Uncategorized – Page 2

I Recreated a Four-Thousand-Year-Old Ale

A bit of background if you haven’t read my last two posts. I fell down a rabbit hole of epic proportions procrastinating researching cuneiform tablets and their inscriptions on beer. I used the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, which is an internet archive for cuneiform tablets from all over the world. This is an excellent resource […]

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Burning, Drowning, and Cheating: Legal Codes in the 155 Cuneiform Tablets

It’s time for some more information on those 155 tablets I went through. This time- legal documents. Same caveats as the last post: I am not an expert in cuneiform and will be using translations. We are going to investigate the legal codes found amongst the cuneiform tablets in my sample today; specifically as it […]

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In Which I Scour 155 Cuneiform Tablets for References to Beer

So this past while, I fell down a rabbit hole of epic proportions procrastinating researching cuneiform tablets and their inscriptions on beer. I used the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative, which is an internet archive for cuneiform tablets from all over the world. This is an excellent resource and one well worth having a look and […]

by braciatrix

Hollywood Lied: Separating Fact from Fiction about Viking Funerals

For many of you, hearing the phrase Viking funeral may conjure up images of a small boat drifting off shore containing a body of some sort of male chief. In this boat with him may be other bodies, humans sacrificed to accompany him on his journey to the afterlife, perhaps if he’s lucky, Valhalla. As […]

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Beyond a Binary: Vikings and Gender in Medieval Ireland

Welcome to the latest instalment of Christina publishes her PhD thesis, this time we have my favourite thing… Theory! Yay! Insert groans. Actually much to many a friend’s dismay, I do love some theory. And talking about theory, and arguing about theory, and making new theory. I am SO FUN at parties friends, so fun. […]

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The Vikings In Ireland: Invasion and Acculturation

I realized I kind of dropped you all in the middle of everything with the Donnybrook burial, and upon thinking about it further decided, I am going to do publish my entire thesis here, from the beginning, and modified for a general audience, not just a few bits here and there. So, in that vein, […]

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The Donnybrook Burial Part 1

As requested! So, in case you didn’t know, I wrote my PhD thesis on gendered symbolism as a medium to negotiate power as evidenced in the Viking burials of Ireland. That is a giant mouthfull of words (also my thesis title) to say that I looked at how Vikings used grave goods and funerals to […]

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Gillian and the Brewsters of Exeter

In medieval England, while the brewing trade was dominated largely by women, especially in rural areas, those who maintained and enforced regulations were male. In particular the position of aletaster, that is a person who evaluated women’s brews and made sure they were keeping to regulations, was wholly male dominated – I have not found […]

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Ninkasi

Ninkasi was the Sumerian goddess of beer. Known as ‘the lady who fills the mouth’ an ancient tablet dating to around 1800 BCE contained a hymn to the goddess. [1] According to scholars like Ian Hornsby, brewing in Mesopotamian society was the only trade presided over by a goddess of some type.[2] Residing on Mount Sâbu (‘the […]

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Margery Kempe and Her Failed Brewing Enterprise

Known as an Christian Mystic, Kempe is most famous for writing The Book of Margery Kempe, completed around 1438, wherein she described her life, her flaws, her discussions with God, and her pilgrimages. One such instance was of her brewing. According to her own account, she began to brew ‘out of pure covetousness and in […]