Buried Treasure
The impulse to bury treasure, gold, or much-valued objects is long-standing. “An amateur treasure hunter armed with a metal detector has found over 52,000 Roman coins worth $1 million buried in field, one of the largest ever such finds in the UK, said the British Museum. Dave Crisp, a hospital chef, came across the buried treasure while searching for “metal objects” in a field near Frome, Somerset in south-western England.” http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/09/uk.roman.coin.treasure/ “The find includes more than 760 coins from the reign of Carausius, the Roman naval officer who seized power in 286 and ruled until he was assassinated in 293. “The late third century A.D. was a time when Britain suffered barbarian invasions, economic crises and civil wars . . . Roman rule was finally stabilized when the Emperor Diocletian formed a coalition with the Emperor Maximian, which lasted 20 Read more…
Happy Mother’s Day!
Growing up, my family scoffed at ‘Mother’s Day’ as a Hallmark Holiday, but I’m here to tell you that its roots go all the way back to ancient times. Mother’s Day was not designed to honor mothers, per se, but part of the worship of goddesses within the pagan world. In Ancient Greece, Cybele, or the ‘great mother’ was honored as the mother of “most of the major deities including Zeus . . . [she was] the mother goddess, and the festival took place around the time of the Vernal Equinox.” http://www.mothersdaycentral.com/about-mothersday/history/ Later, the Christian Church adopted the holiday (Romans worshipped the goddess, Hilaria, and the Egyptians, Isis) as the day to celebrate the “Mother Church”. In the Celtic church, people honored first the pagan goddess, Brigid and then ‘St Brigid’, with the first milk of the ewes. http://womenshistory.about.com/od/mothersday/a/early.htm Furthermore, “in the Read more…
Man’s Inhumanity to Man
Man was made to mourn: A Dirge, by Robert Burns Many and sharp the num’rous ills Inwoven with our frame! More pointed still we make ourselves Regret, remorse, and shame! And Man, whose heav’n-erected face The smiles of love adorn, – Man’s inhumanity to man Makes countless thousands mourn! The following article from March 14, details the attacks in Lagos, Nigeria, which is one of the most war torn countries in Africa. It begins: “Nigerians woke last Sunday, to the news that more than 400 people of Dogo Nahawa community in Jos south area of Plateau state had been sent to their early graves by rampaging invaders. News of the attack spread like wildfire creating panic in parts of Jos North, which had earlier in January, witness another round of the orgy of violence that has now become and existential Read more…
Dark Age and Medieval Armor
The Arthurian knight in plate mail, jousting on his horse, is the classic image of a medieval knight, but is totally inaccurate. Armor has evolved over time and that plate mailed knight was a relatively late development in the evolution of warfare. Dark Age warriors wore a range of leather and chain mail armor, properly referred to as simply ‘mail’. This was standard for the next five hundred years, until the gradual shift to plate mail during the fourteenth century, particularly for high status warriors. From: http://historymedren.about.com/library/weekly/aa041500a.htm “The construction of mail was begun by hammering a sheet of metal very thin and flat. The sheet would then be cut into narrow strips, and each strip would be wound around an iron mandrel or rod. (Later, when the technique of drawing wire was developed, soft iron wire would be used instead.) The wound wire or strips Read more…
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