It was ’round about this time of the year — near the Fourth of July — nearly eight decades ago that a rancher from New Mexico called W.W. Brazel brought a bunch of mysterious-looking debris he had found on his property to the local sheriff, who was situated about 80 miles southeast in the small […]
The Roswell Incident Read More »
Tobyhanna State Park was formed out of state lands that had been on a large artillery range that preceded Tobyhanna Army Depot. It has 5,540 acres of land surrounding Lake Tobyhanna, which is named after an American Indian term meaning “a stream whose banks are fringed with alder.” Today I saw a lot of birch
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The Range Trail is a winding path that traverses across swampy and rocky forest in the Tobyhanna State Park, established in 1949. As you can see from the third slide, the area was used by the U.S. military as a live-artillery training ground during both World Wars. I didn’t see any shell remains on my
The Range Trail at Tobyhanna State Park Read More »
Here are some photos of Gouldsboro State Park, established in 1958. The human-made lake you see here, as well as the park it was named after, get their nomenclature from Jay Gould (1836-1892), a rich industrialist from New York who at one point owned ten percent of all the rail tracks in the United States.
Gouldsboro State Park Read More »
These are oil lamps found in a mountain cave called Te’omim, (“cave of the twins” in Hebrew), located about 15 miles west of Jerusalem. Archaeologists have studied the place for years, finding ruins from many points of human history. But in a paper published this month in _Harvard Theological Review_, a team of archaeologists argues
Ancient Roman Necromancy in Te’omim Cave Read More »
I cannot imagine how knowledge of this Early Modern European hairstyle has evaded me for so long. It’s absolutely disgusting and I cannot look away, but I suggest really thinking twice before you flip to the second image. I am talking about “Plica Polonica” or the “Polish Plait”. It went by a bunch of different
One of the coolest Indigenous American weapons was the blowgun, which was developed well before the Columbian exchange. You can see painted on this ceramic from the modern Guatemalan Highlands from the Late Classic Maya period (CE 600-900) a row of hunters holding their blowguns as they return from a hunt (this image is a
The Invention of the (Poisoned) Blowgun by South American Peoples Read More »
These projectile points were discovered in a 9,000 year-old grave at Wilamaya Patjxa in southern Peru. Archaeologists immediately diagnosed the burial items as part of a hunter’s toolkit and assumed that the person they were buried with was a high-status male from an ancient hunter-gatherer community. However, DNA analysis revealed that the hunter was actually
Ancient Peruvian Weapons and Evidence for Early Women Hunters Read More »
The excavations of the Ancient Maya world have continued to reveal surprises, and in 2020 two fascinating stories about urban water supply made headlines. Both were about the city of Tikal (known as Yax Mutal among the ancient Maya), but one was much sadder than the other. Tikal was an epicenter of power and was
Classical Maya Water Reservoir Technology Read More »
In the four corners region of New Mexico, a population of ancestral Pueblo people settled for a few centuries around the first millennium CE and built magnificent structures and created beautiful pottery like this pitcher (dating between 1075-1150 CE), fostering a relatively large population in the arid region. Archaeologists call this the Chaco Canyon civilization,
Chaco Canyon’s Pottery and Gendered Work Read More »
Making string figures is a dying cultural practice. It was done by people all over the world for who knows how long (because string decays quickly and most writers of history didn’t care about the varied designs made out of string using different hand motions). One of the most complex catalogues of string figures comes
Inuit String Communication Read More »
Here you are looking at the compound microscope developed by Robert Hooke (d 1703), a Renaissance scientist more famous for dabbling in academic fields as disparate as physics and palaeontology than a particular discovery. Nevertheless, his microscope allowed him to illustrate things he included in _Micrographia_, which utterly captivated his British audience. Samuel Pepys the
Victorian Accoutrements: the Mustache Cup and the Welsh Wig Read More »
This painting, _A Disaster at Sea_, by Joseph Mallory William Turner (made around 1835), renders a shipwreck in a storm with abstract brush strokes — the clouds and waves crash with hectic fury into each other and the boat, as the frenzied white foam takes over both sea vessel and the lower third of the
The Wreck of the Amphitrite, a Women’s Prison Ship Read More »
Tales of shipwrecks are often sad, but I’d bet money that this one is the most macabre and gruesome in history. The sea vessel _Essex_ sailed from Nantucket to waters off the coast of South America in search of lucrative whales. 20 men were on board the boat, which ended up rounding Cape Horn and
The Shipwreck of Essex and the Resort to Cannibalism Read More »
According to rentechdigital.com, there are 3,615 Pilates studios in the US as of July 14, 2023. And even if your town doesn’t have one, your local gym might offer Pilates classes — it’s an exercise style with a lot of staying power, and it was started by this guy here: Joseph Hubertus Pilates (1883-1967). Pilates’
Hubertus Pilates and the Exercises He Developed While Imprisoned in a War Camp Read More »
“We in the West are the first generation in human history in which the mass of the population has to deliberately exercise to be healthy.” — so wrote Jeremiah “Jerry” Morris towards the end of his 99-year life of remarkable scholarship about the effects of disease and physical movement. Or really, the lack of physical
Jerry Morris and the Discovery That Exercise Is Good for You Read More »
Here you are looking at the compound microscope developed by Robert Hooke (d 1703), a Renaissance scientist more famous for dabbling in academic fields as disparate as physics and palaeontology than a particular discovery. Nevertheless, his microscope allowed him to illustrate things he included in _Micrographia_, which utterly captivated his British audience. Samuel Pepys the
Robert Hooke and Micrographia Read More »
Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, scientists were for the first time able to figure out the source of an ingredient in an actual Ancient Roman perfume: and it was patchouli. In 2019, archaeologists digging in the burial grounds of the once-active Roman site in Spain called Carmina discovered an oval lead case holding a
Ancient Roman Perfume Read More »
She looks wide-eyed in this picture to me, but Milunka Savic was the opposite of an ingenue. This 20th-century Serbian fought in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, and in World War II spent time in a Concentration Camp. She cleared these hurdles with chutzpah to spare and is the most decorated female
Mikunka Savic, Serbian Warrior Read More »
It is both St Patrick’s Day and Women’s History Month, so I thought it might be appropriate to feature one of Ireland’s most prolific composers, Ina Boyle. Never heard of her? Even in her lifetime, as she was churning out chamber music, choral pieces, concertos, and symphonies, most of her work was never performed, so
Ina Boyle Ireland’s Most Prodigious Musical Composer Read More »
