We were pleased to welcome Casey Dué for the first in our series of Open House sessions for fall 2015, in which we discussed the Iliad and the Greek Bronze Age. She introduces the topic as follows: How old is the Iliad? The Trojan War has traditionally been dated since antiquity to about 1250 BCE, and the Iliad is usually dated five hundred years or more after that, but there… Read more
Classical Inquiries has a guest blog post ‘Blond hair in the tomb of Meresankh?’ by Dr. Peter Der Manuelian. He is the Philip J. King Professor of Egyptology and Director of the Harvard Semitic Museum. His primary research interests include ancient Egyptian history, archaeology, epigraphy, the development of mortuary architecture, and the (icono)graphic nature of Egyptian language and culture in general. He has published on diverse topics and periods… Read more
We continue our exploration of the Core Vocabulary terms with alēthēs (adjective) ‘true, true things’; alētheia (noun) ‘truth’.[1] We have looked at truth as a subject before. There was the recent Friday Café conversation with Kevin McGrath, about the truth of poetry, which he described as “truth that is so unlike the inferential truth of the natural sciences or the truths of mathematical demonstration.” In the Homeric epics, and in… Read more
Prince Khâemouaset, son of Ramses II This Gallery will take you to Egypt, where Helen was supposed to be during the Trojan War according to Euripides. Before the palace of Theoklymenos in Egypt. It is near the mouth of the Nile. The tomb of Proteus, the father of Theoklymenos, is visible. Helen is discovered alone before the tomb. Helen These are the lovely pure streams of the Nile, which waters the plain and… Read more
Examples of Mycenean Swords We have had a discussion about the parts of armor and clothing, which did include some of the words for weapons, and Helene Emeriaud shared a gallery of images related to the subject, so now I would like to focus on the passages that describe the weapons themselves in more detail. In particular, I am interested in the passages where the weapons almost have a fame… Read more