quidquid bene dictum est ab ullo, meum est
Time to start hyping this one, I think … we should be cashing in on the popularity of this next year, deo volente. Here’s a nice background video:
There’s an unimbeddable-in-wordpress trailer for the upcoming video at Rope of Silicon … very nice teaser …
An interesting item made the rounds of assorted newspapers this weekend … here’s the version from the Sun Times:
Not only have Olympic swimmers and sprinters gotten faster over the last 100 years — but they have grown in average size at a much faster rate than the normal population, a new analysis finds.
While the average human has gained about 1.9 inches in height since 1900, the research shows that the fastest swimmers have grown 4.5 inches and the swiftest runners have grown 6.4 inches.
“The trends revealed by our analysis suggest that speed records will continue to be dominated by heavier and taller athletes,” said Duke University researcher Jordan Charles.
Using mathematical formulas, Charles also predicted running speeds during the Greek or Roman empires.
“In antiquity, body weights were roughly 70 percent less than they are today,” Charles said. “Using our theory, a 100-meter dash that is won in 13 seconds would have taken about 14 seconds back then.”
Olympic swimming juggernaut Michael Phelps is 6’4,” with a disproprtionate arm span of 6’7″ and size 14 feet. He weighs about 200 pounds.
Interesting, but I was really wondering about that 70 per cent claim; on this reading, your average Achilles type — assuming he was the ancient equivalent of a Phelps, more or less — would weigh only 60 pounds!!! Happily, the Guardian seems to have picked up on the difference between “70 percent less” and “70 percent of” (albeit in a correction).
I’m kind of surprised this hasn’t received a lot more media attention: an ongoing dig at Silchester (ancient Calleva Atrebatum) reveals evidence of a planned city with a possible population of 10,000 or more prior to the arrival of the Romans.
Mike Fulford — who has been digging at the site for years — dixit to the BBC, inter alia:
“After 12 summers of excavation we have reached down to the 1st Century AD and are beginning to see the first signs of what we believe to be the Iron Age and earliest Roman town … The discovery of the underlying Iron Age settlement is extremely exciting … While there are traces of settlement beneath Roman Verulamium (today’s St Albans) and Canterbury and close to the site of Roman Colchester, none of these resembles the evidence that we have here at Calleva of a planned town … We now have evidence that the town was burnt down sometime after AD 50 and before AD 80 … The possibility that this was at the hands of Boudicca when leading the largest British uprising during the Roman occupation is hugely significant. It was not thought the revolt passed this way.”
The BBC coverage below includes a very interesting video from the site as well …
FWIW, I can’t resist including this detail which concludes the Guardian‘s coverage:
Recent finds include skeletons of young dogs with marks of flaying – suggesting that among its many flourishing Iron Age industries, Calleva Attrebatum was the centre of a trade in warm fluffy puppy fur cloaks.
… wasn’t aware there was a market for such; I wonder why they didn’t suggest the dogs were being eaten
Very interesting find at Vindolanda of a large shrine to Jupiter Dolichenus with a Latin inscription; quotes from Andrew Birley have appeared in a number of newspapers:
What should have been part of the rampart mound near to the north gate of the fort has turned out to be an amazing religious shrine …There is a substantial and exceptionally well preserved altar dedicated by a prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls to an important eastern god, Jupiter of Doliche. Major altars like this are very rare finds and to discover such a shrine inside the fort is highly unusual … The shrine also has evidence of animal sacrifice and possible religious feasting … It all adds to the excitement of the excavations and is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most excavators.
The inscription translates:
To Jupiter Best and Greatest of Doliche, Sulpicius Pudens, prefect of the Fourth Cohort of Gauls, fulfilled his vow gladly and deservedly.
Adrian Murdoch has a transcription of the Latin in his coverage of this find …
Patricia Birley noted:
Perhaps what the prefect had asked for had come to pass and he fulfilled his vow by paying out for this expensive stone … It would have cost him a bob or two.
Interestingly, Dr Birley notes that the Sulpicius Pudens is surely the same character who erected another altar which was later reused in a wall at Staward Pele sixty or so years ago (which a certain E. Birley wrote about in “A Roman altar from Staward Pele,” Archaeologia Aeliana [ser4] Vol28 p132-6 and 139-40.
Jupiter Dolichenus was really popular — especially among the military — during and after the principate of Septimius Severus …
UPDATE (09/23/09) — see now Adrian Murdoch’s followup post on the previous inscription ascribed to Suplicius Pudens: New inscription at Vindolanda UPDATED
Reports are just starting to come out of the discovery of 17 Hellenistic-period tombs from a site near Ohrid, FYROM/Macedonia. Plenty of items were found, of course (including some in amber), but the most interesting seems to be the burial of a young girl of apparently noble status.
Pasko Kuzman, head of the Macedonian Department for Cultural Heritage dixit:
“There is something here which, from a scientific point of view, is more important even than the golden mask [discovered in Ohrid earlier], since the personality buried in this tomb had a golden object in the shape of eye glasses, a rhomboid-shaped golden plate on the mouth and a golden plate with a sun with 16 rays in the area of the heart. The two objects that were placed on the eyes and the mouth mean the dead person was masked. This kind of combination of masking was unique on the Balkans. Until now, separate golden plates were discovered, especially in the Aegean, but this kind of combination was unknown until now.”
… haven’t been able to track down any photos.
rogueclassicism 