WhiteBoard News for Friday, November 14, 2003

Nicosia, Cyprus (Reuters):

A ancient play is to be staged for the first time in more than 2,050 years after fragments of the text were found stuffed in an Egyptian mummy. 

Cyprus's national theater company, Thoc, plans a modern-day world premiere of Aeschylus's Trojan War story Achilles in Cyprus next summer. The play will then be performed in Cyprus and Greece. 

Scholars had believed the trilogy to be lost forever when the Library of Alexandria burned to ashes in 48 BC. 

"But in the last decades archaeologists found mummies in Egypt which were stuffed with papyrus, containing excerpts of the original plays of Aeschylus," Thoc director Andy Bargilly told Reuters. 

Drawing on references to the trilogy by other ancient playwrights and the recently discovered papyrus texts, Thoc and researchers believe they have the closest possible adaptation of Aeschylus's masterpiece. 

"This is a new production, based on a very ancient text," Bargilly said. 

The play revolves around Achilles, the supposedly invincible Trojan warrior who was killed by Paris with a poisoned arrow at his only vulnerable spot, the heel. 

Achilles recounts the warrior's many brushes with death and the slaying of Hector, son of Priam, the King of Troy. 

"People working on ancient texts knew that the trilogy existed because it was mentioned in Aristophanes and other writers of ancient Greece," Bargilly said. 

A Greek author, Elias Malandris, worked on the project for a decade, using the ancient texts, excerpts of Homer's Iliad and references to Achilles found in other Greek plays. 

"We do think it is a faithful adaptation to a large extent, but nobody can say 100 percent," Bargilly said. 

Stuffing mummies with papyrus scrolls, or creating a papier mache mixture to encase a corpse was a common practice in ancient Egypt dating from at least the third century BC. 

"Papyrus was a good material for stuffing mummies, fortunately for us," said Bargilly. 

Described as the Father of Tragedy, Aeschylus is said to have written some 90 plays but only a handful survive. 
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Beijing, China (China Daily):

A woman fed up with her husband's body odour has made him sign an agreement to take a bath every day.

The couple have been quarrelling since they married last year over the fact that husband, Luo, hates to wash.

China Daily, quoting the Tianfu Morning Post quoted his wife, Yin, as saying she felt lucky if Luo had a bath once a week.

Yin's friends suggested she sign an agreement with her husband as the two were continuously squabbling about his hygiene problems.

According to the agreement, Luo will be barred from living at home for one month if he breaches the agreement three times.
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Sydney, Australia (Herald Sun):

An Australian bank robber told a court that God told him to rob because banks are evil.

Gregory Eric White, 45, told a jury at Victoria's Court of Appeal that he robbed five banks between 1997 and 1999.

White admitted holding up the five banks and taking nearly £31,000, he said he believed it was the way to achieve salvation

The court reduced White's sentence to a minimum of 13 years, says the Herald Sun.
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Bluff, New Zealand (Ananova):

A British adventurer who is rowing from New Zealand to South Africa has celebrated his 57th birthday in his birthday suit - to save time washing.

Jim Shekhdar, who is nine days into the 9,000-mile journey, says he has also cracked open a bottle of wine and had chicken and mushroom soup to mark the occasion.

He is attempting to become the first person to row from the southern port of Bluff on South Island to Cape Town in South Africa, via Cape Horn at the tip of South America.

"I've been rowing in the nude to get clean - it kills two birds with one stone, as I can row and wash at the same time," he told the Southland Times newspaper, Wellington, by phone.

He is saving another bottle of wine for a lonely Christmas celebration.

But Shekhdar was not forced to celebrate alone - a passing fishing boat offered him dinner.

"He was approximately three miles away and invited me for a decent meal," Shekhdar wrote on his website. "It was good to see that I'm not completely alone - yet!"

Shekhdar set out from Bluff on November 5 in his 26-foot rowboat, Hornette and expects the journey to take seven to 12 months.

According to his personal website, he was 508 miles from Bluff and about 49 miles north of the Antipodes Islands on Thursday.
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Chow
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