In the beginning was the egg …

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In the cosmogonies, the creation stories, of many cultures, the answer is surprisingly clear: the cosmic egg (also: world egg) is the origin of all things. Or is it not? For who created the cosmic egg? The myth of a primordial world egg was known in many...

NEW: Vegetus – Vegetarian Recipes from the Past

VEGETUS (Latin for lively or vivacious) presents a number of historical vegetarian recipes from the Ancient Near East, Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance that can be easily recreated at home, in a standard household kitchen. The broad time frame of this book allows an overview of traditions, developments and innovations in the...

Ancient Roman dinner

I've been preparing a historic dinner from Ancient Rome, based on recipes from Apicius' cookbook De re coquinaria, with lots of good and organic ingredients from our own soil. Starting with conditum paradoxum, a sweet, wine-based aperitif, some Roman bread baked with bay leaves, moretum - a herb and garlic cream cheese, eggs in ovis...

Archery

Archery is a pleasant and relaxing sport. It has been practised forever, or so it seems. When did humans really start using bow and arrow? And how did all the different types of bows develop: recurve bow, flatbow, longbow (that's what I use), self bow, or the composite bow? Bow and arrow have been used by...

The history of the yurt

The yurt is a portable round tent used by the nomads of the Central Asian steppes, nowadays notably in Mongolia where it is called a ger. It consists of an assembly of wooden or bamboo structures with elaborately carved and painted doors, which are covered with felt or skin, leaving a round opening in the...

Mundus Patet – Ancient Roman Halloween

Already in ancient Rome a kind of Halloween - Mundus Patet - was celebrated. Three times a year, end of August, beginning of October and beginning of November, the festival of the dead took place. The name Mundus Patet can be translated as "the earth is open", meaning that the the boundaries between the world of...

About the Origin of Wine

Who actually made the first wine? And where? Several Middle Eastern and Caucasus countries have been competing for the oldest traces of winemaking, even China is among the top five. But let's start from the beginning: Answering the question of the cradle of winemaking depends on how you define wine. A 9,000 year old residue...

Trullo symbols

The domes of many trulli are painted with different symbols of mostly apotropaic (= defense against evil) nature. Some of these symbols go back to antiquity but most used today are of Christian religious nature. According to Notarnicola (G. Notarnicola, I Trulli di Alberobello dalla Preistoria al Presente, Roma 1940.), the symbols can be divided...

The origin of the trullo

The origin of the trullo is unclear. It is often claimed that the shape of the trullo goes back to a 17th century tax evading scheme by the Counts of Acquaviva, ruling the County of Conversano – which included Alberobello – since 1481. According to this narrative, drystone architecture was imposed upon settlers so that...