Episode One: Chess and Cleanliness
Show description: The Past and Stuff is a casual and sometimes irreverent podcast by two historians, Ashley Bozian and Tracey Cooper. In each episode we begin by discussing some Stuff in the News and then we challenge each other to guess the What, When and Where of an object or other variety of evidence, Our Piece of Stuff, that provides evidence about our collective past. Expect the unexpected as we travel the world, making historical connections and wry comments.
Episode description: In episode number one Ashley discusses the history of a common bathroom item and Tracey discusses the trade networks behind the discovery of a hoard of medieval gaming pieces.
Sources:
From Tracey’s Stuff in the News.
Owen Jarus, “2,700-year-old Petroglyphs Depicting People, Ships, and Animals Discovered in Sweden,”Livescience.com, accessed on June 20, 2023 at https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/2700-year-old-petroglyphs-depicting-people-ships-and-animals-discovered-in-sweden
Richard Whiddington, “Researchers Flying Drone Have Discovered 7,000-year-old Cave Painting in the Mountains of Spain, Artnet.com, accessed on June 20, 2023 at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/drone-prehistoric-cave-paintings-spain-2310253
Richard Whiddington, “Archeologists in Peru used A.I. to Discover Ancient Geogylphs of Killer Whales, Two-Headed Snakes, and Other Creatures Carved into the Land,” Artnet.com June 7, 2023, accessed June, 20, 2023 at https://news.artnet.com/art-world/nazca-geoglyphs-peru-ai-2316856.
Masato Sakai, Yiru Lai, Jorge Olano Canales, Masao Hayashi, Kohhei Nomuru, “Accelerating the Discovery of New Nazca Geogylphs Using Deep Learning,” Journal of Archaeological Science 155, July 2023, 105777, accessed on June 20, 2023 at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2023.105777
Francisco Javier Molina Hernández, Virginia Baricela González, Ximo Martorell Briz, “Metodología de detección cón dron (RPAS) aplicada a la prospección de arte rupestre prehitórico (Drone (RPAS) detection methodology for prehistoric art surveying), Lucentum XLII, 2023, 33-50.
Jessica E. Saraceni, Archaeological Headlines, Monday June 12, 2023, Archaeology.org, accessed on June 20, 2023 at https://www.archaeology.org/news
From Tracey’s Piece of Stuff:
Picture Credit: National Museum of Scotland, shared on wikicommons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:NMSLewisChessmen21.jpg. National Museum of Scotland’s reference and description: H.NS 23: Chessman or chess piece, queen, crowned and holding a drinking horn, seated on throne, of walrus ivory, found in an underground chamber in the parish of Uig, Lewis in 1831: Scandinavian, late 12th century
Nancy Marie Brown, Ivory Vikings: The Mystery of the Most Famous Chessmen in the World and the Woman Who Made Them (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2015)
David H. Caldwell, Mark A. Hall and Caroline M. Wilkinson, the Lewis Chessmen Unmasked (National Museums of Scotland, 2011)
N. Stafford, the Lewis Chessmen and the Enigma of the Hoard (The British Museum Press, 1997).
Tracey mentioned the story of the making of walrus rope recorded after an account by Ohthere of Hẳlogaland given to King Alfred of Wessex (r.871-899) and recorded in the ninth century Old English version of the fifth century book by Paul Orosius, Seven Books of History Against the Pagans.
Tracey also referred to Ferdowsi’s (Firdausi) Shahnameh, edited by Arthur and Edmond Warner (Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner, 1905-1925, available at the Internet Archive.
Tracey mentioned the pigment on some of the Lewis chessmen, this was made from cinnabar (oxidized mercury) and not ochre as was said.
Tracey also said several times the Nancy Marie Book, Ivory Vikings, was new. New to her maybe, but she acknowledges that 2015 is actually quite a wee while ago now.
From Ashley’s Stuff in the News:
Jared Malsin and Chelsey Dulaney, “Ex-First Republic Executive to Head Turkey’s Central Bank,” Wall Street Journal, June 9 2023 https://www.wsj.com/articles/turkey-names-former-first-republic-executive-as-head-of-central-bank-4142ace2
From Ashley’s Piece of Stuff:
A.S. Davidsohn, “Soap and Detergent,” Encyclopedia Britannica 21 Apr. 2023, Accessed 27 June 2023 https://www.britannica.com/science/soap
Dan Koeppel, “The History of Soap,” New York Times, April 15, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/history-of-soap/
Geoffrey Jones, Beauty Imagined: A History of the Global Beauty Industry, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010
Music Credits:
Background Music: Stars (Extended) by Vlad Gluschenko | https://soundcloud.com/vgl9
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0)
Intro/Outro Music composed from free music clips by Tracey Cooper using Bandlab.
Cover Art
Photo by Tracey Cooper .