Antiquitopia

A new find of an ancient gold wreath, relatively common among burial sites of ancient Macedonian nobility, was found in an ancient copper vase, a situation that is rather unique. See the AP Press article as follows: Ancient gold treasure puzzles Greek archaeologists By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer Fri Aug 29, 11:10 AM ET A priceless gold wreath has been unearthed in an ancient city in northern Greece, buried with human bones in a large copper vase that workers initially took for a land mine. The University of Thessaloniki said in a statement Friday that the "astonishing" discovery was made during its excavations this week in the ruins of ancient Aigai. The city was the first capital of ancient Macedonia, where King Philip II — father of Alexander the Great — was assassinated. Gold wreaths are rare and were buried with ancient nobles or royalty. But the find is also highly unusual as the arti...

I just saw on Paleojudaica a link to a NYTimes article that tells of plans to display the Dead Sea Scrolls on the internet. The project appears to be born out of preservative necessity. While some research will still necessarily demand physical access to the scrolls, this will be a wonderful tool for free access from anywhere in the world without worrying about that access in any way damaging the scrolls themselves. Here's the article: By ETHAN BRONNER JERUSALEM — In a crowded laboratory painted in gray and cooled like a cave, half a dozen specialists embarked this week on a historic undertaking: digitally photographing every one of the thousands of fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls with the aim of making the entire file — among the most sought-after and examined documents on earth — available to all on the Internet. Equipped with high-powered cameras with resolution and clarity many times greater than those of conventional models, and with lights that emit neither he...

From the associated press: Southern Baptists lead get-out-the-vote prayer By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer 50 minutes ago Southern Baptists are organizing a nationwide prayer campaign to accompany their values-voter registration drive, seeking spiritual renewal for families and churches, and God's favor for public officials who are guided by the Bible. The 40/40 Prayer Vigil for Spiritual Revival and National Renewal will run from Sept. 24 through Nov. 2, two days before the general election. The daily prayers include requests for God's guidance in voting, for the election of more "godly Christians," for God to "help churches find ways to help Christians get to the polls" and for public officials to be protected "from the attacks of Satan." The effort is a companion program to the iVoteValues registration campaign, which began in 2004 and is jointly led this year by South...

I am fascinated by what brings people to this website. Most people visit antiquitopia from google searches of particular issues, although I am very happy to see regulars visit and comment on particular posts. The most popular posts are quite diverse, and perhaps reflect the breadth of my own interests--although all relate in some way (sometimes tangential) to religion, antiquity, or the state of the university. Topping the list at the moment is the posting on the US News & World Report college rankings . For those attracted to this post, I highly recommend reading my book note on Frank Donoghue's The Last Professors . Secondly, the most consistently read page is the series of quotations regarding religion and liminality in Chuck Palahniuk's Rant . Lots of Palahniuk fans out there, I can see. Thirdly, people have been interested in the Revelation of Gabriel . I would recommend following the links on this subject posted by April Deconick at Forbidden Gospels and Jim Davi...

Evidently an Italian priest, Antonio Rungi, wants to break general negative stereotypes of nuns (as elderly, stiff, ruler-holding women) by holding a beauty pageant only open to nuns. It seems he wants to promote a Sofia Loren vision of nuns. It is an online competition, but he hopes that in the future it will be run like other beauty competitions, in person. According to the Times (that's the one in London), The contestants must be aged between 18 and 40, and can be either full members of an order or novices. Father Rungi said that he expected many who applied to be young, attractive — and non-Italian. He said: “Do you really think nuns are all wizened, funereal old ladies? Today it’s not like that any more, thanks to an injection of youth and vitality brought to our country by foreign girls.” He said there were nuns from Africa and Latin America who were “really very, very pretty. The Brazilian girls above all.” See the full article here . Is this attempt to balance inner, spi...

The NYTimes has an extensive article today concerning teaching evolution. It covers much of the struggle that has been occurring, particularly in areas of strong evangelical camps who take Genesis 1:1-2:3 very literally. In this evolutionary struggle to survive, when confronted with students who have been taught their whole lives that creation occurred exactly, and in every detail, as Genesis has depicted it, a bit of gentle persuasion becomes the necessary means of instruction. Evolution is not at all a controversial issue among scientists--it is one of the most established aspects of "life science" and, in fact, is often considered the cornerstone of scientific thought. Moreover, there are other ways to interpret Genesis. It is a text that has been revisited for centuries (millenia actually), sometimes read literally, sometimes allegorically, sometimes more impressionistically (getting a general impression of the meaning rather than taking every single word literally), ...

US News & World Report has done it again--the new college rankings are out. It always begs the question: can someone really quantify quality? No, not really. But the magazine tries to every year. Frank Donoghue, in his book, The Last Professors , has criticized the process (and even idea) of the whole ranking process. See my post on this book here . For full article (or at least links) for rankings, go here or, better yet, here . Nonetheless, I'll give some highlights: Harvard ranks number 1 by itself for the first time since 1996. It usually shares this distinction with Princeton. My own Columbia ranks 8, tied with Duke and U Chicago. So, here's the top ten (and some other schools for comparison): 1. Harvard 2. Princeton 3. Yale 4. MIT 5. Stanford 6. California Institute of Technology / U Penn 8. Columbia / Duke / University of Chicago Some interesting comparisons of note: Wash U in St. Louis (my old stomping grounds) comes in 12, being tied with Northwestern....

Although the wrath of Achilles propels the plot of the Iliad , the Iliad is a poem of death. Because so many people die in the Iliad, I think it would be a rewarding exercise to go through and see how death is described. Outside of A killed B or A slayed B or rather straightforward terminology, death is emerges, floats about, darts here and there throughout the poem. Death often appears personified with a capital D. Death appears as an ever-present force lurking throughout the pages. It is the most powerful force for the mortal heroes, but it is also the most elusive. It is ever-present, but, as we shall see, it is a mist. It cannot be fully grasped even as it is ubiquitous. Once again, death, as a necessary prominent theme in a poem of war, appears right at the beginning. It is the result and necessary corollary to Achilles' wrath: Sing, goddess, the wrath of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their mult...

I was just at the grocery store, getting some supplies for this evening's supper, and I saw a man wearing a particularly distasteful t-shirt. On the front it read: Roman Catholicism: It'll Send You to Hell Then on the back, it read: Christianity: Christ-Centered Roman Catholicism: Man-Centered I added the punctuation. So now religious intolerance or prejudice can be found on t-shirts! That's right. Now we no longer have to guess whether someone dislikes a particular religious group. Now they have a big sign on them that says: I hate you. Or if not hate, strongly dislike. Or they may say that they do not hate you as a person, but just everything that you believe in, things that you hold dear, things that give meaning to this life. (So, I don't hate "you" but just everything about you.) The back of this particular t-shirt makes a typical Protestant Christian move, usually associated with Protestants of a more conservative stripe, that distinguishes n...

So, in my free time I paint. I had taken a few pictures of two of my more recent paintings, and I thought I would just share them with everyone. These two are very similar in subject--they are both leaves that form patterns based upon the direction they are pointed, but only differ in their patterns. The first is a "burst" pattern, after which the leaves start to spiral outward. In the second, the leaves move inward. The first has a bit more of a structured color pattern that becomes more and more random as one moves outward. The second's color pattern maintains a certain randomness throughout. Although the deep purples and the oranges tend toward the center in second as they are clearly so in the first. And, lastly, the first was painted for my sister and brother-in-law, while the second was painted for my girlfriend.

For a while, I have been reconsidering ancient Jewish and, therefore, early Christian conceptions of God. Our conceptions of "monotheism" just does not always (and in fact rarely) seems to fit the bill. Ken Schenck from Indiana Wesleyan University and I have been posting here and there on this issue. I have tried to shift the question away from "were ancient Jews monotheistic?" to "how monotheistic were ancient Jews?" The rephrasing suggests a spectrum of positions, and, in fact, we find that ancient Jews had a variety of viewpoints of other gods' existence and who those other gods were and where they fit in the continuum of divine life. Today, Ken has posted what I would consider a more nuanced handling of much of the evidence that shifts us away from modern (and therefore anachronistic) conceptions of "monotheism" altogether. The question is not "whether" or "how." Instead, our terminology of, conceptions of, or d...

Next month, the International Association for Coptic Studies will be having its ninth international congress. For a listing of topics that will be discussed, you can see April DeConick's posting from a year ago here . The meeting will be held in the Sonesta Hotel in Cairo from Sept. 14 until Sept. 20. I wish I could go! If any of my readers are going, I would love to hear a report (the highlights anyway).

Today, Aug. 16, 2008, will be the first meeting of McCain and Obama on the same stage at Rick Warren's megachurch, Saddleback. They have not been on the same stage together since before the primary season began. Last I knew, the issues slated to be discussed were Rick Warren's pet issues of poverty, AIDS, and the environment. That the first major political discussion is being held at a church rather than in the (secular) public arena is a concern for many, who see the "wall of separation" between church and state beginning to crumble (if it ever really held very firm to begin with). Both candidates are clearly seeking the much coveted evangelical vote. See background from NYT here . And I posted on this a while back here . UPDATE: See some early results of the event here .

Wrath—one of the most famous first words in all of world literature. The word sets the pace, the tone, the content of the Iliad , shaping the plot of all there is to come. Wrath—Sing, Goddess, the wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and the birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. (Iliad, 1.1-8; trans. Robert Fagles with some changes) The first word is menis . It is not just “anger” as the magisterial translation of Richmond Lattimore has rendered it. It is sustained anger, almost godlike in its intensity and singularity. Thus, Robert Fagles’ “rage” more clearly fits the bill. Yet I prefer the terminology of “wrath.” It reminds me of the wrath of God, which it ap...

How often have you said to yourself, "Gee, I wish I could just buy Jared, that poor bibliophiliac graduate student, a book, but I just don't know what he would like or if he has it already!" Well...this post is for you. I have just added a widget to my site that shows my most recently added items to my Amazon wishlist. I noticed I had about 150 books saved for later in my cart. And was beginning to think this was ludicrous, so I am slowly transferring these books that I cannot possibly buy myself to my wishlist just in case someone out there looks, and thinks, "He hasn't read that! By God, we must get that guy up to date!" Although, I know that most people who read this are themselves poor graduate students or poor professors...but it is still worth a shot! :)

Professor poaching is something that is quite widespread throughout academe. I see it all the time at Columbia (usually from the perspective of the poacher). From the side of the poached, however, large public universities are being forced to create special funds in order to keep highly productive, high profile professors who are getting outside offers, and this in a down economy. And they seem to be doing a good job. According to an article in the Chronicle, many of the major public universities are retaining about 75% of the faculty whom they give a counteroffer. They don't give counteroffers to everyone (sometimes the offer from the other institution is just too good to match or beat, and they don't bother with institutions they perceive as less prestigious). But money is only part of the strategy. They are matching some of the poachers' benefits--things like reduction of course load, increased graduate students, increased teaching or research assistance, and simpl...

In the Chronicle , there was an article detailing some of the financial difficulties that many Catholic Universities are currently facing across the US. Most of the colleges and universities were founded by orders like the Jesuits or the Sisters of Notre Dame, etc. They relied upon these orders or the church for funding and oftentimes for the physical land and buildings as well! The faculty have traditionally been filled by priests, nuns, and monks who taught for free! Boards also drew upon such pools rather than people skilled in raising money (as at other institutions). But such unpaid faculty members are in shrinking supply. In fact, there have been increasingly fewer Catholics going into these religious orders since the 60s (correlating with Vatican II). Faculty positions, therefore, are being filled by lay people, who require payment and benefits comparable to their counterparts in other universities. And the boards are not very adept at raising money, meaning that their end...

I just finished reading The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities by Frank Donoghue, who is an Associate Professor of English at Ohio State University. I read this because the chair of my department has asked the entire department to read it, but I would recommend it to all humanities professors or professors to be. And while it focuses on the humanities, many of the observations affect the future of the university world as a whole. Unlike similar books, Donoghue takes a long perspective. Most books speak of a crisis in higher education beginning in the 80s, perhaps the 70s in the clash between corporate business values and the values of the university. He claims, instead, that this tension has been around for over a century, at least since the rise of monopolistic capitalists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But this is not just a book about corporate values of competition and the bottom line versus the last bastion of pro...

In today's NYTimes, there is an op-ed article on the Dalai Lama's willingness to make a deal with the current Chinese government, conceding the Chinese communist-run government in Tibet and that he would stay out of politics. In short, Tibet would be politically Chinese and communist, but religiously and culturally Tibetan and Buddhist. The Dalai Lama is aging, and time for negotiations are running out. Younger Tibetans think the Dalai Lama is too conciliatory to the Chinese government, while many fear that, once the Dalai Lama dies, there will be no uniting force for Tibetans and the younger generation will turn to violence (i.e., terrorism). Read the full article here .

According to an AP article , a complete ancient Thracian chariot was found in an old burial mound in modern-day Bulgaria. Parts of chariots have been found through scattered parts of the region, but this is the first time a complete, intact chariot has been discovered here: Bulgarian archaeologists discover ancient chariot By VESELIN TOSHKOV, Associated Press Writer Thu Aug 7, 8:24 AM ET Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,900-year-old well-preserved chariot at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Thursday. Daniela Agre said her team found the four-wheel chariot during excavations near the village of Borisovo, around 180 miles east of the capital, Sofia. "This is the first time that we have found a completely preserved chariot in Bulgaria," said Agre, a senior archaeologist at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She said previous excavations had only unearth...

Ok...I saw this link on Jim Davila's blog, Paleojudaica, and when I clicked it, I was rolling on the floor laughing!! Well...almost....that would have hurt. But the best answer to the question, "What Would Jesus Do (WWJD)?" has to be this . While the question is meant to inspire imitation, the answer frustrates any facile application of ancient perspectives to modern behavior. It nicely illustrates the differences between Jesus and ourselves, between his world and ours. A shocking reminder perhaps, but definitely a hilarious one.

I was just reading an essay by Umberto Eco entitled, "Wilde: Paradox and Aphorism," and I stumbled across one of my favorite bons mots by Oscar Wilde: "When people agree with me I always feel that I must be in the wrong." Here are some others for fun: "Every great man has his disciples, and it is always Judas who writes the biography." "I can resist everything but temptation." "Falsehoods [are] the truth of other people." "The only duty we owe to History is to rewrite it." "A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it." These are also amusing because they reverse common sense: "Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about." "Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess." "Anyone can make history. Only a great man can write it." "The English have everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language." Being a histor...

מי־כמוכה באלים יהוה (Exodus 15:11) The question comes from an issue raised regarding whether the enthronement of Enoch in the Similitudes of Enoch and Moses in Ezekiel's "Exagoge" actually "threaten" monotheism. I have been discussing it with Ken Schenck, professor of religion and philosophy at Indiana Wesleyan University and the blogger of Quadrilateral Thoughts . They have been side comments on a broader discussion, and so I thought I would make them the forefront of the discussion here. He also has a nice discussion of the spectrum of scholarly positions...so I would recommend reading that for helpful background. But, now, I would like everyone else to weigh in. Traditionally, scholars and people in general have assumed that ancient Judaism was monotheistic. Second Isaiah clearly thinks so--so we have one ancient Jew (or Judahite) who was monotheistic (with perhaps a school). And in a particular interpretation of the Sh'ma, one seems to be saying...

I have been using the same template for my blog for over a year now. I liked my old template, but I thought it would be nice to have a bit of a change. So, I am going to try this format out for a while.

I am continually amazed by the location of my readers. In addition to the U.S. (from all over the place, from all sectors of the U.S. including Alaska and Hawaii), readers regularly visit from the U.K. (mostly England, but some Scotland), New Zealand, Canada, and Germany. Occasionally, you have come from places like Russia, Israel, Egypt, Monaco, Greece, Mexico, Italy, and Panama. I also thought I would bring together the postings that you have been reading most often. So, what have you been reading? 1) Topping the list, most of you have been reading about the Antikythera Mechanism here . It may be because this is a recent post, but, then again, my other recent posts have not received nearly this much attention. Here's to science and technology of the ancients! 2) Coming in a close second, many of you have also been searching for an old version of Trivial Pursuit here . It is confirming to find out that so many of you have had the same difficulties. You have confirmed for ...

So, I have been continuing to read Umberto Eco's On Literature, and he has a nice, very short, essay on Dante Alighieri's Paradiso , called "A Reading of the Paridiso ." He argues that it has been misread and underestimated, in fact devalued, in the nineteenth century and this devaluation continued throughout the twentieth, with the Inferno and, to some extent, the Purgatorio gaining the most attention. In contrast, Eco argues that the Paradiso is the finest of all three canticas. He primarily sets it in the context of the medieval preference for bold, bright color to express themselves in daily life, refined by Dante in the Paradiso . But, what caught my attention is the Paradiso as amazingly modern, and, in fact, futuristic: "Dante's Paradiso is the apotheosis of the virtual world, of nonmaterial things, of pure software, without the weight of earthly or infernal hardware, whose traces remain in the Purgatorio. The Paradiso is more than modern; it can ...

I started reading Umberto Eco's On Literature today, and found some interesting snippets in his opening essay entitled, "On Some Functions of Literature." He discusses many issues, such as the formative influence of literature on language (like Dante's on Italian, Luther's on German, Homer's on Greek, etc.). The combination of different literatures and languages, in turn, shapes individual and communal identities. He discusses freedom and fidelity of interpretation. He has this to say about the relationship between the text and interpreter: "The world of literature is a universe in which it is possible to establish whether a reader has a sense of reality or is the victim of his own hallucinations." He also discusses how certain things are established in literature and cannot be changed because they have entered collective knowledge or can be directly looked up (like the identity of Superman as Clark Kent--Eco loves this example, interestingly en...

While yesterday I posted on the Antikythera Mechanism, which of many things calculated solar eclipses, today there actually was a solar eclipse! It began in northern Canada, made its way through Russia and Mongolia, and arrives in China just in time for the Olympics! One can see a stunning slideshow of images from various countries where the eclipse was visible collected by AP and Reuters here . Remember! Don't star directly into it without special lenses! Here is a taste below with a special interest in religious sites. The first image is at a church in Minsk, Belarus (partial). The third image is taken at the Faisel Mosque in Pakistan. As you can see from the map of the total eclipse, Pakistan is not along the way, receiving a partial eclipse. And the stunning second and fourth images come from China (the second is at the Great Wall).