Tag Archives: archaeology

Tutankhamun the Boy King and My First History Crush

When I was 8-years old and most girls were decorating their bedroom walls with posters of Leonardo DiCaprio, I was busy ogling thick textbooks filled with images of sinewy, mostly-shirtless pharaohs. This childhood interest of mine was not at all helped by the release of the Dreamworks animated film The Prince of Egypt that same year which was similarly filled with plenty of cartoon biceps. And as a little girl, it made sense to me that I should aspire to be Evelyn O’Connell in The Mummy (1999) and nab myself a sort of walking Curse Bae with regenerating abs who wants to make-out a little and maybe sacrifice you in some kind of ancient ritual or whatever. I’m not sure why Evie didn’t go for that, personally.

Related image

Deliver us from your thirst trap, Ramses

So when I learned in school about the existence of an Egyptian pharaoh that was my age, I totally thought I had some kind of chance here–despite the fact he’d been dead for 3,000 years or so. But what’s a minor inconvenience in love, right? King Tut was my boy king! Unfortunately, my Catholic school girl self was in for a rude awakening on just how hot this dream barge probably was. Hold on to your chariots, folks!

Continue reading →

An Ancient Decapitation, Great Flood, & Greek Double Standards

This week on History Around the Web: a U.K. library experienced some wrath of nature and Twitter Historians were as hilarious about it as you’d expect, Pompeii continues to surprise with some well-preserved macabre, and more!

Continue reading →

History Around the Web: Megan ‘Faux’ Archaeology & Brawling Greek Gods

History is happening every day and new things are constantly being discovered or, as is the case with this blog, revisited. I’ve stated as a goal when starting Histastrophe! years ago that not only did I want to focus on learning more about history myself, but that I wanted to find an audience that I could discuss my passion for when it came to things long dead and gone. I’ve been trying to think of ways to better engage my visitors and what better way than to provide a weekly curation of the goings on in the history world?

Every week I want to give an internet round-up of the discussions, discoveries, controversies, or hilarity that is happening in the world of history (or that have piqued my attention!). I feel as if we few with a love of the past are sometimes living on the fringe as far as interests and hobbies go, but if doing this can help keep us all engaged and up-to-date with current History things, I feel like it’d be worth it.

So, for those of you who’ve finished watching Royal Wedding highlight reels and have had their fill of scones, here’s what else has been happening in the world of History:

Continue reading →

That Asshole Heinrich Schliemann

MaskOfAgamemnon

A golden mask found by Schliemann that he named “The Mask of Agamemnon” which he did not, in fact, find on Agamemnon. >eyeroll<

Where is Troy located? That’ll be a question most people might be asking themselves mid-binge of Netflix’s new HBO inspired show Troy: Fall of a City. And while I just recently complained to NonWashable on our podcast about the prevalence of historical dramas desperately trying to be the next Game of Thrones despite a wealth of interesting material beyond boobs in HD, I’m willing to give this one a watch (5 minutes in and it already featured stirrups but oh what the hell). But, before I do, I’ll be raising my fist and cursing the name Heinrich Schliemann to the Gods. Because if you were wondering where you could find the historical and ancient city of Troy featured in The Illiad today, the answer is you can’t. Heinrich Schliemann destroyed most of the main site.

Continue reading →