Greek Myth: A Short Story

That is how, on the third day of their journey, they arrived at the crumbling, yet imposing gates of The Lost City.

In this set of materials, the reading passage describes three theories about the function of the carved stone balls artifact; dating from the Neolithic period, while the listening passage challenges these theories.

When people wonder about Ancient Greece the first thing that comes to their minds is Greek mythology; gods and goddesses that have helped shape many historical events. “In ancient Greece, stories about gods and goddesses and heroes and monsters were an important part of everyday life.” (“Greek Mythology.”) The civilization showed that numerous characters and stories helped shape Greeks. The beliefs the Greeks had with mythologies was they understood the meaning behind all the characters that are known today. However, to the Greeks, they were not just characters, these were their gods and goddesses who gave them meaning and understanding of the world around them. Worshiping the gods and goddesses helped them with their religious rituals and the temperament of the weather. A famous wine-jar that was made during this time period was “Achilles killing the Amazon Queen Penthesilea, 540-530 BCE, black-figured amphora”. (Khan Academy) The civilization that they lived in grew around their worship and achievements.

Darkness closed in around Wovavit as he continued his exploration into the freshly ruined hide-away. Cold sea air rushed along the stone tunnels, the wind was salty and seemed to be pushing against him as though to warn him carrying with it the scent of blood and death. The glowing stones’ illumination was weak only enough to show the next stone, the path beyond was invisible in the unrelenting darkness.

Since it hadn't rained in the region for weeks and the roads were passable, we decided to take a stab at visiting Tosh-kola. Karasev himself hadn't been back to see it in more than two decades, but he knew of a shortcut through a nature preserve that would get us to the base of the rock in three hours. We turned off the main highway a little south of Shahrisabz, whose tidy little museum, housing a small collection of pottery collected from long-gone Alexandrian forts in the area, is dominated by the looming, ravaged remains of Tamerlane's gargantuan palace.

That following morning, I pushed open the rusting gate to the catacombs and began my descent. The task of walking up and down many flights of stairs and carrying stone after stone proved to be tiring and gruesome, but I knew the satisfaction I would soon feel afterwards would make this all worthwhile. I finished hauling the last stack of stone down to crevice where Fortunato would soon meet his demise, and some strange, foreign emotion washed over me. It was similar to guilt, but it settled higher up in gut. I dismissed it as best as I could and sat down on the cold, damp floor.

They hit that bottom of what looked like a large chasm. John painfully got up, he looked and saw that Fred and Joe were unconscious. John examined the space around him. there were ornately decorated columns, running down the sides of the dimly lit chasm. Where is that light coming from? He looked around until he spotted a stand at the end. Um, I still don’t know where that light is coming from thought John, but he walked to the stand anyways. As he got closer to the stand he realized it had golden dragon decorations running down it. It looked like the one Fred described in his story, this must be where the sacred stone of Arcadia is! Except there is no stone on top of the stand. He turned around to see if Fred and Joe were awake yet, they were slowly getting up, but they still looked dazed. John turned around and found a shimmering black stone on top of the stand, it must be the stone! Without much thought John picked up the stone, he was never really that smart. Right when John picked up the stone they all heard a loud growling voice come from behind them, ¨ YOU DARE STEAL THE SACRED STONE?!?!?!?¨ Oh my gosh, John thought, it must be the monk! They all turned around and saw a hairy gray furred gorilla like creature, it was wide and muscular, and it could talk! Except it just started growling at them with its razor sharp teeth. It began to charge at them, Joe tried to evade the charging brute, but it swatted him to the side where he hit a pillar causing it to break in half and splinter. Not good, Fred fumbled for his sword but he was trampled by the raging mass of gorrilla that was barreling towards John. In a desperate attempt John chucked the stone at the gorilla's face, it bounced off and shattered on the floor. The gorilla stopped and looked at the remains in front of it,

“…the boy had to know what he wanted. So, he asked if the old man’s [king] blessing was still with him. He took out one of the stones. It was ‘yes’”. This gave him hope for finding the treasure. Then he asked if

Greek mythology was an oral tradition that began in the Bronze Age. Greek mythology was used as a means to explain the environment, the natural phenomena they witnessed, and the passing of time through days, months, and seasons (Cartwright). Around 700 BC, a poet named Hesoid, offered the first origin story of Greek mythology. The Theogony details an elaborate family tree of gods and goddesses who evolved from a primeval void and descended from Earth, the sky, the sea, and the underworld (History.com). Later Greek writers and artists used and elaborated these sources in their work and compiled ancient myths and legends for contemporary audiences (History.com). For the Greeks, these ancient gods and goddesses had control over every aspect of their lives.

Juana’s previous apprehension was gone, and as Kino looked up from the cave floor, they

The old rock monument looked small from Terry’s office window, but rose high above the entrance to the abandoned cave. The weather-faded names, now barely legible, could be seen just below a modern plaque placed above the old engravings, in an effort to keep their memory alive for at least another century. Terry owned and maintained the monument and the land around the cave entrance. It was only one of many such monuments honoring the dead that were strewn up and down the mountains, bearing witness more to the extremes of living in those mountains than the loss of life. This monument at the cave’s entrance was to Terry much more personal than any of the others. Terry’s grandfather’s name was among the twelve miners carved into the base. Four

Caedis was the young prince of a hidden land, more prosperous than any before it. There was always plenty to eat and drink, but the young prince remained unsatisfied with the life he had been given. He became the strongest and most cunning of all his brothers. Because of this the people wanted him to rule before his elder brother Saevus, who hated him with the fire of a thousand suns for being favored. Caedis desperately wanted to escape the paranoia he felt around his brother but he could not leave his family behind, especially Castus, an orphan girl who he treated like a sister. She was only seven, in spite of her hardships she had a glint of pure curiosity in her eyes that were always covered in the golden hair that fell in her face. She was never bored of exploring the world around her

After meeting Fraun, he led me and Vanitas down into what I guessed was an underground passage that opened up to a sun lit huge cavern with a hole in its roof.

These men are not marching deep into the earth on their own accord, they are trapped in an endless cycle. As soon as they are carved from the mass of stone, they begin. They are gliding uniformly down towards the equalizing force, heat. A heat that makes it home in the center of the earth. Heat that will gently dissolve their features like a frost on windowpane kissed by the warmth of the morning sun. As they near the end, their rough edges will soften, and their blank faces will be wiped clean. They will join the pulsating mass of fiery rock that makes its home deep below our feet.

From the transcription I found that the dancers variously depicted the site as: ‘soft’, ‘resistant’, ‘hard’, ‘uneven’ (texture), ‘huge’, ‘small’, ‘magnanimous’ (size), ‘airy’, ‘fresh’, ‘stuffy’ (olfactory), ‘illuminated’, ‘dark’ (visibility) and ‘sacred’ (belief). As most of the dance artists and dancers agreed that it was meant to pay tribute to the site, I narrow down my discussion to the concept of sacredness drawing on a set of three selected photos and narratives. Subramaniam said that: ‘The stones felt sacred, each was feeling like a deity with personality and compassion. We were blessed with extraordinarily good weather and the sun provided perfect lighting’ (Facebook interview, April 29, 2013). Dusk expands the concept of ‘sacredness’ through cultural and religious appropriations. In Fig 5.5.1.1 the proximate vicinity of the stones forces the dancers to experience them as skin. Their gorgeous silk