#historical discovery

[trendynewsnow]

Unearthing a Historical Treasure: The Discovery at Corsewall Lighthouse

Unearthing History: A Lighthouse Discovery After standing sentinel for over two centuries, guiding sailors through the treacherous waters of southwest Scotland, the Corsewall Lighthouse was in need of some restoration. Ross Russell, a skilled mechanical engineer, was part of the team tasked with refurbishing this historic structure located in the quaint village of Kirkcolm. During the renovation,…

[allthathistory]

Lost Site of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah Found Using Spy Satellites

Islam was a religion which owed its rapid success to conquest. From 622 AD and led by Muhammed himself, Muslim armies swept across the Middle East and unified Arabia into a single entity.

The greatest adversary they faced in their sweep eastward was mighty Persia. This ancient and venerable culture of fire worshippers had dominated the region for more than a millennium, ruled for the last four centuries by the house of Sasan. 

This Sasanian Empire was the second longest lived in Persia’s long history, but they too would fall to the Islamic armies, their culture subsumed and their religion, known as Zoroastrianism, crushed. One of the most decisive battles over the Sasanians occurred in 636 AD and is known as the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah.

Urim and Thummim: How God Told the Hebrews What to Do

Sulla: The Man Who Showed Caesar the Way

Muhammed did not live to see the battle. Instead it was the Rashidun Caliphate, the first Islamic caliphate founded in his name, which carried out his vision and conquered the Persians on that day. We know of the battle from the various Arabic accounts of this crucial early Islamic victory.

But we have never been able to find the battlefield, until now. Using declassified spy satellite images, a team from the University of Durham have pinpointed the long-lost site of the Battle of al-Qadisiyyah, as published in Antiquity.

The team, led by Durham University archaeologist Dr William Deadman, had not initially set out to search for the battlefield. They were using 1970s US satellite imagery to identify key points along the Darb Zubaydah pilgrimage route, one of seven such routes in Arabia and dating back 1,000 years to the Abbasid Caliphate, the third Islamic caliphate.

Reviewing the satellite imagery the team realized that ancient sites and features were clearly visible from above. They were able to identify the remains of a distinctive 9.5km long double wall. At one end was a large military outpost with three layers of defenses on the edge of the desert, and at the other a Mesopotamian town.

Full Story: https://allthathistory.com/archaeology-discoveries/battle-of-al-qadisiyyah/1908/

[headlinehorizon]

Unearthing History: Steps Unseen for 2,000 Years Revealed at Site Where Jesus Healed

Exciting news from Jerusalem! A new excavation project has uncovered steps leading to the Pool of Siloam, a biblical site where Jesus healed a blind man. This significant discovery allows public access to the pool for the first time in two millennia. Join us as we explore this fascinating find and delve into the rich history of Jerusalem.

[suchananewsblog]

Wait, What? Archaeologists Find Well-Preserved 500-Year-Old Spices

Let’s agree, we all have a special masala dabba in our kitchen. After all, spices not only amp up the taste of food and introduce more flavours to a particular dish, but they also serve our body with various health benefits. And, who understands this better than Indians? Well, spices, irrespective of the part of the world, hold importance in every cuisine. Well, it’s difficult to imagine food…

[badwolf-gallagher88]

Yes, having a crush on a fictional character is bad. But have you ever had a crush on a fictionalised version of a vaguely problematic historical figure??

[carsickcrow]

drawing of mandible NgLj-2:226 in my sketchbook in honor of the James Fitzjames remains identification. i’ve never drawn a jaw bone before but i liked how the lettering of his name turned out

[elderberries-and-honey]

After years of hard work and dedication, the day that made it all worth it had finally arrived. Today, Lawrence’s professor, Doctor Erasmus, would be teaching the class how to emblem and prepare the deceased for viewing. Lawrence had been anticipating this day for a long time, as it would make him feel more like a real mortician than just a student. 

Excitement buzzed through the air while the professor gave his brief explanation and called up the first volunteer. The student’s eagerness almost made them forget that there was a cadaver just a mere few feet away, but was to be expected for science majors such as themselves. 

As Doctor Erasmus and Lawrence’s classmate began, all of the students held their breath in anticipation and the room fell silent enough to hear a pin drop. However, as Lawrence watched the scalpel drag across pale skin, he felt the colour draining from his face. 

His stomach began churning, and soon, he became nauseous. It wasn’t the smell, he had prepared for that with 'the menthol under the nose trick', or even the sight of someone’s gooey insides, but the sounds! Oh, the god awful sounds! 

Before long, Lawrence began to fear that he might vomit right there on the floor and excused himself into the hallway for some fresh air.

[annafromuni]

Every Reread of A Discovery of Witches Makes Me Love it More

There is no questioning it – A Discovery of Witches is my favourite dark academia read, and I adore Deborah Harkness with every fibre of my being. What more needs to be said? That’s the review. Alright, I’ll explain, but know you’re in for a long ride and you best bet you’ll be frantically looking for A Discovery of Witches before I am through. A Discovery of Witches is romantasy, or fantasy…

[adaptations-polls]

Which version of this do you prefer?

[academicwitchversion]

We women own nothing absolutely, save what lies between our ears. Our virtue first belongs to our father and then to our husband. We dedicate our duty to our family. As soon as we share our thoughts with another, put pen to paper or thread a needle, all that we do and make belongs to someone else. So long as she has words and ideas, Annie will always possess something that is hers alone.

from Shadow of Night (2012) by Deborah Harkness

[nickysfacts]

Yasuke, the black samurai who helped the Demon King unify Japan!

🧑🏾‍🦱🇯🇵

[cars3s]

What I would most like to see in Hetalia would be to see Spain and England talking about the old glories...like the old empires where the sun never set...God...that would be interesting. 

Like two old enemies sitting together and reminiscing about their past glories from when they were younger. 

Himaruya just let them talk.

[arlo-rose]

My ramblings about On the Brink of Scientific Discovery and fashion history

I’m very very normal about both Brink and historical fashion, so I decided to go down a research rabbit hole of what the characters would realistically be wearing in this fic, and it just kinda spiraled from there. I’m not in any way a professional or super qualified, I just think historical fashion is neat. I’m also not a writer so I apologize if any pacing or formatting in this is weird.

(WARNING, VERY LONG POST)

(Seriously I’m gonna go into detail about a lot of the characters and my reasoning for why they’d wear that, and sometimes background on the clothes themselves if it’s really interesting)

Disclaimer: a lot of the fable characters, and therefore the characters in Brink, are nonbinary or otherwise don’t fully conform to one gender, and while Brink takes some liberties with historical accuracy so these characters can live openly as they are, I’m still going to sometimes refer to the clothing as “men’s clothing” and “women’s clothing” because that’s how it was categorized in the period. 

“On the Brink of Scientific Discovery”(by ConnorsNotHere on Ao3) is a Victorian gothic/cosmic horror AU of FableSMP that takes place in 1889. Brink and its sequels do a decent amount of globe-traveling, but most of the characters are from and live in England. However, a lot of them have connections to or are from places like France, the US, etc. By this time in history there’s(very generally) not drastic differences between the fashions of America and western Europe, so while I’m gonna try to find things as accurate as possible to what I think the characters would wear, I’m also not going to be overly picky about if say, a specific suit is from England or America.

What were the clothes like then?

In 1889 we are coming off of the second bustle period, so skirts still had a lot of fullness in the back, however, they were starting to transition into the more “trumpet shaped” skirts of the 1890s. Bodices and sleeves were both still very fitted, and sleeves are starting to get a little bit of a puff on top, rather than the smoother, more rounded styles of previous decades. In the 1880s more tailored, menswear-inspired clothing also started to gain popularity for women, so you’ll start to see jackets and bodices that resemble menswear more than in previous decades.

Year to year men’s clothing doesn’t change a drastic amount, but there are still a lot of things characteristic of the 1880s. Suit jackets were often buttoned very high up, sometimes to the point where you were barely able to see the shirt and tie. When the jackets were left open, it was actually quite fashionable to have bolder, more colorful waistcoats, which were often beautifully patterned.

However, not every person dresses like the latest fashion plates, and this photo is a good example of people who are still fashionable, but also just normal people and not wearing anything overly fancy. The entirety of the Fable Society has a decent amount of wealth, so they would be able to afford fashionable, good quality clothing, however, they still wouldn’t be dressing in their best, fanciest clothes every day, especially if it’s not practical for their job.

This is a photo of some teenage boys from 1889. This gives a really good idea of what characters like Athena, Easton, and Jamie would be wearing when they’re not wearing more casual or practical things.(side note, I really like the suit on the left I would 100% wear that)

Individual Characters

I’m not going to go into detail about *every single one* of the characters in Brink, as that would get repetitive and excessively long after a while, but I wanted to talk about a lot of them still.

Momboo

I want to start with Momboo cause in my opinion she would probably be the most fashionable(to the period's standards) of the Fable Society, and I had a lot of fun looking for things I think she would wear. Lots of pretty trims, ruffles, and florals were very popular at the time so there was a lot to choose from. While I can see her enjoying fancier clothing a lot of the time, she also loves to garden and care for the plants on her estate, so obviously she would wear different clothes for that, something with darker colors and less elaborate decorations so it would be easier to wash when it got dirty. There honestly isn’t much super unique going on with her clothing, it’s just very pretty so I wanted to talk about it first.

(That green and pink dress on the right is one of my favorites that I found the entire time I was researching for this, it’s so pretty) (also these 2 fashion plates give me such world sisters vibes, I like them a lot)

More pretty pink dresses :Athenafire:

Sherbert

In the 1880s there wasn’t yet standardized protection or uniform for chemists and people working with more dangerous compounds, and in pictures I’ve seen they just seem to be wearing normal(if slightly more casual) clothes with maybe an apron over them. In Brink neither Sherbert nor Easton wear any protection in their lab out of pure “well nothing bad has happened yet”(which I’m sure will be great for their health and will never have any adverse effects later in life /s) which is actually pretty accurate to chemists of the time.

(I had a really hard time dating this photo, it’s probably closer to the 1870s but still gives really good examples of protection used by chemists in their labs)

It was pretty difficult to find pictures of chemists in the clothing they would wear while working, but I did find a lot of really cool pictures of chemistry labs that are really interesting to look at.

A really fun detail that I realized when I was researching things for Sherbert(that was probably accidental but I still like it) is that Sherbert’s jacket is often described as being very long and having a large collar that is often turned up. This actually wasn’t a very common style for overcoats in the last couple years of the 1880s, *however* it was a lot more common just a couple years beforehand, so I like to think of Sherbert’s jacket in Brink as being something they’ve held onto for a while either out of practicality or just because they like it.

Caspian

One of my favorite details about Caspian’s clothing in Brink is that even when he’s given new clothing from the other characters after he’s rescued, he still wears his old blue jacket from when he was traveling around the world in the mid/late 1810s, looking for a way to bring back the lady of the world. To me It’s a really cool detail, and if Brink was in a visual medium rather than written, it would be such a cool way to show the audience that Caspian doesn’t quite belong, and has been in the End for a lot longer than the characters think.

During and slightly before the regency period(1811-1820), men’s fashion went through a massive shift from the elaborately embroidered and patterned fashions of the 1700s to a more toned down and subtle style(and contrary to popular belief, Beau Brummell was not the sole reason this change happened, he just became the face of popular trends that were already happening, but that could be its own whole rant). The most common type of men’s coat in this era was called a dress coat or a tailcoat, which was cut high in the front with long “tails” in the back, and large high collars.

I’m not sure if I really like this style of coat personally, but I think it’s really interesting that the men’s coats from this era are so different from what all the other characters would be wearing in the story.

(Don’t pay attention to why his hand is in his pants here, I have no idea why but a lot of men in fashion plates from this era are posed like this)

Rae

Rae’s research comes before most things in his life, including staying up to date with the latest fashions. However, in fable, Rae really likes fancier clothing so I think it’d be fun to have Brink!Rae also really like good clothes. Rae also does a lot of traveling and working outside at archeological sites, and so most of the time would be wearing more practical things.(though in the 1800s this still means he would often wear a full suit, just one made of different materials and not as fancy)

I really like this painting and I can definitely see brink Rae wearing something like this when at his home(or at least when not traveling or working in the field), I like the super dark blue/almost black of the suit and whatever he’s wearing on his neck is really pretty(I can’t actually tell what that is specifically but I like it)

Haley

I can see Haley wearing pretty fashionable clothing, but probably more subtle and practical designs than Momboo, and she would wear things in more subtle colors, but she would still have an overall pretty feminine style.

I wish I could have found more purple or gray dresses to use as examples for her, but I don’t think those colors were very common, at least in the fashion plates I was looking at. I was able to find some really pretty darker navy dresses though, which I think fits really well too. I don’t have a ton to say with her either but pretty dresses>>>

Jamie

Connor has talked about Jamie’s clothes in Brink before so I’ll keep this one shorter, but Jamie is the only person in the main Brink cast who regularly wears sweaters, which was a deliberate choice. At the time sweaters were associated with college students, working class people, and people who had very physical jobs, such as sailors. Sweaters were considered extremely casual and people outside of those groups didn’t really wear them often, but as Jamie is an orphan who was later adopted onto a very large farm, it makes sense that they would wear one often and feel more comfortable in one.

Ocie

I think Ocie is the character I’m taking the most liberties with when it comes to historical accuracy, mostly cause she is described in some scenes as wearing a naval jacket, and as it was only men wearing those, I couldn’t find anything completely accurate to what she was wearing. I can definitely picture how her jacket would look though. I picture it as being mostly in the men’s style, just cut more like a woman’s jacket of the time. 

During the 1880s some popular styles of women’s fashion started to become more tailored and more resemble menswear, especially in jackets and some bodices, so it was pretty easy to find menswear inspired women’s jackets that I think fit pretty well.

Riding habits(outfits for horse riding) have also been very inspired by menswear for hundreds of years, and I can see ocie wearing something similar as her jacket.

this image is very crunchy and slightly too early for brink (1886), but give a good idea of menswear inspired womenswear from the late 1880s

Other than her jacket I actually found some blue dresses I think fit Ocie really well.

The blue dress on the right is probably more fancy than Brink!Ocie would realistically be wearing, but it fits her so well I had to put it in, and I just think it’s really pretty.

And this is what actual navy captain’s uniforms like around the 1880s(it was really hard to reliably date these but they’re from approximately then) 

Galahad

Contrary to the popular image of the brave lone wolf cowboy who lived a life of courageous freedom, a majority of old west cowboys were actually very poor and rarely owned even the horse they were riding, which usually belonged to the man who owned the cattle they were herding. Obviously there were exceptions to this, including Galahad in Brink, but I think it’s interesting to see how much the fantasy of the old west has changed the image of the cowboy in America.(I highly recommend checking out Kaz Rowe’s video on YouTube, “Exploring the Queer History of the Old West… Yehaw”, its a really fascinating video on the old west as a whole, and honestly just check out Kaz Rowe’s channel in general, it’s so good)

There was no one uniform way cowboys looked, as they had to adapt to a ton of different climates depending on where they were working. Galahad travels often but he stays in the southwest, which makes their wide brimmed hat very practical, and he also wears a serape, a type of colorful wool shawl that’s draped around your shoulders. A serape isn’t the same as a poncho because a poncho has a hole for your head in the middle, while a serape doesn’t.

The variety of clothing cowboys wore in the old west is really fascinating to me, because even though fashion and style was pretty low on the priority list compared to things like their work and getting their next meal, these people still valued what they wore and took pride in it, and the variation of it is so cool to see in photos.

Athena

Throughout Brink, Athena wears both suits and dresses depending on their environment and what they are doing at the time, but I want to use this section to talk a lot about Victorian mourning wear, cause that’s what Athena is wearing for the end of Brink and a large portion of On the Edge of Worlds Unknown.

In the Victorian era, mourning was a very serious practice with many many rules that depended on gender, class, time period, and closeness to the deceased. While Victorian mourning clothes existed and were widely worn before the death of Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert in 1861, the fact that she wore mourning clothes for the rest of her life skyrocketed their popularity and made mourning wear a social requirement. 

Depending on how you knew the deceased you could be in mourning anywhere from a few months to several years, and some(usually widows) chose to be in mourning for the rest of their lives. The exact time you should be in mourning varied greatly, and was often a source of anxiety for the mourners as coming out of mourning “too soon” could be a social death sentence for some.

As mourning practices became longer and more complex, different stages of mourning started to become common. During full mourning, you would wear only black, dresses were usually less ornamented, and close family of the deceased would very rarely take visitors or go in public. During half mourning, black was still the predominant color but some purple, white, or gray was also allowed, and the close family of the deceased was allowed to venture out in public a little more.

As dress styles and silhouettes started to change more rapidly starting in the 1870s, It became more impractical to buy or make a new fashionable mourning dress every year just in case someone died, and extravagant mourning practices started to become less common, though mourning dress was still a requirement for a few decades afterwards.

WWI was the final thing that ended mourning wear as a common practice, as so many people lost loved ones that practically everyone would have been in mourning if it was still a social requirement, and many people who’d lost sons or husbands simply wore a black armband to symbolize their mourning.

The one plate that started this whole thing

The one fashion plate that started me down this entire research rabbit hole was this plate from 1851 that I think just works so so well for Brink!Isla, and it lines up with the timeline too, cause as long as Brink keeps the timeline relatively the same for the Morningstar family, 1851 would be right before all of the god drama starts happening with her. I wanted to include her as a kind of honorable mention to the rest of the character breakdowns, cause that blue dress it so pretty and fits so well for her, and it’s what started me down the path of “what would all the other brink characters be wearing?”

If I got any details or information wrong please let me know and I’ll correct it! 

If ya’ll have made it this far in the post, thanks so much for reading. This has been a project for me since like July for a while now, and I’m so glad I finally got it finished and out here! It was so cool doing all the research for this, and turning all of my semi-coherent bullet points into something that would actually be comprehensible was a lot harder than I thought, my hat goes off to anyone who writes things ever.

Most of the fashion plates I put in here are from the Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries, as well as Mark Hartley(bygonewhimsy) and Melinda Kovács on Pinterest, but a lot of the plates and portraits were just things I had in my camera roll so I unfortunately don’t have sources for all of them.

[justarandomgirly]

Now thats one hell of a groom...

[sillygoofynerd]

Concept: Disco crew playing mariokart

Zora is trying to learn more about human culture, and comes across a copy of MK8 and ports it to Disco's systems (she would 100% pirate it).

She asks Gray to play, who grabs Adira, and together they quickly rope Paul and Hugh into it (through no small amount of puppy dog eyes).

Zora chooses Mario as a traditional/logical choice, Adira chooses Dry Bones (they're me fr), and Gray chooses Link (he plans on winning with the power of Twinks and Twinks alone). Paul picks Toad and Hugh picks Rosalina (pretend that through the power of the Future more than 4 players can play locally).

They start up the first race and instantly Adira and Paul are jostling over first with Gray and Hugh a little behind, and Zora in the middle. By the end though, Hugh passes them all with Gray, Adira, Paul, and Zora in 2-5.

He's definitely played before with his siblings and cousins and just wanted to be a little shit about it. Chaos and laughter ensues

After a while, Michael and Saru pop in ("hey Mr. Saru wheres our chief engineer and doctor" "idk lets go find out") and get roped into the shenanigans. Michael and Spock played the Space-Wii version of it a lot as kids (Sarek denies that he loved it too. Amanda crushed them all) so she's a bit of a veteran player. She picks Bowser and convinces Saru to play as well (he picks Isabelle) and they start up the courses again.

Michael and Hugh go back and forth in first. Saru unintentionally item bags much to everyone's dismay.

Jett joins shortly after, picking DK. She talks mad shit and comes in 11th ("I not like you. I don't need to win to be a hater"), and constantly is distracting/annoying Paul so that he falls off the track or misses and item.

Finally, they get to rainbow road.

Tears. Screams. Pain.

They finish it with only minor casualties (Paul's sanity). Jett comes in first for the first time. ("What, like its hard?")

They collectively agree that rainbow road is no longer allowed.