Valle de la Luna – the Valley of the Moon – is also called the Ischigualasto Provincial Park of Argentina, and there you can find fossils of the world’s oldest dinosaurs. They arose during the Late Triassic, as the planet healed from a mass extinction due to volcanic eruptions so severe that 90% of life […]
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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
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Anglo-saxon manuscripts, like the 8th century Vespasian Psalter pictured here, frequently used the color yellow. It was reminiscent of gold, but much less expensive than gold leaf. And gold was a favorite of these Early Medieval people. Anglo-Saxon writers liked to talk about the beauty of the way gold flickered and glimmered in the firelight.
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Cats hunting for mice in a medieval manuscript. Although most medieval written records about cats viewed them in purely functional terms, many nuns and monks kept small animals as pets that they felt affectionate for.
Medieval Cats Manuscript Read More »
Charlemagne (d.814), ruler of much of Western Europe, wanted to revive learning in his lands. So he gathered scholars from all over the place to cultivate an intellectual circle. Sadly, even though he wanted to be educated, he was unable to learn how to use a stylus and never could write. (His contemporary and biographer
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This map shows a likely location for the Irish forest of Focluth, where St. Patrick was brought as a slave before his escape to eventually become a missionary. The slave trade into Ireland was robust in Patrick’s fifth-century world. Slaves were the lowest members of a relatively poor society, living alongside clan chieftains (Tuath) and
Map of Irish Forest of Focluth Read More »
Roman swords (here shown is a type called Gladius Hispaniensis). One ancient writer described Ancient Roman training so difficult as to be “bloodless battles” and actual warfare as “bloody trainings.”
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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The most famous meal in Ancient Roman history might be one described in _The Satyricon_ by Gaius Petronius Arbiter. Perhaps a send-up of the excessesses of Nero’s court, the book discusses an over-the-top umpteen-course meal where silver bowls are swept away with the trash, the meat dishes are each sculpted to look like something else,
Ancient Roman Drinking Glasses Read More »
Trofim Lysenko, the Stalinist-era biologist who tailored his scientific ideas to suit the Soviet communist party. Denying natural selection and arguing that character traits developed in a parent’s lifetime could be passed onto offspring (like Lamarck), Lysenko put the study of biology in the Soviet Union back by decades. Many actual scientists he competed against
A page from the _Etymologiae_ by the 6th-century scholar Isidore of Seville. In the Middle Ages, this was considered one of the most important books written. Isidore tried to cram in every bit of knowledge he thought was important. Although this book preserved a lot of Ancient Roman and Greek knowledge, the book’s popularity ironically
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Bald’s Leechbook is an Anglo-Saxon medical text from the 9th century. In 2015 one of the recipes (it used garlic, a bronze pot, and bile from a cow, among other things) was found to be successful in treating MRSA.
Magical incantation bowl written in Jewish Aramaic. Bowls like these were designed as protective magic against demons.
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This is the famous “SATOR AREPO” square, thought to have had magical talisman power by people all over the Ancient Roman world. It works as a palindrome in so many ways it is called a “2D” palindrome. It was eventually used by early Christians, who scrambled up the letters to make it spell “Pater Noster”
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They don’t look sexy, but this is the hottest medieval couple in medieval history. Peter Abelard (in his 30s) seduced the young (17) and brilliant Heloise by deliberately making her his private student. They had a physically, intellectually, and emotionally intense affair before Heloise’s uncle had Peter castrated in revenge for the seduction.
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This is Sequoyah, a Cherokee American who lived from about 1770-1843 and is a rare example of an illiterate person who created a written language. Sequoyah was born in what is now Tennessee and demonstrated skill in a wide variety of crafts: he made jewelry, invented better dairy farm equipment, and forged iron. Observing the
Sequoyah and the Cherokee Alphabet Read More »
Shippensburg University was very lucky to have Dr. Francesco Lodá speak this evening about dueling in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Focusing especially on the Italian Marcelli familial school-of-arms, Professor Lodà demonstrated that the most advanced Masters of Arms achieved very high status, despite the fact that they had not originated from the aristocracy
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We had a full house this evening at Shippensburg University with guest speaker John Maietta, who gave a fascinating talk on some of the best-loved beverages in history: “Strong drinks and heavenly brews: a history of beer, wine, coffee, and tea”. Here I am with Dr Mark Spicka of the history department and guest speaker
John Maietta: Strong Drinks and Heavenly Brews: a History of Beer, Wine, Coffee, and Tea Read More »
Presenting research today (February 25, 2023) at the Wilson College Humanities Conference, which was focusing on non-human animals! Here I am with my fellow presenters Catherine Clay (who talked about the role of bees in Russia), Christina Luo (speaking about chickens in Ancient Europe). I talked about horses in the Middle Ages. The papers today
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