The Carpathian Mountains in Western Ukraine are some of the traditional homelands of the Hutsul peoples. Although their roots extend back hundreds of years, the term “Hutsul” first appears in written sources in 1816, when it was used by outsiders — in fact, the term’s etymology, although uncertain, might derive from the critical words for […]
Last Tuesday, Shippensburg University’s Department of History was delighted to host Professor Andrew Rotter, the Charles A. Dana Historian at Colgate University, as the speaker for our annual World History Lecture. His talk, “Olfactory Empire: Smell and the Empire in India and the Philippines,” looked at how British people experienced smell in their colonies. His
Olfactory Empire: Smell and the Empire in India and the Philippines Read More »
Here are three close up images from one of the most famous Chinese ink paintings ever created, the _Nine Dragons_, by Chen Rong. Chen Rong produced this handscroll in 1244, and it is massive — over ten meters long! (32 feet) The aesthetic qualities are immediately grasped even if you don’t know a darn
Nine Dragons by Chen Rong Read More »
The grumpy faces you see here belong to invaders captured by the Pharaoh Ramses III (about 1186-1154 BCE). Many scholars have interpreted these men as the infamous “Sea Peoples,” about whom little is known for certain, but to whom historians have attributed the collapse of many civilizations in the Bronze Age. The Sea Peoples
This lovely iron sword with its wood- and lacquer- decorated scabbard comes from the 2nd century BCE Han Dynasty, and well symbolizes its founding leader, Liu Bang, posthumously named Emperor Gaozu, “the High Founder”. The man who started a Chinese Dynasty that lasted over 400 years was born from a peasant lineage, making his success
In the late 1400s, Japanese Zen monks brought a particular style of splashed-ink painting to its acme. Here, you see a scene that looks like an embankment with trees, a fence, and a building: or is it just a random oddly arranged page of smudges? The Zen monk who painted this, Josui Sōen, was a
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This is a statue in the Smithsonian Museum’s Freer Gallery of the Buddha Vairochana: a.k.a. The Cosmic Buddha. It really is a fantastic piece, with the artful designs on the Buddha’s clothing depicting various “Realms of Existence” — different planes that made up the cosmos of the Mahayana Buddhist universe. Created in the
My favorite time period in Japan (and there are many) is the Muromachi era, when a militarized aristocracy ruled in a de-centralized state. The shōgun were just coming on the scene, and they had aspersions of refinement but lacked the intellectual legacy of the ruling class they had usurped. Into this world entered Zen Buddhism,
Rinzai and Zen Buddhism Read More »
This is a statue in the Smithsonian Museum’s Freer Gallery of the Buddha Vairochana: a.k.a. The Cosmic Buddha. It really is a fantastic piece, with the artful designs on the Buddha’s clothing depicting various “Realms of Existence” — different planes that made up the cosmos of the Mahayana Buddhist universe. Created in the
My world history class today looked at the Mongols, and Jared Diehl brought in his actual Mongolian Composite Bow to show the class! It was really cool — I was surprised how lightweight it was. The fabric wrappings and the lines of the wood were also very elegant. Thanks, Jared!!
Jared Diehl and their Mongolian Composite Bow Read More »
In the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia, the almost 8,000 ft-peak Burkhan Khaldun lies: it is the legendary burial place of Genghis Khan, one of Eurasia’s most ambitious and brutal rulers. From a distance of 800 years, it is easy to allow awe rather than horror to surface as the primary estimation of the Mongolian warlord.
The Khentii Mountains, Resting Place of Genghis Khan Read More »
This is the story of a famous Russian woman and author,, Anna Akhmatova. Here she is in 1924 at age 35, looking weary and seductive. By this time, Anna (neé Anna Andreyevna) had lived through fin-de-siecle Europe, the artsy cabaret scene in St Petersburg, the First World War, and the Communist Revolution. Well might she
Anna Akhmatova, Russian Poet Read More »
India’s textile production was perhaps the most internationally renowned from the Early Modern period through the Age of Industrialization. Here you see a fantastically detailed embroidered section of a woman’s dress from the 19th century. It is made of cotton muslin and gilded silver wire and — wait for it — beetles’ wings! Fan-cy! Sources:
Details of Indian Textiles Read More »
Ephedra (technically Ephredra sinica) or ma-huang, is a shrub with small scaly leaves that comes from northeastern China, Russia, and Mongolia, and is especially interesting in the history of medicine. Recipes using ephredra have been used for thousands of years in Classical Chinese medicine. Frequently the plant has been a key ingredient in treating asthma
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Paleo-anthropologists have recently analyzed the skeletons of two humans dating over 2,300 years ago from Ancient China which suggest that deliberate amputation of the limbs of one leg might have been done as a type of legal punishment. The skeletons came from the former Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771-256 BCE) near the modern city of Sanmenxia.
Amputations in the Eastern Zhao Dynasty Read More »
Washington DC’s Sackler Gallery has an exhibit right now called “Staging the Supernatural: Ghosts and the Theater in Japanese Prints.” It’s a fascinating view of the ways different artists thought about monsters and ghosts as popular subjects of Japanese “Noh” Theater, a type of performance that moved from elite circles to the masses in the
Kasane the Vengeful “Noh” Spirit Read More »
Japanese artists before the 20th century were mostly men, and so the painter and calligrapher Tokuyama Gyokuran (aka Ike Gyokuran) was a wonderfully talented anomaly. Living during the last age of the Shogun in the 18th-century Edo period, Gyokuran really departed from traditional women’s roles — she didn’t even shave her eyebrows, like married women
In the late 1500s in China’s Ming Dynasty, one of the world’s most epic sagas was published: _Journey to the West_. Attributed to Wu Cheng’en, it incorporated folk tales and myths with an historical account of a Chinese monk seeking Buddhist texts and wisdom. Along the way, the monk is aided by protectors, of whom
“Journey to the West” and “Dragon Ball Z” Read More »
Here you see a modern artist’s rendition of a mythical Malaysian evil tiger spirit called “hantu belian,” which the Malay peoples believed would possess a person’s body and make them commit great violence while they were unconsious. This belief in hantu belian’s destructive powers was pervasive enough that they formed the origin story of the
Hantu Belian and Running Amok Read More »
If I had more time, I would read original treatises in mathematics. The reason is because — when I do get a chance to go over such writings — it is so much clearer to me that math isn’t just a bunch of static pronouncements that everyone agrees about, but a conversation built on emergent
Bhāskara II and the Pythagorean Theorem Read More »
