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Our Favourite Map - Medieval manuscripts blog - http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitis...

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"Look closely, and you can just about discern the shape. Can you guess what it is yet? It's a medieval view of Britain, one of four surviving maps by Matthew Paris, historian and cartographer at St Albans Abbey. Scotland is shown at the top, joined to the rest of the British mainland by a bridge at Stirling ('Estriuelin pons'). Moving southwards are depicted two walls, one dividing the Scots from the Picts (the Antonine Wall) and the other the Scots from the English (Hadrian's Wall). Along the spine of the map is a series of English towns, including Newcastle ('Nouum castrum'), Durham ('Dunelmum'), Pontefract ('Pons fractus') and Newark ('Neuwerc'), culminating with London, Rochester, Canterbury and Dover ('Douera'), a castle located in the centre of the South coast of England. Wales ('WALLIA') is sited in just about the right place, with a sequence of jagged lines representing Mount Snowdon ('Snaudun'); diagonally opposite is Norfolk and Suffolk, and the towns of Norwich (a metropolis, no less), Lynn and Yarmouth." - maitani - -

"This particular map is now bound separately (London, British Library, MS Cotton Claudius D VI, f. 12v), but it once belonged to a manuscript of the Abbreviatio Chronicorum of Matthew Paris, dating from the 1250s. There are less complete maps of Britain by Matthew Paris in two other St Albans' manuscripts held at the British Library, Royal MS 14 C VII and Cotton MS Julius D VII, and in another at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge (MS 16). You can read more about these maps in Suzanne Lewis, The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Aldershot, 1987), pp. 364-72; but meanwhile here are some more details of the version in Cotton Claudius D VI. It's worth bearing in mind that Matthew Paris did not have satnav, GPS or an A-Z, and that he had never visited the vast majority of the places recorded on his maps." - maitani - -

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3quarksdaily: The Moody Blues: Ride my see-saw - http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarks...

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"THE MOODY BLUES: RIDE MY SEE-SAW" - maitani - -

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What’s the evidence on using rational argument to change people’s minds? https://www.contributoria.com/issue...

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"Are we, the human species, unreasonable? Do rational arguments have any power to sway us, or is it all intuition, hidden motivations, and various other forms of prejudice?" - maitani - -

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The logic of Buddhist philosophy – Graham Priest – Aeon - http://aeon.co/magazin...

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"An abhorrence of contradiction has been high orthodoxy in the West for more than 2,000 years. Statements such as Nagarjuna’s are therefore wont to produce looks of blank incomprehension, or worse. As Avicenna, the father of Medieval Aristotelianism, declared:" - maitani - -

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"Western philosophers have not, on the whole, regarded Buddhist thought with much enthusiasm. As a colleague once said to me: ‘It’s all just mysticism.’ This attitude is due, in part, to ignorance. But it is also due to incomprehension. When Western philosophers look East, they find things they do not understand – not least the fact that the Asian traditions seem to accept, and even endorse, contradictions. Thus we find the great second-century Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna saying: The nature of things is to have no nature; it is their non-nature that is their nature. For they have only one nature: no-nature." - maitani - -

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Collapsing Civilizations | New at LacusCurtius & Livius - http://rambambashi.wordpress.com/2014...

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"Gods, heroes, and century-old ruins: that was all that a poet like Homer knew about Bronze Age Troy, the background of his Iliad. Other bards sung about Knossos, Mycenae, and Thebes, and in their poems we can also recognize echoes from the fourteenth and thirteenth century BCE. Echoes, only echoes: the poems were largely fictitious. The Aegean Bronze Age civilization was almost completely forgotten." - maitani - -

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Sent to my Kindle :) (One of my favorite Bronze Age echoes in the Illiad is that of the war chariots. The memory of them remains, but how they were used in warfare is totally forgotten. Homer decides they were probably used as hero taxis, delivering the mighty directly into the thick of battle, before they race back to camp. I also suspect the very limited reach and power of the Greek kings, limited mostly to running a tiny weaving factory on his estate and having a few people work his land, is a fairly accurate memory of tiny "kingdoms" from the Greek Dark Ages.) - maitani - -

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Homepage - All of Bach - http://allofbach.com/en/

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"Every week, you will find a new recording here of one Johann Sebastian Bach’s 1080 works, performed by The Netherlands Bach Society and many guest musicians." - maitani - -

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Ramanujan’s Long Legacy - Scientific American - http://www.scientificamerican.com/article...

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"Self-taught mathematical prodigy Srinivasa Ramanujan had a brilliant but brief life. In 1920, at the age of 32, he died from a combination of illness and malnutrition. Before he passed, he filled various notebooks and manuscripts with nearly 4,000 results and conjectures. These documents have inspired mathematicians ever since, helping solve various conundrums and inspiring new fields of math (See “The Oracle” by Ariel Bleicher in the May issue of Scientific American). Here is a timeline tracing Ramanujan’s intellectual legacy." - maitani - -

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LONDON IN DARKNESS AND LIGHT | Pandaemonium - http://kenanmalik.wordpress.com/2014...

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"The London skyline at dusk. The first three are taken from Shooters Hill in southeast London, the last four from Primrose Hill in north London. For full-size versions see Light Infusion, 500px and Flickr." - maitani - -

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A Medieval Word Search http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitis...

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"Here is a puzzle for our readers, but be warned – it is not for the faint of heart! This is not the simple type of word search we are used to, but a very complex puzzle involving the date of Easter." - maitani - -

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The solution to the riddle <a rel="nofollow" href="http://britishlibrary.typ... ; title="http://britishlibrary.typ... ; - maitani - -

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A New Life http://www.futilitycloset.com/2014...

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"Life in Puritan New England was so hard that children who were abducted by Native Americans often refused to come back. Eunice Williams, abducted in 1704 at age 7, refused to leave the Kahnawake Mohawks despite her father’s pleas — he found she had forgotten the English language and adopted Indian clothing and hairstyle. “She is obstinately resolved to live and dye here,” he wrote, “and will not so much as give me one pleasant look.” The Mohawks were much more indulgent of children than the colonists, and women were counted equal to men and played an integral role in society and politics. Eunice married a Mohawk and lived with him for half a century." - maitani - -

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The curious tale of the economist and the Cezanne in the hedge http://www.bbc.com/news...

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"How did a priceless masterpiece by Cezanne come to find itself in a hedge by a Sussex farm track during World War One, asks Trevor Dann." - maitani - -

"It's one of the lesser known but most fascinating tales of World War One. What was the British government doing buying paintings at a Paris auction house while German guns were bombarding the city? And how did a priceless masterpiece by Cezanne come to find itself in a hedge by a Sussex farm track?" - maitani - -

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The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Welcome to In Season - http://www.metmuseum.org/visit...

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"Welcome to In Season, the new blog for The Cloisters museum and gardens. Here, we plan both to continue with the garden-related posts that we began on our former blog, The Medieval Garden Enclosed, and to broaden the conversation to include special features on our collections, exhibitions, and programs. We'll also highlight things of interest behind the scenes. Our goal is to engage with our readers and to make the many activities that take place at The Cloisters accessible and engaging to our visitors, both onsite and online. We invite readers old and new to comment on our posts." - maitani - -

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International Dunhuang Project: Phrasebooks for Silk Route Travellers - http://idpuk.blogspot.de/2014...

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"Phrasebooks still seem to sell quite well, judging by their presence on bookshop shelves. If translation apps do eventually make them redundant, it will be the end of a tradition that goes back a long way. The Central Asian manuscript collections provide plenty of evidence that phrasebooks were popular with travellers on the Silk Routes in the first millennium AD. For example, Pelliot chinois 5538 is a scroll with a series of phrases in Sanskrit and Khotanese, on the general theme of pilgrimage. Some of the phrases form conversations, like the following:" - maitani - -

"And where are you going now? I am going to China. What business do you have in China? I'm going to see the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. When are you coming back? I'm going to China, then I'll return." - maitani - -

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A Calendar Page for May 2014 - Medieval manuscripts blog - http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitis...

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"The themes of courting and pleasurable outdoor pursuits continue in these calendar pages for the month of May. On the first folio is the beginning of the listing of saints' days and feasts for May, amongst a backdrop of flowers. In the roundel below can be found a roundel miniature of an aristocratic young couple on horseback, setting off to go hawking (it is perhaps, but not definitely, the couple found on the opening folio for April). On the next folio is a small painting of a nude couple for the zodiac sign Gemini. Beneath is a well-dressed lady sitting in a flowering garden, engaged in a somewhat mysterious activity. Curators in our department have variously theorised that she is holding a tambourine, an embroidery hoop, or a skein of yarn; please do let us know what you think!" - maitani - -

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Stanford’s “Another Look” spotlights Marguerite Duras’ The Lover | The Book Haven - http://bookhaven.stanford.edu/2014...

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"Long before most Americans could find Vietnam on a map, the French ruled Indochina, and its Chinese, French, and native Annamese denizens lived in an unequal colonial stew. So when a 15-year-old French schoolgirl had a passionate affair with a wealthy 27-year-old Chinese lover in Saigon, it created a scandal. The affair eventually became a book, and the book became a masterpiece." - maitani - -

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Thank you, daveeza, I am glad you find these items interesting. :-) - maitani - -

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18 facts you never knew about cheese | OUPblog - http://blog.oup.com/2014...

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"Have you often lain awake at night, wishing that you knew more about cheese? Fear not! Your prayers have been answered; below you will find 18 of the most delicious cheese facts, all taken from Michael Tunick’s recent book The Science of Cheese. Prepare to be the envy of everyone at your next dinner party – just try not to be too “cheesy”. Bon Appétit!" - maitani - -

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The Romantics and the Orient: What English Poetry owes to the Middle East | Informed Comment - http://www.juancole.com/2014...

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"...To relieve their anxieties and fears they all turned to the East hoping to find a remedy and inspiration. Many Arabic and Persian books were available to them in English translation, from One Thousand and One Nights to the Seven Ancient Arabic odes called Mu’allaqat, from the philosophical novel, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, a 12th century Arabic book, to the works of the Persian poet Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafiz, from the romance of Majnun Layla by the 16th century Persian Hatefi to the poetry of the 11th century Syrian philosopher and poet Abu al- ‘Ala’ al-Ma’arri, from the Quran to Muhammad’s Journey to Hell and Heaven. English and other European writers also produced many books on the history and religion of the people constituting the Ottoman Empire whether Turks, Kurds or Arabs. In short, 18th and 19th century Britain was teeming with Arabic and Islamic books that were read and absorbed by young British poets who were desperate to forget their misery in an era of bloodshed and violence." - maitani - -

"...Ironically, even in the poetry of the Romantics, I cannot escape the haunting images of past such paroxysms of violence in my homeland. Coleridge much admired Hulagu,the brother of Kublai Khan (the Mongol Emperor of China), but Syrians remember him as a tyrant who sacked northern Syria in 1260, and attempted to destroy the latest traces of civilization. Byron greatly admired Timur Lang (Tamerlane), who destroyed Aleppo and Damascus in the fourteenth century, leaving behind him mountains of skulls out of which hundreds of towers and pyramids were built. But neither of these icons of the romantics can be blamed for the current destruction. It is the Syrians themselves who are engaged in self-destruction, not, as in former times, intruders." - maitani - -

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Plows of the gods - The Unz Review - http://www.unz.com/gnxp...

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"But the Gordian knot of history’s inscrutable veil is now be shredded by Thor’s hammer of Truth. More literally Pontus Skoglund has another paper out in in Science (how many times will I type that?), Genomic Diversity and Admixture Differs for Stone-Age Scandinavian Foragers and Farmers. If you don’t have academic access, the supplements are quite rich." - maitani - -

"How Europeans became Europeans is a big question, in large part because Europeans (i.e., “whites”) are still what an ideology in disrepute would term the herrenvolk of the world. But this reality, the truth of which sows discord in any discourse, does not need to negate the fact that the question itself is of interest, and today is eminently answerable. Europe has a long history of archaeology and its climate is mild-to-frigid in a manner which might aid in preservation of subfossils. For decades archaeologists have debated whether the ancestors of modern Europeans were farmers or hunters. It seems quite likely that the real answer is both, and, it’s complicated." - maitani - -

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Unicode character table - http://unicode-table.com/en/

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Quedlinburg

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I think I took a picture of that sign, too! - maitani - -

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Kirsten, my Nokia (or is it me?) isn't good at making photos of buildings, so this is just about all I can do. :-) Quedlinburg is gorgeous, of course. So many wonderful houses and places to look at, and such a rich history to learn about. I only spent a few hours there, it was too little time. - maitani - -

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AWOL - The Ancient World Online: Introduction to Greek and Latin epigraphy: an absolute beginners' guide - http://ancientworldonline.blogspot.de/2014...

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"Introduction to Greek and Latin epigraphy: an absolute beginners' guide" - maitani - -

"Where to start? * Bibliographical guide: * Handbooks and general introductions to epigraphy: * The Organization of the field * Publication: * Collections and corpora * Thematic collections: * Greek and Latin corpora: * Greek corpora * The Greek world of Asia and Africa: * Latin corpora: *" - maitani - -

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The War on Reason - Paul Bloom - The Atlantic - http://www.theatlantic.com/magazin...

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"Part of the attack comes from neuroscience. Pretty, multicolored fMRI maps make clear that our mental lives can be observed in the activity of our neurons, and we’ve made considerable progress in reading someone’s thoughts by looking at those maps. It’s clear, too, that damage to the brain can impair the most-intimate aspects of ourselves, such as the capacity to make moral judgments or to inhibit bad actions. To some scholars, the neural basis of mental life suggests that rational deliberation and free choice are illusions. Because our thoughts and actions are the products of our brains, and because what our brains do is determined by the physical state of the world and the laws of physics—perhaps with a dash of quantum randomness in the mix—there seems to be no room for choice. As the author and neuroscientist Sam Harris has put it, we are “biochemical puppets.”" - maitani - -

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"Aristotle’s definition of man as a rational animal has recently taken quite a beating." - maitani - -

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Hahnenkleeklippen und Silberteich

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Eivind, it couldn't be better. The days and evenings are warm and gently sunny, it is perfect for long walks in the woods. :-) - maitani - -

Spring seems to be treating you well :) - maitani - -

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Bodewasserfall bei Braunlage April 2014 und März 2013

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Oh, schade, das hab ich jetzt zu spät gelesen. Ich bin schon von Quedlinburg zurück. - maitani - -

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Braunlage ist langweilig, aber es liegt in einer wunderschönen Landschaft. So einen verzauberten Wald mit uralten Bäumen wie hier im Harz habe ich nirgends sonst gesehen. Und es gibt viele gute Wege zum Wandern. Außerdem ist es nicht weit nach Goslar oder nach Quedlinburg. Heute will ich mir Quedlinburg anschauen. :-) - maitani - -

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Bodewasserfall Braunlage

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Danke :-) - maitani - -

Sehr schön! - maitani - -

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maitani

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