This chapter examines the ways in which the Linear B ‘extra’ signs – syllabograms which can in certain circumstances replace the ‘core’ signs of the Linear B syllabary – are often used as evidence for the process by which this writing system was created from its parent writing system, Linear A, and thus, by extension, for reconstructing aspects of…[Read more]

This chapter examines the ways in which the Linear B ‘extra’ signs – syllabograms which can in certain circumstances replace the ‘core’ signs of the Linear B syllabary – are often used as evidence for the process by which this writing system was created from its parent writing system, Linear A, and thus, by extension, for reconstructing aspects of…[Read more]

Due to the great interest for the first two sessions of the Digital Humanities Doctoral Seminar, we are very happy to announce two new online sessions on August 3rd & 4th and on September 3rd & 4th. This doctoral seminar is an introduction to Digital Humanities defined as the application of methods and tools from Information and Communication…[Read more]

In the winter of 476 A.D. the Ostrogoths, hungry and exhausted from wandering for months along the barren confines of the Byzantine Empire, wrote to Emperor Zeno in Constantinople requesting permission to enter the walled city of Epidaurum and just kinda crash and charge their phones. Closer to home, Orpheus walks Eurydice through a suburban…[Read more]

Scholars have long noted the deeply intertextual features of Simaetha’s monologue in Idyll 2, including its Homeric, Sapphic and tragic resonances. In this contribution, however, I focus on an underexplored connection between Theocritus’ speaker and the Odyssean Penelope. I first highlight the Idyll’s pervasive engagement with heroic epic, dwell…[Read more]

This essay explores how and why three early Christian figures–Epiphanius, Romanos the Melode, and Ambrosiaster–have, at various times, been imagined as former Jews. By applying a hermeneutics of conversion, this essay argues that the significance of these three Christians’ ex-Jewishness lies not in its historicity (or falsity) but in the way…[Read more]

A description and edition of a fragment of the early rabbinic work Sifre Numbers, miscatalogued as a different work, found in the university library, Wrocław.

Transport stirrup jars – so-called because of the shape formed by their handles and false neck – are a common type of Mycenaean pottery: used to transport and store liquid commodities, usually assumed to be olive oil, they are found throughout the central and eastern Mediterranean. A small sub-group of these carry painted inscriptions in the Lin…[Read more]

Review of the most recent edition of Linear B inscriptions painted onto transport stirrup jars.

It is often claimed that the mortuary traditions that appeared in lowland Britain in the fifth century AD are an expression of new forms of ethnic identity, based on the putative memorialisation of a ‘Germanic’ heritage. This article considers the empirical basis for this assertion and evaluates it in the light of previously proposed ethnic con…[Read more]

It is often claimed that the mortuary traditions that appeared in lowland Britain in the fifth century AD are an expression of new forms of ethnic identity, based on the putative memorialisation of a ‘Germanic’ heritage. This article considers the empirical basis for this assertion and evaluates it in the light of previously proposed ethnic con…[Read more]

This essay is an examination of Udjahorresnet’s Persian identity. Best known from the inscription on his naophorous statue now in the Vatican, Udjahorresnet was a high-ranking courtier in Egypt under the Saite pharaohs Amasis and Psamtik III, and subsequently under the Persian kings Cambyses and Darius. While his statue’s form, function and ins…[Read more]

This essay is an examination of Udjahorresnet’s Persian identity. Best known from the inscription on his naophorous statue now in the Vatican, Udjahorresnet was a high-ranking courtier in Egypt under the Saite pharaohs Amasis and Psamtik III, and subsequently under the Persian kings Cambyses and Darius. While his statue’s form, function and ins…[Read more]

This chapter explains the process by which the Linear B writing system was deciphered and shown to record a form of the Greek language, discussing the contributions of Emmett L Bennett, Alice E. Kober, Michael Ventris, and John Chadwick.

More than 60 years after Michael Ventris’ decipherment of Linear B, 14 of its syllabic signs remain ‘undeciphered’: despite many proposals to assign sound-values to these signs, none has yet been officially accepted. This paper is based on part of a study investigating new approaches to these undeciphered signs: as signs which cannot yet be read…[Read more]

This article re-examines the evidence for the value of the Linear B sign pu2, in particular its appearance in the term da-pu2-ri-to- ‘labyrinth’, and demonstrates that it stands specifically for the value /phu/ (contrary to the usual assumption that it represents both /phu/ and /bu/). It then discusses the further implications of this con…[Read more]

This is the accepted version of the paper; the published version is available at doi.org/10.1075/wll.00025.jud (or by contacting me). This paper investigates the issue of orthographic variation in the Linear B writing system in order to explore ways in which studying a writing system’s orthographic conventions may shed light on the history of i…[Read more]

Focusing on the use and abuse in the study of Byzantine archaeology and Urbanism of the idea of the “Invisible Cities” as introduced in literature by Italo Calvino, this article attempts to set a framework for understanding Byzantine cities within clear and scientifically defined analytical categories as part of a modernist agenda. At the same tim…[Read more]

A work-in-progress, this is an extended bibliography on Messene covering the period from 1831 and up to today. It includes the excavation reports and archaeological/historical publications of ancient and byzantine Messene in Messenia, SW Peloponnese. Please send via mail or message any corrections, suggestions and additions.

More than ten years have passed since the 2007 MLA Ad Hoc Committee of Foreign Languages report recommended structural and curricular change initiatives to counteract the growing crisis in postsecondary world language education. Almost a decade earlier, Heidi Byrnes had already expounded on the need to replace persistent bifurcated curricular…[Read more]