Beauty standards across time vary enormously, as does the degree to which they emphasize qualities that never appear in nature. For instance, in recent decades in American culture, having perfectly straight and dazzling white teeth have signified health and high social status. In much of Japan’s history, it was the exact opposite.Here you see an […]
Beauty Standards in Ancient Japanese History Read More »
For part of its history, the Byzantine Empire carried out an unusual tradition for selecting the women who would marry the emperors. These were the imperial “bride-shows,” in which the young emperor’s parents would have a variety of noblewomen who showed great beauty and moral character compete for the hand of the leader of the
Ancient Byzantine Marriage Read More »
April Fools’ day is a centuries-old custom, but its current popularity stems back to 18th-century Britain, when it became popular to prank people. Often the jokes centered around sending someone off to do a fake errand or putting a teasing sign on someone’s behind (thus a synonym was “Tailie [tail] Day”).The image here showcases a
April Fools’ Day in Early Britain Read More »
Some moments in history seem dramatically more pivotal than others. Take the episode in 1971 in a town meeting in Durham, North Carolina, for example. A “charrette”, or series of community gatherings, had been organized around the issue of the deeply segregated schools. The goal was to find common ground amidst severe racial tensions. The
The Racial Collaboration of Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis Read More »
You are looking at the most expensive Easter egg ever made: the famed “Winter” Fabergé egg created by Alma Pihl, the only woman designer of the iconic Russian jeweled eggs.Alma (slide two) was brought into the Fabergé workshop because her father had been its leading jeweler. Since 1885, the company of Peter Carl Fabergé had
Alma Pihl’s “Winter” Faberge Egg Design Read More »
The column pictured here is a Sati Stone from the 18th century, now housed in the British Museum. To us, it is a hideous and grim memorial, but it was envisioned to be a sacred monument and tribute commemorating a woman who had performed Sati (also Suttee) — self-immolation upon her deceased husband’s funeral pyre.The
18th Century Sati Stone Read More »
The Ancient Romans were definitely not prudish about sex, but their ideas about when the act was healthy and when it wasn’t are certainly foreign to moderns. The first-century encyclopedist Pliny the Elder wrote that “sexual intercourse is good for lower back pain, for weakness of the eyes, for derangement, and for depression”. On the
Ancient Romans Fondness of Sex 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 »
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
And from whence does this Ancient Roman-style barrel vaulted ceiling appear, you might be asking? Not from Italy, but rather from the imagination of the talented and bizarre brain of the American aristocrat Henry Champman Mercer, who had it built in 1914 to house his vast collection of tools and artifacts from before the Industrial
Henry Mercer Museum and Artifacts Read More »
“The Great City of Benin,” at one time called Edo, is a place I wish I could time-travel back to. It was completely destroyed by Bristish armies in the late 19th century, but in pre-colonial times it was one of the largest Medieval cities in the world, the capital of the Benin Empire.The walls of
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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 »
In Rome during the first and second centuries, explicit evidence abounds about heterosexual desire for women, such as in the story of Europa, featured here in this first-century fresco from Pompeii. Another appears in the novel __Leucippe and Clitophon_, which relays the repeated abductions of the heroine Leucippe, who successfully escapes and consumates her romance
Ancient Roman Female Homosexuality Read More »
Slavery in the Ancient Roman Empire was an entrenched and ubiquitous part of life. Around one of every seven people in the second century was enslaved, and that fact shaped the social lives of Romans in all sorts of ways, including how they thought about sex.This is a sketch of a fourth century CE slave
Ancient Roman Slavery and Prostitution Read More »
The prevalence of slavery in Ancient Rome impacted the sex lives of Roman men, both free and slave. One of the ways it did was by how people thought about male-to-male sexual intercourse.In Classical Athens, there was a common practice of pederasty among men of different ages: an older man was a sort of tutor
Ancient Rome and Homosexuality Read More »
In their rapacious desire to showcase their specialness, the ultra-rich have often turned to ridiculous fashion. With hindsight, those of us from less elite groups have been able to have the last laugh because we can see the trends of the rich from a broader perspective — the more fashion has moved away from the
Medieval Poulaines Read More »
My most favorite ghost stories these days come from historian Robin Fleming’s new book, _The Material Fall of Roman Britain_. Nothing captures the immediacy of the disappeared Empire in the hinterlands of Rome’s remote northwest like it. Practically none of the evidence from this time comes from written documents, so Fleming utilizes archaeology to tell
The Complexity of the “Venus Mosaic” Read More »
How you carry and cook your food and water has been the most important question of the day for most humans since Neolithic times. (A quick backpacking trip can serve to remind oneself of this truth.) So when containers change, it means your life does too, and this was certainly the case for the British
Changing Pottery of Ancient Britain Read More »
You know the Biblical saying about beating swords into ploughshares? Well, refashioning iron was a thing throughout history. The best sorts of iron tools were often not just made from steel (you would want that for the sharpest edges) but from a combination of iron alloys. And getting all of this together needed the sort
Refashioning Iron in Ancient Britain Read More »
Today’s post is about a single flower, a kind that no longer exists. But at one point, the “Semper Augustus” tulip swayed stock markets, comprised the fortunes of rich men, and exemplified the highest expression of commodified beauty.From 1600 to about 1720, the Dutch Republic commanded the highest per capita income in the world, garnered
“Semper Augustus” Tulip Read More »
