Spinning, and spinning pictures from medieval times, still fascinate me. There's so many pictures of spinning women, so few pictures of spinning men, and there's still no clarity about how many of them are showing whorls or no whorls, how many of them have the distaff left or the distaff right, and what the spinning position and spinning methods are exactly.

One of my friends and colleagues and I arrived at the conclusion that a good, large database with annotated pictures might be helpful to shed some more light on the issue... so now we are thinking about how to do that in the background of our minds. One big step of the project will be to find a suitable tool for the annotation; we basically need a database that can handle pictures as well as text, and preferably one that we can collaborate on via the internet, so a server-based software would be perfect.

I've already started peeking into the resources at the DiRT Directory, which is a registry of digital research tools for scholarly use. There's a huge number of different tools there that are tagged under "images", but I haven't been through them in enough depth yet to see whether there is something suitable for us or not.

If you've used a database for annotating and analysing pictures (or small finds, that should work as well), which one did you use? Were you happy with it?

I'm not a fan of cheese, but this made me smile - some really, really old cheese has been discovered in China, and it dates back to the Bronze Age.

Also archaeology-related: Newcastle University offers a series of Masterclasses, targeted at students, researchers and those working with artefacts. The Material Skills Masterclasses will run this June, so fairly soon - if you are interested, go check their website.

Also, the cat is watching. To make sure I do everything on the list today, of course. Not because she's speculating on something tasty... no.

I'm busy preparing for the IRM in two weeks (my, how the time flies by!), so it's making a list, checking it twice, sorting things and getting all kinds of odds and ends into place.

While I'm doing this, maybe you'd enjoy some more nice flowers from our garden?


It's really lovely to see all the colours coming out, and things blooming merrily everywhere. The only sad thing - there's next to no bees around, only the odd bumble-bee here or there, and I always feel like there should be many, many more of them...

Last November, a conference about why the world needs anthropologists took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia. If that sounds at all interesting to you, here's more info about the conference, and here is a 4.5 hour video taken during the conference, so you can enjoy some of the talks. (h/t to Rainer Schreg at Archaeologik.)

The newest issue of Fornvännen (a Swedish archaeology magazine) is available online.

The archaeology museum in Cambridge has a Roman pot, decorated with art featuring penises, on permanent display - here's a short article about it, of course including pictures.

Finally, thanks to a new shelter, a rare 13th century tile floor is on display again at Cleeve Abbey in Somerset.

I have two links for you this morning - Doug from Doug's Archaeology has attended the conference about Computer Applications and Quantitative Measurements in Archaeology this March, and if you're interested in the presentations that were given, go visit his blog post - there are several videos of presentations from the conference.

More textile-related: Here's a blogpost from a conservation student about washing a 19th century embroidery sampler.

Also? Flowers!


These lovely buttercups hang out on the table in the wintergarden, spending all their effort on looking good. (Also, while looking up their English name, I just learned that they should not be handled extensively, as they can cause contact dermatitis in humans.)

Here's a picture of some tulips in our garden*, slowly getting ready for their big day:


And a stack of things that I hope you will find interesting:

Here's a story of a remarkable woman - Dorothy Bennett.

Also from Jstor Daily: an article about losing proficiency in your first language through learning a second one. The article mostly focusses on war prisoners, as they tend to be the extreme cases, and it was a really interesting read for me. (I certainly know the symptom of not finding the word I'm looking for in German sometimes, and it's good to know that this is perfectly normal.)

The British Library has digitised all fourteen (fourteen!) of their Roman de la Rose manuscripts, and they are now available online.

Springtime also means lots of birds doing springtimey bird stuff. Some of these guys might not be the fluffy-feathered feelgood folks you expect them to be, though. Case in point? The Great Tit. They can be really aggressive and murderous, as that article tells us.

Finally, there's a mystery bone tool over on the ossamenta blog, and Lena is looking for ideas of what it might be. Maybe you have an idea?

 
* I made said garden stinky, by the way. On the bag it says "all-natural fertiliser". What that means is "cow shit compressed into pellets". It smells accordingly... but I'm hoping the plants will grow better this year, having been treated to the stinky stuff.

History is not always pleasant, and historical monuments are not always aesthetically pleasing, or convenient. Still it's important to keep them so we can remember - and this includes remembering darker aspects of our past.

One monument connected to the darker aspects of the German past is the Prora, a seaside resort that was planned and built during the Nazi regime. Prora is located on the east of Rügen, the biggest German island in the Baltic sea, on one of the island's most beautiful beaches.  It's not just a small seaside resort, though - the thing was intended to be huge enough to accommodate 20 000 people at once. Yes, twenty thousand vacationers. In an enormous building.

[caption id="attachment_2342" align="alignnone" width="640"] "Colossus of Prora" seen from the seafront, photo by Steffen Löwe, Public Domain


Obviously, a huge building like that, especially one linked to this uncomfortable time of our past, is going to cause a headache. And these days, not so much is left of the Colossus of Prora.

First, it was partially destroyed by the Red Army. After 1949, five blocks of the building were transformed into one of the largest military bases in the GDR. Between 1949 and 1989, this special place was kept a secret, sealed off from visitors and unlisted on any maps. When the gates finally opened in 1990, artists and creatives were attracted to this affordable, natural paradise and a thriving community was born. More recently, the area has become a popular meeting place for young people and is now the home of several festivals, such as "Her mit dem schönen Leben", "Tag am Meer" and "Her Damit"- Festival.

A few years after the opening of the area, property developers began to convert this precious space to luxury homes and hotels. In the process, many artists were kicked out, traces of history were destroyed and permanent damage was done to the environment as trees were chopped down and fields dug up to make way for concrete parking lots. Today, only Block V remains in public hands and remains an authentic (if damaged) part of the original resort. Scholars have only just begun to study the history of this special area.

Of all the building sections, Block V holds the most significance for German history. It was here that the secret rearmament took place during the Cold War. It was from here that soldiers in 1953 marched off to quell the uprising, and in 1961 begin the construction of the Berlin Wall. During the 1980s, it was from Block V the "hotbed of oppositional ideas” developed – e.g. it held the largest concentration of weapons objectors. The electoral fraud of a local election in 1984 was first revealed here by construction soldiers of the GDR who were, at the time, regarded as "hostile-negative" forces and harassed on a daily basis. These historical events paved the way for the peaceful revolution. In 2010, after years of persuasion by Denk-MAL-Prora (an initiative of former construction soldiers and sympathisers), the state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern agreed to consider a centre to oversee the preservation of the history recorded in the building here. The walls of the hallways, rooms and other areas are decorated with many murals which are significant to the study of the GDR.

But now, even this final remaining block of the Colossus of Prora, with its vast historical significance, cultural heritage and local significance is under threat by private resort speculators. The decision on whether to privatise the remaining block and convert it into luxury properties is scheduled for May 2 (which, ironically, is the anniversary of the foundation stone for the planned Nazi-Resort). There is reason to fear that the decision will ignore the significant history and cultural implications. The loss of Prora also means a continuation of the powers which seek to whitewash our history and ignore many political errors of the last century. More than just a “Nazi building”, Prora has a rich and important history. It was an active centre of two dictatorships. It held a significant role in the peaceful reunification of Germany and is a testament to the role played by hundreds of thousands of members of the GDR.

There is a petition against this privatisation of the last remaining block currently running. The petition asks for the building to stay a public property, the implementation of a study centre, and the preservation of the architecture and other elements of the complex that have historical significance.

Prora might be an uncomfortable monument, but it is a very important one. Our history and its monuments should be kept for study, not changed into luxury seabathing apartments.

Please help keep Block V of Prora as it stands today by signing the petition here. And, as usual - please spread the word about this!