Abby Epplett, Historian

In this week’s essay, my loves of historic house tours and The Lord of the Rings combine for the first time as I present my map of Bag End, also spelled Bag-End by the older generations of Hobbits. Since Tolkien was a philologist, it is fitting to take a brief break to explain the naming scheme around the property, along with the clan name of the family who built it. Tolkien studies expert Tom Shippey noted in The Road to Middle-earth that “bag-end” is a literal translation of “cul-de-sac”, which was further elaborated upon by Wayne G. Hammond and Christina Scull in Reader’s Companion . The current meaning of a road terminating at a house or collection of houses dates from 1819.

Last night — Wednesday, April 17, 2024 at 8:00 p.m. — I watched the final webinar for this season of AIA Archaeology Hour . This talk was sponsored by the AIA Chicago Society and featured guest speaker Deborah Carlson , who works at Texas A&M teaching about ships and shipwrecks of Ancient Greece and Rome, along with being the president of the non-profit organization Institute of Nautical Archaeology (INA) . Her talk “Excavating a Shipwrecked Marble Column Destined for the Temple of Apollo at Claros” described the challenges of working underwater while explaining the history behind what she and her team discovered. Carlson explained that the INA and AIA are “sister organizations”. The INA recently celebrated its 50 th anniversary, as “Father of Underwater Archaeology” Dr. George Bass founded the organization in 1973. The shipwreck was found near Kizilburun in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey, an area with a wide range of wreck dates ranging from the 16 th cen...