Friday, October 28, 2011

A Don's Life: In Pompeii-land

A Don's Life: In Pompeii-land
Welcome to the internet: posting a blog post on my blog. Mary Beard again contemplates Pompeii, and this time doesn't like what she sees: a revamped house of C. Julius Polybius with reconstructed furniture that smacks of Ikea and a holographic Roman projected on a curtain (which sounds really creepy). While I might pay extra to see this place just to help out the cause, it would indeed be nice if it could be less cheesy. We'll check it out next summer, perhaps, if the place is still standing.

Mummy Has Oldest Case of Prostate Cancer in Ancient Egypt - ScienceNOW

Mummy Has Oldest Case of Prostate Cancer in Ancient Egypt - ScienceNOW
CT scan of the spine of a mummy now in Lisbon find that he had lesions on his bones in a place where prostate cancer tends to spread. Some theories say that cancer has only become a common disease in modern times, but some people quoted in this article say that we just haven't had the technology until now to detect the signs of it in ancient people.

Monday, October 24, 2011

Rome, Flooded – Torrential Rainstorm – Roman and the Imperial Forums, Coloseum Valley and the Circus Maximus Underwater. Dott.ssa Astrid D’Eredita` / Fotos: Claudio Valletti / La Repubblica.it (20/10/2011). « Rome – The Imperial Fora (1995-2011).

Rome, Flooded – Torrential Rainstorm – Roman and the Imperial Forums, Coloseum Valley and the Circus Maximus Underwater. Dott.ssa Astrid D’Eredita` / Fotos: Claudio Valletti / La Repubblica.it (20/10/2011). « Rome – The Imperial Fora (1995-2011).
There was a giant rainstorm in Rome last week and the Colosseum, Forum, and Circus were inundated. Here are some pictures, with a few old photos of early 20th century floods, too. One picture of the Forum notes that this is what the Forum might have looked like fairly often before the building of the Cloaca Maxima. No wonder they built the Main Drain.

A Don's Life: Has another Pompeii wall collapsed?

A Don's Life: Has another Pompeii wall collapsed?
Mary Beard's blog ("A Don's Life") addresses recent news reports that another "wall has collapsed" at Pompeii. She is there and just says there was a rainstorm and some stones slid off a piece of wall. Not really a catastrophic collapse.

BBC News - Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial discovery 'a first'

BBC News - Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial discovery 'a first'
An intact Viking boat burial, with all its equipment stilll in it, was found at a site in western Scotland. Nice sword, axe head, etc. Plus, check out the awesome name of the place where it was found! Ardnamurchan.

Monday, October 10, 2011

An Ancient Tale Of War, An Ode To Epic Mythology : NPR

An Ancient Tale Of War, An Ode To Epic Mythology : NPR
A nice review of David Malouf's "Ransom," which retells the story of the encounter of Priam and Achilles over the body of Hector. I have not read "Ransom," but almost all this reviewer's passionate comments about the immediacy of emotions could apply to my feelings about Malouf's "An Imaginary Life," about Ovid in exile.

Thursday, October 6, 2011