Yes Minister – The National Education Service
This is one I remember … the whole thing is interesting, but there is some good Latin stuff just after the seven minute mark:
Yes Minister – Metadioxin
Amicus noster Tim Parkin posted the Yes Minister thing from yesterday and a comment therefrom suggested tracking down another episode with a bit of ClassCon … ecce: … the discussion of “meta” is just after the six minute mark … if you don’t want the ‘context’, this one’s a bit shorter …
Hagia Sophia Angel Brought to Light
Technically, this one’s a bit out of our purview date-wise, but I just learned a few weeks ago that there were mosaics being revealed at Hagia Sophia. According to various reports, one of the angel mosaics from Hagia Sophia has been revealed again, a century-and-a-half after it had been plastered over. Here’s the coverage from [...]
Ancient Skylletium?
I was having problems understanding the Italian coverage on this one yesterday (specifically, the architect’s description, which is also in Il Quotidiano), but thankfully it’s appeared in the English press this a.m. … here’s the ANSA coverage: An amateur scuba diver has discovered what may be the ruins of an ancient city off the coast [...]
d.m. Lionel Casson
From the New York Times: Lionel Casson, who melded his mastery of classical literature with the findings of underwater archaeology in scholarly but accessible books about the history of ancient seafaring, from the primitive dory to the vast armadas of the Roman Empire, died July 18 in Manhattan. He was 94. The cause was pneumonia, [...]
Yes Minister – Trojan Horse
While poking around to see if there was a way to make links to the Colbert Report more ‘universal’ (i.e. via Youtube) I came across this funny Yes, Minister clip (I used to watch this show … can’t recall ever seeing this episode) … there’s some good Latin stuff here (after a couple of minutes [...]
Colbert Papae Salutem Dicit
At the end of a funny clip commenting on the Pope’s recent wrist injury, Stephen Colbert sends a Gregorian Chantesque ‘get well card’ to the pontiff … You can watch the clip via the Comedy Network (Canada) or Comedy Central (US) … not sure about other jurisdictions (July 22 edition)…
CONF: Judaea and Rome in Coins
seen on Ioudaios: JUDAEA AND ROME IN COINS, 65 BCE TO 135 CE An International Conference 13 & 14 September 2010 A two-day conference with the theme Judaea and Rome in Coins, 65 BCE to 135 AD, will be held at the premises of Spink and Son Ltd. in London on Monday 13th and Tuesday [...]
Berlusconi Hiding Antiquities?
Okay … this is a bizarre one (to me anyway) in the myriad ways it’s being covered. The Italian Daily l’Espresso has been publishing some ‘sex tapes’ which apparently were made by one of Silvio Belusconi’s paramours, and in one of them, he reveals that there are Phoenician (Punic, more likely … possibly even Greek) [...]
Ancient Port of Trafalgar
I’m hoping we’ll get more on this one, but many of these items reported by ANSA never seem to make it beyond ANSA’s own English coverage: Searches along the Cadiz coast have led Spanish archaeologist Joaquim Casellas to find the ancient port of Trafalgar, 50 metres below the waves and partly buried at a depth [...]
CFP: Antiquity in Film – Gender on Screen
Seen on various lists … Conference: “Antiquity in Film – Gender on Screen” December 10-12 2009 at the Freie Universitaet, Berlin, Germany Contact: AntikfilmGender AT gmx.de Prof. Dr. Almut-Barbara Renger Department of History and Cultural Sciences Institute for Religious Studies Chair in Ancient Religion, Culture and the History of their Reception Gosslerstr. 2-4, 14195 Berlin [...]
This Day in Ancient History: ante diem ix kalendas sextilias
ante diem ix kalendas sextilias ludi Victoriae Caesaris (day 5) 64 A.D. — the Great Fire of Rome continues (day 7) 69 A.D. — sacking of the Second Temple in Jerusalem (?) 133 A.D. — the last holdout of the Bar Kochba Revolt — Betar – fell to the Romans (?) 1895 — Birth of [...]
Classical iPhone Apps
Froma Zeitlin posted this to the Classicists list: To those of you who are IPhone users, there are two new wonderful applications now available, very easy to use, courtesy of Harry Schmidt, grad student (and whiz) at Princeton University: 1. Lexiphanes is a Greek dictionary for your iPhone. It contains editions of the Liddell-Scott-Jones Greek-English [...]
Spartacus: Blood and Sand Hype
The hype has begun for the Starz’ Spartacus series (it’s coming out in January; I hope some Canadian station picks it up) … outside of a press release outlining all sorts of events, there’s now an official website with at least one wallpaper, which folks might be interested in (not of Lucy Lawless, alas) … [...]
Plato on Transfer Talks?
T’other day we had Plato on music remixing … now the Liverpool Daily Post tells us he knew about transfer talks too (for those of you in North America who don’t follow soccer across the pond, we’d call them ‘trade negotiations’): THE philosopher Plato – as opposed to some other Plato you might know – [...]
Roman Shipwrecks of Ventotene
This has finally hit the newswires, it appears … excerpts from the Reuters coverage: A team of archaeologists using sonar technology to scan the seabed have discovered a “graveyard” of five pristine ancient Roman shipwrecks off the small Italian island of Ventotene. The trading vessels, dating from the first century BC to the fifth century [...]
This Day in Ancient History: ante diem x kalendas sextilias
ante diem x kalendas sextilias Neptunalia — an obscure festival (obscure in the sense that we really don’t know what went on) in honour of Neptune ludi Victoriae Caesaris (day 4) 64 A.D. — the Great Fire of Rome (day 6) 79 A.D. — martyrdom of Apollinaris 303 A.D. — martyrdom of Phocas the Gardener
GRBS Online and Free!
Seen on the Digital Classicist list: Volume 49 (2009) will be the last volume of GRBS printed on paper. Beginning with volume 50, issues will be published quarterly on-line on the GRBS website, on terms of free access. We undertake this transformation in the hope of affording our authors a wider readership; out of concern [...]
Conventiculum Lexintoniense
Meredith Dixon is alerting folks to the existence of a number of videos from this year’s Conventiculum … the first two are an overview of the thing: At the ‘user’ page, there are also seven videos of Fabulae Scaenicae … looks like a fun time!
Vatican Museums Open Late!
This is good news … from ABC: The Vatican Museum, full of priceless paintings, sculptures and archeological treasures is one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world, and one of the most visited places in Italy. Anyone who has been to the museum will recall the long lines snaking around the outer wall [...]
Percy Jackson
Time to start hyping this one, I think … we should be cashing in on the popularity of this next year, deo volente. Here’s a nice background video: There’s an unimbeddable-in-wordpress trailer for the upcoming video at Rope of Silicon … very nice teaser …
Not-Quite-As-Swift-Footed-Achilles?
An interesting item made the rounds of assorted newspapers this weekend … here’s the version from the Sun Times: Not only have Olympic swimmers and sprinters gotten faster over the last 100 years — but they have grown in average size at a much faster rate than the normal population, a new analysis finds. While [...]
Pre Roman Silchester
I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t received a lot more media attention: an ongoing dig at Silchester (ancient Calleva Atrebatum) reveals evidence of a planned city with a possible population of 10,000 or more prior to the arrival of the Romans. Mike Fulford — who has been digging at the site for years — dixit [...]
Shrine to Jupiter Dolichenus
Very interesting find at Vindolanda of a large shrine to Jupiter Dolichenus with a Latin inscription; quotes from Andrew Birley have appeared in a number of newspapers: What should have been part of the rampart mound near to the north gate of the fort has turned out to be an amazing religious shrine …There is [...]
Golden ‘Mask’ From Ohrid
Reports are just starting to come out of the discovery of 17 Hellenistic-period tombs from a site near Ohrid, FYROM/Macedonia. Plenty of items were found, of course (including some in amber), but the most interesting seems to be the burial of a young girl of apparently noble status. Pasko Kuzman, head of the Macedonian Department [...]
