Corinthian Matters

A Resource for the Study of the Corinthia, Greece

Category: Mortuary

Joseph Rife’s Isthmia IX available in JSTOR

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IsthmiaIXSeveral years ago, the American School’s long-running series on the Corinth excavations was released via JSTOR allowing anyone with access to JSTOR to browse thousands of digitized pages of archaeological volumes from Corinth. I have been hoping that digitized works of the Isthmia series might someday be released via JSTOR as well. I don’t know of what plans are in place for that end, but I did see that Joseph Rife’s monumental work on skeletal material from the sanctuary is now available for digital consumption. To download or browse the digital edition, you will need access to JSTOR, of course. Here’s the link.

Corinthiaka at the AIA Meeting: New Orleans, January 2015

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One of the small benefits of not attending the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America next month is that I will not have to spend Christmas break frantically working on a paper that I was unable to complete during a busy semester. On the other hand, New Orleans in January should be fantastic, with pleasant weather that contrasts with the nightmare AIA in the Snow of Chicago 2014.

The conference website notes 150 archaeology sessions and 800 speakers—which doesn’t include papers of the parallel meeting of the Society for Classical Studies (formerly APA). As in years past, I’ll post the smattering of paper titles on Corinthiaka subjects, but first, I couldn’t resist another word cloud image of the AIA 2015 after playing around with SBL titles last month. This Wordle image is based on all the AIA paper titles stripped (or mostly stripped) of presenter titles, affiliations, institutions, and meaningless keywords. 

AIAWordle

The hit subjects this year are Mediterranean, the Roman period, and the State (I should probably have stripped Ancient and Age which are too generic to be useful). Conference attendees will hear much about – gasp – the traditional places of classical archaeology: Italy, Greece, Crete, Athens, Rome, and the Etruscans (Cyprus, Sicily, Turkey, Spain, and Israel remain secondary). The Roman period is most frequent, but Bronze Age and Classical topics follow close behind (note the smaller Hellenistic period – remarkable given its vast geographic scope – and the tiny Byzantine period that must appear in only a handful of papers). I am glad to see that the “public” makes a modest show and that “evidence” and “analysis” are so important, but the tiny “digital” is surprising given its prominence in the humanities disciplines.

The Corinthiaka papers from the Program include:

  • “Tombs, Burials, and Commemoration in Corinth’s Northern Cemetery”
    (Kathleen Warner Slane, University of Missouri)
  • “Isotopic Investigation of Late Antique Human Population Movement in
    Cemeteries from Corinth, Greece” (Larkin Kennedy, Texas A&M University)
  • “Reliefs from Early Roman Corinth” (Mary C. Sturgeon, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
  • “Corinth’s Economic Basis in the Eastern Adriatic during the Fifth – Second
    Century B.C.E.” (Jeffrey Royal, RPM Nautical Foundation/East Carolina University)
  • “The Ancient Corinth-South Stoa Roof Project: Previous Restoration and Conservation Treatments-New Approaches” (David Scahill, American School of Classical Studies at Athens, and Nicol Anastassatou, Corinth Excavations)
  • “Tegulae Mammatae in the Roman Baths at Isthmia” (Jon M. Frey, Michigan State University, and Timothy E. Gregory, Ohio State University)
  • “A Sixth Century Church in Corinth” (Paul D. Scotton, California State University, Long Beach)

See also:

Roman Tombs in Corinth: Caraher on Walbank on Slane

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If you’re a Corinthiaphile who doesn’t read Bill Caraher’s The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World blog, you should check in on it on occasion. Bill has one of the most successful and consistent blogs on ancient Mediterranean world on the interwebs. He has released insightful, smart, and humorous posts almost every day—minus weekends and holidays—since 2007. Bill is also an occasional contributor to Corinthian Matters through cross-posts from his own blog. Now, you’ll get a lot more than Mediterranean archaeology at his blog (he discusses everything from North Dakota Man-Camps to academic life to punk archaeology), but there’s also plenty of new material on Greece, Cyprus, and Corinthiaka specifically.

Some of his recent posts on the Corinthia, for example, include:

Monday’s post had one of the best opening paragraphs I’ve read:

One of the great things about working in and around Corinth is the intensity of the archaeological rivalries. Scholars in the Corinthia and endlessly “getting up in each other’s business.” Over the years this has produced some tremendously exciting, public disputes including the famous “Scotton on Rothaus on Scotton on Rothaus” debate of 2002. So, when an article has a title “A debate with K. W. Slane” and turns Slane’s 2012 article into a question, it is impossible as not to get excited (M.E.H. Walbank, “Remaining Roman in Death at Corinth: A Debate with Kathleen Slane,” Journal of Roman Archaeology 27 (2014), 403-417; K.W. Slane, “Remaining Roman in Death at an Eastern Colony,” JRA 25 (2012), 442-455) . This is like a classic Philadelphia Big 5 basketball game from the 1980s. The stakes are low, but the intensity is high.

I was attracted to the article no only because of the opportunity to get front row seats to a Corinthian showdown, but also because I’ve been thinking about how communities on Cyprus construct identities….

Caraher’s review of Walbank on Slane foregrounds a broad debate (in this case, regarding the interpretation of graves) about how early Roman elite of Corinth constructed identity in light of the complex history of the site: Roman destruction of the Greek city in 146 BC and its refoundation as a Roman colony in 44 BC. A generation or two ago, scholars debated whether the Roman colony reincarnated the previous Greek city, or represented a wholly Roman venture. Further studies have highlighted the complexities of continuity and discontinuity between the former Greek city and Roman colony, and also changes in the way elite constructed identity over time (the second century AD is significantly different than the early colony). This is complex matter. As Caraher sums up the debate,

Slane argues in her 2012 article that Corinthian elites showed a clear affinity for Roman forms suggesting that Early Roman Corinthians continued to look to Italy as they constructed their new Corinthian identities. Walbank suggests, in contrast, that Slane has misread or misunderstood the evidence and, instead, has found much more interleaving of Italian and broadly Greek features in these tombs. In many cases, the debate comes down to different interpretations of features like benches, motifs in wall painting, and funerary practices. The evidence is often ambiguous and fragmentary.

Read the rest of the review here.

Corinthian Scholarship Monthly (December-February). Part 1

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With the end of last semester, holidays, and deadlines, I fell a bit behind on the Corinthian Scholarship Monthly posts. Yesterday I started to dig out, sift through emails, and find the gems in the bunch. This will be the first of two posts on new scholarship that went live in December to February. I’ll try to get the second part of CSM Dec-Feb by the middle of the month.

And kudos to the google bots for doing such a good job. While we’ve been sleeping, playing, teaching, and resting, those bots have been working non-stop to bring all sorts of little nuggets to our network. As always, I’ve included a broader range of articles and essays that mention the Corinthia without focusing on the region — on the assumption that you will be as interested as I am in a broader Mediterranean context. There are also a few entries from past years that the bots have just brought to my attention.

You can find the full collection of articles and books related to Corinthian studies at the Corinthian Studies Zotero Page. The new entries are tagged according to basic categories. Version 2 of the library in RIS format is scheduled to be released by summer.

Finally, I am always looking for reviewers of articles or books listed in the CSM posts. If you can write and are qualified, drop me a line.

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Ambraseys, N. N. “Ottoman Archives and the Assessment of the Seismicity of Greece 1456–1833.” Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering 12, no. 1 (February 1, 2014): 5–43. doi:10.1007/s10518-013-9541-5.

Angeli Bernardini, Paola, ed. Corinto: luogo di azione e luogo di racconto : atti del convengo internazionale, Urbino, 23-25 settembre 2009. Pisa [etc.]: F. Serra, 2013.

Baika, Kalliopi. “The Topography of Shipshed Complexes and Naval Dockyards.” In Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by David Blackman and Boris Rankov, 185–209. Cambridge University Press, 2013. 

Balzat, Jean-Sébastien, and Benjamin W. Millis. “M. Antonius Aristocrates: Provincial Involvement with Roman Power in the Late 1st Century B.C.” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 82, no. 4 (December 2013): 651–672. doi:10.2972/hesperia.82.4.0651.

Blackman, David, and Boris Rankov. Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean. Cambridge University Press, 2013. 

Borbonus, Dorian. Columbarium Tombs and Collective Identity in Augustan Rome. Cambridge University Press, 2014. 

Boyle, A. J., ed. Seneca: Medea: Edited with Introduction, Translation, and Commentary. Oxford University Press, 2014.

Collins, John J., ed. The Oxford Handbook of Apocalyptic Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Docter, Roald, and Babette Bechtold. “Two Forgotten Amphorae from the Hamburg Excavations at Carthage (Cyprus, and the Iberian Peninsula) and Their Contexts.” Carthage Studies 5 (2011) (2013): 91–128.

Forbes, Hamish A. “Off-Site Scatters and the Manuring Hypothesis in Greek Survey Archaeology: An Ethnographic Approach.” Hesperia: The Journal of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens 82, no. 4 (December 2013): 551–594. doi:10.2972/hesperia.82.4.0551.

Frangoulidis, Stavros. “Reception of Strangers in Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: The Examples of Hypata and Cenchreae.” In A Companion to the Ancient Novel, edited by Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne, 275–287. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

Hall, Jonathan M. Artifact and Artifice: Classical Archaeology and the Ancient Historian. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. 

Hawthorn, Geoffrey. Thucydides on Politics: Back to the Present. Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Heil, Andreas, and Gregor Damschen, eds. Brill’s Companion to Seneca: Philosopher and Dramatist. Leiden: Brill, 2013. 

Hollander, William den. Josephus, the Emperors, and the City of Rome: From Hostage to Historian. Leiden: Brill, 2014. 

James, Paula. “Apuleius’ Metamorphoses: A Hybrid Text?” In A Companion to the Ancient Novel, edited by Edmund P. Cueva and Shannon N. Byrne, 317–329. Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2014.

Jeffreys, Elizabeth. “We Need to Talk about Byzantium: Or, Byzantium, Its Reception of the Classical World as Discussed in Current Scholarship, and Should Classicists Pay Attention?” Classical Receptions Journal 6, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 158–174. doi:10.1093/crj/clt032.

Kamen, Deborah. “Sale for the Purpose of Freedom: Slave-Prostitutes and Manumission in Ancient Greece.” The Classical Journal 109, no. 3 (March 2014): 281–307. doi:10.5184/classicalj.109.3.0281.

Kampbell, Sarah Marie. “The Economy of Conflict: How East Mediterranean Trade Adapted to Changing Rules, Allegiances and Demographics in the  10th – 12th Centuries AD.” PhD Thesis, Princeton University, 2014. 

Klapaki. “The Journey to Greece in the American and the Greek Modernist Literary Imagination: Henry Miller and George Seferis.” In Travel, Discovery, Transformation: Culture and Civilization, Volume 6, edited by Gabriel R. Ricci, 59–78. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014.

Kolluoğlu, Biray, and Meltem Toksöz, eds. Cities of the Mediterranean: From the Ottomans to the Present Day. I.B.Tauris, 2010. 

Korner, Ralph J. “Before ‘Church’: Political, Ethno-Religious, and Theological Implications of the Collective Designation of Pauline Christ Followers as Ekklēsiai.” PhD Thesis, McMaster University, 2014. 

Kreitzer, L.J. “Hadrian as Nero Redivivus: Some Supporting Evidence from Corinth.” In Judaea and Rome in Coins 65 BCE-135 CE: Papers Presented at the International Conference Hosted by Spink, 13th-14th September 2010, edited by David M Jacobson and Nikos Kokkinos, 229–242. London: Spink, 2012. 

Legarreta-Castillo, Felipe De Jesus. The Figure of Adam in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15: The New Creation and Its Ethical and Social Reconfigurations. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014.

Matz, Brian J. “Early Christian Philanthropy as a ‘Marketplace’ and the Moral Responsibility of Market Participants.” In Distant Markets, Distant Harms: Economic Complicity and Christian Ethics, edited by Daniel Finn, 115–145? New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Mitski, Efterpi. “Commodifying Antiquity in Mary Nisbet’s Journey to the Ottoman Empire.” In Travel, Discovery, Transformation: Culture and Civilization, Volume 6, edited by Gabriel R. Ricci, 45–58. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2014. 

Morhange, Christophe, Amos Salamon, Guénaelle Bony, Clément Flaux, Ehud Galili, Jean-Philippe Goiran, and Dov Zviely. “Geoarchaeology of Tsunamis and the Revival of Neo-Catastrophism in the Eastern Mediterranean.” Rome “La Sapienza” Studies on the Archaeology of Palestine & Transjordan 11 (2014): 61–81.

Ong, H. T. “Paul’s Personal Relation with Earliest Christianity: A Critical Survey.” Currents in Biblical Research 12, no. 2 (February 7, 2014): 146–172. doi:10.1177/1476993X12467114.

Pachis, Panayotis. “Data from Dead Minds?  Dream and Healing in the Isis / Sarapis Cult During the Graeco-Roman Age.” Journal of Cognitive Historiography 1, no. 1 (January 23, 2014): 52–71.

Pallis, Georgios. “Inscriptions on Middle Byzantine Marble Templon Screens.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 106, no. 2 (January 2013): 761–810. doi:10.1515/bz-2013-0026.

Polinskaya, Irene. A Local History of Greek Polytheism: Gods, People and the Land of Aigina, 800-400 BCE. Leiden: Brill, 2013. 

Priestley, Jessica. Herodotus and Hellenistic Culture: Literary Studies in the Reception of the Histories. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 

Punt, Jeremy. “Framing Human Dignity through Domination and Submission? Negotiating Borders and Loyalties (of Power) in the New Testament.” Scriptura 112 (2013): 1–17. doi:10.7833/112-0-82.

Rankov, Boris. “Slipping and Launching.” In Shipsheds of the Ancient Mediterranean, edited by David Blackman and Boris Rankov, 102–123. Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Reed, David Alan. “Paul on Marriage and Singleness:  Reading 1 Corinthians with the Augustan Marriage Laws.” PhD Thesis. University of St. Michael’s College, 2013. 

Saliari, Konstantina, and Erich Draganits. “Early Bronze Age Bone Tubes from the Aegean: Archaeological Context, Use and Distribution.” Archeometriai Műhely [Archaeometry Workshop] (2013): 179–192.

Shpuza, Ermanl. “Allometry in the Syntax of Street Networks: Evolution of Adriatic and Ionian Coastal Cities 1800–2010.” Environment and Planning B: Planning and Design (2014). doi:doi:10.1068/b39109.

Siek, Thomas James. “A Study in Paleo-Oncology: On the Identification of Neoplastic Disease in Archaeological Bone.” Master of Arts Thesis, University of Waterloo, 2014. 

Thein, Alexander. “Reflecting on Sulla’s Clemency.” Historia 63, no. 2 (April 1, 2014): 166–186.

Toffolo, Michael B., Alexander Fantalkin, Irene S. Lemos, Rainer C. S. Felsch, Wolf-Dietrich Niemeier, Guy D. R. Sanders, Israel Finkelstein, and Elisabetta Boaretto. “Towards an Absolute Chronology for the Aegean Iron Age: New Radiocarbon Dates from Lefkandi, Kalapodi and Corinth.” PLoS ONE 8, no. 12 (December 26, 2013): e83117. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0083117.

Waterfield, Robin. Taken at the Flood: The Roman Conquest of Greece. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

Williams, Drake, and H. H. “‘Imitate Me’: Interpreting Imitation In 1 Corinthians in Relation to Ignatius of Antioch.” Perichoresis 11, no. 1 (June 1, 2013): 77–95.

Wright, Christopher. The Gattilusio Lordships and the Aegean World 1355-1462. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Corinthian Scholarship Monthly (November 2013)

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Your latest round of new Corinthian scholarship published or posted online in the last month – just in time for the holiday season. Feel free to reply to this post if you have something to add. If you are interested and qualified to review any of the following, contact me at corinthianmatters@gmail.com.

For comprehensive bibliography related to the Corinthia, see this page and visit the Corinthia Library at Zotero.

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Archaic-Hellenistic

Roman

Late Roman

New Testament

Diachronic

Other

Two Recent Finds from the Corinthia

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The Googlebots are proving less reliable than they once were. Here are two news stories from the last week or so that I just learned about via FB. These should be of obvious interest to Roman history and archaeology folk.

First, another Roman chamber tomb has been found in Corinth. This tomb, like the Roman tomb found last year, comes from the plain north of the urban center which was always a principal area of burial for the Greek and Roman cities of Corinth.  Initial reports evidently suggest a slightly earlier date (1st-2nd AD or earlier) than the 3rd century tomb discovered last year. An excerpt from the article (“Roman chamber tomb found in Ancient Corinth”, Nov. 14, 2013) via the Archaeology News Network:

Measuring 3.30m by 2.63m., the tomb has been initially dated to between the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, but may be earlier. It was entered from the south through a staircase decorated on either side with two ceramic tiles in deep relief, one showing a quadriga (four-horse chariot), and the other depicting a chariot pulled by dolphins next to a sea creature.  Inside, there were vaults over niches where ash urns were placed, and three larnaces (terracotta coffins) containing bones, oil lamps, bronze coins and pottery shards. One of the coffins was painted to depict bed covers. The interior of the tomb also contained very well-preserved wall paintings, depicting garlants, fruit and three figures, two men and a woman.

The second news piece from the Greek Report is the discovery of an “Ancient Roman Villa and SPA Discovered by Archaeologists in Greece” (Nov. 12, 2013) near the neighborhood known as Katounistra in Loutraki on the western side of the Isthmus. Not sure where this is and what relation it has to another important Late Roman villa excavated by the Greek Archaeological Service in Katounistra in the 1990s.

Mycenaean necropolis discovered near Aigio

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Not in the Corinthia but close.

An archaeological team associated with the University of Udine has announced their discovery of a Mycenaean necropolis near Aigio, a town on the coast of the Corinthian Gulf about 50 miles west of Ancient Corinth.

You can read about the discovery here: Archeologia, l’Università di Udine scopre una necropoli micenea di 3.500 anni fa

Thanks to Tom Henderson for sending the link.

A New Roman Tomb in Corinth

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Construction activities across Corinth’s coastal plain and Isthmus  have frequently turned up spectacular remains of the city’s Greek and Roman past. Large-scale construction projects like the highways and rails especially have generated discoveries and led to salvage excavations. While salvage excavation employ methods that are not ideal, they do generate discoveries that end up in synthetic assessments of the Corinthia and contribute in aggregate to a greater knowledge of the city. Visit Wiseman’s Land of the Ancient (1978), for instance, and you’ll find numerous reports of sites found through construction projects in the territory.

In recent years, the construction of the high-speed railway and the new Corinth-Patras highway has cut through a number of amazing contexts. The construction of the high-speed railway nearly a decade ago led to the discovery of remarkable sarcophagi buried several meters deep in the soils immediately north of Ancient Corinth. The building of the new Patras-Corinth highway has likewise turned up interesting remains. A year ago July, Το Βήμα announced the discovery of the Archaic wall.  And Friday’s issue of Το Βήμα announced a new Roman tomb discovered in January during the construction of the same highway.

The underground chamber tomb is evidently dated to the 3rd century AD and measures about 2-1/2 meters in length and width. It has exceptional wall paintings with paints still preserved and two decorated sarcophagi. While one of the sarcophagi is not well preserved, the other contains a picture of a beautiful young woman lying on a bed. There are painted garlands, flowers, bows, and a peacock.

Κόρινθος: Κρυμμένη ομορφιά σε έναν τάφο

Interestingly, there are plans to transfer the tomb for display to the archaeological site of Corinth.

I am curious about the dating of the tomb – is this an argument from stylistic grounds? As the third century has been remembered as a pretty dismal time in the Mediterranean, this discovery would provide another glimmer of private investment and wealth.

Thanks to Vassiliki Pliatsika for posting this to the Corinthian Studies facebook group.

Isthmia IX now available

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I heard the good news this summer that Joseph Rife’s Isthmia IX: The Roman and Byzantine Graves and Human Remains, was finally available in published form.  The ASCSA website describes the work in these terms:

This study describes and interprets the graves and human remains of Roman and Byzantine date recovered by excavation between 1954 and 1976 in several locales around the Isthmian Sanctuary and the succeeding fortifications. This material provides important evidence for both death and life in the Greek countryside during the Late Roman to Early Byzantine periods. Examination of burial within the local settlement, comparative study of mortuary behavior, and analysis of skeletal morphology, ancient demography, oral health and paleopathology all contribute to a picture of the rural Corinthians over this transitional era as interactive, resilient and modestly innovative.

Andrew Reinhard, director of publications, recently interviewed Rife about his work. You can read the interview here and a sample of the work here. Looks like another major publication for the Corinthian countryside that should have significant consequences for how we understand the lives of the territory’s inhabitants. 

A Corinthian Pyxis Podcast

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At the start of a new semester at Messiah College, I have been looking for ways to make my lectures in the History of Western Civilization I a little more dynamic.  For example, I have spiced up old lectures about premodern economies by assigning all my students particular statuses (peasant, wealthy peasant, artisan, and elite) for the semester.  In lecturing earlier this week on hoplite warfare in the Archaic age, I made several of those wealthier peasants demonstrate a hoplite phalanx formation with some home-made weapons and panoply (too bad no photos).  I have also been incorporating short video clips of Greece like tours of tholos tombs.  These breaks from lecturing have made the classes a little more dynamic and interesting. 

In searching on the keywords “Archaic Greece,” I stumbled upon this Corinthian pyxis podcast below (in two parts).  The podcast is part of the SCARABsolutions Ancient Art Podcasts series founded and hosted by Lucas Livingston, an assistant director in the Museum Education Department at The Art Institute of Chicago.  These are interesting and polished clips which, in the words on the website,

Uncover the truths and unravel the mysteries of the civilizations that shaped our modern world. Each episode features detailed examinations of exemplary works from the Art Institute of Chicago and other notable collections in addition to broad themes and concepts of Ancient Mediterranean art and culture.

The Corinthian Pyxis podcast is a little over 11 minutes long in two parts.