Greek myrtle wreath, c. 330-250 BC.
In ancient Greece, wreaths made from plants like laurel, ivy, and myrtle were awarded to athletes, soldiers, and royalty. Similar wreaths were designed in gold and silver for the same purposes or for religious functions. This example conveys the language of love.
A plant sacred to the goddess Aphrodite, myrtle was a symbol of love. Greeks wore wreaths made of real myrtle leaves at weddings and banquets, received them as athletic prizes and awards for military victories, and wore them as crowns to show royal status.
By the Hellenistic period (300-30 BC), the wreaths were made of gold foil; too fragile to be worn, they were created primarily to be buried with the dead as symbols of life’s victories. The naturalistic myrtle leaves and blossoms on this wreath were cut from thin sheets of gold, exquisitely finished with stamped and incised details, and then wired onto the stems. Most that survive today were found in graves.
(Source: yerawizardharry, via jenthepiemaker)
Our Senate is Broken, so is Stephen Harper
First Patrick Brazeau, then Mike Duffy and now Pamela Wallin have all quit the Senate amidst personal/financial scandals. Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright, also quit for getting involved in a senate investigation.
How long does it take for people to realize something is seriously wrong with Stephen Harper’s judgement in appointing all these people. No PM has outdone Harper in sending party hacks, bagmen, failed candidates and media stooges to the senate.
And as though that isnt enough, Harper has made the senate just another partisan forum, deploying it to kill a climate-change bill that had already been passed by elected MPs, something that hadnt been done in seven decades.
Our senate is broken and so is Stephen Harper. People should be ashamed.
Posted May 20, 2013 at 2:48pm
Map of Toronto Harbour in 1848 (before the big storm of 1858 separated the islands from the mainland)
(via vonotter)
