Maia Atlantis: Ancient World Blogs

Mark Goodacre (New Testament Gateway Weblog): McGrath reviews Edwards on The Hebrew Gospel

Mark Goodacre — 2010-07-30T03:13:56+00:00

James McGrath has an excellent, thorough, critical Review of The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. I am reviewing the book myself for CBQ, and I have overflowed a couple of pieces here to the blog (James Edwards), and it is interesting to see James McGrath seeing all sorts of things that I had missed.

Paul Barford (Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues): So that's what collectors do...

Paul Barford — 2010-07-30T03:12:34+00:00

"The monster looks at you -- one eye made extra wide, the other normal. Then he grabs the triskeles with its rotating "motion" emphasized by the central snail coil and shows it to you. This snail-coil had just been the widened eye, now it is a lively banner which shows the ebbing of life. The other eye of the monster now peers at you from behind this banner. What happens after death, occurs in another dimension -- the side that cannot be seen at the same time as the triskeles".

No, not a review of the latest blood and gore-monsters video game in a teenager computer magazine, but an "analysis" of a "finial" in the cabinet of collector John Hooker Esquire which he has posted on the Yahoo "AncientArtifacts" discussion list.

A smith capable of such work would have been of the druid class. [...] Eventually, the design ceases its peregrinations and returns to the above world of the top design its "soul" transmigrated back to the world of the living where death waits, once again, to show you the way around yet again.

The nonsense about life and death forces and invisible themes goes on for a few pages, what is so odd is the object on which Celtophile Hooker sees all this played out is a fragment of what he describes as a "finial" in the 3rd cent. B.C. "plastic style" and the surviving bit is only 23mm tall. He says the (unnamed) dealer misidentified and misdated it, only he, Hooker, knows the real identity.

It was bought from "a U.K. antiquities dealer". It was said to have come from metal detecting "in Oxfordshire", no more specific find spot was given. Says Hooker: "As far as I know, this is the first object in the plastic style to come from British soil" ("Only a handful of objects in this style are known, and they are mostly bracelets and anklets"). The object of course does not figure in the PAS database (nor the UKDFD one) and its current owner in Canada is jubilant: "I said to a friend at the time "If I were a person who issues export permits, I would never give one for this!"." Yeah, well they did, because its not gold and sparkly, and anyway the PAS has not seen it to say how important or otherwise it is/was.

Hooker typically for a collector reckons:

After contacting the dealer in England, I was no closer to learning where, exactly, it was found and who the finder was. [....] Too bad, but not terribly important for a piece like this. Oxfordshire had some significance, but a specific find spot would be highly unlikely to provide any more real information.

On the contrary a piece of datable metalwork as part of a specific site assemblage may have yielded information if that findspot was noted, reported and information collated before the piece was shipped off to a delighted and uncaring collector overseas. Perhaps there is a reason why the metal detector user does not want his identity known and why he's keeping quiet where it was found? Maybe it was found in pitch darkness in a remote location where nobody should be metal detecting, day or night. Or maybe it was one of a group of bronze objects found in a pot split up quietly between detecting pals? Or sold from an address in Oxfordshire on behalf of an metal detectorist operating illegally outside England? If all is legitimate and above board, why actually can there not be any openness about this in the case of a find from England where metal detecting is legal? The fact that the information is nevertheless hidden should be ringing alarm bells in both dealer and collector. But as we see, the collector does not care, "it's probably not important" he persuades himself. The important thing (which comes over very clearly in his message to the discussion list) is that he's got his hands on what he calls the "ultimate" artefact (actually this is the third time I recall hearing that the findspot of an unprovenanced "Celtic" object in the possession of this same collector is "probably not important", the others were a decorated lead spindlewhorl and a linchpin terminal). And now he's bragging about having it, dropping the names of all the Big Boys in the rather incestuous little world of Celtic metalwork studies who have been "enthusiastic" when shown the photos, and now he's bragging to fellow collectors what a clever chappie he is to have got his hands on this little goodie.

And I think establishing the findspot is important if one is going to pose questions like: "Did its owner bring it to Britain [...] Did he arrive as craftsman seeking a new patron? and did he eventually change the course of British Celtic art?". For all we know the field from which it came might be full of continental coins and potsherds because it came with the soil in the flowerpots of imported plants used to lay out the hall gardens.

Frankly I find the discussion typology of fragments of motifs, a boss here, a squiggly bit "like one on the Weedly Bottom Torc Finial" terribly sterile, and all the imagnative narrativisation that Hooker attaches to them mildly amusing. But what angers me is the totally cavalier attitude to best practice in collecting which is what the PAS is supposed to be propagating in England and Wales and has been doing so at public expense for coming up to thirteen years. Where is the evidence of this in this case?

If this object is so "unique", no responsible collector has any business buying it before he gets the full details from the dealer, who got it from somewhere. But of course the Gotta-have-it attitude of the indiscriminate collector - who will of course see himself as the "Good Collector" (giving it the "best possible home" "because only I can appreciate it for what it is" when the experts cannot).

If I was the boss of the PAS (or the Oxfordshire FLO), and am sincerely glad I am not, I'd be on to Hooker for the name and address of this "dealer" and then I'd contact them to trace this find back to the finder to get a record of it (unique or not) in the PAS database. That is the least PAS could do. Of course they will not, after all, reporting finds made during artefact hunting with a metal detector for collection or sale, no matter how interesting they are, is only voluntary isn't it? It is a policy open to abuse by artefact hunters, dealers and irresponsible collectors, who nevertheless (as Hooker himself has on more than one occasion) hold it up as a "model of good practice" that other nations should follow. If it does not work in the UK (If collectors don't make it work in the UK) then why should it be?

Vignette: Another plastic monster.

Lee Rosenbaum (CultureGrrl): "Portrait of Wally’s" Unveiling: Tearful, Joyful Reunion of Lea Bondi’s Descendants

CultureGrrl — 2010-07-30T01:30:18+00:00

The stage is set: Photo of Lea BondiThe lobby of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York had the festive air of a Bar Mitzvah reception, sans liquor and hors d'oeuvres, with perhaps 50 farflung Bondis from all generations...

Noel Tan (The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog): At the Bakong, conservators work to restore recent Buddhist paintings

noelbynature — 2010-07-30T00:59:22+00:00

The Phnom Penh Post features an unusual form of conservation going on at the Bakong in Angkor – that of 19th and 20th century Buddhhist paintings on the walls of working monasteries.

Restoring history through art
Phnom Penh, 16 July 2010

While almost all of the restoration at the Angkor temples revolves around the ancient Khmer edifices, at Bakong there is also a restoration team working on 20th century buildings in the complex – the “working” monasteries as such.

Some of these monasteries in Cambodia are festooned with dozens of brightly rendered religious wall paintings highlighting often lurid scenes from the life of Buddha and the Jatakas (tales of the previous lives of the Buddha). Often, however, these paintings are overlooked or dismissed as kitsch, unworthy of being classified as serious art. Some of the more gruesome paintings, sort of Bosch-gone-Buddhist renderings, are often rejected as grotesqueries.

But that’s not the viewpoint of Restaurateurs Sans Frontiere, a cultural NGO established in 1981 that began work at the Bakong site in 2007 at the instigation of Dr Vittorio Roveda, co-author of the book Buddhist Painting in Cambodia.

Peter Tompa (Cultural Property Observer): PAS Reaches Milestone

Cultural Property Observer — 2010-07-30T00:48:46+00:00

The Portable Antiquities Scheme has archived its 400,000th record on its database of English and Welsh finds. See http://finds.org.uk/blogs/centralunit/2010/07/26/another-milestone-reached/ The object in question is a coin of the House of Constantine found by a metal detectorist.

The Italian Cultural Ministry and the State Department Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs should take note: PAS is a system better able to weather lean budgets because it relies on finders to help record objects and the State only retains for its own purposes those objects it deems significant. There are no curatorial expenses associated with most objects as these are returned to the finder and/or landowner after recordation.

Cultural authorities in both the UK and Italy face severe budget shortfalls, but PAS offers great value for the amounts expended. Meanwhile, as set forth below, Italy has decided to cut funding from several archaeological institutes it can no longer afford, and several museums, including the one housing some of its most significant Etruscan artifacts, are due to be privatized. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2010/07/budget-woes-hit-italian-archaeology.html

The idea that restrictions on collectors will further archaeological research was always a fantasy. Now that archaeology is being cut to the bone in Italy, it is only more so. Meanwhile, the UK continues to record coins and other objects with the help of finders themselves. See http://culturalpropertyobserver.blogspot.com/2010/05/pas-lets-finders-record-their-own-finds.html Isn't it better to engage interested members of the public by recognizing the interests of finders and collectors? The insular approach of many Italian and American archaeological purists only invites further funding cuts.

Peter Tompa (Cultural Property Observer): State Department Ambassadors Fund 2010 Awards Announced

Cultural Property Observer — 2010-07-30T00:09:20+00:00

The State Department Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation 2010 Awards have been announced. See http://newsblaze.com/story/20100724131615stat.nb/topstory.html

All well and good, but one wonders somewhat about the award to Libya to help record artifacts from Cyrene.

Libya is a wealthy oil state with a small population. It should already have enough money available to care for its own cultural heritage. I suppose this is all part of the rapprochement with Libya since it voluntarily gave up its weapons of mass destruction programs. Still, the timing of this award is not great, what with the negative publicity over the suspicious "compassionate release" of a Libyan intelligence agent convicted in the downing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Addendum: Secretary of State Clinton speaks about the Ambassadors Fund here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhcNFd_3spQ&NR=1

David Meadows (rogueclassicism): Greek Bearing … Fruit?

rogueclassicist — 2010-07-29T23:35:33+00:00

Some good news from the Telegraph:

Some 160 pupils in three schools will be given lessons in the native tongue of Archimedes and Herodotus from September.

The move follows the successful introduction of Latin to dozens of state primaries in England.

The Iris Project, a charity campaigning for the teaching of the Classics, which is leading the latest drive, said the subject had substantial knock-on benefits across the curriculum.

Lorna Robinson, charity director, who will be teaching the one-hour lessons every two weeks, told the Times Education Supplement: “People can be daunted at the idea of learning a language that has a different alphabet as it may feel like an additional challenge.

“Actually, though, we¹ve found that while it does add an extra dimension to the learning it¹s one that people take to quite quickly and really enjoy once they get going.

“Ancient Greek is just a wonderful language, full of beautiful words and fascinating concepts.”

Pupils will be taught the alphabet, basic grammar and vocabulary, as well as learning about ancient Greek culture, such as the development of the Olympic Games and the comedies of Aristophanes.

Latin is currently more widely taught than ancient Greek, although it is still mainly confined to private schools.

Advocates include Boris Johnson, the Mayor of London, who recently gave a Latin lesson to teenagers at a London secondary.

Under new plans, three Oxford primary schools will be given Greek lessons from September. A further 10 will get one-off taster sessions.

Sue Widgery, head of East Oxford primary in Cowley, where children speak 26 different languages, said: We were sufficiently enthused by Latin to give it a go with ancient Greek. It heightens children’s sense of language, they can see the connections between languages and it is fun.”

Ancient Greek ‘to be taught in state schools’ | Telegraph

Congrats to Lorna Robinson … a tireless campaigner for such things.

Archaeological Institute of America blogs: Saving Antiquity: How an AIA Site Preservation Grant is Making a Difference in Cambodia

pherdrich — 2010-07-29T22:00:35+00:00

by Peter Herdrich, AIA CEO and Publisher of ARCHAEOLOGY

The audience at Tuesday evening’s Archaeological Institute of America presentation at Boston University confronted some stunning evidence of what the chairman of the AIA Site Preservation Committee, Paul Rissman, calls “desecration.” Photographs of sites in Cambodia showed statues and reliefs smashed to pieces, stone heads and bodies hacked off by looters.

Roger Pearse (Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, and more): A myth-take about Helice, the earthquake, and Diodorus Siculus

Roger Pearse — 2010-07-29T21:54:37+00:00

In 373 BC, two years before the battle of Leuctra, an earthquake destroyed two cites of the Achaean league, pitching them into the sea. This evening I received an email about this.

I am writing a book about the science of disaster prediction, and will be making a brief reference to anecdotal evidence (and, more recently, scientific evidence) that some animals do seem to show a premonitory response to earthquakes. The earliest written account seems to be that of the earthquake/tsunami destruction of Helice (Achaea) in 373 B.C., where snakes, rats, weasels etc were supposed to have left beforehand. The account is often attributed to Diodorus, but reading through various translations of his History I have found his account of the earthquake, but no mention of the prior migration of animals. … if you happen to know whether he did give an account of animal migration before the earthquake, I would certainly appreciate the reference so that I can quote it rather than relying on secondary sources.

I would have preferred at least to get a reference to Diodorus! A quick Google search revealed that this is a legend doing the rounds, such as here:

In Rupert Sheldrake’s book, ‘Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home; and Other Unexplained Powers of Animals’ cites many occurrences of “Forebodings of Earthquakes and Other Disasters”, Chapter 15: … The first detailed description from Europe concerns a cataclysmic earthquake in 373 B.C. at Helice, Greece, on the shore of the Gulf of Corinth, which swallowed the city up. Five days before the quake, according to the historian Diodorus Siculus, rats, snakes, weasels, and other animals left the city in droves, to the puzzlement of the human inhabitants.

So … what’s the story? Well, I find from the RealEncyclopadie that Diodorus describes the earthquake in book 15, c. 48:

When Asteius was archon at Athens … great earthquakes occurred in the Peloponnese accompanied by tidal waves which engulfed the open country and cities in a manner past belief; for never in the earlier periods had such disasters befallen Greek cities, nor had entire cities along with their inhabitants disappeared as a result of some divine force wreaking destruction and ruin upon mankind.

The extent of the destruction was increased by the time of its occurrence; for the earthquake did not come in the daytime when it would have been possible for the sufferers to help themselves, but the blow came at night, so that when the houses crashed and crumbled under the force of the shock, the population, owing to the darkness and to the surprise and bewilderment occasioned by the event, had no power to struggle for life.

The majority were caught in the falling houses and annihilated, but as day returned some survivors dashed from the ruins and, when they thought they had escaped the danger, met with a greater and still more incredible danger. For the sea rose to a vast height, and a wave towering even higher washed away and drowned all the inhabitants and their native lands as well.

Two cities in Achaia bore the brunt of this disaster, Helice and Bura, the former of which had, as it happened, before the earthquake held first place among the cities of Achaia. These disasters have been the subject of much discussion. Natural scientists make it their endeavour to attribute responsibility in such cases not to divine providence, but to certain natural circumstances determined by necessary causes, whereas those who are disposed to venerate the divine power assign certain plausible reasons for the occurrence, alleging that the disaster was occasioned by the anger of the gods at those who had committed sacrilege. This question I too shall endeavour to deal with in detail in a special chapter of my history

No mention of animals on the move. I then looked into Strabo, Geographica VIII, 9:

For the sea was raised by an earthquake and it submerged Helice, and also the temple of the Heliconian Poseidon, whom the Ionians worship even to this day, offering there the Pan-Ionian sacrifices. … Helice was submerged by the sea two years before the battle at Leuctra. And Eratosthenes says that he himself saw the place, and that the ferrymen say that there was a bronze Poseidon in the strait, standing erect, holding a hippo-campus in his hand, which was perilous for those who fished with nets.

And Heracleides says that the submersion took place by night in his time, and, although the city was twelve stadia distant from the sea, this whole district together with the city was hidden from sight; and two thousand men who had been sent by the Achaeans were unable to recover the dead bodies; and they divided the territory of Helice among the neighbours; and the submersion was the result of the anger of Poseidon, for the Ionians who had been driven out of Helice sent men to ask the inhabitants of Helicê particularly for the statue of Poseidon, or, if not that, for the model of the temple; and when the inhabitants refused to give either, the Ionians sent word to the general council of the Achaeans; but although the assembly voted favorably, yet even so the inhabitants of Helice refused to obey; and the submersion resulted the following winter; but the Achaeans later gave the model of the temple to the Ionians.

But again there is a shortage of rats in this account.

The answer is to be found in Aelian, De natura animalium, book 11. An English translation does exist in the Loeb, but I have no access to it.

quinque enim diebus priusquam pessum iret Helice, omnes in ea mures, mustelae, serpentes, scolopendrae verticilli, et alia hujusmodi animalia, magnis copiis exibat per viam, quae ducit Coriam. Haec Helicenses cum fieri viderent, admirabantur; neque tamen de ei causa facere conjecturam poterant. Proxima autem ab illorum animalium egressu nocte terrae motu concussa civitas subsedit, et inundantibus aquis abolita est; et pariter cum urbe Lacedaemoniorum naves decem, quae tum forte ad portum appulerant, eadem maris exundatione perierunt.

Which we may render as:

for five days before Helice went down, all the mice in it, the weasels, serpents, scolopendrae verticilli (?) and other animals of this kind, in great numbers flowed out by the road to Corinth. When the Helicians saw this happen, they marvelled; however they were unable to make a guess as to the cause of it. But the next night after the egress of those animals the earth moved violently and the city subsided, and by the inundation of water was obliterated; and likewise ten ships from the city of Sparta, which had put ashore by chance then at the harbour, perished in the same flood of the sea.

So that’s the real source. Nice to see a legend floating around which is NOT about Christian origins for a change!

David Gill (Looting Matters): Corrupting knowledge: inaccurate information

David Gill — 2010-07-29T21:49:06+00:00

One issue surrounding recently-surfaced antiquities is that the objects may be supplied with misleading collecting-histories. Sellers may be keen for a potential buyer to think that a Greek pot has resided in a collection formed in the 1920s when in fact it was removed from an Etruscan grave in the 1980s. Another seller could suggest that a Roman silver cup was found in, say, Afghanistan as this would be more exotic than Turkey.

I have been considering this concept as part of the wider intellectual consequences of collecting. I explored the theme in my 2010 article for the Journal of Art Crime. I noted how two pieces that passed through Palladion Antike Kunst in Basel, Switzerland (and acquired by Boston's Museum of Fine Art and the J. Paul Getty Museum) were placed in "old collections": those of Karl Haug in Basel since 1936, and the late nineteenth century Rycroft collection. Such misleading information does not relate just to genuine objects: the Getty kouros, considered by some to be a modern forgery, was said to have formed part of the Jean Lauffenberger collection and could be traced back to a Greek dealer in 1930. The kouros was said to have been sold by Gianfranco Becchina, whose wife Rosie was the proprietor of Palladion Antike Kunst.

The Late Roman hoard known as the Sevso Treasure is linked in the broadest sense with several possible countries (including Hungary, Croatia and Lebanon). The Icklingham Bronzes were once said to have been removed from Britain in the 1940s and then formed part of a collection in Switzerland. The Morgantina Hoard was said to have passed through the hands of a Lebanese dealer and then through a Swiss collection in 1961. (The more recent removal of the hoard from its archaeological context seems to have been dated by a coin apparently dropped by one of the looters.) The marble statue of Sabina returned to Italy from Boston was reportedly from an old Bavarian aristocratic collection.

I have also noted that collecting histories can sometimes be placed back in the period before the 1970 UNESCO Convention. For example a series of Late Antique ('Byzantine') mosaics are reported (in recent years) to have passed through Lebanese dealers in Beirut in 1969. Is this a documented (and authenticated) part of the collecting histories? Or an Attic krater can be said to have resided in an undocumented (and unspecified) Swiss private collection for a number of years that would place it (conveniently) in the late 1960s. Another example could be a piece of sculpture that is said to have been in a Lebanese private collection in the 1950s when other evidence shows it was in another country decades later. Or did Apulian pots from an apparent single grave-group form part of a nineteenth-century collection in Switzerland?

Then there are cases where the collecting history supplied by a dealer can be disputed by other informed authorities thus creating two parallel histories? Was a bronze Apollo found in Greece or had it resided in an obscure East German collection?

These case studies show why museums need to be transparent over the collecting histories of objects in their care whether they are acquisitions or loans.

This issue matters. If misleading information accompanies the object, then not only has the original archaeological context been lost, but the piece may be used by modern scholars to construct a false view about the past.

Martin Rundkvist (Aardvarchaeology): Continued Afro-Chinese History Manipulation

2010-07-29T21:41:12+00:00

In the early 15th century, Imperial Chinese mariners under the eunuch admiral Zheng He made great voyages of discovery in enormous ships. Then the Hongxi Emperor decided that what they had found on far shores was underwhelming, the whole fleet was scuppered and the Chinese paid no further attention to seafaring. In 2007 I discussed a silly story about alleged descendants of Zheng He's non-eunuch crew in Kenya who had suddenly remembered their Chinese heritage, which was convenient since the Chinese were interested in local mining rights.

Now the Guardian has news about the Kenya - Zheng He - China connection, relayed to me by Aard's Chinese reporter who happens to share my bed and board. A well-funded group of Chinese maritime archaeologists plans to spend three years searching for the wreck of one of Zheng He's ships off the Kenyan coast. According to the newspaper, the impetus of the project is "Kenyan lore" about a shipwreck taking place in the 1400s. If so, then I am very sorry for my Chinese colleagues. They have a "likely shipwreck site", but no actual shipwreck yet.

I hope the project does find a 15th century Chinese shipwreck. But if they do, then this will in no way validate the suddenly remembered folklore. It's a ridiculous product of current Afro-Chinese economic relations, and I'm sure no well-educated Kenyan or Chinese archaeologist believes one word of it.

[More about china, kenya, africa, history, archaeology; kina, afrika, kenya, historia, arkeologi.]

Read the comments on this post...

Kate Phizackerley (News from the Valley of the Kings): Interesting piece on display in the Louvre - is it Ay?

Kate Phizackerley — 2010-07-29T21:25:33+00:00

From Paul Rymer:

Got pretty excited yesterday on a visit to the Louvre, saw a piece probably from the workshop of Tuthmose I'd never seen before and lightbulbs started going as to who it might represent!

Have a look at the photos I've just uploaded to Flickr at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rymerster/4841327309/

They are of the head of a man in Room 25 of The Louvre, maybe a recent addition. Its of very high quality, and the resemblance to Nefertiti in particular is strong; but it also reminds me of Tiye, Akhenaten and even Tutankhamun.

If this were Ay, and if as has been often proposed, Ay is the brother of Tiye and the father of Nefertiti, the resemblance to the royal house makes sense. Who else could this be? The portrait is not Akhenaten (wrong jaw shape for a start), it's too old and too different to any of the known or assumed portraits of Smenkhkare or Tutankhamun. Amenhotep III? No, this man is very different.

The only other portrait that looks somewhat like this is the depiction of Ay in the tomb of Tutankhamun - it has the same jawline (notably different than Tut's), a similar nose and distance between the nose, lips and chin.

I'm surprised this piece isn't more widely known.

Antiguidades Romanas: “Antigos e modernos” na Revista de História

gutomachado — 2010-07-29T20:39:52+00:00

A Revista de História da USP publicou esse ano um número especial com o título Antigos e Modernos, organizado pelo Francisco Murari Pires. O número é bem legal, com artigos do François Hartog, Fábio Joly (da UFRBA) e José Otávio Guimarães (da UNB).

Hartog contribuiu com um artigo bem legal, sobre ‘os clássicos, os modernos e nós’. Apesar de esse tipo de trabalho não ser minha seara, ele faz uma observação interessante (tem outras também): enquanto os estudos clássicos eram uma coisa meio ‘amadora’, entre os séculos XVIII e XIX, eles era um domínio das elites européias que tinha que aprender grego e latim. Dessa forma ninguém questionava o valor das línguas de Cícero e Platão, uma vez que isso os diferenciava da maioria da população. A partir de meados do XIX, no entanto, com a profissionalização da história antiga (especialmente na Alemanha), esse campo de saber ficou cada vez mais especializado, e a elite pulou fora. Uma coisa é estudar grego e latim quando se é criança, outra é ficar estudando papiros e inscrições quando se tem um império para administrar.

Stéphane Ratti publicou um artigo sobre ‘os últimos fogos da resistência pagã’, um artigo muito esquisito. Pela maior parte do século XX estudiosos seguindo os trabalhos de Herbert Bloch e Andreas Alfoeldy enfatizavam a idéia de que no final do século VI d.C., quando o império romano estava consolidando-se como um império cristão, os pagãos de Roma se organizaram em uma rebelião e apoiaram a revolta do usurpador Eugênio em 394 d.C. Essa idéia foi desbancada de maneira irreversível por autores como Peter Brown e Alan Cameron (cujo Last Pagans of Rome finalmente está para sair). Ratti mostra que conhece as fontes, mas volta a idéias muito antigas, presas ao culto dos grandes homens (nesse caso Símaco, Pretextato e Nicomaco Flaviano), e se ele não ignora (afinal ele cita) deixa de levar em consideração todos os avanços feitos nessa área desde os anos 1970. Uma pena.

Filed under: Artigos, Baixo Império, Livros

James F. McGrath (Exploring Our Matrix): Review of The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition

James F. McGrath — 2010-07-29T20:23:58+00:00

I am grateful to Eerdmans for sending me a review copy of James R. Edwards' book The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. Edwards' book seeks to bring much-deserved attention back to a text that is mentioned often in Patristic sources and was the subject of much interest in earlier scholarship, but which has in our time become relatively neglected, namely the claim (found as early as Papias) that Matthew wrote a Gospel in Hebrew.

After an introduction that summarizes key points to follow and offers some background to Edwards' project, the first chapter surveys references to a Hebrew Gospel in early Christian sources. The meaning of Papias' oft-quoted statement is discussed, as are other early sources. The material surveyed illustrates not only the widespread awareness of this source in the ancient church, but also the authority the work had (see e.g. p.15). Jerome refers to a copy of the Hebrew Gospel being in the library in Caesarea, and later says he himself translated the work. In addition to such relatively familiar (although in our day still mostly neglected) material, Edwards includes other less familiar sources of information, including scholia in Codex Sinaiticus which make emendations on the basis of "the Jewish (Gospel)" (pp.40-42), even if in the end he discounts these scholia because of their late date. Edwards also includes Islamic hadith, although accompanied by the problematic assumption that "By definition...hadith connote early tradition" (p.42).

Chapter two then turns from mentions of the Hebrew Gospel to quotations from it. Here we begin to encounter problematic aspects of Edwards' discussion of the specific language the "Hebrew Gospel" was in. Aramaic and Hebrew have both been argued for in the past. In trying to adjudicate between the two in his discussion of Jerome's quotation of the word mahar from the version in the Hebrew Gospel of the Lord's Prayer, Edwards writes that "Mahar is Hebrew (Aramaic would be דמהר)" (p.84). Either Edwards thinks that Jerome would necessarily having quoted the word together with the relative particle "d-", which is not at all persuasive, or Edwards has mistaken the Aramaic word with the relative particle in front of it for the Aramaic word. In either case, this does not bode well for his offering a satisfactory treatment of linguistic aspects of this subject.

Chapter three offers a defense of the ability of church fathers to be critical - not in the modern sense, to be sure, but duly critical nevertheless. Nevertheless, it is fair to point out that, of the twenty church fathers who mention the Hebrew Gospel (p.102), not all would have had an opportunity to see the Gospel themselves, and few who had would have been in a position to evaluate precisely what it was. Nevertheless, the "witnesses to the Hebrew Gospel are as ancient as patristic witnesses to any of the four canonical Gospels" (p.103). The relationship of material quoted from the Hebrew Gospel to what is found in New Testament Gospels is presented by Edwards. There is no instance of agreement with Mark's unique material, but there is material not found in any NT Gospel, as well as agreement with Matthew's special material, the double tradition, and a preponderance of points of intersection with Lukan material in terms of specific content as well as themes (pp.109-111). The question of how this relates to the Synoptic problem begins to be explored here, with quotations from and interaction with scholars who have treated this topic. The possibility that the Hebrew Gospel may be the source of Luke's special material is considered.

This leads naturally to the subject of the fourth chapter, namely the strikingly high number of Semitisms in Luke. This chapter includes another problematic statement related to the linguistic question: "Luke...does not appear to have been a Jew, and it is unlikely that he thought in either Hebrew or Aramaic" (p.128). Apart from the problematic way of depicting how one's native language affects speech in another, Edwards ignores the fact that Aramaic in its various dialects was not spoken only by Jews. Luke could have been a non-Jew from Syria, for instance, perhaps one raised bilingually, as many educated individuals would have been in that place and time. But this is never considered. Although Edwards draws on sources with linguistic expertise that make a strong case for Luke's Gospel containing Hebraisms and not merely Semitisms of a vague or indistinct sort, he also mentions the fact that Semitisms and Hebraisms are found not only in the Gospel of Luke, but also in the Acts of the Apostles, Luke's second volume. This cries out for explanation, since there is no reason to think that the Hebrew Gospel included an account of the early post-Easter church. Be that as it may, Edwards certainly draws attention to a feature of the Gospel of Luke, which is especially characteristic of Luke's special material, that deserves more attention. Why Edwards decides to coin the phrase "hyper-Semitic" as a way of referring to these verses is beyond me (pp.145-146). On the whole, however, Edwards' prose is delightful to read, even if one is not persuaded by a particular argument.

Chapter 5 focuses on whether Hebrew was the language of the "Hebrew Gospel." Once again, linguistic matters are treated in a way that is problematic. For instance, Edwards calls kai egeneto a "qualified Septuagintism" since it would involve Luke imitating "only those parts of the LXX dependent on a Hebrew Vorlage" (p.158). But that was most of the Septuagint, and constituted the core and most famous parts of the Jewish Scriptures even in Greek. Likewise, the suggestion that Luke was not imitating the Septuagint or heavily influenced by it because of (1) failure to produce the LXX word-for-word in certain instances, or (2) using a phrase that is rare in the LXX, is unpersuasive. The phrase "gird up the loins" does not have to be common in the King James Version for someone using it to be echoing the KJV. Nor is it necessary that the phrase "verily he saith" occur anywhere in the KJV for this to represent an attempt to imitate the KJV's English, in a way that speakers of modern English could readily recognize. Edwards also hurts rather than helps his case by appealing to Rabbinic texts stressing the importance of writing Scripture verses in tefillin in Hebrew, or reading key passages from the Scriptures in Hebrew (pp.169-170), since this requirement suggest that Aramaic would have been preferred by many were Hebrew not imposed. He also tries to argue for the predominance of Hebrew in Jesus' time by pointing out that it was the dominant language in the times depicted in stories in the Hebrew Bible (pp.170-172). This is all rather unfortunate, since it detracts from the only point that matters to Edwards' case, namely the literary use of Hebrew in this period, for which the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Mishnah provide more than ample evidence.
Chapter 6 provides an exploration of possible reasons for the disappearance of the Hebrew Gospel and its current scholarly neglect. There certainly have been anti-Jewish biases in European scholarship as in Christianity historically, and this is indeed likely to be part of the story.

Chapter 7 focuses on the relationship of the Hebrew Gospel to the double tradition and to the Synoptic Problem. Since the double tradition does not share the Semitic character of special Luke to the same extent, it is unlikely that Q can simply be done away with by suggesting that this material derived from the Hebrew Gospel. In surveying the history of the Q hypothesis, Edwards suggests it ought to make us suspicious that scholarship in an era that was embarrassed by miracle stories but valued Jesus' ethical teaching produced the hypothesis that the Gospels derive from an earlier collection of such teaching, with little or no narrative. This discussion provides but one example of Edwards' delightful writing style: "The 'Q' hypothesis was like a modern farm chemical that contained an herbicide capable of killing the weeds of miracle and dogma, and also a fertilizer capable of nourishing the ethical core of Jesus' message" (p.223).

Edwards acknowledges that sometimes scholarship produces good results even if the context that favored them should make us cautious, and thus continues to survey internal evidence for Q. But the arguments he offers against it are problematic. That the Gospel of Thomas is on a trajectory that leads towards Gnosticism is hardly relevant, since the issue is whether it provides a comparable genre. Edwards dismisses alleged parallels to the genre of Q as not merely from outside but alien to the context of early Christianity. That Jerome never mentions a collection like "Q" in his Illustrious Men is hardly relevant, since we have no reason to think that Q, if it existed, survived down to Jerome's time (pp.226-228). In the end, Edwards does not seem to be opposed to the Q hypothesis so much as the characterization of Q as a collection of sayings alone without any narrative framework.

Edwards' attempt to argue that the Babylonian Talmud mentions the Hebrew Gospel involves special pleading. The Talmud (b. Shabb. 116a-b) has a "philosopher" quote from what seems to be Matthew 5. That this derived from a saying quoted from the Hebrew Gospel by Epiphanius, "I came to destroy the sacrifices," seems particularly unlikely since the meaning is at odds with the passage from Matthew's Gospel which is quoted imprecisely in the Talmud, which emphasizes that Jesus "did not come to diminish the Torah" (pp.229-232). Chapter 7 ends with the conclusion that the Q hypothesis could explain the Synoptic relationships, but is not a necessary inference.

Chapter 8 offers an exploration of the possibility of Matthean posteriority, offering a number of examples of material that seems to be more primitive in Luke either in wording or arrangement. The Gospel of Matthew in the New Testament shows no signs of being derived from a Hebrew original. Edwards suggests that Greek Matthew was so named in honor of the apostle who wrote the Hebrew Gospel, and that the church wrongly assumed that Greek Matthew was a translation of the Hebrew Gospel.

An epilogue summarizes the key theses of the book, offering 23 of them, one for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The last of these includes a diagram of how Edwards views the interrelationship between the canonical Gospels and the Hebrew Gospel - in essence, it takes the place of "L" in typical diagrams of the "four source hypothesis" (p.262). Appendix 1 provides all references to the Hebrew Gospel in the first nine centuries in the original languages. This is an extremely useful collection, even if it begins with the story in the Babylonian Talmud that we have already mentioned, placing it there on the rather naive assumption that the story's setting in the time of first-century rabbis vouchsafes its preservation of early material. The second appendix sets forth Semitisms in Luke, while a third appendix briefly considers the distinctive version of Luke 6:5 in Codex Bezae. A select bibliography and indexes bring the volume to a close.

I have been very critical, but I do not think undeservedly so, of problematic aspects of the treatment of matters of linguistics in the book. But I would not like those criticisms to detract from the author's main thesis, which is that the patristic references to a Hebrew Gospel need to be taken more seriously in scholarly study of the Synoptic problem, and this lost source can plausibly be connected with Luke's reference to "many" who wrote before him and his preservation of material that has not only a Semitic, but in places a Hebraic character. And so hopefully if nothing else, this volume will spark further discussion of the Hebrew Gospel and of the Semitisms in Luke. And so even if they echo many of the criticisms and reservations I have presented here, I nonetheless hope that many scholars interested in the New Testament Gospels will read James R. Edwards' book The Hebrew Gospel and the Development of the Synoptic Tradition. If it contains much that can be criticized or that is unpersuasive, there is also much that is thought-provoking and worthy of serious consideration, not to mention much that is delightful and entertaining to read even if it doesn't persuade. And so I encourage other scholars to read Edwards' book, and hope that the coming years will see more attention devoted to the question of the Hewbrew Gospel.

Antiguidades Romanas: Enquanto isso, no Amapá…

gutomachado — 2010-07-29T20:00:10+00:00

Estudantes encontram urnas Marajoaras de mais de mil anos durante uma aula da pós graduação.

Filed under: Arqueologia

N.S. Gill (About.com Classical/Ancient History): Thursday's Term to Learn - Buphonia

2010-07-29T19:44:08+00:00

Buphonia is one name for an ancient Greek festival also known as Diipoleia. It was held on the 14th of the Athenian month of Skirophorion [see months of the Athenian calendar...

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Geoff Carter (Theoretical Structural Archaeology): When on Google Earth 96

Geoff Carter — 2010-07-29T18:53:25+00:00

Having solved When on Google earth 95 over at the Moore Group, correctly identifying the Portuguese colonial fort at of Aguada, Goa, India, built in 1612, TSA is proud to present WOGE 96. Good luck and have fun.

Be the first to correctly identify the site below, and its major period of occupation, in the comments below, and you can host your own!

The rules:

Q: What is When on Google Earth?

A: It’s a game for archaeologists, or anybody else willing to have a go!

Q: How do you play it?

A: Simple, you try to identify the site in the picture.

Q: Who wins?

A: The first person to correctly identify the site, including its major period of occupation, wins the game.

Q: What does the winner get?

A: The winner gets bragging rights and the chance to host the next When on Google Earth on his/her own blog!

Be the first to correctly identify the site below and its major period of occupation in the comments below and you can host your own!

More When On Google Earth

For a list of previous winners see Electric Archaeologist here …

or join the Facebook group here….

Magnus Reuterdahl (Testimony of the Spade): Tomorrow’s historic remains

Magnus Reuterdahl — 2010-07-29T18:51:48+00:00

When we’re out on archaeological surveys for ancient monuments and historic remains we sometimes encounters remnants that do not quite meet the criteria, the criteria being permanently abandoned. Such remnants can be abandoned farms and houses still standing and in some cases provided for, at least enough to not fall apart. Sometimes it lies on the border, the two houses, shown below, does not have many years left before they can be registered as historic remains in form of house foundations. Even if they are on the ropes, they still hold a kind of desolate beauty, they are still vital enough to tell tales of their late owners, in and around them are evidence of how their lives.

House number one, from a distance it seems quite ok, but when you get closer you see that it has began to fall apart.

The entrance is more or less overtaken by plants.

You can see the inner construction of the roof through an opening in the wall.

Inside, the ceiling is about to collapse…

…in a corner a bed with the madras is left…

…and on the wall, a picture of a young woman has been left…

…on a nail a couple of old pants have been hung, to dry?

The second house just 20 meters away is closer to a collapse, the roof has fallen in and the walls are well on their way to give up.

These abandoned buildings will be tomorrow’s historic remains in soon future. They are situated just outside of our working area so who knows we might come back in a year or two and find that they have fallen down and register them.

Magnus Reuterdahl

James F. McGrath (Exploring Our Matrix): Open Access, Open Source, and Open Ended Textbooks

James F. McGrath — 2010-07-29T18:24:46+00:00

I have been delighted to see discussion of online and electronic textbooks spreading through the biblioblogosphere. It seems to have begun with a Tweet from Brooke Lester, and then spread in particular to NT Blog and AKMA. I have been spending a lot of time lately looking into the educational use not only of the usual software and media but also some that are less frequently mentioned in such contexts, as well as some that do not seem to exist yet.

It is important to note that several different ideas have been mentioned, and a few more should be included in the ongoing discussion.

An electronic textbook is a textbook that can be read and utilized using some sort of electronic device. Often discussions of such books have been limited to making the text of the printed textbook available electronically. So I've been delighted to see the discussion move in less conventional directions.

An open source textbook would be one that can be customized by anyone using it. We've presumably all had the experience of using a textbook that we really liked - except for the discussion of subject X in chapter Y. An open source textbook could be customized by those using it, just like open source software. This involves the creator(s) being willing to loosen their proprietary hold on what their original creation may evolve into.

An open access textbook is simply one that can be accessed without payment being required.

But as Mark Goodacre has pointed out, traditional textbooks are too "texty." We should be able to do more than simply offer text just delivered by different means.

What I'd like to see added to the discussion, even though it is already exciting as it is, is discussion of things that can potentially be done via electronic media which could not be done with traditional textbooks. For instance, a while back I tried to develop a "choose your own adventure textbook" that asked students questions and presented information to them in a way that was tailored to their own interests, assumptions, and prior knowledge based on the answers they gave. We should also be able to embed audio and video, as Mark suggested, and thus for instance allow one to move seamlessly not only from a discussion of The Acts of John to a podcast or video of a lecture the professor gave on that topic, but also to a recording of Holst's The Hymn of Jesus as well as the primary text and other relevant secondary reading. Even more than that, we should also be able to add pop-up annotations and guidance for readers, and have discussion forums for the text linked directly to the text itself so that it is just a click away.

Much of this will depend on the development not merely of content but of textbook platforms that allow the aforementioned characteristics and features to be integrated into the textbook.

So let's keep this discussion going, but let's also make sure that it is freed to as full an extent as possible from the archaic constraints of "textiness" in all its forms!

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog: NordicDB paper on Finns, Danes, and Swedes

Dienekes Pontikos — 2010-07-29T18:00:01+00:00

On the left is an MDS plot using ~45k SNPs. Some explanation on the datasets: CAPS are Swedish; SGENE and MS are Finnish (Helsinki region); Aneurysm is Finnish (Helsinki and Kupio).

A striking feature of the plot is the distinctiveness of the different Finish samples (light vs. dark brown points). This is not so difficult to explain if one considers that the light brown squares (DGI-FIN) are from Botnia. This parallels the results of Salmela et al. (2008) or Jakkula et al. (2008) in underscoring the internal structure of the population of Finland

The familiar V shape was also observed in the PCA produced by McEvoy et al. (2009) or Nelis et al. (2009). In my opinion, it is produced by the differential representation of the two main population elements of the Nordic countries, namely the Germanic and Finnic elements.

Here is the website of NordicDB.

European Journal of Human Genetics doi: 10.1038/ejhg.2010.112

NordicDB: a Nordic pool and portal for genome-wide control data

Monica Leu et al.

A cost-efficient way to increase power in a genetic association study is to pool controls from different sources. The genotyping effort can then be directed to large case series. The Nordic Control database, NordicDB, has been set up as a unique resource in the Nordic area and the data are available for authorized users through the web portal (http://www.nordicdb.org). The current version of NordicDB pools together high-density genome-wide SNP information from ~5000 controls originating from Finnish, Swedish and Danish studies and shows country-specific allele frequencies for SNP markers. The genetic homogeneity of the samples was investigated using multidimensional scaling (MDS) analysis and pairwise allele frequency differences between the studies. The plot of the first two MDS components showed excellent resemblance to the geographical placement of the samples, with a clear NW–SE gradient. We advise researchers to assess the impact of population structure when incorporating NordicDB controls in association studies. This harmonized Nordic database presents a unique genome-wide resource for future genetic association studies in the Nordic countries.

Link

Duane Smith (Abnormal Interests): Abnormal Hebrew

Duane Smith — 2010-07-29T17:59:49+00:00

I just got the proofs for my pissing paper. It looks like it is scheduled to be published in the October issue of the CBQ. The editor's and copyreader's work was great. In several important ways, the proof is better than what I submitted. But a couple of strange things did happen in the process of moving from manuscript file to proof file. None is stranger than this,

Here’s the larger context, “For example, the genocidal context of 1 Kgs 11:16, עד־הכרית כל זכר באדום, ‘until he had destroyed every male in Edom,’ is similar שֹׂתהַת תֹ our passages.” The editors slightly reworked one of my rather awkward sentences. But I really think that instead of שֹׂתהַת תֹ, “to” might have been better. Were they just trying to get my attention? They did!

The CAMPVS: Greek, Roman, Late Antique, & Byzantine Studies ... and beyond: Another “Bad Classics” Piece of Jewelry

Sarah — 2010-07-29T17:58:40+00:00

It seems as though jewelry designers like using ancient coinage as inspiration for their pieces, but aren’t as concerned about the accuracy of the description on the websites that sell them. In Bad Jewelry Latin (well, History), I discussed a ring that was described as depicting Caesar, but was clearly actually a coin depicting Alexander [...]

Tom Elliott (Horothesia): EpiDoc Tools Released "as is"

Tom Elliott — 2010-07-29T17:52:34+00:00

If you visit http://sourceforge.net/projects/epidoc/files/ you'll now find readily downloadable releases of the following EpiDoc tools:

Guidelines
P5 Conversion Tools
Transcoder
Example P5 XSLTs
Example P4 XSLTs (deprecated; last/final release)
DTD (deprecated; last/final release)
Schema
CHETC JavaScript

These releases reflect the current state of code or documentation as it is to be found in our SVN repository. All of the tools have had README.txt files added in order to help the person downloading them figure out what they are and how to start using them. They also all have LICENSE.txt files that spell out the terms under which they are distributed. If you want to see our agenda, feel free to visit: http://epidocroadmap.pbworks.com/Release-Sprint-July-2010

Some of these packages are out-of-date or not feature-complete (e.g., especially the guidelines). We'll want to marshal volunteers in coming weeks and months to work on these discrepancies. There is in fact, already a group working hard on the guidelines. If you're not part of that group and would like to be, please shout out about it on the markup list.

My hearty thanks to Gabriel Bodard, Hugh Cayless and Charlotte Tupman, who assisted in today's sprint, and to Marion Lame, who also volunteered but could not be available during the time that I had scheduled.

Our next big step is to update http://epidoc.sourceforge.net/resources.shtml so that it properly reports on the state of each tool and links directly to the appropriate release. I'll be issuing a call for volunteers for that follow-up sprint shortly.

Roger Pearse (Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, and more): More from the Chronicle of Zuqnin, part 4

Roger Pearse — 2010-07-29T17:39:39+00:00

Here is the next section of the 8th century anonymous chronicle, written at the monastery of Zuqnin, just north of ancient Amida, now Diarbekir in Eastern Turkey:

Wonders worked by holy Mar Habib, Bishop of Edessa.

“In these days it is good to hide the secret of the king, but it is always right to publish and communicate to everyone the wonders of the Lord.” (Tobit 12 :7)

It will not seem strange, and the ears of listeners shall not be burdened if I here report a miracle that God’s power worked today through one of his apostles.

There was an Arab in the army, which, when they wanted to invade the territory of the Romans, came to stay at the holy monastery of Mar Habil in the region of Edessa. Finding that the porter of the convent was a God-fearing man, humble, benevolent and adorned with all divine virtues, he gave him a considerable sum of gold, saying: [17] “Keep this for me; if I return alive, I will want my property back; if you learn that I am dead, distribute it to the needy.” Then he left this place. The monk accepted the deposit, and having taken the treasure, he dug in the earth to bury it, without making the matter known to anybody. The Arabs remained a long time, and after a gap of about three years, it happened by the permission of the Creator, that before the Arabs were to leave the territory of the Romans, the porter departed from this troubled world. But he did not even then make known his secret. However, the owner of the deposit returned and asked for the man. He was told that he was dead. “Give me,” he said, “what I left in his hands.” — “We know absolutely nothing of what you speak,” said the monks; he never mentioned it or made any recommendation to any of us saying: I have something that belongs to others.” But this man was powerful and he strongly urged the monks, “Give me my property or I will devastate your monastery.” As this was a considerable sum, they were very embarrassed. The governor forced them to sell everything they had and to deliver the price to the man. And if that sum was not enough to release them, the monks themselves were to be sold until the debt was paid off. All the people of the city and the whole country, learning the severe sentence that had been enacted against the pious monks felt a deep grief to think they would see sold as slaves, their brothers and their children, who from renouncing the world, would have go to servitude among the Gentiles. The bishop of the city, the chaste Mar Habib, felt a great pain in seeing his brothers about to be led into slavery, and after having shed tears of anguish before the Saviour, he mounted his horse and went to the monastery with a great crowd of notables of the city and the country, [18] to intercede with the man. They tried to persuade him for a long time to wait while the monks tried every means to raise the sum demanded, but he would not consent: “They have my property, he said, let them give me what is mine and I’ll go.” And they, in turn, assured him again and again with oaths and distress that they knew nothing of his gold; but he did not believe them. Holy Mar Habib was embarrassed by both sides, some saying: “We know nothing,” the other refusing to accept it. He then donned the saving armour of the true faith of the Lord and, walking in the footsteps of he who at Bethany sought, speaking of Lazarus: “Where have you put him?” he took the censer with incense, and went to the cemetery of the monastery without allowing anyone to accompany him. So he went there and stopped at the grave in which they had laid the blessed monk. There he knelt and prayed; then rising, he offered the incense and made rise before the Lord, the sweet smell of tears from his heart. Standing at the door of the tomb, with that imperturbable faith that God works miracles, he raised his voice and said: “In the name of Our Lord, get up!” He arose on hearing this word and stood before him with a cheerful face as though he had never experienced the corruption of the tomb. Habib said to him: “My son, tell me if such a master of the Arabs has entrusted you with something when he left to enter the territory of the Romans?” — “Yes, sir,” said the deceased .– “How much?” asked the bishop. — “So many thousands of minas;” said the dead man. — “Where are they?” asked Habib. — The dead man replied: “I’ve buried them inside the very gates of the monastery, under such a seat. In fact, if you command it, I will go myself and I will return his property.” The Bishop asked him again: “Is there in the monastery, besides you, anyone who knows where this gold is?” — “No, sir,” he replied. — The saint [19] said to him them: “The time of the resurrection of the dead is not yet come, rest now until the voice of your Lord commands you to arise.” Immediately he changed and became as he was before. The saint, well informed of the case by the dead man, returned and ordered a hatchet brought. He went to the place that had been designated by the deceased, and stopping there, he commanded them to overthrow the seat, dig and search below. His order was executed, and thus was found the gold which he gave to his landlord, and thus procured the deliverance of the holy monastery.

In the year 1034 (722-723). Omar [II], King of the Arabs, died after a reign of two years and four months. He was succeeded by Yazid [II] who reigned four years.

In the year 1035 (723-724), Yazid ordered the destruction of all images wherever they were to be found, whether in temples or in churches or in homes. That’s why he sent out workers charged with destroying images wherever they were found.

In the year 1036 (724-725) Yazid ordered again the killing of white dogs, pigeons and white cockerels. So a rigorous decree was pronounced and dumb animals who were innocent were destroyed. The squares of cities and villages were infected by the smell of their corpses. And while it is written: “Be fruitful and multiply, fill and occupy the land; let birds fly in the sky; let the animals multiply upon the earth,” they, contrary to the order of creation, were destroyed. They wanted to destroy by their cruelty that which had been formed in the womb according to the principle of creation, and established by the will of the Creator at his pleasure, trying to destroy the order of the Creator and to prevent the world from marching under the laws which were imposed by its author. He even ordered the killing of all fair men [lit. with blue eyes]. [20] But the project was aborted because of the attention of God-fearing men, and it did not cause the death of anyone. He also ordered that the testimony of a Syrian against an Arab should not be accepted. He fixed the price [of blood] of an Arab at twelve thousand [dinars] and that of a Syrian at six thousand. This is the origin of these biased laws. He ordered that thieves should be mutilated at the sleeve instead of the wrist. The Arabs despised him and his teachings.

In the year 1038 (726-727), Yazid died. He had as emirs in Mesopotamia first Abourin, whom he deposed, and then Mardas. The latter was disgraced in turn and Abourin returned.

In the year 1039 (727-728), Hisham, son of `Abd al-Malik, ruled over the Arabs for nineteen years and four months.

In the year 1010 (728-729), holy Mar Habib, Bishop of Edessa, died; Constantine succeeded him.

At this time shone holy Mar Elias the Patriarch, Simeon, Bishop of Harran, Constantine of Edessa, and Theodotus of Amida.

About St. Theodotus, bishop of Amida.

This holy Theodotus, bishop of Amida, had grown up in the solitude and the humble labors of monasticism, to which he had constantly given himself, and which he loved: this was a peaceful and benign man, and adorned with all divine virtues: also he abdicated the episcopate of the city. He then retired from his see and leaving the city, he descended into the countryside of Dara, between Dara and Amida. Following in the footsteps of Mar [21] Thomas of Tela, he built a pillar on which he mounted. He also built in this same place a large monastery, which still exists near the village called Qalouq. This is where he ended his life.

After him holy Mar Cosmas received the episcopate.

About holy Mar Cosmas, bishop of Amida.

This holy Mar Cosmas was also a great monk, applying himself to all the virtues: also he did wonders and miracles like Elijah the Tishbite and like the first apostles. But because he was zealous and rebuked both great and poor, he was not liked by the lords of the city, because he vigorously attacked, openly and without respect of persons, the perverse deeds that they carried out continuously; and they feared he might open his mouth to curse them, because he was an austere man. They dared not openly rebel against him; so they stirred up the villagers not to receive him when went to visit them, so as to have a reason thereby to expel him from their city. But that did not profit them in any way, any more than those who followed their advice. When, therefore, according to the rule established by the elders, he left to visit the region, knowing nothing of the ambush that awaited him, he came to a village called Tell-Dakoum, whose inhabitants were detractors. When he rang the bell, as usual, they met and were unwilling to receive him; they did not even judged him worthy of the word of a man, but sent word to him by a [22] old woman: “Go honorably on your way, otherwise you will not get out of here without having been mistreated.” These perverse men “did not know and did not understand, because they walked in darkness,” that the word of our Lord to the Apostles cannot be without effect: “Whoever receives you, receives me. If someone does not receive you, shake off the dust of your feet in testimony against him. It will be better for Sodom on the day of Judgement, for this place.” The saint, learning of their malice from the old woman, ordered his disciples to change the direction of the car in which he was and to pass south of the village. The prophetic word: “The fool does not know and the fool does not understand,” was fulfilled in these wretches. This first sin was not enough for them; but they went to the door of their church that stood on the height to jeer at the saint and to see what he would do. The brave man, seeing all their contempt, was not disturbed; but dressed in the faith and trust in his Lord, he went on his way and passed on. On reaching the eastern edge of the village, he stopped his car, pulled his shoes, and raising them in the direction of the town, shook them at him, saying: “Since you do not receive your bishop, wait and God’s anger will come upon you soon and without delay.” Then, continuing his way quickly, he went to the village which is to the East and called Tarmil-Raba; he came indeed from the west.That was in the time of the barley harvest and no appearance of a cloud covered the sky that day. The divine wrath suddenly and without delay seized the unfortunate village who had wanted to be an instrument of injustice in the hands of the great in the city, [23] so that it became an object of fear and terror to the country and for all those who dare to despise their bishops, and it should serve as a warning to future generations. He entered Tarmil. And now the clouds gathered over the village. While the inhabitants were running to and fro, a tempest and a rush of winds violent enough to topple mountains rose up against them. It fell like a hail of stones, which struck their vines and fig trees, broke the trees of their territory and destroyed in their fields everything that was green, and reduced their crops to dust, to the point that they did not recognize their place, and dispersed also their mules, so they could not collect them and all hope of life was lost to them. The critics, seeing what had happened: “Their words were still on their lips and the anger of God came on them.” They understood the anger of God also weighed on them, and they awoke from a deep sleep, like a drunkard who has slept off his wine; they remembered what they had done to their bishop and recognized that this scourge happened because they had despised him. They were all the more confirmed in this opinion that the scourge had not exceeded the limits of their village. That’s why they all left, young and old, and went barefoot, humbly, weeping bitterly, and covered with shame to the village where the bishop was. The saint, seeing them, like once Elisha in the presence of the children whom the bears devoured, was deeply affected, especially because the scourge had destroyed everything they owned. He returned with them and prayed for them. In this way God poured out his fear and terror throughout all the countryside and on the great of the city, so that when the Bishop left the village [24] where he lived, the inhabitants of the other villages all came, great and small, humbly before him.

To holy Mar Elias, Patriarch of Antioch, Athanasius succeeded.

In the year 1042 (730-731), Maslamah crosses the Gate of the Turks. Because the Huns, that is to say the Turks had left their country and caused immense harm to Armenia, and throughout the northern country, Maslamah marched against them with an innumerable army. Every year they sortied out thus and caused great damage. He therefore advanced toward them and they came to meet him. He gave them battle and destroyed a large number of them. They were frightened and came to his feet and asked for peace. He gave it them, thinking they would keep their word.

In the same year, Maslamah destroyed this Gate which was at the entrance to the territory of the Turks, because, locking themselves inside it, they had fought a battle with him; but he feared to venture into the unknown region that belonged to the Turks, lest they come together against them and make them disappear from the earth. They are a nation without God and they are magicians. Because of this, Maslamah was forced to order the destruction of the Gate of the Turks which had been built by Alexander the Macedonian. They removed and brought out first, all the camels and donkeys, then the workers, they finally left themselves, throwing brambles behind them throughout the defile.

In the year 1043 (731-732), Maslamah assembled a great multitude [25] of artisans and labourers, carpenters, made all the necessary preparations for construction, and went to rebuild the Gate of the Turks which he had destroyed the previous year. After rebuilding, he made a treaty with them, confirmed by oath, after which it was agreed that none of them would cross the boundary of their ally. He then returned: but the Turks who know not God, who did not understand that they are his creatures, who do not admit that there is a God in heaven, did not keep their promise. They despised God, mocked the oath, crossed the border and did much evil in the land which was outside their own territory. Hisham sent against them his general Girah with a large number of horsemen. The latter entered the country during harvest and made by his passage a lot of damage in this area, because he was a madman. Feeling himself secure, he was not just; he devastated their crops and caused many other problems to the poor on his way. The people came to complain to him, but nobody met with relief from him; and so, as everyone had to suffer his passage, everyone also prayed for that to happen to him what he deserved. When he fought against the Turks, they killed many of his soldiers and carried off many captives into their country. After that, he sent to Hisham to get help. Maslamah hurried to reach him with an immense army, but before he could get to him, Girah and all his army had been exterminated by the sword; for the Turks gathered on all sides against them in large numbers and gave them all over to the sword. Nobody escaped. The Lord returned to the robber the harm he had done, and punished the wrongs he had done, [26] he and his army, to the peasants on the way. Everything they had committed during the road was accumulated at one time on their heads. Upon the arrival of Maslamah, the Turks were troubled and filled with fear because they feared his reputation more than his appearance. The latter gave them battle, shed their blood like water on the surface of the earth, and filled with their flesh the birds and beasts of the earth. After having cut them to pieces, he set up in Armenia Marwan Ibn Muhammad – the very man who ruled later over the Arabs – and retired, leaving him with a strong army. The latter caused more losses [to the Turks] than all those who had preceded him.

In the year 1029 (717-718), there was a strong and devastating earthquake that toppled in many places the temples, churches and large buildings, including the baptistery and the ancient church of Edessa. Great and large homes were thrown down on their inhabitants; while those which resisted and did not collapsed in the commotion, showed traces of it. So the people were filled with fear in the presence of the Lord every time they consider these remnants of the earthquake. At that time Hisham canalised the Zeitoun, built [on its banks] towns, castles, many villages which he embellished with numerous plantations of every kind.

He also channeled [the River] Beit Balash on which he built a castle, and there he planted plantations of every kind.

The story of Mar Habib is a depressing one. Despite the pious exclamations of the monkish chronicler, it seemed to me that the monks did indeed intend to swindle the Arab, and kept up the pretence as long as they could, with the connivance of the bishop. The cruelty of the Arabs, prefiguring the methods of Ottoman days, takes us into the Islamic world and away from the ancient world.

The story of holy Mar Cosmas, cursing a village which dares not to give him free lodging, is likewise retailed — by a member of the clerical caste, remember — as a “warning” to others. Superstition flourished in that soil, it is clear. More interesting is that the village had a bell which mendicant monks could ring, and the implication that this was standard. The burden of wandering monastics upon the community must have been considerable.

Ancient World Bloggers Group: AWOL - The Ancient World Online - 2: The Oriental Institute Electronic Publications Initiative

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-29T16:39:22+00:00

The Oriental Institute Electronic Publications Initiative. Originally posted April 9, 2008. Updated April 30, 2007 with the addition of more CAD and CHD volumes; updated September 16, 2008 with the addition of OIP 130; updated January 6, 2009 with the addition of OIP 135; Updated January 27, 2009 with the addition of OIMP 29. Updated March 16, 2009 with the addition of OIS 5. Updated April 28, 2009 with the addition of a suite of older OI volumes on Egyptian subjects. Updated May 1, 2009 with the addition of a suite of older OI volumes on Egyptian subjects. Updated May 12, 2009 with the addition of a suite of older OI volumes on Egyptian subjects. Updated May 14, 2009 with the addition of two recent Annual Reports. Updated through February 18, 2010. Updated March 1, 2010. Updated March 6, 2010. Updated March 9, 2010. Updated March 31, 2010. Updated April 23, 2010. Updated May 26, 2010. Updated May 30, 2020. Updated June 24, 2010. Updated June 25, 20120. Updated 20 July, 2010. Updated 29 July, 2010]

Starting in 2004, the Oriental Institute committed to digitizing all of its publications and making them available online, without charge. The minimum for each volume, old and new, current and forthcoming, will be a Portable Document Format (PDF) version following current resolution standards. New publications appear online at or near the time they appear in print. Older publications will be processed as time and funding permits. About than two hundred and sixty five volumes are now online.

Assyriological Studies (AS) | List of volumes in print

AS 27. Studies Presented to Robert D. Biggs, June 4, 2004 From the Workshop of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary, Volume 2. Martha T. Roth, Walter Farber, Matthew W. Stolper and Paula von Bechtolsheim, eds. 2007.
AS 22. Old Babylonian Letters from Tell Asmar. R. M. Whiting, Jr. 1987.
AS 17. Cuneiform Texts from Nippur: The Eighth and Ninth Seasons. Giorgio Buccellati and Robert D. Biggs. 1969.
AS 5. Historical Prism Inscriptions of Ashurbanipal I: Editions E, B1-5, D, and K. Arthur Carl Piepkorn. 1933.

The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CAD) | List of volumes in print

Volume 1:1, A:1. 1964.
Volume 1:2, A:2. 1968.
Volume 3, B. 1965.
Volume 4, D. 1959.
Volume 5, E. 1958.
Volume 6, H [het]. 1956.
Volume 7, I/J. 1960.
Volume 8, K. 1971.
Volume 9, L. 1973.
Volume 10:1, M:1. 1977.
Volume 10:2, M:2. 1977.
Volume 11:1, N:1. 1980.
Volume 11:2, N:2. 1980.
Volume 12, P. 2005.
Volume 13, Q. 1982.
Volume 14, R. 1999.
Volume 15, S. 1984.
Volume 16, S [tsade]. 1962.
Volume 17:1, S [shin]:1. 1989.
Volume 17:2, S [shin]:2. 1992.
Volume 17:3, S [shin]:3. 1992.
Volume 18, T. 2006.
Volume 19, T [Tet]. 2006.
Volume 21, Z. 1961.

The Chicago Demotic Dictionary (CDD) [Born digital publication]

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The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (CHD) | List of volumes in print

L-N 1980-1989.
P, fascicles 1-3 1997.
S, fascicle 1 2002.
S, fascicle 2 2005.
See also The Electronic Chicago Hittite Dictionary (e-CHD). The P Volume, Theo van den Hout and Harry A. Hoffner, ed.

Materials for the Assyrian Dictionary (MAD)

MAD 5. Sargonic Texts in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. I. J. Gelb., 1970.
MAD 4. Sargonic Texts in the Louvre Museum. I. J. Gelb., 1970.
MAD 3. Glossary of Old Akkadian. I. J. Gelb., 1957.
MAD 2. Old Akkadian Writing and Grammar I. J. Gelb., 1952
MAD 1. Sargonic Texts from the Diyala Region I. J. Gelb., 1952.

Oriental Institute Communications (OIC) | List of volumes in print

OIC 30. The Alphabet: Its Rise and Development from the Sinai Inscriptions. By Martin Sprengling. Originally published in 1931.
OIC 29. Catalog of Demotic Texts in the Brooklyn Museum. George R. Hughes. 2005.
OIC 28. Bir Umm Fawakhir Survey Project 1993: A Byzantine Gold-Mining Town in Egypt. C. Meyer, L.A. Heidorn, W.E. Kaegi, and T. Wilfong. 2000.
OIC 27. The Registry of the Photographic Archives of the Epigraphic Survey, with Plates from Key Plans Showing Locations of Theban Temple Decorations (H. H. Nelson). The Epigraphic Survey. 1995.
OIC 23. Excavations at Nippur: Twelfth Season. McGuire Gibson, Judith A. Franke, Miguel Civil, Michael L. Bates, Joachim Boessneck, Karl W. Butzer and Ted A. Rathbun, and Elizabeth Frick Mallin. 1978.
OIC 22. Excavations at Nippur: Eleventh Season. McG. Gibson, with appendices by M. Civil. J. H. Johnson, and S. A. Kaufman. 1976.
OIC 21. The Treasury of Persepolis and Other Discoveries in the Homeland of the Achaemenians. Erich F. Schmidt. 1939.
OIC 20. Progress of the Work of the Oriental Institute in Iraq, 1934/35: Fifth Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition. Henri Frankfort. 1936.
OIC 19. Oriental Institute Discoveries in Iraq, 1933/34: Fourth Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition. Henri Frankfort, with a chapter by Thorkild Jacobsen. 1935.
OIC 18. Work in Western Thebes, 1931-33. By Harold H. Nelson and Uvo Hölscher with a Chapter by Siegfried Schott. 1934.
OIC 17. Iraq Excavations of the Oriental Institute 1932/33: Third Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition. Henri Frankfort. 1934.
OIC 16. Tell Asmar, Khafaje and Khorsabad: Second Preliminary Report of the Iraq Expedition. Henri Frankfort. 1933.
OIC 15. Excavations at Ancient Thebes, 1930/31. Uvo Hölscher. 1932.
OIC 13. Tell Asmar and Khafaje: The First Season’s Work in Eshnunna 1930/31. Henri Frankfort, Thorkild Jacobsen, and Conrad Preusser. 1932.
OIC 12. The Alphabet: Its Rise and Development from the Sinai Inscriptions. Martin Sprengling. 1931.
OIC 10. Medinet Habu Reports, Part 1. The Epigraphic Survey, 1992-31, by Harold H. Nelson; Part 2. The Architectural Survey, 1929/30. 1931.
OIC 7. Medinet Habu Studies 1928/29, Part 1. The Architectural Survey, by Uvo Hölscher; Part 2. The Language of the Historical Texts Commemorating Ramses III
John A. Wilson. 1930.
OIC 5. Medinet Habu 1924-28 Part 1: The Epigraphic Survey of the Great Temple of Medinet Habu (Seasons 1924-25 To 1927-28, By Harold H. Nelson; Part 2: The Architectural Survey of the Great Temple and Palace of Medinet Habu (Season 1927-28), By Uvo Hölscher. 1929.

Oriental Institute Digital Archives (OIDA) | [Online only]

OIDA 1, OIDA 1, Letters from James Henry Breasted to His Family, August 1919 - July 1920. Edited by John A. Larson, 2010.

Oriental Institute Museum Publications (OIMP) | List of volumes in print

OIMP 30. Pioneers to the Past: American Archaeologists in the Middle East, 1919-1920. Edited by Geoff Emberling, 2010.
OIMP 29. The Life of Meresamun: A Temple Singer in Ancient Egypt. Edited by Emily Teeter and Janet H. Johnson, 2009
OIMP 28. Catastrophe! The Looting and Destruction of Iraq’s Past. Edited by Geoff Emberling and Katharyn Hanson, 2008
OIMP 27. European Cartographers and the Ottoman World, 1500–1750: Maps from the Collection of O. J. Sopranos. Ian Manners. 2007.
OIMP 26. Daily Life Ornamented: The Medieval Persian City of Rayy. Tanya Treptow.
OIMP 25. Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing. Iman Saca. 2006
OIMP 24. Lost Nubia: A Centennial Exhibit of Photographs from the 1905-1907 Egyptian Expedition of the University of Chicago. John A. Larson. 2006.
OIMP 23. Ancient Egypt: Treasures from the Collection of the Oriental Institute. By Emily Teeter. Originally published in 2003.

Oriental Institute Nubian Expedition (OINE) | List of volumes in print

OINE 10. Excavations at Serra East, Parts 1-5: A-Group, C-Group, Pan Grave, New Kingdom, and X-Group Remains from Cemeteries A-G and Rock Shelters. By B. B. Williams. Originally published in 1993.
OINE 9. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 9: Noubadian X-Group Remains from Royal Complexes in Cemeteries Q and 219 and Private Cemeteries Q, R, V, W, B, J, and M at Qustul and Ballana. By B. B. Williams. Originally published in 1991.
OINE 8. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 8: Meroitic Remains from Qustul Cemetery Q, Ballana Cemetery B, and a Ballana Settlement. By B. B. Williams, et. al. Originally published in 1991.
OINE 7. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 7: Twenty-Fifth Dynasty and Napatan Remains at Qustul Cemeteries W and V. By B. B. Williams. Originally published in 1990.
OINE 6. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 6: New Kingdom Remains from Cemeteries R, V, S, and W at Qustul and Cemetery K at Adindan. Bruce B. Williams. 1992.
OINE 5. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 5: C-Group, Pan Grave, and Kerma Remains at Adindan Cemeteries T, K, U, and J. By B. B. Williams. Originally published in 1983.
OINE 4. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Parts 2, 3, and 4: Neolithic, A-Group, and Post A-Group Remains from Cemeteries W, V, S, Q, T, and a Cave East of Cemetery K. By B. B. Williams. Originally published in 1989.
OINE 3. Excavations Between Abu Simbel and the Sudan Frontier, Part 1: The A-Group Royal Cemetery at Qustul, Cemetery L. By B. B. Williams. Originally published in 1986.
OINE 2. Ausgrabungen von Khor-Dehmit bis Bet El-Wali. H. Ricke. Originally published in 1967.
OINE 1. The Beit el-Wali Temple of Ramesses II. By Herbert Ricke, George R. Hughes, and Edward F. Wente. Originally published in 1967.

Oriental Institute Publications (OIP) | List of volumes in print

OIP 136. Medinet Habu IX. The Eighteenth Dynasty Temple, Part I: The Inner Sanctuaries. With Translations of Texts, Commentary, and Glossary. By The Epigraphic Survey. 2009.
OIP 135. Kerkenes Special Studies 1: Sculpture and Inscriptions from the Monumental Entrance to the Palatial Complex at Kerkenes Dag, Turkey. Catherine M. Draycott and Geoffrey D. Summers, with contribution by Claude Brixhe and Turkish summary translated by G. Bike Yazıcıoğlu. 2008.
OIP 134. The Archaeology and Geography of Ancient Transcaucasian Societies, Volume 1: The Foundations of Research and Regional Survey in the Tsaghkahovit Plain, Armenia. Adam T. Smith, Ruben S. Badalyan, Pavel Avetisyan. With contributions by Alan Greene and Leah Minc. 2009.

OIP 132. The Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume 8. Middle Kingdom Copies of Pyramid Texts. James P. Allen. 2006.
OIP 131. The Amuq Valley Regional Projects, Volume 1 - Surveys in the Plain of Antioch and Orontes Delta, Turkey, 1995-2002. Kutlu Aslihan Yener. 2005.
OIP 130. Chogha Mish, Volume II. The Development of a Prehistoric Regional Center in Lowland Susiana, Southwestern Iran: Final Report on the Last Six Seasons of Excavations, 1972–1978. Abbas Alizadeh. 2008.
OIP 129. The Early Dynastic To Akkadian Transistion: The Area WF Sounding At Nippur. Augusta McMahon. 2006.
OIP 128. The Origins of State Organizations in Prehistoric Highland Fars, Southern Iran: Excavations at Tall-e Bakun. Abbas Alizadeh. 2006
OIP 127. Megiddo 3: Final Report on the Stratum VI Excavations. Timothy P. Harrison, with contributions by Douglas L. Esse, Andrew Graham, Ronald G. V. Hancock, and Patricia Paice. 2004.
OIP 126. Taxes, Taxpayers, And Tax Receipts In Early Ptolemaic Thebes - Demotic and Greek Ostraca from the Oriental Institute Museum, Chicago. Brian P. Muhs. 2005.
OIP 125. Excavations at Tell es-Sweyhat, Syria, Volume 2: Archaeology of the Bronze Age, Hellenistic, and Roman Remains at an Ancient Town on the Euphrates River. Thomas A. Holland. 2006.
OIP 124. Excavations at Tell Es-Sweyhat, Syria, Volume 1: On the Margin of the Euphrates: Settlement and Land Use at Tell Es-Sweyhat and in the Upper Lake Assad Area, Syria. Tony J. Wilkinson. 2004.
OIP 123. Temple of Khonsu, Volume 3. The Graffiti on the Khonsu Temple Roof at Karnak: A Manifestation of Personal Piety. Helen Jacquet-Gordon. 2003.
OIP 122. Neo-Babylonian Texts in the Oriental Institute Collection. David B. Weisberg. 2003.
OIP 121. Cuneiform Texts from the Ur III Period in the Oriental Institute, Volume 2: Drehem Administrative Documents from the Reign of Amar-Suena. Markus Hilgert. 2003.
OIP 120. Excavations at the Prehistoric Mound of Chogha Bonut, Khuzestan, Iran, Seasons 1976/77, 1977/78, and 1996. Abbas Alizadeh. 2003.
OIP 119. Theban Desert Road Survey in the Egyptian Western Desert, Volume 1: Gebel Tjauti Rock Inscriptions 1-45 and Wadi el-Hôl Rock Inscriptions 1-45. J. C. Darnell, with the assistance of D. Darnell. 2002.
OIP 118. Scarabs, Scaraboids, Seals, and Seal Impressions from Medinet Habu. Emily Teeter. 2003.
OIP 117. Seals on the Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Volume I: Images of Heroic Encounter. Mark B. Garrison and Margaret Cool Root, with seal inscription readings by Charles E. Jones. 2001.
OIP 116. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Volume 2: The Facade, Portals, Upper Register Scenes, Columns, Marginalia, and Statuary in the Colonnade Hall. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1998.
OIP 115. Cuneiform Texts from the Ur III Period in the Oriental Institute, Volume 1: Drehem Administrative Documents from the Reign of Shulgi. M. Hilgert. 1998
OIP 114. Nippur, Volume 4: The Early Neo-Babylonian Governor's Archive from Nippur. S. W. Cole. 1996.
OIP 113. The Oriental Institute Hawara Papyri: Demotic and Greek Texts from an Egyptian Family Archive in the Fayum (Fourth to Third Century B.C.). G. R. Hughes and R. Jasnow. 1997.
OIP 112. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Volume 1: The Festival Procession of Opet in the Colonnade Hall. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1994.
OIP 111. Nippur, Volume 3: Kassite Buildings in Area WC-1. R. L. Zettler. 1993.
OIP 107. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, Volume IV: The Battle Reliefs of King Sety I. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1986.
OIP 106. The Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, Volume 1, Part 1: The Wall Reliefs. By Harold Hayden Nelson. Edited by William J. Murnane. Originally published in 1981

OIP 105. Prehistoric Archeology Along the Zagros Flanks. L. S. Braidwood, et. al. 1983.
OIP 104. Earliest Land Tenure Systems in the Near East: Ancient Kudurrus. I. J. Gelb, et. al. 1989, 1991.
OIP 103. The Temple of Khonsu, Volume 2: Scenes and Inscriptions in the Court and the First Hypostyle Hall. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1981.
OIP 102. The Tomb of Kheruef: Theban Tomb 192. The Epigraphic Survey. 1980.
OIP 101. Chogha Mish, Volume 1: The First Five Seasons, 1961-1971. Helene Kantor and P. Delougaz. 1996.
OIP 100. The Temple of Khonsu, Volume I: Scenes of King Herihor in the Court. By the Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1979.
OIP 99. Inscriptions from Tell Abu Salabikh. R. D. Biggs. 1974.
OIP 98. Old Babylonian Public Buildings in the Diyala Region. Part One: Excavations at Ishchali, Part Two: Khafajah Mounds B, C, and D. H. D. Hill, et. al. 1990.
OIP 97. Nippur, Volume 2. The North Temple and Sounding E: Excavations of the Joint Expedition to Nippur of the American Schools of Oriental Research and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. D. E. McCown, et. al. 1978.
OIP 94. Medinet Habu, Vol. VIII: The Eastern High Gate with Translations of Texts. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1970.
OIP 93. Medinet Habu, Vol. VII: The Temple Proper, Pt. III: The Third Hypostyle Hall and All Rooms Accessible from It with Friezes of Scenes from the Roof Terraces and Exterior Walls of the Temple. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1964.
OIP 92. Persepolis Fortification Tablets. R. T. Hallock. 1969.
OIP 91. Aramaic Ritual Texts from Persepolis. R. A. Bowman. 1970.
OIP 88. Private Houses and Graves in the Diyala Region. Pinhas Delougaz, Harold D. Hill, and Seton Lloyd. 1967.
OIP 87. The Egyptian Coffin Texts 7, Texts of Spells 787-1185. By Adriaan de Buck. Originally published in 1961,
OIP 86. The Tomb of Tjanefer at Thebes. By Keith C. Seele. Originally published in 1959.
OIP 83. Medinet Habu, Volume V. The Temple Proper, Part I: The Portico, the Treasury, and Chapels Adjoining the First Hypostyle Hall with Marginal Material from the Forecourts. By the Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1957.
OIP 84. Medinet Habu, Volume IV. The Temple Proper, Part II: The Re Chapel, the Royal Mortuary Complex, and Adjacent Rooms with Miscellaneous Material from the Pylons, the Forecourts, and the First Hypostyle Hall. By The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1963.
OIP 82. The Egyptian Book of the Dead: Documents in the Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago. Edited by Thomas George Allen. Originally published in 1960.
OIP 81. The Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume 6: Texts of Spells 472-787. Adriaan De Buck. 1956.
OIP 80. Demotic Ostraca from Medinet Habu. Miriam Lichtheim. 1957.
OIP 79. Soundings at Tell Fakhariyah. C. W. McEwan, et. al. 1957.
OIP 78. Nippur I, Temple of Enlil, Scribal Quarter, and Soundings: Excavations of the Joint Expedition to Nippur of the University Museum of Philadelphia and the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Donald E. McCown and Richard C. Haines, assisted by Donald P. Hansen. 1967.
OIP 74. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, Volume III. The Bubastite Portal. By the Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1954.
OIP 73. The Egyptian Coffin Texts 5: Texts of Spells 355-471. Adriaan de Buck. 1954.
OIP 72. Stratified Cylinder Seals from the Diyala Region. Henri Frankfort with a chapter by Thorkild Jacobsen. 1955.
OIP 71. Coptic Ostraca from Medinet Habu. By Elizabeth Stefanski and Miriam Lichtheim. Originally published in 1952.
OIP 70. Persepolis III: The Royal Tombs and Other Monuments. E. F. Schmidt. 1970.
OIP 69. Persepolis II: Contents of the Treasury and Other Discoveries. Erich F. Schmidt with contributions by Sydney P. Noe et al., Frederick R. Matson, Lawrence J. Howell, and Louisa Bellinger. 1957
OIP 68. Persepolis I: Structures, Reliefs, Inscriptions. Erich F. Schmidt with contribution by F. R. Matson. 1953.
OIP 67. The Egyptian Coffin Texts 4, Texts of Spells 268-354. Adriaan de Buck. 1951.
OIP 66. Post-Ramessid Remains. The Excavation of Medinet Habu, Volume 5. By Uvo Hölscher. Originally published in 1954.
OIP 65. Persepolis Treasury Tablets. George G. Cameron. 1948.
OIP 64. The Egyptian Coffin Texts 3: Texts of Spells 164-267. By Adriaan de Buck. Originally published in 1947.
OIP 63. Pottery from the Diyala Region. Pinhas Delougaz. 1952.
OIP 60. More Sculpture from the Diyala Region. Henri Frankfort. 1943.
OIP 59. Tall-i-Bakun A: Season of 1932. Alexander Langsdorff and Donald E. McCown. 1942.
OIP 58. Pre-Sargonid Temples in the Diyala Region. Pinhas Delougaz and Seton Lloyd with chapters by Henri Frankfort and Thorkild Jacobsen. 1942.
OIP 56. Key Plans Showing Locations of Theban Temple Decorations. By Harold Hayden Nelson. Originally published in 1941.
OIP 55. The Excavation of Medinet Habu, Volume VI. The Mortuary Temple of Ramses III, Part II. By Uvo Hölscher. With contributions by Rudolf Anthes. Originally published in 1951.
OIP 54. The Mortuary Temple of Ramses III, Part 1. The Excavation of Medinet Habu, Volume 3. By Uvo Hölscher. Originally published in 1941.
OIP 53. The Temple Oval at Khafajah. Pinhas Delougaz, with a chapter by Thorkild Jacobsen. 1940.
OIP 51. Medinet Habu, Volume 4. Festival Scenes of Ramses III. By the Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1940.
OIP 49. The Egyptian Coffin Texts, Volume 2: Texts of Spells 76-163. Adriaan De Buck. 1938.
OIP 48. Mounds in the Plain of Antioch: An Archeological Survey . Robert J. Braidwood. 1937.
OIP 46. Paleolithic Man and the Nile Valley in Lower Egypt with Some Notes upon a Part of the Red Sea Littoral: A Study of the Regions during Pliocene and Pleistocene Times. K. S. Sandford and W. J. Arkell. Prehistoric Survey of Egypt and Western Asia, Volume IV. 1939.
OIP 44. Sculpture of the Third Millennium B.C. from Tell Asmar and Khafajah. Henri Frankfort. 1939.
OIP 43. The Gimilsin Temple and the Palace of the Rulers at Tell Asmar. Henri Frankfort, Seton Lloyd, and Thorkild Jacobsen, with a chapter by Günter Martiny. 1940.
OIP 42. Megiddo 1. Seasons of 1925-34: Strata I-V. Robert S. Lamon and Geoffrey M. Shipton. 1939.
OIP 41. The Excavation of Medinet Habu, Volume 2: The Temples of the Eighteenth Dynasty. By Uvo Hölscher. Originally published in 1939.
OIP 40. Khorsabad, Part 2: The Citadel and the Town. Gordon Loud and Charles B. Altman. 1938.
OIP 39. The Mastaba of Mereruka, Part II: Chamber A 11-13, Doorjambs and Inscriptions of Chambers A 1-21, Tomb Chamber, and Exterior. By the Sakkarah Expedition. Originally published in 1938.
OIP 38. Khorsabad, Part 1: Excavations in the Palace and at a City Gate. Gordon Loud. 1936.
OIP 36. Medinet Habu Graffiti: Facsimiles. Edited by William F. Edgerton. Originally published in 1937.
OIP 35. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, Volume II. Ramses III's Temple within the Great Inclosure of Amon, Part II; and Ramses III's Temple in the Precinct of Mut. By The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1936.
OIP 34. The Egyptian Coffin Texts 1: Texts of Spells 1-75. By Adriaan De Buck. Originally published in 1935.
OIP 31. The Mastaba of Mereruka, Part I. Chambers A 1-10. By The Sakkara Expedition. Originally published in 1938.
OIP 25. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak, Volume I. Ramses III's Temple with the Great Inclosure of Amon, Part I. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1936.
OIP 24. Sennacherib's Aqueduct at Jerwan. Thorkild Jacobsen and Seton Lloyd. 1935.
OIP 23. Medinet Habu, Volume III. The Calendar, the “Slaughterhouse,” and Minor Records of Ramses III. By the Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1934.
OIP 21. The Excavation of Medinet Habu, Volume 1: General Plans and Views. Uvo Hölscher. 1934.
OIP 18. Paleolithic Man and the Nile Valley in Upper and Middle Egypt: A Study of the Region during Pliocene and Pleistocene Times. K. S. Sandford. Prehistoric Survey of Egypt and Western Asia, Volume III. 1934.
OIP 17. Paleolithic Man and the Nile-Faiyum Divide in Nubia and Upper Egypt: A Study of the Region during Pliocene and Pleistocene Times. By K. S. Sandford and W. J. Arkell. Originally published in 1933.
OIP 16. Cuneiform Series, Volume IV: Sumerian Texts of Varied Contents. Edward Chiera. 1934.
OIP 15. Cuneiform Series, Volume III: Sumerian Epics and Myths. Edward Chiera. 1934.
OIP 14. Cuneiform Series, Vol. II: Inscriptions from from Adab. Daniel David Luckenbill. 1930.
OIP 11. Cuneiform Series, Volume I: Sumerian Lexical Texts from the Temple School of Nippur. Edward Chiera. 1929.
OIP 10. Prehistoric Survey of Egypt and Western Asia, Vol. I: Paleolithic Man and the Nile-Faiyum Divide: A Study of the Region During Pliocene and Pleistocene Times. K. S. Sandford and W. J. Arkell. 1929.
OIP 9. Medinet Habu, Volume II. The Later Historical Records of Ramses III. The Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1932.
OIP 8. Medinet Habu, Volume I. Earlier Historical Records of Ramses III. By the Epigraphic Survey. Originally published in 1930.
OIP 4. The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Volume 2: Facsimile Plates and Line for Line Hieroglyphic Transliteration. J. H. Breasted. Originally published in 1930, revised in 1991. [and see now the facsimile of this papyrus at the National Library of Medicine]
OIP 3. The Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, Volume 1: Hieroglyphic Transliteration, Translation, and Commentary. J. H. Breasted. Originally published in 1930, revised in 1991.

Oriental Institute Seminars (OIS) | List of volumes in print

OIS 6. Divination and Interpretation of Signs in the Ancient World, Edited by Amar Annus. 2010
OIS 5. Nomads, Tribes, and the State in the Ancient Near East: Cross-disciplinary Perspectives, Edited by Jeffrey Szuchman. 2009.
OIS 4. Religion and Power: Divine Kingship in the Ancient World and Beyond, Nicole Brisch, ed.
OIS 3. Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean. Nicola Laneri, ed. 2007.
OIS 2. Margins of Writing, Origins of Cultures. Seth L. Sanders, ed. 2006, 2007.
OIS 1. Changing Social Identity with the Spread of Islam: Archaeological Perspectives. Donald Whitcomb, ed. 2004.

Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization (SAOC) | List of volumes in print

SAOC 63. Beyond the Ubaid: Transformation and integration in the late prehistoric societies of the Middle East. 2010.
SAOC 62. Proceedings of the 51st Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Held at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, July 18–22, 2005. 2008.
SAOC 61. Sacred Space and Sacred Function in Ancient Thebes. Peter F. Dorman and Betsy M. Bryan, ed. 2007.
SAOC 60. Studies in Semitic and Afroasiatic Linguistics Presented to Gene B. Gragg. Cynthia L. Miller, ed.
SAOC 59. Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse. Samuel R. Wolff, ed. 2001.
SAOC 58. Gold of Praise: Studies on Ancient Egypt in Honor of Edward F. Wente. E. Teeter and J. A. Larson, eds.. Originally published in 2000.
SAOC 57. The Presentation of Maat: Ritual and Legitimacy in Ancient Egypt. By Emily Teeter. Originally published in 1997.
SAOC 56. Portrait Mummies from Roman Egypt (I-IV Centuries A.D.) with a Catalog of Portrait Mummies in Egyptian Museums. By Lorelei H. Corcoran. Originally published in 1995.
SAOC 55. For His Ka: Essays Offered in Memory of Klaus Baer. D. P. Silverman, ed. Originally published in 1994.
SAOC 54. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice. R. K. Ritner. Originally published in 1993.
SAOC 54, 4th Printing. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice, 4th Printing. R. K. Ritner. Originally published in 2008.
SAOC 53. Glass from Quseir al-Qadim and the Indian Ocean Trade. By Carol Meyer. Originally published in 1992.
SAOC 52. A Late Period Hieratic Wisdom Text (P. Brooklyn 47.218.135). R. Jasnow. Originally published in 1992.
SAOC 51. Life in a Multi-Cultural Society: Egypt from Cambyses to Constantine and Beyond. Janet Johnson. ed. 1992.
SAOC 48. Egyptian Phyles in the Old Kingdom: The Evolution of a System of Social Organization. By Ann Macy Roth. Originally published in 1991.
SAOC 47. Essays in Ancient Civilization Presented to Helene J. Kantor. A. Leonard, Jr. and B. B. Williams, eds. Originally published in 1989.
SAOC 45. Thus Wrote ‘Onchsheshonqy - An Introductory Grammar of Demotic (Third Edition). Janet H. Johnson. Third edition, 2000.
SAOC 44. Nippur Neighborhoods. E. C. Stone. 1987.
SAOC 42. The Road to Kadesh: A Historical Interpretation of the Battle Reliefs of King Sety I at Karnak. W. J. Murnane. Originally published in 1985.
SAOC 42, 2nd Edition. The Road to Kadesh: A Historical Interpretation of the Battle Reliefs of King Sety I at Karnak, 2nd Edition. W. J. Murnane. Originally published in 1990.
SAOC 40. Ancient Egyptian Coregencies. By William J. Murnane. Originally published in 1977.
SAOC 39. Studies in Honor of George R. Hughes, January 12, 1977. J. H. Johnson and E. F. Wente, eds. Originally published in 1976.
SAOC 38. The Demotic Verbal System. Janet H. Johnson. Second printing, with corrections, 2004.
SAOC 37. The Book of the Dead or Going Forth by Day: Ideas of the Ancient Egyptians Concerning the Hereafter as Expressed in Their Own Terms. Translated by Thomas George Allen. Originally published in 1974.
SAOC 35. Studies in Honor of John A. Wilson. E. B. Hauser, ed.. Originally published in 1969.
SAOC 34. A Study of the Ba Concept in Ancient Egyptian Texts. By Louis V. Zabkar. Originally published in 1968.
SAOC 33. Late Ramesside Letters. By Edward F. Wente. Originally published in 1967.
SAOC 31. Prehistoric Investigations in Iraqi Kurdistan. R. J. Braidwood and B. Howe. 1960.
SAOC 30. Wall Scenes from the Mortuary Chapel of the Mayor Paser at Medinet Habu. Siegfried Schott. Translated By Elizabeth B. Hauser. 1957.
SAOC 28. Saite Demotic Land Leases. George Robert Hughes. 1952.
SAOC 27. Occurrences of Pyramid Texts with Cross Indexes of These and Other Egyptian Mortuary Texts. Thomas George Allen. 1950.
SAOC 26. The Calendars of Ancient Egypt. Richard A. Parker. 1950.
SAOC 20. Animal Remains from Tell Asmar. Max Hilzheimer. 1941.
SAOC 19. The Coregency of Ramses II with Seti I and the Date of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak. Keith C. Seele. 1940.
SAOC 16. The Monasteries of the Fayyum. Nabia Abbott. 1937.
SAOC 12. Historical Records of Ramses III: The Texts in Medinet Habu Volumes 1 and 2, Translated With Explanatory Notes. William F. Edgerton and John A. Wilson. 1936.
SAOC 8. The Thutmosid Succession. William F. Edgerton. 1933.
SAOC 5. A New Inscription of Xerxes from Persepolis. Ernst E. Herzfeld. 1932.
SAOC 1. Notes on Egyptian Marriage Chiefly in the Ptolemaic Period. William F. Edgerton. 1931.

Miscellaneous Publications | List of volumes in print

Egypt through the Stereoscope: A Journey through the Land of the Pharaohs. By James Henry Breasted. Originally published Underwood & Underwood in 1908.
The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, Volume I: The Chapels of Osiris, Isis and Horus. Copied by Amice M. Calverley, with the assistance of Myrtle F. Broome, and edited by Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1933.
The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, Volume II: The Chapels of Amen-Re', Re'-Harakhti, Ptah, and King Sethos. Copied by Amice M. Calverley, with the assistance of Myrtle F. Broome, and edited by Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1935.
The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, Volume III: The Osiris Complex. Copied by Amice M. Calverley, with the assistance of Myrtle F. Broome, and edited by Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1938.
The Temple of King Sethos I at Abydos, Volume IV: The Second Hypostyle Hall. Copied by Amice M. Calverley, with the assistance of Myrtle F. Broome, and edited by Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1958.
Letters from Egypt and Iraq, 1954. Margaret Bell Cameron. 2001.
Uch Tepe II: Technical Reports. McG. Gibson, ed. 1990.
Uch Tepe I: Tell Razuk, Tell Ahmed Al-Mughir, Tell Ajamat. McG. Gibson, ed. 1987.
Egyptology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. 1984.
Persepolis and Ancient Iran. 1976.
Early Hydraulic Civilization in Egypt: A Study in Cultural Ecology. Karl W. Butzer. 1976.
United with Eternity: A Concise Guide to the Monuments of Medinet Habu. William J. Murnane. With a foreword by Kent R. Week. 1976.
The 1905–1907 Breasted Expeditions to Egypt and The Sudan. 1975.
The Uruk Countryside: The Natural Setting of Urban Societies. Robert McC. Adams and Hans J. Nissen. 1972.
Signs and Wonders upon Pharaoh: A History of American Egyptology. John A. Wilson. 1964.
Flights Over Ancient Cities of Iran. Erich F. Schmidt. 1940.
Quseir Al-Qadim 1978: Preliminary Report. By D. S. Whitcomb and J. H. Johnson. Originally published in 1979.
Ancient Textiles from Nubia: Meroitic, X-Group, and Christian Fabrics from Ballana and Qustul. By Christa C. Mayer Thurman and Bruce Williams. Originally published in 1979.
Most Ancient Egypt. By William C. Hayes. Originally published in 1965.
When Egypt Ruled the East. By George Steindorff and Keith C. Seele, Revised by Keith C. Seele. Originally published as second edition in 1957.
The Culture of Egypt. By John A. Wilson. Originally published in 1956.
Kingship and the Gods: A Study of Ancient Near Eastern Religion as the Integration of Society and Nature. By Henri Frankfort. Originally published in 1948.
Ancient Egyptian Paintings Selected, Copied, and Described. Volume I: Descriptive Text. By Nina M. Davies with the Editorial Assistance of Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1936.
Ancient Egyptian Paintings Selected, Copied, and Described. Volume II: Descriptive Text. By Nina M. Davies with the Editorial Assistance of Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1936.
Ancient Egyptian Paintings Selected, Copied, and Described. Volume III: Descriptive Text. By Nina M. Davies with the Editorial Assistance of Alan H. Gardiner. Originally published in 1936.
The Burden of Egypt: An Interpretation of Ancient Egyptian Culture. By John A. Wilson. Originally published in 1951.
Quseir al-Qadim 1980: Preliminary Report. By Donald S. Whitcomb and Janet H. Johnson. Originally published in 1982.
Egyptology at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. The Oriental Institute. Originally published in 1983.
Lost Egypt, Volumes I. A Limited Edition Portfolio Series of Photographic Images from Egypt’s Past. The Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Originally published in 1992.
Lost Egypt, Volumes II. A Limited Edition Portfolio Series of Photographic Images from Egypt’s Past. The Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Originally published in 1992.
Lost Egypt, Volumes III. A Limited Edition Portfolio Series of Photographic Images from Egypt’s Past. The Epigraphic Survey of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Originally published in 1992.
Mesopotamian Directory 2009.
Database of Late Old Babylonian personal names derived from cuneiform texts chiefly dating to the reigns of the last three kings of the First Dynasty of Babylon, 1683-1595 B.C.
Pioneer to the Past: The Story of James Henry Breasted, Archaeologist, Told by His Son Charles Breasted. By Charles Breasted. Reprint of the Charles Scribner's Sons 1943 Edition with New Foreword and Photographs. Published in 2009.
Oriental Institute Museum Photo Archives Database [Enter as "guest"]

Oriental Institute Annual Reports

1991-1992 Annual Report - 2008-2009 Annual Report.

Oriental Institute News & Notes

Oriental Institute's on-line Photographic Archives (online only)

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Charles Ellwood Jones (AWOL: The Ancient World Online): Open Access Publication: The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Letter P

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-29T16:32:32+00:00

The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago

As part of its ELECTRONIC PUBLICATIONS ON-LINE, the Oriental Institute Publications Office announces an additional letter, P, for the Chicago Demotic Dictionary, edited by Janet H. Johnson. This document is available as an Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) file.

Letters completed to date include:

Completed Letters	Download
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Problematic Entries	Download PDF Terms of Use
Problematic Entries 2	Download PDF Terms of Use

For a listing of all Oriental Institute publications available online see: AWOL - The Ancient World Online - 2: The Oriental Institute Electronic Publications Initiative

Charles Ellwood Jones (AWOL: The Ancient World Online): Open Access Publications of the National Museum of Romanian History

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-29T15:58:47+00:00

Muzeul Naţional de Istorie a României
Publicaţii

Monografii
Crişan Muşeţeanu în colaborare cu Dan Elefterescu, Ateliere ceramice romane de la Durostorum,

Teze de doctorat

Cristina Anton Manea, Structura şi restructurarea marii boierimi din Ţara Românească de la începutul secolului al XVI-LEA până la mijlocul secolului al XVII-LEA, 2003

Valentin Radu , Exploitation des ressources aquatiques dans les cultures néolithiques et chalcolithiques de la Roumanie Méridionale, 2003

Paul Cristian Damian , Geto-dacii în configuraţia demografică a Daciei Romane, 2002

Eugen S. Teodor , Ceramica din Muntenia, de la sfârşitul veacului al V-lea până la mijlocul veacului al VII-lea, 2001

Rapoarte

Raport anual, 2007

Raport anual, 2006

Raport anual, 2008

Roger Pearse (Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, and more): Difficult decisions or discrimination at Oxford centre for Jewish studies

Roger Pearse — 2010-07-29T15:54:51+00:00

There is a curious news report in the Daily Telegraph today here, reprinted at VirtueOnline here. There is also a Telegraph blog by Damian Thompson here.

Oxford University lecturer ‘discriminated against’ after converting to Christianity
A lecturer at Oxford University’s centre for Jewish studies claims colleagues discriminated against her after she converted to Christianity.

Dr Tali Argov says she was overlooked for promotion, stripped of her privileges and cold-shouldered at social gatherings.

She says staff wanted to vet her lectures to make sure that, as a Christian, she would not criticise Israel.

Eventually she claims she was made redundant from her post at the prestigious Oxford Centre for Hebrew & Jewish Studies, despite offering to take on new roles.

Dr Argov is claiming unfair dismissal and discrimination on grounds of religion or belief at Reading Employment tribunal.

I only know what the news report says. Naturally I am opposed to discrimination against Christians, because I am one. But I have mixed feelings about all this.

My first response is to wonder why someone following a religion founded by a Jew cannot hold a post at a centre dedicated to Jewish studies. Presumably the idea is that anyone who becomes a Christian ceases to be a Jew, and that only Jews can hold posts at the centre. This seems a little extreme, unless the centre is really dedicated to studying Judaism, rather like a theological college. It would be quite understandable in the last case that staff should share a certain ethos.

On the other hand, I can’t help feeling that people should be able to employ who they want to. In particular Jewish groups which support Israel are unpopular with the political establishment in the UK, and need to organise themselves to rebut a great deal of obstruction. Shouldn’t they be able to ensure that they’re all singing from the same songsheet?

And there is yet another aspect to this. This is Britain. English Christians are a mild lot, even the most evangelical of us. We do not wear suicide belts. Christianity has been part of the University of Oxford since its beginning (despite various expulsions and harassment in periods of moral decay). Is having a CofE member in the centre really that radical?

In the pyramid of privileged groups that the establishment has erected in modern Britain, Christians are plankton. They really do get targetted by the nastier sort of bureaucrat. But Jewish groups, which have been more privileged, are sliding down the chain and starting to get the same treatment. Most Christians are pro-Israel, for obvious reasons. Is there no way that Christians and Jews can work together?

I have no answers. I have a feeling that no-one will come out of this well. And … I am quite sure that the full story is not in the newspaper article. But well done to the Daily Telegraph for reporting this story.

Tom Goskar (Past Thinking): The Science of Noah’s Ark

Tehmina Goskar — 2010-07-29T15:53:19+00:00

Noah's Ark from Marxchivist

After ages, a meaty debate has been developing on the Group for Education in Museums Jiscmail list. It centred around an initial post by Richard Ellam on the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (CLOtC) decision to award their quality badge to Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm. On balance the response from list members has been hostile towards CLOtC’s decision, and highly critical of the educational value of Noah’s Ark Zoo Farm. The gist being that, although much of the publicity about Noah’s Ark claims to offer the learner/visitor the opportunity to both consider creationism (perhaps that should be Capital C Creationism?) and evolution as theories/evidence for the origins of Earth, humans and other animals, Noah’s Ark’s real agenda is to promote Creationism over science (perhaps that should be Capital S Science?) or worse, to give the illusion that Creationism is Science. You can read the responses here and other responses here.

My interest in the debate really did not spring from a desire to tell others what I thought of the decision to award a quality badge to an organisation such as Noah’s Ark but to raise the issue of what we as learners and educators (particularly in museum settings) consider to be good learning and education and the problems we have in over-categorising learning, for example, separating Science and Non-Science (e.g. Creationism belongs in Religious Education not Science). To avoid repeating myself, I have posted my contribution to this debate below but it can also be read in the list archives here.

This debate has also reminded me that long ago I promised some posts on museums as sacred spaces, and as such I have thought an awful lot about it but not yet blogged about it. This might be considered a prelude, then. Can museums cope with presenting Knowledge as Belief as well as Belief as Knowledge?

—–
Message sent Thursday 29 July 2010.

Dear all,

I have read this debate with an enormous amount of interest, not for the points about whether Noah’s Ark is a good or bad thing (however you decide to decide this) but for the problem it has raised over how we go about categorising our information into science and non-science. I have very many scientist friends and family, most of them always questioning what exactly it is we _know_ from empirical measurement and observation and what exactly it is we don’t know and just estimate or guess at. And yet the uncertainties of modern western science are not always presented to the public in whatever forum (and we don’t really question this).

Where subjects like creationism (yet another -ism many learning providers deal poorly with of whatever persuasion) ‘fit in’, is to me a non-issue. Fora should exist where scientific, evolutionary elements of human and earth history are discussed with creationisms, beyond the nutsy approach taken by Noah’s Ark. I am sure they have existed in some places, why don’t we see or hear more of them so sites like Noah’s Ark can be shown up for what they really are? We don’t need to patronise all members of the public, young or old, by worrying that they are going to be misled even if they read misleading information.

Where we came from is a fundamental question we have all asked, particularly as children. Empirical science does not know everything and there is no capacity to know what you don’t know. All those unknown unknowns. Similarly, the kind of biblical creationism we most often hear about in the media is only one (and often skewed) interpretation of a world view held by people past and present; what about all the other creation stories (see Sumerian for example), some of which echo has later been discovered through the theory of evolution, or theories of evolution, should that be?

Learning and education quality marks are subjective, no matter how many guidelines and parameters you set, as the subject matter is inescapable. I cannot see how you can be neutral about the subject of learning. If one was to give the cliched example of, ‘what about if the BNP had an education programme’… etc… what would those respondents who said that the assessment of learning quality should be neutral think then? Why do we have to think so mechanically about learning and its categories? Surely learning outside the classroom should break out of the constraints of the National Curriculum which itself has been shown to be a more than imperfect way of teaching in many subjects, overly compartmentalised, and lacking the encouragement of individual thought and analysis in some areas.

In short, what this debate so far has shown me is that what really needs discussing is not whether creationism as science is a wolf in sheep’s clothing but whether as learners and educators ourselves we have stopped to question our massive assumptions about both.

I suspect this is a gauntlet that no one will pick up ;-)

Bill Caraher (The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World): Punk and Spolia

William Caraher — 2010-07-29T15:48:20+00:00

Over the last week or so, I've been listening again to the Detroit Cobras and thinking about some of our first conversations on Punk Archaeology. The Cobras specialize in what they have called "revved up soul". They make this wonderful noise by covering (mostly) lost classics of the MoTown era over the driving rhythms of punk and the fuzzy, distorted lo-fi sound of the punk blues movement. Rachel Nagy's voice succeeds at being both smooth and abrasive at the same time. Some critics have called their sound "Garage Soul".

Their first album, Mink, Rat or Rabbit covered songs by 1950s and early 1960s bands like The Marvelettes, The Shirelles, Irma Thomas, The "5" Royales, and The Shangri-Las. Later albums continue this tradition. (They're first two albums - Mink, Rat or Rabbit and Life, Love and Learning - are, to my ear, their best. (Notice the absence of the "Oxford comma" in both titles.)

The point of mentioning this somewhat obscure band is to consider the relationship between punk and spolia. Spolia is a technical archaeological term for the re-use older fragments of architecture in new construction. It is typically associated with Late Antiquity and was initially regarded by critics steeped in the Classical Tradition as indicative of the lose of technical skills and economic impoverished conditions at the end of Antiquity. Other saw the use of spolia as a conscious decision on the part of Late Antique builders and, at worst, reflective of a taste for a discordant, disorganized, and, ultimately, decadent aesthetic.

Of course hip-hop music withstood similar criticisms as they cut up and sampled R&B classics to form rhythmic backdrop for their poetry. Such reuse of earlier material was unoriginal and indicative of a kind of creative bankruptcy among "today's generation". Punk took their lead from pop music which they sped up and made more up-tempo, raucous and chaotic. The Cobras occupy a third space recently developed by bands like the White Stripes and the Black Keys where punk, R&B, and blues infused with the DIY, lo-fy sound of the garage (which represents a more austere and suburban version of the venerable lo-fy Juke Joint).

The epicenter of this music has been Detroit (or the Rust Belt more broadly) where the punk of the MC Five and the blues Son House and John L. Hooker intersect. The music here has tremendous symbolic significance, as Detroit has become emblematic of the decline of "traditional America" and images of the ruinous conditions of the factories have become images of the decline of America's fortunes as a manufacturing power. The photographs are archaeological in their attention to detail and the need to accommodate history.

The music of the Detroit Cobras provide a counterpoint to the haunting, archaeological photographs of abandoned Detroit. Fragments of the city's earlier days come through in their music, but rather than critique the declining fortunes of America's industrial heartland, the music calls forth the continued vitality of those days in much the same way that spolia maintained a conscious connection with earlier architecture.

The archaeological impulse in of punk rock of the Detroit Cobras reveals a kind of native archaeology of the American city which draws backwards on its unique history to produce critical memory. Such work is the work of archaeologists both of the past and the present who sought to communicate something meaningful from the fragments of the past that remained visible in their present. The spolia preserved in the music of the Detroit Cobras presents a musical museum in much the same way that the fragments of the past in produce meaning in the context of a physical museum today or in the context of monumental architecture in Late Antiquity.

Charles Ellwood Jones (AWOL: The Ancient World Online): Open Access Journal: Annales d’Université „Valahia” Târgoviste. Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-29T15:35:57+00:00

Annales d’Université „Valahia” Târgoviste. Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire

The magazine Annales d’Université „Valahia” Târgovişte. Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire has appeared since 1999, representing an opportunity to valorize the research work of the academic staff from the History-Archeology Department, and also a chance to valorize the research work of the young teaching staff who carry out their activity at the Research Centers accredited by CNCSIS – „Preistorie, arheologie interdisciplinară şi conservarea patrimoniului cultural mobil” (Prehistory, Interdisciplinary Archeology and Conservation of the Movable Cultural Patrimony) and Centrul de Cercetare al Istoriei Relaţiilor Internaţionale „Grigore Gafencu” (The “Grigore Gafencu” Center for the Research of the History of the International Relations). For objective (especially financial) reasons, in order to maintain our quality standards, from the moment when the Annals of “Valahia” University began to appear on sections, sometimes we have published the results of two years of researches in a single tome, trying to preserve the continuity of the publication. Beginning with 2008, the magazine will appear with two annual issues. The themes have remained constant throughout the issues that were published so far in the domain of history and archeology, always covering all the historical periods – prehistory and archeology, history and archeology of the Middle Ages, modern and contemporary history. The structure of our magazine maintained its classical form: Articles and studies; Notes and Debates; Reviews. The standards of quality have been ensured by the presence in the Publishing Team and Advisory Board of the most representative personalities in the domain of research for each historical period, from Romania and abroad, in the sense that each contribution was submitted to the appreciation of the members of the magazine’s Publishing Team and Advisory Board by means of specialized reviews. The articles and studies published in the Annales d’Université „Valahia” Târgovişte, Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire have been published integrally in a language of large international circulation (English, French, German, Italian), having a permanent scientific impact, in the sense that they have often been quoted in the studies of our colleagues from Romania and abroad. At the same time, Annales d’Université Valahia Targoviste, Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire have been included in several international databases. The magazine is remarkable for its extremely original contributions in the domain of prehistoric archeology, produced by a school that has been acknowledged in its domain and whose results have been appreciated not just nationally but also internationally, given the fact that it has carried out many research programs in collaboration with numerous universities from Europe, like those from Liège, Bordeaux I, Aix-en-Provence, the Musée de l’Homme and the Institute of Human Paleontology from Paris, Erlanger and Köln University from Germany etc. The results of such researches have often been the topic of articles included in the Annales d’Université „Valahia” Targoviste, Section d’Archéologie et d’Histoire. At the same time, in this magazine can be found studies of many of our colleagues from other universities from Romania and abroad. The magazine is present in the libraries of many universities from Europe and the U.S.A., in most of the universities from Romania where there is the specialization History and in the libraries of history museums, and of other institutions with which we have had a permanent exchange, which has led to the improvement of the patrimony of publications of “Valahia” University Târgovişte.

List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

Research News in Late Antiquity: Individuality in Late Antiquity, Oxford, 21-22 September 2010

Researchnewsinla admin — 2010-07-29T15:22:19+00:00

Source : Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity.

Conference

Individuality in Late Antiquity

Tuesday 21 - Wednesday 22 September 2010

at Trinity College, Oxford

Start time (21st): 9.00am ; End time (22nd): 7.00pm

Speakers include:

Christoph Markschies (Berlin)

Julie Brumberg-Chaumont (Paris)

Riccardo Chiaradonna (Rome)

Mark Edwards (Oxford)

Christophe Erismann (Helsinki)

Wilhelm Gräb (Berlin)

Yannis Papadogiannakis (Oxford)

Marwan Rashed (Paris)

Alexis Torrance (Oxford)

Gyburg Uhlmann (Berlin)

Johannes Zachhuber (Oxford)

Registration is Free.

Half-board Accommodation at Trinity College from 20th-23rd September can be arranged. Cost approximately £200.

To register, and for help arranging accommodation, please contact Alexis Torrance:

alexis.torrance@chch.ox.ac.uk

Deadline for registration: August 1st 2010

This conference is part of the Individuality in Context Project at Humboldt University, Berlin.

Lillian Joyce (Excavate: North Alabama AIA Society): Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?

Stephen Waring — 2010-07-29T14:05:09+00:00

Dead Sea Scrolls Mystery Solved?

Charles Ellwood Jones (AWOL: The Ancient World Online): Open Access Egyptology from Waseda University

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-29T13:57:15+00:00

[Originally posted 6/10/10. Revised 7/29/10]

Institute of Archaeology, Waseda University, Tokyo
Publications

MONOGRAPHS

Series of Studies in Egyptian Culture
No.1 The Excavations at Malkata-south 1972-1980, 1985
No.2 The Human Mummies from the 1983 Excavations at Qurna, Egypt, 1985
No.3 Das Sanktuar Amenophis, III im Luxor-Tempel, 1986
No.4 Ancient Human Mummies from Qurna, Egypt, 1986
No.5 The Architecture of “Kom el Samak” at Malkata-south -A Study of Architectural Restoration-,
1986
No.6 Non-Destructive Pyramid Investigation(1) -By Electromagnetic Wave Method-, 1987
No.7 Ancient Human Mummies from Qurna, Egypt II, 1988
No.8 Non-Destructive Pyramid Investigation(2), 1988
No.9 Monitoring Plan and Practical Design Concept for the Restoration of the Great Sphinx through the First International Symposium on the Great Sphinx towards Global Treatment of the Sphinx, Cairo, 29 February-3 March 1992, 1992
No.10 A Survey of the Tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Pictorial Report, 2000

The First International Symposium on the Application of Modern Technology to Archaeological Explorations at the Giza Necropolis - The Substance of Speech, 1987
Comparative Studies of Noble Tombs in Theban Necropolis - Tomb Nos. 8, 38, 39, 48, 50, 54, 57, 63, 64, 66, 74, 78, 89, 90, 91, 107, 120, 139, 147, 151, 181, 201, 253, 295, 1988

Conservation of the Wall Paintings in the Royal Tomb of Amenophis III -First and Second Phases Report-, 2004

Excavating in Egypt for 40 years Waseda University Expedition 1966-2006: A Special Exhibition of Japanese archaeological discoveries in Egypt in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo, 2009

PRELIMINARY REPORTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS

Abusir South
‘Waseda University Excavations at North Saqqara: A Preliminary Report on the First Three Seasons,
   December 1991 – September 1993’, 1997 (link to Journal Archive)
‘Waseda University Excavations at North Saqqara: A Preliminary Report on the Fourth to Sixth
   Seasons, August 1995 – September 1997’, 1999 (link to Journal Archive)
‘Waseda University Excavations in Egypt and Recent Works at North Saqqara,’ in Hawass, Z. (ed.),
   Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century, vol. 1, Cairo, 2003
‘A Sacred Hillside at Northwest Saqqara: A Preliminary Report on the Excavations 2001-2003,’
   MDAIK 61, 2005.
‘Neue Entdeckungen im Nordwesten Sakkaras, Eine Grabkapelle aus dem Neuen Reich und das Grab
   der Isisnofret,’ Sokar 19, 2009.

Dahshur North
‘Preliminary Report of the General Survey at Dahshur North, Egypt’, 1997
‘Preliminary Report of Excavations at Dahshur North, Egypt-1st and 2nd Field Seasons-’, 1998
‘Preliminary Report of Excavations at Dahshur North, Egypt-3rd Field Season-’, 1998
‘Preliminary Report of Excavations at Dahshur North, Egypt,-4th-6th Field Seasons, 2000
‘Preliminary Report of Excavations at Dahshur North, Egypt,-7th Field Season, 2001
‘Preliminary Report of the Waseda University Excavations at Dahshur North-10th Season-, 2005
Khufu's Second Boat
Leaflet of the project

Dorothy King (PhDiva): HMS Investigator, Ship Lost For More Than 150 Years, Recovered In Canada

Dorothy King — 2010-07-29T13:56:47+00:00

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/blackberry/p.html?id=662813

Dorothy King (PhDiva): Real Bear Rescues Stuffed Bear

Dorothy King — 2010-07-29T13:55:36+00:00

http://m.gawker.com/5599356/black-bear-feasts-inside-home-rescues-stuffed-bear-on-way-out

Hee hee

Blogging Pompeii: Current World Archaeology: news from Herculaneum

Sarah Court — 2010-07-29T13:42:00+00:00

Look out for the new issue of Current World Archaeology - the website is not yet quite updated, but I have a copy of the August/September edition and can confirm that the highlight is surely two articles on Herculaneum:) (I may be somewhat biased, but we've tried to share some of the unseen results of the conservation project - and they are fun!)

The issue is actually an interesting overview of projects linked to the British School at Rome, so other articles look at Portus, Ostia, Castelporziano, the Tiber Valley, etc.

David Meadows (rogueclassicism): Jade Figure from Viminacium?

rogueclassicist — 2010-07-29T13:31:08+00:00

Blic has the story … here’s the important bits:

Director of Archaeological Park Viminacium, Miomir Korac, has said for Tanjug while major excavation was taking place at the Roman amphitheatre site at Viminacium, a sculpture made of jade and of excellent craftsmanship was discovered.

“Only a few days ago we had the discovery of jade figurine more than 35 centimetres long, but this one, just like that first one, is unfortunately not complete. What is fascinating, though, is that it’s made out of one piece and of jade and that the craftsmanship is excellent. This points to the fact the workshop must have been at this very place,” said Korac.

Korac pointed out the latest sculpture shows signs of meticulous work of a master, but that the figurine’s head has not been preserved, neither has its lower torso. The archaeological digging is still under way and Korac hopes further finds at the site will reveal the identity of the master.

Korac says that near the site where the jade figurine was discovered in the amphitheatre, a bronze, gilded eagle was found, obviously once perched upon a two-wheeled cart. [...]

via Jade sculpture found at amphitheatre | Blic

The article includes a photo:

from Blic

… which I include so you can see that the subject matter is definitely Roman. Now I know what you’re thinking … this piece of jade must have been imported from the East and that’s definitely a possibility, but I find it a bit odd that if there were importations of jade going on that we’d only find it being rarely used in sculptures(off the top of my head, I can only think of a helmet from Dura Europos which had some sort of jade detail) … if you’re trading something potentially valuable, you tend to bring a lot of it, no? In any event, and without getting into the differences between nephrite and jadeite, I bring this up because ages ago I had to do some research about jade for a term paper, and was semi-surprised to learn that there are plenty of examples of jade objects in Europe from Paleolithic and/or Neolithic times and there was quite a debate in the nineteenth century about the origin of it (i.e., with the implication that Paleolithic types were trading with the Far East!). As the debate evolved, it emerged that there was evidence for scattered deposits of jade in various places in Europe (in Switzerland, especially) – a reasonable, if dated, summary can be found in:

F. W. Rudler, “On the Source of the Jade Used for Ancient Implements in Europe and America,” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 20, (1891), 332 ff

… for the jade helmet detail from Dura Europos (which I’ve since tracked down again and which is said to have come from Turkmenistan), see:

Simon James, “Evidence from Dura Europos for the Origins of Late Roman Helmets,” Syria, T. 63, Fasc. 1/2 (1986), p. 121.

… whatever the case, they should be able to do a chemical analysis to determine the source of the jade …

UPDATE (a few hours later): Max Nelson kindly reminds me:

In the article you cite, Simon James does not mention a jade helmet piece but a jade sword piece. More details can be found in Simon James’s Excavations at Dura-Europos 1928-1937, Final Report VII: The Arms and Armor and Other Military Equipment (The British Museum Press 2004), esp. pp. 142 and 151, in which he shows that the jade disc pommel for a sword was found in tower 19 in Dura-Europos. It may have come from a Sasanian weapon held by a Persian attacker; the stone itself may have come from Chinese Turkestan.

… mea culpa, mea culpa … misremembering it because of the title of the article.

Dorothy King (PhDiva): Ancient Egyptian Socks

Dorothy King — 2010-07-29T13:00:28+00:00

Englishmen are notorious for wearing socks with sandals in summer. So, it seems, were Egyptians, if these c. 300 AD socks found in a tomb outside Oxyrhynchus are anything to go by. One major difference - the ancients went for bifurcate socks to accomodate the thong ... And some rather less conservative colours! I can just imagine Antony traipsing around Alexandria in a pair, although he probably would have chosen Imperial purple?

Dis Manibus (VSLM): Tombs of Buganda Kings inscribed on the List of WH in Danger

Dis Manibus — 2010-07-29T12:37:40+00:00

From UNESCO WHC: The World Heritage Committee holding its 34th session chaired by João Luiz da Silva Ferreira, the Minister of Culture of Brazil, has inscribed the Tombs of Buganda Kings at Kasubi (Uganda) on the List of World Heritage in Danger. The Committee also decided to remove the Galapagos Islands (Ecuador) from this List. [...]

David Meadows (rogueclassicism): This Day in Ancient History: ante diem iv kalendas sextilias

rogueclassicist — 2010-07-29T12:15:30+00:00

ante diem iv kalendas sextilias

ludi Victoriae Caesaris (day 10)
67 A.D./C.E. — fighting in Jerusalem between pro-surrender-to-the-Romans groups and their counterparts; the former set fire to some food supplies which apparently contributed to the fall of the city three years later (!) (need to track this one down)
ca. 260 — martyrdom of Lucilla and companions

Kate Phizackerley (News from the Valley of the Kings): Tombs of Karakhamun, Karabasken and Irtieru

Kate Phizackerley — 2010-07-29T11:39:43+00:00

Jane Akshar has been fortunate enough to visit the excavation site of these late period tombs in South Asasif (that's on the Theban West Bank fairly near to the Valley of the Kings) and has provided a report on her blog.

Kate Phizackerley (News from the Valley of the Kings): Another Ancient Egypt Site

Kate Phizackerley — 2010-07-29T11:34:39+00:00

I've just connected with Antonio Crasto on Facebook and I'd like to suggest his site to anybody who hasn't seen it. There are some pictures for everybody and some articles that look very interesting. Sadly they are in Italian but if you can read Italian they look to be well worth the effort covering subjects like Marfans Syndrome, and Egyptian Calendars.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): Teeth

Andie — 2010-07-29T11:01:43+00:00

Apologies for the lack of posts this week - I've had toothache. Two and a half years ago I had to go to the dentist to get a molar rebuilt. If I was sorry for myself then I am even sorrier for myself this week because I have had to have the same tooth drilled out for a root canal job - of which only half has been done and I am up for a rematch next Monday. Ugh. Why anyone as nice as my dentist would want to become a dentist I really don't know but he assures me that he had the vocational urge from childhood.

Anyway, the last time that I went through this particular nightmare I posted a set of links to dentistry in Ancient Egypt, which you can find here.

Since then there has been a major reveiw in the Journal of Comparative Human Biology of over 3000 mummy analyses (summarized on the Discovery Channel website by Rossella Lorenzi) which shows that dental problems were a common feature of life in Egypt:

Worn teeth, periodontal diseases, abscesses and cavities tormented the ancient Egyptians, according to the first systematic review of all studies performed on Egyptian mummies in the past 30 years.

After examining research of more than 3,000 mummies, anatomists and paleopathologists at the University of Zurich concluded that 18 percent of all mummies in case reports showed a nightmare array of dental diseases.

"Evidence of dental disorders is plentiful because usually teeth are among the best preserved parts of a body. As for other diseases, the published studies do not always provide in-depth details. Nevertheless, we came across some interesting findings," senior author and medical doctor Frank Ruhli, head of the Swiss Mummy Project at the University of Zurich, told Discovery News.

There's also a complete article about analysis of nine human skulls, including dentition, complete with scan photos, entitled Head and Skull Base Features of Nine Egyptian Mummies: Evaluation with High-Resolution CT and Reformation Techniques by Heidi Hoffman and Patricia A. Hudgins on the American Journal of Roentgenology.

There's a whole chapter on Egyptian dental problems and dental surgery in Joyce Filer's book Disease, which quite makes my hair stand on end. Fascinating stuff though!

Finally, here are some health and beauty tips from Paula Veiga - wise lessons learned from ancient Egypt!

All I can say is that if I am a basket-case about dental work in this day and age I simply wouldn't have survived ancient times anywhere on the planet. It's the first time I've felt any real sort of emphathy with the likes of Ramesses II whose teeth must have been giving him serious pain at the time of his death.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): Donkey DNA

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:52:40+00:00

EurekAlert

Genetic investigators say the partnership between people and the ancestors of today's donkeys was sealed not by monarchs trying to establish kingdoms, but by mobile, pastoral people who had to recruit animals to help them survive the harsh Saharan landscape in northern Africa more than 5,000 years ago.

The findings, reported today by an international research team in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, paint a surprising picture of what small, isolated groups of people were able to accomplish when confronted with unpredictable storms and expanding desert.

"It says those early people were quite innovative, more so than many people today give them credit for," said senior author Connie J. Mulligan, Ph.D., an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Florida and associate director of the UF Genetics Institute. "The domestication of a wild animal was quite an intellectual breakthrough, and we have provided solid evidence that donkey domestication happened first in northern Africa and happened there more than once."

Sorting through the most comprehensive sampling of mitochondrial DNA ever assembled from ancient, historic and living specimens, scientists determined that the critically endangered African wild ass -- which today exists only in small numbers in eastern Africa, zoos and wildlife preserves -- is the living ancestor of the modern donkey.

What's more, researchers found evidence to suggest that a subspecies called the Nubian wild ass, presumed vanished late in the 20th century, is not only a direct ancestor of the donkey -- it may still exist.

The ancestors of the domestic donkey were considered vital for collecting water, moving desert households and creating the first land-based trade routes between the ancient Egyptians and the Sumerians, according to study co-author Fiona B. Marshall, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): King Tut's Chariot travels to New York

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:52:18+00:00

drhawass.com (Zahi Hawass)

Press Release. When the exhibition visited London I took a friend to see it and he had a number of observations which I posted about in a review at the time, but one of his main criticisms was that the large furnishings, shown in photographs on the walls of the exhibition, were entirely absent.

Mr. Farouk Hosni, Minister of Culture, made a major announcement today that one of King Tutankhamun’s chariots would travel to New York City. This is the first time that a chariot from the tomb of Tutankhamun will be allowed out of Egypt. The High Council of Culture decided to sent the chariot to be part of the Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs exhibit at the Discovery Times Square Exposition. Dr. Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities said that the chariot will arrive in New York City on Wednesday and will be accompanied by a conservator and the Director of the Luxor Musuem, where the chariot is currently displayed.

Hawass stated, “This is the first time that the chariot will travel outside Egypt. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for the people of New York to see something of such great significance from the boy king’s life.” This particular chariot is very unique and stands out among the other five chariots found among Tutankamun’s burial equipment. Howard Carter found the chariot in the south-east corner of the Antechamber along with three other chariots. It is completely lacking in
decoration and has a very light, open sided construction. The tires are also extremely worn, suggesting that this chariot was used frequently in hunting expeditions by the young king. Carter described the chariot as, “of more open, lighter construction probably for hunting or exercising purposes.”

Recently the medical report detailing the testing done on Tutankhamun and members of his family was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The article, “Ancestry and Pathology in King Tutankhamun’s Family” describes how Dr. Hawass and his team uncovered the long-debated members of Tutankahmun’s family, as well as his cause of death. A research team from Hamburg’s Bernhard Noct Institute for Tropical Medicine (BNI) however have disputed the claims that King Tut died of malaria, and instead believe that sickle-cell disease is to blame for his death. While some of the symptoms between malaria and sickle-cell disease are similar, Dr. Hawass and his team, stand behind their findings and reaffirm that Tutankhamun died of complications from malaria and Kohler’s disease, an ailment that effects blood supply to the bones.

During recent CT scans and DNA tests, Hawass and his medical team discovered that King Tutankhamun had an accident a few hours before he died, which caused a fracture in the king’s left leg. This makes the inclusion of Tutankhamun’s chariot to the New York exhibit even more interesting as the young king may have fallen from this very chariot. Hawass added, “As we discover more about Tutankhamun’s death, we may find that this very chariot is an important piece of the puzzle that we’ve been working for decades to solve.”

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): New EES publications

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:51:54+00:00

Egypt Exploration Society

The Society has just released four new publications. They can all be purchased through The Society Bookshop.

I'll have Ian Shaw's book on my Christmas list!

Fred Aldsworth. Qasr Ibrim. The Cathedral Church
EES Excavation Memoir 97. 2010. ISBN: 978-0-85698-1876. Price: £65.00 EES Members’ Price: £55.00

This book records the results of excavations and investigations undertaken by the Egypt Exploration Society between 1963 and 1998 on the largest surviving building, the Cathedral Church, on the significant site of Qasr Ibrim, one of the very few not totally destroyed by inundation following the construction of the Aswan Dam and the creation of Lake Nasser. It sets out the archaeological evidence, which has resulted from excavations and a detailed study of the surviving fabric, and provides an interpretation of that evidence for the construction of the Cathedral Church including its subsequent abandonment and use as a domestic dwelling and then an Ottoman Mosque. It also places the building and the site within the context of Medieval Nubia. This volumes includes a CD-ROM.

David Jeffreys. The Survey of Memphis VII. The Hekekyan Papers and other sources for the Survey of Memphis
EES Excavation Memoir 95. 2010. ISBN: 978-0-85698-192-0. Price: £65.00 EES Members’ Price: £55.00

The site of Memphis preserves the archaeological remains of the first capital of a unified pharaonic Egypt, including the site of the temple of Ptah which gives its name to the city and the country (Hikuptah – Aigyptos – Egypt). The Egypt Explorations Society’s survey of Memphis began in 1981 and has run up to the present. An exceptionally rich textual and pictorial archive is one important source of information available to us, and is presented here, highlighting the work of Joseph Hekekyan, a talented and pioneering archaeologist who worked at Memphis and many other sites in the 1850’s but who is – surprisingly – almost unknown today.

Janine Bourriau. The Survey of Memphis IV. Kom Rabia: The New Kingdom Pottery EES Excavation Memoir 93. 2010. ISBN: 978-0-85698-193-7. Price: £65.00 EES Members’ Price: £55.00

This volume is a study of ceramic change in a stratified settlement at Kom Rabia, Memphis, during the New Kingdom. Ceramic chronology of this period has traditionally relied on pottery associated with dated individuals, usually from burials. In contrast, this study presents quantified evidence from a random sample taken from all contexts. A corpus has been made up for each level or phase. Appendices show the distribution of pottery within single contexts and of types within the sequence. Dating, fabric, surface treatments and shape are described in detail and there is a critical appraisal of the methodology used.

Ian Shaw. Hatnub: Quarrying Travertine in Ancient Egypt EES Excavation Memoir 88. 2010. ISBN: 978-0-85698-187-6. Price: £65.00 EES Members’ Price: £55.00

This book, the fieldwork for which was undertaken between 1984 and 1990, concentrates on the travertine (Egyptian alabaster) quarries at Hatnub, some 25 kilometres southeast of the modern town of Mallawi, in the Eastern Desert of Egypt. Most of the archaeological remains date to the Old and Middle Kingdoms (c.2575-1650 BC), but there was also a significant encampment dating to the New Kingdom (c.1550-1070 BC). The book uses archaeological and textual evidence from Hatnub as a means of addressing some of the social and economic issues relating to ancient Egyptian procurement of materials from remote sites. Among the research questions addressed here are the provisioning and organization of Egyptian quarrying and mining expeditions, the nature of the key groups of workmen involved in quarrying, and the ritualisation of areas of remote, liminal human activity in the pharaonic period.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): Exhibition review: Cleopatra

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:51:09+00:00

Obit (Julia M. Klein)

A better than usual review of the Cleopatra exhibition in Philadelphia. Warning, though - she couldn't resist an Indiana Jones reference!

The Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass, whose adventurous zeal evokes Indiana Jones, is digging for artifacts and the tombs of both Antony and Cleopatra amid the ruins of the temple of Taposiris Magna, about 30 miles west of Alexandria. An equally exuberant French archaeologist, Franck Goddio, has spent nearly two decades planning and leading underwater expeditions off the Egyptian coast. There he has uncovered the sunken remains of ancient Alexandria and the lost cities of Heracleion, a religious center, and Canopus, a site of both religious pilgrimage and erotic revelry.

These discoveries form the core of an over-hyped but still intriguing exhibition titled, “Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt.” The traveling show, premiering at Philadelphia ’s Franklin Institute through Jan. 2, 2011 , has been organized by National Geographic and Arts and Exhibitions International, with cooperation from Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology.

Despite the title, and a hokey audio tour that purports to be narrated by Cleopatra herself, few artifacts in the show can be linked definitively to the queen. The most notable (found near Cairo, in 1904) is probably an ancient scrap of papyrus, describing a tax break for a friend of Mark Antony’s. A scrawled command in Greek – “Make it happen” – is believed by scholars to be in Cleopatra’s own hand.

Most of the 150 or so other artifacts have a murkier provenance, dating to sometime in the Ptolemaic period (304-30 B.C.), or to the Roman period that followed.

Obit is a curious website as a whole: "Death gives life its immediacy. Because we know it will end, we savor and value life all the more. Obit examines life through the lens of death. Whether it’s the loss of a person, a place, an object or an idea, life’s constant change presents an opportunity for examination, discussion and even celebration. By examining the transformations we face, we can understand how the past influences our time and our future. Obit aims to offer a forum for ideas and opinions about life, death, and transition that you will find nowhere else." Interesting idea.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): More re Cleopatra's pearl cocktail

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:50:46+00:00

USA Today

Interview with classicist Prudence Jones.

USA TODAY asked classicist Prudence Jones of Montclair (N.J.) State University to comment on her Classical World study suggesting the ancient Egyptian queen, Cleopatra VII, may have indeed cooked up a cocktail consisting of a pearl dissolved in vinegar, long seen as a Roman myth by scholars. Her responses, by email:

Q. Any general lessons you draw from the study? The ancients seem a little more clever than they were credited by scholars, what do you take away from that?

A: Ancient peoples had a lot of practical scientific knowledge. From Egyptian mummification techniques to poisons to Cleopatra and the pearl, there was a great deal of experience with and observation of natural phenomena. While the reaction between a vinegar and a pearl might not have been called an acid-base reaction, there was a practical understanding that some substances could destroy others.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): A visit to Early Kushite Tombs of South Asasif

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:50:33+00:00

Luxor News Blog (Jane Akshar)

As a bit of background reading do have a look at this link http://www.britishmuseum.org/pdf/Pischikova_a.pdf not only does it fully describe the tomb and general area but it also has some great photographs. Obviously I was not allowed to take any.

After stopping by the inspectors office to be ‘officially cleared’ I made it to the site just after 8. The team are working on three tombs Karakhamun, Karabasken and Irtieru, Karakhamun being the major one and they had been there since 6. When I got there some of them were busy recording and photography a buffalo skull, not quite treasure but it just shows you how archaeology has changed. Belzoni et al would have probably just thrown these things away but everything is recorded, photographed and stored. Digging is a whole different ball game these days.

Andie Byrnes (Egyptology News): Photo for Today - Offering stela of Nes-Henou, Lyon

Andie — 2010-07-29T10:20:47+00:00

Offering stela in the name of Nes-Henou
Old Kingdom
Limestone
Museum of Beaux Arts, Lyon

Paul Barford (Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues): Controversial Sales at Numismatic Convention

Paul Barford — 2010-07-29T10:16:57+00:00

At the 1988 New York International Numismatic Convention a hoard of Apollonia diobol coins came onto the market ("The Black Sea Hoard"). Controversy broke out as it turned out that the coins were all fakes (though the dealers that had bought them continued to deny that for some time). It later turned out that they had been produced in Bulgaria in 1988 (or 1986?) as part of the first wave of Bulgarian fake artefacts to hit western markets.

In 1999 a large quantity of forgeries of Apollonia Pontika drachms were dispersed at the New York International Numismatic Convention. Controversy broke out as it turned out that the coins from this so-called "New York Hoard" were all fakes.

How interesting it is that in two conventions well attended by international numismatists the question of where precisely these coins had “surfaced” from did not arise. I guess they all shrugged their shoulders and accepted the “old collection” explanation for them and walked on. Interesting isn’t it that the only controversy was whether they were real or not and not how they came to be offered openly on sale in the US without anybody asking for evidence that they had been legally obtained and legally exported from Bulgaria. Why not? How interesting that the organizers of the Convention did not try to stop these sales. How many more illegally exported groups of freshly "surfaced" coins are being offered openly on the US market by US dealers quite openly without anyone batting an eyelid? Is this the "freedom" that the ACCG is fighting so strenuously to maintain?

Jim Davila (Paleojudaica.com): Infra-red photography of the DSS

Jim Davila — 2010-07-29T09:57:00+00:00

TECHNOLOGY WATCH: Infra-red photography is being used once again on the Dead Sea Scrolls:

High-tech test of Dead Sea Scrolls under way at Science Museum of Minnesota

By Sharon Schmickle | Published Wed, Jul 28 2010 9:46 am (MinnPost.com)

Since 1947, when a shepherd searching caves near the Dead Sea discovered fragments of ancient texts, scholars have sought ways to study the remarkable discovery — now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls — without damaging the 2,000-year-old documents. That quest continued in St. Paul on Tuesday when delegates from the Israel Antiquities Authority tested a new digital infrared camera system at the Science Museum of Minnesota.

A rare exhibit of the scrolls opened at the museum in March. On Tuesday, one set of scrolls was packed up for return to Jerusalem. A third and final set was delivered and unpacked this week for viewing that can begin next Tuesday, Aug. 3. The exhibit is open through Oct. 24.

[...]

In 1991, the Authority set up a climate-controlled storeroom and laboratory for the scrolls and began the painstaking process of restoring the fragments and detailing their contents. Eventually, the fragments were sewn between two layers of polyester net stretched in acid-free mounts. Those, in turn, were enclosed in a frame made of polycarbonate plates.

So housed, the scrolls were ready to share with the world, including the thousands of people who have lined up at the Science Museum of Minnesota to view them.

The scrolls were photographed in the 1950s. And the texts of most of the scrolls also have been published, although controversy persists over the exact meanings of difficult-to-decipher documents. Images of the scrolls also have been made available online.

Despite the precautions, the deterioration continues.

Now the hope is that this new state-of-the-art imaging system will help strike a balance between preserving the documents and also making high resolution color and infrared images of them available for research.

“With this imaging, there could be a lot more for the scholarly world to see,” Shor said.

Meanwhile, the full array of images could form a basis for detecting even subtle damage. Images from the visible part of the spectrum could, for example, reveal changes in color. And those from narrow bands in the infrared could show other changes in more detail than could be seen with the naked eye.

[...]

More proof that non-intrusive/non-destructive analysis is the way of the future.

Some background on the Minnesota exhibition is here.

Jim Davila (Paleojudaica.com): Cargill on DSS documentary

Jim Davila — 2010-07-29T09:43:00+00:00

ROBERT CARGILL adds his own commentary to that National Geographic documentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls. His comments are very sensible and I agree with most of what he says, although I see no need to postulate that anyone outside the sectarian movement hid scrolls in the caves. Sectarians could have non-sectarian literature in their libraries, either because they liked it or perhaps even because they felt it merited refutation. The origins and purpose of the Copper Scroll are very murky, but I would not rule out the possibility that even it was a sectarian composition.

Jim Davila (Paleojudaica.com): NYU Job: Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Jim Davila — 2010-07-29T09:33:00+00:00

JOB AT NYU:

Position Announcement: Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (Aramaic, Syriac, Arabic)

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University, seeks to make an appointment (tenured or tenure-track, rank open) of a wide-ranging scholar in the languages, literatures, and cultures of the Near East in the Roman, Late Antique, and early Islamic periods. The principal areas of interest should be in the Semitic languages (Aramaic, Syriac, and Arabic, in particular) rather than in Greek, but specialization is less important than broad interests and connections with neighboring regions and cultures. We seek individuals of scholarly distinction whose work will benefit from freedom from departmental structures and who will be stimulated by working closely with colleagues in other disciplines, approaches, periods, or geographical areas and who are committed to helping develop the intellectual life of such a community. Applicants with a history of interdisciplinary exchange are particularly welcome. The Institute’s graduate program emphasizes individual supervision and research seminars. The faculty is involved in choosing a group of visiting researchers each year.

Applications (letter, curriculum vitae, and list of referees) should be made through the NYU online system at www.nyuopsearch.com/applicants/Central?quickFind=50564. Review of candidates will begin on November 1, 2010. For questions, please email Ms. Kathryn Lawson at kathryn.lawson@nyu.edu. New York University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer.

(Via George Kiraz at the Hugoye list.)

Dorothy King (PhDiva): Warburg Institute, Saved From Nazis, Faces Bureaucratic Threat - Bloomberg

Dorothy King — 2010-07-29T08:58:30+00:00

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-20/warburg-institute-saved-from-nazis-battles-bureaucrats-martin-gayford.html

American School of Classical Studies in Athens: News: ΤΟΥ ΕΡΓΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΑΣΚΣΑ «Αναβιώνοντας την Αρχαία Αγορά, τον τόπο που γεννήθηκε η Δημοκρατία»

2010-07-29T08:32:00+00:00

ΤΟΥ ΕΡΓΟΥ ΤΗΣ ΑΜΕΡΙΚΑΝΙΚΗΣ ΣΧΟΛΗΣ ΚΛΑΣΣΙΚΩΝ ΣΠΟΥΔΩΝ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΘΗΝΑ: «Αναβιώνοντας την Αρχαία Αγορά, τον τόπο που γεννήθηκε η Δημοκρατία» - EL0066

Logos Bible Software Blog: Logos Bible Software: The Master Plan

Bob Pritchett — 2010-07-29T08:00:01+00:00

Almost 20 years ago we started Logos Bible Software with the idea of building a tool to help people study the Bible. Over the years Logos has grown from two programmers in a basement with one idea to 200 people offering 10,000 resources for Bible study.

As you can imagine, our mission has changed along the way, too. Today it reads:

To help more people do more and better Bible study.

Okay, so the mission hasn’t changed much; we added some adjectives. We have spent a lot of time on the plan of execution, though, and I thought I should share it with you so you can understand what we’re doing, what we’re going to be doing, and why.

First, the fundamentals:

Logos is all about Bible study. We’ve released software, a paper magazine, and video training materials. We host a conference. We’re on multiple technology platforms. We’re on the desktop and on the web. How does everything fit together? It’s all about Bible study.

Logos leverages technology. We choose projects that leverage our technology expertise. Even if a project isn't software, you can be sure our decision to do it was based on leveraging technology. Of course technology isn’t essential to Bible study; it’s just our particular skill, and a place where we can serve well. We’re following centuries of non-technology-based Bible study tools, and many organizations serve that need well already.

Logos harnesses the network effect. Each e-book we add to our system is extensively tagged and linked to all the others. The scholarly translations and databases we build are both made with and delivered inside our software; the books and articles we commission build on content we offer and help users go deeper with our tools.

Logos is easy. The real work of Bible study is inside the student. We just provide tools and resources, so we need to focus on equipping without obstructing. The easier we make it to get into Bible study, the more people we can encourage to do it. The easier the tools, the more likely people can do better study. Easy means excellent user interface. Easy means elegant design that engages the student. Easy means fantastic customer service so a technical problem or misunderstanding doesn’t get in the way of getting into the Word.

Now, the plan:

Access. An internal joke at Logos goes “If it isn’t in the Passage Guide, it doesn’t exist,” because resources aren’t useful if you can’t find them. Logos Bible Software makes it easy to access the resources in your library when and where you need them. Our “one license, any platform” philosophy means you can access your content on Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, smart phone, and the web. We plan to offer even more interfaces in the future. We are planning task-specific mobile applications that connect to your library and web sites tailored to specific data sets.

Your Logos.com account will let you access your content (and documents you create) wherever you are, with whatever interface you need.

Content. We are planning more content for Bible study. Our scholarly translations and databases already make it easier to study the Bible in Greek and Hebrew; our visual resources are an aid in understanding and teaching others. Behind the scenes, we are building metadata that links content together and improves discoverability. An extensive set of tools lets you create your own content, too, ranging from notes to highlights to sentence diagrams. Synchronization with your Logos.com account connects your content to you, not a specific device.

Community. We study, learn, teach, and share in community with others. We are planning new ways to connect with others around Bible study. We will have ways to collaborate on documents, aids to studying in a group, and tools that help you share the fruit of your study with others. You will be able to link your Logos.com account to multiple groups and choose what you share with the communities important to you. And because we know that Logos Bible Software is itself part of a larger community, we plan new ways to connect our tools with the work of others.

Access, content, and community are interwoven; each both enables and is enabled by the other two. The connection point is your Logos.com account. Already this single login manages your content on multiple platforms and identifies you in communities like the Logos Forums and Sermons.Logos.com. In the future it will be even more valuable. (Is your profile filled in?)

How will this master plan be manifested?

That’s the exciting part: we are going to find out together.

We have some ideas, though, and you can see them starting to come together.

Books.Logos.com shows a content-specific search interface for scanned books from a seminary library. (We plan to link Logos Bible Software 4 to this site in the future.)

Sermons.Logos.com shows how community-created content can be shared with new users on the Internet and (through a section in the Passage Guide) inside Logos Bible Software.

Biblia.com is an alternate interface to most of the content in your digital library that is easy to use over the web. For some users it may be all they need for simple Bible reading; for others it’s a way to check a book when they aren’t at their own computer.

Topics.Logos.com exposes the Logos Controlled Vocabulary to everyone, and lets users contribute web links and share reading lists that will automatically show up in Logos 4.

Almanac.Logos.com lets our community of users search and edit a growing database of information on the Christian world (particularly seminaries, at this point). This database provides a platform for connecting users by school, organization, denomination, and area of interest.

Api.Biblia.com offers the power of Logos Bible Software to other web sites, enabling mashups and creative ideas we never imagined.

And we’re not done. There are new projects coming, and we are experimenting and learning as we go. We need to hear from you about what you need, and your ideas about how we can serve and connect more people who want – who need! – to study the Bible.

I am excited about our “master plan,” and thrilled that we get to play this small part in The Master’s Plan. Thanks for sharing in it with us!

You should follow us on Twitter here.

Paul Barford (Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues): Smashed up bits of Angkor from US Market Given Back

Paul Barford — 2010-07-29T07:31:25+00:00

.
Seven stolen antiquities returned to Cambodia by the United States were handed over in a ceremony on 18th July after being found on the no-questions-asked market there. They included an engraved plinth from the 11th Century weighing nearly 500 pounds and a sandstone carving of a head from the 12th Century (I discussed these pieces here earlier).

The objects had been looted from the Angkor complex in Siem Reap and had arrived in the US after being smuggled through Thailand. Officials of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the Department of Homeland Security recovered the objects in 2008 as part of an operation imaginitively codenamed "Operation Antiquity", a special program to investigate cultural antiquities trafficking from Southeast Asia to the United States. In 2003 the United States and Cambodia had signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) that protects Cambodian artefacts and prevents the import of illegally exported items into the United States. In 2008, the MOU was renewed and expanded to include artefacts from the Bronze Age to the Khmer era. All of the recent batch of returned items are from the Angkor period.

U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns symbolically handed over the pieces to Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Mem San An at a ceremony at the National Museum in Phnom Penh on Sunday, July 18, 2010.

The State Department news releases concentrate on the handing-back ceremony and offer no details whatsoever of in whose hands the items were found in the US or what their intended destination was, nor whether the people who had supplied them were investigated.

Most likely it will never be known from which parts of the monumental complex these "collectable bits" had been taken, Cambodia's past is being shattered by unscrupulous looters who have contacts willing to buy them and smuggle them out to the no-questions-asked foreign markets which provide the financial motor. Instead of smilingly handing back a few bits and bobs American dealers did not manage to sell, maybe the US should be doing something to clean up the no-questions-asked market which allows others like it to pass through without a hitch. Merely handing back a few loose bits for a photo opportunity and chatter away about "international cooperation" is not preventing the ongoing destruction of the archaeological record to fill the needs of one of the world's largest no-questions-asked markets for dug-up and knocked-off "antiquities" in the United States of America.

Photo: Uncle Sam graciously hands out largesse to the little people of the Third World. At a ceremony at the National Museum in Phnom Penh on Sunday, July 18, 2010, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns hands over a sandstone carving to Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Mem San An [Photo: US State Department].

Paul Barford (Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues): "Balanced"? Bibibliographies, the "Looting Question" from the Collectors' viewpoint

Paul Barford — 2010-07-29T07:19:21+00:00

Since he labelled Hugh Jarvis' extensive online bibliography on the "Looting Question" a "disgrace to academic research" which "does not even attempt to address the vast published scope of private and public collector thought on the subject", Wayne Sayles offered to put up a "more balanced" bibliography on the topic to supplement that of Jarvis. He has now carried out that intent:

There are many bibliographies online that highlight the archaeological perspective in the cultural property debate. The bibliography that follows is supplemental to those as it focuses on resources with a more balanced perspective.

More balanced? Judged as a reading list from a US "collectors' rights" lobby group opposed to “archeologie uber alles” as they put it, there is very little here about collecting in the US of archaeological artefacts. There are three or so references to metal detecting in the UK, but nothing about metal detecting in the US (and there is a debate on this over there). Nothing about the debates on pot-digging in the US (such as those emerging from the Blanding case) or arrowheads. So much then for a large part of US "collector thought" on the subject. In fact one learns more about this from Jarvis' bibliography than Sayles'.

It may be argued that the ACCG is all about coin collecting, and elsewhere has a lot to say about the "public benefits of coin collecting". So where is "collector thought" on this reflected in the bibliography? In fact very few of the listed items refer to coins at all (I counted just five), which is rich as this was one of Sayles' specific criticisms of Jarvis.

A dominant theme is texts on the broad theme of how jolly silly US customs regulations on antiquities imports are and a series of legalistic articles, but while - revealingly - this is almost the entire focus of the ACCG's activity, this is actually getting well away from the topic of "looting" isn't it?

There are also an awful lot of "who owns..." texts (presumably referring to the 'other end' of the collectors' supply chain in the 'source countries'). Well, the answer is obvious, we all do, but the key to the argument is how dealers and collectors (private and institutional) come into posession of what they have. The issue here is not ownership per se, but chain of legitimate ownership. There is not a word about any of this in Sayles' bibliography, which perpetuates the manner in which collectors misrepresent the topic of major concern. And I really cannot believe that this means there is NO "collector thought" on this topic.

Also as I predicted earlier Sayles in his bibliography equates museum collecting with private collecting, which is by no means as valid as it might have been a few decades ago.

Then there's the inevitable thread represented by a few works on "the current market is not doing any harm and is good for artefacts" and the somewhat unneccessary what a lot of idiots archaeologists, anthroplogists and all the rest are as they don't know what "culture is" and they are all radical nationalists thread.

Not a single work by ACCG mouthpieces Dave Welsh or John Hooker or the current ACCG President referenced I note. Nor anything on or emerging from the ACE. David Gill notes other obvious omissions. I would add my favourite piece of antiquitist special pleading, Tokely -Parry's Rescuing the Past: The Cultural Heritage Crusade, why is THAT not on Sayles' list (is it because he was put in prison?). Tokely says exactly the same things as the ACCG dealers. Given Sayles' emphasis on his "internationalism", I would also have expected to find here: Roderick J. McIntosh, Téréba Togola and Susan Keech McIntosh, 'The Good Collector and the Premise of Mutual Respect among Nations', African Arts, Vol. 28, No. 4, Special Issue: Protecting Mali's Cultural Heritage (Autumn, 1995), pp. 60-69+110-112 , and reprinted elsewhere. I am sure it would not be so difficult to find other notable omissions.

And all but one of the references Sayles cited are in English, as if there were no "collector thought" on the international market anywhere else in the world .I find it very odd that some of the entries in Sayles bibliography make reference to the online versions, while others do not even though I know that many other references he cites are in fact accessible online. Did he want to hide this, or did he simply not check?

Jarvis' bibliography incorporates a number of online resources including blogs, forums and webpages. Sayles omits use of any of these, which is odd because it is precisely through forums like the Yahoo "Ancient Artifacts" forum, or in coin collecting terms "Moneta-L" as well as for example UK "Metal detecting" forums that those interested in the issues can find "collectors' thoughts" on them, written down by the collectors themselves. It is symptomatic though that virtually all of these resources are kept as closed access media, preventing outsiders from learning those "thoughts". As a result, the outside reader is unlikely to be able to penetrate very far into the issues. There is a "vast body of private and public collector thought on the subject" which is thus inaccessible to the public - the public who is the beneficiary of the "who owns..." questions. The compulsive need for secrecy in the antiquities market is not - to my knowledge - addressed in any detail in any of the bibliographic items Sayles cites. Why not?

It would have been nice also to see mentioned T.J. Buggey's webpage "Ethics and Coin collecting", even though it is both dated and superficial, it is notable as one of the few accounts I have come across in this milieu which even acknowledges that there is an ethical (rather than merely legal) issue. Perhaps that is why Sayles ignores it. He does not like reid oldsborough, so that's probably the reason his page on the topic (which, whether you agree with what he writes, is "collectors' thought" too) is also ignored.

Also since the 'rival' bibliography to which this is intended as a supplement (allegedly - because I do not think it is true) considers "the archaeological viewpoint" and in the works there cited some quite specific accusations are made about collecting and the effects of the current trade and current modes of collecting on the long-term survival of archaeological sites and assemblages, it is surprising that there are very few items ciited in Sayles list which actually refute those arguments in any detail. In particular ACCG mouthpiece Welsh has several times stated the collectors' view that "there is no scientific proof that collecting causes looting" (what he mis-terms "the Renfrew Hypothesis - it is in fact Elia's). There is not a single work cited by Sayles in his balanced bibliography which sets out the views of this school of thought and the argumentation behind it. Neither is there a single work cited setting out the details of the stupid argument that the coins collected by collectors do not come from archaeological sites because they all come from hoards buried in the middle of a campaign by soldiers on the edge of battlefields. There is a whole load of collector lore which is bandied about in the literature (and especially these days the coiney literature and 'discussions') which is simply not represented in Sayles' bibliography. Why not?

Perhaps Sayles, calling Jarvis' efforts a "disgrace" did not have much of a concept of how difficult compiling a resource like this actually is, let alone making it reflect all possible points of view. Now I suspect he does. As Tom Flynn noted, the cultural heritage field is "divided and polemical enough without those divisive and entrenched positions being brought into the classroom", perhaps now the ideologues of the collecting world could take a cold look at Sayles' bibliography and work out what is missing - or more importantly what has not yet been written and published in a formal form.

Mark Goodacre (New Testament Gateway Weblog): Deinde's Biblical Studies Web Search

Mark Goodacre — 2010-07-29T04:42:07+00:00

Over in the comment section of my post on More on the Future for Online Textbooks, Bob MacDonald helpfully asks about the question of searching sites like the NT Gateway. The question reminded me of the excellent resource provided by Danny Zacharias over on Deinde. From this search box, you can search for Biblical Resources on the web that are indexed by sites like mine, Chris Heard's iTanakh and so on. It's a hugely useful resource, and one that is definitely worth more mentions than it usually gets:

Biblical Studies Web Search

Lee Rosenbaum (CultureGrrl): MeTube: Warhol’s Zero Minutes of Fame at Pittsburgh’s Airport

CultureGrrl — 2010-07-29T04:09:13+00:00

Thomas Sokolowski, director of the Andy Warhol Museum, fronts a band of Elvises.What did I do on my summer work-cation (which limited my posting last week)? I'll have more on that later, but for now, I'll revisit my last stop---the...

Mark Goodacre (New Testament Gateway Weblog): The "Textyness" of the Textbook in a Digital Age

Mark Goodacre — 2010-07-29T03:49:04+00:00

I must admit that I have never been a big fan of the "textbook", especially at university level. University students are at the stage where they should be reading a range of primary and secondary materials and over-dependence on an introductory-level single-authored book will not bring out the best in them. I appreciate, at the same time, that students often want something that will help them out with introducing a new topic and it can perform a useful function in guiding them through the early stages of something complex, and so it is a crutch that I have sometimes recommended, though always with lots of warnings and with a good range of different introductory textbooks too to illustrate the point.

Recent discussions about the possibilities of an online Old Testament Textbook (AKMA, NT Blog, Sansblogue, Anumma, AKMA, NT Blog) might cause us to reflect on the whole scenario of textbook-writing a bit further. As several have implied already, the digital age allows us to rethink the way we do textbooks and I'd like to support Tim, Brooke and AKMA in that kind of thinking, and then to encourage still more radical thinking about what we are trying to do when we conceptualize textbooks. I think textbooks have a couple of shortcomings, both of which can be overcome in the digital age. One relates to the "text" bit and the the other relates to the "book" bit. In this post, I'd like to address briefly the text bit.

Old-fashioned textbooks are just too texty. For those of us who have some investment in the digital world, and that is all of us who are engaging in this discussion, we are familiar with the fact that it is now possible to access audio and video material far more straightforwardly than it was in the past. In our area, there is a wealth of good audio and video material and this is only going to increase with time. Think, just for starters, about Bibledex from the University of Nottingham, or the several resources available at St John's Nottingham. I have added audio and video pages to lots of the NT Gateway pages in order to gather together the best of these resources. The importance of this should not be underestimated. Different students learn better with different media, Some respond much more positively and learn much more quickly by listening to audio, others by seeing things represented graphically. And that is to say nothing of the importance of thinking through how we work with students with disabilities, in particular, in this context, those who are blind or near-sighted. Newer, digital textbook resources can integrate, embed, link to material that is not just blocks of text.

Let me try to illustrate this point by engaging with AKMA's original post:

Hey, in a perfect world, you could persuade the authors to record their chapters so you could distribute digital audio (and video — or perhaps, a video abstract of each chapter). So at this point, you have a textbook that’s free to consult as web pages, free to download as PDFs, and (again, ideally) free to listen to/watch in digital media.

I like the sound of this because it addresses the importance of integrating multi-media into the newly conceived, digital textbook. It is the kind of thing that makes me enthusiastic about the way that AKMA is talking. But my point is that the authors of the textbook in question do not have to wait for the perfect world for this to happen because high quality audio and video resources are already available on the web for free. Let's say you are talking about the topic of form-criticism and introducing Richard Bauckham's recent contributions about the involvement of alleged eye-witnesses. You could record your own audio or video about this, in which you attempt to summarize his position, or you could watch and listen to the man himself doing it for you. Examples of this kind could be multiplied. My point is not that we should stop producing new resources -- of course not. But rather that we should start thinking seriously about the integration of good existing resources into our new model.

David Meadows (rogueclassicism): Citanda: Pompeiian Graffiti

rogueclassicist — 2010-07-29T01:06:35+00:00

Nice introduction to the subject in Smithsonian Magazine:

Reading the Writing on Pompeii’s Walls |Smithsonian Magazine.

David Meadows (rogueclassicism): Romans in Wales

rogueclassicist — 2010-07-29T00:54:02+00:00

Wow … the archaeologist types in Wales keep coming up with discoveries. In the past week, I’ve read of three major finds … typically, things from Wales don’t seem to make it beyond the local papers, but the first two items are a bit different. Here’s the Telegraph coverage about a Roman villa find in Aberystwyth:

Archaeologists have discovered a 4th Century villa near Aberystwyth, the first time they have found evidence of Roman occupation of North and mid Wales.

Findings indicate Abermagwr had all the trappings of villas found further south, including a slate roof and glazed windows.

The villa is likely to have belonged to a wealthy landowner, with pottery and coin finds on the site indicating occupation in the late 3rd and early 4th Centuries AD.

It was roofed with local slates, which were cut for a pentagonal roof. The walls were built of local stone and there was a cobbled yard.

Roman villas were high-status homes of wealthy landowners which sat at the heart of a farming estate. They are common throughout southern England and south Wales, but rare in mid and west Wales.

It was thought that Wales was a “military zone”, abandoned by the Romans a few decades after the first century.

Dr Toby Driver, of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales and Dr Jeffrey Davies, formerly of Aberystwyth University, had previously excavated at the nearby Trawscoed Roman fort, which had been abandoned by AD 130.

“Our trial excavations this year have confirmed the remains of an imposing Romano-British building in the heart of mid-Wales, where no Roman villas were previously known” they said.

“The discovery raises significant new questions about the regional economy and society in late Roman Wales, and raises the possibility of future villa discoveries in the surrounding countryside”.

The BBC picked up a story about a lime kiln find during road construction:

The most significant find – a large lime kiln – was previously hidden under an earth mound.

The Gwynedd Archaeological Trust says the kiln, and slates from a building for high-ranking officials, indicate a large Roman settlement.

Building work began on the £34.4m bypass earlier this year.

Iwan Parry, from the trust, said the the presence of the roofing slates was documented after a dig in the area in the 1920s but the lime kiln was a complete surprise.

“We’re not certain of the dates yet because radio carbon dating has not been carried out, so this is really the beginning of the research we’ll have to carry out,” he said.

Mr Parry added the kiln was “huge” at round 4m (13ft) across and 2m (6ft) deep.

“They had cut into the stone – which would have been a lot of hard work – to create a bowl,” he said.

“The purpose of the kiln would then be to create the lime for cement,” he added.

As the land around the kiln had not been reclaimed from the sea at the time the Romans were around, the kiln would have been on a small island in the estuary, he said.

“The kiln is a surprise too because we did not think there was any lime locally in Tremadog.

“The nearest source we thought was on Anglesey – but there might have been a type of lime around here” he added.

The roofing slates – cut into a diamond with two sides squared off – were first thought to be from the Nantlle Valley near Caernarfon.

Similar slates were then found at a barracks in Chester however, and they came from Bethesda (near Bangor), he said.

Wherever they are from it is still a significant find as the slates are “one of the first examples of Welsh slates being used as roofing”, he added.

Excavation work on the bypass also revealed signs of human habitation in the area from 6,000 years ago.

“We found small bits of flint which they would have used,” said Mr Parry.

“The location, on an island, would have meant there was a plentiful supply of food there in Mesolithic and Neolithic times.”

via: Porthmadog bypass reveals more Roman life | BBC

Fulfilling the scholastic rule of three, and just hitting my email box a few moments ago (and so, still ‘local’), comes something from the Mail:

A ROMAN home or trading post is being excavated at Tai Cochion near the village of Brynsiencyn.

Gwynedd Archaeology Trust held an open day at the site and over 200 people visited to find out about the discoveries.

The location of the site – over the water from Segontium in Caernarfon – together with initial discoveries, suggests the settlement to be a trading post linking Anglesey with the mainland.

This is the first site of its kind to be found in North Wales and will help historians to understand the relationship between the Romans and the indigenous people.

The excavation is the subject of a programme which will be screened on S4C in November.

Trust staff and volunteers are trying to find some final clues as to the exact history of this site by finishing some detailed excavations and making vital recordings before the excavation is finished.

Dave Hopewell, senior archaeologist, said: “Over 15 volunteers have joined Gwynedd Archaeology Trust staff to excavate the Roman settlement in Brynsiencyn during the last three weeks. This excavation was made possible due to funding from CADW.

“A land survey undertaken last winter indicted there was a large settlement.

This excavation has supported this interpretation with a wide roman road, buildings, a boundary ditch and a rubbish pit being unearthed in the small excavated area.”

A large amount of pottery has been found including some made in France. This indicates the settlement was of high status.

The Trust has high hopes the origins of this piece of pottery can be traced to a specific location and time helping to date the settlement and perhaps learn more about what went on there. [...]

via: Excavation of Roman site near Brynsiencyn | Mail

Antiguidades Romanas: Como trabalha o historiador

gutomachado — 2010-07-29T00:53:25+00:00

Alguns anos atrás eu escrevi um post sobre como trabalha o historiador. Eu não estava pensando em metodologias complicadas, semiótica, iconologia, etc e tal, mas na coisa mais básica e comezinha que faz o historiador perder muito tempo: o bendito fichamento. O que me levou a escrever sobre isso foi uma conversa com o Filippo Coarelli.

Essa sempre foi uma questão que me fascinou, porque meu método de trabalho é muito caótico e a maneira como eu organizo (?) meus fichamentos me obriga a reler tudo o que eu já anotei cada vez que vou escrever um artigo ou um livro. Mas hoje eu achei um artigo fascinante do Keith Thomas, sobre como ele (e outros historiadores famosos) fazem (ou faziam) seus próprios fichamentos.

Filed under: historiadores, Livros

Noel Tan (The Southeast Asian Archaeology Newsblog): Preah Vihear tourism up

noelbynature — 2010-07-29T00:47:36+00:00

Cambodia reports a rise in tourism numbers to Preah Vihear, located at the border of Thailand and Cambodia, and is at the centre of a sovereignty dispute between the two nations.

Tourists flock to temple
Phnom Penh Post, 15 July 2010

Tourists visiting Cambodia’s Preah Vihear Temple increased nearly sevenfold in the first half of this year, as the area benefited from better infrastructure and reduced tension with Thailand.

Preah Vihear Tourism Department chief Kong Vibol said yesterday that from January to June this year 46,400 tourists visited the Preah Vihear temple complex.

The figure is a dramatic leap from the 5,940 tourists recorded over the same period last year. Foreign visitors were also being drawn to the site – they increased by 85 percent to 480 from 260.

Vincent Brown (Talking Pyramids): Pyramids in the Cosmic Landscape

Vincent — 2010-07-28T22:56:26+00:00

Giulio Magli was in the news a couple of years ago with his grand plan for Giza, the idea that the three Giza pyramids were arranged to form a line that points to Heliopolis, an important religious center sacred to the sun god.

Last March he was back with an extension of that idea, creating a grid that may indicate the location of the lost pyramid of Userkare at South Saqqara, directly south of Djoser’s Step pyramid.

Now he’s back with “The Cosmic Landscape in the Age of the Pyramids”, which appears in the current issue of the Journal of Cosmology. Here is the abstract:

The pyramids of Egypt are to be counted among the most outstanding works of architecture in the whole of human history. The sites for their construction were chosen in accordance with topographical criteria which, while taking practical needs into account, were also profoundly and intimately connected with Maat, the cosmic order. As a consequence, the pyramid’s fields are criss-crossed by geometrical axes which were – and partially still are – easily perceptible on the ground. In the 4th and the 5th dynasty, such axes ideally connected the monuments with the temple of Heliopolis on the opposite bank of the Nile, while during the 6th dynasty new pyramids were ideally connected with older ones by means of meridian – south to north – alignments. In recent years, the present author attempted to provide a comprehensive analysis of this sacred landscape, and of its astronomical and symbolical interpretation in terms of the “cosmovision” of the ancient Egyptians. The present paper offers a brief but complete overview of the results of this analysis.

Read the full article in the Journal of Cosmology: The Cosmic Landscape in the Age of the Pyramids, by Giulio Magli

Photo from the New York Public Library.

jps (Idle Musings of a Bookseller): Get over it!

jps — 2010-07-28T22:20:29+00:00

Until you are willing to take the things of your life, push them on beyond Satan, and lay them at the Father's feet, you won't get peace. I'm not saying you might not get some resolution. God may deliver you from a bad circumstance. But I notice that when I hear people say, “God delivered me from this,” or “God rescued so-and-so from that,” the next one on their mind is the devil. Everything had to do with the devil.

Phooey on the devil. God already dealt with him. GOD HAS ALREADY DEALT WITH HIM! And if the devil doesn't know it, you and I ought to know it. We watch God take the devil's tricks and lies and turn them around on him. They are the very horse manure out of which grows a beautiful plant. And we praise the Lord.— The Rest of the Gospel: When the partial Gospel has worn you out, page 137

<idle musing>
I read a book a few years ago about spiritual warfare where the author said, "I radically disbelieve in the devil!" He didn't mean he didn't believe in his existence, but he disbelieved that he had any power over God. To hear some people talk (as I said yesterday), you would think they were dualists, that is that God and satan are equals. What heresy for a Christian to think that! Satan is a created being; created by God. As Luther was wont to say, he's God's devil...
</idle musing>

The Archaeological Review: The Great Temple of the Aztecs

tim — 2010-07-28T21:35:02+00:00

Eduardo Matos Moctezuma
Thames and Hudson Ltd
London
1988
ISBN 0-500-27752-4

My friends and I are in agreement of this book from the start that the pictures are first rate especially of the caches found among the ruins of the temple. Archaeologist Eduardo Matos Moctezuma opens the book with his resume leading up to his appointment as head of the Great Temple Project in 1977.

The aim of the project was to excavate the precincts of the great temple of the Aztec's in the heart of Mexico city, Tenochtitlan as the Aztec's called the city. At the time Hernan Cortez saw the city in the lake the population of the city was about 250 000. When the Spaniard's conquered the city they destroyed the great pyramid and its precincts, erecting colonial buildings on top of the temple ruins.

The author begins with a description of Mexico city of today and in historical times, the rise of the Aztecs and the creation of the city. We are also told of early discoveries of important monuments of Tenochtitlan including the eighteenth century discovery of the great calendar stone.

Mr. Moctezuma is next on to the history of the Aztecs and the foundation of the city. The pictures of the jaguar with a jade ball in his mouth and of a "chacmool" statue are wonderful. The great temple is really a series of seven temples built over top of one another.

The temple has two staircases to the summit and at the top of each stand two shrines one is dedicated to Huitzilopochtli, a god who is represented by fetishes, a god of war and patron deity of the city. The other Tlaloc, god of water and fertility. Interesting picture of eight life size statues found near the base of the steps of the Huitzilopochtli shrine of the stage III temple.

Soon we start into the incredible images of the many caches found during excavations including a cache of forty two sacrificed children and hundreds of artifacts including beautifully made clay pots and masks carved in stone, animals and seashells, often only certain parts of the animals.

The author beaks down the material found into Aztec material and tribute material including antiques from the even more ancient site of Teotihuacan. Particularly of interest are the skull masks which incorporate human skulls inlaid with shells and hematite while a green stone mask in the Teotihuacan style with obsidian eyes is very life like.

The images in the book said from the start that it was going to be interesting while Eduardo Moctezuma's recounting of the history of the city, it's inhabitants and its great temple was inclusive for young adults and up. Such a complicated story was simply put forward with the skill and prestige possessed by it's author and excavator of "The Great Temple of the Aztecs".

Musee del Templo Mayor

David Meadows (rogueclassicism): First Elephant in Britain?

rogueclassicist — 2010-07-28T21:17:06+00:00

: Image via Wikipedia

As I dig deeper into my pile of things I’ve marked with little purple question marks, I find an interesting item I first came across toward the end of May. Something called the Londonist had a feature called An Historic London Elephant Parade which included this in its timeline:

43 AD: Emperor Claudius brings the first recorded elephant to England during the Roman conquest. It journeys to Colchester but would have probably passed through the London area.

I thought it was interesting, and checked what Wikipedia had to say:

The first historically recorded elephant in northern Europe was the animal brought by emperor Claudius, during the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43, to the British capital of Colchester. At least one elephant skeleton with flint weapons that has been found in England was initially misidentified as this elephant, but later dating proved it to be a mammoth skeleton from the stone age.[1]

Now one expects touristy type sites to take this to some extreme, e.g.:

Visit Colchester, Britain’s oldest recorded town and soak up its history. Discover the secrets of William the Conqueror’s impressive castle, which lay hidden for centuries. Walk through the Roman streets where Emperor Claudius once rode triumphantly in on an elephant.

But let’s see what the pros do … the Colchester Castle Museum includes this on their FAQ page:

6. Did Claudius really bring elephants with him when he invaded?

Yes he did, we are told that elephants were involved in his triumphal entry into Colchester or Camulodunum as it was called. Imagine being a Briton and watching those enormous animals marching past you.

Okay … we’ve gone from bringing elephants to having a ‘triumphal entry’. The Time Team folks echo something that is seen on several other sites, however:

Colchester is the oldest garrison town in Britain, the site of the most famous event during the Roman invasion, where Claudius rode in on the back of an elephant.

Similiter, the Colchester Archaeological Trust:

Fund-raising events in the pipeline include a reception at the Mayor’s Parlour, and Mrs Bailey said she would also like to recreate Claudius’ entrance to Colchester with elephants in an effort to raise awareness of the campaign.

So we’ve gone from Claudius being the first to bring elephants to Britain, to him including them in some ‘triumphal’ procession, to him — despite his famous disabilities — actually riding into Colchester on one.

Now here’s what I don’t get … as far as I’m aware, the ONLY statement about Claudius bringing elephants in his invasion of Britain comes from Cassius Dio 60.21 (via Lacus Curtius):

Shortly afterwards Togodumnus perished, but the Britons, so far from yielding, united all the more firmly to avenge his death. Because of this fact and because of the difficulties he had encountered at the Thames, Plautius became afraid, and instead of advancing any farther, proceeded to guard what he had already won, and sent for Claudius. For he had been instructed to do this in case he met with any particularly stubborn resistance, and, in fact, extensive equipment, including elephants, had already been got together for the expedition.

That’s all that is said about Claudius’ elephant(s), as far as I’m aware and it has clearly been witness to some ‘expansion’. But even the claims about this being the ‘first’ seem to be challengeable … In Polyaenus’ Stratagems 8.23.5 we read (via Attalus):

When Caesar’s passage over a large river in Britain was disputed by the British king Cassivellaunus, at the head of a strong body of cavalry and a great number of chariots, he ordered an elephant, an animal till then unknown to the Britons, to enter the river first, mailed in scales of iron, with a tower on its back, on which archers and slingers were stationed. If the Britons were terrified at so extraordinary a spectacle, what shall I say of their horses? Amongst the Greeks, the horses fly at the sight of an unarmed elephant; but armoured, and with a tower on its back, from which missiles and stones are continually hurled, it is a sight too formidable to be borne. The Britons accordingly with their cavalry and chariots abandoned themselves to flight, leaving the Romans to pass the river unmolested, after the enemy had been routed by the appearance of a single beast.

Polyaenus was writing during the time of Marcus Aurelius … Cassius Dio was writing in the first couple of decades of the third century. Both were very far removed from their subject matter, so you can take either claim with as many grains of salt that you care to. And just in case you were curious about ‘elephant fossils’ mentioned in the Wikipedia article, one of the (many) references to same that I came across was in The Monthly Review from May-August of 1826:

Now normally I’d put this sort of thing — especially considering the ongoing campaign to raise awareness of Colchester Roman Circus — in the same category as Lisa Simpson (in Lisa the Iconoclast) eventually put the Jebediah Springfield/Hans Sprungfeld revelation that the ‘myth brought out the good in everyone’, but since the folks in Colchester seem themselves to have been angry at the British Museum for suggesting no Roman circus had ever been found in Britain, I’m not so charitable … come on … elephants in the invasion are amazing enough; no need to claim priority (especially when there is competing evidence of equal weight) nor force us to imagine the physically disabled Claudius somehow getting up on the back of a pachyderm …

Mark Goodacre (New Testament Gateway Weblog): More on the Future for Online Textbooks

Mark Goodacre — 2010-07-28T20:16:17+00:00

AKMA, Funding Neopublishing, continues to post things of interest on the topic started by Anumma, Open Access Intro to OT. In my previous post on this topic, The Future for Textbooks Online (with thanks to Tim Bulkeley on Sansblogue for an excellent discussion of my post alongside AKMA's), I suggested that we don't have to begin working on projects like this from scratch. There are now so many fantastic resources available on the web that the big issue is not so much how we create great resources but rather how we organize and publicize the existing ones in ways that will be helpful to our students. I suggested as one model the evolving NT Gateway, though I express interest in looking at other related and overlapping models.

Let me add some related thoughts. Anumma articulates his goals for this project as one that:

is freely available online;
is historical- and literary-critical in focus (as is a Coogan or a Collins, say; in other words, not a “theological introduction” narrowly reflecting the concerns of faith communities or other readerly social contexts);
is authored by a socially diverse body of contributors.

The first two elements are at the heart of a site like the NT Gateway -- it links to freely available materials and is itself free; it is historical-critical in focus; and the resources to which it links are as diverse as the authors that write them (which in fact means that too many of them are from too narrow a group, but that is a reflection, of course, of the state of the guild and something we could do something about in this kind of project).

Now, the advantages of beginning with what is already available on the net are several:

No re-inventing the wheel is necessary. Where excellent and diverse resources already exist, freely available on the net, one may as well work to those strengths rather than attempting, at every point, to create new resources.
There is a huge psychological boost in working with existing resources rather than beginning from scratch. A new project can be hugely daunting. Working collaboratively to develop existing resources, to organize, to add, to fill in areas that are lacking -- this can be encouraging and fulfilling.
It is much, much cheaper than beginning from scratch.
It is much less labour intensive than beginning from scratch.
It is easier to harness the great advantage of the internet in being fully multi-media. You can pull in a range of resources, prose paper, website, podcasts, video clips and so on without the need to develop new websites, to begin recording new audio and new video.
As children of our age, we are unduly impressed by what is new. But sometimes, in scholarship, the old is good. The advantage of a dynamic approach to this issue is that it enables us to draw from the storehouse both old and new.

I suspect that our difficulty in this area is that we are still inclined to think too narrowly in terms of the old-fashioned "textbook". I would like to brainstorm a bit more about this, but I think it might need a separate post.

Lillian Joyce (Excavate: North Alabama AIA Society): Zheng He: Symbol of China's 'peaceful rise'

Stephen Waring — 2010-07-28T19:57:27+00:00

BBC News - Zheng He: Symbol of China's 'peaceful rise'

Research News in Late Antiquity: The Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence (Italy): 6 Doctoral and Postdoctoral Fellowships for 2011

Researchnewsinla admin — 2010-07-28T18:47:12+00:00

Source : KHI Florence.

The Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence (Max-Planck-Institute) is pleased to announce the start of the second year of the research program "Art, Space and Mobility in the Early Ages of Globalization: The Mediterranean, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent (MeCAIS) 400-1650", sponsored by the Getty Foundation. It offers up to 6 non-residential doctoral/postdoctoral fellowships, beginning Jan. 1, 2011. The project rethinks the postcolonial agenda through a study of premodern world orders and historical concepts of space and mobility with special attention to artistic objects, monuments and heritage.

The fellowship program is intended for young scholars who are working towards a Ph.D., as well as those candidates who already possess a Ph.D. (obtained not earlier than 2005). The fellowships are mainly open to archaeologists, art historians, and, in exceptional cases, to scholars of related fields like anthropology, history, philology and religious studies. The program especially welcomes applications from young scholars of Mediterranean countries and Asia. We seek projects with a broad appeal grounded in a thorough study of objects, and fellows whose interests focus on intercultural and interartistic agency; the mobility of ideas, artists and works of arts; and the creation or transformation of spaces within the chronological and topographical framework of the program. Applicants should be interested in premodern models of globalization while adopting an interdisciplinary perspective in their study of artistic objects, images and/or texts. Participants are invited to take part in the creation of a research network that will connect specialists in Western, Islamic, Byzantine, Indian, Central and East Asian art. Projects may consider one of the following questions according to the thematic focus of the program: (Trans)formation of Topographies; Spaces of Power and Religion; Borderlines between Nature and Culture; Visual Culture and Systems of Knowledge; Transforming Artistic Languages; Making, Remaking and Exchanging: Art and its Techniques; Historiographies and Narratives.

The fellowships are non-residential. Research could primarily be conducted at the fellows' home institutions. At the same time, fellows will participate in a series of workshops in Berlin and Florence as well as summer schools and seminars to be held in countries of the MeCAIS region. The working language is English.

Fellowships are for one year. Their amount follows international standards and varies according to the specific conditions of the applicants and their research environment.

The deadline for application is September 15, 2010. Results will be announced in early October 2010. Applicants should send a C.V., a research proposal, one substantial writing sample or a portfolio, and two letters of recommendation to:

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wolf

Director

Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut

Via Giuseppe Giusti 44

50121 Firenze

Italy

The envelope should be marked "Art Space and Mobility". Applications by e-mail are particularly welcome; these and questions concerning the program should be sent to the following address: dirwolf@khi.fi.it

The Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence is an affirmative action equal opportunity employer and educator.

Charles Ellwood Jones (AWOL: The Ancient World Online): New Open Access Journal: Open Journal of Archaeometry

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-28T18:29:46+00:00

Open Journal of Archaeometry

Submit your article to the Open Journal of Archaeometry!

The Open Journal of Archaeometry is a new, completely peer-reviewed, Open Access, international scientific journal published by PAGEPress Publications, Pavia, Italy. It is dedicated to the publication of research articles, short communications and review papers on every aspect of archaeometry. Archaeometry, also known as archaeological science, applies scientific techniques to the analysis of archaeological materials. Research topics mainly comprise the following disciplines and analyzing techniques:
physical and chemical dating methods, e.g. 14C and luminescence dating, which provide archaeologists with numerical and relative chronologies
analyses of artifacts, concerning provenance, technology and types of use
environmental approaches, which provide information on past changes in landscape, climate, flora, and fauna
anthropological studies dealing on diet, nutrition, health, and pathology of people
mathematical methods for data treatment including the role of computers in handling, analyzing, and modeling the vast sources of data
remote-sensing and geophysical-survey applications conservation sciences, involving the study of decay processes and the development of new methods of conservation

List of Open Access Journals in Ancient Studies

Roger Pearse (Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, and more): More from the Chronicle of Zuqnin

Roger Pearse — 2010-07-28T18:16:13+00:00

I continue translating part IV of ps.Dionysius of Tell-Mahre. Dates are in AG, but Chabot has added AD to them.

In the year 1008 (696-697), died Constantine, Emperor of the Romans; he was succeeded by Justinian who reigned ten years.

In the year 1017 (705-706), a synod met in the monastery of Mar Silas. The principal members of this synod are known: the Patriarch Julian, Thomas, bishop of Amida, and James [bishop] of Edessa, the Interpreter of books. This holy Mar James, Bishop of Edessa, is famous.

In the year 1018 (706-707), died Justinian, Emperor of the Romans; he was succeeded by Leontius, who reigned three years.

In the year 1019 (707-708), holy Mar Julian, Patriarch of Antioch, died; Mar Elias succeeded him.

[12] In the year 1020 (from 708 to 709), there took place a new census that was added to the first, which greatly increased the evil.

In the year 1021 (709-710), died holy Mar James, Bishop of Edessa, who was succeeded by Mar Habib.

At that time flourished holy Mar Thomas the Stylite, of Tela.

In the year 1022 (710-711), died Leontius, Emperor of the Romans, in place of whom reigned for seven years, Tiberius Apsimar.

In the year 1023 (711-712), Walid died, King of the Arabs; he was succeeded by Suleiman who reigned two and a half years.

In the year 1024 (712-713), died Mar Thomas Saint, Bishop of Amida; Mar Theodotus succeeded him.

After Apsimar, emperor of the Romans, Justinian reigned six years; after him Philip reigned three years; then Anastasius two years, finally Theodosius-Constantine one year. The latter was occupying the throne when Maslamah invaded the territory of the Romans. In the years of the reigns of the Roman emperors added together make twelve years; this calculation is made almost to the year, more or less. The Arabs only count the moons and never the months like the Syrians; most writers even do not make a complete chronology, but counting only the years of the reign, they omit the time of discord between the two kingdoms. As for me, I did the same in this chapter, so that the reader is not disturbed.

[13] In the year 1028 (716-717), Maslamah entered the Roman Empire. The countless troops of the Arabs gathered and began to invade the territory of the Romans. All the countries of Asia and Cappadocia fled before them, as well as the entire coastal region.

They reached mount Maurus and the Lebanon, as far as Melitene, and on the river Arsanias, and as far as Armenia. This whole area was remarkable for the number of its inhabitants and its abundant vineyards, its grain, and its magnificent trees of all kinds. Since then it is devastated, and these regions are no longer inhabited. When the emperor saw the multitudes that came against him and he learned that his general, Leo, had made a pact with them, his heart grew weak and his hands trembled. He abdicated the throne, laid down the crown and had his head shaved. Indeed, it is the custom, if a Roman emperor abdicates, that he has his head shaved and then lives in his house without going out. So he did this. Leo sent to him: “Take courage and do not fear,” but he was not convinced, and he persisted in abdicating the empire.

Now this Leo was a man of courage, strong and aggressive. He was Syrian by race and originally from these confines. Because of his valour, he had been made general. By his skillfulness, he prevented the earth drinking the blood of men. He made a pact with Maslamah, promising to bring him into Constantinople without a fight. The latter, confident in the promise of Leo, no longer made war, made no prisoners, went to Constantinople and vigorously laid siege to this city. Leo came into [14] the city, and seeing that the Romans were desperate and that the emperor had abdicated, he stirred up their courage. “Fear not,” he said to them. They saw his bravery, and fearing that he would reproach them for what they had done to the previous emperor, made him emperor.

In assuming the imperial crown, he also gave strength and courage. He consolidated the city wall. He sent an army to cut the roads that would let through an army from Syria; he also destroyed the pontoon bridge and cut it.

The Arabs and their whole army were thus shut up as prisoners. Maslamah ordered vines planted, but a great and violent famine broke out among them, so much so that bread was absent from the camp and they ate their pack animals and horses. When Maslamah asked Leo, “Where is the oath that you made to bring me into Constantinople without fighting?” the latter replied calmly: “Wait a few days until the nobles of the Empire have submitted to me.” They remained without fighting in their respective positions, one inside, the other outside, for about three years. The famine grew so much among Arabs that they ate their shoes and the corpses of dead, and they attacked each other, so that nobody dared to go alone.

While Maslamah was constantly putting pressure on Leo: “Keep your promise, or I will attack,” the news came that the king of the Arabs, Suliman, was dead and Omar [II] had succeeded him. However, Omar sent him a letter: “Get out of there, lest you perish with hunger, you and all that are with you,” Maslamah, after having received [15] this letter, asked Leo to allow him to enter the city to visit him. He entered with thirty horsemen, went around for three days and admired the royal works. The Arabs retired from there and returned without having achieved anything. They arrived at a certain town called Tounou [=Tyana]; the prefect of the city seeing them starving, emaciated, weak, conceived a contempt for them and sent a message to Leo, “Send me an army and I will attack them by surprise.” But this design did not escape them. When they learned that an army was behind them, a leader of the Arab troops, one of the principal men among them, called `Abbas said to Maslamah: “Give me an army, to go to face them before they arrive, lest they surround us and make us disappear from the earth, and that our end is worse than anything that happened to us in this way.” – He took a large army and went to meet them. The latter were marching in separate groups, were not yet prepared to fight and knew nothing of this army of Arabs coming to meet them. `Abbas went down before them into a large meadow, in which they themselves had intended to camp that day. He put the whole army in ambush, in ditches and patches of reeds that were there.

The Romans came in their turn, and went down into the meadow, not knowing anything and not perceiving even what had been done by Arabs. They set up their camp and everyone sent his horse to pasture, as is customary in the army. Then the Arabs sortied out of their ambush and from the valleys in which they were standing all around the meadow. At the signal agreed upon between them, they rushed upon the Romans they were surrounding them and put them all to the sword. Not one of them escaped. However the Romans were about sixty thousand. After having stripped the dead, the Arabs returned to their companions.

[16] Another Roman army who was coming from behind, having learned what had happened to the first, was seized with terror and turned back. The Arabs, after they had plundered and foraged everything that was within their reach, they left this country and came to Syria.

In the year 1032 (720-721), which was the first year of `Omar, King of the Arabs, and the fourth of Leo, emperor of the Romans, Maslamah left the territory of the latter, after having plundered and devastated the entire region, which he changed into a barren desert.

I omit many things that happened in this campaign to avoid prolonging this story.

At this time flourished the patriarch Elias, Mar Habib, [Bishop] of Edessa, Simeon of Harran and Theodotus of Amida.

Mike Heiser (PaleoBabble): More on Pyramid Alignment

MSH — 2010-07-28T18:10:02+00:00

A while back I posted on some new peer-reviewed research about the relationship of astronomy and pyramid alignment. The same researcher, Giulio Magli, is back with another article about pyramid alignment. Fascinating – sure beats the paleobabble.

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Technorati Tags: alignment, cosmic, Magli, Pyramids, stars

Dienekes' Anthropology Blog: Ancient DNA provides clues to donkey domestication

Dienekes Pontikos — 2010-07-28T18:00:03+00:00

Proceedings of the Royal Society B doi: 10.1098/rspb.2010.0708

Ancient DNA from Nubian and Somali wild ass provides insights into donkey ancestry and domestication

Birgitta Kimura et al.

Genetic data from extant donkeys (Equus asinus) have revealed two distinct mitochondrial DNA haplogroups, suggestive of two separate domestication events in northeast Africa about 5000 years ago. Without distinct phylogeographic structure in domestic donkey haplogroups and with little information on the genetic makeup of the ancestral African wild ass, however, it has been difficult to identify wild ancestors and geographical origins for the domestic mitochondrial clades. Our analysis of ancient archaeological and historic museum samples provides the first genetic information on the historic Nubian wild ass (Equus africanus africanus), Somali wild ass (Equus africanus somaliensis) and ancient donkey. The results demonstrate that the Nubian wild ass was an ancestor of the first donkey haplogroup. In contrast, the Somali wild ass has considerable mitochondrial divergence from the Nubian wild ass and domestic donkeys. These findings resolve the long-standing issue of the role of the Nubian wild ass in the domestication of the donkey, but raise new questions regarding the second ancestor for the donkey. Our results illustrate the complexity of animal domestication, and have conservation implications for critically endangered Nubian and Somali wild ass.

Link

Dorothy King (PhDiva): Latin Poetry Contest

Dorothy King — 2010-07-28T17:55:02+00:00

(Info is in the photo as I'm on the Tube)

Antiquated Vagaries: Hands Off

Katie Rask — 2010-07-28T17:32:28+00:00

From the beginning of its existence as a discipline, archaeology has been about objects. While its true that for many projects the dirt itself is starting to get the same respect as the items that are uncovered in it, archaeologists cannot help but remain object-oriented. All day you look for artifacts in the soil- tiles, pottery, worked stone, metals, weaving implements, tools. Your day is centered around 'things.' Your hands are constantly touching and feeling objects to help in their identification - is this ceramic or is it a rock? Your eyes and your body are constantly on tippy-toe, waiting, hanging on the potential appearance of 'things' with every passing clod of earth.

But of course, modern 'things' are just as important as the ancient ones in an archaeologist's daily life; they can receive the same sort of intense focus, adulation and worship as the ancient treasures themselves. I'm talking about tools.

Everyone knows what its like to have a work utensil that's used day after day. It's quite easy to develop a relationship with it, whether it's a crappy keyboard that you grow to loathe or a favorite pen that you jealously guard. It can be a major bummer if your favorite item gets lost, or breaks, or is stolen by a co-worker. It's the same way with an archaeologist's tools. At most excavations, there's often a morning rush as everyone tries to grab their favorite things before someone else does. There's a race for handpicks, for dustpans, for bristle brushes, for the lightest shovel and the sturdiest bucket. These tools can cause a lot of unacknowledged jostling, secret irritation, silent glowering and intense satisfaction.

I myself have become quite fond of the old rounded trowel I found in the tool shed this summer. I bet every person on the Poggio Colla excavation has their own secret attachment. Some of those human-tool relationships are a bit more obvious.

Take PC 42's student-digger Morgan, for example, who has a tool with a story. And a name - Tiger. Most of the students went off to Home Depot or Lowes to buy their trowels before they came to Italy, which means that most of the trowels look pretty much the same. But Morgan found one at her own house. It turns out that her parents once built a deli and her dad was tiling the interior. He shaped his trowel to make it more useful for laying tile, in contrast to the flat brick-laying trowel. And so Morgan decided to adopt her Dad's tool, which he had created and inadvertently imbued with sentiment.

Sure, you can only use it with one hand because if you flip the blade you'll destroy everything in its path. It's a vicious weapon and can bite the hand that wields it; it's a trowel that demands respect. But it's master is Morgan.

Some of the tools are a little more serious. There are even a few that only staff members are allowed to use, for obvious insurance reasons. Like the ax.

PC 42, the ax in use. As it turns out, trench supervisor Kyle used to be a competitive lumber jack. Be gone, tree stump!

And when these really serious tools break, waiting for their replacements can leave everyone on edge. The recent shattering of the ax-handle was just such an affair. At least now we've got it back, and rotten tree stumps are once more flying off the side of the hill.

But besides being mean, lean, archaeological-context-destruction machines, our tools can be an endless source of entertainment as well. They can make a person happy, when not giving blisters and callouses or accidentally stabbing you.

PC 42 student-digger Jack displays the proper way to double-fist the handpick.

While our focus on the ancient objects may be well-recognized, the archaeologist's daily obsession with modern tools is, I think, just as great. Um, unless it's just me.

Keep your paws off my trowel.

Antiguidades Romanas: Narrando a expansão muçulmana

gutomachado — 2010-07-28T17:16:36+00:00

Seguindo uma notícia no sempre útil site Compitum, cheguei a este novo livro de James Howard-Johnston, Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century, da Oxford University Press. O preço é salgado, mas o índice é de dar água na boca:

1: George of Pisidia
2: Two Universal Chronicles
3: Seventh-Century Eastern Sources I: The History of Khosrov
4: Seventh-Century Eastern Sources II: The History to the Year 682 and the Khuzistan Chronicle
5: Supplementary Roman Sources of the Seventh Century I
6: Supplementary Roman Sources of the Seventh Century II
7: Later Historians: The West Syrian Tradition
8: Later Historians: Nicephorus
9: Later Historians: Theophanes
10: Later Historians at Work in Egypt, Iraq, and Iran
11: Early Islamic Historical Writing
12: The Life of the Prophet
13: Historians of the Middle East in the Seventh Century
14: The Middle East in the Seventh Century: The Great Powers, Arabia, and the Prophet
15: The Middle East in the Seventh Century: Arab Conquests
16: The Middle East in the Seventh Century: A New World Order
Conclusion

Filed under: Baixo Império, Livros

James F. McGrath (Exploring Our Matrix): 'Recent' Comments

James F. McGrath — 2010-07-28T16:32:35+00:00

The "Recent Comments" feature in Blogger was displaying some very non-recent comments, so I removed it. I could make my own using the comments feed, but before doing so I thought I'd ask whether anyone actually visits the blog and looks to see if there are any recent comments. If not, presumably it would be better to have one less thing in the sidebar. Let me know if you have an opinion about this!

American School of Classical Studies in Athens: News: Hesperia 79.2 Now Online

2010-07-28T16:09:39+00:00

The summer issue of Hesperia is now available online. This issue contains articles ranging from the Palaeolithic to the Hellenistic period, and includes the biggest news in Aegean prehistory in years.

Charles Ellwood Jones (AWOL: The Ancient World Online): Open Access Australasian Society for Classical Studies Proceedings

Charles Ellwood Jones — 2010-07-28T15:16:50+00:00

ASCS 31 [2010] Proceedings
Refereed papers from the 31st conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies
edited by Neil O'Sullivan

These papers were originally presented at the 31st conference of the Australasian Society for Classical Studies, convened by my colleague, Dr Lara O'Sullivan, and held in Perth at the University of Western Australia, 2-5 February 2010. ASCS is the peak body in Australasia for the professional study of the classical world, and its conference is the largest annual meeting in the region for the dissemination of new research in this very international field. The Discipline Group of Classics and Ancient History at UWA wishes to acknowledge the generous contribution of the UWA Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Robson, in support of this event...

Contents
M. Beasley A philosophical Gigantomachy in the Metamorphoses abstract full text
F. Billot Hannibal, elephants and turrets abstract full text
D. Blyth Philosophy in the late Latin West abstract full text
D. Burton The role of Zeus Meilichios in Argos abstract full text
M.W. Champion Creation from Gaza abstract full text
J. Davidson Prometheus Bound in Christchurch 2009 abstract full text
S. Ford Spatial context of Odyssey 5.452 to 6.317 abstract full text
S. Gador-Whyte Emotional preaching: ekphrasis in the Kontakia of Romanos abstract full text
P. Garrett Character inheritance in Suetonius' Caligula and Nero abstract full text
M. Gillett The 'Etruscan League' reconsidered abstract full text
K.M. Heineman The chasm at Delphi: a modern perspective abstract full text
D. James Art of gold: precious metals and Chariton's Callirhoe abstract full text
P. Jarvis The politics of fraud: a Seruilius Casca in Livy abstract full text
P. Johnson Fabius, Marcellus and Otacilius - the alliance that never was abstract full text
D. Keenan-Jones The Aqua Augusta and control of water resources in the Bay of Naples abstract full text
B. Leadbetter Galerius, Gamzigrad and the politics of abdication abstract full text
J. Maitland Homer and the Aiakid cousins: kinship celebrated or overlooked in the Iliad abstract full text
B. Marshall 'With friends like this, who needs enemies?' Pompeius' abandonment of his friends and supporters abstract full text
S. Midford From Achilles to Anzac: Heroism in the Dardanelles from antiquity to the Great War abstract full text
G. Miles 'I, Porphyry': narrator and reader in the Vita Plotini abstract full text
P. O'Sullivan Use your illusion: 'Critias' on religion reconsidered abstract full text
K.J. O'Toole The Demosthenic basileus: a phantom in the Ath. Pol.? abstract full text
D.J. Phillips Thucydides 1.99: tribute and revolts in the Athenian empire abstract full text
D. Pritchard War, democracy and culture in classical Athens abstract full text
R. Sing Jury pay and Aristophanes abstract full text
H. Tarrant The Theaetetus as a narrative dialogue? abstract full text
W.J. Tatum Tyche in Plutarch's Aemilius Paulus - Timoleon abstract full text
J. Wallis (Un)Elegiac characterisation in Propertius 3.12 abstract full text
K. Welch Pietas, Pompeiani and Cicero's Thirteenth Philippic abstract full text

Dorothy King (PhDiva): His master's mimic: Dogs 'copy their owners'

Dorothy King — 2010-07-28T15:14:38+00:00

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/textbased/sciencetech/article-1298132/Dogs-imitate-owners-research-reveals.html

Ellie is typing her book as we speak, and it will be available soon ...

James F. McGrath (Exploring Our Matrix): Invictus

James F. McGrath — 2010-07-28T15:07:45+00:00

I just finished watching the movie Invictus. It is incredibly inspirational, and so let me just share the poem by William Ernest Henley that inspired Nelson Mandela in prison, and which gives its name to the movie.

"Invictus" by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Constantina Katsari (Love of History Blog): Tips for Undergraduates: How to tackle a reading list

constantinakatsari — 2010-07-28T14:26:10+00:00

Have you felt the panic rising, when you were handed an exceptionally long reading list? Have you felt the desperation taking over in minutes? If yes, you should read this post.

You are not supposed to read every book on the list! I don’t expect you to do so. Most teachers know that this is more or less a wish list. Ideally, we would like our students to read everything but, in practice, we know that this is impossible.

Books on the list make a great background reading on the period but usually articles are more targeted to your essay topic. In addition, articles are shorter and can be read quicker. So, focus on these. After you finish reading one or two of them, make certain you look at the footnotes for additional bibliography on your topic. The reading list is just a starting point of the most important (but not the only) works.

Make sure that you do not read the books and articles from the beginning to the end. Select carefully the passages you are interested in. The best way to do that is by looking for relevant keywords across the text. In the case of books you should use mainly the table of contents and the indexes.

Bear in mind that you should not only read quickly but also smartly. If a passage is of interest, focus on it and read it in depth. Make sure you understand it correctly before you use it in your essay.

James F. McGrath (Exploring Our Matrix): Paul's Theatrics

James F. McGrath — 2010-07-28T14:23:34+00:00

Andrew Perriman has an interesting post about how the usual meaning of the term skēnopoios, translated in the English versions of the Acts of the Apostles as "tent-maker" (Acts 18:3), is a stagehand or maker of theatrical scenery.

If that were Paul's profession, how might we think differently about him? How might it change the way we think about his activity of proclamation of the Christian message?

I'm particularly intrigued that this might connect with Paul's statement in Galatians 3:1 that "Christ was publicly depicted as crucified" before them.

Of course, the abridged Liddell and Scott simply gives the meaning as "tent-maker" and that is, at least etymologically, the root of the term. Has anyone else looked into this term and its usage in and around the first century?

M. Beasley	A philosophical Gigantomachy in the Metamorphoses	abstract	full text
F. Billot	Hannibal, elephants and turrets	abstract	full text
D. Blyth	Philosophy in the late Latin West	abstract	full text
D. Burton	The role of Zeus Meilichios in Argos	abstract	full text
M.W. Champion	Creation from Gaza	abstract	full text
J. Davidson	Prometheus Bound in Christchurch 2009	abstract	full text
S. Ford	Spatial context of Odyssey 5.452 to 6.317	abstract	full text
S. Gador-Whyte	Emotional preaching: ekphrasis in the Kontakia of Romanos	abstract	full text
P. Garrett	Character inheritance in Suetonius' Caligula and Nero	abstract	full text
M. Gillett	The 'Etruscan League' reconsidered	abstract	full text
K.M. Heineman	The chasm at Delphi: a modern perspective	abstract	full text
D. James	Art of gold: precious metals and Chariton's Callirhoe	abstract	full text
P. Jarvis	The politics of fraud: a Seruilius Casca in Livy	abstract	full text
P. Johnson	Fabius, Marcellus and Otacilius - the alliance that never was	abstract	full text
D. Keenan-Jones	The Aqua Augusta and control of water resources in the Bay of Naples	abstract	full text
B. Leadbetter	Galerius, Gamzigrad and the politics of abdication	abstract	full text
J. Maitland	Homer and the Aiakid cousins: kinship celebrated or overlooked in the Iliad	abstract	full text
B. Marshall	'With friends like this, who needs enemies?' Pompeius' abandonment of his friends and supporters	abstract	full text
S. Midford	From Achilles to Anzac: Heroism in the Dardanelles from antiquity to the Great War	abstract	full text
G. Miles	'I, Porphyry': narrator and reader in the Vita Plotini	abstract	full text
P. O'Sullivan	Use your illusion: 'Critias' on religion reconsidered	abstract	full text
K.J. O'Toole	The Demosthenic basileus: a phantom in the Ath. Pol.?	abstract	full text
D.J. Phillips	Thucydides 1.99: tribute and revolts in the Athenian empire	abstract	full text
D. Pritchard	War, democracy and culture in classical Athens	abstract	full text
R. Sing	Jury pay and Aristophanes	abstract	full text
H. Tarrant	The Theaetetus as a narrative dialogue?	abstract	full text
W.J. Tatum	Tyche in Plutarch's Aemilius Paulus - Timoleon	abstract	full text
J. Wallis	(Un)Elegiac characterisation in Propertius 3.12	abstract	full text
K. Welch	Pietas, Pompeiani and Cicero's Thirteenth Philippic	abstract	full text