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
Quite regularly the conversation of the Kosmos community returns to the subjects of astronomy and geography. In this post I will attempt to summarize what has been discussed, while focusing on the work of Anaximander, my favorite physiologos. His approach of understanding the world through rationalization and argumented dialogue [logos] was the logical next step after the period of oral tradition. No less than the messenger of the gods, Hermes,… Read more
A guest post by William Moulton One Saturday in July I arrived at the British Museum about 11:30, just in time for the free tour of the Nereid Monument. I always thought it was a nymphaeum—a shrine to the Nereids—but it isn’t. I discovered that it was the tomb of Arbinas the dynast of Lycia—a sort of a sub-king to the Persian king. For those who don’t know, after Alexander… Read more
In March 2017, the Book Club will be discussing Seneca’s Phaedra. This is the first of a series of posts which intend to illuminate the authors and works discussed as means of enriching the ongoing dialogue. A guest post by Georgia Strati Lucius Annaeus Seneca (known as Seneca the Younger) was, according to the standard biographical entries, a Roman philosopher, statesman, orator, and tragedian, living between c. 4 BCE (reign… Read more
A guest post by Laura Ford We have all heard stories of “book burnings” that leave us with a sense of horror at the irretrievable loss of priceless literary and artistic treasures. In some cases, as in the burning of the Library of Alexandria, the true cause of the burning will probably never be known. In other cases, a specific political intent to suppress the content of the books is… Read more