Here you see one of the finest sarcophagi of all time. Carved out of marble in the late second-century CE, the panel shown here despicts the God of wine, Dionysius, approaching the comatose maiden Ariadne, who lies in the lap of the God of death (Thanatos). The close arrangement and true-to-life proportions of the figures […]
Ancient Carved Sarcophagi Read More »
One of the frustrations of studying the distant past is knowing that the lenses of earlier times are ultimately inaccessible. We can take the religion of the Celts as a case in point. For centuries, these peoples left very little in the way of written sources, and so we must rely on the statues, inscriptions,
Celtic God Sucellus Read More »
Here is the coat-of-arms designed by Niels Bohr, after he was awarded the Order of the Elephant by the Danish king in 1947: it has a yin-yang symbol and the phrase “contraria sunt complemementa,” which means “opposite things are complementary.” The heraldry speaks well in terms of the discoveries in physics that Bohr undertook in
Niels Bohr’s Designed Coat of Arms Read More »
Here is a portrait of a young Sophie Germain, the French mathematician whose celebrated work involved the properties of elasticity and number theory (especially prime numbers). When we read about Germain, we quickly encounter a narrative that focuses on the multiple limitations placed on her life: her parents initially discouraged her scholarship, she was banned
Sophie Germain and Overcoming her Limitations Read More »
Here you can see the grim and chaotic scenes of battle depicted in the Ludovici Battle Sarcophagus, made in the Roman Empire mid-third century CE. The horrifying conditions that Ancient Roman soldiers experienced have led to a debate as to whether PTSD extended farther back in time than the late 19th-century. Some of the symptoms
Ancient Roman Battles and PTSD Read More »
In April of 1943 as Hitler’s forces and the Allied powers struggled for dominance, a Spanish fisherman discovered a corpse with documents labeling the man as a British military official (Major Martin’s ID card is the first photo) who seemed to have drowned off the coast. This set in play the most successful ruse in
Operation Mincemeat from World War II Read More »
People have claimed to see ghosts throughout recorded history. Stories about the “revanants,” or “those who return,” commonly state that these spirits startle the living, but they have not always been associated with evil forces. The association of ghosts with malevolence really got going in Ealy Modern Europe with the emergence of Protestant Christianity. Hitherto,
Lavater’s “Of Ghostes and Spirites Walking by Nyght” Read More »
This is one of the many stellar views at Hawk Mountain Preserve in eastern Pennsylvania, one of the best places in the northern United States to watch many native hawk species in their migrations and habitats. This beautiful wildlife sanctuary was made possible because of two people in particular. First, the ornithologist Robert Pough —
Hawk Mountain Preserve in Eastern Pennsylvania Read More »
Scientific genome analysis has shaped history once again with a recent study published in the science journal _Nature Communications_. This painting of death strangling a victim of the plague gets at the horror caused by the infamous Black Death, a pandemic that wiped out a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century. By studying
Scientific Genome Analysis and the Black Death Read More »
This gladiator mural was unveiled just last week from the Ancient Roman city of Pompeii. The unusually graphic depiction of a bleeding fighter — holding his thumb up, a gesture to signal for mercy — was found by archaeologists in a building thought to have been a bar and brothel. Since we know that gladiators
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Pennhurst asylum and school – formally called the Eastern Pennsylvania Institution for the Feeble-Minded and Epileptic — ran for the better part of the 20th century as a home for people with mental and physical disabilities, but it was forcibly shut down after exposures of patient abuse and decades of litigation. Pennhurst’s cases of horrific
Pennhurst Asylum and School Read More »
This stained-glass window from the Royal Society of London shows the Latin motto of one of the world’s most important science institutions: “NULLIUS IN VERBA,” which means “take nobody’s word for it.” This admonition is a central premise of the scientific method, stressing that knowledge should not be determined by unproven authority and confirmation bias.
The Royal Society of London Read More »
Here is Dame Kathleen Lonsdale, one of the first women (alongside biochemist Marjory Stephenson) to be innagurated as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1945 (as I wrote yesterday, the Society began in 1663, so this achievement was long in the coming). Lonsdale’s work was in material chemistry — proving, for instance,
Dame Kathleen Lonsdale and Crystallography Read More »
“The Kiss of the Enchantress,” painted by English artist Isobel Lilian Gloag (c.a. 1890) depicts a monster from Ancient Greek mythology called a Lamia. Like so many stories about horrifying females, the Lamia’s backstory involves a grizzly subversion of the ideal woman — she destroys children rather than nurtures them, and seduces men in order
“The Kiss of the Enchantress” Read More »
This skull from Ancient Rome has a tiny coin glinting out of its mouth: the money is an obal, one of the most notorious grave-goods of the Ancient Mediterranean. The literature of Greeks and Romans commonly asserts that the obal was meant to pay the price for the dead to be carried over the river
Ancient Tradition of Burying Coins Read More »
So this lady looks unusually serene, especially in light of the fact that she’s using the blood of her own severed foot (!!!!) to write a letter to her husband. This is the heroine Hypermnestra, and in the Roman poet Ovid’s rendition of her tale, she pleads with her husband to come save her from
Heroine Hypermnestra and Her Loyalty Read More »
These two lovebirds are Shiva and the Goddess Bhairavi, from an exquisite painting dating from the Mughal Dynasty in India, c. 1630-35. Today’s yoga practices are very anesthetized relative to the ways undertaken by yogis, particularly in the left-handed Tantric tradition. The two figures dwell in the charnel grounds – you can see the smoky
Shiva and the Goddess Bhairavi Read More »
“The Lord and Lady of the Charnel Grounds/Pal Durdak Yab Yum,” 15th-c painting. Tibetian Buddhist traditions took much from Ancient India . . . As with the two Hindu deities featured in yesterday’s post, the juxtaposition of enlightenment with death and male-female pairings stands out. Tibetian art is highly symbolic, and the male-female, or “Yab-Yum,”
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This nineteenth-century Tibetian painting is of a well-known deity in the Tantric Buddhist tradition, named Vajrayogini. Unlike some other Buddhist traditions which have neither Gods nor Goddesses, the Vajrayana Tantric tradition has both, as we can see here. Vajrayana Buddhism differs from many other religious traditions in its elevation of the female. The eleventh-century Tantric
Vajrayogini in Buddhist Tradition Read More »
The leader of all the Gods in Norse mythology, Odin, was routinely accompanied by his ravens named Huginn (“thought”) and Muninn (“mind”), appearing together in visual records as early as the sixth century The names of these birds called attention to Odin’s vast knowledge — the medieval Icelandic sources have Odin’s ravens fly all over
Odin and His Ravens Huginn and Muninn Read More »
