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Tuesday 17 March 2009

Mummies - History is What You Make It!

These are mummies of people who were embalmed in Italy in the 1500s. Bodies were preserved after being dried, covered with vinegar and kept in cool surroundings. They’re now a tourist attraction, and scientists are looking at them anew to discover secrets which might come to light given the latest technological advances.

I HAVE JUST REMOVED THIS PICTURE AS SOMEONE HAS FLAGGED 70 PLUS AND STILL KICKING AS INCLUDING OBJECTIONABLE CONTENT. I COULDN'T THINK WHAT WOULD HAVE BROUGHT THIS ON UNTIL I LOOKED AGAIN AT MY LAST POST. I CAN VERY MUCH UNDERSTAND THAT SOME CULTURES WOULD OBJECT TO THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE PICTURE BECAUSE IT DEPICTS DEAD PEOPLE. I WAS UNTHINKING WHEN I POSTED IT, HAVING ON MY SCIENTIFIC TECHNICAL HAT AT THE TIME. I APOLOGISE IF I OFFENDED ANYONE.
SINCERELY
JUNE

If you enjoy history as much as I do, you'll enjoy the following. It's a pot pourri of the way things used to be in the 1500s, and a key to the origin of some of our seemingly peculiar sayings.

I'm sorry I don't know the source of these wonderful bits of information, so don't take them as gospel ...

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, don't throw the baby out with the bath water..

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying It's raining cats and dogs.

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, dirt poor.

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance way. Hence the saying a thresh hold.

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme 'peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old'.

Sometimes people could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, bring home the bacon. They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and chew the fat.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a wake.

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift.) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be saved by the bell or was considered a dead ringer.

And that's the truth...Now, whoever said history was boring!

Do you know any similar gems from the past that give a clue or two to the way we speak today?

49 comments:

  1. I have really enjoyed reading this,you have done a lot of research on this topic well done and thank you..I love History but love it even better that you have made it easy accessible in an interesting post!

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  2. you must enjoy watching "Time team" on the ABC ?..I do!

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  3. MONA
    Thanks for the kind words, but I'm afraid that most of the praise should go to someone I only know as 'Anonymous'. I don't know who did the research for this - I'm just passing it on as I think, with the historian, that we should all be intrested in our past. As they say: 'Those who ignore the past are doomed to re-live it.'

    Yes. Time Team is fun.

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  4. Hi June
    These snippets are facinating. Do you think they all ring true or are a couple the result of a good imagination??
    Whatever it made very interesting reading thanks.

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  5. Great Info....loved reading it and thx for sharing....

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  6. Very interesting! And the photo was great!
    Kinda creepy....but great! ha :-D

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  7. How interesting! And also, makes me glad to have been born in the 21st century.

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  8. Thoroughly enjoyed your post today, June! I love knowing where we acquired words and expressions. Thank you for this enlightening and fun entry.

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  9. Hmmm....it would be interesting to think about what things we do and phrases associated with it...that will make the same kind of reading for our great great grandchildren. "And that is how love and marriage came to be called "surfing the net".

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  10. DELWYN
    That's the problem with unsourced material of course. However, I thought much of this seemed sufficiently plausible to whet people's appetite re things past. It would be very difficult to authenticate such matters anyway.

    The upper crust rings true for me (bread would have been cooked in coals often and so the burned bits would be on the bottom).

    The baby and the bathwater seems reasonable too as there wasn't much idea of hygeine and the baby would not have had a vote! I know the kids came after the adults when there were water shortages during my childhood.

    One needs to suspend some belief to go along with the last two but you never know ...

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  11. GREENER BANGALORE
    Of course much of this probably came from Britain, but India had more than a brush with the Brits didn't you?

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  12. RETIRED ONE
    Is there much of an emphasis on teaching history in the States these days? It almost disappeared from our schools and unis during the days of our recent conservative government but seems to be receiving more attention with the new lot.

    I think we are beginning to look more honestly at our past too. If we kid ourselves about what has happened, we're planning the future on a false premise.

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  13. Hi ERIN - welcome!
    I think it's interesting that less people wear perfume now that soap is more popular. We all know about the pomander, fragrances and scents used to disguise smells (personal and otherwise, among males and females)in the past.

    By the same token, I think some lives were more peaceful in certain times of our history than is the truth now.As always though, so much depends on one's economic circumstance.

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  14. Hi CROW
    As Delwyn points out (and I meant to convey when I said I didn't have a source), we might perhaps take these with a grain of salt. But on the other hand, I can see that there are possibilities in most of them. Certainly absorbing.

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  15. BAGMAN
    And I wonder if we'll be routinely proposing marriage via texting in the future - because we have lost the power of face to face communication?

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  16. That picture and that one about the dead ringer gave me chills! These were very interesting. I had heard that about tomatoes somewhere. You always come up with something different, June!

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  17. I really enjoyed those little facts! I can't think of any saying right now with a related history, but thanks for sharing these!

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  18. JUDY
    Our language is a lovely ever-evolving thing. And this stuff makes me think on what brought things about generally ...

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  19. KANANI
    They're very interesting and you could see where a lot of them come from, but perhaps they're not all 'facts'.

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  20. I love this stuff, although a few of them I have heard before, it's nice to re-visit. I'm sure there are many more, but none springs to mind off the bat! (maybe that's one...off the bat!) I constantly regale my sons with my "crazy", sayings. Classic case, "the rain was coming down like stair rods!" try explaining that one when you live in a bungalow!

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  21. TINK
    Love that - 'rain coming down like stair rods' - okay if I use that now and then?

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  22. That was really interesting June. It's amazing where some of these expressions come from. I remember going to a mining village in Scotland and looking at the history. Imagine the bath water by the end after you got the miners in the family bathed. Men, do you notice, get to bath first. Oh I am glad I wasnt living in those days.

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  23. those little facts are very interesting...including that picture....sure as you say history isnt boring....but only after reading this.

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  24. LILLY
    As my dear old Mum used to say: Every age has its compensations ... and its pitfalls.

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  25. JYOTSANA
    Really, history is not boring unless you read the stuffy official records that are written by those in power for their own benefit. Even they come up with some gems if you look.

    Take a trip to this link http://70plusandstillkicking.blogspot.com/2008/08/black-or-bubonic-plague-sydney-1900.html
    It's one of my posts about the Bubonic Plague in Sydney Australia in 1900. Fascinating pix et al.

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  26. I loved loved loved this post! We did learn a lot of this at school in the UK, so I think quite a lot of it is true! Thank goodness I don't live back then!

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  27. LADYFI
    That's interesting about learning these things in school. Happy you enjoyed the visit here.

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  28. Miss June ~ I LOVE this post... I'm a junkie for "standard sayings" and their origins... AND I have an award for you over at my place... Fantastic job! Great day to you!

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  29. ARIA
    From one junkie to another ... Our language is fascinating in so many ways, nott least the origins of various words and phrases.
    I'm pleased you enjoyed your visit.

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  30. You have enrichened the English language, by bringing to us the source of sayings we take in our stride!

    Really Commendable!

    Would never have known had it not been for you...

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  31. I read this some time ago, but can't remember where now, but it was fun reading it again! Amazing how we got some of the saying that we have today, isn't it! Thanks for posting this, I thought it was fascinating then and it still is -- plus you had a couple of extra things that weren't in the edition that I read.

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  32. SMITA
    I'm pleased you enjoyed the latest post. I can't vouch for authenticity of the 'history' but I think it's worth while passing on the theories. If someone is encouraged to do a little research for themselves, so much the better I say!

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  33. SYLVIA
    I'm sure this little piece has been around,but it's new to me - and, as you say, intriguing.

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  34. Hi June! Those skeletal remains are nicely preserved. It would be neat to take a closer look at them.

    I too have heard the explanation for "baby in the bathwater". The others I did not know though. Very interesting post!

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  35. Hi Jeannie
    Yes - There's just too much of the past to ignore it!!

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  36. seriously, it has been more than informative and entertaining! i have heard about the one about bacon and social standing.. the rest, i hope you didn't make it up! hehe..

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  37. No responsibility as I said SILVER. although there's no doubt that most of these have been in use - can attest to that!
    Origins though? That's more difficult.

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  38. What great fun June.....Wouldn't you imagine it might have been a bit challenging to live during that time?? I am kind of a bath nut so guess I would have many bouquets about.....
    Thanks for the fun post
    Linda.

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  39. LINDA
    Things have certainly changed ...

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  40. Thank you june for your wonderful post and enriching my zero knowledge bank balance to valuable deposits.

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  41. Now now Pradip - don't put yourself down!
    Every bit of knowledge is fun to receive and enlightening to retain ...

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  42. I just loved the bath tidbit. I have to say that when I was young on Saturday night we took a bath with the same water. However, it was only three of us and dad was last. We had so little money and we tried to conserve even than. God Bless June

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  43. Change is the only thing that seem to happen. But do human beings really change?

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  44. Hi Carol
    I grew up in the days of tank water and wells and pumps in the ground. We knew the value of water then, and I'm afraid we are about to learn the lesson again.

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  45. NSIYER
    I think that human beings do change according to their environment - physical and emotional - and so much depends on the people and culture surrounding them. Don't you think?

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  46. June....am here after quite some time....and what a treat i get...awesome!!!

    thanks for sharing...very interesting...

    btw...could help share that one of my blogs is called threshold....its a longish story happening in parts...maybe u will get time to read it someday...

    pinku-threshold.blogspot.com

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  47. Hi PINKU
    Good to see you back. I visited 'Threshold' and put it on my bloglist to take a peek. You are dealing with a big subject ...

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  48. Stunningly interesting.
    Thanks for posting it here.

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Thanks for your comment. It's good to know who's taking a peek! I will certainly reply to your message.
Maybe you'll also be interested in my other blog www.journeysincreativewriting.blogspot.com