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Anyone else interested in the ancient world?

Harp

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^^^
I am the product of the Chicago Archdiocese parochial schools but my father's brief business transfer
to Sioux City, Iowa brought me to a public elementary school in Third grade. Catholic kids attended CCD classes
Saturday morning at a local Catholic elementary, while Jewish kids went to Hebrew School Tuesday afternoons.
I vividly recall the girl in front of me opening her study book and seeing Hebrew lettering, which, I could not read.
Hit me like a brick.

The U of I-Chicago also offered Hebrew, grabbed as an elective overload.

Since college I have more-or-less been a student errant, bite size morsels there for the having with some initiative.
The late Reginald Foster, Carmelite priest and Vatican Latinist recently passed but he did pen his magnus,
Ossa Latinitatis Sola or The Mere Bones of Latin before his death. His passion for the language is quite infectious,
and his text preserves the rich heritage of the tongue.

I must admit to a bit of jealousy with Europeans whom are familiar with English due to the mass exodus
of American cultural fare; television in particular, piled atop a more exacting secondary school curricula,
bequeathing fluency that most Americans such as myself must personally seek to advantage. Small complaint
though for the reward inevitable with effort.

Nicholas Ostler's Ad Infinitum, A Biography of Latin is a wonderful read you should treat yourself to.

Bye-the-bye. Cicero's rather arrogance toward the Greeks after a youthful Grecian sabbatical study
and his condescending patrician attitude never cease to amaze for his lack of detachment bereft of objectivity.
Foster, when stationed in the Vatican led study group tours through Rome and would stand on the site
where Cicero berated Catiline inside the senate. Foster was a once-in-a-lifetime character, so his book
will need suffice.:)
 

Tiki Tom

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Holy Indiana Jones, Batman!

Archaeologists in Turkey claim to have discovered remnants of the famous “Trojan Horse” at the on-going dig in Troy; Mostly a pile of strange wood dating to the 12th or 11th century B.C. The story notes that a bronze plate was also found that can be interpreted as a gift tag that was attached to the horse. The University of Boston archaeologists leading the dig say they have a “high level of confidence” that this is the real thing.

https://www.jpost.com/international/did-archaeologists-just-find-the-trojan-horse-676349

Not to be a party pooper, but I tend to be skeptical whenever archaeologists make grand claims about highly specific historical (or fictitious) items. A lot of egotistical grand-standing occurs. USUALLY all they can really do is make an educated guess that must compete with other educated guesses. My humble opinion. But I will be watching this story with interest.
 

Tiki Tom

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Did Woolly Mammoths exist at the same time as the Pyramids and Ancient Egyptians? As opposed to dying out ten thousand years ago? Apparently so. It’s amazing to think that mammoths still roamed the earth when cities were being built.

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/24/world/mammoth-steppe-dna-scn/index.html

Makes me wonder what other “common knowledge facts” about the ancient world we got completely wrong.
 

Harp

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The woolies supposedly died out long before Egyptian, Mayan construction but those saber-tooth tigers
are still around, prowlin' Wall Street; New York Stock Exchange; La Salle Street Chicago brokerages and the
Chicago Board of Trade.
 

Harp

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Meriwether Lewis and George Clark met with Jefferson at the White House upon their return,
unfortunately no written account of this discussion was recorded.

Lewis, a depressive later committed suicide. Apparently able to control his despondency during the journey
once back he succumbed to the darkness. Clark had a dark side and a more disciplined mindset that often
accompanies a cruel inner nature. When one of his slaves whom had traveled west with the Corps of Discovery
demanded his freedom for his courage Clark flogged him as punishment.

And Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence, Ambassador to France, and the third
President of the United States died a pauper. The man who executed the Louisiana Purchase and expanded
the continental boundary of the United States of America lost Monticello, his Virginia estate.
Arguably the most erudite man to have ever held the presidency, Jefferson essentially died a penniless beggar.
 

Tiki Tom

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Why has no one written a biography of Bernard Knox?
He was an extraordinary golden age character, bold WWII hero, and a lauded classicist to boot.
  • Studied classics at Cambridge;
  • Fought in Spain with the International Brigades;
  • Joined OSS in WWII and was dropped behind enemy lines to fight with the French Resistance;
  • Later fought in Italy with partisans;
  • Multiple medals;
  • After war, continued his study of the Classics, wrote several acclaimed books, became Head of Classics Department at Harvard.
I’d love to find a biography of this guy. And he lived to the age of 95. Classicist and warrior. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

https://newrepublic.com/article/77450/the-warrior-humanist-bernard-knox

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/books/17knox.html
 

Godfrey

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I just read Tiki Tom’s intro post to this thread to my wife. She said, “you wrote that well.”

I said, “It’s not mine”

She said, “but that’s you”

Currently completing my Masters in Ancient History… fedora in hand. It’s a great thing to study. Looking forward to subjects on near eastern trade in early AD and late Antiquity subjects next semester! Just completed a year of Latin.
 

Tiki Tom

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Thank you. I can’t imagine a nicer complement.
The ancients are always in the back of my mind as I navigate the modern world.

In my new location (having moved from Europe to Hawaii) I am delving into a whole new type of “ancients”. Although there is raging debate regarding the dates, it seems likely to me that the first wave of Polynesian settlers arrived around the time of the birth of Christ. Radiation dating techniques have registered dates that far back in Kahuku, at the southern point of the Big Island and elsewhere. (It’s controversial, some speculate that the dates may reflect that the Polynesians threw wood on the fire that was several hundred years old.). Anyway, ancient Hawaiian society is sometimes described as being organized similar to how Ancient Greece was organized. I’m burning through a lot of books on these topics. :)

We look forward to your contributions to this discussion. What thread are you pulling on at the moment to see where it leads?
 

Godfrey

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I’ve been down a bit of a rabbit hole of organised crime in the classical world. There was an interesting conference on the topic a few years ago so I’ve been chasing down references and trying to work out what I can make of it that is new. I also attended a Roman Law symposium a little while ago which was looking at Roman attitudes towards domestic violence. Something that is pretty important from a contemporary perspective as well.

in reality my day job is as corporate consultant, so underneath it all I’m looking for a way to integrate all of this into my work. Possibly a forlorn hope. However this material is exciting and it would be good to bring it to life for others in a way that is relevant to their work. So I’ve been reading up on Frontius (a Roman project manager who wrote about his experiences) and contemplating how to get people interested.

Hawaiian history is also pretty interesting. Being in southern Australia I’ve been thinking along similar lines, especially on the archeology front for the local indigenous groups. My grandfather told me of a grave site on a property he worked on in the 1930’s which sounded pretty elaborate. White settlement has, in reality, done much to efface this sort of record, much to our eternal shame. So, I really need to find out more.
 

Harp

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^Ever read Ad infinitum or Foster's The Mere Bones of Latin?

The former is a 'biography' of Latin; and the latter a language magnum opus.
Light the scholar's lamp over the holidays. :)
 

Godfrey

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Haven’t actually. Added to the list. At the moment I’m reading ‘Caravan Cities’ by Rostovtzeff. Written in 1933 but a bit of a classic on Palmyra, Dura, Petra, etc. While also reading ‘Murder isn’t Easy, The Forensics of Agatha Christie’…. The joys of eclectic interests.

Rostovtzeff actually mentions Max Mallowan who was Christie’s husband. So I guess there is a link!
 

Tiki Tom

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P.S. Ever read Knox?
I have a copy of his book “The Oldest, Dead, White, European Males” in which he argues that the classic Ancient Greek reading list is still relevant and has much to offer. At one point I was very enthusiastic about the book. I even recall loaning it to my daughter when she was going through her unavoidable radical “-ist” phase. I doubt she read it, but she did eventually come out the other side. Anyway, that approachable book (it is quite thin) got me curious about the author, which is how I stumbled upon the swashbuckling story of his youth.
 

Harp

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Bloom's The Closing of The American Mind is admirable for squaring this nation's literary/philosophic
veiled shadow condundrum with critical focus on academe. Ten thousand to one Knox read Closing and agreed.

Unsurprisingly, given the time and circumstance of their youth many Special Air Service, MI, and OSS
were classical educated.
 

Tiki Tom

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Rostovtzeff actually mentions Max Mallowan who was Christie’s husband. So I guess there is a link!

Agatha Christie died in 1976. A year later, Max Mallowan married Barbara Hastings Parker, who was a notable archaeologist in her own right. Barbara had worked under Max at the excavation at Nimrod; digging started in 1949 and went on for several years. Apparently Barbara and Agatha were close friends, and Max maintained an affair with Barbara for decades. Love among the ruins? I’m sure there is novel or Netflix screenplay in this story somewhere.
 
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