Scribal Terror

Nuzi: a written language of the women of Jiangyong

Nuzi, or "women's characters", were found in Jiangyong, Central China's Hunan Province in the 1980s and amazed anthropologists around the world.

"Nuzi is the only women's written language found in the world," says Cao Xuequn, a research fellow with the Hunan Provincial Museum. "We have found about 700 nuzi characters."

During the seminar on women's role held in Guiyang of Southwest China's Guizhou Province, Cao gave a speech on the past and present standing of nushu, a special term including the literature and decorative items with nuzi.

Cao says that nuzi was created by and studied among the women of Jiangyong, most of whom had no opportunity for education. Such characters, which have been used in Jiangyong and its neighboring areas for centuries, were not known by men or outsiders.

In the past, women in Jiangyong often studied nuzi after spinning and weaving. They used nuzi to document local stories and write about friendship among women. . . .

Mechanical housefly

Technology Review reports:

A life-size, robotic fly has taken flight at Harvard University. Weighing only 60 milligrams, with a wingspan of three centimeters, the tiny robot's movements are modeled on those of a real fly. While much work remains to be done on the mechanical insect, the researchers say that such small flying machines could one day be used as spies, or for detecting harmful chemicals.

Via Cellar

Where's the pot of gold?

End of the rainbow located in Iceland. Via Arbroath

Whoopie Pie exposed

At Carin's

(For anyone who missed the conversation yesterday, Ana got sick on one of these. Luckily her haz bucket.)

Pardon me boy . . .

John at FYE posted this picture of a Welsh train station. It's on Paperclip's itinerary later this week.

Green roof, Manhattan

Via Wikipedia. See also, Cabinet of Wonders.

The door is open . . .

Come on in and talk.  Or drop off one of your random bursts of verbal energy -- poem, limerick, story, top ten list, clerihew, essay, alliterative poem, rant, Surrealist or Dadaist poem, parody, cento, dirty joke, amusing  syllepsis, dirty syllepsis, haiku, dirty haiku . . . to share.

Galileo's middle finger

It sits in a small glass egg atop an inscribed marble base in the Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza, or the History of Science Museum in Florence, Italy. . . . The finger was removed by one Anton Francesco Gori on March 12, 1737, 95 years after Galileo’s death. Passed around for a couple hundred years it finally came to rest in the Florence History of Science Museum. -- Curious Expeditions via Kircher

History of gin: the original Dutch courage

The first confirmed date for the production of gin is the early 17th century in Holland, although claims have been made that it was produced prior to this in Italy. In Holland it was produced as a medicine and sold in chemist shops to treat stomach complains, gout and gallstones. To make it more palatable, the Dutch started to flavour it with juniper, which has medicinal properties of its own.

British troops fighting in the Low Countries during the Thirty Years' War were given 'Dutch Courage' during the long campaigns in the damp weather through the warming properties of gin. Eventually they started brining it back home with them, where already it was often sold in chemists' shops. Distillation was taking place in a small way in England, but it began on a greater scale, though the quality was often very dubious. The new drink became a firm favourite with the poor.

Members of the formation by King Charles I of the Worshipful Company of Distillers hold the right to distill spirits in London and Westminster. -- Cocktail Times

More demonic possession

Unlocked Wordhoard brings up some very convincing objections to Peter Dendle's apparent contention that demonic possession was not a part of Angl0-Saxon belief systems and didn't become "popular" in England until the Normans imported it in 1066:

First off, if their leechbooks are any indicator (and I'd say they are), the Anglo-Saxons certainly thought that evil or mischievous spirits caused sickness and madness. In addition to afflictions from being elfshot, people could suffer from "fiendsickness" or "devilsickness." Hagiography had examples of people being tormented by demons or devils, and of course the idea of demonic forces working in our world likely first came to England long before even the Anglo-Saxons did, with the conversion of the Britons. The only way I can see this working out is to have an extremely narrow definition of "possession."

Even then, I'm skeptical of this claim. Let's say that we define "demon" and "possession" very narrowly -- i.e. demon means "evil spirit in league with the Christian Satan" and possession means "absolute control over every element of a person's body." Even then, this is a startling claim to make from negative evidence. Let's say we have no extant examples of such demonic possession from Anglo-Saxon England (we may not under such a narrow definition) -- does this then mean that they did not have demonic possession? That's a pretty big claim to make for a period with limited manuscript evidence.

Furthermore, the article seems to indicate that we do have manuscript evidence of demonic possession, in this 50-year outbreak in Northumbria. It strikes me that this is less likely an "outbreak," and more likely simply one of the few records that survived the dissolution of the monasteries and the fire at the Cotton Library.

I would just add, Dendle says, "There is no reference to a contemporary Anglo-Saxon case of possession for 300 years." If this means he's limiting allowable evidence to court cases and other legal documents like deeds and wills while excluding things like charms and leechbooks (medical books), I think he may be fudging the evidence -- perhaps because he wants to make a "statement." The National Geographic article says that Dendle "draws parallels between the phenomenon in medieval England and its resurgence in the West in recent decades," which I didn't mention in my original post because I thought it was probably hogwash and I'm deeply suspicious of scholars with extracurricular agendas. Now it looks like somebody's going to have to read the book.