Greek Materials Research Articles

Скандинавские петроглифы бронзового века в свете ритуала, связанного с переходом от зимы к лету

The article attempts the interpretation of one of the image types of the Scandinavian rock carvings of the Bronze Age, namely, a Φ-like anthropomorphic figure on a ship. Based on the consideration of the images themselves, as well as their comparison with the ritual aspects of traditional European, in particular Swedish, seasonal festivals, on the one hand, and with Greek materials close in time, on the other hand, one can reliably conclude that the Φ-like figures of the Scandinavian rock carvings refer to a deity that ensures the arrival of the best half of the year.

Zama and the Politics of Contamination: from Di Benedetto’s Novel to Martel’s Film

This article examines Lucrecia Martel’s Zama (2017) and her transposition from Antonio Di Benedetto’s book (1956) of the same name. I argue that Martel’s film is able to “de-visualise” the mobility and visuality of Di Benedetto’s text by pushing his elusive images towards higher levels of cinematic abstraction. More broadly, I claim that the film Zama is exemplary of what Martel calls “contamination” – that is, a term the ancient Romans employed to incorporate and transform previous Greek materials into their own cultural texts, which stands here as the filmmaker’s method in rearranging the novel. In this way, the process of de-visualisation which I borrow from Jacques Rancière’s work will be played out in relation to Martel’s politics of script adaptation and her re-imagination of the literary Zama.

Simples on the Trees or Medicines on the Table? A Synopsis of Galenic Pharmacology in MS Bodleian Huntington 600

The manuscript Oxford Bodleian Huntington 600 contains two Galenic summaries – On the method of healing and On simple drugs – that share the same structure: short introduction, tree-diagrams (tašğīr) and a table (ğadwal). This chapter focusses on the summary of On simple drugs, discussing its composition and the way in which the materia medica is displayed and explained. The relation between this summary and the original Greek materials, along with their selection, is another crucial issued raised by this Arabic summary. This study also offers an edition and English translation of the introduction and other relevant passages, along with the section including the tree diagrams.

“Transporting the notes:” urbanization and westernization in the music of the northeastern Aegean islands in the nineteenth and the twentieth century

ABSTRACTThe music of the North Aegean Sea Islands between Europe and Asia has undoubtedly been influenced by neighbouring cultures. The syncretic melding of disparate strands has also formed an indigenous, cosmopolitan cultural identity in the North Aegean Sea islands, comprising Lesbos, Limnos, Ai Stratis, Chios, Oinousses, Psara, Samos, Ikaria and Fourni. Identity emerges from mythical and historical events, including indigenous Greek, Oriental and Western ethnic materials of continental and island origins. Adopting an interdisciplinary methodology crossing historical ethnomusicology and musicology, cultural anthropology and the sociology of music, this paper presents results of ethnographic research into music and dance. It explores identity formation from the late nineteenth century to the present. It focuses on changes in musical practices, performance, education, repertoire and lifestyle. Centralizing policies emanating from Athens combined with social and technological changes mark transitions from local to European, from eastern to western style, providing a context for urbanization and westernization.

Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader ed. by Karen H. Jobes

Reviewed by: Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader ed. by Karen H. Jobes Larry Perkins karen h. jobes (ed.), Discovering the Septuagint: A Guided Reader (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2016). Pp. 351. $39.99. As senior editor, Karen H. Jobes has worked with nine former students and teaching assistants to produce a "guided reader" to the Septuagint for individuals who possess "proficiency in New Testament Greek." She has provided a useful tool to assist those interested in the Greek OT to find their initial way into this complex body of Hellenistic Jewish texts. [End Page 521] The contributors provide lexical and grammatical notes, as well as limited explanations where interference from a Hebrew Vorlage may have influenced a translator's choices. Annotated readings include portions of Greek Genesis and Exodus; the complete texts of Ruth, Jonah, and Malachi; selected Psalms; and portions of Hosea and Isaiah. In addition, segments from four of the six additions to Greek Esther are included, the only selections representing compositional Greek materials in the Septuagint. The various commentators note where NT writers incorporated quotations from the texts presented. For each selection the respective translation from A New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS) is provided. Jobes aims to introduce people to the Greek OT as people in the first century C.E. who had no access to the respective Hebrew texts would have encountered and understood it. In this respect the volume engages the Greek OT in its reception history. This is an important feature of the Septuagint's reality, yet individuals using this reader have no easy way to compare the Septuagint translation with a presumed Hebrew Vorlage to evaluate the Septuagint text as produced by the translator. Consequently, they cannot fully appreciate the decisions that the original translators faced in rendering their Hebrew texts. Moreover, it is difficult for readers to appreciate the translation "strategies" adopted by the respective translators. Some comments made regarding significant differences between the presumed Hebrew text and resultant translation lack context because the reader has little sense of the translation technique employed by the original translator. It is probably too much to expect that readers will also have proficiency in Hebrew, but it might be possible to use a modern English translation such as the NRSV, which tends to reflect Hebrew structure, as a means of encouraging readers to make comparisons. Otherwise, this dimension of the Septuagint's reality will not be appreciated. Generally, the volume is well produced, but occasional lapses occur. For example, on p. 152 there is no English translation provided for Esth 1:1s (1:1). The diaeresis is missing for πρόϊμος (Hos 6:3, pp. 219-20). Occasionally a relative clause is referred to as a "phrase" (Jonah 3:2, p. 249). Sometimes one looks for explanation but does not find it. For example, in Jonah 1:16 the sailors fear τὸν κύριον greatly, but nothing is said about why in this case the translator twice uses an article with κύριος, given its absence in v. 14 and 2:1. Perhaps it would be helpful to identify this as an anaphoric usage, given that pagan sailors are responding religiously to Yhwh. Sometimes the observations raise more questions. For example, the commentator at Ps 33:5 explains the choice of paroikiōn (παροικιῶν) as a modification made by the translator "to contextualize the translation for his audience" (p. 189). Perhaps, but the translator may have thought the nominal form was a derivative of the verbal root gûr I in his Hebrew text, referring in some way to living in a foreign country (see LXX Ps 54:15 [55:16]; LXX 118:54 [119:54]). The claim is made in the introduction (p. 11) that "the Septuagint is valuable for sketching the history of the Hebrew text during an era that is much earlier than any extant manuscripts." Given the challenges we have in dating when specific portions of the Hebrew Scriptures were translated, however, it is quite possible that we possess extant Hebrew texts roughly contemporaneous with several of the translations, for example, Isaiah. These are minor issues in an otherwise useful volume. [End Page 522] Larry Perkins 6296 189A Street, Surrey, BC V3S8S3, Canada Copyright © 2019 The...

The Greek Text of Revelation in Late Antique Egypt: Materials, Texts, and Social History

Abstract The Book of Revelation has been something of an outlier within parts of the Christian tradition, as evidenced, among other things, by its peculiar canonical reception. As regards the earliest period of transmission, however, the Greek text of Revelation is relatively well attested. In this vein, the present study seeks to examine the relevant Greek materials from late antique Egypt, and thus elucidate the earliest textual and material transmission of this book. The manuscripts in question will be surveyed with a particular focus on their distinctive features such as book formats and scribal practices, as well as textual characteristics, followed by reflections on their socio-historical significance.

El estudio de los marcadores del discurso en griego antiguo: problemas y perspectivas

El marcador discursivo es un concepto de gran vitalidad en la lingüística moderna y este artículo aboga por la inclusión del griego antiguo en el debate e investigación sobre estas unidades. Se trata, además, de un concepto más amplio que el tradicional de partícula, cuya aplicación a la lingüística griega puede arrojar luz sobre la naturaleza y funcionamiento de esta, así como de otros fenómenos discursivos. Con ese propósito, se abordan aquí algunos de los problemas categoriales de la clase de los marcadores (en cuanto a su forma, sintaxis, semántica, etc.) y se contextualizan en la casuística particular del griego antiguo. Por último, se ofrece un resumen de las principales líneas de investigación que están en marcha.

ROMAN LAW AND THE TWO LANGUAGES IN JUSTINIAN'S EMPIRE

Abstract This paper, reflecting Fergus Millar's work on linguistic and cultural diversity in the Roman empire, surveys the evolving relationship of Latin and Greek as languages for Roman law. Normative texts remained predominantly Latin until the completion of Justinian's codification (534), even though that was a genuinely bilingual product. However, following the already existing pattern in the Greek east, a vast corpus of Greek materials was then quickly created to teach the codification in the official law schools. Designed to aid engagement with the source-texts, these ended up superseding them. Roman legal Greek, a mixture of Latin terminology plus standardized Greek vocabulary, became stabilized. After 534, new legislation was most often in Greek, necessitating parallel Latin materials to help Latin-speaking students, although sixth-century collections of Novels (‘new laws’) were still bilingual. In practice, however, in most of Justinian's empire, a lawyer (such as Dioscorus of Aphrodito) could function with limited Latin. Soon Roman law would bifurcate into two monolingual traditions, Greek in the east, Latin in the west.

On analgesic and narcotic plants: Pliny and his Greek sources, the history of a complex graft.

Grafting is an important concept in the study of Pliny the Elder, who is a compiler of written sources. We intend to examine how this grafting works in Pliny's discussion of analgesic and narcotic plants, especially the most famous: opium poppy, henbane, mandrake, and hound's berry. We will study Pliny's use of Greek sources and ask how he took up his predecessors' works while integrating the changes that took place during the centuries in the diagnosis and treatment of pain. This cultural graft remains elusive because we do not have access to all of Pliny's Greek sources. When Pliny speaks about these plants, he sometimes copies out information, adding or removing details, and occasionally makes significant mistakes. The graft was particularly difficult in this case because these analgesic plants were considered so special and poisonous that they were sometimes rejected or even condemned. Nevertheless, we can say that this cultural graft succeeded, despite some obstacles, because Pliny assimilated and adapted these old Greek materials to his own time, society, and project.

What is the matter in a polytheist America?

Traditionally there has been a great divide between those practitioners of comparative religion who work on discrete and identifiably religious traditions (such as Confucianism, Judaism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, etc.) and those who work on identifying aspects of ‘religious’ life that often go unnoticed because they are less traditional and therefore less recognizable as religion. There has also long been a predisposition not to view Greek materials as religious, and thus to secularize one form of thriving polytheism about which we know a great deal. Combining those two methodological insights in a study of contemporary North American religious life, Gary Laderman offers a fresh look at what I will call the ‘practical polytheism’ of modern US society, one that examines cultural arenas as diverse as sport, music, celebrity, sexuality and death in a riveting analysis of current spiritual trends in a more multicultural North America.

What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing (review)

Reviewed by: What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing Sir Geoffrey Lloyd Paul U. Unschuld. What Is Medicine? Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. xiv + 236 pp. Ill. $60.00 (cloth, 978-0-520-25765-8), $24.95 (paperbound, 978-0-520-25766-5). Paul Unschuld is well known as a specialist in Chinese medicine, on which he has written a series of important studies. Three of the most remarkable (all from the University of California Press) are Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (1985), Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics (1986)—both containing useful collections of source materials—and his monograph on one of the two chief recensions of the Chinese medical classic, Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen (2003). His latest book, What Is Medicine?, is claimed by the publisher to be the first comparative history of two millennia of Western and Chinese medicine from their beginnings to "present advances in sciences like molecular biology and in Western adaptations of traditional Chinese medicine." Clearly the task set is formidable. How well is it executed? The principal thesis advanced relates to Unschuld's contrast between healing and medicine. The latter is here defined as depending on the recognition of the laws of nature. The further claim is that both in Greece and in China the breakthrough to medicine from (mere) healing was accomplished largely under the stimulus of new sociopolitical conditions, the need to find order in the chaos of political circumstances. Unschuld is confident enough in his reconstruction of the political events (such as the unification of China under Qin Shi Huang Di) that led up to what he considers the breakthrough from healing to medicine in China. But in general he is less sure of himself when dealing with Greek materials, where he claims (surprisingly, to my mind) that the background to the development of science and medicine in Greece is less well documented than for China and where he is sometimes misled by some of his (mostly German) sources into errors, repeating, for example, the view that Galen was the first to distinguish the nerves, when that had been achieved centuries before by Herophilus. But in both cases he sees the notions of law and order, developed in the sociopolitical domain, as a key stimulus to the emergence of the idea of laws of nature in medicine. Even this brief sketch reveals the highly positivist character of. Unschuld's discussion. While there are several strong features of the study, notably the range of materials brought into consideration and the recognition of the heterogeneity of traditions of healing in both civilizations, and not just in ancient times, the study suffers from severe shortcomings, the most fundamental of which is easily stated. The very idea that the notion of laws of nature can be found in antiquity is highly controversial (to say the least), and I side with those who protest that to attribute such a notion to ancient Greeks or to ancient Chinese is anachronistic and seriously misleading. Both ancient Greek and ancient Chinese writers acknowledge—as do writers in other ancient societies, especially Mesopotamia—regularities in certain phenomena, especially but not exclusively in the heavens, but that does not justify ascribing any notion of laws of nature to either. So far as the Greeks are concerned, Aristotle has nature cover events that happen "always or for the most part," an idea that is incompatible with that of an exceptionless, universal [End Page 517] law, unless one is prepared to commit the further anachronism of attributing a concept of statistical probability to him. So far as the Chinese are concerned, they do not even have a single term that covers precisely what "nature" does in English, or phusis in ancient Greek, as indeed Unschuld recognizes in the case of the concept of tian, whose primary connotation is "heaven," though that does not persuade him to modify his overall thesis. The answer this book offers to the question posed by the title is, then, unduly narrow. Unschuld discounts more or less everything we have learned from medical anthropology on the grounds that that deals with no more than...

Research Opportunities in the Modern Greek Collection in the Classics Library at the University of Cincinnati

From its inception in the early 1930s, the Modern Greek Collection in the University of Cincinnati's John Miller Burnam Classical Library has been a vital resource for the study of Hellenism as a continuum from prehistory to the present. While the Modern Greek Collection focuses on Byzantium and modern Greece, the Library's Classics Collection is a major international research resource in the area of Classical Studies. Whether from its use by University of Cincinnati faculty and students or visiting scholars or through broader sharing of its resources by way of OhioLINK or interlibrary loan, the Classics Library encourages access to its resources to further the study of Hellenism internationally. Taken as a whole, the Classics Library's Greek materials serve as a particularly rich resource for research in any aspect of Greek studies. However, collection development and management issues for Greek publications must be addressed to ensure that this collection continues to be a major resource in the field.

Greek Sculpture, Function, Materials, and Techniques in the Archaic and Classical Periods ed. by Olga Palagia (review)

Greek Sculpture, Function, Materials, and Techniques in the Archaic and Classical Periods ed. by Olga Palagia (review)

The Buddhist Dimension of John

AbstractMany features of the Fourth Gospel have hitherto found no source and commentators are confined to imagination. Meanwhile Buddhists' use of Greek, Roman and Jewish materials is established. It turns out, from a close examination of twelve instances, that Buddhist traditions, found in Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna sources, contemporary in essence with St John, offered the latter an opportunity to make his gospel attractive to contemporary targets of Buddhist missions, groups for whom Moses was not a commanding figure. Buddhists would recognise Jesus, already known from "synoptic" or para-synoptic materials, as a Bodhisattva, now a Buddha, who like Gautama promised a Paraclete, strongly resembling Maitreya in character and function.

A Menorah for Athena: Charles Reznikoff and the Jewish Dilemmas of Objectivist Poetry (review)

University of Chicago Press, 2001. 193 pp. $46.00. Stephen Fredman demonstrates that for Charles Reznikoff (1894-1976), a paradigmatic modernist poet and first-generation Jewish American of Eastern European (Russian) origins, Hellenism represented a site of desire, an approachable but untouchable reservoir of symbolic capital, something beautiful, like Keats's urn, but encased in museum glass. However much he tried to access Greek culture through his intellectual labors, Reznikoff continually felt he could observe it only from the marginalized perspective of an ethnic outsider. Reznikoff's anxiety emerged over his relationship to Hellenism in poems from the 1920s. In poetry, he addresses the issue of his access to symbolic value. His poems express his wish to prove his worth to the Protestant gatekeepers of the academy at places such as Harvard, where young Jewish intellectuals from the Menorah Society helped found the Menorah Journal (1915-62), a highly influential journal that crucial contributions to the negotiations between Judaism and the emergent cultural modernism (p. 7). The Menorah Journal was an early forum for Reznikoff's work (p. 7). By emphasizing a Jewish poet's relationship to Greek literature, Fredman in A Menorah for Athena makes an important contribution to our evolving sense of how modern literature can be interpreted through the lens of ethnicity. He shows that Reznikoff was, like H. D. [Hilda Doolittle] and Pound, fascinated with Greek poetry, but that his relationship to the material differed from theirs even if The Greek Anthology informed Reznikoff's objectivist style. H. D. and Pound interpreted the Greek texts as examples of a purely aesthetic model from which to build a new kind of poetry -- verbal concision, formal density and suppleness, and eschewal of subjective effusions -- , as a way to inform their Imagist goals (p. 2). H. D. and Pound, in other words, adhered to Matthew Arnold's influential association of Hellenism with aestheticism, and Hebraism with a Puritanical strain of English culture that privileged right doing at the expense of a celebration of beauty for its own sake. For Reznikoff, the Greek materials registered what Fredman calls his liminal position between cultures (p. 2): Placing himself in a symbolic position of betweenness -- between Hebraism and Hellenism, between Judaism and modernism,...Reznikoff joins not only the other Objectivist poets but also an entire generation of American Jewish intellectuals. Sensing an opportunity to overcome a two-thousand-year history of marginalization, these Jews are hungry to enter the mainstream of American culture. The most ready route that presents itself involves refiguring the authoritative dichotomy between Hebraism and Hellenism in such a way that it supports rather than impedes their entry. (p. 7) Reznikoff held a law degree from New York University, worked as a script analyst for a major film producer in Hollywood, and was an influential poet and chronicler of American legal history and of the places where Jews had made an impact on colonial American life such as in Charleston, South Carolina. …

Thesauros Neoellenikon Ainigmaton (review)

Reviewed by: Thêsauros Neoellênikôn Ainigmatôn William Hansen Thêsauros Neoellênikôn Ainigmatôn. By Chrysoula Chatzêtakê-Kapsômenou. (Êrakleio: Panepistêmiakes Ekdoseis Krêtês, 2000. Pp. ii + 704, preface, bibliography, tables, glossary.) Thêsauros Neoellênikôn Ainigmatôn, (Treasury of Modern Greek Riddles), is the first large-scale collection of modern Greek riddles. For this purpose Chrysoula Chatzêtakê-Kapsômenou gleans thousands of riddle texts from collections scattered in periodicals and diverse publications of a local character, resulting in an impressive corpus of some 6,500 riddle texts, which she organizes according to their answers, totaling nearly 800 in all. For example, No. 367 is Melissa, or Bee, for which the author prints four texts along with cross-references to other riddles. Each text is followed by a reference to the published work in which it is found, as well as the name of the locality where it was collected. Riddles on obscene subjects are included. At the end of the work Chatzêtakê-Kapsômenou adds a glossary of the many unusual words that appear in the riddle texts, some of them being lexical items from dialects, others being words that are not in use in any dialect but were invented for the purpose of riddling. The author introduces this compilation with an extensive discussion of the riddle as a folkloric genre, with special attention to the nature and character of the modern Greek riddle, discussing such topics as the scholarly and folk terms for the riddle in Greece, the problem of defining the riddle as a genre, the circumstances and nature of riddle performance, introductory and closing formulas, the tradition bearers, the history of riddle research, and analyses of the Greek materials according to structure, content, form, function, and so on. She includes helpful tables covering such matters as local terms for riddles and riddling, the themes of the Greek riddle, and the localities from which the texts come. [End Page 506] William Hansen Indiana University, Bloomington Copyright © 2001 American Folklore Society

NEW ARCHAEOINTENSITY RESULTS FROM GREEK MATERIALS*

This paper reports palaeointensity results from Greek materials from EC and AD periods, recently obtained in the Sofia palaeomagnetic laboratory. The classical Thellier method was applied and of 26 specimens studied 20 gave acceptable results. The paper aims to compare the newly obtained results with previously published ones from Greece and neighbouring territories relating to the same period of time. The trend of palaeointensity obtained for the period 2900–1700 BC coincides well with the Bulgarian intensity variation curve, while the younger period, 1900–1200 BC, needs further investigation because of the contradictory results obtained by different authors. It is also established that the bricks from the church of Agios Ioannis are earlier than the date of the building's construction and are reused.

Bioavailability assessments of granular calcined magnesites derived from magnesite rocks and of magnesium hydroxide powder in sheep

Granular calcined magnesites originating from Spain, China and Greece and magnesium hydroxide powder were evaluated in a series of balance experiments conducted with wether sheep (c. 42 kg liveweight) given a basal ration of dried grass at Glasgow University Veterinary School between 1989 and 1994. Four Spanish ‘Agma’ products and three Spanish ‘Navarras’ products contained less material (0–104 g/kg)>1000 μm diameter than four Chinese and four Greek materials 178–483 g/kg). The Spanish products had lower (18–45 g/kg) losses on ignition compared with the Chinese and Greek materials (53–112 g/kg). A fifth Greek product contained only 4 g/kg>1000 μm diameter. In three experiments comparing supplementation of the basal diet with 2·0 g Mg as either magnesium hydroxide or as one of the three separate purchases of the commercial calcined magnesite sources, the powdered magnesium hydroxide had the highest mean apparent availability coefficient (0·30) (faecal increase method). The corresponding values were 0·24 (Agma and Navarras), 0·20 (Chinese) and 0·15 (Greek) (pooled s.e. 0·014, d.f. 10). Powdered magnesium hydroxide also had the highest (0·18) mean availability coefficient (urinary increase method) compared with 0·12 (Agma), 0·13 (Navarras), 0·14 (Chinese), 0·10 (Greek) (pooled s.e. 0·005, d.f. 10). In two subsequent experiments, Agma had a superior apparent availability coefficient (0·26) (faecal method) than either the Chinese (0·14) or the Greek materials (0·19). A finer grade of Greek calcined magnesite (0·25) was equivalent to Agma. For the 12 calcined magnesites evaluated in the three main experiments, significant (P<0·05) correlations (r) were found between the magnesium availability coefficient (faecal method) and loss on ignition (−0·65); particle size proportions (<250 μm, 0·59; and >1000 μm, −0·65) and tended towards significance for rumen solubility in 24 μm nylon bags in hay-fed cows over two days (r=0·54, P=0·07) and rate of reaction with citric acid (0·57, P=0·055). No correlations were found with magnesium availability coefficients (urinary increase method). This confirms the limitations of both in vitro predictions and in vivo (faecal) estimates of magnesium availability for different calcined magnesites. The mean magnesium availability coefficient (faeces) of the 17 calcined magnesites was 0·21 (s.d. 0·05). If this were to be confirmed by other observations, it would have implications for the amounts of dietary calcined magnesite required to meet recommended dietary magnesium allowances for ruminants.

The Syriac Version of the Wisdom of Ben Sira Compared to the Greek and Hebrew Materials

The Syriac Version of the Wisdom of Ben Sira Compared to the Greek and Hebrew Materials

近代オリンピックの形成におよぼした"ギリシャオリンピック"の影響に関する研究

Greek people celebrated their own Olympic Games after independence from Turkey. It was in 1859 that they celebfated the first Olympic Games at Athens. They also celebrated it in 1870,75 and 89. And they held Panhellenic Games in 1891 and 93. Most of the historians have ignored the importance of these Greek Olympics. They have said that Greek Olympics had been local festivals and nothing to report. They misunderstood the truth, because thirty thousand people came to the stadium to watch the revival of the Olympic Games in 1870. It was not a local festival. Most of the historians did not investigate the Greek historical reports and materials, and they could not find the truth. It was D. Young that found the importance of Greek Olympics with the Greek historical materials. The author of this paper has also investigated some Greek materials, especially Chrisafis' book "Modern international Olympic Games (1930, Athens)". The following conclusions were derived; 1) Greek Olympics were held as a revival of the ancient Olympic Games. 2) The experience of these Greek Olympics made the first modern Olympic Games successful. 3) Coubertin knew the Greek Olympics, but did not recognize the importance. 4) Greek people insisted that Olympic Games should be held in Gree forever, because they had celebrated the Greek Olympic Games at Athens. 5) Greek people much contributed the revival of the modern Olympic Games as a result.