Image: National Library of Scotland If you were to travel back in time to Medieval England, you might catch some raunchy jokes and tall tales performed live by traveling minstrels, who were like old-timey versions of touring stand-up comics. Minstrels were … Read more
Medieval Arabs Ate Sandwiches Too!? Keep on reading to get to the bottom of it while making this millennium old pinwheel sandwich made for the Abbasid Caliph al-Mutawakkil (d.861), and surprise yourself with how exotic and yet so familiar it … Read more
JavaScript Error JavaScript has been disabled on your browser. You must enable it to continue. Here’s how to enable JavaScript in the following browsers: Internet Explorer From the Tools menu, select Options Click the Content tab Select Enable JavaScript Firefox … Read more
One of the most common questions about daily life in the Middle Ages is what did homes look like. Medieval manuscript illuminations can reveal much about the exteriors and interiors of a peasant’s house. In her article, “The Peasant House: … Read more
By Taylor Nicioli, CNN Updated: Mon, 12 Dec 2022 09:32:03 GMT Source: CNN Resting at the bottom of Mjøsa, the largest lake in Norway, a shipwreck from hundreds of years ago is in almost perfect condition, frozen in time. The … Read more
“Mjøsa is like a mini-ocean, or a really large fjord,” says marine archaeologist Øyvind Ødegård from NTNU. For centuries, ships and boats have travelled these waters. Diving archaeologists have registered around 20 wrecks in shallow water. But the lake has … Read more
Enlarge / The skeleton was found buried with two buckles, which likely once held a shroud in place. Mazzarelli et al. 2019 reader comments 151 with 87 posters participating Share this story In a medieval Italian cemetery, archaeologists recently exhumed … Read more
In the fifth century, the Western Roman Empire ‘fell’. Exactly what that means is a matter of some contention; but while plenty of eminent historians have argued that power simply transferred from a central emperor to locally administered kingdoms, or … Read more
Manipulating and enhancing images may seem something that is particular to the current digital age. The Kattendijke Chronicle, a late fifteenth-century manuscript from the Low Countries, contains fascinating examples of analogue image editing. Fig. 1 Queen Albina and her sisters … Read more
Updated at 11:23 a.m. ET on January 28, 2022. Sign up for Derek’s newsletter here. At 3 a.m. I’m jolted awake. The room is dark and still. I grab my phone and scan sports scores and Twitter. Still awake. A … Read more