Historiography
Oracle Bones
Historical texts sometimes take surprising forms. The earliest Chinese written records for instance are the “oracle bones” that were used in used in the art of “scapulimancy”, or bone divination, in Shang dynasty China (ca. 1600 -1046 BCE). The language used on the oracle bones was rediscovered in 1899 by a Chinese scholar named Wang,…
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Jeannine Davis-Kimball’s Warrior Women
I am ashamed to admit that Jeannine Davis-Kimball’s Warrior Women–An Archaeologist’s Search for History’s Hidden Heroines sat on my shelf unread for months.* I looked at it early on in the research stage. I decided I wanted to own a copy so I could scribble in the margins. (As opposed to scribbling in the Margins.)…
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Who Was the First Female Historian?
Over the course of my Christmas blog break, I read two separate claims that someone was the first known female historian. Two separate women in very different times and places. I was so excited when I read about the first one that I almost interrupted my scheduled silence to share it with you. When I…
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