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Digging for gold: the archaeology of the internet and the “Electronic Journal of Mithraic Studies” (EJMS)

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Back in the 1970s, following the international conferences on Mithraic studies, a rising young scholar named Richard L. Gordon created a journal specifically for Mithras studies.  He named it the Journal of Mithraic Studies, and got contributors, and supporters, and a publisher.  There was definitely a demand for such a journal, as somewhere to report the ever-increasing flow of archaeological discoveries.  The print was just typescript, but the scholarship was excellent, and the times were right for it.

But the journal failed.  Although the volume of Mithras material is great, I have read that the field proved too small to sustain a journal.

Twenty years later, the world-wide web came along, and Dr Gordon tried again.  He created a website, the Electronic Journal of Mithraic Studies, and uploaded to it material from the old journal, plus new reports.  I don’t know the original website address, but it ended up at http://www.uhu.es/ejms/.  But this too failed.  Dr Gordon was ahead of his time, and the infrastructure and acceptance for such a venture did not exist.  So the site gradually died, and by 2016 it was gone.  The university deleted the site, and today it exists only in the Wayback When Machine archive at Archive.org.

This was a bona-fide academic site.  But it seems that there was no strategy to preserve it, and it was treated as ephemeral.

This evening I had occasion to consult a paper, on the Banjevic relief of Mithras, from volume 2 of the JMS.  Looking in the “Out-of-print” section of the archived website, I found the archaeological reports, and downloaded the right section.  The sections were all stored as zip files, containing jpgs.  Back  in 2000, the PDF format did not exist, or if it did, it was not widely used.

Next I got my 7Zip, and unpacked the zip file.  And … disaster! … the tool told me that some of the JPGs were corrupt!

Looking at the folder confirmed the problem:

The pages were partially readable; and when opened, they looked just like that – half blacked-out.  I needed pages 189-191, but 190 was one of the corrupt ones.

Archive.org takes snapshots at regular intervals.  So I hunted back, into the past, to try to find a non-corrupt version of the zip.  But it was in vain.  As soon as the files arrived on the website, they were already corrupt.  Clearly the site owners themselves had some form of problem, at that remote date, and had never checked that their files were OK.  I confess that I have never checked any file that I have uploaded, so I understand.

Resigned, I decided to OCR the pages anyway, and post online what I could read.  So I opened those files in Abbyy Finereader 14.  And then… I saw something unexpected:

The area that Windows 10 had considered corrupt, and displayed as plain white, was partially readable!  I quickly found that in fact nearly all the text could be worked out.  I have no idea what happened to produce this.  But … it was there.  In the end I only lost a couple of words of the article.

The lesson here is to use more than one tool in such a situation.

This process was really research itself.  No doubt the Journal articles might be found in some research library; but what if they had not?  What if this was an online-only journal?  Is this the future, for some of us?

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

I’m still unwell, after an unbelievable 9 weeks of sitting around at home with a headache.  But finally I seem to be improving.  None of the pills and potions prescribed by my GP has had any effect, but time seems to be the cure.  I’m waiting for a scan, but the doctor thinks that it won’t show anything.

Meanwhile I’ve been rereading the epigrams of Martial, in the old Loeb edition with facing Latin.  I do prefer the stately translations of a century ago to modern attempts.

I notice that the eye is always drawn to the epigrams that are not translated, and instead given in some elderly Italian version which is hardly more comprehensible than Latin.  You inevitably find yourself attempting to understand the syntax.

The books could not present the obscene matter at that date, for that was illegal.  But was there a subtle ulterior motive here?  Print the Latin, and then rely on the frustration of teenage boys as a way to teach them Latin grammar and syntax?  For the best way to learn any language is always to have something in that language that you wish to read!

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The earliest mention of Halloween? John Mirk’s “Festivall” or “Festial” or “Liber Festivalis

Posted on by Roger Pearse

This evening I happened to come across Lisa Morton, The Halloween Encyclopedia (2011).  I can see some errors in it, but on the whole it is an admirable effort.  On p.148, under “Parties”, we find this statement:

One of the earliest written mentions of Halloween, from the 1493 Festivall, contains this description of what sounds like a contemporary Halloween party: “Good frendes suche a daye ye shall haue all halowen daye.”

Appendix I : Chronology of Halloween, (p.203), has the first mention of halloween as:

1493—Festivall mentions celebrating Halloween with “good frendes”

There is no reference, unfortunately.  What on earth is “Festivall”?

The old Bodleian “Catalogus Librorum Impressorum Bibliothecae Bodleianae” vol 2., p.40 (online here) tells us of a “Liber festivalis [anglice]” printed in Westmonesterio [by W. de Worde] in 1493 – this is perhaps the source of the date given above -, and below also of “The boke that is callid festivall” printed at Oxford by Theod. Rood and Th. Hunt in 1486.  None of this is easily accessible, and what is the book anyway?

Some intensive googling later, I discover that it is a book composed in the late 1380s by the Augustinian canon John Mirk, and one of the most commonly printed English books before 1500.  It is a sermon collection, organised by saint’s day, and written in English rather than Latin.  The sermons usually contain stories and anecdotes.  The book is today often referred to as “John Mirk’s Festial“.

The standard edition is Johannes Mirkus (John Mirk), Mirk’s Festial: A Collection of Homilies, ed. Theodor Erbe; series: Early English Text Society extra series XCVI, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. for the Early English Text Society, 1905.  This thankfully is online at Archive.org here.  Unfortunately it is printed in Middle English, complete with weird letters.  The text is readable enough, with a bit of effort.  There is a glossary at  the back.

A new edition is in progress by Susan Powell, but this I was unable to access.

I have not been able to find the text given, not even by searching for “frend”.  Possibly Morton used the more up-to-date edition?  But on p.266, we find the start of the sermon for All Saints Day (click to enlarge):

It gives a history of the celebration of All Saint’s Day, referencing Pope Gregory (IV).

The text uses “halowen” to mean “hallow, keep holy”, rather than Halloween.  This is confirmed by the glossary at the end, on p.328:

This all rather suggests that Morton is in a mistake here – that this is not a reference to Halloween at all.

All the same, the Halloween Encyclopedia is both useful and interesting.  I sympathised entirely with the statement in the preface about “sources”:

Unfortunately, many of those source books are little more than collections of fairy tales. They often seem to have been poorly researched, and displayed prejudice or predilection on the part of their authors.

So it still is.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Regular readers will have noticed the lack of blogging.

For more than seven weeks I have been unable to work.  The symptoms are general weakness and a constant headache, possibly sinus-related.  This came on following a three-day bout with the office cold.  I’m getting more rested, of course, but the problem is not really improving.  I do not feel very unwell, until I try to do anything that requires concentration.  That promptly puts me down again.  I’m seeing a doctor, and I’ve started to take some pills which I hope will help.

I don’t know whether my job will still be there when I get fit.  Fortunately I am not short of money.  But getting fit in order to work must take top priority. The last thing that I want to do at the moment is write blog posts, or reply to email.

My apologies for the silence.   Blogging will resume when I get fit.  I’ve been noting interesting items for my backlog folder, as I see them, but I can’t do much with them as yet.

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A symposium on Ephrem Graecus next week at Marquette university in Milwaukee

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Regular readers will remember “Ephrem Graecus” – the mass of works in Greek which are attributed to Ephraim the Syrian, but which are in fact mostly original compositions.  Little work has been done on this area, which makes it one of the uncharted frontiers of patristics.

Those in the Milwaukee area in the US might like to attend a one-day symposium on Ephrem Graecus next week, on Saturday 9th November.  It’s being run by Tikhon Alexander Pino, who runs the St Ephrem the Syrian website.  The program is here.

If you have any interest in the subject, I’d recommend going along.  It will be a rare opportunity to meet others interested in the subject, and find out what’s going on.  I’d go if I was anywhere nearby.

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From my diary

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Next Tuesday in Oxford there will be a study day, dedicated to the Codex Zacynthius of the bible.  Details may be found at the University of Birmingham website here.

Codex Zacynthius, the oldest copy of the New Testament to be accompanied by a commentary, was rubbed out and written over in the Byzantine period. Using new imaging techniques, it has been possible to restore much of the original content (part of Luke’s Gospel along with many excerpts from early Christian writers) in order to produce a complete electronic transcription which will be accompanied by studies of the manuscript.

In this seminar, kindly sponsored by the Centre for the Study of the Bible in the Humanities at Oxford and the AHRC, members of the project will report on the findings of the project so far and consult with a range of potential users regarding the features of the planned digital edition and the interpretation of the manuscript, along with its significance for biblical and early Christian studies.

You need to book in advance, but I expect that there are still places.  I had intended to go myself, in fact.  Unfortunately I have been unwell for the last six weeks with a minor but debilitating sinus problem of some kind.  I am slowly recovering naturally.  Better still, my current client is being very understanding.  But an eight-hour drive plus a day of lectures will be beyond me for a few weeks yet.

My thanks to all those who prayed about the storm of family-related problems that arrived on top of everything else about three weeks ago.  Everything is now going well, and I can only praise God.  Thank you.

At the moment I’m doing some more work on my Latin program.  I want to be able to add information for particular words, or phrases, so that it displays extra help about possible syntax when I find them.  This involves quite a bit of under-the-hood tinkering, in order to make this possible.

I will get back to blogging when I can.  At the moment I don’t feel any urge whatever!  My apologies.

I have been looking into the origins of halloween.  Interestingly it is only now being introduced to Australia, or so I gather from reading Twitter.

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“Bread for slaves – 2” – An ancient shopping list from Pompeii

Posted on by Roger Pearse

Two posts on twitter, here from @ahencyclopedia, and here, from the excellent Dr Sophie Hay, tell us of a list of provisions, bought or sold, over a number of days.  It lists three types of bread – “bread”, “coarse bread”, and “bread for a slave” (panem puero).

The text was scratched on a wall in Pompeii at a caupona, (plan and photos here). There is a photograph of it online which I give below.  The item is entered in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum as CIL IV 5380.  The list makes interesting reading.

CIL IV 5380, list of foodstuffs from Pompeii

The transcription:

And a translation:

Translation, from Alison E. Cooley, M.G.L. Cooley, “Pompeii: A Sourcebook”, chapter 8, “Commercial Life”, p.163. Extract here. Reprinted in their “Pompeii and Herculaneum” (2014) as H25, p.239. Online here.

Note that the typo: it is not “bread for slaves” but “bread for a slave”.  It looks very much as if someone is getting their daily groceries here!

The numbers are presumably in asses, although one case it is 1 denarius (=16 asses) and 8 asses for olives.[1]  The symbol for “denarius” appears against some items.

For those interested, there is a new reading of the text proposed in this item, Caruso, Paola & Solin, Heikki, “Memorandum sumptuarium pompeianum : per una nuova lettura del graffito CIL IV 5380”,  in: Vesuviana : an international journal of archaeological and historical studies on Pompeii and Herculaneum, 8, 2016, pp.105-127.  It’s in Italian, but not for ordinary mortals to read, as the publishers demand $40 for the privilege.  I thought that I should signal its existence, not least because the text of inscriptions is often less certain than it may appear when neatly printed in our journals and collected editions.

Juvenal (Satire 5) refers to the dinner guests given inferior bread to that placed before their host:

All your great houses are full of saucy slaves. See with what a grumble another of them has handed you a bit of hard bread that you can scarce break in two, or lumps of dough that have turned mouldy—-stuff that will exercise your grinders and into which no tooth can gain admittance.

For Virro himself a delicate loaf is reserved, white as snow, and kneaded of the finest flour. Be sure to keep your hands off it: take no liberties with the bread-basket!

If you are presumptuous enough to take a piece, there will be someone to bid you put it down: “What, Sir Impudence? Will you please fill yourself from your proper tray, and learn the colour of your own bread?”

“What?” you ask, “was it for this that I would so often leave my wife’s side on a spring morning and hurry up the chilly Esquiline when the spring skies were rattling down the pitiless hail, and the rain was pouring in streams off my cloak? “

These, of course, were free men, the clients of a patron.  Slave bread must have been even worse.

It’s an interesting light on ancient society.

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  1. [1]Melissa Bailey, “Roman Money and Numerical Practice”, Revue belge de Philologie et d’Histoire, 91, 2013, pp. 153-186. Online here.↩

All Saints Day: Alcuin in 800 AD exhorts his friend to celebrate it on 1st November

Posted on by Roger Pearse

In Letter 193, to his friend Arno, Alcuin writes:[1]

Kalendis Novembris solemnitas omnium sanctorum. Ecce, venerande pater Arne, habes designatam solemnitatem omnium sanctorum, sicut diximus. Quam continue in mente retineas et semper anniversario tempore colere non desistas; adtendens illud et intente considerans, quoniam, si Helias, unus ex illis in vetere testamento, oratione sua, dum voluit, claudere caelum potuit praevaricatoribus et aperire conversis, quanto magis omnes sancti in novo testamento? ubi eis specialiter et patenter claves regni caelestis commissae sunt, et claudere caelum possunt incredulis et aperire credentibus, si intima dilectione honorificantur a fidelibus et coluntur glorificatione eis condigna. Quod ut fieri digne possit a nobis, lumen verum, quod inluminat omnem hominem, Christus Iesus inluminet corda nostra, et pax Dei, quae exsuperat omnem sensum, per intercessionem omnium sanctorum eius, custodiat ea usque in diem aeternitatis. Hanc solemnitatem sanctissimam tribus diebus ieiunando, orando, missas canendo, et elimosinas dando pro invicem sincera devotione precedamus.

On the kalends of November is the solemnity of all the saints.  See, venerable father Arno, you have marked the solemnity of all the saints, just as we said.  Keep that ever in mind and never cease to celebrate it on that annual date; attending to it and intently considering, seeing that, if Elijah, one of those in the Old Testament, with his prayer, as long as he wished, could shut the heavens to sinners, and open them to the converted, how much more can all the saints in the New Testament?  for to them specially and clearly the keys of the heavenly kingdom have been entrusted, and they can shut the heavens to the unbelievers and open them to believers, if they are honoured with inward devotion by the faithful and are worshipped with the glorification appropriate to them.  And, so that we may become worthy, In order that this may be done appropriately by us, may the true light, that illuminates every man, Christ Jesus, illuminate our hearts, and may the peace of God, which exceeds every sense, through the intercession of all his saints, guard them until the last day.  Let us precede this most holy solemnity by fasting for three days, praying, singing masses, and giving alms with sincere devotion for each other.

The letter is dated to 800, before March 19, in the MGH edition.  An older text is in the Patrologia Latina 100, col. 296.

I’m not absolutely sure that I have the meaning of the last two sentences quite right, by the way.  I am not clear what role in “Quod ut fieri digne possit a nobis” is played by Quod, except that clearly a comma is involved before ut; and indeed the clause seems rather odd to me.  Likewise “ea” later in the sentence must be the saints, and if so the prayer is for God’s saints who are still alive and on earth.

Update: many thanks indeed to Diego for correcting me!  In fact “ea” is neuter so must refer to “our hearts”.  The “Quod” references the last sentence and is the subject of “fieri possit”, and “fieri” needs to be “be done”, rather than “become” (both are possible).  Also added omitted clause.

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  1. [1]P.321 of the MGH edition.  Online here.↩

All Saints: the edict of Louis in 835 establishing the date as 1st November

Posted on by Roger Pearse

The commemoration of All Saints was first made universal in 835 AD  by the Emperor Louis the Pious, in the 21st year of his reign, at the suggestion of Pope Gregory IV.  This information reaches us through the 12th century Chronographia or Chronicle of Sigebert of Gembloux, who records the following entry for the year:[1]

835. / 21 / 5.  Monente Gregorio papa et omnibus episcopis assentientibus, Ludowicus imperator statuit, ut in Gallia et Germania festivitas omnium Sanctorum in Kalendis Novembris celebraretur, quam Romani ex instituto Bonefacii papae celebrabant.  Hoc tempore reliquiae Viti martyris a Parisius ad Corbeiam Saxoniae transferuntur; unde ipsi Franci testati sunt,  quod ab illo tempore gloria Francorum ad Saxones translata sit. Ebbo Remorum archiepiscopus deponitur; aliique  inulti, qui cum eo in deiectionem Ludowici imperatoris conspiraverant, damnantur et exiliantur.

At the suggestion of Pope Gregory and with the agreement of all the bishops, the emperor Ludovicus ordered that in Gaul and Germany the festivity of the all the Saints would be celebrated on the Kalends of November, which the Romans were celebrating by the institution of Pope Boniface.  At this time the relics of Vitus the martyr are transported from Paris to Corbie in Saxony; because of which the Franks themselves bore witness that from that time the glory of the Franks was transferred to the Saxons.  Ebbo, archbishop of Riems is deposed; and others unpunished, who had conspired with him to depose the emperor Ludovicus, are condemned and exiled.

This made it official throughout the Holy Roman Empire.  No doubt the modern celebration results from this edict.

The reference to Boniface IV is slightly misleading.  The Romans were not celebrating on 1 November.  The reference is to the Liber Pontificalis and the year 607, when Pope Boniface IV dedicated the Pantheon to St Mary Ever-Virgin and All the Martyrs.  This dedication took place and is commemorated, not on November 1, but on May 13, according to the old Roman martyrology.[2]  But that is another post!

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  1. [1]L. C. Bethmann, MGH SS., 6, 1844, pp. 300-374. Online here.  Other information about the text here.↩
  2. [2]Smith and Cheetham, Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, vol. 1, 1875, p.57.↩