Corinthian Matters

Category: Sites, Canal

  • Dramatic Dog Rescue on the Isthmus

    It doesn’t get much more dramatic than a rescue of a little dog stuck on the walls of the Corinth canal.  Here we have a video of a trapped dog, rappelling firemen, interviews with the owners, interviews with the dog, and comments from the rescue squad.  The story has a happy ending.  As the owner…

  • Corinthian Scholarship (February)

    Here’s the latest in Corinthian-related scholarship published, presented, or released online in February.  These 13 articles, books, and studies represent about 7% of ca 175 studies that triggered Google Scholar alerts last month.  There are many, many “false positives” that have little to do with ancient or medieval Corinth, or make only passing and insignificant…

  • Corinth Canal

    Photos by David Pettegrew and Kate Pettegrew on July 1, 2007.  Low walls visible in the second photo, bungee jumper in third, climbing holes for workers in fourth.

  • Touring the Corinth Canal

    As my next installment in this canal-themed week, I include below three of my favorite video tours of the Corinth Canal.  Each provides great glimpses of geological stratification, the remnants of low walls that are mostly eroding into the water, the rail and auto bridges,  the rise and fall of elevation, and the vegetation growing…

  • The Crazy Project – Canal Istanbul

    Last spring Turkish news agencies covered  reports and rumors about a new canal proposed somewhere in the vicinity of Istanbul that would connect the Black Sea with the Sea of Marmara.  The reports referred to the speech made by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in late April as part of his reelection as Prime Minister of Turkey. …

  • Glider Flights over the Isthmus

    The revolution of YouTube and video sharing has ushered in a whole new world of viewing the Corinthia.  Already hundreds of videos can be found online related to the site of ancient Corinth—too many, in fact, to be useful to a person interested in ancient Corinth.  I plan at some point to do a series…

  • Corinthian Scholarship (November)

    Hard to believe that December is already here – quite a lot of new scholarship delivered electronically in November.  Bronze Age Erika Weiberg, “The invisible dead : The case of the Argolid and Corinthia during the Early Bronze Age,” in Helen Cavanagh, William Cavanagh and James Roy (eds.), Honouring the Dead in the Peloponnese: Proceedings…

  • Corinthiaka

    Some varied Corinthiaka to start off the week. The western liturgical calendar flipped this weekend with the first Sunday of Advent.  Yesterday’s epistle reading from 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 appropriate describes the anticipation accentuated in the advent season.  More on scholars and students of the New Testament setting the scene for understanding Paul’s Corinthian letters.  Mark…

  • Beachrock

    “Beachrock” at the western entrance to the Corinth canal, covering the loading platform of the diolkos road.  The authors of the Lechaion tsunami theory (discussed yesterday) have suggested this rock represents “calcified tsunamigenic deposit” caused by a tsunami sometime after the first century AD (Hadler et al. 2011, p. 72).  The beachrock runs 300 m…

  • Antiquities in the Trash

    Earlier this week, Facebook friends were circulating and commenting on an article in the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini about the ruin of Greek monuments and sites.  In the critical essay, “Greece’s Debt Mirrors Crisis in Cultural Assets,” A. Craig Copetas argues that Greece’s inability to protect and preserve its most important antiquities not only reflects current…