Classics, Ancient History, Linguistics, Academia and more
Most of you are probably familiar with the song "Pompeii", released by Bastille in 2013. A few weeks ago, Rachele De Felice sent me this link, of a rather nice Latin translation of the song. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VG_9Lw_6UrU She expressed some disappointment that the song had not been translated into Oscan, as the more ancient language of... Continue Reading →
I'm still working away at my maps of the languages of ancient Italy. Going through all the examples of Greek inscriptions from Italy in the SEG, I found one from Narnia. I'd come across the ancient city of Narnia (modern-day Narni) when I was writing my book, and then kind of forgotten about it until this... Continue Reading →
Myriapod Productions have released a rather lovely video in their "Mysteries of Vernacular" series tracing the etymology of the English word hearse back to the Oscan word hirpus, 'wolf'. (This was discovered and sent to me by my friend Julia, so many thanks to her! I have included some pictures of coins below, because she likes coins.) This... Continue Reading →
Over the past few months, I've been involved with the formation of the Women's Classical Committee UK. There's been an organisation for women in Classics in the US for a long time (the Women's Classical Caucus), and there's also an equivalent organisation in Australia and New Zealand. So when Liz Gloyn (among others) suggested a... Continue Reading →
It's become a bit of a cliche for me that my academic talks tend to start with a map of the languages of Italy, followed by an explanation of why the map is dangerously misleading. The map that I normally use is from Wikipedia, and looks like this: Now, this map does the job in... Continue Reading →
I'm reviewing a book this week called Vanishing Acts On Ancient Greek Amulets by Christopher A. Faraone. It's a short monograph that's incredibly rich in detail, using magical amulets in Greek, Latin and other languages to trace developments in how healing spells were spoken and written from the first century to the sixth century AD. In particular,... Continue Reading →
hn. sattiieis. detfri segnatted. plavtad herennis. amica signauit. qando. a- ponebamus. tegila(m) Detfri of Hn. Sattis signed with a footprint. Amica of Herens signed when we were laying out the tile. Oscan/Latin inscription and four shoe prints on a large clay roof tile (0.67 x 0.94m). Pietrabbondante, c. 100 BC. Imagines Italicae: Teruentum 25;... Continue Reading →
I'm pleased to announce that I'll be speaking at the upcoming Roman Archaeology Conference in March 2016, to be held at ‘Sapienza’ Università di Roma and the British School at Rome. The Theoretical Roman Archaeology Conference will be held at the same time. For now, the RAC website is a little sparse, but you can... Continue Reading →
One of my favourite things about studying an unusual language is that your research is very memorable. Once people associate you with a particular obscure language, they will immediately think of you whenever they hear about it elsewhere. And - even better - they will send you sources that you never could have found otherwise.... Continue Reading →
Here's my "Classics for All" review of Communitcation and Materiality: Written and Unwritten Communication in pre-Modern Societies. If you'd like to read the book, or selected chapters from it, you can currently download it for free from the De Gruyter website. Mostly a very good read, which introduced me to a lot of sources I wasn't familiar with... Continue Reading →
Katherine McDonald 