Largest Anglo-Saxon Treasure Found in the UK

An amateur treasure hunter with a metal detector found the largest Anglo-Saxon treasure ever discovered. It was found on a friend's farm. The inscription above is from the Bible.


Anglo Saxon Treasure

Revealing the Parthenon's True Colors

Using a very sensitive technique, archeologists have been able to find traces of residual paint on figures within the Parthenon, like Egyptian Blue on the belt of Poseidon.


Parthenon's hidden color

Pysanky!: Decorating Ukranian Easter Eggs

A pysanka (Ukrainian: писанка, plural: pysanky) is a Ukrainian Easter egg, decorated using beeswax in a sort of crayon-resist approach using dyes. This is our first year trying Pysanky and we loved it! Using an inexpensive kit from Michaels, we worked on these a little bit over the past two days and will do a few more before Easter.

Apparently, some people just use raw eggs, but we blew them out (punch both ends with a needle, mix yolk, then drain through one of the holes(we used an old nasal syringe from our baby days to help blow them out). The draw the designs in pencil, cover parts of the design in wax, then dye them in progressively darker dyes, covering the colors we want to preserve in wax in between colors.

Lots of tips at LearnPysanky.com. Also a friend told us that the dyes keep well if they are frozen in ice cube trays and stored in a bag. If you use blown out eggs, you can also insert a wire and use them a Christmas ornaments or an egg tree...

Blessings to you all this Easter!



Wikipedia: Pysanky

Christmas Through Illuminated Manuscripts

If you enjoy illuminated manuscripts, check out Christmas: Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts. At the Getty Museum site, there's Making of a Medieval Book.

From a bishop's note to monk copyists at Durham Cathedral (reference):

"You write with the pen of memory on the parchment of pure conscience, scraped by the knife of Divine fear, smoothed by the pumice of heavenly desires, and whitened by the chalk of holy thoughts. The ruler is the Will of God. The split nib is the joint love of God and our neighbor. Coloured inks are heavenly grace. The exemplar is the life of Christ."

Pages were made from stretched animal skins and the feathers of geese or swans were used as quills. Illumination (from Latin illuminaire, to light up)came from burnishing gold leaf (coins hammered and flaked) into figures outlined with leadpoint. Paints were made from mineral and plant extracts as well as chemical reactions.

Finished manuscripts were sewn together and bound in leather, wood, or decorative fabric.


Merry Christmas!

Classical School Blog: Do-It-Yourself Illuminated Manuscripts and Monks Day

Snowflake Templates, Snow Crystals

It's that time of year again! Here are some of our favorite sites for enjoying the beauty of snowflakes, reading about the science and mathematics of their formation, and making your own to put up on the window or Christmas tree.

Snowflake Templates at Yarn Owl
More Snowflake Patterns

For more Snowflake Study consider Koch Snowflake (Fractal) and the beautiful Snow Crystals site.

Do you know where the saying about no two snowflakes are alike came from? The research of a self-educated Vermont farmer who became fascinated by the beauty of snow crystals.

"Under the microscope, I found that snowflakes were miracles of beauty; and it seemed a shame that this beauty should not be seen and appreciated by others. Every crystal was a masterpiece of design and no one design was ever repeated., When a snowflake melted, that design was forever lost. Just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind."

We have both the Caldecott medal winner Snowflake Bentley and the book which contains many of his original photographs Snow Crystals.



If you freeze a piece of black velvet, it keeps individual snowflakes long enough so that you can see their individual details more clearly.

Patience and Perseverance Through Trials: Book of James

The sermon we heard before we left for Boston was from James:

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind." - James 1: 2-6.

The Greek word used for patience is or hupomeno, literally meaning under (hupo) and abide or remain (meno). It is an action word, not passive, and it speaks to fortitude that undergirds you, not a facade of resignation or stoic denial. To me it seems like the "guts" of faith, something that can't come from you alone. It has to come from God.

This passage in James is tough...but it rings true. Believers and unbelievers can reach the point of resignation or surrender, but joy has to come from faith.

Thank you all for your prayers on behalf of us; we are closer than ever, deeper in our faith, and grateful for the blessings of each day. I discovered Great Songs of Faith in a Boston bookstore, and found the daily Bible passages and stories behind the writing of hymns to be an inspiration. We've been reading Psalms and meditating on hymns individually and together as a family. Our daughter is a big Amy Grant fan, so we'll share this link YouTube video of Thy Word.

Reflections on James
Endurance, Perseverance, and Patience
Prayer in Paintings

Ancient, Modern, and Fantasy Maps: Ptolemy, GPS, and Tolkien

Lots of people love old maps. A 500 BC map, the Soleto Map was recently unearthed in southern Italy.

We have a special fondness for Ptolemy and his geography. His original maps don't exist, but he was rediscovered in the 1300's, and maps were made based on his descriptions in text. The beautiful map below is based on Ptolemy's coordinate system (before Descartes!). Ptolemy's maps would influence navigation for 1500 years, but his inaccuracies about the Earth's circumference (Eratosthenes was closer) were thought to be responsible for Columbus' underestimate of the time it would take to sail around the world.


Maps are often an essential feature of many tales of fantasy and mythology. J.R.R. Tolkien used map throughout his books to make his worlds more vivid and his son Christopher illustrated many maps like the one below.



If you have spatially-gifted kids, they may love to explore the History of Cartography, as well as the high tech combination Google Earth / NASA plus sites like Flash Earth. GPS / GIS technology has excited today's students about Modern Cartography and some may consider cartography as a career.

If you have GPS, a fun summer activity is Geocaching with the kids. Here's another site with ideas for geocaching with your family and the official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site.

References:
Mathematics and Maps pdf
Ptolemy and his Maps at Wikipedia
Ptolemy's Works at the Vatican
Tolkien and Maps Cliff Notes Lord of the Rings

Art History: Medieval Visions of Heaven and Hell

We found that studying the medieval paintings of Hieronymous Bosch and etchings of Durer were a perfect complement to our reading of Dante's Divine Comedy.

There is something striking about Dante's punishments fitting their crimes, and the organization of hell makes more sense when one realizes that Dante's hierarchy of evil places a greater burden on those who oppose the will of God than those who commit crimes against their fellow men.

Medieval paintings were very important for helping the illiterate Christians gain the basic truths of the Bible. Pope Gregory the Great (540-604) said, "Painting can do for the illiterate what writing does for those who can read."

WebMuseum: Bosch, Hieronymus
University of NC Lesson Plan: The Nightmares of Hieronymous Bosch
Early Medieval Painting at Beyond Books
Powerpoint of Albrect Durer's Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Spark Notes: Themes, Motifs, and Symbolism in Dante's Inferno
Art of the Book in the Middle Ages

Animated Bayeux Tapestry

Check out this beautiful animated Bayeux Tapestry at YouTube.com



History of Britain's Bayeux Tapestry

Want to make your own tapestry? Here's a great (and free)Bayeux Tapestry Game Online

Thanks, TAGMAX for the HT.

Technorati tags: classical education, history, middle ages, medieval, education, lesson plans, homeschooling

Art and Music for Easter: Giotto and Handel's Messiah

"And he departed from our sight that we might return to our heart, and there find Him. For He departed, and behold, He is here." ~St Augustine

Our painting of the Resurrection is from Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), who was once a shepard, but went onto fame as a painter, sculptor, and architect and has been called "father of the Italian Renaissance."

For music, we honor George Handel, a devout Christian, composer of his remarkable Messiah (in addition to other works), and generous donor to the poor and orphaned (from The Spiritual Lives of Great Composers: "Handel donated freely to charities even in times when he faced personal financial ruin. He was a relentless optimist whose faith in God sustained him through every difficulty.")

Although many people associate Messiah with Christmas, it is a Lent / East composition. Handel composed the massive work (2 1/2 hours) in just 24 days without leaving his house. He would later say, "Not from me - but from Heaven- comes all."

It's been said the tradition of standing throughout the Hallelujah Chorus dates from when King George II was moved by emotion and chose to stand.

We wish you all the blessings of this Easter week. We'll take a short break from our blog and will be back April 16th!

Giotto - The Resurrection
Web Museum: Biography of Giotto
Listen to Excerpts from Handel's Messiah
Rediscovering Handel's Messiah
Words / Libretto to The Messiah

Monk's Day, Illuminated Manuscripts, and Book of Kells

In school, our daughter's 4th grade class has been studying the Middle Ages, and in order to understand more about life in the monastery, they had a Monk's Day, where they fasted (a little), wore simple Monk's clothes, took a vow of silence (broken a little), and devoted themselves to monastic devotions like singing and reading and copying Scripture. About a week later, she surprised me by telling me that that was one of her favorite days. Why? I asked - and she answered, "I loved doing the calligraphy. It was so beautiful."

One of their activities was to write verses from the Bible using calligraphy pens on parchment paper. Her teacher had copied a beautiful border onto the sheets and they meticulous hand-painted it in watercolors. They also stitched together the different pages with needle and thread.



Illuminated manuscripts are a beautiful legacy of medieval monasteries. One of the most remarkable is the Book of Kells, copied around 800 A.D. and tucked away in the monastery for safekeeping so it wouldn't be destroyed by Viking raiders.



We really are out of town now - we'll be back blogging later this week.

Book of Kells Images

Book of Kells, Austin College

Technorati tags: art, Christian, illuminated manuscripts, medieval