Category: archaeology

biweekly links 7-18-2018

Sixteenth-century Tudor shipwreck given protected status after being found beneath beach in Kent: evidently merchant ships don’t survive very often so it’s good the authorities protected this ca. 1531 wreck so quickly. More photos at Historic England.

Diagonal cross section of an old wooden ship resting upright on a yellow metal frame
The grandaddy of all Tudor shipwrecks, the Mary Rose is preserved whole in Portsmouth UK. Courtesy Wikipedia.
Books That Kill: 3 Poisonous Renaissance Manuscripts Discovered in School Library: so the macguffin in “Name of the Rose” is totally plausible, though in this case it was probably nineteenth century restorers who applied the poison as a pesticide in an attempt to protect the books [insert tearing of hair/gnashing of teeth re: destructive restoration efforts].

Archaeologists Have Uncovered a Place Where The Ancient Egyptians Mummifed Their Dead: and they went into the lab to see what was on the slab. Clearly marked measuring cups and labeled oil containers, as it turns out. A treasure trove of historical chemistry!

Loch Ness monster hunter concludes: it’s a big catfish: aaaand the spoiler’s in the title. Seriously, this seems like a plausible explanation to me, though not nearly as exciting as a plesiosaur.

biweekly links 3-14-2018

Happy spring (or, at least, happy daylight savings time. Yeah, it’s dark in the morning but it’s light enough for me to take a walk after work)! After an inadvertent week off due to flaky laptop I present a passel of links:

Found in South Philadelphia, an Underground Railroad station: even without the association with Harriet Tubman this is a significant historic site. I agree with the historian who advocates elevating symbols of emancipation even as we tear down memorials to the Confederacy.

Alchemy, flushing toilets and blood-letting: The secrets of medieval Oxford revealed: the pot of mercury is all well and good but I’m more excited about the array of writing implements found. A solid lead pencil! “Parchment prickers”, whatever those are! And for the life of me I can’t find a photo of the elusive “vellum scissors”.

17 Rare Pics Reveal A Fake Rooftop Town Built To Hide Boeing’s Factory From Japanese Air Strikes: I think myself a history buff yet I’d never heard of this! An entire fake city built to protect American fighter plane production during WWII.

Support the Terence McKenna archives! If you’re so inclined. I’ve not followed McKenna’s career closely but I’m all about efforts to preserve and transcript data for easy searchability.

biweekly links 8-16-2017

Major archaeological finds at Greenwich uncover lost Royal palace: archaeologists have found part of Greenwich Palace, where Elizabeth I, her sister “Bloody” Mary I and her dad Henry VIII were born. All they found were the kitchens, but in its time Greenwich was comparable to Hampton Court Palace in size and splendor.

August 7, 1620 in crime history: Katharina Kepler Arrested for Witchcraft in Germany: not a typo, that is astronomer Johannes Kepler’s mom. He defended her himself and did get her released, but this is a stark example of the way superstition persisted in the early years of what we think of as modern science.

Two Massive ‘Sea Serpent’ Oarfish Wash Up on Beaches: if you’re squeamish about the sight of filleted raw fish don’t look, but… take a look at these things! Huge and silver and serpent-like, I find it entirely believable that oarfish are mistaken for sea serpents from time to time.

old fashioned engraving of a sea serpent reared up and blowing water out its mouth like a fountain
The Great Sea Serpent (according to Hans Egede. Courtesy the New York Public Library.

How America Lost Its Mind: from The Atlantic, no less. Much to unpack here: did unfettered intellectual freedom lead to the current climate of subjective feelings trumping measurable fact? And is this relativism run amok a peculiarly American thing?

a fistful of linkage

Because I’m utterly stumped for a topic this week:

England’s new psychedelic renaissance: not a third Summer of Love (yes, there was a second [YouTube]), but less with the (pure) hedonism and more with the science.

Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England is exactly what it sounds like: a painstaking examination of extant coroners’ reports reveal many, many dangers of everyday Elizabethan life. Maybe I’m morbid but I look forward to checking out their podcasts and bibliography.

The Racism Behind Alien Mummy Hoaxes: the whole “ancient aliens” thing doesn’t sit well for me and this article explains why better than I ever could. Insisting that aliens must have made [insert marvel of the world here] grossly discounts the tenacity and ingenuity of ancient and/or indigenous peoples. The possibility that hoaxers alter real mummies also runs into issues of desecration of indigenous burials and corruption of archaeological finds.

Photo of incredulous Agent Scully. Text: I'm not saying it was aliens...because it wasn't.
Courtesy Imgflip

Biweekly links 2-8-2017

Here’s what Google Alerts netted for me over the past fortnight:

Queer occult vs. “alt-right” occult: a very different take on the current political turmoil in the U.S. Disclaimer: I am not a practitioner but I find the idea that memes are a kind of magic provocative, to say the least. Thoughts?

Magick as strategy in World War Two: that the Nazis embraced their own twisted form of occultism isn’t news, but the possibility of the English fighting fire with fire in the form of Aleister Crowley is a new one on me. Fantasy, of course, but the facts it’s based on are arguably weirder.

16th-century English Tudor rose pendant unearthed near Moscow Kremlin: before we go all “how did it get there?!” keep in mind that England had a presence in Russia from the time of Ivan the Terrible (a prospective employer of John Dee – but that’s another story). Interestingly I first learned of Englishmen in Ivan’s Russia through Ann Swinfen’s historical fiction as she set one of her Christoval Alvarez books in Muscovy.

Photos: Secret ‘Hole’ to Hide Priests Revealed in Tudor Mansion: Archaeology, hidden passages, and spycraft, my favorites! Researchers used a 3D laser scanner to plot the priest hole’s location in Coughton Court, a “false hole” concealing the real one. Historians believe Nicholas Owens, English Catholic spy and escape artist, created it. Later several of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators used Coughton Court as a hideout.

rectangular alcove in a stone wall
Another priest hole, at Oxborough Hall, UK. By Alasdair Massie on Flickr, some rights reserved.

biweekly links 7-27-2016 – the archaeology edition

Don’t have weird. Have some science: