Previous Links

 

The Caves of Lascaux - This is a wonderful and informative site put together by the characteristically technophilic French  government with absolutely no expense spared.  The fun flashlight effect at the start is just the beginning...  The site explains everything from the story of the discovery of the caves in 1940 to their necessary closing in 1963.

 

 

 

Mysteries of Çatalhöyük (aka Chatal Huyuk) - Here's another funky site (they use a slick and retro comic book theme) covering the renewed excavations at this famous early Neolithic site in Turkey that may be the world's oldest city.  You can learn about the latest discoveries via dozens of sub-pages.  If you have QuickTime VR, you can stroll about the site, too.  There is also the (mostly text only) official site for the current excavations of the Cambridge University team.

 

 

 

Why not go straight to the source for information on Stonehenge?  Here's a link to stonehenge.co.uk, the official site maintained by the British government that does its best to unravel the mysteries of this famous Neolithic site.

 

 

 

 

"Treasures from the Royal Tombs of Ur" Traveling Exhibit - This is the University of Pennsylvania's page on the Sumerian Treasures that stopped last year at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For those with a lot of time on their hands and a curiosity about what might have caused a Babylonian to lose his/her hand (or worse!), the complete text of the famous Law Code of Hammurabi is available here online...all 282 laws (in English, not cuneiform).

 

 

 

 

 

Write in Cuneiform! - Forget all those years in grad school studying the intricacies ancient alphabets in dusty libraries....just type in your name and see it (well, your initials, at least) appear as virtual reality Babylonian-era cuneiform on a virtual reality piece of clay.  Not to be outdone, the Egyptians are also represented at this same University of Pennsylvania site with this Write Your Name in Hieroglyphs page.

 

 

Here's more information on the legendary Rosetta Stone from the website of its current home, the British Museum in London.  It's been in Europe for two centuries now, but the Egyptian government is eager to discuss a different future for it.

 

 

 

 

 

PBS's Nova Online -- "Pyramids: The Inside Story" - This fun site accompanies the Nova special on the pyramids and allows you to interactively explore each pyramid at your own pace. You can also take a crack at deciphering some hieroglyphs.

 

 

 

 

The Giza site is far from done as far as excavations go.  As mentioned in class, a 4th Dynasty sarcophagus was found there this month, and it is still sealed.  Much, much older than the sarcophagus of King Tut, it probably belongs to an official in charge of the spectacular work force at this site during the age of the great Pyramids. 

 

Egyptian officials are very aware of the lack of space and the age of the display cases in the famed Egyptian Museum in Cairo, and there are plans to build a colossal modern museum to house all of this near the pyramids, to be called The Grand Egyptian Museum.  The jury process for deciding a proper design is in its first phase, as you can see on this official website.

 

The Theban Mapping Project - Dr. Kent Weeks' excellent site, and getting better all the time.  It is packed with detailed information on just about everything of interest on the West Bank of the Nile at Thebes, and also has funky new QuickTime VR stuff.  Et il y a maintenant une version en français!  Weeks is the fellow that recently discovered the extensive Tomb of the Sons of Ramesses II (also known as KV5), which is has its own section at this site.

 

 

 

 

Check out the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World  for an exhaustive tour of all seven sites, or what's left of them.

 

The PBS Nova folks also have an informative and entertaining site on Egyptian Obelisks, complete with a Shockwave game in which you can try to raise your little virtual obelisk. You may remember that they had a Nova show several years ago in which a team of modern experts and laborers tried to carve and erect an obelisk without success.  Well, they're at it again, and it looks like they did it this time, although we'll have to wait for the next installment for the full story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Phaistos Disk - See if you can help these scholars crack the code of this mysterious Minoan object.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click on this image to see a larger version of this hypothetical reconstruction of the Palace of Minos at Knossos in its heyday.

 

 

 

Here's a very imaginative 1950s illustration of what the Queen's Chamber of the Minoan Palace of Knossos might have looked like.  This is quite an odd picture, especially considering that the Snake Goddess figurines upon which these ladies are obviously based were never found at the Minoan palaces but rather in smaller residences. Like so many other hypothetical modern reconstructions, it tells us much more about the desires of the 20^th century men who did these illustrations than anything else. Note Evans' misplaced Blue Dolphin fresco at the upper left, too.

 

 

 

Read more on how dendrochronology (dating by counting the rings of living trees) is being used to suggest very exact dates for ancient sites.

 

 

Here's another image that's better than any that Stokstad currently has--a hypothetical reconstruction of a Mycenaean megaron, complete with all of those brightly painted details (click to enlarge).

 

The National Archaeological Museum of Athens is the current home of many of the objects that we have studied in Chapters Four and Five, although the bulk of the familiar ones are in the Prehistoric section (Cycladic, Minoan, Mycenaean).

 

 

 

 

World Monuments Fund -  The new list for the 100 Most Endangered Sites (actually 101 this year with the addition of Historic Lower Manhattan) is another unfortunate reminder that many of the sites covered in this class (especially the Valley of the Kings at Thebes, the Minoan Site of Palaikastro, and the French Gothic Cathedral at Beauvais) are in serious peril due to neglect, poor funding, environmental problems, and general lack of awareness.  Their biggest campaign recently was to save the famous colossal rock-cut Buddhist statues in Afghanistan in early 2001, but, despite worldwide outcry, the Taliban government destroyed them anyway in the most egregious example of iconoclasm in recent memory.  Happily, there is talk of rebuilding them now that the Taliban is gone.

 

 

 

Here's another piece that doesn't appear in your Stokstad text due to problems of provenance.  This is the "Getty Kouros," an important (and very expensive...maybe $9 million) 1983 purchase of the Getty Museum in Mailbu, California.  But, as even the Getty now acknowledges on its website, it may be a 20th century forgery.  Its doubters have long noted that it seems to be an odd pastiche of styles from throughout the 6th century BCE and that the letter of authenticity that accompanied it in 1983 has been dismissed as a forgery.

 

 

This is a very good site for a general overview of the very famous Parthenon on the Athenian Acropolis, complete with sections on the sculptural decoration and on the three orders of ancient Greek architecture, plus other nice tidbits and links.

 

 

 

 

 

The Parthenon Marbles - Despite the "International Day of Action" a few years ago to raise awareness of this issue, the surviving original sculpture from the Parthenon (aka the "Elgin Marbles") still reside safely in the British Museum.   Get involved with the controversy by reading the Greek government's official site dedicated to their prompt and safe return to Greece. Warning: This may require several hankies and result in the writing of several letters to the British Museum.

 

 

 

 

The skiagraphia qualities of Greek painting weren't favored by all Greeks.  In Book 10 of his Republic, Plato argues strongly (and convincingly?) against representational art in general.  Check out this link for an English translation of this chapter, and keep in mind that I plan to make this reading central to one of your take-home essay questions.

 

 

 

This is yet another site dedicated to the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.  In this case, you can click on an interactive map to take you to each site,  Of course, in the resiliency contest, it's still the Great Pyramid 1, All Others 0.

 

 

 

 

Pompeiian Forum Project - Here's a fine example of funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities going to a worthy cause.  See how the University of Virginia is using their endowment to learn more about this important and unique site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There are still a lot of things to be found around Mt. Vesuvius.  In fact, much of the ancient city of Herculaneum remains buried under the modern day town and will not be revealed in the forseeable future.  But, here's a recent story about some newly-discovered frescoes from the outskirts of Pompeii that have been unearthed and that seem to have come from a luxury hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Was he afriad?  It seems not...."   Here's a link to a letter by Pliny the Younger that describes the death of his famous and curious-to-the-end uncle, Pliny the Elder, during the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius on August 24, 79.  Note that Pliny the Younger's decision to stay at home and study wound up saving his life...make of that what you will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mt. Vesuvius - Here's all the technical data and history one could imagine regarding this tremendous and still quite dangerous volcano that brought Pompeii's life to a screeching halt over 1900 years ago.

 

 

 

Roman Art and Architecture - This is a nice little Roman image databank, provided by the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. Although you may find this a little slow to load, you can find many images via either a chronological breakdown or sorted by medium (architecture / sculpture / painting). No matter how you use it, this site should be helpful in the recognition and application of the many terms we are currently considering.

 

 

As promised, here's a site that has several reproductions of the famous "Mystery Cult" scenes from the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Perseus Project - Search Tufts University's wonderful databank of the ancient world for more detailed information on the sites and objects that we discuss.

Caesar Augustus' self-penned obituary, the relatively brief Res Gestae (a.k.a. the "Things Done" or "Deeds of the Divine Augustus") is another important ancient text that is available for free on the web in English translation at this site.  This will also be a necessary source for one of your take-home essay questions.

 

 

 

Here's a nice site that gives you a walk-through of Tiberius' sumptuous Villa Jovis on the awe-inspiring Island of Capri, as seen in class briefly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nero's tremendous Domus Aurea ("Golden House") in the heart of Rome is now open to visitors once again.  Read more about it at this official site.

 

 

 

 

Quandiu stabit coliseus, stabit et Roma; 
Quando cadit coliseus, cadet et Roma 
Quando cadet Roma, cadet et mundus. 

[While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand;

When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall

When Rome falls the world shall fall.]

-Bede, 8th century (listen to it!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nova's great "Secrets of Lost Empires" series included an episode in 1997 that tried to figure out exactly how the ancient Romans configured and manipulated the giant moveable canopy for the Colosseum in Rome.  The most substantial information within this site is in the "Questions and Answers" section.

 

 

 

 

This page from Expedia.com allows you to look around inside the Colosseum these days using 360° virtual reality technology.  This is nice, but it takes some time to download depending on your connection, and it apparently requires you to download the necessary 3D software from their site.  It is free, though, just like the Colosseum itself.  Note that Netscape users may have trouble using this...it seems much easier if using Microsoft Internet Explorer for some reason.

 

 

Here's a recent news item about the remains of what appears to have been a female gladiator in Roman England.

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft's Rise of Rome -There are several questionable statements made about the Romans in this page put together by Microsoft to advertise their Roman-based game...see if you can find them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's another Nova "Secrets of Lost Empires" page of relevance, this time their Roman Bath site, where you get lots of fun facts and images to help you appreciate what a day at the baths was like for a plebian Roman.  Go to the "A Day at the Baths" options for these details, although there's a lot of other stuff beyond that, including a discussion of Roman Recipes, where you can learn how to make your own tasty Lucanian Sausage.  Mmm-mmm!