American Institute of the Humanities

Notice of a slave auction-- Charleston, South Carolina, 1769

Jade Mayan Greenstone Figure
300 CE to 900 CE
Honduras

Shamanic amulet: Thule Whale. Place of origin: Alaska. Culture: Thule. 17th century.

Toltec Plumbate Vessel in the Form of a Hunchback
1000 CE to 1200 CE
Plumbate
Soconusco, Guatemala

The ancient Elamites believed in an afterlife. After death, an individual embarked on a journey accompanied by the gods Ishnikarab & Lagamal, to eventually be weighed & judged by Inshushinak. The Elamite afterlife was a place of darkness, misery & adversity, without food or water.

Pre-Columbian masks from Central/South America.

Remembering civil rights activist Medgar Evers, who was murdered in Jackson, Mississippi on this day in 1963.

1925-1963

Caraboid of hedgehog. Period: Egyptian Late Period, Dynasty 25–30. Date: c. 760–332 BCE.

New book challenges traditional images of Jesus with historical evidence Historical Jesus: Scholars depict Jesus as a short-haired, olive-skinned Galilean craftsman, unlike common European-inspired images. Artistic evolution: Roman and later European art recast Jesus with divine symbolism, long hair, and light skin to reflect cultural ideals. Modern shift: The LDS Church...

This 1790 act set the new nation's naturalization procedures. It limited access to U.S. citizenship to white immigrants—in effect, to people from Western Europe—who had resided in the U.S. at least two years and their children under 21 years of age. It also granted citizenship to children born abroad to U.S. citizens.
This act reveals one of the deepest ambiguities in American citizenship. In requiring a period of residence prior to naturalization, members of Congress emphasized that foreigners should spend sufficient time in the United States to appreciate American democracy; Congress viewed America as a school for equality and democracy. But by preventing foreign-born people of color from becoming citizens, the act established that American citizenship contained its own aristocracy, that of race.