If you’ve spent much time in museums—or even leafing through art books—you’ve probably come across something that leaves you scratching your head. You’re not alone. The very funny, if occasionally puerile blog
WTF Art History was created, according to the anonymous art historian who writes it, for “everyone who loves art history but has a sense of humor to know that even great masters create things that leave us asking, WTF?” [
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posted by netbros
on Feb 21, 2012 -
24 comments
Hundreds of volunteers are needed to help create a line of light along the length of
Hadrian's Wall to mark the purported 1600th anniversary of the departure from Britain of Roman legions under
Constantine III.
Organisers are looking for 500 people to help create the spectacle on 13 March, which will light up the wall from
one end to the other. Each of the volunteer "illuminators" will be responsible for one of the 500 individual points of light that will be placed at 820ft (250m) intervals along the route of the 84-mile (135km)
Hadrian's Wall Path National Trail.
There is something gloriously pointless about this, although it will undoubtedly be a spectacle. One has to ask though - apart from building a fucking big wall to keep the
Jocks out,
what have the Romans ever done for us……?
posted by MajorDundee
on Mar 11, 2010 -
16 comments
Explore the
History of the Ancient Greek World from the Neolithic to the Classical Period. Covering important topics, such as
Art and Architecture,
Mythology,
Wars,
Culture and Society, Poetry,
Olympics,
History Periods, Philosophy,
Playwrights, Kings and Rulers of Ancient Greece.
posted by netbros
on Feb 21, 2009 -
3 comments
The ancient web is an online resource for students, teachers, and anyone interested in the cultures of the ancient world. With the Olympics fast approaching, here is an opportunity to learn more about the past 4500 years of
Chinese civilization. Or how the
Celtiberians would get drunk and eat raw meat before going to war. 24 ancient civilizations in all.
posted by netbros
on Jul 16, 2008 -
9 comments
Art Images for College Teaching is a
searchable,
browsable collection of 2,027, well, art images for college teaching, and appears to be mainly the personal collection of Art Historian
Allan Kohl (previously on MeFi), and thus represents his interests and specialities, not to mention the variable quality of his photographic skills. Rather strong in Ancient and Medieval, especially architecture, but tapers off as you become more distant from Europe or closer to the 20th century. Nice sets include the
Lion Hunt from Ashurbanipal, Iraq; the
exterior sculpture of Chartres; and
grave stele.
posted by Rumple
on Feb 1, 2008 -
4 comments
Before RSS and personalized aggregators such as
Personalized Google and
NetVibes, there was
CRAYON, a service that allowed you to "CReAte Your Own Newspaper" by providing a page with links to chosen sources. [mi]
posted by divabat
on Mar 28, 2007 -
11 comments
A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "You have no clue who your real father is."--that's one of the jokes from
The Laughter Lover (Philogelos), an ancient Greek joke book published in the 4th or 5th century AD. The New Yorker commented on it, and other old jokes
here, stating about one of the possible authors:
... there is some scholarly speculation that the Hierocles in question was a fifth-century Alexandrian philosopher of that name who was once publicly flogged in Constantinople for paganism, which, as one classicist has observed, “might have given him a taste for mordant wit.”
posted by amberglow
on Jul 10, 2004 -
12 comments
The 100 Wonders of the World. A list, which includes both photos and a short description of all the wonders. The list may not be complete, but it's an interesting list for those of us, who love to travel.
Italy seems to be a nice place to start, with 12 of the 100 wonders (
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12).
posted by einarorn
on Jul 5, 2004 -
26 comments
Rongorongo! Say it twice -- don't it feel nice? Most people think of
the enigmatic maoi when they think of Easter Island but an equally vexing mystery is found in twenty-six wooden objects which contain pictographic symbols comprising...
what? A language? A mnemomic system for recording stories now long forgotten? A resource for modern primitives' tribal tatoos? We could ask, but the
authors are long-gone -- the victims of hard times -- leaving only a few tablets and a bunch of carved stone to puzzle over.
posted by Ogre Lawless
on Jan 19, 2004 -
5 comments
