A rare vintage photograph of one of Japan’s upper-class women warriors, or onna-bugeisha.

she don’t even care bout that war no more… she ready

BREAKING NEWS: Long-lost 1916 film starring William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes found!

Full story on I Hear of Sherlock Everywhere.

Now Arthur Conan Doyle is reeeeeeallllly pissed

You guys… this is HUGE.  Not just for Sherlockian history, but for film history in general.  Firstly, it’s a film from what was still the early years of Silents; they didn’t hit their peak until post WWI, around 1922.  Then there’s the fact that Gillette is captured on film: back then very few stage performers were willing to make “movies,” they were considered a cheap form of entertainment.  The fact that he not only did it, but he initiated making them is amazing.  This is a freaking NITRATE NEGATIVE.  The reason why we’ve lost so many Silents is because nitrate will pretty much spontaneously combust.  Not exaggerating, it’s extremely volatile.  Entire archives have gone up in infernos because of them.  They also degrade very, very rapidly, and were never meant to last more than a year or so- again, back then no one thought much of movies and couldn’t imagine anyone wanting to keep them past seeing them once, so they did them on the cheap.  Finally, just the general fact that a new Silent was found is historic in and of itself. 

OMG.  For a historian, someone whose life is dedicated to saving old “stuff,” and a Silent fanatic… it’s Christmas.  I’m all aflutter right now.

These color lithographs illustrating amputation are from Jean Marc Bourgery’s monumental Traité complet de l’anatomie de l’homme.  This work was originally published in eight volumes over the course of twenty-three years (1831-1854); Bourgery himself died before it was completed.

The illustrations were done by Nicholas-Henri Jacob, a student of the renowned French Revolution era painter Jacques Louis David.

The Egyptian Book of the Faiyum, 1st century BC-2nd century AD.

The Book of the Faiyum is the modern name of a text that describes the Faiyum oasis as the mythical center of prosperity and ritual. The text was compiled during the Greco-Roman period, perhaps in the temple of the crocodile god Sobek in Shedet, but it may be based on precedents from earlier periods. The most famous copy of this text, known as the Boulaq/Hood/Amherst papyrus, consists of two papyrus scrolls with hieroglyphic text and illustrations. Portions of this papyrus are now in the Walters Art Museum (Baltimore), the Morgan Library & Museum (New York), and the Egyptian Museum (Cairo). Besides this and other hieroglyphic versions, there are also hieratic and Demotic copies on papyrus and an unillustrated hieroglyphic version inscribed on the walls of the Sobek temple in Kom Ombo (Upper Egypt).

The focal point of the Walters Art Museum’s section of the book of the Faiyum is a long oval representing the Faiyum lake itself. Inside the lake, images of mythological figures including the crocodile god Sobek-Re, Osiris, and the solar child allude to stories of the creation of the world as well as the nightly regeneration of the sun god. Around the lake, forty-two deities are depicted, each representing an important cult site in Egypt. In this way, the book functions as a map of a ceremonial landscape centered in the Faiyum. (Walters)

Courtesy of & currently located at the Walters Art Museum, Balitmore, USA. Via their online collections: W.738.

The samurai magician

The weapons and equipment of British warriors down the ages, from top to bottom;

Huscarl, 1066

Crusader knight, 1244

Longbowman, 1415

Yorkist Man-at-Arms, 1485

New Model Army musketeer 1645

Private, 1709

Corporal, 1815

Private, 1916

Lance Corporal, 1944

Private, 2014

Unbelievably cool.

Three photos of the Yugoslav partisans (“Chetniks”), WWII era.