Category: Uncategorized
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Gods Behaving Badly: Ancient Mythology & Cultural Narrative (Part 1)
Because I spend too much time (i.e., any time) lurking on classical-centric social media, and in this case, especially Twitter, I’ve been thinking a lot about mythology, third-wave feminism, and contemporary scholarship. Mostly, I love the direction of modern academia in the classical world and history in general, where it’s moving towards being more inclusive…
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Barefoot in Rome: The Political Iconography of the Prima Porta Augustus
I’ve been talking a lot about Egypt and Greece for the last month or so, I thought I’d circle back to Rome and talk about some more political art during the early imperial era. Specifically, we’re going to take a deeper look at the the Augustus of Prima Porta, the best-known of Octavius’ portraits and arguably…
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No Business Like Show Business: The Greeks and the Invention of Western Theatre
ὑπολεπτολόγος, γνωμιδιώτης, εὐριπιδαριστοφανίζων (“[You have become] a quibbler of words, a maker of maxims, a Euripidaristophaniser”) — Cratinus on Aristophanes As case numbers for the delta variant in the US continue to rise, and what would have been the summer concert season draws ignobly to a close, I’ve been feeling nostalgic for live theater, one…
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Inventing (Everything But) the Wheel: Egyptian Innovations & Notable Firsts
When people think of things the ancient Egyptians did first, they’re usually thinking of papyrus, or cat-based theology. But I thought this week, we’d look at a few lesser-known things the Egyptians came up, and perhaps get a better sense of the wide scope of human endeavor we can trace back to the Nile Valley.…
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Glory of the Gods: A Brief History of the Ancient Olympic Games
You must be swift as the coursing river/ With all the force of a great typhoon/ With all the strength of a raging fire/ Mysterious as the dark side of the moon — “I’ll Make a Man Out of You”, Mulan This week, I thought we’d tackle something topical and talk about the original Olympic Games,…
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The Law of Unintended Sequels: Ten Unusual and Obscure Roman Deities
“[E]vidently Forculus [the god of the threshold] can’t watch the hinge and the threshold at the same time.” – St. Augustine Nobody enjoys mocking the Egyptian pantheon for its weirdness than the supposedly straight-laced Romans, so I thought as a companion to last week’s entry, we’d give them a taste of their own medicine and…
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Geese, Ghosts, and Gods: Ten Unusual and Obscure Egyptian Deities
[The Egyptians] are religious excessively beyond all other men — Herodotus The ancient Egyptians have a well-earned reputation for their migraine-inducingly complex cosmogony, but as much as we joke about their multitudinous pantheon, most people don’t realize just how extensive it really is. So, I thought this week we’d deep-dive into it and talk about ten…
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Mediterranean Bandstand: Music in the Ancient World
Slide your feet up the street, bend your backShift your arm then you pull it backLife is hard you know (oh way oh)So strike a pose on a Cadillac – The Bangles, Walk Like an Egyptian This week, I thought we’d get back into some more historical pursuits and take a look at the diverse…
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Sita Speaks: Chandrabati’s Ramayan and the Many Voices of Indian Storytelling
If I start telling the story of my misfortunes/ A blazing fire is ignited somewhere – Sita in Chandrabati’s Ramayan Sing his love, sing his praise/ Rama set his wife ablaze./ Got her home, kicked her out/ To allay his people’s doubt. — Sita Sings the Blues Since I’ve finally tired myself of dragging you all around…
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Field Day Part 3: The Carnegie Museums and the Pleasures of Small-Scale Egyptology
Okay, everyone, we’ve (finally, for some of you) reached the last of week of my self-guided tour of the Carnegie Museums. This week, I want to walk through the Carnegie Museum of Natural History’s (CMNH) Walton Hall of Ancient Egypt. As I alluded to last week, as a science, Egyptology’s roots are deep in colonialism and…
Sarah Holz 