nooo bronze age dont collapse you're so sexy haha

Here's something I found amusing

If you like Hector you may have heard of a scholion to a passage of Lycophron's Alexandra that states that Hector wore his hair in what we'd call a mullet:

"Hectorian hair is said to be that which is long at the back and cut short at the front as this Lycophron says." Scholion 1133 Ad Lycophronem

Now, the original passage refers to the Daunians, the inhabitants of the northernmost part of Apulia in southeastern Italy:

But the chiefs of the Daunians shall build for me a shrine on the banks of the Salpe, and those also who inhabit the city of Dardanus, beside the waters of the lake. And when girls wish to escape the yoke of maidens, refusing for bridegrooms men adorned with locks such as Hector wore, but with defect of form or reproach of birth, they will embrace my image with their arms, winning of mighty shield against marriage, having clothed them in the garb of the Erinyes and dyed their faces with magic simples. By those staff-carrying women I shall long be called an immortal goddess. Lycophron's Alexandra, v.1122+

This passage is a valuable resource to examine how the Greeks viewed the Daunians in general, but for the purposes of this post it, together with Greek and native Apulian art, can show us almost exactly what this hairstyle would've looked like! (Dump incoming under the cut lol)

It's honestly been a while since I last fully read a non classical book because of school and life stuff, so I'm definitely looking for recommendations!

That being said, last summer I read another Gilgamesh translation and fell in love with it once again. I know it's kinda cheating cause it's still an ancient text but it truly is a great piece of art that I think everyone can enjoy. I love it a lot and can do nothing but recommend it wholeheartedly, it's a short read, but in all its incomplete glory it manages to reach deep into the soul. I feel like I'm being overdramatic but yeah, it's very good imo lol

I also read (though not completed) an anthology of medieval French poems by François Villon and other contemporaries. It's a bilingual edition and something very out of my usual subject matter so it's been a really interesting and fun experience!

I recently got done with another seasonal Pinocchio reread lol. The original novel is so damn fun, unique and well put together and unlike the watered-down sanitized version that Disney started and spread around like wildfire. It's got an ironic, at times twisted sense of humor and it's not quite what you'd expect from a story for kids, as cliché as that sounds lmao. A great English translation by Mary Alice Murray can be found on Wikisource, if anyone's interested

Two "comic" versions of the two firts episodes of the legendary French animated series "Il était une fois l'homme". They're less comics and more frames from the episodes repurposed for a book lol. These belonged to my father

Le fiabe della città bianca, a collection of traditional stories from Ostuni. The art style is super unique and awesome, it's forever ingrained in my mind. The stories too, I might make a post on them sometime because they're impossible to find online

A massive book about the history of paleoart I managed to get at a really good price and in a really good state at a market

A Mickey mouse book that teaches you how to play chess. It got pretty in depth for a kid's book tbh, it goes into some elaborate techniques. Either way my child self mostly just looked at the pictures lol