A l'entrada del temps clar

my main blog; music, art, illustration,pictures of plants and general randomness.Will bore you with my landscape photos.fundraiser asks from strangers in my inbox shall be ignored sorry.

[cdx1016]

Birds at dawn. (viacarad1016)

[theadhdgoblin]

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Porcupine-Fish Helmet from Kiribati, c.1800-1880 CE: this helmet was crafted from the carcass of a porcupine-fish

This helmet was made using the skin of a porcupine-fish that was killed and then carefully dried. The front edge is lined with vegetable fiber and human hair, and it's equipped with coconut-fiber ties that were used to fasten the helmet onto the wearer's head.

Above: another porcupine-fish helmet from Kiribati

Helmets with this design are also known as te barantauti, and they were created as part of a traditional costume that was worn by the warriors of Kiribati (an island nation located in the South Pacific). Most of the surviving examples date back to the mid-1800s.

Above: a porcupine-fish helmet displayed with a high-backed cuirass, wrist-guard, and spear, c.1800s CE

Te barantauti were typically worn with body armor that was crafted from coconut-fiber and stingray skin, along with braided wrist-guards covered in shark's teeth, high-backed cuirasses, and wooden swords, spears, and daggers studded with stingray spines and shark's teeth.

Above: wrist-guards and cuirasses from Kiribati, c.1800-1880 CE

In some cases, the warrior's helmet was crafted from coconut-fiber instead. The same material was also used to construct sleeves, belts, and "overalls" that effectively covered the rest of the body.

Above: a coconut-fiber helmet with a full set of armor

The porcupine-fish helmets provided very little protection -- they were primarily created and used as a way to intimidate enemies during ritual combat.

As this article explains:

The men of Kiribati were famed for their fierceness, and when it came time for battle, they dressed the part, in head-to-toe armor made from coconut fiber and stingray skin. Their weapons were wooden swords lined with sharks’ teeth.

The crown jewel of Kiribati armor, though, was a spiky helmet made from the porcupinefish. A member of the blowfish family, a porcupinefish looks like an adorable big-eyed cartoon character—until it’s threatened. Then, it sucks water into a cavity between its body and skin and inflates to several times its normal size, stiffening the spines that usually lie flat.

Porcupinefish helmets, known as te barantauti, were made by capturing one of these agitated, puffed-up porcupinefish, killing it, peeling the skin away from the body, and drying it. The spiny skin that remained was reinforced with coconut-fiber padding and fashioned into a brittle helmet.

Though the helmets offered little in the way of actual protection, they instantly made their wearers appear bigger, taller, and more formidable.

For Kiribati warriors, this intimidation was more important than protection from death. That’s because in traditional Kiribati culture, a person who took someone’s life—even in a fair fight—paid with their most prized resource: their land. So instead of going for the kill, warriors sought to wound and humiliate their enemy. Fish-skin and coconut-fiber offered just the right amount of protection.

Above: a shark-tooth spear from Kiribati, c.1800s CE

Unfortunately, most of the surviving helmets, weapons, and pieces of armor are now housed in Western museums:

Over the years, dozens of these helmets made their way into museums across the globe, while few remain in Kiribati. The Smithsonian actually has three, the British Museum five, and Sweden’s Världskulturmuseerna “at least eight,” according to their digitization curator Magnus Johansson. One te barantauti even wound up at the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium, in the tiny town of St. Johnsbury, Vermont.

Over the last four decades, since Kiribati gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1979, the armor has taken on a new meaning—as a potent symbol of local culture. It features on tourist trinkets, but also stamps and school mascots. “The armor is not just a garment to me,” says Rareti Ataniberu, an I-Kiribati craftswoman. “It is a piece of art, a craft.”

Above: an armored warrior from Kiribati, mid-1800s

Sources & More Info:

Hakai Magazine: Kiribati’s Porcupine-Fish Helmets were More about Drama than Defense

Atlas Obscura: The Mystery of the Puffer-Fish Helmets of Kiribati

Pacific Presences: Fighting Fibres: Kiribati Armour and Museum Collections

Time Magazine: Why Indigenous Artifacts Should be Returned to Indigenous Communities

The Museum of New Zealand: Te tauti from Kiribati

The Museum of New Zealand: Rere (Knife or Short Sword) from Kiribati

The British Museum: Porcupine-Fish Helmet

[historical-fashion-polls]

which outfit would you rather wear? (1837)

left 💚

right 🩵

Remaining time: 6 days 8 hours

[basingstokemercury]

[onenicebugperday]

What the hell she drew a man

[howmanyholesinswisscheese]

What doesn’t get talked about enough is that, all those 40-something years, Rocky had all the supplies he needed to go back home. He had the fuel, he had the food. But he didn’t. He tried and tried and tried. He kept going. He took measurements, gathered data, built new Astrophage samplers but could never get it right. He maintained the Blip-A, a ship that was built in a hurry and just kept breaking, for over FORTY YEARS. When Grace found him, Rocky wasn’t just sitting idle in orbit. He was still working, still trying, he hadn’t given up. He was tracking the stars, probably to watch for a potential second mission from Erid, when he spotted the Hail Mary in reverse-thrust. Rocky calls Grace brave. Truly, Grace is. But I’d compare Rocky more to Stratt. How much of yourself would you be willing to sacrifice to save your planet? Rocky was willing to stay at Tau Ceti for the rest of his life until he either found a solution, or died.

[cinematicmasterpiece]

o brother, where art thou? (2000)

[basingstokemercury]

[basingstokemercury]

I entirely understand and agree with the recent discussion on using modern makeup in historical productions, very much breaks the immersion in what little modern television I watch

But also it must be said this isn't a new thing; 1960s Bonanza has very strong, anachronistic makeup on its women (partly because they were still getting used to colour television and what picked up best)

And in the world of opera, well...

It's hard to beat a cowboy in winged eyeliner.

[greencheekconure27]

[chic-a-gigot]

L'Art et la mode, no. 31, vol. 33, 3 août 1912, Paris. Robe en mousseline des Indes garnie de plis de tussor “cerise”. Corsage de tussor avec col et revers de mousseline. Imp. L. Lafontaine, Paris. Bibliothèque nationale de France

[classicfilmsworld]

Gina Lollobrigida in Solomon and Sheba 1959 directed by King Vidor

[meowkittyplier]

He’s so fucking adorable in this scene this is genuinely my favorite scene in the whole entire movie LOOK AT HIMMM ☹️

HE’S SO CUTE😭😭😭 Yes ik they’re taking about leaving him for dead or whatever in this scene but he looks so adorable look at him bro🩷

[jens-holland]

PSA for Byzantine artists/enjoyers:

^^This is NOT Irene of Athens. This mosaic depicts Irene of Hungary (1088–1134; born Piroska) alongside her husband John II Komnenos. They ruled in the 12th century, and this ensemble would not have been worn by Irene of Athens in the late 8th century.

(thread continues below…)

^^While this may be a depiction of Irene of Athens, the greater piece was commissioned in the late 10th century and continued to be worked on throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, therefore this image would be contemporary to any empresses living during that time. It is usually associated with Irene Doukaina (1066–1138) wife of Alexios I Komnenos.

^^The only contemporary images we have of Irene of Athens (750s–803) are from coins like this, which depict her wearing the style of loros (gold gem-studded piece of the imperial costume) that had been worn since the 5th century (medieval clothing generally did not change much until the 10th and 11th centuries).

For examples of what the loros she wore may have looked like, I usually turn to the Paris Gregory manuscript, which was commissioned in the late 9th century, only one century removed from Irene rather than three or more.

^^The women depicted in images 1 and 2 wear the loros, while the woman in image 3 wears the chlamys much like the iconic Empress Theodora in her mosaic at Ravenna from three centuries earlier.

Going backwards in time, the next nearest images of an empress that I’m aware of would be the potential depiction of Heraclius and the imperial family as the Biblical Job (7th century).

The illustrations are not super clear, but the women appear to still be dressed like those in the Empress Theodora mosaic and other 5th and 6th century depictions of Roman/Byzantine women. These women (middle two figures) wear neither chlamys nor a mantle, but have ornamented collars, belts, the typical late Roman/Byzantine head covering, and possibly veils.

Here are some 5th century ladies from a mosaic in Rome to compare:

To conclude, please stop conflating the other 11th and 12th century Irenes with Irene of Athens! They deserve their own attention and Irene deserves to be styled in her contemporary getup! The Paris Gregory manuscript has some great depictions of 9th century empresses, which would have dressed fairly close to Irene. And since medieval clothing did not change much until the 10th and 11th centuries, it is fairly reasonable to look as far back as 5th and 6th century women for inspiration as well!

Thanks for reading, here are my own Irene doodles (ft. Charlemagne) :)

[homunculus-argument]

An animatronic exhibit that's set up like a zoo of extinct species with stuff like little natural-sized eohippus puppet curled up on a nap on historically accurate forest flora, with the breathing motions of peaceful sleep and an ear flick every now and then. The placards on the species explain both what the species is, how and when it lived, and also how earlier archeologists used to get this particular species wrong. Then, as the fun part: How these earlier wrong assumptions led to bad and unethical zookeeping.

Like "this is [beast]. They are social creatures moving in packs of roughly [number] members. [Because of reasons], the earlier research mistakenly assumed that they are solitary, but specimen kept on their own without packmates engaged in anxious behaviours," etc, therefore giving the whole exhibit an extra layer, being also an exhibit on the history of zookeeping itself!

Also, as an almost obligatory thing, there are vague references to some other earlier prehistoric zoo that famously got things really badly wrong with enclosure design and also everything else, but due to threats of slander lawsuits they can't legally explicitly name ***ass** Park when talking about how badly they sucked from a zoo design standpoint.

[jens-holland]

PSA for Byzantine artists/enjoyers:

^^This is NOT Irene of Athens. This mosaic depicts Irene of Hungary (1088–1134; born Piroska) alongside her husband John II Komnenos. They ruled in the 12th century, and this ensemble would not have been worn by Irene of Athens in the late 8th century.

(thread continues below…)

^^While this may be a depiction of Irene of Athens, the greater piece was commissioned in the late 10th century and continued to be worked on throughout the 11th and 12th centuries, therefore this image would be contemporary to any empresses living during that time. It is usually associated with Irene Doukaina (1066–1138) wife of Alexios I Komnenos.

^^The only contemporary images we have of Irene of Athens (750s–803) are from coins like this, which depict her wearing the style of loros (gold gem-studded piece of the imperial costume) that had been worn since the 5th century (medieval clothing generally did not change much until the 10th and 11th centuries).

For examples of what the loros she wore may have looked like, I usually turn to the Paris Gregory manuscript, which was commissioned in the late 9th century, only one century removed from Irene rather than three or more.

^^The women depicted in images 1 and 2 wear the loros, while the woman in image 3 wears the chlamys much like the iconic Empress Theodora in her mosaic at Ravenna from three centuries earlier.

Going backwards in time, the next nearest images of an empress that I’m aware of would be the potential depiction of Heraclius and the imperial family as the Biblical Job (7th century).

The illustrations are not super clear, but the women appear to still be dressed like those in the Empress Theodora mosaic and other 5th and 6th century depictions of Roman/Byzantine women. These women (middle two figures) wear neither chlamys nor a mantle, but have ornamented collars, belts, the typical late Roman/Byzantine head covering, and possibly veils.

Here are some 5th century ladies from a mosaic in Rome to compare:

To conclude, please stop conflating the other 11th and 12th century Irenes with Irene of Athens! They deserve their own attention and Irene deserves to be styled in her contemporary getup! The Paris Gregory manuscript has some great depictions of 9th century empresses, which would have dressed fairly close to Irene. And since medieval clothing did not change much until the 10th and 11th centuries, it is fairly reasonable to look as far back as 5th and 6th century women for inspiration as well!

Thanks for reading, here are my own Irene doodles (ft. Charlemagne) :)

[historical-fashion-polls]

which outfit would you rather wear? (1853)

left 💙🩵

center 🤎🩶

right 🖤🧡💚

Remaining time: 5 days 8 hours