This site is maintained by Francesca Tronchin.
Updated almost daily.
if you ever think mythology is boring or serious business or whatever shit
just remember that cerberus, the hell-hound and guard dog of the underworld, comes from the root indo-european word ḱerberos, which evolved into the greek word kerberos, which got changed to cerberus when it went from greek to latin
ḱerberos means “spotted”
that’s right
hades, lord of the dead, literally fucking named his pet dog spot
I’m taking a short hiatus from Tumblr as I am traveling in Europe for the next three weeks. In the meantime, enjoy this garden of column drums from the Temple of Athena, Priene, Turkey.
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The Dalal Bridge in Zakho, Iraq, which dates to the Roman era, and is unfortunately on the verge of collapse.
Photo courtesy & taken by Zaxo
A perceptive student asked the other day how we know that the “Ishtar Gate” was really dedicated to the goddess Ishtar. I replied in class, “I believe that the dedication is mentioned on the inscription of the gate.” However, when I pulled up the whole inscription to show the class, I found that Ishtar was not mentioned at all.
…
This student’s question has sent me on a wild goose chase. There are multiple sources online which claim that the gate was dedicated to Ishtar, but no one explains how or when such a dedication was made. And if I dig into a few scholarly sites, such as the Yale University Gallery, I have noticed that these sites refer to the structure as the “so-called Ishtar Gate.” This makes me believe that the Ishtar Gate received its name from one of the early 20th-century excavators, perhaps Robert Koldewey.
Read more here.
Excavations in advance of a hydroelectric dam project that will flood the region are turning up sites from the Upper Paleolithic to the Iron Age in Portugal.
Important artifacts, some thousands of years old, that have been recovered by police after thefts will be on display at Rome’s Castel Sant’Angelo.
The exhibition includes treasures stolen and then trafficked around the world before being recovered by police forces, organizers say.
Exhibits range from a sixth century BC marble bust, the Kouros Apollino Dilani, to a second century AD sarcophagus recovered after an unscrupulous collector commissioned its theft.
“Masterpieces of Archaeology: Recovery, Findings, Comparisons,” boasts more than 100 pieces and will show from May 20 to November 5.
“These masterpieces are often objects of desire for collectors of art,” who sometimes are not concerned with legal ownership of antiquities, says Daniela Porro, superintendent of Rome’s museums.
Besides the archaeological pieces, the exhibition includes documents related to the efforts that authorities have made to recover missing and stolen works.
Significantly, one of the officials placed under investigation for suspected abuse of office was Marcello Fiori, the special commissioner appointed by Rome to oversee the “state of emergency” repair work at Pompeii from August 2008 to July 2010.
But the buck does not stop with a few managers accused of lining their own pockets. Something more worrying lurks in the shadows – the Camorra mafia. Just 15 miles away lies the southern port of Naples, the crime group’s home base, where it has a hand in everything from drugs to construction projects and rubbish collection .
