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Questions in Egyptology? Did the ancient Egyptians Have a Religion?
Did the ancient Egyptians have a religion, or was it just a collection of unrelated local cults? Whether the ancient Egyptians had what we would call religion is topic that Egyptologists struggle with and disagree about. The word religion is has a Latin origin, the...
How did the Egyptians Influence the Greeks?
I know that the generally accepted academic view is that the ancient Egyptians had no influence on the development of Greek mathematics, philosophy and cosmology but I believe there is evidence, that has been overlooked by the mainstream, that shows the Greek...
How to Write Historical Fiction
How to Write Historical Fiction by Julia Herdman Sinclair by Julia Herdman is rated 5 Star on Amazon and Goodreads Sinclair is set in the London Borough of Southward, the Yorkshire town of Beverley and in Paris and Edinburgh in the late 1780s. Strong female leads...
The Tragic Life of Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla
The tragic Annia Aurelia Galeria Lucilla was born around 150 AD. Her father was the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, her mother the Empress Faustina the Younger. Lucilla was the elder sister of Emperor Commodus. A character loosely based on Lucilla was the love interest...
Paintings from the tomb of Nebamun
This beautiful illustration is laid out in typical ancient Egyptian style. The strange but charming perspective is called 'aspective' and it is the opposite of our modern western view called 'perspective'. The aim of the ancient Egyptian artist was to show all the...
Best Historical Fiction – Five London Based Family Sagas
Tales of Tooley Street This London based historical fiction is set in the London Borough of Southward, the Yorkshire town of Beverley and in Paris and Edinburgh in the late 1780s. Sinclair is the eponymous hero but there are strong female leads including the widow...
Getting the Pharaoh to the Afterlife
How did the royal priests convince the king he had the golden ticket that would take him to the afterlife? Getting The Pharaoh to the Afterlife Every ancient Egyptian king required a ticket to the afterlife. To understand how these tickets were made we need to...
Forty years of documenting the Great Sphinx of Giza
Forty years of documenting the Great Sphinx of Giza In 1979, Mark Lehner and James Allen started work on the first comprehensive mapping of the Sphinx. They studied its structure and geology They documented every detail Their goal was to determine how and when this...
Ancient Egypt – Cheapskate Coffin Makers
Ancient Egypt - Cheapskate Coffin Makers About 3,000 years ago, a man named Nespawershefyt, a priest at the temple of Amun at Karnak (in modern Luxor), commissioned a set of coffins for himself. He wanted an outer coffin and an inner coffin – the smaller of the two to...
A Labour in Vain – The Tragic Death of Princess Charlotte Augusta
Princess Charlotte Augusta Princess Charlotte August was in labour for more than two days before she died on 6th November 1817. Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales (1796 – 1817) was the only child of George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV) and Caroline of...
Cabinets of Curiosities
Cabinets of Curiosities Julia Herdman is fascinated by 18th-century cabinets of curiosities because they show a love of learning and the natural world. The 18th century saw a huge growth in the public interest in science and medicine. Cabinets of curiosities were a...
Dress to Impress Princess
In 2013 novelist Hilary Mantel wrote in an article in the London Review of Books. The subject of the article was giving a book to someone. The book she chose was published in 2006 and was by the cultural historian Caroline Weber. The book was called Queen of Fashion:...
Nabobs of the North
The Dundas Family This blog is about the Dundas family.; a family that would make it big in 18th century Scotland and yet they would always be outsiders. Bankers and men of property are some of the richest men on the planet today. Their relationship with governments...
Sarah Wilson – Queen Charlotte’s Fictitious Sister
I am delighted to welcome Geri Walton as my guest today. Geri is a history graduate and writer. Her first book, Marie Antoinette’s Confidante: The Rise and Fall of the Princesse de Lamballe, examines the relationship between Queen Marie Antoinette and Marie Thérèse,...
A Ghost Story for Christmas
The Nanny - A Ghost Story For Christmas It was November and the war had been over for more than a year when I took Rosamond Furnivall to live with her great aunt in Cumbria. Like me, Rosamond was an orphan. On a clear summer's day in 1944, a V2 fell silent, dropped...
The Man Who Transformed the Health of Londoners
Edwin Chadwick is the man who transformed the health of Londoners. In a time when diseases like smallpox, cholera, and TB were insatiable in their taking of human life Edwin Chadwick used his position to persuade the government to invest in public health. Chadwick...
10 Things That Turn a Character Bad
10 Things that turn a character bad All great stories have baddies. Baddies or antagonists are the characters who get in your hero or heroine's way. They create conflict and problems – all the things readers love. Evil villains help create a story that is exciting and...
Whistle-blower in the Maternity Ward
Key Words: Whistleblower, Maternity Ignaz Semmelweis was the Hungarian obstetrician and a whistle-blower who spoke out about bad practice in maternity wards. The work done by Semmelweis all but removed puerperal fever, commonly known as Childbed fever, from the...
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