Death by fork!

Eating, loving and fighting - three universal elements of human nature.

We know, that a lot of fighting has occured because of love. But that there is also a very direct connection between fighting and eating - and now with new evidence - is a fact that is new to me.

We are not talking about mixing up eating and fighting in the sense of eating your enemies or having a feast after a fight. We are talking weaponry here.

Take a look at this BATTLE FORK - and I'm not kidding.

This object is actually labelled "a battle fork" on an archaeological exhibition. It comes from a grave in Masów, Poland and is dated to the Pre-roman Iron Age.

So here we have it. Weapons derived from cutlery. Or what ever came first. We all know that knives may be used both for killing and eating, but a battle fork, that's something new. At least to me. Maybe I'm just a total armoury-ignorante. Maybe battle forks are really one of the most common weapons in history - only it has skipped my antenna some how.

Personally, I think I'd prefer death by knife rather than fork.

So if you know about loads of battle forks - any period - or other cutlery-based armour - and how to use it perhaps(?!), please enlighten me.

Røg i Weberland

Jeg bor i et område, som de indfødte (altså de, som bor inde på det rigtige, gamle Bryggen) kalder Weberland.
Det er nybyggeri af den dyre slags med Webergrill på enhver altan. Termen Weberland er hentet fra graffiti på et plankeværk fra dengang her endnu var byggeplads, og bruges især i den lokale nablolags-avis.
Weberland er faktisk parcelhuse stablet i etager. Totalt parcelhuskultur men minus besværet med at passe have. Intet foregår andet end at folk tager på arbejde (i bil off course), afleverer yngel i institutioner, kommer hjem, slukker lys, går i seng. Repeat x 5.

Men når det så bliver weekend, oh ve. Så er det, at luften fra alle sider fyldes op med Weber-os.
Jeg har ikke begreb om, hvad teknikken er med hele den der firestarter. Men på stikflammens størrelse ser det ud som om, de er i gang med at starte affyring af rumraket fra egen altan.

Jeg er dog ret sikker på, at det ikke er meningen, at det skal stå ud med tyk, sort røg. Det ville man da i al fald reagere på, hvis det var en rumraket, som skulle opsendes.
Men næh, nej, ingen panik der. Røgen får lov at ose ud og lægge sig tungere end smog over Lyngbyvejen på en varm sommerdag.

For det er jo vildt hyggeligt at grille!
Så er det sommer!

Uhmm. Grillmad.

Ja, jeg kommer nu nærmere til at tænke på denne:

Cool app on facebook - by ME!

Really proud of myself and my IT-skills these days. I managed to create an application on facebook. Now ppl. can send archaeological treasures to eachother. I like that idea.
Spending waaaaaaaaaaay to much time on fb (procrastination destination no. 1!) I for once did something vaguely relevant for my subject. And on the long run - hey, promoting archaeology is always relevant!

I find what is happening at the internet with archaeology - and I guess other culture-historical sciences too - very interesting.
In this forum, the communication is as much a dialouge as it is a teaching media. And the media seems perfect for creating dialogic communication- making it less authoritative. Important in the sense of "whose past is it anyway?": are we, as scholars, in our right to claim authority on prehistory? Is it not particularly through dialogue that new ideas and scientific leaps are formed and expressed?
Internet communication seems to be the perfect way of taking archaeology out of the ivory tower and into the hands of real people.

So I contributed to the ivory tower exit with my own humble little part - by making a facebook application enabling users to send archaeological treasures to friends.
Check it out here: archaeological treasures

The past

Do you feel it?

Bones crackling beneath your walking feet
Whispers
From the cracks in the rock
Roaring from the waves on the sea

History can’t hear you
But it’s right there

Only separated from the soles of your feet

with a dark layer of earth

Like skin with blubber

And under it

bones
ashes
wood

And blood that curdled
back to iron and water