#Global Middle Ages

[medieval-elephants]

Medieval chess, or medieval Kinder Surprise?

As mentioned in the previous post, chess originated in India and early chess boards often included a bishop. When the game was popularized in northern Europe, the original pieces continued to be used, although they lost their meaning or were reinterpreted over time. The elephant's tusks eventually became two bumps. Eventually, elephant, chariot, and vizier pieces were given names of officials at northern courts: bishops, knights, and queens. These transitions and designs happened in different ways in different places.

An interesting piece that showing one moment of transition, acquired by Musée de Cluny in 2011, has the abstract elephant shapes with bumps on the outside-- plus a surprise bishop holding a crozier and a book on the inside!

Material: Ivory Date: 12th century? Origin: Cologne? England? Now Paris, Musée de Cluny Cl. 23885

You can play with a 3D version at https://www.musee-moyenage.fr/collection/collections-3D/piece-d-echec-eveque-en-3d.html

[medieval-unicorns]

The "animals of India", from a late 15th-century manuscript of Le secret de l'histoire naturelle contenant les merveilles et choses mémorables du monde Origin: France Date: c. 1480-1485 Now Paris, BnF Fr 22971, f. 31r

[gradling]

Been working my way through the themed issue of Speculum, “Race, Race-Thinking, and Identity in the Global Middle Ages,” bit by bit.

[insidemyfavoritemanuscript]

Episode 16: Alex West on the poetry of ascetics, Sundanese, and palm leaf manuscript culture

A leaf from Bodleian Library MS Jav. b.3. (R), a manuscript from Indonesia written on palm leaves.

In Episode 16 of Inside My Favorite Manuscript, Dot sits down with Alex West to talk about Bodleian Library MS Jav. b.3. (R), the only surviving copy of the Sundanese poem Bujangga Manik (written ca. 1470-1500). We start with the story, a tale of an ascetic who travels around the island of Java searching for spiritual transcendence, and along the way we discuss the manuscript, religious, and artistic cultures that formed the poem.

Listen here, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Below the cut are more photos and links relevant to the conversation.

Bodleian Library MS Jav. b.3. (R) (digitized online)

Wikipedia page for the poem Bujangga Manik (out of date)

Where is Java?

The wooden box MS Jav. b.3. (R) is stored in:

Folio 7r, a representative view of the appearance of the palm leaf pages. Note the large hole in the center of the page and two smaller ones on the edges - string originally would have been thread through the holes, to hold the leaves together and to enable them to fan out. The text is inscribed, with no ink.

A close-up of the center of 7r, so you can better see the inscribed writing.

Folio 7v, the other side of 7r.

Dot misspoke during the podcast - the University of Pennsylvania palm leaf manuscripts are from India, not Thailand (the Thai manuscripts are written on paper). Here is one of them, Ms. Coll. 390 Item 82, Āhnikaprayoga, a digest of Hindu rituals from various sources written in 1822. In Sanskrit. Records here and here.

Front cover:

Folios 1v (top) and 2r (bottom)

An example of an inscription: The stone inscription of Kalasan, 778/779 ce, Central Java. National Museum of Indonesia, Jakarta, inv. no. D.147. Photo OD 7466, Kern Institute Collection, courtesy of Leiden University Library:

A. J. West, Bujangga Manik: or, Java in the fifteenth century: an edition and study of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS. Jav. b. 3 (R). PhD Dissertation

Alex West's Medieval Indonesia on Medium.

Alex West on Patreon

[paintsinthewaterofcreation]

not tumblr phannies and twt phannies shading each other. like look around, we’re all the same queer losers just in different corners of the room arguing over which corner is better - we’re in the SAME.ROOM.

[jerreeeeeee]

i feel like we don't talk about twosun enough. its inherently very interesting. this is the world that shaped our heroes. but the minutiae is easy to make up to suit your purposes and none of it ultimately matters to the narrative. trying to think of what we know about this world. there are 2 suns. a purple sky. it was a hard world (aren't all worlds?). there was a spaceship.

so what's the technological state of this world? hard to say. there's a spaceship, first of its kind, but how specific is that? is it the first flying ship at all, or only the first to leave the planar system? the light fell down a year before the starblaster took off, since the hunger came down right on that day. the ipre had the light for one year. how much did that contribute to their technological advancement? (i hate the idea of 'advancement' as if it's some inevitable linear progress but bear with me here, that's the easiest language to use). were they building ships beforehand? what else did they have?

here's how i tend to think of it: the ipre has the light. the ipre is already quite "advanced" for this world. here are things the ipre has, so by extension twosun has: bond engines, indoor plumbing, industrialized steel production. however i don't tend to think of twosun as a globalized world. so there are many places that do not have these things. and of course these are all things we think of as "advanced" but they also lack many things we think of as technological "advancement," like steam engines, or concrete. anyway.

i don't think its possible for the light of creation to have inspired all of this in only one year. this world was already well on its way. the ipre already existed, it already built spaceships. just not as ambitiously, and more rooted in magic than technology (the idea that magic is just science/technology you don't understand yet is very fun, but in this case i think magic is very much different, and has a longer history. although it can be used in tandem with tech, like in the bond engine).

and aside from technologically i tend to think of it as very politically fractured and chaotic. small regional governments with little reach, fraught and difficult trade, certainly no formal schooling systems (there are, like, wizard universities, all with different inscrutable systems, and then the ipre, and that's your choices for "education"). which is why there's more tech in some places than others.

the most interesting thing is, i think, the difference in lifespans among our crew. magnus, lucretia, and barry know only a more or less industrialized world (although i do tend to have barry grown up rural, that'd be one of those places all this tech hasn't quite reached yet), where there's an organization that sends spaceships with engines to different planes of this reality, and now with a little extra kick from the light, to different realities entirely. magnus has only ever showered with water from pipes indoors. he doesn't bat an eye at buildings made of all metal and glass. but lup and taako grew up in a medieval fantasy world. this shit's all, like, seventy years old max, and they've been around for nearly two centuries. they were bathing in big medieval washtubs as kids. their clothes were all handmade. merle too, although he grew up off the grid anyway. and probably davenport as well, but he would've been more immersed in tech, growing up in a gnomish warren. which is maybe why he was such a good pick for pilot of the starblaster.

but also: we see some of the same happen in faerun. even there it's not clear what the time period is. it's fantasy, all swords and sorcery. but there's trains and arcane engines and skyscrapers. again, not globalized, these things exist in isolated pockets. is it the light? did it still manage to have subtle influence all those years? is it just the luck of the millers finding a window into the plane of thought? is the real answer just that it's inconsistent in whatever way makes the most fun story? is it fun to play in the space of trying to make sense of it anyway?

[icewindandboringhorror]

Recent game related things .. hrmm...

[smile-files]

this might be a hot take... but if you care about disavowing media made by bad people out of fear of looking like a bad person yourself more than you care about actually doing good things... you might have your priorities (and your morals) screwed up a bit :/

(see my tags for more of my thoughts on this topic! please try to avoid making make bad-faith assumptions about what i mean!)

[bugsbenefit]

trump news so good my dad got out of bed to tell me less than a minute after it was announced before i even saw it myself

[mariautistic]

Saw the dumbest fucking post the other day that said something to the effect it's actually good the UK and the US aren't protesting for better working rights because any progress they get affects the third world so actually it's more progressive to not get any progress on that at all unlike ze french who are so selfish that they protest for better work conditions and that it's pointless anyways bc advances are too small . What fucking self respected commie is like actually not getting any rights for workers is good 👍 can't you just admit that the working movement isn't as organized/willing to defy the status quo enough and you're jealous instead of trying to turn it around

[medieval-elephants]

Cozy conflict

Two elephants fight in a copy of Ibn Bakhtishu (d. 1058)'s Manafi al-Hayawan (On the Uses of Animals), made c. 1297-1300 in the area that is now Iran. But while the elephants are fighting, the images and text reveals how humans shared knowledge and ideas across long distances.

The text mentions that elephants live 300 years and are afraid of rats/mice. These and other ideas about elephants that also showed up in European texts at least since Pliny. The Morgan catalogue also notes that the text claims that elephant dung (with or without honey) can be taken as a contraceptive: don't try this at home!

Meanwhile, some scholars argue that the images resemble Gok Medrese reliefs in Turkey, and both may have been inspired by art from China brought by the Mongols, who swept across Eurasia in the thirteenth century. This single page is a very interesting example of how ideas about elephants can reveal wider influences and links between humans.

Materials: Paper, ink, and paint Origin: Maragha Date: 1297-1300 Now Morgan Library, M 500, f. 13r

[gradling]

Anyway, for those who will be in Chicago at any point between September 8 and December 30, 2023, check out the Newberry Library's upcoming exhibit, Seeing Race Before Race! It's going to be a very insightful look at premodern race as it appears in the Newberry Library's collection. There are also going to be accompanying events open to the public throughout the exhibit's run, so please take advantage of those if you can! It's going to be a fantastic learning opportunity.

[breitzbachbea]

Came back wrong but they didn't even die.

[orteil42]

we are in dire need of some new media trend. we've done pirates, we've done cowboys; we've gone through two whole zombie revivals. aliens and space themes have basically been a constant since at least the 1950s, as have robots and evil AIs. we went pretty heavy on vampires for a while. we've also done dinosaurs, ninjas, musicals, wizards, sea creatures, ancient rome, ancient egypt, middle ages out the wazoo, entirely too much world war II, we're currently overdosing on our superhero phase, we've done monsters (misunderstood), monsters (radioactive), fake guy in the real world, real guy travels to fake world, caves & mining, vikings, what if you were really small, genre parody as a genre, sand, New York, time travel, something racist goes down in the jungle, neurodivergent detective, buddy cops, crooked cops, gangsters, bank heists in particular, kid has powers, revolt against the corporate world, portals, social insects, dragons, the British, global apocalypse, martial arts, roadtrip as self-discovery, Jesus, clones, clowns, babysitting goes wrong, demonic possession, ghosts of all kinds, talking animals, fucking with the stock market, restaurant ownership, dwarves, planes, and spies. where do we go from here. what's our next big thing

[grasshoppergeography]

Hey All,

I've been away for some time, as we've been working really hard on something quite exciting:

let me present to you the world's first ever global ocean drainage basin map that shows all permanent and temporary water flows on the planet.

This is quite big news, as far as I know this has never been done before. There are hundreds of hours of work in it (with the data + manual work as well) and it's quite a relief that they are all finished now.

But what is an ocean drainage basin map, I hear most of you asking? A couple of years ago I tried to find a map that shows which ocean does each of the world's rivers end up in. I was a bit surprised to see there is no map like that, so I just decided I'll make it myself - as usual :) Well, after realizing all the technical difficulties, I wasn't so surprised any more that it didn't exist. So yeah, it was quite a challenge but I am very happy with the result.

In addition to the global map I've created a set of 43 maps for different countries, states and continents, four versions for each: maps with white and black background, and a version for both with coloured oceans (aka polygons). Here's the global map with polygons:

I know from experience that maps can be great conversation starters, and I aim to make maps that are visually striking and can effectively deliver a message. With these ocean drainage basin maps the most important part was to make them easily understandable, so after you have seen one, the others all become effortless to interpret as well. Let me know how I did, I really appreciate any and all kinds of feedback.

Here are a few more from the set, I hope you too learn something new from them. I certainly did, and I am a geographer.

The greatest surprise with Europe is that its biggest river is all grey, as the Volga flows into the Caspian sea, therefore its basin counts as endorheic.

An endorheic basin is one which never reaches the ocean, mostly because it dries out in desert areas or ends up in lakes with no outflow. The biggest endorheic basin is the Caspian’s, but the area of the Great Basin in the US is also a good example of endorheic basins.

I love how the green of the Atlantic Ocean tangles together in the middle.

No, the dividing line is not at Cape Town, unfortunately.

I know these two colours weren’t the best choice for colourblind people and I sincerely apologize for that. I’ve been planning to make colourblind-friendly versions of my maps for ages now – still not sure when I get there, but I want you to know that it’s just moved up on my todo-list. A lot further up.

Minnesota is quite crazy with all that blue, right? Some other US states that are equally mind-blowing: North Dakota, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming. You can check them all out here.

Yes, most of the Peruvian waters drain into the Atlantic Ocean. Here are the maps of Peru, if you want to take a closer look.

Asia is amazingly colourful with lots of endorheic basins in the middle areas: deserts, the Himalayas and the Caspian sea are to blame. Also note how the Indonesian islands of Java and Sumatra are divided.

I mentioned earlier that I also made white versions of all maps. Here’s Australia with its vast deserts. If you're wondering about the weird lines in the middle: that’s the Simpson desert with its famous parallel sand dunes.

North America with white background and colourful oceans looks pretty neat, I think.

Finally, I made the drainage basin maps of the individual oceans: The Atlantic, the Arctic, the Indian and the Pacific. The Arctic is my favourite one.

I really hope you like my new maps, and that they will become as popular as my river basin maps. Those have already helped dozens of environmental NGOs to illustrate their important messages all around the world. It would be nice if these maps too could find their purpose.