Description: An archaeological dig in the ancient city of Olympus has turned up a rare clay tablet with 13 verses of Homer's Odyssey likely from the 8th Century BC. [via BBC]Dancer Gesel Mason is creating a digital archive of black choreographers' work. [via NPR]Emmett Till's casket on display at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) may be
Description: Each Monday, sit back, relax, and ease into the work week with puzzles created from images in our collections that have been designated as open access. Anyone can now download, transform, share, and reuse these images as part of Smithsonian Open Access, launched in 2020.Even though it’s not quite spring, the start of daylight savings time has our minds in cherry blossom
Description: [edan-image:id=siris_sic_10581,size=200,left]Vicarious research is one of the great joys of the reference desk at the Smithsonian Institution Archives. From our front-row (well, only-row) seat outside the reading room, we catch tantalizing glimpses of our patrons’ manifold research topics.The reference team fields around 6,000 queries per year. Ask us what people have been
Description: Long ago and far away, before gray hairs and creaky knees, before history became my passion, I was an undergraduate physics major. Physics seemed fascinating and beautiful, if difficult. Later, after career paths led into history and science policy, I learned that physics, however elegant, did not reside in a cultural vacuum. Its people and discoveries coexisted with
Description: In 2016 Lonnie G. Bunch donated his personal papers to the Smithsonian Institution Archives. The collection covers a wide variety of topics and spans the breath of Bunch's career from being an Education Specialist at the National Air and Space Museum to being Founding Director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.