Theo Nash
@theo_nash
Followers
6K
Following
28K
Media
3K
Statuses
20K
Classicist. PhD student IPCAA, MA and BA Victoria University of Wellington. ๐จ๐ฆ๐ณ๐ฟ
Ann Arbor, MI
Joined February 2017
This was a lot of fun to put together: do have a read!.
Why do we study Ancient Greece? To expand our shared knowledge of the past or for personal enrichment? Is research a primary or secondary aim? Today, @theo_nash of @UMich revisits 1930s Oxford to see how rival views of scholarship were keenly thrashed out:
7
7
43
The evolution of the Mycenaean octopus is just progressive stages of a drug trip.
53
1K
9K
@Lenny_P_Cover No dunk, just an amusing juxtaposition. But only one actually references the Greek.
3
1
1K
'A Song of Ice and Fire', the 21st century narrative saga, survives only partially; a prose recension covers the first half in great detail, as does an audio-visual one for roughly the same extent; after this we have only the audio-visual in an epitomated and much corrupted form.
11
294
943
A Linear B tablet displayed upside down in the National Archaeological Museum ๐
22
84
955
Contracted omicron and not sure what to do? Follow this simple guide:
20
192
858
The Mycenaean bridge at Kazarma, quietly doing its job these 3000 years.
17
172
731
Some Greek verbs are just unforgivably irregular. The third person plural of ฮฟแผถฮดฮฑ? It literally is a sin.
20
81
763
Weird English conditionals: 'I'll be in town tomorrow if you'd like to grab coffee'. Being in town is not in fact dependent on the correspondent's desire for coffee.
77
37
763
I don't honestly know how to process this. Is there any reason now to doubt that we'll get complete scrolls soon enough? Papyrology โ if that's even the right word for this โ could once again revolutionise Classics.
Ten months ago, we launched the Vesuvius Challenge to solve the ancient problem of the Herculaneum Papyri, a library of scrolls that were flash-fried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD. Today we are overjoyed to announce that our crazy project has succeeded. After 2000
23
91
711
Picked this up at the airport, and while itโs not wholly unenjoyable, for a book about language it has some absolute howlers.
8
34
771
Schliemann's daily routine during the 1884 Tiryns excavations.
15
75
588
After three weeks of writing papers Latin puns are the only joy left in my life.
3
205
526
Would a CS major be able to understand this?
17
23
493
This was an electrifying two days. Many of the biggest problems are not 'How do we do this?' but 'How do we do this efficiently enough to deal with hundreds of scrolls?' It really feels like we're standing at the brink of a nearly unimaginable new world for papyrology.
Very excited for this conference on the Herculaneum papyri and the cutting edge of classical scholarship.
8
50
484
Tolkien to his son Michael: 'It takes at least 15 years to make a good Greek scholar.'
12
93
478
Latin loanwords and โirregularโ English plurals:. alumnus : alumni.alumna : alumnae .magnum opus : magna opera .Toyota Prius : Toyota Priora.credo : credimus .ego : nos.
11
31
483
The problem with the Latin ablative is that it isn't so much a single case as two and half cases standing on each other's shoulders in a trench coat.
11
86
307
Casual reminder that the Romans had a verb equivalent to 'can't even'.
2
121
319
Being a classicist is living in a constant state of fear that a 19th century German beat you to your brilliant idea by 100 years.
11
76
300
Thereโs something so satisfyingly simple about this job ad. โWe want a Hittitologist. You should specialise in Hittitology.โ
Hittitologists, come work with us! ๐ฅณ.ISAC and MES at the University of Chicago invite applications for a tenure-track position at the rank of Assistant Professor in Hittitology, with an anticipated start date of July 1, 2025.#hittite.
9
28
308
Been sitting on this for a bit, but it looks like I'll be in Athens next year!
30
3
254
Completely insane to use โet al.โ for a single second author, no?.
Out now! Volk et al.'s Cicero: Laelius de amicitia | The first modern commentary, designed for intermediate and advanced Latin students, with attention to language, style, content, and context. Find out more:
22
4
279
The Linear A (l) and B (r) sign AB23 had the value mu in LB. It's also used as the ideogram for ox, suggesting Myc. and Min. cows went mu.
11
118
231
Blackwell's are now selling those dreadful print-on-demand copies of old books digitised by Google:
17
14
247
A letter in the TLS that gets more interesting the further you read.
4
54
236
I've seen the tablets in Athens and Heraklion before, but before I knew anything about it; today I really saw Linear B for the first time. Still not over how a) small, and b) three-dimensional and real the signs are.
9
49
233
Turns out one does not need to make up elaborate stories about mummy masks to make new discoveries in papyrology: Iliad 23. 741-51 newly identified in the Michigan collection.
3
21
237
You, a dolt: I love the duels in the Iliad. Me, an intellectual: I love the duals in the Iliad.
12
27
200
Between the Old Hittite and New Hittite recensions of the Laws, the penalty for biting off a man's nose increases 30x. This may be a scribal error, but I prefer to think people got very tired of noses being bitten off and getting upping the penalty in hopes it would finally end.
5
40
205
Letters have been detected in a newly scanned and digitally unrolled papyrus from Herculaneum, P.Herc.172:
7
29
224
The Vulgate is, no doubt, the widest-read Latin text historically, and now almost completely missing from modern curricula. It is both accessible and familiar (if decreasingly so): a much better starting point than Caesar.
20
19
210
Pardon me for thinking there were racial interactions, colonialization, and homosexuality in the ancient Mediterranean.
No, "critical race theory, post colonial theory, psychoanalytic approaches and queer theory" won't teach you anything about Greek literature. You're just committed to the fallacy of anachronism.
11
40
193
'Squirrel', of course, comes by way of Latin from Ancient Greek ฯฮบฮฏฮฟฯ
ฯฮฟฯ -- the animal which shades itself with its tail (lit. shadow-tail).
4
82
200
'Greece is part of Asia; Greek literature is a Near Eastern literature.'. M. L. West, 1966.
14
19
194
It's only a marathon if it's from the Attica region of Greece; otherwise, it's just sparkling jogging.
If you donโt defeat the Persians and announce that fact while literally expiring at the end of 26.2 miles, it is NOT a marathon.
1
49
197
A quirk of English development: 'ominous' and 'auspicious' are both etymologically neutral, for omens and auspices may be either good or ill; but each has taken one province for itself and excluded the other.
4
28
192
There was once at Harvard a conference that asked 'What is Philology?'. A colleague inquired of Shackelton Bailey whether he would attend: 'No,' responded Shackleton, 'I already know what it is. I shall be in my office, doing it.'.
4
14
187
The English word 'fart' derives from an onomatopoeic Proto-Indo-European root *perd โ so some guy 6000 years ago heard a fart and we've been using his impression to describe them ever since.
16
83
181
The trick to pictures of Tiryns is including people โ otherwise your brain will always try to assume the rocks are a reasonable size.
3
30
174
A remarkable survival of Persian usage: Ionia was already Yauna in the Behistun inscription. Just as the Romans called all Hellenes Greeks after the first tribe they met, so too the Persians called them all Ionians.
The OP was highlighting the difference in syntax from English. I want to highlight how Greeceโs name would be indecipherable to the average Anglo lol
11
26
183
Incredible to see my name in (digital) print for the first time. The whole volume (edited by @PhilipJBoyes, @crewsproject and @natalakiou) is available open access here:
12
15
165
Strikingly enough, the sign 'mu' in Linear B is also the the logogram for 'cow' โ so they did indeed go mu!.
2
49
160
As debate rages over the proper way to translate the Odyssey, it seems a good time to revisit the pinnacle of Homeric scholarship: TE Lawrenceโs Translatorโs Note.
3
17
172
Very excited for this conference on the Herculaneum papyri and the cutting edge of classical scholarship.
1
7
163
The use of cuttlefish ink for writing in the Aegean is evidenced as far back as the Middle Minoan III period: two cups found at Knossos bear inked inscriptions on their interiors.
1
35
148
The Pevensie children begin 'The Lion, the Witch, and the Warbdrobe' in London. This was obviously a real place, so how does it make sense to deny Narnia? Why include London at all if the other places were fiction? It makes more sense to argue all were real.
@DimitriNakassis @e_pe_me_ri Odysseus is described as being blown off course near Maleas, see Hom. Od. 9.80. This was obviously a real place, so how does it make sense for you guys to deny other locations? Why include Maleas at all if the other places were fiction? It makes more sense to argue all were real.
11
25
147
Different words, different image, both tweeted based on the date. So much for Quellenforschung.
19
7
147
It still staggers me that no one could come up with anything better than "Old Latin" and "Very Old Latin".
13
33
151
Multimedia: Athena striding forward to fight a giant, both in monumental sculpture from the Old Temple on the Acropolis and on a fairly quotidian oil jar.
2
25
164
Tiryns, a coastal site, was the first centre on the Argolid to be fortified in Mycenaean times. Later expansions included extensive use of corbelling in passageways and the famous galleries. The same principle still holds up the nearby tholos tomb, later used for olive pressing.
3
31
150
We don't talk enough about how the proper plural of dilemma is dilemmata.
8
35
147
The Cyclopean wall of Athens: hidden around the Acropolis are traces of a past much deeper than Pericles.
6
17
153
I've read this sort of essay written by undergraduates: they're clever enough to make an argument, but can't see that their ignorance of the source material defeats them.
4
7
153
Yesterday, after delays due to both COVID and last month's strike, I finally completed my PhD qualifying examinations (with just a bit of help from these two).
10
2
134
Henceforth I am only accepting absences justified in trimeters.
8
25
143
The only honest abstract:. 'I have some thoughts on <topic x>. If my paper is accepted, I will try to figure out what exactly they are.'.
0
32
134
The Linear B evidence suggests that it's the other way around - Athena was named after Athens.
Athens was named after Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom. Her symbol was an owl and was used on coins for over 300 years!
6
59
126
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis claims that the way we experience the world is based on the language we speak. Since there are no first-person verb forms recorded in Linear B, we can therefore posit that the Mycenaeans had no sense of self.
14
13
139
Grad school bound: I'm excited to say that this September I'll be headed stateside to pursue a PhD at the University of Michigan's Interdepartmental Program in Classical Art and Archaeology.
10
3
127
You've heard of the Areopagite court, now get ready for the Areopagite cat.
10
30
127
The Mycenaean cemetery at Dendra is famous for its wealth of finds โ not only does it have the only known unlooted tholos, but multiple horse burials were found (left in situ), and chamber tomb 6 yielded the only full set of Mycenaean armour, now on display in Nafplio.
4
34
141
Call me jaded, but eventually we'll have to stop acting like polychromy is new and interesting.
People tend to think of ancient sculpture as colorless, but they were often vibrantly painted. Join @harvartmuseums to learn how scientific analysis can help reconstruct original colors on works of art. Tuesday, 9/21, 12:30pm:
16
15
129
Classicists are generally required to learn Ancient Greek (and indeed Latin) to a much higher level than anyone else studying a language for purely academic reasons.
Thinking that Ancient Greek of all things is a hard language is the linguistic equivalent of needing to get out more.
5
6
122
My wife: 'Why on earth is a ten cent coin called a dime here?'. Me: 'Well if you think of the PIE word for ten, *dekm, it's really quite easy to remember. '.
5
15
118
Wilamowitz had, 100 years ago, a much better conception of what Classics (though he called it Philology) should be than many do today.
6
30
122
In entirely other news, I discovered yesterday that sheep can wag their tails.
2
28
129
Prudence Smith on the special challenge of Greek prose composition:
5
19
126
This is complete hogwash.
The Chronicles of Narnia are strewn with Turkic references, but nobody really knows why: CS Lewis did not speak Turkish, nor did he ever visit the country. For @EngelsbergIdeas, I wrote about the mystery that has preoccupied me for years.
2
9
117
Rare evidence for a Mycenaean sport much resembling modern tennis. (From the Preface of Vermeule and Karageorgis 1982, Mycenaean Pictorial Vase Painting.)
3
39
113