The Past and Stuff: A History Podcast

Material Culture, Microhistory and Mayhem. The Past and Stuff is a casual and irreverent podcast by Dr. Ashley Bozian and Dr. Tracey Cooper. Each week we challenge each other to identify an historical object, and then discuss what it can tell us as a unique window on the past. Expect an unexpected mesh of connections and terrible jokes, as a two very serious academics (not!), one a Armenian-American millennial and the other a British Gen Xer, have too much fun while trying to understand each other and the history of the world.

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  • Show Notes: Episode One – Chess and Cleanliness

    Tracey Cooper

    Episode One: Chess and Cleanliness Show description: The Past and Stuff is a casual and sometimes irreverent podcast by two historians, Ashley Bozian and Tracey Cooper. In each episode we begin by discussing some Stuff in the News and then we challenge each other to guess the What, When and Where of an object or… Read more

  • Sicán Ear Spools, Systematic Looting, and Ear Holes Indicating Elite Status

    Tracey Cooper

    In this week’s episode – Episode 6 – Sicán Death Mask, Ancestor Worship, and Another Kick Ass Queen – Ashley’s Piece of Stuff was a beautiful funerary mask from the Sicán culture that inhabited the north coast of Peru from around 750 to 1375 CE. They are sometimes called the Lambayeque culture after that region… Read more

  • One Glorious Tile at the Topkapi Palace

    Tracey Cooper

    In her “Piece of Stuff” section of this week’s podcast – Episode 5: Ancient Divination and Ottoman Whining and Pining, Ashley talked the Harem at the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul and the slave-to-queen life of Roxelana aka Hürrem Sultan. Topkapi Palace was more than just the place that the Ottoman Sultan lived, it was the… Read more

  • Saving the Cultural Treasures of Ukraine

    Tracey Cooper

                  Tracey’s Piece of Stuff this week was a little piece of women’s jewelry from the period of the Great princes of Kievan Rus’ in the tenth to twelfth centuries. As the Mongol-Tartar armies advanced on Kiev (modern Kyiv) in 1240, the temple pendant (so-called because it was worn dangling near the temples) along with… Read more

  • Ever Wondered What Cleopatra Smelled Like?

    Tracey Cooper

    Picture: Theda Bara in Cleopatra (1917) in public domain accessed on Wikimedia Commons 7/25/2023 For her “Piece of Stuff” this week Ashley discussed a little perfumed bottle shaped like a monkey from Ancient Egypt, which got me to thinking about what type of perfume might have been in the bottle. This got me to thinking,… Read more

  • Caveman Courtship: Why do we think it was about a man beating a woman with a club and dragging her by her hair back to a cave?

    Tracey Cooper

    If someone were to say the phrase “Caveman Courtship” to you, chances are it might conjure up an image like the one above from a 1949 wedding invitation – a caveman clubbing a cavewoman over the head and dragging her back to his place. This image was chosen Pfeiffer-Gilman wedding invitation and wedding was held… Read more

  • What Has Tyche Been Smoking?

    Tracey Cooper

    Possibly the nerdiest, only-made-me-laugh, visual gag ever – do I get an award or something? This will at least go on the list on possible future merch when our little podcast becomes wildly successful. Our cover art features the goddess Tyche, who came to represent the idea of chance or fortune in the ancient Mediterranean.… Read more