From dmeadows@idirect.com Sun Oct 22 08:16:59 2000 Received: from mxu3.u.washington.edu (mxu3.u.washington.edu [140.142.33.7]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.05/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA25792 for ; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 08:16:58 -0700 Received: from deimos.idirect.com (deimos.idirect.com [207.136.80.182]) by mxu3.u.washington.edu (8.9.3+UW00.02/8.9.3+UW99.09) with ESMTP id IAA15484 for ; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 08:16:57 -0700 Received: from default.idirect.com (on-ham-a53-03-76.look.ca [216.154.52.204]) by deimos.idirect.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id LAA79589; Sun, 22 Oct 2000 11:16:47 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <5.0.0.25.0.20001022110330.01c05c80@idirect.com> X-Sender: dmeadows@idirect.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.0 Date: Sun, 22 Oct 2000 11:05:32 -0400 To: classics@u.washington.edu, ancien-l@listserv.louisville.edu, rome-arch@egroups.com, greek-arch@egroups.com, Roman_History_Books@egroups.com, PreModernWorldHistory@egroups.com, From: David Meadows Subject: In the latest Explorator Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Items of interest from my newsletter: Apologies for the unannounced hiatus last week folks ... the changing residences thing reared its ugly head again (we won't mention how a certain relative decided my modem cord would be an appropriate thing with which to tie a box) ... the good news is that everything should return to 'normal' for our next issue ... So here's the big double issue ... some of the older links *might* have expired by the time you get this, but they were working yesterday ... ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Gratias vobis ago for the heads up to: Sujazz, Sally Winchester, and Alastair Millar(as always, with hopes that I didn't leave anyone out!). THE BIG NEWS As far as I'm concerned, whenever someone discovers an entire ancient city it's big news, so imagine what kind of biweek it's been when not one, not two, but three ancient cities were discovered! Unfortunately, only one of them was given major press coverage: Helike (watch the wraps): http://www.foxnews.com/science/101800/times_helike.sml http://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/17/science/17CITY.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_978000/978885.stm http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20001017/hi_helike.html http://www.sfgate.com:80/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2000/10/20/MN85913.DTL [n.b. also worth checking out is the Helike project page, which looks like a book ad, but has some useful linked info at the bottom:] http://www.geoprobe.com/helike/proceedings.html Last week Discovery.com reported on the discovery of a major Etruscan settlement: http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20001016/hi_etruscan.html Last week CNN reported the discovery of the ancient city of Apollonia: http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/10/12/greece.unearth.ap/index.html OLD WORLD NEWS The Telegraph also reports on some evidence that Roman surgeons were able to successfully amputate limbs (i.e. with subsequent survival): http://www.telegraph.co.uk:80/et?ac=000405944438668&rtmo=3mnSxwrM&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/10/15/wbone15.html I almost made this one 'the big news', but changed my mind (although it is important, it's more of a 'big followup') ... high tech imagery has restored the text of the Archimedes Palimpsest, which turns out to be a treatise 'On Floating Bodies' (watch the wraps): http://www.ngnews.com/news/2000/10/10172000/archimedes_3159.asp http://more.abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt001020_archimedes_feature.html http://www.sunspot.net/content/news/story?section=news-maryland-sun&pagename=story&storyid=1150490210959 CLASSICISTS' CORNER Lingua Franca has a very nice piece in which they ask five classicists for their opinions on the best recent tomes on Greek and Roman life: http://www.linguafranca.com/print/0011/brkthrubooks_classwrld.html The Seattle Post-Intelligencer (right up there with the Bloom County Picayune for strange names) has a review of a travelling production of the Odyssey: http://seattlep-i.nwsource.com:80/theater/fanf201.shtml A Slate article focussing on the "Was Jesus a Vegetarian" debate has a fair bit on typical diets of the time: http://slate.msn.com:80/crapshoot/00-10-12/crapshoot.asp The Boston Review has an interesting piece on how literary greatness/survival is largely a matter of chance (I think I mentioned this one before, but I can't find a date on the article): http://bostonreview.mit.edu:80/BR25.2/bissell.html Humanities magazine has a nice piece on Thucydides' appreciation for the connection between money and power: http://www.neh.gov/publications/humanities/2000-07/moneypower.html OF POSSIBLE INTEREST? I'm not sure whether this one really is Explorator-worthy, but it has potential; it's a review of a book of (modern) poetry called *The Tablets*, which bills itself as a collection of 4000-year-old Sumero-Akkadian texts translated and commented upon: http://bostonreview.mit.edu:80/BR25.5/zawacki.html Also on the 'maybe' list is a column by James Burke in Scientific American, written in his typical 'Connections' style: http://www.sciam.com:80/2000/1100issue/1100connections.html FOLLOWUPS Thracian Temples (watch the wrap): http://library.northernlight.com/EA20001008960000016.html?cb=0&dx=1006&sc=0#doc EXHIBITS Antioch: The Lost Ancient City: http://www.worcesterart.org/Antioch/exhibition.html A review of same: http://www.neh.gov/publications/humanities/2000-07/antioch.html The Chicago Tribune has a review of the Oriental Institute's exhibit of artifacts from Ur (watch the wrap): http://www.chicago.tribune.com/version1/article/0,1575,SAV-0010190227,00.html AT ABOUT.COM Latin Guide Janet Burns' latest is a timeline of Latin authors: http://latin.about.com/library/weekly/aa101600a.htm .