explorator 6.15
rogueclassicist
explorator 6.15 August 10, 2003
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Thanks to Arthur Shippee, Bill Kennedy, Bob Heuman, Cindy
Byrne, Dave Sowdon, Francis Deblauwe, Glenn Meyer, Hernan Astudillo,
John Hall, John McMahon, Judy Underwood, Richard Pettigrew, W. Richard
Frahm,
Albert Reiner, Chris Hopkins, Paul Cowie, Yonatan Nadelman, Donna
Hurst, Karen Young, Joan Griffith, and Joan Paschfor headses
upses this week (as always hoping I have left no one out).
... another slow week.
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AFRICA, EUROPE, AND ASIA
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I don't usually cover things *this* ancient, but what the heck ...
a 130 million years b.p. strand of spider silk has been found preserved
in amber:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/949054.asp
Early hominids may have been more 'human' than previously thought:
http://www.osu.edu/researchnews/archive/dimorph.htm
Details of that oldest astronomical observatory found near Goseck
last year (including the 'Nebra disk') were made public this week:
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1441_A_942824_1_A,00.html
Seahenge might be going on public display:
A neolithic statuette of a head was recently found in the Czech
Republic:
http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/view-id.php4?id=20030801F01445
Authorities this week released a list of the 30 "most wanted"
antiquities missing from Baghdad's museum:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/946689.asp?0cv=KB20
A large ancient cemetery has been revealed during a dig at the
site of Athens' old airport at Hellenikon:
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/news/content.asp?aid=32784
An Iron Age burial (and perhaps a cemetery) has been found near
a small Tuscan town:
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030804/statue.html
Recent archaeological work suggests Caligula might have been as
megalomaniacal as our ancient sources suggest:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1014329,00.html
http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/08/08/wrome08.xml
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_807047.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3135821.stm
In the wake of last week's discovery of a Roman cosmetics jar (see
the Repeats section if you missed it) comes a brief overview of
Roman cosmetics:
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/World/ancientmakeup030804.html
The Ayodhya dig is officially over (I suspect the fallout isn't):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/3134107.stm
They've finally found St. Guthlac's Priory and have to rush to
excavate it:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/england/west_midlands/3136871.stm
Archaeologists have made a number of finds beneath Lichfield
Cathedral:
http://www.expressandstar.com/artman/publish/article_38865.shtml
The mystery of a medieval shipwreck found last year in Newport
may have been solved:
http://tinyurl.com/jka3
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THE AMERICAS
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A Canadian scholar thinks Francis Drake made it rather further
north than is currently believed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/09/arts/09DRAK.html
cf.:
http://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20030728_62961_6296
1
Not sure if Hawaii is technically 'the Americas' or not, but a
controlled burn which went out of control on Oahu has revealed a
number of sites on the Makua Military Reservation (and, no doubt,
will have quite a bit of political fallout):
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/06/national/06VALL.html
Also in the 'not sure' department, but for different reasons (did
this one get mentioned before?) is the discovery of a pre-Mayan
complex civilization in Nicaragua:
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-hnicaculture09aug09,1,5
489277.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
Aboriginal remains, possibly 2000 - 3000 b.p. have been found
at a construction site in Ohio:
http://www.portclintonnewsherald.com/news/stories/20030808/localnews/27317.h
tml
... I don't think this is the same, but it's also Ohio:
http://www.thenews-messenger.com/news/stories/20030809/localnews/33775.html
Coverage of the Aztecs exhibit making its way across Europe:
http://diario.elmercurio.com/el_sabado/el_sabado/noticias/2003/8/1/356935.ht
m?id=356935&rep=324 (Spanish)
Revisionism (is it?) about the purpose of Macchu Picchu:
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/living/health/6460842.htm
Ancient irrigation practices are being revived in Peru:
http://stacks.msnbc.com:80/news/947079.asp
A high-tech survey of the Hudson River has revealed piles of
potential sites:
http://www.msnbc.com/news/948811.asp
This week it's "scientists" who are clumsy ... stumbling onto
the realization that clocks and watches on the Hunley weren't
quite right:
http://www.charleston.net/stories/080803/loc_08hunley.shtml
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ALSO OF INTEREST
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There's a new archaeological dating method, based on superconductivity:
http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/8/3
Marriage rites in various cultures, ancient and modern:
http://more.abcnews.go.com/sections/us/WolfFiles/wolffiles251.html
NPR's 'Radio Expeditions' had a nice feature on Louis Leakey and
his legacy (includes sound in Real format):
http://www.npr.org/programs/re/archivesdate/2003/aug/leakey/index.html
A bit of a foofera this week (what's the difference between a
foofera and a brouhaha?) about whether the British Museum was
involved in "secret talks" to at least lend the Parthenon/Elgin
Marbles to Greece for the Olympics (the first article is the
'latest word'):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1011754,00.html
A response to the 'ark hype' associated with Ballard's forays
into the Black Sea:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,2763,1015350,00.html
An article in the Village Voice has one employee from the Met
suggesting that ALL antiquities at that institution are
"plunder":
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0332/fahim.php
The Shanghai Museum has spent a pile of cash to purchase a tenth-
century collection of calligraphy:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/afp/20030804/od_afp/china_ar
t_030804042705&e=5
Opera has returned to the Baths of Caracalla in Rome:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/arts/music/07BATH.html
There's a new edition of the Chicago Manual of Style out ... with
some significant changes (no doubt graduate students will be
buying up all the copies in order to hide them from their
committees!):
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/07/books/07STYL.html
A damaged water pipe clogged a number of books at Johns Hopkins'
Peabody library:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Library-Leak.html
The New York Times has a brief history of dentistry:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/health/05DENT.html
... while the CSM has a history of sugar:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0805/p18s02-hfks.html?entryBottomStory
There's a new curatrix at the Frick:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/05/arts/design/05FRIC.html
A Viking fashion show (!?):
http://www.msnbc.com/news/950386.asp
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/V/VIKING_CATWALK?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION
=ENTERTAINMENT&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
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ON THE WEB
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The Archaeological Expedition in Nisa has put up a summary of this
season's finds:
http://parthia.com/nisa2003.htm
UCinncinnati's Earthwork's site (mound recreation):
http://www.detnews.com/2003/nation/0308/06/a06e-237400.htm (press coverage)
http://cerhas.uc.edu/earthworks/ (site)
Africa and World Prehistory (Introduction):
http://www.antiquityofman.com/Africa_world_prehistory_introduction.html
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NEW ONLINE BOOKS
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*The Western Regions according to the Hou Hanshu* (trans. John Hill):
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/hhshu/hou_han_shu.html
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ON THE ARCHAEOLOGY CHANNEL
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The Archaeology Channel has an interview with film-maker Jason
Williams about how he and his team 'rediscovered' the Nimrud
Treasure:
http://www.archaeologychannel.org/content/audio/williamsint.html
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CRIME BEAT
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Another case of trying to recover art looted by the Nazis:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3128349.stm
The author of a book on rebuilding Iraq has been charged with
smuggling some of that nation's antiquities:
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/ny-nyart103409191aug10,0,4266805.st
ory
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AT ABOUT.COM
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N.S. Gill's Ancient History site seems to be becoming more blog
like ... assorted items of interest:
http://ancienthistory.about.com/
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BOOK REVIEWS
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Donald Kagan, *The Peloponnesian War*:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/10/books/review/10KNOX.html
Steven Mithen, *After the Ice: A global human history 20,000-
5000 BC*
http://www.newscientist.com/opinion/opbooks.jsp?id=ns24032
Stephen Knapp, *Proof of Vedic Culture's Global Existence*:
http://www.antiquityofman.com/review_knapp.html
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EXHIBITIONS
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Coming of Age in Ancient Greece:
http://www.neh.fed.us/news/humanities/2003-07/fragments.html
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CLASSICIST'S CORNER
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While Sam Waksal's prison reading list does include some
'ancient'material, it's probably no surprise that Plato isn't included:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/?030811ta_talk_mead
The New York Times has a huge article (originally from Der
Spiegel?) on Leo Strauss and his influence:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/04/international/europe/04SPIEGEL.html
Not all references to Sparta Warriors are what we might immediately
think:
http://www.edinburghnews.com/sport.cfm?id=868422003
The latest on the Olympic Truce project:
http://www.greece.gr/POLITICS/International/truce_annan.stm
Peter Jones:
http://www.spectator.co.uk/article.php3?table=old§ion=current&issue=2003
-08-09&id=3386
Akropolis News in Classical Greek:
http://www.akwn.net/
Radio Finland's Nuntii Latini
http://www.yle.fi/fbc/latini/trans.html
Radio Bremen's Der Monatsrückblick - auf Latein
http://www.radiobremen.de/online/latein/
U.S. Weather in Latin:
http://latin.wunderground.com/
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REPEATS
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Delphic Oracle:
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1011370,00.html
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=0009BD34-398C-1F0A-97AE80A84189EE
DF&pageNumber=1&catID=2
Roman Cosmetic Jar:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0806/p14s02-coop.html
Zeus Hypsistos Temple:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1059827539491_8///?hub=S
ciTech
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/6441864.htm
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OTHER SOURCES OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL NEWS
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Ancient World Web Breaking News Page:
http://julen.net/ancient/breaking.html
Archaeologica:
http://www.archaeologica.org/NewsPage.htm
Archaeology Magazine's Newsbriefs:
http://www.archaeology.org/magazine.php?page=0305/newsbriefs/index
Bible and Interpretation Breaking News:
http://www.bibleinterp.com/news.htm
CBA Newsfeed:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/newsfeed/index.html
CBA Archaeoblog:
http://www.britarch.ac.uk/archaeoblog/
Francis Deblauwe's 'Iraq War and Archaeology' site:
http://cctr.umkc.edu/user/fdeblauwe/iraq.html
Maritime Underwater Archaeological News:
http://www.munarchaeology.com/munarchaeology/news/main.htm
Michael Ruggeri's Ancient America and Mesoamerica News:
http://community-2.webtv.net/@HH!35!F6!26C030D734B7/Topiltzin-2091/AncientAm
ericaand/
Mirabilis.ca (blog):
Paleojudaica (blog):
http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com
Stone Pages Archaeo News:
http://www.stonepages.com/news/
Texas A&M Anthropology News Site:
http://www.tamu.edu/anthropology/news.html
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