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Tuesday, September 29, 2009
“Ancient Greece: An Eleven-Cities Tour”
This lecture by the author of the forthcoming book, Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities, will focus on one of those eleven cities, namely Massilia (Marseilles), which was founded from Phocaea in Ionia about 600 B.C. Through Massilia, the grapevine and possibly also the olive (and their products) passed into France and thence to northwestern Europe and eventually the United States and the rest of the world. The foundation legends are entertaining in themselves, involving diplomatic marriages between Greek immigrant settlers and local Celtic women. Marseilles was both a major entrepôt for such astonishing artifacts as the Vix krater, as well as for the grapevine and possibly the olive; it was also the birthplace of the Greek Pytheas, who “discovered,” in late 4th century B.C., Dr Cartledge’s own homeland of Britain!
Professor Paul Cartledge
A.G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture, University of Cambridge, UK;
Hellenic Parliament Global Distinguished Professor in the Theory and
History of Democracy, New York University
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
“The Archimedes Palimpsest”
The Archimedes Palimpsest, a privately owned codex, is of extraordinary importance to the history of science, as it has been revealed to contain unique texts not only of Archimedes of Syracuse, but also of Hyperides, an Athenian orator from the fourth century b.c., and of Alexander of Aphrodisias on Aristotle’s categories. Dr. Noel will discuss both the history of the book and the history of the project, as well as the conservation, imaging, and scholarship applied to the Palimpsest.
Dr. William Noel
Curator of Manuscripts and Rare Books,
The Walters Art Museum