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Book and Sword

~ Pontifex minimus

Book and Sword

Monthly Archives: January 2015

What Would You Like to Read This Year?

31 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Medieval, Modern, Not an expert

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

ancient, blogging, medieval, modern, not_an_expert, reflection

A large hall with glass windows, bookshelves between them, and a balcony encircling the room accessed by a spiral staircase

The library of Stift Wilten, Innsbruck, in October 2014

I have been blogging for a year and a third now, and I seem to have about twenty weekly readers. I have more or less kept my plans to post once a week on something loosely related to the ancient world and the martial side of history, although a few weird science-fiction devices like cuirassier armour and thoughts about education policy in Canada have crept in. My most popular post seems to be the one where I ask whether the Greeks wore glued linen armour.

As I recover from a busy semester, it seems time to ask some of my gentle readers to speak up and tell me what they would like to see. Bronze Age or Iron Age? Books or swords? Canadian politics or intrigue at the King’s court? Travel pictures or long passages in prose? I can’t guarantee that anything which you suggest will catch my fancy, but I will at least think about it.

Post Scriptum: This blog has received 31,803 spam comments and less than ten real ones. There is a good chance that real comments will not show up right away due to WordPress’ filter system. I will check in a few times this week to approve real comments.

Late Babylonian Private Letters

25 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

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Tags

Achaemenid Empire, ancient, Iron Age, Late Babylonian

Photo of a book from Ugarit-Verlag bound in bright blue cloth

Before Christmas a senior colleague recommended that I should read the new volume of Spätbabylonische Privatbriefe from Ugarit-Verlag. I am grateful that they did. The orientalists in Vienna are working on a project on Babylonia from the end of the seventh century BCE to the end of cuneiform writing on clay, and as part of this project they are editing the many letters which survive from this period. For some reason few school texts and libraries of literature have been found from this period, so private letters are our best view of the living language and everyday life. This volume contains 243 of which eighty have never been published and 58 never transcribed and commented upon. Every one is translated, and there is an introduction to the dialect of the letters and a dictionary with entries for every Babylonian word with references to use. Most of these letters are 100 to 200 words long and deal with instructions, property, and travel. A reasonable number, however, deal with military affairs and strong emotions.

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Reviving the “Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies”

17 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient

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Tags

ancient, Iron Age, Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies, Roman, shameless plug

Horseman canters at a dummy thrusting a lance overhand and underhand into a dummy on a post

A typical page from the old JRMES: “after many costly and fruitless experiments” John Duckham wields his 10-cubit lance on horseback

https://www.indiegogo.com/project/journal-of-roman-military-equipment-studies/embedded

The Journal of Roman Military Equipment Studies used to publish finds of Roman banded armour, reconstructions of Roman saddles, and experiments with sarissas on foot and on horseback. Like quite a few journals in the humanities it was published in evenings and weekends by scraping together a contribution here and a grant there, and in 2002 it had to cease publication for lack of funds. There are now three volumes of finished articles waiting for funds to print them. Mike Bishop, the original editor, has launched an IndieGoGo campaign to raise funds to print these issues and found a society to support further volumes.

While I do not know much about these Romans, other than that they are some barbarians in the darkness beyond the seas where no King of Babylon has gone, I enjoyed the first phase of JRMES. I can vouch for Mike Bishop, whom I know online and through “Bishop and Coulston” (a book which also faces a new edition!) I have contributed a bit, but I am a PhD student not Sigismund Rich-in-Coin. So if you enjoy learning about weapons and armour through their cultural context, or ancient cultures through the tools that they used, I hope you can throw something in the hat! Military historians, craftsmen, and reenactors all have something to learn from and something to contribute to JRMES, but as of Wednesday only 32 contributors have stepped forward. The campaign has reached its funding goal, but the new JRMES will not last without several hundred subscribers.

Further Reading: Indiegogo page

Rus in Urbe

10 Saturday Jan 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Ancient, Modern, Not an expert

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

ancient, farming, Innsbruck, modern

SAM_4758

It is easy for ancient historians to forget about farming. Ancient literature does not say much about it, ancient art rarely depicts it, and farming is distant from our own lives. Yet most people in the ancient world made most of their living by farming or herding or fishing, and the basic realities of farming pervaded their mental world. I am therefore glad that some of the land near the Zentrum für alte Kulturen in Innsbruck is still working fields and orchards. Although the caked soil at the edge of the field is marked by the tyres of the farmer’s tractor and not the hooves of his oxen, and the plot is crammed between a modern glass monstrosity, the loading dock of a supermarket, and a concert hall built out of shipping containers, it is still worth watching as the seasons turn.

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Some Thoughts on “War: The Lethal Custom”

04 Sunday Jan 2015

Posted by Sean Manning in Uncategorized

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Tags

ancient, book review, Gwynne Dyer, military history, modern

The holidays are a time for reacquainting oneself with old friends, both the living and the paper varieties. One of those was Gwynne Dyer’s book War: The Lethal Custom. Dyer’s writing has earned him a worldwide network and a middle-class living, but not the global celebrity of a John Keegan or Steven Pinker, and I think that is a shame. Dyer has something to teach anyone interested in human behaviour, and his book shows more respect for evidence than many popular works do.
Continue reading →

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