Category: Uncategorized
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Field Day Part 2: The Carnegie Museums and the Classical World in Imitation
As promised, this week we’re going to continue our tour through the Carnegie Museum of Art (CMOA) and Natural History (CMNH), but I also promise to finally let all of you out of the single room I confined you to last week. [Pictured: People fleeing my attempts to keep them in the Hall of Architecture]…
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Field Day Part 1: The Carnegie Museums and the Classical World in Replica
“One of them said we made going to the moon as exciting as taking a trip to Pittsburgh.” — Henry Hunt, Apollo 13 Now that we’re fortunate enough stateside to be (finally) enjoying a reprieve from Covid restrictions, I was able to resume my nineteen year-strong love affair with Carnegie Museums of Art and Natural History in some semblance of…
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Guess Who’s Coming to the Sacrifice: The Ara Pacis and Speculative Archeology
“When I returned from Spain and Gaul after successfully settling the affairs of those provinces, in the consulship of Tiberius Nero and Publius Quintilius, the Senate decreed that the Ara Pacis should be consecrated for my return near the Campus Martius, and ordered that the magistrates, preists, and the Vestal Virgins should there make an…
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Beer Here! : Potent Potables of the Ancient World
Candy/ is dandy/ But liquor/ is quicker — Ogden Nash Over some lovely late-spring cocktails with my parents this past weekend, I asked my mother what I should talk about here this week, and she pointed out I haven’t talked about consumables yet. Ancient food and drink covers a lot of ground, so I thought…
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Players Gonna Play: Games of the Ancient World
I’ve been meaning to do a games entry for a while now, but one of my readers lit a fire under me by asking me if I knew how to play senet, an ancient Egyptian board game that comes up periodically in my books. Now, I’ll tell you all what I told her, which is:…
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Working Girls: Hetaerae and Mediterranean Prostitution
“We could choose no better model of wisdom than Milesian Aspasia, the admired of the admirable ‘Olympian’; her political knowledge and insight, her shrewdness and penetration…” — Lucian, A Portrait Study,XVII Since I made you all deep dive into medieval poetry and Shakespeare last time, I thought we’d turn to something perhaps a little more salacious…
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Greek Tragedy, Courtly Love, and Renaissance Satire: The Changing Face of Troilus & Cressida
“Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery! Nothing else holds fashion.” — Thersites, Troilus & Cressida Before we start this week, I want to apologize to all of you for a very stupid blunder on my part. Mainly that all of my notifications for this blog were being sent to a filler email account to which I…
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Horses of a Different Color: Equines in the Ancient World
“I create thee, Oh Arabian. To thy forelock, I bind Victory in battle. On thy back, I set a rich spoil and a Treasure in thy loins. I establish thee as one of the Glories of the Earth… I give thee flight without wings.” — Bedouin legend So, I’m sure people who know me IRL…
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Physician, Heal Thyself: Medicine in the Ancient World
“I’m not dead!” — Old peasant, Monty Python and the Holy Grail Howdy, folks, I know we took last week off, but it is was mainly because I had to use my blog-research-time to road trip to my Covid vaccine appointment (finally— I live in Pennsylvania, where we’re just now thinking about leaving Phase 1a).…
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Animal House: Pets of the Ancient World
“Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together…mass hysteria!” – Dr. Peter Venkman, Ghostbusters I thought this week we’d talk about something relatable, especially in a pandemic world where we’ve still barely left the house: our non-human cohabiting partners. As long as people have been able to convince animals to let us touch them, we’ve had…
Sarah Holz 