Love Is The Answer!

Apropos; of the last paragraph herethere is this discourse on Love by Aristophanes from Plato’s Symposium:

Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that of either Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you.

Gays in the Military: The Sacred Band Of Thebes

There is a big kerfluffle over repealing DADT. Republicans are against it, even though the military is for it. One is amused at the split in opinion between the two groups. At any rate, the Wall Street Journal is against it. Says Mackubin Ownes:

A Couple of Things That Make You Say “Cool!”

Building Rome in a Day from the University of Washington (Hat Tip to Past Thinking). The University of Washington describes the project this away:

The Parthenon and the Acropolis: A New Point of View

Well, it’s new to me anyway. Mostly, the Acropolis and Parthenon are viewed as stunning achievements of Greek art and architecture. Occasionally, Pericles is mentioned along with the propaganda aspects of the two structures. Bill Caraher, at The Archaeology of the Mediterranean World offers another take. The Acropolis and Parthenon as destroyers:

More News From The AAS Meetings: Fossil Fish Brain, Feathers, and Archimedes Does Infinity

From here which apparently covers a session on imaging techniques.

More On The Mt. Lykaion Excavations

I have written about this story previously and was wondering if anything new had been discovered. Turns out it has. According to Science Daily evidence of Zeus worship has been found dating back to the Late Helladic:

Interesting Science News: Mainly But Not Exclusively Anthropologically Related

Science Daily reports on an interesting new application of Radiocarbon dating:

From the end of World War II and up until about 1960, the superpowers of the Cold War era, conducted nuclear tests, detonating bombs into the atmosphere. These detonations have affected the content of radioactive trace materials in the air and created what scientists refer to as the C-14 bomb pulse. From the first nuclear detonation and, until the ban on nuclear testing was evoked, the quantity of C-14 in the atmosphere doubled. Since 1960, it has only slowly decreased to natural levels.
This sudden curve has left an impression in the food chain and therefore also in the lens crystallins of the eyes, which have absorbed the increased carbon content through food stuffs. Since the crystallins remain unchanged once they have been created, they reflect the content of C-14 present in the atmosphere at the time of their creation. An event occurring shortly after birth. Using a large nuclear accelerator, physicists at Aarhus University can now determine the amount of C-14 in as little as one milligram of lens tissue and thereby calculate the year of birth.

The research behind the article appears in PLoS ONE (A wag of the finger to Coturnix for not giving me a heads up on this). I haven’t read the PLoS paper yet so I won’t comment further.

Mt. Lykaion and the Worship of Zeus

I don’t know how I missed this, but National Geographic has an interesting article concerning archaeological excavations at Mt. Lykaion – one of the birthplaces of Zeus (the other being Mt. Ida in Crete, but we know what Epimenides thought of the Cretans). According to the article, excavations reveal that sacrifices took place at Mt. Lykaion a full 1,000 years before Zeus made an appearance:

A Greek Legend Bites the Dust

According to Yahoo News recent research near Mt. Taygete indicates that the Spartans did not, in point of fact, throw sickly or deformed children off a cliff:

More Interesting News From the World of Ancient Greece

Archaeologists working at Midea – in the Argolid have discovered an underground passage thought to be an emergency source of water for the Mycenaean citadel. The passage dates to around the mid 13th century B.C. From MSNBC: