One of my many summer resolutions is to be better keeping on top of podcasts (to which end I bought some nice Skullcandy speakers for my iPod with my BestBuy dollars).  This one’s actually kind of interesting because ages ago I found the Stuff You Missed in History Class’ hosts’ voices incredibly irritating. They’ve either changed hosts or learned to become less Valley Girlish. In any event, Here’s the official description:

Carthage was a trading hub of the ancient world, challenging the budding Roman Republic. In 264 B.C., Rome and Carthage began the Punic Wars, which continued for more than  a century. Tune in to learn more about the rise — and fall — of Carthage.

… and it’s a pretty good overview of matters Carthaginian, with the bonus that they don’t fall for the sowing the fields with salt thing.

• The Rise and Fall of Carthage | Stuff Your Missed in History Class

[incidentally, if folks know of podcasts I should be following (I've been out of the loop for a while), feel free to drop me a line]

Around the Classical blogosphere …

• Weary Herakles: Further Comment July 23, 2011 David Gill
• Is that a Provenance? Or are you just Looted …? July 23, 2011 Dorothy King
• Dura Europos exhibition coming to ISAW/NYU July 23, 2011  (Jim Davila)
• Greatest of Divinities July 24, 2011 Michael Gilleland
• On This Day in History – Robert Graves’ Birthday July 24, 2011 (N.S. Gill)
• Knowing When to Consult the Oracle at Delphi July 24, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• The Origin of the Etruscans July 24, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Philo’s ‘In Flaccum’: Ethnicity and Social Space in Roman Alexandria July 24, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Emperor Tiberius July 22, 2011 frcoulter@yahoo.com
• The Persian Policies of Alexander the Great: From 330-323 BC July 24, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Spartacus (dir. Robert Dornhelm, 2004) July 24, 2011  (Juliette)
• Xenophon’s view of Sparta: A study of the “Anabasis,” “Hellenica” and “Respublica Lacedaemoniorum” July 24, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• explorator 14.14 July 24, 2011 david meadows

Author Caroline Lawrence was suggesting same on BBC Radio this a.m.:

• Should Pompeii have a theme park?

Wallace-Hadrill isn’t a fan of the idea but seems to have had most of the segment; Lawrence expands on her reasons a bit in a blog post: Should Pompeii have a Theme Park?

It’s probably an idea worth considering, if nothing else, but hopefully it would not be anything like that thing next to the Villa del Casale at Piazza Armerina … the potential for, er, ne’er-do-wells messing with the cash flow is also something that would have to be considered.

In case you missed them … from our Twitter feed:

• #ancientdrama: ” Satyricon at Addison’s Stone Cottage Theatre | www.pegasusnews.com | Dallas/Fort Worth” ( http://bit.ly/nRhUB7 ) July 26, 2011
• #ancientdrama: “Orpheus: The Song of Life, By Ann Wroe – Reviews, Books – The Independent” ( http://ind.pn/oqyeF8 ) July 22, 2011
• #ancientdrama: “Theater review: ‘Bikini Beach Bacchae’ at Knightsbridge Theatre – latimes.com” ( http://lat.ms/ppMjma ) July 22, 2011
• #ancientdrama: “Greek mythology inspires play (From Malvern Gazette)” ( http://bit.ly/rpx9a1 )  July 22, 2011
• #ancientdrama: “‘Supernatural Wife’ finds modern messages in ancient Greek play – Times Union” ( http://bit.ly/o3tc1X ) July 21, 2011
• #ancientdrama: “Preview of Unmythable: Ashmolean Museum (From The Oxford Times)” ( http://bit.ly/q9j0Hw ) July 20, 2011
• #ancientdrama: “BBC News – Fast Track – Experience theatre like the ancient Greeks” ( http://bbc.in/q3i9k2 ) July 20, 2011

Looks like the folks at Oxford are jumping on the crowdsourcing bandwagon … today my mailbox is filling up with coverage appealing to “armchair archaeologists” (philologists? paleographers shurely) to help with that famous archive of papyri. Since I have a readership who know what the Oxyrhynchus Papyri are, we’ll post the BBC coverage, even if it does use that word ‘decoding’ in its headline:

Oxford University is asking for help deciphering ancient Greek texts written on fragments of papyrus found in Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands of images have gone on display on a website which encourages armchair archaeologists to help catalogue and translate them.

Researchers hope the collective effort will give them a unique insight into life in Egypt 1,000 years ago.

Project specialist Paul Ellis said: “Online images are a window into ancient lives.”

The collection is made up of papyri recovered in the early 20th Century from the Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus, the so-called “City of the Sharp-Nosed Fish”.

At the time the city was under Greek rule. Later the Romans settled the area.

The papyri contain literature, letters and even a story about how Jesus Christ cast out demons.
Missing masterpieces

Scholars have been studying the Oxyrhynchus collection for more than 100 years and have already rediscovered many lost works that went missing during medieval times.

They have found masterpieces by the ancient Greek poet Sappho and dramatists Menander and Sophocles.

Many of the documents the public can see on the site have not been read for over 1,000 years.

But although they are written in Greek, visitors to the website do not have to have any knowledge of the language in order to use an online tool to help analyse the fragments.

One letter, written in 127 AD, which has already been translated is from a grandmother called Sarapias asking that her daughter is brought home so that she can be present at the birth of her grandchild.

Project director Dr Dirk Obbink said: “We aim to transcribe as much as possible of the original papyri, and then identify and reconstruct the text.

“No single pair of eyes can see and read everything. From scientists and professors to school students and ancient enthusiasts, everyone has something to contribute – and gain.”

• via: Oxford University wants help decoding Egyptian papyri | BBC

The Daily Mail’s coverage has some really nice photos, and some tantalizing text to get the “armchair archaeologists” involved.

• The hardest word-search of them all: Oxford University appeals for help in transcribing 200,000 ancient Greek letters | Daily Mail

In recent times we’ve heard of crowdsourcing in a Civil War Project and there’s even a website devoted to crowdsourcing projects (not all are ‘literary’, of course). And while I’m usually gung-ho about connecting technology and ancient stuff, in this case I’m a bit diffident. A visit to the Ancient Lives website shows a very slick interface, but it really isn’t intuitive how one should begin. All that is there to click on is ‘Lightbox’ (other than the menu along the top) and I’m still not clear what this is … is it a random papyrus for me to work on? Are others working on it? The tutorial definitely needs another section like “getting started”. Once you are in and have figured things out, you are presented with a Greek keyboard layout, which probably isn’t the best thing from a ‘crowdsourcing’ point of view. Sure, a Classicist or Papyrologist who regularly works with Greek keyboards will recognize the layout, but the “armchair archaeologists” would, no doubt, be more comfortable with an alphabetic layout and perhaps one that was a bit larger/easier to read — before I figured out it was a Greek layout (haven’t used one in years), I spent a good three or four minutes looking for a gamma. Whatever the case, as far as a crowdsourcing project goes, this seems to be attractive to a relatively small crowd: unless the interface is made more ‘armchair friendly’ (for want of a better term), this projects seems more the sort of thing that undergrads in Greek or grad students needing some other procrastination station would participate in … not really a recipe for getting a lot of folks involved. We’ll monitor the project’s project, of course …

For  somewhat rosier reviews:

• No ordinary book learning | Spectator
• What to do in the school holidays, number one: discover a rare Greek papyrus |Telegraph (Harry Mount)

UPDATE (a couple of hours later): the folks behind the project were talking about it on BBC radio this a.m.: Help transcribe Egyptian ‘gossip’ (tip o’ the pileus to Slashdot)

A casual Twitter exchange with @TLockyer and @exploreclassics (on Latin not having a single word for “volcano”) reminded me that Latin does seem to have a rather large number of words for earthquake … ecce (cutting and pasting from English-to-Latin Word Search Results for earthquake at Perseus; go there for links to L&S):

• chasmatias – an earthquake which leaves chasms
• concussio – an earthquake
• epiclintae – earthquakes that move with a horizontal motion
• mycematiasan – earthquake accompanied by a rumbling noise
• mycetiasan – earthquake attended with a rumbling noise
• ostes – a kind of earthquake
• palmatias – a slight earthquake
• rhectae – a kind of earthquake

Ostes seems to be the best-attested, but just in case you are confronted with someone trying to impress you with that Eskimo-words-for-snow thing, now you can respond …

Laura Gibbs has been giving Google+ a workout over the past couple of weeks and her latest efforts include compiling a list of Latin abbreviations for all those things you type with your thumbs … I think folks without Google+ can check this out as well:

• Laura Gibbs – Google+.

Amidst all the US debt debating which is taking up much of the news cycle, we hear of attempts to limit and/or  drastically decrease the funding to the NEH, which would likely affect Classicists in the US at some point … see the post at the APA blog:

•  Action Alert from the National Humanities Alliance

Adrian Murdoch continues the series:

#30 Decius: Emperors of Rome

… and if you’re wondering about the death of Decius after watching that: The Death of Decius