Cats hunting for mice in a medieval manuscript. Although most medieval written records about cats viewed them in purely functional terms, many nuns and monks kept small animals as pets that they felt affectionate for.
Medieval Cats Manuscript Read More »
A page from the _Etymologiae_ by the 6th-century scholar Isidore of Seville. In the Middle Ages, this was considered one of the most important books written. Isidore tried to cram in every bit of knowledge he thought was important. Although this book preserved a lot of Ancient Roman and Greek knowledge, the book’s popularity ironically
Etymologiae From Isidore of Seville Read More »
Bald’s Leechbook is an Anglo-Saxon medical text from the 9th century. In 2015 one of the recipes (it used garlic, a bronze pot, and bile from a cow, among other things) was found to be successful in treating MRSA.
This is the earliest fragment of the Gospel of Mark. It was found on a famous ancient Egyptian garbage dump that was discovered early last century, but this bit was only identified recently. Date: 150-250 CE
Earliest Fragment of Gospel of Mark Read More »
This diagram illustrates the scholarly consensus for authorship of the three Christian Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. “Q” is a hypothetical source, perhaps made up of sayings (like the Beatitudes).
Concensus of Authorship of Gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke Read More »
This is the Marduk Gate of the ancient city of Babylon, one of the world’s oldest urban settlements and now a UNESCO heritage site. King Nebuchadnezzar II built this gate about 575 BCE. Whatever beauty it contains now, where it lies in lonely ruins some 85 km south of Baghdad, is nothing compared to the
Poem about Ancient Babylon Discovered and the Marduk-Gate Read More »
If you can read Latin, you might want to stop right here and scroll away. If you don’t know Latin, here’s the sentence to stop if you are squeamish, before I tell you what it says. Ready? “Hic liber Waltonus cute compactus est This book was bound in Walton’s skin.” As the discipline of Peptide
Anthropodermic Books Were Made from Human Skin Read More »
The Chi-rho page beginning the Gospel of Matthew in the Lindisfarne Gospels from the 8th century.
This is an early 14th copy of the _Trotula_, a medical text on women’s conditions. Trota of Salerno was one of the book’s authors. She was from the 1100s, and was called “magistra” or “female master” because her medical knowledge was so respected in her day.
This is a 16th century translation of “The Emerald Tablet”, among the most famous texts on alchemy ever. Although it purports to be from Egypt (that’s where a lot of medieval alchemists thought their sources originated), the first text we know of comes from an Arabic 6th/7th century source. Isaac Newton, himself an occultist, translated
The Emerald Tablet Read More »
This is Plympton 322, and this mathematical tablet written in cuneiform has been studied a lot to work out how much the Babylonians understood trigonometry. I love how much we still can learn and study about the history of math!
Sumerian is the first written language and linguists think of it as a “language isolate”; it isn’t related to any other known languages. This tablet is from the 26th century BCE.
Fibonacci was an early 13th-century Italian who made Europeans aware that the Arabic number system we use today is much better for doing math than the Roman Numeral system medieval people had been using. Plus he wrote out the Fibonacci numbers, which are shown here in his most important book, _Liber Abaci_ (Book of Calculations).
Fibonacci Writings Read More »
This is a tablet from Ancient Mesopotamia dating to 1800 BCE. It is a hymn to Ninsaki, the goddess of beer. It is also a beer recipe. Some scholars think that beer might have been invented even before bread – whether this is true or not, beer was super important (calories, socialization, nutrients, safer than
Hymn to Ninsaki Tablet Read More »
M.C. Escher, “Angels and Demons,” part of a series called “Capturing Infinity,” 1960. Escher worked on consultations with several mathematicians to develop much of his artwork.
This 12th c manuscript is the oldest remaining copy of “The Tale of Gengi”, written by the lady courtier Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th c. Murasaki is a great example of how women’s history could create fantastic innovations in their response to being marginalized. In this case, women like Murasaki invented Japanese writing. They
“Thunder, Perfect Wisdom” is a super trippy text from around the second century, probably Egypt. Although it’s not Daoist, it has a lot of similarities. I also like it because it’s told through the voice of a woman.
“Thunder, Perfect Wisdom” Text Read More »
This 4,000 year old tablet from Ancient Babylon has part of the _Epic of Gilgamesh_ on it. There is a great English rendition by Stephen Mitchell. It’s so cool that the first recorded story deals with the fundamental source of human concern – the inevitability of death.
Babylon Epic of Gilgamesh Tablet Read More »
This 3rd-century CE mosaic illustrates the month of April in the Ancient Roman world, which was then, as now, a time when sun and rains could be expected as part of the spring season. It was during this month that the religious feast devoted to the deity of mildew was celebrated. The Ancient Romans
Ancient Roman Holiday Dedicated to the God of Mildew Read More »
At the time of the Spanish discovery of the Americas, the Timucuan peoples were the largest linguistic group around modern Florida and Georgia, numbering about 200,000. They were not united peoples but lived in different groups, sometimes hunting and gathering, other times farming, but their culture was rich (see second image for Timucuan lands in
Timucuan Amerindians Record Their Written Language Read More »
