Mind the Battering Ram

This week chief researcher and armchair adventurer extraordinaire Marilyn Terrell shares with us one of the joys of fact-checking—learning ancient trivia:

While checking the official name of a Greek temple built in Sicily 2,500 years ago, I came across this wonderful snippet from the March/April 1984 edition of the journal Archaeology. In an article entitled 'The Greek Temples of Sicily,' classical scholar Robert S. Bianchi explained how the Greeks got around the inconvenient and expensive problem of building huge limestone walls far from Sicilian quarries:

"The architects…calculated the absolute height above which battering rams were rendered ineffective and built in limestone to that level. The economical use of brick topped off the walls to their completed height without compromising their defensive purposes." I love my job!

And I discovered that Dr. Bianchi leads archaeological tours. His next one, called "Splendors of Ancient Egypt," leaves October 31 for 20 days; he'll lead another Egyptian tour in February '07.

If IT can get the time off, we toooootally want to spend Halloween learning ancient construction secrets. No, seriously. We really do.