posted September 30, 2004 01:54 PM            

There are in fact two definitions for a blue moon. According to the more recent definition, a blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. For a blue moon to occur, the first of the full moons must appear at or near the beginning of the month so that the second will fall within the same month (the average span between two moons is 29.5 days). July 2004 will have two full moons: the first on July 2, the second on July 31—that second full moon is called the blue moon.

The Other Kind of Blue Moon

posted September 30, 2004 09:01 PM            

I read a lot of pretty boring academic stuff. Oxford University Press has some great titles, however they all tend to read like, well, a british textbook. lol Lately I've been reading a lot more Ancient Greek stuff, but as for Ancient Egypt, a few books I've read lately:

Daughters of Isis - Women of Ancient Egypt, Joyce Tyldesley, Penguin Books

Ancient Iraq, Georges Roux, Penguin Books (there's some cross over between the two civs)

Egypt of the Pharaohs, Sir Alan Gardiner, Oxford University Press

The Culture of Ancient Egypt, John A. Wilson, University of Chigaco Press

Herodotus has interesting things to say about the Egyptians in "The Histories".

If you're into the study of religion in antiquity at all, currently I'm reading "God Against The Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism" by Jonathan Kirsch. I would recommend it - I'm liking it thus far, although as far as Egypt goes, it just touches on the Cult of Isis and Serapis in Rome, which was a Hellenized version of the Egyptian worship of Isis and Osiris, as well as the Pharoah Akhenaton (Amenhotep IV) who was technically the first monotheist in recorded history, among some other tidbits.