Got a few weeks’ worth of items here … things that caught my eye in the Classical Blogosphere (and elsewhere … I’m kind of getting cranky/annoyed that various ‘History’ carnivals and ‘umbrella sites’ routinely ignore most of the Classical Blogosphere):

Matters mostly historical:

Alexander’s Hair-raising Fight with the Oracle at Delphi [History With a Twist]
Sparta — The Strains Caused by Lycurgan Reforms[Mike Anderson]
Sparta – Pressures on the Lycurgan System Part I[Mike Anderson]
Sparta – Pressure on the Lycurgan System Part 2, The Earthquake[Mike Anderson]
Sparta – Pressure on the Lycurgan System Part 3, Invasion of the Owls [Mike Anderson]
Sparta – Degradation of the army between Platea and Leuctra[Mike Anderson]

Matters religious and philosophical:

We Twelve Kings of Orient Are [Judith Weingarten]
On logos and magic in Plato’s presentation of Socrates. [Ancient Philosophy]
What the Romans Would’ve made of Dead Birds Falling from the Sky [History With a Twist]

The Realencyclopadie on the festival of the Adonia [Roger Pearse]
The Realencyclopadie on the festival of the Adonia [Roger Pearse]

Matters pedagogical:

Latin Mad Libs: frag­men­tary texts in the classroom [Dennis @ the Campus]
Dia­crit­i­cal Exe­ge­sis: a novel approach to read­ing Latin aloud [Dennis @ the Campus]
A bet­ter ‘Simon Says’ for Latin Classes[Dennis @ the Campus]
The Magic of Latin [teaching Latin a la Harry Potter; tip o’ the pileus to David Baker]

Varia:

A Second Death for the Neonates of Frizzone? [Bone Girl]
First Greek encounter with a parrot [Beachcombing]
[Beachcombing]
iPhone app: Pompeian wall-paintings [Blogging Pompeii]
All the classical MSS in Florence now online! [Roger Pearse]
Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus [Smarthistory]
Euripides, Iphigenia at Aulis, Agamemnon’s Guide to Childrearing [Rufus @ League of Ordinary Gentlemen]
Menander’s Epitrepontes (“The Arbitration”) [West Coast Odysseus]

Reviews:

I, Claudius: Claudius (radio adaptation) [Pop Classics]

Also of note, Dennis of Campus fame and Laura Gibbs of a zillion blogs fame are reading Mommsen and summarizing it … follow the action at the Campus here and at Reading Rome here …

Excerpts of interest:
================================================================
ANCIENT NEAR EAST AND EGYPT
================================================================
Byzantine burials from Jabal al-Sin (Syria):

http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201101088571/Travel/archaeologists-byza\
ntine-cemeteries-unearthed-in-north-eastern-syria.html

Assorted Byzantine finds from Apamea:

http://www.english.globalarabnetwork.com/201101138634/Related-news-from-Syria/sy\
ria-byzantine-coins-and-water-tank-unearthed-in-archaeological-city-of-apamea.ht\
ml
================================================================
ANCIENT GREECE AND ROME (AND CLASSICS)
================================================================
Roman remains found during renovaitons of a Grouville church:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/jersey/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_\
9359000/9359277.stm

Another feature on the younger set learning Greek:

http://www.thisisoxfordshire.co.uk/news/8790488.It_s_all_Greek_to_these_North_Ox\
ford_pupils

… not sure if it is connected to this:

http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/news/8779891.School_pupils_to_learn_ancient_Greek/

Interesting project to build a Roman villa the old-fashioned way:

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/01/13/rome-wasn-t-built-in-a-d\
ay-but-this-roman-villa-only-took-six-months-91466-27977247/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/shropshire/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_93560\
00/9356096.stm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345586/Rome-wasnt-built-day-Channel-4-s\
eries-build-Roman-villa-using-ancient-methods.html
The Dart Aphrodite is now at USC:

http://dailytrojan.com/2011/01/12/new-sculpture-donated-to-usc%E2%80%99s-tutor-c\
ampus-center/

What Philip Freeman is up to:

http://www.luther.edu/headlines/?story_id=313304

Walter Scheidel talks on the quality of life in Classical Antiquity:

http://www.ascsa.edu.gr/index.php/news/newsDetails/videocast-the-quality-of-life\
-in-classical-antiquity/

Mary Beard on some interesting graffiti:

http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2011/01/the-colossi-of-memnon.html
http://timesonline.typepad.com/dons_life/2011/01/the-face-of-cleopatra.html

Interesting followup to the crumbling of Pompeii:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203731004576045682036807802.html

Cartledge and Romm continue their discussion of Alexander (this time, about
his generalship):

http://blogs.forbes.com/booked/2011/01/10/how-great-a-general-was-alexander/

Quadantrids over Qumis:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap110114.html

Review of Caroline Alexander, *War that Killed Achilles*:

http://www.cbc.ca/books/2011/01/caroline-alexander-on-writers-company.html

More on Kathleen Lynch’s AIA paper:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41047594/ns/technology_and_science-science/
http://www.livescience.com/history/ancient-greece-history-through-wine-cups-1101\
11.html

Review of a number of books about Alexander:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703791904576075760889881174.html

Latest reviews from Scholia:

http://www.classics.ukzn.ac.za/reviews/

Latest reviews from BMCR:

http://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/recent.html

Visit our blog:

https://rogueclassicism.com/
================================================================
EUROPE AND THE UK (+ Ireland)
================================================================
Evidence for the earliest full production winery type facility — some 4100
B.C. — from an Armenian cave:

http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/chemical-analysis-confirms-discovery-188683\
.aspx
http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=44079
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/01/110111-oldest-wine-press-making-\
winery-armenia-science-ucla/
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/11/science/11wine.html
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-earliest-winery-armenian-cave.html
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,14761786,00.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/world-europe-12158341
http://www.standard.net/topics/features/2011/01/11/ancient-winery-found-armenia
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/uoc–cac011111.php
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110111133236.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/11/AR2011011100044_\
pf.html
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=203081
http://www.cnn.com/2011/LIVING/01/12/oldest.winery/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/oldest-winery-armenia-cave_n_807271.htm\
l
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110111/ap_on_sc/us_sci_ancient_winery
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110111/lf_nm_life/us_wine_oldest
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/12/wine_press/

… while someone has been researching Celtic beer:

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/68846/title/Reviving_the_taste_of_an_\
Iron_Age_beer_

Thesis on the use of power in various Bronze Age societies of central
Europe:

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/uog-euo011111.php
http://www.alphagalileo.org/ViewItem.aspx?ItemId=93377&CultureCode=en
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1977625/effective_use_of_power_in_the_bronz\
e_age_societies_of/index.html
Interesting correlation between climate and rise and fall of empires,
apparently:

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20110114/tsc-climate-flux-matched-europe-s-social-e1\
23fef.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12186245
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2011/01/12/science.1197175 (payfer)
http://news.discovery.com/earth/climate-change-ancient-rome-110113.html

================================================================
NUMISMATICA
================================================================
Not sure if we mentioned this hoard of Roman coins found in Cumbria last
April:

http://www.newsandstar.co.uk/news/man-unearths-roman-treasures-in-a-cumbrian-fie\
ld-1.797768?referrerPath=news

Coverage of Rober Weir’s AIA paper on an interesting coin of Antiochus VIII:

http://www.unreportedheritagenews.com/2011/01/2100-year-old-greek-coin-may-have.\
html
http://www.sify.com/news/2-100-yr-old-greek-coin-offers-insights-into-rare-astro\
nomical-event-news-international-lbqrEdjigce.html
================================================================
EXHIBITIONS, AUCTIONS, AND MUSEUM-RELATED
================================================================
Dreaming Antiquity:

http://www.artinfo.com/news/story/36725/louvre-peers-at-what-lurks-beneath-neocl\
assicisms-placid-surface/

Warren Cup:

http://presszoom.com/story_163746.html

The Cleopatra exhibition is setting up in Cincinnati:

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110114/ENT/101150310/Statues-arrive-for-Cle\
opatra-
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110114/ENT/101150310/Statues-uncrated-for-C\
leopatra
http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20110114/ENT/101150310/Two-colossal-statues-u\
ncrated-for-Cleopatra

================================================================
To subscribe to Explorator, send a blank email message to:

Explorator-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Seen on the Classicists list (please direct any queries to the folks mentioned in the item and not to rogueclassicism):

The first London Roman Art Seminar will take place this coming Monday (17th January) at 530pm.
Cristina Boschetti will be giving a talk entitled, "An interdisciplinary study of the mosaics from the
House of the Faun in Pompeii: technique, materials and provenance".

Please note the updated location information:
All seminars are held on Mondays at 5.30pm in Royal Holloway London Annex, 11 Bedford Square
(entrance on Montague Place), London WC1, room GSB1 (at 2 Gower Street).

If you have any queries contact: A.Claridge AT rhul.ac.uk or Will.Wootton AT kcl.ac.uk

The full programme is as follows:

17 January 2011 Cristina Boschetti (University of Nottingham)
An interdisciplinary study of the mosaics from the House of the Faun in Pompeii: technique,
materials and provenance

31 January 2011 Simona Perna (Royal Holloway, University of London)
Ossa quod vallavit Onyx: Roman funerary urns in coloured stone

14 February 2011 Janet Huskinson (Open University)
Roman strigillated sarcophagi: finding voices for a ‘silent majority’

28 February 2011 Thorsten Opper (The British Museum)
The statue of Hadrian from Cyrene

14 March 2011 Maria Aurenhammer (Austrian Archaeological Institute, Vienna)
Hellenistic, Roman and contemporary sculpture in Late Antique Ephesos: the case of the Upper
Agora and the Theatre

28 March 2011 John Pollini (University of Southern California)
Recutting Roman portraits: problems in interpretation and using new technology in finding
possible solutions

9 May 2011 Michael Koortbojian (Princeton University)
Title to be announced

16 May 2011 Zahra Newby (University of Warwick)
Speaking of the dead: the rhetorical strategies of Roman sarcophagi

23 May 2011 Andreas Kropp (University of Nottingham)
The images of the “triad” of Heliopolis-Baalbek (Jupiter, Venus and Mercury): interpretations and
iconographic problems

Seen on the Classicists list (please direct any queries to the folks mentioned in the item and not to rogueclassicism):

Sympotic Poetry. A Colloquium

Christ Church, Oxford. March 31st-April 2nd 2011

The symposiast’s couch is a key vantage-point from which to survey Greek poetry. Poetry was performed at the symposium from the beginnings of Greek literature (judging from the sympotic traces in Homer) down to the fourth century and probably into Hellenistic times. Even later, echoes of the sympotic setting are exploited in literary games of generic appropriation. This conference proposes to examine the symposium both as a setting for the performance of poetry and as a ‘mental space’ rich in aesthetic, social, and political implications. What does it mean in practice to speak of ‘sympotic poetry’? How does the symposium as a performance context shape and cut across generic conventions? Are there conventions of sympotic song and, if so, what are they? How should we disentangle the symposium as the setting for poetry from the symposium as the imaginary place which is the product, rather than the precondition, of this poetry? How does the historical symposium in its various aspects (a politically defined group of people, a means of socialization derived from Near Eastern cultures, a carefully regulated set of customs, etc.) relate to the symposium as a setting for the competitive display of artistic competence, where something akin to literary criticism first begins? What is the role of the symposion in the early institution of corpora and canonisation of texts? How did sympotic performance affect transmission?

SPEAKERS:

Prof. Lucia Athanassaki (Crete)

Prof. Hans Bernsdorff (Frankfurt)

Prof. Ewen Bowie (Oxford)Dr. Felix Budelmann (Oxford)

Prof. Ettore Cingano (Venice)

Prof. Giambattista D’Alessio (KCL)

Dr. Renaud Gagné (Cambridge)

Prof. Guy Hedreen (Williams)

Prof. Albert Henrichs (Harvard)

Prof. Richard Hunter (Cambridge)

Prof. Gregory Hutchinson (Oxford)

Prof. Gauthier Liberman (Bordeaux)

Dr. Dirk Obbink (Oxford)

Prof. Timothy Power (Rutgers)

Prof. Ralph Rosen (UPenn) Prof. Ian Rutherford (Reading)

Prof. Deborah Steiner (Columbia)

Further details and information on registration to follow.

Contact:

vanessa.cazzato AT classics.ox.ac.uk

enrico.prodi AT classics.ox.ac.uk

The organizers

Dirk Obbink, Vanessa Cazzato, Enrico Prodi

Seen on the Classicists list (please direct any queries to the folks mentioned in the item and not to rogueclassicism):

A CELEBRATION OF CLASSICS: 2011 TRIENNIAL CONFERENCE IN CAMBRIDGE

From Monday 25 July to Thursday 28 July 2011 the Faculty of Classics in the University of Cambridge will once again host the Triennial Conference of Classical Studies. This Triennial has been given a radically revised format:

http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/seminars_conferences/triennial_conference/speakers/

Working with a committee that includes representatives of sponsoring bodies (Societies for the Promotion of Hellenic and Roman Studies, British Schools at Athens and Rome), the organizers have been fortunate in attracting a large international cast of speakers, and have tried to cover most sub-disciplines within Classics and Ancient History in greater depth than in the past. The organizers are most grateful to the 145 scholars who have agreed to support this venture by giving, or responding to, papers; among these are Roger Bagnall, Anthony Grafton, Edith Hall, Stephen Hinds, Walter Scheidel, and Caroline Vout, who will give plenary lectures.

They are grateful also to the sponsors who have offered their financial support for this new venture: Cambridge University Press, the Cambridge Philological Society, the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies, the Society for the Promotion of Roman Studies, Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, Trinity College, Cambridge and the Institute of the Ancient World.

All our colleagues in the study of the ancient world are cordially invited to join us in this triennial national celebration of Classics in a year when we will all be needing to reaffirm the vitality and abiding value of the subject we love. For booking see:

http://www.classics.cam.ac.uk/faculty/seminars_conferences/triennial_conference/registration/