In an increasingly disposable world, efforts to preserve and catalogue our analogue and digital lives could change the nature of history as we know it.
In a modest house in Chicago's Bridgeport neighbourhood, an antique library filing cabinet holds hundreds of old cassette tapes. Many have handwritten labels, some two decades old.
The cabinet stores the raw analogue material for Ravearchive.com, an online project aimed at preserving and distributing the DJ mixtapes, party fliers and fanzines of the 1990s US rave scene.
Read more here.
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label history. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 08, 2011
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Ardnamurchan Viking boat burial
The UK mainland's first fully intact Viking boat burial site has been uncovered in the west Highlands, archaeologists have said.
The site, at Ardnamurchan, is thought to be more than 1,000 years old.
Artefacts buried alongside the Viking in his boat suggest he was a high-ranking warrior.
Archaeologist Dr Hannah Cobb said the "artefacts and preservation make this one of the most important Norse graves ever excavated in Britain".
Read more here.
The site, at Ardnamurchan, is thought to be more than 1,000 years old.
Artefacts buried alongside the Viking in his boat suggest he was a high-ranking warrior.
Archaeologist Dr Hannah Cobb said the "artefacts and preservation make this one of the most important Norse graves ever excavated in Britain".
Read more here.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Late Medieval English Scribes
Late Medieval English Scribes is an online catalogue of all scribal hands (identified or unidentified) which appear in the manuscripts of the English writings of five major Middle English authors: Geoffrey Chaucer, John Gower, John Trevisa, William Langland and Thomas Hoccleve.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Tuesday, October 04, 2011
Facial Reconstruction of Simon of Sudbury
In the final website there will be a section about Simon himself, and a section describing the Peasant's Revolt of 1381, where Archbishop Simon of Sudbury met his unfortunate fate.
Read more here.
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Story of England - Michael Wood
The history of England as experienced in one village. Surprisingly touching.
Monday, August 08, 2011
History is only inconvenient if you can't rewrite it
After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday approved a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Fathers’ commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light...
...The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”
Cause kids, guns are good!
Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.
Conservatives, the people your parents warned you about.
Read more here.
...The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution.
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about “the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schlafly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association.”
Cause kids, guns are good!
Other changes seem aimed at tamping down criticism of the right. Conservatives passed one amendment, for instance, requiring that the history of McCarthyism include “how the later release of the Venona papers confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government.” The Venona papers were transcripts of some 3,000 communications between the Soviet Union and its agents in the United States.
Conservatives, the people your parents warned you about.
Read more here.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Sapphire ring 'belonged to Anglo-Saxon or Viking royalty'
A unique gold and sapphire finger ring, found by a metal detectorist and just purchased by the Yorkshire Museum, almost certainly belonged to Anglo-Saxon or Viking royalty, very senior clergy or a leading member of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, say historians.
Of very great historical importance, it is the only Anglo-Saxon era sapphire ever found in the ground in Britain. The only other sapphire from the period is the one that the Queen wears in her Imperial State Crown, used at the opening of Parliament. Known as St. Edward’s sapphire, this latter gem was once part of King Edward the Confessor’s finger ring and is now the oldest gem in the British crown
Read more here.
Of very great historical importance, it is the only Anglo-Saxon era sapphire ever found in the ground in Britain. The only other sapphire from the period is the one that the Queen wears in her Imperial State Crown, used at the opening of Parliament. Known as St. Edward’s sapphire, this latter gem was once part of King Edward the Confessor’s finger ring and is now the oldest gem in the British crown
Read more here.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Real Canadians delight in the War of 1812
You all know a month doesn't go by when someone somewhere [in Canada]* says: "you know, we burned the White House down once"
A true Canadian says this with pride.
It’s a sticky question. Exactly how should Canada commemorate the 200th anniversary of a war in which our predecessors repelled an invasion by the United States – now this country’s closest ally and most valued trading partner?
The bicentennial of the War of 1812 is fast approaching. It’s a major formative event in Canada’s history – but like all wars, was wrenching and destructive. Both the White House and early Parliament buildings in Upper Canada were torched during the conflict.
Sorry our American friends, but one of the reasons we tolerate you at all is that we kicked your ass once.
And kicking a bully's ass is an experience that can last a lifetime...
Read more here.
* Americans tend to be strangely quiet on the subject.
A true Canadian says this with pride.
It’s a sticky question. Exactly how should Canada commemorate the 200th anniversary of a war in which our predecessors repelled an invasion by the United States – now this country’s closest ally and most valued trading partner?
The bicentennial of the War of 1812 is fast approaching. It’s a major formative event in Canada’s history – but like all wars, was wrenching and destructive. Both the White House and early Parliament buildings in Upper Canada were torched during the conflict.
Sorry our American friends, but one of the reasons we tolerate you at all is that we kicked your ass once.
And kicking a bully's ass is an experience that can last a lifetime...
Read more here.
* Americans tend to be strangely quiet on the subject.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Gold hoard found in French cellar
A French couple have found a hoard of gold coins worth at least 100,000 euros (£89,000; $140,000) in the cellar of their home in the town of Millau.
They were working on their drains when they dug up the 34 coins in a little clay pot, French media said.
The coins date from 1595 to the French Revolution, which began in 1789, said a local coin expert who evaluated them.
The most valuable is a double louis from 1640, during the reign of Louis XIII, worth 6,500 euros.
Read more here.
They were working on their drains when they dug up the 34 coins in a little clay pot, French media said.
The coins date from 1595 to the French Revolution, which began in 1789, said a local coin expert who evaluated them.
The most valuable is a double louis from 1640, during the reign of Louis XIII, worth 6,500 euros.
Read more here.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Hypothesis states tsunamis may have buried Olympia
Olympia, site of the famous Temple of Zeus and original venue of the Olympic Games in ancient Greece, was presumably destroyed by repeated tsunamis that travelled considerable distances inland, and not by earthquake and river floods as has been assumed to date. Evidence in support of this new theory on the virtual disappearance of the ancient cult site on the Peloponnesian peninsula comes from Professor Dr Andreas Vött of the Institute of Geography of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. Vött investigated the site as part of a project in which he and his team are studying the paleotsunamis that occurred along the coastlines of the eastern Mediterranean over the last 11,000 years. According to his account, the geomorphological and sedimentological findings in the area document that Olympia and its environs were destroyed by tsunami impact. The site of Olympia, rediscovered only some 250 years ago, was buried under a massive layer of sand and other deposits that is up to 8 meters deep.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Friday, July 08, 2011
1888 Talking Doll
On May 11, 2011, scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California recovered sound from an artifact that historians believe is the earliest surviving talking doll record. The artifact is a ring-shaped cylinder phonograph record made of solid metal, preserved by the National Park Service at Thomas Edison National Historical Park. Phonograph inventor Thomas Edison made the record during the fall or winter of 1888 in West Orange, New Jersey. On the recording, an unidentified woman recites one verse of the nursery rhyme "Twinkle, twinkle, little star". The voice captured on the 123-year-old record had been unheard since Edison's lifetime. The recording represents a significant milestone in the early history of recorded sound technology.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Friday, June 17, 2011
Science trained on 16th century church tombs
The science of the space age is being used to probe the secrets of a major set of renaissance tombs in southern England.
3D laser imaging is being used to scan the tombs so they can be virtually deconstructed and reassembled in their original guise.
It is thought two of the Howard tombs, in the parish church of St Michael the Archangel in Framlingham, Suffolk, were substantially remodelled after they were moved from Thetford Priory in Norfolk, following the monastery's dissolution in 1540.
The belief is that the salvaged tombs received a Renaissance makeover, with new simpler additions or replacements made, probably in the 1550s. Other elements seem to have been abandoned at Thetford, where they were found during excavations in the 1930s.
Read more here.
3D laser imaging is being used to scan the tombs so they can be virtually deconstructed and reassembled in their original guise.
It is thought two of the Howard tombs, in the parish church of St Michael the Archangel in Framlingham, Suffolk, were substantially remodelled after they were moved from Thetford Priory in Norfolk, following the monastery's dissolution in 1540.
The belief is that the salvaged tombs received a Renaissance makeover, with new simpler additions or replacements made, probably in the 1550s. Other elements seem to have been abandoned at Thetford, where they were found during excavations in the 1930s.
Read more here.
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
BBC unaware Viking era was over by 12th century
I know, Viking boats sound sexier than just plain fishing boats...
Aerial surveys are being carried out over Skye to help archaeologists investigate a 12th Century Viking shipbuilding site.
Boat timbers, a stone-built quay and a canal have already been uncovered at Loch na h-Airde on Skye's Rubh an Dunain peninsula.
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) has launched the air surveys.
Staff hope to pinpoint new sites for investigation.
Read more here.
Aerial surveys are being carried out over Skye to help archaeologists investigate a 12th Century Viking shipbuilding site.
Boat timbers, a stone-built quay and a canal have already been uncovered at Loch na h-Airde on Skye's Rubh an Dunain peninsula.
The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS) has launched the air surveys.
Staff hope to pinpoint new sites for investigation.
Read more here.
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tuesday, April 05, 2011
The Antikythera mechanism
“It’s a pretty elaborate piece of machinery,” said science historian James Evans of the University of Puget Sound in a presentation at the University of Washington in Seattle on March 31. “Nobody would ever have guessed that there could be something this complex in the second century [BC].”
Earlier research showed the device also accounted for a subtle weirdness in the motion of the moon. Because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, not a perfect circle, the moon seems to speed up and slow down over the course of a month. In 2006, Tony Freeth of Cardiff University and colleagues showed that a clever configuration of two overlapping gears, with the top gear laid off-center from the bottom gear, could give the moon’s marker its irregular speed.
Read more here.
Earlier research showed the device also accounted for a subtle weirdness in the motion of the moon. Because the moon’s orbit around the Earth is an ellipse, not a perfect circle, the moon seems to speed up and slow down over the course of a month. In 2006, Tony Freeth of Cardiff University and colleagues showed that a clever configuration of two overlapping gears, with the top gear laid off-center from the bottom gear, could give the moon’s marker its irregular speed.
Read more here.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Tuesday, March 08, 2011
Lucius Catilius Pamphilus and Servilia reunited
A married couple from Pompeii have been reunited with the recovery of a missing piece of a 2000-year-old marble puzzle made of several inscribed fragments.
Broken apart and buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the pieces belonged to a tomb inscription.
They were unearthed in 1813 along the Via dei Sepolcri in Pompeii near a burial tomb known as "Tomb of the Marble Door."
Read more here.
Broken apart and buried during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., the pieces belonged to a tomb inscription.
They were unearthed in 1813 along the Via dei Sepolcri in Pompeii near a burial tomb known as "Tomb of the Marble Door."
Read more here.
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