By P. F. Sommerfeldt – I spend a fair amount of time in museums, perhaps too much, but I usually don’t need a deep reason to enter a museum whether I’ve been there often or not to revisit favorite objects or works. Because a museum is literally a “House of […]
By Patrick Hunt – One of the more intriguing passages of the Hebrew Bible, Joshua 7: 10-23 & ff. describes the sin of Achan and his “accursed” secret purloined material spoliation after the taking of Jericho by the Israelites, a narrative with controversial historicity. Regardless of when it can be […]
By Timothy Demy – You can’t help but look up. The ceiling is covered with decades-old graffiti. It is not the profanity or pop art so often seen today on buildings, fences, and other public and private places. It’s not even the famous “Kilroy was here.” It is the names […]
By Garth C. Hall – This paper addresses the African stone age somewhat myopically, focusing on artifacts and not much on the hominins who made and used them. It also focuses geographically on South Africa, yet, at least in the Early and Middle Stone Ages, the literature indicates that the […]
By Timothy J. Demy – The legacies of the classical world and late antiquity are many. In the second century CE the early Christian philosopher from Carthage, Tertullian (ca. 160 – ca. 220), asked an oft-repeated (and misunderstood) question “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”De praescritione haereticorum 7). Two disparate cities,”one, a center of […]
By Patrizia Passerini – Sicily is a fascinating and mysterious land, with a history and culture of very ancient origins. Its beauty is sometimes wild, amazing and complex due to the overlapping and mixing of cultures that have alternated over the centuries. Rich in history and art, bright colours and […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – Whether one likes dogs or not, the current exhibition Treue Freunde: Menschen und Hunde (“True Friends: Humans and Dogs”) at the Bayerische Nationalmuseum in Munich is a must-see. It charts the cultural history of the relationship between humans and dogs back to the earliest times when tame […]
by Patrizia Passerini – A green heart in the centre of the peninsula, like a treasure chest protected by valleys and hills that follow one another across long distances. Umbria is an Italian region that welcomes visitors with its beauty, rich landscapes and an ancient and amzing history. Once you […]
By Patrick Hunt – Ötzi is now the most famous mummy of all time, eclipsing Ramses II and Tut from New Kingdom Egypt (ca. 1375-1300 BCE) in his preserved state as well as in his much older chronology. So it is a given that Ötzi research is instrumental to both […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – When Captain James Cook left for the first of his three expeditions to the Pacific in 1768, he stood in a long line of naval explorers looking for new routes and continents. His ship was appropriately named Endeavour and the task ahead was daunting. Cook […]