Mary Beard is professor of Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, and Classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement. Her academic work mainly focuses on aspects of Roman and Greek culture and she claims to be ‘particularly interested in the reception of Classics in the modern world’. This is borne out by her column for the Times Online, A Don’s Life, which comments incisively on modern life, often with a classical twist – I particularly liked her suggestions for Latin catch-phrases for London’s tube commuters. She also has a long list of published books to her name, the two most recent…
-
-
I think my mind’s had just enough time to recover from this year’s two day-long Egyptological Colloquium. No less than 18 top experts lent their latest opinions and discoveries to the audience at the British Museum; more than enough for me to cope with. Though I’d like to think of myself as an avid fan of the ancient world, I could never for a second hope to pass myself off as a resident Book of the Dead buff – so there was plenty of new material for my mediocre mind to cope with. So, a good sleep and some brainless…
-
New research suggests that there is no genetic link between the inhabitants of modern-day central Italy and the civilised race who lived there well before the rise of the Roman empire. Despite the fact that the Etruscans were never physically wiped out by the Romans, experts have concluded that for some reason they are not the ancestors of the modern-day Tuscans. Etruria spanned from south of Rome up to the Po River valley during the civilisation’s most powerful period, and the Etruscans inhabited the area of Rome before the city claimed its independence from the Etruscan kings in 509 BC.…
-
The ancient Maya civilization of Central South America apparently understood acutely how their fate was inextricably linked with that of the forest around them. New research at the site of Tikal in modern Guatemala, by a team from the University of Cincinnati led by paleoethnobotanist David Lentz, has discovered that during the Classic period (c. 250 AD to 900 AD), the Maya practiced a form of forest conservation. Further, the team have speculated that when the practice ceased, it may have had grave consequences for Maya society. They were not allowed to cut down what were calling the sacred groves,…
-
Via Dell’ Impero An exhibition opening today at the Musei Capitolini in Rome shows the building of the city’s infamous via dei Fori Imperiali (previously via dell’ Impero), which also tore through the forums of Nerva, Augustus and Trajan, with little regard for the ancient Roman constructions that lay beneath. Via Dell’ Impero – Nascita di una Strada (Birth of a Road) will feature photos, paintings and sketches by professional Roman photographers and artists, including Filippo Reale, Cesare Faraglia and Odoardo Ferretti. The exhibition runs until20 September, documenting the demolition of buildings and the excavations which took place before the…
-
In my ever-long quest to be innovative and interactive with how Heritage Key presents information, I thought I’d take a moment out to have a little fun and games! So using mapping software from umapper,I’ve devised a little map quiz. Here’s how it works – you’re presented with a map and asked to find a location (which appears at the top of the screen). You then use your mouse cursor and click where you think that particular location is on the map. Simple, huh? Not exactly, as I’m using a physical map. So there’s no country borders or landmarks to…
-
In the deep south of Mexico, there lies a mysterious and enchanting temple in ruins, a relic of a Mesoamerican past. Lou Rouge’s photograph beautifully captures the mystical aura of this tomb in a fantastic capture which portrays the mood perfectly. The mist and dark lighting creates the sense of the unknown, but maintains the feel of the alluring. It’s a photograph which makes the person looking at it feel that the place has hidden secrets which are waiting to be unravelled. And it certainly has those!The Temple of Inscriptions, as it is known in English, is the only Maya…
-
Residents of Leptiminus, a city in Roman occupied Tunisia, ate a diet heavy in vegetables and marine life (including Grouper). However they avoided millet and legumes, dietary staples in other parts of the Empire. They also avoided eating large amounts of the local fish sauce which they were trying to sell to other people. These are the findings of a Canadian science team that analyzed skeletons from the cemetery of Leptiminus. The scientists were led by Professor Anne Keenleyside of Trent University in Peterborough. The skeletons they analyzed date from the 2nd century A.D. to 5th century A.D. To determine…
-
An article on Spiegel Online on Sunday made a shocking claim the bust of Hatshepsut, in Berlin Museum, may in fact be a fake. IOL reports: The bust in brown granite of female Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who ruled Egypt for 22 years, is one of the draws at the German capital’s Egyptian Museum and is only outshone by the limestone bust of exquisite Queen Nefertiti. Scientists at the Technical University of Berlin have discovered the Hatshepsut stone is rich in the minerals magnesite and siderite. No other bust from the Nile region is made of such rock, suggesting that the 16.5cm…
-
Terracotta armies are certainly in the news at the moment. The long-awaited third dig of Qin Shihuang’s tomb finally got under way last month in China, while a slightly more idiosyncratic clay army was causing some consternation in Germany last week: prosecutors are investigating whether the saluting garden gnomes created by artist Ottmar Hoerl are in fact breaking strict German code that bans Nazi symbols and gestures.Libya’s Terracotta Army While these terracotta armies grab the limelight, there is another ‘army’ of 4,500 small terracotta figurines, which were uncovered during excavations at the Greek and Roman ruins of Cyrene near Shahhat…