Cölestino

I love transitional Armors - The 1300s are abound with unique kits.

Particularly Sapper kits are always unique, as they're specialized for the task at hand - which is often hard manual labor under threat of stones and arrows.

The Long Hammer would work fine in a pinch, if the besieged force were to sally out.

2500-Year-Old Italian Necropolis Reveals Children Buried With Warrior Belts

Unusual burials of children with bronze warrior belts have been discovered in a necropolis near the town of Pontecagnano Faiano, outside Salerno in southwestern Italy.

The burials date to the 4th and 3rd centuries BC, when the Samnite people occupied this part of what is now the Campania region of Italy. Located a few miles from the coast along ancient routes connecting the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Apennines, the settlement that would become Pontecagnano was established in the 9th century BC.

Plans for urban development in Pontecagnano Faiano prompted a programme of preventive archaeological excavation. The site, formerly occupied by a tobacco factory, lies within the southern necropolis of the ancient town.

Excavations uncovered 34 burials in total, 15 of which belonged to children aged between two and ten years at the time of death. The graves are arranged in clusters, likely reflecting family groups.

Most of the burials consisted of simple earthen pits covered with roof tiles set against one another in a pitched formation. Only three graves differed from this pattern: stone box tombs constructed from large blocks—two made of travertine and one of tufa. These materials were costly and suggest that the individuals buried in them belonged to wealthier families or held a higher social status.

The graves were furnished with typical Samnite grave goods, including spears and javelins in male burials and rings and fibulae in female burials. Pottery vessels were also common, consisting of small sets used for funerary offerings and ritual banquets, as well as containers for perfumes and ointments used in burial ceremonies.

The bronze belts—usually found in the graves of adult men—were particularly unusual. They appeared only in the graves of two children aged between five and ten. These were not ordinary belts but broad, decorated bronze bands used to secure the tunic worn by adult men. They were unmistakable symbols of warrior identity and social status.

Archaeologists suggest that the belts may have been placed in the children’s graves to symbolise a warrior lineage passed down to the next generation even after death—a symbolic rite of passage into adulthood that could not be achieved in life. Another possibility is that the belts served a protective role, signalling the child’s membership in a noble warrior family to the feared denizens of the underworld.

By Mark Milligan.

Most period illustrations of Landsknechts are black-and-white woodcuts…

…though in 1905 a book called „Geschichte des Kostüms“ - History of Costume - assembled a bunch of black-and-whites and added colour.

If they look excessively gaudy, they’re not, because these next prints were coloured in-period by an artist called Erhard Schön, and it’s fair to assume he was representing what he saw.

and exomis:

Since we are here might as well share the dhoti and the lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Lungi

https://www.wikihow.com/Wear-a-Pancha-Kachcham?amp=1

It’s only men in the photos but really anyone can wear them. I am wearing a lungi right now.

How Did an Ancient Byzantine Gold Coin End Up in Norway?

A Byzantium-era gold coin that was recently discovered in the mountains of southern Norway has historians and archaeologists perplexed over how it ended up there.

The coin is a Byzantine histamenon nomisma. These were introduced in Byzantium around 960 AD in what was then the eastern part of the Roman Empire.

One side of the coin is stamped with an image of Christ holding the Bible. On the other side, the two emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII are most likely depicted. The two brothers jointly ruled in Byzantium for almost fifty years from 976 to 1025.

Presumably, the coin was minted early in the eleventh century. The exact date is difficult to determine, but the dotted border suggests it was late in Basil’s and Constantine’s reign, Norwegian archaeologist May-Tove Smiseth told Science Norway.

The coin also bears two inscriptions. In Latin, it says Jesus Christ, King of those who rule, and in Greek, it reads Basil and Constantine, emperors of the Byzantine Empire.

How did the Byzantine gold coin end up in Norway?

In some way or other, the coin found its way to Valdres in Norway. Science Norway says that perhaps it was originally part of the treasures that Harald Hardrada amassed after serving in the Varangian Guard for the Byzantine emperor in 1034. The Varangian Guard consisted of Scandinavian mercenaries, who served as bodyguards and were known as being fearless and strong.

Hardrada was King of Norway from 1046 to 1066. Additionally, he unsuccessfully claimed both the Danish throne until 1064 and the English throne in 1066. In a press release, Innlandet County writes that it was customary at that time for the guards to loot the palace when an emperor died, and during Harald’s time in Byzantium, three emperors had died.

“It’s not unrealistic to suggest that this is where the coin originates from,” Smiseth told Science Norway. She points to a study on Byzantine coins in the Nordic region, which states that three Byzantine gold coins have been found in Sweden, none in Denmark, but fifteen in Norway. Most of these were from various treasure finds made in the nineteenth century. This includes the recent find in Valdres.

“It’s reasonable to believe that this coin could be from the treasures that Harald Hardrada brought with him,” Smiseth says. “He received a lot of gold in payment from the three emperors in Byzantium who ruled while he was there.”

“Harald acquired a lot of power by using the gold he returned with to build alliances,” Smiseth added.

Over the mountains in Valdres, trade routes connected the east and west. Perhaps a merchant traveler had the unfortunate luck to lose the splendid gold coin on such a trading trip. Science Norway notes that we might learn more about this next year because the discovery was made so late in autumn this year, and the ground had already frozen. The discovery site will, therefore, be examined more closely in the spring.

By Tasos Kokkinidis.

This is a incredibly rare find. A ball of yarn made from stinging nettle fibers in the Late Neolithic (5900 years old) in what’s now Marin-Epagnier in Switzerland. The thread has been preserved by being carbonized. Look at how much thread that is! And how fine and even it is spun! The skill going into this is absolutely incredible. Imagine the incredible textile work that must’ve been made with that. For a reference here’s a ball of nettle yarn I managed to make with a drop spindle. That took me 300 hours of work.

This method is faster than draft spinning and it results in a more even thread thickness, as there is little chance for slubs and thin spots as all the fibres are exactly aligned vertically.

Cabinet with scenes from the Story of Esther

British

after 1665

You know that bust of Henry VII in the V&A? This one?

This bust (and Henry VII's/Elizabeth of York's tomb) was the work of the Italian artist Pietro Torrigiani, who today is known less for his art and more for his having broken Michelangelo's nose in a fight when they were both teenagers. He would later recount this incident to Benvenuto Cellini, recalling the feeling of bone and cartilage "crumbling like a biscuit" under his fist (ewwwww) and remarking that his handiwork was visible until the end of Michelangelo's life. Which was true, as this bust by Daniele da Volterra of Michelangelo as an old man shows:

Cellini remarked that after hearing how smugly Torrigiani told this story, he could never look at him the same way again, which, on the one hand. Benny. You killed like four whole people. But on the other hand: same, bro.