Category Archives: Epigraphy

The cold grave that is the deep, deep sea

Posted on March 23, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

There still is no (confirmed) trace of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370. The last few days, however, saw a number of reports that focused on (potential) debris in the Indian Ocean, and the continuous silence of flight systems and crew, passengers, … Continue reading →

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Disappearing into thin air

Posted on March 18, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

The mysterious story of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 is likely to fill news media for the foreseeable future: how can a Boeing 777 disappear into thin air? What happened to its passengers? Who was (or is) involved in this? The … Continue reading →

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Sorting Out Pompeii

Posted on March 6, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Reports on the crumbling state of the Campanian excavation site of Pompeii – incidentally a UNESCO heritage site as well– come up every few months: they tend to point out that, following a period of bad weather, some structure collapsed … Continue reading →

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The Power of Song and Music at Pompeii

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Clearly some houses at Pompeii are more prone to disaster than others. Not only was dwelling III 5.1, the shop and house of Pascius Hermes, destroyed and covered by volcanic matter just like everything else at Pompeii: it was damaged … Continue reading →

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Grand Theft Pompeii

Posted on February 21, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Just off Pompeii’s principal street, the so-called Via dell’Abbondanza (‘Street of Abundance’), painted onto a pilaster between two doorways, the following (somewhat fragmentary) inscription was discovered (CIL IV 64): Vrna aenia pereit de taberna. Sei quis rettulerit dabuntur HS LXV, … Continue reading →

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When it rains, it pours (Or: Don’t just do something, stand there!)

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

The Roman historian Tacitus, in his work Agricola in the context a passage that comments on the British isles’ multus umor terrarum caelique (‘the excessive moisture of the soil and of the atmosphere’) famously writes (Tac. Agr. 12): Caelum crebris … Continue reading →

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Lecture: ‘Aufidius was here. (Really? And where exactly?)’

Posted on February 12, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

Today I had the great pleasure to open the ‘Pompeii: The Present and Future of Vesuvian Research‘ seminar series at the University of Leeds, organised by Dr Virginia Campbell and Dr Rick Jones. A video of my lecture is now … Continue reading →

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Hot Air and Sage Advice, or: Human, All Too Human (A Blog Post for Free Thinkers)

Posted on January 16, 2014 by Peter Kruschwitz

There has been a remarkable wave of outputs recently, traditional and web-based, that conceptualised the wish to find ancient Roman fore-runners of the walls of social media, counterparts for toilet graffiti and related witticisms, or at least some proto-memes by … Continue reading →

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Digesting Food for Thought

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

Travel broadens the mind, they say. This may not always be the case, but it most definitely was my experience when I was fortunate enough to attend the conference ‘Manuscripts and Epigraphy’ in mid-November, impeccably organised by the Centre of … Continue reading →

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The Uses and Benefits of Multilingualism

Posted on November 23, 2013 by Peter Kruschwitz

The L’Africa Romana series is both a treasure trove and a complete nightmare. It comprises the proceedings of a series of broad international conferences, co-ordinated by the University of Sassari, dedicated to the study of Roman North Africa. They cover … Continue reading →

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