1606, 2015

Palmyra in 1926 (from the Guardian Archive, originally published 12th June 1926)

By Mary Fisk|June 16, 2015|Ancient Near East, Semitics and Judaica, History|0 comments

Palmyra panorama view shortly after sunrise (2005) http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PalmyraPanoramaZoom.jpg In April 1926, the Manchester Guardian’s correspondent was in Beirut for a congress. After the exacting business of formal dinners and fetes,  the party set out to explore the historic sites of the region, including Byblos, Tripoli and Krak des Chevaliers – and finally to Palmyra. This account (whilst coloured with some of the stereotypes of the day) gives a vivid depiction

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2503, 2014

Photographic archive of expedition to Iraq 1919-1920

By Mary Fisk|March 25, 2014|Ancient Near East, Semitics and Judaica, Archival collections, Art and Archaeology|0 comments

Photographs of James Breasted’s photographs documenting his journeys through the Near East in the period immediately following the First World War to record archaeological sites for the Oriental Institute (University of Chicago) have recently been added to the Oriental Institutes’s open-access photographic archive. Click here to go to the photographic archive page on the Oriental Institute’s website Clicking on the map allows you to select a site from those visited

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2702, 2014

History – December 2013 and January 2014

By Emma Wilson-Shaw|February 27, 2014|History|0 comments

General & Comparative Farewell to Salonika: city at the crossroads / Leon Sciaky. Transatlantic slavery: an introduction / [text by Richard Benjamin … and David Fleming]. Borders: a very short introduction / Alexander C. Diener and Joshua Hagen.  Red stamps and gold stars: fieldwork dilemmas in upland socialist Asia / edited by Sarah Turner Early modern things: objects and their histories, 1500-1800 / edited by Paula Findlen. Medicine and colonialism:

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3001, 2013

History – January 2013

By Emma Wilson-Shaw|January 30, 2013|History|0 comments

“Socialism is great!”: a worker’s memoir of the new China / by Lijia Zhang. Road to Manzikert : Byzantine and Islamic warfare, 527-1071 / Brian Todd Carey. Maghreb-Italie : des passeurs médiévaux à l’orientalisme moderne, XIIIe-milieu XXe siècle / études réunies par Benoît Grévin.  Journeys to empire: enlightenment, imperialism, and the British encounter with Tibet, 1774-1904 / Gordon T. Stewart. The Enlightenment / Roy Porter. (2nd edition) Intercultural transmission in

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