I have no clue why time is going by so fast - maybe it's being washed away by the rain outside pouring down? There's bouts of heavy rain and inbetween nice-ish weather, so there's hope we will not get drenched when we go outside to catch a bit of fresh air. 

Meanwhile, there's been some writing on the madder experiment stuff, and some other things, and I have had another look at the madder swatches and their incredible spottiness...

It's a nice colour, but not one that would get praise for its crafts quality! It's still not clear how measuring it with a colour checker often enough and then taking the average will work, but I will find out. Eventually, when all will be measured and their numbers crunched... 

Once in a while, a truly spectacular find happens - such as this Roman wine, which was preserved in the tomb of Carmona. The liquid has been analysed, and it's white wine - the oldest wine in the world. Not very tasty anymore, apparently, but still very, very interesting.

You can read more about it in this article in Journal of Archaeological Science. Cheers! 

The "Ice Prince" is the burial of a two-year-old boy from the early Middle Ages, dubbed like that because the burial was lifted en bloc - and to keep the layers and items and fragile textile remains from moving and getting damaged, it was frozen with liquid nitrogen first.

There's a podcast in German about this, where Tracy Niepold (my wonderful colleague and conspirator in so many textile ventures) is interviewed about her work on this exceptional find. You can listen to the episode here.

There's an exhibition in Kalkriese in the Varusschlacht-Museum called "Dressed - Rom Macht Mode. It's running until November 24, 2024, and looks at dress and textiles in Roman times. The exhibition includes a lot of hands-on as well as the possibilty to try on garments.

If you're interested, there's more information on the (German) webpage of the museum. 

I'm off on the "Neu verflechten" conference, where I will be presenting (together with Tracy Niepold) once more about the Shiny Dead Cow Guts, also known as membrane thread project. This time, the title is so long that it almost feels like it's half a presentation by itself:

I'm always vaguely amused when titles (or subtitles) end up rather long. I don't mind them at all, since it's usually quite descriptive and so you know what awaits you - but it seems to be a thing especially in archaeology context. When I was studying, we had to fill out forms to get our "Schein" for attending something, and you'd usually run out of space because stuff was so wordy. It started already with trying to fit "Archäologie des Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit" on the rather short line for what you are studying, and went on to cramming "Very long and rather descriptive title with mention of the timespan in words or if it's in numbers then something else making it really long" into the part of the form that wanted you to state the name of the course. Good times! (And no wonder we'd internally all write "AMANZ".)

As I'll be on the conference for the next two days, too, there will be no blogging until next week!

If you're looking for an excuse for a trip to Switzerland, the exhibition at the Abegg-Stiftung might be just the thing for you. Their special exhibition "The Deceived Eye – Textile Effects and their Simulation" will be shown until 10 November 2024.

The illusionistic depiction of textiles was an expression of consummate artistry even in ancient painting. The same can be said of weaving, tapestry, and embroidery, in which other textiles are simulated with great skill. Examples from the fourth to the seventeenth centuries vividly illustrate their artful play of materials, techniques and the viewer's expectations. 

You can find out more about the exhibition and the opening times on the website about it.

If you're feeling up to a creative challenge, EXARC is running a logo competition for their website and graphics re-design. So if you're feeling creative, you might want to give it a go:

 The prize is a one-year free membership in EXARC, and submission deadline is July 15, 2024. I am very curious to see what the new logo will be, as it's quite a wishlist on the info page about the competition for the new logo to fulfil...