Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The Story Of Nabonidus...

Nabonidus was an ancient Babylonian king, and by all accounts
he was eccentric, by some accounts he was nuts. I prefer to think
of Nabonidus as a "Renegade of Funk", like in the Rage Against the Machine Song:

" Now renegades are people, with their own philosophies
they change the course of history
Everyday people like you and me"

The reason that Nabonidus was thought to be nuts was that he lived at a time when
sons were killing fathers to get to the throne. Mothers killing husbands to put their
sons on the throne. Seemed to be a consistent theme all through ancient history, really.
Family members killing family members to get to the throne. Bloodbaths galore.

Nabonidus didn't want to have any part of it. All he wanted to do was spend his time
out camping in the desert, digging up ancient archeological treasures. He was obsessed
with archeology, ancient times. I believe his area of interest was Sumer.

Now, this is interesting because look at how ancient Nabonidus is. And yet even in his
time, the world and civilization was ancient. He was an archeologist!
So Nabonidus loved camping.
Nabonidus abdicated his throne, to go live out in the desert and continue his archeological work.
He's thought to be nuts mainly for this reason.
I personally don't think he was nuts, I think maybe he acted a little eccentric, but that he was crazy like a fox. Surely his bloodthirsty sons would have killed him off eventually, had he
not abdicated. To climb over his corpse to get to the throne.
And he saw more to life than just political intrigue and bloodshed. The starry skies of the desert, the stillness, the beauty. The timelessness of the desert.

I personally like camping in the desert a lot. And ancient times, ancient history. That's a passion of mine. And I'm a quirky person, myself. So I like Nabonidus, for being an oddball, and a "renegade of funk", in his own way.
Hence my moniker.

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