Maya writing at a glance has a lot in common with Egyptian hieroglyphics. It’s a similarly baffling system of detailed glyphs, often found carved on stone stelae, altars, wooden lintels and roof beams, painted on ceramic vessels or written in a type of book made of bark paper called a codex. Early European explorers of Maya lands in the 18th and 19th centuries agreed, and often referred to Maya writing as “hieroglyphics” or “hieroglyphs”, despite the fact that it has no relation at all to its Egyptian equivalent. In reality, Maya writing is a complex and highly individual mix between…
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Birthday Candles and Controversy Every year on the 21st of April, Rome celebrates its own beginnings with historical re-enactments and musical events. Since the city was founded 2762 years ago it has almost constantly been the scene of political power struggles and conflict. So it seemed appropriate that, this year, the birthday celebration was itself dogged by controversy and accusations. The highlight of the celebrations was a music and light show dubbed ‘Romagnificat’ by its organisers. To begin with, the four-lane road that Mussolini built through the Forum area was closed to traffic and, as darkness fell, the surrounding street-lights…
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Ordinarily, Britain’s Got Talentdoesn’t have a lot in common with history, though I suppose there will be a footnote onSusan Boylein the ‘History of Reality TV’ when it’s finally published. Or in Simon Cowell‘s autobiography. But none of this matters toMary Beard, whose excellentTimes Online blog, It’s A Don’s Life, covers subjects that have everything and nothing do with history. Beard, aprofessor in classics at Cambridge and the classics editor ofThe Times Literary Supplement, this week confessed to watching the final of BGT, posting a blog under the header: ‘A classicist watches Britain’s Got Talent‘. The Times describes Beard as…
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The University of Oxford is the latest British research institution to agree to return the remains of indigenous Australians to their homeland. Aboriginal remains are scattered across the globe after they were shipped abroad for ‘research purposes’ following the colonisation of Australia by the British in 1788. It is the intention of the Australian government to repatriate all remains, and the hope of the Aboriginal people to bring all scientific analysis on their ancestors to a halt. Aborigines, who refer to the colonisation of Australia as ‘invasion’, had occupied the continent for more than 40,000 years prior to the discovery…
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Few people would ever have called Saddam Hussein a god; not even many of his most vehement supporters. But the vainglorious way in which he rebuilt many of Iraq’s most coveted ancient sites seems to suggest he saw himself as some sort of Babylonian deity along the lines of the Egyptian heretic king Akhenaten. However a great number of Saddam’s beloved monuments have fallen into the hands of the US Army since the war in 2003. How are the Americans looking after Saddam’s Mesopotamian masterpieces? And what modern uses are these sites, spearheaded by the vast Ziggurat of Ur, currently…
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Stonehenge‘s use may have been debated for millennia – but one expert now thinks the Neolithic site was the venue for some of prehistory’s wildest raves. Professor Rupert Till, an expert in acoustics and music technology at Huddersfield University, insists the megalithic structure would have worked perfectly to resonate sound – creating trance-like music which would have aided rituals and worship at the site. To prove his theories, Dr Till used a computer model to simulate the acoustics of Stonehenge when it was in perfect shape (many of the huge stones have fallen down over time). The expert also visited…
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Attribution: Parmino il Gioppino Samos Greece Key Dates The first, small-scale excavation of Heraion site was conducted by the doctor and botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort in 1702. In 1879, Paul Girard discovered the statue of Hera of Cheramyes; this is now in the Louvre. In 1902 and 1903, the sanctuary was excavated by the Archaeological Society of Athens. In 1910, it was further investigated on behalf of the Koenigliche Museen of Berlin but work was interrupted by World War I. Systematic excavations were begun in 1925 by the German Archaeological Institute at Athens, but interrupted by World War II.…
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Egypt hasn’t always been controlled from Cairo – in fact the city only took on its capital city mantle in 969 AD. The ancient Egyptian empire went through over a dozen capital cities in its history, the most notable being Memphis, Thebes, Amarna and Alexandria. But how did power shift between these bustling ancient hubs? And what was life like as a resident of an ancient Egyptian capital? A Divided Land Before the empire was united in 3118 BC, it consisted of two separate kingdoms: Upper and Lower Egypt. Upper Egypt consisted of the valley regions of the south, taking…
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In Need of a Protection Racket? Ostia Antica is like any other town – it has streets, shops, houses. Even a theatre and a fire station. The crucial difference is that no one has lived here for almost two millennia. Many of the buildings have lost their roofs, and protection from the elements is minimal – which means there is little to halt the gradual process of dilapidation that has been going on in Ostia for many centuries. Two-thousand-year old mosaics are exposed to the elements while the ruins of ancient shops and cellars are at risk of flooding. It’s…
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Saqqara, located 40km south of Cairo, was a vast, 6km-long necropolis for the ancient capital of Memphis during the 1st and 2nd dynasties. It is most famously recognised for its step pyramid, built for the 3rd Dynasty pharaoh Djoser (2635 – 2610 BC) – but houses thousands of ancient burial sites, with many more submerged beneath the unerring depths of the desert. It stands as not only a memoriam to the time in which it was developed, but also as a yardstick against which all future Egyptian funerary ceremony would be placed. The City of the Dead Saqqara was originally…