What are you watching?

I’m watching Bettany Hughes too. One of my uni archaeology supervisors did much of his research in Saudi, when little was known about the Nabataeans. It is amazing how far (archaeologically) the country has come since that time. 

It's amazing isn't it, I'm so glad that archaeology has moved on from just being about the classical world with a bit of those weird Egyptians thrown in along with a few barbarians

I used to love Buffy and Angel, the first episode of Angel where Spike's taking the Mick out of him is great.

I don't recognise most of the programes people are watching as I don't have netflix or you tube

My uni studies and research barely touched on the Nabataeans. We covered a little Egyptian material culture but I decided to focus mainly on Jordan, Palestine/Israel, Syria and Lebanon. 

Yes, you are right about the classical world. In the archaeological world when I was studying, there was always tension between the methodologies of Classical Archaeology and those of Archaeology of the World. It was felt that Classical Archaeology relied too much on Art History and the long established literary narrative. It didn’t acknowledge the new understanding that had evolved through advanced methodologies in world archaeology and history. Today, the gap between the two disciplines has narrowed. 

That does seem a poor question choice for 1st year, did you get a chance to revisit it later?

I was lucky and had the sophistication question in my 3rd year.

Civilisation is one of those tricky words, to often it's assoiciated with the classic world and so often classicists only really want to include Greece and Rome, with Egypt thrown in because they can't really ignore it. I certainly think if you have a settled and long lived place with what could be places of worships and public spaces, then yes it could be called a civilisation, but then along comes culture and throws a spanner in the works, do you one without the other?

Of course what was civilised in the Ancient World, grinding you grain for bread rather than porridge, living in orgainised walled settlements -the civitas, as opposed to oppida a less organised settlement in Britain, not wearing trousers etc. If you look at Skara Brae in Orkney then it all seems very civilised and that was thousands of years before anything in Greece or Rome.

That does seem a poor question choice for 1st year, did you get a chance to revisit it later?

I was lucky and had the sophistication question in my 3rd year.

Civilisation is one of those tricky words, to often it's assoiciated with the classic world and so often classicists only really want to include Greece and Rome, with Egypt thrown in because they can't really ignore it. I certainly think if you have a settled and long lived place with what could be places of worships and public spaces, then yes it could be called a civilisation, but then along comes culture and throws a spanner in the works, do you one without the other?

Of course what was civilised in the Ancient World, grinding you grain for bread rather than porridge, living in orgainised walled settlements -the civitas, as opposed to oppida a less organised settlement in Britain, not wearing trousers etc. If you look at Skara Brae in Orkney then it all seems very civilised and that was thousands of years before anything in Greece or Rome.