Hodie est a.d. VI Kal. Dec. 2774 AUC ~ 22 Maimakterion in the first year of the 700th Olympiad

In the News

• Spanish police recover rare 2,000-year-old Iberian sword | Spain | The Guardian
• Turkey’s archaeological underwater excavations unearth 255 artefacts this year alone – Middle East Monitor
• Ancient Greece’s Amphipolis Unveils New Secrets
• People living in Pergamon 2,000 years ago had plant-based diet | Daily Sabah
• Egypt restores ancient road linking temples of Luxor and Karnak | Egypt | The Guardian
• Handing over of 38 Antiquities to the Embassy of the Republic of Cyprus in Washington, USA
• Thuin : découverte d’un trésor gaulois, sauvé des pilleurs

In Case You Missed It

• Poll: More Britons in Favor of Returning Parthenon Marbles to Greece | GTP Headlines
• Tornos News | Not Parthenon marbles, but fragments now displayed at Acropolis Museum
• Archaeologists discover 14,000-year-old settlement in Turkey – The Jerusalem Post
• Encounters with Achilles: The Discovery of the Rutland Roman Villa – ULAS News

Public Facing Classics

• The Iliad in Roman Rutland | Blog post by Mary Beard | The TLS

Fresh Bloggery

• Eugen Petersen (1836–1919) – People at the DAI Athens
• The Best Time For Sex? A Holiday Dinner Conversation Prompt – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
• The History Girls: The Legend of Tarpeia – A Roman Morality Tale by Elisabeth Storrs
• Laudator Temporis Acti: Topknot
• Sing Me a Dinner! A Comic Fragment for an Epic Feast – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
• Get the Best of Every Thanksgiving Dish With this One Simple Trick! – SENTENTIAE ANTIQUAE
• Portable Antiquity Collecting and Heritage Issues: Looting the Past as a Sport in the UK?
• Laudator Temporis Acti: Orderliness and Its Opposite
• The History Blog » Blog Archive » Unique Achilles mosaic found in Rutland
• PaleoJudaica.com: Online lectures on Agrippa II and on the Ark of the Covenant
• PaleoJudaica.com: Hanukkah archaeology
• PaleoJudaica.com: The ideologies of 1 and 2 Maccabees?
• (Reclame voor mijn eigen boeken) – Mainzer Beobachter
• Fireside Friday: November 26, 2021 – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Other Blog-like Publications

• Art Crime Research Opportunities: 25 November 2021
• In Praise of Parsing – Antigone
• Pasts Imperfect (11.25.21) – by Sarah E. Bond, Joel Christensen, Evan McDuff, and Colin McCaffrey – Pasts Imperfect

Assorted Twitter Threads

• @DocCrom on Manilius, Astronomica 2.1-11
• @DocCrom on some coins featuring Venus Cloacina

Fresh Podcasts

• ‎This Week in the Ancient Near East: It’s the Very Nearly Live from ASOR 2021 Conference With Extra Special Guests Edition! Part 3-The Last Waltz on Apple Podcasts

Yes, we’re still here at ASOR, but now we’re interrogating an entirely new crowd about the question of conferences, namely Dr. Margaret Cohen, Professor Alexandra Ratzlaff and Professor Andrea Berlin. The questions are mostly the same, but the answers from these three leading female scholars are quite different.

• ‎Ancient Warfare Podcast: Were there units recruited from a specific area in the Hellenistic period? on Apple Podcasts

Josh sent this question in for Murray to ponder over. During the Roman period, we have evidence of reasonably specific units based on (original) area of recruitment. I was wondering if we have anything similar for the Hellenistic/Successor period. Outside of names that were originally geographic but likely became generic terms for a certain type of unit, do we know of any specific recruiting grounds for the innumerable phalangites, thureophoroi, etc. who fought for the Diadochoi?

• ‎Dan Snow’s History Hit: The Rise of the Praetorian Guard on Apple Podcasts

From Gladiator to Rome Total War to Star Wars, today the Praetorians are one of the most distinctive military units of Imperial Rome. It was their job to protect the Roman Emperor and his household, a task for which they hold a somewhat ‘chequered’ record (especially when we focus in on the Praetorian Prefects). But what do we know about this unit’s origins? How did this powerful force become protectors of the Emperor and his household? What other functions did they serve? And how did they differ from the standard Roman legions in their structure? To talk through the rise of the Praetorian Guard, with a specific focus on the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, Tristan caught up with historian Lindsay Powell at Fishbourne Roman Palace in West Sussex for the Ancients Podcast. Lindsay is the author of several books about the Early Roman Imperial Period. His latest book, Bar Kokhba: The Jew Who Defied Hadrian and Challenged the Might of Rome, is out now.

• ‎That’s Ancient History: S.5 E.3 Ask a Classicist with my boyfriend: Hobbies, Courting, and Social Life in Antiquity on Apple Podcasts

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Fresh Youtubery

• Extraordinary Roman mosaic & villa discovered beneath farmer’s field in Rutland | University of Leicester
• SEMPRONIA: A Woman In Cahoots With Catiline!? | Moan Inc.

Book Reviews

• Colin Burrow · Song of Snogs: Catullus Bound · LRB 2 December 2021
• [AJA] Finding Fairness: From Pleistocene Foragers to Contemporary Capitalists, by Justin Jennings 
• [AJA] An Enchantment of Digital Archaeology: Raising the Dead with Agent-Based Models, Archaeogaming and Artificial Intelligence, by Shawn Graham 
• [AJA] Wine Jars and Jar Makers of Cyprus: The Ethnoarchaeology of Pitharia, by Gloria London 

Exhibition Related Things

• Mycenae: From Myth to History | Varsity

Online Talks and Professional Matters

• Awards for work on Herculaneum
• 2-year Mellon Postdoc in Critical Classical Reception
• Reassessing Rome after empire: an urban history approach | The British Academy
• See what’s happening today in Dr Pistone’s Online Classics Social Calendar
• SCS Calendar: Classics, Ancient History, and Classical Archaeology Webinars

Alia

• What does archaeology in Israel tell us about Hanukkah? – The Jerusalem Post
• George Osborne: British Museum is proud of its treasures – including the Elgin Marbles
• The Glorious History of the Hellenistic City of Antioch
• The Times view of a golden age of archaeology: Glory Beneath the Soil | Comment | The Times
• Delphi Bank organises petition calling for Parthenon Marbles’ return – Neos Kosmos
• The Greek roots of Cinderella: A tale passed on from Aesop to Disney – Neos Kosmos
• Roman Britain is still throwing up secrets – and confounding our expectations | Charlotte Higgins | The Guardian

‘Sorting’ Out Your Day:

• Homeromanteion | Online Homeric Oracle
• Sortes Virgilianae (English)
• Sortes Virgilianae (Latin)
• Consult the Oracle at UCL

Today on the Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar:

If it thunders today, it portends civil war and the death of many..

… adapted from the text and translation of:

Jean MacIntosh Turfa, The Etruscan Brontoscopic Calendar, in Nancy Thomson de Grummond and Erika Simon (eds.), The Religion of the Etruscans. University of Texas Press, 2006. (Kindle edition)