[Steppes] Period in Review Week of 06-25 thru 07 -01 2006

[Mike]

Heilsa,

Hope the reader will enjoy this look at History
within Period - both from the past and the present
as it affects the history that is known today.

Week in Review:

June 25th:
England Welsh Modern Day
Before 601 Metalworking – Roman Empire
On June 25th, 2006 A hoard of over 2,000 Roman coins of the
late period has been discovered in a Welsh field at a farm near
Carmarthen. The Romans left Wales in 410AD, having first
arrived in 47AD. Carmarthen was a Roman settlement from
the first century AD. The treasure was found a mere 12 inches
below the surface. The coins are classic Roman in design,
bearing the face of the Roman emperor on the "heads"
side and a likeness of a goddess on the "tails." They
contain a small amount of silver, but experts have not yet
put a value on the find. Edward Besley, of the National
Museum of Wales, in Cardiff confirmed that the coins
were at the museum and were being cleaned,
examined and catalogued.

June 26th:
England Modern Day
601 – 0700 Armouring and Weaponsmithing
On June 26th, 2006 Experts at the Royal Armouries in
Leeds have declared a 7th century sword, which predates
the Vikings. The Anglian sword has been declared the only
one of its kind in the world The sword lay in a suitcase, after
being unearthed in an excavation at Bamburgh Castle in 1960.
Bamburgh was the capital of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of
Northumbria, which extended from the English Midlands to
Strathclyde. The Anglian sword, which is made up of six
individual strands of carbonised iron bonded together, has
been in storage since its discovery and was recently
"rediscovered." According to Archaeologist Paul Gething,
the rare sword would have had "serious bling factor."
"What makes it unique is that the billet is made up of six
strands of carbonised iron, which have been micro-welded
to bond them together. There have been swords found before
which have been made of up to four strands, but none have
ever been found with six.”

June 27th:
America New York Modern Day
Reported On June 27th, 2006 Mary Martin McLaughlin died on
June 8th, best known for editing work on The Portable Medieval
Reader (Viking, 1949) and The Portable Renaissance Reader
(Viking, 1953), has passed away at the age of 87. The cause was
cancer, her niece Kathleen Bayard Derringer said. Her research
focused mainly on the roles of women and children in the Middle
Ages, subjects largely ignored before she began work. Her final
books, to be published posthumously, are the first full biography
of Héloïse, the lover and later wife of the 12th-century French
philosopher Peter Abélard, and the first English translation of the
complete correspondence of Héloïse and Abélard. While reams
of scholarship have been devoted to Héloïse and Abélard,
among history's most ill-starred lovers, few investigators have
considered Héloïse alone. Ms. McLaughlin was the first to do so,
colleagues said in interviews last week. "Often Héloïse is seen
to some extent as in the shadow of Abélard, whether one likes
him or not," said Giles Constable, emeritus professor in the
School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study
in Princeton, N.J. "And Mary, very correctly, I think, separated out
Héloïse and concentrated on her work." Ms. McLaughlin's
forthcoming biography, "Héloïse and the Paraclete," centers on
Héloïse's years as abbess of the convent at the Paraclete, a
monastery founded by Abélard. The biography is scheduled to
be published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2008, the letters in 2009.

June 28th:


Modern Day
Report on June 28th, 2006 Blair Hedges, a biology professor at
Penn State, has discovered a new method to date printed materials.
The "print clock" technique uses statistical formulas to analyze fades
and page breaks. Hedges' new method was published recently in
the British research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A:
Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences. It was used to
analyze 16th and 17th century books and maps. Many experts say
breaks or fading may be due to wear and tear during print runs.
Hedges says his analysis shows the breaks occur at a constant
rate over time, irrespective of print runs, which, in turn, could help
scientists and rare book aficionados alike determine when an
undated item was printed. Generally, experts try to estimate ages
of undated materials from the 16th and 17th centuries by
researching items like fonts, the type of paper, a printer's watermark
or bibliographies. Hedges said he became interested in finding
another method after coming across some old maps and prints
while doing research in the Caribbean a couple years ago.
The "print clock" technique, Hedges said, is similar to
molecular-clock techniques used to time genetic mutations, which
is a key tool for dating genetic material in much of his biological
research. For the woodblock plates, he studied 23 copies of
Bordone's Isolario, an atlas containing maps of islands, spanning
the first three editions, printed in 1528, 1534, 1547 and a fourth
undated edition. It is in storage where Hedges said the woodblocks
may deteriorate, which eventually cause more line breaks to show
up during printing. That deterioration, on average, caused about
10 more line breaks each year, which would be evident in each
successive edition of the Isolario. Similar study was conducted
on 16th and 17th century prints made from copper plates, and
Hedges found, through analyzing the width of lines on the page,
that the plates deteriorated 1 to 2 micrometers per year due to
corrosion. The rate is similar to known rates for the atmospheric
corrosion of copper, Hedges said.

June 29th:
1101 – 1200
On June 29th, 1149 Raymond of Antioch is defeated and killed
at the Battle of Inab by Nur ad-Din. Inab was defended by Prince
Raymond, who had allied with Ali ibn-Wafa, leader of the Hashshashin
and an enemy of Nur ad-Din. Nur ad-Din destroyed the army of Antioch;
both Raymond and ibn-Wafa were killed. Nur ad-Din had about
6000 troops, mostly cavalry, at his disposal. Much of the territory of
Antioch was now open to Nur ad-Din, the most important of which
was a route to the Mediterranean Sea. Nur ad-Din rode out to the
coast and bathed in the sea as a symbol of his conquest. He then
went on to besiege Antioch itself, but was unable to take it. Although
devastated by the loss of its prince, the city was vigorously defended
by Raymond's widow Constance and the Patriarch Aimery.
King Baldwin III of Jerusalem also marched north to relieve the siege.

June 30th:
Dutch 1501 -1600
June 30th, 1597 Willem Barents, Dutch explorer and navigator died.
He led early expeditions to the far north. In 1594 he left Amsterdam
with two ships to search for the Northeast passage north of Siberia
and on to eastern Asia. He reached the west coast of Novaya Zemlya,
and followed it northward, being finally forced to turn back when near
its northern extremity. In the following year, he commanded another
expedition of seven ships, which made for the strait between the
Siberian coast and Vaygach Island, but he was too late to find
open water. His third journey also failed and resulted in his death.
The Barents Sea and Barents Region were both named after him.

July 01st:
Iceland Modern Day
On July 1st, 2006 The Icelandair Horse Festival 2006, will be held
at Vindheimamelar in Skagafjörður, North Iceland, June 26th -
July 2nd. Over 1,000 horses and their owners have gathered in
Reykjavik, Iceland to take part in the largest-ever Landsmót, or
Icelandair Horse Festival, itself the largest gathering of Icelandair
horses in the world. Landsmót is the Icelandic name for the
biannual National Horse Show of Iceland, a unique and
unforgettable happening - the biggest event involving Icelandic
horses in the world. At Landsmót you will see all the best
horses in Iceland, in different types of competition, the classic
Icelandic Gæðingakeppni, tölt competition, racing and
breeding shows. Landsmót guests are an international
crowd, and no where else can you meet such a group of
Icelandic horse enthusiast. All of Iceland's most influential
breeders will be there along with the best riders in the
country and a multitude of people who love to watch
beautiful horses.

YIS,
Michael Kettering