For students of the humanities…
Magic was important in the ancient world, but it's unfortunately an aspect of culture that modern scholars often ignore of view as somewhat silly. I think that the fact that it was important to the ancients means that it's an important part of understanding them. This article from the Expedition Magazine at the Penn Museum… Continue reading Article: Secrets of Ancient Magic: The Power of Spells, Curses, & Omens
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy offers excellent, up to date information on just about every topic within the field of Philosophy. My favorite part about this site is the fact that it is imminently searchable, and when you get your results, it will provide you with what you were looking for and also with related… Continue reading Website: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
When studying Medieval Europe, it's important to remember that, while we can make some generalizations, each region or country in Europe faced some unique challenges during this period. England in particular experienced the many things in the Middle Ages completely differently than the rest of Europe. In some ways this post is about a section… Continue reading Article: English Heritage-Early Medieval
I think that this article may have the longest title of anything I have written about so far, but Ancient Origins has put together a very interesting look at an often neglected people. When we look at the history of language and writing, we often throw the word "cuneiform" out there without any context. This… Continue reading Article: Sumerian Tablets: A Deeper Understanding of the Oldest Known Written Language
Are you interested in the Minoans? If so, you have a lot of company. Everyone loves a mystery, after all, and the Minoans are certainly mysterious. These citizens of Crete created an empire, but we're not really sure what caused that empire to fall. Their art is amazing, but we can't read their writing (Linear… Continue reading Article: Minoan Crete
For some people (including me), the Paris's Louvre is pretty much THE museum. It singlehandedly holds the Mona Lisa, the Nike of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo, the Raft of the Medusa, and many other wondrous artifacts. Every time Paris floods, I worry about this place; but they saved their treasures from World War II,… Continue reading Website: The Louvre (English Version)
Smarthistory has a number of excellent articles and videos about the history of art. No matter what you are researching, this is a great site to check as their information deals with diverse cultures and time periods. For example, at the time I'm posting this, the first two topics on their landing page deal with… Continue reading Website: Smarthistory: The Center for Public Art History
If you are looking for a specific work of art, and you're not sure what museum holds it, Google Arts and Culture is a good place to start. They have high resolution images (that can be zoomed in) of more than 2000 works. In addition, they have information on those works, as well as articles… Continue reading Website: Google Arts and Culture
The British Museum has an absolutely amazing collection. When looking at any large museum, it can be a little overwhelming. A good first step when using any museum's site for research is to find the option to search their collections. You can search by specific names (if you are looking for a specific work) or… Continue reading Website: The British Museum: Collections Search
Are you interested in Stonehenge? If so, then I highly recommend this detailed article from the British Museum's blog. They provide a great deal of interesting information and a number of amazing visuals. I appreciate that this article goes over the history, in addition to talking about how it's put together. link to Introduction to… Continue reading Article: Introduction to Stonehenge
This site has so much information, it can become a little overwhelming. In the future, I plan to highlight a few specific areas, but I didn't want to wait to share information about this resource in general. The Kahn Academy provides free courses (including some excellent videos) on a wide variety of subjects. If you're… Continue reading Website: Kahn Academy
The World History Encyclopedia purports to be the "world's most-read history encyclopedia." I don't know about that, but they have a huge number of articles about a wide variety of topics on history, culture, and art. They have been very helpful to me when researching new topics, and they are easy to search. link to… Continue reading Website: The World History Encyclopedia
Understanding what people wear can help us understand them and their culture. The history of fashion is a fascinating part of cultural history. If you're interested in checking out fashion, a good place to start is with videos put together by historical reenactors. One such set of videos is priorattire's Dressing Up Series on YouTube.… Continue reading Videos: Dressing Up Series on YouTube
This site provides articles on a truly amazing variety of topics. For example, their current front page has articles about the Pendle Witches, new Denisovan Fossils, Horseback Archery Revival, and a Theory of Atlantis—just to name a few. This is an excellent site to help you get started with your research (historically older topics are… Continue reading Website: Ancient Origins: Reconstructing the Story of Humanity’s Past
My last post talked about PBS's Crash Course. Even though they don't have a dedicated art series (as of this writing), they do occasional art episodes within some of their other series. This video is one of those, and it's on the Harlem Renaissance. This is a diverse and exciting artistic period, and I'm glad… Continue reading Video: Arts and Letters of the Harlem Renaissance: Crash Course Black American History #26
Humanities Scholars 