Macquarie Ancient Languages School – Winter Session

Hello Followers, The Macquarie Ancient Languages School Winter Session is now enrolling for 1-5 July 2013. These intensive courses are open to anyone and everyone, public and students, of all ages and backgrounds. I usually teach the Greek courses but will be in Turkey this year. They are still running though in other capable hands while I am away.

For the Winter school program you can download it here. Along with the application details. Travel subsidies are available for those coming from further away, we help cater for both national and international attendees.

The bible written in Aramaic. (Photo credit: Arnasia)

For all enquiries you can contact:

Jon Dalrymple
Ancient Cultures Research Centre
Department of Ancient History
Macquarie University NSW 2109
Telephone: (02) 9850 9962
Fax: (02) 9850 9001
Email: mals@mq.edu.au 

The Macquarie Ancient Languages School, an initiative of the Ancient History Documentary Research Centre, has been running since 1981, offering courses in a wide variety of languages associated with Ancient History and Biblical Studies. Held over two weeks in January and one week in July, the School has branched out from its beginnings in Classical Greek to include classes in Koine Greek, Latin, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Classical Hebrew, Coptic, Akkadian, Sanskrit and a range of other ancient languages. Some are offered at each school, others on a rotational basis, for example, Aramaic,  Hieratic and Old Norse.

There are also opportunities to participate in hands-on courses, working with papyri, inscriptions and coins from the collections in the Museum of Ancient Cultures. New courses are incorporated into the programme on a regular basis. Recent additions include the Linear B Tablets, Latin Inscriptions, the Vindolanda Tablets, and Latin Vulgate Psalms.  There are also introductory courses on various topics  – for example, Etruscan, Cuneiform and Celtic Languages.

• Are you looking for a challenge in 2013?
• Perhaps you are considering enrolling in a degree programme and would like to include an ancient language?
• Taking part in a Macquarie Ancient Languages School is a great way to ‘test the water’, prior to enrolling in an accredited unit.

Classes in Classical Greek, Koine/New Testament Greek, Classical Hebrew and Egyptian Hieroglyphs are offered at three levels, ranging from Beginners (requiring no prior knowledge) to Advanced level, reading from selected texts.

Classes in other ancient languages are conducted at the Beginners level in January, with follow-on classes in July, subject to student demand.  Examples of languages offered in the past include Coptic, Akkadian, Aramaic, Sanskrit, Syriac, Hittite and Sumerian, and more recently, Demotic and Hieratic.

Classes are open to people of all ages (from 16 years) and are suitable for:

• intending students of Greek and other ancient languages in tertiary institutions and theological colleges, and those interested in learning to read the New Testament in Greek
• secondary teachers and students of Ancient History
• those interested in learning more about their heritage, for example, those with Celtic, Greek or Italian ancestry
• those with a general interest in language
• those interested in English literature, in European civilisation, in drama, philosophy, theology, in the ancient world generally, and in the many fields in which ancient literature and thought have been for centuries a powerful influence.

Teaching is in small tutorial groups meeting either in the mornings or afternoons. The timetable is planned to allow students to enrol in more than one subject – for example, a morning class in Classical Hebrew might be followed by a practical session on Greek Papyri in the afternoon. The timing of both Summer and Winter Schools is designed around the Macquarie University calendar, making it possible for currently enrolled students to attend.  For those considering an ancient language as part of their degree, such a course is an ideal introduction to the subject, prior to enrolling in an accredited unit.  Similarly, both Schools take place in NSW school holidays, so that secondary school students and teachers may attend.

Many of our students come back year after year, not only to enjoy the contact with other like-minded students, but also to brush up on their Greek or other ancient languages, and to continue their fascination with the worlds opened up by the language and literature of these ancient cultures.  Their continued attendance is testimony to the enthusiasm generated by the Macquarie Ancient Languages School over the past three decades.

Women in the Ancient Record: A Brief Discussion of Ideas

George Eliot wrote that ‘the happiest women…have no history’; such a philosophy embodies that for women in the ancient world there is a great lack of communication from women themselves.  So to what extent is the historian thwarted by this lack of communication?

One of the biggest problems facing the historian of women in the ancient world is that there are very few sources that are written by women themselves; there is a general lack of communication.  So is it possible to trace their history even without their own sources? Gould describes women in the ancient world as a muted group, made inarticulate by the lack of a language in which to communicate their particular sense of society and its relationship to the totality of experience.  While other academics believe that the history of women can be interpreted through numerous sources contributed by males, such as tragedies and comedies, this lack of communication that Gould alludes to leading to a great sense of ignorance about women appears to be far more realistic.  After all, Pericles stated, according to Thucydides, that the greatest glory of a woman is to be least talked about by men.  If this was the general accepted train of thought in the ancient periods then is seems likely that historians of women are only presented with evidence about women in unusual circumstances.

The lack of communication from women themselves leaves the historian faced with the vast amount of evidence which is presented by male figures.  This in itself creates further issues for the historian.  Gould explains that the material is derived from the male portion of society and from a male world.  As Ben Jonson asserts ‘women are men’s shadows.’  This thwarted the historian as the majority of evidence for women in basically all ancient societies comes from a male perspective and is written for a primarily male audience.  It is often argued, for instance by Gomme, that we do in essence have a women’s voice; this though is more so seen as a mirage.  Through such texts we see the men’s perspective only; such as how Pomeroy explains that the beliefs of a patriarchal society maintained that men are born to rule, and women to obey.  This presents a great challenge for the historian to work out what in these texts allude to the truth and what are the result of male thought and opinion.

Despite the general lack of communication by women, especially in Greece and Rome, there are a few examples of women’s voice which can be used by the historian to help interpret the lives of women.  In Egypt, a large number of papyri have been uncovered over the last few centuries which include private letters and diaries written by or for women.  These papyri have proven prime sources for the lives of women especially in the later eras and illustrate that while the historian is thwarted by a lack of communication there are exceptions to the rule.  These papyri are from women of Greek as well as Roman and Egyptian culture in Egypt.  However, compared to the vast amount of evidence detailing women written by males, this group of evidence is particularly small in comparison and so historians have often in the past overlooked this information as they have the archaeology relating to women.

The historian in light of a lack of sources by women is also prone to oversimplification, antagonism and ambivalence when interpreting the lives of ancient women.  Gould discusses this in relation especially to the works of Gomme and his attempts to evaluate women through Greek Tragedy.  He assesses that the historian of faces problems in methodology and are prone to a definite oversimplification.  Gomme says there is nothing remarkable, for instance, about the position of women in Athens except perhaps the special honour paid to them.  While Gould thinks that Gomme’s conclusion is a simplistic fantasy.  As the historian is faced with using evidence that only presents certain sides or opinions of women, it is a fair assertion that they settle for oversimplifying or makes assumptions based on the evidence that they do have, without taking into account other possibilities and assessing how much their conclusions are influenced by the male ordered society from which they have gathered evidence.

The historian also faces problems in relation to the evidence which is available to them in light of women’s lack of communication.  Many scholars believe that in imaginative literature of classical Athens we have what seems to be a highly articulate and prominent, not marginal, presentation of women, and their role in society.  Pomeroy and Gould though again agree that this is a mirage of women’s voice.  In light of this a constant effort of thought and imagination is required by the historian to remember that the words of a Lysistrata or a Medea, for example, are in fact a product of the imagination of men and addressed to men, as S.Ardener perceives.  Pomeroy explains that different investigators have drawn on quite different, indeed mutually exclusive, categories of evidence to support their case; including myth and imaginative literature and orations of the fourth century and inscriptions.  Each category presents problems in itself and historians must be aware of counter examples and the danger of making assumptions. For instance, Le Gall on the proof of female heritage makes assumptions on the basis on only a few pieces of evidence and overlooks the one piece of text that does actually does make his conclusions plausible which is presented in Glotz-Cohen.

The biggest way that the lack of communication by women seems to thwart the historian of women in the ancient world is that the historian often gives in to the danger of deducing things that lack cogency.  There is a characteristic marked tendency to demonstrably false assertion. For instance, Gomme and the question of seclusion in relation to fifth century tragedy concludes that women had freedom to come and go on stage and hence did so in reality; ie. Ismene does not censure Antigone for appearing outside the gynaikonitis.  Gomme’s assertion ignores a fair number of counter-examples from tragedy itself such as in Euripides’ Electra, where her husband criticises her for talking to strange men outside the house.  Pomeroy asserts that the question of seclusion and social status on women in both Greece and the Roman Empire is part of a larger dispute concerning the appropriate source of evidence for women’s life.  A number of scholars find relations between women in myth and tragedy and real women, from these theories they deduce that real women were neither secluded nor repressed.  Pomeroy explains that these theories lack cogency like many other theories concerning women, in this case due primarily to the fact that scenes in tragedy are usually outdoors and the female characters could scarcely interact or be portrayed if they had kept indoors.

Like all historians, the historians of women in the ancient world face bias and issues of interpretation which are exacerbated by the lack of female written texts and the reliance on a male centred ideology concerning women.  Pomeroy explains that for a start there is a great tendency to focus on only a small group of women in societies; an emphasis on the upper classes as well as a tendency to focus on famous women.  The papyri before mentioned in Egypt tell us something about more ordinary women but as discusses, they are not used as frequently as they should be over other male sources.  Cicero and Pliny highlight women in the Roman period through their knowledge of women in their classes but it must be remembered that yet again these were women belonging to the wealthy or intellectually elite groups of society.  As Dixon discusses, there are few sources for the lower tiers of the social pyramid in relation to females.  In danger of being too general one sees hat scholars do not give equal weight to all sources and in recent centuries there has even been a broad range of scholarly opinion based on the treatment of women as an undifferentiated mass which blurs the interpretations. In short there is a tendency for the modern ideologies to impress on the ancient.

The historian of women in the ancient world in very thwarted by the lack of communication from women themselves.  The lack of sources makes it difficult to interpret and understand the lives of women in all Greece, Roman and Egyptian society and though there are a few sources by women they are often overlooked in favour of those more available and more defined which are written by men.  In attempting to interpret women in light of this, the historian is in danger of deducing things with a lack of cogency as well as oversimplifying and submitting to objective arguments created by bias and modern opinions.  In a male world there is a mirage of women’s voice but hardly do they really have a voice of their own, by this the historian is greatly thwarted in their studies of women in the ancient world.

Related articles

• Women in Roman Religious Life (graecomuse.wordpress.com)
• Greek Women Classical to Hellenistic: A Brief Discussion of Changing Factors (graecomuse.wordpress.com)
• Priestess: Handmaids of Gods (hedgeconfessions.com)
• Recreating the Vestal Hairstyle (rogueclassicism.com)

Graecomuse and Parkinson’s Disease

Hello again to all my dear followers! This post is kind of a follow up to my post on the Parkinson’s Disease in Ancient History. It is all very well looking at the past but we must also look to the future.

I would love for some of you to take the five minutes to read the below information and/or visit my fundraising page just to raise a little more awareness about Parkinson’s Disease.

Fellow Parkinson’s Fundraiser Misty!

Parkinson’s Disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system resulting in decreased motor skills due to the death of dopamine-generating cells. Symptoms include tremors and rigidity, gait, slowness in movement, cognitive issues, sensory and emotional issues, sleep problems and depression. With over 80,000 people in Australia living with Parkinson’s, it is almost certain that you know someone affected by it.

The Role Reversal

There is unfortunately a limited awareness of Parkinson’s Disease in modern society. If you would like to find out more about Parkinson’s for yourself, family or friends, then please go to http://www.parkinsons.org.au/ which provides information, support, helplines and ways you can help.

It’s only in the last while, with the likes of celebrities such as Michael J Fox, Mohammed Ali and the last Pope being affected, that it is finally getting some coverage.

Join Team Fox

There is no cure for Parkinson’s disease, but there are effective treatment and therapyoptions that can help manage symptoms, so people with Parkinson’s disease can continue to enjoy many years of independent and productive lives.

Related articles

• Mathematician develops vocal method of testing for Parkinson’s disease (medicalxpress.com)
• Researchers identify role of FOXO1 gene in Parkinson’s disease (medicalxpress.com)
• Sleep disorder has ‘big links’ to Parkinson’s disease (time4sleep.co.uk)
• Freezing Parkinson’s in its tracks (sciencedaily.com)
• Sleep May Ease Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease (nlm.nih.gov)
• Scientists discover genetic switch that turns off ‘incurable’ Parkinson’s (scotsman.com)
• A ‘moving day’ for those with Parkinson’s disease (kansascity.com)
• Wisconsin Native Bikes to St. Louis for Parkinson’s Fundraiser (fox2now.com)
• Parkinson’s Disease Patient Tells Personal Story to Benefit PD Research; Donates Book Proceeds to PD Charities (prweb.com)
• Huntsville runner with Parkinson’s disease to run in marathon (al.com)

To Pass Knowledge on to the Younger Generations

I swear that the scariest audience when presenting is kids. They ask odd questions and seem to know a lot more than you realise. In a way they are rather like academics which makes them good practice. Last week I spread my wings a bit and took archaeology to a special education school at the university. It was eye-opening and the feedback heart lifting so I thought I’d share it with you while showing why it is important to teach the newer generations about history and archaeology.

These kids suffer from a range of severe learning and behavioural disabilities and yet seem to have a wish to learn like no other. Some university students could learn from them.

Here is the evidence to make one smile (complete with spelling mistakes):

“On Tuesday an archaeologist named Dr. J [came to visit]. She showed us some of the preveos artefacts she found. Dr J told us about Pompeii in Italy and now it is an archaeologist wonderland. Dr J named all of her diging tools. My faverote is the trowel.”

“Yesterday J came for a visit. We looked at some artefacts. We looked at the pictures in the white board. J had been to many countries. J told us about Italy, Greece and Egypt. She used a trowel, brush, spade and a shovel. I liked her visit.”

“On Tuesday Dr J came to our school. She told us about Greece, Egypt and Italy. J told us about the olden day toilet. She showed us some tools that she used for digging. She showed us a trowel, a brush and a leaf trowel. It was fun.”

Seeing the enthusiasm on the faces of these kids reminds me why it is important to teach them about new and exciting things. They will struggle more than any other students and yet so many of them want to be there. By showing them some of the fantastic things in this world they can aspire to continue learning despite their disadvantages. I’m no primary school teacher, but I’d happily go back and talk to kids because not only are they interested in what I’m talking about, they remember it and take it in.

An “archaeologist wonderland” was came up by the kid herself by the way. That’s pretty cool! And to remember something as obscure as a leaf trowel. I’m impressed!

So spread the word fellow historians and archaeologists! If you get a chance to talk to children, take it because they might be our successors one day and it really is fun.

Back to the Future: The Significance of Studying Ancient History

When someone asks me what I am researching at university I admit that sometimes I am not all that keen on answering with ‘ancient history’. It’s not because I have any problem with it, I love ancient history in all respects and it will never cease to interest me, but I do know that often people do not understand why one studies it. It doesn’t earn much money for a start. And money has never interested me but to many in today’s society it is unfortunately the be all and end all. So being questioned about a ‘strange’ and ‘illogical’ career choice can be rather trying. Even though there is hardly a point arguing with some people about why ancient history is important in the grand scheme of things I think it is important to know at least personally that IT IS significant to the world. Ok so yes I’m never going to be a millionaire but I’m doing something I enjoy, not stuck in a repetitive job where I want to jump out the window to escape the monotony,  and I am contributing to the world whether you think so or not.

So how does ancient history contribute to human knowledge, progression and the future? Well the common answer is that it lets us recognise the mistakes of the past so that we won’t repeat them in the future. To a point this is true but it can also be argued against as history does not always repeat itself as we are told and nothing ever happens in a straight line. So when this argument is made of ancient history it is likely less substantial than for modern history where we are still being more directly affected by past actions. Ancient history does though allow us to understand where we have come from and why we are here and hence shows us how the shaping of the future by the ancients may be related to the shaping of our own future.

Beyond this sentiment of avoiding mistakes there are numerous substantial ways that the study of ancient history does contribute to the modern day, if you argue otherwise then I suggest you get back in your cubicle and continue with the number crunching. Firstly, the study of ancient history contributes to our cultural understanding and intellectual development. If we don’t know where we come from and the trials and tribulations which faced our forebears how can we understand ourselves? The study of history on any level can potentially help to define our own identities. I know that if I didn’t know about my culture I wouldn’t be the person I am today. If Australia didn’t know about its past what would there be for them to celebrate or avoid in its future. History builds who we are and by furthering our understanding of our past we better understand ourselves. It may seem a little abstract to say the business man of the day but one cannot deny that understanding oneself is vital to the progression of humanity otherwise how could we better ourselves as a species?!

On a scientific level, history is again vital to progression. If we understand origins then we can better understand things that face us today. For instance, the origins of diseases that are embedded within history allow scientists to track the progression of the disease. In doing so they may be able to work out cause and/or cure. New evidence from mummies in Egypt of cancer is providing new information for scientists as to the progression of the disease over a larger temporal scale. Now I certainly think that that is significant! History is intertwined with hundreds of other areas that could not so easily progress without it, such as medical knowledge, sociology, psychology, social structure, health and safety, linguistics, forensics, construction, planning, the list goes on and on. After all those who study ancient history and archaeology are trained in analysis which can be put to use in basically any area. Would it surprise you to learn that I as an archaeologist am qualified to contribute to numerous scientific areas including surveying, forensics, computing and construction?

In addition to being able to explain certain modern situations, the study of history is essential to the progression of the human race. Understanding the past, for instance, gives us comfort because we are not the first people to experience things and we can see the potential of the future. A person moving to the other side of the world is comforted and enabled by the fact that hundreds of people have done it before them. A company sees potential in the future because of what people have achieved prior.

Studying history in itself is a tradition and one with a firm base, it is vital to the progression of humanity personally and on a wider stage, but above all it fulfills a moral obligation to our ancestors. It allows cultures to continue with an understanding of where they came from and a respect for their heritage. And it provides a better and wiser comprehension of things that have been passed down to us. We don’t need to argue with people that ancient history is important to the progression of humanity because to an independent mind it should be obvious! And stuff being a millionaire! I’ll take being a historian any day because as I often say, it is never dull when done right. *Indiana Jones Theme Tune*So let the research continue…

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