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Why The Past Matters Monday, September 15, 2025
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  • Articles
    • Archaeology
    • Archaeologia
    • Architectural History
    • Art
    • Artifacts of Material History
    • Classics
    • Controversies
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    • History Underfoot
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  • Artifacts of Material History

    Huguenot Silversmiths in Britain

    2 weeks ago

    Trafalgar Silver Vase, ca. 1806, estate of Lord Cottesloe (Image courtesy of Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge) By Timothy J. Demy – Artistic trends and movements do not arise in a vacuum; they are birthed and shaped by the intellectual ideas, religious and cultural values, and current events of the era in […]

  • Philosophy

    Character: Thoughts About US[a] (Musings of a Philosophic Psychiatrist)

    2 months ago

    Heraclitus (6th-5th c BCE) and Shakespeare (images in public domain) By Walter A Borden, M.D. –  “Character is destiny”. This is a simple, enigmatic aphorism written by the Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Heraclitus (ca. 540-480 BCE). It is a powerful message for all peoples, a message for then and now, as […]

  • Literature

    Lord Byron: Poet, Politician, Protector

    3 months ago

    Lord Byron, Portrait detail by Phillips, 1813 By Sara Olsen – Ovid:  Metamorphosis XV.153 : “All Things Change;  Nothing Perishes”  George Gordon Byron, whom we can now call an influencer of the 19th century and beyond to the present, was born in London, England, in 1788 to Catherine Gordon Byron […]

  • Photo Essays

    Pausing to Look and Remember

    4 months ago

    Cover image of Tony Hall book D-Day: Operation Overlord, 1993, Smithmark Books (Image in public domain) By Timothy J. Demy – I walked the beach alone. It was an early Sunday morning and for several hundred yards on either side of me there was no one. No sound, except for […]

  • Controversies

    The Complexities of Art and Antiquities Repatriation and the Evolution of Collecting

    5 months ago

    Jan Vermeer, The Astronomer, 1668, restituted to Rothschilds after WWII, then gifted to Louvre (Photo P. Hunt 2025) By Jann Perez – Deep questions about the ethics of collecting and also about repatriation of plundered art and antiquities are far more complex than they might at first appear from shallow […]

  • History

    Frederick the Great: An Enlightened Ruler 

    6 months ago

    By Leah Mordehai –  “A single Voltaire will do more honor to France than a thousand pedants, a thousand false wits, a thousand great men of inferior order.” Frederick the Great Why was Frederick II of Prussia an enlightened ruler? One of the most enlightened rulers of all time, Frederick […]

  • Art

    Tamara de Lempincka and Art Deco

    7 months ago

    Tamara de Lempincka, Madonna, 1937 By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Tamara de Lempincka (1894-1980) was a gifted artist and an iconoclast, often considered a founding leader of the Art Deco movement from the 1920’s through the 1930’s. Art Deco was the perfect trope for an artist known for bold color, […]

  • Archaeologia, Artifacts of Material History

    Maya Sculpture Benchmarks: Jaina Figurines

    8 months ago

    By Patrick Hunt –  One of the features found across Maya sculpture in different media and materials – stone relief, plaster relief, wood and ceramic figures – appears to be a certain amount of heightened caricature and lack of proportionality, in the opinion of this researcher possibly to accentuate imagery […]

  • Controversies

    Rhetorical Manipulation, Emotion, and The Fall of the Berlin Wall

    8 months ago

    By Alex Dortzbach –  Media lies very near the heart of a culture in recording values. It can help create a cultural lexicon, build or reinforce a set of common ideals, and quicken the spread of new ideas. A hugely-insightful book, The Race Against the Stasi (2014) by journalist Herbie […]

  • Archaeologia

    The Athenian Long Walls

    9 months ago

    By Jess Taylor – The defensive Athenian Long Walls were constructed over the course of the 5th Century BCE to maintain a secure corridor between the Athenian civic center, the city of Athens, and its principal port at Piraeus, located 7 km away.

Recent Posts

  • Huguenot Silversmiths in Britain

    2 weeks ago
  • Character: Thoughts About US[a] (Musings of a Philosophic Psychiatrist)

    2 months ago
  • Lord Byron: Poet, Politician, Protector

    3 months ago
  • Pausing to Look and Remember

    4 months ago
  • The Complexities of Art and Antiquities Repatriation and the Evolution of Collecting

    5 months ago
  • Frederick the Great: An Enlightened Ruler 

    6 months ago
  • Tamara de Lempincka and Art Deco

    7 months ago
  • Maya Sculpture Benchmarks: Jaina Figurines

    8 months ago
  • Rhetorical Manipulation, Emotion, and The Fall of the Berlin Wall

    8 months ago
  • The Athenian Long Walls

    9 months ago
 

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Links

  • American Journal of Archaeology
  • American School of Classical Studies, Athens
  • Ancient World Online
  • Archaeological Institute of America
  • Archaeology Magazine
  • Book Haven Stanford
  • Cultural Heritage Imaging
  • Cuneiform Digital Library
  • Encyclopedia of Ancient History
  • Institute for EthnoMedicine
  • James Geary
  • Kunstpedia
  • Livius: Articles on Ancient History
  • Open Culture
  • Oriental Institute, University of Chicago
  • Patrick Hunt
  • Stanford Humanities Lab: Archaeolog
  • Stanford Humanities Lab: Philolog
  • The Renaissance Mathematicus
  • UCL Institute of Archaeology
  • University Museum, University of Pennsylvania

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