¶ Lord William Desmond Taylour (3 January 1904 bis 2 December 1989) war britischer Archäologe, "specialising in Mycenaean Greece".
¶ Lord William Desmond Taylour (3 January 1904 - 2 December 1989) was a British archaeologist "specialising in Mycenaean Greece". According to Christian Wagenseil, Hans B. Wagenseil is said to have known Lord Taylour, called Billy, and he knew the English writer and diplomat Harold Nicolson. Contact is said to have been made at a London party. In fact, the first encounters with Clive Bell, Virginia Woolf, Harold Nicolson, Vita and Edward Sackville-West seem to have been made before the letter from Virgina Woolf to Clive Bell, No. 1846, "Saturday 21st Jan [1928]". Later, meaning from the 1950s onwards, Taylour is said to have always visited the Wagenseils in September on his way back from Greece. It was probably also through Lord William Taylour that contact was made with the archaeologist Henry Rushton Hall.
(1) Laut Christian Wagenseil soll Hans B. Wagenseil Lord Taylour, genannt Billy, gekannt haben und dieser den englischen Schriftsteller und Diplomaten Harold Nicolson. Kontakt soll auf einer Londoner Party hergestellt worden sein. Tatsächlich scheinen die Erstbegegnungen mit Clive Bell, Virginia Woolf, Harold Nicolson, Vita und Edward Sackville-West auf einen Zeitpunkt vor dem Brief Virgina Woolf an Clive Bell, Nr. 1846, "Saturday 21st Jan [1928]", zu datieren. Später, das meint ab den 1950ern, soll Taylour immer auf dem Rückweg von Griechenland die Wagenseils im September besucht haben.
Wahrscheinlich auch über Lord William Taylour kam der Kontakt zu dem Archäologen Henry Rushton Hall* zustande, der unter dem Pseudonym "Henri Lasalle" mit Kurt Wagenseil gemeinsam 1931-35 die Schulbuchreihe "Sidgwick & Jackson's New Term German Texts" in London publizierte, im Verlag von James Knapp-Fisher.
Vor dem Brief des 15. Sept. 1947 an Henry Miller hatte Lord William Taylour in Bünde, Nordrhein-Westfalen, die Aufgabe, vorübergehend Bücher für Kurt entgegenzunehmen, doch dann wurden offenbar welche konfisziert und Taylour reist ab nach England. Ab dem 27. Sept. übernimmt Anita Gräfin von Einsiedel diese Aufgabe, "[a] very charming friend of mine", "[s]he has much humane understanding and a good heart, and I feel you will like her".
In den Papers of Lord William Desmond Taylour der Faculty of Classics der University of Cambridge findet sich der Eintrag "Miscellaneous - Christian Wagenseil, Pylos 1954, Cruise 1958 (photos of others), 1954 - 1958": "A varied file, consisting of photographs of the Palace of Nestor (Pylos) a small boy, schoolgirls doing exercises, dining outside a restaurant, and various photographs of Lord Taylour with friends and family, and giving a public lecture in Mycenae."
[ Anmerkungen. annotations. remarques ]
* Henry Rushton Hall ist Autor von "Days before History" (London: G.G. Harrap & Company 1920), "Unwritten Word" (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons 1928, 2. Auflage 1935); "[t]he first part of Unwritten History by Henry Rushton Hall, 'Book one - The age of stone' was published in 1928. Book two 'The age of metals' followed in 1930, along with a combined volume (348 pages). All were illustrated by Harry William Whanslaw [1883-1965]" (Andrew Roberts: "Social Science History: Time line for the history of society, science and social science", studymore.org.uk, 1999). Die Auflösung des Pseudonyms Henri Lasalle erfolgte durch den Katalog der British Library, UIN BLL01002080834. Gleiche Angabe bei "Sidgwick & Jackson's New Term French Texts", edited by Herbert Norman Adair, von Henri Lasalle, pseud. [i.e. Henry Rushton Hall], und Paul Plantefol, 7 Teile, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1930-33, UIN BLL01002080833. In London, British Library, sind noch verzeichnet: H. R. [i.e. Henry Rushton Hall. A religious tract.]: "The Stranger within the City", Edinburgh: Privately printed 1905; הימים שלפני ההיסטוריה, "ha-Yamin she-lifne ha-historiyah", "[a] translation by A[braham] S[alomon] Waldstein of 'Days before history'. With a preface by J[oseph] J[ohn] Findlay", Berlin 1923; "Notes to Poems of To-day, First Series" (Second Series), London: Sidgwick & Jackson [1929]; "Notes to 'Oliver Cromwell', a play by John Drinkwater", London: Sidgwick & Jackson [1939]. Die griechischen Handschriften British Library, Ms. Ostracon 41269, Ostracon 41270, Ostracon 41272 und Ostracon 41273 haben den Vermerk "Origin: Egypt. Provenance: Deir el Bahari, Thebes, Egypt. Presented by the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1904; excavations of Édouard Naville and Henry Rushton Hall at Deir el Bahari". Wahrscheinlich Verbindung zu dem Archäologen William Taylour, "specialising in Mycenaean Greece". Verhältnis zu dem Ägyptologen Henry Reginald Holland Hall (1873-1930) ungeklärt.
"The Listener", Vol. 12, 1934, S. 904: "Henry Rushton Hall has told story of the researches of archæologists into the periods of the of Old and New Stone Ages and the Bronze Age, periods that, so experience teaches, are particulary fascinating to children under eleven".
(2) Funde von William Taylour spielen eine Rolle in Theorien über die Bedeutung von Bernstein als Hinweis auf Anfänge des Handelns: "The only non-Baltic amber we have found so far in a Mycenaean context comes from the Vayenas tholos near Pylos, excavated by Lord Taylour in 1957" ("Archaeology. A Magazine Dealing with the Antiquity of the World", Bände 23-24, Boston / New York: Archaeological Institute of America 1970, S. 11); "Amber has long been recognized as an important indicator of Mycenaean foreign contacts. Though much has been written, no thorough survey of the topic has yet been undertaken" ("The Annual of the British School at Athens", Ausgabe 69, London: British School at Athens 1895, S. 145).
Abb. "Bernstein", Muzeum Bursztynu, Gdańsk, von Andrzej Otrębski, 2013, unter Creative-Commons-Lizenz CC BY-SA 3.0.
Marija Gimbutas: "Bronze Age Cultures in Central and Eastern Europe", Paris / The Hague / London: Mouton & Co. 1965, S. 48: "The Mycenaean amber beads are of Baltic origin. The amber has a relatively high succinic acid content, from 3 to 8 per cent. This distinguishes Baltic amber, in geological science named 'succinate', from that found in Iberia, south Italy, Sicily, Galicia, and Rumania. Moreover, the transcontinental amber routes are indicated by amber beads of similar form in the Baltic area, central Europe, and Greece. The interest in amber trade increased when the chemists Helm of Danzig in 1885 (Helm, 1885) and Olshausen of Berlin in 1890 (La Baume, 1935, p. 12) published their numerous analyses of amber beads both from the raw material sources and from prehistoric Greek and Italian sites. Helm's analyses of amber beads from Schliemann's Mycenaean shaft-grave excavations showing a 6 per cent succinic acid content, strongly indicated a Baltic source. Beads from the tholos tomb of Kakovatos in Elis, western Peloponnese (pl. 7), when analysed by Jonas in 1908 were found to be of identical substance to the Baltic amber (Jonas, 1908). Later, several other contributions on the composition of amber beads found in East Prussia, central and southern Europe appeared (Viollier and Reutter, 1916; La Baume, 1935). The transcontinental trade in amber was thus discovered in the late nineteenth century; in the twentieth century prehistorians have refined their knowledge of the lines of traffic in the several periods. Recently, microchemical tests for succinic acid were carried out by A. E. Werner of the British Museum on amber beads from the tholos tomb near the palace at Epano Englianos (dated by the excavator Lord Taylour to the fifteenth century B.C. or later) and from a grave at Arvi in Crete of Late Minoan I and II. Epano Englianos beads were 'positive' and those from Arvi were 'slight positive', showing that amber beads were made of Baltic, probably of East Prussian, raw material (Sandars, 1958-59)."
(3) Bei Gimbutas geht es dabei um die Entwicklung eines Gegensatzes matrilinearer, auf Ackerbau spezialisierter alteuropäischer Kulturen und mehreren, als "Kurgankultur" zusammengefassten Kulturen der beginnenden Bronzezeit im südrussischen Steppenraum, die patriarchal organisiert waren und einen Vorteil aus der Domestikation des Pferdes zogen. Insbesondere die damit bei Gimbutas verbundene Invasionstheorie wird von u.a. David W. Anthony: "The horse, the wheel, and language. How Bronze-age Riders from the Eurasian steppes shaped the modern world", Princeton / Oxford: Princeton University Press 2007, zurückgewiesen und in den Theorien von teils längerfristigen Kooperationsbeziehungen, teils Übernahmen der Institutionen abgelöst. Caty Gare: "Knossos and the Prophets of Modernism", Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2009, insb. S. 4-16, untersucht politische Einflussnahme auf Archäologie am Beispiel von Gimbutas, insbesondere ihre Konzeption einer matriarchalen, "vielgestaltigen" alteuropäischen Religion der "Großen Göttin".
Abb. Bild von Garriet (2008) unter Creative-Commons-Lizenz CC BY 2.0 (Ausschnitt, modifiziert).
Beide, Marija Gimbutas und Billy Taylour, begegneten sich in ihrem Interesse an Religion und Mythos, vgl. "Kadmos", Bände 10-13, 1971, S. 172: "Four speakers dealt with topics of religion and myth: Professor Gimbutas distinguished three Aegean goddesses, all probably pre-Indo-European; Lord Taylour described the idols and frescoes from the newly-discovered shrine at Mycenae".
Schließlich nützen dem konservativen Kulturkritiker und Essayisten Morris Berman Übereinstimmungen in der Argumentation als Belege für seine Überlegungen "on the evolution of consciousness by tracing the separation of spirit from earth to the time when humans gave up a mobile and egalitarian life of hunting and gathering and became sedentary farmers and landowners" (Ilene A. Serlin: Review, in: "The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology", 2001, Vol. 33, No. 1, S. 72ff.), Morris Berman: "Wandering God. A Study in Nomadic Sprituality", Albany: State University of New York Press 2000, S. 302, Anm. 22 u. 23 zu Kap. 4 "Agriculture, Religion and the Great Mother":
"22. Marinatos, Minoan Religion [Nanno Marinatos: "Minoan Religion. Ritual, Image, and Symbol", Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1993], pp. 13-37 and 147; William Taylour, The Mycenaeans ["Ancient People and Places. The Mycenaeans", London: Thames & Hudson 1964] (rev. ed.; New York: Thames and Hudson, 1983), pp. 43-44.
23. Marinatos, Minoan Religion, pp. 147, 162, and 165-66; Taylour, Mycenaeans, p. 62. The tablets written in what is called 'Linear B' (early Greek language) show that by the thirteenth century most of the Homeric gods and goddesses (inter alia) were already worshipped. Taylour also says (p. 44) that the Minoan goddess was a composite character: mother of trees, the home, etc.".
(4) Vgl. demgegenüber eine zeitgenössische Kritik von Taylours "The Mycenaeans" von George E. Mylonas, in: "American Journal of Archaeology", Volume 69, Number 4, Oktober 1965, S. 375: "In the chapter on Religion the author follows the general conception that the Mycenaean was identical with the Minoan religion. This cannot be proved; as a matter of fact now that we find the names of the Olympian male Gods on the tablets the opposite can be proved, the two religions differed in essence with the Minoan centering around a female divinity or divinities. There is no evidence, for example, to prove that the Mycenaeans shared with the Minoans 'the conception of a Mother Goddess and her divine son, and sometimes consort, who is fated to die or be sacrificed at the death of the old year' (p. 61). The conception of the existence of a 'triad,' based on the ivory group from Mycenae of two women and a boy, is totally hypothetical and contrary to archaeological fact. There is no evidence proving the existence of a Master of Animals* (p. 65) in the Mycenaean world. There is no evidence proving that the double axe was a cult object (p. 73) in that world. The statement that in the temple of Keos, excavated by Professor J. Caskey, 'several fragments of cult statues of human size' were 'presumably that of a Goddess' is premature and does not correspond to facts. Caskey now reports 15 to 20 such statues all representing votaries - perhaps dancers - none of which can be proved to have been a cult statue of a goddess (Hesperia 33 [1964] 238- 331). The Mycenaean megaron below the Telesterion of Eleusis could not have been the house of a prince (p. 74); a princely dwelling of only one room does not compare with the known houses of officials or even of common people, as illustrated by the House of Columns, for example, or the other houses in the citadel of Mycenae, or House I on the slope of the Panaghitsa hill".
[ Anmerkungen. annotations. remarques ]
* "The Master of Animals, Lord of Animals, or Mistress of the Animals** is a motif in ancient art showing a human between and grasping two confronted animals [Anm. 1: Joan Aruz et al.: 'Assyria to Iberia at the Dawn of the Classical Age', New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art 2014]. The motif is very widespread in the art of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. The figure may be female or male, it may be a column or a symbol, the animals may be realistic or fantastical, and the human figure may have animal elements such as horns, an animal upper body, an animal lower body, legs, or cloven feet. Although what the motif represented to the cultures that created the works probably varies greatly, unless shown with specific divine attributes, when male the figure is typically described as a hero by interpreters [Anm. 2: 'From the Banks of the Euphrates. Studies in Honor of Alice Louise Slotsky', edited by Micah Ross, University Park, Pennsylvania: Eisenbrauns 2008, S. 174-177]" (WP). Siehe auch Roger Hinks: "The Master of Animals", in: "Journal of the Warburg Institute", Vol. 1, No. 4, April 1938, S. 263-265, insb. S. 263, Anm. 4: "Examples of antithetical compositions showing the master or mistress of animals flanked by griffins are given by M[artin] P[ersson] Nilsson, The Minonan-Mycenaen Religion [and Its Survival in Greek Religion], Lund [:Gleerup] 1927, p. 317, n. 1". Martin Persson Nilsson (1874-1967) war ein schwedischer klassischer Philologe und Religionshistoriker. Der Kunsthistoriker Roger Hinks ist übrigens wiederum mit oben erwähnten Verleger James Knapp-Fisher bekannt (vgl. Artikel zu Anita von Einsiedel).
** Homer: "Ilias", übersetzt von Thassilo von Scheffer, Leipzig: Dietrich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung [1938], Einundzwanzigster Gesang, S. 504:
"Aber da schalt ihn bitter die Schwester, die Herrin des Wildes [πότνια θηρῶν, 'Potnia theron'],
Artemis, die die Fluten durcheilt, und schmähend begann sie:
'Wirklich, o trefflicher Schütze, du fliehst, und läßt dem Poseidon
Völlig den Sieg und läßt ihm leichterrungene Ehre?
Tor, warum nur trägst du deinen Bogen so zwecklos?
Daß ich dich nur nicht künftig im Saal des Vaters vernehme
Prahlenden Wortes wie einst im Kreise der ewigen Götter:
Wider Poseidon würdest du mutig im Kampfe dich wenden.'".
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