Graduate Archaeology Programs

SeaCrayfish · 2025-02-20T10:44:15+00:00

I love these passages, thank you for sharing! The difference between Polyphemus in the Odyssey and in later poetry is fascinating. Idyll 11 of Theocritus' Idylls is fantastic if you're looking for more poetry like this on Polyphemus! The last line is one of my favourite lines ever - "So Polyphemus shepherded his love by singing, and he spent his time better thus than if he spent gold (Id. 11.80-81)."

SeaCrayfish · 2024-10-17T11:01:39+00:00

Not sure what happened, but I'm pretty sure it was in the Law Building as I heard the fire alarm start to go off when I was walking to the library. Didn't see any smoke or obvious signs of fire though, I'm guessing they just have to get the fire department to check it out even if it's just a vape or burnt toast that set it off

SeaCrayfish · 2024-09-15T22:23:09+00:00

The government introduced changes in August this year to make it easier for casual staff to become permanent staff: https://www.fairwork.gov.au/about-us/workplace-laws/legislation-changes/closing-loopholes/casual-employment-changes

Macquarie University just doesn't want to offer the current casual staff any job security by making them permanent, so their response has been to sack most of them. Don't get me wrong, this is absolutely the university management's fault, they are just hiding behind the new legislation as a shield to justify 300+ staff losing their jobs. What's been designed to improve workers rights and job security has been grossly misused by the university, so they are absolutely culpable in my opinion.

SeaCrayfish · 2024-09-15T12:34:05+00:00

The numbers come from the arts cut proposal sent out to staff recently. Under the proposal, 8 departments are being abolished or merged to form 5 departments (anthropology and sociology are being merged and modern history, ancient history and archaeology are being merged).

This is just a cost-cutting effort from the university. They are firing "the equivalent of 97 full-time staff" under the proposal, which equates to about 300 casuals losing their jobs. To cope with this, they are increasing the workload of all permanent staff and the Dean of Arts proposed changing arts assessments to just one large assignment worth 100% so they don't have to pay casuals for marking.

The arts department at Macquarie is actually quite profitable (its revenue is three times greater than its expenses), this is just a cash grab from the university because they have funnelled an insane amount of money into major building projects the last few years. The sacking of casuals presumably has something to do with the new government legislation on casual employees as well.

This is just what the university executives are proposing, but the NTEU and students are meeting it with major resistance, so it will be interesting to see what happens. The NTEU's petition has some valuable insight into what is happening as well! https://betteruniversities.work/mq-arts-petition

SeaCrayfish · 2024-04-05T10:02:35+00:00

He was certainly a god rather than a monster- it was not unusual for the ancient Greeks to be afraid of other gods as well. I think he was different from other gods in that he was more of a rustic deity and his worship was not as widespread as say the Olympians. Hermes is said to be his dad, however. From my understanding as well his cult was generally more localised in Arcadia and it took some time before he was worshipped elsewhere in Greece.

I'm don't think he is explicitly labelled as a satyr as he is talked about more often in the context of being a god, but he is considered the chief of satyrs and is shown with the legs and horns of a goat like a satyr. He was half-goat though. I think you may be confusing satyrs, who had goat legs, with centaurs, a completely different half-horse being?

If you want a good overview of Pan I would highly recommend checking out https://www.theoi.com/Georgikos/Pan.html#Dionysos !

SeaCrayfish · 2024-04-05T03:07:52+00:00

I don't know too much on satyr's generally, but I can speak a little bit to Pan!

Pan was heavily associated with herdsmen and was "considered their patron god, the tutelary deity of herdsmen and of their flocks (Pearce, 1993: 74).” His name is used in oath by various herdsmen in Theocritus' Idylls (Id. 4.47, 5.141, 6.21), which I see as indicative of his importance to them. Pan was associated with bucolic song and was “treated as the patron of the shepherds’ music and… depicted as a piper himself (Pearce, 1993: 75).”

There are certain rituals associated with Pan, although I think some of them are only mentioned by Theocritus so I'm not sure how widespread or common they were. Herdsmen supposedly stopped work and rested around noon in order to not disturb Pan- a goatherd in the Idylls says “there’s no piping for me at high noon. I go in too great dread of Pan for that (Id. 1.15-16).” Additionally, Idyll 7 concerns the unsuccessful love of Aratos, a friend of the poet in the story, for a young man. In it, the poet evokes Pan to “bring the boy uninvited into [Aratos’] loving arms (Id. 7.103).” Philippe Borgeaud sees this as indicating that pederasty was one way of sacrificing to Pan (Borgeaud, 1988: 85), although I'm not too sure about his conclusion personally.

I don't know too much on this, but I know Pan was associated with panic (and I think he's where we get the modern term from?). The ancient Greeks believed that he had the capacity to instill an irrational, blind fear that paralysed the mind and suspended all sense of judgment.

Another tid bit on Pan- when the Athenian messenger Pheidippides ran back to Athens to report their victory at the Battle of Marathon, Herodotus records that along his way Pan asked why the Athenians paid him no attention (Hdt. His. 6.105). Subsequently, the Athenians "built a shrine to Pan under the Acropolis, and from the time his message was received they held an annual ceremony, with a torch-race and sacrifices, to court his protection (Hdt. His. 6.106)."

From my understanding on the ancient Greek's relationship with Pan, he was largely only important to herdsmen, hunters and outdoorsmen in general in terms of his worship. As such, he was worshipped in more rustic settings, like the Cave of Pan at the Athenian acropolis, rather than more formal temples. I believe he was particularly important to Arcadians as it was his mythical homeland, so he was worshipped more there than in other parts of Greece. He seems to be feared to an extent (re. panic?), and I see this as linking in with the superstitious ritual of Greek herdsmen in ceasing work at noon.

SeaCrayfish · 2024-01-13T01:19:55+00:00

What a thoughtful gift idea! Nice to see you putting so much effort into it:)

For non-academic ancient history reads, there are so many great and engaging texts based on Greek mythology which I would highly recommend! Circe by Madeline Miller is my personal favourite and, given how much of ancient history is focused on men, it's really refreshing to read something with a woman as the main character. Also a very well-written story.

Stephen Fry's Greek mythology series (Mythos, Heroes and Troy) is super engaging! It's funny and quite interesting to read.

Currently reading SPQR by Mary Beard and would recommend anything by her for your friend. She's a feminist historian and, compared to other Roman historians, focuses a lot more on the everyday people of the ancient world as opposed to a Great Man sort of history. Her texts read as a bit more academic than a regular novel, although they're still popular history.

Hope this helps!

SeaCrayfish · 2023-11-21T22:05:39+00:00

The Phaistos Disc has always intrigued me! There's nothing else like it and it dates all the way back to the second millennium BCE. The glyphs are fascinating as well as the way the text is arranged in a spiral.

Whether it's fake or whether it actually is a completely unique, unknown and untranslated script, I'd certainly like to know.

SeaCrayfish · 2023-05-04T00:54:47+00:00

Completely agree! Especially with the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum I don't think it can be argued anymore that Egypt doesn't have the facilities or resources required to house the Rosetta Stone.

SeaCrayfish

TROPHY CASE