Come visit Miriam in first century CE Alexandria.
Come to Miriam’s Alexandria, a first century city second only to Rome.
Venture with Miriam into the claustrophobic underbelly of Alexandria at night.
Come visit Miriam in first century CE Alexandria.
the MIRIAM BAT ISAAC
Mystery Series
June Trop
Welcomes you to
Carthage and Alexandria, shown here with red dots, were two cities in the Ancient World on the North African Mediterranean Coast.
Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics
Egyptian beekeepers pouring honey into a vessel
Make your own honey-sweetened wine
The Great Cameo of France, the largest cameo from Antiquity, was made from five layers of sardonyx during the first-century CE.
Apolllo playing cithara
JUNE TO PARTICIPATE IN A STUDY ON CREATIVITY
Associate Librarian Allison Hosier
Available in paperback
On Friday, May 6, 2022 at 2:40 PM EDT
June described the
beauty secrets of Roman women.
June Tells All to Eleanor Wagner for the December issue of My Friend, the Author
June on Chat and Spin Radio
 June is a frequent guest on CHAT AND SPIN radio. This time she will tell her audience about each of the books in the Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series and why they make perfect holiday and hostess gifts for everyone on your list eager to escape the stresses of everyday life. Just click here https://chatandspinradio.com/ and press the button for LISTEN LIVE. |
|---|
Greek terracotta statues with articulated limbs
June on Chat and Spin Radio
The Roman denarius was the standard Roman silver coin.
Panis quadratus, a loaf of Roman sourdough bread
The remains of a Roman road in Tarsus (modern-day Turkey)
© Matt Krause
Fresco decorating the wall of a thermopolium
Chinese silk was sold along the Silk Road to Central Asia, Iran, Arabia, and the Roman Empire.
Removing stray facial hair with a pumice stone
Camels were the means of transport on the overland portions of the Silk Road
June is a regular on CHAT AND SPIN radio
Gladiators were sentenced to death for failing to perform well.
A brain ready to be transplanted in June’s horror story.
The Deadliest Hate is on sale for less than a dollar from April 1st —15th!
A map of Italy about 500 years before Miriam’s time: The Carthaginian Empire is shown in magenta, the Greeks occupied the area in chartreuse, the Italian States were in light orange, and just north of them in a darker orange, was the Etruscan civilization.
June on Chat and Spin Radio
After defeating Carthage, Rome got access to the silver mines in Iberia, the area we recognize today as Spain and Portugal.
Blabber-mouth Helen in the dairy aisle of Market Delight
A glimpse into the 2000-year-old kitchen in Miriam’s townhouse
A typical Roman washstand
The masked mythological figure Phersu in this Early Etruscan tomb painting ( c. 600 BCE) would engage his victims in a dreadful “game” of bloodletting in order to appease the souls of the deceased, a funereal ritual that was the beginning of Rome’s gladiatorial games.
Odysseus kills the cyclops, Polyphemus, by plunging a stake into his one eye.
June spoke on Chat and Spin Radio about how Roman women dressed their hair
Made from a mixture of silt, clay, sand, and straw formed into regular molded units, unfired mudbricks were the primary construction material in ancient Egypt.
The palestra in Pompeii, the school in the Gymnasium for combative sports.
​This wrought iron fire steel belonged to a Roman legionnaire stationed at the Masada Fortress in Israel. The soldier inserted his hand through the loop, closed his fist, and then struck the long edge against a hard rock to generate sparks.
Model of an ancient Egyptian roof garden
that might have been similar to Miriam’s
These small tropical trees native to south India are the source of one of the most expensive fragrances in the world. So much so that these valuable trees have had to be protected by law.
The Roman pugio, a common weapon for assassination and suicide, is a dagger employed as a sidearm by legionnaires and gladiators.
The River Styx is a sacred river that separates the land of the living from the realm of the dead.
A Silkworm on a mulberry tree leaf and its cocoon. Silkworms eat only mulberry tree leaves.
A Roman mosaic at Ostia representing the port and its lighthouse
These personal hygiene sticks prove that in addition to tea, silk, and spices, infectious diseases were carried along China’s Silk Road.
The reconstructed teeth of a 2100-year-old mummy show numerous abscesses and cavities
Torsion involves filling a permeable bag with crushed olives, inserting sticks at either end of the bag, and twisting them in opposite directions to compress the bag and let the liquid filter out.
Sprigs of oregano garnish these slices of braised duck in this first-century cookshop dish.
A technician and student perform an autopsy
Cotton was first grown in Eurasia in what is present-day Pakistan, and then its cultivation spread to areas in the Indus River Valley, what is present-day northwest India.
A Roman barber was called a tonsor, meaning one who cuts and sheers, and the barbershop was called a tonstrina.
The vernal equinox, the official first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, was an occasion to celebrate even in ancient times.
The Sirens attempt to seduce Odysseus.
This dress, a peplos, is a body-length garment, typical attire for Greek and Roman women.
Morpheus, painted by Jean-Bernard Restout
A twentieth-century depiction of Julius Caesar. Caesar, riding in the chariot, had the special honor of wearing a Tyrian purple toga.
Called a sponge stick, this tool consisted of a sea sponge fixed on the end of a stick.
The model is wearing a gown in Dior’s 2022 collection. Its design was inspired by the peplos, a garment worn by Greek and Roman women.
Mural by Gilabrand of a Cardo Maximus, this one of Old Jerusalem
.jpg)
La Miseria by Cristóbal Rojas (1886). Rojas had phthisis (tuberculosis) when he painted this. Here he depicts the social aspect of the disease and its relationship to living conditions at the close of the 19th century.
Authentic Persian rugs are made from hand-knotted fibers of wool or silk that have been colored using traditional dyes from plants and insects.
This 5.92 carat Columbian emerald ring is set in platinum with 12 baguette diamonds, 6 tapered emeralds, and 8 carre-cut diamonds.
On Wednesday, October 12th, June spoke at the New Paltz Senior Citizen Club about Life in Ancient Alexandria and introduced her audience to her Miriam bat Isaac Mystery Series.
A case of defenestration: throwing someone (or something) out the window
Even before the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians had a long tradition of using garlic as a medicinal herb.
Kohl became a cosmetic necessity following Elizabeth Taylor’s role as Cleopatra in the 1963 film.
Even before the Greeks and Romans, the Egyptians had a long tradition of using garlic as a medicinal herb.
Peter Ustinov as Nero and Patricia Laffan as Poppaea in Quo Vadis, a 1951 film directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Pictured here is Commisphora myrrha, a tree native to the Arabian peninsula and Africa and one of the few species from which the gum resin myrrh is extracted.
Chariot racing was Rome’s most popular and dangerous sport, more so than even the gladiator games.
This terra-cotta krater 450 (BCE) is on exhibit in the Metropolitan Musem of Art, New York City.
A secluded English mansion is the perfect setting for a cozy murder.
The setting for noir stories is often a dark, bleak city street lined with bars and seedy rooming houses.
Wealthy women sought to imitate Empress Messalina’s “tall” hair styles.
Prostitution was big business in the Roman Empire
Wealthy women sought to imitate Empress Messalina’s “tall” hair styles.
June will be the guest blogger on Saturday, July 15, 2023.
By Miriam’s time, the first century CE, glassblowing was a well-established profession in Syria.
Thanatos, not Hades, was the god of death. Hades may have ruled over the Underworld, but Thanatos took the souls there.
Gladiators after the combat (1892), a painting by José Moreno Carbonero
In “The Missing Widow”, a story in The Deadliest Deceptions, Phoebe risks a pair of antique Etruscan earrings and her very life to solve the disappearance of her next-door neighbor.
Libitina was the goddess of death, corpses, and funerals. Her name was also a synonym for death.