The Seikilos Epitaph

The more perceptive persons among you may have noticed a square of orange text in the upper left hand corner, from which I draw the title of my blog. The text is as follows:

I am an image in stone. 

Seikilos put me here, where I am forever, the symbol of eternal remembrance. 

Shine, as long as you live; do not be sad. 

For life is surely too short, and time demands its toll.

The original text happens to be in Greek, and that's only one translation among many I found.  In case you have ever tried translating ancient Greek into English, its not an easy task, hence the numerous translations.  But this was the one I liked best, so its the one I posted.  At any rate, it's all greek to me!! Hehehehe!  I love puns!

Not only do I like the sentiment conveyed in this epitaph, but it has a really profound history to go with it.  The text was originally discovered in 1883 in Turkey on a Greek grave stele (aka. ancient Greek Tombstone), and has been dated to around the first century AD-ish.  It is presumeably written by Seikilos for his dead wife, who once lay beneath it, and looks something like this:

 

But the really cool thing about this epitaph is it isn't just a poem.  Its a song.  In fact it is the oldest surviving complete musical composition (meaning music and lyrics) in the world.  The even cooler thing is that because it is complete, we can still play the song today!  Take a listen:

[Note: The first two lines of the epitaph, I am...remembrance, are spoken the composition is actually just the last two lines.  Quite short, but complete]

So there you have it, a beautiful melody written by a husband to commemorate his dead wife.  And haunting even after 2000 years.  

The Reason

So here I am at the beginning. I've been told beginnings are the hardest, and the only good way is to handle them is to, well, begin. So here goes.

In fourth grade, my awesome teacher designed an awesome project for us to learn about basic research methods and a bit about the history of our town. Our town had an old pioneer cemetery where many of the town founders were buried. We were to do a grave rubbing of one of the tombstones, then find out as much about the person as possible and present it in an oral report. This was pre-google/wikipedia/awesomeness-of-internet, so it would of been quite challenging for a group of fourth graders, but one of the things I liked so much about him was he was never afraid of handing us a challenge.

I was one of those kids that loved school, and in most aspects could excel without really trying. Normally I would have jumped at such a project. However, this project was assigned six months after my grandfather died, and just two months after the death of one of my friends. Just the word "cemetery" terrified me. My mom called my teacher. And my awesome teacher recognized that after attending two funerals in six months, I might be just a bit hesitant to do a project that so closely related to dead people. He found me an alternative.

So what brings me to this point? What is the reason for this blog?

When I approached my husband with this idea, his original response was "Gee, that's morbid." I was at home with my son, then about six months old, and bored out of my mind. My husband's suggestion to occupy my time was to start a project. After some thought, I settled on grave rubbings. Why I settled on this subject matter will probably be the topic of several blog posts, but the short answer is this: I feel like I am facing that fear I felt all those years ago, something I should have done then but couldn't, something I can do now. That, and when my husband proposed the idea, my son and I would take daily walks down a bike path that went right through an old cemetery. As a child I would have been terrified, yet every time I walked through it with my son I found it strangely peaceful. Thus the idea was born. And now, with my son approaching two, I have finally gotten around to it. (Did I mention beginning was hard?)

On this blog I hope to present my rubbings, such as they may be, in an artistic fashion. I'm still working on the "artistic" part. Ideally I would like to find some information concerning the people on the stones, reviving my old fourth grade project. But I also wish to look at some deeper issues: how we look at life and death, deal with our mortality, remember our loved ones.

And with those lofty goals in mind, here we go...