This Medieval map shows the northern and southern hemispheres, with the constellations drawn to represent the stars’ positions. Although it is likely ordinary Europeans could point out different patterns in the sky, you had to have elite training to be able to pass yourself off as a real star-gazer: it was totally normal for people […]
Medieval Map of the Hemispheres 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
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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
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The object featured here – a box carved out of whale’s bone – comes from Britain in the early 700s, which was an age of fragmented states and political destabilization. The scene shown is a rendering of the sack of Jerusalem by the Romans, but to the onlooker the most obvious activity is that of
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This funky-faced individual was Oswald von Wolkenstein, a poet, musical composer, and diplomat in the Late Middle Ages (1376/7-1445). Von Wolkenstein’s adventurous life included episodes of warfare, daring military ventures, and captivity, but what I find most intriguing is the conflation of his Christian world-view with his open admission of enjoying appetites that he considered
Oswald von Wolkenstein and his Sinful Appetites Read More »
The Ancient Romans often anthropomorphasized abstract ideas, and the notion of “Rumor” was one of the most concrete examples of this. In the Late Republic, when politicians jockied amongst themselves to win the votes of citizen men of the assemblies, knowlegde about basic political ongoings was dependent upon oral transmission. Patrons worked to have their
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In the Central Middle Ages, before the witch-hunt craze of the 16th century, more men than women were accused of sorcery. However, the association of women resorting to unscrupulous and un-Christian ways to fly had become well entrenched by 1500 CE.In a manuscript called the _canon Episcopi_, which might have been written in the late
The Waldensians – Flying Witches Read More »
These images are from the northern terminus of the Tuscarora Trail, a 252-mile path from south-central Pennsylvania to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. In the 1960s, the security of the Appalachian Trail was jeopardized by commercial land owners. Future-minded members of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy began work on the Tuscarora Trail as a potential
South-Central Pennsylvania’s Tuscarora Trail Read More »
In south-central Pennsylvania’s Pine Grove Furnace State Park lie the ruins of one of three secret interrogation camps in the continental United States for prisoners of World War II. You are looking on the first slide at the remains of a large mess hall. Camp Michaux was originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the
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This coin dates to the age of the Germanic ruler Clovis I (d 511 CE), and should immediately strike us with its mythological imagery — angels with swords aren’t things we actually see. We realize that the figure on the coin cannot correspond with a real-life person. A tricky thing about studying Early Medieval history,
Germanic Leader King Clovis I Read More »
Here lies the effigy of Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine at Fontevraud Abbey. If Queen Eleanor were a Dungeons and Dragons character, she’d be like level fifty. At an imaginary dinner table of bad-ass women in history, Eleanor would stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the likes of Cleopatra of Egypt, the Empress Irene of Byzantium, and Catherine the
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Like spokes on a wheel, these wide boulevards typify the landscape of Paris. Beautiful components of the city, tourists have come to associate these streets with “La Ville Lumiere”. But this architecture has a more sinister origin: it developed out of a desire to stop protesters.The second image shows a now-demolished street called rue du
La Ville Lumiere and the Desire to Stop Protests Read More »
Since the year 2000, the Audubon Society has been involved with the site shown here called Hawk Watch. Located at Waggoner’s Gap along the Kittatinny Ridge just north of the town Carlisle in south-central Pennsylvania, Hawk Watch has a legacy of being a major corridor for thousands of hawks, eagles, and falcons who traverse across
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And here we see Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century. He embodied the Existentialist movement, which argued that there is no authority or meaning in existence outside of what we make of it. Whether we accept or reject this idea, or find it hopeful or depressing, Sartre’s philosophy admirably
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President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the United States through the Great Depression and the Second World War, winning four consecutive elections despite the fact that he was believed to have suffered from polio, aka infantile paralysis. His reliance on wheelchairs and other assistance to get around was something that his opponents thought would make him
FDR and his Work with the Polio Disease Read More »
This post is about the juxtaposition of holiness and horror. The statue you see here is “the Vision of Constantine,” sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (d. 1680), one of history’s most talented artists. Bernini is famous for his beautiful marble renderings of the human form, and most of his beloved works were of well known
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May I introduce you to Min Chiu Li, a Chinese-American scientist to whom many of us owe our lives or the lives of loved ones? In the 1950s, Li figured out a critical aspect about how the disease cancer works, leading to the successful employment of chemotherapy.Min Chiu Li came to the United States to
Min Chiu Li and Finding Chemotherapy Read More »
Ah, how to frame the life of Qiu Jin, the feminist martial artist who was beheaded by the last Chinese dynastic government for insurrection in 1907? I think this quote by Jack London best captures her spirit: “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a
Feminist Martial Artist Qiu Jin Read More »
Ah, this guy.Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BCE- 43 BCE) — the most famous speech-maker in the history of Ancient Rome — could be whiny, self-important, and blind to the way the powerful families of Rome enchanted him. But he is also truly sympathetic in the way he strived to uphold the political structure of the
Marcus Tullius Cicero and His Thoughts on Death Read More »
This is a 16th- century depiction of a Central-American ruler called Nezahualcoyotl (d. 1472). Before the Aztec Empire took over the region, the area was partitioned among several kingdoms. Nezahualcoyotl ruled over the city-state of Texcoco, and was famed not only for his political leadership, but also his architectural genius and his poetry. Unusually, several
Central-American Ruler Nezahualcoyotl of Texcoco Read More »
