{"id":70,"date":"2003-11-27T16:12:00","date_gmt":"2003-11-27T16:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=70"},"modified":"2014-07-28T09:17:01","modified_gmt":"2014-07-28T15:17:01","slug":"70","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=70","title":{"rendered":"Idol Thoughts"},"content":{"rendered":"

After three days of hearing papers and networking at AAR-SBL, our brains were full, so half a dozen friends and I headed for the traveling Etruscan exhibit at Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum.<\/a> It was wonderful to get away from the convention-hotel district.<\/p>\n

The exhibit on ancient Etruscan life was organized by subjects: feasting, domestic life, war, the gods, etc. In a case of religious items I saw several small hand bells. One looked almost identical to a “Sanctus bell” that I remembered from my altar-boy days, the kind rung at key moments during Mass. There is probably a line of unbroken ritual ringing of small bells from ancient northern Italy to your nearest parish church.<\/p>\n

The jewelry case held a ring with a carnelian set in gold. One of the Pagan women raised her hand: her ring was almost identical.<\/p>\n

You exit the exhibit into a special gift shop, of course. There among the reproduction Etruscan ware was a statuette of Diana that looked familiar. I turned it over: the label said “JBL Images,” which is the old name of Sacred Source<\/a>. Yes, their India-made idols were scattered throughout the shop. They must be the Wal-Mart of idolatry. (Does that make Mythic Images<\/a> the Target of idolatry?)<\/p>\n

Wear your carnelian, ring the bell, honor the gods of the city–does anything ever really change?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After three days of hearing papers and networking at AAR-SBL, our brains were full, so half a dozen friends and I headed for the traveling Etruscan exhibit at Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum. It was wonderful to get away from the convention-hotel district. The exhibit on ancient Etruscan life was organized by subjects: feasting, domestic life, war, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[137,164],"class_list":["post-70","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-academia","tag-idolatry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-70","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":3378,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3378","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":0},"title":"Is This Ancient Image an Etruscan Mother Goddess?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 3, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Archaeologists have found an ancient Etruscan pottery fragment that appears to be the oldest-known image of a woman giving birth. The piece of a large pottery vessel might be 2,600 years old. The Etruscan civilization dominated northern Italy before being eventually absorbed by Rome. They used Greek letters to write\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"Etruscan image of woman giving birth","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.discovery.com\/history\/2011\/10\/19\/birth-278.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7009,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7009","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":1},"title":"New Poems by Sappho","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 8, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"The possibility of deciphering the carbonized papyrus scrolls from the Villa of the Papyri is exciting. One friend hopes that some day an Etruscan\/Greek or Etruscan\/Latin dictionary will be discovered. (The Etruscan language used Greek letters, but we cannot completely read it, beyond some kings' names, etc.) Me, I hope\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Classics\"","block_context":{"text":"Classics","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=classics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.history.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/herculaneum-scrolls.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1039,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1039","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":2},"title":"Casual Labor at the New Age Trade Show","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So as I was saying, I briefly visited the INATS West show yesterday, in the capacity of day labor to help the Zells take down their booth on its last afternoon.(You sit on the curb in front of the liquor store until a guy wearing a wizard's hat and driving\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":559,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=559","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":3},"title":"Blog splatI am taking a\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 15, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Blog splatI am taking a break from blogging for the next eight to ten days because I leave on Wednesday for the intellectual carnival that is the American Academy of Religion-Society of Biblical Literature combined annual meeting.It's in Philadelphia this year. Our last meeting there was in 1995, and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":852,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=852","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":4},"title":"Sex in World Religions & Other Updates","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 First, here is a better version of the Pagan rosary story, \"'Hail Persephone:' Pagans Retool the Rosary,\" which has a photo and also some of the rosary invocations.Kimberly Winston's article was also mentioned at the GetReligion blog on religion and journalism.\u00b6 My recent post on Carlos Castaneda must have\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Islam\"","block_context":{"text":"Islam","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=islam"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3483,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3483","url_meta":{"origin":70,"position":5},"title":"Another “Celtic” Illusion Shattered","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"This may come as a shock to some, but the Asterix the Gaul comics do not present an accurate view of the ancient Gaulish people, according to a new museum exhibit in Paris. No dolmen-moving, etc. Next thing, they will be telling us that Vikings did not wear horned helmets\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Celts\"","block_context":{"text":"Celts","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=celts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6626,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70\/revisions\/6626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}