History
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Prof Bob Brier Seminar on Ancient Egypt
On Saturday I attended Prof. Bob Brier’s talk at the Smithsonian Ripley Center ( A Smithsonian Resident Associates talk): Temples, Monuments, and Tombs: Exploring Egypt’s Ancient Treasures This was a great day of archaeology lectures! I had planned to take the Metro into Washington, D.C., but was running late (shocker!), so drove in. No spots on Jefferson Ave in front of the S. Dillon Ripley Center (sometimes I get lucky), so I parked at a meter at the end of the Mall (on 7th). That was actually convenient, as you can use an app on your phone to pay the meter, so I just renewed my spot every 2 hours…
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All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
Just finished reading Anthony Doerr’s historical novel, All The Light We Cannot See. This was a wonderful reading experience; Doerr’s writing is so expressive and beautiful. The book is the story of two parallel lives just before and during WWII. One is the story of a German boy, Werner, “recruited” into Hitler’s Nazi Youth. An orphan, he is accepted into an elite school because of his genius with radios. It is there he is trained as a soldier (he is 14 when he starts ) and hones his electronics skills. Meanwhile, the other parallel story is about a blind French girl, Marie-Laure, and her life with her father and uncle…
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Benjamin Banneker of Ellicott Mills
I read an entry on Benjamin Banneker from the book, “The Freedmen’s Book” (1865). This entry is about a man born in Ellicott City (then Ellicott Mills), MD in 1732. He built the first clock in America, after only having seen a watch. Then taught himself astronomy and developed an Almanac (again, first in the country): “When he was fifty-nine years old, he made an Almanac. It is a very difficult job to calculate all about the changes of the moon, and the rising and ebbing of the tides, and at what time the sun will rise and set every day, all the year round; and it was a much…
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Archimedes Palimpsest at Walters Art Museum
The Walters Museum in Baltimore has some leaves from the Archimedes Palimpsest on exhibit (through Jan 1, 2012). I took the kids to visit the exhibit today. Very nice venue, and the exhibit was well laid out. While the museum is kid-friendly (they hand out satchels with crafts/activities related to the exhibit for the kids to work on), looking at “old books” didn’t hold the attention of a 5-year old for more than 30 minutes (which I thought was a lot). Granted, about 10 of those were a video presentation. Little Olivia fell asleep in her stroller… The Archimedes Palimpsest is a Medieval parchment manuscript. The currently visible part of…
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Symposium: Dawn of the Andean Civilization
Last Saturday I attended a very interesting all-day seminar in Washington, DC. The Pre-Columbian Society of Washington DC has an annual symposium at the U.S. Navy Memorial’s Naval Heritage Center. At right is the design on the symposium T-shirt. It is a feline character (I’m going to assume a jaguar) from an adobe mural at Huaca Partida, Nepeña Valley, Peru (something like > 1500 years ago). Neat. This location is very convenient; right at the Archives Metro stop on the Green line. This year’s topic was “The Dawn of the Andean Civilization. The link above goes to the symposium website; here is a synopsis: ChavÃn de Huántar, the massive ceremonial…