Theo Nash
@theonash.bsky.social
Classicist and Archaeologist. PhD student IPCAA, MA and BA Victoria University of Wellington.
Reposted by Theo Nash
A single word, even a single letter, can mean a lot more when it's in a classic work.
A little papyrological rediscovery and some time-travelling detective work (literary rather than literal) by @theonash.bsky.social has unearthed evidence of medieval misunderstanding & meddling in Homer's Odyssey.
A little papyrological rediscovery and some time-travelling detective work (literary rather than literal) by @theonash.bsky.social has unearthed evidence of medieval misunderstanding & meddling in Homer's Odyssey.
New issue of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, edited by @sofiatorallas.bsky.social , with contributions on literary papyri from @theonash.bsky.social and myself.
December 21, 2025 at 5:23 PM
A single word, even a single letter, can mean a lot more when it's in a classic work.
A little papyrological rediscovery and some time-travelling detective work (literary rather than literal) by @theonash.bsky.social has unearthed evidence of medieval misunderstanding & meddling in Homer's Odyssey.
A little papyrological rediscovery and some time-travelling detective work (literary rather than literal) by @theonash.bsky.social has unearthed evidence of medieval misunderstanding & meddling in Homer's Odyssey.
Reposted by Theo Nash
New issue of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, edited by @sofiatorallas.bsky.social , with contributions on literary papyri from @theonash.bsky.social and myself.
December 21, 2025 at 9:23 AM
New issue of the Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, edited by @sofiatorallas.bsky.social , with contributions on literary papyri from @theonash.bsky.social and myself.
Real-world Quellenforschung: identifying which AI system a student used to write their essay.
December 2, 2025 at 12:35 AM
Real-world Quellenforschung: identifying which AI system a student used to write their essay.
Elite private universities are actually a pretty American phenomenon.
Really important to stress that the Crown Jewels of the US higher education system were never the Ivies or elite SLACs (other countries have equivalents of these) but the well-funded, large, cheap, and excellently staffed public state university systems bringing high quality education to the masses.
November 23, 2025 at 8:02 PM
Elite private universities are actually a pretty American phenomenon.
'sit' is, I believe, the only English word to preserve all of its original IE ablaut grades:
0: nest
e: set
long e: seat
o: sat
long o: soot
0: nest
e: set
long e: seat
o: sat
long o: soot
Historically, the word 'nest' consists of two parts.
The part 'ne-' is related to 'nether', while '-st' is related to 'sit'.
The distant ancestor of 'nest' meant "place to sit down".
'Nest' is also related to Spanish 'nido' and its Romance relatives.
Click my new graphic to learn more:
The part 'ne-' is related to 'nether', while '-st' is related to 'sit'.
The distant ancestor of 'nest' meant "place to sit down".
'Nest' is also related to Spanish 'nido' and its Romance relatives.
Click my new graphic to learn more:
September 21, 2025 at 5:52 PM
'sit' is, I believe, the only English word to preserve all of its original IE ablaut grades:
0: nest
e: set
long e: seat
o: sat
long o: soot
0: nest
e: set
long e: seat
o: sat
long o: soot
I am reminded, reading this, of the anecdote about Shackleton Bailey refusing to attend a conference entitled 'What is Philology?' on the grounds that he would rather be doing it. To its practitioners, the project is so self-evident that introspection becomes heresy.
Philology: the Best of All Possible Methods? A response to the apology.
planudes.medium.com/the-best-of-...
planudes.medium.com/the-best-of-...
The Best of All Possible Methods
The Gold and Katz Defense of Philology
planudes.medium.com
September 10, 2025 at 3:35 PM
I am reminded, reading this, of the anecdote about Shackleton Bailey refusing to attend a conference entitled 'What is Philology?' on the grounds that he would rather be doing it. To its practitioners, the project is so self-evident that introspection becomes heresy.
This would be the end of international PhD students in America: www.chronicle.com/newsletter/l...
September 4, 2025 at 11:42 AM
This would be the end of international PhD students in America: www.chronicle.com/newsletter/l...
Reposted by Theo Nash
Chicago Classics as Rorschach blot, and ‘divide and rule’ in the 21st-century university.
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/29/r...
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/29/r...
Rats In A Sack
On the one hand, what’s happening in the University of Chicago – the (supposedly temporary) suspension of recruitment to PhD programmes in Classics as well as other disciplines that require s…
thesphinxblog.com
August 29, 2025 at 10:31 AM
Chicago Classics as Rorschach blot, and ‘divide and rule’ in the 21st-century university.
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/29/r...
thesphinxblog.com/2025/08/29/r...
The American School of Classical Studies seems to have removed the traditional exam for the Regular Year, opting instead to interview students: www.ascsa.edu.gr/programs/reg...
August 27, 2025 at 5:42 PM
The American School of Classical Studies seems to have removed the traditional exam for the Regular Year, opting instead to interview students: www.ascsa.edu.gr/programs/reg...
What Big Grammar won’t tell you is that the semicolon has completely starved out the good old-fashioned colon, a much more interesting piece of punctuation.
I will go to war for the semicolon, one of the most magical and unjustly maligned of all human inventions
The semicolon is the exception to this, of course.
August 20, 2025 at 9:33 PM
What Big Grammar won’t tell you is that the semicolon has completely starved out the good old-fashioned colon, a much more interesting piece of punctuation.
Reposted by Theo Nash
replies full of slop-pologists falling over themselves to claim this text doesn't say what the literal words say
The University of Michigan is now claiming that students have an ‘ethical responsibility’ to use AI.
August 20, 2025 at 7:27 PM
replies full of slop-pologists falling over themselves to claim this text doesn't say what the literal words say
Reposted by Theo Nash
August 20, 2025 at 3:57 PM
The University of Michigan is now claiming that students have an ‘ethical responsibility’ to use AI.
August 20, 2025 at 12:40 PM
The University of Michigan is now claiming that students have an ‘ethical responsibility’ to use AI.
magnanimously? munificently?
August 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM
magnanimously? munificently?
More conservatively, it shows that the paradigm hadn't yet been levelled from /hen/, /hem-os/ to /hen/, /hen-os/. The fact that Mycenaean never writes final nasals makes this essentially unprovable, even with the possibility of future discoveries.
28. Mycenaean e-me /hemei̯/ 'one' (dat. sg. m.) *probably* shows that word final *-m hadn't yet merged with *-n in Mycenaean but since all we have is the stem of *hem- positively attested only in medial position it's not absolutely clear proof.
August 16, 2025 at 4:01 PM
More conservatively, it shows that the paradigm hadn't yet been levelled from /hen/, /hem-os/ to /hen/, /hen-os/. The fact that Mycenaean never writes final nasals makes this essentially unprovable, even with the possibility of future discoveries.
Reposted by Theo Nash
41. The reason we can likely be confident of this is because the Linear B syllabogram 𐀛 <ni> is also used ideographically for figs, and is also used in Linear A and so probably assigned by the acrophonic principle. This was first pointed out by Günter Neumann in Glotta 36 (1957) 156–158.
July 28, 2025 at 12:29 PM
41. The reason we can likely be confident of this is because the Linear B syllabogram 𐀛 <ni> is also used ideographically for figs, and is also used in Linear A and so probably assigned by the acrophonic principle. This was first pointed out by Günter Neumann in Glotta 36 (1957) 156–158.
Reposted by Theo Nash
40. The only word in Ancient Greek that we know (in my opinion) that we can be *absolutely* certain to have been borrowed from a language related to the one the Minoans spoke is νικύλεον, a kind of Cretan fig according to Hermonax in Athenaeus's Deipnosophists 76e.
July 28, 2025 at 12:29 PM
40. The only word in Ancient Greek that we know (in my opinion) that we can be *absolutely* certain to have been borrowed from a language related to the one the Minoans spoke is νικύλεον, a kind of Cretan fig according to Hermonax in Athenaeus's Deipnosophists 76e.
Reposted by Theo Nash
And Indiana Jones wept.
A list of languages I've taken at the University of Chicago:
Akkadian
Aramaic
Ugaritic
Classical Hebrew
Rabbinic Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Ancient Greek
German
All of them were important for my work, and I wasn't in any those departments.
A list of languages I've taken at the University of Chicago:
Akkadian
Aramaic
Ugaritic
Classical Hebrew
Rabbinic Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Ancient Greek
German
All of them were important for my work, and I wasn't in any those departments.
This isn’t an impoverished regional school – this is the University of Chicago. Devastating.
August 13, 2025 at 8:07 PM
And Indiana Jones wept.
A list of languages I've taken at the University of Chicago:
Akkadian
Aramaic
Ugaritic
Classical Hebrew
Rabbinic Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Ancient Greek
German
All of them were important for my work, and I wasn't in any those departments.
A list of languages I've taken at the University of Chicago:
Akkadian
Aramaic
Ugaritic
Classical Hebrew
Rabbinic Hebrew
Modern Hebrew
Ancient Greek
German
All of them were important for my work, and I wasn't in any those departments.
Reposted by Theo Nash
People don't even realize the Oriental Institute's importance. Even in popular culture. They are murdering Indiana Jones. I knew things were bad when I read the mealy-mouthed stuff I get as an alumnus but this is just disgusting. So sad.
August 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM
People don't even realize the Oriental Institute's importance. Even in popular culture. They are murdering Indiana Jones. I knew things were bad when I read the mealy-mouthed stuff I get as an alumnus but this is just disgusting. So sad.
This isn’t an impoverished regional school – this is the University of Chicago. Devastating.
August 13, 2025 at 5:30 PM
This isn’t an impoverished regional school – this is the University of Chicago. Devastating.
Hence my favourite opening sentence in a preface, from Woodman’s commentary of the latter half of Velleius Paterculus’ second book:
June 19, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Hence my favourite opening sentence in a preface, from Woodman’s commentary of the latter half of Velleius Paterculus’ second book:
Sad to share the Penelope Mountjoy, the doyenne of Mycenaean pottery, has passed away.
June 15, 2025 at 1:48 PM
Sad to share the Penelope Mountjoy, the doyenne of Mycenaean pottery, has passed away.
More Vesuvius Challenge sorcery: they got the title of P.Herc. 172. ΦΙΛΟΔΗΜΟΥ ΠΕΡΙ ΚΑΚΙΩΝ Α. More here: scrollprize.substack.com/p/60000-firs...
May 5, 2025 at 10:07 PM
More Vesuvius Challenge sorcery: they got the title of P.Herc. 172. ΦΙΛΟΔΗΜΟΥ ΠΕΡΙ ΚΑΚΙΩΝ Α. More here: scrollprize.substack.com/p/60000-firs...
Roberta Mazza's Stolen Fragments reviewed without a single mention of Dirk Obbink: curious. bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2025/2025.04...
Stolen fragments: black markets, bad faith, and the illicit trade in ancient artefacts – Bryn Mawr Classical Review
bmcr.brynmawr.edu
April 24, 2025 at 6:31 PM
Roberta Mazza's Stolen Fragments reviewed without a single mention of Dirk Obbink: curious. bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2025/2025.04...