It's Pi Day! Hooray! And now you are getting a really crude transition in addition to a late and short blog post - I had a meeting today that ran a huge lot longer than anticipated, and it shot my schedule for the day to the ittiest bittiest bits imaginable.

It is Pi Day. Pi sounds just like pie. Pie has layers. Something else that had layers? This Mortlake tapestry, dating to the 1630s - a part of the tapestry was folded back and hidden...

Also fascinating: Conservation treatment of a Sudanese leather dress.

Finally, if you'd like some fresh fiction in audio - here's a list of the Hugo Award eligible stories that ran on the Escape Artists Network. Enjoy!

I nearly forgot to blog today - we had no internet or phone connection for a while, since our connection was upgraded/migrated to another type... thus throwing my typical daily routine into complete disarray. And the fact that my parents just arrived for their stay of a few days' duration here does not help with getting back into said routine... or on track.

So instead of a proper blogpost, you're getting a short late one - but at least I have a nice picture of beautifully frost-rimmed iris flowers for you, taken early last morning. Things like this make me feel okay about there still being frost!

This time, though, it's a German book - but if you can read a little German, or if you are interested in early Byzantine fabrics and textiles, it is definitely worth a look:

[caption id="attachment_2283" align="alignnone" width="468"] The book, sitting on my table, waiting to be read. Non-photographable bonus: it has that utterly heavenly new-book smell.


Petra Linscheid has analysed and catalogued all the many Early Byzantine textiles kept in the RGZM, and the results of her work are now published in a catalogue with lots of good photographs, drawings and detailed descriptions. There's an introduction part, covering the provenance and history of the pieces, dating, technical details (including colours) and functions. The main part of the book, however, is the catalogue, where each of the 210 pieces is listed with a detailed description, and the 112 pages of plates with images and detail images for the pieces.

If you are interested in Early Byzantine textiles, you might want to get the book just for the pictures, even if you do not read German at all. (Though technical descriptions in catalogue entries are not hard to translate, so with a dictionary, you should be able to get the basic information on each piece as well.)

You can order the book directly from the publisher, Schnell & Steiner, or of course buy it at the bookstore of your choice. Cost is 55€, and the publisher offers free shipping for the book inside of Germany.

 

My dear friend and colleague Karina Grömer has done it again - she has a new book out:


K. Grömer (with contributions by Regina Hofmann-de Keijzer and Helga Rösel-Mautendorfer) 2016: The Art of Prehistoric Textile Making – The development of craft traditions and clothing in Central Europe.

Veröffentlichungen der Prähistorischen Abteilung 5, Verlag des Naturhistorischen Museums Wien, Vienna 2016.

The book is a compendium about the latest research about archaeological textiles in Central Europe (533 pages, more than 240 colour figures). There's a preview of this book, and other work that Karina did, available via academia.edu.

Copies of the book can be ordered via email to verlag@nhm‐wien.ac.at from the Verlag Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Burgring 7, 1010 Vienna, Austria.
The price for the book is 35€ (including VAT) plus shipping. According to the info on their order form, shipping should be 4.40 € for Austria and Germany, 8.80 € for Europe and 15 € for the rest of the world, with different costs possible for larger orders.

My copy is already on the way here - and I'm looking forward to adding it to my collection!

Today is... International Women's Day.

Which gets me pondering...

There's a lot of International Whatever Days that make me smile, and I happily celebrate them (if only by tweeting about them or blogging, in some cases). Like Star Wars Day (May the Fourth, of course), or Talk like a Pirate Day, or Pi Day (March fourteen. Coming soon!). These are fun, and funny, and they can bring smiles to faces, which is all good. Sometimes they're an excuse to get a fancy pie (or make one), or geek out with friends.

On the other hand, there's also the serious days that serve as reminders that there are issues we, as humans, need to solve. Like cancer, or depression. These days serve a purpose, and they are a good thing to have. War Remembrance days fall into sort of the same category, for me - they remind us that we, as humans, should maybe do better in the future.

Women's Day, though, just like Mother's Day (which is an even worse thing as it has gotten so commercialised) - they make me sad in a way that the other serious days don't. Goodness, we're living in the 21st century. Shouldn't we all have realised by now that while yes, there are differences between men and women (obviously, and not only the external appearance), both men and women are human beings who have something to contribute to society? That both men and women formed history, and made important contributions? That men and women deserve the same chances, the same opportunities, the same pay rates? Which, unfortunately, is still not the case. We're all still caught in biases and prejudice, deeply ingrained due to the culture that we grew up in. Finding those biases and blind spots is not easy - it does take effort, and sometimes they are so subtle it's nearly impossible to find them out and counter them. So men and women today are still not considered equal - and that's sad.

On the upside - the fact that there is a Day for this hints at humanity somehow being aware that this is an issue, and that it should be fixed. So. Happy International Women's Day, everyone. May we not need a day like that in the future anymore.

I think it's time for some bits of art and creativity, randomly pulled together from parts of the Internet:

Saraswati, a Malaysian lady, uses make-up artistry and hijabs to recreate Disney princesses (and, in some cases, non-princess characters). It really creates amazing effects!

Ruby Silvious has a very different, but also unusual canvas, painting on used tea bags - one for each week of the year.

Not an art article per se, but using medieval (and later) pictures: Why do women carry things on their heads?
And finally, the art of surprising your students with bonus questions (and some of the answers) for a statistics exam. Sadly, I would not have had much luck with them (but they are still very funny to look at).

It's Friday already again, and I think it's time for some pictures to make the week end with a bit of colour, especially as the weather forecast for here is mumbling something about "cloudy, and not much chance for sun". Which is a pity, because there's several spots of crocus flowers hanging out in our garden, looking like this:



and they are only waiting for the sun to shine down on them to open up to something like this:


but totally refuse to do so unless there is, you know, proper sunshine for more than five minutes.

There's also some iris, however, and these are undaunted by clouds. They just pop up one day and stand there in all their blue glory:


Totally undaunted by anything the weather might throw at them. When we had a bout of snow on Monday and Tuesday, and everything was suddenly all white (including our willow fence),


the iris still went "What? So there's snow, do you want me to care?"


Pretty little iris. I like your attitude.