Manchester Museum conference on restitution

The provisional programme of the Museums and Restitution conference (University of Manchester 8-9 July 2010) is now available

Museums and Restitution is a two-day international conference organised by the Centre for Museology and The Manchester Museum at the University of Manchester. The conference examines the issue of restitution in relation to the changing role and authority of the museum, focussing on new ways in which these institutions are addressing the subject.

The conference will bring together museum professionals and academics from a wide range of fields (including museology, archaeology, anthropology, art history and cultural policy) to share ideas on contemporary approaches to restitution from the viewpoint of museums.

Great is Artemis of the cheese!

Sorita d'Este has found a reference to an ancient Greek cheese-stealing ritual:

In Lakedaimonion Politeia (2.9) we find a reference to this cheese stealing ritual in which two opposing groups of young men would contest some cheese, which would be stored on the altar of Artemis. The first group would defend the cheese with whips and the second group would try to steal it.

I definitely think this ritual should be revived; it sounds excellent. I'm sure it would benefit the cheese-makers (who are, as is well-known, blessèd, along with other manufacturers of dairy products).

Temple of Artemis destroyed

A shopping centre and car park have been built over the remains of a temple of Artemis in Porto Rafti, Greece.

The destruction of the Temple of Aphrodite started only recently. Since I live in the area, I found out about the rescue excavation and visited it three years ago. I noticed the good quality Hellenistic pottery and the strong foundations of the temple. No archaeologist was around, and so I conversed with the two Albanian workers, who explained to me the significance of the project. They also told me that part of the temple was noticed only after the building company started the erection of the modern shopping centre. At the time, I have not taken any photographs, as I know from personal experience that it takes the good part of a decade to uncover a building of that size. I was wrong! When I visited again last month the whole area has been covered under piles of dirt. I searched in vain for traces of ancient materials.

(via Tom Goskar)

Archaeological finds

• Temple of Nemesis found (Thaindian News)
  Ankara (Turkey), October 13 (ANI): Archaeologists have found traces of a temple built for the Greek goddess of divine retribution, Nemesis, during excavations in the ancient city of Agora in the Aegean port city of Izmir in Turkey.
• Has a statue of Alexander the Great, dating from Ptolemaic-era Alexandria, been uncovered? Or is it just a statue of a Greek athlete that came to light last May?
• A statue of Priapos has been found, possibly coming from an old brothel (Croatian Times)
  Croatian fishermen from Baska on Krk Island found an oil lamp in the shape of Priapus two years ago.
• Statue of Nero identified (Rogue Classicism)

(via Sannion)

A cover-up?

Bartholomew's Notes on Religion reports that a section showing early Greek Orthodox Christian priests defacing the Parthenon has been deleted from an animated film of the Parthenon's history after the Greek Orthodox Church complained.

The Parthenon

If there is historical evidence of this defacement (which certainly occurred in other cases where temples were converted to churches, such as the Pantheon in Rome, the temple of Minerva in Assisi, and the church of St Lawrence in Rome) then it should be included in the film. There is no point in trying to airbrush out events after the fact.

Butrint

There's an interesting article on the BBC website about Butrint.

I've been to Butrint, it's an amazing place.

It's a perfect illustration of the meaning of palimpsest, with ancient Greek, Byzantine and Turkish buildings piled on top of each other.

The BBC article neglects to mention that if you're coming from Corfu, you have to get the boat to Saranda and then a coach down a single-track dirt road to Butrint. And they could do with some planning laws in Saranda and the surrounding countryside, too. The Butrint national park is a lovely bit of landscape, though.

Archaeology of women

Who is she? A goddess, a ritual object, a votive offering, a vehicle for working magic or fulfilling wishes, a talisman for protection, a teaching or initiation device, or simply an ancient woman's embodiment of herself?

The Brooklyn Museum is staging an exhibition of prehistoric female statues (which may or may not be goddesses). It will be accompanied by a seminar to discuss early female figurines of the Neolithic Period from ancient Mesopotamia and of the Predynastic and Early Dynastic Periods from ancient Egypt.

Similarly, the Onassis Cultural Center is staging an exhibition, "Worshiping Women: Ritual and Reality in Classical Athens":

The purpose of the exhibition Worshiping Women is not to argue that Classical Athenian women were 'liberated' in any contemporary sense, like the figure of Lysistrata on the comic stage. It remains true that the lives of Athenian women were highly restricted when it came to mobility in the public sphere, participation in the political process, or control over their own bodies. But the study of religion provides a necessary corrective to this unremittingly bleak picture.
It is not that participation in religious ritual was an 'escape' for women from their lives of daily oppression, for it is highly unlikely that they perceived their own existence in this way. Rather, ritual defined who they were -- as women, as Greeks, and as Athenians.

The Antikythera mechanism

New York Times » Discovering How Greeks Computed In 100 B.C.

After a closer examination of a surviving marvel of ancient Greek technology known as the Antikythera Mechanism, scientists have found that the device not only predicted solar eclipses but also organized the calendar in the four-year cycles of the Olympiad, forerunner of the modern Olympic Games.

The new findings, reported Wednesday in the journal Nature, also suggested that the mechanism’s concept originated in the colonies of Corinth, possibly Syracuse, on Sicily. The scientists said this implied a likely connection with Archimedes.

Hat-tip to Witches and Scientists.