Tea at Trianon: 2,000-Year-Old Inscription

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, November 11, 2023

2,000-Year-Old Inscription

From Smithsonian:

Last summer, archaeologists in northern Spain were excited to unearth a flat, hand-shaped artifact made of bronze from a dig site not far from Pamplona. But only later, when they began the careful restoration process, did the hand’s true significance come to light: After cleaning away the centuries-old sediment and dirt, researchers discovered lines of text inscribed across the object, which they’ve nicknamed the Hand of Irulegi. Experts believe the words belong to a language that predates modern-day Basque, also known as Euskara. The first word on the hand, sorioneku, closely resembles the Basque word zorioneku, which means “fortunate.”
Archaeologists suspect the hand hung above the door of a mud-brick house some 2,000 years ago, likely as an “amulet of protection,” as Joseph Wilson writes for the Associated Press. The researchers haven’t been able to match any of the hand’s other text with known Basque words, but they plan to continue their analysis. Not only is the discovery important for understanding the evolution of the Basque language, but it also sheds new light on the Vascones, a late Iron Age tribe that researchers believe gave rise to Basque culture. The Vascones lived in what is now Spain’s Navarra region. (Read more.)