I can't get my comment to post at Mary Beard's blog this a.m. (probably our school filters), but the suggestion has been made by 'Ed' (and agreed to by Dr. Beard), that the bust might actually be a head broken from a larger statue. If so -- and I can't say one way or the other unless we get a couple of side views -- it seems to me this would have been a nude statue (note no evidence of toga or cuirass on the shoulders) and I doubt greatly whether Julius Caesar ever had any of those made ...
idus maias
Festival of Jupiter
rites in honour of Mercury
rites in honour of Maia
the Argei are tossed into the Tiber from the Sublician Bridge ....
251 -- martyrdom of Isidore of Chios
392 A.D. -- death of the emperor Valentinian II
Festival of Jupiter
rites in honour of Mercury
rites in honour of Maia
the Argei are tossed into the Tiber from the Sublician Bridge ....
251 -- martyrdom of Isidore of Chios
392 A.D. -- death of the emperor Valentinian II
9TH UNISA CLASSICS COLLOQUIUM
University of South Africa, Pretoria
Date: October 23 - 25, 2008
THEME:
Greeks, Romans, Africans
Contributions are invited on topics related to the reciprocal relationship
between Africa and the cultures of Greece and Rome. Papers dealing with
ancient authors writing about Africa or with an African connection,
historical and archaeological issues, as well as the reception of the
classical world in Africa are welcomed. While the colloquium focuses on
classical material, we encourage proposals from related fields and of an
interdisciplinary nature.
Papers are limited to 45 minutes. Please submit abstracts of appr. 200
words via e-mail attachment to bosmapr AT unisa.ac.za by 1 September 2008.
The body of your email should include your name, institution, department,
e-mail address, and the title of your paper. If necessary, submissions may
also be sent via post to the following address:
Department of Classics and World Languages
University of South Africa
PO Box 392
0003 UNISA
Republic of South Africa.
Further enquiries relating to the colloquium should be directed to Philip
Bosman at the e-mail and postal addresses given above.
University of South Africa, Pretoria
Date: October 23 - 25, 2008
THEME:
Greeks, Romans, Africans
Contributions are invited on topics related to the reciprocal relationship
between Africa and the cultures of Greece and Rome. Papers dealing with
ancient authors writing about Africa or with an African connection,
historical and archaeological issues, as well as the reception of the
classical world in Africa are welcomed. While the colloquium focuses on
classical material, we encourage proposals from related fields and of an
interdisciplinary nature.
Papers are limited to 45 minutes. Please submit abstracts of appr. 200
words via e-mail attachment to bosmapr AT unisa.ac.za by 1 September 2008.
The body of your email should include your name, institution, department,
e-mail address, and the title of your paper. If necessary, submissions may
also be sent via post to the following address:
Department of Classics and World Languages
University of South Africa
PO Box 392
0003 UNISA
Republic of South Africa.
Further enquiries relating to the colloquium should be directed to Philip
Bosman at the e-mail and postal addresses given above.
Classical Myth and Psychoanalysis
Institute of Advanced Studies, University of London, 3-6 Sept. 2009
Call for Papers
Since Freud published the Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and utilised Sophocles' Oedipus Rex to work through his developing ideas about the psycho-sexual development of children, it has been virtually impossible to think about psychoanalysis without reference to classical myth. Since that time psychoanalytic theorists of various persuasions have continued to work with myth, viewing it as a resource that is less restrictive than individual literary texts, bound up as they are with issues of authorship and temporality. The mobility of myth offers psychoanalysis an alternative to the culturally specific and provides a framework within which to think through issues such as the redefinition of the personal and the radical alterity at the heart of what is most familiar. This capacity of myth to transcend the context of any particular retelling and to continue to transform the understanding of the present has long been recognised by Classicists for whom it has been a notoriously slippery object of study. Classical myth has more often been interpreted as encoding a loosely conceived ancient mentalité than as evidencing explicitly configured psychological truths, but the tension between its potency in a particular context and its multivalent potential has repeatedly been stressed. And throughout the twentieth century experts on the ancient world have sometimes turned to the insights of psychoanalytic criticism to supplement and inform their readings of classical myth and literature.
Just as psychoanalysis has developed a canon of classical myth (e.g. Oedipus, Narcissus, Prometheus, Antigone, Greek tragedy in general) so Classical Studies has developed its own canon of texts that seem to attract psychoanalytically-informed analysis (e.g. Greek Tragedy, philosophy and Roman poetry in particular). In some cases this seems to be because of a perceived 'fit' or coherence between the literary work and the mode of analysis, for example the fragmented articulation of desire in Catullan verse or the glorification of the irrational in Euripides' Bacchae; in others it is inspired by an influential reading of a classical text by a particular critic - an obvious example here is Lacan's analysis of Sophocles' Antigone in the seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. The aim of this conference is to probe the limits of these mutually influencing canons and to explore the potential of texts so far excluded from them. Why is it, for example, that Greek myth and literature continues to attract more attention in this context than their Roman counterparts? Why have certain forms of psychoanalysis tended to dominate whilst others have been almost completely ignored? What constitutes an authoritative version of a psychoanalytic or a classical myth? Are there new forms of criticism of classical myth and literature which will harmonise with developing forms of psychoanalysis as we move forward in the new millennium?
Suggested topics for panels include:
Foundational narratives Fantasy and the Past
Religion Getting the Myth Wrong
Text and Object 'And'
Group Psychology and the Collective Archetypes
Colonialism Creativity & the Visual Arts
Invited speakers include:
Richard Armstrong (University of Houston, Texas); Page DuBois (University of California, San Diego); Eric Gunderson (University of Toronto); Bruce King (Vassar College); Michaela Janan (Duke University); Jonathan Lear (University of Chicago); Paul Allen Miller (University of South Carolina); Jill Scott (Queens University, Ontario); Robert Segal (University of Aberdeen); Sonu Shamdasani (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London); Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto).
Proposals for panels are welcomed as are papers on relevant psychoanalytic or mythic texts. Please send a title and half-page abstract by 1st September 2008 to Vanda Zajko & Ellen O'Gorman, Department of Classics & Ancient History, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
v.zajko AT bris.ac.uk; e.c.ogorman AT bris.ac.uk
This conference is organised under the aegis of The Bristol Institute for Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/birtha/centres/institute/
Institute of Advanced Studies, University of London, 3-6 Sept. 2009
Call for Papers
Since Freud published the Interpretation of Dreams in 1900 and utilised Sophocles' Oedipus Rex to work through his developing ideas about the psycho-sexual development of children, it has been virtually impossible to think about psychoanalysis without reference to classical myth. Since that time psychoanalytic theorists of various persuasions have continued to work with myth, viewing it as a resource that is less restrictive than individual literary texts, bound up as they are with issues of authorship and temporality. The mobility of myth offers psychoanalysis an alternative to the culturally specific and provides a framework within which to think through issues such as the redefinition of the personal and the radical alterity at the heart of what is most familiar. This capacity of myth to transcend the context of any particular retelling and to continue to transform the understanding of the present has long been recognised by Classicists for whom it has been a notoriously slippery object of study. Classical myth has more often been interpreted as encoding a loosely conceived ancient mentalité than as evidencing explicitly configured psychological truths, but the tension between its potency in a particular context and its multivalent potential has repeatedly been stressed. And throughout the twentieth century experts on the ancient world have sometimes turned to the insights of psychoanalytic criticism to supplement and inform their readings of classical myth and literature.
Just as psychoanalysis has developed a canon of classical myth (e.g. Oedipus, Narcissus, Prometheus, Antigone, Greek tragedy in general) so Classical Studies has developed its own canon of texts that seem to attract psychoanalytically-informed analysis (e.g. Greek Tragedy, philosophy and Roman poetry in particular). In some cases this seems to be because of a perceived 'fit' or coherence between the literary work and the mode of analysis, for example the fragmented articulation of desire in Catullan verse or the glorification of the irrational in Euripides' Bacchae; in others it is inspired by an influential reading of a classical text by a particular critic - an obvious example here is Lacan's analysis of Sophocles' Antigone in the seminar The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. The aim of this conference is to probe the limits of these mutually influencing canons and to explore the potential of texts so far excluded from them. Why is it, for example, that Greek myth and literature continues to attract more attention in this context than their Roman counterparts? Why have certain forms of psychoanalysis tended to dominate whilst others have been almost completely ignored? What constitutes an authoritative version of a psychoanalytic or a classical myth? Are there new forms of criticism of classical myth and literature which will harmonise with developing forms of psychoanalysis as we move forward in the new millennium?
Suggested topics for panels include:
Foundational narratives Fantasy and the Past
Religion Getting the Myth Wrong
Text and Object 'And'
Group Psychology and the Collective Archetypes
Colonialism Creativity & the Visual Arts
Invited speakers include:
Richard Armstrong (University of Houston, Texas); Page DuBois (University of California, San Diego); Eric Gunderson (University of Toronto); Bruce King (Vassar College); Michaela Janan (Duke University); Jonathan Lear (University of Chicago); Paul Allen Miller (University of South Carolina); Jill Scott (Queens University, Ontario); Robert Segal (University of Aberdeen); Sonu Shamdasani (Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London); Victoria Wohl (University of Toronto).
Proposals for panels are welcomed as are papers on relevant psychoanalytic or mythic texts. Please send a title and half-page abstract by 1st September 2008 to Vanda Zajko & Ellen O'Gorman, Department of Classics & Ancient History, University of Bristol, BS8 1TB
v.zajko AT bris.ac.uk; e.c.ogorman AT bris.ac.uk
This conference is organised under the aegis of The Bristol Institute for Greece, Rome and the Classical Tradition
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/birtha/centres/institute/
Classical Association of the Canadian West (CACW)
University of Manitoba, 6-7 March 2009
Violence in Greek and Roman Antiquity
The University of Manitoba will host the next conference of the Classical Association of the Canadian West on 6-7 March 2009. The keynote speaker is Dr. Victoria Pagán of the University of Florida. Her recent books include Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History (University of Texas Press 2004) and Rome and the Literature of Gardens (Duckworth 2006).
Papers are invited on all topics of interest to Classicists, but we particularly encourage papers on topics related to the broad theme of violence in the ancient world.
Violence permeated all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman culture. Ancient literature, art, and historical evidence demonstrate that the Greeks and Romans understood the important role which violence played in their cultures. Myth provided numerous stories of acts of violence committed by both gods and humans. Watching violence in the form of gladiatorial competitions was a popular form of entertainment. The violence which initiated and later removed tyranny in Athens, as well as the regularity with which Roman emperors were assassinated, demonstrates that the Greeks and Romans understood that violence was a means of achieving political ends. Violence was also state sanctioned: the testimony of a slave was only admissible in a Roman trial if extracted under torture. And Greek tragedy explored violence as a manifestation of some of the darker aspects of human nature.
Despite the fact that Greeks and Romans were confronted by violence, both real acts of violence and representations of violence, our understanding of the phenomenon in the ancient world is still very limited. This conference aims to place Classicists in a position to understand better the complex discourses of violence in Greek and Roman history, literature, and art, as well as early modern and contemporary representations of the ancient world. The conference aims to explore violence from the perspectives of both those who commit acts of violence and their victims.
Topics might include:
* violence in/ as sport and public entertainment
* violence in art
* ancient law and violence
* ancient morality of violence
* punishment and torture
* spectators versus participants in acts of violence
* women as victims
* revenge
* changing attitudes towards violence in Christian Rome
* cruelty as a character trait, especially of foreigners
* violence in cinematic representations of the ancient world
* violence in ancient Israel, Egypt or ancient Near East versus ancient Greece and Rome
The committee strongly encourages proposals on the following themes:
* violence in myth, including myths of foundation
* political violence (esp. assassination)/ stasis/ discordia
* violence in ancient epic
Abstracts of up to 200 words for papers of twenty minutes should be sent by Monday, 8 September 2008 to Dr. James Chlup at chlupj AT cc.umanitoba.ca . The committee particularly invites proposals from those in related disciplines and graduate students. Notification of acceptance will be conveyed no later than the end of September. We will be seeking funding support for the conference from SSHRC. Therefore, titles and abstracts must also be accompanied by the following information:
Family name, given name, initials
Institutional affiliation (if any) and department
Degrees received; please identify discipline
Recent positions held
Recent publications, especially those relevant to the theme of the conference
Please also indicate any audio-visual or other requirements.
Please send proposals and enquires to: Dr. James T. Chlup, Department of Classics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3T 2M8. Phone +204 474-9171. E-mail: chlupj AT cc.umanitoba.ca . Electronic submissions are preferred.
University of Manitoba, 6-7 March 2009
Violence in Greek and Roman Antiquity
The University of Manitoba will host the next conference of the Classical Association of the Canadian West on 6-7 March 2009. The keynote speaker is Dr. Victoria Pagán of the University of Florida. Her recent books include Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History (University of Texas Press 2004) and Rome and the Literature of Gardens (Duckworth 2006).
Papers are invited on all topics of interest to Classicists, but we particularly encourage papers on topics related to the broad theme of violence in the ancient world.
Violence permeated all aspects of ancient Greek and Roman culture. Ancient literature, art, and historical evidence demonstrate that the Greeks and Romans understood the important role which violence played in their cultures. Myth provided numerous stories of acts of violence committed by both gods and humans. Watching violence in the form of gladiatorial competitions was a popular form of entertainment. The violence which initiated and later removed tyranny in Athens, as well as the regularity with which Roman emperors were assassinated, demonstrates that the Greeks and Romans understood that violence was a means of achieving political ends. Violence was also state sanctioned: the testimony of a slave was only admissible in a Roman trial if extracted under torture. And Greek tragedy explored violence as a manifestation of some of the darker aspects of human nature.
Despite the fact that Greeks and Romans were confronted by violence, both real acts of violence and representations of violence, our understanding of the phenomenon in the ancient world is still very limited. This conference aims to place Classicists in a position to understand better the complex discourses of violence in Greek and Roman history, literature, and art, as well as early modern and contemporary representations of the ancient world. The conference aims to explore violence from the perspectives of both those who commit acts of violence and their victims.
Topics might include:
* violence in/ as sport and public entertainment
* violence in art
* ancient law and violence
* ancient morality of violence
* punishment and torture
* spectators versus participants in acts of violence
* women as victims
* revenge
* changing attitudes towards violence in Christian Rome
* cruelty as a character trait, especially of foreigners
* violence in cinematic representations of the ancient world
* violence in ancient Israel, Egypt or ancient Near East versus ancient Greece and Rome
The committee strongly encourages proposals on the following themes:
* violence in myth, including myths of foundation
* political violence (esp. assassination)/ stasis/ discordia
* violence in ancient epic
Abstracts of up to 200 words for papers of twenty minutes should be sent by Monday, 8 September 2008 to Dr. James Chlup at chlupj AT cc.umanitoba.ca . The committee particularly invites proposals from those in related disciplines and graduate students. Notification of acceptance will be conveyed no later than the end of September. We will be seeking funding support for the conference from SSHRC. Therefore, titles and abstracts must also be accompanied by the following information:
Family name, given name, initials
Institutional affiliation (if any) and department
Degrees received; please identify discipline
Recent positions held
Recent publications, especially those relevant to the theme of the conference
Please also indicate any audio-visual or other requirements.
Please send proposals and enquires to: Dr. James T. Chlup, Department of Classics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada, R3T 2M8. Phone +204 474-9171. E-mail: chlupj AT cc.umanitoba.ca . Electronic submissions are preferred.
I just commented on Mary Beard's post and figure I should back up my contention that the more I look at the thing, the more it looks like George Bush ... ecce this photo by Evan Vucci:
... and just for easy comparison purposes:
... and just for easy comparison purposes:
A pile of folks have sent various versions of this one in (thanks!) ... here's the version from the Australian:
All the articles are accompanied with some version of this photo found at the French Ministry of Culture site:
I dunno ... definitely Republican, style-wise, but it doesn't look like Julius Caesar to me other than the two vertical wrinkles between the brows ... I wonder what the identification was based on ...
UPDATE: Mary Beard and Rick Darby are also doubting the Caesar identification
A BUST of Julius Caesar, believed to be the oldest representation of the Roman emperor yet known, has been found at the bottom of the River Rhone.
Caesar
The life-sized bust showing the Roman ruler as a balding and ageing man with wrinkles and hollows in his face is tentatively dated to 46 BC.
Divers trained in archaeology uncovered the marble bust and a collection of other finds in the Rhone River near the town of Arles in the south of France.
Among other items in the treasure trove of ancient objects found in the bed of the river was a 1.8m marble statue of Neptune, dated to the first decade of the third century after Christ.
Two smaller statues were also found, both in bronze and measuring 70cm each.
One of them, a satyr with his hands tied behind his back, "doubtless" originated in Hellenic Greece, the ministry said.
"Some (of the discoveries) are unique in Europe," Culture Minister Christine Albanel said. The bust of Caesar is in a class by itself.
"This marble bust of the founder of the Roman city of Arles constitutes the most ancient representation known today of Caesar," the ministry statement said, adding that it "undoubtedly" dates to the creation of Arles in 46 BC.
Among other things, researchers are trying to uncover "in what context these statues were thrown into the river", said Michel L'Hour, who heads the Department of Subaquatic Archaeological Research, whose divers made the discovery between September and October 2007.
The site "has barely been skimmed", L'Hour told The Associated Press, adding that a new search operation will begin this summer.
With its Roman beginnings, the area around Arles in the Provence region of southern France and the Rhone are "propitious" for discoveries, L'Hour said.
All the articles are accompanied with some version of this photo found at the French Ministry of Culture site:
I dunno ... definitely Republican, style-wise, but it doesn't look like Julius Caesar to me other than the two vertical wrinkles between the brows ... I wonder what the identification was based on ...
UPDATE: Mary Beard and Rick Darby are also doubting the Caesar identification
Projet Volterra II: Law and the End of Empire
Workshop on the afterlife of Roman law 2
Monday-Tuesday 15-16 September 2008
History Department
University College London
Projet Volterra II, an AHRC-funded project based in the History Department of UCL, is examining the post-imperial afterlife of Roman law (initially to the Carolingian period). Over the two days of 15 to 16 September 2008, we are hosting a small colloquium-cum-workshop, organised loosely around the themes 'Authorities and Subjects' and 'Manuals and Jurisprudence'. For an introduction to the project and its aims, see www.ucl.ac.uk/history/volterra/pv2.htm .
Confirmed speakers include Professors Michael Crawford, Gero Dolezalek, Wolfgang Kaiser, Dario Mantovani, and Drs Simon Corcoran, Magnus Ryan, and Benet Salway but we welcome offers of other papers. Preference will be given to those related to our themes but contributions outside the themes but still relating to the survival/reception of Roman law in the early medieval period are also most welcome.
The colloquium is supported by the AHRC and we will be able to contribute towards speakers' travel and accommodation expenses.
Those interested in offering a paper should contact Dr Benet Salway by Friday 1 August 2008.
Workshop on the afterlife of Roman law 2
Monday-Tuesday 15-16 September 2008
History Department
University College London
Projet Volterra II, an AHRC-funded project based in the History Department of UCL, is examining the post-imperial afterlife of Roman law (initially to the Carolingian period). Over the two days of 15 to 16 September 2008, we are hosting a small colloquium-cum-workshop, organised loosely around the themes 'Authorities and Subjects' and 'Manuals and Jurisprudence'. For an introduction to the project and its aims, see www.ucl.ac.uk/history/volterra/pv2.htm .
Confirmed speakers include Professors Michael Crawford, Gero Dolezalek, Wolfgang Kaiser, Dario Mantovani, and Drs Simon Corcoran, Magnus Ryan, and Benet Salway but we welcome offers of other papers. Preference will be given to those related to our themes but contributions outside the themes but still relating to the survival/reception of Roman law in the early medieval period are also most welcome.
The colloquium is supported by the AHRC and we will be able to contribute towards speakers' travel and accommodation expenses.
Those interested in offering a paper should contact Dr Benet Salway
Digital Spy notes (inter alia):
"it" kind of sucked? ... or "I kind of sucked" ...
Diane Kruger has admitted that she doesn't like her breakthrough movie Troy.
Speaking to Esquire magazine, Kruger said: "You can't tell whether or not I can act from Troy. It kind of sucked to be honest."
Kruger played Helen of Troy in the 2004 Illiad epic opposite Brad Pitt, Orlando Bloom and Eric Bana and wasn't happy with the type of roles offered to her after its release.
"I was just starting out and didn't want to play all the parts I was subsequently offered in these big movies. I had to get out," Kruger explained.
"it" kind of sucked? ... or "I kind of sucked" ...
From the Evening Post:
Might Wigan youngsters have helped to uncover a long lost Roman road in Wigan?
Local archaeologists are getting increasingly excited that an historic breakthrough has finally been made in locating an almost 200-year-old route linking the town with Manchester.
Finding this and two other suspected routes to Warrington and Preston would confirm the belief that Wigan was the Roman settlement of Coccium.
It is an excavation in the playing fields of Ince CE School that has caused a stir amongst members of Wigan Archaeological Society.
These digs are the final phase of a project which has involved the many Wigan schools. The Ince youngsters had been invited to explore an area 6m by 2m and while it drew a blank - only colliery residue was found - it inspired the archaeologists to explore further.
They then opened up a new site closer to George Street and this is where the road section was discovered at a depth of about 1m.
It consisted of a band of mixed gravel, grey-blue clay/brown clay and cobbles and flat stones about 50cm thick at the south west side tapering to 20cm on the north east ending in a ditch-like feature.
A society spokesman said: "The exposed section was 4.5m wide and if we assume the thickest end is the centre then the road could be assumed to be 9m wide (with the south west end lining up with the centre of George St).
"It appears the houses on the north east side of George St were built right on top of the section with the red sand being used to level the ground prior to construction. Further excavations are planned so that full extent and direction can be determined. If it can be confirmed that this is the Roman road it certainly would be great find for the society."
An ordnance survey map from 1849 shows two dotted lines running from across Amberswood Common to Common Nook.
The map was drawn up by Edmund Sibson, who had also traced routes from Wigan to Warrington and Preston. The Wigan Archaeological Society also found hints of the road during a dig in 2003 at Walmsley Park, Ince.
An old map of the North West shows Coccium from Roman times but it has
not yet been conclusively proved that it is Wigan.
But the more evidence of Roman remains – and there is a growing amount of it in the Millgate area of the town centre – the greater the chance that Wigan was home to Roman invaders towards the end of their occupation.
Exploring the Classical World Summer School.
Courses for the Public at The University of Manchester, Summer 2008
Mon 30th June
Session 1: Introduction to Exploring the Classical World (Dr Georgina Muskett)
Session 2: The Athenian Acropolis and the Parthenon Frieze (Dr Georgina Muskett)
*Lecture (6.30 ?8.00pm): Odysseus and Agamemnon (Prof. David Langslow) HE078S07
Tues 1st July
Session 1: How to Build Rome in 5 Easy Steps (Dr Birgitta Hoffmann)
Session 2: Roman medicine and healers (Dr Clare Pilsworth)
*Lecture (5.00 ? 6.30pm): Ovid?s Erotic Poetry (Prof. Roy Gibson) HE079S07
Wed 2nd July
Session 1: At the service of Rome- the City of Ostia (Dr Alessandra Pompili)
Session 2: Leptis Magna ? Olive Oil magnates between East and West (Dr Birgitta Hoffman)
* Lecture (4.00 ? 5.30pm): The Power of Pompeii (Prof. Tim Parkin) HE080S07
Starting at 10.30am each day in the Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Rd. Fee for the Full Summer School (not including accommodation or lunches) £175.00 (Course No: HE076S07)
*The lectures are bookable separately at £7 each by those not enrolled on the summer school
For an application form please visit:
www.manchester.ac.uk/coursespublic
Or ring 0161 275 3275
Lists of accommodation may be obtained from Courses for the Public reception.
Pre enrolment is required. (Telephone bookings not accepted.)
Courses for the Public at The University of Manchester, Summer 2008
Mon 30th June
Session 1: Introduction to Exploring the Classical World (Dr Georgina Muskett)
Session 2: The Athenian Acropolis and the Parthenon Frieze (Dr Georgina Muskett)
*Lecture (6.30 ?8.00pm): Odysseus and Agamemnon (Prof. David Langslow) HE078S07
Tues 1st July
Session 1: How to Build Rome in 5 Easy Steps (Dr Birgitta Hoffmann)
Session 2: Roman medicine and healers (Dr Clare Pilsworth)
*Lecture (5.00 ? 6.30pm): Ovid?s Erotic Poetry (Prof. Roy Gibson) HE079S07
Wed 2nd July
Session 1: At the service of Rome- the City of Ostia (Dr Alessandra Pompili)
Session 2: Leptis Magna ? Olive Oil magnates between East and West (Dr Birgitta Hoffman)
* Lecture (4.00 ? 5.30pm): The Power of Pompeii (Prof. Tim Parkin) HE080S07
Starting at 10.30am each day in the Ellen Wilkinson Building, The University of Manchester, Oxford Rd. Fee for the Full Summer School (not including accommodation or lunches) £175.00 (Course No: HE076S07)
*The lectures are bookable separately at £7 each by those not enrolled on the summer school
For an application form please visit:
www.manchester.ac.uk/coursespublic
Or ring 0161 275 3275
Lists of accommodation may be obtained from Courses for the Public reception.
Pre enrolment is required. (Telephone bookings not accepted.)
ante diem iv idus maias
19 B.C. (?) -- dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline
2 B.C. -- opening of the Forum of Augustus
113 A.D. -- opening of the restored Temple of Venus Genetrix
304 A.D. -- martyrdom of Dionysius and Pancras at Rome
19 B.C. (?) -- dedication of the Temple of Mars Ultor on the Capitoline
2 B.C. -- opening of the Forum of Augustus
113 A.D. -- opening of the restored Temple of Venus Genetrix
304 A.D. -- martyrdom of Dionysius and Pancras at Rome
3.00 p.m. |DCIVC| Cleopatra's Lost City
Alexandria, one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, was named after one of history's greatest warriors, Alexander the Great; archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur tells the story of this beautiful ancient city and its most famous inhabitant.
8.00 p.m. |HINT|Crucifixion
Throughout history, crucifixion has been one of the cruelest and most excruciating ways to die. Approximately 500 years before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Persian King Darius crucified political opponents and both Alexander the Great and Caligula used crucifixion as a means of punishment and entertainment. Watch as a team of forensic experts reconstruct a 2000-year-old body using the only physical evidence of a crucifixion ever discovered. Modern day footage will show real crucifixions that take place in the Philippines. Recreations will be used along with extensive CGI animation and CSI forensic-style graphics to illustrate the different types of crucifixion techniques throughout history and how it eventually kills its victim.
9.00 p.m. |HISTC| ROME II | Philippi
Brutus and Cassius see their military advantage vanish in the wake of Octavian’s new alliance with Mark Antony. In Rome, Vorenus receives orders to execute scores of Rome’s elite, dividing the task among the Collegium’s gang captains. Cicero attempts to warn Brutus of his army’s danger, but is foiled by the arrival of Pullo at his villa. Mark Antony adds a few names to the list of condemned, as does Atia; Octavia and Vorena the Elder find themselves enchanted by unlikely suitors; Eirene shares some domestic news with Pullo; Levi and Timon precipitate a synagogue melee; and Atia gets Octavia to reveal a secret as Octavian heads out of Rome. On the plains of Philippi, two armies clash, with the future of Rome at stake.
DCIVC = Discovery Civilization (Canada)
HINT = History International
HISTC = History Television (Canada)
Alexandria, one of the greatest cities of the ancient world, was named after one of history's greatest warriors, Alexander the Great; archaeologist Jean-Yves Empereur tells the story of this beautiful ancient city and its most famous inhabitant.
8.00 p.m. |HINT|Crucifixion
Throughout history, crucifixion has been one of the cruelest and most excruciating ways to die. Approximately 500 years before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the Persian King Darius crucified political opponents and both Alexander the Great and Caligula used crucifixion as a means of punishment and entertainment. Watch as a team of forensic experts reconstruct a 2000-year-old body using the only physical evidence of a crucifixion ever discovered. Modern day footage will show real crucifixions that take place in the Philippines. Recreations will be used along with extensive CGI animation and CSI forensic-style graphics to illustrate the different types of crucifixion techniques throughout history and how it eventually kills its victim.
9.00 p.m. |HISTC| ROME II | Philippi
Brutus and Cassius see their military advantage vanish in the wake of Octavian’s new alliance with Mark Antony. In Rome, Vorenus receives orders to execute scores of Rome’s elite, dividing the task among the Collegium’s gang captains. Cicero attempts to warn Brutus of his army’s danger, but is foiled by the arrival of Pullo at his villa. Mark Antony adds a few names to the list of condemned, as does Atia; Octavia and Vorena the Elder find themselves enchanted by unlikely suitors; Eirene shares some domestic news with Pullo; Levi and Timon precipitate a synagogue melee; and Atia gets Octavia to reveal a secret as Octavian heads out of Rome. On the plains of Philippi, two armies clash, with the future of Rome at stake.
DCIVC = Discovery Civilization (Canada)
HINT = History International
HISTC = History Television (Canada)
Dorothy King introduced me to Veoh videos and I've just come across the chariot race ... I can embed it, but I don't know how visible it is to y'all:
Somewhere down below I claim to have figured out how to deal with my kids' sports schedules and my sleeping patterns and updating here ... basically, I'm going to publish as much as possible as normal (i.e. daily ... and sometimes only once on weekends), but on Tuesdays and Fridays (with some Mondays), I might update a bit later than might be useful for folks using, e.g., This Day in Ancient History in class ... but I will do it!
Anyhoo ... here's assorted other items that have caught my eye this week:
Dorothy King sent in (thanks) a piece from the Washington Post with plenty of ClassCon about the current Democratic primaries ...
Mary Lefkowitz was on NRO's Between the Covers ...
Folks interested (or not) in Boris Johnson's Classics roots might be interested to read about his father's (and rest of the family's) similar radices ...
Last, but certainly not least, is a rap version of some of the Confessions which has been making the rounds of various lists this week:
Anyhoo ... here's assorted other items that have caught my eye this week:
Dorothy King sent in (thanks) a piece from the Washington Post with plenty of ClassCon about the current Democratic primaries ...
Mary Lefkowitz was on NRO's Between the Covers ...
Folks interested (or not) in Boris Johnson's Classics roots might be interested to read about his father's (and rest of the family's) similar radices ...
Last, but certainly not least, is a rap version of some of the Confessions which has been making the rounds of various lists this week:
From the LA Times comes a nice bit of ClassCon with nary a mention of Cybele:
Today marks the 100th observance of Mother's Day; the first one was on May 10, 1908, in a Methodist church in Grafton, W.Va. By now most people know that it started with Anna Reeves Jarvis, who in the mid-1800s tried to improve health conditions in Appalachia through her Mother's Work Days; that, in 1870, Julia Ward Howe issued a Mother's Day Proclamation, calling for peace after the Civil War; and that Jarvis' daughter, also named Anna, was behind the 1908 celebration, to honor her mother. She finally saw Woodrow Wilson make Mother's Day an annual holiday in 1914 but came to despise its devolution into a card, a box of candy and a buffet brunch.
But a mere 100 years offers little perspective. I suggest we look further back, to the first mothers of Western culture: the mothers of Achilles and Odysseus, heroes of Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Individually, they're remarkable. Together -- call them the Meddler and the Martyr -- they give a snapshot of what it means, and has always meant, to be a mother.
Start with Thetis, mother of Achilles, the brooding hero of "The Iliad." Thetis, a nymph, marries Peleus, a mortal, and the couple provides an example -- long before Darrin and Samantha Stephens of television's "Bewitched" -- that intermarriages face unusual difficulties. In fact, it's a brouhaha among the gods at the wedding of Thetis and Peleus that sets in motion the events that caused the Trojan War.
But today, consider Thetis only as Achilles' mother -- the meddling type who has difficulty cutting the apron strings. First, worried that her precious boy has been sullied by mortal blood, she tries to render her infant son immortal by dipping him either into the water of the River Styx or into fire, depending on which myth you prefer. Either way, she holds him by the heel, which doesn't get the treatment; hence Achilles' weak heel.
But she's not done trying to manipulate her son. A prophecy states that if he fights at Troy, Achilles will gain renown but also surely perish. Thetis tries to keep him away from the war by dressing him as a girl. Yes, Achilles' mother turns her warrior son into the Cpl. Klinger of Bronze Age Greece, 3,000 years before "MASH." Thetis fails in her endeavors, and Achilles spends part of his life impersonating a woman and then dies young. Let's leave that to the Freudians and move on to Odysseus.
"The Odyssey" describes the adventures of war-weary, middle-aged Odysseus as he returns from Troy. His mother, Anticleia, falls, unlike Thetis, in the martyr camp. In one of his lesser-known episodes, Odysseus ventures to the land of the dead to consult an inconveniently deceased prophet. While there, he runs into a great many famous people, including ... Anticleia!
The scene runs like something from a Woody Allen movie: "Mom! What are you doing here?" Anticleia: "Well, you never call, you never write. ..."
At this point in the story, Odysseus has been away from home about 12 years; he's won the Trojan War, he's blinded the Cyclops, and he has spent the preceding year contentedly feasting and having sex with the witch Circe. And it turns out that in his long absence his mother has died -- from grief, missing him: "It was my longing for you, my shining Odysseus ... that tore away my life that had been sweet." A thousand guilt-inducing-mother jokes leap to mind: "No, no, Mr. Big Shot, you go out and have your war, fight your giants, you're very important: I'll just stay home alone and die!"
It's hilarious and perfect, especially because immediately after comes the heartbreak: Odysseus, "desperate to hold her," tries to embrace his mother three times -- and each time her phantasmal form "fluttered through my fingers ... dissolving like a dream." He pretty much hurries home to his wife after that.
So, two mothers, two sons at the dawn of our culture, and what has changed? Nothing. Mothers will do anything to protect their children from harm, and may on occasion forget that eventually that becomes their children's job, not their own. Mothers may free children to pursue their interests -- then develop a litany of grievances when freedom carries the children far away. And children, too late, wish to embrace their mothers, to hold them dear. (It's even rumored that Anna Jarvis fought so hard for Mother's Day because her mother died before the two could resolve a quarrel.)
So it's the same as it ever was. Your mother does her best, and if you're lucky she lives until you're ready to embrace her. But she cannot protect you forever because, in fact, you do need to go out and fight your wars and confront your giants.
But would it hurt so much to call your mother once in a while?
Scott Huler is the author of "No-Man's Lands: One Man's Odyssey Through 'The Odyssey.' "
From the Chronicle Journal (a newspaper from Thunder Bay which yours truly once sold at a camp kitchen in Terrace Bay, Ontario!):
A Thunder Bay DNA expert was in New York City on Monday to discuss findings that could help researchers prove that Jesus did marry Mary Magdalene and that they had children.
Lakehead University‘s Paleo DNA Laboratory operations supervisor Renee Fratpietro joined English filmmaker Bruce Burgess in the Big Apple to discuss his film “Bloodline”, which follows a three-year investigation led by Burgess and his American producing partner, Rene Barnett, in their search for answers into the bloodline conspiracy made popular by the “Da Vinci Code”.
Fratpietro sat on a panel of experts at a news conference promoting the film and discussed the role Lakehead‘s Paleo DNA Laboratory had in the movie-making process.
Her husband, Steve Fratpietro, technical manager at the Paleo DNA lab, spoke about the connection in an interview Monday.
He said the lab was approached to test a 13-centimetre long hair that was very old and was extracted from a tomb.
“That is essentially all they told us. We didn‘t know anything about it,” he said about the hair that he and his wife tested for three weeks about a year ago.
They were able to find some genetic information.
“We were able to trace back the genetic origins on the maternal side of this particular person to the northern middle east, and that is essentially what the analysis entails,” said Steve Fratpietro.
He said he couldn‘t be sure why the LU lab was approached, but noted there are very few labs that do the kind of work that is done in Thunder Bay. He added that the lab has a good reputation for its specialized work in getting DNA from ancient samples.
“Bloodline‘‘ opens in New York on Friday.
The film revolves around the discovery of a tomb in the mountains of the Languedoc region of southwest France. Video footage of the site, which has yet to be excavated, shows it holds a mummified corpse under a shroud bearing the red cross of the Knights Templar.
Burgess has explained that rumours dating back to the late 13th century Crusades indicate the Templars had excavated the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem and had hidden something priceless on their return to France. He has said that what was hidden has been rumoured to be documents and even the embalmed remains of Jesus and Mary Magdalene.
Meanwhile, the latest round of classes for the Paleo DNA lab‘s ancient DNA training program opened Monday. This is the 10th year the program has been available.
Carney Matheson, associate professor of anthropology at Lakehead and forensic examiner at the Paleo DNA lab, is the main lecturer for the three-week certificate program that attracts students from around the world.
He said 20 students have enrolled, and they hail from Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the U.S. and Canada, including Thunder Bay.
Students spend the three weeks testing their own saliva, hair and blood samples. They are trained in extracting the DNA, amplifying DNA and how to troubleshoot the analysis.
“By the end of the first week they usually have a headache. They are tired and frustrated and asking themselves ‘what have I got myself into?‘. (The program) is extremely intensive,” said Matheson.
But he added, “It gets better over time and students are excited once the third week comes along where they have a chance to choose a topic and do self-directed research.”
Matheson said his students range from professors and people with their PhDs to undergraduate students who are still trying to find the right path to follow.
His students have gone on to work in many different professions including at the Molecular Medicine Research Centre, the Centre of Forensic Sciences and Genesis Genomics Inc.
The BBC gives news of things folks have been requesting for quite a while:
... check out the Documenta Latina section for yerself ...
The Roman Catholic Church, for centuries a bastion of Latin usage, has given the ancient tongue a 21st Century boost by launching a website in Latin.
The Vatican website now has a section - Sancta Sedes (Holy See) - with Latin papal texts and religious works.
Pope Benedict XVI is an advocate of Latin, allowing Mass in the language.
But when a papal decree was issued only in Latin by mistake last June, there was confusion until the Vatican press office put out an Italian version.
"It caused a bit of panic for my colleagues who had no schooling in Latin," said the BBC's Rome correspondent David Willey, "until the official translation finally emerged."
The Vatican website already has sections in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
Ancient traditions
Father Reginald Foster File photo
Fr Foster: Using Latin means you have to say something
For centuries church documents were all written in Latin, the mass was said only in Latin.
Without a knowledge of the language you would not go far if you were an ambitious priest.
But Latin has fallen out of favour in recent years as the subject has been dropped from school curricula in many countries and normal Vatican business is conducted in Italian, or increasingly in English.
But Pope Benedict wants the Catholic Church to keep its ancient traditions.
After his election to the papacy three years ago, he addressed the Church's cardinals in Latin.
He has encouraged the use of the language in seminaries where new priests are trained.
Page of the Bible in Latin
The new website will make sacred texts available in Latin
Last year he lifted restrictions on celebrating the Latin Tridentine Mass,
The Latin Mass had been largely abandoned in the 1960s, as part of reforms to make Catholicism more relevant to its worldwide congregation.
But Father Reginald Foster, an American priest who is the Pope's official Latinist, praises the virtues and the clarity of the Latin language.
"You have to say something and move on," he says.
"It's not like French and some of these philosophical languages where you can write a whole page and say nothing - in Latin you can't do that!''
Fr Foster has a weekly programme on Vatican Radio called The Latin Lover, in which he explains the historical and contemporary uses of the language.
... check out the Documenta Latina section for yerself ...
Interesting/strange item in the National Post:
... I think Dorothy King sent me something similar a while ago, but I must have deleted it ...
Achillia and Amazon - these are the names of female gladiators who were famous long ago. They were the female counterparts of the oiled costume-epic hunks like Charlton Heston's charioteer Ben-Hur. The Spartacus-era Kirk Douglas. Russell Crowe's beefy Gladiator. According to scholars of ancient Rome, these gladiatrices clashed at a contest in the second century AD. They wielded steel swords. Their shields were made of birch, or maybe brass. Their sandals were made by Dolce & Gabbana.
Just joking. Dolce & Gabbana didn't make gear for ancient gladiatrices; they make them for warrior women of today. This season, the designing duo seem to have been inspired by Achillia and Amazon: They're selling a range of strappy gladiator sandals. And they're not alone: Fashionable footwear brands, from Alaïa to Zanotti, are offering similar styles for spring and summer. In the ancient world, gladiatrices battled to the death; their sandals, it seems, are still to die for.
"It is historical fact that there were female gladiators" writes Stephen Wisdom, author of Gladiators: 100 BC to AD 200. The proof lies in literature: Suetonius and Martial, among other authors, made mention of gladiatrices. A marble relief in the British Museum depicts combatants named Achillia and Amazon in the midst of a match in a region of the Roman Empire called Halicarnassus.
No one can say for certain how Achillia and Amazon became gladiatrices. Emperor Nero is said to have sent the wives of senators into gladiatorial combat. The sight of pampered patrician women fighting for their lives no doubt amused him. In his Satire VI, Juvenal mocked ladies of leisure who chose to become gladiatrices for a thrill. For some wealthy women, being a gladiatrix was fun and fashionable; for some wealthy women today, looking like a gladiatrix still is.
"Gladiators probably did not wear shoes," Wisdom has written. Achillia and Amazon probably battled barefoot in sand. It's possible that they wrapped their feet in felt. Some gladiators sported the sort of leather sandals that Roman soldiers wore. These sandals consisted of sturdy straps. Azzedine Alaïa sells something similar: a flat sole with three black straps that buckle at the side of the foot and a strap that buckles at the ankle. The price of Alaïa's simple sandals is patrician: $1,000 and up.
Achillia and Amazon wore fasciae, thick leather pads that shielded their shins from sword slashes. Fasciae were fastened on with leather laces that crisscrossed up the calves. Dolce & Gabbana's knee-high sandals feature thin leather fasciae; in lieu of laces, gold buckles climb from ankle to knee.
Balenciaga's gladiator boots take a different tack: They lace up the front, and have supple leather strips on the sides of the legs. Balenciaga's boots also come with high heels, spikes in black or rose steel. The effect is sci-fi: boots made for a gladiatrix from a galaxy far, far away. In Rome, the spikes would have sunk in sand. The gladiatrix? A goner.
Achillia and Amazon were provocatrices, a kind of gladiatrix known to have worn armour. It's possible that their fasciae were made of bronze. Both Burberry's and Miu Miu's gladiator sandals come in metallic colours. Gold, silver, bronze - metallic leather has the look of armour, without the weight.
Italian label Modern Vintage sells sandals whose fasciae are festooned with rhinestones. They're garish - perfect for a fashion victim - or fascia victim. Who knows?
Perhaps gladiatrices had similarly flashy footwear. In 2000, historians in England unearthed a grave that many believe belonged to a gladiatrix. All that was left of her was ash, bits of bone and fragments of coloured glass that had decorated her body in death. The glass sparkled in the soil. Gladiators may be gone; their glitter lingers on.
... I think Dorothy King sent me something similar a while ago, but I must have deleted it ...
This one's confusing ... first, we read in the Canadian Press (and elsewhere):
... but the Cleveland Plain Dealer notes:
Italy has reached an agreement with a U.S. museum for the return of artifacts that Rome says have been looted or smuggled out of the country, art officials said Friday.
Under the deal the Cleveland Museum of Art will return 16 artifacts to Italy, the Culture Ministry said, without giving details.
Italy - which has been conducting an aggressive campaign to recover disputed antiquities - has reached earlier agreements with other U.S. museums including the J. Paul Getty Museum in California and the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Friday's announcement coincided with a new culture minister, conservative Sandro Bondi, taking over the portfolio from predecessor Francesco Rutelli.
"I immediately gave some good news to the new minister," Rutelli said. "Just these past days we have concluded the agreement - which will be formalized by Minister Bondi - with the Cleveland museum."
Rutelli said the artifacts to be returned were "significant," but did not say what they were.
Italian art officials could not be reached for comment.
Italy says ancient treasures have ended up in museums or private collections abroad after allegedly being looted from archeological sites and then sold with false documentation. Among items recovered is a 2,500-year-old vase by Greek artist Euphronius, returned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York and unveiled in Rome earlier this year.
... but the Cleveland Plain Dealer notes:
Italy sent conflicting signals Friday about whether it had reached an agreement with the Cleveland Museum of Art over returning ancient works of art the country believes were looted. The Associated Press reported that the Italian Culture Ministry in Rome announced completion of an agreement with the museum under which 16 unspecified objects would be returned.
But when contacted by The Plain Dealer, Maurizio Fiorilli, the lawyer handling the negotiations for Italy, at first said that there was no agreement yet and that the original AP report was "sbagliato" -- mistaken.
He said the culture ministry's statement was only "an expression of hope" and "an expression of desire that the negotiations would conclude shortly."
Hours later, in an interview with the Associated Press in Rome, Fiorilli said that Italy and the museum had reached a verbal agreement and that negotiations were almost at a final stage. The musuem, however, said there was no agreement.
Fiorilli told the Associated Press that Italy hopes to hear back soon from Cleveland on finalizing the deal.
Amid all this, the museum seems to have been taken by surprise.
"No agreement has been reached, nor has the museum agreed to transfer any objects to Italy," the museum said in a statement Friday.
Cindy Fink, the Cleveland museum's director of marketing and communications, declined to comment on Fiorilli's description of a verbal agreement.
The statements from Rome coincided with a change in leadership at the Ministry of Fine Arts. Conservative Sandro Bondi, appointed by newly elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, succeeded Francesco Rutelli as minister of culture.
The Associated Press quoted Rutelli as having said: "I immediately gave some good news to the new minister. Just these past days we have concluded the agreement -- which will be formalized by Minister Bondi -- with the Cleveland museum."
Rutelli described the objects to be returned as "significant," without elaborating.
Speaking to The Plain Dealer, Fiorilli praised Cleveland museum director Timothy Rub for being "sensitive and open," and expressed the hope that an agreement could be reached within a couple of months.
He said the works under discussion "are of sure Italian provenance . . . acquired on the European market from persons more or less connected with a network of traffickers that also supplied other American museums."
When Italy reaches an agreement with the Cleveland museum, "you can read it as a manifestation of cultural collaboration, not a defeat for Cleveland and a victory for Italy," he said.
"It will be a victory of culture."
From the Turkish Daily News:
Christine Bruns-Özgan, head of the archeology department at Mimar Sinan Güzel Sanatlar Universitesi, knows the historical value of a Turkish stone all too well.
Having lived in the heart of Turkey, Konya, for 26 years and having attended dozens of excavations in her lifetime, Bruns-Özgan, a German native, told the Turkish Daily News that Turkey holds a new surprise for her and the country's cultural collective history every year.
Bruns-Özgan's path to Turkey in many ways started when she was still a school-girl attending an international school in Belgian capital Brussels, where her father, a lawyer, was working to organize legal details of the now European Union, she said.
There she learned to think outside the box of nations and understand that “we are all people.” It was this wide perspective that prepared her to make the leap to move to Turkey years later when as a student of archaeology she traveled to the region for excavations.
“As archaeologists we are traveling most of the time,” she said. “It wasn't uncommon for us back then to travel to Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey and North Africa,” often becoming pioneers not only into the realm of history, but by extension of their work of geographies.
As a result she arrived to Turkey in 1978 to participate in an excavation in Muğla province at a time when “it was still not a well-known country,” she said. “To travel was different at this time.”
On her first trip to Muğla she experienced something that in many ways became a theme to the rest of her career, not unlike other archaeologists trying to work in Turkey. There she saw how the quest for natural resources, in this case coal, conflicted with the preservation of history.
It was “The clash of history and progress,” she said. In her mind this clash is also evident in the choice of the government to create a ministry that houses both culture and tourism.
“Turkey is the only country that has tourism and culture together in the same ministry; it's a paradox,” she said. “It's wrong.” As an archaeologist, she said this is a conflict of interests.
“Culture is for everyone and it's necessary for the identity of a nation. But the people in tourism just want to make money. They just think of accommodation, restaurants and amusement,” she said.
Although these are also very necessary, she said, they should not work against and defy culture and the preservation of history. “We have so many examples of clashes like this and all archaeologists can tell you about them,” she said.
In the southern town of Patara, for example, on a long beach after the 1960s, pensions and hotels were built. But then the archaeologists came to draw tourism by revealing the ancient history of the town.
“We aren't working for ourselves. We're presenting our work to the community and people. The local community and hoteliers didn't see this and they wanted to stop it and even burned one of the houses where the archaeologists were holding their equipment,” she said.
Her own life project in Turkey has been excavations in Knidos that started in 1989 through the work of her husband and colleague a professor at Konya University.
Although they have been working at the same site every summer over 20 years with teams of professors and students usually for two-month stretches, she said that at the annual archaeological symposium held in Ankara every year she gets up in front of her colleagues and says: “yet another surprise!” she told the TDN.
Her book on Knidos, printed in 2004, is already outdated by all the “amazing finds” they've since unearthed. A new edition is on its way, she said.
A love for a place and its people
The archaeological duo met in Bonn, Germany in the 1970s where they both studied archeology. The two fell in love and soon Bruns-Özgan found both of her passions, archeology and man, leading her to Konya where her husband – and later she – landed a teaching position. “If I told you all of the events leading up to me moving there, it would be a film,” she said. When asked if she met any other German compatriots who made Konya their home in the quarter of a century she lived there, she thought for a few seconds, and said, “yes, one.”
Bruns-Özgan managed to convince her parents that Turkey was no more dangerous than neighboring Greece. “I was in love,” she said and explained that archaeologists more often than not marry foreigners, in countries where they spend significant time excavating. “I know some Turkish-German couples only in the field of archeology,” but, “I started the tradition of course,” she said jokingly. Bruns-Özgan credits her European education for her fearlessness to live in a foreign country at that time. “There weren't many flights between the two countries, but we managed it,” she said.
The many layers of Knidos
Excavations in Knidos offer the archaeological team from Konya a double reason to love the ancient site that is located on the very end of the Datça Peninsula because “you can work and have holidays,” said Bruns-Özgan. That is, if you are into hard work under the sun from dawn to dusk interrupted only by an afternoon cooling swim and lunch. “Excavations are not easy but you have the sea and it's a nice climate,” she said. “We are like pioneers and detectives,” she said.
Knidos hosted civilizations from as early as the 13th and 14th centuries B.C. and is the birthplace of Sostrates of Knidos, the architect of the lighthouse of Alexandria. The lighthouse 110 meters tall was one of the Seven Wonders of the World, was built in the 4th century B.C. and survived well into the 14th century A.D. when it was destroyed by earthquakes.
When asked what is the most important find the Konya teams found in Knidos Bruns-Özgan had a difficult time answering, not for a lack of treasures. “Every year we find exiting things,” she said.
In the first years the team visited, the site seemed like a “virgin” one, she said. Excavations in Knidos were stopped in 1978 and the site had been unprotected for 10 years. Tourists who made their way to the site by boat or the rocky dirt road could practically pick up the artifacts, said Bruns-Özgan. “It was unprotected, undetected; a forgotten place,” she said of the site.
When the archaeological teams from Konya started coming in, the local authorities looked at them with much suspicion, said the archaeologist. The local authorities wanted to use the site as a tourist place and had established half a dozen restaurants that tourists would crowd to on boat tours. “We fought and still fight,” she said. “They want tourists and money, but not culture and history, and they don't understand that the tourists, they are interested in the ‘stones ,'” she said of the ancient ruins. Since then, of course much has changed. The site is now protected by the municipality and the excavations supported from the Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture.
Bruns-Özgan showed the TDN photos of the ruins of Knidos where she and a team of other colleagues and students are once more gearing up to set up shop over two months this summer. Although Bruns-Özgan describes the process of getting to the point where as an archaeologist she can do her work as one of the important themes of working in Turkey, she said, the finds are not to be forgotten.
“Of course the finds are also important for us. For archaeologists in our work we're not searching for a hidden treasure,” she said. “We're looking for the remains of history. For us a small bone can be more important than a gold earring.”
Bruns-Özgan opens her book on Knidos and points to an image of a head of a statue that dates back to the 4th B.C.. “It was an amazing discovery for us,” she said of the marble head. “We weren't expecting such an early find.” The woman's head in the image belongs to classical antiquity rather than the Byzantine, Hellenistic, or Roman periods that left the majority of historical traces found in Knidos. Both the quality and time of the find made it exciting for Bruns-Özgan, “because we don't have many samples from that time.” The fact that the head was an original rather than a copy, made it even more valuable. A common practice in antiquity was to copy statues of great sculpture masters. “They were affected by Greek sculptures and made copies of famous originals,” she said. In 2004 another original sculpture turned up in Knidos the work of a sculptor who Bruns-Özgan and her team believe participated in the making of the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus, an important work of antiquity the remains of which are located in present day Bodrum.
On another digital photo on her computer, Bruns-Özgan shows the TDN the site the Konya team of professors and students has been focusing on for the last 10 years. It's a storehouse located by the sea 130 x 50 meters. “This was completely under the earth and it's exciting that such a long building came to life,” she said. “In one of its rooms we found inscriptions and statues,” she said. In a photo she shows a room exposed to the sun covered in blue marble.
In another photo she shows an inscription in Doric, a Greek dialect where each letter was inscribed on a different marble plaque. She tells the story of how all the letters were jumbled in a bag, and one morning up before the rest of the group she put all the pieces on the ground to try to make sense of what they were. “I like puzzles she said,” and that as she realized it meant something, she became more and more fascinated and surprised to find the letters spelling the name of god Apollo.
Bruns-Özgan now lives in Istanbul, where her husband, soon to retire will join her this summer. “It wasn't an easy decision to move here,” said Bruns-Özgan, but “it's been good for research.” And at the end of the day, from an archeologist's point of view, this is the city of culture after all.
In a country where so many civilizations met often concurrently, Bruns-Özgan said it is not uncommon to find in antiquity the traces of expatriates and bi-cultural individuals as one does today in Turkey. “We find this phenomenon even in antiquity and we excavate it,” she said. “Especially people in Anatolia felt like this, where the different cultures were intertwined,” she said.
From the Bucks Herald:
PLANS to open a stud farm in Granborough may have to be reassessed after claims that there is a Roman Villa and the remains of a medieval settlement on the site.
The information came to light when a previous owner revealed to Davina Thorogood, chairman of Granborough Parish Council, that there were considerable archaeological remains on the land at Green Lane.
In a letter to district council planning officers, Mrs Thorogood said the Roman villa was in the top left corner of the site and revealed that the remains of the settlement were in the bottom left hand of the field. Last year Roman coins dating back to 79AD were found on the surface using a metal detector.
Before this information was released, residents turned up at a meeting called by Granborough Parish Council to protest against the planning application. Many protestors said that the road to the proposed farm is only a single carriage road not big enough for horse boxes or able to withstand the volume of traffic.
One anonymous complaint received by The Bucks Herald from a resident said: "It is a single lane, crumbling road with verges that are unforgiving to those that pull over to let oncoming vehicles pass. The anger is aimed at the vehicles with horse boxes going down this narrow lane which is 'used' for recreational activity by the villagers such as walking, cycling, children playing and dog walking. The human risk is high."
The application was to change the use of the land to a stud farm with the erection of a Dutch barn, horse walker, re-modelling of existing building and formation of car park.
Granborough district councillor, Janet Blake backs the residents' opposition to the plan because of road side and countryside issues and welcomes an obstacle to the plans.
She said: "It is exciting if there is a Roman village there, it is not something that happens everyday but at the moment it is a good reason for why development should not continue. My intervention is however on planning."
Planning and conservation archaeologist from Bucks County Council, David Radford said that they were unaware of the findings on the site and had to dig through records.
He added: "We will review this planning application and double check our records to see if there is any information of this in the back logs. This could be misplaced information. I will check to see if there is any new information that has not yet made it to us and also look into the historical environmental records.
"We need to have concrete information to go forward with an archaeological investigation. If it is hearsay that is quite difficult to act upon. If there is however a significant site then we will have to take a view on what we can ask. We may ask for trial trenching. It would be a very interesting part of the jigsaw puzzle. Questions to establish its value would also be raised."
From the County Times:
Dr. Potter, the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Greek and Latin at the university, has published several books on ancient themes, including "Life, Death, and Entertainment in the Roman Empire," "The Roman Empire at Bay" and most recently, "The Emperors of Rome." He is currently working on yet another book on Roman history that he expects to publish in 2010.
Dr. Potter will return to Norfolk next weekend to participate in the Norfolk Library Board of Trustees and Library Associates biennial gala, Literary Liaisons, slated for May 17. The event honors contemporary American authors Ellen Feldman, Frances Fitzgerald, James Sterba, Daniel Hecht, Verlyn Klinkenborg, George Packer, Dr. Potter, Dani Shapiro and Dennis Watlington and begins with a cocktail reception for the authors and their guests at the Norfolk Library.
The reception will be followed by intimate dinners hosted by local residents. There are still a few seats left at the tables and the reception. Those wishing to attend should call co-chairmen Sally Briggs at 860-542-0060, or Libby Borden Evans at 860-542-5106.
Dr. Potter will be the literary lion ensconced at his own parents' table. "I think it will be a great deal of fun," he said in a telephone interview this week from Ann Arbor. "I love the Norfolk Library."
He added that while he was raised in New York City, his family started coming to Norfolk in the 1960s. "It's very much a second home for me. We've been in Ann Arbor for 22 years, but when the university is out, I have a tendency to head straight to Norfolk," he said.
Dr. Potter began his teaching career after earning a bachelor's degree from Harvard University and receiving his doctoral degree from Oxford University. His own academic preparations were followed by a period of research and teaching at New College, Oxford, and then as an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr and the University of Michigan. In 1991, he was named associate professor in classical studies there, and was promoted to his current position in 1996. He is currently chairman of the university faculty committee.
In a day of instant communication, rampant technology and a head-long rush into the future, one might question the relevance of classical studies for students. But Dr. Potter finds similarities and parallels between the past and present that both intrigue and stimulate his young charges. He offers, for instance, a survey course entitled "Sports and Daily Life in Ancient Rome" that contrasts the experiences of modern day American and ancient Rome.
"The students absolutely enjoy these courses," he said. "We are looking at parallel questions-What is the role of sports in the society? When a society spends so much of its money entertaining itself, what does that tell us? There are only two times in history when so much money has been spent on entertainment-between the first century B.C. and the third century A.D. and today. And a lot of the discussions held in those two eras are similar.
"The Romans discussed how much money should be spent on athletes, just as we do today. Athletes were hugely highly paid, and at one point Marcus Aurelius put a cap on gladiators' salaries. We have a text relating to one charioteer-his income over 24 years was 35 million sesterces. An average person made 1,000 sesterces a year to support a family of four, while a charioteer could make 1.5 million. By comparison, the highest salary for a major official was only about a half a million sesterces."
Romans were willing to pay fabulous sums for entertainment. "We have one wonderful moment when one emperor paid 100,000 sesterces for a single fight," Dr. Potter reported. At one point Emperor Tiberius limited the games to keep his government from going bankrupt, and top gladiators earned enough from one bout to buy their own slaves or estates.
"Gladiators, like modern professional athletes, could become little corporations," Dr. Potter observed.
With that kind of money involved, Romans were as careful of their athletes as are modern-day team owners. "Contests ended with first blood," he said. "We have a number of texts that talk about accidental deaths of gladiators. It was not a safe sport, but these guys were really expensive to train and to hire. Marcus Aurelius came up with a schedule of fees for paying gladiators, and the top run of slave gladiators were paid 15,000 sesterces to fight-you'd have to be crazier than George Steinbrenner to get them killed. In gladiatorial combat, the death rate was only about 5 percent, and that was usually through accidental injury or poor medical care. One doctor to a gladiatorial troupe in Turkey wrote that none of his athletes died."
He said the myth of the fight to the death between gladiators is a Hollywood invention, as is the Fascist salute that epic movies like to depict. "In Rome, gladiatorial events tended to be more dangerous than elsewhere," he conceded, "because there was more pressure for thrills from the crowd. It's just like television today where they will re-show and re-show and re-show when someone takes a nasty hit on the football field. The fans were driving it to be more dangerous and vicious than it was."
He sees similarities, too, in the modern-day emphasis on pseudo-reality shows and contests such as "American Idol" where the "blood lust" of the viewing audience is satisfied through the aggressive behavior of contestants and hosts alike. "In this country the Fox network even ran programs on successful animal attacks," he said, likening them to the contests between condemned prisoners and wild animals in Roman arenas.
"But the gladiators had homes and families," he said. "They didn't want to die. The vast majority we know about were free men, although some were slaves. If you paid a certain amount for a guy and he was big and strong, you might have thought, 'Maybe I can sell him as a gladiator.' There were quite a few slave gladiators, but the majority were certainly free people-but only free people who had enough money to get the training needed to not get killed."
In that, the Roman gladiator was much like a modern day inner city kid who finds the road to riches through boxing. "You needed incredible strength. You had to hire a trainer, to work out, to learn how to be a gladiator. And if you were successful in the arena you could make a pretty good living and retire," Dr. Potter said.
The names of famous gladiators adorned common household items like oil lamps. Pottery vessels were painted with images of famous bouts. Children even played with clay gladiator "action figures." "It was a culture that was obsessed with superstars," Dr. Potter said, "and the gladiator was a symbol of it." Even the Emperor Commodus wanted to be a gladiator, he added.
The fantastic sums athletes were paid is not the only comparison Dr. Potter draws for his students. He said that the antipathy between the athletic and the academic sides of society was "very relevant" in antiquity and continues today on college campuses.
As a member of Michigan's advisory Board on Intercollegiate Athletics, he has been in the mainstream of the university's efforts to ensure that student-athletes are required to perform both in the classroom and on the field or court. "The University of Michigan tries to help its athletes know what it is like to live in a different kind of society," he said. "Many of these athletes come from very disadvantaged homes, while the average Michigan student comes from a home with an annual income of $100,000 or more. The department spends a lot of time to get them to adjust so if they do move on to the NFL they will have fewer problems and be less likely to be involved in corruption."
Dr. Potter sees analogies between Roman life and modern America off the playing field as well. "[In the classroom] we talk about what makes an empire run," he said. "We look at how power was exercised in the Roman Empire-which lasted for 500 years. What did they do differently?"
His conclusion is that Roman leaders provided an opportunity for inclusion in the empire that subsequent conquerors have not. "Romans were quite clear that they were there [in occupied countries] for themselves, but they knew they could only stay if they incorporated the rulers of those countries into their own structures. If the English had understood that, we would have had Indian members of Parliament. The failure to do that is one of the reasons these imperial systems tend to end catastrophically."
Under the British Empire, even colonists from the mother country were denied a say in government, leading to the American Revolution. "The Romans would look at that and say, 'That is crazy,'" he concluded. Conquered people under the Roman Empire could look forward to having representatives as senators or even emperors.
He suggests that the Bush administration could benefit from the examples of the "world's great imperialists." "You have to share power," he warned.
The Romans were aware that they had a winning concept. "We have a speech by a first-century emperor who said former [conquered peoples] become members of Roman society completely," he reported. "They were very conscious of it. And there is another very interesting document written in the third century B.C. that said even freed slaves could become citizens. It was a very peculiar aspect of Rome and something that allowed it to become as powerful as it did."
It was only when the Roman leadership developed "a fundamental lack of imagination" that things began to break down. "It was not a Nero type of thing," he said. "It wasn't those guys who brought Rome down. It was the bureaucrats of the fourth and fifth centuries."
When Rome lost its tolerance for other cultures, its days were numbered. "It was really a failure of an immigration policy," said Dr. Potter. "The army was largely German and the [Germanic] Goths wanted to be assimilated. But there was a change in attitude [and the Romans] said, 'We don't like these people and we don't want them around anymore.' One law specifically says that people could no longer wear German clothing. The tolerance of outsiders breaks down, and in the fourth and fifth centuries you see powerful bureaucratic groups unwilling to share citizenship. It was an absolute change in Roman behavior toward outside people."
Dr. Potter says he hopes his students can see the relevance of such issues to their own time. "When you look at institutions that is the way comparative histories work. We can say large societies tend to have similar issues-that's the way such studies can have a useful application."
From BMCR:
Caroline Vout, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome.
Patricia Curd (ed.), Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Fragments and Testimonia. A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays. The Phoenix Presocratics, 6. Phoenix Supplementary Volumes, 44.
Lenn E. Goodman, Robert B. Talisse, Aristotle's Politics Today.
Stefano Gori, Maria Chiara Bettini, Gli Etruschi da Genova ad Ampurias. Atti del XXIV Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, Marseille-Lattes, 26 settembre - 1 ottobre 2002. Two volumes.
Stanley M. Burstein, The Reign of Cleopatra.
Paraskeue Kotzia, Peri tou Melou e peri tes Aristotelous Teleutes (Liber de Pomo sive de Morte Aristotilis). Seira: Philosophia 12.
Marc Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC. 2nd edition.
Celia E. Schultz, Paul B. Harvey, Jr., Religion in Republican Italy. Yale Classical Studies 33.
Laura Chioffi, La collezione epigrafica di Camillo Pellegrino a Casapulla.
Marlies Heinz, Marian H. Feldman, Representations of Political Power. Case Histories of Change and Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East.
Boris Dreyer, Die roemische Nobilitaetsherrschaft und Antiochos III (205 bis 188 v. Chr.).
From CJ Online:
Ovid and Augustus: A Political Reading of Ovid’s Erotic Poems. By P.J. DAVIS.
Reviews of Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia:
Baltimore Sun
Philadelphia Inquirer
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Washington Post
Salon
New York Sun
Caroline Vout, Power and Eroticism in Imperial Rome.
Patricia Curd (ed.), Anaxagoras of Clazomenae. Fragments and Testimonia. A Text and Translation with Notes and Essays. The Phoenix Presocratics, 6. Phoenix Supplementary Volumes, 44.
Lenn E. Goodman, Robert B. Talisse, Aristotle's Politics Today.
Stefano Gori, Maria Chiara Bettini, Gli Etruschi da Genova ad Ampurias. Atti del XXIV Convegno di Studi Etruschi ed Italici, Marseille-Lattes, 26 settembre - 1 ottobre 2002. Two volumes.
Stanley M. Burstein, The Reign of Cleopatra.
Paraskeue Kotzia, Peri tou Melou e peri tes Aristotelous Teleutes (Liber de Pomo sive de Morte Aristotilis). Seira: Philosophia 12.
Marc Van de Mieroop, A History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000-323 BC. 2nd edition.
Celia E. Schultz, Paul B. Harvey, Jr., Religion in Republican Italy. Yale Classical Studies 33.
Laura Chioffi, La collezione epigrafica di Camillo Pellegrino a Casapulla.
Marlies Heinz, Marian H. Feldman, Representations of Political Power. Case Histories of Change and Dissolving Order in the Ancient Near East.
Boris Dreyer, Die roemische Nobilitaetsherrschaft und Antiochos III (205 bis 188 v. Chr.).
From CJ Online:
Ovid and Augustus: A Political Reading of Ovid’s Erotic Poems. By P.J. DAVIS.
Reviews of Ursula LeGuin's Lavinia:
Baltimore Sun
Philadelphia Inquirer
Cleveland Plain Dealer
Washington Post
Salon
New York Sun
... i think i've figured out all these sports schedules ...
... to see if this gets past our school filters ...
moiety @ Dictionary.com
[apologies for missing this feature for a couple of days ... my del.icio.us bookmarks weren't available for some reason]
[apologies for missing this feature for a couple of days ... my del.icio.us bookmarks weren't available for some reason]
From iAfrica:
Italian police recovered a valuable Roman-era marble bathtub stolen from Italy after spotting it by chance in a Barcelona antique dealership, Spanish police said on Tuesday.
The officers, specialists in stolen artwork, were in the Spanish Mediterranean port city on other business when they stumbled across their find, which had been stolen from the garden of a villa in Rome in 2005.
The owner of the antique dealership said he thought the oval-shaped bathtub, was a modern copy of an antique.
He said he had bought it at the end of 2005 for €3000 from another dealer and had it on sale for a mere €6000.
In fact the bathtub, which dates back to the era of the Roman emperor Hadrian, in the second century anno domini, is worth a cool €300 000.
The only other surviving example is on display at the Vatican Museum.
Spanish police believe the bathtub, which weights half a ton, was transported to Spain by sea, most likely hidden in a shipping container.
It was handed over to the Italian authorities on Tuesday, they said.
From ANSA:
Italian archaeologists have found more than two dozen new tombs at the famed Etruscan burial grounds at Tarquinia north of Rome.
''This is the most exciting discovery here in decades,'' said the archeological superintendent for southern Etruria, Maria Tecla Castaldi.
So far 27 tombs have been added to the thousands at the site since a chance discovery during building work two months ago, she said.
''I've just been down and visited the only tomb that is open, which was probably broken into around 50 years ago,'' she said.
''The other tombs are sealed and presumably intact''.
Police have cordoned off the area, less than half a mile (500m) from the main necropolis, to ward off tomb raiders as digs go on. The well-preserved tombs at Tarquinia and nearby Cerveteri have been described by some experts as 'cities of the dead'. Experts believe the Etruscans wanted their deceased to have everything they might need easily to hand in the afterlife, and so crammed the tombs with everyday objects.
Archaeologists say women were buried in stone tombs separate from the men and that slaves were cremated and their ashes placed in urns besides their masters' remains.
The general span of the graves stretches from the seventh to the first century BC.
Excavations first began on the Tarquinia site in 1489 and since then over 6,000 tombs have been uncovered.
The Tarquinia tombs also have wall paintings, some probably dating back to the eighth century BC, depicting scenes from the lives of the dead.
The paintings give an insight into the habits and customs of the Etruscans, showing a refined, flourishing, and highly developed culture.
Experts say the later wall paintings show Greek and perhaps even Eastern influences, reflecting the cosmopolitan nature of this civilization.
Some of the most popular ones, such as a sexually explicit fresco from the Flagellation Tomb, have been posted on the Web.
The Etruscans lived mainly between the rivers Tiber and Arno in modern-day Umbria, Lazio and Tuscany, in the first millennium before Christ.
By the sixth century BC they had become the dominant force in central Italy, but repeated attacks from Gauls and Syracusans later forced them into an alliance with the embryonic Roman state, which gradually absorbed Etruscan civilization.
However, the Etruscans had the upper hand in the early days and supplied Rome with the last three of its first seven kings including the famous Tarquinius Superbus (Tarquin the Proud).
Like his predecessor Tarquinius Priscus, he was from Tarquinia. Most of what is known about the Etruscans derives from archaeology as the few accounts passed down by Roman historians tend to be hostile, portraying them as gluttonous and lecherous.
This problem is compounded by the fact that Etruscan cities were built almost entirely of wood and so vanished quickly, leaving little for archaeologists to investigate.
In 2004 Tarquinia and Cerveteri became Italy's 37th World Heritage Site.
They have since been joined by the Val d'Orcia in Umbria, the ancient Greek city of Siracusa and the Palazzi Rolli in Genoa.
With 40 sites including Venice, Rome, Naples, Florence, Siena, Pisa, Verona, Vicenza, Ravenna, Ferrara, Urbino, Assisi, San Gimignano, Pienza and the Amalfi Coast, Italy has more treasures on the UNESCO list than any other country. Among UNESCO's other ancient Italian listings are Pompeii, Agrigento and Emperor Hadrian's Villa (Villa Adriana) at Tivoli.
nonas maias
431 B.C. -- the "Peloponnesian War" began (according to one reckoning)
399 B.C. -- death of Socrates (according to one reckoning)
1941 -- death of Sir James Frazer (The Golden Bough)
431 B.C. -- the "Peloponnesian War" began (according to one reckoning)
399 B.C. -- death of Socrates (according to one reckoning)
1941 -- death of Sir James Frazer (The Golden Bough)
