Listening to Jean Turfa talk about the logics of Etruscan observations of natural phenomenon. Fascinating stuff. She’s been drawing parallels with much earlier middle eastern texts and practices. One tantalizing example was a Faliscan vessel (perhaps from a Celle tomb, but J. Tabolli suggests perhaps another site) with a horse motif (typical) but where the equid has the teeth of a predator. The object is now in the Penn museum along with extensive archaeological archives and finds. In Middle Eastern tests an anomaly such as this was interpreted as a positive omen predicting the strength of the prince or king. {Wishing I’d photographed that slide}

She emphasizes that certain observations may have been based on really predictive qualities. Flukes attack sheep livers where the Picenza Liver marks the underworld gods. These same parasites then about 3 months later wreck havoc on the human population. The Brontoscopic calendar in February may note the connection between the cycle of mumps in the human community and a disease that fatally strikes birds at the same time. And, she suggests this belt may show Haley’s Comet from 695BCE.

On a lighter note she observed the Bronoscopic calendar has thunder on March 12 predicting the downfall of a great leader and speculated a connection the ides of march! Did the assassins choose the date as propitious for their plans? But hands down this was my favorite calendar extract she shared:

Similar calendars like the Enuma Anu Enil exist in our survivng cuniform tablets.

and TIL that there are models of livers with cuniform texts on them!

searching for these also led me to this fabulous statue fragment of a hand holding a liver:

I also particularly like this sheep detail and the curator’s note on this pitcher.

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Now a paper on San Casciano dei Bagni by Mattia Bischeri!! This was so rich and fast and I can barely hold it all in my head.

In the Tiberian age when the pool underwent a major monumentalize the earlier votives were closed in with not only a major deposit of roof tiles but also ritual objects of a fulmen (bronze) and knapped flint (slide photographed)

Latin divinity name: Fons Caldus Etruscan divinity name: Flere Havens; Bilingual inscription

Post Tiberian 9,000 coins, all fresh from the mint (slide photographed with summary of dates) BUT as yet no aes grave or aes rude, but excavation ongoing and may yet emerge.

ex votos showing boys engaged in divination, birds, ball – connected to other similar representations through out Etruria (slide with summary photographed)

new from 2024 campaign ,an orphic statue with orphic tablet, connected to orphic representations on mirrors [other new finds, I snapped a few images–all still under investigation]

two bronze votive anatomical plaque of internal organs, not just one. Slightly different but both deeply

psychoimmunotherapy (sp?) – discussion of anthropological view of medical practices, rituals heal the mental/social origins/effects of disease

WEIGHTS of statues corresponding to bronze monetary system!!! 3-1st cent BCE. Inscriptions even discuss weight [see slide photo]. Coins replace statues as monetary gift to divinity in the post Tiberian period.

HEIGHTS correspond to height mentioned in Pliny as appropriate for statues in the forum!!

Points out how icongraphy in christian art derives from the typology seen in the statues. The open handed praying and. infant Jesus gestures and association with bird and ball.

I’ll try to come back and fill this in later with more…

we can see evidence of translating from different weight and measures

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The following are a few items to remind me of Tina Bekkali-Poio.’s paper.

Listening to fascinating panel on new excavations on the Capitoline highlighting work especially in collaboration with the DAI in Rome with La Sovrintendenza Capitolina.

They may have found a whole complex of roof tiles from including decorated mold made elements and also post holes potentially associated with wooden equipment used in building (think cranes for lifting blocks). (7th to 3rd BCE is the date of the times)

The tiles seem to have been deposited in a phase of later construction. Perhaps in the post Pydna era when monumentalization takes off in the city. Parallels might be drawn with better understood phases on the Palatine in the sanctuary area of Victory and Magna Mater temples.

There is also clear documentation now of the temple podium that was incorporated/covered by the Prussian hospital.

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non-sequitur.

I love the term ‘fiddle drill’!

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I asked for clarification of the opening remarks that briefly highlighted of the importance of archival work, specifically comparing older drawings of the hill and Severan map to identify the temple of fides on the Capitoline. Ortwin Dally praised the book of Rousse [sp? – must find reference and link], while also pointing out that the temple is at the foot of the hill, perhaps better associated with the sanctuary area of San Omobono. He wondered how we disentangle the surviving fragments to confirm they really come from a single temple rather than multiple structures. He also pointed to the literary testimony, particularly Livy. Fides was attested to be one of the earliest temples, before Ops and Mens. Livy also discusses the removal of statues. Yet matching names of temples attested literature as ‘on the Capitoline” to archaeological structures remains difficult. On avenue for future exploration is the attested finds of military diplomas found on Capitoline [I must learn more on these!].

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I did not hear the whole paper on the roof tiles to catch Carbone and Sharpless speaking on archaeological finds of coins at the villa of Hadrian. They did such an amazing job. I hate these parallel sessions and dashing between different panels to catch individual papers, but this is how we conference….

Listening to Max Meyer (Brown) talk about the trees at Aphrodisias and of course Zoilos got a shout out. Listening to a brief summary of his career, I immediately thought about Orlando Patterson’s concepts of enslavement and the key role of natal alienation. I often teach manumission in the Roman context as perpetuating natal alienation by perpetuating the enslaved person’s structure in the Roman familia. I often teach this through naming customs.

BUT Zoilos managed to use his manumission to in fact elevate his status in his community of origin and seems to have retained his original name at least in part. An exception that proves the rule… I want to think more.

For context.

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non sequitur.

The trees discussed were date palms. Speaker connected to Ishtar, fertility, and economic display of imported plants needing special call. No particular mention of date palm association with Phoenicia. I am thinking also of Nicolaus of Damascus being the name-sake of Augustus’ favorite dates. It also provides a great precedent for the trees of the Flavian templum pacis and might just possibly take some influence from the plantings in the theatre of Pompey at Rome. I wonder about other precedents.

Listening to a stunningly good paper by Abigail Straub (UMich) on her work on Pompeii Bakeries and their religious protections. (Well worth making it to this 8am session and even skipping a coin session — I feel guilty about the latter!)

The points I want remember are the representations of Vesta with donkeys, the Vestalia, but most importantly the placing images of phalloi at the hearth/oven mouth. This made me think immediately of one of the narratives of Servius Tullius’ conception:

They say that from the hearth in the palace, on which the Romans offer various other sacrifices and also consecrate the first portion of their meals, there rose up above the fire a man’s privy member, and that Ocrisia was the first to see it as she was carrying the customary cakes to the fire, and immediately informed the king and queen of it. Tarquinius, they add, upon hearing this and left beholding the prodigy, was astonished; but Tanaquil, who was not only wise in other matters but also inferior to none of the Tyrrhenians in her knowledge of divination, told him it was ordained by fate that from the royal hearth should issue a scion superior to the race of mortals, to be born of the woman who should conceive by that phantom. (Dion. Hal. RA 4.2.1-2)

Can’t wait to see Straub’s final dissertation. A real shame this paper was scheduled at exactly the same time as Sinead Brennan-McMahon (Stanford), “Queer Spaces in Pompeii? Phallic Aesthetics and Shared Communities”. I’d have loved to seen both and be able to think about how the two papers might be in dialogue with each other.

Let me start by saying this was the best class I’ve ever taught and the students were extra ordinarily dedicated. Many are education majors destined to teach in NYC public schools. I’m deeply impress with them all and I’m also realizing that teaching Roman art (material culture) gives me even more joy than teaching history courses (and let me tell you I love teaching Roman history!!).

As an educator, I’m deeply committed to treating my students fairly and sticking to my word, especially about something so meaningful as grades. This semester was a new prep and thus I had to imagine a new grading structure appropriate to goals of the course and its content. I decided on 54% examination (proof of learning, command of information), and 46% participatory assignment (low and high stakes activities that took meaningful effort and were graded on degree of engagement). I also have a policy of accepting a wide variety of activities and assignments submissions as means of earning additional points or making up missed work. No late penalties.

Yes I’m a big softy. BUT are these policies distorting student grades. I was worried perhaps I’d shifted too far away from grades being a meaningful reflection of learning. So….

As a proxy for ‘what if’ I calculated each student’s grades based on exams alone and then compared that with the real grades they earned according the rules set out in the syllabus.

For exactly 50% of the students the participation gave them no advantage or disadvantage over the grade they would have gotten if I’d just awarded grades based on exams. 95% of these students who experienced no GPA change would have gotten an A or A+ in the course on exams alone. 32% of that 50% (so 16% of the class) did shift from A to A+, an honorary distinction with no effect on GPA. Two students who did A+ work on the exams only earned A- grades because their scores on (lack of engagement with) participation assignments, but I can live with that.

My takeaway is that perhaps for the needs of the top half of the class I may need to refine my exam writing to better differentiate levels of learning.

What my policy did do is shift weaker test-takers into a higher grade position. The average change was .7 GPA points. (when there was a change) That’s a B to an A- for instance. If you take the class average, my policies overall averaged about a .3 GPA point increase, that’s a B to a B+.

estimated GPA “increase”	% of Students
.3	11%
.4	3%
.7	11%
1	16%
1.3	3%
1.7	3%

Generally speaking, I feel good about rewarding students for active learning be it in class activities or museum visits. They teach how to look at images, how to take notes, and that it is not enough to ‘know’ — one also has to engage with the material.

So yeah. I gave a LOT of As and may refine my points structure slightly, esp. on exams, but I think I’ll keep my approach to open ended points. Why close the door on learning when it is helping lift up the students who struggle most?

I’m teaching Dura Europos today. I went looking for some material I knew I had written and thought it would be here. It was not. It was in the height of twitter. (I miss those days.) Anyway. I’m not there much any more and who knows how long it will be searchable so here is what should have been a blog post in the first place.

Real link to book mentioned in screenshots.

The prize crowns and palms on a table will be familiar to numismatists familiar with Roman provincial coinage (relevant results from RPC Online).

The bags of money are less common. Even more tantalizing is the writing on the bags. The line above multiplies the number by 1000. X with a horizontal line is regularly used as the symbol for the denarius on Diocletian’s price edict in both Latin and Greek versions and comes before the numeral. The edict is roughly the same date as the mosaics.

The lower case d with a line a the top is another figure I don’t immediately recognize. A puzzle for tomorrow, but one I feel sure will make me slap my forehead as soon as see the answer.

The unit of account for Diocletian’s Price Edict was the denarius, not the ‘denarius communis’ a fiction (not unlike the so-called aes signatum). See Jones 2017 who demonstrates the term was created by Lépaulle in 1888. In fact even the name of the Edict is a 19th century creation:

I find myself again wanting to read more MHC:

Michael Crawford, Diocletian’s edict of maximum prices at the Civil Basilica in Aphrodisias. Aphrodisias, 13. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2023. Pp. 260. ISBN 9783752006858. (BMCR review)

On ILL order:

Burnett, Charles, ‘The Palaeography of Numerals’, in Frank T. Coulson, and Robert G. Babcock (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Latin Palaeography (2020; online edn, Oxford Academic, 10 Nov. 2020), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195336948.013.96,

Now, I really should put in some pictures of coins.

In both the coins above we see the motif of five circles usually described as apples but I do wonder if that if a firm attestation or if they might be coins. We also see in the second of the two, the one with only one crown, a small purse on the table next to the crown. Or so it is traditionally identified. On the specimen below you can see two purses looking more like purses under the table flanking the prize vase.

Why does teaching prep have to be so distracting?!

The RBW conference from 2021 is out in REVUE BELGE DE NUMISMATIQUE
ET DE SIGILLOGRAPHIE vol. 170, (2024)! The articles will be open access two years from today.

If you would like a private copy of my own article please do email me.

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It is giving Tuesday. You might be the giving sort. You might not.

Link to Give.

Here’s my plea. I set down a sabbatical to finish book three and picked up the chairship of my department in large part because I believe in the LGI and the right of everyone regardless of family background or economic means to learn Latin and Greek. (an earlier essay on the value of studying ancient languages)

The LGI is older than I am and has trained the best philologists in our field and enabled hundreds of others who came late to the field to pursue their dreams of studying the Greek and Roman World. There are a hundred more medievalists, and political scientists, and religious scholars, art historians and philosophers who used and continue to use the LGI to access more directly and accurately the texts relevant to their research.

It has no permanent faculty. We count on our long term PT faculty giving up their summers (and good deal of their springs in preparation) year after year to make this possible. They do. The LGI engenders deep commitment from all its faculty and staff. It is a grueling intensive program that gets results. Our students wouldn’t succeed without this dedicated faculty.

Enrollments are high. We could admit more if we could support more to study in NYC. We could admit more if we could recruit and train more faculty. If we had staff to support the back end.

This campaign is our first giving Tuesday ask. The LGI needs an endowment to protect it from the winds of fortune at a public institution of higher ed.

And, once it is more secure, I can more comfortably go back to writing books (and more blog posts along the way).

So if you are giving sort and like this blog, please chip in a little something. Each donor shows that we have supporters. Give 100. Give 10. Give 1000! Give 10,000?

Anyway. I had to ask.

Link to Give.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.