An ancient rebel weapons cache in a cave? That’s a dream find for achaeologists in the land of Judea — a far-flung frontier of the Roman Empire. Craig Rullman scouted this up.
CNN:Archaeologists have found four Roman swords and a shafted weapon known as a pilum dating from 1,900 years ago in a cave near the shore of the Dead Sea in Israel.
The rare cache of weapons was found in the En Gedi Nature Reserve, preserved in wooden and leather scabbards, according to a press statement from the Israel Antiquities Authority published Wednesday…
“The hiding of the swords and the pilum in deep cracks in the isolated cave north of ‘En Gedi, hints that the weapons were taken as booty from Roman soldiers or from the battlefield, and purposely hidden by the Judean rebels for reuse,” said Eitan Klein, one of the directors of the Judean Desert Survey Project.
“Obviously, the rebels did not want to be caught by the Roman authorities carrying these weapons. We are just beginning the research on the cave and the weapon cache discovered in it, aiming to try to find out who owned the swords, and where, when, and by whom they were manufactured,” he added.
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When the Almighty Algorithm kicked this up, I though, well, here’s another European Western. Sure enough.
The film is based upon a book titled The Captain and Ann Barbara, which is explicitly described as a “Nordic Western,” and it sure does hit some fundamental elements:
The year is 1754. A horse-drawn wagon is pulled across the windy, desolate heaths of Jutland. A captain sits at the helm. His name is Ludwig von Kahlen and he has come to bring the winds and sandy soil to heel. No one knows who owns this barren no-man’s land but Schinkel, the cruel landowner of Hald, believes that it is his – and he spares no means to bring down his will. Then one summer day, the mysterious Ann Barbara wanders across the moors and shifts the fates of all those around her.
The Captain and Ann Barbara is a Nordic western set in the middle of the 1700s – a time when the uncultivated lands had yet to be conquered. It is about a doggedly uncompromising German captain, his fight against the forces of nature, his great dreams and even greater sacrifices – and about the woman who becomes his beloved and ally. An epic and brutal story about cold war between unrelenting men, about wanderlust and revenge, discipline and love, ruin and the purest of evils.
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I have not a word of Gaelic, yet I still find myself profoundly stirred by the work of this man, who has been featured multiple times in Outlander. He specializes in solo, unaccompanied recitations of odes in Scottish Gaelic, and he’s serving them up during the Season 7 gap, known to fans as “Droughtlander.”
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The season’s upon us. It is true that your Frontier Partisan correspondent is one of those pumpkin spice people. Know no shame…
The Black Rifle Coffee Co. Headless Horseman order has been placed:
Fall is finally here, and Black Rifle Coffee Company is excited to announce the return of the Headless Horseman’s Roast! Heads will roll for this pumpkin spice coffee that’s so good, it will haunt your taste buds for all eternity.
Available for a limited time in ground and coffee rounds, this ghoulish, pumpkin-flavored, medium-roast coffee lands right in the middle of the BRCC roast scale and features tasting notes of pumpkin, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
The 12-ounce bag and the coffee rounds box feature the iconic, gun-wielding headless horseman riding endlessly through the night, ready to smack the sleepy right out of your hollow.
With a brisk aroma of spice and cinnamon, legend has it that this delicious pumpkin spice flavor will haunt your favorite BRCC coffee cup each year. And the scariest part is admitting just how much you like it.
Matthew says
Saw the trailer for The Promised Land. It’s interesting how the themes of the Western can be applied across the world and even beyond since there is a genre of science fiction known as the Space Western. The Western is archtypically about moving out into the unknown. That is something we all do metaphorically and something many have done literally.
J.F. Bell says
People tend to use ‘western’ as the root rather than the modifier. It’s backwards, I think – western being a subtype of the greater ‘frontier’ category.
The latter implies a border of some sort. National, political, spiritual, scientific, military, or otherwise. Most westerns are frontier stories (sometimes compounded by the Death of the Mythical West and the coming of the industrialized world) but not all frontier stories are explicitly western.
Though the two do seem to be used interchangeably, by and large.
Matthew says
That’s an interesting point.
Of course, the American Western influenced even non-frontier stories. The great filmmaker Akira Kurosawa made Samurai films. Japan was for the most part a long settled counrty. (Except for Hokkaido which was a frontier a lot latter than people think.) But his samurai movies were heavily influenced by American Westerns particularly those by John Ford. And his samurai movies were remade into westerns.
Paul McNamee says
We had a cool week of 70F days and 55F nights. I was ready to transition from current novel reading to cherry-picking scary tales from anthologies and collections.
Then the heat surged again this week, this summer not wanting to take its leave. It might break over the weekend with predicted thunderstorms. Love me a good thunderstorm. I hate to see them go for the season.
But, also much looking forward to flannel shirts and scally caps, and a moodier atmosphere for reading tales of terror – and finishing off a few horror tales that are partially written.
JimC says
Ah, yes…
lane batot says
I love how traditional Lakota belief considers the Thunder Beings like giant birds, that like other birds, migrate South in the Winter!
slm says
Our Local Headless Horseman