The Digital Muse: Technology & The Classics
Paul Iversen, Andrea De Giorgi
| Date: | 03-01-2012 |
| Time: | 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm |
| Location: | Clark Hall, Room 206 |
| Registration: | Registration is Closed. |
De Giorgi will discuss how Classical archaeology, as with most sciences that have an interest in the spreading of human phenomena over space, has developed a way to harness GIS (Geographic Information Systems). Theoretically and methodologically confined to the observation of single sites and their settlement history, archaeology through GIS lenses has begun to articulate more refined questions about regions and districts in antiquity and how these were experienced and shaped by human agencies. A landscape in southwestern Anatolia is the case-study that this presentation brings into focus.
Iversen will talk about recent technologies he has used in to study the inscriptions on the Antikythera Mechanism, a bronze geared device from the 2nd or 1st century BCE that is the world�s oldest known analogue computer and one of the most important artifacts ever discovered for understanding ancient astronomy and engineering. The inscriptions are studied via images created using a method called Polynomial Textured Mapping (PTMs), as well as CT-scans taken by means of a technology called Micro-Focus X-rays, the latter of which produces 2-D images that are then reconstructed into 3-D images with astounding clarity by a vector graphics program.
Paul Iversen, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, regularly teaches upper level Greek and Latin, both lecture and SAGES courses dealing with Myth and Heroes, a course on Alexander the Great, and Greek and Latin palaeography and epgiraphy. His research interests and publications are in the areas of Greek and Latin Epigraphy, Hellenistic Culture & Society, and Greco-Roman New Comedy, especially Menander. He is the Director of Epigraphical finds for the Isparta Archaeological Survey.
Andrea De Giorgi, Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics, is a Classical Archaeologist specializing in the Roman Empire. He teaches courses ranging from visual culture to the history of Republican and Imperial Rome. He has excavated or surveyed in Syria, UAE, and Cyprus, and his ongoing archaeological projects are based in Turkey and Italy. His scholarly interests include Roman urbanism in the East, Roman material culture, as well as museum studies.
Click HERE to view the Event Video.
