The title of David Keys and Nicholas Pyke,"Decoded at Last: the ‘classical holy grail' that may rewrite the history of the world," The Independent, 17 April, is breathlessly exaggerated, no doubt, but the news it brings is of extra-ordinary importance for our understanding of the ancient eastern Mediterranean world. Scholars at Oxford have begun using infra-red technology to read the 400,000 fragments of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri and, just this past week, they've identified some fragments of Sophocles, Euripedes, Hesiod, and other classical writers. The trove from a rubbish dump in the Graeco-Egyptian town of Oxyrhynchus in central Egypt has been housed in 800 boxes at Oxford's Sackler Library for over a century, but only recently has technology begun giving scholars the capacity to read the fragments. Some of them are expected to include works by Aeschylus and Ovid, as well as parts of ancient Christian gospels or gospels later repudiated as heretical. Here is the website for the project. Thanks to Ogged at Unfogged for the tip.

At Inside Higher Ed, Scott Jaschik reports that the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association are lining up against David Horowitz's"Academic Bill of Rights" in legislative hearings both at state and national levels. And we knew something was up when Horowitz's Front Page Rag took down its"Florida Victories" headline. Sherman Dorn reports that the legislation is probably dead after not even making it out of committee. Horowitz should have more victories like that.

If you haven't stopped by Chapati Mystery recently, do so. In the conversion from an individual to a group blog, Sepoy has recruited some first rate bloggers to join him. A great history blog has become even better. Farangi's"Revelations I" and"Revelations II" are especially good. Just the thought of someone having been taught to give himself a little premillenial self-pleasure by Tim LaHaye will keep this evangelical amused and reading Chapati Mystery for some time to come. Never mind. That isn't what I mean.

"Sex, Collegiality, and the Academic Conference," The Chronicles of Dr. Crazy, 11 April. Your experience of the AHA convention and mine may be two very different things, but my wife is happier with mine. Well, there was the time that .... Oh, never mind. Thanks to Inside Higher Ed for the tip.

Finally, after urging us to ridicule eb at delayed reaction if eb at delayed reaction failed to keep eb at delayed reaction's vow to go on a blog and blog reading hiatus, eb at delayed reactionconfesses to a relapse and takes a final desperate measure: eb at delayed reaction has a new blog, on hiatus. Welcome to the ablogosphere!

Ralph E. Luker - 4/19/2005

Thanks for the correction. I'm told that zombies do have a way of persisting.

Sherman Jay Dorn - 4/19/2005

What you describe isn't quite correct—yes, the bill hasn't come out of its first committee on the Senate side and is probably dead, but it did get out of at least one committee on the House side, so it may stick around as a zombie for at least a few years.