The other day we mentioned that Sotheby’s catalog for their upcoming antiquities auction is up and, as might be expected, so is Christie’s. Christie’s, though, has a few items which catch my eye (although all are interesting — whenever these things come out, I am always amazed at how much ‘stuff’ we actually do have from the ancient world).  Topping the list is the item which prompted our headline:

This bronze hand dates to the second or third century A.D. according to the official description, and clearly proves the Romans invented the ‘hang loose’ gesture long before the Hawaiians (not really, but I’m sure someone will claim that).

Next comes this nice little figural askos:

We’ve blogged about sirens before, and about the perpetual confusion between them and mermaids. As this item shows, of course, they did have wings and really weren’t modified fish. According to this one’s official description, this item hails from late-fifth century B.C. Sicily. Not sure why an askos (for small quantities of oil) would be a siren-shaped vessel …

Last, but certainly not least of the items which caught my eye, is this Phrygian-style helmet:

The official description has this being a Hellenistic (3rd century B.C. or so) Phrygian Style helmet. What I find very interesting is the obviously modelled moustache on the cheekplates, which is something I haven’t seen before — actually, I can’t recall ever seeing a Phrygian helmet with cheekplates, although I’m sure they exist. It’s difficult to tell whether the somewhat similar item on this page has a moustache or not …

There are plenty of other interesting items, of course … check out the online catalog here

Plenty o’ ClassCon in an interview at BoingBoing with productivity/lifestyle guru Tim Ferriss, e.g.:

I came to Seneca by looking at military strategies. A lot of military writing is based on stoic philosophical principles. The three cited sources are Marcus Aurelius and his book Meditations, which was effectively a war campaign journal. The second is Epictetus and his handbook Enchiridion, which I find difficult to read. The last is Seneca and, because Seneca was translated from Latin to English as opposed to from Greek to English and also because he was a very accomplished writer and a playwright, I find his readings to be more memorable and actionable.

So, it came to me through a number of different vehicles, the study of war and war strategy. Second was through philosophers like Thoreau and Emerson who were also fans of Seneca. Thirdly, was when I was really embracing minimalism and trying to eliminate the trivial many, both materially and otherwise. From a business standpoint, Seneca is constantly cited by people in the “less is more” camp of philosophical thought. I basically came to Seneca through several different directions.

The other was – and part of what appealed to me about Seneca – was the similarity I found between his brand of stoic thought and the brands of Buddhism and Zen Buddhism that were practiced by people like Musashi Miyamoto. He wrote The Book of Five Rings and is also the most famous Japanese swordsman in history. […]

• via: Interview: Tim Ferriss

T’other day we mentioned an item wherein some folks got together in New York and retried Socrates … Time Magazine actually devotes quite a bit of space to the trial itself … here’s what you didn’t see in our previous piece; this actually looks like fun (Bogdanos! Wolfe! Celebulawyers!):

[…] So the case went back to trial, to be heard by three steely New York judges who would evaluate the evidence with a modern perspective, at a hearing that fused historical discussion with sometimes comical theatrics. (The trial was presented by the Onassis Foundation, who will distribute a DVD of the event to schools and cultural institutions.) Yet no one knew how the proceedings would unfold — after all, how easy can it be to rehash a trial with only circumstantial evidence, produced decades after the fact by Socrates’ admirers Plato and Xenophon? Would Socrates be sentenced to death again or would he be acquitted, albeit a few millennia too late?

5:26 p.m. “I plan on being a little bit over the top,” announces Colonel Matthew Bogdanos, part of the prosecution team. The Assistant District Attorney of Manhattan — who joined a counterterrorism operation in Afghanistan after 9/11 and later served three tours in Iraq — is a force to be reckoned with.

5:33 p.m. “Welcome to Athens!” Chief Judge Dennis Jacobs proclaims. He explains the charges against Socrates from a legal perspective. In ancient Athens, turns out there’s no presumption of innocence.

5:43 p.m. Anthony Papadimitriou (president of the Onassis Foundation) heads off the case for the prosecution. He’s Greek. And his accent is really Greek. It adds a new level of credibility to his testimony. (See Plato’s Apology as part of the top 10 apologies.)

5:45 p.m. Celebrity diversion! Tom Wolfe strolls into the courtroom, fashionably late and definitely fashionable, in one of his classic white suits. (He’s friends with Socrates’ counsel Eddie Hayes; Bonfire of the Vanities is dedicated to Hayes.)

5:48 p.m. Papadimitriou is getting heated. His historical memory is stunning, and he’s slamming the philosopher hard, calling him a “liar,” a “rebel,” and accusing him of converting his students to “lovers of Sparta, the enemy.” Corruption charge? Check.

5:55 p.m. Loretta Preska, Chief Judge of the Southern District of New York, counters the prosecution: “Athens embraced free speech as one of its most important traditions. Wasn’t Socrates just speaking his opinion?” Papadimitriou responds with some legalese, explaining that the question of free speech doesn’t relate to the charges of impiety and corruption. Indeed, speaking one’s mind is a right; it doesn’t prove that the philosopher has done anything wrong.

6:01 p.m. Col. Bogdanos, the second prosecutor, takes the stand. The history lesson is over; let the show begin! He proclaims that this trial is about the survival of democracy, which has come under fire in Athens after two government coups in the past decade. And who are the men behind these overthrows? Students of Socrates. “Let no golden-tongued orators with honey-sweet words tell you this trial is about anything else” but Socrates’ attempt to destroy democracy, Bogdanos booms. Worse, Socrates was influential yet passive: standing in the agora all day, he took no part in city affairs, making him “good for nothing.”

Watch the 1937 Supreme Court in action.

6:21 p.m. Judge Jacobs picks at Bogdanos’ argument with a quip: “You assume that students who are taught eventually learn.” Did Socrates’ seditious students learn to rebel from him? Or were they rebelling against his teachings? Bogdanos: “The man who holds the ladder is just as guilty as the thief.” Laughter all around. The prosecution goes out on a high note.

6:28 p.m. The defense team takes the floor, headed off by criminal defense attorney Eddie Hayes, who pronounces ancient names such as Meletus and Alcibiades with a thick Queens accent. Why would they indict Socrates, Hayes asks? “I think it’s for having a big mouth! … If they want to kill him for having a big mouth, what about my brother too?” He says we shouldn’t stop anyone from speaking, because we then stop even more people from listening. A timeless lesson. (See photos of the long, painful history of the First Amendment.)

6:35 p.m. Hayes makes it clear he doesn’t care much for Socrates, but he’s doing his damndest to keep him from drinking the hemlock. In fact, his insults turn to vanity: “It looks like they took a stone chisel to his face!” But Hayes argues that despite the philosopher’s arrogance, what Socrates preaches about the glory of virtue and building a community could help rescue Athens from its constant overthrows. Maybe Athens’ heyday will come from actually listening to Socrates?

6:46 p.m. Fortuitously, we can indeed listen to Socrates, as he is channeled by Benjamin Brafman, the attorney who successfully defended Sean Combs against gun and bribery charges stemming from a nightclub melée in 1999. As there was no written record of what Socrates said, Brafman is taking some creative license as he proclaims Socrates’ harmlessness. In advising hundreds of students over 50 years, Socrates claims, only two have turned rogue. Brafman’s larger-than-life rendition has the gallery in stitches. “I’m a 70-year-old man walking in a sheet, naked,” he says. “I’m not a threat!”

7:00 p.m. Socrates/Brafman appeals directly to us, trying to guilt us into letting him go free. “How would you feel if you put me to death?” He’s running a few minutes over his allotted time, but no one seems to mind, even the judges — who’ve been sticklers for the clock up to this point. (See the Supreme Court’s free-speech struggle.)

7:04 p.m. Chief Judge Preska takes the opportunity to slam Socrates in the flesh, equating his pompousness in the courtroom with the impiety charge levied against him. She has a point: he who loves himself the most likely holds no God. With that, the judges are off to deliberate.

7:32 p.m. The judges emerge from their chamber and Chief Judge Jacobs hands down their decision to acquit on both charges: “The prosecution didn’t prove that Socrates’ personal God was not a not-approved God.” Chief Judge Carol Amon dissented, calling Socrates a “dangerous subversive.” But Chief Judge Preska felt that, as Socrates reflected no “clear and present danger,” and his impiety seemed more a factor of disinterest than disrespect, the court could not find him guilty.

While the charges levied against the philosopher may not stand in a current court of law, did the trial truly exonerate Socrates? Does the circumstantial evidence still cast a shadow over his historical memory? If Socrates had shared an attorney with P. Diddy, would he have had to drink the hemlock? In the words of Socrates himself: “All I know is that I know nothing.”

• Greeks Bearing Rifts: Socrates Gets a Retrial | Time

In various posts in the past — usually ones associated with reportage about spurious claims — I have often pointed out that the folks involved have titles (usually something like “historian” or “archaeologist” or whatever) which they really have no legitimate claim to have (although one might cynically observe no one claims to be a dilettante). What makes things worse, though, is that the various journalists reporting on such events either merely parrot the claimed title or worse, they’re the ones who come up with the title to begin with. A glaring case in point of this sort of thing can be seen with an antiquities smuggling case that is currently filling my box. The gist is some American who took a bunch of folks to Egypt and Israel has been charged with illegally selling/smuggling antiquties. We’ll just compare how this American is described:

Art Daily‘s initial paragraph:

The suspect, a retired university lecturer with a Ph. D in history from the United States, sold among other things, silver coins from the Second Temple period and 1,500 year old clay oil lamps. He planned on leaving the country with a handful of checks and cash totaling more than $20,000.

• An Attempt to Smuggle Hundreds of Stolen Antiquities from Israel was Thwarted | Art Daily

People’s Daily (second paragraph):

The suspect, an expert in Egyptian history and culture who worked as a tour guide, received the items from robbers who plundered archaeological sites across Israel, and then allegedly sold the antiquities to American tourists while guiding them through the country.

• Israel foils antiquities fence | People’s Daily

Jerusalem Post:

A retired university lecturer from the US was held for questioning this week after allegedly selling and trying to smuggle abroad hundreds of valuable archeological artifacts.

The suspect, a former history lecturer specializing in Ancient Egypt, is alleged to have sold ancient coins and other historical relics to some 20 tourists he was guiding in Israel, and to have tried to leave the country with cash and checks totaling over $20,000.

• Egyptologist suspected of smuggling artifacts from Israel

Media Line:

An American history professor has been arrested by Israeli authorities at the country’s main airport as he attempted to slip out of the country with items allegedly obtained from illegal grave robberies.

• American Professor Caught Trafficking Antiquities

Ha’aretz:

A retired lecturer from the United States is being held on suspicion of illegal trafficking in antiquities, the Israel Antiquities Authority said Tuesday.

John Lund, 70, a tour guide from Utah, is suspected of having sold stolen artifacts to tour groups he led in Israel, according to the authority. Lund was reportedly detained at Ben-Gurion International Airport on Monday, as he was about to leave the country, officials said.

• U.S. tour guide arrested for antiquities trafficking

CNN:

Israeli authorities arrested a retired American university lecturer this week on suspicion of selling ancient artifacts illegally to U.S. tourists, they said Wednesday.

The suspect, a tour guide, is accused of selling ancient coins and 1,500-year-old clay lamps, and pocketing the equivalent of $20,000.

• American arrested over alleged antiquities smuggling in Israel

I could go on and on. Whatever the case, depending on who you ‘talk to’ we have a suspect who is either a “history professor”, a “tour guide”, a “retired lecturer”. an “expert in Egyptology”, an “Egyptologist”, or various combinations of these. Now, in my world, a “professor” is someone who has achieved an academic rank in a university (the top rank), after having completed numerous levels of university education (usually, in North America, B.A./B.Sc., M.A., Ph.D.). A “history professor” has degrees in history and formal training with historical sources, research, etc.. An “Egyptologist” is a further specialization involving formal training in the history and archaeology of ancient Egypt. A “lecturer” is someone who probably does not have the complete qualifications to claim the title of “professor”, but who teaches courses at a university in the subject of their degrees something different entirely depending on what country you happen to be in.

Now the John Lund in question has a webpage with an ‘About’ page, of course … here’s some info from that:

In 1972 Brigham Young University awarded him the degree of Doctor of Education. Because of his emphasis in research, he completed the equivalent of a Doctoral Minor in Statistics.

Dr. Lund’s work has taken him on a thirty year journey where he has taught as adjunct faculty at major universities throughout Washington, Idaho, California and Utah.

Elsewhere, we find he works for a group called Fun For Less Tours … at that website, there is a page of articles written by various tour leaders and Lund appears to have penned a couple of historical interest. That doesn’t make him an historian. That doesn’t make him an Egyptologist. There is no indication that any of his ‘lecturing’ had anything to do with things pertaining to the ancient world. If I were to take a bunch of wood and build a nice little shed out back, could I claim to be an engineer? If I went to my neighbour’s house and pushed their little shed over and I was arrested, would the press even think of giving a headline like “Engineer destroys neighbour’s building?”. So why is it that in the fields of archaeology and/or history, that anyone who audited a course in college or watched a tv documentary is given leave to claim to be an archaeologist, or historian, or some other “professional” designation? Granted, there is a ‘grey area’ of sorts … there are professional historians out there who do write scholar-level books (Stacey Schiff, e.g.) but they do have genuine historical background and skills. But it seems to be an increasing problem amongst journalists in giving undeserved and unearned professional titles to folks who are little more than dilettantes and in so doing, give those people much greater auctoritas in the eyes of the public than they really should have. As can be seen, it really isn’t that difficult to find the background of these people, so why aren’t journalists putting in the effort?

UPDATE (an hour or so later) … I note that Jim Davila blogs in a similar vein today: “EGYPTOLOGIST” ACCUSED OF ANTIQUITIES SMUGGLING:

UPDATE II (the next day) … Dr Lund’s side of the story: Utah historian accused of smuggling antiquities out of Israel