Here you see a ginormous “Foo Dog,” as the guardian lions of Chinese architecture are known in the West. These statues began to flank the entrances to homes of the elite during the Ming and Qing Dynasties (14th-20th c). Standing for strength and power, they appear in pairs, with the left lioness (as indicated by […]
Foo Dogs and Protection of Ancient Chinese Elite Homes Read More »
About two months ago, in my small town of south-central Pennsylvania, people gathered for a municipal board hearing to debate whether we should stop putting fluoride in our public water supply as a preventative measure against tooth decay. Loads of scientific evidence is easily available for the critical reader to make up her mind on
Struggles of Relieving Medieval Tooth Aches and Decay Read More »
Here is a rare painting of Frau Minne, the Goddess-Allegory of Love popular among German-speaking Europeans in the Middle Ages. Her actions radically contradict the ways we often think women were expected to behave: Minne is forceful and violent, and she is always victorious. Here in this 14th-century coffer she is about to pierce the
Frau Minnie – The Allegory of Love Read More »
Merry Christmas! Krampus traditions linking a perhaps pre-Christian hairy goat-demon with Santa got revived in Eastern European countries by the early 1900s. Krampus played the bad cop to Santa’s good guy, beating bad children with birch switches and dragging them down to hell with chains. Some traditions are best left in the past. . .
German Tradition of Krampus Read More »
You are looking at a sixteenth-century Japanese scroll showing pictures of “tsukumogami:” discarded household items that become angry at their lack of use and turn into animated demons. My favorite story from this genre of folk tales comes from another sixteenth-century work known as the Sufuku-ji scrolls. It begins with a haunting warning about how
Ancient Japanese Folklore – The Tsukumogami Read More »
I hope you’re not too hungry as you read this, because it’s time to talk about cannibalism. Dear readers, although we might recoil now at the thought of consuming human flesh, it turns out that this practice is extremely ancient: cases among Homo Neanderthalis, another early human species called Homo Antecessor, and Homo Sapiens have
Cannibalism Practices of the Ancient Homo Neanderthalis Read More »
This is the most famous Loch Ness Monster photo in existence. Taken in 1934, it wasn’t officially shown to be a hoax for another sixty years. Turns out, someone purchased a toy submarine and added a putty head to create this image. Much evidence has been put forth to suggest that there is not a
The Famous Loch Ness Monster Image Read More »
Today at Shippensburg University I attended a fascinating talk by scholar Dr. Joshua Eyler, who presented on his new book _How Humans Learn_ (you can see him on the second photo). Eyler spoke about the ways science and evolution can help us best understand ways to obtain new knowledge.The aristocratic clergy writing books at the
Dr. Joshua Eyler’s Book “How Humans Learn” Read More »
Here’s a story for you: the oldest recorded story we know of, in fact. This smudgy cave painting made international headlines last December when scientists in Indonesia reported the discovery of a panel measuring about 14 feet depicting a hunting narrative — this picture is a detail. Dating the mineral deposits atop the pictures, which
The Oldest Recorded Hunting Story in Indonesia Read More »
I would like to introduce one of “my” Medieval research area queens: Urraca, ruler of much of Spain from 1109-1126. I like her for many reasons, but one of my favorite things about Urraca was her tenacity. She really steered an unlikely trajectory, and kept reasserting her own life’s ambitions despite the ways her plans
Medieval Queen Urraca of Spain Read More »
These cages still hang from the Church of Saint Lambert in the German city of Munster. Empty now, for many many years they contained the decaying corpses of three religious leaders put to death in one of the many bloody conflicts of the Protestant Reformation era. In 1534-1535, Munster became an epicenter of the religious
The Cages of Germany’s Saint Lambert’s Church Read More »
The imposing walls of the Masyaf castle in Syria speak to the formidable command of its Medieval occupants. This was one of the fortresses run by the Nizari Ismaili sect of Muslims — better known as the Assassins.Run by a charismatic leader sometimes called “The Old Man of the Mountain” (also Hasan-e Sabbah), the Assassins
The Masyaf Castle of the Assassins Read More »
Thinking ahead to Halloween 2020, I offer you you, dear reader, a suggestion, and one which is unlikely to be duplicated by your neighbors. Folks in Western Europe in the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern periods would have been much likelier to identify this creature, because it was a type of monster that many believed
The Blemmyes of Western Europe Read More »
This is an image of a lesser-known hero of the Early Modern period, the Dutch physician Johann Weyer (1515-1588). In an age of witch-hunts, when many women accused of consorting with the devil were tortured into confessing imaginary crimes, tried in law courts, and executed by burning, Weyer outspokenly wrote that such practices were inhumane,
Johann Weyer and Inhumane Treatment During Witch-Hunts Read More »
The social distancing requirements of today are stressful, but are much less deadly than measures of combating disease in the Middle Ages. Our word “quarantine” comes from the Italian words “quaranta giorni” for forty days, which was a standard length of time that sick and infected people would be shut off from the healthy population.The
The Medieval Quarantine Response Read More »
Scientists are enabling us to save lives and hopefully prevent disaster in this COVID-19 pandemic — and coming up with big solutions to health problems is one of the main reasons their profession is so valuable. But for me there is another equally praiseworthy aspect: their contributions to unveiling the forces that shape our universe.
The First-Lady of Physics – Chien-Shiung Wu Read More »
In the centuries before China was unified as an empire, petty kingdoms and warlords struggled for influence in a centuries-long diplomatic chess game. The bells shown here from the Late Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 BCE) might have been owned by wealthy aristocrats engaged in such manuvers, and used for ceremonial importance, which would have
Ancient Chinese Diplomatic Bells Read More »
Here you see the image of Mary holding her infant son . . . The first of its kind in Western Europe, it appears in the_Book of Kells_, the most famous manuscript of Medieval Ireland, and it dates to about 800 CE. The centuries that proceeded its composition were chaotic ones indeed, with warlords in
The Book of Kells – Mary Holding Infant Son Read More »
As the days of quarantine add up, many of us have expressed a strange sense of time becoming blurred — the hours we used to divide with our old routines have been upended, and our unchanging surroundings can sometimes make the feeling of time feel less progressive. In fact, of course, the external physical world
Wells Cathedral Clock in England Read More »
This beautiful site is the rocky island of Skellig Michael off the coast of western Ireland. It is a lonely and barren place now, as it was in the Early Middle Ages, when sometime between 500-700 CE hermits built a monastery there. These Christian monks wanted to spend their lives with as much solitude as
Rocky Skellig Michael in Western Ireland Read More »
