Arts & Culture
Big Dig
Rookie archaeologist finds the discovery of a lifetime.
In their hunt for clues of the ancient past, archaeologists have been known to toil for years, endlessly searching for signs of those who lived long before us.
In such a storied place as Rome, of course, that search can be a whole lot faster. Or at least it was for Katja Schorle ’03 MA’06, who dug for just days before stumbling on a breathtaking relic of ancient history: a two-thousand-year-old bath complex, part of a luxurious villa built at the height of the Roman Empire.
Fresh off earning her master’s degree in classics, Schorle was spending the summer in Rome supervising an excavation site for the American Institute for Roman Culture (AIRC), a nonprofit organization that runs field courses in archaeology and architecture for English-speaking undergraduate and graduate students.
With seventeen students under her watch, Schorle began working in an area known as the Park of the Aqueducts, named after the ancient system of man-made channels that transported water into ancient Rome. The park is one of the best-preserved sections of the Campagna Romana, the so-called suburbs of early Rome, where wealthy families maintained lavish country estates.
In their hunt for clues of the ancient past, archaeologists have been known to toil for years, endlessly searching for signs of those who lived long before us.
In such a storied place as Rome, of course, that search can be a whole lot faster. Or at least it was for Katja Schorle ’03 MA’06, who dug for just days before stumbling on a breathtaking relic of ancient history: a two-thousand-year-old bath complex, part of a luxurious villa built at the height of the Roman Empire.
Fresh off earning her master’s degree in classics, Schorle was spending the summer in Rome supervising an excavation site for the American Institute for Roman Culture (AIRC), a nonprofit organization that runs field courses in archaeology and architecture for English-speaking undergraduate and graduate students.
With seventeen students under her watch, Schorle began working in an area known as the Park of the Aqueducts, named after the ancient system of man-made channels that transported water into ancient Rome. The park is one of the best-preserved sections of the Campagna Romana, the so-called suburbs of early Rome, where wealthy families maintained lavish country estates.
Based on old military reports and standing ruins near the aqueduct system, the scientists guessed that a legendary site known as the Villa delle Vignacce — or Villa of the Vineyard — was buried in the area. But as luck would have it, Schorle and the students didn’t have to look very far. Within days of beginning excavation, they saw bricks dating back to the second century. “We kept on going and started seeing entire walls coming out,” says Schorle. “We were thinking, ‘Oh my god, this is it!’ ”
As they cleared away more earth, the budding archaeologists found the walls actually formed a semicircular room — most likely some kind of bath chamber — made of marble, with terra-cotta pipes lining its walls. The room’s ceiling had fallen to the floor, but incredibly, had remained intact, with beautiful pieces of colored mosaic glass still embedded within. Nearby, the team uncovered a massive water tank that had been two stories high. Schorle and others think the tank was a source of irrigation for fresh fruit supplies going into Rome.
“This whole find raises all kinds of tantalizing questions,” says archaeologist Darius Arya, the AIRC’s executive director. “We don’t really know what happened in the Campagna Romana between the second and sixth centuries, but now we can work with all this fresh and raw information.”
“At a time like ours — when everything is going so fast that we don’t even have the time to question who we are — it is important to take a pause and marvel at what it was like to live two thousand years ago,” says Schorle. “It is an incredible feeling to find out that in terms of humanity, these people were really close to us.”
— Paroma Basu
As they cleared away more earth, the budding archaeologists found the walls actually formed a semicircular room — most likely some kind of bath chamber — made of marble, with terra-cotta pipes lining its walls. The room’s ceiling had fallen to the floor, but incredibly, had remained intact, with beautiful pieces of colored mosaic glass still embedded within. Nearby, the team uncovered a massive water tank that had been two stories high. Schorle and others think the tank was a source of irrigation for fresh fruit supplies going into Rome.
“This whole find raises all kinds of tantalizing questions,” says archaeologist Darius Arya, the AIRC’s executive director. “We don’t really know what happened in the Campagna Romana between the second and sixth centuries, but now we can work with all this fresh and raw information.”
“At a time like ours — when everything is going so fast that we don’t even have the time to question who we are — it is important to take a pause and marvel at what it was like to live two thousand years ago,” says Schorle. “It is an incredible feeling to find out that in terms of humanity, these people were really close to us.”
— Paroma Basu
COLLECTION: The Kind of Science That Isn’t
Quick quiz: what’s at the center of the earth? If you guessed nothing because a) the earth is hollow or b) the earth is flat, then the Robert Schadewald Collection is for you. Schadewald, a writer based in Minneapolis, was an avid researcher of pseudoscience, and when he died in 2001, he left his vast collection of books, pamphlets, and other materials to the UW Libraries. They now reside in Special Collections, where they’re part of the History of Science Collection.
The Schadewald Collection contains some nine hundred titles, which cover a wide variety of “occult knowledge, natural magic, and nonstandard scientific theories,” according to Robin Rider, curator of Special Collections. These include volumes on psychics, UFOs, spiritualism, flat-Earth and hollow-Earth hypotheses, and books that claim to debunk such scientific essentials as the theory of relativity. They also include boxes of Schadewald’s correspondence with those who espoused nonstandard theories and articles that he wrote himself.
Parts of the Schadewald Collection have recently been on display, when Special Collections hosted an exhibit entitled Secrets Reveal’d, an exploration of pseudoscience through the ages. The exhibit will come down this semester, but the Schadewald Collection is still available to the public. The materials may be seen in the Special Collections room, which is located in Memorial Library and is open Monday to Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
— John Allen
The Schadewald Collection contains some nine hundred titles, which cover a wide variety of “occult knowledge, natural magic, and nonstandard scientific theories,” according to Robin Rider, curator of Special Collections. These include volumes on psychics, UFOs, spiritualism, flat-Earth and hollow-Earth hypotheses, and books that claim to debunk such scientific essentials as the theory of relativity. They also include boxes of Schadewald’s correspondence with those who espoused nonstandard theories and articles that he wrote himself.
Parts of the Schadewald Collection have recently been on display, when Special Collections hosted an exhibit entitled Secrets Reveal’d, an exploration of pseudoscience through the ages. The exhibit will come down this semester, but the Schadewald Collection is still available to the public. The materials may be seen in the Special Collections room, which is located in Memorial Library and is open Monday to Friday, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
— John Allen
National Lampoon
History professor makes his mark in political satire.
Stan Schultz is changing the course of American history — at least as it’s told by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
When the writers of the show’s wildly popular best seller, America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, decided to publish a second edition, they took aim at a time-honored academic tradition — the college professor’s dreaded red pen. They wanted an authentic history professor to grade the original book as though it were a term paper, so co-editor Ben Karlin ’93 called his alma mater to see if anyone would be willing to work on the project. That’s how he met Schultz, an emeritus professor who had developed one of the UW’s most popular history classes.
Schultz uncapped his pen and went to work “correcting” America (The Book): Teacher’s Edition. The rest is history — with an ironic bite and a sense of humor.
“It was immediately apparent that we would work famously together,” says Karlin. “Sometimes even if the separate ingredients are awesome, it’s not a good match. But this was not the case — this was a delicious recipe.”
Like the Daily Show, the Teacher’s Edition is fearless in its political satire. The book includes a depiction of Supreme Court justices in the nude, a guide to dressing and speaking like a journalist, and a chapter entitled “Congress: Quagmire of Freedom.” Schultz is quick to point out that although it’s a bit silly at times, much of the meaty stuff the book covers is quite accurate.
Stan Schultz is changing the course of American history — at least as it’s told by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.
When the writers of the show’s wildly popular best seller, America (The Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction, decided to publish a second edition, they took aim at a time-honored academic tradition — the college professor’s dreaded red pen. They wanted an authentic history professor to grade the original book as though it were a term paper, so co-editor Ben Karlin ’93 called his alma mater to see if anyone would be willing to work on the project. That’s how he met Schultz, an emeritus professor who had developed one of the UW’s most popular history classes.
Schultz uncapped his pen and went to work “correcting” America (The Book): Teacher’s Edition. The rest is history — with an ironic bite and a sense of humor.
“It was immediately apparent that we would work famously together,” says Karlin. “Sometimes even if the separate ingredients are awesome, it’s not a good match. But this was not the case — this was a delicious recipe.”
Like the Daily Show, the Teacher’s Edition is fearless in its political satire. The book includes a depiction of Supreme Court justices in the nude, a guide to dressing and speaking like a journalist, and a chapter entitled “Congress: Quagmire of Freedom.” Schultz is quick to point out that although it’s a bit silly at times, much of the meaty stuff the book covers is quite accurate.
“They’ve nailed everything that is pompous, everything that is bland, everything that is in a textbook where the authors didn’t want to offend anybody and so they aren’t really telling the story the way it should be told in the first place,” he says. “They got that straight on.”
The Teacher’s Edition touts Schultz on the cover as a “real-life bearded college professor” and includes his professional biography. His comments are scrawled in the margins in red ink, and in his own handwriting, which was made into a font — or was it?
“You should know that he hand-marked one million copies of this book. Do you know how tiring that was for him?” Karlin smirks.
Schultz says he had a great time working with the Daily Show writers, and he isn’t offended at the tongue-in-cheek jabs at American history. In fact, he can almost imagine actually teaching from this pseudo-textbook.
“I think if you really want to learn about the development of democratic government in the United States, what the Supreme Court does, what Congress does, how elections are run — you’d be hard-pressed to find a better book than this one,” he says.
— Erin Hueffner ’00
The Teacher’s Edition touts Schultz on the cover as a “real-life bearded college professor” and includes his professional biography. His comments are scrawled in the margins in red ink, and in his own handwriting, which was made into a font — or was it?
“You should know that he hand-marked one million copies of this book. Do you know how tiring that was for him?” Karlin smirks.
Schultz says he had a great time working with the Daily Show writers, and he isn’t offended at the tongue-in-cheek jabs at American history. In fact, he can almost imagine actually teaching from this pseudo-textbook.
“I think if you really want to learn about the development of democratic government in the United States, what the Supreme Court does, what Congress does, how elections are run — you’d be hard-pressed to find a better book than this one,” he says.
— Erin Hueffner ’00
ARTIFACTS
Lecturer Mark Anthony Rolo MSx’08 gives PBS viewers A Seat at the Drum with his new film of that title in November. Rolo, who’s a member of the Bad River Ojibwe Tribe, takes a look at the lives of the urban American Indians in Los Angeles, the American city with the largest Native population. Rolo shows how the urban experience has caused some L.A. Indians to lose their tribal identity, while others feel a stronger connection. A Seat at the Drum is part of the Indian Country Diaries series of documentaries from Native American Public Telecommunications.
The Chazen Museum of Art is taking a look into the stories behind a popular form of folk art with an exhibit on Russian Lacquer Boxes: A Narrative Tradition. The exhibit features sixty original boxes from the Frederick Seibold collection, and each depicts a story from Russian folklore or religious tradition. The exhibit will be on display until January 14, 2007.
Andrew Taylor MA’94, director of the UW’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration, is making waves in the world of urban arts planning. A recent speech of his, “The Footprints and the Giant: Exploring the Value of the Arts to Communities,” will be included in the 2006 edition of Representative American Speeches. Taylor delivered the speech to a Milwaukee business group, but the anthology’s editors selected it for its relevance to art’s place in modern society. Taylor is also the author of the blog “The Artful Manager” at www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager.
The Chazen Museum of Art is taking a look into the stories behind a popular form of folk art with an exhibit on Russian Lacquer Boxes: A Narrative Tradition. The exhibit features sixty original boxes from the Frederick Seibold collection, and each depicts a story from Russian folklore or religious tradition. The exhibit will be on display until January 14, 2007.
Andrew Taylor MA’94, director of the UW’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration, is making waves in the world of urban arts planning. A recent speech of his, “The Footprints and the Giant: Exploring the Value of the Arts to Communities,” will be included in the 2006 edition of Representative American Speeches. Taylor delivered the speech to a Milwaukee business group, but the anthology’s editors selected it for its relevance to art’s place in modern society. Taylor is also the author of the blog “The Artful Manager” at www.artsjournal.com/artfulmanager.
