TIDBITS 10/04/09

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We encourage you to forward this email to friends and colleagues. ====================================== Fight to the Death Ring The Mycenaeans. Warrior Merchants of Greece. A powerful civilization which one day disappeared. Their might ... their splendor ... gone in the blink of a metaphorical eye. Violence entered like a giant raptor into their cities and clawed away their existence. Their warriors ... destroyed. Citadels and shrines ... consumed by fires. Palaces ... obliterated. The populace was on the run. Ladies of privilege ... flouncing away in fading finery. Tall men bearing shields and swords ... skulking away in shamed misery. The arts declined. The writings of the day disappeared. After 400 years of greatness and prosperity ... the Mycenaean civilization had disappeared. Nobody knows how. Nobody knows why.

And it was gone. A puff of smoke. A wisp of vapor. It had evanesced into into the vacuous pages of history. Till the year 1876 when Heinrich Schliemann-- a German merchant--an eccentric ... a self-taught scholar ... discovered the royal graves inside the citadel of Mycenae. Nineteen skeletons ... interred with burial masks and jewelry of hammered gold and ornaments of amber, and rock and crystal and ivory ... and inlaid daggers and swords. The proof was there that the civilization had once existed.

The story of this civilization and its influences on the great poets like Homer and the reasons for its sudden disappearance is far too vast for me to write about.

But there is this ... a bright and shining moment to interrupt the dismal chantings of historical chaff. It is a gold ring. It speaks of war. It speaks of death. It speaks of the very nature of man as he seeks to eradicate his fellow man from the very podium of existence. What greater glory than to appeal to the noble brutality of our natures. What greater shrine than to create a memento depicting the elegance of inflicted death.

Mommy. Look. Those men are killing each other. Now you hush up honey ... and enjoy the show.

Can anyone doubt that there are any creatures on this earth more creative than we when it comes to the hallowed art of destroying those who impede our pursuits? Let us hear it for man ... let the crowds cheer ... while I show you a ring ... a gold ring ... a Mycenaean gold ring ... embossed with helmeted soldiers stabbing their enemies to death in order to win ... in order to win ... in order to win.

So go ... take a peek ... and you will see an image of a gold Mycenaean ring discovered in the royal graves of Mycenae ... which dates back to the 16th century B.C. when the great civilizations began to emerge from the mainland of Greece.

For those of you who are new to this thing called Tidbits...may I direct you to my home page at

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where you will scroll down the left side menu till you get to the area that says Current Tidbits ... and you will see represented on our pages the ring of which I speak. And there ya have it. That's it for this week folks. Catch you all next week. Benjamin Mark

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