Appeitive: Follow-up on New Mummy

I mentioned a while ago that a team of scientists discovered a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Egyptology News sent out a video about  the new mummy within the tomb. My German isn't good enough to understand more than about 15% of it, but for anyone who speaks German, this is probably a useful resource.

Reasoning: The Development of Writing

There was a great five-part (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) show on the the development of written language on In Our Time with Melvyn Bragg. I found the first two episodes quite fascinating. Melvyn Bragg discusses everything from the technology of writing to the development of literature in the whole series. The first two episodes focus on writing's early evolution from an accounting system into an alphabetic system and then the development from clay to paper.

For some reason only the first two episodes downloaded into my iTunes from the In Our Time podcast, but the rest of them might be heard on the website. Enjoy!

Reasoning: Gone Antiphoning!

 

I have generally gone dark at the moment because I started the term off really lazily and I am now rather behind (although I should be almost caught up after this weekend, I hope). One of the things that I am assigned for Monday is reading Antiphon 1 and 3 in Greek. I hear the Antiphon's tetrologies (mock trials) are really hard (and so I am not looking forward to Antiphon 3) but I am so greatly enjoying Antiphon 1. It helps that we were assigned a wonderfully helpful commentary by Michael Gagarin.

Also, if you enjoy poisoning in the ancient world as much as I do (and really weird gender politics), I am sure the work is also good in English, although I don't know for sure.

Have a lovely weekend, everyone.

Reasoning: Tools for Vergil

First, because I'm posting today, I thought I would post an article about SOPA explaining not the problems but rather that it is based on a false premise. Wikipedia and Amazon as well as AWOL have links to information.

Second, I found this amazing resource. Let me preface this with the fact that no matter how easily I can read Latin prose, Vergil still just makes me hate life. I am not sure why, but every time I look at a line of Vergil all of my Latin seems to disintegrate underneath me. This class I am taking is supposed to be easy, but it just depresses me. I am spending the next two days doing massive amounts of Vergil to catch up and I have a quiz on Monday. The commentary by R.G. Austin is good, but sometimes either provides help that is too ambiguous or focuses more on the inter-textual references than something useful. So I found a resource provided by the University of Pennsylvania. Obviously this resource is a bit dangerous in that it gives a lot of information. However, studying for a quiz when I can't ask questions of someone else, it might provide some guidance. Enjoy with caution.

Reasoning: Lectures on Vergil

I am taking a class on Aeneid Book II because I am trying to like the Aeneid. I know this may sound like a strange statement, but I hated the Aeneid when I read the Mandlebaum translation in my first year of college and I continued to take it when we read Book VIII in my second year Latin class. One of the things that I meant to do over winter break was to read the Aeneid in its entirety (using the Fagles translation translation) and listen to the Standford lectures by Susanna Braund (see iTunes U) on the Aeneid. Needless to say, I didn't get around to it.

Since I've been going back over the first 100+ lines we had to translate, I decided I would listen to the lecture while I transferred my notes. It was quite enjoyable, with the exception of a few stupid comments by the students. Each lecture (after the introduction) is about 2 hours and discusses 3 books of the Aeneid. She uses the Fitzgerald translation, but any translation should do.

I've enjoyed the first two lectures and I'm looking forward to continuing the series.

Appetitive: Persians (line 24)

I've been reading Aeschylus' Persians lately. Unlike the majority of extant tragedy, there is no prologue that begins the play. Instead, it starts with an extended parodos delivered by the group of Persians elders that make up  the chorus. Much of the beginning of their entrance (i.e. the part in marching anapests) lists the names of the Persian commanders. My favorite line is: "βασιλῆς βασιλέως ὕποχοι μεγάλου (kings subject to the great king)" which is a sort of elegant and wonderful reversal of the phrase "king of kings."



This commentary by Garvie that we are using is fantastic, although absurdly expensive. It is supposed to come out in paperback soon, which is great.

Appetitive: Valley of the Kings

I came across this new fantastic archaeological discovery on Egyptology News. Apparently a Swiss team discovered a new tomb in the Valley of the Kings! Very cool.

I am hoping to post some stuff on Plato and Aeschylus in the next few days and get back into the swing of blogging.

Appetitive: The Top Shelf

Books

There are very few bookshops left near me. Even the big ones like Barnes & Noble and Borders have shut down now. I ran into a bookshop that I thought had closed down a few years ago. It's very small. I thought about not even looking for classics books, but I spotted an old copy of Herodotus on the shelf. I couldn't reach. I had to use the big ladder to get up to the top few shelves where I spotted a few Loebs and OCTs.

The books were actually a good price and rather wonderful. The selection is not very large, but it's nice to know there's still a bookstore around. I bought a couple of things but I am not sure how it stays in business.