Egypt

I like the Macbeth poster in the background.

Here are some pictures from school the past few days. Having a Playmobil sphinx set adds a lot to the ambiance.

Meg's and my genuine Thutmosid-style bezel ring!

I wrote her cartouche on it. We figured it out using only the phonetic hieroglyphs, not messing with the ideograms and whatnot. The letters read, "MEG."

February was too much with us, late and soon

February was one of those months that seriously just wouldn't die. It started with that groundhog seeing his shadow, which was inexcusable. We spent about half the month sick -- I was pretty much positive I would never get to church again -- and it kept snowing and being mostly in the single digits. I am extremely tired of my winter clothes. Kate outgrew all hers. Since we were sick, we hardly got any school done, which meant we were stuck in ancient Mesopotamia for January and the entire month of February. I don't mind Sumer, Akkad, and the rest, because people have awesome names like "Enheduanna" and "Sin-Leqqi-Uninni," but it was getting old. As late as Saturday, which, you may remember, was February 28th, I was still telling people it was going to be February FOREVER.

I'm pleased to report that it's March. And, we started Ancient Egypt today! Woohoo!

I hadn't quite meant to start Meg with stories about Thutmose III, but that's what Jonathan wanted to tell her this morning, so I ran with it.

I started things off by playing "Walk Like an Egyptian" really loudly and repeatedly. I'm not sure about most of the lyrics, but pretty much all you can hear is "oo-way-oo-way" and "Walk like an Egyptian," which won't scar any tender psyches. We colored maps of Egypt, discussed Thutmose's reign and strategy at the Battle of Megiddo, and looked at his cartouches, his statues, his wives' jewelry, and, by Meg's request, his mummy. I've also started a new Ancient History pinboard. I've got big plans for copying some of those Thutmosid bezel rings and maybe we'll make Meg a full costume to go with it, white dress, collar, headdress, the works.

I have high hopes it might be spring again, ever.

What we did in August

We just got back from spending most of August with my family. We had lots of fun! Kate turned eleven months old while we were out there and didn't so much achieve milestones as speed-crawl past them. She sprouted two upper teeth, went from slow-crawling to the aforementioned speed-crawl, and started pulling up. And cruising on objects. And walking with assistance. She also smiled at everyone and blinked her huge blue eyes at them. She made lots of friends.

Meg, meanwhile, reveled in all those outdoorsy New Mexican things to do. We hunted shell fossils in the mountains, played in mountain streams, dug up dinosaur bones out of my sister's yard, camped and roasted marshmallows in my parents' backyard, observed the recent flood damage at Bandelier, picked and identified wildflowers for our flower prints, and went to the museum and archaeological site where they dig up Clovis points. In between times she played with grandparents and cousins, amused herself in the wading pool, and arranged dinosaurs on otherwise normal tablescapes. A good time was had by all, I think.

Going on an airplane

I emerged from the shower to see Meg stuffing animals into a bag.

"I'm going on an airplane!" she informed me.
"Oh, fun!" I said. "Where are you going?"
"To Iceland, to find more dinosaurs."
"Can I come too?" I asked.
"Sure!" she said. Then, reassessing: "But you have to take that towel off your head first."

My dino girl

I did a search for  "dinosaur" on Pinterest, much to Meg's delight. I may, possibly, have created a monster.

"Oh, cute! More dinosaurs! I should wuv to play wif some of those! ...No, I don't want to eat any of your bread. I'm busy scrolling." Meg

Look what I found while antiquing in Kentucky

Ta-da!

"The mother of all comic books"

The Bayeux tapestry is up and scrollable. I had no idea it was so long and narrow. It's "Like the mother of all comic books," says the incomparable Lars Walker.

I'm just delighted over it, actually. The illustrations crack me up, especially with the Latin which is mostly quite manageable ("Hic portatur corpus Eadvvardi Regis," and sure enough, there's a bunch of dudes porting the aforementioned regal corpus).

Possibly I have a warped and morbid sense of humor. Seriously though, this is awesome.

Dinogad's Smock

Heavenfield linked me to this rather neat piece of historical detective work. "Dinogad's Smock" is an old Welsh lullaby that got incorporated into the Y Gododdin, and linguists dated the lullaby to the 500s AD.

The poem specifies Dinogad's father went fishing in "Rhaeadr Derwennydd," or the Derwent Waterfall. There are several Derwents on the Isles, but only one with a waterfall. There's also a "Hog's Earth" woods nearby suitable for bringing back "a roe-buck, a boar, a stag," and a Castle Crag just uphill from the falls with a post-Roman settlement of suitable age. Bing!

WWAT?

Do you ever wonder what an archaeologist digging up your stuff would make of you? I was thinking that tonight. I wonder if an archaeologist would notice I arranged my dishes by color order within type. I worked really hard on it. They certainly won't know the stories behind our things, that Jonathan's friend painted that and we bought those on our honeymoon. And what if I got an intern archaeologist for my shoes, who took the lazy way out and only took plaster casts of my feet from one pair and thus didn't notice that my shoes are actually two sizes, pre-Meggie and post-Meggie? How dare he miss something like that??

About at that point in my mental processes, I decided that hopefully there won't be an archaeologist for this apartment, because I mean to move out before I die. Or get, I don't know, covered by a volcano. Which is of course a form of dying.

It's probably just as well my legacy is with God. He even notices stray hairs. I apparently can't trust academia to do the thing right.

Lars Walker on why the Vikings raided

Lars Walker over at Brandywine Books has proposed a new theory as to why the Vikings started raiding the British Isles when they did. Overpopulation? He thinks not. He backs himself up with names and dates and geography and everything.

More medievalists regarding the hoard

This is a good collection of various medievalists' reactions to the hoard - rather more interesting than the general press' statements, I thought.

I particularly liked this one. The hoard included a folded-up gold cross inscribed with Psalm 67:2 (Psalm 68, as our English Bibles number them), about "Rise up, O Lord, and dispel your enemies." etc. This blogger notes that the main place in Anglo-Saxon literature that this verse survives is from the Life of St. Guthlac, about a Mercian warrior saint from roughly the right period. It's particularly interesting because Guthlac used this verse to ward off evil spirits. So, is this Guthlac's Hoard???

Well, probably not. But that would be cool.

Watch out for dragons

Dr. Veith had up this story about an Anglo-Saxon treasure hoard just discovered in a field in Staffordshire.

And -- to my very great excitement -- the scholars in charge of the hoard have started a website and apparently mean to put up their research - photos, catalog, x-rays, discussions, the works. So far there's not a whole lot.

They're dating the contents to the mid-600s, which is about 200 years before King Alfred. Staffordshire, come to find out, was the middle of the old kingdom of Mercia, which I don't know much about. They say Mercia was busy expanding about that time under kings Wulfhere and Penda. I think I need to go do more research.

My medievalist bloggers are all pleased as Punch. This link has several nice embedded news stories.

Apparently the treasure was found in July, but it went on display September 25th (yesterday). Not surprisingly, long lines of people want to see it. I sure would!