Read a Letter to the Franklin Institute and think again.
You can count on museums and the National Geographic to be historically accurate….
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Tag Archives: history
More on clothing of the common people
From kass_rants:
You see, in the medieval and Renaissance periods, people had to make use of every scrap of fabric. Labour was cheap and fabric was expensive. In the early modern period that followed, wealthy people wore lace collars that would equate in price to an estate in Ireland. So you see where I’m going with this. If you had an expensive piece of brocade, it probably cost more than your house. So when you made something from it, you pieced it and turned it and used every last scrap.
Modern dressmaking techniques waste a lot of fabric. They are engineered for speed of sewing. In the periods we study, speed was not as important and conservation of fabric.
Clothing of the common people
Lesbians vs. Lesbians
Clann Tartan at Charles City
Scottish Mercenaries
A single horrifying number
2%: The US Civil War, mathematics, and why we have already lost in Iraq
Solitudinem fecerunt, pacem appelunt – They made a desert and called it peace. (Tacitus)
A new (for me, anyway) look at an old quote
As long as I can remember I been aware of this famous quotation from Isaac Newton
“If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
and thought of it as a distinctly modest remark by one of the three greatest mathematicians in history.
However, there is more to it. Newton chose that image at least in part because of his feud with Robert Hooke, who was physically rather short.
From “On the Shoulders of Giants” or, Revenge is a Dish Best Eaten Cold Edition at The Inverse Square Blog, which I learned about from Cosmic Variance.
Archaeology and the Druids
Possible Druid Grave Enchants Archaeologists. Via Archaeology in Europe
Unlike a lot of sensational reports, this one is properly cautious about the dangers of interpreting a society from physical evidence alone:
There’s a joke among archaeologists: Two of their kind, in the future, find a present-day public toilet. “We’ve discovered a holy site!” cries one. “Look, it has two separate entrances,” says the other. “This here,” he says, pointing to the door with a pictogram of a woman, “was for priests. This is evident by the figure wearing a long garment.”
This reminded me of Digging the Weans (excerpt here), and Motel of the Mysteries.
The right to arm bears
“He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer – he drank a bottle of beer like any man.”
From Hilbert Space to Dilbert Space, and beyond 