social history

Byzantine Emperor Murder

Mutilations of Byzantine Emperors

The Byzantine Empire had a good run, from the move of the Roman capital from Rome to Constantinople in 330 CE to the takeover of the illustrious city in 1453. The individual emperors, however, frequently were not as lucky in their reigns. Here you see an 11th-century manuscript showing the murder of Emperor Romanos III […]

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Chinese New Year

Chinese New Year and Drinking “Tusu”

Today begins the Chinese New Year for 2021, when many rituals and celebrations welcome in the future in hopes that it will bring happiness, health, and prosperity. One of the traditions is shown in the image here: the drinking of a sort of wine called “Tusu.” Of course, it was specially important for the Emperor

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Byzantium Narses

Eunuch Narses, “The Hammer of the Goths”

Whenever I think about Byzantine eunuchs (*as one does*), there’s just always so much to say. So here is a picture of the famed general Narses (d. 537), known as “the Hammer of the Goths” which was not a stage name but a moniker for this eunuch’s effectiveness at crushing the enemies of the Byzantine

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Ancient Egypt’s Oldest Beer Factories

These pottery remains might not look like much to the untrained eye, but they are in fact recently discovered elements from what may be the world’s oldest beer factory.Located in the ancient Egyptian burial ground of Abydos, the collection of enormous units of pottery basins that heated the mixture of water and grains to make

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Ancient Roman Chariot

Finding the First Ancient Roman Ceremonial Chariot

This February 27, 2021, the discovery of the first Ancient Roman ceremonial chariot found in Italy was announced. Even though ruins from the city of Pompeii were found way back in 1748 (after the volcanic eruption had buried it in 79 CE), archaeologists are still unearthing amazing treasures around the area. This chariot survived with

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Japanese Beauty

Beauty Standards in Ancient Japanese History

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

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Byzantine Marriage

Ancient Byzantine Marriage

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

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1971 North Carolina Segregated School

The Racial Collaboration of Ann Atwater and C.P. Ellis

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

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Alma Pihl’s “Winter” Faberge Egg Design

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

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Ancient Rome

Ancient Romans Fondness of Sex

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

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Ancient Romans and Their Bath-Houses

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

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Henry Mercer Museum and Artifacts

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

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Margaret Cavendish

Margaret Lucas Cavendish

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

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Ancient Roman Lesbians

Ancient Roman Female Homosexuality

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

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Ancient Roman Slavery

Ancient Roman Slavery and Prostitution

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

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