Appetitive: More Secrets from Giza

The Great Pyramid at Giza is the only remaining of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Recently, robots using cameras have ventured into a small chamber hidden by a cover stone and revealed writing in red. Apparently, masons and work-gangs often left marks on the rock to indicate the origin of the workmanship in the same way that Roman roof tiles sometimes bear the marks of those who made them. I found this story on Egyptology News and New Scientist.

Reasoning: Constructs of Ethnic Identity in the Ancient World

Instead of what I was supposed to be doing today (reading Medea), I spent a lovely cool spring day on the porch reading the Landmark Herodotus and the Iliad (which I do have to read in preparation for reading book 14 in Greek with Propertius II). Much of Herodotus, in my mind, is a combination of political science and a quest to understanding ethnic identity. The way that the Greeks defined themselves and others is a fascinating question int he ancient world and one i would like ot expore more thoroughly.

In the last few days, both AWOL and Egyptology News have recommended a new open-access journal and magazine called Egyptological. I decided to browse around and read an article on Ancient Egyptian perceptions of Ethnic identities that sounded intriguing. The article was a comparison between two different books on ethnic identity in ancient Egypt which each take a different anthropological view of the way that Egyptians perceived foreigners.