Wherein the Egyptians know you’ll never be recognized if your face isn’t totally put together. As a kid I speculated whether the line in “Eleanor Rigby” about her “wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door” was about her keeping a jar full of real faces removed in a serial-killing spree. … Read More
Egyptian
Books are Burning in the Main Square
Wherein the Library of Alexandria is torched again and again because a burned book is an (allegedly) dead idea. Libraries and schools in the United States recently observed Banned Books Week, described as “an annual event celebrating the freedom to read.” Unfortunately, this list of most challenged books shows a wide array of books being … Read More
An Hour in the Shower
Wherein the ancient Egyptians knew King Tut could only get funky by spending eternity being squeaky clean. My first article for this blog was about the sudsy ins-and-outs of medieval baths, so it’s only fitting that I mark the first anniversary of the site with another article about bathing (okay, it’s less a case of … Read More
That’s a Pickle
Wherein the Egyptians knew the value of a pickle-fresh complexion. There’s nothing quite like a good pickle—not merely as floppy green planks beside your sandwich, but also as a terrorist-destroying antihero. Whether jazzing up a chicken salad or slaughtering rats and henchmen, it seems there’s little a marinated vegetable can’t accomplish. Even so, the ancient … Read More
