This African mask from the 1500s is on display this fall of 2022 at the NYC Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an exhibit on the African origins of civilization. Exquisitely carved from precious ivory, it provides testimony to one of Africa’s more recent civilizations, the Kingdom of Benin. The capital city of Benin […]
The Kingdom of Benin Read More »
Both birth control and abortion were common practices in the Ancient Mediterranean world. Although many examples of imperfect methods exist in our sources, (for instance, in the fourth century BCE Hyppocrates suggested that prostitutes wanting to abort should jump up and down, slamming their heels into their glutes) there were effective ways of ending or
Island of Cyrene Coin Read More »
This is one of the most fantastic pieces of pottery ever. Dating to about 1590, it depicts three women changing into geese, with the label “Winchester Geese” at the bottom of the platter. The shapes surrounding the geese might look like rounded diamonds, or alternatively, like vulvas. Give me a minute, and you’re probably going
“Winchester Geese” Read More »
If ever you were to consider the history of fabric-making, you are unlikely to have associated it with horror. But that is just what this contemporary rendering of the Norse poem “Darratharljóth” conveys, and it’s really quite sick. In the poem, which appears in a 13th-century Icelandic saga, a man sees a vision of twelve
Viking Women, Weaving, and Power Read More »
Everyone knows about the great witch-hunts of the Early Modern period in Europe, when up to 45,000 people were executed for crimes of using magic and consorting with devils — most of these alleged witches were women, and one of the areas most affected were German-speaking lands. The old woman riding backwards on a goat
Christina Rauscher, the Witch Read More »
Japanese history has a remarkable record of women who excelled in the martial arts, despite the overall legacy of Medieval patriarchy that co-existed for so long. Many stories of female generals and warriors only appear briefly in the historical sources, and cloud the details of such women’s lives. And this is one of the reasons
The way cutting-edge technology lets us see into the distant past is so cool. Recently, a technique called “photometric stereo workflow” enabled Medieval historian Jessica Hodgkinson take a fresh appraisal of the pages of a manuscript written in south-east England in the first half of the 700s. The historian discovered that the name of a
Medieval Women’s Literacy Read More »
What is the luckier life? The one where you get to do what you want and live authentically, or the one that lasts longer? For much of history, much of humanity had neither of these options, but for the mother-daughter royal pair featured here, the options were split. In Denmark during the age of the
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Modern copy of a Japanese _juunihitoe_ or “twelve layered” kimono worn by aristocratic women from the Heian period (9th-12th centuries). These outfits actually weighed women down because of the amount of fabric involved.
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Tonight Shippensburg University welcomed guest lecturer Wawa Gatheru, a leader in the contemporary U.S. environmental justice movement. She had many interesting things to say, but since I am an historian, I especially appreciated her discussion of how the legacy of American slavery has led to environmental inequity today. Wawa Gatheru pointed to two ways this
Wawa Gatheru Speaks at Shippensburg Univeristy Read More »
So here’s a provocative set of evidence from our pre-historic past: hand stencils. Among other questions, they raise a debate about whether the first artists were mostly women. The painted shadows that silhouette the hands you see in this image were frequent subjects of our paleolithic and neolithic ancestors (40,000-1,000 BCE). In 2013, archaeologist Dean
This is an early 14th copy of the _Trotula_, a medical text on women’s conditions. Trota of Salerno was one of the book’s authors. She was from the 1100s, and was called “magistra” or “female master” because her medical knowledge was so respected in her day.
She looks wide-eyed in this picture to me, but Milunka Savic was the opposite of an ingenue. This 20th-century Serbian fought in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, and in World War II spent time in a Concentration Camp. She cleared these hurdles with chutzpah to spare and is the most decorated female
This is a photo from 1943 of a detention hospital for infected women in Leesville, Louisiana. And I’m about to deliver a really sad story about the U.S. government’s treatment of women during the 20th century. This is about a series of laws that came to be known as “The American Plan,” and they resulted
Chamberlain-Kahn Act of 1918 Read More »
Meet one of Ireland’s most prolific composers, Ina Boyle. Never heard of her? Even in her lifetime, as she was churning out chamber music, choral pieces, concertos, and symphonies, most of her work was never performed, so you’re not alone. But she wrote more classical music than any other Irishwoman up through the mid 20th-century.
This is a Medieval illumination of a noblewoman with her hawk from the Taymouth Hours, a sumptuous 14th-century work probably made for a royalty. It shows a number of images where women feature prominently. The picture shown here provides evidence that some of the wealhiest engaged in the highly technical art of falconry. Training birds
Medieval Falconry and Women Read More »
This 12th c manuscript is the oldest remaining copy of “The Tale of Gengi”, written by the lady courtier Murasaki Shikibu in the early 11th c. Murasaki is a great example of how women’s history could create fantastic innovations in their response to being marginalized. In this case, women like Murasaki invented Japanese writing. They
It’s really difficult for me, dear readers, not to love the Whore of Babylon, the metaphor and shibboleth from the New Testament Book of Revelations. As a reminder, here are some lines from that apocalyptic book: “‘Come, I will show you the judgement of the great whore who is seated on many waters, with whom
This is Doris Fleischman, leaving on a ship for France with her adoring husband in 1925. What made this journey unusual wasn’t the destination — nor was it Fleischman’s business abroad (she was a journalist and interviewed many famous people in her career). Rather, it was that her last name didn’t match her husband’s: Fleischman
Doris Fleischman, the Lucy Stoners, and the Ability to Keep One’s Name Read More »
Take a good look at this painting from about 1650 by an anonymous English artist, and think about what it all means. Here we have two wealthy women’s three-quarter portraits — they wear jewelry and fancy clothes, and they are posed in a mirror image of each other. Suggestive of equality, right? But one woman
Smallpox Scars and Women’s Cosmetics Read More »
