Month: August 2012

Interview: From Bactria to Taxila–New e-Resource on Ancient Central Asia

Central Asia can be thought of as the “core region” of the Eurasian continent, stretching from the Caspian Sea to western China, the rugged mountains of Pakistan to the extensive steppes of southern Russia. Misunderstood, understudied, and oftentimes a front line between empires and geopolitical rivals, ancient Central Asia rarely receives the attention afforded to neighboring India, China, and Persia. Sensing the need for a composite resource focused solely on this compelling part of the world, Antoine Simonin, a long time contributor to the Ancient History Encyclopedia, built From Bactria to Taxila to fill this glaring void on the web. In this interview, James Blake Wiener of the Ancient History Encyclopedia, speaks to Antoine about the launch of his new e-resource webpage and why Central Asia is “off the radar” for most ancient historians and specialists.

Maya 3D Interview

We just had the pleasure of interviewing Mathias Kohlschmidt and Martin Gruhn, the founders of Maya3D. Together with their team of programmers, 3D artists, and historians they have recreated several ancient Maya cities in 3D and turned this into a series of interactive iOS TimeTours apps. These apps are meant to serve as both an educational instrument and an on-site travel guide at the same time. We believe that initiatives like this show us a glimpse of how the future of history education might look like.

“Medieval Histories”: A Wonderful Resource

Although we focus on “ancient history,” we love all history! One resource we enjoy a great deal is Medieval Histories. It is managed by a renown historian and ethnologist in Denmark. It is an invaluable resource with interesting articles, a stream of news reports, exhibition highlights, and a beautiful seasonal e-magazine. Be sure to check it out! We promise you will not regret it!