This one’s just starting to hit the papers; apparently other fields learned from an Apoxyomenos discovery back in 1998 as well  … here’s Eurekalert’s take:

The restoration of a 2,000-year-old bronze sculpture of the famed ancient Greek athlete Apoxyomenos may help modern scientists understand how to prevent metal corrosion, discover the safest ways to permanently store nuclear waste, and understand other perplexing problems. That’s the conclusion of a new study on the so-called “biomineralization” of Apoxyomenos appearing in the current issue of ACS’ Crystal Growth & Design, a bi-monthly journal. Best known as “The Scraper,” the statue depicts an athlete scraping sweat and dust from his body with a small curved instrument.

In the report, Davorin Medakovic and colleagues point out that Apoxyomenos was discovered in 1998 on floor of the Adriatic Sea. While the discovery was a bonanza for archaeologists and art historians, it also proved to be an unexpected boon to scientists trying to understand biomineralization. That’s the process in which animals and plants use minerals from their surroundings and form shells and bone. Apoxyomenos was encrusted with such deposits.

“As studies of long-term biofouled manmade structures are limited, the finding of an ancient sculpture immersed for two millennia in the sea provided a unique opportunity to probe the long-term impact of a specific artificial substrate on biomineralizng organisms and the effects of biocorrosion,” the report said. By evaluating the mineral layers and fossilized organisms on the statue, the researchers were able to evaluate how underwater fouling organisms and communities interacted with the statue as well as how certain mineral deposits on the bronze sculpture slowed its deterioration.

• 2000-year-old statue of an athlete sheds light on corrosion and other modern challenges (Eurekalert)
• 2000-year-old Statue Of An Athlete Sheds Light On Corrosion And Other Modern Challenges (Science Daily)
• Biomineralization on an Ancient Sculpture of the Apoxyomenos: Effects of a Metal-Rich Environment on Crystal Growth in Living Organisms

I’m hoping to get the last of the backlog out of my system over the course of the day …  here’s a pile of items which, for various reasons, I didn’t really get a chance to get to (again, some might be a bit old):

How’s your Classical education?:

• Do you need a better classical education? Take our quiz…. (Times)

If you didn’t do well:

• Is the ancient world all Greek (or Latin) to you? Read on… (Yorkshire Post)

I can’t remember if I mentioned this report about Rome opening up assorted underground sites like the Ludus Magnus to the public, so just in case:

• Rome opens up underground wonders of the ancient world to tourists (Times)

• Underground Rome sites open to visitors (Stuff)

Similarly, I’m not sure whether I mentioned the vandalism attack on the Ara Pacis museum a while ago:

• Vandals Attack Roman Museum (NYT)

• Vandals Deface Controversial Rome Museum, AP Reports (Bloomberg)

An update of sorts on the Oded Golan trial:

• Oded Golan: I never faked any antiquity (JPost)

On the Roman contribution to comedy:

• Ladies and gentlemen, give it up for your headliner… Cicero (Chortle)

In case you missed the Astronomy Picture of the Day of the sun rising over the Parthenon … Robert Barron has a nice list of Classically-themed APODs at his blog …

Mary Beard stepped outside her blog to compare Silvio Berlusconi to a well-known emperor:

• If the emperor has no clothes, history will expose him (Times)

Tom Holland had an interesting review of the influence of Arthur Evans’ excavations on other branches of the humanities:

• Modernist minotaurs (Times)

Plenty of Romans in a top ten list of extravagant emperors:

• The 10 most extravagant emperors (Times)

Rather less Classcon in a top ten list of literary shipwrecks:

• Ten of the best shipwrecks (Guardian)

… and since we’re doing Top Tens, we should alert folks to Mary Beard’s recent:

• 10 Latin quotes for the underground (Times)

I’m still trying to figure out what, exactly, Examiner.com is (an open group blog masquerading as a newspaper?) but it turns up almost daily in my scans with articles of various interest … here’s a handful of recent ones:

• What healthy, low-cost food to serve at an ancient Roman toga party or wedding

• A spelling mistake from antiquity

Hercules’ thirteenth labour:

• Hercules Still Struggling To Complete 13th Labor (Onion)

• Hercules’ 13th labor: Win Wells’ council seat (News Record)

• The Onion: Hercules Running for Greensboro City Council (Fox)

In case you’ve never heard/read Prairie Home Campanion’s Six Minute Iliad:

• Celebrities: The Six-Minute Iliad

Daily Kos had a thing about Psyche:

• How a Woman Becomes a Goddess: Psyche

A NASCAR blogger was looking at the Circus Maximus:

• Diocles, King of the Hippodrome!

Folks will want to check out the Latin section of the Tar Heel Reader …

The University of Queensland has acquired a nice funerary stele from Palmyra:

• Artefact a prized addition to UQ antiquities museum

Back in May, CNN had a nice little slideshow about Rome:

• iReporters explore ancient Rome

Greece has come out against Google Streetview for some reason:

• Greece Puts The Kibosh On Google Street Views

… while Rome is trying to get a dot Roma domain designation …

Assorted links:

• Didaskalia 7.2 (2009) is now available …

… as is Electronic Antiquity 12.1 (November 2008) …

… as is American Journal of Archaeology 113.3 …

The CAAS has an incipient archive for its newsletters …

TOC for Arethusa 42.2 (Spring 2009) …

TOC for TAPA 139.1 (Spring 2009) …

Latest CANE newsletter (May 2009) …

Latest CAMWS newsletter (Spring/Summer 2009) …

Rosetta issue 6 (all articles online) …

Latest HCA newsletter (June 2009) …

Papers from the APA panel New Approaches to the Political & Military History of the Greek, Roman, and Late Roman Worlds …

A preliminary program for the 2010 APA shindig …

The TES had an Ancient Greece wordsearch …

ArtNet has been serializing Thomas Hoving’s memoirs online …

Seems we get a report like this every year around this time … the incipit of a piece from PhysOrg:

It might simply look like a smudge, but even the slightest stain on the ancient writing surface of papyrus could obscure a revelation of a past civilization. Now, with the advent of high-tech imaging, some of those secrets could reveal fascinating insights into everyday life of early Egyptian, Greek and Roman societies.

For the last four weeks, a team of national researchers and scholars examined dozens of papyri among the thousands of papyrological pieces in the University of Michigan collection. Using multi-spectral imaging, the Ancient Textual Imaging Group—led by acclaimed papyrology expert Stephen Bay of Brigham Young University—examined ancient text written on papyrus that had become illegible because they are stained, discolored and faded. Recording through a range of filters, the technology captures high-resolution color images, making clear the layers of text hidden beneath words and letters written on levels of papyrus.

The Ancient Textual Imaging Group, based at Brigham Young, is conducting a two-year venture to record illegible papyrus documents from historically significant U.S.-based collections. The project is supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Throughout July, scholars and students at the Papyrological Institute, hosted by U-M, will examine the newly recorded images, aiming to piece together a picture of a world that until now has been hidden. Findings from the newly enhanced images of the papyri will be released as early as August.

“These new images give us insight into the writing and life of generations existing two, maybe three generations before the readable text was written,” said Arthur Verhoogt, U-M associate professor of papyrology and Greek studies.

• High-tech imaging reveals hidden past in ancient texts