Ancient History
From the Archives: Word With a Past: Mausoleum
Among other things, I’m currently working on the story of Artemisia II, the widowed queen in the story below. I’m ashamed to realized that I did not mention her by name: my own small contribution to erasing women from history. (I’ve corrected that in this re-run.) While we don’t know a great deal about Queen…
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The Great Wall of China
When faced with a threat or simply with contact with what we learned in graduate school to call The Other, our natural instinct is to build a wall to keep Them out or to keep Us in. * The earliest cities that we know of, the tel culture in what is now Palestine, were built…
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Road Trip Through History: In Search of Roman Florence
When you’re in the heart of Florence, it’s hard to remember that anything happened there other than the Renaissance. You can find the Etruscans in the nearby village of Fiesole. Sienna is essentially a medieval town. But Florence seems to be all Renaissance, all the time. In fact, the city of Florentia was founded by…
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