Curiosities of Archaeology

[Swatopluk]

I know that Byzantine studies are not everyone's favorite subject (including Turtledove fans  ), so this may have beent he reason for this not having made much of a splash. As far as I can tell it only became a (limited) topic in the papers due to the (typical) quarrel between Turkey and Greece. "Greeks and Turks quarrel about rights to antique shipwreck" is not page 1 material.
But I think it is interesting enough to open a thread here.

A Turkish team of archaeologists seeking for the wrecks of the Battle of Sinop (1853) found a few Byzantine dromons instead. There were some interesting artefacts recovered that should change our views about technical capabilities at the time a bit (cf. the Antikythera mechanism for an earlier era).

[Bluenose]

Wow, amazing!  Yet again we learn that our ancestors were not so inferior to us as we so often suppose.  Thanks Swato for bringing this item to our attention.

[ivor]

Cool! 

[Pachyderm]

Outstanding. Confusion reigns in the office, as the others are amazed that James and I can now talk about Byzantine cipher machines, and sound knowledgable.

(We won a pub quiz organised by the Royal Town Planning Institute last week, and were told it was unfair, as he is Walking Google, and I am The Human Wikipedia. Sour grapes, but they taste sweet to us...)

[Swatopluk]

Can I interest any of you in that nice bridge in NYC that I could sell you at a bargain price 
More info to follow. Just one thing: a look at the calendar would (have) be(en) wise.
http://tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:u8UG-AQcWiXiBM:http://www.bbc.co.uk/herefordandworcester/content/images/2006/03/29/april_fool_420_420x420.jpg

[ivor]

You got me Swato!  I totally forgot it was April Fool's Day. 

[anthrobabe]

   gottcha

[The Meromorph]

For a gag like that to work, people have to want it to be true.


It so-o-o-o worked.   

[Bluenose]

Yagotme!

Hmm, very funny, in retrospect.

[Swatopluk]

Comments on the Byzantine April Hoax

I think this is the most elaborate hoax I ever attempted and given a bit more time it would have included even more details and sketches. Maybe I will present those in an appendix.
What do you think about the idea of sending a more polished version to an actual scientific paper for use in the April edition 2010)?

GARN means yarn (as in 'spinning a good yarn')
The original Journal is fake (and an April edition), Carnad is also a bit like Canard
The second Journal is also fake and 11.11 is the start of the Carnival season.
Abdera was (in antiquity) the proverbial town of fools.
Even if there is a university in the Troy area, it has no department of archaeLOLogy.
Wahid (Arabic) and Bir (Turkish) mean '1', Nisan is their equivalent of April.
The Turkish Wikipedia page for the tradition of sending people up on April 1 is titled '1 Nisan Saka Günü'.
Although there was a Battle of Sinop in 1853, it took place inside the harbour not out in the bay.
Nunio and Irene are the Catholic saints for April 1.
Nugator is the comic relief character in the comedy "3 Coins" by Plautus
LOLlius, self-explaining
Yes, there was a similar crisis in Trebizond at the time but the details I gave are fake.
A red and white striped chest unsafe to handle is the central 'character' in a story by Conan Doyle (although that connection came to me only afterwards).
Samples of rubber-like substances and lacquer could have been obtained via trade from Africa and Asia resp. but there is no evidence that Byzantine craftsmen did dabble in advanced polymer science. No 'Karolos Kaloetos' tried the sulphur trick so to speak ;-) . Given the correct recipes they probably could have done it, although Kickxia rubber is more difficult to master than Hevea rubber (today's standard). The ingredients for Bakelite could have been produced from wood tar and naphtha, the Byzantines had a good deal of practical knowledge about distillation. I think that the box would not have been impossible to produce but very difficult and expensive. It's alleged sturdy built might even have kept the contents dry at a pressure of 3 bar.
The machine would, I think, be like the box, i.e. possible in principle but requiring far too much effort and expenses (esp. for multiple casts of parts until a selection would fit sufficiently. Friction and slip would pose the greatest problems in use and possibly make it impractical. Also for the design with standing (instead of hanging) drums there would indeed occur a problem with falling balls missing the openings in the drum below. Whether catcher funnels would solve that problem, I can't say. To get the inner tubing of the drums right without risking balls to get stuck would be quite a feat.
If used per the instruction the machine would produce a very strong cipher with a good chance to defy even modern codebreakers using computers.
The inscription is another hint. 'Hidden writings' is 'cryptographia' in Greek and 'riddle' is 'ENIGMA' like the German cipher machine that used a similar principle. 'Mnemotryppa' means 'memory hole', an allusion to George Orwell. Basilios of Alania (=the Alan) and Marianus of Thuringia allude to Alan Turing and Marian Rejewski, the two persons most responsible for cracking the Enigma code. S'cherebaios of Arthora (there is no such place in the area) is Arthur Scherbius, the inventor of of the Enigma. Kouzina(s) means 'kitchen' (cf.cuisine). Hugo Koch (German for 'cook') was an employee of Scherbius and invented the 'reflector' that allpwed decoding using the same sequence as encoding. Scherbius died in a carriage accident, although he was the driver and not run over). Mparis Angelinos is Boris Hagelin, another inventor of cipher machines.
The design #7 took some cues from the mechanical computers of Charles Babbage, esp. the idea of attaching a typesetting device. I did not include the idea of punchcards (as in the Jacquard loom) because I had not enough time to elaborate to get it ready for April 1 but the pin roller is also taken from real devices and could do the job 'playing the keyboard' of the Malwiya. The malwiya was indeed inspired  by the two buildings mentioned. The Malwiya of Samarra is older than my fictitious device and it would not have been unthinkable for a Byzantine scholar to adopt the name for it (there are examples for this practice).
Finally, the name of the fake publisher, Albern Schertz, is (slightly misspelled) German for 'silly joke'. In Kyritz one can find the 'Museum of Lies'.

PS: One important part in the designs is the lack of any springs. Although leaf springs were invented (or at least described) by Ktesibios in the 3rd century BC, I thought they would be too 'modern' for the European Middle Ages (and coil springs definitely would have been).

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Just out of curiosity, how long did you work on this?

---
BTW, good one. 

[Swatopluk]

A week or so (although I pondered the idea a bit longer than that). A good deal of stuff I came up with during the actual writing.

[Swatopluk]

OK, here are some extra figures not included in the original paper

[Griffin NoName]

Brilliant Swato. Maybe you could get it "published" for next year?

[Swatopluk]

Working on the next design that could be done with mere carpentry.

[Griffin NoName]

Well then the next step is to make it with distressed materials, plant it, and set up an expedition to find it....... 



tho "finding it" on April 1 may not be so easy and beware when it tips into the not funny any more....

[Swatopluk]

Many expeditions failed to find the legendary cipher tree. Most members didn't even get a place in a crypt.

Seriously, the new design would consist of a multilayered grid of planks with holes in them. The planks are moved back and forth by crown wheels with cogs either on the front or back side. So, a ball would fall not straight down but be shifted inside the grid before it falls out at the bottom. Clumsy but anyone able to build a mill could built this too. Could be done with little or no metal and would not require much precision.

[Griffin NoName]

Now you just have to become a Time Lord

[Aggie]

You did this one, Swato?  BRAVO!

Best April Fool's joke that I didn't figure out until told on April 2nd EVER.


Do try to get this published in some form for next year...  it's excellent.

[Swatopluk]

This year's April joke will have to be postponed, unfortunately. My apology.
The theme expanded even while I was working on the German version and I will have to do some more background research.
Also I need my computer back from repair.
The pdf of the German draft is slightly too large to attach (1042 KB > 1024 KB), so I cannot put it here as a teaser either.

Edit: the .doc file is smaller and I'll put that here instead

[Griffin NoName]

I've run this through a translator.

[Swatopluk]

That translation is actually not that bad. But it swallowed a few verbs and dropped a few negations (can instead of can't, 'not' left out). It should be possible to understand what it is about.
Of course it misses all the updates like the Nazis, the Kidlington stone, the Vardö witch trials, the rune drum, the hammer of St.Hubert, and also some images.

[Griffin NoName]

I used MS$$ online converter. 

Maybe you could edit the "translated" version for us?

[Swatopluk]

Better wait for the update

[Griffin NoName]

Happy to retranslate if needed..... method: open document in German in MS$$ Word, choose "Translate" option.

[Swatopluk]

As a teaser for the upcoming attractions I present you with
The Kidlington Runestone
Found in 1984 south of Kidlington near the confluence of the Cherwell and Thames River.
It commemorates a Viking raid in the 9th century and may be the archaeological proof that the medieval Hristarmál (aka Òltheresmal or Song of Christomar) is based on a real event.
The stone shows two inscriptions with accompanying image. One is in corrupted Latin and dedicates the stone to Skinka/e, a Frankish follower of the Jarl of Uxavadh (the leader of the raid). The other is Norse written in Younger Futhark of the Danish-Norwegian style and is a typical boast/bashing. Skinka/e boasts about his own bravery and insults his opponent in a way NSFW.
It's interesting to note that the Latin text alludes to the Odes of Horace (III.30, I have raised a monument more permanent than bronze) while it contains at the same time numerous irregularities like the AE ligature, KS for X, wrong declination and actual botched words (aertaernalum seems to be a mixture of the correct 'eternalem' with the 'aere perennius' of the Ode).
The spelling OVVLPEREI is an improper rendition of Ólþere (þ => P, clearly a mistake by the chiseller). Pronounced in Norse the name  takes on the meaning of Owl-carrier. Whether there is a connection to the legendary ancestor of the Saxonian Eulenburg family, Christomar Ulentrager, remains speculation.
The Norse text follows the regular alliterative style of Norse poetry, although the final insult partially breaks the metre and looks like a line-filling afterthought.

The image above the Latin text shows a wading bull with the runic letters ERIL (jarl or runemaster), a heraldic stand-in for the Jarl of Uxavadh.

The image above the Norse text shows a man in Frankish armor in single combat with another in Norse or Saxon outfit shaking a lance. Since Hristari, the corrupted form of Christomar means shaker/wielder/rattler this image clearly depicts the single combat between Skinka/e the Frank and Christomar Ólthere.

[Sibling DavidH]

Wow!

[Griffin NoName]

So what's the clue to this being nonsense?

[Swatopluk]

So what's the clue to this being nonsense?

Just to begin with look at the names (more closely)
But better do not try to make sense of the rune text (yet). Although I tried to get the Icelandic (as stand-in for Old Norse) right, there may be some mistakes there to start with. And since I used the short rune alphabet (16 letters as opposed to the older 24) of the Viking age without the possible punctuation, it becomes close to unreadable.
That is of course right what I want since that way the scholarly explanation can be far off-mark.

Unless Sibling DavidH can help with his knowledge of Old English I will be unable to present you with more than a synopsis of the Song of Òlthere. But yesterday evening I wrote the full version of what the story became when it fell to the tellers of fairy-tales.
Behold the Tale of Owl-Terry and the Red Bull (I'll put that in the Arts section soon).
I am still undecided, whether to actually write the Vita Sancti Oltherii in Latin or to stick to a 'translation' or synopsis.

[Sibling DavidH]

I believe a Middle High German version exists, by Johann von Düngerhausen:

Uns ist in alten maeren wunders vil geseit
Von helden lobebaeren und grozer arebeit...

Or was that something else?

This note in Cotton MS Judas 23.iv suggests that the whole thing happened right here in the village:

Her wæs Hereford gehergod, æfter þæm swyðe raþe wæs Ólþere ofslagan æt Moretun bi þaere Lug.

[Swatopluk]

The tale got around quite a bit but only some reactionaries still believe that it originated from Stratford-upon-Avon.
Just typing the fairy-tale, so I think I'll be able to post it in about an hour.

Edit: I posted it in the Kalethulu thread in the Arts Gallery

[Swatopluk]

Update
Hard at work (on paper, it will take many hours to type it all into the computer)

Finished:
Synopsis and analysis of the Vita Sancti Ultherii (Life of St.Ulufer)
Synopsis and partial analysis of Óltherismál vs. Hristarismál

Great progress on the Thugela rune drum in the context of the Vardø witch trials.
I found out some time ago that quite a lot of what I thought I had made up from whole cloth is quite close to real stuff, namely the Hammer of St.Hubert.

The long text on the Kilpisjärvi rune stone will still take a lot of work and I still have to translate Adam of Bremen's chapter IV.31a into Latin from my 'extended' German version.

I did a slight revision yesterday after learning that there was an actual person by the name of Ohthere who happened to come from the very region I located Thugela. It's even the right time period
Now I have to find out if I can draw a believable connection between Lovecraft and the Norwegian witch trials (the connection to Adam of Bremen is easy).

Now, where can I get a book contract?

Edit: Ohthere's report is even on wiki
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Bright%27s_Anglo-Saxon_Reader/The_Voyages_of_Ohthere_and_Wulfstan

[Swatopluk]

Here's the paper on the two versions of the Song of Ólthere
Parts of the song text can be found in the Kalethulu thread in the Arts Gallery
The paper on the story the church made out of it will follow soon.

[Swatopluk]

And here we have the Life of St.Ulufer aka Vita Sancti Ultherii.
That's what happens when a heroic song falls under church control

[Griffin NoName]

Now, where can I get a book contract?

Try F.A. Kes Publishers. 

[Sibling DavidH]

Good spoof.  So I am now an M.A. of Uxavað, eh?

In fact, we no longer consider the name 'Oxford' to  be 'ford for oxen', but rather a British (Celtic, pre-Saxon) river-name similar to 'Ouse' or 'Exe' + -n- for added OE genitive + 'ford'.  University jargon calls the Oxford stretch of the Thames 'Isis', which might be a relic of this.

Can you work that in?

[Swatopluk]

Too late, I fear. Through the Thugela connection and the drum there may be a path to Egypt but that would not be Isis but Nyarlathotep. The drum stuff alone is already 10 handwritten pages and I have still to type all of that. My in-depth analysis of the Kilpisjärvi stone in the historical context of Thugela is far from finished. Currently I concentrate on the paper about motive shifts in the Ólthere complex from the historic event to the fairy-tale (e.g. how could the otter turn into an owl?). And there are some manuscripts to fake too (the first page of the Vita, the extra chapter to Adam of Bremen). Lots of work.
I had to burn a lot of evidence in the great Copenhagen fire of 1728