Month: November 2014
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Visiting the ancient city of Babylon
We had a 4-day national holiday. Meaning what? No clinic and no hospital! I said to myself, “It’s been a long time since I have visited Babylonia.” I drove my car for about 11 hours, continuously. Finally, I was there. I went to my uncle’s house, which lies about a quarter of hour from the…
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Pondering Britain’s Stone Circles
Grand, centuries-old cathedrals distinguish Great Britain’s cities and towns, providing spiritual nourishment to those who visit. These places of worship seem ancient almost beyond imagination. But long before Gothic cathedrals…long before recorded history even, Britain’s stone circles were this land’s sacred spots. Stonehenge is the most famous of these — and has a new visitors…
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Visiting the Ancient City of Borsippa
Borsippa lies about 11 miles southwest of the ancient city of Babylon. It is a Sumero-Akkadian city and was built on either side of river Euphrates. It lies within modern-day Babel Governorate, Iraq. There is a road, which takes you directly near the city. It is not a desert. The modern-day name of the city…
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Gold and the Gods: Jewels of Ancient Nubia
Located at the intersection of long distance trade between East Africa, the ancient Near East, and the classical world, ancient Nubia was Egypt’s rich and powerful neighbor to the South. Successive Nubian cultures dominated what is modern-day Sudan and southern Egypt for over two millennia, developing in turn a distinctive set of cultural aesthetics and…
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10 Greek Pottery Details
The pottery of ancient Greece has provided us with some of the most distinctive pottery shapes and striking decoration from antiquity. This collection begins with the Minoans whose love of the sea and flowing, vibrant forms can be seen on the famous Marine Style askos. In the archaic period geometric designs gained popularity until designers…
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Exploring Aelia Capitolina, Hadrian’s Jerusalem
With thousands of archaeological sites, Jerusalem is one of the most excavated cities on the planet and to walk its streets is to walk through thousand years of history. This ancient city has been fought over more than any other place. It has been conquered, destroyed and rebuilt many times and Hadrian played a significant…
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Eureka! Teaching Ancient History
My name is Nathan Olsen and I am a sixth grade teacher in Madison, Wisconsin. A good portion of my day is spent teaching ancient civilizations to eleven and twelve year olds. We start the school year with Early Hominids, and finish with the European Middle Ages. Millions of years of history condensed into nine months?…
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10 Greek & Roman Frescoes
As a technique, true fresco painting (buon fresco) is the painting of colour pigments on wet lime plaster without a binding agent, and when the paint is absorbed by the plaster, it is fixed and protected from fading. Inherent problems with frescoes for historians are their fragility, incompleteness, and artistic anonymity. In addition, at archaeological…
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What a Sensation at the Sulaymaniyah Museum, Iraq!
I’d just finished my neurology ward tour and the rest of my duty in our hospital. My Nikon D90 camera and its incredible Nikkor AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-300mm f/3.5-6.3G ED VR lens were in my car. “I have plenty of time, what to do?” I asked myself. After a while, I decided to visit the…
