History yays

[dubsartur]

Tod the cutler and Matt Easton have some fun with a video playing around with javelins with throwing-loop (Latin amentum, Classical Greek ankylē), fletched javelins, and Late Roman lead-weighted war darts (plumbatae) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIrR0Jo09Y

[dubsartur]

Over on the Bronze Age Centre, I posted a summary of the woods used to make spears in prehistoric Britain.  As far as I can tell, its taboo for archaeologists in many countries to publish the interesting bits of a spear (the shaft) or record which wood was found in the socket of the spearhead.

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/bronze_age_center/materials-of-bronze-age-british-spears-t2107.html

[Jubal]

I'd not read about Ozette before stumbling across this BBC article - not hugely far from your neck of the woods, right, dubsartur, albeit that it's the southern side of the border?

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220605-ozette-the-us-lost-2000-year-old-village

[Jubal]

I thought this was interesting, on new archaeological finds expanding the scope of what people know about Tartessos: https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220727-the-iberian-civilisation-that-vanished

[dubsartur]

A British-Lebanese artist is translating and publishing Arabic treatises on painting and inkmaking from the Abbasid period (750-1258) https://majnouna.com/

[dubsartur]

The Museum of the Bible in the USA has returned another looted artifact: a bible from circa 1100 stolen from a monastery by Bulgarian forces in 1917 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/23/arts/design/museum-of-the-bible-looted-gospel.html

(as an aside; I think the early history of independent Bulgaria should be better known: they had 20 years of military power due to rigorous conscription and arms-buying at the beginning of the 20th century, kind of like Thebes in the 4th century BCE)

[dubsartur]

Charles Oman's histories are very readable and very broad but also very unreliable (he studied under Stubbs but he was an English teller of tales not a German scientific historian).  This article on the Battle of Beneventum in 1266 gives an example of the kind of thing he got wrong.

[Jubal]

I don't do podcasts much except just about keeping up with listening to Monster Man, but for those who do, the CEU medieval podcast might be of interest: my former colleague Maria Vargha is in the latest episode.

http://ceumedievalradiopodcast.ceu.hu/?name=2022-12-09_past_perfect_with_maria_vargha_9_12_2022.mp3

[Pentagathus]

Kings and Generals released this video on the reign of David 4th of Georgia and the battle of Didgori, I thought it may be of interest considering the area of study of our good Joobs.
https://youtu.be/c-qi9dPI_Vw

[Jubal]

Ooh, I still need to get round to watching that Didgori video.

This is interesting: a team have deciphered a set of letters by Mary, Queen of Scots, according to Ars Technica:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/lost-and-found-code-breakers-decipher-50-letters-of-mary-queen-of-scots/

[Jubal]

This is super interesting - possible scoreboard for a Mayan ballgame found:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-65250018

[dubsartur]

Cyrilic inscription from the time of Tsar Simeon I of Bulgaria (died in 927) found https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/1100-year-old-breastplate-to-ward-off-evil-may-contain-the-oldest-cyrillic-writing-ever-found

[Jubal]

Ooh, that's neat!

Two of my favourite things from the Vienna Schatzkammer, which I visited with a friend yesterday evening:




Also this creature from the base of a small statue - anyone got any ideas what this is? I have no clue, though I guess it may be a lizard. It was crouching under St. Francis of Assisi.

[dubsartur]

St. Francis' T-shaped walking stick is interesting because it reminds me of the sticks from ancient Greece?  You can still buy these now and then in the right village.

[Jubal]

Hm, that is interesting. I think I've seen similar for older walking sticks in the UK, I guess the T-shape with a hand rest makes a lot of design sense but it'd be an interesting thing to trace through the centuries.