Musings: Tracing Parthenope

I've been looking at numerology and what I've found fascinating is the links with asteroid number.

11 has been called the twinflame number. I'm not sure exactly why. Asteroid Parthenope is asteroid number 11. 

There isn't much to Parthenope's myth except that she's a siren.

Parthenope appears in Greek mythology and classical literature and art as one of the sirens who taunted Odysseus. One version of the tale depicts her throwing herself into the sea because her love for Odysseus was not returned. She drowns and her body washes up on the shore of Naples, which was called Parthenope after her name.

But I kept looking and found out about Parthenope and Metiochus. They are called the "Romeo & Juliet" of the ancient world. The original tale isn't clear due to missing papyrus. One of it was that Parthenope and Metiochus fell in love but because Parthenope had vowed to remain chaste, they couldn't be together. In another, Parthenope was betrothed to Metiochus who had to leave and many other men wanted to marry Parthenope. Parthenope remained devoted to getting to Metiochus. It was not clear whether they reunited at the end.  The first story sounds close to the story of Artemis and Orion, while the second sounds like Penelope and Odysseus.

What I found interesting was the mosaic of them in the Museum of Gaziantep. 

Parts of the mosaic (their upper bodies) were stolen by tomb looters from Zeugma and for years, noone knew what the both of them looked.

36 years later, their mosaic pieces were found. On 19 June 2000, they were both brought back in 2 wooden boxes and both of them reunited on the original mosaic.

And then you realize how long they wanted to be together...

They did reunite eventually.