Um, wow...

[desperance]

So I'm sitting here working on m'new SF story, wishing it wasn't starting to feel quite so long (I do not have time to write novellae, damn it, I have other stuff to do...!), and I suddenly need to know if there are traditional or mythological names for female centaurs; so I google, naturally. And I find a site that is no help at all with nomenclature, but its opening sentence rivets me instanter:

"The eclipse of the female centaur from history is a critical failure to know rather than an anthropological failure of knowledge. The evidence from recent digs in Tunis, Turkey, and most recently Cleveland, Ohio have provided anthropologists ... with dozens of specimens of female centaur remains..."

And so it goes on. It's the work of one Dr Anderson at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, apparently, and I recommend it to you. Urgently. You can find the rest of the paper here. Enjoy...

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

"But because of a no-photo policy and a lack of Western documentation for the Bardo, I cannot share an image of the mosaic with you today."
But Google can, and so can I...


A Google image search on bardo museum mosaic turns up 199 hits.

[pennski.livejournal.com]

Oh how wonderful! Thank-you for finding it for us.

I'd never even noticed that we didn't seem to have any female centaurs. What about fauns? Are there female fauns?

might help :)

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/KentaurisHylonome.html gives the female of the species the name of Kentaurides.

Re: might help :)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Thank you! At completely the other end of the scale, someone seems to have collected all the names of centaurs he could find in fiction and art - http://members.aol.com/usualspcts/namesad.htm begins the list...

Re: might help :)

[(Anonymous)]

You're welcome.
Slim

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

It's the work of one Dr Anderson...

Actually, it's the work of another Dr Anderson.

Wonderful stuff. Thank you. Have you told David?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

No. Damn. Onto it now...

[spaceoperadiva.livejournal.com]

That "failure of knowledge" thing is one of the most frustrating parts of being an Anthropologist. There are all kinds of really interesting things that nobody wants to know about. Or maybe it's the fault of textbook writers who seem to be stuck in Victorian times. There's lots of fascinating stuff about pre-Sumerian Mesopotamia for instance, but all people know is that there was a harp with a bull on it and a girl lost her hair ribbon.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Of course, there are female centaurs. Who could forget the centaurettes in the saccharine-sweet illustration of Beethoven's Sixth in Walt Disney's Fantasia? (I even remember some critic or other noting that the nice centaurettes had tiny, pert, demure bosoms while the harpies of Night on Bald Mountain had huge pendulous breasts, which seemed to indicate where sexuality fitted in Disney's world view!). Not sure what names these horse-teens would have, but context seems to indicate Betty and Veronica as likely possibilities. ^______^

I have to try and find that article you mention, though. The mention of archeological digs in Cleveland, Ohio, leading to new evidence about female centaurs leaves me slightly perplexed. I'm sure it will make more sense if I read it.