Category: Featured Sites

Featured Article – NYT Review: A History of Female Friendship

In the spirit of this month’s theme, we’d like to share this old but great review that discusses the book “The Social Sex: A History of Female Friendship” by Marilyn Yalom and Theresa Donovan Brown.

Depictions of female bonds have long been missing from history, from the ancient world to modern day, yet we have a sense of close nonsexual female relationships. Today, we even use the term “bestie” to describe such a role. Yalom and Brown’s book shed some light on how that’s always been the case, whether history recorded it or not. Enjoy!

NYT Review: A History of Female Friendship

Recommended Sites: The History of Ancient Greece Podcast

We’re taking a week off, BUT stay-tuned for the kick-off of our July theme of Women and the Ocean next Monday.

In the meantime, if you enjoy our analysis of the Ancient Greek world, I recommend taking a gander over to The History of Ancient Greece Podcast. Their latest episode is on the “Goddess of the Young” which explores the paradox of Artemis, young women and childbirth.

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Featured image credit: The History of Ancient Greece Podcast

Funerary Artifact Highlights: Death and Rebirth in the Ancient Greek World

by K.P. Kulski

While Halloween is over, the leaves here in Ohio have turned into crisp yellows and warm reds and with those colors, beautiful death abounds. Autumn is the season of death, the passing of one thing, but also, the promise of something new.

November has always felt like a more appropriate time to think about these things. It is one of the reasons I chose an inscription on a Hellenic funeral stele for November’s theme. The inscription serves to memorialize the deceased woman, but to also remind that women play many roles in a single life, that while there may be the passing of one role, there can be many adventures waiting around the next bend.

For this week’s featured site, I’m actually going to point readers to a couple sites on Ancient Greek funerary steles. Along with some background for the curious, the sites (of course) include images of engaging and endlessly fascinating artifacts that shed light on Ancient Greek funerary practices and how they honored their dead. In turn, how they acknowledged and honored the many identities a person held within their lifetime.

The Hermitage Museum – Funerary Steles of Palmyra

Death in Antiquity – Strategies of Dealing with Death in the Ancient Greek and Roman World

North Carolina Museum of Art – Surviving Death: Ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian Funerary Art

Featured-Malta’s Neolithic Underground (Jaunting Jen)

As a prelude to my post next week on Ancient Priestesses, I’d like to feature the fantastic blog of Jaunting Jen. Not only is she a military veteran (a girl after my own heart), a history teacher but also a world traveler.

Heritage-Maltas-Photo-of-the-HypogeumI’ve added Jaunting Jen’s post on her exploration of Malta’s Underground Temple. There is some uncertainty on the purpose of the space (it is Neolithic after-all) but there are indications of an early oracle presence. If you are familiar with ancient history, oracles are usually female priestesses and play an important part in ancient cultural awareness.

I urge you to take a look at Jaunting Jen’s blog and enjoy this particular post. I think you will find that Malta’s underground temple leaves a delicious sense of mystery.

Malta’s Neolithic Underground – Jaunting JenJen-avat

(All images sourced from JauntingJen.com)

Featured–Florence Nightingale

by E.J. Lawrence

Though we typically go with ancient and medieval women, when one thinks of “compassion,” it’s hard to think of any other figure in history than Florence Nightingale. When I spoke of Esther, I said that compassion requires three things: humility, bravery, and faith.

Florence Nightingale embodied all three of these traits in her exhibition of compassion. She was humble–she preferred people support hospitals to giving her praise; she was brave–she was willing to do a job no one else was willing to do (in a notoriously dangerous war zone), just so she could serve the ill and dying; she was faithful–she served without ceasing and had faith that her work would not be in vain.

To learn more about this woman of modern compassion, I recommend checking out her video and bio on The History Channel.

Florence_Nightingale

 

Portrait By Duyckinick, Evert A. Portrait Gallery of Eminent Men and Women in Europe and America. New York: Johnson, Wilson & Company, 1873.External link: The University of Texas at Austin > PORTRAIT GALLERY > IMAGEThis painting was made based on the photography Image:Florence Nightingale 1920 reproduction.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21234

DIG: A History Podcast

Enjoy my post on Pocahontas last week?

Wondering about the crazy ol’Colonial times?

I highly recommend the DIG podcast featuring 4 female historians that bring enlightening and quite entertaining (also scandalous) information to light on all aspects of American History.

Like…

Puritan Sex?

Did they go there?

Oh yes, verily.

Dig Podcast – Puritan Sex

Twitter: @dig_history

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Featured: Rejected Princesses

As a mother, I’m quite aware of the gap of stories of girls who are self-motivated and independent (not in need of saving) for children. Things are improved, but there are so many stories to tell that are historically based, of strong women who acted and not merely acted-upon… a theme so vital to our interests here at Unbound.

Screen Shot 2017-07-23 at 12.26.04 PMThe project, Rejected Princesses, present with endearing illustrations the stories of women and girls who have not been featured in the popular awareness. Created for children, the stories are accessible, fun and positive. The interest and introduction to reading and the knowledge, themes and ideas that they convey are vital to the education of children everywhere. Books can change the world.

I recommend perusing the Rejected Princesses site and although modern, in the interest of our monthly theme, read the story of Soraya Tarzi.

Royal People: Isabella of France, “She-Wolf of England”

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This week we are featuring an article from Just History Posts, a fellow history blog. Highly recommend. Check it out!

Just History Posts

As my last blog post on medieval English royals was about a woman from my masters dissertation, I thought I would continue the trend and go back to my undergraduate dissertation for the next in the series. For this we go back to the previous century, the early fourteenth century, and look at the wife of King Edward II of England, Isabella of France.

Isabella of France is a fantastically interesting historic figure, even more so because of how little-known she is; even I had never heard of her before I started research for my dissertation. To have not heard of a medieval Queen, especially amongst the public, may not seem like such a big deal, until you consider the fact that Queen Isabella deposed her husband, Edward II, and seized the throne of England, ruling as regent on behalf of her son for several years before he in turn…

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