Medieval Russian Tolkien Illustrations

These illustrations popped up on my feed from theonering.net
As an Orthodox Christian I find them kind of fascinating- some look more iconographic than others,
which I'm not sure how I feel about.
Some of them are a bit confusing- I'm not sure, for example, which scene this image is supposed to depict.
Any guesses?

source

I thought perhaps it had something to do with King Theoden,
But if so, why is there an eagle around?

Museums and other such nonsense

A month or so ago, I attended an amazing talk by this amazing physician, a family doc in Alabama who sketches his patients and shares their stories through his own writing. He's fascinating and a wonderful speaker and you should definitely look up his books- but I digress. 

He started the talk by asking how many of us liked art;
being the tolken liberal arts student in my med school class,
of course I had to raise my hand.
He then called me out of the crowd and asked me what was my favorite museum?

To be fair, I am terrible on the spot

(can't wait for rounding in the hospital- I'm gonna get obliterated.)

So I did  what any idiot-who-should-not-raise-their-hand-in-a-large-lecture-hall-ever would do:

I shrugged and turned beet red. 

And of course, mere moments later I realized without question 

that my favorite museum is the Byzantine and Christian Museum in Athens

and then I felt a little like this:

Ah, such is life.

But the museum- 

Seriously, 

if you ever find your self in Athens, 

(not the one in Georgia, 

the REAL one.

in Greece.)

do yourself a favor- 

walk a ways up from Syntagma Square

along Vassilisis Sofias Avenue

And check it out.

I went with my brother while I was living there in 2010

and trust me-

it will not disappoint. 

But I might as well let the images speak for themselves:

Brostakis number 1 at the museum entrance

Early Christian Artifacts such as censors, crosses and seals

Cherubim 

As you can see, the icon collection is both fascinating and beautiful- 

this is just a fraction of what we saw

one of my favorites

Luke and Saint Luke!

Me...next to an icon of *cough* the best Saint ever *cough* Saint George.

The trinity visiting Abraham

Stefana fit for a king and queen (and let's be real, they probably were.)

 And to close, an icon of Saint Marina beating the tar out of a demon/devil beast.

So there you have it. 

My first post on things I recommend doing in Greece. 

No idea what I am doing with this blog,

but recapping on some of my adventures,

in Europe and elsewhere,

just might become a thing :)