Thoughts on Antiquity, Patristics, putting things online, freedom of speech, information access, and more
Does anyone have access to this item: Joseph Sievers, Forgotten Aspects of the reception of Josephus’ Bellum Judaicum: Its Lists of Contents, in Eve-Marie Becker, Stefan Scholz, “Kanon in Konstruktion und Dekonstruktion”, DeGruyter, 2011. p.363-386. Somewhat annoyingly, Cambridge University Library did not appear to have the book, and it isn’t listed in COPAC either. If [...]
Via the excellent AWOL I learn of a digital repository for PhD theses. Oxford, it seems, has declined to support the British Library’s EthOs initiative, preferring to keep material produced at Oxford on an Oxford website: Oxford University Research Archive. This afternoon I did a search of the archive (from my smart phone – the [...]
I’ve been looking at some of the entries for Syria in the CIMRM, the collection of all Mithraic monuments and inscriptions. In particular the two altars at Sia have drawn my attention. One is easy enough to deal with — I have a photo from the original publication, plus another from the web. But the [...]
Good news. I have today received the first draft of the translation of “February” from John the Lydian’s On the months (De mensibus) book 4. It’s a cracker. How this text has avoided being translated before I do not know. The footnotes added by the translator are also very, very useful. To read this stuff [...]
Great news – Behn’s Das Mithrasheiligtum zu Dieberg, De Gruyter (1928) has arrived. Here’s an image of the title page as proof! The discovery of the Mithraeum at Dieberg was something of a watershed. I don’t know if there were monographs dedicated to individual Mithraea before then, but it set a pattern for such monographs [...]
Maria Dahlin has done us all a favour, and made available her translation of five sermons by John Chrysostom! Here’s what she says: Now available at http://archive.org/details/ChrysostomsChristmasSermonsTranslatedAndExamined are the translations of 5 of Chrysostom’s sermons on Christmas: In Christi Natalem Diem, In Christi Natalem, In Natalem Christi Diem, In Natale Domini Nostri Jesu Christi, and [...]
I’ve started to look at the material on the earliest Mithraic monuments. This is frustrating, because of what I know is online and cannot see! Thus I cannot see pp.34-35 of Beck on Mithraism, even though I know it is online. If you can, and feel like sending me some screen grabs, I would be [...]
I’ve just added a page to my new Mithras site for CIMRM 1083. This monument is perhaps the most complicated and well-preserved example of a carving of Mithras killing the bull. It shows all sorts of events from his (unknown) mythology in side panels. In other words, it’s a gem. Vermaseren states that just about [...]
My own old university, Oxford, has already done this. But if yours hasn’t do. I can do no better than to repost the AWOL post on this issue. In memory of Aaron Swarz “May a hero and founder of our open world rest in peace.” While we work towards a world where scholarship is open [...]
From time to time I find myself in uncharted waters. The waters are always German, one finds; and the shouts that drift over the waters tend to things like “Hande hoch!” and “Internet Schwein!” and “Give us your money now, pig-dog”. These melancholy reflections were brought on by my discovery that the artefacts of the [...]