It fits that the grave of Carl Bosch in Heidelberg is overgrown with the competing green textures of the jumble of plants collecting at his tombstone. Plants were something Bosch understood more than most people — and that, combined with his engineering skills, got him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931. A just reward, […]
Carl Bosch and the Haber-Bosch Fertilization Process Read More »
These Chinese tiny stick drawings contain precious information — very few could understand it in the second century BCE when they were inscribed in silk and placed in the famous Mawangdui tomb, but modern astronomers have studied such markings to learn about the history of celestial objects of the distant past.These are renderings of different
Chinese Stick Drawings of Comets Read More »
The Ancient Romans loved their baths — this is a circular pool from the baths in the eponymously named town of Bath in England. Although the custom of public bathing had come from Ancient Greece, by the early 400s CE Rome had 856 bathouses throughout the Empire.These were places of beauty and comfort — heating
Ancient Romans and Their Bath-Houses Read More »
This is the super cool Nebra Sky Disk, which most archaeologists think is the oldest picture of an actual astronomical scene. Looking at the bronze (the blue-green patina might have been deliberate) background with the gold ornamentation, ancient peoples could have been able to figure out when it was time to put an extra month
Ancient Nebra Sky Disk Read More »
Today’s post is about the history of a symbol — one which appeared in numerous civilizations across time and whose meaning reflected the concerns of each culture it appeared in. I’m talking about the snake that eats its own tail — the ouroboros.In Ancient Egypt the ouroboros appeared in the 13th-century tomb of “King Tut”
Ouroboros Symbol Through History Read More »
If you think of the words “occult”, “arcane”, or “mystical” when you look at this Medieval text, you aren’t alone — the association of the Middle Ages with backwardness and the irrational has a long tradition. But it wouldn’t be a correct impression, at least not entirely. And this manuscript shows why. Written in 1393
John Westwyk and “The Equatorie of the Planetis” Read More »
The Italian city of Ravenna boasts the highest concentration of mosaics from the Late Antique period of Roman history. And featured here you see one of the most famous — a scene from the Procession of the Virgins in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. Set against the tiled background of shimmering gold, these two women calmly march forward.
Portion of the Italian Mosaic “The Procession of the Virgins in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo” Read More »
“Humor is just another defense against the universe,” quipped the great Mel Brooks, and the great comedian’s sentiments extend far back in recorded history. I like thinking about how long humans have been teasing, cracking jokes, and finding play with the absurd. The general scholarly consensus is that the oldest written joke goes back to
First Humor from Hierocles and Philagrius Read More »
Two fancy skeletons are my features today: one an homage, the other the actual man (as far as believers thought). Here I bring you the decorated corpse of Saint Maximus, brought to the village of Bürglen, Germany, in 1682. Turns out that in the Catholic Counter-Reformation, bedazzling the bones of the saints was all the
Saint Maximus’s Decorated Skeleton Read More »
Here is the banner from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, one of the two major powers that engaged in China’s civil war between 1851 to 1864. While accurate records of casualties are impossible to tally, the Taiping Rebellion resulted in the worst civil war in terms of deaths: upwards of 20 million people — as many
Banner of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Read More »
Lots of animals love to play — many of us mammals will forgo food and sleep just to take part in exploratory fun. Humans have excelled at a specific type of play that comes in the form of games.Games are more formal than most types of play. They involve rules and have uncertain outcomes .
Ancient Chinese Board Game “Go” Read More »
One of the best things about studying history is that it has the potential to make one’s day just a little bit better because The Past had so many shitty components. For instance, there’s a fairly good chance that if you are reading this, you are not dealing with head lice.Lice are just enough of
Lice Combs Through History Read More »
Epidemiological studies is a fascinating blend of science and history. There’s a lot of ways we can benefit now from the study of past disease. The pock-marked friars shown here might well have been suffering from an illness that most folks today are blessedly free from: measles.Measles is a human virus (MeV), but, like SARS-COV2,
Epidemiological Studies Read More »
In the most remote parts of central Pennsylvania there are a string of state game lands that go by the name of “St Anthony’s Wilderness”. And on a mountain ridge, accessible only by hiking in, are the ruins of a small coal-mining community around the village known as Yellow Springs. An identifying sign along the
Dore Gustave’s “Garden of Eden” Engraving Read More »
If you were ever saddened to learn that Santa Claus isn’t real (sorry), I am here to cheer you up by letting you know that the Ancient Mesopotamians believed in the existence of a fearsome toilet demon that could rise up out of the commode and attack a person at their most vulnerable. This was
Sulak the Mesopotamian Toilet Demon Read More »
This is one folio from the precious “Blue Qur’an,” dating from about 850-950 CE. The indigo-dyed parchment is adorned with gold and silver lettering, a treasured example of the heights to which the Arabic-speaking Muslim world brought the art of calligraphy. The era in which this copy of the Qur’an was written overlaps with the
Al-Kindī, Calligraphy and Cryptography in 9th c Middle East Read More »
Islamic demons, anyone? The famous Jinn (our word “genie” is derived from it) appeared in pre-Islamic mythology, but once the Arabian Peninsula had been taken over by the Muslim conquests of the seventh century, they were incorporated into this monotheistic religion. In early Islam, believers thought of the Jinn as mortal beings, albeit with superhuman
Jinn and Ifrit in Islam and Earlier Read More »
To the northwest of the Fertile Crescent of ancient Mesopotamia, in the southeast of modern Turkey, lie the ruins of one of the most important archaeological sites in human history: the stone monuments of Göbekli Tepe. Only discovered in the 1990s (earlier archaeologists has thought the remains medieval), Göbekli Tepe sprawls over twenty acres
You are looking at an artist’s rendition of a device known as “the staff of al-Tusi” which sounds like a magical weapon straight out of Tolkien but in fact was a genius scientific tool made by one of the most important mathematicians in history. Sharaf al-Din al-Muzaffar al-Tusi (c. 1135-1213) lived in various cities
The Linear Astrolabe of al-Tusi Read More »
Might I introduce to you Monsieurs and/or Madames skulls “D 111” and “D 112”? For such boring names, these heads – carefully plastered, tended to (de-mantibled), and decorated (check out the eye shells) — are some of the best evidence we have for how some early cultures thought about death, ancestor worship, and property.
Neolithic Death Rights Read More »
