A largely intact gladiatorial school has been discovered within the ruins of the Roman city of Carnuntum. This has to go on the list of places to visit and study....Unique Roman Gladiator Ruins Unveiled in Austria

A CNS story on the maintenance of the Christian catacombs around Rome that caught my eye as I just got back in. I enjoyed a long evening tonight with Dan, Amy, and Pat, Amy's mother, turning the conversation away from dissertating and just playing a recent incarnation of Trivial Pursuit, after enjoying a fashion show of Amy's dress purchases from ( Read more... )

There's a couple of interesting things that have been coming out of Rome the last few weeks dealing with earliest Church History: New Testament-era stuff, in fact. So I thought I would jot them down here for me and whoever of you might deign to read this. I tossed in a CNS article, but the main thing is from Sandro Magister's column:

New ( Read more... )

Here's an article and sample essay from a conference I would have loved to have attended in Rome about the broad cultural reception of evolutionary theory over the last 150 years. Fun stuff, and hopefully the type of thing on the academic level that will raise popular consciousness and discourse in the United States.

Give to Darwin What Is Darwin ( Read more... )

How amazing is it, that there is still something new of the Master's to discover? I never get to find things like this tucked into my things! That said, I'm turning in: I've been up working for 32 hours and I've earned my rest.

Vatican: Michelangelo Sketch Found
Dec 6, 3:52 PM (ET)

By FRANCES D'EMILIO


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Sanctuary of Rome's 'Founder' Revealed
Nov 20, 8:03 PM (ET)


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Erik just called, with the news that Hugh Carter, who we accompanied on his epic journey through Rome and Tunisia in April 1998, has fallen with a combination of stroke and heart attack on Friday, and that the effects seem to be progressing, and that he might not last much longer. Erik had spoken of the three of us getting together over Easter, ( Read more... )

Now, I'm not holding my breath that these are the actual remains of Paul of Tarsus. (Although there's reasonable evidence for the authentic tomb of Peter to have been excavated in modern times from the ancient cemetery the Vatican was built upon.) But it is going to be an interesting find for early Christian archaeology if this is even just ( Read more... )

Maybe alarmist, maybe not? Still, as an historian, particularly an ancient historian, and as one for whom Rome is his favourite city on the planet, it's the kind of thing to keep me concerned....


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