Robin Laws: When the Suits Become the Culture Jammers.
Category: Oddities
The new King Arthur movie claims to be based on a fresh “historical” take on the mythic king (which includes Guinevere in a leather bikini). Specifically, it references the speculation about a connection between the historical general that supposedly was the basis for the legendary figure of Arthur, and the Sarmatians, an Iranian people of nomadic horsemen who were recruited by the Romans (like many other barbarians) to serve in their military, and who were apparently stationed in roman Britain.
This article details the links between the Sarmatians and Arthurian Legend, which include the dragon banner (the source of “Uthur Pendragon”?) and the legends of the magic sword and the holy cup:
After hard but victorious battles, 5,500 Sarmatian/Alanian heavy cavalry (called cataphractarii, i.e. clothed fully in scale armour) consisting of prisoners taken in war were posted to Britain in 175.
…
The closed society of Sarmatian cataphractarii in Britain was able to maintain its ethnic features during the Late Roman period and afterwards. One reason is that their troops, called cuneus Sarmatorum, equitum Sarmatorum Bremetennacensium Gordianorum were not part of any military organization in active service. Consequently, after the withdrawal of the Roman army, they continued to live on their accustomed sites (Chester, Ribchester, etc.). They were still called Sarmatians after 250 years. A semihistoric Arthur lived about A.D. 500. He was very probably a descendant of those Alan horsemen, a battle leader of the Romanized Celts and Britons against the Anglo-Saxons, who invaded Britain after the Roman army had withdrawn. Arthur and his military leaders could therefore manage to train the natives as armoured horseman after Iranian patterns against the attacks of Angles and Saxons fighting on feet until their victory at Badon Hill.
There’s more stuff here, including parallels between the sword in the stone and Sarmatian rituals, and the close parallels in the legend about a king’s retainers reluctantly obeying his dying command to throw his sword in a lake.
Naturally, the Sarmatian Arthur has annoyed some people, but apparently not many.
Categories
Singing Powell, Suing Lion
Two links from Charlie’s Weird Shit Saturday post that I am compelled to cite. First, a short BBC video segment about Diplomats and Politicians making asses of themselves:
Here’s Colin Powell in a hard hat, singing his own version of a Village People classic on stage at an ASEAN summit conference in front of the assembled diplomats. (Warning: requires Real Media player.)
The second item he links to is a Guardian article about plans to sue Disney for copyright infringement. This is interesting because the people suing are the descendants of the Zulu farm worker who first recorded the song “Mbube”, better known as “Wimoweh” or “The Lions Sleep Tonight”. This song has been recorded by at least 170 different artists and is the only song not by Elton John in the Lion King soundtrack. Heck, I bet you’re humming it now…
But the song’s creator, Solomon Linda, died penniless and was buried without a headstone in 1962
, and his daughters work as domestic servants, live in shacks and struggle to feed their families
. But now, a copyright lawyer has found a provision in a 1911 British imperial copyright law which stated that all rights to a song reverted to the composer’s estate 25 years after his death
. This doesn’t apply in the US, but global copyright protection cuts both ways…
Categories
fruit fly fight club
fruit fly fight club – films of fruit flies (and lobsters) duking it out. All part of research into agression.
Link via Raymond Chen, who also links to a page of “cute” Drosophila gene names.