ancient history Archives

Roman Earthquake Cloaking

Last Updated on May 3, 2019 / Archaeology, Design, History / 1 minute of reading

I tend to agree with the physicist from UNCC here that the Colosseum and other buildings that exhibit these “metamaterial” designs were probably self-selecting (in that they didn’t fall down during earthquakes), but we definitely don’t give the ancients enough credit with their engineering and scientific prowess… Scientists are hard at work developing real-world “invisibility cloaks” thanks to a special class of exotic manmade “metamaterials.” Now a team of French scientists has suggested in a recent …

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It’s not like Caligula didn’t have some warning…

Last Updated on December 19, 2018 / History / 2 minutes of reading

Between the laughing statue, God kicking me with his toe, and the flamingo incident, I might have considered a course correction in my life’s path had I been in Caligula’s shoes… While the statue of Olympian Jupiter was being dismantled before removal to Rome at his command, it burst into such a roar of laughter that the scaffolding collapsed and the workmen took to their heels; and a man named Cassius appeared immediately afterwards saying …

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Was Writing Developed by Poets, Priests, our Accountants?

Last Updated on July 6, 2018 / History, Literature / 1 minute of reading

Fun read: As a writer of nonfiction, I can’t help but love writing’s roots in enumerating concrete objects and reality itself. The textual analyst part of me loves how Mesopotamian tokens were wrapped in clay envelopes after being impressed on the soft exterior – perhaps clay-wrapped tokens of meaning give rise to the notion that text is both a surface and an interior, and that that’s what leads us to talk so relentlessly (in English …

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Cautionary Tale of Climate Change Prepping from Ancient Egypt and Bronze Age

Last Updated on May 24, 2018 / History, Politics / 1 minute of reading

These agricultural feats managed to extend the life of the Egyptian empire about half a century longer than it might otherwise have lasted, according to the archaeologists. The lesson for our own civilization — which is likely to face increasingly severe droughts as humans change the climate far faster than nature has ever done — is to plan ahead, Dr. Finkelstein said. — Read on www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/climate/egypt-climate-drought.html

James C. Scott’s New Book

Last Updated on February 14, 2018 / Archaeology, History, Religion / 2 minutes of reading

James C. Scott is one of the scholars I always enjoy reading. I was introduced to his work Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts while in a (wonderful) seminary class on the Parables. The insightful connection that our beloved professor made between Jesus’ acts and words in his performance of the parables with the essence of what Scott described as “public” and “hidden” transcripts still resonates with me today anytime I read the …

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Roman Empire GDP Per Capita

Last Updated on December 9, 2015 / History / 1 minute of reading

Fascinating… Roman Empire GDP Per Capita Map Shows That Romans Were Poorer Than Any Country in 2015 – Brilliant Maps: “What a difference 2,000 years makes. The map above shows the GDP per capita in 14AD of the various provinces of the Roman Empire in 1990 PPP Dollars. On average, the GDP per capita across the whole Empire, was only $570.”