fulgurant (Dictionary.com)

Latinitweets:

verb 3: reddo , reddere, reddidi, redditus => give back, restore bit.ly/IKAclf #Latin #Vocab #LatinVocab—
  (@LatinVocab) October 16, 2012

vita: life: noun. Example sentence:Vita est brevis; ars longa.Translation:Life is short; art long. bit.ly/QoCDc3—
Latin Language (@latinlanguage) October 17, 2012

*aptus, apta, aptum* adj – suitable, proper; adapted, attached to #etymology of English adjective "apt" – appropriate, suitable; tending to—
Latin Vocabulary (@latinwordaday) October 15, 2012

I have been spending every spare moment that I have (and there aren't many, I promise you) trying to get the first draft of my Roman laughter book finished. I have done the most difficult bit -- that is writing about the theory and method of studying Roman laughter. When I did the lectures on which the book is based, I didnt do very much on that kind of stuff, or rather I dropped it in from time to time, rather than treating it in any systematic way. There is nothing worse than going to a series of lectures and finding that in Lecture One the lecturer draws his or her breath and tell you all about the methodological underpinnings and problems of what they are about to do... but you, the listener, dont yet know what that is.

That's fine for lectures, but not I think for the-book-of-the-lectures. Laughter is a particularly tricky area in history. It's history's final frontier in a way...raising in the acutest form I can imagine all those basic issues of historical knowledge, the familiarity/difference of people in the past etc. So you can't just shelve all that -- and, even if you're writing about the Romans, you can't simply duck all those questions about what Aristotle did or didn't mean when he wrote about laughter (I mean some Romans read a lot of Aristotle and whatever he had to say was part of Roman culture, as well as Greek). And that takes you into another vast bibliography . . .

But the rhetorical problems in the book still have something in common with the rhetorical problems of the lectures. Does the reader really want to sit down and slog through a load of theoretical prolegomena before they actually meet a Roman laughing? Of course they don't. So I've spent a long time trying to integrate some important (well, I think it's important)  theory and method into some good and compelling Roman examples. In fact I start from a wonderful story where the historian Dio is sitting in the Colosseum and the emperor Commodus (who is playing at being a gladiator and beast hunter) comes over and waves the head of a decapitated ostrich at the senators, as if to say "you next". Dio explains that he can hardly stop himself laughing, but knows that would be dangerous... so he plucks a leaf from the wreath on his head and  chews on it.

It's one of one of the few occasions where we can imagine an almost physical link between us and an ancient laugher . . . but it turns out to be (as I spend quite a long time showing) a much more complicated story than it looks at first sight.

Anyway, I'm through all that bit. And I'm on to the part of the book that is in some ways easier: that is, the "case study" chapters that follow rather more closely the topics of the lectures. I'm on to the one now which focussed on the way laughter marks the boundary between men and animals but it kick off with female laughter (yes, not a particularly feminist link there).

And here is my problem and some blog readers might be able to help. I want to argue that the idea of female giggling is not particularly marked in the ancient world -- the kind of giggling you find in Chaucer's the Miller's Tale with Alisoun's laughter at her cuckolded husband (the subject of a great essay by Angela Carter who wrote about the sound of innocent glee with which women humiliate men).

Now, I dont think you find that in ancient literature, or only very rarely. You find laughing women, of course, and plenty of laughing prostitutes, and women laughing at men -- but the specific kind of gendered laughter that the giggle represents you hardly come across. I've found a bit of Theocritus where the nymphs seem to giggle at the unfortunate giant Polyphemus. But am I being really dumb and missing a load of other examples?

I'm not imagining that the absence of giggles from Roman literature necessarily means that Roman women didnt giggle. As a counter-cultural female form (as much as a way of writing off female laughter), it might not have been incorporated into mainstream male literature (as Carter points out, after Alisoun's giggle, you hardly find giggles in western literature for 500 years or so).

All the same, in trying to map what is distinctive about the Roman representation of laughter, the absence of giggling is something I'd like to point to. But am I right? Looking for an absence is always hard.

A meme centered on Mitt Romney’s use of the phrase “binders full of women” has gone viral. I found myself feeling that it needs more sci-fi takes, and so here’s my Star Wars contribution featuring Jabba the Hutt with his binders (in a different sense) full of women. I am sure you can do better than I did. If you do make a sci-fi meme related to the presidential debate, please share a link to what you create in the comments section!

I also discovered, when looking to see if anyone had done anything along these lines, a post on Theofantastique from a couple of years ago with sci-fi Obama posters.

Feel free to discuss the debate itself in the comments section, if you are so inclined!

For a short but interesting follow-up to yesterday’s robbery, check out this article by the Washington Post’s Olga Khazan. It summarizes the main reasons why people steal art, making the complex issue palatable for someone who hasn’t read extensively on the subject.

Victoria Laidler has mentioned on her blog, Gaudete Theology, that the collaborative blog to which she contributes, BLT, will be hosting the October 2012 Biblical Studies Carnival. Please submit your favorite posts from this and other biblioblogs this month! You can submit them via e-mail to: bltcarnival AT gmail DOT com

Jim West has drawn attention to a post by Philip Long about where the next couple of Biblical Studies Carnivals will be held, in which he notes that there is no one currently lined up to cover November. That is of course the month of the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, and so that provides an obvious theme as well as a potential lull on biblioblogs prior to the conference as we work to get our papers ready!

Ross Burns has created a website to mirror his Monuments of Syria with photos, itineraries, and maps. He has also put many photos on Flickr (with watermarks).

Luke Chandler explains why the excavators of Khirbet Qeiyafa have decided to return for one more partial season, with the remainder to be spent at either Socoh or Lachish.

Paleobabble addresses Simcha Jacobovici’s Conspiracy Fantasy.

Ferrell Jenkins reports on new discoveries at Paphos, Cyprus.

The Nelson Glueck School of Biblical Archaeology has a helpful list of links to universities and institutions with archaeological programs in Israel.

Fishermen, unhappy because they were prevented from recovering artefacts from a shipwreck in Quang Ngai province, express their displeasure by attacking the policemen guarding the wreck.

Fishermen at the shore near the Bin Chau shipwreck in Quang Ngai Province, Vietnam Net 20121015

People stone policemen to prevent exploration of ancient wreck
Vietnam Net, 15 October 2012

Finders should be keepers: Vietnamese fight for right to loot sunken ship
Thanh Nien New, 14 October 2012

Considering the 500-year-old ancient wreck that contains antiques in the sea of Binh Chau commune in Quang Ngai province as the “fortune” from the sea, hundreds of fishermen stoned the police and explorers to prevent them from exploring the ship on October 13.

On the morning of October 13, while the authorities were making a survey at the shipwreck, dozens of fishermen of Binh Chau commune swam to the sea to stone police officers and explorers. Some policemen were injured.

Dr. Doan Ngoc Khoi, Deputy Director of the Museum of Quang Ngai, who commanded the survey, said that while the divers and experts were doing their job, about 60 fishermen swam to the site.

Full story here and here.

This past week, I’ve begun to think again about Corinthian fortifications for the introduction to a volume of re-prints on the Corinthian countryside. The fortifications represent over 2000 years of continuous strategical importance to this corridor that links southern and central Greece as well as the Adriatic and Aegean basins on the Mediterranean. Beginning in the Hellenistic period and continuing through to the Italian and German occupations of Greece, fortifying the Isthmus of Corinth was a significant concern for both local residents and occupying powers. The episodes of fortification range from the massive Hexamilion wall and Isthmia fortress to modest earthen barriers or field stone enceintes. The published fortifications have generally appeared in Hesperia or in the volumes of the Isthmia or Corinth excavation series. To date, however, there has been little in the way of integrative study of these fortifications across the entire region for any particular period or from a diachronic perspective that emphasizes persistent understandings of the Corinthian landscape.

The study of fortification in Corinthia centers on five major, deeply interrelated, issues.

1. Permanent or Contingent. The best known fortification in the Corinthia to scholars of the ancient world is on that has left very little material evidence: the famous transisthmian wall described by Herodotus (8.40). This fortification typified the contingent, emergency work of fortifying the Isthmus as a way to protect the Peloponnesus from threats from the north. The frantic repairs reported in the Byzantine period to the Hexamilion wall represent another episode of short term work designed to address the vulnerability of the open Corinthian plain to forces moving south. The rubble fortifications along Mt. Oneion (pdf, pdf) and on Geranion represented smaller scale efforts to augment the natural boundaries of the Isthmus corridor for defensive purposes. These fortifications took advantage of material at hand and the ceramic evidence and historical situations that would contextualize, at least, the hastily erected fortifications on Mt. Oneion. 

More permanent fortification include not only the impressive fortifications around Corinth and its acropolis Acrocorinth, but also the massive Hexamilion wall, the long walls linking Corinth to its western port of Lechaion, the substantial Hellenistic wall published by James Wiseman (pdf), and various towers of Hellenistic and Venetian date (pdf). While these fortifications may have emerged in response to particular threat, they nevertheless represent a significant investment in the landscape suggesting that the occasion for their construction was part of a larger , systemic effort to fortify the Peloponnesus or the vulnerable communities in the Corinthia.

2. Internal or External. We know that many of the fortifications built in the Corinthia stood not to protect Corinthian lands or residents, but rather to protect polities in the Peloponnesus. The mighty Hexamilion wall, for example, stood to fortify the Peloponnesus and left exposed stretches of the Isthmia plain. Efforts to fortify Mt. Oneion in the Venetian and the Hellenistic periods (pdf) likewise left the Isthmia plain unprotected and mainly served to prevent movement south into the Peloponnesus. 

Other fortifications, however, clearly served to protect Corinthian territory. The towers at places like Are Bartze in the southeastern Corinthia, the fortifications at Ayia Paraskevi, or the towers at Stanotopi (pdf) and Ano Vayia all likely served to protect Corinthian interests rather than those of an invading power. The substantial Hellenistic wall documented by Wiseman (pdf), for example, appears to bisect some of the most productive and densely built up areas of the Isthmus making it difficult to assign to either the Corinthian state or an external power. In contrast, the reinforced concrete fortifications erected by the Germans and Italians during the Second World War served the obvious interests of an external power.

3. Local or Regional. A key element to understanding the fortifications is determining whether they served to protect a particular region in the Corinthia or were part of a larger systematic network of fortification designed to protect the entire Corinthia (comparable to, say, Ober’s arguments for Fortress Attica). This issue is closely tied to the function of fortifications and whether the fortifications were erected by local authorities or the Corinthian state and fundamental views on how ancient fortifications functioned. It is hard to imagine isolated towers at Are Bartze (for example) or even at Ano Vayia contributing to a completely integrated defensive network (as envisioned by J. Marchand on the Argos-Corinth road (pdf)), but our knowledge of the fortifications in the Corinthian countryside remains fragmentary throughout much of the area. 

4. Function. Much of the previous issues have to do with how we understand the various fortifications functioned in the landscape. Simple walls like those constructed by the Venetians at passes through Mt. Oneion clearly could do little to obstruct the large scale movement of troops through the region. On the other hand, hastily con structured fortifications at Stanotopi (pdf) and further west on Mt. Oneion (pdf) suggest fortified camps designed to protect temporary garrisons rather than to block movement (necessarily). The mighty Hexamilion wall and the more fragmentary Hellenistic walls seem to have combined space for garrisons with long stretched of wall designed to stop movement across the plain. The walls of Ay. Paraskevi, Mt. Tsalikas, the Isthmia Fortress, and the city of Corinth (pdf) itself likely functioned to protect local settlements. Towers, in contrast, may have stood to allow guards to observe important routes through the area (pdf, pdf), but they may also represent fortified farmsteads or keeps erected by local landowners to protect their lands or slaves.

5. Topography. Finally, the local topography plays a key role in understanding how fortifications in the Corinthia were organized. The rugged topography limited the routes that individuals or groups could use to pass through the territory. The natural limits on travel presented clear opportunities for fortification, but it may have also required a kind of modular strategy because defending forces would suffer the same limitations on movement.

While it is unlikely that my effort to pull together the evidence and issues central to the fortification of Corinth through time will produce a kind of Fortress Corinthia, I do hope that it will contribute to a larger conversation about land use through time in this vital communication and population center in southern Greece.

New Open Access Issue of Revista Formum Cultural

http://www.cimec.ro/revista-forum-cultural-botosani/

The blog “Making My 7th Doctor Costume” posted that a couple of props used in filming the classic Doctor Who episode “The Greatest Show in the Galaxy” are being sold on eBay. This includes one of the gods of Ragnarok themselves…

…as well as the medallion the Doctor used to defeat them:

I had a conversation with Scott Weingart the other day, prompted by this plaintive cry:

Brain is broken this AM. Need suggestions for inclass exercises to teach SNA. Can't depend on there being computers: must be analog. Help?—
Shawn Graham (@electricarchaeo) October 15, 2012

Backstory: I’m teaching a class where we are looking at maps and networks and archaeological data, as ways of understanding how cities and countryside blur into one another in the ancient world. Last week, we played iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma’s with playing cards (thanks to this site by Alannah Morrison) as part of a discussion about Agent Based Modeling.

Which brings me to the conversation with Scott. Today, we’re playing with Gephi and making network models of the character relationships in our favourite TV shows. The next step is to combine the two lessons to address the question: what flows over networks? What do different network shapes imply, and what kinds of metrics answer what kinds of questions? So I think I’ll set up two different networks with the students – literally, I’ll arrange students in a line, a star, etc – and have them play iterated Prisoner’s Dilemmas with the people to whom they’re connected. We’ll use playing cards to represent payoffs… and hopefully we’ll see the cards flow over the network.

I thank Scott for his suggestions!

@electricarchaeo If students randomly align & pass a ball randomly across connections, person who gets it most will have highest pagerank.—
Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) October 15, 2012

@electricarchaeo Create scale-free, preferential attachment effects by students one-by-one choosing someone to connect to, with the more (+)—
Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) October 15, 2012

@electricarchaeo (+) someone is already connected, the more likely you'll connect to them (maybe using lottery cards?) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barab%C3%…—
Scott Weingart (@scott_bot) October 15, 2012

Then we’ll turn to Netlogo’s community models of network dynamics. That is, they will. The classroom computer is so locked down that I can’t run a freaking java applet in the classroom.

Anyway, that’s the plan for today.

(10th-4th Centuries BCE)

October 28-30, 2012
Room 496, Gilman Building, Tel Aviv University

Collaboration between the  European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History and Tel Aviv University
With the support of the Gerda Henkel Stiftung

Conference Organizers: Irad Malkin, History Department, Tel Aviv University and a member of the European Network (malkin.irad@gmail.com); Alexander Fantalkin, Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University (fantalk@post.tau.ac.il)

The world of the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament, has often been studied against the background of Near Eastern civilizations. Yet, aside from the enormous hinterlands of the Near East, the ancient land of Israel also neighbored the Mediterranean. As a collaborative conference between the European Network for the Study of Ancient Greek History and Tel Aviv University, we wish to concentrate on interactions and parallels between the ancient Greek world and the Eastern Mediterranean, with an emphasis on the period before the Hellenistic and Roman periods.

How do we, at the start of the third millennium CE, perceive and interpret the almost simultaneous arrival of the two cultures whose self-definitions still mark out the meaning of western civilization? We wish to discuss the key concepts of "parallels, similarities, and influences" in the context of the Eastern Mediterranean. Are they due to general human reaction to comparable historical situations or do they depend on actual contacts and influences, directly or via third parties? Drawing on specific case-studies we will discuss the usefulness of these key terms and analyze the likely contexts for interaction and/or the evidence of actual contacts.

The question of what is comparable as such and what is owed to actual influence is often debated. Whereas former approaches tended to regard the issue of influence literally, "in-fluence," "flowing into," as if cultural contacts are necessarily uni-directional; their "source," therefore, needed to be identified and located in a hierarchy that is either temporal ("who was first?") or spatial ("first from where?"). Such approaches may indeed be valid at times. Today the cutting edge of the discourse of civilizational parallels and contacts seems rather to consist in a multi-directional, non-hierarchical perspective, which may hopefully find its expression in the conference.