Category Archives: History

History

Do not read if you are hungry

February 20, 2007 – 1:59 pm

A considerably better than usual newspaper history of the pancake. (I.e. not just done from last year’s clippings.)

So enjoy, from the 1750s…

…in upper-class dining rooms, a new culinary invention began to drive diners wild: known as ”quire of paper”, this new pancake was made with a cream-rich batter, cooked as vast and whisper-thin as possible on charcoal-fired stoves. Traditionally, it was served with sugar, butter and a scrape of nutmeg and with bowls of thickened creams redolent with the volatile oils of lemons and oranges.

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History

The science of history

February 17, 2007 – 11:29 am

No, I’m not about to start a debate about the nature of history – just to note that the History Carnival No 48 is now up on Aardvarchaeology, a part of the science blogs empire – but it is still the great collection of posts we know and love. The emperor Caligula is looking absolutely fab.

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History Science

Grunt – have a nut?

February 15, 2007 – 8:33 am

Fascinating piece in Le Monde yesterday (not online) about finding chimpanzee “tools” that are more than 4,000 years old.

Before this study, chimpanzees were first observed using stone tools in the 19th century. Now, thanks to this new archaeological find, tool use by chimpanzees has been pushed back thousands of years. The authors suggest this type of tool use could have originated with our common ancestor, instead of arising independently among hominins and chimpanzees or through imitation of humans by chimpanzees.

John Hawks finds the study solid, which is good enough for me.

I found a comment in the Le Monde article by the inevitable critic of the study curious. Helene Roche, from CNRS at Nanterre, was quoted as saying “Pourquoi minimiser l’apport de l’homme.” (Why minimise the contribution of humans?)

Why is it that people have to try so hard to say we aren’t animals – are totally separate from the world from which we emerged?

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Avignon History Travel

A visit to the Palais de Papes

February 10, 2007 – 9:48 am

palais3

It is big, really big, and heavy, like the oppressive weight of the Catholic Church, although I can’t help wondering if it would have proved quite such a tourist attraction had not Pope Clement VI added those two curvy, sexy frivolous little mini-towers on the front, even though they are architecturally rather silly when lined up with the rest of the building.
read more »

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History

What state was that in 1200?

February 9, 2007 – 7:07 pm

A useful resource for answering such questions: Periodical Historical Atlas of Europe – maps at roughly 100-year intervals.

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Avignon History

Studying French by museum

February 8, 2007 – 10:53 pm

I like to kid myself that in visiting France and spending lots of time in museums I’m improving my French.

So today I learnt that “bonnets d’affranchises” are what is known in English as the “cap of liberty”, given to freed Roman slaves as a symbol of their new status, and more widely used as a symbol of liberty.

OK, so it might not come up while buying a train ticket, but you never know when it might come in handy…

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