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That there is the famous Lion Gate, which was built around 1300 B.C. and provided entrance to the ancient city of Mycenae. Your assignment, this afternoon, is to identify correctly the animals portrayed above the Lion Gate (hint: there's a clue in the name of the gate). Ready? Begin!!
* stares at ceiling *
* examines claws *
* reads People magazine *
Ok, pencils down!! Now, to the tricky matter of grading. If you answered that the animals portrayed above the Lion Gate are:
Panthera Leo, as featured on the Lion Gate at Mycenae
...then "Hooray" for you, and you win a prize:
If, however, you are of the same school of "thought" as one of my poor first-year mythology students, and therefore contrived the notion that those animals are:
Meles Meles, as not featured on the Lion Gate at Mycenae
...well, in that case:
4 comments:
Oh my.
'Scuse me whilst I have blizzard hysteria.
ROLLING ON THE GROUND....
Now I'm going to go home and construct a badger gate.
The Melespylae?
Oddly, there's no actual Ancient Greek word for "badger" (which proved problematic when they tried to translate Harry Potter into A.G.). The nearest equivalent is "galea," which referred to any sort of medium-sized furry animal. So I suppose what you would end up with would be "galeapylos" for "Badgergate"!
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