Friday, December 31, 2021

Happy New Year 2022

 Salvete Omnes,

last post this 2021 - 

hurrah - we have made it

I hope the new year 2022 will not be worse than this one, and I do hope for a better one  than 2020 and 2021 combined.

Hence, all the best to you and your family and loved ones, may your horse treat you better than your goverment - :)



Freedom and liberty, joy, humor and smile and plenty of happiness during this night of Saint Sylvester feast. (taking the liberty of attaching some art showing Saint Sylvester  the pope and European medieval horses. )





                                                                                  ***

Wesolej zabawy w humorze i zdrowie tego Sylwestra, Dosiego Roku - Szczesliwego Nowego ROku 2022

                                                                                 ***

muchissimo mucho de lo todo  que es mas beuno esta fiesta de la Nochevieja - Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Valete

Thursday, December 30, 2021

Konik powodny

SalveTe Omnes,
[in Polish]



Koń powodny albo powodowy (inanis equus, desultor, Equus desultorius, English - a led horse ) był to koń wierzchowy osiodłany i z pełnym rzędem a rynsztunkiem prowadzony luźno przez drugiego jeźdźca czy pieszo z ziemi 'na ręce, na rzemieniu', na powodzie, na którym to koniu nikt nie jechał, ku splendorowi a pokazaniu się właściciela 'pocztu' czy oficera chorągwi, czy też magnata, ambasadora czy  sama osobę monarchy i jego rodziny z dworem i wojskami nadwornymi etc. 
Kon prowadzony był przez pachołka czy dworzanina z konia lub z ziemi, co widać na rycinach czy obrazach z epoki.

Wiemy, że często używano konie powodne w  uroczystościach np w pompa funebris -  pogrzebach (w pogrzebach wojskowych czy przywódców państwowych wciąż zwyczaj praktykowany w wielu krajach jak np USA) i uroczystych wjazdach do miast podczas koronacji i uroczystości prezentacji orszaków królewskich, magnackich, czy przy wjazdach  ambasadorów i ich orszaków ( jak owe wjazdy Ossolińskiego do Rzymu i Konstantynopola, Krzysztofa Opalinskiego do Paryza  etc), czy tez popularnych w XVII wieku karuzelach czyli końskich orszakach dworskich eg jak ów słynny Certamen Equestre ze Szwecji.

Czy był to koń paradny - raczej nie, ów koń powodny nie bardziej paradny niźli koń na którym siedział właściciel konia powodnego. 
Ale rzędy końskie na koniach powodnych w uroczystych przejazdach czy popisach, czy popisach chorągwi wojsk państwowych, prywatnych czy w czasie popisów pospolitego ruszenia były bardzo bogate i służyły pokazaniu splendoru właściciela czy właścicielki.

Tu podkreślę - nie był to koń taborowy czyli juczny ani pociągowy! Na koniu powodnym towarzysz husarski czy pancerny  etc mógł stawać do bitwy.
Niestety, mości Czapski w 'Historii Konia,' tom 2. miesza pojecie konia powodnego (inanis equus, desultor et al. ) z podwodnym (clitellarius) czyli jucznym .

Mości Paprocki opisując herb Jastrzębiec w Herbach Rycerstwa Polskiego (str. 152) daje opis bitwy pod Lubieszowem 1577AD i pokazuje tamże przykład użycia konia powodnego czyli luzaka. 

U Kadrinaziego, na blogu, ciekawy wypis pocztów wolontarskich z wyłuszczeniem koni powodnych w każdym z pocztów.

a na okraszenie wypisu pięknymi ilustracjami - parę ulubionych Juliuszów Kossaków z koniem powodnym jako tematem przewodnim.










Valete




Marija Gimbutas lectures from the Oriental Institute

 Salvete Omnes,



yet again more links to videos and archive books: 
The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago made available three memorial lectures on and about Marija Gimbutas life and her Kurgan hypothesis in relation to the DNA research. 

three lectures in order presented:

Colin Renfrew -  lecture  2018 

Petra Goedegebuure - lecture 2020  - on the Hittite branch of the Indo-Europeans

Ruth Tringham - lecture 2021



and some books on the archive world library  by Gimbutas, including plenty of books you can borrow:

The Balts (1963)

Bronze Age cultures in Central and Eastern Europe (1965)

The Living Godessess .. 

Civilization of the Goddess



Valete

Wednesday, December 29, 2021

Yamnaya Culture & face reconstruction

 Salvete Omnes,

the short entries rule - :) 

so here we go with yet another video link this week and month (and I dare say not the last one, some 2 days are still left of this month of Omicron... sorry..  December 2021) 
- nota bene I am awaiting my new drawing and painting tablet-monitor and doing some painting on canvas and paper (thanks to my loved ones and their generous gift giving).

So there is a channel on YouToube - Survive the Jive - and Tom Rowsell, the content creator, provides many an interesting video presentation  there.
This is the link to his Yamnaya video that is quite informative and entertaining while educational (and vice versa - :) ). The video provides the facial reconstruction of the Yamanay individuals reconstructed by Robert Moylneaux .

 Thuletide site has an article that also provides a link to this video and the facial reconstructions( using Gerasimov method)  of the Yamanaya male warriors (?).  You can watch on their site or go straight to YT.

Also, a British magazine article about the Yamnaya and their milk proclivities, so to speak. 

Nota bene - this is a very interesting illustrator using Twitter as his vehicle for spreading his art - Graman and his art. 



Valete

Kernosovka stelae

 Salvete Omnes,

one of the most interesting artefacts of the Yamnaya period in the Pontic steppe  is the stele/stelae or stone slab from Kernosovka (a village in Ukraine).



the stela is about 1,2 m high stone slab carved and sculpted; in its front there is a face, presumably of a man, with arms and a phallus under his belt.



Man's face has a deep-set eyes, pointed long nose, a chin or pointed downwards beard, with a long drooping mustache. The figure has two arms bent, between the left shoulder and bent arm there is a bow with an arrow notched.  He has a belt, single one.
Under the arms and in the back of the stele there are other weapons and tools -
a battle ax

a belted battle mace with circular head

a knife?

a hoe and/or mattck

a casting mold

a 'spoon' for metal casting

etc

At the bottom  there are two horses carved, and also there is an ox or bull and a turtle? .

The backs of the stele has various ornaments - perhaps representing his garments like a cow hide painted with lines ?  - and under the belt there are his spare? shoes.

Left side contains an image of coitus between a man and woman under the rows of triangles and an animal under the belt; the right has rows of triangles and zigzag lines between the triangle lines. 

Is this an image of a powerful chieftain ? The tools of metallurgy arts exemplify the  Indo-European skills with metal working, including probably the oldest iron smithing, from a meteorite iron, in Eurasia, thousand years before the Hittite ironworking in the II millennium BC.

There is this article by J.P. Mallory and D.Y. Telegin, The Anthropomorphic Stelae of the Ukraine: The Early Iconography of the Indo-Europeans, Journals of Indo-European Studies, Washington DC 1994 - but I do not have it nor have not read it.







Valete

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Bréviaire de Martin d'Aragon circa 1410AD - Gallica

 Salvete Omnes,



I hope your Christmas went well, and your batteries have been recharged - but we're in the holy period, the Orthodox Christians are still ahead of their Christmas, and then the Epiphany etc.
So taking this special period into account and feeling quite opportune I would like to share with you the link to a special breviary - Bréviaire de Martin d'Aragon - that can be perused at the French Library site aka Gallica.



It s one of those amazing examples of the medieval manuscript art - the illuminations are breathtaking and simply beautiful.
I am grateful for Gallica librarians that they made it available to us, the viewers and purveyors of beauty via digital collections.

This Cistercian breviary contains many paintings and illuminations, including some horse and equestrian images. The manuscript has been associated with the king of the Crown of Aragon, Martin el Viejo.



nota bene the shield looks very much like the adarga or the traditional Iberian  leather almond-shaped shield.  (the adarga shield was used by the frontier dragoons of the Spanish Northern Provinces in North America until the very end of the colonial Mexico)

and the Tournament illumination 



there is one more   illumination with horses  but I am going to keep it for another time, and it will be soon - :)

valete

Friday, December 24, 2021

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia 2021

Salvete Omnes,

[in Polish]



Wesolych Swiat - i niech dziesiejszej nocy wasze konie przemowia do Was ludzkim glosem ;) (oczywiscie, po zjedzeniu oplatka ze stolu Wigilijnego)

Wesolosci , dowcipu a humoru.. i furda 'strachy' . bo my Lachy nie takie strachy pokonalismy- wolnosc, tolerancja i pogoda ducha to nasze dziedzictwo.

Trzy wiekowe juz grafiki, znow razem -  :)





Valete

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Old Debate from 2012, citing goes on - Mismodeling Indo-European origins - and a discussions about Maria Gimbutas - videos


 Salvete Omnes,





right before Christmas - so this is this rather old video from 2012 - but it goes to the heart of the matter, i.e., debate on the origins of the Indo-Europeans and the politics of the academic world - eg my post about the November 2021AD article of the Tocharians etc.

So in 2012 The Science (and NYT followed with this article) published this article: Mapping the Origins and Expansion of the Indo-European Language Family

Two scholars: Martin W. Lewis & Asya Pereltsvaig, in this video they did a very pointed and excellently delivered critique  on the errors and falsities of that Science article at Stanford Univ.. this short lecture is a great voyage into the historic linguistics and the story of Indo-Europeans. 
But in spite of the soundness of their arguments the article from The Science keeps on being cited (as you can see from the PubMed link. 

Regarding the Kurgan theory there are many critics of the Gimbutas, Anthony et al., kurgan hypothesis  - like  this presenter.












Nota bene:  

James Mallory, David Anthony, and Dorcas Brown talking about Maria Gimbutas and her theories being vindicated - from UCLA October 2021. 

from more distant past - dr Anthony's Wheeled vehicles, horses, and Indo-European origins lecture from 2012.


Valete


Merry Christmas 2021

 Salvete Omnes,




so in spite of the scary and demonizing, bah, even terrorizing  rhethoric coming out of the 'free media' via tvs, radio and printed ones, we have survived yet another year. And hope for more - :)



Today is Christmas Eve - if  you are celebrating , then do enjoy your feast with the family, may it be full of joy and happiness.

Merry Christmas to you all, dear friends

Wesolych Swiat Bozego Narodzenia - wesolosci i humoru, pieknej Wigilii 

Feliz Navidad...

and some Sandro Botticelli masterpieces for your sore, from watching too much Netlifx and YT, eyes .. 



Valete

Taxcala Codex from the Smithsonian

 Salvete Omnes,



I think a short entry on this one. So I have a a nice little 'regalito' (a gift) of a link for  you this Christmas season - notwithstanding what our POTUS wished to us all a couple days ago.

so there it is - the Smithsonian Institution librarians have digitized the Mexican facsimile copy (edicion Alfredo Chavero & Genaro Lopez) of the Lienzo de Tlaxcala (Tlaxcala Codex) from 1892AD. Then the digitized album have been placed, yes, you guessed it, on the world digital library archive.org - here there is this link. You can download, copy and do whatever you desire and enjoy this old art and historical primary source.



Enjoy this work of beauty and drama, you can be  studying the horses there and then perhaps also entire beautifully drawn story painted by the indigenous North American  artists, created in the 1570sAD in Tlaxcala, then part of Spanish realm known as Nueva Espana (New Spain).



ps
Nota bene, have you known that there is  the Montezuma noble family in Latin America and Spain,  the direct descendants of the tlaotlani Montezuma II? well, you know the Spanish did not kill   and exterminate all indigenous people in the Americas, they even married them and created la Raza. The Spanish Black Legend, created by the XVI-XVIII centuries protestants in Europe (picked up by the Americans in the XIXc), made the Spanish and to some degree the Portuguese into those  monstrous genocidal killers and destroyers of all indigenous - which is  a false narrative and outright lie. You can read many a book on archive about this slanderous fabrication.

Merry Christmas to you, dear fellow net surfers and travelers - :) 

Valete

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Dr David Anthony on migrations in prehistoric Eurasia Steppe

 Salvete Omnes,




Today I came across this interview with dr David Anthony, one of my most favorite researchers on the prehistoric horses and Eurasian steppe people  - How ancient DNA revived ancient migrations in archaeology.

[Abstract]  Among archaeologists, until recently migration was regarded as a simplistic (at best) and even racist (at worst) way to explain culture change in the ancient past. Ancient DNA recovered from prehistoric humans has shown, however, that our ancestors moved long distances in demographically significant migrations that had profound effects on food, gender, architecture, and regional genetics. Integration between modern migration studies and archaeological interpretation is necessary to better inform archaeologists about the dynamics of these encounters. 






Nota bene his 1990 article - Migration in Archaeology 



and the most recent article available 'libre' -   Dairying enabled Early Bronze Age Yamnaya steppe expansions (Nature). 



Valete


Friday, December 17, 2021

Horse of Cortez and his conquistadors - Tenochtitlan 4

 Salvete Omnes,



a short entry - continuing with the horses of Conquest - the English translation of the 16 horse list as presented by  Bernal Diaz del Castillo:

the first translation in this series comes from the 1844 British translation by John Ingram Lockhart








the following one from the XX century,   published in the land of the Mexica

Alfred Percival Maudslay's 1908 translation published in Mexico City, USofMexico- 


nota bene Alfred P. Maudslay was a famous Maya archaeology pioneer 

there are  more translations that could be of interest, so I will copy some of them in my future posting 


Valete