Yes, I know we can buy these locally.

But look! They are pretty! And we can cut them apart and sew them back together for excellent Byzantine-type tunicy things.

Saris

Or at least it gives us some idea as to how much we might be paying for these.

artfacts, gold tiles

Look what I found. It seems the gold tile was a sandwiched tile.

http://www.iconastas.co.uk/stock.asp?Cat=5

http://mosaicartsource.wordpress.com/2007/02/05/galla-placidia-mausoleum-in-ravenna/

http://www.dimosaico.com/pages/about.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=dX-LYZKFcdsC&pg=PA37&lpg=PA37&dq=byzantine+gold+tile&source=web&ots=TuinNq8JYS&sig=zSUIi53FXyEzE3oPNtkA5vB0BUs&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result

Mosaic supply company

I found this online. They are based in Atlanta but are a warehouse. So, you have it shipped to you. They have all kinds of tile from cermanic to glass to marble.

Mosaic classes

In any case anyone is looking for the perfect present for me. How about a class in Italy about Mosaics ? Just kidding. It fun to think a studio is doing Byzantine mosaics today.

Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies Website

I found this a couple of weeks ago but didn't have time to post it. The link is to their "Byzantine Links" page but you may want to cheak out their other pages such as the "Society Publications" page. Make sure to scroll all the way down to the ideas for Amazon.

When again

Remind me when we said our first event was going to be.

Abel has been busy.

He came up with The Awesome. For sure:

"Who was looking for Tim Dawson's Everyday Women's Clothing of the Byzantine Empire?
It appears that he has it for sale on his website.
http://www.levantia.com.au/

Under 'products'.

Oh, and I assume that they have seen the http://nvg.org.au/

It is like an Australian SCA, but all Byzantine.

Oh, and the Levantia site talks about the first true 2-needle knitting under 'crafts'."

I'm just the messenger, folks, but it's a cool job.

Jewelry

Great job on the earrings guys!
I can't believe Margo put those together while suffering from heat stroke. :)

Here's a link to some extant jewelry...

Hot gold mess

Earrings, first attempt.

I'm not sure how accurate these are (aesthetically, yes, but historically, I'll need to research more), but I'm proud of them as a first attempt.


(Sorry about the blurriness; the kitchen was not the best place to do this).
Made at Kingdom A&S, sitting outside in a tent, exclusively from memory. I think I will be making many more pairs in the future.

Not bad for 10 minutes work

So I got some beads and started playing around, and this was the first I came up with. The little dangles are real pearls, and cost 75 cents apiece (which is probably steep, but what the hell). The gold beads are galvanized gold 6/0 seed beeds that I got to play with. While I was at the bead shop I also got two strands of pearls and assorted other stuff to play with. Now I am working on making the bracelets. I very much must have them.

Fonts

Here are some fonts I found. They have some great Byzantine designs which may be good for ideas.

Byzantine Textiles

Mistress Irina sent me a link that she thought we might all like.

German Museum Stuff

Jewelry TO

OK, from the awesome link that Rachael provided I ended up surfing around on Opus Interrasile and found a couple of interesting sources. The Met itself sells reproduction jewelry, if you surf their store you can find some awesome (if expensive) stuff. One that I thought might be within reach for some people is Here

Now, that is a little steep so I also found some not so perfect reproduction stuff that still looks pretty good Here at a cheaper price.

I am fascinated by the jewelry and the Rock Crystal pieces that are on the Met site. Now to figure out how to do it.

Met's Byzantium Collection

Here is what the Met has. There are pictures and essays.

Met's Byzantium Collection

Here is what they have. There are some pictures and essays.

Awsome museum

"The Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Collection is one of the finest collections of artifacts from the Byzantine Empire. Spanning the imperial, ecclesiastical, and secular realms, the collection comprises more than twelve hundred objects from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries."

They have some of their stuff online. They also have an awsome library. Reading about it made me drool. Too bad it is in Washington, D.C.

Shoes

Furniture

lookie, lookie!!!!

http://www.levantia.com.au/dailylife/furniture.html

Chairs for everyone...and they're collapsible.

Ducks? Check! Lotus? Check! Mosaic? Check!

It is every thing I need. That is all. Oh, yeah, and it's Byzantine.

In my search

For Byzantine silverware, I found this:

Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium

Dry, no? Well, it's full of all kinds of fun details about the silver trade in early Byzantium, and it's good for culture, if nothing else. There's a bit of a preview online, and then you can buy or ILL the whole book.

Can anybody locate a catalog for this exhibit? They apparently have common household items (*ahem* silverware) on display. It could be useful.

Gotta go. More later.

Ebay Store

This merchant has drool-worthy trim and appliques. I've bought bullion wire from them.
Unfortunately, the stuff I like the best is 24.99 a yard. :)
http://stores.ebay.com/Heritage-Trading

Looks really Interesting

In looking for more Biz. food books I stumbled across this:

And the summary is:

Written by specialists in several disciplines, this volume explores the parameters and significance of magic in Byzantine society, from the fourth century to after the empire's fall. The authors address a wide variety of questions, some of which are common to all historical research into magic, and some of which are peculiar to the Byzantine context.

The authors reveal the scope, the forms, and the functioning of magic in Byzantine society, throwing light on a hitherto relatively little-known aspect of Byzantine culture, and, at the same time, expanding upon the contemporary debates concerning magic and its roles in pre-modern societies.

***

The publisher is Dumbarton Oaks and the ISBN is 978-0884022305

I really want to ILL this - now when can I get to the Library?

Tickle anyone else's fancy?

Aha!

Okay, okay. I found this book:



I looked through the table of contents, and it's in English (which is good, because I don't read, um Dutch? German? If I can't tell what it is, I certainly can't read it). It's full of really obscure information that is useful to us, such as types of incense, material culture, clothing, houses, and other interesting subjects. It's essentially a collection of academic papers from an international conference on the subject.

It's 78 Euro to purchase, so if anybody finds a source that's cheaper, that would be awesome.

The wikipedia article on Byzantine dress is mostly an overview, but is interesting because of the photo of a glove about halfway down the page, which, although late in the Byzantine period, shows an excellent example of the ostentation of the embroidery:



Some of the links at the bottom of the article contain images from the same exhibit at Palermo, (such as this one:

)

and also an exhibit at the Met. The rest of the links are mostly things that I think the ChickenGoddess has mentioned previously, but the article collects them into one single list quite nicely.

And then after I posted, I found this:



Plates and things, and I'm looking for something that shows me eating utensils (there is the legend about the Byzantine princess/queen introducing the fork to the uncivilized peoples of Europe, so I'll see if that has any truth).

And that's all I've got for now, folks. Let me know if I'm repeating anything...

In The Beginning

I've ordered a couple of books from Amazon. I figured that if I'm going to be doing this for a year, I should at least own a couple of books on the subject.

Everyday Life in Byzantium by Rice, Tamara Talbot
Ancient Greek, Roman & Byzantine Costume by Houston, Mary G.

I'm hoping the second one can give me some better ideas about design elements for the embroidery.

I've also ILL'd
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry (Luke 12:19) Food and Wine in Byzantium (Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies)

I wasn't prepared to pay $90 for it.
Also, when I discussed clothing with Young Ploppy, he wants his Dalmatica to be light gold with orange clavi and segmentae. God help my burning eyeballs. I didn't ask him about a paludamentum color, I was worried he'd want fuchsia.

Perhaps, when we all start talking about clothing a colors, we can look into buying bolts of silk. Silk Connention has Chinese Dupioni on 50yd bolts for $6.95 a yard. We'd have to dye it, but that could be a fun project as well. :) I've always wanted to use this stuff:
jacquard products

And, last but not least, I highly recommend this site for Linen:
fabrics-store.com
I'm sure that the majority of you already know about it...but just in case :)

And now that the Ambien haze has settled over me....I'm going to bed.

But I'm definitely at excitement factor 5, Captain.

Lets get started!

Hello, everybody! I am setting up a blog for us to use for communication and to chronicle the project. This isn't mandatory, but I think it will be helpful, and ultimately, we will have our project out there where other folks can see what we're doing (and what we've done). I have sent out invites to everyone I have an email address for, and I would encourage you to accept the invites even if you don't think you'll be posting. I have the comments limited to members only both to cut down on spam and to keep random pointless feedback from strangers to a minimum. If there is anyone on this project who needs to be added, that can happen, all I need is an email address. I will be arranging our first meeting soon, and we will get this ball rolling.

I'm really excited about this and I am happy that so many other folks seem excited as well. Thanks for supporting this concept, I think we will all have fun and learn a lot.