#rare artifacts

[strixhaven-star]

This card is going for ~$4.25. That must mean it sees play somewhere. It's a one mana rare that isn't on the reserved list?! Hmm...

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The Eid Mar Gold Coin: A Remarkable Piece of History

Minted shortly after the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BCE, the Eid Mar gold coin (aureus) stands as one of the most historically significant and rare artifacts of the ancient world.

Only three examples of this gold coin are known to exist today, making it an extraordinary relic of Roman history.

Approximately 2,000 years old, the Eid Mar aureus features the portrait of Brutus on the obverse and two daggers flanking a liberty cap on the reverse — symbols commemorating the fall of Caesar and the "liberation" of the Roman Republic.

In 2020, one of these rare coins was offered at auction by Roma Numismatics in London.

It sold for a record-breaking $4.2 million, becoming the most expensive ancient coin ever sold at auction.

The Eid Mar aureus is not only a masterpiece of Roman numismatics but also a powerful symbol of a pivotal moment that changed the course of history.

[thinkingimages]

Science equipment: glass funnel and tube with rubber hose spewed out by Ear Spring Geyser in Yellowstone during rare eruption 

Ear Spring made history on Sept. 15, 2018 when the normally quiet Yellowstone National Park geyser experienced its largest known eruption since 1957. But it revealed a bit of history as well: Along with scalding-hot water, the geyser coughed up decades worth of trash.

Video: Rare eruption of Yellowstone's Ear Spring, Yellowstone National Park Geyser Observation And Study Association: +

Ear Spring Geyser debris: +

[thepastisalreadywritten]

By Meilan Solly

24 October 2024

During an impromptu game of table tennis in September 1934, a player accidentally stepped on the ball.

The host’s father decided to look for a replacement in a cupboard at their English country house.

Instead of table tennis balls, the family patriarch stumbled onto an “entirely undisciplined clutter of smallish leather books,” including one whose cover “had been eaten away, presumably by a mouse,” as his son later recalled.

That unassuming manuscript turned out to be the only surviving copy of The Book of Margery Kempe, a medieval text chronicling the adventures of a female Christian mystic.

Previously known only through 16th-century excerpts that painted Kempe as an anchoress who walled herself up in a cell to devote her life to private prayer and reflection, the manuscript reframed its namesake as a colorful figure who’d traveled abroad on religious pilgrimages, claimed she’d experienced visions of herself participating in such biblical events as the birth and crucifixion of Jesus, and endured multiple arrests on charges of heresy.

“You lose all sense of her story and her personality when only reading the excerpts," says Eleanor Jackson, a curator at the British Library in London.

“She’s a very larger-than-life character … who was not an anchoress but [rather] incredibly mobile. She’s been to the Holy Land, she’s been to Rome, she’s been to Santiago de Compostela.”

The chance discovery of Kempe’s autobiography speaks to the rich trove of writing about medieval women that survives to this day, as well as the countless works that have been lost over the centuries, Jackson says.

“Women in the Middle Ages were seen as less important than men, and they were excluded from a lot of areas of power,” the curator adds.

“Their stories were less often recorded, and because women often weren’t given the same level of education as men, [many] couldn’t write themselves.

Women’s histories are much harder to find, but they are there when you look for them.”

A new exhibition at the British Library tells some of these long-overlooked tales through a selection of more than 140 documents and artifacts spanning roughly 1100 to 1500.

Co-curated by Jackson and Julian Harrison, “Medieval Women: In Their Own Words” spotlights queens, nuns, authors, warriors, physicians, and artisans alike.

As the name suggests, the show emphasizes women’s personal testimony, “telling their stories as much as possible through their own words, whether preserved in their writings or dictated to scribes, as was the case with Kempe," Jackson says.

The individuals featured in the exhibition run the gamut from famous figures like Joan of Arc and Italian French writer Christine de Pizan to the lesser known, including Estellina Conat, the first recorded female printer of Hebrew texts; Shajar al-Durr, the first female sultan of Egypt and Syria; and Alice Claver, a silkwoman who crafted ornate clothing for England’s Edward IV.

By highlighting such a diverse group, lead curator Jackson and co-curator Harrison hope to move past widely held conceptions of medieval women’s existences being centered around domesticity and oppression by men.

“Their lives were a lot more vibrant than people expect,” Jackson says, “and [visitors] will be surprised by the sheer variety of roles that they occupied in the fields of politics, religion and the arts."

—

“Medieval Women: In Their Own Words” is on view at the British Library in London from 25 October 2024 to 2 March 2025.

[nezumasa]

The Mosaic and Bottles of thedas quests suck so much why don’t they transfer between saves w/ the golden nug like everything else

[slightlydaft909]

Guys who are feminists instantly become like 30x more appealing to me.

[computerhistorymuseum]

The Cryotron: Extremely Rare Superconducting Digital Circuits Come to Computer History Museum

Enjoy a new blog post by Computer History Museum's guest blogger David Brock, about a an exciting and rare new acquisition to the museum’s collection. http://www.computerhistory.org/atchm/the-cryotron-extremely-rare-superconducting-digital-circuits-come-to-chm/

[phillipmlynar]