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#medieval europe
alpaca-clouds · 4 months
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How to cook in a medieval setting
Alright. As some of the people, who follow me for a longer while know... I do have opinions about cooking in historical settings. For everyone else a bit of backstory: When I was still LARPing, I would usually come to LARP as a camp cook, making somewhat historically accurate food and selling it for ingame coin. As such I know a bit about how to cook with a historical set up. And given I am getting so much into DnD and DnD stories right now, let me share a bit for those who might be interested (for example for stories and such).
🍲Cooking at Home
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First things first: For the longest time in history most people did not have actual kitchens. Because actual kitchens were rather rare. Most people cooked their food over their one fireplace at home, which looked something like what you see above. There was something made of metal hanging over the fireplace. At times this was on hinges and movable, at times it was set in place. You could hang pots and kettles over it. When it came to pans, people either had a mount they would put over the fire or some kind of grid they could easily put into place there with some sourts of mounts (like the two metal thingies you can see above).
If you have a modern kitchen, you are obviously used to cook on several cooktops (for most people it is probably four of them), while in this historical you obviously only had one fire. Of course, as you can also see in the picture above, you could often put two smaller pots over the flames or put in a pan onto the fire additionally. But yes, the way we cook in modern times is very different.
Because of this a lot of people often ate stews and soups of sort. You could make those in just one pot - and often could eat from the same stew for days. In a lot of taverns the people had an "everything stew" going, which worked on the idea that everyone just brought their food leftovers, which were all put into one pot everyone would eat from.
Now, some alert readers might have also noticed something: What about bread and pastries? If you only have one fireplace and no oven, how did people make bread?
Well, there were usually three different methods for this. The most common one was communal ovens. Often people had one communal oven in a neighborhood. Especially in a village there might just be a communal oven everyone would just put their bread in to bake. (Though often this oven would only be fired up once or twice a week.)
The second version to deal with this some people used was a sort of what we today call a dutch oven. A pot made either of metal or clay with a lit you would put into the hot coals and then put bread or pastries into that, baking it like that.
There was also a version where people just baked bread in pans on the fire, rotating the bread during the baking process. At least some written accounts we have seem to imply. (Never tried this method, though. I have no idea how this might work. My camp bread was mostly done in dutch ovens or as stickbread.)
Keep in mind that the fireplace at home was very important for the people in historical times. Because it was their one source of warmth in the house.
🏕️ Cooking at Camp
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Technically speaking cooking at camp is not that different - with the exception of course that you have to drag all your supplies along. And while in Baldur's Gate 3 and most other videogames you can carry around several sets of full-plate armor and several pounds of ingredients so that dear Gale can whip something up... In real life as an adventurer running around you need to make decisions on what to take along.
If you have read Lord of the Rings, you might remember how many people have criticized Sam for actually dragging all his cooking supplies along and how sad he was for not being able to cook for most of the time, because they were very limited in taking ingredients along.
So, yes, if you are an adventurer who is camping out in the open, you will probably need to do a lot of hunting and gathering to eat during your travels. You can take food for a couple of days along, but not for a lot.
A special challenge is of course, that while you can cook food for several days when you are at homes, you do not want to drag along a prepared stew for several days. So usually you will cook in smaller batches.
A lot of people who were journeying would often just take along one or two pots along.
So, what would you eat as an adventurer travelling around while trying to save the world from some evil forces? Well, it would depend on the time of the year of course. You would probably hunt yourself some food. For example hares, birds or squirrels. Mostly small things you can eat within one or two days. You do not want to drag along half a dead deer. In the warm months you might also forrage for all sorts of greens. You also can cook with many sorts of roots. Of course you can also always look into berries and other fruits you might find.
Things you might bring with you might be salt and some spices. A good thing to bring along would be herbs for tea, too, because I can tell you from experience that water you might have gotten from a river does not always taste very well - and springs with fresh water are often not accessible.
Now, other than what you can access the basic ideas of camping fires and cooking with them has not changed in the last few thousand years. While modern people camping usually have a car nearby and hence will have access to a lot of ingredients. But the general ideas of how to build a fire and put a pot over it... has not really changed.
So, yeah.
Just keep in mind that for the most part in historical settings until fairly recently, there was not much terms of proper kitchens. People cooked over an open fire and hence had to get at times ingenius about it.
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milkywayan · 2 years
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tfw you see some stupid post that paints medieval peasants eating just plain grey porridge and acting as if cheese, butter or meat was too exotic or expensive for them, and have to use all your inner strength to not just reblog it with an angry rant and throwing hands with people. so i will just post the angry rant here
no, medieval people did not only eat grey porridge with no herbs or spices, they had a great variety of vegetables we dont even have anymore, grains and dairy products, not to mention fruits and meats, all seasonal and changing with the time of the year. no, medieval food was not just tasteless, maybe this will surprise some of you but you can make tasty food without excessive spice use, and can use a variety of good tasting herbs. if you'd ever tried to cook some medieval recipes you would know that. medieval people needed a lot of energy for their work, if they would only eat fucking porridge all of the time they would get scurvy and die before they could even built a civilisation. they had something called 'pottage' which was called that because it was cooked in one pot. you could leave the pot on the fire and go about your day, doing stuff and come back to a cooked meal. they put in what was available that time of the year, together with grains, peas, herbs, meat etc etc. again, if you would try to make it, like i have with my reenactment friends, it can actually be really good and diverse.
dont confuse medieval peasants with poor people in victorian england. dont think that TV shows what it was really like. dont think that dirty grey dressed people covered in filth were how the people looked like.
they made use of everything. too poor to buy proper meat? buy a sheeps head and cook it. they ate nettle and other plants we consider weeds now. they foraged and made use of what they found. hell, there are medieval cook books!
most rural people had animals, they had chickens (eggs), goats (milk and dairy), cows (milk and dairy), sheep (milk and dairy) and pigs (meat machine), and after butchering they used ALL THE PARTS of the animal. you know how much meat you can get out of a pig, even the smaller medieval breeds? the answer is a lot
if you had the space you always had a vegetable garden. there are ways to make sure you have something growing there every time of the year. as i said they had a variety of vegetables (edit: yes onions are vegetables, for those who dont seem to know) we dont have anymore due to how farming evolved. you smoked pork in the chimney, stored apples in the dry places in your house, had a grain chest. people could go to the market to buy fish and meat, both fresh and dried/smoked. they had ale, beer and wine, that was not a luxury that was a staple part of their diet.
this post ended once again up being longer than i planned, but please for the love of the gods, just actually educate yourself on this stuff and dont just say stupid wrong shit, takk
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Jan Bogaerts (Dutch, 1878-1962) Paolo et Francesca ca.1902-07
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amphibimations · 3 months
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Hildegard von Bingen !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
she was a nun and a scientist and a musician and poet and invented her own language and alphabet. which i think is pretty neat. this drawing is based on a specific medieval illustration: (link)
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alisaineurope · 1 year
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Albarracin - Teruel (Aragon), Spain
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sixteenseveredhands · 10 months
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Medieval Hermitage atop Katskhi Pillar, in Georgia (South Caucasus), c. 800-900 CE: this church was built during the Middle Ages; it sits atop a limestone column that has been venerated as a "Pillar of Life" for thousands of years
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Known as Katskhi Pillar (or Katskhis Sveti), this enormous block of limestone is located in western Georgia, about 10km from the town of Chiatura.
The church that stands atop Katskhi Pillar was originally constructed during the 9th-10th century CE. It was long used as a hermitage for Stylites, who are sometimes referred to as "Pillar Saints" -- Christian ascetics who lived, prayed, and fasted atop pillars, often in total isolation, in an effort to bring themselves closer to God. This tradition originated in Syria during the 5th century CE, when a hermit known as Simeon the Elder purportedly climbed up onto a pillar and then stayed there for nearly 40 years, giving rise (no pun intended) to the Stylites. Stylitism managed to survive for about 1,000 years after its inception, but it gradually began to die out during the late Middle Ages, and by the end of the 16th century, it had essentially gone extinct.
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Researchers don't really know how the monks originally gained access to the top of Katskhi Pillar, or how they were able to transport their building materials up to the top of the column. There's evidence that the Stylites were still living at Katskhi Pillar up until the 15th century, but the site was then abandoned shortly thereafter. This was the same period in which Georgia came under Ottoman rule, though it's unclear whether or not that may have played a role in the abandonment of the site.
The hermitage continued to lay abandoned for nearly 500 years after that. No one had been able to gain access to the top of the pillar, and very little was even known about the ruins that lay scattered at the top, as knowledge about the site's origin/history was gradually lost. There are many local legends that emerged as a way to fill in those blanks.
The site was not visited again until July 29th, 1944, when a mountaineer finally ascended to the top of the column with a small team of researchers, and the group performed the first archaeological survey of the ruins. They found that the structure included three hermit cells, a chapel, a wine cellar, and a small crypt; within the crypt lay a single set of human remains, likely belonging to one of the monks who had inhabited the site during the Middle Ages.
A metal ladder (the "stairway to Heaven") was ultimately installed into the side of the pillar, making it much easier for both researchers and tourists to gain access to these ruins.
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The hermitage at the top of Katskhi Pillar actually became active again in the early 1990's, when a small group of monks attempted to revive the Stylite tradition. A Georgian Orthodox monk named Maxime Qavtaradze then lived alone at the top of Katskhi Pillar for almost 20 years, beginning in 1995 and ending with his death in 2014. He is now buried at the base of the pillar.
While the hermitage is no longer accessible to the public, and it is currently uninhabited, it's still visited by local monks, who regularly climb up to the church in order to pray. There is also an active monastery complex at the base of the pillar, where a temple known as the Church of the Simeon Stylites is located.
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The Church of the Simeon Stylites: this church is located within an active monastery complex that has been built at the base of the pillar; several frescoes and religious icons decorate the walls of the church, and a small shrine containing a 6th century cross is located in the center
There are many lingering questions about the history of Katskhi Pillar, particularly during the pre-Christian era. There is at least some evidence suggesting that it was once the site of votive offerings to pagan deities, as a series of pre-Christian idols have been found buried in the areas that surround the pillar; according to local tradition, the pillar itself was once venerated by the pagan societies that inhabited the area, but it's difficult to determine the extent to which these claims may simply be part of the mythos that surrounds Katskhi Pillar, particularly given its mysterious reputation.
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Sources & More Info:
BBC: Georgia's Daring, Death-Defying Pilgrimage
CNN: Katskhi Pillar, the Extraordinary Church where Daring Monks Climb Closer to God
Radio Free Europe: Georgian Monk Renews Tradition, Lives Atop Pillar
Architecture and Asceticism (Ch. 4): Stylitism as a Cultural Trend Between Syria and Georgia
Research Publication from the Georgian National Museum: Katskhi Pillar
Journal of Nomads: Katskhi Pillar, the Most Incredible Cliff Church in the World
Georgian Journal: Georgia's Katskhi Pillar Among World's 20 Wonderfully Serene and Secluded Places
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vigilantsycamore · 9 months
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We've managed to go from "medieval life was dirty and greyscale and it was constant misery and everyone was dumb" to "a medieval farmer interacting with the modern world would experience no culture clash whatsoever"
I've seen people on this site get genuinely angry at the suggestion that a medieval peasant who saw a modern pride parade would be puzzled about what's going on but cautiously intrigued, instead of instantly understanding what it's about and enthusiastically joining in
Medieval Europe was dominated by Christianity in every aspect of daily life; and while some regions were relatively tolerant, in general there was a staggering amount of religious bigotry. Average medieval peasant's reaction to a pride parade would probably be "I don't know what festival this is, but it looks fun! I can't wait to get to the part where we commit the hate crimes!"
As for technology - yes, they wouldn't be completely puzzled by modern things. They'd likely understand some devices by analogy with what they know - a gun is like a miniature handheld cannon; a bluetooth speaker is kind of like a weird version of a music box - and even when they can't find such an analogy, they might be able to get the concept behind it.
But they'd still be surprised to see something like a smartphone. The scientific and technological ideas behind it would be foreign to them, more so than they are to a modern-day person who just doesn't know much about technology. At the time electricity was just "that painful thing that happens when you touch a piece of amber that's been rubbed with a cloth." And someone who lived centuries before the invention of photography, let alone cinema or television, would need some time to get used to the idea of a screen
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dimingwins · 7 months
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MEDIEVAL HELMET TOURNAMENT!
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The Kabuto is a type of helmet used by Japanese warriors, later becoming an important part of the traditional Japanese armor worn by the samurai class. The one featured in the image is from the 15th century.
The Close Helmet was worn by knights in the late medieval era. Being a fully enclosing helmet with a pivoting visor. They were a popular choice for cavalry on the battlefield, along with a good pick for jousts.
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holycosmolo9y · 4 months
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Saint Maurice
Sandstone statue with pigment and gold
Cathedral of Saints Maurice and Catherine, Madgeburg, Germany
ca 1250 CE
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humnooshop · 2 months
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It's the Black Death European tour of 1347-1351!
The relaxed fit t-shirt and other products with this design are available on my Redbubble :)
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autumnmobile12 · 11 months
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Imagine Alucard sitting down with Trevor and Sypha and going over the standard medical practices of the medieval period and explaining which ones are actually helpful and which ones are complete bullshit.
Sypha:  Live worms tied around the neck for a sore throat?
Alucard:  No.
Trevor:  Diagnosis from urine?
Alucard:  Yes and no.  A urine sample will reveal certain illnesses given proper testing.  Otherwise, the color of urine is really only good for determining whether or not you’re drinking enough water.
Sypha:  Maggots.
Alucard:  Maggots will actually eat away rotting, infected flesh, but if we observe actual sanitation practices, we won’t get to that point.  Plus, sterile amputation procedures.
Trevor:  What actually causes plague?  Bad air, divine punishment, planetary misalignment?
Alucard:  None of the above.  It’s caused by bacteria.  I’ll explain later.
Sypha:  ...medicine administered via a clyster?
Alucard:  Oh, for the love of...
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alpaca-clouds · 4 months
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Queer people in the middle ages
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So, the whiny manchildren, who want the middle ages to conform to their white supremacist fantasy, also keep claiming that there were no queer people in the middle ages - or that in fact queer folks just miraculously materialized at some point in the 1970s. But let me talk about one thing: How do we know that there were queer people in the middle ages? And how do we know that actually apparently at least some queer people in the European middle ages were living fairly openly?
Now, the very obvious answer to the first question is, that we do know that biologically queerness is simply a part of human nature. We know that just some people will be queer. How many people are queer... Well, biologist and psycholigists will argue with no end about this. Because of course we cannot look at someone and say "Oh, definitely a queer person", so we can only base our assumptions on what people say when asked. And we absolutely do know that how many people will admit to being queer the less afraid they are of societal consequences. Of course, biologically we can look at some apes and will see that their group behaviors work centrally over exchanging sexual favors with basically most apes being bi... But yeah, currently we can only guess. Maybe 10% of all humans are queer in some way or form - maybe it is more like 50%, maybe even more. We don't really know.
But what about the middle ages?
See, here I gotta say that I at times am annoyed with the way a lot of queer folks interact with history by just speculating about the queerness of some well known historical figures. Don't get me wrong, quite a few of them might have been queer. But this also falls into a very typical falacy.
Basically, when we talk about history we have the bad habbit of talking mainly about a few well known historical figures. When it comes to the middle ages, this narrative tends to focus mostly on clergy and nobility. This is partly because we have the best historical record of them - but also because to this day we tend to overvalue the lives of people who have influence.
And the other falacy is, that we just assume that the Victorian ideals about sex were true in the middle ages and that henceforth people were not able to be open about it.
Because here is the thing. We actually do have records of people being fairly open about it. This is partly records we have from lower nobility and especially gentry, but at times also from the peasants and normal folks that history often tends to ignore.
See, when I look at the historical record I could not care less about the richer nobility and royalty. Because their lives could not be further removed from normal society at the time. And especially I do not really care about the politics in terms of wars and aliances and such. Because it tells us fairly little about what LIFE at the time actually looked like.
No, the stuff I find interesting is the letters send by normal people - and stuff like grafitti. Maybe diaries, we still have access too. Or one interesting source I found for the middle ages: A collection of jokes a French monk wrote down over the course of years.
Because this is the kind of source that reflects the life of normal folks a lot better than whatever political drama some duke or king or bishop was involved in.
And in those sources you will find... that people are actually fairly open in talking about queerness. Heck, we even have sources in this regard that talk about specific sexual acts. Going so far that through this we have at least some vague ideas about kink at the time (though that really is a topic on which the historical record is super light).
In fact we have sources of this sort going back to the ancient times, even. Which is also why we know that the Romans in general were a lot more put off by queerness than people in the early and high medieval times. (Mind you, this did not stop the Romans from having gay sex, they were just a lot more scandalized by it!)
Of course, this is nothing that people are taught in school. Heck, you can manage to study history and still be ignorant of this, because this is not the type of sources a lot of history is concerned with or was concerned with for the longest time. Recently this is shifting a bit - but shifts tend to be slow.
So, yes, we know that queerness was definitely something that existed in the middle ages. Yes, the time was still very heteronormative - but it was clearly also less scandalous about queerness than either the Romans or the folks in the Rennaissance.
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erinsintra · 7 months
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modern anime are like medieval european art. too weird compared to what came before. bunch of christian symbolism outta nowhere. random ass titles. no one knows how to properly draw animals. lots of naked ladies
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Spanish School, ca.1500 Virgen de la Antigua o de la Rosa Museo de Bellas Artes de Granada
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fallensapphires · 2 months
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Aesthetics: Medieval
It's a fine line between magic and science. In medieval times, science was magic.
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historysideblog · 1 year
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Online History Short-Courses offered by Universities Masterpost
Categories: Classical Studies, Egyptology, Medieval, Renaissance, The Americas, Asia, Other, Linguistics, Archaeology
How to get Coursera courses for free: There are several types of courses on Coursera, some will allow you to study the full course and only charge for the optional-certificate, for others you will need to audit it and you may have limited access (usually just to assignments), and thirdly some courses charge a monthly subscription in this case a 7 day free trial is available.
Classical Studies 🏛️🏺
At the Origins of the Mediterranean Civilization: Archeology of the City from the Levant to the West 3rd-1st millennium BC - Sapienza University of Rome
Greek and Roman Mythology - University of Pennsylvania
Health and Wellbeing in the Ancient World - Open University
Roman Architecture - Yale
Roman Art and Archeology - University of Arizona
Rome: A Virtual Tour of the Ancient City - University of Reading
The Ancient Greeks - Wesleyan University
The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archeology and History of Palatine Hill - Sapienza University of Rome
Uncovering Roman Britain in Old Museum Collections - University of Reading
Egyptology 𓂀⚱️
Egypt before and after pharaohs - Sapienza University of Rome
Introduction to Ancient Egypt and Its Civilization - University of Pennsylvania
Wonders of Ancient Egypt - University of Pennsylvania
Medieval 🗡️🏰
Age of Cathedrals - Yale
Coexistence in Medieval Spain: Jews, Christians, and Muslims - University of Colorado
Deciphering Secrets: The Illuminated Manuscripts of Medieval Europe - University of Colorado
Enlightening the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Archaeology in Italy - University of Padova
Lancaster Castle and Northern English History: The View from the Stronghold - Lancaster University
Magic in the Middle Ages - University of Barcelona
Old Norse Mythology in the Sources - University of Colorado Bolder
Preserving Norwegian Stave Churches - Norwegian University of Science and Technology
The Book of Kells: Exploring an Irish Medieval Masterpiece - Trinity College Dublin
The Cosmopolitan Medival Arabic World - University of Leiden
Renaissance ⚜️🃏
Black Tudors: The Untold Story
European Empires: An Introduction, 1400–1522 - University of Newcastle
The Mediterranean, a Space of Exchange (from Renaissance to Enlightenment) - University of Barcelona
The Life and Afterlife of Mary Queen of Scots - University of Glasgow
The Tudors - University of Roehampton London
The Americas 🪶🦙🛖
History of Slavery in the British Caribbean - University of Glasgow
Indigeneity as a Global Concept - University of Newcastle
Indigenous Canada - University of Alberta
Indigenous Religions & Ecology - Yale
Asia 🏯🛕
Contemporary India - University of Melbourne
Introduction to Korean Philosophy - Sung Kyun Kwan University
Japanese Culture Through Rare Books - University of Keio
Sino-Japanese Interactions Through Rare Books - University of Keio
The History and Culture of Chinese Silk - University for the Creative Arts
Travelling Books: History in Europe and Japan - University of Keio
Other
A Global History of Sex and Gender: Bodies and Power in the Modern World - University of Glasgow
A History of Royal Fashion - University of Glasgow
Anarchy in the UK: A History of Punk from 1976-78 - University of Reading
Biodiversity, Guardianship, and the Natural History of New Zealand: A Museum Perspective - Te Papa
Empire: the Controversies of British Imperialism - University of Exeter
Great South Land: Introducing Australian History - University of Newcastle
Indigeneity as a Global Concept - University of Newcastle
New Zealand History, Culture and Conflict: A Museum Perspective - Te Papa
Organising an Empire: The Assyrian Way - LMU Munich
Plagues, Witches, and War: The Worlds of Historical Fiction - University of Virginia
Russian History: from Lenin to Putin - University of California Santa Cruz
Linguistics 🗣️
Introduction to Comparative Indo-European Linguistics - University of Leiden - Coursera version
Miracles of Human Language: An Introduction to Linguistics - University of Leiden
Archeology 💀
Archeoastronomy - University of Milan
Archaeology and the Battle of Dunbar 1650 - Durham University
Archaeology: from Dig to Lab and Beyond - University of Reading
Archeology: Recovering the Humankind's Past and Saving the Universal Heritage - Sapienza University of Rome
Change of Era: The Origins of Christian Culture through the Lens of Archaeology - University of Padova
Endangered Archaeology: Using Remote Sensing to Protect Cultural Heritage - Universities of Durham, Leicester & Oxford
Enlightening the Dark Ages: Early Medieval Archaeology in Italy - University of Padova
Exploring Stone Age Archaeology: The Mysteries of Star Carr - University of York
Forensic Archaeology and Anthropology - Durham University
Roman Art and Archeology - University of Arizona
The Changing Landscape of Ancient Rome. Archeology and History of Palatine Hill - Sapienza University of Rome
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