Ive become absorbed in Pliny, some of his one liners' are priceless: and I dont mean this to denigrate him where it appears that "modern" science concludes he is mistaken in a thing.
For some reason I was drawn to his writing on the Elephant , which he describes as second only to man in intellect and a thoughtful beast capable of offering homage to the Gods, and to its own Chief beasts.My favourite observation was "elephants mate in secret because of their modesty" what a quaint but elegant
Chester's Fort (that is on Hadrian's Wall not Deva the Fort at Chester!) is the subject of a second visit. The collection of artefacts in the site museum repays scrutiny , many are altars and inscriptions of great value saved by local antiquarians working only with private resources and a love of history. That these items are now in the custody of English Hertiage at least means theft and dispoilation cannot befall them.
I dont intend to post the majority of shots in UNRV , rather a selectio
Before I , hopefully, attend the re-enactment at Banna I would like to clear up the geography of the Eastern extremity of Hadrian's Wall. This is also to indicate the likely extent of any photorecce , as much of the Wall in this area was destroyed by use as building material for the Military Road in the Jacobite Rebellion (c1745).
The other difficulty is that in this area urbanisation has swamped or overgrown the remains of the fortifications.
If you refer to this map section:
http://www.
The ongoing work at Vindolanda will probably take centuries to come to fruition, a sobering thought, our own words will be history by then. The blog title is the title of the book by Anthony Birley whose family have devoted themselves to the exploration of the site , he himself was born in the house adjacent to the fort and I was priveliged to meet him, very briefly, recently.
The book is an excellent commentary on the Tablets and the great difficulties in retrieval,restoration and interpretati
A visit to the splendid LEG II AUG at Bremetenacvm. This outfit have a top notch Greek surgeon with state-of -the-art equipment for all wound types and a comprehensive medicine chest.As you can see the battle had been bloody and some nasty wounds had to be dealt with.
http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...=si&img=895
http://www.unrv.com/forum/index.php?act=mo...=si&img=898
here we have a messy fracture and splintered shin bone, the man has been given opium and a little
A most excellent days excursion . I was unable to fly any bird to the lure on this trip, as the resident Peregrine is now retired and of pensionable age-a shame , because they strike hard and you need to have your nerves still and head calm as they swoop in at speed, all very exhilarating if it comes off well. The weather was warm and calm, so that ruled out any possibility of flying the vultures , as decent thermals are needed to get them airborne , also the large Lappet Vulture was resting du
For once I report to you on a non-Roman event. There was a small Norse re-enactment unit attached to a larger Civil War (English) event nearby , so I went in search of interesting items and weapons .
There was a selection of goods and weapons on show.
I have firstly, posted a Northman in general undress with everyday kit , were he to fight a padded jerkin would be neded under a coat of chain mail.This is a man of high status and thus his equipment is of superior finish.
http://www.unrv.
The visit to the extremity of the Western Defences was hampered by poor weather. Ice, fog and bad light! Not so good for any of the locations I wanted to post in the Gallery, Medibogdum is a non-starter in icey conditions as the road is not much better than a cart track -and also happens to be the highest driveable pass in Britain.That will have to wait for another visit.I was able to get some shots of the bath ruins at Glannaventa (home of the Batavian "marine/amphibious " auxiliaries) a Flavia
I have put together a small selection of pictures, relating to the work of the recently deceased John Davis of LEG II AVG. Nothing fancy, just an indication of the talent and knowledge that has been lost at the passing of this worthy Romanophile.
Firstly we see him with his scales in the booth of the Architectus, here he is weighing the extremely valuable lapis lazuli for crushing into a paint pigment. This is a top of the range Roman colourant , ordinary people would have to make do with th
The re-enactors were quite a bunch, very friendly and keen to share knowledge. They also presented a sight that many will consider strange, their ages-many were "grizzled veterans" but that added to the event , it was easier to see "old sweats" with missing teeth and not so athletic builds -we know Germanicus had to quell revolts by men who showed him toothless gums and old injuries.
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Im determined to get to Hadrian's Wall in the next few days -I dont know if the weather will allow me to present any reasonable photos,if it remains gloomy I may have to confine myself to interior artefacts at the Roman Army Museum and the Castle Museum at Carlisle.
Britain has a general water shortage , this does not seem to affecting Brittania Inferior.So I will be absent for a while. I will be on the Wall again at the start of February so lets hope for a few hours sunshine.
Madame Perti
Apart from materia medica my abiding passion is for the Triclinium, and I will keep members informed of any particularly outre gustatory experiences.I will also endeavour to gather a little more material regarding medieval recipes and pass these on from time to time.
You will all be amused to hear that I have succumbed to a stomach bug today, but as I hold to the virtue of plant medicine I have mixed the inner bark of the Red Elm (native to N.America) with Manuka honey.It seems to have done the
Ye seconnde partte_Part 2
So firstly we see the near universal practice of fermentation as food, medicine and divine conduit now we are down to practical matters and the
Lost Warrior asked a question which I have pondered on for many years-what is your prefered method of delivery for herbal medicines?. ( the basic question was infusion or oil as a preference).
Pardon me double blogging today but this needs a reasonably considered reply.
The reply is more complicated: my preferences would be:
1. Fluid Extract (strong/pure).This in truth is an infusion in concentrated form.
2.Tincture ( quite strong /stable for a long time).
3.Pure herb-but this depe
Salvete Omnes!
I have returned from Vindolanda and Vercovicium with a massive portfolio of photographs. Dea Fortuna favoured the lone scout from UNRV moving quietly through the early morning mists to steal the images of the special places.I will spend some time editing and paring down , many of the shots I will load onto my own home site ( though its link is still defective) particularly the detailed "object" museum shots . For now I will post a couple of images in the miscellenia gallery .
Not a bad trip to York , the winter sun doesnt help when trying to get panned shots of the walls so I think that will have to wait till spring. The Roman Bath's 'Museum" is in turmoil at present so no shots of that , however the Yorkshire Museum had an excellent array of items. The Walls were a bit tricky because of the lighting conditions so I concentrated on the Gatehouses.The wallls were in part original Roman built and constantly extended in medieval times. I was struck by the fact that the
Finally I have been able to get to the site of Mediobogdvm. This is the best preserved site in Cumbria south of the Wall.The earliest fort is likely to have been Trajanic , and finished under Hadrian. The initial Hadrianic garrison was the 4th Cohort of Dalmatiae. The fort may well have been one of those abandoned during the reign of Antoninus Pius , as troops pushed northward into modern Scotland to secure a new frontier at the Antonine Wall.The fort was reoccupied circa 160 AD and appears to
I am gratified and amused by the learned interest that my image and commentary on Cuckoopint herb has stirred. At first I had thought perhaps there was an urgent cultural need to understand the starching of Elizabethen costume ruffs, I now see that it may have been more related to my initial commentary on the seminal vessels .
The glycosides in this plant are of unknown structure, the other main constituent is a group of acetylated mannans.Large doses administered for sore throats have ca
I hope to have a little time away in the next week, if all goes to plan I hope to report from Aqua Sullis , Corinnium Dobrunnorum , Vxacona, Vertis , Salinae and Colonia Glevensis. I hope also to look at some Marcher Castles in the Welsh Borders.
As usual the weather will require the indulgence of the Deities at this time of year. Aqua Sullis alone will be photogenic in the rain.So I hope I will have more images for you soon.
the time approaches for my "cross cultural" review of this work .I think the review will be better handled if its specialised parts are dismembered between UNRV at blog level-for the sections on "analysis of ancient cultures from a modern perspective" and "fermented medicines/cultural ceremonial of celtic /european societies" in relation to Roman medicines, and foodstuffs. The review of the "hardcore" historical analysis for non-european societies and detailed recipe critique ,including the his
part ye thirdde
Gruit, now here is a thing ,I find that the natural range of the three main semi-psychotropic ingredients of Gruit seems to overlap quite remarkably with the territory of the Brigantes-especially the coastal areas .Sweet Gale (Myrica gale) also called bog myrtle ,is the most elusive nowadays ,yet here I am quite close to its restircted range
Yarrow (see my gallery and herbal notes in the blog-the soldiers herb par excellence ) is adittive number two,and wild rosemary is th
Ive dropped a couple of "welded " photos into my "Historic Site" Gallery, they arent meant to be proper exhibits in the sense of cultural/historical importance .I hope members would take a look and give critical feedback, I want to adopt the method to try and get long panoramic shots of certain of the wall sections around York.However if the images are too small for comfortable viewing ill try a different approach.
The welds are now withdrawn -only theMultangular Tower shot remains in Eborac
The akwardness of spanning from thread to blog to gallery has been solved by Viggen's suggestion of a "report" form for the Wall visit-he himself has an excellent report on a visit to Aguntum in the Roman Culture Section .
Sub divided galleries can be used so that areas of interest can be approached more easily than a horizontal trawl through the gallery area. So I aim to produce a "central" hadrians wall gallery and add individual sites as and when the opportunity arises . I envisage a separat
