I have safely made it through the text part of the thesis, and now I'm facing the ever-exciting catalogue part. (I've been dreading this a bit, to be honest.)

So I'm creeping along (it feels), and when I don't feel like reading any more and need a break, I'm trying to tackle the rest of the unpacked boxes here. Bit by bit, all the things that got somehow forgotten during the move are now also creeping up on my brain again and remind me of stuff that needs to be done, needs to be done quite urgently and has been needing to be done for ages (or so it seems). So in addition to reading and unpacking/sorting, I'm trying not to feel too overwhelmed.

Well. At least I won't get bored...

As today's blog entry title hints, I'm wondering what on earth rode me to write that much for my thesis. And from this, you can guess what I'm working on now... no, not a second thesis (thankfully), not even a second book (though I'm tempted to start all that craziness again, I really am), but plain, ol'-fashioned proofreading.

Now, proofreading one's own writing is, as anybody will probably tell you, not easy - because usually you know your own text so well that you just don't see the mistakes anymore. When I try to proof a fresh text of mine, I have an even worse symptom: My brain just switches off after the first words (if the text is really fresh) or sentences (if it has already hung for a while). So I have now discovered one big advantage of the fact that publishing processes are looong processes - I can actually read my thesis again without the brain-shutdown!

On the flip side, though, that also means that I can now read my thesis again and find all those nasty mistakes, unpolished sentences and slightly unconnected paragraphs. And there's lots and lots of text in that book - but I can only read for a finite time before my attention does slag somehow.

And that in turn means that I'm currently getting a lot of knitting done - because I read some, then have a short relaxing break knitting a bit, then I read some more, then I knit a little again, then I read some more... you get the picture. You will get a picture of the knitting one of the next days, too - but for now please excuse me. I have some reading (and knitting) to do.

Somehow I have the feeling that blogging has gotten a little unhinged with all the gaps and holidays during the last weeks - I can't really remember any red thread running through the last time (except those off-blog), there's not much interesting going on here work-wise because I'm still in the taking-things-back-out-of-boxes phase. Well, there are two interesting things going on: Thing number one, we now have bought enough additional shelves that I can take the rest of my books (the work-related books!) out of their boxes and start the process of arranging things on the shelf space, and thing number two, I'm reading the first proof of the thesis-going-book. Nothing spectacular that is good to make a juicy blog post about, though!

But meanwhile, I have received a lot of interesting info bits in the mail or found it on the net.

So, in the hopes of getting back on track with things, here's an info dump...

There will be an international conference and exhibition about natural dyes in France, 2011: the conference webpage.

In March 2009, I gave a little interview for one issue of Huscarl On Air, the radio show from Huscarl, which is a forum and online magazine for the living history scene in Austria. The whole radio show is in German, but if you can understand spoken German, the podcast of this issue has recently been uploaded, and you can get it here.

There is a new database for radiocarbon-dated textiles, hosted by University of Bonn: "An on-line database for 14C-dated textiles (from early times until the end of 1rst millennium AD) is about to be finished. It is undertaken by the Dept. of Christian Archaeology of Bonn university
(Sabine Schrenk [responsible], Frank Albert, Anne-Sophie Lüttge; programmed by Eberhard and
Jan Orzekowsky), in collaboration with the KIK IRPA in Brussels (Mark van Strydonck). "
The makers of the database are actively soliciting data for their project. The database (and all relevant contact info, including a form to get your museum's data into the database) can be found at www.textile-dates.info. I think such a database is an absolutely wonderful idea!

And a last personal aside, I have finally caved and subscribed to Ravelry (because it irked me much too much that I would find patterns or photos referenced, but could not take a look at them). If you want to find me there, I go under the moniker "katrinknits" (yes, I know, very imaginative).

First of all, sorry for the unannounced blog silence yesterday - the 6th of January is a holiday in Germany (and I think in several other countries as well), and I got sucked into that holiday spirit so much that I totally forgot to either tell you on the 5th or holiday-blog on the 6th. (Holiday spirit, in this case, means sleeping a little longer, then working on the still-lots-of-unpacked-stuff-situation, with some cake and some knitting sprinkled in.)

Regarding non-knitting, still-textile news, the homepage of NESAT has been updated - NESAT 11 will take place in 2011 in Esslingen, Germany. There is no more info up yet, though - so it's still suspense time!

In case you do not know NESAT (though if you read this blog, chances are you have heard of it), the name is an acronym for "North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles". The first conference was very small and took place back in the Eighties, and "North European" has since developed to include most of Europe - not only the North. The conferences take place every three years, in a different place, and include about all the big names and lots of juicy, brand-new archaeological textiles science. The publications are absolutely wonderful, and I have spent delightful hours with each and every one from the series (which is listed here).

Last time was the 10th NESAT conference, and it was the first time that the event was "opened up" and participants not giving a paper were allowed in. Before, it was always just a small circle of people, and there was no public call for papers. I think that taking this conference more public was a brilliant move, and it seems that lots of others thought so too - we were over one hundred conference participants. And I hope that NESAT 11 will be as wonderful, exciting and fun as the last one was (and I'll do my very best to be part of the fun).

Via the MEDTC-Discuss List, I got this information about a new exhibition catalogue:

Kusch, Claudia ; Patrizia Mignani ; Raffaella Pozzi (eds). :
Redire 1427-2009 : Ritorno alla luce : Il restauro del Farsetto di Pandolfo III Malatesti [Back to the light. The restoration of the doublet of Pandolfo III Malatesta]
Fano, Museo Civico, 2009. 24cm., pbk., 107pp. illus., most in color. (I quaderni del Museo, n. 2, 2009)
Price: $48.95 (Shamansky) also available through Italian bookdealers €22.50.


There's an article (in Italian) with two pictures, one a detail of the garment and one shot of the mummy in the grave. And I really want the book, though it could be a little hard to get it here - I haven't found a German distributor yet. So you are in luck if you are in Italy or in the US!

A lot of modern search engines in databases and the net have some algorithm that suggests what you might have been looking for, in case you mistyped or mis-remembered something. That can be a very nifty thing, saving re-typing or even long thinking about what exactly your thingummy was called - and it can also get some hilarious results from time to time.

A while ago, I wrote a book review about M. Beaudry's "Findings", and this has been cited in a few places. In one of the discussions which I caught, another book including information about archaeological textile tools was mentioned - this one:

Late Viking age and medieval Waterford : excavations 1986-1992

I don't know that one yet, so I did what I always do in that case. I open the online OPAC of my favourite university library - the one in Bamberg - and paste in exactly the text you see above. And I get the following search spellcheck suggestion:

Meinten Sie Alle Felder = Late biking age and medieval vatermord : excavations 1986-1992

I really dig the "late biking age", and "Vatermord" in German means parricide. Medieval parricide, that's nice! And for the textile inclined, a "Vatermörder" is what they called the detachable collars of the 19th century. Now isn't that a very nice suggestion? I would absolutely read a book with that title!

The blog post with the two boys from Hartenstein got a comment with questions from Bertus Brokamp. One of the questions can best be answered with a picture comparison - the effigy of the Hartensteiner that we worked from and the reconstruction that is now in the exhibition.

Here you see the effigy and the reconstructed Hartensteiner side by side:


As you can see (and can see even better when you click the picture to get a larger version), we tried to keep close to the look of the effigy.  The pictures are roughly the same size - the two men won't match exactly due to differences in their body proportions - and they are arranged so that the two faces are on the same line, for easier comparison. Some of the differences are due to the posture of the reconstructed Hartensteiner - the length of the short mailshirt sleeves seems different because they fall back onto the upper arms while putting on the helmet, and our reconstructed guy actually wears the gloves and the sword (not in the photo yet - we put that on him after I took the picture). But the layering of the gambeson (with riding slit, you might just be able to make that out in the effigy), mail shirt and breastplate with dagged fabric cover does match the ensemble in the artwork.

The helmet is not attached to one of the chains because he's just putting it on, but it would technically be possible to hang it from one of the chains. Dagger, sword and shield are not yet in place on the reconstruction. The coat of arms, by the way, is not the one shown on the effigy: The Hartensteiner has a fish-hook as his coat of arms (black on gold background), and that's why we gave him the fancy golden fish as his helmet crest.