Month: April 2010

John Hale Talk on the Delphic Oracle

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 3 Comments

In ancient times, the sacred oracle of Delphi was so influential that famous men from Alexander the Great and Roman emperors consulted the shrine in central Greece before making decisions. On April 16, a modern archaeologist will offer new insights into the mystery surrounding the oracle during a presentation at the Toledo Museum of Art.

John R. Hale, director of liberal studies at the University of Louisville, will discuss recent research confirming ancient descriptions of the sacred oracle of Delphi. His talk, titled “The Delphic Oracle: Modern Science Examines an Ancient Mystery,” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. in the Museum’s Little Theater. The free presentation is co-sponsored by the Archaeological Institute of America-Toledo Society and the Museum.

Ancient Greek and Roman authors describe the sacred site at Delphi as containing unusual geological features and phenomena: a fissure in the rock, emission of sweet-smelling vapor and a sacred spring. The Pythia—the priestess who pronounced the oracles—sat above the fissure where she could inhale the vapor, thus triggering a trance in which she became the medium for the prophecies of the god Apollo.

Most 20th century scholars were skeptical of the ancient traditions. Then, in 1995, an interdisciplinary team began studying not only the archaeology of Delphi, but also related evidence from geology, chemistry and toxicology research. Hale and others on the team were able to validate the ancient sources. The team has gone on to study Greek oracle sites elsewhere in the Aegean and Asia and has found similar geological features.

Hale has been involved in archaeological fieldwork for more than three decades. In addition to studies of ancient oracle sites in Greece and Turkey, he has looked under the sea for lost fleets from the time of the Persian Wars in Greek waters. He has a bachelor’s degree from Yale University and a doctorate from the University of Cambridge in England. His writings have been published in the journal Antiquity, The Classical Bulletin, the Journal of Roman Archaeology and Scientific American.

After the lecture, copies of the new trade paperback edition of Hale’s book, “Lords of the Sea: The Epic Story of the Athenian Navy and the Birth of Democracy,” will be available for purchase and autograph.

via Museum lecture examines The Delphic Oracle | The Press.

… which reminded me … I haven’t consulted the Oracle via the Winged Sandals site lately. Last time I asked whether rogueclassicism would take over the blogosphere, I was told “Blessed is Corinth, but I would rather come from Tenea” . This time, after performing the goat ritual and paying the entry fee, I received the somewhat more vague response that “a crow will show you the answer”. Plenty of room for interpretation here … standard ‘bad omen’ … possible reference to my mother (my father affectionately called her the ‘old crow’) … possible reference to Gladiator (i.e. Russell Crowe) … then there’s the crow in the movie of the same name …

Catching up with @Classics@

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

Some first drafts posted over the past few months:

Sean Signore, “Andromache as Maenadic Warrior,” April 5, 2010.

Claire Jacqmin, “Woman between the Tyrant and the Polis: the Role of Women in Tyrannical Regimes,” (Woman between the Tyrant and the Polis), April 5, 2010

Sarah Lannom, “Isthmian 8: Binding, Exchange, and Politics,” March 22, 2010.

Sergios Paschalis, “The Dioscuri in Pindar’s Nemean 10, Theocritus’ Idyll 22 and Ovid’s Fasti 5.693-720: Cattle, Brides, and Strife,” (The Dioscuri in Pindar’s Nemean 10) February 18, 2010.

Guy Smoot, “A Commentary on Pindar’s Olympian Ode II,” February 17, 2010.

Dan Bertoni, “Τύχη in Pindar,” February 4, 2010.

Emrys Bell-Schlatter, “Pythian 1: A Brief Commentary,” January 27, 2010.

Daniele Iozzia, “Ragioni e fortuna della metafora dello scolpire
in Plotino, Enn. I 6 (1) 9, 6-15,” January 6, 2010.

via First Drafts @Classics@ | The Center for Hellenic Studies.

Indian Artifacts from Berenike?

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ 2 Comments

Interesting item from Frontline:

One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other.

This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt and also by sea routes from the Indian Ocean regions. Cargoes unloaded at Berenike and other Egyptian Red Sea ports (such as Myos Hormos, now lost) used to be taken along the desert roads to the Nile and from there through the river to the Mediterranean Sea and across, to the Roman trade centres.

Exotic goods from Rome and Egypt flowed into Berenike along the same desert road before being loaded into large ships bound for the Indian Ocean.

By the end of the second century B.C., the Egyptians and the Romans finally learnt the skill of sailing with the monsoon winds across the Indian Ocean (“from the Arabs and other Easterners”). Voyages from Berenike for the riches of the Malabar coast therefore became “faster, cheaper, but not less dangerous”.

According to most accounts, one of the major centres in India that ships from Berenike travelled to, along with the monsoon winds, was the emporium of Muziris, on the Malabar coast.

However, as the silting of the harbour, among other uncertain reasons, caused Berenike’s eventual abandonment before the middle of the sixth century A.D., Muziris, too, disappeared mysteriously from the itinerary of the later voyagers to the Malabar coast. For a long time since then, both these centres remained forgotten.

But while archaeological evidence about Muziris or the Indian Ocean trade remained elusive in the Malabar coast, it was Berenike that eventually offered invaluable proof of its links with the Yavanas.

In wide-ranging and ongoing excavations at Berenike launched from 1994 (and at many other places on the Eastern Desert), a team of dedicated archaeologists from the University of Delaware (United States) led by Prof. Steven E. Sidebotham, along with partners from several other institutions, has documented evidence of the cargo from the Malabar coast and people from South India being at the last outpost of the Roman Empire and of Indians on the Berenike-Nile road.

Among the unexpected discoveries at Berenike were a range of ancient Indian goods, including the largest single concentration (7.55 kg) of black peppercorns ever recovered in the classical Mediterranean world (“imported from southern India” and found inside a large vessel made of Nile silt in a temple courtyard); substantial quantities of Indian-made fine ware and kitchen cooking ware and Indian style pottery; Indian-made sail cloth, basketry, matting, etc. from trash dumps; a large quantity of teak wood, black pepper, coconuts, beads made of precious and semi-precious stones, cameo blanks; “a Tamil Brahmi graffito mentioning Korra, a South Indian chieftain”; evidence that “inhabitants from Tamil South India (which then included most of Kerala) were living in Berenike, at least in the early Roman period”; evidence that the Tamil population implied the probable presence of Buddhist worshippers; evidence of Indians at another Roman port 300 km north of Berenike; Indian-made ceramics on the Nile road; a rock inscription mentioning an Indian passing through en route; “abundant evidence for the use of ships built and rigged in India”; and proof “that teak wood (endemic to South India), found in buildings in Berenike, had clearly been reused”(from dismantled ships).

via South Indians in Roman Egypt? | Frontline.

The same magazine has a sort of ‘state of the finds’ article: Muziris, at last?

There was also a (annoyingly vague) report last week about Muziris in the Hindu:

… which mentioned the Roman connection, but only in passing (I’m not sure what date or origin many of the finds mentioned in that article would be).

Some of our previous coverage on Muziris:

Adrian Murdoch also covered the Muziris thing:

Unpublished Archaeological Data

~ David Meadows ~ rogueclassicist ~ Leave a comment

The conclusion of an interesting piece in Nature about the flood of archaeological data found by commercial excavators which never seems to get ‘published’ in the academic sense of the word … fyi:

Michael Fulford, one of Bradley’s colleagues at the University of Reading, has been piloting a study of the grey literature about Roman Britain, with similarly exciting results. “We’ve almost found ‘another Roman Britain’,” he says, “one that we would have never seen without developer-funded archaeology.”

Previously British Roman archaeology had tended to be biased towards excavating high-status sites such as villas, as these were what researchers had chosen to investigate. But commercial excavations happen wherever developers are planning to break ground, and so provide a wider sampling of the past.

By embarking on a “massive photocopying campaign”, Fulford assimilated huge amounts of data, representing a massive increase in both the number and type of sites now known. His study revealed the other side of Roman society. The low-status rural settlements showed how indigenous communities coexisted with Roman invaders, by keeping much of their vernacular architecture, but furnishing their homes with Roman manufactured goods. “A lot of the best work is coming out of commercial units now — a lot of the worst is as well, but you can say that about universities, quite frankly,” says Fulford.

He advises PhD students who want to keep their hand in fieldwork that they might be better off working in commercial archaeology because it often involves large projects that are properly funded. “A lot of my contemporaries feel disenfranchised, but then that’s too bad,” says Fulford. “Despite the difficulties, we have to adapt to an archaeological record that is massively expanded and, at its best, of far better quality than has been achieved by academics, who are often very part-time fieldworkers.”

via Archaeology: Hidden treasure | Nature News.

I wonder if similar conditions prevail in other nations within our purview …