The Pennsic Wars of Coopers Lake

THE PENNSIC WARS OF COOPERS LAKE

A campground becomes a 15000 member/medieval town for 2 weeks every year

CULTURES AND CIVILIZATIONS

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CONTRIBUTORS: kqbarnes4, Rachel, anhie, EricGrundhauser

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It all began rather innocuously at a backyard party in 1966. In celebration of all things medieval, a group of medieval studies grad-students dressed up and whacked at each other with fake swords, a fight which culminated into an impromptu parade down Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, California.

From this modest party would come the "Society for Creative Anachronism" and the Pennsic War, a two week mock 'war' in which 10,000 - 15,000 knights, maidens, and other creatively anachronistic people descend on Slippery Rock, Pennsylvania, briefly turning a local campsite into the 3rd largest city in Butler County, PA.

Campers dress in medieval clothing, often camp in period pavilions, and organize huge fights with thousands of armor-clad knights armed with wooden swords and maces. The medieval themed event is so large that it has its own Mayor and post office for those particular two weeks.

The Pennsic Wars are named after a combination of Pennsylvania and Punic War. Held at the Coopers Lake Campground, the 2010 annual event will celebrate its 39th war, or in Pennsic War numbers, XXXIX.

The 'war' is held between two groups of the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Kingdom of the East and the Middle Kingdom. The challenge for the Pennsic war was begun when King Irial and Queen Morna, the elect royals of the Middle Kingdom, delivered an arrow of war to King Rakkuri and Queen Maureen of the East. It was originally held to decide ownership over the Debatable Lands (also known as Pittsburgh). However since the area formed their own Kingdom of Aethelmearc it has become more of "an earnest desire to have fun and engage in chivalric combat of the highest.” Compared to other similar SCA events, some people claim this is "The Super Bowl of Medieval Combat." with participants coming from all the world.

In addition to combat, festival participants can enroll in many courses at Pennsic University. The courses are led by medieval cultural scholars, and topics range from fashion (embroidery, Indian draping, tin hat-making), cooking (Ottoman cuisine, Anglo-Saxon foods, fire pit breadbaking), to general lifestyle workshops (flirtacious dancing, juggling, improv). Hundreds of merchants also showcase their works on the campground, making Pennsic's shopping centers some of the "best in the Known 

Sip and Ship

Sip and Ship

Cool business

This post office/coffee shop takes all the stress out of mailing a package; simply bring in the item you need shipped and you can sit back and enjoy an organic latte while the accommodating staff takes care of the rest.

Sip and Ship offers expert packaging and even gift wrapping along with mail and dispatch services worldwide, all from a relaxed coffee house environment.  The coffee is farm-direct and locally roasted, the baked goods are home-made in house and recycled packaging can be used upon request.  You can even arrange to have your personal packages delivered to Sip and Ship, they'll send you a text to let you know as they arrive.  

There's also a gift shop in-store offering custom-made local goods, children's toys, bath products and wine so you can buy a present and have it wrapped and shipped to the other side of the world all while eating breakfast.  It's ingeniously painless and convenient, leaving you with extra time to sip your coffee and feel smug about how much smarter you are than the suckers still waiting in line at the post office. 

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Press Announcements > FDA defines “gluten-free” for food labeling

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Elite Viking jewelry found on modest Denmark farm

The History Blog » Blog Archive » Elite Viking jewelry found on modest Denmark farm

An extensive archaeological survey of a farmstead on the Danish island of Zealand slated for residential development uncovered traces of a Late Iron Age/Viking Age settlement and several pieces of important metal jewelry from that era. Between April and December of 2007, experts from Roskilde Museum excavated a total of approximately 27,000 square meters (290,000 square feet) on the 15 hectare Vestervang farm. They found the remains of 18 longhouses and 21 pit houses of modest size — none were more than 65 feet long — which weren’t all constructed at the same time. This wasn’t a town but rather a single farm built up over time in six phases between the late seventh century and the early 11th.
The jewelry unearthed on the site of this farm is far more luxurious than you might expect to find at a modest farm size. There are gilded pieces, intricately carved pendants and brooches, probably imports like a trefoil brooch from 850-950 A.D. designed in a Carolingian style and a pre-Viking brooch with a gold accents in a waffle texture and Christian cross motif in red glass that reminds me of some of the Staffordshire Hoard pieces.
The star of the show is a copper alloy piece 2.9 inches in diameter with a central animal figure wearing a beaded chain around its neck. Three masked figures with moustaches are placed around the object, one on either side of the main character, one across from it. Four holes between the masked men suggest there was additional decoration, perhaps two more animal figures like the central one. Experts believe it may have been part of a necklace.
According to the archaeologist Ole Thirup Kastholm, author of a paper on the excavation published in the latest issue of the Danish Journal of Archaeology, this is a rare piece and would have been extremely high-end in Viking times.

He said that the animal image itself seems to be anthropomorphic, something not unusual in Viking age art. “Some of these anthropomorphic pictures, though, might be seen as representations of ‘shamanic’ actions, i.e. as mediators between the ‘real’ world and the ‘other’ world,” Kastholm wrote in an email to LiveScience. He can’t say for sure who would have worn it, but it “certainly (was) a person with connections to the elite milieu of the Viking age.”

The Christian cross also must have adorned a person of rank. Made between 500 and 750 A.D., it’s not the product of local artisans. It was in all likelihood manufactured in continental Europe and decades or centuries later made its way to Southern Scandinavia, either through trade networks or perhaps carried by a Christian visitor.
What would make this tidy but seemingly unremarkable farm a magnet for such expensive, rare jewelry? Kastholm thinks the key is the farm’s proximity to Lejre, a site just six miles away which according to Beowulf and the Saga of King Hrolf Kraki was the royal seat of the legendary first ruling Danish dynasty the Skjöldung or Scylding clan.

In the 1960s, there was vast residential development in the area of Vestervang, but maps that predate the development show two villages near the site with “Karleby” in their name, something that may signify that the area was given to retainers of Lejre’s ruler.
“The old Scandinavian term karl, corresponding with the old English ceorl, refers to a member of the king’s professional warrior escort, the hirð,” Kastholm writes in the journal article.
Together, the rich jewelry finds at Vestervang, the site’s proximity to Lejre and the presence of two nearby villages with the names “Karleby” reveal what life may have been like at Vestervang.
It “seems probable that the settlement of Vestervang was a farm controlled by a Lejre superior and given to generations of retainers, i.e. to a karl of the hirð,” Kastholm writes. “This would explain the extraordinary character of the stray finds contrasting with the somewhat ordinary traces of settlement.”

The Town that spent 25 Years Underwater

The Town that spent 25 Years Underwater

This is Villa Epecuen, an old tourist town south of Buenos Aires that spent a quarter of a century underwater. Established in the 1920s on the banks of a salt lake, the town was home to over 5,000 residents and a holiday destination to thousands more vacationers from the Argentinian capital.

In 1985, a dam burst and buried the town in 33 feet of salt water, rendering it a modern-day Atlantis. Initially, people waited on their roofs, hoping for the water to recede. It didn’t, and within two days, the place was a devastated ghost town.

In 2009, the waters began to recede and what emerged resembles an apocalyptic world.

Evenly-spaced dead trees still line what used to be streets, rusty bed frames poke out from concrete rubble and sign posts point to nowhere.

Amazingly, one resident remained in this desolate place. Pablo Novak was the only person not to leave his hometown when the water swallowed it up in 1985. He lives in a stone hut with a fridge and a basic cooker. I guess there’s no place like home…

Source: Imgur

Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle) | Atlas Obscura

Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle) | Atlas Obscura 

Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle)

A chapel on a volcanic core, marking the end of a successful journey

Fiery Wonders, Curious Places of Worship

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  Chapelle Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle)

  Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacred_destin... | Copyright: Creative Commons
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  Chapelle Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle)

  Photo by http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aiguilhe... | Copyright: Creative Commons
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  Chapelle Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle)

  Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/drogue/191588... | Copyright: Creative Commons

Chapelle Saint Michel d'Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle)

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/sacred_destin... | Copyright: Creative Commons

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Contributors: Annetta, Allison, Dylan

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In the winter of 951, Bishop Godescalc of the French village Le Puy-en-Velay returned from an overland journey to the shrine of St. James, located about 1000 miles away, across the Pyrenees, in Santiago de Compostela, Spain. To mark his successful return from this first pilgrimage he had the diminutive chapel built atop the towering volcanic core in the center of town.
The village of Le Puy-en-Velay is located in an valley surrounded by evidence of ancient volcanoes, two of which have left behind volcanic plugs. Le Puy-en-Velay had been a sacred destination in its own right before Godescalc's big adventure, but ever since it has marked the starting point of the Via Podiensis pilgrimage route, a tradition that lasts to this day with modern pilgrims arriving to have their walking sticks blessed in the Cathedral before setting out in Godescalc's footsteps.
Aiguilhe means "needle", and like many lofty Christian sacred spaces, the chapel atop it is dedicated to the Archangel Michael, likely because of his propensity to appear on mountain tops and other high places. The architecture of the chapel reflects the influence of Spain, with homages to the grand mosque of Cordoba in the stone work.
The volcanic core is 269 feet high, and the tiny pad at the top is just 187 feet diameter. It can be reached via 268 stone steps that wind up the side.
Across town on another volcanic core Notre-Dame de France watches over the town. The monumental statue dates to 1860, and was made by melting down 213 Russian cannons seized in the Crimean War under command of Napoleon III