Month: August 2009

Samian Ware from Impington

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From the BBC:

Archaeological excavations at the site of a former plant nursery, set to be developed for housing, have found evidence of Iron Age and Roman use.

The dig at the former Unwins Nursery at Impington, Cambridgeshire, found occupation dating from about 100BC with evidence of an Iron Age roundhouse.

The site was developed in Roman times with a series of ditches and pottery found is from the 2nd and 3rd Century.

The finds include high status Samian pottery imported from Gaul.

Some of the Samian pottery has the potter’s stamp still visible, enabling archaeologists to find the actual individual who made the vessel about 1,800 years ago in France.

‘Unexpected finds’

Also a deposit of more than 40 oyster shells intermingled with pottery has been recorded in a pit close to the existing road.

This may represent a ritual or votive offering to the gods or ancestors.

Site director with Oxford Archaeology East Chris Thatcher said: “We did not expect to find such important Iron Age and Roman remains here at Impington.

“We can now see the origins of the village going back over 2,000 years.”

The planned redevelopment of the site will see the building of 35 houses.

Temple of Apollo on Geronisos

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Brief item from Bloomberg:

Archaeologists in Cyprus found evidence that an island off the Mediterranean country’s south- west coast was the site of a temple for worshiping Apollo, the ancient Greek god of light, prophecy, music and healing.

Excavations led by New York University on Geronisos unearthed fragments of pithoi, or storage vessels probably used to hold olive oil, that could be repaired to stand to a height of 1.20 meters, among the largest storage containers ever found on Cyprus, according to a statement today on the Web site of the Cypriot Interior Ministry’s Public Information Office.

The vessel fragments, which date from the 1st century B.C., were found in what appears to be a storeroom or pantry facility, probably servicing a complex of previously found dining rooms, the statement said.

The digs also unearthed a sculptured lion’s head that “would have been plastered and painted as a fitting adornment for a monumental structure, possibly a temple,” according to the statement.

Previous digs on the island showed that Geronisos was an ancient religious tourist center for worshiping Apollo, son of the king of the Greek gods, Zeus, and the nymph, Leto.

“The discovery of this storage facility represents an important breakthrough in our understanding of the experience of ancient pilgrims on Geronisos,” the Cyprus Department of Antiquities said in the statement, “and the ritual dining that seems to have taken place within the complex of rooms in the central south sector of the island.”

NYU has been digging at Geronisos for a while … some previous results are on the web from 2004 and 2006.

Lusitanian Pottery

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Tacked on to the end of a semi (very semi)-related piece in Portugal News:

Meanwhile, in related news, another archeological team has confirmed that remnants of artifacts unearthed in the furnaces of Morraçal da Ajuda, Peniche, are in fact the first examples of Lusitanian pottery and are believed to have been used for storing fish and fish derivatives that were consumed during the time of the Roman Empire.

Fragments of amphoras were first discovered in 1998 but only now have experts been able to confirm their actual use.

CFP: ANIMALS IN THE GREEK AND ROMAN WORLD

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Seen on the Classicists list:

Animals in the Greek and Roman World

Chairs: Sarah Hitch (Bristol) and Chiara Thumiger (UCL)

To form a conference panel at the sixth Celtic Conference in Classics, Edinburgh, 28-31 July
2010.

From Homeric similes to recipes for fishcakes, descriptions and discussions of animals abound in
ancient sources in a variety of ways. This panel seeks to explore the multifarious roles of animals
in ancient imagination and culture, including:

ANIMALS AND THE IMAGINATION
– literature and drama: imagery and exempla; performative aspects
– iconography: contexts and styles of representation
– myth and folktale: animals, metamorphosis and animal-related mirabilia

DEFINING ANIMALS AND HUMANS
– animals in philosophy
– animals in biological and medical treatises

ANIMALS AND MATERIAL CULTURE
– diet, cuisine and culinary practices
– agricultural labour and husbandry
– animals as spectacle (games and sports, zoos, the Roman arena…)
– hunting and similar activities
– animals in warfare
– pets
– uses of animals in curative practices

ANIMALS AND RELIGION
– animals as gifts to the gods
– the association of animals with individual cults
– animals as intermediaries between man and god (e.g. prophecy, dreams, haruspicy)
– theriomorphism

We welcome proposals for a 20 minute paper on any of the above (or related topics). Please send abstracts of a maximum of 300 words by the 10th of October, 2009 to clssh AT bristol.ac.uk or c.thumiger AT ucl.ac.uk.

Sarah Hitch and Chiara Thumiger

CFP: Work-in-Progress seminar series at the Institute of Classical Studies, London

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Seen on the Classicists list:

CALL FOR PAPERS for the Work-in-Progress seminar series at the Institute of Classical Studies, London.

The series organisers would like to invite postgraduates to present a paper at one of our weekly seminars, beginning in October and running through early December and resuming in January 2010.

The Work-in-Progress series:

The primary aim of these seminars is to provide a friendly and stimulating forum in which postgraduates, with interests in any aspect of the Classical world or the ancient Near East, Archeology or Reception studies may present papers drawn from their ongoing research. Audiences are comprised exclusively of fellow students, mostly from among the large postgraduate community within the University of London. All papers are followed by open and relaxed discussion of the issues raised. We aim to attract speakers and audience members with diverse research interests and, in so doing, we hope to provide a valuable opportunity for academic and social networking, and for the exchange of ideas and techniques across disciplinary and institutional boundaries.

Recently presented papers include:

* Nostra memoria: social memory in the late Roman Republic
* Sexy beasts: sexuality, animals and humour in Middle Comedy
* In self-defence? Brutus and Cassius’ ascent of the Capitol in 44 BC
* Anahita and Achaemenid colonisation in Lydia
* Kinship in Thucydides: Sparta and its kinship ties with the Greeks of the West
* Mother love in Slavery: Andromache and her Sons in Euripides
* Aristotelian and non-Aristotelian elements in Aristotle’s account of voluntary action
* Martial’s mala lingua: connecting the Epigrams with os impurum
* Music to the ears: Playing the lyra on Attic late black-figured lekythoi from Thessaly.

Please consult our website http://www.pgwip.org.uk/ for a full list (including abstracts) of the papers given in the previous series and for an updated program in early October.

Practicalities:

Seminars take place on Friday afternoons in term time, at Senate House in London. Funds are available to reimburse speakers for reasonable traveling expenses. Returning speakers are always welcome.

Contacts:

If you would like to discuss presenting a paper (of between thirty and forty-five minutes in length), please contact Andrew Roberts (King’s College London) at Andrew AT pgwip.org.uk and Chris Farrell (King’s College London) Chris AT pgwip.org.uk