Sybil’s Leaves 2009: Thunderstorms, Nuns, Greek Mythology and more Ruins
I had too much to drink last night (thanks to SOMEONE monopolizing me on skype while i was celebrating finally finding a bottle-opener, reloading my internet key and buying groceries) and woke up at 5am. I would have expected this to be a sign of a poor day - but things righted themselves when i fell back asleep (watch two episodes of Scrubs, put in earplugs and call me in the morning…). I didn’t leave the apartment until 3:30pm, but that was all in the plan anyways.
Around noon, as i was making my daily pasta, the smallest thundercloud ever rolls in and proceeds to dwarf all other thunderclouds by the fifteen minutes of intense kabooming it causes - all while a beautiful, blue sky is visible. And then the nuns down the way starting practicing their choral singing - and the church bells started ringing. and i couldn’t decide if i had accidentally ingested a magic mushroom instead of a truffle because it was all too much for my little brain to process.
I had decided that since the four-hour transit strike was jeopardizing my plans to head to Gubbio that i would walk to the Archaeological Museum instead and see their collection. WOW. Having just been to the Vatican Museums - i hope you will appreciate my saying THIS MUSEUM WAS INCREDIBLE. Housed in a Dominican monastery founded in the 13th century that has been used as a hospital for troops, stables and a myriad of other purposes, the collection includes funerary urns from the hellenistic to imperial periods, neolithic tools, bronze age pottery, and lots of other neat stuff like an amulet collection from the 19th and 20th century.
I spent a good forty-five minutes looking at the mythological scenes depicted on the sides of the funerary urns. I understand the depictions of Odysseus spying on Penelope at her toilette on women’s urns - but i am a little confused by the VERY frequent depiction of Orestes’ fighting the furies and the sacrifice of Iphigenia. The cherry on my sundae was in the basement of the building: in 2000, a complete Perugian tomb was uncovered and it has been recreated completely: you can even see the transition from the Etruscan language to the Latin language in the inscriptions on the urns. It was incredible!
Walking through the exhibits was other-worldly for two reasons: 1. Because i hadn’t realized humans have been living in these hills for as long as there have been humans. 2. Because there were urns for freedmen of Nero and his wife Poppea - ok… i KNOW Nero was a real person even though i work on him in literature - but that they personally commissioned urns for their dead servants - is incredible. I probably shouldn’t be so okay with my connection to Nero - but whatever.
So, i walked home, made dinner and am now enjoying the music at my favourite cafeteria. Amy Winehouse, the Beatles - all good stuff.
