Tea at Trianon: The Archaeology of Armageddon

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, May 1, 2020

The Archaeology of Armageddon

From The Express:

Egyptologist James Henry Breasted and business magnate John D. Rockefeller were in the 1920s and 1930s attracted by the legend of Armageddon in the Bible, which originally refers to the place as Megiddo. Solomon is recorded only in scripture but Megiddo is mentioned in many other ancient texts, such as the records of Egyptian pharaoh Thutmose III, whose armies captured the city in 1479BC. The term “Armageddon” derives from Hebrew Har Megiddo, meaning the mound or mountain of Megiddo. By medieval times, having passed through multiple languages, these two words had transformed into Harmageddon and thence Armageddon. In the New Testament’s Book of Revelation, Armageddon witnesses the ultimate battle between the forces of good and evil before the Day of Judgement — hence its modern use as a byword for the apocalypse. There was consequently much excitement in 1928, when the expedition’s field director cabled Mr Breasted in Chicago: “Believe have found Solomon’s stables”. The missive cited evidence from the Old Testament stating Solomon had 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen stationed in “chariot cities” Hazor, Megiddo and Gezer, and in Jerusalem. (Read more.)