This note outlines several features common to the reception of ancient ruins by the Christian populations of three countries, each located on a different continent. Most of the sites were and are strongly associated with the realm of the dead. Fear of misadventure or calamity typically inspired a respectful avoidance of such pre-Christian sites…[Read more]

The Connections between ancient approaches to rhetoric, as found in Plato and Aristotle, the prime ancient theorists of rhetoric, and modern linguistic approaches to register and genre theory, as in Hallidayan linguistics, show continuity of thought across the centuries. They also suggest that there may be such things as universal rhetorical…[Read more]

We develop and apply a deep learning-based computer vision pipeline to automatically identify crew members in archival photographic imagery taken on-board the International Space Station. Our approach is able to quickly tag thousands of images from public and private photo repositories without human supervision with high degrees of accuracy,…[Read more]

GERMAN: Waren die Götter Astronauten? Davon ist Erich von Däniken überzeugt. Der erfolgreiche Autor ist seit Jahrzehnten der einflussreichste Protagonist auf dem Gebiet der Paläo-SETI bzw. Prä-Astronautik, einer grenzwissenschaftlichen Laienforschung, die die Position vertritt, dass Außerirdische vor Urzeiten die Erde besucht und die Entwi…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

What was the significance of ancestors in the Hebrew Bible? The question is spurred by Kerry Sonia’s Caring for the Dead, which argues that the cult of dead kin was an accepted practice in the culture of the biblical writers. In building this thesis, Sonia resists an idea popular in scholarship that the Hebrew Bible promotes a negative view of r…[Read more]

Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

Feeding the dead was an accepted cultural practice in the world of biblical writers. It is circumscribed by cultic considerations in passages such as Deut 26:14, but there are no texts that prohibit the placing of food inside tombs. Thus, the biblical writers tacitly acknowledged the practice, though feeding the dead is never explicitly prescribed…[Read more]

A summary and contemporary application of the pedagogical handbook of Joseph Jouvancy, S.J. (1643-1719)

For a long time, metaphors have played an important role in depicting language history. In this study, we contrast early metaphors on language history, such as the family tree or the wave model, with recent metaphors that were popularized after the quantitative turn, such as forests of trees or phylogenetic networks. Speculating about metaphors…[Read more]

This article analyses orthographic variation in the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos. Despite the general consistency in spelling found in Linear B texts from all sites, variation was in certain cases both permissible and entirely normal, even within the work of a single writer. Examining the patterns of orthographic variation…[Read more]

This article analyses orthographic variation in the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos. Despite the general consistency in spelling found in Linear B texts from all sites, variation was in certain cases both permissible and entirely normal, even within the work of a single writer. Examining the patterns of orthographic variation…[Read more]

This article analyses orthographic variation in the Linear B tablets from the Mycenaean palace of Pylos. Despite the general consistency in spelling found in Linear B texts from all sites, variation was in certain cases both permissible and entirely normal, even within the work of a single writer. Examining the patterns of orthographic variation…[Read more]

The text on Nestor’s Cup (750-700 BCE) is not Greek as many claim but is actually Alphabetic Akkadian. Its three-line text is a debate about the cause of a drought. The first line blames the life network goddess Ayu and her eagle vultures while the second line blames emotion magic with its owls (like the Athenian owl). Alphabetic Akkadian was t…[Read more]

The text on Nestor’s Cup (750-700 BCE) is not Greek as many claim but is actually Alphabetic Akkadian. Its three-line text is a debate about the cause of a drought. The first line blames the life network goddess Ayu and her eagle vultures while the second line blames emotion magic with its owls (like the Athenian owl). Alphabetic Akkadian was t…[Read more]

The text on Nestor’s Cup (750-700 BCE) is not Greek as many claim but is actually Alphabetic Akkadian. Its three-line text is a debate about the cause of a drought. The first line blames the life network goddess Ayu and her eagle vultures while the second line blames emotion magic with its owls (like the Athenian owl). Alphabetic Akkadian was t…[Read more]

The text on Nestor’s Cup (750-700 BCE) is not Greek as many claim but is actually Alphabetic Akkadian. Its three-line text is a debate about the cause of a drought. The first line blames the life network goddess Ayu and her eagle vultures while the second line blames emotion magic with its owls (like the Athenian owl). Alphabetic Akkadian was t…[Read more]

The text on Nestor’s Cup (750-700 BCE) is not Greek as many claim but is actually Alphabetic Akkadian. Its three-line text is a debate about the cause of a drought. The first line blames the life network goddess Ayu and her eagle vultures while the second line blames emotion magic with its owls (like the Athenian owl). Alphabetic Akkadian was t…[Read more]

The chapter discusses recently developed computational techniques providing concrete help in addressing various tasks in historical language comparison, focusing specifically on those tasks which are typically subsumed under the framework of the comparative method. These include the proof of relationship, cognate and correspondence detection,…[Read more]

This graduate seminar approaches the urban and rural landscapes of peninsular Italy from the Early Iron Age until the Gothic Wars, with the goal being to examine key points of intersection (and departure) between the spheres of ‘town’ and ‘country’. In adopting an holistic approach to these categories that are often juxtaposed, the seminar…[Read more]