Unruly History in the News #66

short & sweet for the middle of summer

Hey folks,

Quiet week this week, seems like there wasn’t a ton of big news—history news, at least.

How’s everyone’s summer progressing? I celebrated my 34th birthday yesterday by taking a much-needed day of rest after a couple of months of constant overwhelm. Here’s hoping things start calming down soon.

This week, in history acting unruly…

• This week will mark 99 years since Dr. Seuss’s first cartoon appeared in the Saturday Evening Post. In honor of that, here’s an oft-forgotten short film by him. And did you know you’re pronouncing Seuss wrong?

• Last year an ancient Hittite seal was foundin Turkey. It’s inscribed with an ominous message: “Whoever breaks this will die.”

  

  The mythic sword was said to be carried by the legendary paladin Roland, a knight of Charlemagne in French epic literature. Image: Wikimedia Commons.

• Speaking of ominous: The Durandal Sword, often described as the Excalibur of France, has mysteriously disappeared from the rock it was trapped in for over 1,300 years.

• This is incredible: A 3,500-year-old ritual table has been discovered in Azerbaijan—and all the dishes are instact!

• This Nat Geo explorer and photographer had an incredible encounter with a tribe deep in the Amazon that used telepathy.

• At the bottom of a well, archaeologists recently uncovered a 1900-year-old votive offering to a Basque diety in Spain.

• Several incredibly rare bronze trumpets have been discovered in a shipwreck in off the coast of Croatia. They were made in Leiden, Denmark, and transported almost to their destination.

• In Bahrain, the oldest Christian building in the region was just uncovered by archaeologists. Not sure what the purpose of the building was yet, but three large crosses have been found in the building indicating it was occupied by Christians before mass conversion to Islam in the 7th century.

And that’s it for this week! Like I said, a pretty short one. Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you next time!