Unruly History in the News #63
Hey everyone,
Bit of a short one this week as I’ve got a lot on my plate. Hope you’re all doing well.
This week, in history being unruly…
Two Ming dynasty shipwrecks discovered in the South China Sea have yielded nearly a thousand artifacts, including pristine porcelain bowls.
This porcelain bowl was found in a Ming Dynasty Era shipwreck. Image credit: NCHA/Handout via Xinhua Ever thought your diary entries were pointless? Think again: These nineteenth-century whaling logbooks are helping climate scientists figure out how weather patterns have changed.
Technically, the Korean War never ended, but its ramifications—cultural, social, political—still resonate today.
A Basquiat work will be auctioned at Sotheby’s this coming week. Basquiat was prolific and his work on auction isn’t news in and of itself, but this one is causing a bit of controversy as it is the second time in 3 years the work is up for grabs—this time with a much reduced price. Sotheby’s hasn’t stated why the reevalution happened, but let’s hope it wasn’t damage to the work.
Curious about Jean-Michel Basquiat? Listen to my episode all about him!
Speaking of prolific artists, just a reminder that arguably the most famous short story in American fiction was written in just a few hours. Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” came out 76 years ago last week.
This mysterious horoscope scroll was found in the Judean desert. It points to a secretive religious sect that thrived thousands of years ago.
Source: Shai Halevy / Israel Antiquities Authority Imagine actually asking the question, “What has Shakespeare ever done for Southwark?” But that’s exactly what local politicians said when one American showed up wanting to rebuild The Globe. It took 44 years and sheer bullheadedness to make the reconstruction happen.
This article is presented as if it’s revealing something, but I’m not sure why anyone would be surprised that AI companies are taking advantage of low-wage workers when their entire existence is predicated on stealing jobs from artists. In any case, it reminds me a lot of the early period of industrialized everything and how workers were taken advantage of in the name of efficiency.
The history of political marriage alliances is…fraught. And apparently that tension predates the Medieval Era—even Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens couldn’t make it work.
Who is this mysterious Babylonian goddess of the night? Unfortunately we have almost no idea.
Source: The Queen of the Night, clay relief, southern Iraq, c.1792-1750 BC. Trustees of the British Museum. Into ancient and mysterious history? Check out my episode on Queen Kubaba, the first known female ruler ever.
A North Carolina construction crew found an ancient village while it was trying to built tract homes. The find has ignited a controversy in the state legislature which wants to limit the ability of arhcaeologists to get in the way of development. Considering that a huge percentage of archaeological finds are found accidentally, this would be a huge detriment to North Carolina history.
