May Day was last Friday, but it’s not too late to celebrate the fresh and breezy month of May and the ushering in of a warm and beautiful spring! The Celts loved the change in seasons and they celebrated with the Beltane festival. There was plenty of food and drink, of course. But like other ancient cultures, the seasonal festival reflected the Celts’ deep spiritual intertwining with the natural world around them. Continue reading
Tag Archives: ancient history
Bon Appetit Wednesday! Ancient Celtic Woodruff Spiced Wine
Part 1, Tricks of the Trade: From Ancient Symbols to a $70 Billion Brand (That’s You, Coca-Cola!)
The human mind is complex, elegantly fashioned and constantly surprising us as to its capacity. A recent study by a team of MIT neuroscientists has found that the brain can process images that are seen by the human eye for as little as 13 milliseconds, evidence of the extraordinary processing speed of the mind. Mary Potter, an MIT professor of brain and cognitive sciences and senior author of the study, observes: “The fact that you can do that at these high speeds indicates to us that what vision does is find concepts. That’s what the brain is doing all day long — trying to understand what we’re looking at.”[1] Continue reading
Posted in Art, Blog, Communications, Culture, Public Life
Tagged ancient history, ancient marketing, ancient symbols, AntiquityNOW, cornucopia, ichthus, ichthys, okay sign, swastika
AntiquityNOW Month: Make Something Monday! Ancient Pictographs and Hand Stencil Activity
It’s AntiquityNOW Month! Pictograms and pictographs have been telling stories for thousands of years. Read more here. Click here to visit a website with instructions on how to create your very own hand stencil.
Factoid Friday! Ancient Ice Cream
The origins of ice cream most likely began with ice that was flavored with fruit and essences by the ancient Chinese around 3000 BCE.
Learn more about ice cream and the 5,000 year old delectable history of the hot fudge sundae.
Posted in Blog
Tagged Ancient China, ancient desserts, ancient history, ancient ice cream, AntiquityNOW
The Nepal Earthquake: Cultural Heritage and the Soul of a People
How do societies define themselves? To some degree or another, they look to the past. Where their people originated, the gods who have guided and protected them, their cultural accomplishments through the ages and the ancient sites that embody their historical heart.
Dharahara Tower before and after the earthquake. Image credit: NPR, Sunil Sharma/Xinhua/Landov and Narendra Shrestha/EPA/Landov
The massive earthquake in Nepal has resulted in thousands of deaths and casualties. Pictures reveal vast swathes of devastation, and as with most catastrophes, it’s hard to distinguish amidst the rubble the evidence of previous human habitation. The earthquake now is embedded as a fault line of the nation’s 21st century self: the time before the earthquake, the time after. Once again, this ancient land has raised itself upward and wrenched itself away from earth’s pull. Eventually, after the geological frenzy, it will settle back down again. In Nepal’s strata, in its layers of broken tiles and artifacts, history reveals itself as relentlessly repeating. Continue reading
Bon Appetit Wednesday! Mung Bean Quinoa Soup
The mung bean. The name doesn’t inspire thoughts of deliciousness, the tongue doesn’t begin to water with anticipation of scrumptiousness, but maybe it should. Perhaps the rest of the world needs to get on board with a fact that India and China have known for centuries: Mung beans are fabulous. Today we’re bringing you a recipe for Mung Bean and Quinoa Soup (learn about the ancient grain quinoa in our post here). It is packed with healthy goodness and is a perfect comfort food. Continue reading
AntiquityNOW Month is Almost Here!
This Friday is the start of the second annual AntiquityNOW Month when we celebrate all things ancient, with a modern twist! There are plenty of ways for you to join in as we look to the past for some of today’s most innovative concepts. We’ve created a list of ideas and inspirations on our AN Month web page to celebrate ingenuity through the ages. Here are a couple of fun highlights you can look forward to: Continue reading
Happy Arbor Day! Trees Glorious Trees
Trees have always been awe-inspiring, even to our earliest ancestors. Trees can hold a poetic beauty as they sway in the breeze, musical tones fluttering from their leaves, colors riotously changing with the season. They are hallmarks of our holidays. They are the chroniclers of time, capturing in a ringed litany the ebb and wane of the world in which they are rooted. Trees protect, offer food, preserve the soil and provide resources. Indeed, one of their earliest representations illustrates the importance of trees to cultures through the ages: Continue reading
Posted in Art, Biology, Blog, Culture, Holidays, Public Life, Religion, Science and Technology
Tagged ancient history, ancient trees, AntiquityNOW, Arbor Day, Don Ramon Vacas Roxo, J. Sterling Norton
Bon Appetit Wednesday! Xtabentún: Earth Day and the Spirit of the Ancient Mayas
Today is Earth Day. For the Maya, living harmoniously with nature and being good stewards of the land rendered every day a celebration of the Earth and its bounty. So let’s get in the spirit of our modern Earth Day with a Maya concoction sure to please.
It’s such a lovely time of year for a dinner party, but how do you set your gathering apart? How do you make your fiesta better than the rest? Serve an ancient cocktail with a haunting and seductive history. We are coming to your rescue with a recipe for Jaltun Ha, a refreshing sweet and sour cocktail using the ancient Mexican spirit called xtabentún. But before you begin preparations for the dinner party of the season, you’ll want to make sure you can dazzle your guests with the ancient history behind their drink. Continue reading
Strata: Portraits of Humanity, Episode 6, “The Somerset Levels and Moors” and “Euskal Jaiak”
Episode 6 of the documentary series Strata: Portraits of Humanity, produced by AntiquityNOW’s partner, Archaeological Legacy Institute, comprises two films that explore the forces that bind us as a people in a particular society. Continue reading
Posted in Art, Blog, Culture, Dance, Education, Holidays, Kids Blog, Music, Public Life, Recreation, Strata Curricula
Tagged ancient history, AntiquityNOW, Archaeological Legacy Institute, Euskal Jaiak, Native American history, Somerset Levels and Moors, Southwest England history, Strata Portraits of Humanity, The Archaeology Channel
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