The return of long-lost Sumero-Akkadian heritage and modern disorders: rediscovering Gilgamesh, Victorian tension, and aftermath
“The rediscovery of the Mesopotamian epic complicated centuries-old and on-going debates about time and history: The major archaeologists of the period utilized it to return the field to its earliest arguments and better understand what time and history meant at the end of the nineteenth century, the Historians, Hebraists, and Biblicists began to question the originality of the Bible and verify its reliability, and figures specialized in literature and/or the arts got access to the primary sources of prehistory to update existing literature or create new fictional arts.”
Olmsted, The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler
“Kathryn Olmsted’s work provides a timely and incisive analysis of four American and two British press lords, united in their isolationism, appeasement towards fascism, and proclivity to use their media apparatus and larger-than-life personalities to forcefully promote their politics.”
Olmsted, The Newspaper Axis: Six Press Barons Who Enabled Hitler
“Kathryn Olmsted’s work provides a timely and incisive analysis of four American and two British press lords, united in their isolationism, appeasement towards fascism, and proclivity to use their media apparatus and larger-than-life personalities to forcefully promote their politics.”
“Where do national myths originate? They do not emerge by happenstance. Rather their creation and spread are an exercise of power. Influential historical actors, from antebellum slaveholders to the moguls of Hollywood and those Slotkin calls the ‘political classes’, have attempted to develop and disseminate broadly acceptable myths to serve their own interests.”
“Gerardus Mercator is perhaps well-known for all the wrong reasons. His last name evokes the infamous Mercator projection, which depicts the world in a distorted way. The projection has been criticized for putting Europe at the center of the world and favoring the northern hemisphere by making countries there appear bigger than they are in reality.”
Long-lost Assyrian military camp devastated by ‘the angel of the Lord’ finally found, scientist claims
“At the British Museum in London, there is a relief depicting the siege of Lachish, and it shows the Assyrian camp. Stephen Compton, an independent scholar who specializes in Near Eastern Archaeology, compared this relief to photos from the early to mid-20th century which show Lachish. He identified a site north of Lachish with an oval shaped structure with walls that he thinks may have been the Assyrians’ camp.”
Discovery of ancient Greek shepherd’s graffiti rewrites Athens history
“Now, researchers have found graffiti drawn by a shepherd named“Mikon” who lived in the 6th century BC, which depicts a temple on the Acropolis predating the Parthenon.
By signing his drawing using particular alphabets, Mikon has allowed the graffiti to be dated.”
🇸🇪 Episode 312: Christina of Sweden, Minerva of the North
“In this week’s episode, get to know Christina of Sweden, the keenly intelligent and fiercely independent queen of Sweden, who is remembered today for her passion of learning and knowledge.”
🇸🇪 Episode 312: Christina of Sweden, Minerva of the North
“In this week’s episode, get to know Christina of Sweden, the keenly intelligent and fiercely independent queen of Sweden, who is remembered today for her passion of learning and knowledge.”
🇸🇪 Episode 312: Christina of Sweden, Minerva of the North
“In this week’s episode, get to know Christina of Sweden, the keenly intelligent and fiercely independent queen of Sweden, who is remembered today for her passion of learning and knowledge.”
Coin hoard from time of the Gallus Revolt unearthed in Lod
“The Gallus Revolt was an uprising by the Jews of Roman Palaestina against the rule of Constantius Gallus (brother-in-law of Emperor Constantius II) during the Roman civil war of AD 350–353.
The uprising was in response to the persecution of non-Christians by Constantius and the Christian clergy, who incited riots and destroyed Jewish synagogues and temples.”
Coin hoard from time of the Gallus Revolt unearthed in Lod
“_The Gallus Revolt was an uprising by the Jews of Roman Palaestina against the rule of Constantius Gallus (brother-in-law of Emperor Constantius II) during the Roman civil war of AD 350–353.
The uprising was in response to the persecution of non-Christians by Constantius and the Christian clergy, who incited riots and destroyed Jewish synagogues and temples._”
God’s Ghostwriters by Candida Moss review – did enslaved scribes write the New Testament?
“And if the Roman family that purchased them as a scribe had subsequently converted to Christianity, either openly or secretly as many did in the first and second centuries CE, they may well then have been drafted in to write down the words of the great Christian missionary preachers who criss-crossed the empire and came to its capital, including of course Paul.”
“The network of Silk Roads included both land and maritime routes. The Northern Route traversed through Central Asia, the Southern Route passed through what is now Iran and India. Major cities along these routes included Xi’an in China, Samarkand in Uzbekistan, and Ctesiphon, near modern-day Baghdad. The Maritime routes linked ports in China to Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent, the Arabian Peninsula, and East Africa. This was the vastest network the world had ever seen.”
Our Research Training Group has just published the proceedings of the lectures held during the first three years of our project (2020–2023). The volume is edited by Ronald G. Asch, Peter Eich and Elisabeth M. Piller. The contributions cover various topics regarding imperial temporality, the visualisations of imperial power, and post-imperial orders.
The PhD students in our Research Training Group just launched the website “Imperial Moments. An Anthology”. Professor Elisabeth Piller planned and coordinated the whole project.
The website gives an overview of the various research projects in our RTG.
We would be excited if some of you took the time to browse and discover our research.
How Queen Victoria’s Disabled Grandson Led Europe Into WW1 | The Crippled Kaiser
“At the end of the 19th century, much of Europe’s royalty was one big dysfunctional family. Discover how this slowly dissolving family partially led to the conflict that would consume and reshape Europe.”
#Video length: forty six minutes and fifty three seconds.
Did the Condemnation of 1277 Create Modern Science?
“The purpose of the Condemnation of 1277 was to stomp out any thought not strictly in accord with Church doctrine, including its various miracles such as the transformation in the Eucharist. To the extent that this condemnation was actually followed, it would have led to complete intellectual stagnation.”
Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe
“The historical and archaeological record leave no doubt that the development of culture and population in southwestern Germany was temporarily characterized by profound discontinuities, particularly during the third to first century BCE. The definitive end of the 2,000 years of relative genetic continuity from the Bronze throughout the Iron Age in southern Germany is marked by a sudden, sharp increase of Steppe-related ancestry during the Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages.”
Gretzinger, J., Schmitt, F., Mötsch, A. et al. Evidence for dynastic succession among early Celtic elites in Central Europe. Nat Hum Behav (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01888-7