Medieval glass: Islamic glass (probably Iraq, 800s AD, now in the Metropolitan Museum, New York) Medieval glass-making By the 1100s, glass-making was expanding again from West Asia; there were glassworks further [...]
Heloise and Abelard Who was Heloise? The story of Heloise (HELL-oh-ees) and her husband Peter Abelard is one of the saddest stories of Western history. Heloise was born about 1100 [...]
Medieval cathedrals: Façade of Amiens cathedral in France What is a cathedral? A cathedral is any Christian church where a bishop has his headquarters. No matter how big a church is, if there's [...]
Women swimming in the Seljuk kingdom (1494 AD) The fall of the Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire in the 500s AD doesn't seem to have made much difference to [...]
A mosaic floor made up of tiny blocks You make the simplest kind of mosaic by taking a lot of black and white pebbles and arranging them on a bed [...]
Is travertine marble? No. The travertine is the white stone in between the bricks (This is from the Colosseum in Rome) Is travertine marble? Travertine is a kind of sedimentary [...]
Transept of Rouen cathedral (France, 1200s AD) Transepts were part of medieval Christian churches. Most churches were shaped like a cross, to remind people about Jesus' crucifixion, and the transept [...]
Nave of Abbaye aux Dames (Caen, 1050 AD) The nave is the long narrow part of a Roman basilica or a Christian church - the part where people sit in a [...]
Buttress of St. Germain des Pres (Paris, 1100s AD) A buttress holds up a wall A buttress is a big pile of stone that keeps a building's walls from falling down. [...]
Medieval African art: Two men riding an elephant, in an Indian style (Asbi, Ethiopia, ca. 1000-1200 AD) African art got even better in the Middle Ages, after about 400 AD. [...]
