Egypt | Karavansara

8 October 2017
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Studying archaeology for fun and profit

I often write about the joys of doing research for what we are writing.
In general, I tend to do a lot of research “on the fly” when writing short fiction – like using Google to find out what’s the most popular brand of beer in Arkansas or the timetables of trains to and from Paris.

514215 So, when I am writing short fiction – or when I get major doubts while cleaning up a first draft – my first stops are, unsurprisingly, Google and Wikipedia, with Pinterest (now that I can access it again) as the go-to place for visual references, and YouTube for action-related info.

For longer works, I still rely on books, and as far as online resources are concerned, I go for a MOOC whenever possible.
I think it was Mary Gentle (wonderful writer – her Rats and Gargoyles is highly recommended) that said that university courses are the best way to do all the research you need on a subject with the minimum of fuss. Continue reading →

Egypt, 1892 – what to pack

6 May 2016 by Davide Mana Leave a comment

egypt provisions

2 January 2016
by Davide Mana Leave a comment

Six Objects from the Turin Egyptian Museum

As I mentioned a while back, I was part of a MOOC hosted by the Manchester University, about Ancient Egypt as perceived through six objects in the collections of the Manchester Museum.

egypt2

As part of the course, I had to submit a short paper covering my choice of six objects, chosen to explore a certain facet of the Ancient Egyptian history or culture.

I chose six papyruses from the collections of the Turin Egyptian Museum – or Museo Egizio di Torino, in Italian – that show a different face of Ancient Egypt… and feature magic, murder, mayhem and naked women.

cropped-jewelry

Now that the course is over and my paper has been evaluated, I thought someone out there might be interested …

so here it goes

It’s a very simple, lightweight pdf document, eleven pages of loose text with some extra links for images¹. You can read it online, or download it – it is distributed under a standard Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike license.

I hope you’ll enjoy it.
Comments are very welcome.
Cheers!

but who knows – one of these nights I might try and expand it a little and do a DeLuxe version… ↩

Party like an Egyptian

27 November 2015 by Davide Mana Leave a comment

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26 November 2015
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

I caught the Pulp Fiction Bug

In Bruce Campbell‘s entertaining Make Love the Bruce Campbell Way. the author describes how he became sort of a healthy carrier of the B-movie bug: no matter how high-profile the production in which Campbell is involved, no matter how classy the leading actors, his sole presence on set is granted to turn the whole project into a B-movie extravaganza¹.

I think I just caught a similar for of virus – the Pulp bug.
I tend to turn everything I touch into pulp adventure fare.

Consider the following… Continue reading →

9 July 2015
by Davide Mana 2 Comments

Two for Egypt

I’m on an Egyptian roll.
It’s nothing planned, really, but right now here on my nightstand I have two “Egyptian” books, two thick paperbacks that will keep me company for the next few weeks.
And both books are somewhat anomalous. Continue reading →

22 June 2015
by Davide Mana 4 Comments

Alone with the Pharaohs

Even the best laid plans…
Summer is here, and I had been planning a one day vacation for a while.
The idea is simple – ride the 7 am train to Turin, get th the Museo Egizio di Torino, and spend a whole day exploring the new layout of the museum.
It would have been a good thing for the Mana Brothers, and having my brother along – who studied Egyptology when he was in university – would have been a boon.