• About

Mundus Patet

~ The Earth is Open – An Exploration of Ancient, Antique, and Modern Culture, Art, and History

Mundus Patet

Monthly Archives: June 2019

The Boar Hunt in Epic Myth

24 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by artaud23 in Arts, Epic, Greek, Greek Classics, Homer, Language, Latin, Latin Classics, Literature, Long Reads, Ovid, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Artemis, Boar, Calydon, Diana, Dogs, Game of Thrones, Hounds, Hunting, Iliad, Meleager, Metamorphoses, Nobility, Sport

In the first season of HBO’s Game of Thrones, the king of the Seven Kingdoms, Robert Baratheon, is notoriously killed by a boar during a royal trophy hunt. While Game of Thrones clearly draws on medieval imagery, myths, and histories to build its world, there are also many ideas and tropoi drawn from the ancient lore of the classical era. The idea of a deadly boar hunt with dreadful consequences was, in fact, a set piece in ancient literature dating all the way back to the time of Homer. The subject of ancient hunting is one that still fascinates and plays upon our imaginations. The idea of men, armed with little more than spears, their wits, and superior organization, confronting raw nature, armed of tooth and claw, is one that engages our sense of drama and fair play, even if such notions exaggerate the danger and rawness represented by the reality of these situations.

Many such stories can also be difficult for modern readers to access. The social dynamics that underlie such hunts are often invisible, poorly documented, and difficult to relate to, whereas the natural environment in terms of flora, fauna, its ruggedness in general, has been radically transformed by the modern industrial age and uncounted generations of urban living. Such dramatic changes in lifestyle and environment can make understanding the conventions that rule the ancient hunting narrative seem alien and exotic. Add to these obscurations a few thick layers of mythological allusion and technical jargon, and the result is a specialist literature, existing within an already specialized field, that few casual readers will find easy to parse.

Molossian Hound. The version is sometimes known as “Jennings Dog”. On display in the British Museum.

Few sports or activities carried the same weight and reputation for nobility as hunting did for the antique mind. Xenophon, in his essay on hunting, the Cynegetica, charges the gods Apollo and Artemis with the invention of the art of hunting as well as with the use of hounds. He goes on to describe how these arts passed from them to the pedagogic centaur, Cheiron, whom he credits with having taught the art of coursing to many numerous and well-named heroes and demigods. In the end, he concludes that hunting is a noble activity worthy of the aristocratic curriculum of noble youths: “Therefore I charge the young not to despise hunting or any other schooling. For these are the means by which men become good in war and in all things out of which must come excellence in thought and deed” (Xenophon, “On Hunting,” Scripta Minora. E. C. Marchant, trans.: I, passim, & 18. ).

Therefore I charge the young not to despise hunting or any other schooling. For these are the means by which men become good in war and in all things out of which must come excellence in thought and deed.

Xenophon, “On Hunting,” Scripta Minora. E. C. Marchant, trans.: I, 18.

Though there is no doubt about the popularity and enthusiasm with which the ancients greeted Olympic games, arena combats, and displays of horsemanship, hunting myths and stories seem to occupy their own special register within the antique canon. Such pastimes are ones to which, perhaps, the lower classes need not have paid much heed. Certainly, the need for the acquisition of specialized equipment like expensive and labor-intensive nets, leather gear, spears and weapons of all sorts, as well as specialized hunting animals such as hounds and even horses, would have put thes grand chases beyond the reach of the typical peasantry, or even the middle-classes of well-heeled land-owners. The kinds of hunting described in Xenophon and Homer was the special province of old-money, the newly rich, and their favored hangers-on.


Homère, 1841. Hommage à l’Apothéose d’Homère d’Ingres (1827).
Jean-Baptiste Auguste Leloir

This, of course, doesn’t mean that the impoverished hoi polloi of antiquity never hunted, only that their game and means of acquiring it were more modest than those detailed in the grand tales of kings, heroes, and their retinues. The more mundane stories didn’t make it past the cutting room floor. Ancient writers and bards knew where their bread was buttered. There was proportionally more at stake for the nobility, as well, at least from the aristocrat’s own point of view. Honor in deeds was clearly far more important in the grand scheme of things than any such vague and unlikely circumstance as starvation.

Glory, timé, was the quarry sought by ancient hunters, not base sustenance. Thus, if some wild animal could be cast as a ferocious monster gleefully frightening children, threatening livestock, and rooting around destructively in precious acreage, then, all the better. Such natural or prodigious disasters constituted a need for action and engendered the necessary endeavor, the hunt—fortuitously a means, as well, to proudly display one’s excellence, one’s  areté, in defense of the thankful populace.

The Calydonian Boar Hunt.
Peter Paul Rubens, about 1611-1612.

The famous episode of the Calydonian Boar hunt is the epitome of just such noblesse obligé in action. Featured in not just one but two of the great epic poems of antiquity, Homer’s Iliad and Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the tale relates just such an expedition of the aristocracy defending the land from a monsterous quarry. According to the blind poet, Artemis had sent down an evil upon the city in the form of a “fierce wild boar with the shining teeth, who after the way of his kind did much evil to the orchards of Oineus. For he ripped up whole tall trees from the ground and scattered them headlong roots and all, even to the very flowers of the orchard …” (Homer, Iliad. 9, 539-542. Lattimore trans.). Ovid’s description of the beast is even more dramatic:

… And the goddess
Loosed over Calydon a great avenger,
A boar as big as a bull, with blood-shot eyes,
A high stiff neck, and the bristles rising from it
Like spears along a wall, and hot foam flecking
The shoulders, dripping from the jaws that opened
With terrible grunting sounds; his tusks were long
As an Indian elephant’s, and lightning flashed
Out of his mouth, and his breath would burn the grasses.”

Ovid, Metamorphoses. 8, 260-289. Rolf Humphries, trans., 190.

That the creature was destructive of the orchard was a fitting punishment for Oineus’ failure to appease the goddess huntress with a proper offering of his and its first fruits. Appropriately, too, Artemis would send discord to the whole polis, using the spectacle of the hunt itself, her special provenance, as its vector.

The Boar Hunt. (1729)
Hamlet Winstanley

Meleager, Oineus’s son and prince of Calydon, is credited with dispatching the beast, but only after setting forth with a hunting party mustered on a military scale. Ovid provides a whole catalog of heroes invited along on the expedition. Homer warns us that the Calydonian boar had killed already: “so huge was he, and had put many men on the sad fire for burning.” (Homer, Iliad. 9, 546). The fire was a funeral pyre.

Even heroes, it seems, are subject to the stab and thrust of ivory tusks. In Ovid’s account of the battle Eupalamus and Pelagaon are knocked down and must be rescued by their companions, Enaesimus suffers worse, being hamstrung by the beast, and Hippasus is gored in the thigh. Ancaeus, ‘a man from Arcas’ is fully gored in the abdomen,”… and the ground was soaked in blood, Smeared with his entrails.”(Ovid, Metamorphoses. 8, 328ff. Rolf Humphries, trans., 192-3).  

… and the ground was soaked in blood, Smeared with his entrails. 

Ovid, Metamorphoses. 8, 328ff. Rolf Humphries, trans.

A wild boar could. in fact, be dangerous, even if the epics exaggerated the risks. Boars have long fierce tusks, and will turn and fight if threatened, more so to defend their young. All the better a vehicle, then, for the pursuit of much desired glory, and a good reason, too, for vaunting and boasting about one’s martial prowess, assuming one has, indeed, brought home the bacon. It was a dispute over honors, over who deserved the hide and head as trophy from the gigantic swine, that led to the war in Calydon, at least this is how the poets spin it. Even though Meleager had killed the beast, the recipient of the prince’s favor in the form of the hide, would be endowed with great renown. Thus, the means to the end of the creature, an assembly of “many hunting men out of numerous cities with their hounds,” also become the source of discord that completed the design of Artemis’ cruel punishment (Homer, Iliad. 9,454-45).

The Calydonian Boar Hunt.
The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu.

Homer assumed that his readers already knew the story. He reveals few details about why the Aitolians and the Kouretes have taken to “slaughtering one another about the city of Kalydon,” only that the Kouretes are laying siege to the city (cleverly mirroring the Achaean siege of Troy) and that they are warring “over the head of the boar and the bristling boar’s hide…” (Homer, Iliad. 9,530; 548). Ovid gives us more. Meleager, the prince of Calydon, having killed the beast, has given the trophies, head and hide, to the woman huntress, runner, and archer, Atalanta; her having drawn first blood. That such prizes, the very essence of timé, should have been offered to a woman, was more offence than the proud and arrogant Kouretes could bear. The result was a protracted siege lain against the prince and his people.

That a quarrel over a big game trophy could be accused of starting a full fledged war reveals the importance attached to hunting and its prizes among the ancient nobility. As a means of establishing social credibility as leaders, as a demonstration of protection provided and worthy of the allegiance of the people, as a mark for establishing social status among their peers, the hunts provided tangible evidence. Rank was everything, shame unendurable, in the aristocratic world of antiquity. These aristocratic engagements were, as time would show, remarkably stable in function, descending down from ancient times into the middle ages and beyond. In many ways these events became the forbears to the fully ritualized bloodletting of the aristocratic fox hunts, only recently banned in the United Kingdom. It is no surprise then that a boar hunt could turn the world on its head, given the stakes for which it was undertaken – it represented the very rights to rule, authority, and power. And that, readers, is no tame or dim unwary beast.

Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Reading Tacitus’ Germania

24 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by artaud23 in Arts, Germania, History, Latin, Latin Classics, Tacitus

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Ancient History, Entertainments, feasts, Germania, Hospitality, Strangers, Tacitus

Feasts and Entertainments

No other race is so profusely kind in feasts and entertainments. To deny a mortal shelter is considered a sin among them, and each, according to his fortune, welcomes guests with the provision of sumptuous dishes.

Convictibus et hospitiis non alia gens effusius indulget. quemcumque mortalium arcere tecto nefas habetur; pro fortuna quisque apparatis epulis excipit.

Tacitus, On the Origin and Disposition of the Germans, XXI,2.

Like this:

Like Loading...

Wading into the Deep End with Hegel: First Impressions upon Encountering Hegel’s Philosophy of History

20 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by artaud23 in Hegel, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Religion and Spirituality

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Geist, Hegel, Philosophy, Worldsoul

Of all the philosophers immortalized by membership in the western canon, Hegel appears to be the one who’s philosophy is best embodied by the popular notion that humanity can be described as the universe examining itself. How this idea became part of the pop cultural landscape is, potentially, a fruitful topic for a later discussion. What is clear, however, is that this idea probably didn’t enter popular discourse through the work of Hegel himself, which can be both dense and frustrating, and when it comes to his notion of God, sometimes even ambiguous.

As the editor Allen Wood of the Cambridge edition of Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right puts it: “The difficulty and obscurity of Hegel’s writings posed problems for them [critics], just as they have for subsequent readers.”
– Allen Wood, editor. “Editor’s Introduction,” Hegel: Elements of the Philosophy of Right (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991), ix.

Despite the difficulties, I have found much to be fascinated with in Hegel, from his concept of the universe actualizing itself through history to his analysis of Socratic irony. The suggestion that Socrates was indeed a corrupter of Athenian youth, his irreverent take on the mores of the city-state poisoning them against authority and promoting the individual at the expense of the communal, first revealed to me the originality of Hegel’s approach.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

I originally fell in with Hegel, not through a study of pure philosophy, but instead through my interest in history. Desiring to make a study of the philosophical bases and justifications behind the discipline of history, I began, naïvely as it turns out, with Hegel. Hegel is famous, in part, for his work on the philosophy of history and his view that history is animated by the Worldsoul or the Geist. This notion mixes a teleological and metaphysical component into the study of history which contemporary academic historians find troubling. One difficulty is that it appears to suggest a transcendental consciousness driving history, a notion in direct conflict with modern scientism and academic orthodoxy, and suggestive of religious eschatology. Another perceived flaw in Hegel’s theories is that, from the contemporary view, they adhere to a paradigm of social progress that denies, by definition, the relativistic equality of value placed on all life and lifestyles, all cultures past and present, a notion in direct conflict with modern anthropological ideology.

Where Hegel sees freedom of the individual to be truly himself as the mark of societal progress, the contemporary academic sees a stifling conventionalism rooted in Eurocentric notions from a bygone era. Lynn Hunt, in her book History, Why it Matters complains,

“The German philosopher G.W.F. Hegel inaugurated a long history of denigrating the East or Orient in his lectures on the meaning of world history in the 1820s: “The East knew and to the present day knows that only One is Free; the Greek and Roman world that some are free; the German World knows that All are free.””
– Lynn Hunt. History, Why it Matters (Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2018), 58.

I make no defense of any cultural insensitivity perceived or imagined, though I do believe that the trope of Oriental despotism clearly precedes Hegel by some many hundreds of generations, and is not, as Hunt would have it, a Hegelian invention. The point that Hegel is making is one that is not dependent on any one culture or ethnicity, rather, his critique depends upon the style and manner of governance itself.

Despotism and absolutism are the governments that inhibit the actualization of the individual, and it is these qualities, not their geographical locations, that Hegel deplores. The progressive awareness is that in a despotism only the despot is free to be himself. The ancient solution was democracy and republicanism, which resulted in partial freedom. His dismissal of the East as indicative of despotic forms of governance is wrong, and something that we can recognize as a form of casual elitism and culture bias, but it has little to do with the actual point that the philosopher was making, despite its flawed cultural assumptions.

Whatever the objective truth value of Hegel’s notion concerning a worldsoul or Geist working for a solution to self realization in the historical sphere, it can, at least, provide a useful framework for looking at historical events. Since history is indeed in the past, it is perhaps not entirely unhelpful to look at them from a teleological perspective. Hegel’s ideas, therefore, should not be dismissed out of hand. Instead, it may be that we can accept the Hegelian challenge as historians, and, when examining our subject, look for the ways in which historical problems have resulted in apparent solutions through the actions of the many over time.

The core component of Hegel’s philosophy is that history follows laws and that these laws are the rational reflections of the Geist at work, attempting to express itself through history in its own terms. Whatever the nature of this Mind—it may be that it is a will in the same way that gravity seems to will to bring matter together—the conclusion is that it is subject to being understood. It is rational and explainable. History moves with purpose towards an ideal state. It may never reach that state, or, once that state is realized it may begin to seek out a new telos, another end to be desired. What we do know is that history, according to Hegel, follows a rational trajectory towards an attainable objective. By knowing the object we can know the trajectory and thus the direction of history.

Certainly, Hegel is one of the fixtures in the sub-field of philosophy of history and deserves to be read both cautiously and seriously. On the other hand, in order to accomplish this requires a more complete picture of Hegel’s metaphysical philosophy, a survey beyond the scope of my original intent. In other words, I now find myself locked into an unintended relationship with a cantankerous German philosopher from the early 19th century, delving into notions of dialectic and ontology in order to better grasp his view on the trajectory of human events. I expect this will become, then, an ongoing concern. Nonetheless, I do think it worthwhile to summarize my findings to date.

First on the agenda must be to establish what kind of force is meant by the Geist or Worldsoul or God in the philosopher’s lexicon. Clearly there are several possibilities and before we can decide on Hegel’s view of history, we must try and understand his conception of what sort of thing it is that animates it. For Hegel, history is the expression of a trans-human consciousness expressing its will through historical events as enacted by lesser but fundamentally dissimilar human wills taken in the aggregate. It is this aspect, with its pseudo-religious terminology, that I believe offends many historians.

Despite this language, however, my suspicion is that Hegel’s notion of the Worldsoul is far less a reflection of the personal god of protestantism, though perhaps informed by such, and something closer to an impersonal principle or set of principles which expresses itself as the aggregate of many consciousnesses interacting, a sort of multi-mind unnoticed and beyond the conventional awareness of casual observers of historical events. This is what M. C. Lemon refers to as the immanentist interpretation:

which construes ‘God’ as synonymous with the known principles inherent in Existence. The analogy of a spontaneously evolved system may help. Such a system (e.g. the ecological system) is not designed by anyone, yet the interconnections between its parts can be explained (via cause and effect).
– M. C. Lemon. Philosophy of History: A Guide for Students (London: Routledge, 2003,) 204.

The key, in my opinion, must be in this consciousness’ relationship to the material world. If the Geist arises out of human minds acting in concert, then man creates god and not visa versa. Otherwise, if the Geist can impose its will upon the material matrix of the universe without the intervention of the human, then we have a more traditional version of spirits relationship to matter and we are veering towards what Lemon refers to as the pantheist vision, where God is synonymous with the universe.

There is, perhaps, a third possibility to my thinking, however, which is more in the Platonic register than either of the other two, though this is speculative on my part. In this case we might consider consciousness itself to be the substance of spirit, which through the powers of the will, interacts with the material realm, though it is not properly a part of this realm. This interaction is weak at the physical level and grows stronger as more complex forms of life develop, allowing the will of the Geist to be more perfectly realized though the use of more receptive vehicles, namely mankind.

This is only the beginning of my relationship with Hegel. I began at the end of the story and now feel compelled to fill in the lacunae. This essay is not to be considered an end unto itself. Nor should it be considered an accurate portrayal or summary of Hegel’s philosophy. Rather this is part of an ongoing study into Hegel’s philosophy and reflects only my initial reactions to it. Parts of this essay must be considered merely speculative with regards to Hegel’s true beliefs, which I am still in the process of parsing. All opinions within it are my own, and subject to revision.

— Wm. J. M. —

Post Scriptum: One article that I would like to recommend to interested readers is one that appeared recently in Aeon digital magazine, written by Georgetown professor and Hegel biographer Terry Pinkard. This article, entitled The Spirit of History, went a long way towards reanimating my own spirit of interest in the Hegelian world view, and went a long way towards simplifying some of Hegel’s more difficult conceptions for this novice reader of his works.


Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

Some Notes on IBM and the Holocaust

16 Sunday Jun 2019

Posted by artaud23 in 20th Century, Corporate, History, World War II

≈ Leave a comment

Midsummer is nearly upon us and I have to admit my energy levels are flagging a bit as I try to refocus myself for the work of writing, researching, and doing history in general. It is clear that I have allowed myself to be distracted by too many reading excursions and side projects. Originally started as diverse amusements, they eventually have become excuses for procrastination rather than sources of inspiration and a calm no-expectations space in which to marshal my energies. That said, I have read a number of wonderful books this year already and would like to just make a few comments on my latest diversion before I let go of it and rededicate myself to antiquity.

The book I am talking about made quite a stir when it first came out and when it debuted I immediately wanted to read it. I knew it would be a challenging and disturbing read and so it waited. That was nearly twenty years ago and only just now have have I read and finished Edwin Black’s chilling historical exposé, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation. Black’s book is certainly convincing and he appears to have accumulated damning evidence to support the case that IBM’s highest officials—including Thomas Watson—was at the very least complicit in the Third Reich’s use of IBM punch card technology to identify, sort, and categorize their victims up until 1937, and in all likelihood maintained more than merely vestigial control of IBM’s European and German subsidiaries until the end of the Second World War.

IBM and the Holocaust – Edwin Black

But what I want to do here is not to rehash Black’s argument of IMB culpability, nor to create a general review of the work, but rather to highlight a particular section of the narrative which tells an astonishing and inspiring story of resistance to the Nazi’s genocidal endeavors with respect to the Jews of Europe.

In the ninth chapter of his book, Black details the use of punch cards; census reports; and IBM designed, owned, and leased, data tabulating machines, in the Nazi subjugated states of Holland and France, both occupied and free. One of the surprising outcomes that we learn from this comparison is that while Holland, which was not only tolerant of its Jewish population but even resistant to Nazi persecutions against them to the point of open defiance, eventually suffered a death ratio of 73% of its estimated 140,000 Dutch Jews, whereas France (free and occupied combined) which was in many ways less tolerant of Jews, especially those who were considered to be refugees from abroad, only suffered a 25% mortality rate of its estimated 300,000-350,000 Jews during the war.

The reason that French Jews fared so much better than their Dutch counterparts was due, at least in part, to the brave work of a French resistance operative named René Carmille. Carmille worked as the head of Vichy France’s Demographic Service from which vantage he was able, not only to sabotage the Nazi efforts to corral the Jewish populations of France, but also to use the Reich’s own Tabulating machines against it.

Just days after the French mobilized in Algeria the Nazis discovered that Carmille was a secret agent for the French resistance. He had no intention of delivering the Jews. It was all a cover for French mobilization….

Carmille had deceived the Nazis. In fact he had been working with French counter-intelligence since 1911…. And he had been laboring for months on a database of 800,000 former soldiers in France who could be instantly mobilized into well-planned units to fight for liberation.

(Black, 329)

Indeed, while Black’s retelling of this episode takes up only a small part of one chapter of his book, as well as brief revisitation included in the expanded supplemental materials, where he recounts speaking to Carmille’s son, it is the kind of story that might well have provided the subject of a stand alone work, either fictionalised or historical. Unfortunately it was Carmille’s fate to eventually fall into the hands of the Nazis he had so brilliantly thwarted. In 1944 the brave intelligence operative was arrested and interrogated by the notorious “Butcher of Lyon, Klaus Barbie.” As Black notes, “He never cracked.” (Black, 330)

– Edwin Black, IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation, expanded edition. Dialog Press: Washington DC, 2012.

Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

MOOCs: Digital Humanities

15 Saturday Jun 2019

Posted by artaud23 in DH101, Digital Humanities, MOOCs

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

EdX, HarvardX, MOOC, Online, Open Culture

One result of having graduated this spring is that I find myself craving scheduled and organized active learning. One way I have decided to keep myself focused and on track is to revisit the universe of online courses available for free, otherwise known as MOOCs–Massive Open Online Courses. The popular and often fascinating web site Open Culture maintains a listing, updated monthly, of current and ongoing MOOCs that is quite useful for exploring free internet-based distance learning.

Such courses have been around for quite a while and I have taken a number of them over the years. Mostly they aided and bolstered my decision to return to school to get my degree, as well as focusing my interests in ancient history and philosophy. One of the first MOOCs I took, and one of the most popular ever in terms of enrollment, was Gregory Nagy’s HarvardX/EdX course The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours. The Greek Hero is no longer running as an interactive course, but the book upon which the course was based is still available and is highly recommended.

The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours – Gregory Nagy

Another, that I have decided to enroll in this summer, also offered by HarvardX/EdX, is entitled DH101: Introduction to Digital Humanities. I intend to use this course, not only as an introduction to topics that I will need to explore in continuing towards a Masters degree, either in history or library science or both, but as a springboard for exploring topics here on my blog, Mundus Patet. So consider this as an introduction to the idea that I will comment here upon this course as well as an invitation to come along for the ride and enroll in the course. It is free and of some general interest to writers, historians, and creatives of all types.

DH101: Introduction to Digital Humanities

Share this:

  • Print
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Email
  • Pinterest
  • Reddit
  • Pocket
  • Tumblr

Like this:

Like Loading...

SundayMonday Morning News: 06.03.19

03 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by artaud23 in NewsRoundup, Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

I am still getting the kinks worked out, and last weekend was a holiday to boot. I am trying to get caught up! So here is the news roundup for the last two weeks for anyone keeping score at home! Cheers.

The Strikingly Beautiful Maps & Charts That Fired the Imagination of Students in the 1880s

We all remember the world maps that hung on the walls of our classrooms, the ones at which we spent countless hours staring when we couldn’t focus on the lesson at hand. Did we look at them and imagine fleeing school for one of the far-off lands they pictured — or indeed finding a way to escape planet Earth itself?

Source: The Strikingly Beautiful Maps & Charts That Fired the Imagination of Students in the 1880s

The Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative

The Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative Under the supervision of the Ministry of Antiquities, Factum Foundation partnered with the University of Basel to develop a project dedicated to promoting sustainable tourism and ensuring the continuous study and monitoring of the tombs of the Valley of the Kings in Luxor.

Source: The Theban Necropolis Preservation Initiative

Bronze Age Dwelling Found in Bulgaria

SOFIA, BULGARIA— Archaeology in Bulgaria reports that a dwelling dating to the Late Bronze Age was discovered in northwest Bulgaria during investigation of the proposed route of a natural gas pipeline stretching from Russia, through Turkey and Bulgaria, and into Central Europe.

Source: Bronze Age Dwelling Found in Bulgaria

Exploring Western Crete’s Archaeological Treasures

As the cradle of European Civilization and a meeting place of diverse cultures, Crete is a magical island that stands apart in the heart of the Mediterranean sea. Its prominent place in world history dates back to the mysterious and fascinating Bronze Age civilization of the Minoans, who were building lavish labyrinth-like palaces at a time when Athens was just a village.

Source: Exploring Western Crete’s Archaeological Treasures

Why We Need to Think About the Global Middle Ages

Medieval history has become synonymous with the study of western Europe. This article argues that it is important to widen the geographic focus to better understand the Middle Ages as a whole, and in doing so, counter Eurocentric views of the past that have dominated and shaped views of the past.

Source: Why We Need to Think About the Global Middle Ages

Civilisational collapse has a bright past – but a dark future

Is the collapse of a civilisation necessarily calamitous? The failure of the Egyptian Old Kingdom towards the end of the 2nd millennium BCE was accompanied by riots, tomb-raids and even cannibalism. ‘The whole of Upper Egypt died of hunger and each individual had reached such a state of hunger th…

Source: Civilisational collapse has a bright past – but a dark future

Like this:

Like Loading...

Archives

  • March 2021
  • July 2020
  • September 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • July 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • October 2013
  • July 2013
  • May 2013
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • May 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010

Blogs I Follow

  • The SuperHero Satellite
  • lightofluxor.wordpress.com/
  • Wyoming State Library
  • Indiana Memory DPLA Hub
  • Harshit's blog
  • jasonbeampoetry
  • THE AMAZING KORNYFONE LABEL
  • The House of Vines
  • Logomancy
  • The Glorious Train Wreck Mom
  • Anita's Perspectives on Life.
  • The Homeless Guy
  • Thalia Ainsley
  • Jakebreh Beats
  • malleable art
  • Wordgrove Post & Review
  • The Truth Ache
  • What's That Mark's Reading!?
  • MoronicArts
  • Greek Myth Comix

Category Cloud

Alchemy Ancient Greece Ancient Rome Archaeology Architecture Arts Bibliographies Books Caesar Features Germania Greek Greek Classics History Language Latin Latin Classics Literature Long Reads Military History Myth Nota Bene Philosophy Political Science Religion and Spirituality Roman Britain Secondary Literature Tacitus Uncategorized Virgil

Blog at WordPress.com.

The SuperHero Satellite

Commentary on Comics, , TV and The World of ProWrestling

lightofluxor.wordpress.com/

Wyoming State Library

Bringing the World to Wyoming

Indiana Memory DPLA Hub

Collaborative, informational site of the Indiana Memory DPLA Service Hub

Harshit's blog

Anime reviews, with lessons.

jasonbeampoetry

never knows best

THE AMAZING KORNYFONE LABEL

Cover Art Appreciation & the Stories Behind the Recordings on Classic Vinyl Bootlegs

The House of Vines

where words grow like leaves

Logomancy

A journey into language, books, and print.

The Glorious Train Wreck Mom

Welcome Aboard, Train Wreck

Anita's Perspectives on Life.

Sharing is Learning

The Homeless Guy

homeless

Thalia Ainsley

Journey to Healing and Recovery

Jakebreh Beats

Original Beats By JakeBreh

malleable art

MAL-ART is about hitting that sweet, sweet spot as well as a sour nerve or two--- POPPED BUBBLEGUM, HARDCORE JAWBREAKERS & WORDS FROM ME TO YOU

Wordgrove Post & Review

Newsletter for Wordgrove's Forest Library in There.com

The Truth Ache

The Life of A Mentally Ill Writer

What's That Mark's Reading!?

Just a place to put my thoughts on arranged words into words.

MoronicArts

Home of the Moroniverse

Greek Myth Comix

  • Follow Following
    • Mundus Patet
    • Join 39 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Mundus Patet
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...
 

    %d bloggers like this: