Just as the Rosetta Stone was fundamental in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs, other writing systems followed a similar process, sometimes more rugged and convoluted. Some contributed in part to the decipherment of the Anatolian hieroglyphs, in a sort of curious domino effect. In 1694, the Cippi of Melqart, two pedestals bearing bilingual inscriptions, in…Continue readingHow the Karatepe bilingual inscription from the 8th century B.C. led to the decipherment of Anatolian hieroglyphs
In 1877 the Satsuma Rebellion or Sainan War against the Japanese imperial throne ended with the victory of the latter and the definitive confirmation that the Meiji Revolution was continuing with the modernization of the country, putting an end to the traditionalist faction that had resisted it. The leader of the Meiji Revolution died in…Continue readingSaigō Takamori: the true story of the last samurai
Seismic detectors around the world have been capturing a curious and strange phenomenon for decades. Every 26 seconds the earth emits a pulse, a small microseism barely perceptible, that nobody knows why it happens or what causes it. Until recently, no one knew where it came from either. The first to document the phenomenon was…Continue readingThe mysterious seismic pulse that repeats every 26 seconds, coming from the Gulf of Guinea
About 80 kilometers southwest of Paris stands the city of Chartres, one of whose main cultural attractions is its Gothic cathedral built between 1194 and 1220. It was built in the same place where other churches and cathedrals had been before, the first one around 360 A.D., all of them destroyed by fires: the first…Continue readingThe Chartres Cathedral’s great labyrinth
A globe is a three-dimensional scale model of planet Earth represented on a sphere where, sometimes, the topography of the surface is shown (obviously exaggerated because, depending on the scale, it would be difficult to see). The circumference of the planet is approximately 40 million meters. The oldest of those that remain is the Erdapfel…Continue readingThe world’s largest globes
Heraldry is the science of the coat of arms, the “art of explaining and describing the coats of arms of each lineage, city or person” (apart from making ostentation and self-praise). It is a science that dates back to the Middle Ages, since it was then that this type of identity representations were born, and…Continue readingThe High Court of Chivalry, a medieval institution still active in the United Kingdom
We are used, thanks to literature and cinema, to the image of medieval horsemen engaged in chivalry tournaments. Although this type of competition and its rules are exclusively of medieval invention, in reality similar exercises existed long before, such as the one practiced by the Roman cavalry, probably due to Greek influence. It was called…Continue readingHippika gymnasia, the Roman cavalry tournaments
There is an episode from the eighteenth century that in a way seems to come from a work of fiction: that of Abram Petrovich Gannibal, an African prince kidnapped by the Otmans but bought by a Russian ambassador who took him to his country, where, after a careful education, he reached high military and political…Continue readingAbram Gannibal, the African slave who became a military engineer, general of the Russian army and great-grandfather of the writer Alexander Pushkin
In 2003 the German Margarethe von Trotta, director, scriptwriter, actress and wife of the famous writer Volker Schlöndorf, won the David de Donatello Award (the most important in the Italian film industry) in the category of best European movie with her film Rosenstraße. It is a German-Dutch co-production whose protagonist also won the award for…Continue readingThe Rosenstrasse protest, when German women saved their Jewish husbands by confronting the Nazi regime
Between 1805 and 1799 B.C. (according to short chronology) or 1868 and 1861 B.C. (according to medium chronology) King Erra-Imitti ruled in the Sumerian city-state of Isin in present-day Iraq (about 20 miles south of Nippur). His name comes to mean something as a follower of Erra, who was a god of war, riots and…Continue readingHow Sumerians named substitute kings during eclipses and the custom survived even in Alexander’s time
