Month: April 2023

This spring I am teaching a course at Hofstra University entitled ‘Before Bitcoin: The Early History of Money’ (a title suggested by the History Department to get butts in seats, successfully I might add), and this past week we discussed Late Antique coinage, that is, the end (in more ways than one) of the monetary systems of the Greek and Roman worlds. In doing so I showed my students this coin:

I had never stopped to think about the emperor who minted it, one Magnus Maximus, literally ‘Great Greatest.’ As I remarked to my students, it sounds like he was named by Donald Trump. This ambitiously-named emperor made a bid for power in 383 CE, first deposing Gratian and then later, unsuccessfully, opposing Valentinian II and Theodosius I; he was executed in 388. What I did not realize at all was that he subsequently passed into Welsh legend, appearing in Geoffrey of Monmouth and The Dream of Macsen Wledig, in which Macsen, the Roman emperor, is led by a dream to Wales, where he meets his true love Elen. In his absence from Rome Macsen is overthrown and, with the help of his new Welsh allies, he re-conquers the empire, giving the Welsh Brittany in thanks for their service.

He was also claimed as an ancestor by various Welsh kings; for example, he appears on the 9th century Pillar of Eliseg as an ancestor of Cyngen ap Cadell (died 855), King of Powys.

Not a bad afterlife for a flash-in-the-pan emperor I barely knew existed!

…is Regenbogenschüsselchen. It means ‘rainbow cups,’ and refers to concave electrum coins minted by the Celts. That explains the ‘cup’ part; ‘rainbow’ is because they were often found after heavy rainfall in plowed fields, that is, they appeared to be the pot of gold (alloy) that appears at the end of a rainbow.

I wonder if this contributed to the various myths about leprechauns. After all, ‘Rainbow Cups’ (like Lucky Charms) sounds like a disgusting breakfast cereal marketed towards children.

I do not much use the Twitter, except to find out when street cleaning is suspended in Jersey City. But today I was pointed to a ‘tweet‘ (as I understand it is called) by Michael Taylor at SUNY Albany lamenting our field’s truly regressive hiring practices, which is the main point he makes. I recommend it.

Next week I’m headed off to Los Angeles for the first Achaemenid Workshop at UCLA’s Pourdavoud Center, entitled “Identity, Alterity, and the Imperial Impress in the Achaemenid World.” My talk is entitled “How (Not) to Find Persians in Egypt,” and considers why it is so goldarn hard to conclusively identity Persians in Egypt from epigraphic and archaeological sources.

I’m sure you’ve all been watching the news with bated breath today (no, not the thing about the fat guy getting arrested in New York); I certainly have. But what to make of the result? I offer my uninformed impressions below, in no particular order:

1. Yes! It was long overdue. ‘Oriental’ was never a good name for the OI, since that implies it studied all of Asia, which it did not. Now it’s an even worse name, but of course the strength of the OI brand surely made it difficult to decide to change. I therefore applaud the OI for having the courage to do so. Never fear, us OI watchers still know who you are, no matter what you call yourself.
2. Double yes! I appreciate that the OI tried to find a name that actually encompassed what it does, as opposed to, say, the recently rebranded ‘American Society of Overseas Research,’ which, desperate to preserve its acronym, came up with a truly meaningless name. It sounds like a travel agency for retirees (which, frankly, is not too far off). I also credit the OI for not trying to spell anything with its new acronym (though I think I went to high school with an Isaac Wana).
3. It’s a mouthful, to be sure. It’s also weirdly similar to ISAW, which I’m sure the OI leadership noticed. And the result is somewhat uneven. On the one hand, ‘ancient civilization’ is a lot more than just ancient Egypt and Sudan and the Near East/West Asia. On the other, the subtitle is pretty awkward. I cannot help but wonder if the OI couldn’t have just expanded its remit. To be frank, the OI could have called itself the ‘Institute of Biblically Relevant Peoples’ to accurately describe its intellectual heritage. Indeed, in this respect the name ‘Harvard Semitic Museum’ was weirdly honest.

Of course, my real question has nothing to do with the OI’s name, but with its marvelous publication series (to which I have an extremely tangential connection). Will ‘Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilization’ become ‘Studies in Ancient Cultures: West Asia and North Africa’ (SACWANA?). And will we also see ACWANAP? All I know is that my bibliographies are about to get more complicated…

I do not often use the Facebook. When I do, it is mostly to see videos posted by the Kabul Small Animal Rescue. But sometimes it leads to great discoveries, or to be precise, it leads me to great discoveries made by other people. In this case, the discovery was by my friend and colleague Marissa Stevens:

Evidently Wayfair has top men working for it. Top. Men.