early-10th century stone carving of Ragnarok at St Helen’s Church, Skipwith
early-10th century carving of Ragnarok at St Helen’s Church, Skipwith
Bombus impatiens on Eupatorium altissimum / Common Eastern Bumblebee on Tall Boneset at the Sarah P. Duke Gardens at Duke University in Durham, NC
While many insects are Godless, bees are not. Who do they dance for if not the Lord?
Two bees chilling in a flower :)
Prairie Sunflower (Helianthus petiolaris)
inscribed gold niello rings in the Trewhiddle style from the reigns of Æthelwulf of Wessex (839-858) and his daughter, Æthelswith of Mercia (853-874)
+ ETHELVVLF RX
+ EA ÐELSVIÐ REGNA
the rings were likely royal gifts, rather than owned by Æthelwulf and Æthelswith themselves (Webster & Backhouse 1991)
finger-ring, 1829,1114.1 & finger-ring, AF.458
© The Trustees of the British Museum
Limonero (Citrus Limon)
The Cobra Lily (Darlingtonia californica) has to be one the coolest plants. Not only does it look like a snake (complete with forked tongue) but it is carnivorous. It can be challenging to grow in cultivation because in nature it prefers to grow along stream banks which keep its roots cool even when the outside air is hot.
Hibiscus coccineus / Scarlet Rosemallow at the Coker Arboretum at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Chapel Hill, NC
the monastery sensory room has some herbs to smell as well as a handful of fun textured relics
Common Spotted Orchid
A pink tinged common spotted orchid flowering alongside one of the paths, in Brampton Wood.
the Sun and the Moon in their chariots
astronomical miscellany, Canterbury ca. 1050
BL, Cotton Tiberius B V/1, fol. 47r
silver-inlaid decorated axe head from the 970-71 CE Bjerringhøj burial in Mammen, Denmark for which the ‘Mammen style’ is named (Fuglesang 1991)
the bones from the burial were thought to be lost, but recent textile analysis and radiocarbon dating confirm that the bones had, instead, been misplaced in a box, ‘emphasis[ing] the importance of reinvestigating old archaeological collections housed within museums and archives’ (Rimstad et al 2021, p. 735)
© Nationalmuseet
Folio from the "Blue Qur'an", second half 9th–mid-10th century. MET (ID: 2004.88).
This folio comes from a sumptuous, multivolume Qur'an with indigo pages and silver verse markers that was probably copied in North Africa. Its palette is thought to refer to the purple‑dyed, gilded manuscripts made in the neighboring Byzantine empire. As in other early Qur'ans, the script here is difficult to read because the letters have been manipulated to make each line the same length, and the marks necessary to distinguish between letters have been omitted. (MET)
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