I'm hopping this is more or less the right place to ask, but I've decided I want to peruse an academic path once again, towards the direction or classics, Latin and Hellenic studies. But specifically, it's the religious and philosophical aspects which I'm more concerned with; to be precise, subjects such as hermeticism, platonism, Gnosticism, early Christianity, etc. I'm a bit confused what would be the best approach to study these subjects in an academic realm, whether I should pursue the classics department or something in religious studies. I'd love to hear if any of you have any advice on the matter, what's the best way to approach these subjects academically, and perhaps even some insight into programs to look into (preferably in the new York city area).

The quote makes 4 claims about viking life as a woman.

First "When a viking mistreats his lady, she may cut off his junk and hang it in her home."
I believe this is totally false and can find nothing which supports it.

Second "Women were in charge of the household's money because they were believed to be magic and have the ability to see into the future."
This sounds plausible but once again I can find no sources.

Third "If a woman divorced her husband, he would be shamed for being divorced."
This one was easy to look up and I did find that women could divorce their men by denouncing them twice once at the threshold to the shared home and once at the bed after gathering witnesses.
However I did not find any evidence that they were disgraced as they kept their positions and such.

Fourth "Men weren't even allowed to touch a woman's hand if she had not agreed to it or he would be punished by law."
This seems to be junk as well and once again I can find nothing that backs this up.

What is the real truth behind these "facts" and how far off base are they?

Here's a quote from the wikipedia article on the empire

The main cause was a failure of leadership, as Lee argues the first 10 sultans from 1292 to 1566, with one exception, had done quite well. The next 13 sultans from 1566 to 1703, with two exceptions, were lackadaisical or incompetent rulers, says Lee. In a highly centralized system, the failure at the center proved fatal.

Is this a fair assessment, or were there external pressures outside of the sultan's control?

We know that there were black and white schools, bathrooms, restaurants, seats on the bus, etc., but what happened to the Asian-Americans, Latino-Americans, and other people of color at this time?

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I know there was Warsaw Pact but the member states were basically under the thumb of the Soviets. I know China and USSR had a rift resulting in Sino-Soviet Split but they were committed to aiding North Vietnam.

Was USSR the only country more proactive in spreading communism or did other countries attempt to foment revolutions as well?

I am a graduate student that is working on a paper, and I am just flooded with work right now, so if anyone could help I would greatly appreciate it.

Might've been asked before, but between work and sifting through a sea of search results about bagpipes and smoking, I figured I'd just ask. How did humans achieve piping water before electricity/modernity? Was the primary source of power simply gravity? What else could be used to pipe water into homes or fountains?

How could modern humans achieve the same effect of piping water into homes without electricity, given what we know about that tech?

Seems like much of the counter culture movement derived from bad portrayal of earlier TV. Long hair, beads, style of clothing.

More to the point; long hair banded Indians riding wild. Anyway, not a very coherent question but one I've always been curious about.

Many of the older Indian Tv shows pre-dated the long hair of the sixties and was wondering if this style was borrowed from

Say, I am a curious Roman and wonder about my empire.

It seems like with the importance of Gibralter, Spain would have been a target for both Allies and Axis. Maps I have seen show it as an Axis-occupied region, but the Allies never invaded or drove the Bundeswehr out, as far as I know.

Like the title says. Was there any sort of law or convention keeping wealthy Republican Romans -aristocratic or Equestrian- from letting their inner Ramsay Bolton loose on some slaves? If such a individual wanted to torture and rape some people, or play a little 'Most Dangerous Game' on his land with some slaves, would there be anything keeping him from doing it asides social conventions?

I'm talking about names like Williams, Jones, Jackson, etc.

As I understand after the emancipation of slaves many freed slaves took the names of their former owners? Are the popularity of these names related to this? Were there prevalent slave owners with these names and this is a product of that history?

I know that it seems like many African American last names have Irish or English origins. I find that fascinating. If you could provide me with any other information or reading material about the origins of American American surnames I'd really appreciate it.

So in my spare time I've been reading up/listening to books and such about (primarily) Rome. Some sources I hear good things about (such as the ask-historians podcast and the history of rome podcast) and figure I can trust to provide good information but there are a ton of other books and authors I've never heard of as history is not my field.

What is the best way I can go about making sure that the information I am using to learn about history is accurate and not written by someone who is questionable (or out of date/debunked)?

I recall reading on this site some time ago a question on how much the average European peasant knew of their King with the answer being along the lines of 'somewhat'. Now, I want to know how much more/less the average Chinese peasant would have known about their lord during, say, the Ming or Qing dynasties; did they know of his ministers/wives? What about his life in court? How/how fast did messages regarding succession spread across the countryside? Thanks.