That’s no tripod its a trident.

See newer post.

This important document has disappear from the National Park Service website.  This is the broken link.   I was able to retrieve it using the Wayback Machine on Archive.org.  It was available as recently as May 2017.

Just so it stays hosted the web, I’m archiving on my site.  Copy of Speech. (pdf format)

If you are interested in this speech you may also be interested in the journals from the same time.

I got recommended to write a book review for something thru …… . Does it make sense to do it or do publications like that not matter?

-a former mentee on Twitter, now PhD Candidate

I hate writing book reviews.  I still do them occasionally.   Some professionals love them, some see them as necessary public service.

Today I write them for a very limited number of reasons:

• I want to develop my relationship with the individual who asks and that journal.
• I want to mark out territory in which I am an expert, or rising expert.
• I can’t afford the book otherwise.
• I want to tell the world how awesome some research is that might otherwise get ignored.

None of these are reasons I wrote my first book reviews.  Those reviews were gifts.  They came from my own mentors as feasible first publication tasks.  I got to see my name in print and know that I could see it there over and over.  Psychologically, that was really important to me.  I learned a great deal and gained confidence, and my CV looked just a little fuller, at least to my own eyes.   I like to think it suggests someone who can meet deadlines, follow through, and write in an articulate fashion.  Stuff that shows the potential for future peer-review publications.

My worst experiences with book reviews have been when I did not like the book and could not afford to say so in print.  Early in my tenure track appointment a major journal asked me to review a new book by a major scholar, whom I liked and respected.  I didn’t respect the book.  I never submitted anything and feel terrible about it.   I decided being delinquent was better than lying or saying publicly truths that would harm my career.

I also once had a fight about a review in which the editor said I was not critical enough.  The book was fine, not great.  Again, I wasn’t going to lie or do harm.   A bit more experienced, I fought with the editor and they published it as is.

The other worst was a journal that doesn’t believe in giving deadlines.  I learned I need a deadline.  They still haven’t gotten their review either.

Long story short.  To start, review only if it will feel good to you personally, you can be positive in the review (check out the book thoroughly before you agree!), and it will not be a dreadful time suck that reduces the quality of your other work.

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A twitter conversation on what makes a good review 5/14/2018:

5-24-18 Update

Trotsky on book reviewing (1924), shared by Brigid O’Keeffe on twitter.

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Update 6.17.19:

Another interesting twitter thread on reviewing (click image to redirect):

I’m enjoying using LIMC icon today.  [When I win the lottery I’ll by a hard copy of LIMC.]  They’ve updated their interface since the last time I used it and got frustrated and forgot about it.  VERY nice to use now.

Anyway this a wolf and twins glass paste intaglio and I’m very curious about the object to right.  Thoughts?

“SELEUKID EMPIRE. Kleopatra Thea. As wife of Alexander I Balas, 152-145 BC. AV Stater (18.5mm, 8.54 g, 1h). Ptolemaïs (Ake) mint. Special marriage issue, 150 BC. Diademed and veiled bust right, wearing stephanos and single-pendant earring / BAΣIΛIΣΣHΣ KΛEOΠATPAΣ, filleted double cornucopia. SC 1840 (this coin referenced and illustrated); HGC 9, 871 (this coin illustrated); Athena Fund 69 = CSE 408 = A. Houghton, “The Double Portrait Coins of Alexander I Balas and Cleopatra Thea” in SNR 72 (1988), 1 (this coin). VF, a couple light marks, slightly flat at high point of reverse. Extremely rare, one of two published (SC one in Aleppo).  From the collection of Dr. Lawrence A. Adams. Ex Athena Fund (Part 1, Sotheby’s Zurich, 26 October 1993), lot 69; Numismatic Fine Arts XXVII (4 December 1991), lot 74; Arthur Houghton Collection (Numismatic Fine Arts XVIII, 31 March 1987), lot 355.”

I hate rare coins.  They make such troubling historical evidence.  Anyway.  No other portrait of Kleopatra Thea that I’ve seen really looks a thing like this one.  BUT that smile can help but make me think of the enigmatic Venus on that odd Sullan issue:

RRC 375

I got here because of intaglio with double cornucopiae and I wanted to assure myself of the strong Ptolemaic link to the type and think a little about its Roman use.

I wish I had any explanation for it on the uncia in Herennius’ series from c. 108 or 104 BCE (RRC 308).

C. Considius Paetus’ issue surely refers to Caesar’s recent African/Ptolemaic adventures/conquest and how that ties to his claim to universal dominion (RRC 465/8).

Crawford thinks Paetus is not otherwise known, but there is an old suggestion that he is the same as the Considius pardoned at Thapsus, based on Hirt. B. Afr. 89.

Addendum. 20 July 2018. There is a double cornucopia on a New Style Tetradrachm of Athens dated by Mattingly to 120/119 BCE.  Thompson 543e from IGCH 0289.  (and Thompson 543-555).

 

 

There is clearly a strong connection between these gems and the republican coins series as Tassie himself acknowledges.

The coins are RRC 344/1-3 and RRC 404/1.

But I just don’t feel the execution is ancient.  I wish I could articulate this sense better.  Something about it is too perfect.  Especially the lettering.  The cameo might be late antique (cf. the Constantine-esque bulging eyes with upward glance), but the other three seem really geared toward the tastes of grand tourists and renaissance audiences…

chickens eggs chickens eggs chickens eggs

RRC 461/1

Tassie.  Beazley entry.

Africa, Elephant Headdress, Plow, Grain, Corn, Wheat, Scipio, Metellus, Imperator, etc…..

I first posted about this gem when getting acquainted with Gori this past summer.

It’s been worrying me ever since.  Yesterday, Social Media solved my confusion about the male head its Oceanus.  Today with a little prompting it helped me find the impression James Tassie made in the  Beazley archive.  So thrilled.

And much to my horror I now know how to match Tassie catalogue and Tassie plates.  I could get lost for weeks, must resist.

I do love a mirror (I think its the round intimate composition form I love really, coins, gems, lamps, I’ll take’m all).  Anyway.  In one of my classes yesterday the birth of Dionysus came up and then I stumbled on this lovely Etruscan mirror today.  So I’m posting.  To drawings of the same object .  Top is from Millin 1811.

 

This is just a quick drop for future ref.  I was browsing this book looking for a reference to a gem I’m using my current article project.  The image reminded me so much of a paper I heard on the Etruscan for runners to the Caput Oli  myth as the AIA/SCS a month ago!  Can’t remember who presented it but it will come to me.

Update 26 June 2024:

I realize I wasn’t clear enough in my above post. While the iconography is evocative of it the scene seems to be Perseus/Minerva/Head of Medusa.  Compare this mirror from the BM.

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Also I just really like this modern imaging by Duilio Cambellotti 1979.