We have no idea who painted this beyond it was someone in the Netherlands around 1586. Queen Elizabeth I of England was a longtime supporter of the Dutch. They were connected religiously, with both countries being Protestant, and also economically: the Dutch had the most lucrative trading markets in northernContinue Reading
This post spiraled off from my last post, as frequently happens. You know you’re looking at a pharaoh in ancient Egyptian artwork by looking at his hat. There’s several different hats, but all of them are only worn by pharaohs. Moreover, there’s a square beard also only worn by pharaohs. Continue Reading
Today’s post started with a joke. The first few amuse me. By the end it doesn’t even make sense: just putting hieroglyphs around Ghostbusters doesn’t exactly give the impression of ancient Egyptian Ghostbusters. I do, however, get a giggle from the Vulture posing as Isis. We’re going to stick withContinue Reading
July 14 marks French National Day, or what English speakers call Bastille Day. It’s based on a celebration first held a year after the storming of the Bastille, but it can’t get away from the fact that the date traces back to an event of uprising and murder. My LeastContinue Reading
Discarding Images, a common source of crazy medieval images for me, often labels their images in a very straight-forward manner, such as “Jupiter Castrates Saturn,” which is exactly what it sounds like, and is in no way safe for work. Every once in a while, however, I encounter an imageContinue Reading
Yesterday in history, Edward VI of England died at the age of 16 in 1553 after a rule of 6 years. Child kings rarely leave much of a mark on history, but Edward happened to rule at a pivotal time in English history. Still, most of his impacts were moreContinue Reading
In 1974, the US Postal Service put out a stamp stating “Retarded Children Can be Helped.” The sentiment was certainly one we can relate to: the mentally impaired do not need to be marginalized. This is contrary to a long history of approaches to mental disability, which has included institutionalizationContinue Reading
The term War of the Roses wasn’t used until the 18th century and not popularized until the 19th, while the war itself was fought in the 15th. Like many wars, it had no official name at the time of conflict, but it could be described as a series of civilContinue Reading
I greatly enjoyed my trip to Egypt in 2010 just before the Arab Spring. However, our tour guide had the annoying habit of attributing just about everything in Western history to the ancient Egyptians via half-truths, over-generalizations, and periodic nonsense. Several of us responded by creating our own list ofContinue Reading
Ramesses’s temples at Abu Simbel are awesome for two reasons. The first is the incredible novelty of their construction: it’s dug into the rock face rather than built as temples commonly were. The second, however, is what happened to them in the 1960s. Ramesses II Ramesses never did anything smallContinue Reading