In her piece of stuff this week, Ashley talked about the Germanic Christmas tradition of Krampus kidnapping naughty kids. Not to be out done, the Icelanders have a whole family hard at work sorting out whose been naughty and whose been nice, and dealing out punishments accordingly. The matriarch is Grýla, and although she is… Read more

Ashley’s Stuff in the News:Michele McPhee, “Feds: NYC Mayor Eric Adams Took Bribes From Turkish Official To Ignore Armenian Genocide,” Los Angeles Magazine, September 26, 2024, https://lamag.com/news/feds-nyc-mayor-eric-adams-took-bribes-from-turkish-official-to-ignore-armenian-genocide. Sean Mathews, “First Stop Istanbul’: Mayor Eric Adams Accused of Taking Bribes to Do Turkey’s Bidding in New York City,” Middle East Eye, September 26, 2024, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/first-stop-istanbul-eric-adams-did-turkeys-bidding-armenian-genocide-and-un-compound-federal.  Tracey’s Stuff in the News Chemnitz… Read more

Tracey’s Stuff in the News:  Janis Jibrin, “Ultra Processed Food isn’t Just bad for your health – it messes with your mind,” National Geographic, November 22, 2023. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/ultra-processed-foods-damage-brain-depression-anxiety-cognitive-decline Meryl Davies Landau, “No food or medicine can do what olive oil can do. Here’s Why,” National Geographic November 6, 2023 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/olive-oil-healthiest-oil-prevention-heart-disease-cancer Ashley’s Stuff in the News:Mary Hoogasian and Bedross Der Matossian,… Read more

Tracey’s Stuff in the News:Gad Barnea, “Justice at the House of Yhw(h): An Early Yahwistic Defixio in Furem,” Religions 14 (2023). https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/14/10/1324 Tom Metcalf, “There are no Israelite Priestesses in the Bible. A 2,400 year-old curse tells a different story,” National Geographic, November 7, 2023.https://www.nationalgeographic.com/premium/article/jewish-curse-bible-tablet-israelite-priest-women-elephantine Ashley’s Stuff in the News:Emily Flitter, “Citigroup Discriminated against Armenian Americans, Regulator Says,” New York Times,… Read more

[Episode 14] In her piece of stuff this week, Ashley presented a ceremonial staff that had belonged to a court linguist of the Akan people, Asante group, that was topped with a depiction of the West African trickster god, Anansi, in a spider’s web. This put me in mind of an important arachnid figure in… Read more

[Episode 7] In this week’s episode, when I showed Ashley a pinwheel design painted on the ceiling of a cave in California, her first thought was of the Armenian eternity sign called the Arevakhach. The similarity is striking, but I knew nothing about the Arevakhach so I decided to look into it as the subject… Read more

In Episode 15 of The Past and Stuff, Tracey was talking about creepy little dolls, that were found buried in creepy little coffins, in a creepy make-shift sepulcher, in the creepy environs of Arthur’s Seat above Edinburgh. Many theories that have put forth over the years, but Tracey added a new one – creepy kids… Read more

In her Piece of Stuff this week (Episode 17), Ashley looked at a statue of a cocoa merchant from Aztec Mexico. Chocolate is of course a delicious, sweet treat and pick-me-up if you are feeling physically or emotionally a little down. But does chocolate have real superpowers besides being a yummy caffeine/sugar combo? Chocolate, specifically… Read more

In this week’s Stuff in the News, Ashley discusses a new database of searchable information about medieval murders…go waste time. Right now! Tracey’s stuff in the news concerns the ongoing plight of the Uighurs in the Xinjiang province of China, where over a million of them are thought to be kept in prison camps making… Read more

In her piece of stuff this week, Ashley discussed the Antikythera Mechanism, an Ancient Greek clockwork computer about the size of a carriage clock (Episode 16). It was able to compute the position of astral bodies at various times and work out the correct time to hold religious festivals like the Olympic Games. In the… Read more