If any of you want Tidbits emailed directly, let me know and I'll take care of it. Tidbits may be reprinted without charge -- with attribution and without change. Additionally, if you know of anyone who you think would enjoy Tidbits, please make them aware of us. URL
I've told you about Pan some time ago ... and there's not much more I can say about the old goat that I haven't said before.
Allow me to digress:
The word jewellery is derived from the word jewel, which was anglicised from the Old French "jouel" around the 13th century. Further tracing leads back to the Latin word "jocale", meaning plaything.
I suspect that if I hunted back far enough into the deep recesses of the world's languages ... I would find some sort of connection that would link jewelry to statues. With this hypothesis in mind ... I shall proceed by going forward back to Pan and allowing the far stretches of imagination to link the image you are all about to see to jewelry. How you all do this is of course none of my affair.
I believe that the first attack on the senses that hits us as we go through life is the assault on one's vision. We see first ... and then we touch, smell, taste, hear, and feel ... not necessarily in that order. And therefore --in my mind at least--this is why we tend to appreciate beauty with such passion.
And so ... in my quest for something unique and beautiful to show you ... I came across a statue of Pan ... Roman ... 1st century A.D. ... made of marble ... 67.6 cm high.
It is drop-dead gorgeous ... a shaggy-haired, bearded chap with legs and horns and a tail of a goat. If I could do this kind of work I would do nothing else in life and I would not much care if I got paid for it or not. In my spare time I imagine I would sell my body for money for food in order to live ... killing a few birds at the same time as it were ... and I would spend the rest of my time sculpting this kind of stuff ... and maybe occasionally shooting pool ... or playing ping-pong ... or dining out ... or shooting the rapids ... man quite clearly can not live on sculpting alone. This Pan was part of a fountain at one time ... water gushing from its missing parts ... its features typical of a high-baroque style developed during the second century B.C.
Okay ... ya wanna see something gorgeous?
For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I direct you to my home page at
And there ya have it. That's it for this week folks. Catch you all next week. Benjamin Mark
All issues of Tidbits are copyrighted and available from our home page. All rights reserved.