Heraldic, Scribal, and Dance Sypmosium 2013

Bellewode will be holding this event on February 9th. I'll be teaching two classes:

Heraldic Art: Drawing for Submission

 A general overview on how to draw heraldic emblazons and the common errors resulting in artist's notes or returns based on artistic depiction.

Heraldic Art: Drawing on a Computer

 How to use computer programs such as Inkscape and Illustrator to make clean and readily editable emblazons. This is a good way to make a personal clipart library.

Turnshoes Part 1: From Foot to Paper

  I am sorely in need of period shoes and have held off buying any because I want Sarmatian shoes and nothing I've seen sold in the SCA looks like them. Our new A&S officer does a lot of leatherworking and he and his wife host craft days about once a month, so I'm finally getting around to doing it. This is a rather lengthy process, so this will be a mulit-part post.

  The first thing you need to do is figure out how to turn the 3D shape of your foot into a 2D shape to cut out of leather. The shape you end up with after doing the steps in this post is not the final pattern. It's a key to what shape your pattern needs to fit and can be used to figure out any turnshoe pattern be it Sarmatian, Norse, or whatever. There are multiple ways to do this. I used the tape method.

Materials:
Two pairs of socks
Two plastic bags
Masking or artist's tape
Fabric measuring tape
Scissors
A marker that can write on the tape (like a permanent marker)
Paper good for pattern drafting
A buddy

Step 1: Prepwork

Apologies for the poor image
quality. I forgot to take my
camera and had to use my phone.

  Put on two pairs of socks (yep, one over the other). One should be the thickness of the socks you'll wear with these shoes. The other should not be thin because it gives you wiggle room. Then stick your feet in plastic bags. They should at least reach your ankle. It doesn't need to go higher no matter how tall your boot. That part is added on later. You'll be taping on top of the plastic bag. The directions I used did not include the plastic bag, but we didn't have any sacrificial socks. If you've got some odd socks, you can skip the plastic bag and just cut through the outer sock.
  
Step 2: Make a Tape Shoe
  You might want a friend to do this part for you so you can stand like normal. Use pieces of tape no more than 3 inches long to tape over your toes (one end on top of your toes, the other on the underside). This is to create the shape for the end of your foot. Then wrap pieces about 7 inches long around your feet to cover the rest of you foot up to the ankle. Overlap each successive piece about a third of their width.

Step 3: Mark Off Parts of Foot
  You'll want your friend to do the marking while you stand. Between the socks and tape, things won't be quite obvious, so flex joints where relevant to help them out. Flex your toes so they can see where their base is. Draw a line separating the toes from the rest of the foot. Now do the same right in front of the base of your leg. Draw a longitudinal line between the big toe and the rest and continue it up the crest of your foot. Draw a vertical one along the back point of the heel. Find the ankle bones that stick out to the sides and draw vertical lines leading from them to the ground.
  Wrap the measuring tape horizontally around the ankle joint. Extend the ends onto the top of the foot. It will not be completely horizontal in front of the leg. To keep the tape flat against the foot, the ends will curl in towards the center of the foot. Make a mark where they cross. Make two more marks on either side of your toes where they start to curve into  the relatively flat sides of the feet.

Step 4: Demarcate the Sole 
  Stand on the paper. Use the marker to draw the shape of your feet onto the paper. Make tick marks everywhere there's a line or mark on your foot. Cut out the two soles. Next, have your friend hold each sole against the bottom of your foot and make an outline of the sole on the tape.

Step 5: Cut off the Tape
   Cut down the vertical line along the inside of your heel to where it meets the sole outline. Cut along the sole outline to the tick mark where your toe curves. Now you can take your feet out. You don't need to wear the socks anymore, either. Continue cutting the sole away from the top of the foot.

Step 6: Flatten the Tape
  Cut away any excess plastic around the edge and on the underside. The parts around the toes and heels are not going to flatten without some modifications. Make small cuts 1 cm long every 1.3-2 cm between the two toe-curvature tick marks and around the heel line. This will help you flatten those parts down. There will be some folding where the leg meets the top of the foot; that's fine.

  Now you have a 2D version of your foot and are ready to make a pattern.

Brzezinski, R., and Mielczarek, M., 2002, Men-at-Arms: The Sarmatians 600BC-450AD, Osprey publishing.

Kohler, K., Die Trachten der VölKer in Bild und Schnitt:

 Frazier, J., 2008, The Basic Craft of Turnshoes, The Compleat Anachronist, i. 140. 

Happy New Year!

  The beginning of the new year is another holiday celebrated by many cultures through space and time. A time for old problems to be acknowledged, old memories to be reminisced upon, and everything is new- a chance to start fresh.
  For Westerners today, January 1st marks the star of the new year. It wasn't always celebrated at that time by the Western World, though. During the SCA's period, you'd more likely find Europeans celebrating it at the end of March, based on things like the resurrection of Jesus or the cross-quarter days.

  When did your persona celebrate the New Year? What calendar did they use? Why hold celebrations when they did? How did they celebrate it?

A Sarmatian timeline

Below is a general timeline of Sarmatian activities. Much of it is taken from the New Penguin atlases, and sometimes the only information given is their spot on the map. Other times, they're discussed in more detail in the text. I've supplemented in a few additional notes from elsewhere and will continue to update this post as needed.

Note that overall, there is a general trend among western steppe nomads to eventually be pushed westward by tribes moving in from the east.

• By 415 BC, the Sarmatians are inhabiting the Russian steppes north of the Caspian Sea.
• By 192 BC, the Sarmatians are pushing the Scythians westward.
• By 145 BC, Sarmatians can be divided into three sub-groups (Jazyges, Roxolani, and Alan), each group's area is delineated east-west by major rivers. 
• By 79 AD, the Sarmatians are being pushed westward to the point that the Roxolani cause the Jazyges to be displaced to the Hungarian steppes.
• By 230, the Jazyges have been further restricted by Vandals moving in from the north, while the Roxolani are actually pushed back toward the Alans by the Goths moving in from the west.
• By 305, the Roxolani and Jazyges are no longer on the map. Their areas have been taken over by Asding Vandals and Ostrogoths.
• By 362, the Alans are feeling the heat from three sides- the Ostrogothic Empire to the West, the Finns to the north, and the Huns to the east. They live in a small area between the Black and Caspian seas north of the Caucasus Mountains. They then expand south into  the mountains.
• Throughout all this, approximately 250,000 people live on the steppes between those two seas at a given time.
• By 406, the Huns have taken over the steppes, pushing Germanic tribes west- along with a clan of Alans. The Vandals, Suevi, and the Alan clan invade Gaul at the end of the year.
• By 420, the aforementioned barbarian pillagers have moved into the Iberian peninsula. As part of a bargain with Rome, the Visigoths pushed most of them into the northwest corner before returning to Gaul.
• In 429, the Asding Vandals leave their corner of the Iberian peninsula, pick up the Siling Vandals and Alans left in the south, and 80,000 men, women, and children cross the Straight of Gibraltar into Africa. Rome has to cede the western provinces (the northernmost parts of modern Morocco and Algeria) to them in 435. In 442, they trade them for modern Tunisia. The Alan king had died in battle before this and the clan was absorbed by the Vandals they traveled with.
• By 476, the Alans who stayed behind during the Huns' rule have regained ground in and around the east Caucasus.
• By 600, the Khazar Turks have pushed the Alans out of their northern reaches. The Alans are able to push the Huns back slightly to the west.
• By 661, the Khazars have expanded and now rule the Alans.
• By 1030, the Alans are back on the map in the east Caucasus. (It's a long stretch of time, but stuff happened in between which was not intimated in the book.)
• By 1071, the Alans now hold almost all of the steppes between the Black and Caspian seas and north of the Caucasus. The Kingdom of Georgia is to their southwest.
• By 1092, the Alans have lost some of their northern lands and gained some in the eastern Caucasus.
• From 1221-1222, a group of Mongols originally sent to pursuethe Shah out of his empire to the south fights their way through several groups' lands, including the Alans, and deep into Russia. The Mongol attacks are damaging, but Genghis Khan dies before he can take advantage of them.
• In 1236, the Mongols return to the Russian steppes. No one has bolstered their defenses and the Alans fall under Mongol subjugation along with other groups. 

That is the last they are mentioned in the New Penguin books, but the Encyclopaedia Iranica gives more information on their eventual fate from other references. After devastating wars in the 14th centuries, the Alans split into three groups- one moved into the foothills of the central Caucasus and became the Iron and Digor Ossetians still around today. Another migrated to Hungary and became the Jasz (It seems I was wrong before about them being descended from the Jazyges. Though I'm still puzzled by the name parallel.) The third took up with the Mongols and were sent to China as guards (the Mongols and Chinese called them "Asu" or "As"), where they were eventually absorbed or killed in battle.

McEvedy, C., 2002, The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, 2nd ed., Penguin Books.
McEvedy, C., 1992, The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, Penguin Books.
Yule, H., 1913, Cathay and the way thither: being a collection of medieval notices of China, Vol. III, Hakluyt Society, London.
The History of Yuan (pīnyīn: Yuán Shǐ), 1370, ed. Song Lian, Ming Dynasty Bureau of History, China.

Literature Review: The New Penguin Atlas of---

   This review is actually for two books in a series which both contain information on the Sarmatians and later Alans- The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History and The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History by Colin McEvedy. The sheer amount of work that must have gone into compiling all of the information contained therein is staggering. And the concise way in which it's presented is brilliant. The commentary is pretty hilarious at times, too. If you're a map or history buff, no matter what culture you care about, if it was in Europe or the parts of Asia and Africa near it at some point in history (and even pre-history) before the end of 1483, you'll enjoy this book. Best of all, the author is candid about the instances where he makes assumptions that are not well-established. I cannot recommend it enough.

  Each book consists of a collection of maps showing the large-scale evolution of such cultural features as language, writing forms, migration, borders, and population size with a running commentary on the side. Most history books will pick a time and place and talk about it in detail (such as the Italian Renaissance or Tudor England) and they're great for diving into narrow subjects. The purpose of this book is to see the big picture, so it doesn't provide the fine level of detail you can get elsewhere, but is equally as valuable for a different reason. It puts things into perspective. Instead of jumping from Greece to Rome in your history book, you actually get a vague idea of whats going on with the "barbaric" Germanic tribes at the same time (using that word in its original sense). You see the kingdoms of France and Armenia showing up at about the same time on opposite ends of the map. It really helps to remind one that things do not exist in isolation.

  There was enough information about the Sarmato-Alans in the two books that it warrants an entire other post. Be expecting a Christmas present from me. :)

McEvedy, C., 2002, The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History, 2nd ed., Penguin Books.
McEvedy, C., 1992, The New Penguin Atlas of Medieval History, Penguin Books.

Happy Christmahannukwanzuleid!

  It's the holiday season again! Cultures around the world celebrate this time of year in some form or another, and with good reason. Winter was a lot rougher before we had the ability to produce various foods well into the winter. The winter solstice marks the time when the days stop shortening and begin their slow climb back into the longer days of summer. If you were worried about surviving the winter, that's a good spot to put your thumb and say "things will get better now". ...In spite of the fact that the worst of winter weather comes in January, but anywho.

  So now that spring is approaching, think about what that would mean to your persona. Did his/her culture observe a winter solstice celebration? What did they call it? What sort of festivities did they have? Are any of their traditions still around today? If the holiday itself is still observed, in what ways was it different back then?

  One of these days I'll ask you guys a persona question I can actually answer for my own. Curse their lack of a written language!

Literature Review: Gonzales-Ruiz et al., 2012

  I can't believe I've only done one lit review so far... Time to fix that with a discussion of a fun paper (Gonzalez-Ruiz et al., 2012) that was brought to my attention recently on the haplotypes of people buried in Pazyryk graves (The Pazyryk culture is the one that gave us the dozens of golden deer statues I discussed previously. Ethinically, they were "Eastern Scythians", a.k.a. Saka.). The best part is that it's in PLOS ONE, which is a completely open source peer-reviewed journal. No paying $30+ for an article when you don't have a university library to use. :) I won't go into detail since you can read the entire thing for yourself with a click of a button, but here are the main points. If you aren't a geneticist, don't worry about the methods; there's a lot of jargon involved. Try reading the introduction, then skipping to the discussion.

  Haplotypes are particular sequences of DNA which are very useful in biogeographic studies of humans. They evolve at just the right rate to tell us about the worldwide expansion of our species throughout, then out of, Africa when considering particular combinations of haplotypes (haplogroups). The haplotypes used for these type of studies have pervaded the populations they evolved in. Some of them were carried to new regions when a population migrated or when adjacent groups sequentially interbreed, thus transporting the haplotype that way even if the original population didn't move much.

  Central Asia and the adjacent steppes are at a crossroads between "Europe" and "Asia" insofar as the ethnicities living there are concerned (despite the name of the region itself). There are high number of diverse ethnicities living there- some seem more European and some seem more Asian. The purpose of this paper was to add more information to our understanding of the ancient genetic flow in the region.
  The authors extracted DNA from skeletal material in Iron Age Pazyryk burials and compared it to other DNA from both Bronze Age and Iron Age burials in Central Asia. What they found is that during the Bronze Age- after humans had initially expanded into the Far East- the Altai mountains were acting as a barrier. East was east, west was west, and there's no evidence for any genetic flow between them. At some point in the Iron Age, things changed. The haplogroups go from being East Eurasian (i.e. Turkic nomads) on the east side of the mountains and West Eurasian (i.e., Iranian nomads) on the west side of the mountains to about half and half on both sides.
  Today, steppe nomads are Turkic. The few remaining ethnicities in the same larger language group as the Iranian steppe nomads are sedentary now. They were driven off the steppes and diminished in prominence by the westward-expanding Turkic nomads within history. What this study shows is that during prehistory, it was the Iranian nomads who did the expanding (toward the East). They initially stopped at the Altaic mountains, then the groups living in that area started expanding outwards-or rather, their genes did. There were no new West Eurasian haplotypes showing up, just the local ones increasing in geographic range. This study adds another line of evidence for our understanding of the ancient biogeography of steppe nomads (on top of cultural and linguistic data), and give us some hard boundaries (both spatial and temporal).