Search Results: Shaye cohen

The Amarna Letters are a body of 14th-century BCE correspondence exchanged between the rulers of the Ancient Near East and Egypt. They are perhaps the earliest examples of international diplomacy while their most common subjects are negotiations...

Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, constructed 532-537, continues to be revered as one of the most important structures in the world. Hagia Sophia (Greek Ἁγία Σοφία, for 'Holy Wisdom') was designed to be the major basilica of the Byzantine Empire...

An 1879 oil on canvas self-portrait by Edouard Manet (1832-83), the French modernist painter. His jacket, necktie, and pin highlight that Manet was far from the bohemian stereotype of a Parisian artist. (Steven A. Cohen collection Greenwich...

The Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492 to c. 1580) is an account written in 1568 of the early Spanish colonization of Mesoamerica, specifically the conquest of the Aztec civilization in Mexico from 1519 to 1521 when Díaz...

Unlike the rich corpus of ancient Egyptian funerary texts, no such “guidebooks” from Mesopotamia detail the afterlife and the soul's fate after death. Instead, ancient Mesopotamian views of the afterlife must be pieced together from a variety...

Passover is a Jewish festival celebrated since at least the 5th century BCE, typically associated with the tradition of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. According to historical evidence and modern-day practice, the festival was...

The word “underground” conjures many ideas in our minds. Those of us skewed toward an understanding of 19th-century U.S. history inevitably think of the Underground Railroad. In Going Underground: Race, Space, and the Subterranean in the...

Shaye Cohen's third edition of his work about Jewish life from the Maccabees to the Mishnah is most valuable as an overview. Oddly enough, he offers the most poignant critiques in his third edition preface, writing that sometimes he "speaks...

Illustration depicting Sushruta (Father of Plastic Surgery) from the Sardar Patel Medical College in Bikaner, India.

The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Ancient Israel is one of Wiley Blackwell's several companion books. Aimed at producing "a multifaceted entry into ancient Israelite culture", each article addresses a unique scholarly focus in the study of...