It doesn’t look like much now, but this is one of the oldest stone buildings in all of history. It is the Tower of Jericho. It stands on the West Bank of Palestine, and it is 11,000 years old.Now it is dwarfed by the layers of earth that have built up around it in the […]
Maybe because this was my first post-COVID museum, or maybe because I have a thing for eccentric homes built by ultra-rich early 20th-century Americans, but I have only superlatives to say about Fonthill Castle in rural Doylestown Pennsylvania.Henry Chapman Mercer, an independently wealthy archaeologist and tile manufacturer, had this palace made between 1908-1912. Influenced by
Henry Mercer’s Fonthill Castle Read More »
It might look like this is a Medieval European painting at first glance, but it isn’t — check out the writing, the orange and blue dominant tones, the clothing of the small figures, and the directional patterns of the lines. This is an Ethiopian mural from the 1600s.And what it depicts is suggestive regarding a
Ethiopian Artwork and the Black Plague Read More »
This is ink drawing by the Medieval Japanese master artist Sesson Shūkei dates from around 1570 and represents my favorite elements of this type of art. Called “Gibbons in a Landscape,” it shows the animals trying to take hold of the moon’s reflection in the water. You can see a closeup in the second slide
Japanese Ink Drawing “Gibbons in a Landscape” Read More »
The first foreign-born Japanese samurai was the warrior Yasuke, represented here in a 2019 sculpture by South African artist Nicola Roos. We don’t have any images from the years around 1579, when he arrived in Japan alongside a Portuguese Jesuit missionary. However, Japanese sources from Yasuke’s contemporaries speak of the power that Yasuke held from
The First Foreign-Born Japanese Samurai Read More »
This is a divination tray, or “opon ifá”, dating from the early twentieth century. Used for hundreds of years by the Yoruba peoples of west Africa, the opon ifá belonged to a diviner-priest called a “babalawo” who would consult the Gods and ancestors in order to help someone make an important decision or find a
Divination Trays of 20th Century West Africa Read More »
Here is a handsome example of a Brood X cicada, after emerging from its hole underground (second photo) of seventeen years. These “periodical cicadas” are the insects that spend the longest amount of time developing from egg to adult. And their history is fascinating.The European settlers who came to North America were reminded of locusts
History of the Brood X Cicadas 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 »
I have another person to add to my list of imaginary attendees in my hypothetical dinner party. Might I introduce to you one Margaret Lucas Cavendish (d.1673)?.Margaret’s life shows just how much human potential has been wasted by limiting women’s access to education. She gleaned hers through conversations of the men around her — her
Margaret Lucas Cavendish Read More »
Graduation ceremonies are in abundance in many parts of the world right now, and I love to point out just how Medieval these ceremonies are. Y’all in the robes — you’re Cosplaying, because those outfits are from back in the Middle Ages. And relative to another tradition from these times is the university ceremonial mace,
Medieval University Maces Read More »
Here is a picture of the Flemish artist Hans Memling’s _Allegory of Chastity_, and although it was done in the 15th century, it testifies to the long-term effects of Christianity’s radical sexual revolution that had begun a millennium and a half before.Here you see Chastity, besieged by the lions of sexual behavior that would threaten
Hans Memling’s “Allegory of Chastity” 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 »
Pennsylvania is known for its atypical religious history, but when you start to investigate, you begin to realize just how unusual this history is. For instance, there is a legacy of German Christian mysticism extending back to hermits who lived in the 1600s. In central Pennsylvania, this expression was dramatically marked by the foundation of
German Christian Mysticism – The Ephrata Cloister 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 »
This is the title page for one of the most fascinating and popular books of the Italian Renaissance – _De rerum natura_, or, _On the Nature of Things_, by the Ancient Roman Lucretius. The expense of the artwork and skill of the miniaturist – the copier was an Augustinian friar for Pope Sixtus IV dating
“On the Nature of Things” Read More »
Here you see a picture of Achilles making sacrifices to Zeus. It is a unique image, coming from a 5th-century CE manuscript thought to be the only one from Antiquity illustrating Homer’s epic poem _The Illiad_. The scarcity of such depictions belies the importance of Homer on Ancient Roman culture, because all educated people would
Homer and Christianity Read More »
The Ancient Romans had a litany of holidays for all sorts of occasions. Every August 23 were the Vulcanalia, festivities honoring the Roman deity Vulcan, featured here in this palm-sized bronze relief from the 2nd or 3rd century CE.Worship of Vulcan shows the way that Romans often bifurcated their attitudes towards their deities. Vulcan was
Ancient Roman Vulcanalia Festivities Read More »
The news of climate-deniers and people who think the COVID vaccine is a government plot can be hard to hear: how are these folks coming up with such ideas? (wait — maybe don’t answer that). The truth is, history is laden with people who have gravely misunderstood cause and effect, with sometimes horrifying consequences.Take the
Cause and Effect and Child Sacrifice? Read More »
Yesterday’s post featured a successful entrepreneur (Walt Disney) whose Utopian community failed to come to fruition. Today I am looking at a Utopian community which grew into a successful corporate enterprise, almost despite itself. And here I am talking about Oneida, the New York-based silverware company (see second image for vintage silverware photo). And incongruously,
