8 out of 234 days

…Without trying to decide which of these interpretations is the best, I have stuck to the oldest and most poetic.

original: “Sans chercher à décider laquelle de ces interprétations est la meilleure, je m’en suis tenu à la plus ancienne et la plus poétique.”

This line made me giggle.

This name logic was not only of interest to numismatists in the 19th century, but also to philologists concerns with naming practices (cf. Mowat 1871: 35). Support is derived from the patterns of numerous other nomen and cognomen; the coins are largely used as another epigraphic source.

Continuing with French scholarship I finally came to Babelon. Perhaps wholly unsurprising he is far more thorough and descriptive than any of the others and Grueber seems to owe much to him. There isn’t much new here but it is perhaps the clearest overview.

Why do I keep flogging this dead horse of a coin looking up wrong interpretations of bygone generations? A few reasons. It gets me reading widely and remembering to check various and sundry perspectives and in the past I’ve found my own thinking that seemed new to me, was in fact a resurrection of older ideas (wrongly?) dismissed. But I am getting a little bored of the gens Accoleia as it is taking me too far away from Nemi.

I’ve requested a copy of this article from ILL so hopefully I’ll have something more interesting for a future post.

Diosono, Francesca and Cinaglia, Tiziano. “Light on the water: ritual deposit of lamps in Lake Nemi.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 29, no. 1 (2016): 451-468. Doi: 10.1017/S104775940007224X

Abstract:

Following attempts beginning in Renaissance times, in 1927 the decision was taken to lower the level of Lake Nemi to the floor where the hulls of two ships belonging to Caligula lay, using pumps. These operations, conducted between 1928-1932, concluded in 1936 with the opening of the Museo Nazionale delle Navi Romane, where the ships were displayed. The ships were destroyed in 1944. But in addition to the materials belonging to the ships themselves, a number of other materials were gathered from the lake bed, including coins and bronze and terracotta objects. Lamps constitute the majority of these materials. The presence of nearly 250 lamps on the lake bed must be assumed to be due to a deliberate action that was repeated over time. The chronological span of almost all the lamps, from the middle of the 1st to the end of 2nd cent. A.D., is too long to argue for an isolated event. The different types and workshops represented also suggest that we are dealing with an act performed on numerous occasions, for each of which the materials were acquired on the retail market. That characteristic suggests that the lamps featured in an individual ritual practice, ending with their deposition on the waters of the lake.

Yesterday, I tried a more research first, communications second approach to structuring my day. Unfortunately, that meant communications didn’t get moved forward. I regularly overestimate how much I can actually get done. Also, I had to attend a doc appt with a kiddo and that ate up the last 2.5 hours of my day, so maybe I should go a little easier on myself. Started today with a wee walk–any walk is a good walk.

Today

• Keep up on the Dionysius (sent off to editors!!)
• More Italy visit logistics!
• More Rutgers coordination !
• More Princeton coordination !
• EES coordination!
• Local colleague communications
• push Nemi photo hunt forward
• JCope filing

Not Today (but maybe tomorrow, or the day after)

• Teaching requests for Fall 2023
• Circle back to department about any Jan planning meetings
• Book flights
• Set time table for any collaborative RRDP work/publication prep that needs to happen this semester: Chicago pub, INC pub, collaboration with RACOM, etc…
• Circle back to Capito project
• Consider ask for funding from Dean’s office
• Begin Med school rec letter
• record mini myth
• find out what is on that v old harddrive and back up to cloud
• follow up with Lafayette
• Write up Teaching Eval
• Follow up old student/tree sunset
• Rosen Fellowship refs
• Finalize AAH logistics
• Cancel at least one more digital membership
• renew Coinarchives