Category: history

A comforting thought

sisterofiris:

Five thousand years ago, the Sumerians called the night ngi, the stars mul, and the moon Nanna.

Four thousand years ago, the Akkadians called the night mūšu, the stars kakkabū, and the moon Sîn.

Three thousand years ago, the Hittites called the night išpanza, the stars haštereš, and the moon Arma.

Two and a half thousand years ago, the Greeks called the night nux, the stars astra, and the moon Selênê.

Two thousand years ago, the Romans called the night nox, the stars stellae, and the moon Luna.

Kings and queens and heroes looked up at them. So did travelers coming home, and little children who sneaked out of bed. So did slaves, and mothers and soldiers and old shepherds, and Sappho and Muršili and Enheduanna and Socrates and Hatshepsut and Cyrus and Cicero. In this darkness it didn’t matter who they were, or where they stood. Only that they were human.

Think of that tonight, when you close your window. You are not alone. You share this night sky with centuries of dreamers and stargazers, and people who longed for quiet. Are you anxious? The Hittites were too: they called it pittuliyaš. Does your heart ache? The Greeks felt it too: they called it akhos. Those who look up to the stars for comfort are a family, and you belong to them. Your ancestors have stood under Nanna, Sîn, Arma, Selênê and Luna for five thousand years. Now its light is yours.

May it soothe you well.

“History is not just about the analysis of evidence, unrolling vellum documents or answering exam…”

“History is not just about the analysis of evidence, unrolling vellum documents or answering exam papers. It is not about judging the dead. It is about understanding the meaning of the past—to realize the whole evolving human story over centuries, not just our own lifetimes.”

- Ian Mortimer, The Time Traveller’s Guide to Medieval England.

lloerwyn:I’m glad that Tumblr as a whole recognises that the Norse people weren’t just drunk, smelly…

lloerwyn:

I’m glad that Tumblr as a whole recognises that the Norse people weren’t just drunk, smelly barbarians, but I think we might be swinging too far in the other direction and romanticising them. Especially when it comes to women’s rights. Norse women had it comparatively better than many of their contemporaries, but their society didn’t have perfect gender equality. It’s also important to remember that they kept slaves, and the legal protections and status of free women did not apply to enslaved women.

“I once asked my friends if they’d ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient…”

“I once asked my friends if they’d ever held things that gave them a spooky sense of history. Ancient pots with three-thousand-year-old thumbprints in the clay, said one. Antique keys, another. Clay pipes. Dancing shoes from WWII. Roman coins I found in a field. Old bus tickets in second-hand books. Everyone agreed that what these small things did was strangely intimate; they gave them the sense, as they picked them up and turned them in their fingers, of another person, an unknown person a long time ago, who had held that object in their hands. You don’t know anything about them, but you feel the other person’s there, one friend told me. It’s like all the years between you and them disappear. Like you become them, somehow.”

- Helen Macdonald, H is For Hawk.

lloerwyn: The thing about saying that the Middle Ages were either ‘bad’ or ‘good’…

lloerwyn:

The thing about saying that the Middle Ages were either ‘bad’ or 'good’ is that you’re talking about a roughly thousand-year period encompassing Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and varying amounts of Asia and Africa depending on the scholar you ask. So much happened in that timeframe. Some people suffered terribly and some people lived full, happy lives. It’s impossible to generalise.

workingclasshistory:On this day, 15 December 1890, Sioux chief…



workingclasshistory:

On this day, 15 December 1890, Sioux chief Sitting Bull was killed by Indian police in the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. Indian agent James McLauchlan had sent 39 officers and four volunteers to arrest Sitting Bull, fearing the growth of the spiritual ghost dance movement, which foresaw an end to white expansionism.
Sitting Bull refused to cooperate with police, so they used force on him which outraged the crowd which had gathered, one of whom shot a policeman. Police retaliated by shooting Sitting Bull in the chest and head, killing him. A battle then erupted leaving seven additional villagers dead, and eight police officers.
This book gives an overview of 500 years of Indigenous resistance in the Americas: https://shop.workingclasshistory.com/collections/books/products/500-years-of-indigenous-resistance-gord-hill https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1293882394130241/?type=3

Colonialism

disbander-of-armies: This week I had my first lecture on Mesopotamian history. At one point, the…

disbander-of-armies:

This week I had my first lecture on Mesopotamian history. At one point, the professor was talking about ancient texts. As an example, he told us that if we read an ancient inscription of a king who conquered other peoples, we could just take it as that, as a king telling us about something he did. Then he said this: “But most importantly, ask yourselves: “Why is he telling me this?””.

This, I think, is why Ancient History and all the other fields of the Classics department are more important than ever. I’ve studied other things before but never was there such an emphasis on the critical evaluation of sources. In my first semester, we critically analyzed Pericles’ funeral speech in Thukydides’ Peloponnesian War. In my second semester, we talked about historians’ interpretation of the past and how they were influenced by the events of their own times. I’m in my third semester now. 

In the times of “fake news” and “alternative facts”, this skill is the most valuable tool we have. I’ve started studying Ancient History because of my love for the ancient Greeks but this is living proof that Classics is much more than just the study of long dead civilizations. 

So always ask yourselves: “Why is that person telling me this?”