Scott McDonough

It’s war crimes from top to bottom, a veritable Yertle the Turtle stack of war crimes.

Cut-away diagram showing phases of construction of Djoser's step pyramid.

Djoser: "Build me a tomb!"
Imohotep: Builds mastaba.
D: "Well, that was quick. I'm not even dead yet. Can you make it...fancier?"
I: Stacks layers on top of mastaba.
D: "I LOVE IT! But I'm still not dead. Bigger!"
I: Expands and stacks even more layers.
History Channel: "Aliens!"

The font sucks too. 3/

It's also meant to send a signal both from and to a bunch of chuds whose brains are so marinated in Call of Duty video games, superhero stories, and memes, that America's only strength lies in its ability to inflict violence upon the rest of world. 2/

The U.S. Mint dropped the olive branch from the dime. What does that mean for the country? | Fortune The eagle turned to the olive branch to show the nation's preference for peace over war.

I just gave a talk about the origins of American numismatics symbols. The elimination of the olive branch from the eagle on the reverse of the dime is a break with tradition (it was on the first dimes minted in 1796, and based on the "Great Seal" established in 1782). /1
fortune.com/2026/03/12/u...

AR Tetradrachm of Eumenes II of Pergamon (r. 197–159 BCE). Obverse: Bust of Eumenes with diadem. Reverse: BAΣIΛEΩΣ EYMENOY to right and left of the Dioskouroi.

Does anyone have any good recent bibliography on the Attalids of Pergamon? Especially about their relations with the poleis of western Asia Minor?
#Attalids
#Pergamon
#Hellenistic

I don't want to spoil the spot, I'm curious because my work touches on Sasanian and Islamic era fortifications in the region. There were several lines of walls built between coast and mountains in AZ south of Derbent, Dagestan. The terrain in your photo looks vaguely similar to one of those sites.

Where exactly in Azerbaijan is this? A stunning landscape.

Image of very cute badger, captioned with quote: "I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes." Falsely attributed to Mr. Badger of The Wind In The Willows (it's actually from Winston Churchill).

Badgers, such bastards.

One day I would like to acquire a Jersey Cabbage walking stick.

Fabulous poster. I'd definitely love to see it, if it was available by Zoom or recording. I also have a few students doing final projects on the Mongols in my Silk Road class who might be interested.

They did not, in fact, know what they were trying to achieve...

lede to an irish times article about Harry and Meghan by Patrick Freyne.

A reminder that in 2021, @patrickfreyne.bsky.social wrote the best explanatory lede regarding colonialism and monarchy that I have ever seen. www.irishtimes.com/culture/tv-r...

Actually, I’m wondering if I should schedule a campus talk, “What You Should Have Known About Iran Before We Started Bombing It.” Perhaps with a slightly more diplomatic title…

I'm an ancient and medieval historian, so I may have given the last three topics less time than they deserved. Plus, I was super tired by then.

3/

4) Philhellenism and anti-Hellenism (Alexander, Seleucids, Arsacids, and Sasanians)
5) The "Last War of Antiquity" and the Rise of Islam
6) The Iranian "Revival": The Abbasid Revolution to the Samanids
7) Turks and Mongols
8) Iran and the Ottomans
9) The Modern Era
10) The Islamic Revolution

2/

The prompt was, "if you were telling gifted students about the history of Iran...what are 8-10 things you think are crucial to include?"
My ten headers were:
1) Indo-Iranians, "Aryans," and the Idea of Iran
2) The Origins of Zoroastrianism
3) The Achaemenids: Great Kings? Tyrants? Messiahs?

1/

Why is my writing never more productive than when a friend texts me to ask me to explain something historical when I'm trying to go to sleep? I bashed out 2000 words on the History of Iran from Indo-Iranians to the Islamic Republic in text messages last night.
Now I'm tired, damn Daylight Savings.

Initially, I thought you were saying that some Khamenei might open up shop in the Iberian peninsula in a few years...

Map of archaeological sites in Gandhara region, from Asia Society.

Not very detailed map of ancient Bactria.

Low resolution map of "Silk Road Sites in Afghanistan" from National Geographic. Afghanistan floats in a vacuum, since ancient community boundaries must clearly end at modern national borders.

Does anyone know of a good map of Kushan-era archaeological sites with terrain and routes marked? It seems like you can find maps of Gandhara and the Kabul Region, but I'd really like to find something that shows the route from Bactria to Kabul and beyond.
#Kushans
#Archaeology

Colorado mountains blue sky

Colorado mountains lake blue sky with clouds

Colorado mountains bright blue lake

Colorado grassy mountains? Cloudy blue sky.

San Juan National Forest in Colorado is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. I think about this hike almost every day. These are all unedited the water is really that blue.

I'm dying to know what other dolls are in the series. Rush Limbaugh? Pat Buchanan? Phyllis Schlafly?

Poster with images of Roman Libertas Denarius, Tetradrachm of Antioch, and Flowing Hair American Dollar). Poster Text: Drachmai, Denarii, and Dollars: Ancient Coins and the Imagery of a New Republic A Public Talk and Hands-On Workshop With Professor Scott McDonough Atrium Auditorium William Paterson University 12:30-1:45 PM Wednesday, March 4, 2026 Refreshments served after workshop

I'm doing this coins Workshop tomorrow at William Paterson University. If you're near Wayne, NJ, feel free to stop by. I can't guarantee it will be revolutionary (Semiquincentennial pun half-intended), but it should be a fun time.

I think installing ArcGIS and photo printer drivers repeatedly might be what finally wore down my IT department.

“Indifferent to suffering; insensitive to joy. All of life is reduced to the common rubble of banality. War, murder, death are all the same to you as bottles of beer. And the daily business of life is a corrupt comedy.”

Thanks for the photo! I've been looking for ideas for a short road trip in New Mexico in April, this might be a nice stop.

In 2026, colleges must teach students that this is not the end of the world. We must teach hope. Current undergraduates can barely remember a time before the threats of climate change and authoritarianism loomed to catastrophic scale. Since 2010, the future depicted in TV, books, and games has been dystopian or apocalyptic, so for our current students the end of the world feels more familiar and realistic than a future with hope. Now we are asking them to choose majors and life paths when the desirability, indeed the very existence, of whole sectors of employment are in question, due to the overwhelming promises of LLMs and machine learning. As young people hear daily that vocation after vocation may vanish into automation’s maw, and that democracy, liberty, land, sea, and sky are all in jeopardy, despair is growing. Despair is very emotionally tempting. It means freedom from the responsibility to shape the future. This is a terrifying turning point, but many generations before us have faced such turning points, and met them. We can offer our students perspective. Only a few dozen institutions on Earth are more than 900 years old, and the vast majority are universities. The university system is not a house of straw to buckle in this storm: We are the rocks that have sheltered the knowledge, hope, and truth through tumults which have toppled kingdoms while classrooms endured. We can endure this, and be a guiding light through it, but only by recentering, by teaching citizens, not workers; power, not PowerPoint; aspiration, not apocalypse. Despair is how we lose. The classroom is where we battle it. All other battles flow from here. Ada Palmer is an associate professor of history at the University of Chicago.

This, from Ada Palmer as part of The Chronicle's survey of 11 scholars on the future of higher ed, is what I needed to end the week.

Obverse of coin of Wahrām II with King, Queen, and Prince.

Reverse of coin of Wahrām II with fire altar flanked by two attendants.

Here is Joseph Pellerin's engraving of a similar coin from his Recueil de médailles (1762–78). Thanks Dan Sheffield for the search suggestion.

Silver of the Sassanidae. A remarkable coin, with three portraits of the king, queen, and prince; brought by Mr. Crofts from the east, and now in Dr. Hunter's collection. Unpublished.

Pinkerton's description of the coin

Illustration of Sasanian Drachm of Wahrām II, showing obverse with King, Queen, and Prince. Reverse with fire altar and two attendants.

While putting together Wednesday's public talk on ancient and early American coins, I came across this illustration of a drachm of Wahrām II from John Pinkerton's Essay on Medals, Volume One (1789). I wonder if there might be any older drawings of Sasanian coins?
#numismatics