Sean
User: Sean
Email: rab_berqi@bookandsword.com
Web: https://bookandsword.com
Some Good Armouring Books
In an earlier post, I talked about videos on making armour. But what if you prefer books? Whereas 20 years ago very little was available, today there are quite a few things to read and look at.
There is one textbook on making European plate armour: Brian R. Price, Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction: The 14th Century (Paladin Press: Boulder Colorado, 2000). The book is a reasonable introduction by a mid-level armourer with a troubling history. Brian R. Price (now an Associate Professor at Hawai’i Pacific University) once ran a small press (Chivalry Bookshelf) until it emerged that he had not been paying the agreed royalties, had not obtained rights to all the illustrations, and had not registered their works with the appropriate authorities. Many of his other business (Thornbird Arms, Revival Enterprises, Past Tents, Fettered Cock Pewter, agilitas.tv, Sirivitana printer in Thailand, Midpoint Distribution Services) and martial-arts (Schola Saint George) associates had similar stories dating back to the 1980s, and in the end a coalition of authors sued him and regained control of their works in exchange for a nondisclosure agreement.* While Techniques of Medieval Armour Reproduction was published by Paladin Press, an independent business, many people are uncomfortable with supporting the author. (Also, this book is specifically on late medieval European armour … if you are interested in ancient kinds or kinds outside of Catholic Europe you will need other resources).
Read moreMeditations on a Homespun Blanket
I have some camping planned for later this summer, so I bought a woolen blanket from Adam Henzl at https://handwovenwool.com/ It was probably woven in the Achaemenid empire, and the price was similar to a 100% wool blanket from sellers of Heimtextilien in Innsbruck. The wool is soft and well-woven with strong selvages. When I spread it over my lap and worked it, I found it very educational.
As you can see, the wool still contained a significant amount of burrs, grasses, wood chips and windblown debris. Much of this was not easily visible but appeared under my hands and my tweezers.
Cross-Post: Reddit Breaks Without Javascript
Sometime in mid-April 2018, Reddit joined the crowd of sites which don’t work without Javascript. Its pages do not appear blank, but none of the links work, and the start of each line in the main part of the page is covered by an almost completely empty column at the left which cannot be removed.
A number of blog hosts have joined this trend recently. Here is Confessions of a Community College Dean at https://suburbdad.blogspot.co.at/ (abandoned July 2019, his essays are still posted at https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/confessions-community-college-dean as of January 2022- ed.)
Horse Troops and Troops of the Bow
The architecture of holy places in the Middle East has changed a bit since the glory days of the Ebabbar, but how about this photo of a mosque in Isfahan? A tablet from Sippar with the forgettable names BM 57222 and CT 57, 82 contains the following lines: “(6) 1/2 mina... Continue reading: Horse Troops and Troops of the Bow
Cross-Post: Science for the People Needs Patrons
Bonus Content: Trecento Sources for Concealed Armour
Another of my writing projects brings us to the 14th century AD, and the burning question “what kind of concealed armour could you buy in the Avignon of the Babylonian Captivity?” If you think that concealed armour is just for Assassin’s Creed and 16th century bravos, you might want to check out Medieval Warfare VIII-1!
But what if you want the original source? Medieval Warfare does not have room for sources in the original, so this week, I have pasted them from my rough draft of the article:
Bow Estates Already Under Nebuchadnezzar
Sometimes the tablet-gods smile on us. Over the last hundred years, scholars have worked to establish when the properties known as bow, horse, and chariot estates first appeared in Mesopotamia. Earlier writers often saw them as examples of Iranian feudalism, imposed on Babylonia by the Medes or Persians, but there were a few examples under Nabonidus. Then in 1998 Michael Jursa reread a text from Uruk from the 35th year of Nebuchadnezzar with the following lines:
(15) 1 GUR 2 PI ŠE.NUMUN E2 GIŠ.BAN ša2 {m}Dan-/e-<>\-a
ša2 {m}{d}U.GUR-da-a-nu a-na er-ru-šu-tu2
i-ir-ši maš-ka-a-nu ša2 {m}Gi-mil-lu
a-di {m}G-mil-lu ŠE.NUMUN i-šal-lim
Vocabulary
rašû i/i “to get, acquire”
erušutu > erēşu “to seed
maškanu “security, pledge”
1 kur 2 pi of seed (ie. field which is sown with 7 bushels of barley), the bow estate of Dannēa, which Nergal-dān acquired to sow, is pledged to Gimillu, until Gimillu received the barley.
The Ancient Story of Stephen Hawking’s Tombstone
Some Thoughts on “The Cosmic Computer”
On Canada Day 2017 I finished re-reading the project Gutenberg text of Piper’s Cosmic Computer (my paperback copy with the wonderful red-and-purple cover is back in Canada). I read this novel every few years, and I always learn something new. Quite a few people who grew up on the American science fiction of the 1940s through 1970s have been reading the news, finding something uncomfortably familiar, and looking back to those Silver Age writers to understand some current madness (Phil Paine reread Revolt in 2100 for the same reason). I can’t talk about that here, but I want to talk about some of the things which I found valuable in this novel.
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