this must've been written by a current US history department

This is a great idea....except, why is Harvard only partnering with Ivy peers when there are dozens of universities within commuting distance that could contribute and benefit

www.thecrimson.com/article/2026...

Greek and Roman statues were designed to give a colorful lifelike impression. Marble and wood sculptures were brightly painted, and bronze statues were originally a pale fleshlike brown. Lips and nipples were often inlaid with copper, and teeth with silver. Eyes were usually made separately and set into prepared sockets. This pair, designed for an over-lifesize statue, gives a sense of the potent immediacy that ancient sculpture could convey. Greek, 5th century BCE or later. Bronze, marble, frit, quartz, and obsidian. Dimensions: maximum H. 1 1/2 in. (3.8 cm); maximum length 2in. (5.1cm) Met Museum, New York (1991.11.3a,b)

Guess who's having cataract surgery tomorrow morning? ME! I get a pretty new lens, but I'm currently freaking out about needles and eyes. 💉👁️ 😱

So here's a sweet pair of bronze, frit, and stone eyes made for a statue, now lost. 🏺

Greek, 5th c. BCE. #MetMuseum
📸 me

Absolutely! I should have thought of a broader phrasing like "later medieval hits" so that I could have included this.

I don't entirely trust The Free Press, but it's been reported by other outlets. I actually initially saw it reported from a different source, but I quote-reposted this one because the screenshot gave more details of the meeting.

Wow, the Trump presidency really is playing all the fourteenth-century hits: a pandemic, intermittent war, a king who rules with God's sanction, an ultrawealthy, semiautonomous noble class bound by oaths of loyalty to the king, and now a proposed Antipope. When is the Peasants' Revolt coming?

Families in Tehran are taping up their windows and sleeping together in rooms away from the glass. Their buildings have already been shaken by nightly explosions from the most sustained bombing in the capital since the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war. Some are rushing to buy generators, concerned that new attacks could cause critical services like electricity and water to unravel. The bombings and threats have left many Iranians living in fear not only of their own government, which killed thousands of people in a crackdown on protesters early this year, but their would-be American rescuers, who pledged at the beginning of the war to create the conditions for their government to fall. A 43-year-old woman living in Tehran and undergoing treatment for breast cancer said she worried what intensified attacks on infrastructure could mean for her healthcare.

We are terrorizing an entire country.

www.wsj.com/world/middle...

Attic red-figure vase painting showing the Lydian king Kroisos sitting on a pyre about to be burned alive by Cyrus the Great after he went to war with the Persians and lost, destroying his whole kingdom in the process

Screenshot of Herodotos's 'Histories' 1.53 as translated by A. D. Godley: "The Lydians who were to bring these gifts to the temples were instructed by Croesus to inquire of the oracles whether he was to send an army against the Persians and whether he was to add an army of allies. [2] When the Lydians came to the places where they were sent, they presented the offerings, and inquired of the oracles, in these words: “Croesus, king of Lydia and other nations, believing that here are the only true places of divination among men, endows you with such gifts as your wisdom deserves. And now he asks you whether he is to send an army against the Persians, and whether he is to add an army of allies.” [3] Such was their inquiry; and the judgment given to Croesus by each of the two oracles was the same: namely, that if he should send an army against the Persians he would destroy a great empire. And they advised him to discover the mightiest of the Greeks and make them his friends."

Trump's unhinged, apocalyptic threat that "a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again" sounds frighteningly reminiscent of the oracle that King Kroisos of Lydia received when he asked if he should go to war with Persia.

It didn't end well for him, or his empire.

Actually we should just give citizenship to every undocumented person in the United States who wants it. Walking over an imaginary line isn't some great moral atrocity. Making people live in the shadows as a permanent underclass absolutely IS.

bsky.app/profile/spen...

Painting by Fra Angelico of the conversion of Saint Augustine as described in his 'Confessions'

Painting by Guido Reni of Mary Magdalene as a penitent with a cross and a skull

Statuette of Saint Mary of Egypt emaciated and naked in the desert praying to God for forgiveness for her many sins

Painting by Cigoli of Saint Francis of Assisi in contemplative prayer in the wilderness with a cross, Bible, and skull

The claim that Freud invented the concept of individual guilt in the 1920s is the most *insane* thing I have ever heard.

It's so ironic that these tech billionaires are Christian nationalists who want to bring back feudalism, but they don't seem to have heard of medieval Christian guilt culture.

a drawing of a monk wearing dark glasses and rolling dice at a table

gambling monk, germany, 15th century

The March 15, 2025, killing of Ruben Ray Martinez drew almost no public attention.

But Martinez is now the first known American citizen shot to death by federal immigration agents during President Trump’s second term. https://wapo.st/4lbpGYC

Painting of a clean-shaved, short-haired man wearing a white tunic holding out his arms

Painting of a short-haired, clean-shaved man wearing a tunic and carrying a sheep over his shoulders.

Paintings from the baptistry of a Christian church at the same site also preserve some of the oldest surviving Christian depictions of Jesus. These are of similar date, but they reflect a more Greco-Roman image of a teacher and healer. Notably, this Jesus is short-haired and clean-shaven.

Painting of a brown-skinned man with short, dark hair and a short, well-trimmed beard. The man is wearing a white tunic with a bluish-purple trim. He is barefoot and a pair of boots are sitting on the ground beside him.

Painting of the same man in the previous painting reading from a Torah scroll, wearing a cloak over his tunic and sandals on his feet

Below are two wall paintings of Moses from an ancient Jewish synagogue at the site of Dura-Europos in Roman Syria. They date sometime between the late second century CE and 244 CE, and they reflect how Jews in the Roman-ruled Levant in the early centuries CE imagined a religious leader.

While I appreciate the sentiment, your sympathies would be directed more suitably toward the people who have suffered or died (or will suffer or die) in the wars this wretched administration has started. I am unlikely to personally suffer any direct effects of this war, but others certainly will.

"United States go for one month in 2026 without invading and seeking to regime-change yet another foreign country" challenge failed, again.

Today’s military strikes on Iran — carried out by the United States and Israel — mark a catastrophic escalation in an illegal war of aggression. Bombing cities. Killing civilians. Opening a new theater of war.

we need to talk about that Ring Super Bowl ad

Meanwhile, Hanson's argument that there is a single, continuous "western way of war" that originated in ancient Greece and has remained dominant through to the present day is, I think, pretty much indefensible and thoroughly debunked at this point.

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Hanson's work on Greek warfare is *at best* defensible; it is far from "solid." His argument that yeoman farmer hoplites were the backbone of ancient Greek militaries is increasingly challenged, as more evidence suggests that the hoplite class was one of elite, leisured landlords.

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Attic red-figure plate depicting a Scythian archer drawing an arrow from his quiver as he turns to shoot at the enemy (520-500 BCE; The British Museum, inv. GR 1837.6-9.59):

If you have read your Herodotus, you know a fair amount about the Scythians (modern Ukraine). And both Romans & Greeks cast milk as a “barbaric” drink. Now, dental calculus is pointing to the Iron Age (ca. 700–200 cal. BCE), Scythian drink of cow & mare 🐴 🥛 milk. journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Painted Etruscan terracotta funerary urn lid showing a reclining woman in banquet pose, holding a fan, wearing draped chiton, gold jewelry, on museum display.

A painted #Etruscan terracotta cinerary urn lid with a reclining woman.
Found in Chiusi, dating 150-120 BC.

It was on display at the Badisches Landesmuseum Karlsruhe, which will be closed for the next couple of years.

🏺
📷 me

The article below adds some fascinating detail to the rule of the #Thracian king Seuthes III, whose bronze portrait head, greaves and helmet I've photographed, below. He straddled multiple cultures, as the treasures from his tomb attest. 🏺

📸 me #ancientbluesky

flic.kr/s/aHBqjBSifK

"As critics had been warning" is central.

Many folks (inc. me, acoup.blog/2024/10/25/new-acquisitions-1933-and-the-definition-of-fascism/) warned during the election that mass repression was coming with mass deportations.

Now we're here. More media and voters should have listened.

A detailed close-up photograph of a limestone relief plaque featuring an owl face. The owl has large, circular eyes with intricate dotted borders, a prominent curved beak, and decorative patterns around the eyes and neck, set against a plain gray background.

It has been quite a week! We all need a timeline cleanse.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

An Egyptian relief plaque with a face of an #owl 🦉.

The owl hieroglyph represents the sound m.

Late Period–Ptolemaic Period. From Egypt, 400–30 BC.

📷 Metropolitan Museum

Obverse of a Roman aureus: Head of Caligula, bare, right.

Reverse of a Roman aureus: Head of Augustus, radiate, right; in field, left and right, a star.

#OnThisDay - 24 January - in AD 41 the third Roman Emperor Gaius, better known by his nickname Caligula, was assassinated by a conspiracy headed by the military tribune Cassius Chaerea. #AncientHistory 🏺

Image: RIC 1 Gaius 1; Münzkabinett Wien (RÖ 5199). Link - numismatics.org/ocre/id/ric....

In this context, the fact that Trump is steadily becoming even *more* dangerously delusional and confused than he was before is easy to miss. Especially if one is only paying attention to individual statements, the aggregate is easy to miss.

Part of the problem is that the media is bad at covering degree differences. Nearly everything Trump has said in his past decade of ubiquitous publicity has been ignorant, delusional, and outrageous; when he says more ignorant, delusional, and outrageous things, it seems like more of the same.

'The Magicians', by contrast, basically the follows the 'Harry Potter' premise, in which magic is taught at a secret school for people who are just born special for some reason. The main difference is just that the students are older.

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