From the shimmering death mask of King Tut to the swinging penile replacements of 50 Cent, Gold and silver have been as staple pursuits of humanity as food, drugs and celebrity gossip. But while the dripping opulence of the ancient world may not seem a million miles away from the crass overindulgence of our own ‘enlightened’ age, you might be surprised to find that the two metals have almost exactly the same value now as they did then. According to economist Jeff Clark, that is. When faced with the notion gold was a dead investment, Clark looked at historical valuations…
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To be released in October 2009, the Hollywood-made film Agora – set in Alexandria, Egypt, 391 AD, directed by Alejandro Amenbar and starring Rachel Weisz – about the life and death of the Greek scholar Hypatia of Alexandria should be next in the long line of ‘historically correct’ blockbusters that succeed at capturing the attention of a wide audience. The film contains everything it needs – pretty heroine (including love story with Davus) gets killed over science vs. religion conflict and thus becomes a martyr – to appeal to a large crowd and to generate a huge amount of ticket…
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Exorbitant taxes, rising bankruptcy and angry protesters. No, not central London today but the ancient Greek city of Rhodiapolis, some 1,700 years ago. A new excavation of the coastal settlement, located in the Kumluca district of the modern Turkish city of Antalya, has revealed much about the previously little-known maritime hub. Yet the most fascinating artefact thrown up by the project is a large stone tablet, on which the city’s inhabitants had etched their dismay at rising taxes to the then-Roman Emperor Septimius Severus. Assistant Professor Isa Kizgut has led the excavations by Akdeniz University’s science and literature faculty. He…
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A heated cross-border dispute has been rumbling the last few days over the origins of the humble haggis Scotlands national dish, famously memorialised as the great chieftain o the puddin race in Robert Burns 1787 Address To The Haggis. Its been sparked by historian Catherine Brown, who has attributed the delicacys origins to the Scots auld enemy, the English, on the basis of references to the dish shes recently discovered in a book called The English Hus-Wife, which was written in 1615 and thus predates Burns homage to stomach-cooked sheeps organs by 171 years. Well, the Scots who in questions…
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A video depicting the damage done to the Parthenon over the centuries on display at the new Acropolis Museum was censored following protests by the Greek Orthodox Church. The fragment from a film by Costa-Gravas gives an overview of the ‘vandalism’ to the Parthenon starting at the Germanic warriors in 267 ADto the removal of a large part of the freize by British diplomat Lord Elgin in the 19th century. As such, it also contains a scene from the early Byzantine period showing figures clad in black climbing up ladders and destroying part of the Parthenon frieze. Some damage was…
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Burial grounds dating back to the sixth century BC are usually taken pretty good care of and considered important national heritage sites – or at least you would have thought so. This wasn’t the case recently in Puglia, where an archaeological site from at least 500 BC was used as an illegal dumping ground. It is reported that 135 tons of dangerous waste – including building materials, disused wagons and other heavy-duty items from the state railways, as well as out-dated pneumatic machines and vehicles was left at three sites near the town of Martina Franca, near Taranto in southern…
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Atlantis has got to be one of the world’s most longstanding myths. Devised by Plato over 2,500 years ago, its popularity has rarely waned, and has been the birthplace for some of humanity’s most truly bizarre theories. From Gibraltar to the Aegean, it seems everyone’s had their say on the whereabouts of the mysterious island, that was supposedly created by Poseidon. Not all of Atlantis’ proponents, it must be said, are total crackpots. There’s logic, bathymetric studies and topographical data to back their claims – however spurious they may frequently seem. Others most definitely do fit the conspiracy theorist bill,…
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Athens was the learning centre of what was one of the greatest empirical cultures in history – the Ancient Greeks. Building the foundations of civilisation, the Greeks progressed education, politics, sports, science, arts and philosophy. Spawning the concept of democracy, and influencing design and architecture for centuries to come, Athens served as the template for society. Nashville is the capital of the American state of Tennessee, has a prosperous port and numerous high rise skyscrapers, and lays claim to being the home of country music. A city which has a thriving commercial heart, boasting enough neon signs to make Las…
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In my ever-long quest to be innovative and interactive with how Heritage Key presents information, I thought I’d take a moment out to have a little fun and games! So using mapping software from umapper,I’ve devised a little map quiz. Here’s how it works – you’re presented with a map and asked to find a location (which appears at the top of the screen). You then use your mouse cursor and click where you think that particular location is on the map. Simple, huh? Not exactly, as I’m using a physical map. So there’s no country borders or landmarks to…
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Terracotta armies are certainly in the news at the moment. The long-awaited third dig of Qin Shihuang’s tomb finally got under way last month in China, while a slightly more idiosyncratic clay army was causing some consternation in Germany last week: prosecutors are investigating whether the saluting garden gnomes created by artist Ottmar Hoerl are in fact breaking strict German code that bans Nazi symbols and gestures.Libya’s Terracotta Army While these terracotta armies grab the limelight, there is another ‘army’ of 4,500 small terracotta figurines, which were uncovered during excavations at the Greek and Roman ruins of Cyrene near Shahhat…