Month: May 2009

Covering the Lyceum

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 2 Comments

There’s an AP story making the rounds on how a Greek betting service will be financing construction which will turn Aristotle’s Lyceum into an outdoor museum. The incipit:

The remains of the ancient school where philosopher Aristotle taught his pupils nearly 2,500 years ago are to be turned into an outdoor museum thanks to a donation from a betting company, Greece’s Culture Ministry says.

The project in central Athens is slated for completion next year at a cost of euro4.5 million ($5.9 million). But it will not use funds from the government, which has promised spending cuts amid the global financial crisis.

Aristotle, who lived from 384 to 322 B.C., studied under Plato and tutored Alexander the Great. Later, in Athens, he taught in the grounds of the Lyceum, a public sports complex frequented by the city’s young men.

The outdoor museum will involve building a translucent roof over the site, Culture Minister Antonis Samaras said Wednesday.

Lysistratidai

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 1 Comment

Hmmm … imitations of the Lysistrata’s ‘sex strike’ seem to be happening more and more, so maybe we’ll start keeping a closer eye on them. The latest comes from Kenya, where women are “boycotting sex” (is “withholding their cervixes” offensive?) “to push for reforms and constitutional review”. Increasingly (as noted on the Classics list), there seems to be no connection made to the Classical precedent, alas. Here’s some representative coverage:

A couple weeks ago, we mentioned in passing a post at Spectre Footnotes, which also seems to be gathering these things. There’s also a nice piece at Experience A.R.T. (which does make the Lysistrata connecton) on same. Naturally there will be some duplication of items in those places and what follows, of course.

In December 2008, Neapolitan women threatened same in an attempt to prevent fireworks injuries (!):

In April 2008, an Orthodox feminist group in Israel was encouraging a somewhat indirect version … suggesting women don’t bathe until mikveh workers were paid:

Back in 2006, women in the Columbian city of Pereira staged a similar strike in an attempt to get their hubbies to not be so criminal:

In November 2003, Cameroon women brought to an end a three-month strike aimed at encouraging their hubbies to end their scrapping about grazing rights:

In 2002, Sudanese women attempted to use their strike to end the war there:

In 2001, women in the Turkish village of Sirt went on ‘strike’ in an effort to get their water supply fixed:

In 1996, women in the town of Palestina in Brazil appropriately called a sex strike until their partners were tested for HIV:

Sadly, I suspect this post will result in rogueclassicism being blocked in assorted places …

Another Resort in Bulgaria … Another Bust

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Wow … it seems every time a hotel is built or expanded in Bulgaria, there’s some archaeological find. Here’s the latest coverage from Novinite:

The regional unit for combating organized crime in Bulgaria’s Burgas have seized a hidden treasure dating back to 3rd century BC.

The treasure was discovered in October 2008 during the construction of a new hotel in the Black Sea resort of Nessebar, which is also an ancient town with many ancient and medieval monuments.

Instead of turning it it, however, the hotel owners decided to keep the priceless treasure for themselves, and tried to conceal it.

The police learned about the treasure through its own local sources, and seized the treasure, which is now transferred to the Nessebar Archaeological Museum, and will be on display there starting May 15.

The treasure in questions is exceptionally elaborate and consist of several pieces of jewelry and decoration. It was discovered in what was the burial site of a women from a well-off family who lived in the town in 3rd century BC, during the Hellenistic period. Only the gold parts of the treasure weigh more than 200 grams.

Nessebar was initially a minor Thracian settlement but was later turned into a Greek colony to become part later of Rome and Byzantium, and was later conquered by the First Bulgarian Empire.

Echoes, somewhat, of previous finds of a thracian priestess burial or that statue of Cybele find from Balchik …

Millefiori-Millefiore Bowl

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

This one received quite a bit of press attention this past week … conservators at the Museum of London have (painstakingly, no doubt) reassembled a Roman millefiori bowl which was found with a burial thought to come from the cusp of the second/third centuries. Some snippets (the journalists seems unsure how to spell millefiori and have caused me to question my own spelling, alas):

Curator Jenny Hall dixit (in the Evening Standard):

“This find indicates an important person was cremated.

“The fact they placed these objects suggests significant money was involved.

“In the first and second centuries AD the fashion was more for cremations, then later it changed more to burials. This seemed to have taken place around the time the fashion was changing.

“The dish was certainly made abroad as the skill to make it did not exist here. The owner would have regarded it as one of their most valuable possessions. It may have been a traded item, or brought by someone coming from where it was made – possibly Italy or further afield. Londinium was a real cultural melting pot.”

She adds (in Reuters coverage):

“For it to have survived intact is amazing. In fact, it is unprecedented in the western Roman world … We are still checking out whether there are similar examples surviving in the eastern part of the empire, in ancient Alexandria for example, but it’s the only one in the West.”

Conservatrix Liz Goodman told AP:

“Piecing together and conserving such a complete artifact offered a rare and thrilling challenge … We occasionally get tiny fragments of millefiori, but the opportunity to work on a whole artifact of this nature is extraordinary.”

Guy Hunt — one of the archaeologists working at the site — gives an idea of its extent (in Reuters):

“No-one knows how big the cemetery really is. Some think it could be up to 16 hectares (40 acres), disappearing under roads and buildings.”

… so I suspect we’ll be hearing  of more finds from this site …

Cleopatra Trailer Fest

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

While poking around YouTube for assorted items this past week, it came to my attention that I could put a little minifilm festival of Cleopatra movie trailers together here to start our weekend blogging off … so, in chronological order:

The 1934 DeMille version starring Claudette Colbert:

Possibly the worst ever … the 1945 version starring Vivien Leigh:

The 1963 version with Elizabeth Taylor: