Israel

My Bill Evans phase over the last two or three weeks brought me back to "Israel." Evans loved "Israel" and "Nardis," two compositions forever associated with Miles, and I believe the lyrical trio format of Evans better suited the compositions, particularly the minor blues of "Israel" with Scott LaFaro on bass. Nevertheless, it is never a bad idea to revisit Birth of the Cool. 

Black Man in Byzantine Israel

A fascinating image of a black man from a mosaic in Byzantine Palestine. Since I rarely come across images of 'blacks' in the art of the Byzantine world, this image I found from this wondrous site was quite exhilarating. If this man is really leading a giraffe, it indicates how African animals were still common in that part of the world. 

Two Names

I wonder how many people know the origin of two names, Phineas and Candace. The latter is derived from a title for the queens of Meroe in the Sudanese Nile Valley, best known for being mentioned in the "Ethiopian Eunuch" in Acts 8. So, believe it or not, anyone named Candace today is the bearer of a name derived from "Kandake," the title for the plethora of ruling queens of Meroe. Phineas, a rare name, is also linked to a similar region of Africa, referred to as Kush or Cush in the Hebrew texts. Aaron's child, Phineas, is actually proof of 'black' intermarriage in the tribes of Judah, dating back to their supposed captivity in Egypt. Moses also married a 'black' woman, Zipporah, of Kush, again referring to the Kushites to the south of the ancient Egyptian Nile Valley at the First Cataract. This is not to say 'blacks' were not present in Egypt, the obvious associations of ancient Egypt with blackness, Ham, and dark skin in Jewish and Christian traditions makes that clear. However, Phineas is derived ultimately from the ancient Egyptian "nehesy," a term meaning southerners and used in ancient Egyptian documents to refer to the various "Nubian" peoples to the south. Although not explicitly racial or linked to color, nehesy to the Mediterranean and Levantine peoples came to be associated with blacks, later known as "Ethiopians" or "burnt face" by Greco-Roman writers in the Christian period.