conserve & create

save old stuff, make new stuff | insta |

[asmeesh]

1$ flea market score. Tiny glass 1960s perfume bottles. I love them.

[shit-show-no-go]

Can you swap their heads ?

[asmeesh]

omg you can

[asmeesh]

Their meeting was foretold in the ancient texts

[theinvisiblespoon]

[dancinbutterfly]

I can never leave here

[hearthflower-deactivated2023120]

“spirit of the flowers” tiles manufactured in 1874

[shutyourmoustache]

[baronfulmen]

Just realized I'm still that kid that loved watching the videos on Sesame Street where they showed crayons being made or whatever.

[homerstroystory]

whale made of steatite, cinnabar, and shell; Chumash (indigenous people of southern California); c. 16th-17th century CE

currently in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (accession no. 1979.206.396)

[asteroidtroglodyte]

If you will permit me, allow me to tell a tale of the Chumash, the people who once ruled the lands in which I spend my days. The story is as true as I have been able to discern, based on evidence available to me.

The Chumash maintained the largest maritime trading network up and down the California coast at the time of Spanish arrival. This was due in no small part to their sophisticated and unique watercraft, the Tomol, unique amongst Native North American watercraft of the time. Featuring overlapping, sewn, waterproofed redwood plank construction, the Tomol was both seaworthy and highly maneuverable, allowing for deep-water fishing and extensive maritime trade along the California coast. Construction of the Tomol was a cultural trade secret, held by a unique social class known as the Brotherhood Of The Tomol, who wore distinct Bearskin capes to signify their unique status in their society. Construction of a single Tomol could take more than a year, and it was not uncommon for Tomols to be handed down from fathers to sons as significant family heirlooms. There are those who have argued that the Tomol matched or exceeded the technological sophistication and seaworthiness of any other watercraft available at the time.

[greatwolfcloud]

I love the look of old ass books they are so fuckin pretty

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

So a while back I won a cheap eBay auction listing for a collection of love letters from the first world war.

They arrived today, and…the listing was WAY more than I expected for the price I won it for. There’s over 100, and they’re not just from WWI, but from 1906 (earliest I’ve found so far) through to 1915.

Charlie writes to his girlfriend, Gertrude. This is the most beautiful, lovesick stuff I’ve ever read. He sends her so many letters, sometimes twice a day, and lots of poems. He seems to have been an artist, as he talks a lot about small exhibitions of his stuff, and included a flyer for one. He also talks about how her parents don’t approve of them and how he’s desperately awaiting the day they’ll be married.

I haven’t found the latest of the letters, but the fact it’s up until 1915 and then stops…doesn’t give me hope for a happy ending.

This man continuously refers to his precious beloved Gertie as his queen and goddess, and whilst most of it is sickly sweet, there’s some raunchy stuff too, with him talking about how he can’t wait until they have a little house together and can ‘please each other all day’…

There’s. So many.

I’m going to put them in order by date, read them through, and then maybe even transcribe them so we can find out a bit about Charlie and Gertie’s love story.

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

This man was absolutely lost in the sauce

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

Y'all he writes about sending her pressed poppies and postcards for her collection 😭😭😭

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

111 years after Charlie got his dick touched in 1910, I decided to tell you all about it. Sorry Charlie.

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

Some more finds:

And some CODE!!!

Also all this is poems:

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

UHHHHH…👀👀👀

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

This has a lot of notes so I need everyone to know:

They got married 😭😭😭❤ (thank you to @lovesjustachemical for finding this!!!)

[nico-nico-knee]

Kinda fucked up that you just stole somebody’s mail

[enjoloras-deactivated20220821]

Don’t know how to explain to you that acquiring, preserving, and transcribing historical ephemera that would have otherwise just been trashed from people who have been dead for over 50 years and don’t appear to have any living descendants isn’t the same as ‘stealing someone’s mail’ but Tumblr never ceases to amaze me with it’s cold takes.

[catwithkeys]

The perfect post to go to sleep after 🥹

NGL, I was worried

[japaneseaesthetics]

Hanging flower basket in the shape of a cicada

Place of Origin: Japan, probably Kansai

Date: approx. 1915-1950

Materials: Bamboo (madake variety), rattan, wood, and metal; twining, openwork square plaiting, and bundled plaiting

Dimensions: H. 12 ½ in x Diam. 5 in, H. 31.7 cm x Diam. 12.7 cm

Credit Line: Lloyd Cotsen Japanese Bamboo Basket Collection

[etirabys]

can anyone find me that mesopotamian clay tablet telling you to marry a party girl because she'll bring you joy

[mentalwires]

It's from the "Maxims of Ptahhotep", purportedly written by a 96-year-old vizier to pass on his wisdom to his son:

If you marry a good-time girl

A joyful woman known to her town,

If she is wayward,

and revels in the moment,

do not reject her, but instead let her enjoy;

joyfulness is what marks calm water.

[etirabys]

yay ty. Between the above and the links in the mentions we have 3 translations total

[fatsexybitch]

Happy Wife Happy Life is 4.5k years old

[diioonysus]

edwardian & victorian era women

[animentality]

[sex-death-rebirth]

St. Thérèse of Lisieux as Joan of Arc, 1895

[beggars-opera]

The best notes written in manuscripts by medieval monks

Colophon: a statement at the end of a book containing the scribe or owner’s name, date of completion, or bitching about how hard it is to write a book in the dark ages

Oh, my hand

The parchment is very hairy

Thank God it will soon be dark

St. Patrick of Armagh, deliver me from writing

Now I’ve written the whole thing; for Christ’s sake give me a drink

Oh d fuckin abbot

Massive hangover

Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job

Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night

If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral

I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today

Do not reproach me concerning the letters, the ink is bad and the parchment scanty and the day is dark

11 golden letters, 8 shilling each; 700 letters with double shafts, 7 shilling for each hundred; and 35 quires of text, each 16 leaves, at 3 shilling each. For such an amount I won’t write again

Here ends the second part of the title work of Brother Thomas Aquinas of the Dominican Order; very long, very verbose; and very tedious for the scribe; thank God, thank God, and again thank God

If anyone take away this book, let him die the death, let him be fried in a pan; let the falling sickness and fever seize him; let him be broken on the wheel, and hanged. Amen

[branewurms]

what does oh d fuckin abbot even MEAN

[a-spoon-is-born]

an abbot is the head of a monastery so it just means “fuck my boss” basically, an abbreviation of “O damned fuckin Abbot”. this is what it looks like:

Brasenose College MS 7, f.62v 

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

yep

[beggars-opera]

I would just like to pop in again after all this time and offer some sources, as I know there has been discussion for a while. A good number of these initially came from an infographic from Lapham’s Quarterly Magazine, which I don’t have access to, and I’m not sure if sources were cited. Some of these, however, have been confirmed by scholars, particularly a group at the University of Leiden who had a blog going for a while on the subject of medieval writing. Not everything mentioned was documented with photos, but here are a couple:

“Ale has killed us” (translated as “massive hangover”) in Ogham x

“Cursed be the pesty cat that urinated over this book during the night“ x

(please note the helpful finger pointing to the pee stain/cat doodle)

“This work is written master give me a drink; let the right hand of the scribe be free from the oppressiveness of pain” x

“Whoever translated these Gospels did a very poor job” x

“If someone else would like such a handsome book, come and look me up in Paris, across from the Notre Dame cathedral” - we even have the scribe’s name, Herneis le Romanceur  x

“I shall remember, O Christ, that I am writing of Thee, because I am wrecked today. It’s now Sunday evening “ x

The “don’t @ me” scribe x

The source for the poor scribe complaining about his awful salary was linked to from the University blog as well but the page about that text seems to have been removed.

The scribe who hates Thomas Aquinas x

“Let him be broken on the wheel and hanged” x

[pllanks]

@glasscamera

[yesterdaysprint]

The Wichita Beacon, Kansas, August 9, 1918

[blackfemmejeanvaljean]

imagine going back to 1918 and hearing someone say idk on the street

[the-sappho-of-lesbos]

Source : We Do; A Celebration Of Gay And Lesbian Marriage - Edited by Amy Rennert

[arterialtrees]

[yesterdaysprint]

Popular Mechanics, May 1913

[aqua-regia009]

Sleeping Joan of Arc — George William Joy (1844-1925)