CONF: Queensland Greek History Conference

Seen on Classicists (please send any responses to the folks mentioned in the quoted text, not to rogueclassicism!):

INAUGURAL QUEENSLAND GREEK HISTORY CONFERENCE

Cultural History of the Greeks
22-23 October 2010
CONVENOR

Dr David Pritchard (The University of Queensland)

FINANCIAL SPONSORS

The University of Queensland Cultural History Project
The R D Milns Classics and Ancient History Perpetual Endowment Fund
The Greek Orthodox Community of St George, Brisbane

LIST OF SPEAKERS

Friday 22 October

1. Professor Margaret Miller (The University of Sydney) ‘‘I am Eurymedon’: Tensions and Ambiguities in Athenian War Imagery’
2. Professor Vincent Gabrielsen (The University of Copenhagen) ‘Brotherhoods of Faith: Private Clubs in the Ancient World’

Saturday 23 October

3. Associate Professor Vrasidas Karalis (The University of Sydney) ‘Autobiography as Cultural Critique: Some Observations on Michael Psellos’ Chronographia’
4. Martyn Brown (The University of Sydney) ‘Greek Blood in Italy: The Reception and Politics of the Battle of Rimini in 1944’
5. Dr Matthew Trundle (Victoria University of Wellington) ‘Coinage and Greek Culture’
6. Dr Amelia Brown (The University of Queensland, HPRC) ‘Residents and Tourists in Roman Corinth, Capital City of Southern Greece’
7. Associate Professor Rick Strelan (The University of Queensland, HPRC) ‘Encircling the Corpse: Ritual Pollution and Purity in Acts 14:20’
8. Mark Chou (The University of Queensland, POLSIS) ‘Postmodern Dramaturgy, Premodern Drama: The Global Resurgence of Greek Tragedy Today’
9. Anna Efstathiadou (The University of Queensland, EMSAH) ‘Representations of History in Greek War Posters’
10. Dr Bronwen Neil (The Australian Catholic University) ‘The Earliest Greek Understandings of Islam: Theophanes the Confessor’s Chronographia’
11. Dr Rashna Taraporewalla (The University of Queensland, HPRC) ‘Fighting as Greece’s Champions: Athenian Commemoration of the Persian Wars’
12. Dr Peter Londey (The Australian National University) ‘Memories of Thermopylae, Ancient and Modern’
13. Dr Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides (Monash University) and Dr Alexandros Giannadakis (Monash University) ‘The Evolution of Greek in the Diaspora: Australia from the 1960s to the 1980s’.

Dr David Pritchard
Cultural History Project
Centre for the History of European Discourses
Discipline of Classics and Ancient History
School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics
Faculty of Arts
University of Queensland
Brisbane
QLD 4072
Australia
Telephone: +61 7 3365 3338
Fax: +61 7 3365 1968
Email: d.pritchard AT uq.edu.au

The Hottest Cleopatra?

I twittered about Thandie Newton a few days ago … now People is asking if she’s the hottest Cleopatra:

She seems to be trying to out-theda Theda Bara (although People seems to only care about Liz Taylor):

FACEOFF: Is Thandie Newton or Liz Taylor a Hotter Cleopatra? – Elizabeth Taylor, Thandie Newton : People.com.

Hyacinthia in the News!

The incipit of a piece in the Daily Eastern News … I’m willing to bet this is the first time this semi-obscure festival has made it into the popular press:

The ancient Greeks valued two things in their citizens: intelligence and strength.

As a result, ancient Greek sports reinforced those values and formed games as means of creating ways for creating excellence.

Tim Shonk, an associate professor of English who teaches Greek and Roman mythology, said ancient Greek games were sometimes derived from traditions established in history.

History

“The marathon segment of the modern Olympics, of course, derives from the lengthy trip made by the runner Pheippedes heading to Sparta to ask for help for the Athenians who were trying to fight off the invading Persians,” Shonk said.

Other games were created to celebrate ritual observations of key figures in Greek history and mythology. Shonk used the story of Hyacinthus and the Hyacinthia games.

“Named after Hyacinthus, a young boy beloved by Apollo, but accidentally killed by a discus thrown by Apollo, the festival in honor of this young man featured three days of observation, all marked by a different tone,” Shonk said.

The first day of the games was for mourning. The second was for prayer rituals, sacrifices to the gods, etc. The third day marked the reinvigoration as a symbol of rebirth.

This day was when the games, which were usually fast-paced and high-energy, were played.

Ties to Greek life at Eastern

Shonk said that the parallel between ancient Greek games and the Greek Week games at Eastern is that they are a springtime celebration in the pursuit of glory. There are many differences, though.

The ancient Greek competed against each other in events such as boxing, chariot racing, wrestling, running and javelin and discus throwing. The Greek Week events include Tugs, Baseball, Airband and Greek Sing.

via Greek Week parallels ancient Greeks in pursuit of glory | Daily Eastern News.

JOB: Director of Publications ASCSA (reopened)

Seen on various lists (please send any responses to the folks mentioned in the quoted text, not to rogueclassicism!):

SEARCH REOPENED
DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS
American School of Classical Studies at Athens
Position in Princeton, New Jersey
The primary responsibilities of the Director of Publications include
the overall direction and management of the Publications Office;
overseeing the assignments of the editorial staff and freelance
editors and designers; working with excavation directors and authors
to develop and produce assigned monographs; collaborating with the
Editor of Hesperia; overseeing marketing and distribution; negotiating
financial arrangements with printers and fulfillment agencies;
investigating alternative sources of funding for publications; and
exploring and developing new avenues–digital or other–for American
School publications.
The Director is also expected to oversee staff in the Publications
Office; write regularly scheduled performance reviews; create and
administer an annual departmental budget; prepare regular reports for
the American School Managing Committee, Board of Trustees, and
Committee on Publications; and maintain and expand the American School
Publications web page. The Director works closely with the chair of
the Committee on Publications and reports to the chair of the Managing
Committee.
Requirements: BA degree, with an advanced degree preferred; at least
five years managerial experience in a publishing environment;
background in classical archaeology, Classics, ancient art, or a
related field preferred; and demonstrated knowledge of digital
publishing and current trends in scholarly communication.
Alongside archaeological exploration, teaching, and research,
publication is one of the core missions of the American School of
Classical Studies at Athens. Since its founding in 1881, the American
School has published almost 250 books. These include major reports and
studies on material culture recovered during excavations at the
Athenian Agora, Ancient Corinth, and other sites that are essential
reference works for all scholars of the ancient world. Since 1932, the
American School has also published the award-winning quarterly journal
Hesperia, one of the leading periodicals in the field. The
increasingly digital nature of scholarship is transforming the nature
of publication in this field, and the Director of Publications
contributes to institution-wide initiatives to support new modes of
scholarly communication.
The position is full-time, beginning as soon as is mutually
convenient. Excellent benefits, pleasant working conditions in the
Princeton, New Jersey Publications Office, occasional travel to
Greece, and salary commensurate with experience. Application review
will begin as of April 14, 2010 and continue until the position is
filled. Interested applicants should send a cover letter, curriculum
vitae, and at least two letters of recommendation to:
Professor Jane Carter
Committee on Publications
American School of Classical Studies at Athens
6-8 Charlton Street
Princeton, NJ 08540
or
e-mail to application AT ascsa.org, marked “Publication Job Application”
in the subject area

A Somewhat Scary Poll

A recent poll found that young travellers often do not distinguish between real and fictional places or simply have geographical locations all mixed up. The poll, conducted by the sunshine.co.uk website, surveyed 2,865 people between the ages of 18 and 30, to somewhat disparaging results.

[...]

>The opposite trend – considering fictitious places as real, was also observed: about a third of the respondents thought that Atlantis – the legendary island that, according to myths, housed a lost prehistoric civilisation before sinking into the ocean, was a real place they could visit in Greece.

via Balkan Travellers – Young Travellers Think “Atlantis is a Real Place in Greece”.

hmmm … maybe we should send them there …

Nundina in Spain!

On the weekend of 24 and 25 April, Alhama de Murcia will be holding its first Roman Market since the Romans left some 1600 years ago. The Market will be held in the Plaza de la Constitución where stands the Town Hall. As the Market has “a touch of Asterix and Obelix”, there will be – apart from the Romans – Gauls, druids and slaves as well as a complete Roman market with stalls selling foods, trinkets and all that is necessary for the most refined Roman household.

The stalls open on the Saturday morning at 11 am. As Amata (the same association that was in charge of the medieval market, last year) is organising the whole event, visitors can be sure that all the merchandise is made by hand by the people at the stalls. Wonderful presents for the next dinner party or seminar, just the thing to bribe a senator or two or obtain the favours of a noble lady. Silver, glass, wood, ceramics, leather, fabrics – all beautifully crafted to suit the refined taste of any patrician.

And then there are stalls with food to suit the most jaded appetite. Perhaps no lark tongue paté or wolf nipple crackers, but noble cheeses, delicious sausages and dried fruit for those long journeys into the barbarian lands as well as beer, wine, pancakes and sizzling barbecued meat to restore the inner man or woman. Drink from beakers and eat with your fingers – the Romans had no table manners and nor do we, but we do provide paper napkins.

Sit down at one of the rude benches and enjoy the spectacle of Gaulish soldiers and musicians, a Roman priest making an offering at mid-day, beggars, thieves and a senator or two. You might even encounter Asterix and Obelix. A dancing bear on a chain (on loan from Circus Maximus) will be there to amaze the gawking crowd with his skills, but there is no need to go and complain to the RSPCA: it’s not a real bear! There will also be a man-powered merry-go-tound and some workshops for the children.

via FIRST ROMAN CRAFT FAIR IN ALHAMA DE MURCIA | Leader Newspaper .

Romanian Romanization

Interesting …

Director General of the UNIMPRESA Romania union of Italian employers Marco Rondina on Sunday discussed with Bucharest General Mayor Sorin Oprescu the possibility of asking Rome Mayor Gianni Alemanno to loan some Roman frescoes to be mounted in the Lipscani – Bratianu Boulevard in the historic centre of Bucharest City.

The Italian investors would also like Bucharest City to twin with Rome. The Lupa Capitolina Capitoline Wolf statute would also be relocated from the Romana Square to the intersection of Lipscani Street and Bratianu Boulevard. Work on the new pedestal started on March 25 and it is expected to complete in two months’ time, according to Mayor Oprescu. The statue will be disassembled next week and recomposed at a specialist workshop.

The statue was given as a gift to the Bucharest people by the Rome Municipality in 1906 to mark the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Romanian King Carol I and 1,800 years since the Roman Conquest of Dacia, today’s Romania. The Capitoline Wolf was initially mounted at the Romanian Arenas in Park Carol I and relocated to the St. Gheorghe Square in 1908. In 1931, it was relocated to the Metropolitan Hill; in 1965 to the small park in the Dorobanti Square and in 1997 to the Romana Square.

via Roman frescoes to be mounted in Lipscani pedestrian passage | Financiarul.

Seen in Passing: Tragic Soaps?

The incipit of a radio column in the Scotsman:

Is Dot Branning a one-woman Greek chorus? Might Sophocles, not averse to a goblet of wine or two, have drawn inspiration at the bar of the Queen Vic? In OedipusEnders, comedian and self-confessed closet classicist Natalie Haynes discovers that ancient Greek tragedy and TV soap operas have more in common than might meet the eye. She meets soap scriptwriters and academics to consider this unlikely sounding thesis. Both genres, she argues, tend to focus on families under pressure, both make it their business to confront audiences with social taboos – and both, she adds, seek to attract large audiences. Talking to the likes of John Yorke – current head of BBC Drama and a former executive producer of EastEnders – and other writers and producers involved in Brookside and The Bill, she is assured that the spirits of Sophocles and Aeschylus hover around soap script conferences more frequently than you might imagine.

Not everyone agrees, however, and Barrie Rutter, artistic director of Northern Broadsides Theatre Company, currently touring with Euripides’s Medea, reckons that any perceived link between the two genres is rather spurious …

via Radio listener – The Scotsman.

Hannibal’s Crossing

I suspect/hope we’ll be getting more coverage on this one … an excerpt from the Times (tip o’ the pileus to Diana Wright):

Argument still rages over where the Alpine crossing took place. While there is general agreement that Hannibal moved up the Rhône from Avignon almost to Valence, from there onwards every valley and pass has had a case made for it being the route across the mountains into the plain of the Po near Turin. In 1959 an elephant called Jumbo was taken over the Col du Clapier by the British Alpine Hannibal Expedition to prove the route’s feasibility. This adventure was immortalised in John Hoyte’s book, Trunk Road for Hannibal. In 1988 the cricketer Ian Botham did the same thing, but with three elephants, in aid of leukaemia charities.

From the Col du Mont Cenis in the north to the Col Agnel 35 miles 60km almost due south of it three approach routes have been argued for. In the most recent study, Dr William Mahaney, a geomorphologist, and his colleagues have looked at the evidence from Classical sources.

“As documented by Polybius and Livy in the ancient literature, Hannibal’s army was blocked by a two-tier rockfall on the lee side of the Alps, a rubble sheet of considerable volume,” they note in the journal Archaeometry. “The only such two-tier landform lies below the Col de la Traversette, 2,600 metres above sea level, a rubble sheet with sufficient volume to block the Carthaginian army.

“The character of the rockfall can best be seen from the sides or below, where a thin cover mass lies atop a much larger and more substantial rubble mass,” they say. “The trail cuts across a steep bedrock slope laced with a two-tier combination of rockfall and slide, just as Polybius described more than 2,150 years ago.” The trail has been shored up with ballast one to two metres thick, and Dr Mahaney’s team believes that artefact evidence may survive: “The three-day struggle to forge a path through the rockfall must surely have resulted in the abandonment or loss of implements used by Hannibal’s troops to prepare a path with sufficient ballast to support the passage of the baggage train, horses and elephants.”

Hannibal is said by Livy to have ordered timber to be cut and laced around the blocking rocks and then set alight. When a high temperature was reached, sour wine was thrown on to the hot rocks, splitting and spalling many of the large stones and allowing Hannibal’s engineers to remove them.

Dr Mahaney’s studies, in a book, Hannibal’s Odyssey, suggest that the tree line would have been higher in ancient times, so that timber would have been available; the area today is treeless. So far, however, there is no evidence of fire-shattered rock on the Col de la Traversette, although otherwise it fits the ancient descriptions. The site is the only area where rockfall and rockslides blocked part of an existing road, and where they can be plausibly dated to the right period. In most respects, “this location meets the criteria outlined by Livy and Polybius,” the team concludes.

• via Hannibal’s real Alpine trunk road to Rome is revealed – Times Online.

The Times also gives a source for the original article in Archaeometry which (o joy of joys) happens to be a freebie :

THE TRAVERSETTE (ITALIA) ROCKFALL: GEOMORPHOLOGICAL INDICATOR OF THE HANNIBALIC INVASION ROUTE* (p 156-172)
W. C. MAHANEY, B. KAPRAN, V. KALM, P. TRICART, C. CARCAILLET, O. BLARQUEZ, M. W. MILNER, R. W. BARENDREGT, P. SOMELAR

PDF HTML

Of course, the debate will rage on …

Holy Anachronism Batman!

This must have been zombie Thucydides:

In some animals, however, there seems to be a genuine ability to sense the changes that occur before earthquakes.Perhaps the first person to record this was the Greek historian Thucydides, in 373 B.C. Days before a massive earthquake hit the city of Helice, he says all manner of animals streamed out. Dogs, rats and weasels, they ran for the hills. Snakes sensed the coming catastrophe too, and they slithered for the highlands.

via Italian toads fuel case for animals’ seismic sense | The Japan Times Online.

Caryatid (hair)Stylings

From a press release:

A DVD is now available that documents the Caryatid Hairstyling Project, directed by Dr. Katherine Schwab, associate professor of art history at Fairfield University, to show if the elaborate female coiffures seen among the Erechtheion marble Caryatids, or maidens, at the Acropolis Museum in Athens could actually be replicated on women today. The 15-minute, fast-paced DVD follows six female students as their long hair is twisted and curled in intricate patterns ( which in real time took hours ) and records their reactions as they are transformed in appearance from modern 21st century women to elegant young women of ancient Greece. Produced by Christopher McGloin and Daniel Kole of the Media Center, with music arranged by Dr. Laura Nash, Program Director of Music, the DVD was funded by a grant from the University’s Faculty Research Committee and the Classical Studies Program. A webpage about the project includes a clip and online purchase of the DVD at www.fairfield.edu/caryatid.

Dr. Schwab, who has a long-standing association with the Acropolis Museum, frequently travels to Athens to pursue her research on the Parthenon east and north metopes. After seeing photographs of the Caryatids in an exhibition, The Creative Photograph in Archaeology, organized by the Benaki Museum and hosted by Fairfield University, Dr. Schwab became increasingly curious about the beautifully carved hair of the Caryatids. The result of her investigations is this project and DVD. Crucial to her research on the Caryatid hairstyles, she said, were the important photographs by Goesta Hellner in the archives of the German Archaeological Institute at Athens and the Alison Frantz Photographic Collection at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens ( ASCSA ). Dr. Natalia Vogeikoff-Brogan, Head Archivist at the ASCSA, remarked that the “archaeologist Alison Frantz ( 1903-1995 ) served as the staff photographer of the Athenian Agora Excavations from 1933 to 1968. Her valuable collection of about 3,000 black and white negatives ( 4×5 inches ) has been used to illustrate several famous publications on ancient Greek art.”

Student participants, who consisted of five art history majors and one psychology major, were selected for the project on the basis of the length and thickness of their hair. The hairstylist Milexy Torres, who was able to accurately recapture the intricate twists and braids of the caryatids on the models, concluded that the Athenian coiffures were true to life.

The students participated out of curiosity, but some said they felt particularly enthralled by ancient Athenian culture by the time the project was completed. Sophomore art history major Amber Nowak, who served as one of the student models, said the project helped her feel surprisingly connected. “It no longer seemed like some point in ancient history,” she said. Junior art history major and student model Caitlin Parker observed, “above all, participating in the Caryatid Hairstyling Project reinforced how fortunate, expansive and really unlimited the discipline of Art History is.”

Dr. Schwab has sent copies of the DVD to colleagues at the new Acropolis Museum, where five of the original caryatids are displayed, and the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum, where the sixth caryatid resides. At Fairfield University it will be used in art history and classical studies classes, and it can be shown to visiting school groups in the smart classroom adjacent to the Bellarmine Museum, due to open later this year.

Last summer Dr. Schwab was in Athens for the opening of the new Acropolis Museum where twenty-six digital scans of her original research drawings of the Parthenon east and north metopes became part of the permanent installation in the Parthenon Gallery.

via Documentary now available of ancient Caryatid hairstyles being brought to life.

In case the link up there doesn’t go through:

Art History – The Caryatid Hairstyling Project

Here’s an example of one of the hairstyles: