Not an expert – Page 12 – Book and Sword

No Words Left

A Schludernser street scene. Photo by Sean Manning, May 2015. I find that after this week I do not have any words left. Rather than fake it, this week I thought I would post some Vinschgauer and West Coast fauna. Some BC fauna. Photography by Sean Manning... Continue reading: No Words Left

Keeping Just One Cloak

In 1837, the remaining Protestants living in the Zillerthal in eastern Tyrol were ordered to convert to Catholicism or leave. Mathias Schmid (d. 1923), “Vertreibung der Zillerthaler Protestanten im Jahr 1837/Letzer Blick in die Heimat,” 1877. In Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck; catalogue number Gem 3718. Photo by author, October 2015. Xenophon,... Continue reading: Keeping Just One Cloak

Link Dump

A plywood wheel like a waterwheel with angled bookshelves in place of the buckets — An overwhelming flow of information is not a new problem: a bookwheel inspired by ones from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries at the Hauptbibliothek Neubau, Universität Innsbruck. Made 2008? Photo by author, October 2015.

German for Classical Studies at the University of Cologne, free course June/July 2016, application deadline 30 November 2015 (link: warning, Facebook!)

The academics in Ghana went on strike again over nonpayment of their book allowance in August 2015 (link). As often with news from Africa, this has not received much attention in Europe and North America, even though its hard for any academics at universities in Ghana to work if they can’t buy books and journals.

Meanwhile, historian Alice Dreger has resigned from her post in Illinois after a dispute about whether a glossy magazine with her university’s logo was research (protected by academic freedom) or publicity (overseen by the university administration) revealed a deeper difference about what sort of institution she was working for (her public statement on the subject and her resignation letter). This issue has received a great deal of attention on the Anglophone internet.

The Carmarthenshire Archives in Wales are being devoured by mould, and a Freedom of Information request by J.D. Davies has revealed some disturbing facts about how the local authorities are responding to this crisis.

Some people with more money than sense decided to see what happens when you throw a human-weight or hobbit-weight mass of organic material into a pool of lava. There are videos.

Becoming a Source

A country Bahnhof in southern Germany (Herbertingen, Spring 2014). Photo by author. On Sunday the 13th Germany announced that it was imposing customs inspections on the border with Austria in response to the flood of refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, and the horn of Africa and the reluctance of countries to the... Continue reading: Becoming a Source

After a Trip to the Interlibrary Loan Office

Looking south over Verona from Castel San Petro between the Roman theatre and the Roman bridge. Photo by Sean Manning, 2013. Then felt I like some watcher of the skiesWhen a new planet swims into his ken;Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyesHe star’d at the Pacific — and all his menLook’d at each... Continue reading: After a Trip to the Interlibrary Loan Office

The Liebster Award, or, Becoming Aware of an Internet Tradition

Photo of a red limestone building with a weathered gateway of white stone carved in relief built into it — The very rich and very patient can ignore practical constraints on their collecting too: random Tudor gateway built into the Burrell Collection, Scotland.

A few weeks ago Alexandra of ascholarlyskater nominated me for the Liebster Award. Thanks Alex! I see that Judith Weingarten won one of these in 2013. Although I do not normally post personal things on this blog, I thought I would get into the spirit of things in my reply. Those of you who are here for the history can come back next week when I will have something nice and martial and either Babylonian or Phoenician.

Three Calgary Dissertations

Stone panel sculpted with a man in robes carrying a horn over his right shoulder — The funerary stele of Gnaeus Coponius Felicio, a trumpeter in the Roman army who was buried at Aquileia (CIL V 1027: Palazzo Te, Mantua; photo by author)

One of the joys of the modern age is that doctoral dissertations are usually published online. While it is still sometimes necessary to travel to the correct university and make a copy of an older dissertation by hand (or order it and wait months for the librarians and the appropriate university to send their copy), this makes the process of finding and obtaining research much less expensive and laborious. This week I thought I would take some time to mention some dissertations which my readers might be interested in. All of them are clearly written and provide enough background information that most readers of a blog like this should be able to understand their subjects, namely ancient horses, ancient Greek and Macedonian tactics, and the skeletons found in the tombs of the Macedonian kings.

Treasure from Dilmun: Some Thoughts on Geoffrey Bibby’s “Four Thousand Years Ago”

Photo of a faded hardcover book with torn paper dust cover — One thoroughly used copy of Geoffrey Bibby’s “Four Thousand Years Ago” (Collins: St James’ Place, London, 1962)

I first encountered Geoffrey Bibby’s Four Thousand Years Ago in a “Best-of” volume of the Robert E. Howard fanzine Amra where the reviewer enthused that the second millennium BCE was a time when Conan could have lived again. For a younger self that was recommendation enough, and I tracked down a copy in the library. On a whim I decided to order a copy and have a look with more scholarly eyes. The volume which arrived in the mail has an old bookseller’s stamp from The Public Bookshop, PO Box 1, Bahrain which is very appropriate, for Bibby excavated there and believed it was the Dilmun of the Sumerians, the place through which all good things came. Like the statuette of Lakshmi from Pompeii, who can say how it made its long way to its current home?

What Would You Like to Read This Year?

The library of Stift Wilten, Innsbruck, in October 2014 I have been blogging for a year and a third now, and I seem to have about twenty weekly readers. I have more or less kept my plans to post once a week on something loosely related to the ancient world and the martial side of... Continue reading: What Would You Like to Read This Year?

Rus in Urbe

It is easy for ancient historians to forget about farming. Ancient literature does not say much about it, ancient art rarely depicts it, and farming is distant from our own lives. Yet most people in the ancient world made most of their living by farming or herding or fishing, and the basic realities of farming pervaded their mental world. I am therefore glad that some of the land near the Zentrum für alte Kulturen in Innsbruck is still working fields and orchards. Although the caked soil at the edge of the field is marked by the tyres of the farmer’s tractor and not the hooves of his oxen, and the plot is crammed between a modern glass monstrosity, the loading dock of a supermarket, and a concert hall built out of shipping containers, it is still worth watching as the seasons turn.