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  • Cocaine, Nicotine and Ancient Egypt October 24, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient
    Cocaine, Nicotine and Ancient Egypt

    As regular readers of this column will attest Beachcombing is your typical small-minded historian. He doesn’t much like novelty and if there is a controversy he will float effortlessly into the orthodox camp. But with the argument over cocaine use in the ancient world he risks, however briefly, going the other way: if only to […]

    Caithness Mermaid Mystery 2: More Mermaids October 23, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern

    Mermaid posts. It has been a while… This one should be read together with another nineteenth-century Caithness sighting. It cannot be a coincidence that two letters were sent at the same time relating to the same village. Presumably the publicity given to Miss Mackay in late May for her sighting, encouraged or emboldened William Munro, […]

    Berlin, 30 April 1945 October 22, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Berlin, 30 April 1945

    Beachcombing had two formative experiences over the last week. One was discovering that peanut, banana and honey sandwiches can be substantially improved through the use of raw ginger. The other was watching Die Untergang (Downfall) the 2004 film describing the final days of Hitler in April 1945. On balance, Beach prefers the liberal use of […]

    Escapes, Wives and Cases October 21, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
    Escapes, Wives and Cases

    A reflection on escapees. Beachcombing  was brought up in the shadow of the Second World War where escape stories were  nutrition for a growing boy. Then he made the mistake of reading the Count of Monte Cristo at an impressionable age. Are there any more exciting pages in fiction than Edmond’s fake funeral? Beach can […]

    Eleven Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Strange Deaths October 20, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Eleven Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Strange Deaths

    A slow day in Beachcombing’s world. Exams, exams, exams… In any case, onto the post. The following extracts – yet more death, sorry – come from a rare eighteenth and nineteenth century sub-category of low journalism: the weird death. The closest in today’s world is to be found in Fortean Times’ very enjoyable Strange Deaths […]

    Immortal Meals 6#: Arguments at Tehran October 19, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Immortal Meals 6#: Arguments at Tehran

    WIBT (Wish I’d been there)  moments from the Big Three Conference at Tehran in 1943 are so numerous that a casual reader would be spoilt for choice: Marshal Voroshilov dropping the Sword of Stalingrad at the worst possible moment in the ceremonials; German intelligence’s attempts to kill Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin; agreement on the United […]

    Incitatus: Caligula’s Horse October 18, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient
    Incitatus: Caligula's Horse

    The mad and bad Gaius Caligula (37-41 AD), third emperor of Rome had a reputation for cruel insanity and was responsible for the death of his grandmother, his father and several thousand Romans. But no one could say that he didn’t treat his horses well. The most celebrated, Incitatus, was given a retinue of eighteen […]

    From the Mahogany Ship to Mons Badonicus: An Archaeological Fantasia October 17, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Contemporary, Medieval, Modern
    From the Mahogany Ship to Mons Badonicus: An Archaeological Fantasia

    Inspired by thoughts of Nag Hammadi, Howard Carter and Leslie Alcock at Cadbury Beachcombing spent an  evening wondering about archaeological fantasias, discoveries that he hopes will be made before he  himself becomes an archaeological subject and is put into the ground. Boudica’s grave. Boudica was, of course, the queen of the Iceni who gave Nero […]

    Swedish Husbands and Yemeni Wives October 16, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Actualite

    A bit of non-history fluff today that has been going around and around in Beachcombing’s head: the strange compatibilities and incompatibilities of married couples from different cultures. When British Beachcombing himself happily tied the knot with his Italian wife a decade ago, he was told that married life with ‘foreigners’ was more interesting but more […]

    The Wold Cottage Meteorite October 15, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    The Wold Cottage Meteorite

    Beachcombing has, over the months, given some publicity to meteorite history, the intrusion of bolides into human affairs, and today he thought he would do tribute to a rock that came hurtling from the sky in 1795. Though not in itself a particularly remarkable example of the shooting star the Wold Cottage Meteorite changed scientific […]

    Hearts, Genies and Gnosticism at Nag Hammadi October 14, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Ancient, Contemporary
    Hearts, Genies and Gnosticism at Nag Hammadi

    Howard Carter whispering ‘wonderful things’, Leslie Alcock finding Dark Age timber at Cadbury (‘that was Camelot’), Bedouin shepherds investigating a complex of caves at the Dead Sea… All wonderful, of course. But for Beachcombing none of these quite match the thrill of the discovery at Nag Hammadi in 1945. In that year, possibly in December, […]

    Suger’s Sherbert Holder October 13, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Medieval
    Suger's Sherbert Holder

    In previous posts Beachcombing has celebrated objects that have long and interesting histories: take, for example, the Baltic buddhas, Cellini’s canon or the Dauphin’s heart. It was with some excitement then that he just recently stumbled upon a vase that made, in the Middle Ages, its way from Moorish Spain through the hands of several […]

    Ultra, Enigma, Secrets and Squealing October 12, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary
    Ultra, Enigma, Secrets and Squealing

    Regular readers of this blog will know that Beach is extremely suspicious of conspiracy theories and those who write about them. However, one partial exception is Robin Ramsay, joint founder of Lobster Magazine, a Fortean Times columnist and a general conspiracy guru. RR certainly has a thorough understanding of conspiracy theorists: ‘[w]hat is wrong with […]

    Royal Claimants October 11, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Contemporary, Modern
    Royal Claimants

    A brief post today as visits from Beachcombing’s parents and his girls’s grandparents are proving a distraction. There is just time though to share with his readers a couple of fabulous photographs that he has dug up. At the head of this page you will find Sigismund Otto Maria Josef Gottfried Henrich Erik Leopold Ferdinand […]

    Maggie Walls and Witch Cobblers October 10, 2011

    Author: Beach Combing | in : Modern
    Maggie Walls and Witch Cobblers

    A historian is someone who spoils a good story with the truth. Bear this in mind as you read of the final extinction of the celebrated witch Maggie Walls, whose monument stands at Dunning in Perthshire. Maggie, legend tells, was burnt at the stake on this spot in 1657, though there is much doubt as […]