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.

Show Notes Episode 6: Sicán Funerary Mask, Shang Ritual Owl and Another Kick-Ass Queen

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In this episode Ashley shares the news of over-the-counter birth control in the US and Tracey responds to another dumbass – this time explaining why it is inappropriate to say the Jews survived in the Holocaust if they were useful. Ashley’s piece of stuff is a glorious Sicán funerary mask (a culture that precedes the Inca in Peru) and Tracey talks about a Shang period bronze owl-shaped ritual vessel used in ancestor worship and the extraordinary kick-ass queen/priestess/general who owned it.

Ashley’s Stuff in the News:

Sarah Toy, “FDA Approves First Over-the-Counter Birth-Control Pill,” Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/otc-birth-control-pill-4c180a93

PBS, “The Catholic Church and Birth Control,” PBS American Experience, accessed July 29, 2023, https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-catholic-church-and-birth-control/

Tracey’s Stuff in the News: 

Alisha Rahaman Sarkar, “A Holocaust Survivor respond to Greg Gutfeld on Fox about useful people in concentration camps,” The Independent, July 29, 2023. Accessed at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/auschwitz-holocaust-fox-news-host-b2382772.html

“Forced Labor,” Holocaust Encyclopedia: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, accessed July 31, 2023 at https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/forced-labor

The United States Holocaust Museum, “Death Marches in the Holocaust,” Common Lit, 2017. Accessed at https://www.commonlit.org/en/texts/death-marches-in-the-holocaust

Nikolaus Wachsmann, “Liberation” The Nazi Concentration Camps  accessed July 31, 2023 at http://www.camps.bbk.ac.uk/themes/liberation.html

Nazi Racial Theory, Wikipedia accessed July 31, 2023 at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_racial_theories

Tracey’s Piece of Stuff

Minje Su, “Queen, Priestess, General: The Legendary Life of Fu Hao,” Medievalist.net accessed on July 31, 2023 at https://www.medievalists.net/2018/12/queen-priestess-general-the-legendary-life-of-fu-hao/

Cortney E. Chaffin, “War and Sacrifice: The Tomb of Fu Hao,” Smarthistory accessed July 31, 2023 at https://smarthistory.org/tomb-of-fu-hao/

Shuxian Ye, A Mythological Approach to Exploring the Origins of Chinese Civilization, Springer Nature, 2022.

“Fu Hao Owl Zun,” Wikipedia accessed July 31, at https://www.medievalists.net/2018/12/queen-priestess-general-the-legendary-life-of-fu-hao/

“Taotie: The Mystery of Chinese Mythology’s Famous Glutton,” PBS Monstrum with Dr. Emily Zarka, accessed July 31, 2023 at https://youtu.be/o_FN55VUqRc

Ashley’s Piece of Stuff:

Joanne Pillsbury, Funerary Mask, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2015, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/309959

Amy Tikkanen, “Cinnabar,” Encyclopedia Britannica, July 21, 2023 https://www.britannica.com/science/cinnabar

Picture Credits:

“Funerary Mask: Lambayeque (Sicán), 10-12th centuries, The Metropolitan Museum, public domain accessed July 29, 2023.

Windmemories, “Fu Hao Zun at the Henan Museum,” Wikimedia Commons accessed July 31, 2023 Windmemories, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

Gary Todd, “Fu Hao Zun at the National Museum of China,”Wikimedia Commons accessed July 31, 2023.  By Gary Todd – https://www.flickr.com/photos/101561334@N08/9829808373/, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=96349251

Music Credits: Ashley Bozian