Archaeology with a side order of fiber crafts

via @corazondebeskar

Ok, I did not know there were bivalves that created spinnable fiber.

I certainly did not have "Free-diving grandmother harvesting, spinning, and weaving fiber from clams" on my Bingo card today. But I am delighted!

I found this awesome video about a rug weaving manufactory in Germany where all steps of the production process are done in-house, wool prep, spinning, weaving (not the dyeing though).

It's all in German, but English subtitles (not automatically generated) are available.

There's a lot of interesting old machines (the oldest part from 1927), the looms are operated by two people because they're so wide.

An interesting game where you are presented with 10 artifacts from the MET. You have to place where the artifact is from and what time period it is from. Each artifact scores up to 10,000 points, and you lose points the further away your guess is and how far off in time you are. You can only play once a day. Thanks to @baebeylik for showing this to me.

Today I scored really well. Yesterday ... not so much.

I've seen this technique at the Lower Saxony spinning group meet-up in June and @disgruntled-lifeform has asked about it, so here is a tutorial. I'm not comfortable with having videos of me taken and no one to take the video anyway so I hope photos are enough...

Little diclaimer: I have only seen someone else doing this so I just pass this knowlegde on. I don't know where it originates. Also: I assume you already know how to spin a single and know the basics of chain- or Navajo-plying

It's really an intreresting technique. You spin and chain-ply in one go, no endless spinning and after that endless plying, which is very practical if you (like me) are no fan of endless spindle plying. Or if you only own one spindle for whatever reason - everyone knows spindles are gregarious animals and keeping only one is not appropriate XP

You need:

A drop spindle of your choice with a leader (Maybe one a little bigger than mine, since the yarn we wind on the spindle is a three-ply, which means it is thrice as thick as your usual single.

Fibres of your choice you want to spin

It's important that your leader has a loop at the end to pull your single through.

Step 1: Spin your single as you always do. *spinspinspin* You want to do that standing up as you need the single to be quite long:

Step 2: Then butterfly the single up on your thumb and forefinger to avoid tangling:

Step 3: Pull the single through the loop of your leader and unwind it from your fingers. At the beginning it's easier to sit down for this step until you get used to the finger movements. It's difficult to pull the single through the loop while holding the spindle in your hand and we don't want any broken fingers!

Step 4: Pull the single all the way through until just a little bit below the beginning of your unspun fibres:

Step 5: Then you just ply the loop together in the opposite direction from the direction you spun the single - just as most of you will do anyways while plying. The spindle wants to turn in the opposite direction by itself anyway. Make sure the new loop at the end stays open!

Step 6: Wind the plied thread on your spindle. Then secure it well on your spindle's hook. Take Care Of The Loop. It Must Stay Accessible for the next section of spun singles.

Congratulations you have your first section of chain plied yarn on your drop spindle.

Then you repeat the whole thing again and again: Spin a long piece of single - pull it through loop - ply - wind on spindle - secure the new loop at the end on your hook and then go on spinning.

mutuals/followers who are involved in historical research especially the late 18th century in new england:

this is the only object in daniel brown's house in cambridge mass in 1785 that i cannot identify for the life of me.

the context it's in is a room containing beds, clothing, kitchen/cookware, and for some reason "forty-one new scythes".

i'm reading it as either "Slam Bunk" or "Ham Bunk" (leaning toward "Slam" based on the rest of this particular person's handwriting), but nothing comes up when i search either of those terms, even with dates added. it looks like it's worth 1/6 of a penny if i'm understanding the notations of value correctly

🔁 lukka-this-boat

🚣 lukka-this-boat

👤 ugarits-finest-merchant-deactivated11770102

man, fuck you guys

#y'all hear anything? #...must've been the wind

🔁 wenamun-of-waset

☀️ wenamun-of-waset

cities these days just don’t respect the will of Amun like they used to… back in the days of Pharaoh people used to ACTUALLY pay the gods some respect!!

🌲 byblosiophile

for the last time, we are not giving you free lumber

☀️ wenamun-of-waset

but i hauveb no money 🥺

#i only wish to carry out the will of amun :( #its not my fault i was robbed in a tjeker town :(

some stuff!

Aegina/Localism/Religion

Polinskai︠a︡, I. (with Jameson, M. H.). (2013). A local history of Greek polytheism: Gods, people and the land of Aigina, 800-400 BCE. Brill. -> full on methodological reconsideration of greek religion as we know it through the athenian lens, with the Dorian island Aegina as case study

E. Aston, Mixanthropoi: Animal-human hybrid deities in Greek religion. Liège, 2001.

J. Hall, Hellenicity: Between Ethnicity and Culture. Chicago and London, 2002.

Thessaly

Aston, E. (2024). Blessed Thessaly: The Identities of a Place and Its People from the Archaic Period to the Hellenistic. Liverpool University Press.

Mili, M. (2015). Religion and society in ancient Thessaly. University Press.

Arcadia

J. Roy, “On Seeming Backward: How the Arkadians Did It.” in Sociable Man: Essays on Ancient Greek Social Behaviour in Honour of Nick Fisher, ed. S. D. Lambert,    Swansea, 2011, p. 67-86.

T. H. Nielsen, and J. Roy (eds.). Defining Ancient Arkadia. Acts of the Copenhagen Polis Centre 6. Copenhagen, 1999.

myth and landscape/regionalism

G. Hawes. Myths on the Map: The Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece. Oxford, 2017.

R. Buxton, Imaginary Greece: The Contexts of Mythology. Cambridge, 1994.

and, a little bit older: S. E. Alcock, R. Osborne (eds.), Placing the Gods. Sanctuaries and Sacred Space in Ancient Greece (Oxford 1994)