Skip to content

All Articles


When British archaeologist Leonard Woolley discovered in December 1927 the tomb of Puabi, the queen/priestess of the Sumerian city of Ur during the First Dynasty of Ur more than 4,000 years ago, the story rivaled that of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in Egypt just five years earlier. “Magnificent with jewels,” as Woolley described it, Puabi’s tomb contained the bodies of dozens of attendants killed to accompany her in the afterlife — the ideal material for a headline-grabbing PR campaign that momentarily shouldered Tut out of the spotlight. A new exhibit at New York’s The Institute for the Study of the Ancient World titled From Ancient to Modern: Archaeology and Aesthetics puts Puabi back in the spotlight to examine how archaeology and aesthetics intersected, transforming ancient art into modern and making modern art strive to be ancient.
Remember when you only went to Amazon to buy books? Or when Netflix only let you watch other companies’ shows? Or when Reddit was just a place to see what was trending online? The sky’s the limit now for these and other brands evolving into media companies.
Cinco de Mayo is not, as many Americans assume, Mexico’s Independence Day. It’s not even an important holiday south of the border. Instead, its modern roots can be traced to Mexican-Americans in the 1960s and the opportunism of wily beer distributors.