By Patrick Hunt – While this is not in any way comprehensive, some of my favorite word plays from Hebrew literature show a deliberate use of language for suggesting multiple ambiguities, sometimes even steganographic – hiding things in plain sight – and often paronomasic – having connections in both sound […]
Orestes Going After His Mother Clytemnestra to Kill Her, 5th c. BCE Red-Figure vase, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston By Walter Borden, M.D. Clytemnestra: “But blood of man once spilled, Once at his feet shed forth, and darkening the plain, Nor chant nor charm can call it back again. So Zeus […]
By Catherine Clover – “Remember gentlemen, it’s not just France we are fighting for, it’s champagne!” – Winston Churchill, WWII As the year 2014 comes to a close, it is a most fitting time to reflect upon the year in review and prepare resolutions for the year ahead. After meeting […]
By Patrick Hunt – The Atrahasis Flood Tablet I first saw in Irving Finkel’s office at the British Museum a few years ago before this book was published seemed much like many others in the museum galleries, a cuneiform clay tablet one could easily hold in a hand. But this […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – Das Konstanzer Konzil. Weltereignis des Mittelalters 1414-1418. Grosse Landesausstellung 2014 im Konzilgebäude Konstanz (27. April – 21. September 2014), organised by the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe. www.konstanzerkonzil2014.de Karl-Heinz Braun, Mathias Herweg, Hans W. Hubert, Joachim Schneider und Thomas Zotz, eds. Das Konstanzer Konzil. Catalogue and volume […]
By Catherine Clover – From the air, the Irrawaddy River stretches like a golden snake across the landscape all the way to the horizon in the late daylight. My journey to Bagan started from Bangkok with a pre-dawn flight to Yangon. After a brief stop for breakfast at the historic […]
By Andrea M. Gáldy – The Hanoverians on Britain’s Throne 1714-1837. A series of exhibitions at Schloss Herrenhausen and other venues, Hanover and Lower Saxony, 17 May to 5 October 2014, www.royals-aus-hannover.de Ralf Bormann, “The Art Collection of Count Johann Ludwig von Wallmoden-Gimborn”, in Katja Lembke (ed.), The Hanoverians […]
By Catherine Clover – Spring Morning In the hut in the mountains one is free the live-long day A clump of bamboos leaning o’er screens from cold mountain air Green grows the grass and the sky reels in joy, Late lingers the dew in the cups of scarlet flowers The man alone […]
By Patrick Hunt – What is the relationship between ancient Egyptian kingship and animal husbandry, specifically the practice of owning, tending and herding animals like cattle? Ancient cattle pens have been found in Nilotic contexts going back at least eight thousand years into the Neolithic, possibly the earliest examples of […]
By P. F. Sommerfeldt – Memoirs are by nature usually suspect; this one truly raises the bar. Here honesty is cherished and myopic self references are at a minimum. Especially when they are filled with rationalizations of bad behavior, railing curses against foes or aimed at generating sympathy for a […]