Historical Bits and Pieces
Have I mentioned that I love history? I’m particularly partial to the sixteenth century, of course, because that’s the setting of my book (books, actually, because I’m beginning to work on another)—but I love bits and pieces of history from any time and any place.
For example, the Associated Press has this to say about Robin Hood:
Julian Luxford, an art history lecturer at Scotland’s University of St. Andrews, says a 23-word inscription in the margins of a history book, written in Latin by a medieval monk around 1460, casts the outlaw as a persistent thief.
“Around this time, according to popular opinion, a certain outlaw named Robin Hood, with his accomplices, infested Sherwood and other law-abiding areas of England with continuous robberies,” the note read when translated into English, Luxford said.
Luxford said he found the reference while searching through the library of England’s prestigious Eton College, which was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI.
And the Times Online reports that a very cold case has been solved:
Archeologists and forensic experts believe they have identified the skeleton of Cleopatra’s younger sister, murdered more than 2,000 years ago on the orders of the Egyptian queen.
The remains of Princess Arsinöe, put to death in 41BC on the orders of Cleopatra and her Roman lover Mark Antony to eliminate her as a rival, are the first relics of the Ptolemaic dynasty to be identified.
Cleopatra’s DNA! There has to be a story there.
