I just read this exciting news about how scientists have found a way to read a stash of ancient texts found in a garbage dump in Egypt in the late 19th century. They are using infra-red technology to slowly decipher these writings, which have remained completely illegible.
They predict that this will increase our canon of Ancient Greek and Roman texts by at least a fifth, and already some VERY tantalizing works, long unknown except by reference in other texts, are showing up--including Sophocles treatment of the seige of Thebes.
If Only. . .
That's excellent -- the news about the lost Christian gospels strikes me as particularly interesting. Now, if only Quintilian's lost De causis corruptae eloquentiae were in there, or the missing contribution from Julius Secundus in the Dialogus de oratoribus of Tacitus -- or some of Aspasia's rhetorical works. . .
--
Mike
http://www.vitia.org/
Drama. More Greek Drama.
The good stuff, of course. And since I'll have to wait for it to be translated, those classicists better get hopping.
Dennis G. Jerz
Jerz's Literacy Weblog