Erik – Page 6 – Co-Geeking

Quotes: He Lay on top of Me Like an Enormous Stone

March 11, 2024March 3, 2024Erik1 Comment

Saint Patrick’s Day is coming, and while some folk will be out there marching in parades or drinking green beer, I am reminded that Patrick is the source of one of the clearest early accounts of sleep paralysis and the frightening sensations that can come with it.

Patrick wrote an account of his life, called the Confession. This document was written late in his life and in response to some unknown allegations of misconduct during his mission in Ireland. Patrick’s Confession accordingly focuses on his humility and spiritual piety as it tells the story of how he was enslaved in Ireland as a young man, escaped to Britain, and finally returned to spread the Christian message. At one point in narrating his escape, Patrick recounts a frightening nighttime experience which he perceived as a demonic attack:

On that very night as I was sleeping, Satan tested me powerfully, such that I shall remember it for as long as I am in this body. He lay on top of me like an enormous stone, and I had no strength in any of my limbs. How did it occur to me, ignorant in spirit, to cry out “Elias?” In the midst of this, I saw the sun begin to rise in the sky, and as I shouted “Elias! Elias!” with all my strength, behold, the splendor of the sun fell over me and at once all the weight left me.
Saint Patrick, Confession 20

(My own translation)

Sleep paralysis is a frightening experience that happens when the brain’s processes for falling asleep or waking up are not quite in sync. In normal sleep, the body becomes paralyzed at the same time the brain becomes unconscious, and both states pass when we wake up. Sleep paralysis happens when the body is paralyzed but the brain is partially aware of its surroundings. Unable to properly process stimuli, the brain fills in the gaps with hallucinations. Because the brain is aware of the body’s vulnerability in its paralyzed state, these hallucinations often feel threatening. It is not unusual for a sufferer to scream themselves awake in response. Sleep paralysis most often happens in the evening when first going to sleep or in the early morning while waking up.

Many cultures have folk traditions that interpret sleep paralysis as the effect of hostile supernatural visitation. Old-fashioned explanations include incubi, night hags, and ghosts; more modern folktales may feature alien abduction. Patrick details a clear account of sleep paralysis—it happens at dawn, he is unable to move, he feels a weight on his body and perceives a hostile presence which he shouts away—but interprets the events in a specifically Christian context.

Patrick’s night terrors are a reminder of both the universality of human experiences, and how powerfully our own specific cultural outlook can shape our reactions to those experiences.

Serving exactly what it sounds like, the Quotes feature excerpts other people’s thoughts.

Envisioning Persepolis

February 26, 2024February 25, 2024Erik1 Comment

Persepolis was the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. While other cities such as Babylon, Susa, and Ecbatana had royal residences and centers of administration, Persepolis was the symbolic heart of the empire. It was here that one of the central rituals of Achaemenid rule was carried out, the annual presentation of gifts from the peoples of the empire to the king.

Early Persian kings, like Darius I and Xerxes I, built up the palace at Persepolis into an impressive monument suitable for the ceremony. Persepolis was meant to be both imposing and welcoming, asserting the king’s power while also embracing the diverse peoples of the empire in a peaceful ritual in which they were treated as valued members of the empire, not defeated subjects.

It was in part because of Persepolis’ symbolic significance that Alexander the Great burned the palace in his conquest of Persia. The site of the palace was not reoccupied but was left in ruins, which has allowed modern archaeologists to reconstruct the Achaemenid palace in significant detail.

The stills below come from a video exploring a digital reconstruction of the palace, which can be viewed on Wikipedia.

In a wide view, we see the palace complex as it stood at the edge of the hills. The large columned hall in the center is the apadana or throne room where the king received the delegations of gift-bearers from around the empire. To the left is the Gate of All Nations, through which the procession of gift-bearers entered the complex, and to the right are the buildings of the treasury where the ceremonial gifts were stored after the ritual was completed.

A view of Persepolis, still from a video by ZDF/Terra X/interscience film/Faber Courtial, Gero von Boehm/Hassan Rashedi, Andreas Tiletzek, Jörg Courtial via Wikipedia

From a ground-level view we see the Gate of All Nations, erected by Xerxes, which gave admission to the courtyard before the apadana.

The Gate of All Nations, still from a video by ZDF/Terra X/interscience film/Faber Courtial, Gero von Boehm/Hassan Rashedi, Andreas Tiletzek, Jörg Courtial via Wikipedia

Another ground-level view gives us an idea of what it would have been like to approach the apadana, with some human and animal figures for scale.

The north porch of the apadana, still from a video by ZDF/Terra X/interscience film/Faber Courtial, Gero von Boehm/Hassan Rashedi, Andreas Tiletzek, Jörg Courtial via Wikipedia

The whole video is well worth a watch. It can be quite valuable to try to imagine ancient spaces not as the ruins we find them in today but as living places filled with life and activity.

Out There highlights intriguing art, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Love Beyond Death

February 12, 2024August 6, 2023Erik

It is a beautiful thing to imagine that the love we feel in life might last beyond death. This Etruscan sarcophagus lid expresses that hope.

Sarcophagus lid via Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (found Vulci, currently Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; 350-300 BCE; marble)

This fine piece of sculpture adorns the top of a sarcophagus inscribed with the names of Thanchvil Tarnai and her husband Larth Tetnies. The couple are shown together, nude under a sheet, facing one another in a loving embrace. This is not the only Etruscan sarcophagus to depict the deceased as a loving couple sharing a couch, but it is one of the most intimate.

Sometimes, it may be hard to imagine finding someone you could even share a lifetime with, let alone someone you would want to spend eternity beside. If you find the right person, though, it’s sweet to think that your love could last that long.

Out There is an occasional feature highlighting intriguing art, spaces, places, phenomena, flora, and fauna.

Train Like a Spartan

January 29, 2024January 28, 2024Erik

There are some folks who are very into bodybuilding, weightlifting, and other such activities and who like to fancy themselves as the heirs of the ancient Greeks, especially the Spartans. Now, there’s nothing at all wrong with having hobbies like these. Do what makes you happy, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise! But the ancient Spartans wouldn’t want modern bodybuilders among their number.

The details of ancient Spartan training are not easy to be certain about, since many of the sources that describe them were written by non-Spartans, often those who held unrealistically admiring attitudes toward Sparta. Yet even these sources are of some interest, because they were written by people familiar with the conditions of ancient warfare trying to imagine what kind of training a nation of perfect warriors would institute for themselves. Among these descriptions we find very little focus on getting big muscles or sculpted abs. Spartan training instead focused on two things: the endurance of hardship and camaraderie among the Spartiate elite.

A Spartan character by the name of Megillus in conversation with an Athenian interlocutor in Plato’s dialogue The Laws gives this account of the most important institutions in Spartan life:

Athenian: […] Should we say that the eating clubs and exercise grounds were established by the lawgiver for the sake of war?

Megillus: Indeed.

Athenian: Is there a third and fourth thing? […]

Megillus: The third thing he instituted is hunting, as I and any Lacedaimonian will tell you.

Athenian: Let us try to state the fourth thing, if we can.

Megillus: I will try to explain the fourth thing as well: we train ourselves to endure pain, both by fighting each other hand-to-hand and by stealing at the risk of a sound beating every time. Also the “Crypteia,” as some call it, is an astonishingly painful thing to endure, as they go barefoot in winter, sleep rough, attend to themselves without servants, and wander the whole countryside both by day and night. In our Gymnopaideia festival we face awful sufferings as we contend with the stifling summer heat, and there are so many more examples that listing them all off would nearly take forever.
Plato, Laws 633a-c

(My own translations)

There are good reasons why Spartan training focused on these areas rather than building muscle or cutting fat. Fighting makes up a very small part of what soldiers do in war. Most of an ancient soldier’s activity was marching, setting up and taking down camps, marauding for food and supplies, standing watch, and carrying out maneuvers. Even when the moment to fight came, big masses of muscle were of less use than the willingness to stand and fight and risk one’s life for one’s fellow soldiers.

In these conditions, physical endurance and a commitment to the one’s comrades were what mattered. Soldiers who could march for days on little food and no sleep were worth far more than those with low body fat. Maintaining big muscles and a sculpted physique takes time, food, and sleep that soldiers on the march couldn’t afford. Such fighters would be dead weight on their comrades, not an asset on the battlefield.

The poet Archilochus, who had experience as a mercenary soldier, gave his own opinion about soldiers who liked to show off their bodies:

I don’t like a general who is big or who likes to run,

nor one who is vain about his curly locks or sculpts his beard.

Give me a little bandy-legged-looking one

who’s steady on his feet and full of guts.
Archilochus, quoted/paraphrased in Dio Chrysostom, Orations 33.17

Now, while bodybuilding was not a favorite Spartan pastime, there were two activities for which Spartans were famous that trained both endurance and the ability to work well with the people around you: dancing and choral singing. Spartans were renowned for their skills in both coordinated group dances and singing together.

So, if you really want to train like a Spartan, leave the gym and the weights behind and go join a choir or take a ballet class. That will make a true Spartan out of you.

Image: Gerard Butler as Leonidas in 300 via IMDb

History for Writers looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool, from worldbuilding to dialogue.

How to Get Away With Murder, In Ancient Rome, With a Bear

January 15, 2024October 22, 2023Erik

If someone out there is looking for a good plot for an ancient Roman mystery thriller, here’s a tip. There’s a famous case in classical Roman law according to which it is possible to get someone killed and face no legal consequences. The catch is: you have to get lucky, and you have to use a wild animal like a bear.

To start with, we have to lay down a few fundamentals of Roman law: dominium and possessio. Dominium means ownership, the absolute right to control a particular piece of property. Possessio, unsurprisingly, means possession, the direct control of property.

In most cases, people have both dominium and possessio at the same time. You own a vase, which you keep in your house as decoration on a table—you have both the legal right to that vase (dominium) and direct physical control over it (possessio). It is also possible to have one without the other. If you lend that vase to a friend so they can decorate their house for a party, you still own the vase (dominium) even without possessio; as long as your friend has it in their house, they have possessio, but that doesn’t give them dominium.

Now, if someone uses that vase to smash someone over the head and kill them, it doesn’t matter who owned or possessed the vase. Inanimate objects are not responsible for what people do with them. The person who did the smashing is liable for the results of their actions. Neither an owner nor a lawful possessor is liable for what other people do with their property.

With animals, though, we get into a more complicated area. Sometimes people can directly provoke animals to cause harm, like spooking a herd of cattle into a stampede or siccing a dog on another person. In those cases, Roman law recognizes that the person who provoked the animals is responsible for the harm they caused, in the same way that someone who picks up a vase and smashes it over someone else’s head is responsible for the damage done by the vase. Yet animals can also act on their own initiative. A charging bull or biting dog can ruin someone’s day without a person directly commanding it, and you can’t sue an animal for the damage it causes.

To deal with cases where animals caused harm without direct human intervention, Roman law provided the action of pauperies. In a lawsuit for pauperies, the owner of an animal was held legally liable for harm the animal did when acting on its own nature. It didn’t matter whether the owner caused the animal to act, or was even present when the damage was done. The person who had dominium of an animal was responsible for what that animal did. (There was a limit, however: if a person was sued for damages done by their animal, they could escape all liability by handing over the animal in question to the wronged party. In this way, the limit of liability was the value of the animal itself.)

For domesticated animals, pauperies provided a degree of legal recourse, because a domestic animal always belongs to someone. Even if your bull breaks out of its paddock and goes on a rampage through town, it’s still your bull. Once the bull is off your property, it is no long in your possessio, but you still have dominium and the legal liability that goes with it.

Wild animals are a different case. Under Roman law, you can have dominium over a wild animal only so long as you have possessio of it. If you are hunting a deer and catch it in a trap, the deer belongs to you as long as it is in your trap or if you can get a rope on it to wrangle it back to your property, but if it breaks free and runs off through the woods, you loose your claim to it unless you catch it again. If another hunter kills the deer while it is running from you, you have no recourse against them, because as soon as the deer is out of your possessio, it is also out of your dominium.

So far so good. All of these legal principles have a sound practical purpose and make logical sense. When we put them together, though, an unexpected result emerges.

Suppose you have a bear in a cage. A bear is a wild animal, like a deer, so as long as it is in your direct physical control, it belongs to you. If the bear reaches out of its cage and mauls someone, you are legally on the hook for damage because it is an animal in your dominium. But what if it gets out? Once the bear escapes its cage and is running free, you no longer have direct physical over it, so you lose possessio. Because it is a wild animal, not a domestic one, as soon as you lose possessio, you also lose dominium. On one hand, that means that if someone else captures or kills the bear, you have no legal right to sue them or demand they return it to you. On the other hand, you also have no legal liability for any damage the bear does.

It would take a lot of luck to pull off, but if you can concoct the right scenario where a dangerous animal gets loose at the right time and kills the person you want to target, under Roman law, you would be free and clear.

Image: Roman mosaic of a bear, photograph by Jerzystrzelecki via Wikimedia (currently Bardo Museum, Tunisia; Roman period; tile mosaic)

History for Writers looks at how history can be a fiction writer’s most useful tool, from worldbuilding to dialogue.

Dragonflight: A Mid-Expansion Reflection

December 15, 2023December 9, 2023Erik

We’ve been in Dragonflight for about a year, and we now know that the next World of Warcraft expansion is about a year away, so it seems like a good time to reflect on what we like and don’t like about this expansion.

Erik

I have been very happy with this expansion overall. I enjoy a lot of things about it, and I will be quite content to spend the next year or so in and around the Dragon Isles.

The only thing I really dislike about Dragonflight is dragonriding. I learned how to use the system effectively to get around, and it doesn’t bother me very much any more, but I have never enjoyed it. I find it over-designed and unengaging. It’s nice that, in the right terrain, it gives you a faster way to get from point A to point B, but it doesn’t give me the thrill that it gives a lot of other people. I accept that I am in a small minority with this opinion, and I am happy for everyone else who is enjoying dragonriding, but I’m delighted to be able to go back to the old, regular flying, even if it is slower. The rest of you can zoom and swoop ahead of me as much as you like; I’ll get there when I get there.

I love the Dragon Isles zone design. The artwork of this expansion is beautiful and bold. Every zone has its own identity while also feeling like they belong in the same space together. Having the four main zones in contiguous space, even though separated by cliffs and ridges, is also something I appreciate. The Shadowlands zones were well designed, but the fact that they were all separate from one another at times felt claustrophobic. I don’t much care for Zaralek Caverns, but I can mostly ignore that zone and still have plenty of things to do elsewhere.

I like that this expansion has taken a different approach to quests, dialog, characters, and their stories than we have seen in most of previous WoW. After a year of living with the story of Dragonflight, I think I can put my finger on what makes this expansion different: it is about the nuances of how we respond to trauma. Dragonflight is full of characters living with and reacting to histories of trauma, but different characters respond to that trauma in different ways. I know some players have been frustrated with the Dragonflight story and are annoyed that this expansion is less about Dragons Having Awesome Fights and more about Dragons Having Feelings and Talking, but I really appreciate an expansion that takes seriously the idea that the things we experience can inspire feelings other than rage and reactions other than violence. The last time World of Warcraft tried to engage with the trauma of war and the power of emotions was Mists of Pandaria, which lacked subtlety and came off as shallow and preachy. Dragonflight feels like the Warcraft writers’ room is finally staffed by people who have an adult understanding of life, and I hope that this is a change that sticks.

In terms of systems and gameplay, there has been a lot of good development in Dragonflight. I was a fan of the new talent trees from early on, and my fondness for them has not wavered. Now that I have had some time to play with the new crafting mechanisms, I am mostly happy with them—they sometimes feel overly complicated, but I largely enjoy exploring the new options that the crafting system has opened up. Once I got used to the flightstone/crest gear upgrade system, I’ve found it quite workable, and I really appreciate getting to collect tier sets without having to raid. The proliferation of world quests and events in the open world has sometimes felt bewildering, but for the most part, I appreciate always having something to do.

Eppu

Unlike Erik, I LOVE dragonriding! It’s perhaps my most favorite single thing in Dragonflight. Don’t get me wrong, it was a learning curve, and I still stumble occasionally (especially if my ageing mouse decides to act up). Optimally, I’d like a multi-character dragonriding vehicle (like the Sandstone Drake), so that when we play together I could ride us around and Erik would get the benefit of faster transit without the bother.

WoW Dragonflight Onahran Plains Emerald Bubble

I do agree with Erik about the zone design. It’s an absolutely gorgeous expansion. While Zaralek Cavern is not a favorite zone, per se, I quite like the cave-ish-ness of it, for the lack of a better word. Deepholm was already an impressive, underground-cavern-like-enough space with multiple levels of quest areas and subzones. ZC takes the fully matured terrain design to its logical conclusion with an absolutely, breath-takingly amazing underground space that is somehow at the same time huge enough to allow dragonriding between areas and claustrophobic enough to feel constricting. Hats off to the design team from me!

I also agree with Erik on collecting some tier gear without raiding. I have quite enough on my plate at the moment without that particular time sink.

However. Am I the only one who’s driven to distraction by the [multiple expletives removed] constant resetting of talent trees? Sheesh! While I’m all for tweaking and re-tweaking certain aspects of one’s life to one’s satisfaction, a computer game character’s talents isn’t one of them, and certainly not over and over and over. Perhaps I should just go with the suggested talent builds instead, even if it means losing some individuality.

I still find that the world quest refresh rate doesn’t work for me, and events don’t make up for that lack. Because I’m dealing with a more limited gaming time IRL, the last thing I want is to have to track game events’ start times and schedule my playing accordingly. Bleah.

Another aspect that currently doesn’t work for me—and for exactly the same reason as above—is the writers’ room’s penchant for ending campaign quest chains in a dungeon. Although, it sounds like Blizzard is about to change that radically with the new Follower Dungeons coming soon-ish(?) in patch 10.2.5. (In short, the idea is that players form a dungeon group with 1-4 characters and the game generates NPCs for the remaining slots.) I’m rather looking forward to being able to run a leveling dungeon privately, without risking a random jerk (or two or three) with a Looking For Group run.

The new customization options for druids at the barber shop are great fun.

WoW Dragonflight Druid Moonkin Form Barbershop

What kinds of thoughts do you have on Dragonflight thus far? Chime in!

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

A Gem-Studded Transmog for a Jewelcrafter

December 11, 2023November 12, 2023Erik1 Comment

My Highmountain Tauren hunter is a jewelcrafter, so I’ve given her a transmog with a suitably gem-studded look. The cool colors of the gems are set off against gold and silver metalwork.

Maybe not a very practical set of garb for stealthily prowling the wilderness, but, eh, what’s fantasy for?

Here are the pieces that went into making the set.

Image: World of Warcraft screencap

Of Dice and Dragons talks about games and gaming.

Making Clothes 9: Calculations

December 1, 2023December 1, 2023Erik2 Comments

This post is a part of our Making Clothes series.

Now that we’ve gone through the process of producing raw materials, turning those materials into textiles, and turning those textiles into clothing, we’re rounding out this series with a little math. Given the labor and resources that went into making one outfit, how long would it have taken to make, from start to finish, and how much land did it take to grow everything on?

Our figures here are necessarily approximate. There are too many variables to take them all into account. A good year’s flax harvest or a clumsy hand at wool-carding could make a difference to how fast workers could gather and process materials. We’re also generally working with optimistic estimates. A more thoroughly realistic assessment would have to allow for lost time and material from shrinkage, breakage, wastage, crop failures, inclement weather, and so on. We’re aiming here to get a rough sense of just how much of an investment of labor time and productive land, at minimum, one set of clothes represented in the pre-modern world.

We are also assuming a community of skilled agriculturalists and crafters who know their trade and do not need to be taught or to experiment with processes of production. The passing on of such knowledge to new generations was in itself an important part of historical agricultural and textile production, but we leave that labor out of our calculations.

Our example outfit consists of several pieces, each of which required materials and labor to make:

A long-sleeved linen undertunic reaching to the mid-thigh
A long-sleeved silk overtunic reaching to the knees
Leather footwear
A rectangular wool cloak of about knee-length

To see what it would take to produce this outfit, it is helpful to think backwards: the dimensions of our imaginary wardrobe tell us how much raw material would be needed to make it, which in turn dictates how much work would go into producing that material. We’re imagining this outfit for a person of any gender of about medium height and build. It does not represent any specific historical outfit, and does not belong to any particular place or time; a certain amount of vagueness in the design allows our outfit to reasonably stand in for clothes that could be found in many places and historical eras.

We calculate the following dimensions for the items in our wardrobe:

Undertunic: The undertunic is made from a piece of fabric measuring 210 x 75 cm, which is cut to yield two sleeve pieces and a long piece folded poncho-style for the front and back, with a hole cut for the head. The whole piece of fabric amounts to 1.575 square meters.
Overtunic: The overtunic is similarly cut from a piece of fabric measuring 225 x 90 cm, with two sleeve pieces and one long piece for front and back, amounting to 2.025 square meters of fabric.
Footwear: Our shoes are made from approximately one third of a square meter or leather per shoe, thus two thirds of a square meter for a pair.
Cloak: Our cloak is a rectangle 1 meter by 2 meters, for 2 square meters of wool.

Finished clothes

Undertunic and overtunic – The construction method of these two garments is essentially identical, so the amount of time spent cutting, sewing, and finishing each one is approximately the same. With some reconstructed historical pieces for reference, we estimate that sewing a tunic-style garment such as these takes about 6 to 9 hours. We’ll take the average of the range and estimate that each garment takes 7.5 hours to cut and sew. The two together add up to 15 labor hours.

Footwear – Leather is slower to sew than fabric, but shoes are smaller than tunics. Our shoe models have around 120 cm of seam, and reconstructions show a leather stitching speed of 50 cm per hour. Allowing time for cutting and shaping (but omitting time for fitting to the wearer), each shoe would take about 2 hours to make, thus 4 labor hours for the pair.

Cloak – The cloak is straightforward, since it is simply a rectangular piece of woven cloth needing no sewing beyond the finishing of the edges. If the fabric was woven at a width of 1 meter, the selvages would make the long sides of the cloak; only the short sides would require hemming. At a hand-sewing speed of 1 meter per hour, sewing the cloak would take 2 labor hours.

Total cutting, sewing, and finishing time: 21 labor hours.

Fabrics/leather

Many factors affect the speed at which woven cloth is produced, from the size of the loom to the skill of the weaver. Historical recreations yield a range of weaving speeds from 180 to 255 square cm per hour. For the purposes of our project, we use an estimate of 200 square cm per hour for all types of fabric.

Linen – We need 1.575 square meters of woven linen, or 15,750 square cm, which would take approximately 79 hours to weave. Allowing time for set-up and maintenance of the loom and other necessary by-work, the production of the linen fabric from thread would require around 90 labor hours.

Silk – The calculations are similar for our silk. Weaving 2.025 square meters of silk would take a bit over 101 hours. With additional by-work, we can estimate about 110 labor hours to produce the silk fabric.

Wool – Likewise for our wool, the 2 square meters of wool we need would take about 100 hours to weave, coming to around 110 labor hours with additional work.

The time that it takes to spin the thread needed for weaving depends on how much thread goes into the finished fabric, which is affected by a host of factors: the thickness of the thread, the density of the weave, the width and length of the fabric, and so on. Rather than try to calculate all these possible elements, we work with a rough estimate that each of our fabric pieces required 10 km of thread, a measure based on both modern textile production and historical reconstructions. The further thread needed for sewing is a negligible addition. This rough figure allows for the possibility of variations in how each individual textile was produced while still giving us a reasonable estimate for the total investment of labor.

Spinning by hand yields around 40 to 60 meters of thread per hour. Taking the average of 50 m per hour, the 30,000 meters of linen, silk, and wool thread needed for our three pieces of fabric would take some 600 labor hours to spin.

Dyeing is a further step in the production process. The amount of time it takes to dye cloth depends on what dyestuffs are used, what kind of fabric is being dyed, and what the desired result is. Sourcing dyestuffs and preparing the dye bath also add to the labor. We estimate 10 hours of labor for each piece of fabric, and soaking in the dye bath adds several days of passive production time.

Flickr Shawn Harquail Spinning and dyeing the fibers

Leather – Leather production is complicated, as we outlined in our post about it. The two thirds of a square meter we need for our shoes could come from a single sheep hide (which typically yield 0.8 square meters of leather), but a lot of preparation and processing would have gone into making that hide into usable leather.

The amount of time it takes to produce leather from a fresh hide is widely variable depending on how the hide is treated and what steps are desirable for finishing it. Much of the time that it takes to prepare leather is passive time, as the hide sits on a rack or in various liquid treatments. For our purposes, we estimate that producing the leather for the shoes took 30 days from beginning to end, during which there were 12 hours of active labor. The passive production time for the leather can overlap with the passive dyeing time.

Total textile and leather production time: 952 labor hours, 30 days passive production.

Raw materials

We are estimating 10 km of thread of each fiber type for our complete outfit, but we must make a further calculation to determine how much raw material went into producing that thread. Threads can be spun at different thicknesses, so to get a sense of how much raw material went into our threads we need to convert length into weight. This conversion is expressed in a unit called tex, which gives the weight in grams of 1,000 m of a thread or yarn. Thinner threads are suitable for finer fabrics, while thicker threads can produce bulkier, rougher textiles. We consulted historical reconstructions to assign texes to our different threads.

Linen – For the linen undergarment, we want a fine fabric that feels good against the skin. For this purpose, we use a tex of 55, which means the 10 km of thread weighs 550 g. To get 550 g of spun linen thread we have to start with a much larger amount of flax, since flax processing removes as much as 90% of the material gathered from the field. Our 550 g of linen thread would require around 5.5 kg of flax.

Modern experiments with historical farming methods have yielded flax harvests of about 1 kg per square meter of field, so 5.5 kg of flax would need only about 5.5 square meters of field to grow in, which would take less than an hour both to plant and to harvest. Flax processing takes several steps, but for a modest amount of flax like this, the total active work time is not great. We can estimate 15 labor hours for flax processing from planting until the fiber is ready to spin. Along the way there is also about 100 days growing time for the plants, and some weeks passive time for retting.

Silk – For the silk tunic, we chose to use a coarser and heavier fabric with a tex of 180, which amounts to 1.8 kg in 10 km of thread. This amount of silk fiber represents the output of around 5,400 silkworms consuming the leaves of some 540 mulberry trees, which would need roughly 2 hectares of land to grow on. If starting silk cultivation from scratch, these trees would need a year to grow to maturity from the planting of cuttings, but we will assume that our silk comes from an established grove, and not count the planting, tree tending, or growing time into our estimates.

What we do need to account for, however, is the growth cycle and tending of the silkworms. Silkworms take 28 days from hatching until they are ready to spin, and require care as they grow. For our purposes, we estimate that caring for the silkworms takes at least eight hours of labor every day, between preparing food, feeding, and management. Once the cocoons are spun, a skilled hand can unreel their fiber quickly. Altogether, we estimate that the production of silk fiber takes 225 labor hours and 28 days of passive production.

Wool – Our wool cloak is a sturdy outer garment meant for warmth and protection against the elements. For this purpose we choose a tex of 500, which makes for 5 kg of wool thread. Historic breeds of sheep yield between 1 and 1.5 kg of wool per shearing, and some of that weight is lost in processing. We estimate that one sheep could yield 0.5 kg of wool fiber fit for spinning, so the 5 kg of fiber needed for our cloak represents one year’s fleece from 10 sheep.

A flock of 10 sheep would need some 10 hectares of grazing land. Sheep are sturdy animals and fairly self-reliant, but they do need tending to keep them safe from hazards and fed during the winter. We are being optimistic (perhaps even unrealistically so) and estimating 100 labor hours for sheep tending in a year. Once the fleece has grown, shearing is quick for a practiced hand. Based on various numbers given by modern shearers using hand shears, we estimate that a skilled shearer would be able to shear our 10 sheep in two hours. For the needs of wool production, then, we count 102 labor hours, a year of passive production, and 10 hectares of land.

Leather – The leather for our shoes could come from one of the sheep in the flock. Since the labor for tending the sheep is already accounted for, and slaughter and skinning are quick processes for an experienced hand, we add only 1 more labor hour to account for the production of the hide for tanning.

Total raw material production time and land needs: 343 labor hours, 1 year passive production, 12 hectares of agricultural and grazing land.

Final calculations

As we have noted many times, a lot of our figures are rough estimates at best. The actual production time for an outfit like ours would depend on numerous real-world factors that are beyond the scope of our project to account for. We are also largely discounting the effects of loss, wastage, and natural or human disaster—a flooded flax field or a neighboring people’s raid on the sheep pastures would throw all our calculations into disarray. Nevertheless, here is a rudimentary good-faith estimate of the time and land investment involved in making a single set of clothes in pre-modern conditions:

Active working time: 1,316 labor hours

Passive time: 1 year

Land requirements: 12 hectares

1,316 labor hours represents over 164 full 8-hours days of work for one person. Some of the work could be shared among several people, but there is a limit to how much efficiency could be gained by division of labor—you can’t make sheep grow fleece faster by adding more shepherds, for instance.

Once raw fibers have been produced, it would take some 973 labor hours to turn those fibers into finished clothes, or nearly 122 full 8-hour days. Even with a worker dedicated full-time to each material type (wool, linen, silk, leather), it would still take more than a month to finish the whole ensemble.

For one outfit, for one person to wear.

Flickr Billy Wilson Small Herculaneum Woman

Furthermore, every labor hour devoted to clothing production was an hour of labor not available to produce food, construct or maintain buildings, care for children or elders, or engage in other activities that were necessary for the safety and well-being of a community. Clothing was not just something to wear for historical people; it was a statement about the prosperity of their own families and the communities they lived within.

Further Reading

Ejstrud, Bo (ed.). From Flax to Linen: Experiments with Flax at Ribe Viking Centre. Esbjerg: Ribe Viking Centre and University of Southern Denmark, 2011. https://ribevikingecenter.dk/media/10424/Flaxreport.pdf

Köhler, Carl. A History of Costume. New York: Dover, 1963.

Mallory, J. P. & Victor H. Mair. The Tarim Mummies: Ancient China and the Mystery of the Earliest Peoples from the West. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.

Mannering, Ulla & Charlotte Rimstad. Fashioning the Viking Age 2: From Analysis to Reconstruction. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark, 2023. https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/oldtiden/Fashioning_the_Viking_Age/From_Analysis_to_Reconstruction_-_high_resolution.pdf

Owen-Crocker, Gale R. Dress in Anglo-Saxon England [revised and enlarged ed.]. Woolbridge: Boydell Press, 2004.

Pasanen, Mervi & Jenni Sahramaa. Löydöstä muinaispuvuksi [From Finds to Reconstructed Dress]. Salakirjat, 2021.

Postrel, Virginia. The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World. New York: Basic Books, 2020.

Strand, Eva Andersson & Ida Demant. Fashioning the Viking Age 1: Fibres, Tools & Textiles. Copenhagen: The National Museum of Denmark, 2023. https://natmus.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Editor/natmus/oldtiden/Fashioning_the_Viking_Age/Fibres__Tools_and_Textiles_-_high_resolution.pdf

Walton Rogers, Penelope. Textile production at 16-22 Coppergate. York: Council for British Archaeology, 1997. https://www.aslab.co.uk/app/download/13765738/ASLab+PWR+1997+AY17-11+Textile+Production+for+web.pdf

Images: Medieval man via Jo Justino at Pixabay. Sample T-tunics by Eppu Jensen. Hand-stitching leather shoes, photograph by Jeff Mandel via ExIT Shoes (CC BY 4.0). Spinning and dyeing in Chinchero, Peru, by Shawn Harquail via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0). July, from the Grimani Breviary via Wikimedia (Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana; 1490-1510; illumination on parchment). Small Herculaneum Woman, reconstruction of a marble statue, by Billy Wilson via Flickr (CC BY-NC 2.0).

How It Happens looks at the inner workings of various creative efforts.

Random Thoughts on The Marvels

November 27, 2023November 26, 2023Erik

In no particular order. Spoiler warnings in effect.

Erik’s random thoughts:

The beginning and ending of this movie felt rushed. The beginning had to get the audience caught up on a bunch of streaming shows that not everyone has seen. The ending felt like it ran out of time to properly wrap up both story elements and emotional beats. As ridiculous and entertaining as the musical number on Aladna was, maybe a minute or two of that runtime could have been better spent on other parts of the movie.
Even though we have watched most of the relevant streaming shows (we’ve seen WandaVision and Ms. Marvel; we gave up on Secret Invasion after they fridged their third woman in as many episodes), I still felt as though I was missing out on some backstory. It’s like there’s half a movie we all missed somewhere along the way.
Iman Vellani is fantastic as Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel, and she plays brilliantly off both Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris. Carol Danvers may be drivingf this movie’s story, but Kamala is its big, goofy, awkwardly earnest teenaged heart.
I think I counted two white men with speaking roles—three at a stretch if you include the stinger (and not getting into complicated questions about South Asian identities). At the same time, the movie doesn’t make any kind of issue about gender or race; people are just people. We’ve come a long way from the blazing white maleness of Iron Man, even from movies like Black Panther and Captain Marvel which showcased the diversity of their representation and made it a feature of the movie. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is better for reaching a place where a movie full of people who aren’t white men is unremarkable.
With Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok, and now The Marvels, the MCU is fully committing to the idea that space is big, colorful, weird, and often kind of silly, and I love it.
It was great to see the heroes find their strength not by force of will or emotional epiphany but with practice, and especially by practicing together.
Having flerken kittens tentacle-eat people as an evacuation strategy was already pretty funny, but setting it to a song from Cats was comedy genius.

Eppu’s random thoughts:

It’s too bad that I’ve never read any Carol Danvers stories. It seems there’s a lot of potential in the character—or a lot of comic book storylines that could’ve been tapped—but for some reason she hasn’t gotten another movie for herself; hardly any time at all, in fact, even in the movies that she has been in.
Like MCU’s Peter Parker (Tom Holland), the new Ms. Marvel Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) actually feels like a teenager. Good job writing and acting that aspect. (So good, in fact, that we almost gave up on Ms. Marvel the series.) Also Khan’s mother Muneeba (Zenobia Shroff) is a treasure!
It’s DELIGHTFUL that we had a proper training montage! I was so satisfied to see how exactly the Marvels figured out how to take advantage of their inadvertent swapping-places-snafu, even to the extent of tagging in and out while juggling.
I guess it’s an indication of how few women I’m used to seeing in the MCU that I kept being astonished at how many female characters we got not only to see but to hear. (“She got lines! And she got lines, too!”)
Teyonah Parris as Monica Rambeau felt the most one-dimensional of the three protagonists. Apart from still suffering from Auntie Carol abandoning her in her childhood, what did she have going on in her life? Not much, as I recall. (Well, work, but don’t they all have that.)
In the MCU, there’s a distinct testosterone-and-big-guns strain (e.g., the Avengers and Iron Man movies), another that’s kookier but mostly sticks with humans (Ant-Man, Doctor Strange), and a third that’s waaaay out there (Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor: Ragnarok). I used to think there’s room for all kinds of takes, from serious to silly, but at least in The Marvels the different veins seem almost to quarrel. The result is a mix where the various styles pull in different directions and don’t quite cohere. I would’ve wanted to see a higher quality, more polished movie. Perhaps the writers are still recuperating from the cumulative effects of the pandemic and the Hollywood writer’s strike. (I know I haven’t bounced back all the way yet, and I didn’t even have to strike.)

Image: Screenshot from The Marvels via IMDb

In Seen on Screen, we discuss movies and television shows of interest.

Co-Geeking

Author: Erik