Obituary: Nicolas Coldstream (1927-2008)

Nicolas Coldstream, best known for his work on Early Iron Age Greece, died on March 21, 2008. He was born on March 30, 1927, at Lahore, India, and was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. He was temporary assistant keeper in the Department of Greek and Roman Antiquities at the British Museum (1956-57), and then Macmillan Student at the BSA (1957-60). In 1960 he was appointed lecturer at Bedford College, University of London, promoted reader (1966), and subsequently professor of Aegean Archaeology (1975). He was elected Yates Professor of Classical Archaeology at University College London in 1983 (a position he held until his retirement in 1992).

Coldstream edited the Annual of the British School at Athens (1968-73) and was chair of the Managing Committee (1987-91).

• Daily Telegraph, April 4, 2008.
• The Times, April 9, 2008.
• The Independent, April 15, 2008 (by Gerald Cadogan)
  

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Burn More Calories With Interval Training

The basic weight loss nuts and bolts behind cardiovascular exercise (or any kind of exercise, really) is, as you know, a matter of catabolism.

Essentially, if you can engineer your body to require more energy, your body will comply by breaking cells down to deliver it; and that process (metabolism) burns calories. Simple, right?

So based on that logic, something called interval training neatly fits in with the overall plan. Interval training is simply a adding high-energy burning component to your exercise plan on an infrequent, or interval, basis.

For example, you may be at a stage where you can jog for 20 minutes every other day, and thus put your heart into a cardiovascular zone during this time.

This, obviously, is going to help you boost your metabolism and thus burn calories/energy. Yet you can actually burn disproportionately more calories if, during that 20 minute jog, you add a 30 second or 1 minute sprint.

Why? Because during this 30 seconds or 1 minute, you give your body a bit of a jolt.

Not an unhealthy jolt; remember, we’re talking about quick bursts here, not suddenly racing around the track or through the park! By giving your body an interval jolt, it automatically – and somewhat unexpectedly – has to turn things up a notch.

And to compensate for your extra energy requirements, the body will burn more calories.

It’s essential for you to always keep in mind that interval training only works when it’s at intervals. This may seem like a strange thing to say (and even difficult to understand), but it’s actually very straightforward.

The metabolism-boosting benefits that you enjoy as a result of interval training are primarily due to the fact that your body, suddenly, needs to find more energy.
While it was chugging along and supplying your energy needs during your cardiovascular exercising, it all of a sudden needs to go grab some more for 30 seconds or a minute; and in that period, it will boost your metabolism as if it were given a nice, healthy jolt.

As you can see, if you suddenly decided to extend your 30 second or 1 minute sprint into a 20 minute sprint, you simply wouldn’t experience all of the benefits.

Yes, your body would use more energy if you extend yourself to the higher range of your aerobic training zone. But your body won’t necessarily get that jolt that only comes from interval training.

So remember: your goal with interval training is to give your body a healthy jolt.

For more info on interval training and calories burning, go to this link: Turbulence Trainining Exercises.

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River Plate Game!

This was absolutely crazy! We went to the River vs Arsenal game on Sunday and a huge fight broke out in the stands! Luckily it was not near where we were sitting, but it was quite a sight!

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Swollen Summer

Chris and I went to Uruguay for about a week and a half. It was a lot of fun! We took the boat over from Buenos Aires to Colonia, which takes about an hour. From there we bussed to Montevideo, where we stayed a couple of nights. It is a nice city, except it seemed to have an unusual amount of beggers. Also, Uruguay loves their Mate. Mate is a tea type thing, except instead of having it in a little bag, you put the actual leaves into a cup and add hot water and then you sip it through a straw which has a filter on it. There is also a ritual to drinking it. In a style which I assume to be similar to a peace pipe, you drink one whole cup and then fill the water back up and pass it to the next person.


After Montevideo, we headed up the coast to Punta del Este. We were there for the Easter weekend, so it was kind of busy. This weekend is kind of like our Labor Day; it signifies the end of the summer for them. So everyone was at the beach, chilling and getting some last minute sun. It really doesnt get very cold, even in the winter, but it still is kind of the end of the summer for them.
Our next stop was La Paloma, which was a very small beach town. We camped at a nice site which was about a 5 minute walk to the beach. It was great, very relaxing and just what we needed after being in the city for the last couple of weeks. We spent some time at the beach and some time just hanging out and playing cards and reading... However, it was here that a crisis was averted.

We went to the beach one day and everything was fine. The next day we got up and were preparing to leave when I started to itch. I had peed in the dark in a bush the night before and thought maybe I had squatted in some poison oak or something, but soon a rash had spread all over my body. Next the rash kind of dissapated and in its place was just swollen redness. We went to the doctor who gave me cortizone and told me to stay out of the sun. Apparently I had used a lotion or soap which in addition to the sun had given me some sort of allergic reaction. Who knew! To the right is a photo of my misfortune.


So, after that we went to a great little town called Punta del Diablo. However, I couldnt go out in the sun, and it was a beach town, so we ended up just hanging out in our little cabina playing cards with a small boy named Santiago. Which of course was fun! He taught us the name for all the shapes, but we found out later that he actually may have given us the wrong names...

Now we are back in Buenos Aires. But I will have more to say about that later....

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Melos: the Hall of the Mystae

In April 1896 Robert Carr Bosanquet described to his sister Caroline the excavations at 'the Hall of the Mystae' on Melos.

A few days later we found a statue, headless alas, lying on its back on the mosaic pavement ...It represents a hierophant ... of Dionysos, probably, and was set up by the Mystae or Initiates. The mosaic is an unusually large one, some 40 feet in length, and 10 feet wide, and on the whole well preserved. Yesterday we finished clearing away the stone dykes and soil that overlay the upper end and were overwhelmed by the beauty of the upper compartment: it has a vine in each corner whose branches spread over the field: among them are birds of gorgeous plumage, pheasants and peacocks, at one side a deer or goat lying down. The colouring is very rich and the design good. It is probably the best mosaic that has been discovered in Greece. I am anxious to arrange for its permanent preservation and am wiring to Cecil Smith, whom I suppose to be in Athens, to that effect. He has left me in charge for over 3 weeks and I have only heard from him once, so I am anxiously awaiting his coming.

The drawing was made by Charles R.R. Clark, the excavation's architect.

Bibliography
Bosanquet, R. C. 1898. "Excavations of the British School at Melos. The Hall of the Mystae." Journal of Hellenic Studies 18: 60-80, pls. i-iii.

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High Reps Build Muscle Big Time!

If you were to ask a million bodybuilders / weight trainers, or read thousands of "muscle building" articles, or picked up almost every book ever written on the quickest way for natural trainers to gain weight fast (quality weight, of course), 99% of them will tell you that lower repetitions during sets, 10 reps or less, will build more muscle mass than any weight training program that requires you to use higher reps.

This philosophy has been around for decades, and , has lead to the undeniable truth that lower reps are not the best way to build muscle without the use of anabolic steroids. If it were, then why don't we see millions more of "muscle heads" walking around in every day life? There are millions and millions of individuals that are very dedicated to their workouts, yet most have nothing to really show for it. Sure, they may be getting stronger, but they aren't getting bigger in size.....and there's a huge difference between the two.

Unlike what most think and say, the two are not one and the same.

Case in point: According to The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, in a study titled "Muscular adaptations to combinations of high and low intensity resistance exercises", Japanese scientists had trainers separate into two different weight lifting groups:

1) A strength training group

2) A mixed-training group

They had both of them follow your typical workout routine:

* 5 sets per exercise / 3-5 reps per set / 3 minutes rest between sets

The change came in the mixed group. Once they were done, they then went on ahead and did 1 set of 25-30 reps 30 seconds immediately after they were done with the last set. The results were interesting, to say the least.

As reported, not only did the mixed group continue to make in muscle mass while the strength training group had a slight loss in muscle mass. In addition, the mixed training group gained about 5% greater 1-rep max strength than the other group.

Now, not that you should place all of your weight training philosophy faith on one study. But this just adds to all of the real world proof that clearly demonstrates that if you are after pure muscle building or weight gain.....not necessarily pure power or strength, you have to up the amount of reps you perform per set. Higher reps provide a ton of muscle building factors that lower reps don't, such as longer time under tension, lactic acid build up, greater blood pumps, so on and so forth.

Keep all of this in mind the next time you are tempted into only worrying about how much you are lifting instead of for how many times. Always be sure to remember that if you are a naturally skinny individual that strength gaining is not your main goal. Your main focus to gain weight and build muscle. In order to do this, you'll have to structure your weight training routine and calorie eating to be able to accomplish this. I'll say it again, this one factor alone is one of the main reasons millions of weight lifters never reach the physique they work so hard to attain.

The weight training misconceptions don't stop here. If you want to read more articles dealing with the real way to train and eat for muscle building / weight gaining purposes, go here: Fast or Slow Reps To Build Muscle & Gain Weight?

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David Hogarth on Melos

David Hogarth had excavated at Old Paphos with the Cyprus Exploration Fund (1888) and then at Koptos in Egypt with Flinders Petrie (1894). He then joined the Egypt Exploration Fund's excavation at Deir-el-Bahari (1894), before working at Alexandria with E.F. Benson (1895), a BSA student, and then the Faiyum (1895-96).

Petrie had been the main influence on Hogarth when he went to Phylakopi on Melos to direct the BSA's excavations there. He noted:

The workmen were all native Melians, a singularly honest and industrious lot as compared with many that I have had to do with in excavation work, but possessing little experience and not conspicuous intelligence. Consequently, while they were little likely to steal, they needed constant watching and directing; and I found it not advisable to introduce among them methods that, following Mr. Petrie, I had used from time to time in Egypt, under which the men are left very much to themselves. For instance, payment by cubic metre of earth excavated, which I had contemplated introducing in order not to have to "drive" the gangs, proved not feasible in view of the large quantity of valuable pottery which the soil everywhere contained. It would have been necessary to counteract the tendency to haste, which all metre work induces, by paying a price for countless sherds which up to then had had no money value in the island. Both the disbursement would have been too great for our funds, and an unfortunate precedent would have been introduced to disturb the Aracadian simplicity of the Melians.

Bibliography
Hogarth, D. G. 1897/98. "Excavations in Melos 1898. I. The season's work." Annual of the British School at Athens 4: 1-16.

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Francis Haverfield and Robert Carr Bosanquet

Phil Freeman was written a wonderfully detailed study of Francis Haverfield (1860-1919). In the section on Haverfield's 'associates', Freeman notes the strong link with Robert Carr Bosanquet (1871-1935), of Rock Hall, near Alnwick, Northumberland. Apart from being Director of the BSA, Bosanquet excavated at Housesteads on Hadrian's Wall, and later in Wales when he held the chair of classical archaeology at Liverpool.

Freeman notes the close link between the two (especially over the work in Wales) but comments (p. 414):

How and when Bosanquet came into contact with Haverfield again is not known. ... their association has to go back to Haverfield's work around Hadrian's Wall, where Bosanquet was born and later farmed.

The answer probably lies in Thomas Hodgkin (1831-1913) who had close links with Haverfield through the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne. Both were involved with the excavations at Corbridge (along with Haverfield's student Leonard Cheesman (1884-1915), who was subsequently admitted to the BSA).

In July 1902 Bosanquet married Ellen Sophia (1875-1965), Hodgkin's daughter, who had read modern history at Somerville College, Oxford. She recalled her frequent visits to Hadrian's Wall as a child:

From Chollerford you could start with the Roman Camp at Chesters and go to all the other camps along the Wall, especially dear Borcovicus (Housesteads). We went on this drive so often that Chapman said the horses drew up of their own accord when we came to the right halt for a camp or a view. And so even as children we became familiar with theories of vallum and milecastles.

The Hodgkins lived in rural Northumberland first at Bamburgh, and then at Barmoor Castle. Ellen mentioned the Bosanquets at social functions. Indeed, around 1892, she remembered meeting Bosanquet, then at Trinity College, Cambridge, on a walking-tour of the Wall with Ellen's brother Edward (also at Trinity).

Tellingly Ellen refers to Bosanquet's Oxford 'cronies' (in the autumn of 1902) but does not identify them. One was likely to have been Haverfield.

Bibliography
Bosanquet, E. S. n.d. Late harvest: memories, letters and poems. London: Chameleon Press.
Bosanquet, R. C. 1904. "Excavations on the line of the Roman Wall in Northumberland. 1: The Roman camp at Housesteads." Archaeologia Aeliana 25: 193-300.
Bosanquet, R. C. 1920. "Francis John Haverfield, F.S.A., a vice-president." Archaeologia Aeliana 17: 137-43.
Freeman, P. W. M. 2007. The best training ground for archaeologists: Francis Haverfield and the invention of Romano-British archaeology. Oxford: Oxbow. [Worldcat]

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Asia Minor Exploration Fund: Funding

One of the constant refrains of the BSA Managing Committee in the early years concerned finance. Yet this is hardly surprising given the demands from other archaeological projects in the eastern Mediterranean. George Macmillan was Honorary Treasurer of the Asia Minor Exploration Fund (AMEF) and made constant appeals:

• 1882: £520 raised
• 1883: £300 spent on travels in Anatolia; further appeal for £500.
  
• 1890: appeal for £500 to cover the 1890 season
  
• 1891: appeal for £400 to cover the 1891 season
  
• 1893: £150 raised (of which £100 from the Royal Geographical Society)
  
• 1893: appeal for £2000 to excavate at Derbe or Lystra

The BSA students were often involved with the work of AMEF from its earliest years, notably David Hogarth, John A.R. Munro, and Vincent W. Yorke.

The appeal for funds took a nationalistic tone:

It would be little to the credit of England if want of funds should oblige Professor Ramsay to leave the completion of his task to foreign hands. (1890)

One might wish that a foreign nation had not stepped in to a field which, with more liberality on the part of Englishmen, could have been covered completely by our own explorers, but the work is so vast that in the interests of knowledge the application of foreign zeal and money is not altogether to be regretted. (1891)

Very much yet remains to be done, and if the work so well begun by a small band of Englishmen is not to be left unfinished or transferred to foreign hands, English liberality must supply the funds necessary for its continuance. (1893)

It is little wonder that the BSA was only raising some £500 a year when there were such competing demands on the same subscribers.

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What Is Sports Nutrition?

Today is the day that you begin to enhance your game. As an athlete, you already know that you need to work hard at insuring that your skills on the court, field or track are the best they can be.

You want to insure that your body is doing everything in the correct manner from start to finish.

You may spend hours perfecting your movements. You may work to build your muscle to enhance how well you can throw that ball.

Or, you may spend countless hours pushing your body to just get past that race line by a fraction of a second better.

All of these things are essential parts to being a successful athlete. There is no doubt about that. But, that is not all that you need to handle either.

Off The Court Work Outs

Besides planning your next routine, your next set of reps and your next game, you should be concentrating on your nutrition. Think about it.

What your body eats is what makes it move.

What you put into your body is the fuel it will use to do the things that you want it to do.

What you do not put into your body can not help you to succeed either.

While it may sound hard to determine what the right products are, it does not have to be.

As an athlete, you need to focus your time on sports nutrition as much as you focus it on your workout.

You should take the time to learn about what your body needs, how it reacts to the foods you put into it and how well it will perform based on the fuels you provide it.

For more information, check out this best ebook on sports/fitness and nutrition.

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