Ikkyu (d 1481) was a famous Zen monk. Since Zen Buddhism focuses on getting practitioners to think outside the box, it shouldn’t be surprising that he was highly unorthodox. Fond of drinking and attending brothels, Ikkyu critiqued many Zen leaders of his day for getting too caught up in propriety and material possessions. He eventually
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This 10th c. sandstone relief depicts the Hindu goddess Kali – the Goddess of time, destruction, sexuality, salvation, and protection. She has a horrifying image – bloody fangs, belt of human hands, necklace of skulls, with eyes bright red and skin blue or black. This appearance would have represented a completely uncontained female, something wholly
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This painting is a super blunt image of a woman relieving herself. Painted in the early 1600s, it gets at a very different perspective (compared to modern USA) about human effluences in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Instead of pushing our human elimination as far away as possible, urban dwellers strove to use it. Historian
In an article published in the premier science journal _Nature_ earlier this week, a team of scholars announced their analyses of the operations of the first-ever discovered mummification workshop, and what they found was fascinating! This picture shows the layout of the “mummy factory”, first unearthed at the Egyptian site of Saqqara, about 20 miles
“PetThe political intrigues and love affair of Mark Antony and Cleopatra have captured the imaginations of generations, even before the famous couple’s deaths in 30 BCE in their war against the future Emperor Augustus of Rome. This statue is the only known image of their twin children, Cleopatra Selene and Alexander Helios. At least, that’s
Cleopatra’s Twins by Mark Antony Identified Read More »
The Arthrashastra, an Ancient Indian text written in Sanskrit. Dating from as early as the 2nd century BCE, it is the first diplomatic text in India’s history. It has advice on things like taxation, governance, and warfare, and tells the reader that good governance is necessary to prevent society from following the “law of the
Slide from a lecture by Dr. Robert Miller from Catholic University, who spoke this evening at Shippensburg about his new book on dragons in Ancient Near Eastern history. The dragon was often symbolic of chaos, and associated with the sea – appropriate because many cultures adapting this myth were not seafaring, and to them oceans
Dr. Robert Miller Talk on Dragons Read More »
Modern copy of a Japanese _juunihitoe_ or “twelve layered” kimono worn by aristocratic women from the Heian period (9th-12th centuries). These outfits actually weighed women down because of the amount of fabric involved.
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This shipwreck puts a new spin on how historians think about the earliest century of Islam. The usual story is that the decades after Muhammad’s death witnessed a real collapse of trade in the former Roman Empire we now call Byzantium. But this wreck, called the Ma’agan Michael B (or MMB) ship, suggests that eastern
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Dr. Timothy May, specialist in Mongolian history, spoke at Shippensburg University this evening. My favorite annecdote was when he talked about the Daoist monk who warned Chinggis Khan that he would live longer if he quit drinking, hunting, and having quite so much sex. The leader of ored the monk, and Chinggis Khan died from
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The origins of human history keeps getting pushed further back in time, as a recent analysis of a wooden structure in Africa dating back almost a half a million years demonstrates. For reference, anthropologists now date the emergence of homo sapiens to about 200,000 years ago (although some argue for 300,000). The wooden structure discovered
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“Haboku sansui” is a breathtaking splashed-ink painting done by the Zen Buddhist monk Sesshu Toyo in 1495.
Haboku Sansui Painting Read More »
The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced this month (3/23) that archaeologists have recently discovered a small Sphinx statue dating to the Roman period with unusual features. Its facial expression has a slight smile, and some experts believe that its head might be a representation of the Roman Emperor Claudius, who ruled from 41-54
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This woodblock print from about 1787 is by the Japanese artist Torii Kiyonaga, and it’s one of the most elegant examples of the distinct art from the Edo period in Japan, a time when the country’s artistic creativity generated works admired both at home and by Europeans. “Interior of a bathhouse” shows several women in
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This is a jade statuette from 18th-century China of a type of mushroom called the _Lingzhi_. It has been used in Chinese Traditional Medicine for over a millennium, and was associated in the religion of Daoism with immortality. The physician Li Shizhen who lived in the 1500s writes that “it positively affects the life energy,
This wild grass was of the first plants humans intentionally harvested. Einkorn’s seeds scatter more easily than modern wheat, and they are smaller as well. This plant flourished in modern northern Syria and northern Iraq.
This is a Mongolian golden cup from the 13-14th centuries. Mongols liked to drink fermented mare’s milk. Source: https://gbtimes.com/airag-more-than-merely-mongolian-mares-milk
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This 12th c manuscript is the oldest remaining copy of “The Tale of Gengi”, written by the lady courtier Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th c. Murasaki is a great example of how women’s history could create fantastic innovations in their response to being marginalized. In this case, women like Murasaki invented Japanese writing. They
“Thunder, Perfect Wisdom” is a super trippy text from around the second century, probably Egypt. Although it’s not Daoist, it has a lot of similarities. I also like it because it’s told through the voice of a woman.
“Thunder, Perfect Wisdom” Text Read More »
I really enjoyed the Freer Gallery of Art’s small permanent collection dealing with the history of the southwestern part of the Arabian peninsula, or modern Yemen. The area has suffered from horrific warfare since 2014, which has endangered much of its historical heritage. This is tragic, because although the area never boasted the wealth of
