It's that time of the month again... where I have way, way too many tabs open in the browser. Which means, yes, high time for a link dump!

Margarita Gleba and Susanna Harris have been working on the topic of splicing (instead of spinning) for a while now, and their research is making waves - case in point: Current Archaeology is featuring an article about spliced textiles.

Care more for blingy stuff? The "Schatz von Preslav", a Bulgarian treasure find from around 920, is currently on exhibition in the Louvre in Paris. Here's a German article about the treasure.

Tablet weaving, anyone? Viktoria Holmqvist's article about the Dune Belt and Eric of Pomerania's belt is available online as pdf, with some corrections to the original article printed in NESAT X.

Another book about tablet weaving will come out soon - Claudia Wollny and Ute Bargmann are publishing "roslein und wecklein", a transcription of a 15th century manuscript with patterns for brocaded tabletwoven bands. See more about it here.

And finally some music, played on a late 19th century guitar:

I'm back from my breather, and it was a wonderful time - there was holiday knitting, and there was bouldering, and some quality shopping for things I cannot get here, and there were walks in sunny weather and a bit of mudlarking and there was cake.

Lots of cake.

[caption id="attachment_4080" align="alignnone" width="446"] That, by the way, is the Afternoon Tea for two people in the Salvation Army Café near St Paul's. Which was delicious.


Somehow, British cake is considerably different from German cake, and somehow I have not yet managed to copy it. I probably have not tried hard enough (read: properly, using a recipe from Britain and actually sticking to what it says) - but when we are across the Channel, I end up eating lots of cake and really enjoying it, and scones with clotted cream as well.

So there was cake, and scones, and more cake. Too much for my own good, probaby... but I regret nothing.

There was also a streak of luck in timing, and we got to see the first female Doctor Who right when it was aired in Britain, which was totally awesome (and of course accompanied by a nice cup of tea). It's probably a good thing we only discovered quite late that we could watch older episodes of Dr Who in our apartment, or there might have been some binge-watching to the detriment of sleeptime (which was very, very much needed).

What there was not, though, were those lovely German Heinzelmännchen who take care of all the work back home while one is away, so on the list of "urgent things to do", getting emails and shop orders on their way was right up there on top with "go grocery shopping or starve".

Now there's some Textile Forum stuff to be taken care of, and Google has let me know that there seem to be some issues with the mobile version of my webpage. So if you've been trying to read stuff on the blog with your mobile implement and have gotten a load of 404 errors - I'm sorry about that, I am now aware of it, and I am trying to fix it. (If you should run into any errors, or have any other issues with these pages, please don't hesitate to tell me. It's amazing how many things can remain undetected even if you try from time to time to make sure everything is working alright - so I always appreciate getting a hint if something is not!)

One of the last old forests in Europe, the Hambacher Forst, is currently in danger of being razed.

The Hambacher Forst is about 12 000 years old. Yes, twelve fucking thousand. Its earliest mention in written sources is in a document by Otto II, Emperor, dated 973. The oldest trees currently standing there are 350 years old, and more than one hundred fourty highly endangered species live in that forest. You can read more about the forest on Wikipedia.

Now, if you are wondering why something like this is going to be felled... because RWE is of the opinion that the thing that we all need much more than a historic forest and really important habitat for endangered species of plants and animals is... brown coal. Yes. Brown coal. That dirtiest, most stupid source of energy that you can use these days.

Currently, the federal government of the substate of Germany the forest is in uses the police to clear the forest of activists, who are protesting against the raze. RWE plans to fell trees starting on October 1. The protests of countless people who want the forest to stay remain unheeded.

Yet.

There's still hope, and I hope that you are willing to help! Maybe, together, we can save the forest.

So what can you do?

Sign the petition on Change.org.
Send a letter protesting the forest raze via the BUND website.
Visit the Facebook page of the local government and leave a message there telling them you cannot believe they are doing such a thing.
Send a tweet to @ArminLaschet and/or @inascharrenbach with the same message. It need not be long. It need not be elaborate - it just needs to be another voice, and another, and another. (You can use the hashtag #hambibleibt if you like.)

And, of course, spread the word so others join in as well.

I'm here. I'm hoping. Please help.

Here is a little stack of links for you:

Beer might have been the reason for the cultivation of grains, not bread. Well, that does fit in very well with my view of humankind - I can't say I' surprised!

More textile stuff? Here's a short video about a method for weaving patterns on a loom with extra heddles, and an article about the same style of weaving, but done by two people (which sounds much more efficient to me).

More patterns, this time old ones for tablet-weaving? Ute Bargmann has written an article about the patterns recorded in Cod. Pal. Germ. 551 in Heidelberg, with some very beautiful brocaded patterns for tabletwoven bands.

Have a good start into the week!

I stumbled across this snippet from an American comedian a few days ago, and a Friday is just the day to share it with you. It amused me immensely, I hope you enjoy it just as much:

Also fun, and proof that we are living in the future right now: A company is bringing out augmented reality smartglasses for cyclists to help in their training. (Similar article in German.)

Here's a short article about the earliest plant fibre technology: Splicing (not spinning). One of the many techniques that I still haven't found time to get into deeply. It's on my list, though. Very much.

If you're interested in embroideries, there's a new(ish) German book out: Christiane Elster: Die Textilen Geschenke Papst Bonifaz' VIII. (1294-1303) an die Kathedrale von Anagni. Päpstliche Paramente des späten Mittelalters als Medien der Repräsentation, Gaben und Erinnerungsträger. Petersberg : Michael Imhof Verlag, 2018. And here on Paroles d'Arts you can find a French review about the book, including some images so you can get an idea.

A very modern type of clothing - like out of a sci-fi book - is being developed: Clothing that extracts oxygen from water to let you breathe. It's not efficient enough yet to provide a human with the necessary oxygen, but I'm totally floored that this is possible at all!

Now for a bit of archaeology - a game board on stone that might be a clue to the spot where a monastery once existed.

Some more archaeology shows that cheese-making is a very old thing, and cheeses may have been connected to social status - and may have been a step in promoting the freaky gene that lets European adults produce lactase.

And some conservation issues, though rather modern ones: Plastics have become a part of our history, and they start degrading in bulk now, so conservators are struggling to keep that part of human cultural history intact.

 

It's time again to clear out some of the tabs that have accumulated. (Especially since I am trying to clear them all, eventually, as I'm going to switch over to another browser. Firefox is just not what it used to be; I've had nasty issues with typing lags and other long load-times and lags, and it's getting on my nerves. So currently being tested: Opera. Any browser advice is taken gladly.)

There's been a new study on alcohol consumption, and it looks like there are no health benefits that outweigh the potential downsides after all. I really liked the note of caution at the end of the text, though - where a Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk (I wasn't aware this subject even existed!) very rightly states that there is also no safe level of living, but nobody would recommend abstention. After all, getting a fix in some way or other is a very human (and a very ancient) thing...

Speaking of ancient, if you like bananas, you might be interested in this history of the domesticated banana on Sapiens.

Let's stay with the topic of domestication - honey bees are endangered, among other things, by the varroa mite. Torben Schiffer wrote an interesting article (German and English) about this problem, stating that quite a bit of it is home-made and due to the methods of modern bee-keeping.

An article at Quartz makes a case for puns as the most elevated display of wit. Much to my delight, as I'm a total sucker for puns - the more groan-worthy, the better.

And to round things off, something from Australia in an article in German: Researchers have found out that cotton can be recycled (or upcycled) into a replacement for human cartilage.