Africa, Asia and South Asia

a screenshot of a virtual meeting with two men and a slideshow

Olfactory Empire: Smell and the Empire in India and the Philippines

Africa, Asia and South Asia / / , ,

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 […]

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Egyptian stone relief of multiple male figures

The Sea Peoples

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Ancient History / / , , , , ,

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

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The Khentii Mountains, Resting Place of Genghis Khan

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Medieval History / / , , ,

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.

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a woman with straight dark hair lies on a bed covered with a thick blanket

Anna Akhmatova, Russian Poet

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , ,

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

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close up of green embroidery using green beetle shells

Details of Indian Textiles

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / ,

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:

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Medicinal Properties of Ephedra

Africa, Asia and South Asia / / , , ,

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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severed bones attributed to deliberate amputations

Amputations in the Eastern Zhao Dynasty

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Ancient History, History of Science / / , , , ,

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.

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colored wood block print of the character kasane

Kasane the Vengeful “Noh” Spirit

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , , , ,

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

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woodblock print of Sun Wukong the Monkey King

“Journey to the West” and “Dragon Ball Z”

Africa, Asia and South Asia / / , , , , ,

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

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hantu belian

Hantu Belian and Running Amok

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Early Modern, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , ,

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

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Cultural Exchange between Ancient Rome and Ancient India

Cultural Exchange between Ancient Rome and Ancient India

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Ancient History, Live Reporting / / ,

At first glance, these small statuettes seem to have little in common with each other. The one on the left is an Ancient Roman copy of Poseidon from the first or second century, originally made by the Greek artist Lysippos in the 3rd century BCE. The one on the right is a sandstone carving of

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