Here’s the world’s smallest primer for a really fascinating topic in anthropology: ritual. We’ll take the “Healy Howl” tradition from Georgetown University as our case study application. Here’s a picture of a cemetery near Healy Hall, where the ritual howl happens every year on Halloween. At Georgetown on October 31, the 1973 movie “The Exorcist,” […]
The Healy Howl and the Significance of Ritual Read More »
We’ve all heard the term “rune,” but mostly in contemporary culture we think about runes being magical symbols, perhaps fitting into the worlds of JRR Tolkien. So I’m here to deliver some bummer history news to fight this stereotype and argue that runes could be much more mundane. However, this lead plaque (dating between the
Old English Runes and Their Magical and Ordinary Purposes 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 »
