article progress!

I got a really nice flow of writing today while having my yearly infusions so I am about ready to start typing it up and adding inline notes (WP doesn’t like footnotes apparently so it’s just easier) and also images.

I have held off this for so long because once you start asking “but why? where is the connection?” you then start the long journey of learning a new language (maybe two because of course Latin), learning about society and material culture, and what was prized and what was was fairly mundane.

And it is very hard to then answer that first question except by then really prodding at each and every resource and asking “what if we are wrong? what would that look like in all these connections.

So finally I have my article framed really quite well. I normally like to talk about structure first but this is an era and place where nothing I am describing can be found as an extant item. Nothing. So I have had to look at art and read documents that nearly exclusively detail what’s on the surface and using that to extrapolate the structure. And the various crafts ands trades people involved.

I can also look at other extant items and point to other art and say “see how that looks? That’s not what this looks like.” And that is at least helpful.