All the forest

I started shifting my persona to an Ancient Greek one in 2015. HE Leda was already well on her way to being a fantastic Greek resource. I remember chatting with her at a crown tournament in Spring 2016 (I think) and being inspired by her knowledge. She is one of those people who makes you …

Photos from Metropolitan Museum of Art

I finally uploaded photos from our October trip to the Met. So many of the pieces are ones I have referenced before but not seen in person. It's always a hobby of mine to take photos of the back of statues. So few people think to do that.

Vigil Tokens – Greek Coins by HE Zhigmun’

I need to brag on my friend for a moment. His Excellency, Sir Zhigmun' Czypsser, formerly of Atenveldt who now lives in the East, made Greek-style coins for me to give as my vigil tokens at my contemplation of the Order of the Laurel. They are amazing. On one side is a head with laurel wreath …

Madder Pink

I was doing some madder dye before Pennsic and tossed some linen into the exhaust. What came out is a pale pink. I find it very interesting, as the wool from that batch came out decidedly orange, despite the color of the bath being very purple and the alkalinity matching what I used to get …

Fabrics

I believe that everyone who does Ancient Greek (and probably Roman) clothing at some point gets frustrated by the fact that the common fabrics we have just don't work well. We know that wool and linen were their two primary fibers, and that the peplos was probably wool and the chiton was probably linen. I …

Disk Fibula

In the Great Button Debate, the elusive disk fibula had been presented as the alternative hypothesis for what the round fasteners could be that appear on the peplos and the chlamys. The counter argument is that there are several sets of buttons that have been found verses few disk fibulae. Until today, I had never …

Madder on Wool

The first experiment with madder, and my first experience dyeing anything, was madder on linen with alum for part of an A&S competition entry. For this project, I need to dye wool with madder. I had a few days to experiment and this is a very quick write up of what I learned. By no …

Yogurt

The general consensus is that culturing milk to produce yogurt originated about 6000-7000 years ago in Central Asia and that it may have been introduced to Western Europe via Turkey [1]. It may have been known in Ancient Greece as oxygala (oxy meaning sour or vinegar, gala meaning milk), or this may have been a …

Greek Chairs

At an event yesterday, the issue of period chairs was brought up. I said I didn't think there was a way to make Greek folding chairs, thinking of the klismos, to fold flat without really modifying the chair, but even as I was saying this, something was nagging the back of my mind, and that …

Photos from Greece

I had the wonderful opportunity to visit a variety of Greek museums and archeological sites during our trip this October. Links to my shared albums are below. These are in no way exhaustive for the collections, and some museums restricted what you could photograph. Acropolis of Athens Archeological Site Acropolis Museum in Athens National Archaeological …