In case you missed it in one of the other sources, David Parsons — of ARLT fame — recently completed his c.v.. His son has written a very moving blogpost at David’s erstwhile blog … worth a read. Another online colleague whom I never met who will be missed …
This one — from FYROM/Macedonia probably has more bona fides lurking in it than claims of Alexander’s tomb … from Balkan Travellers:
Detailed archaeological excavations began at the thermal Roman bath in Bansko near the south-eastern Macedonian town of Strumica.
The site is being studied and analysed so that a project for its complete reconstruction could be made, according to the director of the Strumica Institute and Museum, Slavitsa Taseva.
“I hope that by the end of this year, we’ll have results that we can present to the public,” Taseva told the Dnevnik daily newspaper.
So far, during excavations of the thermal Roman baths, which – according to Taseva, are unique to the Balkans because of the way water was heated from a natural spring, a total of 11 premises were discovered, with an overall area of 623 square metres.
Of them, the most preserved are the sauna and cool-water pool with the half-dome over the bath.
Already unearthed in the locality were a number of artefacts, including a marble statue, bronze figures of the god Mercury, sculpture pedestals, objects of a unique mosaic, ceramic objects and another complex near the thermal baths, Taseva added.
The excavations and the reconstruction will contribute to the complete definition of the site, which dates back to the Late Roman period and was constructed more than 16 centuries ago.
The current excavations at Bansko, funded by the Macedonian government, are carried out by a team of the Institute for the Protection of Monuments of Culture and Museum in Strumica.
ante diem xvi kalendas maias
I really wish our friends to the south would lobby the powers that be to change their tax-due-date from April 15 to something more sensible (say, April 30, like it is up here in the Great Overcast North). Every year, without fail, there will be some journalist who will write something along the lines of:
The prophets warned Caesar to beware the Ides of March (March 15), but most Americans shiver at the mention of the Ides of April. As other prophets have assured, only two things are certain: Death and taxes. The Ides of March assured Caesar’s death, and the Ides of April assures that we’ll be paying taxes up to and beyond our own final days.
… which keeps popping up in my box from the Valdosta Daily Times. Of course, non-American Classicists wonder why there might be this grave fear of April 13th (which is when the Ides of April falls), but we know better. Let’s all join hands Wholike and merrily chant:
In March July October May
The Ides fall on the fifteenth day
… we’ll leave the Nones bit off and hope folks can figure out the Ides of April ain’t the fifteenth.
Okay … this is a long-developing story. Last year — almost to the day — Zahi Hawass was all excited about some major underground tomb at Tabusiris Magna; it seemed to be building on something announced a couple of years before that. A month later, we were pretty much getting the same story. Then we learned that the archaeologist in charge — Kathleen Martinez — had found an alabaster head of Cleo. In June, 2008, we heard pretty much the same. Then (in an item which didn’t get much attention) Dr. Hawass was saying there was nothing remotely connected to Tony and Cleo at the site. After that, we didn’t really hear anything … until today, of course. My mailbox is overflowing with coverage of this, but as most of the info seems to stem from an AP wire story, we’ll give the incipit of one version:
Archaeologists next week will begin excavating three sites in Egypt near the Mediterranean Sea that may contain the tombs of doomed lovers, Cleopatra and Mark Anthony.
In a statement Wednesday, Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities said the three sites were identified last month during a radar survey of the temple of Taposiris Magna as part of the search for the lovers’ tombs.
The temple is located on Lake Mariut which is today called Abusir, near the northern coastal city of Alexandria, and was built during the reign of King Ptolemy II (282-246 B.C.)
Teams from Egypt and the Dominican Republic have been excavating the temple for the last three years.
The celebrated queen of Egypt and her lover, a Roman general, committed suicide after being defeated in the battle of Actium in 31 BC. Ever since, questions have lingered over where the lovers’ bodies are buried.
Excavators have also found a number of deep shafts inside the temple, three of which were possibly used for burials. The leaders of the excavation believe it’s possible Cleopatra and Mark Anthony could have been buried in a deep shaft similar those already found, according to the statement.
Last year, archaeologists at the site also unearthed a bronze statue of the goddess Aphrodite, the alabaster head of a Queen Cleopatra statue, a mask believed to belong to Mark Anthony and a headless statue from the Ptolemaic era at the excavation site.
The expedition also found 22 coins bearing Cleopatra’s image.
There’s nothing here we haven’t heard before including this mysterious “mask believed to belong to Mark Anthony”. This detail is also mentioned in a press release posted at Dr. Hawass’ site (which may be the source of the AP coverage), but is described in a bit more detail:
Among the most interesting finds is a unique mask depicting a man with a cleft chin. The face bears some similarity to known portraits of Mark Antony himself.
The mask was also mentioned in coverage last May — in a piece with a slideshow depicting the ‘alabaster statue’ (maybe), but I have still yet to see a photo of the mask. Methinks there’s some movement afoot to deflect attention from all that Arsinoe business (or perhaps build on it) …
UPDATE (04/18/09): Giles Coren has an interesting oped piece in the Times on how this drive to get the ‘truth’ (about things like Cleo, the Shroud of Turin, etc.) via archaeology “diminishes” us as humans — the idea being that we are asking questions we don’t really want the answers to. I think, however, we need to distinguish between searches for things like the tomb of Cleopatra (or even Alexander) by legitimate archaeologists from the fringe types who make the same look bad. It would also be nice if the press gave as much coverage to legitimate finds as they do to sensational claims …
Somewhat strange (to me) item apparently circulating with not enough detail on the AP Wire … from PR Inside:
Police in northern Greece say they have seized six sections of ancient marble columns from a junkyard and arrested the owners for antiquity smuggling.
The sections of the 2,300-year-old columns are up to 13 feet (4 meters) tall.
The suspects, aged 21 and 28, told police they imported the antiquities legally from neighboring Bulgaria _ but the claim is being treated with suspicion after police examined their documents.The two men were arrested Tuesday near the northern town of Veroia, 305 miles (490 kilometers) north of Athens, and are being held in police custody until they are formally charged.
More news on the benefits the Getty is receiving from its agreement with Italy … the incipit of a brief item from Reuters:
California’s Getty Museum, one of the world’s richest art institutions, has received the first two artworks from Italy under a deal that settled a 2006 dispute over looted antiquities.
Getty officials said on Wednesday that two life-size ancient bronze statues discovered in the volcano-destroyed Italian city of Pompeii and owned by the National Archeological Museum in Naples will undergo restoration by Getty conservation experts.
The priceless statues, known as Ephebe as a lampbearer and Apollo as an archer, also will be on display for two years at the Getty Villa, a reconstruction of a Pompeii villa that is dedicated to the study of Roman and Greek antiquities, in the beach city of Malibu.
They are two of only about 30 surviving bronze statues from the period. The Getty will use the expertise it has gained in quake-prone California to strengthen the statues before their return to Italy, which also has a history of devastating earthquakes.
“As part of the collaboration agreement between Italy and the Getty, we wanted to contribute to the conservation of these artifacts,” said Karol Wight, senior curator of antiquities at the Getty. “Our staff are very good in this area.”
ante diem xviii kalendas maias
FYROM … er … Macedonia … er … somewhere it has no business being. Or at least that’s the impression we’re being given from a couple of sources. First, MINA came out with this tantalizingly brief brief:
MiNa was not able to verify this information with the Macedonian Government nor with archeologists in Skopje, and are removing the text from “City Magazine” until further notice. Although there may be a chance ‘City Magazine’ is right, taking into account their elaborate piece, and there maybe a chance and a good reason for Macedonia to keep this secret, if we can’t verify the information, then it’s not news. To sum up, ‘City Magazine’ claims the Macedonian Government had found the grave of Alexander the Great in the Visje area (near Gevgelija) close to the border with Greece.
Then, the Bulgarian Focus came out with a typically-strangely translated piece (which expresses skepticism, interestingly enough):
Macedonian archaeologist Pasco Kuzman comments to FOCUS News Agency information released by online Macedonian edition and drawn from Serbian blog, which says that the tomb of Alexander the Great has been found at the Greek-Macedonian border with the following words:
“If it is true – it is a big lie. If it is a lie – it is a great truth. Multiplied, it is equal to zero.”
That was the answer of the question weather it is late April’s joke.
***Macedonian Cyrillic edition published today, a text set out in Belgrade blog City Magazine, which contains a “stunt” for the discovery of the tomb of Alexander of Macedonia, which would have changed the history. Macedonian Edition offers readers the text on the matter stating that perhaps it’s a fictional story of a blogger.
“During reconstruction works on Visie border checkpoint between Macedonia and Greece / officially there is no such border checkpoint – FOCUS notices/, construction workers from” Build ” company uncovered one of the biggest mysteries of antiquity. The discovery has been found in digging of geodesic markers, and then with the permission of building inspectors it led to further construction activities. It was necessary to remove a large stone to dig further in order to make analysis on the ground. After the stone was removed, a granite slab appeared. Thinking that it was a buried wealth from the time of the Ottoman Empire, driver of the excavator began to dig together with his colleagues. Two hours later it became clear that it was a marble building, 30 meters long and four wide, the edition reads further. After descriptions of the finding the Director of the General Inspectorate of the Republic of Macedonia Goce Micevski from the National Museum /there is not such a museum – FOCUS notices/ and experts stated in a joint statement that in the Crypt was found well preserved skeleton with full outfit with gold-bronze armor and shit and mask, which was engraved with the name Alexander.
Journalists were promised to have a press conference in the afternoon, and meanwhile the text quoted the words of the workers involved in the excavations. /The text didn’t mention a date or even a day of a week – FOCUS notices/FOCUS New Agency recalls:
Pasco Kuzman is Macedonian archaeologist, director of the Institute for the cultural heritage of Macedonia. He took part in restoration works of the historical complex Samuilova fortress in Ohrid.
Of course, there is no possibility that this has to do with the whole FYROM/Macedonia/Greece thing (he said, sarcastically … we need a smiley to denote sarcasm). The sad thing is that there will be piles of folk who buy into this … we’ll wait with bated breath to see if a major news source picks this up. We’re still waiting for pictures of that Bactrian inscription mentioned last week, by the way …
Translation, Performance, and Reception of Greek Drama, 1900–1950: International Dialogues
A Special Issue of Comparative Drama
Proposals are invited for essays on the translation, performance, and reception of ancient Greek drama in the period between and around the two world wars—so, very broadly speaking, 1900 to 1950. Essays that have an international focus or dimension are particularly encouraged: for example, discussions of translations and adaptations which engage with international politics; considerations of intercontinental trends in Greek play performance; or essays on the various receptions of internationally touring productions (such as Max Reinhardt’s Oedipus, 1910–12, Harley Granville-Barker and Lillah McCarthy’s American tour of Trojan Women and Iphigenia in Tauris, 1915). This special issue, which will be published in late 2010, seeks to encourage and promote research into engagements with Greek drama after the Victorian era and before the 1960s, a significant and interesting period which—though often overlooked—repays close study.
Abstracts of up to 300 words should be sent by 30 April 2009 to Amanda Wrigley, Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LU, UK or to amanda.wrigley AT classics.ox.ac.uk.
Comparative Drama (ISSN 0010-4078) is a scholarly journal devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope; it is published quarterly (Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter) at Western Michigan University (member, Council of Editors of Learned Journals).
Cleaning out the rest of the inbox …
A new roof for Newport Roman Villa:
Coverage of Richard Seaford’s thoughts about Greek money at the Classical Association:
Coverage of the “Subversive Classics” session at Princeton:
Latin in a Nottingham primary school:
Ancient Greek in a Lexington grade school (!):
Coverage of the Caesar: the man, the deeds, the myth exhibition (I haven’t found much more on the web yet for this exhibition, which is almost over!):
Another exhibition with a bit of ClassCon is Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum:
New at Project Muse:
Interesting article by Amelia Sparavigna:
Larry Hurtado in Slate:
Brief feature on the tunnel of Eupalinos on Samos:
The Classics Online Gateway is a UK outreach effort that looks emulatable …
Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge
Day of seminars on Tacitus’ Agricola
Wednesday May 27th 2009, in Faculty Building, Sidgwick Avenue
11. 15–11.20 STEPHEN OAKLEY, Welcome
11. 20–12.45 TONY WOODMAN, The preface + DISCUSSION
12. 45–1.30 LUNCH
1. 30–2.25 CHRIS WHITTON, The voice of Cicero in the Agricola + DISCUSSION
2. 30–3.30 MYLES LAVAN, Slavishness in Britain and Rome + DISCUSSION
3. 30–4.00 TEA
4. 00–4.45 PHILIP HARDIE, Fama in the Agricola + DISCUSSION
4. 45–5.20 STEPHEN OAKLEY, How did Calgacus read his Sallust? + DISCUSSION
5. 20–5.30 BREAK
5. 30–6.45 CHRIS KRAUS, The ethnography (introducing a draft on chapters 10–12 of the commentary which she and Tony Woodman are writing on the Agricola for CUP) + DISCUSSION
6.45–7.30 DRINKS
Anyone interested in the Agricola is welcome. A buffet lunch and drinks after the conference will be provided free of charge for those who notify Stephen Oakley (spo23 AT cam.ac.uk) of their intention to attend. The speakers will be taken out for dinner; others are welcome to come (at their own expense).
Lucretius in the European Enlightenment
A Conference hosted by the School of History, Classics and Archaeology
The University of Edinburgh
3 – 4 September 2009
For more information and registration details, see
http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/conferences/lucretius09/index.html
Provisional Programme:
David Butterfield (W.H.D. Rouse Research Fellow, Christ’s College, Cambridge):
‘Lucretius’ De rerum natura and classical scholarship in the eighteenth century’
Gianni Paganini (Professor of the History of Philosophy, Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy):
‘Lucretius and Bayle’
Ann Thomson (Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature, Université de Paris 8 – Denis Diderot):
‘Lucretius and la Mettrie’
Catherine Wilson (Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Andrew Heiskell Research Scholar, The City University of New York Graduate Center):
‘Lucretius and Rousseau’
Avi Lifshitz (Lecturer in History, University College London):
‘Lucretius and German debates over the origins of language, c. 1750’
Wolfgang Pross (Professor of German and Comparative Literature, University of Berne, Switzerland):
‘»Atheorum antistes et oraculum«: Enemies of Lucretius in the European Enlightenment’
James Harris (Lecturer in Philosophy, University of St. Andrews):
‘Lucretius and Hume’
Alan Kors (George H. Walker Term Professor of History, University of Pennsylvania):
‘Lucretius and d’Holbach’
Mario Marino (Post-Doctoral Fellow, Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena):
‘Lucretius and Herder’.
Ernst A. Schmidt (Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Tübingen):
‘Lucretius and Wieland’
Glenn Most (Professor of Greek Philology, Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa/ Professor, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago):
‘Lucretius and the sublime in the eighteenth century’
Conference organisers:
Thomas Ahnert (History)
Hannah Dawson (History and Philosophy)
Michael Lurie (Classics)
Plato’s Timaeus and its legacy in Stoicism
A workshop to be held in the School of Classics, University of St Andrews, on Saturday 9 May
2009.
Jenny Bryan (Cambridge)
‘The Stoics on nature and necessity’
Sarah Broadie (St Andrews)
‘The Timaeus and the Stoics on individual responsibility’
Paul Scade (Pittsburgh)
‘Divine mathematics in the Timaeus and the Stoa’
Christopher Gill (Exeter)
‘The Stoics and Plato’s Timaeus on the relationship between ethics and physics’
This will be the second of two workshops on Plato’s legacy in Stoicism. The project is funded by
the British Academy.
All are welcome. There is no registration fee for the workshop, but please contact Alex Long
(agl10 AT st-andrews.ac.uk) if you wish to attend.
Bursaries for Graduate Students
The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies is generously providing bursaries for
postgraduate attendance. The bursaries will contribute towards or cover the costs of travel to St
Andrews from elsewhere in the UK. Applications for these bursaries should be sent by email
(agl10 AT st-andrews.ac.uk) or in writing to Alex Long, School of Classics, Swallowgate, St Andrews,
Fife, KY16 9AL.
Applications should include
1) a statement of your research interests and a short explanation of why attendance at the
workshop would benefit your research
2) an estimate of your travel expenses
3) a brief letter in support of your application from your supervisor.
The deadline for applications is Friday 3 April 2009.
Further details at
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/conferences/plato-legacy.shtml
As part of the Panegyrici Latini Project, the School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, University of Liverpool and the School of Classics, University of St Andrews are delighted to announce a one-day conference, to be held in the School of Classics, Swallowgate, St Andrews on Saturday 16th May 2009.
“Pliny the Younger in Late Antiquity”
9.30 Introduction: Bruce Gibson (Liverpool) and Roger Rees (St Andrews).
10.00
‘A couple of things Pliny can’t help with: Panegyrici Latini XI(3)’
John Henderson (Cambridge)
10.45
‘Managing the past: Plinian strategies in late antique panegyric’
Bruce Gibson (Liverpool)
11.30 Coffee
12.00
‘Pliny and Symmachus’
Gavin Kelly (Edinburgh)
12.45 Lunch (in Swallowgate)
1.45
‘Pacatus, a poet doing Plinian prose’
Roger Rees (St Andrews)
2.30
‘Pliny’s Panegyricus and the Historia Augusta’
Diederik Burgersdijk (Amsterdam)
3.15 Tea
3.45
‘Salvian, Pliny’s Panegyricus and the Gallic Panegyrics’
David Lambert (St. Andrews)
4.30
‘Sidonius’ Pliny: from Constantius and Clarus to Firminus and Fuscus’
Roy Gibson (Manchester)
5.15 End
Registration
The deadline for Registration is 1 May 2009.
The conference fee of £10 covers conference documents, lunch and morning and afternoon refreshments. Postgraduate students may attend without charge, but need to register. Full details and a downloadable booking form are available at:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/classics/panegyric/events.html
For further information, please email rdr1 AT st-andrews.ac.uk or bjgibson AT liverpool.ac.uk.
Call for Proposals:
Classical Commentary Writers’ Workshop
Georgetown University, October 15–17, 2009
Proposals are solicited for participation in the fifth annual Classical Commentary Writers’ Workshop, to be held at Georgetown University on October 15–17, 2009. The 2009 workshop will be devoted to Greek texts. The deadline for proposals is June 15, 2009. The workshop will consist of five 3-hour sessions, each devoted to discussion of a single pre-circulated chunk of text and commentary. We work in an intensely practical, hands-on way, asking questions, making suggestions, working out problems, and the like. Our expectation is not that the group will examine the whole of anyone’s primary text, but that all participants will return in the end to their projects with fresh insights, ideas and questions, new bibliographic resources, and a sense of working within a supportive scholarly community.
Workshop sessions are open only to the convenors, S. Douglas Olson and Alex Sens; the five participants; and (by invitation) previous participants and occasional graduate student observers. Participants are expected to arrive late in the day on the 15th, and to stay for the entire proceedings, including a final dinner on Saturday night.
Projects should be well enough advanced to provide a substantial sample of text and commentary, but not so far along that the Workshop will be unlikely to affect the final shape. Proposals should consist of (1) a brief (maximum one-page) description of the project, its intended audience, and the expected publication venue; (2) a 10-page sample of text and commentary. Proposals should be submitted, preferably in PDF form, to the convenors at sdolson AT umn.edu and sensa AT georgetown.edu. Final Workshop samples will be due on Monday September 14, 2009, for pre-circulation to all participants.
Participants are asked to call first on their own research accounts and institutional resources to cover their transportation and housing costs. For those who lack such resources, the Workshop will provide up to $750 for travel and housing. All meals will be provided.
Support has been provided by the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, the Alexander Onassis Foundation, the Georgetown Provost’s Office, and the University of Minnesota’s Imagine Fund.
I was wondering if there’d be a claim trying to connect Easter eggs to the Romans … the closest seems to be a piece on the mystery of Easter eggs which mentions (but doesn’t make a specific connection):
pregnant young Roman women carried an egg on their persons to foretell the sex of their unborn children
… anyone have a source for this? It appears semi-frequently on the web with the exact same wording. Not sure how it would work … The only pregnancy-bird egg connection I can recall from Roman sources is Pliny’s suggestion that pregnant women avoid ravens’ eggs because they might cause ‘oral miscarriage’ (NH 30.130) (that one has stuck in my mind for quite a while!).
This one’s interesting to me because it touches on something I’ve wondered about for years … the assumption that the Praetorium mentioned in the Gospels as the location of Pilate’s trial of Jesus (and, therefore, the starting point for the via Dolorosa) is to be identified with the Antonia Fortress. In a forthcoming study called The Final Days of Jesus, Shimon Gibson is suggesting otherwise. Cobbling together bits from various news reports, we begin with something from the Daily Mail:
Since medieval times, Christians have assumed that the Praetorium, the starting point of the route and the Roman headquarters mentioned in the Gospels as the scene of Jesus’s trial, was the Antonia Fortress which stood in the north of Jerusalem.
But Professor Gibson said there was ‘no historical basis whatsoever’ for this being the site where Jesus was tried and condemned to death by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.
Little of the fortress’s structure has survived but, having surveyed the remains of its rock-cut base in intricate detail, he concludes that it could not have been more than a military observation tower.
He said archaeological excavations pointed to the site of the trial being 900 metres away at the remains of a large paved courtyard south-west of Jerusalem, south of the Jaffa Gate.
It was situated between two fortification walls with an outer gate and an inner one leading to barracks where it is most likely that Jesus was held.
The open courtyard contained a platform of around two square metres – details that ‘correspond perfectly’ with the Gospel of John’s account of Pontius Pilate sitting on a judgment-seat at an elevated place.
From the Telegraph:
“When we measured the remains of the Antonia Fortress, we found it was so small it could have been no bigger than a tower.”
He thought it more likely that Pontius Pilate’s Praetorium was elsewhere: “With Pontius Pilate being a governor used to palatial surroundings, he would have got use of the old palace of Herod the Great, which was enormous.”
CNN’s coverage (which also has a video report/interview) includes these quotes from Gibson:
“You have a courtyard and a pavement and a rocky outcrop on one side … In the Gospel of John, you have a description of the trial taking place at the Lithostratus, Greek for pavement, at a place called Gabata, which is the word for an ancient hillock or a rocky outcrop, and this is what we have here.”
Of course, changing the location of the Praetorium will have implications on the Via Dolorosa … The Daily Mail has a good graphic of same:
from the Daily Mail
… for my part, I still find the proximity of Golgotha and the tomb a little too ‘convenient’/close.
While tracking down a claim, I came across a very interesting article from the BDA Dental Museum on various methods used by Romans to keep their teeth clean … there are (non-specific) references to ancient sources which could be tracked down …
