August 19, 2011

  • Okay, okay … I know yesterday I was doubting whether that pot in a London (Ontario) museum was Roman, but after watching a zillion folks trying to figure it out yesterday and today on Twitter and Facebook, it suddenly struck me: it’s an octopus trap. Here’s a detail from a famous fishing mosaic in the…

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  • Ptolemaic Polar Bear?

    Deep in my ‘to blog’ file is an item clipped from the Telegraph, inter alia: Polar bears have been kept in menageries for millennia. The Egyptian king Ptolemy II kept one in Alexandria in the third century bc. via: Ten facts about polar bears To which I naturally responded, “Whaaaaaaa?” … some poking around, though,…

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  • Also Seen: Samoan Minoan

    Don’t buy this for a second, but we should probably put it on record in case it pops up again (and it’s fun to say ‘Samoan Minoan’): SAMOAN MINOANS FROM ANCIENT CRETE: The Origin of Polynesia | Scoop News.

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  • Very interesting item from Spiegel, although there does seem to be some ‘playing to the crowd’ in this one: When the prefect Flavius Cerialis hosted a banquet at Vindolanda, a Roman fort in what is now northern England, the aroma of grilled chicken, goose and venison, seasoned with pepper from India, filled the air. Plenty…

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  • The Classics Confidential folks talk with Christopher Lillington-Martin about his work with Procopius:

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