Oldest Known Pants

As a proud member of the Men Without Tights, I am pleased to report that our fellowship extends further back in time than previously documented.

Trousers are believed to have evolved concurrently with horseback riding by men. For reasons that will be obvious, at least to men.

The pants, which date from 3,000 to 3,300 years ago, are tattered, but are surprisingly stylish, combining attractive form with function. Made out of wool, the trousers feature straight-fitting legs and a wide crotch.

Discovery article, surprisingly good once you scroll past the unrelated photos

The invention of trousers and its likely affiliation with horseback riding and mobility: A case study of late 2nd millennium BC finds from Turfan in eastern Central Asia (Quaternary International, paywalled)

Dyes of late Bronze Age textile clothes and accessories from the Yanghai archaeological site, Turfan, China: Determination of the fibers, color analysis and dating (also Quaternary, also paywalled)

One for Falcone

Armorial bearings of Royal Navy Vice-Admiral Samuel Butcher, commander of the 50-gun frigate HMS Antelope and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

Butcher family arms

Arms: Vert, an elephant argent. Mantling vert and argent. Crest: On a wreath of the colours, a branch of a cotton-tree fructed proper. Motto: “Be Steady”.

Image from page 278 of “Armorial families: a directory of gentlemen of coat-armour” (1905).

Building a spring-pole lathe

Master craftsman Peter Follansbee builds a sweet medieval-style lathe.

I’ve seen this done with a live, rooted sapling instead of the cut green pole Peter’s using.

A brief sabbatical

I’m going to take a couple weeks off-grid, so there will be a hiatus in the blog. Luckily, nobody actually reads it. ;)

The British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography is online

Science is increasingly on the web, and traditional gatekeepers are increasingly cast in the role of buggy whip makers.

-> The Online British and Irish Archaeological Bibliography.

nine is a secret

Ravens have the unusual distinction of having different collective nouns depending on what the group is doing. A group of ravens or rooks feeding or hunting together is an unkindness, but a group of them watching something together is a constable of ravens. If they are chatting or conferring together they are either a conspiracy or a parliament of ravens… note that any group of owls is always called a parliament, which seems odd given owls’ (somewhat undeserved) reputation for wisdom and the notable lack thereof in most parliaments.

Like magpies and crows, ravens have a traditional rhyme.

One for bad news,
Two for mirth.
Three is a wedding,
Four is a birth.
Five is for riches,
Six is a thief.
Seven, a journey,
Eight is for grief.
Nine is a secret,
Ten is for sorrow.
Eleven is for love,
Twelve, joy for tomorrow.

Common Raven, two juveniles

Corvids are believed to be the most intelligent of birds, and the raven (Corvus Corax) is the most intelligent bird that has been tested to date.

Or to put it in a more traditional way: Tha gliocas an ceann an fhitich – “There is wisdom in the head of the raven.” You can see it in the whites of their eyes.

crank powered beer cooler

Dillweed points out that this could make you the hero of Pennsic.

Of course, at my house you’d just put your beers in the stream. And tell the kids not to mess with them, of course, to avoid any repeats of the watermelon incident.

Colorful Medieval Map of Britain

Julian Harrison at the Medieval Manuscripts blog has done a better job of writing about this map than I can, so I will just quote him and link to his post.

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Edwardus primus scottorum malleus

Nice write up of Edward I and his successors, at an interesting site called History Notes.

Those recent headlines about the Black Death…

Alison Atkin gives a concise pictorial guide to interpreting recent news media coverage of research concerning the bubonic plague.

Medieval maps from the 11th to the 14th centuries

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Retronaut’s rehosted a selection of them if the original site goes dark.

Limitations imposed by wearing armour on Medieval soldiers’ locomotor performance

No, really! It’s a 2012 Royal Society paper by Graham N. Askew, Federico Formenti and Alberto E. Minetti.

There’s a .PDF version here.

I enjoyed it.Performance testing with respiration monitoring

I never knew the name his parents gave him

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Ragnarok Fail

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Ask the Pope, because the Church has such a great record (not).

Today 30,000 Roman Catholics gathered in St. Peter’s square in Rome to ask a kindly old celibate how he thinks people should manage their marriages.

I find myself remembering Catholic impotency trials of pre-revolutionary France and medieval England, where husbands were sometimes required to demonstrate virility in front of a jury composed of priests (and possibly the mother-in-law), and have their performances described in public record. The Church’s politically based meddling in marriage (their opposition to divorce has no basis in scripture) and system of ecclesiastic courts has wrought many a tragedy.

To give him credit, Pope Francis seemed to be doing his best to keep the conversation from getting too specific. You have to hope he sees the ridiculousness of it all.

Don’t use this over a tile floor.

Beautiful but fragile drop spindles.

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Benedictional of St Æthelwold online

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It’s 263 high resolution images, many of them illuminated.

God of Wednesdays

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Happy Holidays

A fine Imbolc, St. Brighid’s day, Candlemas, St. Mary’s feast, or Groundhog day, as you prefer! Midway between the solstice and the equinox, it’s as good a day as any to start looking for snowdrops.
The wonder of flowers, to be covered, and then to burst up

Lacrosse and the ancient Norse game of knattleikr

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Hurstwic/SCA rules for knattleikr here.

Stained Glass of Chartres Cathedral

Dennis Aubrey has been photographically documenting the restoration of the Cathedral Notre Dame de Chartres.

The restoration of the stained glass at the cathedral is one of the great accomplishments of this project. Long considered the finest ensemble of medieval glass, we are just now beginning to see the windows in their original condition again. The years have not been kind and the accumulation of inside dust and outside pollution had made the windows almost opaque.

Shots of the newly cleaned windows are at Via Lucis.