This is maybe the first computer bug, and relates to one of the more famous anecdotes adorning the legendary reputation of Grace Hopper, one of the most important developers of the computer in the 20th century. Hopper (d. 1992 age 85) earned her Ph.D. in mathematics from Yale and was working as a professor until […]
First Computer Bug Anecdote to Grace Hopper Read More »
Behold the Lycurgus cup, from the 4th c. Late Roman Empire. It is the most exquisite example of a glass-making technique used the the Romans to produce a color-changing effect. Viewed straight-on, the cup is green, but viewed with backlighting it appears red – the technique involved blending the glass with extremely fine-ground particles of
The origins of human history keeps getting pushed further back in time, as a recent analysis of a wooden structure in Africa dating back almost a half a million years demonstrates. For reference, anthropologists now date the emergence of homo sapiens to about 200,000 years ago (although some argue for 300,000). The wooden structure discovered
Zambia Archaeological Site Has Earliest Known Wooden Structure Read More »
The Antikythera Mechanism from Ancient Greece had over 30 gears, and could predict when eclipses would happen, track the irregular orbit of the stars, and figure out when the Olympic games would happen!
The Antikythera Mechanism Read More »
The stately Classical background of Paris’ Panthéon has been the perfect location to house the invention of 19th-century physicist Léon Foucault: a massive pendulum made of a 62-lb brass-coated led bob, suspended from the Panthéon’s central dome by a 220-foot wire. Foucault debuted his pendulum in 1851, and although the original was damaged in 1995,
Foucault’s Pendulum Read More »
Looking at the ridges and furrows of fields such as this, one can get a rare glimpse of what Medieval agricultural topography was like. The undulating patterns you see here were made hundreds of years ago above the settlement of Wood Stanway in Medieval England. There are two big reasons why the landscape still looks
Wood Stanway and How the Black Death Changed England’s Landscape Read More »
It was ’round about this time of the year — near the Fourth of July — nearly eight decades ago that a rancher from New Mexico called W.W. Brazel brought a bunch of mysterious-looking debris he had found on his property to the local sheriff, who was situated about 80 miles southeast in the small
The Roswell Incident Read More »
One of the coolest Indigenous American weapons was the blowgun, which was developed well before the Columbian exchange. You can see painted on this ceramic from the modern Guatemalan Highlands from the Late Classic Maya period (CE 600-900) a row of hunters holding their blowguns as they return from a hunt (this image is a
The Invention of the (Poisoned) Blowgun by South American Peoples Read More »
These projectile points were discovered in a 9,000 year-old grave at Wilamaya Patjxa in southern Peru. Archaeologists immediately diagnosed the burial items as part of a hunter’s toolkit and assumed that the person they were buried with was a high-status male from an ancient hunter-gatherer community. However, DNA analysis revealed that the hunter was actually
Ancient Peruvian Weapons and Evidence for Early Women Hunters Read More »
The excavations of the Ancient Maya world have continued to reveal surprises, and in 2020 two fascinating stories about urban water supply made headlines. Both were about the city of Tikal (known as Yax Mutal among the ancient Maya), but one was much sadder than the other. Tikal was an epicenter of power and was
Classical Maya Water Reservoir Technology Read More »
In the four corners region of New Mexico, a population of ancestral Pueblo people settled for a few centuries around the first millennium CE and built magnificent structures and created beautiful pottery like this pitcher (dating between 1075-1150 CE), fostering a relatively large population in the arid region. Archaeologists call this the Chaco Canyon civilization,
Chaco Canyon’s Pottery and Gendered Work Read More »
Making string figures is a dying cultural practice. It was done by people all over the world for who knows how long (because string decays quickly and most writers of history didn’t care about the varied designs made out of string using different hand motions). One of the most complex catalogues of string figures comes
Inuit String Communication Read More »
Here you are looking at the compound microscope developed by Robert Hooke (d 1703), a Renaissance scientist more famous for dabbling in academic fields as disparate as physics and palaeontology than a particular discovery. Nevertheless, his microscope allowed him to illustrate things he included in _Micrographia_, which utterly captivated his British audience. Samuel Pepys the
Victorian Accoutrements: the Mustache Cup and the Welsh Wig Read More »
Here you are looking at the compound microscope developed by Robert Hooke (d 1703), a Renaissance scientist more famous for dabbling in academic fields as disparate as physics and palaeontology than a particular discovery. Nevertheless, his microscope allowed him to illustrate things he included in _Micrographia_, which utterly captivated his British audience. Samuel Pepys the
Robert Hooke and Micrographia Read More »
Using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, scientists were for the first time able to figure out the source of an ingredient in an actual Ancient Roman perfume: and it was patchouli. In 2019, archaeologists digging in the burial grounds of the once-active Roman site in Spain called Carmina discovered an oval lead case holding a
Ancient Roman Perfume Read More »
Automata are machines that operate on their own, and have been around since Ancient Egyptian times. Often they are automated animals or people designed to impress an audience. This one might give you nightmares. Tragically, the “Automaton of a Friar” that you see here is currently not on display at the National Museum of American
