On May 20-23, the first conference on Wild and Domesticated Mammal Hair will take place in Budapest, Hungary. There's no programme online yet, but you can register for the conference via a form on the website, and you can also book workshops in addition to the basic programme.

The MEDATS is also organising a conference, and their CfP is open for a few more days:



I'm tempted, but I think I won't manage to squeeze in a paper proposal between now and the deadline...

And just in case you are going to a conference and are asked to chair a session - here are some thoughts from the Researchwhisperer blog on how to do so successfully.

There's a new exhibition on at the University of Manchester Library, called "The Alchemy of Colour". It will be running into August, and it does look very fascinating - it's a pity I won't be able to make it, but if you are in the area and interested in colours, it might be worth a visit.

There will be a conference in Munich, at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, about Structuring Fashion -Foundation Garments Throughout History. Obviously, the emphasis is on early modern and modern history, but Beatrix Nutz will be talking abou medieval formative underwear as well. The conference takes place September 13 and 14, with additional offers for the 15th and 16th if you have the time. You can find more info and the registration link behind the link.

 
 

We now interrupt your regularly scheduled blog with a double Call for Papers - here you go:

Lessons Learned: Textile Conservation - Then and Now
12^th North American Textile Conservation Conference, Ottawa, Canada, September 23 - 29, 2019

The twelfth biennial North American Textile Conservation Conference (NATCC) will be held in Ottawa, Canada, and will focus on the theme of “Lessons Learned – Textile Conservation – Then and Now.” The choice of the topic was inspired by NATCC’s return to the City of Ottawa, venue of our first conference in 1997. Analytical studies, conservation protocols, treatments, exhibition displays, and materials and techniques have evolved during the past 20+ years, often dramatically. We propose to revisit conservation procedures, best practices, collaborations, and other preservation guidelines carried out during the 1980s through the present.

Presentations may include, but are not limited to, evolving conservation protocols and best practices, including those for treatment, storage, travel and display; methodologies for technical analyses, scientific and historical research, collaborations among different stakeholders, and other topics as they relate to the field of textile conservation of tangible and intangible culture. Both successful and unsuccessful “lessons learned” are welcome. Specific cases where past treatments, methodologies, and/or collaborations are contrasted and reassessed according to contemporary needs and approaches, are especially welcome. Conservators, curators, conservation scientists, art historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, collection managers, designers, preparators and others are invited to submit proposals for presentations. Collaborations among professions are encouraged. Projects already presented or published will not be considered and proposed projects must be complete by the end of 2018.

Abstracts must be submitted by May 11, 2018. Abstracts will be peer reviewed by the NATCC board. Authors of selected papers and posters will be notified by August 3, 2018. Presentations will be 20 minutes long; there will be time for questions.

Please visit the website for the full information on submission and any updates at http://natcconference.com .

If you're based in Europe, this one might be more accessible for you:

16. annual meeting of European association for the advancement of archaeology by experiment in Unteruhldingen/Germany, 27. September - 30. September 2018
This year's meeting of the European Association for the advancement of archaeology
by experiment takes place in Unteruhldingen/Germany in the Lake dwelling museum
and the World Heritage room. In the European year of cultural heritage 2018, we would
like to devote ourselves especially to the practice of experimental archaeology and
school as well as the mediation to young audiences. For this conference we ask for
presentations. Lectures on the latest methods of investigation of finds and findings,
possibilities of analysis and reconstruction as well as reports of scientific
demonstrations and associated museological methods of mediation are again in focus.

End date for submission of papers: 15 May 2018
The conference will take place from September 27 to September 30. 2018, lectures on
September 28 and 29, 2018
Conference languages are German and English.
Registration is possible via www.exar.org.

I don't know how much English will be actually spoken at the conference, as it's been years since I was last able to attend (the date somehow always clashed with some other event that I already had confirmed). It used to be rather German-heavy, language-wise, but things may have changed.

 
 

It's time to throw some unsorted links at you again. Most of the stuff is in German - sorry for those of you who don't read it, but they are just too interesting to pass them up.

Anke Domaske is making fibres from milk that is leftover and spoiled - a brilliant example of upcycling, to put it that way. The fibres are versatile, and are getting used in a variety of ways already. (Article in German.)

Archäologentage 2018 are taking place April 12-15, and the topic is Migration. More information can be found here (info material in German and French).

Christa Schwab has tried to find out a good mixture for making a vegetarian sausage after a medieval recipe. You can read more about what she did, and how it worked, over at her blog (in German, but with pictures).

More food-related stuff - remains of Iron-Age feasting, or at least eating, have been found at the Cairns broch, Orkney, Scotland.

Not recent, but still interesting: an article about traditional Icelandic embroidery, via Medievalists.net.

It looks like there might be a cure for the Varroa mite problem that is threatening the European Honey Bees - I do hope that this will be a full success. (Article is in German.)

Sometimes, your colleagues have surprising hobbies - one of my archaeology colleagues, for instance, writes music and sings. In this case, an eulogy on a house from 1534 that was recently demolished. It's in English, too.

Also in English: Some new research on one of the tablet-woven bands from Hallstatt (Halltex 152) by Maikki Karisto, together with Mervi Pasanen and Karina Grömer. Mervi's blogpost includes the new pattern draft.

Textilis has a study of knitting sheaths from North Yorkshire.

And that's it for today - finally a few less tabs open in the brower!

There's a number of conferences coming up, and I thought you might be interested, so here they come:

African Experimental Archaeology Conference, March 20-22, Johannesburg. More info and registration here.

The 12th North American Textile Conservation Conference will take place in Canada, September 23-29, 2019. Their CfP is now open, and the topic is "Lessons Learned: Textile Conservation - Then and Now".

There's a conference on experimental Music Archaeology, April 12-14, in Brandenburg; more info and contact information here.

The CTR in Copenhagen is running a Saxo Summer School programme: "Textiles and Fashion in Theory and Practice through 3000 Years". It's a 10-day programme, more info on the CTR homepage.

The Dombauhütte Paderborn will have a bell founding event June 23-29, where a bell of 11th century style will be cast using 1th century methods. More info can be found on the facebook event page and on the Dombauhütte website.

 

I'm back at the work desk, trying to battle my way through stacks of paper that needs to be taken care of, as well as stacks of email that has to be dealt with. It's amazing how many mails can run up in just a few days of not-really-in-the-office time!

The symposium last weekend, by the way, was an utterly wonderful thing - not only did I get to meet a lot of lovely people again that I meet way, way too rarely, there were also a number of new faces to finally connect with the names I've been reading here and there, over and over again during the last years.

Add to this a number of really interesting and well-presented papers, a concert featuring medieval music in the beautiful Marienkirche with its astounding acoustics (and I still have a selection of earworms from that), a wine tasting with wines made from old grape varieties (including the wine that saved Oswald von Wolkenstein's life as he held on to the barrel when shipwrecked, and a wine that has been processed following exactly the instructions in the Capitulare de Villis, down to reconstructed tools), common meals both in the conference place as well as in the evening, and you have a wonderful event that I would call wildly successful - and I do hope that it will not have been the only or last one of its kind!

Now, though, the season of events and conferences is finally over for me, and there's hope of things becoming a little calmer again. Which includes a chance of actually getting back on top of the things stacked here, both physically and virtually...

My bags are packed and I am off again once more - the celebratory conference of IG Wolf is taking place this weekend, starting this evening, and it's promising to be a really interesting programme. The conference includes a concert and a wine-tasting evening with old grape breeds, plus a variety of different papers during Saturday and Sunday, and I'm very much looking forward to meeting a whole lot of old friends, acquaintances and colleagues there that I only get to see quite rarely.

My own presentation will be on Sunday morning, I'll be back home on Sunday night, and then I am just as happy to not be travelling for a while. If it feels like you've been living out of a bag for weeks, it's probably time to slow things down for a bit and not rush around through half of Germany for a while!