The Sh33p's Fluff Message Board

http://cinerati.blogspot.com/2007/10/wh ... conan.html

Not perfect, but good. I like the way he emphasizes how historically literate Howard was, and how Howard assumed a certain level of historical knowledge in his readers. Indeed, reading Howard (like reading the Bible) is almost an education in itself; anyone with any intellectual curiosity at all will be driven to look a lot of things up in the encyclopediae, or National Geographic, or in whatever dusty, quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore he can lay his hands on, and to cross-reference a lot of things.

I might add that the depiction of the actual attack of the assassins upon Conan in the story, "The Phoenix On the Sword," was strongly inspired by (indeed, almost plagiarized from) Prescott's account of the assassination of Francisco Pizarro in Peru, circa 1540-something. Really. Look it up. Check out Prescott's Conquest of Peru.

I have been informed that Pizarro's skeletal remains have been identified, and that considerable forensic evidence can be gleaned from them. For instance, that all the murder weapons were double-edged, and really sharp. Probably not much different from Pizarro's own weapon.

http://www.medievalware.com/PhotoGaller ... de=54050VA


Once they got him down, they really killed the hell out of him.

" An investigative team consisting of a a Peruvian historian, an anthropologist, two radiologists, and two American anthropologists studied the remains. They quickly determined that the skull in the box with Pizarro’s name on it matched the headless skeleton and that the skeleton itself belonged to a man in his early sixties who had obviously been killed with multiple sword and dagger thrusts, thus matching the story of the rather brutal murder of Pizarro (forensic evidence detailed that, for example, a sword had pierced the man’s left eye, another had cut through the bone above the right eye, a knife had gone through the neck into the base of the skull, etc.)."

http://lastdaysoftheincas.com/wordpress/?p=64


What can I tell you? He (Pizarro, whose age at the time is variously estimated at from 62 to perhaps nearly 70) fought like an aging lion, and literally went down fighting, after killing two of his attackers outright and seriously wounding a third. That counts as pretty damn bad-@$$ in my book.


Cross