At ISAW we're thinking about ways we can assist the scholarly community in identifying, rescuing and preserving (we've been calling it "backstopping") digital scholarly resources of value. As we continue to think about it, and start a dialog with colleagues, we should consider the Early Christian/Jewish Writings rescue effort (going on right now) as an important case study.

And here's a question for the folks involved in that effort: is there some way we could help?

I'm now hemmed in by this meme, so I'll purge it:

Σα[μί]ων·

Nora M. Dimitrova, Theoroi and Initiates in Samothrace: The Epigraphical Evidence, Hesperia Supplement 37, American School of Classical Studies in Athens, Princeton, NJ, 2008, no. 22, l. 20.

This was selected according to the following viral criteria, which I now inflict on you gentle readers:

• Grab the nearest book.
• Open it to page 56.
• Find the fifth sentence.
• Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
• Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

The fifth line on page 56 (line 20 in the inscribed text) was the best I could do since this inscription is a long and fragmentary list of names and doesn't really have sentences.

Recent events impel me to depart briefly from the customary DH geekery here to say, as calmly, respectfully and as earnestly as I can:

If you think that this country or one of its states should inhibit medical and legal opportunities for its citizens to obtain safe abortions and/or prohibit the fostering or adoption of orphaned children on the basis of the marital status or sexual orientation of the prospective parents, but you do not already have an adopted or foster child in your loving home, I urge you to search your heart and ask it this question before you hoist another placard, pen another letter to an editor or vote on another ballot initiative: "Why not?"

Would you like to have simple polygons of the Barrington Atlas map grid squares? Maybe for munging an existing placenames list up against BAtlas IDs?... We're using them to help keep you updated on Pleiades content digitization status.

We've started putting the grids up on the web in KML 2.2 under a cc-by-sa license. We'll keep you posted as we add more. Meanwhile, get them here: http://atlantides.org/batlas/grids/

Just announced: a 2009 reprise of CHNM's successful THATCamp (27-28 June 2009) will follow Digital Humanities 2009 (22-25 June 2009). I'm looking forward to attending both this year, I hope.

A lecture in New York:

William Y. Adams
Nubia's Other Civilization: the forgotten glories of the medieval kingdoms.
Date: November 20
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: ISAW, 2nd Floor Common Room

A lecture in New York:

The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World Annual Leon Levy Lecture
Date: November 13
Time: 6:00 pm

Lecturer: Professor Mario Liverani, University of Rome "La Sapienza"
Topic:"The History of the Sahara in Antiquity: Mirage or Scientific Project?"
Please RSVP to liverani.lecture@nyu.edu

A lecture in New York:

Sabine Huebner (Columbia University)
Household and Family in Past Time: The Roman East and West
Date: November 12
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: ISAW, Salmon Room on the 2nd Floor

A lecture in New York:

Beate Pongratz-Leisten (Princeton University)
Astralization of the Gods and the Concept of the Divine in Ancient Mesopotamia
Date: November 11
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: ISAW, Salmon Room on the 2nd Floor

A lecture in New York:

Anne Porter (University of Southern California)
Of Bricks and Bodies: Integrating history, archaeology and an anthropology of art in the study of the ancient Near East
Date: November 10
Time: 6:00 pm
Location: ISAW, Salmon Room on the 2nd Floor