Some Notes about an Early African Pool of Cultures from which Emerged the Egyptian Civilisation
Until the 1980s, there was alack of archaeological excavation in Egypt’s WesternDesert. Today, the historical genetics of the Nile Valley,which is at one and the same time the ‘crossroad and refugium’, and the ‘Saharan affinities’ of the Predynastic Egyptians, have begun to be clearly identified
Patriotism and some related aspects of Roman character
Rome levelled her subjects in crashing, shattering defeat and then lifted them up to share a pride in her that could capture the discriminating Jewish intelligence of a Paul. Her supreme victory came when the superiority and desirability of her civilization were admitted among civilized men.
Hellenism and the Shaping of the Byzantine Empire
While the role of Byzantine Hellenism on the art, literature, and society of the Empire has been the subject of tremendous study, the question of its origins has, nonetheless, rarely been raised, and the strongly Hellenic Byzantine identity seems, to a large extent, to have been taken for granted historiographically.
The Origin of the Etruscans
Herodotus says that the Etruscans came from Lydia. The question is whether this is correct. My answer is: yes, but the Lydians lived at that time (also) in another area.
Scapegoat Rituals in Ancient Greece
The Greek scapegoat rituals have often been discussed. The so-called Cambridge school in particular, with its lively and morbid interest in everything strange and cruel, paid much attention to it.’ Our own time too has become fascinated once again by these enigmatic rituals…
Etymology (A Linguistic Window onto the History of Ideas)
In the first decades of the seventh century CE, Isidore, Bishop of Seville, compiled a 20-book work in Latin called Etymologiae sive origines (“Etymologies or Origins”).
Tiberiana 3: Odysseus at Rome – a Problem
The choice of a name is contingent on a number of factors or combination of factors, from individual taste to cultural influences, from liking the sound of it (forwhatever reason), to honoring relatives and friends, to expressing admiration for public figures past and present, real, fictional, or divine. Roman patterns of naming were also influenced by the involvement not just of family members but of slave-owners as choosers of names…and by the blending of very different systems of nomenclature in the great tapestry of cultures woven in the capital city.
Making Space for Bicultural Identity: Herodes Atticus Commemorates Regilla
Herodes and Regilla built a number of installations during their marriage, some of which represented their union in spatial terms. After Regilla died, Herodes reconfigured two of these structures, altering their meanings with inscriptions to represent the marriage retrospectively. This paper considers the implications of these commemorative installations for Herodes’ sense of cultural identity.