istoryworld
Akhenaten and Nefertiti
The most evocative single object in the tomb of Tutankahamen is the gilded throne, with its apparently intimate scene set into the back; Tutankhamen's queen, Ankhesenamen, tenderly anoints him on the shoulder, as if perhaps for his coronation. But the jumble of goods in this treasure trove also includes solid gold heads of the king inlaid with precious stones, full-length figures of him in various guises, dramatic and life-like animals, detailed alabaster boats and spectacular reliefs on a gilt shrine, together with countless other objects ...
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Age of the palace
Men of power in other Italian cities follow suit, making the Renaissance town palace an important element in Italian architectural history. Elsewhere in Europe, nation states are now emerging. In France, Spain and Britain the notion of a palace fits very well with the self-image of the powerful monarchs of the 16th century. In England Henry VIII moves between four palaces along the banks of the Thames. In France Francis I transforms the Louvre (from a castle) and Fontainebleau (from a hunting lodge) into palaces. ...
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Edward II and Edward III
In January 1327 Edward II is forced by his wife, Isabella, to renounce the throne in favour of their 15-year-old son, Edward III. Before the end of the year Edward II dies, a captive in Berkeley castle, almost certainly murdered. (His death is soon followed by a gory rumour, fuelled by rumours of the king's homosexuality, that the instrument of death is a red-hot skewer plunged up into the instestines.) For four years Mortimer rules with Isabella in the young king's name, but in 1331 ...
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Good works and late baptism
The Arian heresy has not been suppressed as conclusively as Constantine may like to think, but his last years are calm enough for him to devote himself to his chosen religion. He becomes increasingly pious, and is a generous builder of churches in Rome and Palestine as well as Constantinople. In Jerusalem he constructs the church of the Holy Sepulchre on the supposed site of the Crucifixion. Happily the excavations reveal what is taken to be the actual cross (or True Cross) on which Christ ...
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John I
The great Dominican abbey known variously as Batalha ('battle') or Santa Maria da Vitória ('St Mary of Victory') is the triumphal celebration of the battle of 1385, fought nearby at Aljubarrota, which secures the kingdom of Portugal for John I. The victory hastens the end of the war against his Castilian rival, four months after John has himself been acclaimed king by the Cortes in Coimbra. As a child of seven, John was appointed master of the Order of St Benedict of Avis, a Portuguese ...
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Italian Gothic
The last flowering of Italian Gothic is the most beautiful style of all and is like nothing in any other city. It is the secular architecture of late medieval Venice. An exceptional example is the Doge's Palace, built in its present form between 1340 and about 1500. The top-heavy appearance of the palace, with an almost solid wall resting on two storeys of delicate open arches, is caused by the need to accomodate a great council hall on the top floor. Amazingly, this imbalance does ...
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Black-letter style
The black-letter style is the convention in German manuscripts when printing is developed there in the 1450s. It therefore becomes the type face used for the earliest European printed books, such as Gutenberg's Bible. Angular letters of this kind remain the normal convention in German books until the early 20th century. But within the first century of printing there is a reaction in Italy against this heavy style. Italian humanists of the Renaissance associate it with all that they consider dark and barbarous about the ...
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The Old Kingdom
The period known as the Old Kingdom runs from the 4th to the 6th of Manetho's dynasties and begins several centuries after the unification of Egypt. During the intervening period little is known of the pharaohs except their names, deriving from stone inscriptions (from as early as the 1st dynasty the Egyptian civilization enjoys the advantages of writing, soon to be followed by a sophisticated calendar). Of some pharaohs even the names are missing.The change to more solid evidence comes in the time of Zoser, ...
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Archbishop and martyr
Politically the murder of Becket loses Henry the wider argument about ecclesiastical control. In the mood following the assassination he has to concede, at any rate in the short term, all the points on which Becket was opposing him. But in other contexts Henry has notable successes. Within months of the murder, in the autumn of 1171, he travels through Wales and on into Ireland. In each he makes settlements greatly to the English advantage. In 1174 (after vigorously suppressing rebellions both in England and ...
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Hargreaves and Crompton
Crompton's machine combines the principles of Hargreaves' jenny and of Arkwright's water frame. The name which it acquires - Crompton's mule - is a pun on that fact. As the offspring of a jenny (a female donkey) and of another creature, the new arrival is clearly a mule.Crompton's machine is capable of spinning almost every kind of yarn at considerable speed. The flying shuttle in the 1750s put pressure on the spinners to catch up. Now the mule challenges the weavers. They respond in 1785 ...
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Isfahan
The new centre of the city is a vast rectangular space, the Maidan-i-Shah (Royal Parade), designed for parades and polo. At its southern end there rises the most magnificent of Isfahan's swelling blue domes, on the Masjid-i-Shah (Royal Mosque). The tiles are shaped where necessary to fit the curve of the dome, as are those which clad the mosque's circular minarets. The dome is reflected in a great pool in the courtyard. On the east of the Maidan-i-Shah is a smaller blue dome, on the ...
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Hub of the Mediterranean
Sicily, a large fertile island at a pivotal point in the Mediterranean, is one of the world's most desirable patches of land. Colonized by Phoenicians and Greeks, and fought over between Greeks, Carthaginians and Romans in the Punic Wars, its architectural and artistic remains bear witness to its past grandeur - in the great series of Greek temples, or the Roman mosaics at Piazza Armerina. In medieval times the island achieves a different creative blend, of three later cultures - Byzantine Christianity, Islam and Roman ...
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Thus spake Zarathustra
Zoroaster (the Greek name by which the Iranian prophet Zarathustra has become known) is traditionally believed to have lived and taught in the early part of the 6th century BC. His home is probably in the region to the east of the Caspian Sea. The main theme of Zoroaster's teaching is to replace the numerous ahuras or gods of the traditional Indo-Iranian religion with just one ahura, the supreme God or 'Wise Lord', Ahura Mazda.
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Moghul domes
Throughout his early career, much of it spent in rebellion against his father, Shah Jahan's greatest support has been his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. But four years after he succeeds to the throne this much loved companion dies, in 1631, giving birth to their fourteenth child. The Taj Mahal, her tomb in Agra, is the expression of Shah Jahan's grief. Such romantic gestures are rare among monarchs (the Eleanor Crosses come to mind as another), and certainly none has ever achieved its commemorative purpose so brilliantly. ...
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Pompeii: 1st century AD
Pompeii is therefore a normal Roman town, of considerable prosperity in its privileged coastal position, during the first century of the empire. Large villas are built for its prosperous citizens, elaborately decorated with murals and mosaics and enclosing courtyard gardens. Public buildings are improved, a new theatre is provided, an aqueduct is constructed to improve the town's water supply. Then, in AD 62, the first of two disasters strikes. A serious earthquake damages most of the buildings. The citizens are still in the process of ...
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The Parthenon
The destruction of Athens by the Persians in 480 BC has reduced the acropolis to a pile of debris. The Athenians rapidly build new retaining walls and fill the gaps with the rubble (later providing archaeologists with a rich haul of broken ornament and statuary). But reconstruction of the buildings on the summit, and in particular of the great temple to Pallas Athene (known as the Parthenon because the goddess is parthenos, a virgin), is delayed until a brief interval of peace in the middle ...
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Greek architecture in the colonies
Many of the most impressive buildings from this early period are outside the Greek mainland. Between about 530 and 460 the people of Paestum, a Greek colony in southern Italy, build three great temples. All three survive, providing a powerful image of the sturdy confidence already achieved in the Doric style. The famous optical tricks of Greek architecture are already in use: the gradual swelling of a column from top and bottom to its central point to avoid its seeming wasp-waisted (technically called entasis) and ...
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Water mills
The emergence of the water mill is too gradual to be pinpointed. It is perhaps a development of a different form of water wheel. Once rotary power is available, a simple gear will transfer it to the shaft or axle of a wheel. And a vertical wheel, with jugs attached to its rim, will perform the useful function of raising water by scooping it up at the bottom and pouring it out at the top. Such water wheels, worked by oxen or camels, are in ...
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Roman Gaul
Gaul proves one of the most stable and economically important regions of the Roman empire outside Italy itself. This can be clearly seen in a town such as Nîmes. Founded during the reign of Augustus, it is supplied with water by one of the most spectacular pieces of Roman engineering - the great aqueduct known as the Pont du Gard. Other superbly preserved buildings in the town demonstrate how the Romans export both their state religion and their favourite entertainment. The famous Maison Carrée is ...
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Fra Angelico and San Marco
The Dominican order has among its ranks a superbly talented painter. As a friar he is referred to as 'brother' (frater in Latin, fratello in Italian), and the name by which he becomes known is Fra Angelico - the angelic brother. From 1443 Dominicans in Florence employ him to provide contemplative images for the walls of their convent of San Marco. Over the next four years he and his assistants create an extended masterpiece of Italian Renaissance art - though they would not have thought ...
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