Further to my comments on 8 February about attempts to bring Classics alive – I came across Joan Coderch’s AKWN – Acropolis World News – the news in ancient Greek … The latest – Russian election candidate vanishes – first US born panda heading to China – Haitian cities erupt in violent revolt I reminds…
Author: Michael Shanks
archaeological information
The latest issue of Internet Archaeology, just out, is on the subject of archaeological informatics. I went to the web site with great anticipation. My kind of thing, I thought – new media and digital archaeology. What a disappointment! It was all about the usual themes of building information archives, facilitating access, computation, and Geographic…
cross disciplinary and beyond
Came across a very impressive organization this morning – MIRAlab at the University of Geneva. It describes itself as “a pluridisciplinary lab working on virtual human simulation and virtual worlds”. Archaeology pulls together many kinds of specialists. Reconstructing prehistory requires all sorts of disciplines. So we usually describe archaeology as an interdisciplinary field. And Stanford…
sensory memory
The British Library has just launched a new web site devoted to the accents and dialects of the north of England, fast disappearing. Collect Britain, putting history in place. You can listen to recordings made from the 1950s of people talking about everyday life. They are saturated in locality. And just the sounds, intonation, cadence…
craft is cool … and archaeological
Guardian UK – Observer article on craft as art Grayson Perry – A Tradition of Bitterness, 2002 “What folk culture goes on in these Barratt homes: deceit, divorce and suicide in Merrie England …” These days craft is cool. After all it was a potter, Grayson Perry, who won the Turner Prize in December. It…
memory, heritage, things and a sense of who we are
BBC magazine article today on the nostalgia business – it is big and growing. BMW’s new Mini – after the 60s icon – is very popular here in northern California. Raleigh’s 1970s “chopper” bicycle was relaunched last month. Now some people have a problem with all this – because they see nostalgia as some kind…