Medieval Europe
Was She Or Wasn’t She?
If you’ve been hanging out in the on-line places where history and science–and, occasionally, the history of science–intersect over the last week or so,* you’ve read articles with tiles that are variations on “a female Viking warrior confirmed by genomics”–the title of the scholarly article that first appeared in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology…
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The Blackbird Sings
Several weeks ago My Own True Love and I had the pleasure of hearing a musician* play the oud and talk about its role in the multi-cultural mixing pot that was Islamic Spain. I sat and nodded my head in agreement as he talked about the spread of the oud through the Islamic world, and…
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And speaking of Queens Isabella…
My last blog post was about a queen named Isabella that you probably had never heard of.* Today I thought I’d talk a bit about an Isabella who you probably think you know a lot about: Isabella of Castile. Isabella is best known to American school children–and consequently to American adults–as the woman who funded…
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