Tag: advent calendar

  • 19. James Steuart’s box of oysters at the Museum of Natural History (1868)

    19. James Steuart’s box of oysters at the Museum of Natural History (1868)

    By Tamara Fernando (@TamaraFernando3) The historians’ job is akin to the detectives’: we ferret out clues, evaluate evidence and make deductions. But what do we do when trails run cold? My doctoral research is on the pearl fishery in the Gulf of Mannar. Sometime between 1820 and 1830, the painter Hippolyte Silvaf made twelve water-colours…

  • 20. An Entry for Refuge: the Khoja caravanserai door

    20. An Entry for Refuge: the Khoja caravanserai door

    By Taushif Kara (@taushif) Of the many ornate wooden doors spread throughout Zanzibar’s ‘stone town’ – and there are many – the one I find the most intriguing, and indeed the most beautiful, is the door to the Khoja caravanserai, built in 1892. The door itself opens to a musafarkhana, a hostel of sorts, meant…

  • 17. A Pomegranate

    17. A Pomegranate

    By Stephanie Brown (@StephEmmaBrown) The pomegranate has had many religious, mythical, and political connotations. It was associated with Katharine of Aragon due to her position as a Spanish princess. Born in 1485, she was a child when her parents, King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella, conquered Granada, which is the Spanish word for pomegranate. The…

  • 18. Fragments of Clay Pipes found on the Banks of the River Thames

    18. Fragments of Clay Pipes found on the Banks of the River Thames

    By Sarah Sheard, Artist, Edinburgh (@sarahofthenorth) I did not like History at school. Maybe it was the way it was taught, but if that were true, I wouldn’t like Art either, and now that is what I do– I am an artist in Edinburgh. I remember visiting the Tate Britain and seeing Mark Dion’s Tate…

  • 21. Gifts from The Queen, the End of a Diplomatic Career

    21. Gifts from The Queen, the End of a Diplomatic Career

    By Harry J. Mace (@harryjmace) The British Embassy in Stockholm, 1956: Jane Holliday was considering her resignation from the Diplomatic Service. Precipitated by her anger at the treatment of women and a burgeoning romantic relationship with a senior diplomat, Holliday felt it was time to work elsewhere. Having spent some time in Sweden as a…