An Oxford Historian Jun 28, 2021 4 min read Updated: Jun 29, 2021 Continuing the Museumcraft series, we take a look at the Ashmolean Cast Gallery and the questions it raises about ‘authenticity, education and experimentation in the world of museums. All the way at the back of Oxford’s Ashmolean Museum lies the Cast Gallery. […]
Updated: May 28, 2021 The Emporia represent an interesting set of archaeological evidence in the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ world, likely representing a return to urbanisation for the first time since the Romans. However, as is often the case with archaeological evidence, must about them is unclear. In the latest deep-dive, we take a brief look at the […]
ВНИМАНИЕ! Ниже приведены некоторые нецензурные выражения. Одна из примечательных особенностей прозвищ раннего Средневековья — их шокирующий характер. Частота имен, которые современная аудитория считает оскорбительными, поразительна, и мы задаемся вопросом, как эти имена вписывались в обычную жизнь того времени. Важно отметить, что эти имена используются не только в закрытых группах и за закрытыми дверями — мы […]
In a new series on MuseumCraft, we take a look at Qinshihuang’s Mausoleum Site Museum in Xi’an China, known popularly for its Terracotta Warriors. #ComissionsEarned this post includes Amazon Affiliate links – as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The Terracotta Warriors represent an interesting contrast for Western Euro-centric audiences. As a general […]
Update: This article has ended up on quite a lot of conspiracy websites. Hello! Stay polite and considerate. Conspiracy Theorists are the bane of the academic. After years of research, experimentation and peer-review, some random person on the internet appears and instantly disregards your work, choosing to accept a sinister cover-up instead. I’ve written before […]
Еще одна характерная черта английской системы именования в раннем средневековье — наличие прозвищ/кличек, отражающих род занятий и род работы. Они не только дают нам интересное представление о жизни и возможностях трудоустройства того периода, но и указывают на социальную роль, которую играли эти люди в своих общинах. Меня здесь интересует не столько четкое выражение ранга или […]
Hello, my name is Tristan and I’m a first-year history PhD researcher at Oxford. The aim of this blog is to share my research and wider history on the early medieval world, help give any advice on applying to university and explaining about Oxford, and generally expanding engagement with the Humanities. So if you fall […]
An Oxford Historian Sep 3, 2021 4 min read Archaeology is about much more than treasure-hunting but, inevitably, popular attention tends to be drawn towards rich and magnificent finds. Within an early medieval context, the ‘Princely’ burials of the Mid Saxon period are particularly notable in this context. The Sutton Hoo Mound 1 ship-burial is […]
The Westfield Farm (Ely) cemetery represents a crucial yet under-appreciated piece of ‘Anglo-Saxon’ funerary archaeology – a cemetery focused around a single lavish female burial. Move over Sutton Hoo Mound 1 and the Prittlewell Prince, there’s a lot to be learnt here too… We hear an awful lot about the large-scale male ‘Princely’ burial of […]
An Oxford Historian Oct 20, 2021 2 min read Updated: Oct 21, 2021 The presence of the Vikings in the Americas has always been a long-contested topic. Although Saga and archaeological evidence suggest Leif Erikson beat Columbus to ‘discovering’ (/genociding) the Americas, actual concrete proof has always been incredibly limited, and imprecise. Well, a new […]
Hello, my name is Tristan and I’m a first-year history PhD researcher at Oxford. The aim of this blog is to share my research and wider history on the early medieval world, help give any advice on applying to university and explaining about Oxford, and generally expanding engagement with the Humanities. So if you fall […]
An Oxford Historian Jan 23, 2021 5 min read Updated: Apr 26, 2021 Food is a universal, but frequently invisible to the historian. What and how did people of the past eat? Do these questions vary by ‘class’, gender, age etc. In the first of these Deep-Dives into smaller topics of early medieval history, we’ve […]
#ComissionsEarned (This post includes Amazon Affiliate links)* As a continuation from my previous post about Anglo-Saxon nicknames, I thought I’d highlight a few contemporary Viking examples (if you’ve not read the previous post, check here). Viking nicknames are a generally more widely appreciated phenomenon, not least because of public familiarity with the Sagas. In fact, […]
One of the ‘Anglo-Saxon’ period‘s most impressive, and most complex, artefacts is the so-called ‘Franks Casket’. A lidded whalebone box, covered in intricate carvings and text, the casket appears to originate from an early eight-century Northumbrian context. But what was it used for, and what can it tell us? (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franks_Casket#/media/File:Franks_casket_03.jpg) The existence in the modern […]