Dear All:
I wanted to introduce myself. I'm a scholar of Religious Studies and ancient religious history. As a side interest, I have become interested in cephalopods, of late. I think I have always had a latent interest in them, being born on the eighth day of what used to be the eighth month of the old Roman calendar. As an unabashed gastronome (not a gastropod!), I am an avid fan of calamari and octopus of many years, and I seem to have developed an affinity for them, even away from the dinner table. I have come to feel a deep respect for these wonderful creatures, and for their intelligence and formidability. Having done a little research online about the architeuthis dux and the mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, I came upon this wonderful website and just had to join up. Thanks for providing such a wonderful forum for Ceph-lovers to congregate.

Sincerely,
Arik

Dear All:
I wanted to introduce myself. I'm a scholar of Religious Studies and ancient religious history. As a side interest, I have become interested in cephalopods, of late. I think I have always had a latent interest in them, being born on the eighth day of what used to be the eighth month of the old Roman calendar. As an unabashed gastronome (not a gastropod!), I am an avid fan of calamari and octopus of many years, and I seem to have developed an affinity for them, even away from the dinner table. I have come to feel a deep respect for these wonderful creatures, and for their intelligence and formidability. Having done a little research online about the architeuthis dux and the mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, I came upon this wonderful website and just had to join up. Thanks for providing such a wonderful forum for Ceph-lovers to congregate.

Sincerely,
Arik

:welcome: Arik! I suspect you might enjoy, if you haven't already, some of the "cephalopod references/symbolism in art/culture" (Myth, Legend, and Symbolism comes to mind) threads that are buried over in "other cephalopod forums," although of course you're also welcome to join in discussions that don't mix your vocation in with this avocation... Some good threads over there haven't been updated recently, so your archaeological and archive-browsing skills may be rewarding....

Welcome Dr. Arik -- thanks for joining! We're glad you're here.

:welcome:

Dear Monty and Tony:
Thanks for the warm welcome. Actually, Monty, I saw your article but didn't have time to read it fully. I did note that it looked like it was really worth coming back to. I shall surely take a second look at it.

And no, I don't mind at all mixing my academic field with my avocation. I did a little work in the ancient coin business last year as a consultant, since my skills with ancient history and languages allowed me to cross over to ancient numismatics a little bit. I noticed that there were quite a number of Greek-Sicilian coins from the 5th-4th centuries B.C. that have depiections of Octopus or squid on them, along with some other local animals. I'm using a sample of one of them as my current avatar, you might notice. It's fascinating how this primordial imagery does get stuck in our human psyches, giving expression to some kind of unconscious message. The octopus, cuttlefish, crab, hare, and dolphin all appear on coins of this region and era. Perhaps they all express certain aspects or symbolism that is pertinent to the region or to human self-identity in general. Though, I've often wondered if it was just simply a marketing ploy of the early tourism board there, proclaiming, "Come to Sicily, we've got the BEST calamari here that you've ever tasted!"

All my best,
Arik

Sorry, Monty:
I thought you were referring to one article in particular.

I loved the "Miskatonic" reference. That sure brings me back.

Arik

Welcome, Arik!

How interesting that someone with your speciality should join us. I was just looking into representations of cephs in the ancient world, and I've been finding a lot.

If you have photos of other octopus coins, could you please post a few and describe them?

Glad you like the site and look forward to your posts.

Nancy

:welcome:

Hello, Nancy, and Hello Cuttlegirl!

Nancy, I will do my best to come up with some more coins with ceph images on them. At the moment, I do not have any others in my database, but I do know where to find more. For your own interest, VCoins.com (a marketplace for coin dealers) has quite a lot of them. That's where I took my avatar photo from. http://www.vcoins.com/ancient/apollo/store/viewItem.asp?idProduct=543&large=0

I'll try to get a few others for you as time wears on.

You know, a few months ago, I had the opportunity to see the little octopus on display at the Cabrillo Aquarium in San Pedro, California. He was asleep in the bottom of the tank, like a little baby. And I thought to myself, as much as I love broiled marinated octopus, I sure am glad that I am not going to eat this sweet little creature. What marvelous animals they are!

All my best,
Arik

Hi, Nancy:
Here is another fine example of an Octopus image on a Sicilian coin. http://www.antiquainc.com/14c009.html. It's a really crisp image, nicely minted.

Take care,
Arik

Arik,

Here's a thread you'd be interested in (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3818), from a couple years back.

Welcome to Tonmo ! It is a really fun group of cephnuts, more information than you can shake a stick (or a tentacle) at !

Greg

:welcome:. Seems that you might be able to come up with inetersting articles once in a while (I admit, that's shamefull wishfull thinking on my part).

:welcome:

I just read over your web page. Very interesting. I wish I was on the west coast so I could attend one of you lectures. I love studying early Christian history. As you stated boldly on your homepage, I believe people should chose their religion. Too many people know what they believe but don't know why.

Hope you will find enjoyment in the study of octopuses. They are not as controversal as religion, but we do get some lively debates going sometimes.

Hello Dr. Arik,

:welcome:

Looks to me like you're bringing a lot of good stuff to the table. Here's another old thread you might enjoy, Archaeology & Cephalopods. (http://www.tonmo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=949&highlight=Archaeology) Your contributions would be most welcome!

Cheers,
Clem

i look forward to learning from you

Dear Folks:
Thanks so much for the warm welcome. Sorry to have been out of touch for a few weeks. I just got the chance to log in and see what was going on. I've been swamped with work lately.

I appreciated the comments of several of you about my home page. For me, it's all about choice, but far be it from me to bring up such a controversial topic as religion!

In the meantime, I have to share with you all that I was amazed by the tremendous power and mobility of the Taningia Danae in the videos of Dr. Kubodera's deep-sea bait experiment, reported frequently as "Giant Squid Attacks!" What a beautiful animal, and such a predator! Just flying around the camera and bait with its arms extended...truly magnificent.

And I think most of all, I enjoyed the news about the Giant Octopus in one of the Northwest U.S. aquaria (was it Seattle?) that was attacking and eating 4 foot sharks! The footage was breathtaking. I must say that I feel sorry for the sharks, but gosh! What an amazing predator, that Enteroctopus Dofleini. I visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium a few weeks ago, lookkng for their Giant Octopus. I was disappointed to see such a small one on display there, when I had heard they had a larger one. Maybe if they feed this one some sharks, it will grow to an impressive size!

All my best to you, my newfound Ceph-friends!

Sincerely,
Arik

Dr. Arik,
Morro Bay has a funky souvenir shop/aquarium that has several large Pacific Octs.( ck. avatar pic taken from my phone) . You can get right up to the old cement and glass tanks and get a really good look. We always stop in on our way to/from Monterey and hope that the retro store will still be there. It is such a relic--hasn't changed in 50 years!
Enjoyed reading your informative posts and hope to be hearing more from you in the near future.
Cs