The Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University will be honored by your presence at the Harvard Worldwide Week 2017 to attend the event: Role of an international Center in supporting the University’s global presence. Programs and collaborations in Greece. The event will be held at 4:00 p.m.–5:45 p.m., October 24, 2017, at the William James Hall auditorium B1, 33 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138. The event is free and open to… Read more
Trade in ivory has been banned since 1989 to conserve elephants[1]. However, in the ancient world they made use of ivory. How did the ancient Greeks perceive it and use it? I assumed it would be for ornamental purposes, and would have been carefully carved, but what do the texts and artifacts tell us? Its sheen is mentioned in an aside Telemachus makes to Peisistratos about the materials and decoration… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Finnian M.M. Gerety (Yale University) for our next Open House discussion, ‘Living Traditions of Vedic Ritual and Recitation in India’, which was streamed live on Thursday, October 19, at 11 a.m. EDT, and was recorded. To prepare for this event, you might like to view the following short films made by Finnian Gerety about Vedic traditions in the South Indian state of Kerala: “Mantras 2… Read more
In this video, Gregory Nagy, Douglas Frame, and Leonard Muellner have an informal discussion of ‘weird forms’ in Homer, of the preserving power of Homeric tradition, and of the study of Homeric language as a system, with the example of the name Nestor and related verb-forms. Read more
Following on from our discussion of biā / biē it seems natural to continue with another, contrasting Core Vocab word: mētis [μῆτις] glossed by Gregory Nagy in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours[1] and the associated Sourcebook[2] as ‘artifice, stratagem, cunning intelligence’. It’s a word I immediately associate with Odysseus, and in particular his cunning ploy with the Cyclops. There are two words for ‘not’ in ancient Greek, depending… Read more