antiquity

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Drinking Games of Yore

Who knew drinking games had such a long and sozzled history? The following are just a few of the stranger games we stumbled into while trying to justify all the kegs in our office. The Dreaded Puzzle Jug First designed in 1300's France, the puzzle jug was basically created to test the mental agility of people hopped up on happy juice. More importantly, it was an easy way to make drunks look like idiots. The jugs were filled with wine, but also covered with holes. If a genius didn't tilt... READ ON

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600-Year-Old Music Found Encoded in Chapel Walls

Reuters reports that father-and-son team Thomas and Stuart Mitchell have unlocked a coded music system present in decorations of the Rosslyn Chapel. (Rosslyn may be familiar to readers as the fifteenth-century Scottish chapel featured at the end of The Da Vinci Code.) The chapel contains 213 carved blocks showing thirteen geometric patterns. In addition to these blocks, there are carved angels playing musical instruments, including one who is pointing to certain notes on a musical staff. So here's... READ ON

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How To: Host A Roman Bacchanalia

Bring the Wife While not exactly paragons of female equality, the Romans also certainly weren't at the bottom of the patriarchy pole either (that spot probably goes to the Greeks, who believed that ladies shouldn't be seen or heard and basically kept them locked up in the house). Unmarried Roman women, particularly those who were engaged via arranged marriage, didn't have a whole lot of freedom, but that changed once the marriage was validated. Proper Roman matrons had power within... READ ON

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Fake Your Way Through a Conversation About: St. Augustine

Name Dropping: Saint Augustine (Saint Uh-GUSS-tin if you're trying to impress people; St. AWW-guh-steen if you're talking about the town in Florida): (354-430). The most important Christian theologian ever, except for St. Paul, whose thoughts on God ended up filling out the latter half of the New Testament. Augustine didn't get so lucky—but he still gets read by anyone seriously studying the Christian understanding of... READ ON

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Armchair Field Trip: The Ringling Museum

Ah, Sarasota -- home to dead fish, American Idol toothpaste, and, on the plus side, the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art. I'm currently visiting a friend who's working there, and yesterday she took me on a tour. The museum does have a circus component, but it also has a quite respectable set of paintings, as well as the odd sculpture, sketch, photograph, and antique harpsichord, and it appears that most of the collection is online. My personal favorite is "Time Discovering the Love of Venus and Mars"... READ ON

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Museum Musing

So I'm getting ready for a week-long trip to NYC, putting together a "To Do" list and checking out what shows are happening at which museums. It's kind of curious: I lived in NYC for close to 15 years and only got to each of the big museums a handful of times. Now I'm a tourist in my old city, eager to do touristy-type things. Go figure. Anyway, I clicked over to the Met Museum's site to discover that they now feature factoids on a different work from their Permanent... READ ON

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2,218 years later, another "Eureka!" moment

You probably know the Greek mathematician Archimedes as the guy who figured out how buoyancy worked, leapt from his bath yelling "Eureka!," and ran through the streets of Syracuse as naked as Will Ferrell in, oh, any of his movies. But don't judge him based on his exhibitionism; some mathematicians put his work on a level with Isaac Newton's. Though many of Archimedes' manuscripts were lost when the library at Alexandria went up in flames (twice), a few survive, including one that until now has been... READ ON