John Maietta: Strong Drinks and Heavenly Brews: a History of Beer, Wine, Coffee, and Tea

Live Reporting /

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 […]

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The Alphabet

Ancient History / /

If you look hard at the figure in the lower center of this carved standing stone, you can make out the faint outline of a figure riding an animal. It is a donkey, and this man was named Khebeded, and he is the leading contender for one of the most transformational inventions of all time:

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Wawa Gatheru

Wawa Gatheru Speaks at Shippensburg Univeristy

Live Reporting, Long 19th- 20th centuries / / , , ,

Tonight Shippensburg University welcomed guest lecturer Wawa Gatheru, a leader in the contemporary U.S. environmental justice movement. She had many interesting things to say, but since I am an historian, I especially appreciated her discussion of how the legacy of American slavery has led to environmental inequity today. Wawa Gatheru pointed to two ways this

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Poem about Ancient Babylon Discovered and the Marduk-Gate

Ancient History / / , ,

This is the Marduk Gate of the ancient city of Babylon, one of the world’s oldest urban settlements and now a UNESCO heritage site. King Nebuchadnezzar II built this gate about 575 BCE. Whatever beauty it contains now, where it lies in lonely ruins some 85 km south of Baghdad, is nothing compared to the

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Neolithic Artists

Ancient History, Fabulous Females / / , , ,

So here’s a provocative set of evidence from our pre-historic past: hand stencils. Among other questions, they raise a debate about whether the first artists were mostly women. The painted shadows that silhouette the hands you see in this image were frequent subjects of our paleolithic and neolithic ancestors (40,000-1,000 BCE). In 2013, archaeologist Dean

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America’s First and Only Blood Libel

Long 19th- 20th centuries / / ,

This newspaper clip reflects a horrific story about the only anti-Semitic blood libel to occur in American history. Blood libels against Jews began in the Middle Ages. Totally unfounded in any degree of fact, they falsely accused people who were Jewish of killing Christian children and using their blood for Passover food rituals. The horror

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Roman Phallus

Ancient History / / ,

Dear readers, did we want to know much about the multitude of penis graffiti from the Ancient Roman British military fort at Vindolanda and the discovery of the potential first surviving Ancient Roman dildo, or no? Ahem. Depending on your druthers, read on. In a hot-off-the interweb virtual publication from the Cambridge University Press journal

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Early Islamic Trade

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

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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Eclipses and the Theory of Relativity

History of Science, Long 19th- 20th centuries / /

This picture of the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, is not only beautiful but also scientifically important. It was taken by British scientist Arthur Eddington (1882-1944), and was the first physical test of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Of course, in retrospect, over 100 years later it might seem obvious that massive objects

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Dr. Timothy May Talk

Dr. Timothy May Talk on Mongolian History

Africa, Asia and South Asia, Early Modern, Live Reporting / /

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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Jerusalem Palace of King Herod The Great

Jerusalem Palace of King Herod The Great

Ancient History / / , ,

A reconstruction of the Jerusalem palace of King Herod the Great (d. 4 BCE). Only ruins remain, but the opulance and decor of the palace/fortress meant to many contemporary Jews that Herod was a Roman accomodationist. This had many Jewish groups – the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Zealots, for example, upset.

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