice, Archives, and Feasting at the Palace of Nestor", Hesperia, Vol. 73, No. 2, April-June 2004.
Well not so much the archiving part.
OK, OK, so it's about ancient Greece. Here's the abstract:
The contexts of burned faunal assemblages from Blegen's excavations at the Palace of Nestor are examined in this paper. Special attention is given to a deposit of bones found in a corner of room 7 of the Archives Complex. It is argued that these bones, from at least 10 cattle, probably represent the remains of a single episode of burned animal sacrifice and large-scale feasting that occurred shortly before the palace was destroyed. Feasts of this sort are likely to have played a diacritical role in Mycenaean society. The bones may have been brought to room 7 in order to verify to palace authorities that a sacrifice had been completed.
If anybody wants me, I'll be in room 7 carving the turkey. And, no, we didn't burn it, thank you very much. If Blegen wants to come, he can have some turkey too, but no excavating will be allowed!
LOL!
That is wonderful! We were doing our share of animal sacrificing and feasting up here, and I feel very lucky to have gotten to do it twice in one week.
I am reminded of the David Holt song, Slow Food, that we heard last week at the Doc Watson concert. All about how homemade food is so special because only people who love you take the time to make the really hard to do stuff.
What a lot to be thankful for!
Posted by: Laura | November 25, 2005 at 03:32 PM
By the way, does blogging count as archiving?
Posted by: Laura | November 25, 2005 at 03:37 PM
Now that you mention it, I suppose it does!
Posted by: John | November 25, 2005 at 07:55 PM
We had turkey roasted and also Steve's dad fried one (incindiary animal sacrifice? hope not!). Hope everyone had a great time.
Posted by: nell | November 26, 2005 at 01:47 PM
Totally brilliant. But why no excavating? Let Blegen dig you a garden plot so you can grow some vegetables to go along with your burned animals. We had roast turkey (thank you, PaBear!) and maple-glazed ham from Vermont (thank you, Charlie!), and there was much rejoicing. But we missed everyone who was feasting elsewhere. I think we all need to sail to Greece and demand to have the ancestral Palace of Nestor returned to us, who are clearly the true heirs. We got your animal sacrificers, your large-scale feasters, your archivists -- and the name. To arms!
Posted by: Bonnie | November 26, 2005 at 09:43 PM
She's right. But I don't know if we can all get tickets to Greece this time of year, and come to think of it, would we want to own real estate in Greece?
Posted by: nell | November 27, 2005 at 03:04 PM