May 2011
16 posts
8 tags
Fierce Historical Ladies post: Empress Dowager...
“I have read a great deal about Queen Victoria. Still, I think her life isn’t half as interesting and memorable as mine.” (left: photo, right: painting; both created in 1903)
Empress Cixi is a fascinating, complex, contradictory, and often polarizing figure. She took the reign of China for herself at a time in which the country was being torn apart by foreign influence, and...
April 2011
27 posts
9 tags
Historical Societies, Living Museums, and...
I am a big fan of historical societies and living museums. I think they are vitally important institutions and, at their best, help people experience and access history in a way they never could in the classroom. However, more often than not, they provide a highly idealized, one note, overly simplistic version of history which erases many of the colonial inhabitants of the area.
In the spring...
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King Arthur (insert Monty Python joke here)
King Arthur is cool. The layers of myth, the first scraps of information we have about this Arthur person, the constant re-invention of his story and the stories of those surrounding him, the historical issues underlying the French influences on the original story; it’s all fascinating.
The thing about King Arthur, however, is that because the stories surrounding him have taken on such epic,...
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Further Reading
If you’ve been interested by the stuff I’ve been posting about, you might like these books:
Who Were the Early Israelites and Where Did They Come From? by William Dever
Old Testament Parallels: Laws and Stories from the Ancient Near East by Victor H. Matthews and Don C. Benjamin
Women in Scripture: A Dictionary of Named and Unnamed Women in the Hebrew Bible, the Apocryphal/Deuterocanonical Books,...
12 tags
World War Three
This is something I’ve been stewing over for a long time, so I though I’d share it with you guys to get your thoughts on it.
At its core, what is a World War? The obvious definition is that it’s a war which encompasses the entire world in combat under the banner of a single conflict or one or two related conflicts. But in light of WWI and WWII, I think that definition is too simple. I think a...
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Concluding Passover Thoughts
You may be wondering why I went through the time to type up this long-ass series of posts seemingly debunking the holiday I claim as my favorite. The answer is that I don’t see it as debunking. I am a secular Jew, and often discovering the truth, so to speak, behind the narratives in the Hebrew Bible makes me feel much closer to Judaism than does any attempt at straightforward religious...
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Passover part 4: The Israelites as Canaanites
In the last three posts, I explained why I see Exodus and Joshua as works of fiction, written to complete the Israelite cosmology begun in Genesis. We know who wrote them, and we largely know why that person wrote them. So the main question here, is, if Genesis, Exodus, Joshua, and everything in between is fiction, then where did the Ancient Israelites come from?
The answer is that they came from...
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Passover part 3: The Problem with Joshua
Before reading this post, keep in mind that the book order in the Hebrew Bible goes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua, and Judges (after that comes I Samuel, II Samuel, I Kings, II Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekial, The Twelve, and then the Writings, but those books aren’t relevant to this series of posts).
Genesis goes from the Creation to the beginning of Israelite presence...
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Passover part 2: Dating Exodus
There have been many attempts over the years to put a date on the events described in the book of Exodus, or to try to figure out a context in which the story would make sense. There have also been many attempts to identify the Pharaoh in the story.
Many guess that the events in Exodus may have taken place, or that Moses may have been at large, during the reign of Akhenaten; they cite his devotion...
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Passover part 1: Moses
As some of you may know, Passover begins on Tuesday. In honor of my favorite holiday (Chanukah wishes it was as awesome as Passover), I wrote up a huge-ass post about the historical and archaeological issues surrounding the books of Exodus and Joshua. But because it’s so long, and because Passover is a multi-day holiday, I’m going to divide the post into chunks.
I will start with Moses and his...
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wewillbeclosesoon-deactivated20 asked: spanish civil war?
1 tag
Hi, if you’re reading this blog and you don’t have a tumblr account, please feel free contact me at historicitywasalreadytaken@gmail.com with any questions or requests you might have.
4 tags
Further Reading
If you’ve been interested by the stuff I’ve been posting about, then you might like these books:
The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters edited by Charlotte Mosley
Writing History: A Guide for Students by William Kelleher Storey (this one is also about historical methodology; I forgot to include it in my last post)
Women in Ancient Egypt by Gay Robins
Did God Have a Wife?: Archaeology and Folk...
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baboonballoons asked: Did you write the entirety of the 30-page paper that you threatened during the last post? I found this fascinating, I'd like to read more about it!
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Yahweh and his Asherah
If you’ve recently started following this blog, you might want to check out the first two Hebrew Bible posts before reading this one (1, 2).
At first I was going to make this a post about Early Israelite polytheism, but that is such a huge subject matter that I decided to make this post an overview of Asherah worship in pre-Exilic Israelite society.
There is widespread evidence—both in the...
4 tags
Rare Civil War Photos
My Early Israelite polytheism post (which is now solely about the goddess Asherah because I don’t think any of you are interested in a blog post which amounts to a 30 page paper) is taking me a bit longer than I expected, so in the meantime, check out these rare American Civil War photos:
I always love photos like these because they show us the human side of the war. I mentioned before...
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firstofoctober asked: Any recs for books about Hatshepsut? I remember learning about her in school, and I'd love to read more!
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Fierce Historical Ladies Post: Hatshepsut
Hatshepsut was the only female ruler of Ancient Egypt to assume the title of Pharaoh. While Egypt certainly had other sole female rulers, none of them took up that title.
To enforce her title of Pharaoh, Hatshepsut wore the ceremonial beard and appeared in full (male) Pharaonic costume. She had statues cast of herself in that costume to ensure that that vision of her would endure.
The first...
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There is an important distinction to be made between fascination with something, and liking something. It is a distinction many history majors have to learn to explain to people from other disciplines in the midst of geek-out sessions. However, I would like to request that, if you feel the need to stan for Nazis, could you please do so in a manner which does not link directly into the notes...
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The Mitfords
From left to right: Jessica Mitford (1917-1996), Nancy Mitford (1904-1973), Diana Mitford (1910-2003), Unity Mitford (1914-1948), and Pamela Mitford (1907-1994); photo taken in 1935.
Deborah Mitford (1920-present); photo taken in 1940.
This is for the Potter fans out there.
A few years ago, I learned that JK Rowling probably modeled the characters Bellatrix Lestrange, Narcissa Malfoy, and...
4 tags
Further Reading
If you’ve been interested by the stuff I’ve been posting about, then you might like these books:
Who Wrote the Bible? by Richard Eliot Friedman
Dictionary of Ancient Deities by Patricia Turner and Charles Russell Coulter
Death is Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth Century Brazil by João José Reis
Death in the New World: Cross-Cultural Encounters 1492-1800 by Erik R. Seaman
Many...
8 tags
Syncretic religion
You know what’s really cool? Syncretism. The term “syncretism” refers to what happens when one culture combines with a second one to form a totally new culture which contains elements of the previous two. This takes many forms, but in my opinion, the most interesting form is the religious one.
Syncretic religion is fascinating. I particularly enjoy studying the syncretic elements in regional...
3 tags
Okay so, follow-up post to my thoughts on the maxim “history is written by the victors.”
First of all, yes I am starry-eyed and optimistic about history. As corny as it sounds, history is my passion and I am excited about it. Otherwise I would not have this blog and type up long-winded posts about stuff like Biblical Source Theory.
Now here are a few words about historians. History, as a whole, is...
6 tags
On historical erasure...
Something you will notice about me as the blog posts go on is that I value the preservation of the historical record over a lot of other things. It’s why I’m going to be a historical archivist. So, when I hear about historical erasure, or ancient artifacts being looted from museums, it gives me a lot of feelings. Usually along the lines of “OH PLEASE GOD NO WHYYY,” so I’m going to put that out...
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Drive-by fun facts
Because I probably won’t have time to get a nice long post ready until Monday night, here are a few random fun facts to tide you over~
-The Biblical Philistines originated in Mycenae; there were also quite a few Etruscans among their numbers. They arrived and settled on the southern coast of Canaan in the late second millennium BCE. Archaeologists have found pottery shards and other such...
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Fierce Historical Ladies Post: Boudicca
Boudicca is another one of my favorite historical ladies. This statue of her currently stands outside of the Houses of Parliament in London; it was commissioned by Prince Albert, and was completed in 1905:
She was queen of the Celtic Iceni tribe in the early first century CE. Her husband Prasutagus ruled the tribe independent of Rome who, in turn, viewed him as an ally and left him alone. When he...
