Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome by John R. Hale
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Everything You Wanted to Know about Ancient Greek and Roman Archeology I fully enjoyed all of Classical Archaeology of Ancient Greece and Rome (2006) by John R. Hale, the first Great Courses audiobook I’ve listened to. It consists of thirty-six thirty-minute lectures: twelve about the history, development, and current state of archeology as a “mature science,” including things like site finding, dig organizing, and artifact dating, preserving, and displaying, as well as profiles of important figures in the history of archeology (I loved Harriet “I was never a collector—only a detective” Boyd) and explanations of key branches of it like battlefield archeology, underwater archeology, and experimental archeology; twelve about seminal, stunning, and still ongoing discoveries and sites and wrecks and digs etc., from the Bronze age to the Roman age; and twelve about archeological answers to larger questions about classical civilization like what is unique and original about ancient Greek culture, what happened to the Roman Empire, and why we should study the past. Throughout, Professor Hale is refreshingly unpretentious, explaining his preference for saying “tree ring dating” instead of “dendrology,” occasionally tossing in references to popular culture like Mordor, Madonna, and Yogi Berra, clearly and concisely defining technical words (like stratigraphy) or difficult words (like adumbrated), making regular spicy or witty asides, like “There’s nothing that the archeological mind loves more than a status symbol” (like ancient pots decorated for public display rather than for private use), using plenty of demotic English like “A pile of flour in a baker's shop [in Pompeii] was found--I can't imagine the care with which this stuff was hacked away to leave this kind of stuff visible,” and quoting here and there great literary sources, like Tolstoy (War and Peace), Gibbon (Decline and Fall), Shelley (Ode to Naples), Homer (the Iliad), etc. I liked his clear delivery and contagious enthusiasm, as when he says something like, “the humble implements, tools, carpenter’s saws, weapons, jewelry, these small finds, these little bits of people's lives revealing an ancient world that nobody thought existed... We could feel that we were present at the time and the place where archaeology was born.” Or like, “Go to the Reggio museum! Throughout, he provides interesting touches on things like the differences from and convergences among archeology and geology, anthropology, history, literature, mythology and other disciplines; the etymologies of words like village, capital, palace, martyr, rostrum, pornography, and aqueduct; the links between ancient peoples and us; and the exciting or funny or amazing stories and anecdotes he has accumulated and told his students in his classes (e.g., “You can do this at home: take off your clothes and stand in front of a full length mirror in contrapposto like the Riace bronzes”). His lectures are chock full of cool information, like pagans had outdoor altars for their temples (cause they sacrificed and burnt meat etc.), while Christians put their altars inside their churches, or the Pythagorean theorem was in use 1000 years before Pythagoras, or that ancient Greeks and Romans colorfully painted their statues, or why tripods were so popular for ancient Greeks and Romans, or that many of the Pompeii houses frozen by lava were already 200 years old (belonging to pre-Roman civ) when Vesuvius erupted, or that the Pompeii plaster casts of dead body spaces revealed trimmed pubic hair, or that Socrates probably ate bread made from grain imported from Ukraine, or that if you imagine our own tea, coffee, chocolate, alcohol, medicine, and drugs all combined into ONE thing, it still wouldn’t come close to what wine was for Greeks and Romans, and how the Greeks (on pottery) and Romans (on frescoes) glorified everyday life. The Course Guidebook pdf accompanying the audiobook is a detailed 276-page outline of all the lectures, followed by historical and archeological timelines, a glossary of key terms, biographical notes on important archeologists, and an annotated bibliography. Note that this is not really an audiobook but a series of lectures, so that Professor Hale makes occasional mistakes in speaking that he corrects on the fly, like “Out there on the Thames—sorry—out there on the Seine.” There are about one or two per lecture. He begins each lecture after the first by saying, “Welcome back,” and each lecture is introduced by a brief loop of peppy baroque music and is concluded by audience clapping. Despite it being a lecture series audiobook, apart from clapping, you can only hear Professor Hale during each lecture, which is a little odd because you’d expect to hear people laughing at his occasional witty asides (like “This is what graduate students are for”), all of which leads me to suspect that he is reading his lectures in a studio after which the producers overlay canned clapping. I would like it better without the music and clapping. It’s an enriching, entertaining, and stimulating series of lectures, and now I am looking forward to Professor Hale’s lectures on the Greek and Persian wars. View all my reviews
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