Charlotte Higgins appears to be starting a series:

• Ancient Greece: what can we learn? | The Guardian.
• What can the Ancient Greeks do for us? | The Guardian

Around the Classical blogosphere the past little while:

• Roman numerals to build the Colosseum July 30, 2011 frcoulter@yahoo.com
• explorator 14.15 July 31, 2011 david meadows
• Bulla Regia … July 31, 2011 Dorothy King
• Memoria Hannibalis: Constructing Memories of Punic War Violence from the Second Century BCE through the Fifth Century CE July 31, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Power Made Public: Athenian Displays of Power and Aegean Diplomacy in the Fifth and Fourth Century B.C. July 31, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Medusa: From Beast to Beauty in Archaic and Classical Illustrations from Greece and Southern Italy July 31, 2011 History of the Ancient World
• Golden Sponge-Stick Comp ’11 July 31, 2011 Caroline Lawrence
• NJCL = Awesome July 29, 2011 Vicky Alvear Shecter
• Ancient and modern July 30, 2011 
• Disadvantages of a classical education 2 July 28, 2011 davidderrick
• Youth and Old Age July 30, 2011 Michael Gilleland
• The Tombstone of Regina (South Shields) July 28, 2011 Dorothy King
• Bibliographies: Aeschylus July 28, 2011 classicslibrarian
• APA Blog : Spring 2011 Newsletter July 28, 2011 (author unknown)
• What Did the Romans Use for Toilet Paper? July 28, 2011 N.S. Gill
• Bibliography: A Hellenistic Bibliography (Post-Classical Greek Poetry) July 28, 2011 classicslibrarian
• Running a Classical conference: the inside story July 28, 2011 Mary Beard
• Bronze Age Etruscan sacred site found in Italy July 28, 2011 Sevaan Franks
• Roman Battle Tactics Versus the Phalanx July 27, 2011 Mike Anderson
• The Fall of Rome July 27, 2011 (author unknown)

Excerpted from the latest AIA e-Update:

At Empire’s Edge: Project Paphlagonia. Regional Survey in North-Central Turkey
Edited by Roger Matthews and Claudia Glatz
Reviewed by James Newhard

Scholars, Travels, Archives: Greek History and Culture Through the British School at Athens. Proceedings of a Conference Held at the National Hellenic Research Foundation, Athens, 6-7 October 2006
Edited by Michael Llewellyn Smith, Paschalis M. Kitromilides, and Eleni Calligas
Reviewed by John Griffiths Pedley

Archaeology in Situ: Sites, Archaeology, and Communities in Greece
Edited by Anna Stroulia and Susan Buck Sutton
Reviewed by James Whitley

The Chora of Croton 1: The Neolithic Settlement at Capo Alfiere
By Jon Morter
Reviewed by Dante G. Bartoli

Archaic State Interaction: The Eastern Mediterranean in the Bronze Age
Edited by William A. Parkinson and Michael L. Galaty
Reviewed by Cynthia W. Shelmerdine

Minoan Kato Zakro: A Pastoral Economy
By Judith Reid
Reviewed by Kostas Sbonias

Corpus der minoischen und mykenischen Siegel. Vol. 6, Oxford, the Ashmolean Museum
By Helen Hughes-Brock
Reviewed by Olga Krzyszkowska

The Sanctuary of Hermes and Aphrodite at Syme Viannou. Vol. 4, Animal Images of Clay
By Polymnia Muhly
Reviewed by Anna Lucia D’Agata

Prima delle colonie: Organizzazione territoriale e produzioni ceramiche specializzate in Basilicata e Calabria settentrionale ionica nella prima età del ferro. Atti delle Giornate di Studio, Matera, 20–21 novembre 2007
Edited by Marco Bettelli, Cecilia de Faveri, and Massimo Osanna
Reviewed by Edward Herring

Leontinoi: Archeologia di una colonia greca
By Massimo Frasca
Reviewed by Franco De Angelis

Pheidias: The Sculptures & Ancient Sources
By Claire Cullen Davison
Reviewed by Andrew Stewart

Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Greece 11. Athens 1: Museum of Cycladic Art
By Kleopatra Kathariou
Reviewed by David W.J. Gill

Apollonia Pontica 2007
By Roald Docter, Kristina Panayotova, Jan de Boer, Lieve Donnellan, Winfred van de Put, and Babette Bechtold
Reviewed by Elias K. Petropoulos

I complessi archeologici di Trestina e di Fabbrecce nel Museo Archeologico di Firenze
Edited by Fulvia Lo Schiavo and Antonella Romualdi
Reviewed by Jean MacIntosh Turfa

Cult Places and Cultural Change in Republican Italy: A Contextual Approach to Religious Aspects of Rural Society After the Roman Conquest
By Tesse Stek
Reviewed by Elizabeth Colantoni

The Horace’s Villa Project, 1997-2003: Report on New Fieldwork and Research
Edited by Bernard Frischer, Jane Crawford, and Monica de Simone
Reviewed by Jeremy Rossiter

Urbem adornare: Die Stadt Rom und ihre Gestaltumwandlung unter Augustus
By Lothar Haselberger
Reviewed by John Bert Lott

Vesuviana: Archeologie a confronto. Atti del convegno internazionale (Bologna, 14-16 gennaio 2008)
Edited by Antonella Coralini
Reviewed by Catalin Pavel

Framing Public Life: The Portico in Roman Gaul
By James F.D. Frakes
Reviewed by James C. Anderson, Jr.

… and they have a Museum review too:

Perceptions of the New Acropolis Museum
Reviewed by Miriam Caskey

This one just started to make the rounds last night while I was drifting off … here’s the salient bit from the Telegraph (tip o’ the pileus to Terrence Lockyer for being first off the mark with this one … my spiders must still be sleeping):

[…]

Giulio Magli, a historian of ancient architecture from Milan Polytechnic, Italy, and Robert Hannah, a classics scholar from the University of Otago in New Zealand, have discovered that at precisely midday during the March equinox, a circular shaft of light shines through the oculus and illuminates the Pantheon’s imposing entrance.

They have been working on the theory since 2009 but recently brought together all their latest research in a paper published in a scholarly journal, Numen.

The precise calculations made in the positioning and construction of the Pantheon mean that the size and shape of the beam perfectly matches, down to the last inch, a semicircular stone arch above the doorway.

A similar effect is seen on April 21, which the Romans celebrated as the founding date of their city, when at midday the sun beam strikes a metal grille above the doorway, flooding the colonnaded courtyard outside with light.

The dramatic displays would have been seen by the Romans as elevating an emperor into the realm of the gods – a cosmological affirmation of his divine power as he entered the building, which was used as an audience hall as well as a place of worship.

He was in effect being “invited” by the sun to enter the Pantheon, which as its name suggests was dedicated to the most important deities of the Roman world.

“The emperor would have been illuminated as if by film studio lights,” said Professor Magli. “The Romans believed the relationship between the emperor and the heavens was at its closest during the equinoxes.

It would have been a glorification of the power of the emperor, and of Rome itself.” The sun had a special significance for the Romans, as it did for the ancient Egyptians. The god Apollo was associated with the sun, and the emperor Nero was depicted as the Greek sun god Helios in a giant statue called the Colossus, which gave its name to the Colosseum.

One of antiquity’s most remarkable examples of engineering, the Pantheon’s fine state of preservation is thanks to the fact that it was converted into a church in the seventh century, when it was presented to the Pope by the Byzantine Emperor Phocas.

It retains its original bronze doors and marble columns, some of which were quarried in the Egyptian desert and transported by the ship down the Nile and across the Mediterranean to Rome at huge expense.

The building now contains the tombs of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of united Italy, and the Renaissance artist Raphael.

• via: Rome’s Pantheon may have been built as a massive sundial researchers reveal | Telegraph

As some of us were mentioning last night on Twitter, this really isn’t anything new. A similar report came out a couple of years ago, which we pondered for a bit: Pantheon Sundial?.  On the theory itself, one should definitely read a post by Alun Salt: Light In The Pantheon And Ancient Astronomy. Judith Weingarten also weighed in on the theory: Time Gazing at the Pantheon in Rome. I’m not sure if there’s a new study out (other than the one in New Scientist mentioned in our previous post), but this is one of those things where surely computer modelling could prove useful? Whatever the case, it’s becoming pretty clear that Hadrian may have had a predeliction for aligning his structures according to the sun (cf., e.g., Hadrianic Alignment)

Paul Cartledge talks about his latest tome: Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities and other things coming soon: