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The first stage of a five-year (2009-2013) excavation project in Ancient Tegea, near Tripolis, has been completed by an international team of archaeologists led by the Norwegian Institute in Athens in Collaboration with the Greek culture ministry's 38th Ephoria for Prehistoric and Classical Antiquities and 25th Ephoria of Byzantine Antiquities. The area of excavation is a field located to the west of the theatre and the Basilica of Thyrsos, where magnetometer survey 2003-2004 documented the probable location of a major north-south street and a stoa bordering the agora... Tegea was a settlement in ancient Greece, and it is also a...

ANKARA (Reuters) – Archaeologists in the ancient city of Troy in Turkey have found the remains of a man and a woman believed to have died in 1,200 B.C., the time of the legendary war chronicled by Homer, a leading German professor said on Tuesday. Ernst Pernicka, a University of Tubingen professor of archaeometry who is leading excavations on the site in northwestern Turkey, said the bodies were found near a defense line within the city built in the late Bronze age. The discovery could add to evidence that Troy's lower area was bigger in the late Bronze Age than...

If you hear the siren's song, traveler it won't be long. You'll fall prostrate at her feet so bewitched that you can't eat. Won't you fill your ears with wax before siren's song attacks? Have us tie you to the mast; otherwise you will not last. You'll forget all in her voice; step back while you have a choice. Go home to your worried wife. Beauty hopes to end your life. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZwnAbMMV6U

While the Knight Rider GPS by Mio lets drivers live out their boyhood fantasies, it may also bring on a slight superiority complex thanks to the refined tones of William Daniels. TomTom users won’t have that problem now that iconic cartoon everyman Homer Simpson is onboard to guide them to the nearest bar or donut shop. Officially licensed by Twentieth Century Fox the Homer Simpson voice skin is performed by Homer Simpson himself, Dan Castellaneta, and features special words or wisdom to accompany the turn-by-turn instructions. Such gems include, “Take the third right. We might find an ice cream truck!...

The Idiossey The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of ObamaclesRevised and Updated(with Apologies to Homer)Book the First: A question for the MuseContinued

In his influential book, "Troy and Homer," German classicist Joachim Latacz argues that the identification of Hisarlik as the site of Homer's Troy is all but proven. Latacz's case is based not only on archeology, but also on fascinating reassessments of cuneiform tablets from the Hittite imperial archives. The tablets, which are dated to the period when the Late Bronze Age city at Hisarlik was destroyed, tell a story of a western people harassing a Hittite client state on the coast of Asia Minor. The Hittite name for the invading foreigners is very close to Homer's name for his Greeks...

The Not-Really-That-Epic Poem of Obamacles (with Apologies to Homer) Continued

The Fox network announced Tuesday that it has ordered a 20th season of "The Simpsons," which will tie the cartoon with "Gunsmoke" as the longest-running series in the history of prime-time television. "The Simpsons" is the longest-running prime-time animated series in history and the longest-running comedy series currently on television, with more than 400 episodes in the can. Matt Groening's groundbreaking series has won a Peabody Award and 23 Emmy Awards.

Homer: D’oh.Ralph: Me fail English? That’s unpossible. Lionel Hutz: This is the greatest case of false advertising I’ve seen since I sued the movie “The Never Ending Story.� Sideshow Bob: No children have ever meddled with the Republican Party and lived to tell about it.Troy McClure: Don’t kid yourself, Jimmy. If a cow ever got the chance, he’d eat you and everyone you care about!Comic Book Guy: The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity…Homer: Oh, so they have Internet on computers now!Ned Flanders: I’ve done everything the Bible says — even the stuff that contradicts...

CERNE ABBAS, England, July 19 (UPI) -- A 180-foot-long drawing of Homer Simpson next to an enormous, sacred carving in Dorset, England, has angered pagans, Sky News reported Wednesday. The group has vowed to do a little "rain magic" to wash away the cartoon character, which was rendered with biodegradable paint on a hillside next to the famous 17th Century fertility symbol, the Cerne Abbas giant. The picture of Homer Simpson eating a doughnut was etched alongside the chalk outline of the naked, club-wielding giant as a publicity stunt to promote the upcoming release of "The Simpsons Movie."

Engineers to help find Homer's IthacaDerek Gatopoulous, Associated Press Writer Mon Mar 26, 11:02 PM ET ATHENS, Greece - A geological engineering company said Monday it has agreed to help in an archaeological project to find the island of Ithaca, homeland of Homer's legendary hero Odysseus. It has long been thought that the island of Ithaki in the Ionian Sea was the island Homer used as a setting for the epic poem "The Odyssey," in which the king Odysseus makes a perilous 10-year journey home from the Trojan War. But amateur British archaeologist Robert Bittlestone believes the Ithaca of Homer...

ANCHORAGE ON TRACK TO SET RECORD FOR COLDEST MARCH Most winters, Norm Anderson merely has to climb aboard his boat in the harbor and make sure his oil-pan heater is still keeping the engine warm before he turns over the F/V Sea Otter for a winter king fishing excursion. "The ice is killing me," Anderson said. "I've had to cancel close to 50 trips this winter because I just can't get out of the harbor." A frozen harbor is nothing new around Homer. In fact, Homer Harbormaster Steve Dean said it's actually fairly normal. The difference this year, however, is...

Most people think the modern-day Ionian island of Ithaki is the location. But geologists are this week sinking a test borehole on nearby Kefalonia in an attempt to test whether its western peninsula of Paliki is the real site. The scientists hope to find evidence that the peninsula once stood proud, separated from Kefalonia by a narrow, navigable marine channel. It is only within the last 2,500-3,000 years - and long after Homer's time - that the channel has been filled in, the team contends. "We can't prove the story of the Odyssey is true, but we can test whether...

Historian and linguist Andrew Dalby is challenging the accepted gender of one of the most influential writers of all time -- the poet who created the Greek epics The Iliad and The Odyssey in the seventh century BC. Dr Dalby said: "There is no direct evidence of the poet's identity and therefore no justification for the customary assumption that the two epics were composed by a man." Women have a long tradition worldwide as makers of oral literature, he said, citing Sappho, the best-known female poet of ancient Greece, and Enheduanna, the woman mentioned on a Sumerian tablet who thus...

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) - A 2,500-year-old stone coffin with well-preserved colour illustrations from Homer's epics has been discovered in western Cyprus, archeologists said Monday. "It is a very important find," said Pavlos Flourentzos, director of the island's antiquities department. "The style of the decoration is unique, not so much from an artistic point of view, but for the subject and the colours used." Only two other similar sarcophagi have ever been discovered in Cyprus. Both are housed in New York's Metropolitan Museum, but their colour decoration is more faded. The limestone sarcophagus was accidentally found by construction workers last week...

POROS, Island of Kefalonia, Greece - The tomb of Odysseus has been found, and the location of his legendary capital city of Ithaca discovered here on this large island across a one-mile channel from the bone-dry islet that modern maps call Ithaca. This could be the most important archeological discovery of the last 40 years, a find that may eventually equal the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann’s 19th Century dig at Troy. But the quirky people and politics involved in this achievement have delayed by several years the process of reporting the find to the world. Yet visitors to Kefalonia, an...

Well, now that exams are over, grades are in, I’d like to bring some Art Appreciation ideas to Free Republic. Unfortunately, as artists have become more and more abstract, it really does take some study and/or education to understand what their ideas are. One doesn’t always need a snotty PhD art historian to do so, however. Once a person learns how to look at artworks, one can make one’s own decisions about form and content. (One can't just "appreciate" the blue in a painting to really understand what the painting is about.) Form and content: that’s what I emphasize in...

You know that a show has been around a long time when they start measuring milestones in episodic increments of 50. But it's understandable that "The Simpsons" should want to make a big deal out of hitting 350 episodes with this Sunday's installment. As the legendary Fox series wraps up its 16th season, the denizens of Springfield are wading in some uncharted prime-time waters. When executive producer Al Jean boasts that "The Simpsons" "just enjoyed the best 16th season of any comedy ever," that's because no other comedy has ever made it this far. How many episodes is 350? More...

    Tastes and interests change in literature. Different themes, different styles, indeed whole different genres come in and out of being depending on the spirit of the age.     Nevertheless, there is something to be said for a “classical” style—not in a restricted sense as the style of Greco-Roman antiquity, nor any later genre which took inspiration from it—but rather a super-cultural literary style that rises up above its own genre and belongs as much to the ages as its own time period.     This is the old concept of the “Republic of Letters”—a community not of time and space...

BRISBANE, Australia - A woman pleaded guilty Wednesday to selling on eBay three nonexistent cases of Duff brand beer — the favorite of cartoon character Homer Simpson. Tara Edith Woodford, 28, pleaded guilty in the Mackay Magistrates Court in northern Queensland state to three charges of dishonestly gaining money by false pretenses. Prosecutor Gavin Burnett told the court Woodford was paid a total of 1,951 Australian dollars (U.S. $1,511) by three separate buyers after advertising the bogus beer on the eBay Internet auction site. Duff is the beer brand of choice for Homer Simpson and his barfly friends in the...

Ned stands front and center in Sunday's edition of "The Simpsons" when, in an unlikely collaboration with Homer, he co-produces the Super Bowl halftime show as (what else?) a biblical pageant. Homer portrays Noah. The stadium is flooded from a Duff's Beer blimp. Ned preaches the Word. Take that, Janet Jackson.

<p>Many commentators have noted that President Bush’s Second Inaugural Address presented “lofty” themes, rather than “plans for specific action in his second term.” Some saw this as a virtue, that too little attention is paid to the long span of America’s civic life. Others saw this as over-reaching, and some objected especially to the many religious references in Bush’s speech.</p>

ITCHY AND SCRATCHY (half the song is intro...be patient) They're nuts...they're nuts You know it in your guts We are kicking their butts The Kerry and Edwards show

The tusk, several teeth, and some bones of a Deinotherium giganteum, which, loosely translated means really huge terrible beast, have been found on the Greek island Crete. A distant relative to today's elephants, the giant mammal stood 15 feet (4.6 meters) tall at the shoulder, and had tusks that were 4.5 feet (1.3 meters) long. It was one of the largest mammals ever to walk the face of the Earth... To paleontologists today, the large hole in the center of the skull suggests a pronounced trunk. To the ancient Greeks, Deinotherium skulls could well be the foundation for their...

Scientists say warfare began after people formed villages By Dan Vergano Gannett News Service From ancient Troy to today's Iraq, warfare forms the backdrop of human history. But anthropologists, archaeologists and other scholars tend to disagree on war's origins: Some see it as an ailment of civilization and others say it has deeper roots. Two anthropologists from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, suggest that although people could have come into conflict before civilization, archaeological remains of burning homes, fleeing refugees and slain captives show simple raids steadily maturing into full-scale warfare as humans settled into villages and society became...

'Simpsons' cast gets more D'oh! LOS ANGELES (AP) — A month after stalled contract renewal talks led the voices of The Simpsons to stop work, both the actors and Fox are getting more "D'oh!" Terms of the deal were not announced for the actors who provide the voices for Homer and Marge Simpson and other characters on the long-running animated series. The loss of even a few episodes of The Simpsons, would be financially painful for the network. Fox "We couldn't be happier to have reached a multiyear deal with the enormously talented cast of The Simpsons, " series producer...

Movies Worth Seeing If you haven't done so, "Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King" is well worth seeing, even on a DVD if you miss it in the theaters. J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy was voted in a huge survey as the greatest book of the 20th century, which naturally infuriated academic critics who seem to think that the great literature is the vomit of the authors' neuroses transferred to the printed page — the ickier, the greater. I've always believed there is one standard for any author — can he or she tell a good story? It was...

Aye Carumba! Homer Simpson, the beer-drinking, donut-scarfing, bumbling nuclear-power plant technician of the Fox cartoon "The Simpsons" is the leading choice in an online poll to be named the "greatest American." The animated buffoon ranks ahead of real-life heroes including Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. The poll is part of an upcoming broadcast by the British Broadcasting Corporation which will "confront the critical question at the heart of the 21st century – what does the world think of America?" The program, which airs Tuesday night in the UK and will be available for download from the BBC...

WINNIPEG -- City hall is about to honour television's most beloved and buffoonish dad for being a real homer -- just in time for Father's Day. Homer Simpson will be made an official honorary citizen of the city this Friday -- a follow-up to last year's revelation that the main character of TV's longest-running animated sitcom is based on a real-life Winnipeg native, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening's father. "Homer is coming to TD Centre," Heather McIntyre, CanWest Global's local manager of production and operations, said yesterday of the honour to be bestowed outside the city's tallest tower. Coun. Jenny...

As they get closer to their season opener in Japan, the Oakland Athletics and Seattle Mariners are jittery. They're not the only ones - with war possible, major league baseball is wondering whether now's the time to play ball so far from home. There were no plans Monday for the teams to call off their trip to Tokyo. The A's and Mariners are supposed to leave in a couple of days and scheduled to play a two-game series beginning March 25. But commissioner Bud Selig and baseball officials were busy talking to the State Department, the FBI and other government...

<p>Springfield -- Here's to The Simpsons and their 14 seasons of hilarity and parody.</p> <p>I'll admit it, I'm a Simpsons junkie. I joined what I bet were millions of other people Sunday in front of the tube for the cartoon's 300th episode.</p>

At some point during its 14-year run, The Simpsons turned into one of the best sitcoms on television—and that's not a compliment. At one time, to call The Simpsons the best show on Fox would have been a vast understatement; to say it was the best sitcom on television would have been inadequate; and to describe it as the greatest TV show in history would (and still does) minimize its importance by limiting its cultural impact to the small screen. Who knows when it happened—maybe it was when Homer visited the leprechaun jockeys in Season 11, or when he was...

Friday, 7 February, 2003, 11:42 GMT Geologists investigate Trojan battlefield The Greeks armies would have attacked from the west Homer's description of the Trojan battlefield in his classic poem the Iliad is accurate, say scientists. The subject of the story - the Greeks' 10-year siege of Troy and the wooden horse they used to bring it to an end - may have been a myth, but its geography was not. It was right in front of Troy that we were drilling a hole and seashells came out Chris Kraft The researchers drilled sediments in northwest Turkey to map how the...

Homer Simpson will no doubt greet the news with a resounding 'doh!' and a theatrical slap of his forehead. Doh! A trip to Mo's Tavern is probably out of the question He is about to receive a visit from Tony Blair. The Prime Minister is expected to fulfil a long-held ambition by becoming the latest star guest to appear on the cult cartoon series. He is following the likes of Sir Paul McCartney, Tom Jones and Rupert Murdoch. Mr Blair has described himself as a 'Simpsons addict' who tries to find time to watch the show with his children. Sources...

Geologists show Homer got it rightTrojan geography in Homer's Iliad matches sediment record of Dardanelles coastline. 29 January 2003 PHILIP BALL The ruins of Troy now perch on the edge of a plateau overlooking a river flood plain. © Uni. of Oxford Homer knew his geography, say US researchers. The ancient Greek writer's description of the war fought around Troy is consistent with a new reconstruction of the way the region looked about three millennia ago1. In his Iliad, Homer recounts how the city of Troy was besieged and finally conquered by the army of the Spartan king Menelaus, who...

Was Troy a Metropolis? Homer Isn't Talking By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD new Trojan War has broken out. In the warrior roles of Achilles and Hector are two respected professors on the same German university faculty who could not differ more fully and vehemently over what to make of the ruins at the presumed site in western Turkey of the legendary siege in the 13th century B.C. immortalized by Homer. One adversary, an archaeologist who has directed excavations there since 1988, contends that he has found telling evidence of Troy as a much larger and more important city than previously thought....

  Who Killed Homer? They were supposed to keep the Greek and Roman flame burning. Instead, the authors argue, today's classicists have trashed their own field, squandering the legacy that shaped Western civilization and destroying a noble profession. by John Heath and Victor Davis Hanson Related Articles:Two professors defending HomerRelated Site: Classics on the web This winter, a new crop of PhD students in classics will troop off to academic conferences in search of teaching posts. These would-be professors of Greek and Latin have done exactly what they were told and read precisely what was assigned. Most of them...