And a funny thing happened when we were walking throught the Jardins de la Palais Royal . . . there's a sculpture exhibition currently on display, stone creations by Vana Xenou, including one that implies Thanet has a connection with Eros. I kid you not - see the caption below to the 'Acis of the World'. Are there Greek origins that I haven't heard about?
And in case you wondered what the Axis of the World looks like:
And, just in case you wonder what the rest of them look like, I've put up photos of almost all of the scupltures in this little exhibition as
a set on Flickr.
More information on the exhibition and the artist.
4 comments:
Sadly Thanatos has no link to Thanet.
In Greek mythology Thanatos was the personification of Death and Mortality. Eros on the otherhand was the primordial god of lust, love, and intercourse.
Eros et Thanatos is then simply 'Love and Death'.
Having a look around, there is a lot more to all this and its links with Axis Mundi but I'll leave it at that.
There is a theory that the name Thanet derives from the Greek θάνατος meaning 'death'. Presumably it was a sort of Isle of the Dead, where the ancients used to bury their loved ones, a practice which still persists in Westgate, which is still known locally as God's Waiting Room.
An alternative explanation is that the name comes from 'Tanet', possibly Celtic for 'Bright Island'. That's supposed to have something to do with people lighting fires all over the place, and again that practice still persists (see ECR passim). I prefer, though, to think that the 'bright' refers to our lovely, shiny white cliffs!
I did suspect it was too good to be true, although the Isle of the Dead idea is quite widely held (well, it's in several of the old guidebooks I've read). Still, it made us chuckle as we ambled around the scupltures...
But.. my offspring tell me (after I asked why no local rock groups had taken the name) that the bikers have secured Thanatos
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