I had some time to burn before catching a flight recently, and found myself in an academic rare/used bookstore. Today I picked up the package of books I asked Alcuin Books to send back.
Can I say how lovely it is to walk into a bookstore, be asked "can I help you", say "I'm looking for 6thc archeology, particularly Kent, or Anglo-Saxon textiles, but also the Mediterranean" and be handed a folding chair and pointed to three places? Just smashing.
In the box for me were:
(St. Agnes – I love how her over dress is hiked up to show the terrific sash end and undertunic embellishment. I'm sure Julian could tell me what that sash is called. Brenna – this is what I meant when I said that I was really curious about how the collar and cuffs might work…I so look forward to your interpretation!)
Early Christian Mosaics from the Fourth to the Seventh Centuries: Rome, Naples, Milan, Ravenna. Fourteen Plates in Color. Translated from the German, 1946.
I bought this because the quality of color reproduction was the best I've seen so far of early mosaic. It has the common image of Empress Theodora and her retinue…but also some great garb shown on saints. The detail, considering its made with bits of stuff, is amazing and wonderful.
(Ah, sprang. I have Collingwood's book, and someday I will get to play with this technique. So very interesting. Did anybody else notice that in the recent CGI Beowulf, Wealthow wears a sprang cap in the confab scenes in her bedroom? Very cool.)
The Bog People: Iron-Age Man Preserved. P.V. Glob. 1969, 3rd printing (1975). Translated from the Danish. Great black and white pictures of finds, not so great on dating, but good maps, and very accessible writing.
(Whoopsie, kind of large…but this way you all can see the little beasties, running around the cabochons. So much fun, all the animals in this placetime…I'm going to have a hard time choosing decorations for my camp gear!)
Archaeologia; or Miscellaneous Tracts Relating To Antiquity, Published by the Society of Antiquaries of London, Vol. 98 (1961). This is a collection of topics…but has a 46-page article on "The Jutish Style A. A Study of Germanic Animal Art in Southern England in the Fifth Century A.D." Fabulous detailed descriptions, black and white photos and line drawings showing bucket mounts, belt plates and slides, brooches, strap ends, "tubular object"…lots and lots from Kent. Here's a typical description of the pic above, to show the quality:
Pair of pendants: 3 and 3.25 cm long respectively, made from very thin beaten silver. The loops, which are of different legths, are folded over at the back and taper to a rounded end. At the base of each loop at the front are two small lobes ornamented with incised rings. The main part of each pendant is pear-shaped and in the center an oval collar has been raised by hammering to contain a piece of blue glass set en cabochon. The lass is now missing from one of the pendants. At the base of the collar on each is a ring of semicircular punch-marks, and outside this, on the flat flange, a panel of animal ornament, consisting of a short procession of little creatures three on each side of the collar, facing up towards the loop. they are separated from each other, and from the edge of the pendants, by narrow boarders decorated with incised hatching. The remaining spaces below the loop and above the collar on each pendant are filled with punched dots. The little animals are again a cross between hippocamp and quadruped, having square jaws, round eyes, couched front feet, and curled hind-quarters. Eight of the animals have a triangular panel on their bodies which is filled with incised strokes, and some have additional puched dots on the tail. The others have only a line of dots along the body.
This volume also contains papers titled:
- The Wilton Diptych – A Re-examination. (14thc)
- The Trewiddle Hoard (this looks of EP interest, too – Anglo-Saxon, 5th-9thc.)
- The Palace of Westminster Sword. (Lots of Anglo-Saxon swords)
- The Earlier Royal Funeral Effigies. New Light on Portraiture in Westminster Abbey. (ends with Henry VII, Anne of Denmark, Mary Tudor)
The bookstore had several other volumes from the Archeologia series, though no others held so much promise for me, I'd expect other researchers to find lovely things in them. The owner of the store said he'd be happy to read off titles, or even scan/email title pages. I paid $50 for my volume, and consider it fair value for at least the one paper, but there are three of ultimate use to me, so I think I got lucky!
Also, can you make me a copy of the Kentish article and the Sword one ( for Seth)?
Gwen
Fantastic! I’m glad the shop here had some useful things for you.
Only slightly off-topic, as you mentioned it… any thoughts on the recent Beowulf movie? Despite doing a seminar on the poem in college, I haven’t seen it — previews suggested the CGI would be strange and distracting (and yes, there may have been an element of “bah, Hollywood will only mess it up anyway”). Worth watching?
I really like the CGI Beowulf. Neil Gaiman wrote a compelling screenplay. There’s some lovely music. The CGI process is fascinating…they can use the look of the actor or substitute something else. It’s ‘real acting’, because the actors have to produce their work in a blank studio, with minimal props. (Obviously the DVD extras are worth watching.) The gore is like the poem.
Gaiman does warn that the movie is not the poem, that the poem inspired the movie…and I don’t remember the circular ending to the poem…but it’s darkly wonderful and good. I should reread the poem now…I think we have a Seamus Hainey version about somewhere.
Nifty, thank you! (Somehow I’d forgotten that it was a Gaiman screenplay.) I’m intrigued by the idea of giving it a circular ending — the poem doesn’t, but I can kind of see how it could, with just a small twist… Onto the “to rent” list it goes!