The First Computer

Three flat misshapen pieces of oxidized bronze that now rest at the National Archeological Museum of Athens, Greece, have been called the world's first computer. It spent the last 2000 years under the sea. Look closely and you will find gears with neat triangular teeth and a ring divided into degrees of the circle. Nothing like it will appear again for 1000 years. With amazing accuracy, the device was meant to track the motions of the sun, moon, and planets. Similar in sizer to a mantel clock, the Antikythera Mechanism has trains of interlocking gear wheels that drive at least seven hands (sun, moon, and the 7 planets visible to the naked eye) at various speeds to mark celestial time. It also featured ways to mark phases of the moon, the calendar, and the timing of lunar and solar eclipses. Cicero wrote that a Rhodes philosopher Posidonis made a similar model of the heavens in the first century BC, and some have suggested that such items originated as much as 200 years earlier in Babylon. How was such knowledge transmitted to the sailors of the Mediterranean down through the centuries if another such device wasn't readily available? By the time of our stories, such information was 1300 to 1400 years old. Merchants and sailors may have relied on this ancient knowledge without knowing where it came from.

Beauty is in the eye of the Nurse

According to Aldobrandino of Siena, an Italian physician living in France in the mid-13th century, beauty or ugliness was determined by the way in which the nurse swaddled a new born. This is from his Regime du Corps, supposedly the first medical text written in French and translated into several other languages, c. 1254: 

“After the woman has delivered the child, you should know how to take care of the child. Know that as soon as the child is born, it should be wrapped in crushed roses mixed with fine salt… And when one wishes to swaddle [the baby], the members should be gently couched and arranged so as to give them a good shape, and this is easy for a wise nurse; for just as wax when it is soft takes whatever form one wishes to give to it, so also the child takes the form which its nurses give to it. And for this reason, you should know that beauty and ugliness are due in large measure to nurses. And when its arms are swaddled, and the hands over the knees, and the head lightly swaddled and covered, let it sleep in the cradle.” 

Cluny Museum, Iceland and some cool medieval images

Check out Peter and Sandra's latest issue at www.medievalists.net for very cool medieval images, top ten things to see at the Cluny Museum (where Alison and I will be in April!) and look at the fabulous pictures of Iceland! Alison and I will be staying at the Blue Lagoon, soaking our heads off and thinking of, well, I'm not sure what we'll be thinking ...

Freckles were no-no

Did Ysabella have freckles? This is how she may have removed them if she were vain enough to try. Grind the root of bistort to a fine powder, mix with cuttlefish bones (also ground) and frankincense. smear the paste over the hands, then scrub with a mixture of rose water and bread crumbs until the freckles are gone. Wonder if it works for age spots, too? Excessive redness in the face was removed by placing leeches on the face or using cupping glasses between the shoulder blades. I think I could live with a red face and just say it was too much wine! By the way, bistort is an ornamental garden plant native to the Mediterranean that grows up to 30 inches tall. The flowers are lavender in color and look a little like fox tails.

More about candles

What the heck - I think all this is so interesting ... •Tallow melts much faster and burns more quickly •Tallow takes on the scent of whatever essential oils you use very well •Tallow is a softer wax and breaks apart easily •Beeswax has an amazing natural scent •Beeswax has a long burn life so the higher price is still worth it •Beeswax is a harder wax and drip-less (so great for tapers) Both are clean burning, non toxic, and give off a pleasant smell this is from Lauren Michelle's website about candles - thank you so much Lauren!!!

Tallow vs. wax candles - what's the difference?

As I was walking around lighting candles in my house today (which I frequently do - LOVE those scented candles) I began wondering about the candles Ysabella would use - or any medieval person. You always read about wealthy people - and especially those monks in heavily endowed monasteries - using beeswax candles. Beautiful, long-lasting, faintly scented. Then I read about the hoi polloi using tallow candles - cheap, etc. And then - I found the perfect website to explain all this - so along with me - enjoy! For tallow v. wax candles: http://lmichellek.com/clean-candle-making/ Very edifying!

Beauty tips for the face

Here are the last of the beauty tips from medieval physician, Trota (Trotula) of Salerno. To remove unsightly hair from the face, mix greek pitch with wax in a clay vessel, add a drop of galbanum and cook a long time. Mix in mastic, frankincense and gum arabic. Cover the face except for the eyebrows and leave in place for 1 hour. How would you like to get that stuff off your face? Is it any worse a combination than today's cosmetics? To whiten your face, place whole eggs in strong vinegar until the shells dissolve. Mix in white mustard and 4 ounces of ginger and anoint your face. Doesn't say how long to leave it on, and darn, I was going to try that one! To prevent sunburn, prepare a paste by grinding lilly root and mix with 1 ounce mastic powder, i ounce frankincense, two scruples each of camphor and white lead, s little pork fat and rose water. Anoint the skin in front of the fire. To help heal burns, chapped lips, and excoriations, leave the paste on overnight. This stuff was also supposed to cover the pustules of lepers and repair the tears after mourning the dead. The medieval lip balm sounds a little more feasible. Mix honey with white bryony, red bryony, cucumber, and rose water. Boil the mixture until it is reduced by half and anoint the lips. After you have removed your wrinkles by anointing your face with the juice of stinking iris and leaving it to work for a while, the lip balm preparation makes a great face cream. I think the by-word here is "don't try this at home."