Classicist. PhD student IPCAA, MA and BA Victoria University of Wellington. 🇨🇦🇳🇿
Dec 21 • 17 tweets • 4 min read
My first year at Michigan, I found a catalogue entry for an unpublished papyrus preserving portions of Odyssey 4.380-90:
It wasn't big, but it did have an interesting reading at the beginning of 4.388:
modern editions: τόν γ’ εἴ πως σὺ δύναιο λοχησάμενος λελαβέσθαι
P.Mich.inv. 3390 + 7169: τ̣ὸ̣ν εἴ πως σὺ δύναιο [λοχ]η̣σ̣άμε[νος
Feb 16, 2023 • 17 tweets • 2 min read
I don't think the text is wrong; but I do think that loose threads like this in the fabric of the poem can tell us something about its prehistory.
These basic premises, though arguable in details, I take as fact:
Aug 28, 2022 • 18 tweets • 4 min read
It turns out the DNA evidence does say something interesting about the Griffin Warrior, but not really in the way it's been reported.
The headline finding is that he 'ruled his homeland', which is to say was a local (Messenian, implied). That's what you'll take away from the UC press release, which has been the basis of most popular press on the issue: uc.edu/news/articles/…
Sep 25, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This cuts quite nicely to the core of the issue. Dealers, collectors, and auction houses all present the issue as though they're innocent until proven guilty — but the antiquities market isn't a court of law.
Laws restricting the export of antiquities from 'source' countries go, in many cases, back to the 19th century. The line in the sand we draw in 1970 is somewhat arbitrarily linked to a UNESCO convention that said market countries would start to respect those export laws.
Aug 12, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
Sitting somewhere far beyond simple questions of right or wrong, TE Lawrence's 'Translator's Note' to his Odyssey is my absolute favourite piece of Homeric scholarship.
It is remarkable how much the artist's eye sees of the oral-dictation theory, which I think must be right.
