Iraq tourism hangs in balance at Babylon - CNN.com

Iraq tourism hangs in balance at Babylon - CNN.com
Several obstacles remain before the ancient ruins of Babylon can become a big tourist draw: 1) war, 2) nasty bad reconstructions done by Saddam, 3) rising water table threatening to destroy entire site. Hmm. Oh, yeah, theft of Ishtar gate some time back by Germans. That's all. I believe I'll be going to Babylon a little later than I go to Leptis Magna (in Libya).

Rome wasn't built in a day: Channel 4 series build Roman villa using ancient methods | Mail Online

Rome wasn't built in a day: Channel 4 series build Roman villa using ancient methods Mail Online
A TV series in England is going to show an attempt to build a Roman-style villa using only ancient tools, technology, etc. The only modern concession: health/safety authorities are requiring them to use metal scaffolding, rather than wooden. (They could have avoided that problem by building in, say, Mexico or Turkey.) I will try to find more details about this show.

Archaic Greek in a modern world

Hexham Courant | News | News at a Glance | Archaeologist claims vallum was abandoned Roman road

Hexham Courant News News at a Glance Archaeologist claims vallum was abandoned Roman road
This seems to open the question of the purpose of the "vallum," the ditch that runs alongside Hadrian's Wall. This local archaeologist claims it was originally going to be a road, but that idea was abandoned. I think there is nothing to do but go see it myself.

Sitaridou

Sitaridou
Part of the webpage/cv of Professor Ioanna Sitaridou, a linguistics professor at Cambridge who is researching the Pontic Greek-speakers.

More on Pontic Greek (Romeyka)
This is an article from Cambridge Research Horizons magazine about the project that is investigating the Greek speakers of Pontus (now Trabzon).

Jason and the argot: land where Greek's ancient language survives - History, Life & Style - The Independent

Jason and the argot: land where Greek's ancient language survives - History, Life & Style - The Independent
These people live in what's now Turkey but is also ancient Pontus. Their dialect appears to be a very close cousin of ancient Greek, much closer than modern Greek. It is called Romeyka, and they live near Trabzon (Trabizond?). There are some other links to info on this subject, but it appears I have to make separate entries for them. Stay tuned.