Common myths about the early Middle Ages debunked. Five surprising facts Kim Rendfeld found as she researched her novel The Ashes of Heaven’s Pillar. Link here.
The mysterious Macedonian tomb from Alexander the Great’s time, gradually more gets revealed— details around the sphinxes have been uncovered. Greece held spellbound. Who’s inside? We’re getting closer to an answer, but very slowly—the way archaeology always works! Link here.
I’ve been asked several times recently why the Iliad still holds relevance in today’s world. I never thought of the answer in this article in the magazine The National Interest, but I find this analysis of US-China relations in terms of the Iliad fascinating. Not really my realm of interest, but an intriguing application of the Iliad. I’ve always felt Homeric wisdom was close to endless, but it takes more brains than mine to find all those deep wells. Whatever you think of this particular argument, the careful examination of the Iliad’s cautions on the subject of war is very integral to the Homeric vision. Link here.
Anna Belfrage on the grim but profitable business of witch-finding in 17thC England. Not a cheery article but this perennial fixation in history is always intriguing. Anna tells of one particularly sadistic “witch-finder” name Matthew Hopkins. Link here.
A got-me-thinking post by Deb Swift about what she had to do to write historical fiction for teens instead of adults—how to make a young adult not sound too mature given all the adult responsibilities that get dumped on them in past times before “teen years” were a category anyone considered. I actually had a reverse issue with Hand of Fire since my main character is in her late teens but I was not writing YA and I didn’t want readers to think I was. Deb thinks through a lot of the same issues that I did only for the reverse results. Quite engaging. On Sarah Johnson’s Reading the Past. Link here.
Oldest personal wine cellar excavated at Tel Kabri in Israel. Sophisticated wines mixed with preservative resins (so in terms of taste, think of Greek retsina) and flavors, with some possible identifications including honey, juniper berries, mint and cinnamon. These finds correspond to ancient “recipes” previously known from Mari and Egypt, but now we have tests from residues of the actual wines themselves. If you’re very interested, follow the link in this Smithsonian article to the full paper on PLOS. Eric Cline is one of the lead archaeologists on this dig. I’m a huge fan of his books—most recently, 1177B.C. The Year Civilization Collapsed. He’s very good at presenting the evidence in an approachable, entertaining way, and I recommend him to everyone who loves history. Link here.