Tag: history
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7 Surprising Animal Burials
Animals have always been hugely important to humans – as food, as beasts of burden and as companions. The archaeological record has offered up some fascinating animal burials from all over the world which reflect the importance of our animal friends but have frequently posed more questions than they answered. Below are seven fascinating animal…
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Yew trees and graveyards
There are numerous reasons given as to why yew trees have become ubiquitous in our graveyards. Some trace it back to ancient times when druids considered the tree sacred. In pagan tradition the evergreen yew trees were symbolic of the regeneration of the natural world and the spirit. Yew trees were therefore planted near temples…
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My Next Book: A Museum Miscellany
It is with great excitement that I introduce my next book A Museum Miscellany — the final instalment of my miscellany trilogy (see here for more details on sister books The Book Lovers’ Miscellany and A Library Miscellany). I am especially excited about the gorgeous cover designed in-house by my wonderful publishers, Bodleian Library Publishing…
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The ‘Woman Question’ Solved? Female Middle Class Emigration in the Nineteenth Century
In 1851 the census exposed the bald truth that there was an excess of 500,000 women in Britain. Not only this, but the statistics also showed that two-thirds of women aged 20 to 24 years old and one third of women aged 24 to 35 were unmarried. This fact was seized upon by many prominent…
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Traditional European Folklore on Death and Dying
Having recently been studying Victorians and the culture of death, I have been reflecting on how many of the traditions and superstitions around death and burial have their roots in folklore. (If you’re interested in folklore do check out my post on gardening folklore). Today we rarely come into contact with death, but in the…
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Revolutionary Relics: The Bastille Re-cast Anew
On 14 July 1789, in what would become a defining moment of the French Revolution, Parisians stormed the Bastille prison – a symbol of the ancien regime’s authority and despotism. Within days a local builder, Pierre-François Palloy, and his team of masons began to dismantle the old prison, taking away the stones, chains and debris,…
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Traditional Signs of Guilt
In the time before DNA testing, dusting for fingerprints and blood-spatter analysis proving guilt or innocence was a rather less scientific matter. Folklore, superstition and religion ruled. The high German epic poem Nibelungenlied, written in about 1200, features a scene in which the dragon-slayer Siegfried has been murdered and his body laid out. When his…
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The Strange Afterlives of Ancient Egyptian Mummies
The mummified remains of Ancient Egyptians have always held a certain gruesome fascination but today the closest we are likely to get to one is looking through glass in a museum. Even the modern display of a mummy for educational purposes brings up certain ethical questions about our treatment of the long dead, and yet…
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10 Wars with Very Unusual Names
War (huh), what is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Well, that is not strictly true. Although all the killing and the destruction is very bad, some of the names given to wars and stories behind them are actually pretty interesting. Below are 10 wars with very unusual names and the reasons why: 1. The War…
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The Victorians and Pet Monkeys
‘Monkeys are not very agreeable domestic pets, as they are extremely fond of mischief, and are very frequently vicious and spiteful to children.’ So wrote Mrs Loudon in her 1851 pet-keeping manual Domestic Pets their Habits and Management. Despite views such as these, in the Victorian era monkeys proved to be popular pets. Notes on…