Thoughts on Antiquity

Both those in the academic community and especially those who pursue Classics online will be saddened to hear of William Harris’ death this past Sunday. A professor emeritus at Middlebury College, he is best known online for his website. My friend Nicholas posted an In Memoriam of his own interaction with Bill.

While reading through Cyril of Scythopolis’ The Lives of the Monks of Palestine, I could not help but notice a particular regulation that Euthymius and Sabas maintained, which is to avoid having young monks living with the elder because of τὰς τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐνεργείας (”the connivings of the Wicked One”). Euthymius explains to Sabas, who […]

One of the projects I am currently working on is a study of land lease contracts from Oxyrhynchus in second and third century Roman Egypt. The aspect that has particularly interested me is how inflation affected rental patterns and what the leases can tell us about monetization in the Egyptian economy. For those interested in […]

Egyptologists have long suspected this, I think. I actually learned about the skepticism in my Ancient Egypt class:

Newly published documents show how a German archaeologist used trickery to smuggle home a fabulous sculpture of the Egyptian queen, Nefertiti.
The archaeologist, Ludwig Borchardt, listed the bust of Queen Nefertiti among his finds in Egypt in 1913.
But he […]

From April DeConick:

This line of reasoning became very evident to me when Tom Verenna quoted a statement of mine published on my blog (in which I stated that the historical Jesus we reconstruct only exists in our imaginations) as somehow aligning with his myther position, as giving validity to it. This is simply false. Because […]