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TTC VIDEO Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome by John R Hale Torrent

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TTC VIDEO - Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome by John R. Hale


URL: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=3340



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Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome
(36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)
Course No. 3340
Taught by John R. Hale
University of Louisville
Ph.D., University of Cambridge


On October 22, 1738, an engineer in the army of the Bourbon royal family in Naples had himself lowered down a well shaft to begin the first systematic study of an ancient wonder just then coming to light: the astonishingly intact ruins of the Roman city of Herculaneum, buried in the eruption of Vesuvius almost 1,700 years earlier. This trip down a well not only marks the beginning of Classical archaeology but also the birth of archaeology itself.

Ever since, Classical archaeology—the excavation and analysis of ancient Greek and Roman sites—has been one of the leading branches of archaeology, pioneering its basic methods and major innovations, and also uncovering many of the field\'s most spectacular finds, including:

* Troy: In 1871, the German entrepreneur Heinrich Schliemann confirmed the long-forgotten site of ancient Troy in northwest Turkey, based on astute detective work by a resident English diplomat. Schliemann\'s sensational discoveries at this and at other Bronze Age sites made him the most famous archaeologist of his day.
* Athenian Agora: Since 1931, the American School of Classical Studies in Athens has been excavating the civic heart of ancient Athens—the Agora—which witnessed the trial of Socrates and other momentous events. Buildings and artifacts discovered here give an unsurpassed picture of life in a major city of Classical Greece.
* Torre de Palma: In 1947, plowmen working a field in southern Portugal chanced on the base of a Roman column, which turned out to be sitting on a mosaic floor. Archaeologists eventually uncovered an entire Roman country estate, equipped for complete self-sufficiency in the uncertain times of the later Roman Empire.
* Cape Gelidonya Shipwreck: In 1960, American archaeologist George Bass forged the techniques for systematic underwater archaeology by excavating a rich Bronze Age cargo ship off southern Turkey, discovering a hoard of artifacts and the largest stockpile of ingots ever recovered from the period of the Trojan War.


Sleuth and Storyteller

In these 36 half-hour lectures, archaeologist John R. Hale of the University of Louisville guides you through dozens of ancient sites with the skill of a born storyteller. Dr. Hale mixes the exotic adventures, unexpected insights, and abiding mysteries of archaeology\'s fabled history with anecdotes of his own extensive field experience to create an extremely fast-paced narrative that unfolds like a series of detective stories.

The detective metaphor is particularly apt because archaeologists approach their work like sleuths at a crime scene, using a range of tools, techniques, and technologies to piece together clues that paint a vivid portrait of life during the formative era of Western civilization.

For example, in Lecture 18, Dr. Hale recounts his own search with geologist Jelle de Boer for the secret behind the ecstatic trances of the Oracle of Delphi—a project celebrated in the recent book The Oracle: The Lost Secrets and Hidden Message of Ancient Delphi by Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter William J. Broad of The New York Times. Dr. Hale and Dr. de Boer used traditional archaeological techniques, combined with geological mapping and chemical analysis of rock and water samples, to solve the mystery of the priestess\'s famous altered states.

Dr. Hale\'s other research includes a long-running position as field director for the University of Louisville\'s excavations at Torre de Palma, and he is a participant in the search for sunken ships from the armada that attacked Greece during the Persian Wars, as recounted by the ancient Greek historian Herodotus. The winner of many classroom teaching awards, Dr. Hale has also lectured widely beyond the university, bringing archaeological discoveries to the general public.


What You Will Learn

Dr. Hale divides the course into three parts, each approaching Classical archaeology from a different, complementary perspective:

Part I: Creating a Science of the Past (Lectures 1–12) traces the origin of archaeology in the enthusiasm surrounding the 18th-century excavations at Herculaneum and Pompeii, followed by the spectacular growth of the field into a mature science. These 12 lectures focus on methods, tools, technologies, and how archaeologists evaluate evidence and solve problems.

Part II: An Archaeologist\'s Casebook (Lectures 13–24) tours a dozen important archaeological sites or discoveries, from the Bronze Age to late antiquity. Six deal with sites in Greece or in Greek waters. Five feature sites in Rome or its provinces. One lecture involves a mystery as to origin—concerning a pair of bronze statues found off the coast of southern Italy. Were they produced in a Roman workshop, or did they come from Greece? Only clever archaeological sleuthing can say for sure.

Part III: A View from the Trenches (Lectures 25–36) takes a thematic approach, exploring what archaeology has contributed to knowledge of ancient diet, entertainment, engineering, slavery, religion, the role of women, and other topics. Two lectures also investigate what archaeology has to say about a pair of big-picture controversies: What are the roots of Classical culture, and why did the Roman Empire fall?

This course gives a superb sampling of an exciting field, showing how Classical archaeology combines ancient history, anthropology, ethnography, comparative religion, art history, experimental engineering, historical linguistics, paleobotany, and other pursuits, with a dose of Indiana Jones adventure besides.


Details that Bring the Ancient World Alive

One of the joys of archaeology is that history comes alive in very specific, personal ways, through glimpses at the lives of real people—sometimes very famous ones:

* The most renowned of all Greek sculptors was Phidias, and although little of his sculptural work survives, we do have his personal drinking cup, found at the excavation of his workshop in Olympia and inscribed, \"I belong to Phidias.\"
* A papyrus discovered in 1904 was recently studied in detail and appears to have an instruction in the handwriting of Cleopatra herself, granting tax exemptions to one of her generals, a friend of her lover, Mark Antony.
* In 1980, excavations at Herculaneum reached the ancient docks and found the remains of 300 men, women, and children—obviously awaiting evacuation when the eruption of Vesuvius engulfed them. Personal effects still clung to the skeletons: a carpenter\'s tool chest, a soldier\'s weapons, a nursemaid\'s bracelet, a matron\'s gold rings, and a child\'s treasure box with a pair of coins inside.
* Graffiti at an outpost on Rome\'s eastern frontier, dated to A.D. 238, bears the chilling message: \"The Parthians have fallen upon us.\" Archaeologists found evidence of a great assault that overwhelmed the imperial garrison.
* Among the many \"curse tablets\" found at the Roman spa in present-day Bath, England, is one from the victim of an ancient purse-snatching. He asks the gods for various favors: return of the money, bad luck for the thief, and, if nothing else, the perpetrator\'s name, \"whether pagan or Christian.\"

\"I think it\'s been the great achievement of archaeology to put the color back in,\" says Dr. Hale, referring to such details and also to the insight that Classical statues were painted to look lifelike, contrary to the widespread view that marble statues were pure white and that Classical civilization as a whole was austere and restrained. Dr. Hale continues: \"That richness, that complexity that we see in the art is, to me, emblematic of what has been lost through the ages in our view of ancient civilization itself.\"

But through archaeology, that civilization is coming into sharper focus, as we reconstruct the past and see it in all its color: in its ideals, aspirations, achievements, and virtues; and also in its vices, superstitions, disasters, and crimes. \"We need to take the good with the bad, because only then can we really understand all that they have to tell us—not just about themselves, but about ourselves, too.\"


Should I Buy Audio or Video?

This course is a must-buy on DVD for anyone for whom DVD is an option. It boasts well over 500 images, almost 100 maps, and is lavishly and informatively illustrated. Many of the images, of archaeological sites and discoveries, have never or rarely been published before.



About the Professor


John R. Hale
University of Louisville
Ph.D., University of Cambridge

John R. Hale is the Director of Liberal Studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He earned his B.A. at Yale University and his Ph.D. at University of Cambridge in England. Dr. Hale teaches introductory courses on archaeology, as well as more specialized courses on the Bronze Age, the ancient Greeks, the Roman world, Celtic cultures, Vikings, and on nautical and underwater archaeology.

Dr. Hale\'s writing has been published in the journal Antiquity, The Classical Bulletin, the Journal of Roman Archaeology, and Scientific American. He has received many awards for distinguished teaching, including the Panhellenic Teacher of the Year Award and the Delphi Center Award.

An accomplished instructor, Dr. Hale is also an archaeologist with more than 30 years of fieldwork experience. He has excavated at a Romano-British town in Lincolnshire, England, and at the Roman Villa of Torre de Palma in Portugal. He has also carried out interdisciplinary studies of ancient oracle sites in Greece and Turkey, including the famous Delphic Oracle, and participated in an undersea search in Greek waters for lost fleets from the time of the Persian Wars.



Course Lecture Titles

1. Archaeology’s Big Bang
2. “Ode on a Grecian Urn”
3. A Quest for the Trojan War
4. How to Dig
5. First Find Your Site
6. Taking the Search Underwater
7. Cracking the Codes
8. Techniques for Successful Dating
9. Reconstructing Vanished Environments
10. “Not Artifacts but People”
11. Archaeology by Experiment
12. Return to Vesuvius
13. Gournia—Harriet Boyd and the Mother Goddess
14. Thera—A Bronze Age Atlantis?
15. Olympia—Games and Gods
16. Athens’s Agora—Where Socrates Walked
17. Delphi—Questioning the Oracle
18. Kyrenia—Lost Ship of the Hellenistic Age
19. Riace—Warriors from the Sea
20. Rome—Foundation Myths and Archaeology
21. Caesarea Maritima—A Roman City in Judea
22. Teutoburg—Battlefield Archaeology
23. Bath—Healing Waters at Aquae Sulis
24. Torre de Palma—A Farm in the Far West
25. Roots of Classical Culture
26. The Texture of Everyday Life
27. Their Daily Bread
28. Voyaging on a Dark Sea of Wine
29. Shows and Circuses—Rome’s “Virtual Reality”
30. Engineering and Technology
31. Slaves—A Silent Majority?
32. Women of Greece and Rome
33. Hadrian—Mark of the Individual
34. Crucible of New Faiths
35. The End of the World—A Coroner’s Report
36. A Bridge across the Torrent

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