Monteleone chariot

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Monteleone

The controversy

Bah.

If they are interested in anything except the imagined tourist dollars, I’ll eat my hat. They didn’t start making noises until the restoration was well under way and the Met realized exactly what it was they had and announced it. That farmer knew he had something or he wouldn’t have contacted anyone. Even dinky villages in Italy knew people were collecting old dug up things like crazy around that time. Those two cows probably meant more to the guy then cash would have. Italy’s not crawling with cows, you know.

I am usually all for the return of stolen artifacts to their home countries. Most of the Egyptain artifacts scattered across the globe were stolen, and the Egyptians have been really good about loaning out collections for the rest of the world to enjoy, so there’s no reason to not return them if they ask for them. In fact, just recently the Egyptians requested that some of their culture’s artifacts in other countries be loaned to Egypt for a temporary exhibit. I believe that the British Museum should return the Parthenon Elgin marbles yesterday, and the Greeks should thank them profusely and reimburse at least part of what the Brits put into taking care of them.

But, and this is important, the Monteleone chariot was not stolen. Sure. I’ll admit that the Frenchmen that bought it from the farmer should have paid more for it on moral grounds, because they knew more of what the find represented then the farmer. But they did pay for it. The export of the pieces was well within Italian Law at the time it occured. That a law that would have prohibited its legal export was put on the books six years later has no bearing on this case.

If these guys were clambering for it to be returned to the Florence Museum, or one of Italy’s other museums, I’d be more willing to believe they were interested in their cultural heritage. I’d be willing to feel for them if they were offering reimbursement of some kind. But they want it back in that remote medieval village that’s off the well worn tourist track where hardly anyone is going to be willing to travel for one artifact, awesome though it is. There’s likely no one nearby that can even take care of thing, and I’ll bet these people have no idea what it takes to maintain something like that chariot. You can’t just stick it in a room and go “Ta-da!”

Sure, Monteleone has a few crumbling medieval churches, one excellent Gothic door, and a small lapidary mueseum. They even have a copy of the chariot. But that doesn’t make them qualified to maintain the real one. Forget the security the thing needs to have on it.

Yes, it’s part of their cultural heritage. It’s also part of the cultural heritage of millions of people of Italian descent world-wide, and they – we – deserve to be able to access it too. Sticking it in a remote village in Umbria is the last thing that needs to happen to it.

The people of Monteleone need to get over themselves. The chariot is in the very best place it can be right where it is.

Let me tell you a story:

When my parents learned they were going to have to grow up quick because I was on the way, there was the usual hue and cry over what to name the baby. My maternal grandparents voted for Elizabeth, as that was what Grandmother had wanted to name my mother. But she had been overruled, or overrun, by my Grandfather. My mother, bless her, is named after my Grandfather’s favorite “movie star” of the day.

Betty Boop.

My paternal grandparents had their own ideas, which, of course, had nothing in common with Mom’s or the other side of the family. But then my father stepped in and settled it by declaring he wanted to name me after a doll his mother kept on her dresser. Granted, it was a lovely doll as I remember it when I finally asked to see it. But I still wonder about my Air Force Pilot father naming me after a favorite doll.

The doll’s name was Teresa. My mom was “Eh” about it, but decided that as long as my middle name was Ann, after her best friend Betty Ann (who was also pregnant), it was doable.

Fast forward to January 1962. My Father was out of town on maneuvers. Mom was already set to go the military hospital in San Angelo, Texas. Mom, who was not quite 18 at the time, went into labor on Sunday morning of the 14th. The doctors? Did not work weekends unless it was an emergency of the life or death variety, and the OB-GYN was off on Mondays and they worked, I swear 8-6. When Mom came in, she was doped up and given something to stop labor. When the drugs wore off, they just gave her another shot. Because she was doped up, and more then a little frightened, she didn’t realize what they were doing until Monday night. When she did, she stopped telling them when the drugs wore off. According to Mom, the head nurse was not amused when she realized Mom was now about ready to pop, and she had to call in a doctor at two in the morning.

I believe Mom’s reaction was probably the only time in her life she has ever gone off on someone and called them everything applicable and a few things that weren’t. She made a Staff Sergeant blush.

I was born on the 16th, at 2:43 in the morning. Tuesday’s child is full of grace. When Mom woke up, they were asking for a name. Father was still not there and Mom didn’t know how to spell it. So she just told the nurse and hoped for the best. As we now know, that wasn’t what she got. As an aside, a few months later when her best friend Betty Ann (also named after Betty Boop)had her daughter, she named her Teresa Carolyn. Not being doped to the gills, she was able to get the spelling she wanted.

But the important thing is this:

My name is Theresa.

Theresa: Greek – One who harvests.

Please note the spelling.

My name is not: Teresa (even though that was what it was supposed to be), Terese, Teresia, Terezia, Terezija, Theresia, Therese, Teressa, Theressa, Terasa, Taresa, or any of the bizarre spellings that have come of people trying to be “creative” and “unique”over the years.

My name is certainly not: Terry, Teri, Risa, or Resa. In fact, the only acceptable variation of my name I have been able to live with over the years has been one used by my Greek friends.

Thera: Greek – Harvester. A diminutive of Theresa. Also from the Greek island of Thera.

I was told when the name refers to the island, that it means wild and untamed. Which amused me greatly as a teenager. The island is also known as Santorini, which is believed by some to be the source of the Atlantis legends. If you know me even a little, you will understand why I was delighted to learn that little piece of trivia.

My parents named me Theresa. If they had wanted me to be called Teri or Resa, they would have named me that. I like my name. Schoolmates and teachers learned that early on because I wouldn’t answer to anything else. I survived public school without a peer applied nickname, though my great-aunt, who is a bit of an odd duck herself, insists to this day on calling me Tizzy.

But somewhere along the way after I found myself in various internet communities, I seemed to have picked up the nickname of Resa. I cringe every time I read it. Because I don’t like confrontation, and I liked the person who first started it, I didn’t say anything when it started. I figured he would be the only one doing it and that I could live with Al calling me Resa. But then he called me that on a group mailing list where it was picked up by someone else. Then that person’s husband started calling me that and it spread out from there. All it took was one person to carry it from Group A to Group B, and so on. Like some insidious disease it spread through the communities I am a part of. People I don’t recall ever even interacting with before refer to me as Resa from the start.

Perhaps I’m being petty, but I find that a bit rude. Carolyn has never referred to herself as Carol to my knowledge, and I wouldn’t presume to start doing so without asking if she minded being called that. For all I know she may have a deep and utter loathing for the name Carol and would fall into a homicidal rage if anyone dared to presume.

But because I didn’t say anything back when Al first called me Resa, I am now stuck with it. For those that have never called me that; thank you and please keep it that way. My mother would appreciate it, and after two days of labor, I think she’s earned the right to insist.