Seen Elsewhere
My official seal. See below for more details.
Hadrian’s Wall Darkdwarf comments on an Osprey Guide to Hadrian’s Wall. There’s also a reproduction of a poster I got for a friend while I was up there. Naturally she said, “Aww, you shouldn’t have,” but I’ll leave it to your imagination as to whether she said it before or after unfurling it.
When Does It Become History? While waiting for the photocopier I write up a quick entry about an interesting article in Archaeology magazine this month about the exhumation of victims of Franco in Spain. It’s a difficult problem because the past still casts a shadow on the present in Spain. I haven’t put it up because my entry because John Gog does it a lot better.
Archaeological Theory I picked this up from MySpace, though I’ve no idea how. Dan tackles some of the problems in the development or lack of it in theory and palaeolithic archaeology. I’ll try and remember to come back to this, as I’d be interested to see how he gets on. Another MySpace blog to look out will be Lauren/Boz’s. I’m not even a member of MySpace, so I’ve no idea how I found these. Technorati?
Fancy Fair & Community Projects – Women’s History in our Town I thought the Napa Valley Marketplace Magazine was a spam blog when I first saw it go through the tag surfer at WordPress. It looks like I’m wrong. There’s a few history articles going up on the site, probably of more interest to Americans than me, but it could be worth looking at if you’re into modern history for a view from Napa Valley on the past.
Time Team In the Grauniad Mike Pitts gives his views on Time Team in Sorry, ma’am, we don’t dig it. Producer Philip Clarke replies that this is An unfair dig at Time Team. The latter defends the programme claiming “…there was a wealth of royalty and glitz.” Which pretty much sums up my opinion too. I would have preferred more archaeology.
Peer-review’s MySpace problem I’ve seen some absolutely atrocious posts on Global Warming recently. This article by Salon is a good view at how you too can create ‘controversy’ on an issue you want. Supposedly you’re only six handshakes away from the President of the USA. The Oracle of Bacon finds very few actors more than four roles from Kevin Bacon. The same small-world network means that Geologists, Geographers and Atmoispheric Physicists are also going to be closely linked. Especially if they keep going to conferences on Global Warming. From this you can then allege your own conspiracy by linking people you don’t like into a network. In the meantime the Earth gets hotter.
Space biscuits and recognition for space archaeologyANiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown, the web’s premier site for tea, bisuits, cake and sit downs, has declared that Dr Space Junk is their favourite space archaeologist. An utterly and thoroughly deserved bit of recognition for someone who is the most exciting space archaeologist. If you haven’t you should look at the rest of the blog too. It’s one of these ideas that sounds bizarre, but makes more and more sense as you look into it.
Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek Re-Opens Troels Myrup brings the news that probably the finest Glyptotek in the world has re-opened along with a fantastic photo of Augustus and Livia.
Consent or Coercion? George Simmers writes on how soldiers in the Great War volunteers from their own beliefs rather than being manipulated into signing up. But how do you tackle conspiracy theories? A also looks at that by examining a contemporary conspiracy theory.
A Little Catalan History Chronicles of An Academic Groupie is another new blog to me. It’s interesting in its own right, but also leads onto other blogs including Our Great European Adventure, which is the blog of the academic rather than the groupie.
Seals Via A Blog Around The Clock and Thoughts from Kansas is another toy for creating official seals. Once again I regret not calling this blog Cras Faciam, as it looks like for a motto.
Gladiator 2 Via Provoking the Muse is news of another attempt to film a sequel to Gladiator. If it is called Gladiator 2 then I’d be willing to bet they use Roman Numerals. There’s no real details. I suppose another possibility would be that unwitting archaeologists on a distant island disturb a nest of Roman burials who then run amok in Gladiators. But I’m not sure Gladiators works as a title. I’d expect to see them all dressed in Lycra.
A little quiz fun Finally, Γλαυκο̂πις has discovered she’s the Oracle. I on the other hand am:
Prometheus
(33% Extroversion, 100% Intuition, 27% Emotiveness, 4% Perceptiveness)
You are most like Prometheus, and you probably knew that before you even took this test. You probably aren’t deliberately altruistic, but you still tend to do things that benefit everyone, even at great expense to your health and personal relationships. You aren’t ruled by your emotions, but you still have a strong sense of justice. You make good descisions, but they can sometimes backfire (and this isn’t due to a flaw in your reasoning, but due to faulty premises instead).
You are very reasonable, you understand systems, you can quickly pinpoint flaws and you know how to correct them. You pride understanding and knowledge above everything else, and your greatest fear is to appear to be incompetent. You tend to be contemptuous of authority, but you don’t accept leadership roles yourself until everyone else has demonstrated their own incompetence.
You’ve built a very specific skill set. You know exactly where your strengths and weaknesses are, and you pride yourself on this kind of self-knowledge. You distrust tradition, which you see as arbitrary, and you rely instead on your own judgements. You also pride yourself on your pragmatism. You’re also a very private person.
Most of all, people think you’re arrogant, but screw them! They’re the ones who benefit from your ideas and discoveries, and if they took the time to understand why it is that you say and think the things you do, they’d realize that you only appear arrogant because you are exactingly precise when it comes to your area of specification, and most of all because, when you don’t know something, you don’t have an opinion about it (unlike most of the loudmouths that you have to deal with on a day-to-day basis).
Relationships are your kryptonite. It isn’t that you don’t want them — in fact, you would very much like a very close relationship with someone who understands you. They’re just the one thing in the world that you’re naturally bad at.
Famous people like you: Niels Bohr, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Werner Heisenberg, Issac Newton, John Maynard Keynes, Erwin Schrodinger Stay Clear of: Apollo, Icarus, Hermes, Aphrodite Seek out: Atlas, The Oracle, Daedalus
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