Anglo Saxon Booty Worth $5,5 Million

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20091126/lf_nm_life/us_treasure_britain

The largest ever hoard of Anglo Saxon treasure has been valued. The gold, which was found on 5th July this year in Staffordshire, was discovered by Terry Herbert while he was out practicing metal detecting on farmland belonging to Fred Johnson. It has now been valued at £3.28 million by the independant Treasure Valuation Committee. The money will be split equally between the two men. The treasure consists of  more than 1,500 individual pieces. The collection includes pommel caps and hilt plates. All in all there is 5kg of gold. The significance of the find is being compared to being, at least equal to, the Sutton Hoo discovery of 1939. Highlights of the collection can currently be seen at the British Museum in London. Thanks for reading.

I got my official release date for Kiss Across Time yesterday.  May 4, 2010.  Just under six months away.

I guess that’s the drawback for writing for a house series.  Everyone gets pooled together at the speed of the slowest common denominator.  I have a feeling I’ll have other titles coming out between now and then.

Anyway, I thought I’d celebrate by splurging with an excerpt, as they seem to be well received by everyone.

But first the blurb, of course!

Taylor Yates just got fired from her university for insisting that the 5^th Century British poet and playwright, Inigo Domhnall, existed. When she hears the poet’s lyrics in a death metal song, she engineers a meeting with the dark-eyed, dark-haired lead singer, Brody Gallagher. An unintended kiss sends them spinning back to the poet’s time, when Saxons were pillaging King Arthur’s Britain, and a warrior expects a proper farewell from his woman before he sets off for war.

Brody’s all for kissing her again.  More, he’d like her to try kissing his friend and lover, Veris, just to see what will happen.  His blond, tall, blue-eyed Saxon friend Veris.

_____________

Excerpt

The bathroom door opened and the singer stepped out, wrapping a silky-looking bathrobe around him. He halted when he saw her, his eyes narrowing.

“It was you,” he said flatly.

Her heart squeezed. It was him. Breandán. In the vision, dream, whatever it was that she’d had when this Brody had kissed her. Long hair and everything.

“You even have a scar on your chest,” she said and lifted her hand to touch, just under her own left breast. “Just like Breandán did.”

His eyes widened. “Jesus,” he breathed.

After a second or two he stirred. “I guess I don’t have to ask if you experienced what I did out there, then.”

She licked her lips. “That isn’t…usual, then?”

He gave a low laugh. “God no!” He lifted a hand to her face but hesitated just before he touched it. “May I?”

She appreciated his sensitivity. “Yes.”

His thumb stroked her cheekbone. “Your name is not really Toiréasa, is it?” His voice was low.

She shivered. He’d been there. He’d really been there with her.

“Taylor,” she said.

“I want to kiss you again, Taylor. I want to see what happens this time.”

She focused on his full lips and she remembered him sliding his cock into her. Even though it had been a dream or a vision, or whatever it had been, she recalled it like it had actually happened. She could feel it. Her clit throbbed.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Curiously, she believed him. She nodded.

His mouth touched hers hesitantly and she knew there was a pocket of fear in him too. Then his lips grew firmer, more demanding and his tongue thrust into her mouth. She forgot about visions and daydreams and simply enjoyed the kiss. Brody was a damn fine kisser and she hadn’t been kissed in a long, long time. She threw herself into the kiss, letting herself be seduced by its power. She pressed up against him, enjoying the pleasure of simply being held by a man, the scent of a man. She wound her arms about his neck and rubbed herself against him with a soft little moan.

He gasped and lifted his head up, looking at her. “No visions,” he said softly. “But both of us experienced it, the first time.”

“Yes,” she agreed. Then she realized that she was draped against him. Worse, his cock was beating between them, signaling his arousal in the most obvious way.

She tried to stand up but he held her still. “Wait,” he said. “There’s no rush, is there?” His hand was stroking the back of her thigh, making it quiver.

“I have to go home.” She tried to make it sound convincing. But she really wanted to stay right where she was and continue kissing him. She had no idea who he was. She didn’t even know his last name. But she already knew what his cock looked like and what it felt like to fuck him. And if the vision they had shared had any sort of truth in it, he had loved her once.

Before she had been fired two days ago, Taylor had been within half an inch of being a history professor. She hadn’t believed in past lives and all that sort of bullshit. But right now she was willing to grasp it in order to give herself enough justification just to fuck the brains out of this man because kissing him felt so damn good. But that wouldn’t make her feel any better tomorrow morning.

She bit her lip. “I can’t stay,” she said regretfully. “I would love to. I would. But that isn’t a good enough reason.”

Brody held up his hand. “Before you go,” he said. “Would you do me one small favor?”

She stepped away from him. “It depends.”

“I want you to kiss my friend. I want to see if it works on him.”

Taylor laughed. “Why on earth would it?” Then something in Brody’s expression registered on her. “Oh…he’s your lover, isn’t he?”

Brody lifted a brow.

“A very long-term lover,” Taylor concluded with growing wonder. She tilted her head to study him. “What is his name?”

“Most people call me Veris, because they can’t pronounce my real name.”

She whirled around to face the voice.

He was sitting on the arm of the chair where the suit jacket had been a few moments before. Blond hair, blue eyes, six foot two inches of self-assured, very broad-shouldered male.

“You!” She struggled for the name. “Dr. Gerhardsson. You consulted with me last week, about the Domhnall plays.”

“Jesus, you son of a bitch,” Brody said behind her. “You went and did it after all.”

Veris smiled. “I did.”

Brody brushed past Taylor and threw himself into the lounge chair. He looked at Taylor. “You’re a history professor?”

“I nearly was,” she said flatly.

“You don’t look like one,” Brody commented.

“Neither does he,” she said, pointing at Veris. He was wearing leather pants and a sleeveless white cotton overshirt that made the most of the tanned, rounded caps of his shoulders and the bunches of muscles of his arms. Veris crossed his arms over his chest, which just seemed to multiply the amount of tanned muscle on display. His blue eyes twinkled.

Brody seemed more than mildly pissed about Veris’ consultation, which had been utterly professional in nature. Dr. V. Gerhardsson had not indicated by so much as an inch that he even recognized that Taylor was a woman.

Even so, Taylor had been left feeling edgy and weak-kneed after the evening consultation and had fallen into bed and indulged in a rare session of masturbation that featured Gerhardsson and his blue eyes and broad shoulders and various parts of his magnificent anatomy, over and over again.

Brody glared at Veris now. “I can see now why you came home in such a muck-sweat that night…the seventeenth, right?”

Taylor jumped. That was the night.

Veris just shrugged a little. No pride lost there. “I have no objections to kissing the lady now, if that’s what you want.” He smiled a little but his eyes were dancing with merriment.

Brody glared for a moment longer, then gave up. Taylor knew he had tabled the argument for later. He sat forward on the seat and spoke to Veris. “I told you what happened during the concert. I want to see if it happens to you when you kiss Taylor, because of our bond. If it does, then we’re going to have to tell Taylor.”

Veris glanced at Taylor. “And that won’t have tipped her off at all,” he said.

“Like consulting her about the Domhnall plays won’t have?” Brody shot back.

Veris grimaced. “I see your point.” He got to his feet and walked toward her and Taylor knew that the equivalent of a nuclear explosion would have to go off before she would move from the spot.

Veris stopped in front of her. “May I?” he asked. He seemed to tower over her five-foot-six frame, even with her spiked boots.

She thought her knees would give out. “Yes,” she said, her voice hoarse.

He slid his hand around her waist and the other under her hair. This close, his blue eyes were mesmerizing and she could feel her heart thundering. It hurt as it slammed against her chest. She gripped Veris’ shirt almost convulsively, suddenly afraid.

“It’s all right,” he whispered, his lips brushing hers, his breath fanning her. “I have you.”

He kissed her.

_________

So…what do you think? 

]]> http://latestondiamonds.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/anglo-saxon-gold-is-worth-3-285m/ Thu, 26 Nov 2009 10:54:48 +0000 neatnew http://latestondiamonds.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/anglo-saxon-gold-is-worth-3-285m/

The haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure unearthed in Staffordshire is valued at 3.285m by experts at the British Museum…. From BBC News. Full story

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Let’s face it: there’s nothing new.  We create only by standing on the shoulders of giants.  What came before is a blueprint for our every effort.  The legacy of Western culture is a valuable gift because without it, there’s hardly anything for us creatives to draw from.  The classics of literature, for instance, can become a set of toys for a talented genius to play with.

Take the epic poem Beowulf—in which ‘there lived a monster in a cave. He was a hideous beast with green fur and yellow teeth. The townspeople feared him and would never approach his cave, he in turn would never venture out to the town for he knew he was not wanted and didn’t like the people much anyhow. There was one particular day of the year that he couldn’t stand, and on this day he vowed to ruin the towsnfolk’s fun, for if he could not have any, why should they.’

It must have occurred to Dr Seuss to bend this ancient story to his own use; to retell it as a picture book.  I was thinking about the similarities between Grendel, the monster from Beowulf, and the Grinch—even down to their names.  What really struck me was the bit about how neither one could stand the sounds of civilization.

“It harrowed him / to hear the din of the loud banquet / every day in the hall, the harp being struck / and the clear song of a skilled poet / telling with mastery of a man’s beginnings, / how the Almighty had made the earth . . .” (Beowulf 34).

And:

If there’s one thing I hate…oh the noise, noise, noise, noise! …They’ll blow their flu-flubas.  They’ll bang their tartinkas.  They’ll blow their who-hubas.  They’ll bang their gardinkas!”

A quick search on Google revealed a couple of essays written about Grendel/Grinch. Here’s one by Courtney Shay. She brings up other similarities I hadn’t thought of:  both monsters are miserable—without joy, and wreak their havoc on society in the darkness of night.

To compare Grendel to the Grinch is to appreciate how a master of the picturebook can distill an assortment of ideas down to one clear and simple storyline.

As we descend into the chaos of the season, spare a thought for the anonymous Anglo-Saxon scribbler whose poetry lives on in How The Grinch Stole Christmas!

On this day in 1002 the English king Aethelred the Unready decreed that all Danish colonists in England should be put to death. I have this on the authority of Wikipedia.

The information has come as rather a shock to me, I have to admit. Like many people (those who’ve actually heard of him) I’ve always imagined King Aethelred as a sweetly ineffectual figure, the Prince Charles of his day. How could he be otherwise with an epithet like “the Unready”?

Alas, it turns out that “Unready” is a mistranslation of the Anglo-Saxon “Unræd”, which actually means something like “no counsel”. It refers to the notoriously poor quality of the advice (“ræd”) that Aethelred received from his Council, known as the Witan. This advice, it seems, was the root of his political problems, rather than any “unreadiness”; indeed he seems to have been all too ready to act if the decree mentioned above is any guide. The King’s name translates as “noble counsel” (“æþel”= noble) so the epithet was a pun: “noble counsel, no counsel”. Get it? Ah, those Anglo-Saxon jokes, they do it for me every time.

Why on earth was Aethelred trying to “ethnically cleanse” his realm of Danes of all people though? After all, nowadays we think of Scandinavia* as a beacon of progressive ideals, cheap furniture and (excellent) crime fiction; the least likely military aggressors in Europe? Yet then it seems it was a different story. The last two and a half centuries of Anglo-Saxon England were a constant (and bloody) struggle against Danish Viking encroachment.

Again, for many years, in my mind, the Vikings were Norwegian. Why? Well, they were also known as “Norsemen”, weren’t they? “Norse” and “Norwegian”: that the former was just an alternative (archaic) term for the latter seemed obvious. Another example of the way words mislead us.

* I have to admit, I have no associations specific to modern day Danes except maybe a vague image of farmers (bacon? blue cheese?). Apologies in advance to any Danish person who reads this!

This should be the last book in my list for the Fall Into Reading Challenge 2009.  I’ve finished the challenge but it’s a whole month earlier than the deadline, December 20.  So, I’ve decided to stretch my list.  See my additions here.

Author :  Anya Seton

Date of First Publication  :  1965

First Publisher :  Hodder and Stoughton

This Edition’s Publication Date :  May 1, 2006

This Edition’s Publisher :  Chicago Review Press

ISBN-10: 1556526008

ISBN-13: 978-1556526008

No. of pages :  448

The Story :

A young noble, Rumon, makes his way to England in his quest for Avalon when he is thrown into Merewyn’s way and through a deathbed promise  is forced to take responsibility for her.   Merewyn has been brought up to believe she is a descendant of the legendary King Arthur; but Rumon knows the truth of her barbaric and pagan bloodline.

In the course of their lives in England, Merewyn falls in love with him; but Rumon is oblivious as he gives his heart and soul to the beautiful Queen Alfrida.  After  his ill-fated affair with her, he slowly comes to love Merewyn as well.  But his love, just as hers before,  is thwarted by events.  And thus spins the saga of their love through their lives.

The Review :

There is something about old books and the way they are written that imbues them with  a charm all their own.  Avalon is such a book, first published in 1965.  I picked this up because the author, Anya Seton, was one I had admired after reading Katherine.

Both books showcase Seton’s style of romance which pits love against circumstance.  Her romance is more realistic and mature,  less involved with the fluff that makes for fairy tale finishes.  Love has to navigate through uncontrollable events life throws in the way.  Endings are poignant but not the totally happily-ever-after kind that rarely happens, if ever, in real life.   The feeling is satifsying, though,  in the sense that we get a better grip on how versatile and enduring true love can be.   In this particular novel, love for more than one person is possible although it exists in  different shades and gradations, dependent on character and chance.

Many readers  will enjoy the vivid backdrop of this story.  The 10th century comes alive with Seton’s characterization of real historical figures like Queen Alfrida, King Ethelred the Unready, Saint Dunstan, and with her accounts of how life was in a European era that saw Viking invasions and explorations.

To Read Or Not To Read :

Although not as good as “Katherine“, which was an outstanding read, “Avalon” is also a beautiful story in itself; but, it isn’t for every romance reader.  A mature reader would appreciate the emotions and the way the story unfolds rather than judge the characters’ likability quotient, as a younger reader would.  This is not a syrupy, shivery love story; but one that carries more depth as it plays out in the harsh circumstances of medieval life.

My Mark :  Very Good

]]> http://flashparker.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/dust-country-an-excerpt/ Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:51:16 +0000 flashparker http://flashparker.wordpress.com/2009/11/05/dust-country-an-excerpt/

Dust Country – An Excerpt

I’ve spent almost two years working on my second novel. It’s been a long haul, this process. The first one came naturally, and the process was generally fluid. This one has been different for a number of reasons. First, I’ve never attempted anything this ambitious. The project is way out of my comfort zone, but I went in knowingly. Second, photography and some screenwriting commitments have dominated my time in the last year. My writing has certainly influenced the photos I’ve taken, but I wonder just how much the opposite is true…

I digress. To celebrate the completion of draft two and the start of the onerous editing phase, I went out into the hills to make a few frames. I don’t have a giant stone hammer, but I do have a monopod.

Finally, here is an excerpt from the novel.

———————

The air is heavy. The air is full of dust.

There’s a fire in the farmer’s eyes. He can’t wipe them, his hands too dirty. He knows. This is something he does with unmitigated frequency.

The only cover on the lane is the oak tree and it could fall any moment. He’s in the open, the barrow and his cargo at the mercy of the dust, the wind. The tree is a hundred years old, maybe more. It was tall when the farmer was a boy. Tall and strong and he climbed it with the miller’s children, his friends, children from their neighbourhood. When the others were scared he was brave. Always the bravest. His father taught him well. Brought him up strong, sure, kind. His father was there that day, watching, watching from the house with the miller, proud. He climbed the tree and tied the rope to the strongest branch. He did it when all the others were afraid. They begged him not to. He’d fall, he’d die. That’s what they said. Half way up they were still afraid.

Now they’re gone. All of them like the rope, gone. Two meters of it cut away. As high as someone could climb. Frayed, three strands from one. The tire is gone. The rope swings in the wind, a whip as thick as a man’s wrist. The farmer drives the barrow to the tree. The wind howls. The sky is so many grays. Lightning. He stops. He can’t breathe. Bent double, coughs into his cotton mask. Blood and phlegm, mucous. Three days now, it’s been the same. No clean water. The dust in the air moves fast. Too fast. Razors in his lungs. His face is bleeding. His neck, his hands. He looks to the sky. Rain? Rain will bring grenades. There’s no water left in the rain. When the rain falls it’s tar.

The house is close. He checks his cargo, lifts the blanket. The wind kicks off the lane, swirls, pulls the blanket from his hands. He needs it. Chases it, catches it. Covers his cargo, the face and the torso. The legs he can do nothing about. They hang out of the barrow and dangle over the ground. Skinny, a scarecrow. At least his cargo still has shoes. Worn, old. They’ll have to last. There will never be new shoes again. The wind changes. Not much time but the house isn’t far. He can make it. They’ve come far, they can make it. Their closest neighbour not so far at all. The freedom of the country, the doom of the distance. Barrow is heavier now, but he can make it. He pushes up the hill, past the oak tree and into the open. The grass is still green in spots, mostly yellow. Some grey. It’s happening faster than they said it would. On the TV and the radio. TV doesn’t work. Radio picks up a channel or two, but it’s always the same. They’re liars.

His cotton mask is blown away. He can’t stop. Won’t stop. Lets it go. Catches on a rose-bush in the garden. The thorns are sharp, the petals dry and dying. No more moisture in the air. The rain will kill them all. The wind blows mighty, dust burns his throat, his eyes. There’s one step at the door, concrete and strong. The barrow bounces and strikes the door. Door swings open, farmer drives the barrow inside. He knows the house well, knows the miller and his wife are in the sitting room. He hears footsteps. They appear in the hall. The miller in front, shotgun in his arms. He’s seen him use it, hopes against home. The miller’s wife recognizes the farmer. She’s thinner. Older. Old as the oak tree, but stronger. It’s only been a few months. He stares for a moment. She’s tough. She’ll be the last one of them all. The miller takes him by the arm, just above the elbow. The miller’s face is thinner, the rest the same. His beard is long, thick, wild, eyes heavy, red. So old. Crooked hands, claws. A gnarled spine.

“Jesus,” the miller says. He doesn’t realize it. It’s just a thing to say.

The farmer coughs into his fist, doesn’t look at the mess, wipes it on his pants. Pulls the blanket off his cargo, lays it on the floor. The miller’s wife’s hand goes to her mouth, her eyes go wide, red. The old man in the barrow looks dead. He’s not. He coughs violently. Too weak to cover his mouth. Blood on his shirt. Crimson at it’s deepest. A bib of haemoglobin. His eyes are open but he’s not seeing. He’s covered in dust. The blanket was good for nothing at all.

“They say on the radio the hospital is full,” the farmer says. “Said so on the TV, before she went. And there aint no money for fuel.”

“How long has he been like this?” the miller’s wife asks.

She brushes past her husband. He doesn’t move. No expression on his face. He stares at the old man. The farmer stares at the miller. The miller looks up, past the farmer.

“Few days. Worse now. He aint said nothing since he started coughing.” The farmer’s eyes fill up quickly. He wipes at them, smears blood across his face. He doesn’t notice. He doesn’t care. “Can’t get a thing from the tap and the store in town been all torn to shit. Couldn’t afford no water even if we could find it anyway.”

The miller’s wife looks at her husband, he won’t look back. “Get him out of there and into the sitting room,” she says, taking hold of the skinny legs. They set the old man on the sofa. It’s just long enough, he’s stretched out. Still coughing, blood everywhere. The miller’s wife sets a pillow under his head, another under his knees. She whispers to him. The farmer doesn’t wipe the tears from his face. Not this time. They flow freely now. He looks at the miller. Older by the second, staring out the window. The wind howls, the dust crackles against the windows. The air is full of sound now. It’s dark. The miller’s wife disappears, comes back with a candle and a towel and a bottle of water.

“They can’t afford no fuel they can’t afford no water,” the miller says. He never once looks at the farmer, keeps his eyes on the old man.

The farmer squeezes the wetness out of his eyes. “Please,” he says, the word so dry it’s barely there. The tears race down his cheeks, mix with the dust, become mud, fall to the floor.

The miller’s wife kneels next to the old man. Another fit. She puts her hand on his chest, whispers to him. It’ll be alright. She lies. That’s all they can do. The truth is there, on the other side of the glass for all of them, plain. The coughing subsides, a momentary reprieve. The miller’s wife wets the towel, wipes at the old man’s face. The blood is dried, caked hard. She scrubs. About to use the water again the miller grabs her by the wrist.

“Damnit, you know there’s not enough to spare,” he says. She spins up from the floor, fast, slaps her husband on the face. He looks at the farmer’s eyes for the first time. Walks away,  curses, slams a door somewhere in the house. The old man coughs, she kneels again, washes his face. The farmer pulls up his trousers, leans in, hands on her shoulders.

“Thank you,” he says.

The miller’s wife doesn’t answer. Her husband’s words in her mind. He’s wrong. There’s always a little more to spare. Something extra to give. Even when it seems the opposite. Especially. She sets to ordering the farmer, eases both of them, something to do. No idle hands. Remove his shoes, check how swollen his ankles are. Pull him down a bit that way, get his feet up. Stop the blood from pooling. Send it back towards his heart. Listen to the chest, tell me what you hear. She sets the bottle to the old man’s lips. Won’t drink. Can’t. She offers it instead to the farmer. He takes it, lips touch the plastic. He tastes it. Allows himself a mouthful, no more. Spins the cap back on, sets it between his knees.

“You need more,” the miller’s wife says. She takes the bottle, starts to remove the cap. The farmer puts his hand on hers, stops her. Looks at his father.

“No. That’s enough,” he says.

“When’s the last time you drank something?” she asks. Angry.

“I ate this morning,” the farmer says.

“That’s not what I asked.”

“I’ve had more than my share.”

Tears stream down her face. She pulls the bottle away, throws the cap on the floor, shoves the bottle at the farmer. “Now you take this and you drink,” she says, shaking her head. It’s easier to be mad. Like any good neighbour. Mother. “We’ve got the well and there’s plenty of water for us and then some. No one near to come and take it from us and this storm can’t last forever. You’ll see,” she says. Her hands bite into the farmer’s flesh while she speaks. Her talons. Her tears run while he drinks. Her tears are clear, clean. He’s never seen her cry before. Never in his life. Her own children, gone a month now. Not a word. She didn’t cry. Now she does. The farmer finishes what’s in the bottle. He does it for her as much as anything. The old man coughs, gasps. Can’t breathe. They fuss as much as they can, do as much as they can. They don’t hear the miller. He tosses the bucket on the floor between them. It splashes on the floor, on the sofa, on the farmer. It’s not water. Couldn’t be. Thick, black, engine oil. Dirty. The miller’s covered in dust. His surgical mask is supposed to be white. They didn’t know he went outside.

“That’s what’s left in the well,” he says.

Part of the Staffordshire gold hoard, recently unearthed in a farmer’s field, goes on display at the British Museum in London…. From BBC News. Full story

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Part of the Staffordshire gold hoard, recently unearthed in a farmer’s field, goes on display at the British Museum in London…. From BBC News. Full story

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Courtesy of www.staffordshirehoard.org.uk/

The reaction to the news of the recent discovery of an immense hoard, rich in gold and silver, has been predictably varied, both from the academic and museum communities and the general public. The Staffordshire hoard was announced on 24 September 2009. The story of its discovery by metal detectorist Terry Herbert and its subsequent reporting to the Portable Antiquities Scheme and recovery archaeology at the understandably secret site is well covered in the press and can be read in the press statement on the hoard’s website. Here is a brief reflection I recently left on the Early Medieval Forum mailing list and the full thread with reactions from other medievalists can be accessed in September’s archives and October’s archives.

I read Alex Burghart’s review with great interest. As demonstrated in the article, the questions such exceptional finds raise are as important for the understanding of the past (whether ‘history’ or ‘archaeology’) as any answers that might be yet be put forward. Rather than the rather tired debate about whether such things inform history, or whether history informs them, I found the last sentence of most interest:

Not much certainty is likely to come of this, but when faced with this collection of strange, undiminished beauty, certainty is hardly the point.

What makes this find so intriguing, to me, above all the detail and analysis, whether of the inscription or the workmanship or the materials, is the effect it has already had upon a the popular consciousness of the early Middle Ages. If any of you followed the story on twitter, or indeed take a look at some of the comments left on its flickr pages, you would see what I mean (even overlooking the odd and downright bizarre).

I wish I had had the chance to go up to Birmingham and hear what others were saying, what they were expecting and what indeed it made them think about. The hoard will now be studied by (hopefully) a large cohort of scholars of all persuasions and will enter into lectures and seminar discussions, even if it might start on the legendary ‘booty of Penda’ question. This is only to be encouraged, even before any consensus might be reached about why and how.

We have to give a voice to our texts to get answers, and so do we to our objects. I hope that discussion on the hoard doesn’t get stuck on this issue, nor, I hope does its study become too fragmented between specialist scholars who will all find their own areas of interest in it but not readily come together or share. These finds could be used to create a museum in their own right, in the landscape in which it was found, and with the myriad other finds, texts and images from here. Perhaps if they were all put together, we might feel more certain about its role in the past, and its role today.
/ends

Since then, I have discussed the hoard with other people and kept half an eye on the hoard’s website, still trying to digest it all. What went into that work on the millefiori stud? How long would it have taken? And so on. Of particular interest is Emeritus Professor Nicholas Brook’s first impressions which raise the important issue of such objects having been heirlooms in their own time. I look forward to hearing more from Dr Kevin Leahy in his lecture to be given at the British Museum on 26 November (Tickets £5 and £3 concessions). His outwardly facing agenda for the hoard and its interpretation, in other words, working to put as much ‘raw’ information out to tender as it were, is something to be commended as I have alluded to above. I know of at least one undergraduate student who has already chosen this as his dissertation subject. British Archaeology Magazine’s recent coverage (issue 109 November/December 2009) of the hoard and its discovery is to be similarly commended. Its pure and simple descriptive analysis just states things as they are and doesn’t seek to make comment in order to appropriate some position on it or another or to make pointlessly bold statements about the how the hoard will irrevocably change our understanding of the ‘Dark Ages’… (of course it will only do so through a completely new mode of collaboration, debate, assimilation and dissemination of information).

I now come to a point where I feel that I want to understand better the relationship of one object to another in the haul, more than say, workmanship, techniques, dating, kingdoms and associated historic events. Something about this feels deeply personal. Can’t quite put my finger on it. In the meantime I can only look forward to its imminent arrive in London.

From Douglas Moffat’s The Old English Soul and Body: “Levi argues that the idea of a respite from hell was borrowed from fourth-century Christian writers from an older Jewish tradition in which the respite from hell is sabbatical, as some would argue that it still is in modern universities” (33).

As I’ve mentioned before, the relationship between Communism and religion is a strange and complex one. Take this BBC article, for example, in which the former Archbishop of Canterbury (technically the head of the Anglican church, if you discount the queen) attacks the white-supremacist British Nationalist Party (BNP)- an old enemy of the Communist movement in Britain.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/8324455.stm

(For some reason it doesn’t appear as a hyperlink, so you’ll have to copy-and-paste it into your address bar).

The story I completed a couple of weeks ago, Blood Bound Across Time, has now officially sold and as I suspected, it got a name change in the process.

Kiss Across Time will be released sometime in late April 2010, possibly even into May, as part of the Poetic Passion series at Ellora’s Cave.

I’ve built a book page for it — look to the right, or click here to jump to it, for the blurb.

Cover and release date to come.

Non-historians tend to think of history as a dead thing – dead people, dead civilizations, maybe some dead languages (and yes, with the passing of Mr. Garcia lo those many years ago, even Dead Heads seem a relic of the past).  But some exciting discoveries in the past few weeks shows why history truly is a living entity, both because new facts are discovered and new theories develop, based on those facts or simply the ever-changing ideological winds.

Not exactly finder's keepers, but Terry Herbert should do all right.

A few months ago in England, a metal-detector-wielding amateur scooped pro archaeologists with his stunning find of 7^th-century Anglo-Saxon gold and silver items, a discovery worthy of front-page play in the NYT. The cache included intricately worked items that adorned weapons and clothing, and experts think they were prizes ripped from defeated foes during or after battle. Under British law, the finder is due a sizable chunk for his share of the valuable find – somewhere around $1.5 million, by the latest estimate. Not bad for a middle-aged bloke who was on the dole while digging through the dirt. And the historians say the trove shows the level of craftsmanship at work during the time, an era often called “the Dark Ages.”

Serfs up! (Had to see that one coming, right?)

Some historians are increasingly claiming that the label is a misnomer. Sure, the Roman Empire was gone in the West, and the Renaissance (even the “mini-Renaissance” of the 12^th century) was hundreds of years away. But Europe did not collectively crawl under a rock and wait to be revived by Abelard, Anselm, and Bacon; Chaucer, Petrarch, and Giotto (or even Tinkers, Evers, and Chance).  The monks of the British Isles and elsewhere wrote and created art. Skilled artisans crafted the tidbits recently found . And beyond the borders of the old Western Roman Empire, Byzantium and the Arab empires kept classical thought alive and, particularly with the Arabs, expanded on it. Not so dreary after all, unless you were a feudal serf, who, one book says, lived lives of “unrelieved drudgery.”

Ciao, Bella!

Of course, once the Renaissance did hit, you saw some sparkling scientific and artistic achievement, and the appearance of perhaps the greatest  “Renaissance Man.” Another recent discovery put good ol’ Leonardo da Vinci in the news. I’m glad I wasn’t the guy who had to relay the bad news to the previous owner of La Bella Principessa: “Yeah, that work you sold for $19k – well, it was actually done by da Vinci, and it’s probably worth, oh, 150. Million.”  And what was the telltale sign that it was the master’s work? A fingerprint. Evidently Leonardo often got his hands all over his work, and some high-tech sleuthing revealed that a print on the principessa matched one on a known da Vinci work. OK, aside from thinking, “That guy who sold it was a moron,” you have to think that it’s cool to have another work from one of the greatest minds of all time. You have to, damnit.

(In  the interest of fairness, let me say this story could take a twist; the Time article cited above points to a counterclaim – from an art dealer who once sold the painting -  that it is not a Leonardo. We shall see.)

Former home of the Crusaders - the fighters, not the musicians

Our third find of historical import comes from Syria, card-carrying member – albeit second string – of the Axis of Evil. Gee, don’t you miss those heady days of early Bush II, with those pithy sayings and talks of crusades? Appropriately enough, the new discovery relates to the Crusades, the real ones, back when the monotheists unabashedly bashed it out in the Holy Land. Archaeologists working at an old crusader fortress,  the al-Marqab Citadel, found murals depicting scenes of heaven and hell. The citadel started as an Arab fort in the 11^th century, came under Greek control, then ended up with the Western Crusaders during the 13th century (my source for this is sketchy…).

The murals, about 8 feet by 11 feet, are on the walls of a chapel inside the fort and represent images of heaven and hell. A little more detail, courtesy of MSNBC: “The panel depicting hell shows people being tortured inside a wheel covered with knives and others being hanged and burnt, said Marwan Hassan, head of the Department of Antiquities in Tartous. The one portraying heaven includes saints surrounded by light colors.”

So this is Yankton...(or just outside it)

The experts say the artwork is rare, since the Crusaders moved around a lot and didn’t have time to do much painting (and there was all that fighting stuff too). The murals should give insight into the mindset of the Crusaders – or at least the ones stuck on this godforsaken slice of Syria, far from the hustle and bustle of Damascus and Jerusalem. It’s probably the equivalent of doing National Guard reserve duty in Yankton, South Dakota. (I’ve been to Yankton. I might prefer Syria – at least you can get decent hummus and falafel.)

For all three discoveries, the research goes on, new info will come out. The History Nerd gets excited about finds like these, as you can tell. Long-lost letters and documents are cool too. Even the diaries of common folk, hidden away in an attic, can reveal so much about an era. So, start hunting through Grandma’s old trunks, and if you see a guy with a gray beard walking around the Connecticut shore with a metal detector, it might be me.

“The Orthodox (Julian or “Old”) Calendar, with corresponding civil dates. A complete Calendar of Orthodox saints, Scripture readings, and fasting guidelines for every day of the year, together with a listing of uncanonized righteous ones of recent centuries. Numerous saints and righteous ones have been added to this year’s Calendar.

The 2010 St. Herman Calendar is dedicated to the Orthodox Anglo-Saxon saints of pre-Schism England. Brief biographies of many of these saints are accompanied by iconographic portraits. A feature article traces the history of Orthodox Christianity in the British Isles from the first-century arrivals of St. Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Apostle Aristobulus to the arrival of the Angles and Saxons during the fifth century, the attacks of the Vikings during the eighth century, and the defeat of Orthodox England at the hands of the Normans in 1066. Also discussed is the recent resurgence of Orthodoxy in England, which has been accompanied by a renewed veneration of the saints of that land.” Click here to Order

We hope you will forgive us for straying from the Tudor theme of the blog to write about the wonderful discovery of a huge hoard of Anglo Saxon gold near our home city of Birmingham.  The find, the largest hoard of Anglo-Saxon gold ever found, is believed to date back to the Seventh Century.  It contains around 5kg of Gold and 2.5kg of silver, far bigger than the famous find at the Sutton Hoo burial site.

A Staffordshire field.

Amazingly the gold was not unearthed due to careful historical research – rather it was found by a 55-year-old Staffordshire metal detectorist called Tony Herbert, as he searched a field near his home with his 14-year-old metal detector.  He had been a keen metal detector for 18 years, and I find it hard to imagine how excited he must have been to unearth such awe-inspiring treasures.

Spirits of yesteryear.

He said: “I have this phrase that I say sometimes; ’spirits of yesteryear take me where the coins appear’, but on that day I changed coins to gold.  I don’t know why I said it that day, but I think somebody was listening, and directed me to it.  Maybe it was meant to be, maybe the gold had my name on it all along, I don’t know.  My mates at the (metal detecting) club always say if there is a gold coin in a field I will be the one to find it. I dread to think what they’ll say when they hear about this.”

Warlike items.

Many of the items in the hoard are warfare paraphernalia, including sword pommel caps and hilt plates, often inlaid with precious stones.  The seven warring Anglo-Saxon kingdoms comprised Wessex, Essex, East Anglia, Northumbria, Mercia, Sussex and Kent. The Mercians dominated the middle of the country, below the Humber and down to London – where we live in Birmingham is in the middle of Mercia.  The hoard points back towards a time of war, and also of great wealth, at least for those with political power.  There is biblical slogan etched along a strip of golden banding on one of the pieces.  It reads,

“Rise up, O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face.”

Beowulf.

The gold points back to the time of the writing of the great Anglo Saxon poem Beowulf. There is a theory that Beowulf was Mercian in origin, and is about the mindset of these aristocratic warriors.  I find these lines send a shiver up my spine!  The translation from Old English is by Seamus Heaney.

A newly constructed

barrow stood waiting, on a wide headland

close to the waves, its entryway secured.

Into it the keeper of the hoard had carried

all the goods and golden ware

worth preserving. His words were few:

“Now, earth, hold what earls once held

and heroes can no more; it was mined from you first

by honourable men. My own people

have been ruined in war; one by one

they went down to death, looked their last

on sweet life in the hall. I am left with nobody

to bear a sword or burnish plated goblets,

put a sheen on the cup. The companies

have departed.

The hard helmet, hasped with gold,

will be stripped of its hoops; and the

helmet-shiner

who should polish the metal of the

war-mask sleeps;

the coat of mail that came through all fights,

through shield-collapse and cut of sword,

decays with the warrior. Nor may webbed mail

range far and wide on the warlord’s back

beside his mustered troops. No trembling harp,

no tuned timber, no tumbling hawk

swerving through the hall, no swift horse

pawing the courtyard. Pillage and slaughter

have emptied the earth of entire peoples.”

I did it, I stood in the queue yesterday, and got in to see the gold!

Knowing that it would be a long wait, I went prepared.  I carried my bag with a book inside, a sandwich, a drink and a cookie!  I thought about bringing one of our portable camping chairs, but decided I didn’t want to drag it around with me.

When I got into the queue, I was standing quite a ways back from the sign that said ‘two hours from this point’, so I figured it owuld be at least 3 hours.  It was 1:00.

I was hungry, so I ate my sandwich.  Then I texted Jeff to tell him what I was doing, he texted back to tell me I was crazy.  That took care of the first 10 minutes!

But, every five minutes or so, the queue moved forward, someitmes just a few steps, sometimes 10 or 15 feet.  There was a troubador wandering around, playing music.  There were also several Anglo-Saxon warriors hanging around as well, talking to people and answering their questions.  A young woman came by selling cupcakes!  Someone from the museum came along with some photocopied handouts that gave some information about life in those days.

A little later, someone else came along with some glossy brochures showing some of the artfacts.  Minimum donation of £1, which would go towards trying to keep the hoard in the Midlands permanently.  I gladly made a donation.

As we inched (sometimes) our way along, I read my book, I listened to conversations going on around me, I ate my cookie, and, eventually, 2 hours later I rounded the corner in frond of the building.  As I got near the bottom of the stairs to go inside, it was easy to start counting people – they were letting them in 10 at a time.  I made it in at the end of a group of 10, but they were really only doing it that way because they didn’t want people queued on the stairs on the way up.  So, up the stairs and then at the top we were formed back into the ‘hoard’ queue, and I got the see the same people all over again in front of me.  Unfortunately, a few minutes later and I had that guy behind me whose voice I was getting sick of hearing…he seemed to know something about everything!

Finally, I was again at the head of a queue – groups of about 10 were being allowed into the room.  The last time I’d been in this particular room, it was holding an exhibit called ‘Obama’s People’.

Now, there were 6 or 7 large glass display cases set around the room.  We were pointed in the direction of the case where they wanted us to start, but after that, we would look at any case in any order and stay as long as the place was open, as far as I could tell!  I think I spent about 1/2 hour in the room, partially because there were a lot of people blocking my view, so I really took my time.

What can I say about what I saw?  First of all, it felt slightly historic to me…most of the items still had at least some dirt on them, they weren’t all cleaned and polished up yet for a museum audience!  Second of all, since I was by myself and didn’t have anyone to compare my impressions with, I was listening to what a lot of what other people had to say about the fine workmanship, the detail in the pieces, which reminded me of things to look for.

Of the 1500 items found, only about 60 artefacts are on display, and what some of them were used for is unknown at this time.  Basically, there were lots of narrow strips of gold – a couple of inches wide, 5 or 6 inches long, inlaid with garnets – beautiful and shiny in spite of the fact that they hadn’t been cleaned up yet.  There were lots of pieces of gold that apparently came from sword hilts, a gold cross that had been ‘folded over’ almost into a ball – lots of things that looked like they were ripped off of whatever they’d been decorating, as though someone was in a hurry to hide the valuables.  Looking at some of it, I felt a tingle of emotion, wondering what the people who’d want it buried had been going through.

Two of the items were so small that magnifying glasses were set up in the case – one was a piece of gold inlaid with garnets.  Magnifying it just gave a much better idea of the craftsmanship used in creating it.  The other was a snake.  I thought it just looked like a twisted piece of gold wire until I looked in the glass and could see the eyes and mouth – very good!

It was worth the wait.

Or is that horde?

When I read in the newspaper nearly two weeks ago that this find was going to be on display at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (BMAG), I knew I’d have to check it out.  I did, too, the first day it was on display, on my lunch break.  However, when I got there, people were queuing on the stairs outside (take a look at the BMAG link to get an idea of what the front of the building looks like).  Once you get up those stairs, there are quite a few more stairs to climb before even getting up to the first floor, so I figured I wasn’t going to have time in the half hour I had left on my lunch break – would have to come back in a couple of days.

Which I duly did…however, the queue extended down the stairs, along the front of the building and around the corner and down the side street!  There was no way I’d get in even if I used my WHOLE lunch hour!  So I gave it a few more days, hoping some of the furor over the find would’ve died down.

Wrong again!  I went up again on Monday.  This time, there was a sign standing at the bottom of the stairs saying that from that spot, it would be an hour’s wait and giving the extended opening hours for the Museum!  THIS is big stuff!  Needless to say, on Monday, the queue was just as long as on my previous visit.

I have no idea if other people are as cynical as I am, but I felt it was really important to see the gold NOW as it seems like once it goes to London to be valued, it will not be available to be viewed in Birmingham again.  However, it turns out that I may be wrong about that as the story nin my first link states that there is a possibility that ithe hoard will remain in the West Midlands.  IF I ever get into the Museum to see it I’ll be glad to make a donation to help make that happen.  To me, this is more important than the Olympics, but then, I always was into history…

I’ve submitted to Ellora’s Cave a…I guess it’s not quite urban fantasy this time.  More like an urban paranormal time travel fantasy crossover erotic romance.  Assuming they buy the novella, Blood Bound Across Time will be part of Ellora’s Cave’s Poetic Passion series, which will be released in April or May of next year.   I’ll be interested to see where and how they categorize the book!

Stay tuned for updates.  I’m expecting EC will probably asked for a retitle (they usually do).

_____

Failed history professor Taylor Yates can’t believe it when the work of a 5th century British poet everyone but she says didn’t exist turns up, of all places, in a death metal band’s song.  She goes to the concert and gets a “back stage pass” by kissing the lead singer, but the kiss tumbles them both through time to the 5th century itself, where the singer is a warrior, and expects a warrior’s proper farewell from his woman before he sets off for war…

]]> http://bpdt.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/brixworth-lecture/ Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:34:16 +0000 David Thomson http://bpdt.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/brixworth-lecture/

7 November 2009, The 27th Brixworth Lecture will be given on 7th November by Dr Richard Gem at 5pm in All Saints’ Church, Brixworth (tea in the Heritage Centre from 4pm), on ‘Brixworth and the liturgical ordering of Anglo-Saxon churches’. If you don’t know Brixworth Church, you ought to. It’s one of the best survivals from the Anglo-Saxon period, and for Cambridgeshire readers, not far away at all.

The haul of Anglo-Saxon treasure unearthed in Staffordshire is valued at 3.285m by experts at the British Museum…. From BBC News. Full story

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