Child’s sock, from Musée Guimet

museeguimet:

Chaussette (ou sous-chaussure ?) d’enfant

dynastie Tang (618-90
damas, sergé, soie
Chine

© Musée Guimet, Paris, Dist. RMN-Grand Palais / Benjamin Soligny / Raphaël Chipault

Section Textile du musée Guimet

So apparently the Musée Guimet’s tumblr is now defunct. This post is originally from December 29, 2013. This is me testing this to see if I can cite the reblog… Because you always cite your stuff. <3

Makeup in SCA Period

sca-nerd:

I was talking with one of my Wards (she’s almost 16) about an event we were going to today and this happened.

And now I think she wants to research period make-up. So that’s a win.

Oh man. Oh man oh man. 😀

A Roman Woman’s Medicamentum: Creating the look of Roman Cosmetics with Modern Products
My A&S Paper on makeup (and the philosophy/cultural intricacies of cosmetics in Ancient Rome)

Chinese Cosmetics in the Tang Dynasty
Another paper, similar to the one on Roman cosmetics, but on Tang Dynasty makeup and styling.

Stefan’s Florilegium has a couple of articles on period cosmetics and perfumes, which I can’t seem to link directly to – but just do a search there for “cosmetics” and you’ll be happy.

Be wary of the “Encyclopedia of Cosmetics” type books, because if they do talk about SCA period, it’s super quick and tend to not be cited well. And if you’re looking at non-western European makeup…yeah.

ANYWAY, I’m a period cosmetics dork. 😀

Model of Carpenter’s Adze from Hatshepsut’s Temple

ancientpeoples:

Model Carpenter’s Adze from Hatshepsut’s Temple

New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca. 1479–1458 B.C., joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.

From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Deir el-Bahri, Temple of Hatshepsut, Foundation Deposit 1 (A), Egypt Exploration Fund, 1894–95.

Wood, bronze or copper alloy, leather

L. of handle 19.6 cm (7 11/16 in.) L. of blade 15.7 cm (6 3/16 in.); W. 5.3 cm (2 1/16 in.)

The handle of this adze is inscribed “The Good God, Maatkare, beloved of Amun, foremost of Djeser-Djeseru.” Maatkare was the throne name of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, and Djeser-Djeseru (Holy of Holies) was the name of her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. The adze was uncovered in one of the temple’s foundation deposits by the Museum’s Egyptian Expedition. Although the adze is full-size and appears to be functional, the blade is too thin to be used for cutting and, like most of the tools discovered in foundation deposits, this is a model.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

Today in History – The Death Of Empress Wu

todayinhistory:

December 16th 705: Empress Wu Zetian dies

On
this day in 705, Wu Zetian, the only sovereign empress of China, died
aged 81. Born during the Tang dynasty, she entered the court of Emperor
Taizong as a concubine when she was 14 years old. After Taizong’s death,
the new emperor Gaozong defied custom and chose the well-educated Wu to
remain as his favourite concubine. She rose to become Gaozong’s empress
in 655, after eliminating the current empress by allegedly killing her
own child and framing the empress. The new empress quickly silenced the
elder statesmen who opposed her position on the grounds that she did not
hail from the established aristocracy, with critics exiled and, often,
executed. Emperor Gaozong was a sickly man, and frequently entrusted
affairs of state to Wu, who managed imperial business essentially
single-handedly. Wu was a capable leader, known for her sound
management, her decisiveness, and her ruthlessness; these attributes won
her the respect, and fear, of the Chinese imperial court. Her greatest
accomplishments included agricultural and education reform,
stabilisation of the imperial bureaucracy, and imperial expansion. Upon
Gaozong’s death in 683, his son by Wu ascended to the throne, but,
concerned by the machinations of his ambitious wife, Wu had him exiled
and installed her other son as emperor. In 690, when she was 65 years
old, the empress claimed the throne for herself, and ruled as a
sovereign empress for 15 years. The question of succession led Wu to
designate her exiled son as heir, rather than choosing a member of her
own family, thus ensuring the continuation of the Tang dynasty. In 705,
senior officials conspired to compel the aging Wu to yield power to her
son. She accepted their demands and retired from the throne, dying in
December of that year. Despite decades of condemnation as a vicious
usurper, the achievements of Empress Wu Zetian, who defied the gender
conventions of her day, are increasingly being acknowledged.

Classifications of Viking Art

fjorn-the-skald:

Lesson 18 – Viking Art: Decorating Useful Objects.

Note: [If you have not done so already, check out last week’s lesson. Visit “Viking History” on my blog to view all of the lessons.]

Komiði sæl og blessuð, vinir,

We have already seen that “Vikings” were incredibly crafty, but now we shall focus on their actual art form. Their art was not like our standard for art today (though, that standard, in all honesty, can be rather low). By that, I mean to say that they did not simply “waste” their creation by sticking it on a wall. They used their art, and, in some ways, their art made those objects more powerful.

Art may not seem to be important when studying the “Vikings,” but classifying art still has its importance. One benefit of this practice is that it helps establish a chronology. Yet, most importantly, art and artistic styles show us their mentality and influences – who they interacted with and took inspiration from. Their art tells a story, one that was originally inspired by Celtic art, but then moved to a “Scandinavian” style, until eventually integrating Christian elements. Art tells a story as we trace it through time.

My conversation of each art style will be rather basic, with at least one example for each style. This is not meant to be a cohesive study on the matter, but a general insight into their art. Before we begin, I would like to mention that “Zoomorphic Art” is a form of art that uses animal-like forms and motifs. Also, this lesson is more focused on the images than on textual explanation. Do not worry yourself with remembering the subtle differences between styles. If anything, just enjoy the interesting, lavishly decorated objects.

Contents:
1. Zoomorphic Art: Oseburg Style (Style “E”).
2. Zoomorphic Art: “Borre” Style.
3. Zoomorphic Art: Jelling Style.
4. Zoomorphic Art: Mammen Style.
5. Zoomorphic Art: Ringerlike Style.
6. Zoomorphic Art: Urnes Style.
7. Narrative Art


Oseburg Style (Style “E”)

Date Range: Late 8th century – 9th century.

As a zoomorphic art form, animals are a common motif for this style. This style, the earliest of the “Viking” set of art forms, reveals gripping beasts with triangular, tapered bodies. The space in which they art filled was full, leaving very little empty space. This results in very elaborate and detailed artwork.

Example:

Oseburg Ship Detail (from where one name for the style originates):


“Borre” Style

Date Range: ca. 850 – 970.

This style was the most Scandinavian in nature. It was also the most widely spread. This style rises alongside the very height of the Viking Age, and thus gives us no surprise that it is the most Scandinavian and widespread of the art styles we are discussing. It was also the last fully pagan period for their art style.

This style features tightly interlaced, ribbon like beasts, often singular and without multiple other animals lacing around it (but not always). These animals had pretzel-shape, or ribbon-like, bodies.

Example:

Bronze Pendant from Hedeby:


Jelling Style

Date Range: mid-10th century.

This art style, emerging during the early phases of Christianization in Scandinavia, features ribbon-like animals. Unlike the Borre style, these animals have “S” shapes, versus the pretzel shape. This style is much more spacious and open than previous ones.

Example:

King Gorm’s Cup, ca. 958:


Mammen Style

Date Range: late 10th century.

This style still features ribbon-like animals (this aspect really sticks, doesn’t it?), yet the bodies of these animals are much more substantial. They are filled with figures twisting around. By this time, Christian motifs had begun to work their way into the styles, such as the motif of the lion and the snake.

Examples:

Mammen Axe:

Jelling Stone (still Mammen, just located at Jelling):


Ringerlike Style

Date Range: ca. 990-1050.

This style is very similar to Mammen, but tighter and featuring more tendril designs. As earlier styles had Celtic influence, this style has more Anglo-Saxon influence (partly due to their experience abroad in places featuring these styles, such as England). This style truly demonstrated the syncretism between the Scandinavian pagan styles and the new Christian styles they were incorporating. Thus, this art reveals some of the first patterns for consistent evidence of conversion. Of course, not all works of the Ringerlike Style were Christian.

Example:

Sigurðr Runestone:


Urnes Style

Date Range: 1040-1110.

Many may criticize this style curly because it was the least “traditional” of the Viking styles. By that I mean to say it was the most influenced by Christian elements. Yet, it is foolish to reject such a beautiful style for such petty reasons, for this style is a careful blend; one does not conquer the other. For this is truly the final phase of Viking art.

This style features intricate animals interweaving, as we have seen throughout these styles. The animals have chunky bodies, as we began to see in the Mammen style. Everything is curvy and asymmetrical, balancing instead around a system of thinly laced ribboning. This style was most often featured in wood carving, especially on stave churches. Yet, runestones and metalwork also featured this style. Romanesque art would replace this (and this is the true shame, I must say).

Example:

Urnes Stave Church Portal (Entrance):


Narrative Art

This post is already terribly long, but I could not possibly leave out this type of art. This art form is essentially storytelling through pictures, as we have actually already seen with the Sigurðr Runestone. The best example of this art form, though, would be the Gotland Picture Stones (dates ranging from the 5th to 11th centuries). The Stone from Ardre is also a good example (seen below), dating from the 8th-9th century. This stone features Óðinn and Sleipnir as well as Þórr. In short, this art form often depicts mythological stories and figures. Yet, these works are also not often very clear. Ships are also extremely popular motifs for this style. Nearly all of these things I have told of the Narrative Art form is seen on the Ardre Runestone:


Wrap-up

In short, there is quite a lot to Viking Art. Yet, as the title of this lesson suggests, every object they placed their art upon had a specific function. Ships, jewelry, cups, axes, storytelling stones, buildings, memorials, and so forth. Art was integrated into life. It was not its own sphere, but rather a natural element of every object. Art gave objects more meaning – more power. They conveyed wealth, culture, and history. 

I hope you all enjoyed this lesson!

Skál og ferð vel.

Next Week’s Lesson: Lesson 19 – Viking Warfare.


Sources and Notations:

[Gen.] Jennifer Dukes-Knight, “Crafts, Art, and Weaponry,” Lecture, Viking History, University of South Florida, 2015. || I had little extra input to make this lesson (again), so there are clearly a lack of notations this time. If there is any aspect of this lesson that you would like more detail, send me an ask and I shall research it for you.

[Fig.1] “Oseberg Ship – Detail,” via Maraire on Flickr. (link)

[Fig.2] “Bronze pendant from Hedeby (Haithabu).” by Cassiopeia via Wikipedia Commons. (link)

[Fig.3] “Gorm’s Silver Cup,” via Green, J. R. (1902) A Short History of the English People from the Wikipedia Commons. (link)

[Fig.4] “Viking Axe from Mammen,” via the National Museum of Denmark. (link)

[Fig.5] “Lion Runestone at Jelling,” via Sven Rosborn from the Wikipedia Commons. (link)

[Fig.6] “Sigurdsristningen,” by Ann-Sofi Cullhed via Wikipedia Commons. (link)

[Fig.7] “Urnes Portal,” by Nina Aldin Thune (?) via Wikipedia Commons. (link).

[Fig.8] “Ardre Runestone,” From Ardre Parish, Gotland, Sweden. Now at the National Historical Museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Photo via Wikipedia Commons. (link)

Racial Diversity

medievalpoc:

Ashburnham Pentateuch

f. 65v: A mother and father grieve for their child

Spain or Italy (5th or 6th C.)

Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, MS nouv. acq. lat. 2334

Consider this manuscript in light of the article I posted 2 days ago about historical European mixed race families. A lot of similar articles go right from Roman Britain to Renaissance Italy, but documents like this that often bridge the historical “gap” because go unremarked upon because they’re often not considered analgous to written records or artistic depictions. What they do, rather, is show that in the imagination of artists during this time, racial diversity was part of their social consciousness and how they envisioned concepts like “a family”. My thanks to Dr Caitlin R Green on bringing this manuscript to my attention.

Migrating Coconuts

sca-nerd:

english-history-trip:

eastiseverywhere:

Still from Monty Python and the Holy Grail
UK (1975)
[Source]

Coconut cup
England (c. 1470 – 1500 with later additions)
Silver-gilt, coconut, chrysoprase
[Source]

Kathleen Kennedy writes for the Mary Sue:

Forty years old this year, the coconut sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail may be one of the most iconic opening scenes in film history. The pillar of chivalry, Arthur, King of the Britons, appears riding an imaginary horse like a child on a playground. His faithful servant, Patsy, accompanies him, banging two coconut halves together to make the sound of the horse’s hooves. Arthur and Patsy are very, very serious about their quest. They are the only ones who are.

The whole scene concentrates on those coconuts. The put-upon straight-man of the film, Arthur, gamely tries to explain the existence of coconuts in medieval England (“they could have been carried”). The grail remains all but forgotten as the guards on the castle walls uproariously tear down his explanations. (“Are you suggesting that coconuts migrate?”)… Audiences are left in stitches and thoroughly convinced of the impossibility of coconuts existing in medieval England.

Except medieval England was lousy with coconuts. No, really, and Monty Python may well have known it.

They’re Oxbridge men, after all, and several Oxford and Cambridge colleges still preserve coconuts given to them in the fifteenth century. Here’s a fifteenth-century coconut cup that came to Oxford more recently. While parts of it were added more recently, the original elements are medieval. This is the only medieval English coconut cup currently displayed online, and it shows how the shell was strapped into a goblet form using a harness of silver or gold. The English continued to make coconut cups after the medieval period—in the sixteenth century, seventeenth century, and beyond. They were numerous enough that by the fifteenth century, individual households might boast several coconut cups. One humble esquire highlighted the prestige of these cups when he willed his coconut cup to his heir in tail male, just like the Bennett estate in Pride and Prejudice or the Crawley estate in Downton Abbey.

But why make luxurious golden goblets out of coconuts? And how did they get to medieval England anyway, if swallows didn’t carry them?

In the Middle Ages, coconut palms were not yet as widespread as they are today. Coconuts grew in their native Maldives, in India, and perhaps parts of western Africa and the Middle East. (They were also growing in western Central America, but had gotten there on their own, crossing the pacific like small, tasty boats without a swallow in sight.) Coconuts formed a regular part of commerce across the Indian Ocean from Roman times, and this trade appears to have continued with little disruption straight through the ancient and medieval periods. Given England’s Roman history, it isn’t impossible that Life of Brian-era English might also have had access to coconuts. These coconuts weren’t transported all that way to be made into cups, however. They were imported as medicine.

Beginning regularly once again in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, medicinal coconuts arrived in England. This time, they were packed on Venetian galleys along with luxuries from silks to sugar, and next to exotic pets like monkeys and parrots. In turn, the Venetians got the coconuts from Alexandria and from the same trade networks that the coconuts had been part of for millennia. 

They were not called coconuts, either. The name “coconut” derives from the Portuguese and dates to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries-after the medieval period. In the Middle Ages, Europe knew the coconut as the “Nut of India” or “Great Nut.” It was the great, big whopping nut that was transported all the way from India—the only nut large enough to make into a drinking cup.

Let It Be Known: Coconuts Migrate.

Coconuts Migrate.

jewishhenna:

shelomit-bat-dvorah:

bodleianlibs:

We challenge you to decipher the plot of this
text
but there are no prizes because we’re not sure ourselves. 

@jewishhenna!

YES

This is Meshal haQadmoni, a book of animal fables written between 1281-1284 by Yitzhaq ben Shlomo ibn Sahula, a Sephardi writer, poet, and Qabbalist from Guadalajara (although this copy was clearly written in Germany at a later date). There’s an English translation of Meshal haQadmoni but it’s unfortunately not online… The first one is labelled “The Bear beheads the Fox,” the second on that page is “The Lion and his friends celebrate, eating and drinking,” etc. 

What a fun manuscript! I wonder if anyone has done a study of the iconography?

falnfenix:

mszombi:

changan-moon:

Traditional Chinese hanfu in Tang dynasty style | 齐胸襦裙qí xiōng rú qún (Chest-high ruqun) | Photo by 霜序映画

Oooh, I’ve never seen a plus size woman in hanfu, she looks beautiful!

hey @scareferencedesk

Maybe not modern hanfu, but being “plus size” was a major awesome thing in the Tang Dynasty.

skraddaren-elef:

I’m working on creating a vector database that houses every common heraldic element uniform to the standard SCA device blank, as a free resource to anyone looking to build their own device.

(Eventually I would like to code a flash ‘game’ sort of thing where you can actually build a device by picking your tincture/ordinary/charges with SCA rules built in so that it won’t allow you to build devices that break any rules.)

((For further example of this, to make my device, I would click the ‘Base, blue’, the ‘Per Pale, red, right side’, then the ‘Cresset, gold, center’. Each element is on a transparent background, so they get layered on top of whatever element is chosen previous))

But for now, I’m just creating the vector database, so I would like to ask you all for your help.

What is your device blazon?

What charges would you like to see included?

Or, two squirrels rampant addorsed and a portcullis sable.