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Academic Insights for the Thinking World

Cover of "A Mystery from the Mummy-Pits: The Amazing Journey of Ankh-Hap" by Frank L. Holt

Diary of a dead man

This blog post introduces readers to the well-traveled remains of an Egyptian mummy now residing in Houston, Texas. If old Ankh-Hap still had his original hands and an endless supply of papyrus, he might have made entries like these in a diary of his afterlife.

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Classical allusions in Owen and Rosenberg’s war poems

Wilfred Owen is one of the most studied of the war poets, and his poem ‘Dulce et Decorum Est’ is undoubtedly the best-known example of classical reception in First World War poetry. The poem ends with seven Latin words from Horace Odes 3.2: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori—‘it is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country’. Owen bitterly denounces these words as ‘the old Lie’.

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Finding the classics in World War I poetry

It is a paradox that interest in the cultures of ancient Greece and Rome has increased at the same time that the extent of detailed knowledge about Greece, Rome, and the associated languages has declined.

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The Alexander Mosaic: Greek history and Roman memories

Perhaps the finest representation of battle to survive from antiquity, the Alexander Mosaic conveys all the confusion and violence of ancient warfare. It also exemplifies how elite patrons across diverse artistic cultures commission artworks that draw inspiration from and celebrate past and present events important to the community.

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The first women’s shelter in Europe? Radegund’s Holy Cross

‘With the passion of a focused mind, I considered how to advance other women so that—the Lord willing—my own desires might prove beneficial for others. […] I established a monastery for girls in the city of Poitiers. After its foundation, I endowed the monastery with however much wealth I had received from the generosity of the king.’

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Antonina: a sixth-century military wife

In our modern world, the spouses of major political figures may sometimes themselves spend quite a bit of time in the limelight, and be significant assets to the careers of their politician partners. In the sixth century, the wife of the most famous and successful Roman general of the day became nearly as powerful and famous as he was.

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Conquistadors and Aztecs: A History of the Fall of Tenochtitlan by Stefan Rinke, published by Oxford University Press

The heavy burden of the past: the history of the conquest of México and the politics of today

The history of the conquest of Mexico by Spanish conquistadors in the sixteenth century remains a complex topic of discussion. Various interpretations have emerged throughout the years, each offering unique insights into this pivotal moment in Mexican history. Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Mexico’s president, has taken up the issue and uses it to promote his populist policy.

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"Memories of Socrates: Memorabilia and Apology" by Dr Carol Atack, published by Oxford University Press

Xenophon’s kinder Socrates

The idea that Xenophon’s Socratic dialogues entirely lacked the philosophical bite or intellectual depth of Plato’s had become a commonplace in a philosophical discourse which prioritised abstract knowledge over broader ethics. Dr Carol Atack makes the case for Xenophon’s kinder Socrates.

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Archaeology of Jesus' Nazareth by Ken Dark, published by Oxford University Press

How long can the historical associations of places be remembered?

Can local memory of an association between a place and the people who lived there be preserved for more than three centuries? Ken Dark looks at this question in reference to the “House of Jesus”, and whether it is plausible that the historical associations of a place—even a place in Nazareth—can be remembered 200 years on, let alone three centuries.

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Emperors and Usurpers in the Later Roman Empire

Civil war and the end of the Roman Empire

Adrastos Omissi argues that the collapse of the West Roman Empire in the fifth century AD was caused not, primarily, by invasions of external “barbarians” from Germanic Europe, but was rather a product of the endemic civil wars that sprang up in the Roman Empire from the third century AD onwards.

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The neuroscience of consciousness by the Oxford Comment podcast

Egyptology at the turn of the century [podcast]

On November 1, 1922 Egyptologist Howard Carter and his team of excavators began digging in a previously undisturbed plot of land in the Valley of the Kings. For decades, archaeologists had searched for the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamun with no success, and that November was to be Carter’s final attempt to locate the lost treasures. What Carter ultimately discovered—the iconic sarcophagus, the mummy that inspired whispers of a curse, and the thousands of precious artifacts—would shape Egyptian politics, the field of archaeology, and how museums honor the past for years to come.

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The Fasces

The radical reinterpretation of the fasces in Mussolini’s Italy

In November 1914, when Benito Mussolini, then prominent as a revolutionary socialist, tried to mobilize popular opinion for Italy to intervene in World War I, he gave the name “Autonomous Fasci of Revolutionary Action” to his disparate supporters. The term “fascio” (plural “fasci”) was then common in Italy’s political lexicon, in its core meaning of “bundle”, to denote a loosely-organized group grounded in a common ideology.

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Walking Among Pharoahs

Howard Carter and Tutankhamun: a different view

On 4 November 1922, Englishman Howard Carter acted on a “hunch” and discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun, setting the world at large on fire, archaeologically speaking. “King Tut’s tomb” and the (much older) Pyramids of Giza;:have any other monuments come to symbolize ancient Egyptian civilization—and archaeology—better?

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Shipwrecks and the Bounty of the Sea

Shipwreck tales: bounty from the archives

News broke in 2022 that the royal frigate Gloucester that sank in 1682 had been located off the coast of Norfolk. The discovery excited marine archeologists and treasure hunters, and drew attention to the scandal of the warship’s loss.

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