I understand that an argument can be made that the British empire had a larger impact, but I’m wondering if the Spanish empire played a bigger part in the shaping of the Americas. Spanish expansion with the conquistadors obviously ignited a fire of imperialism but I think it can be argued that the British wouldn’t have even tried to expand that far until they learned of the exploits of the Spanish. Just interested in other people’s opinions!

Hello everyone! A kind soul on /r/Norse redirected me to this sub. It looks like there's a lot of passionate souls here, so hopefully you'll be able to give me a push in the right direction :-)

I write to you in hopes of that you'd be willing to provide me with a spark of inspiration. I have an upcoming bachelor thesis to write, and the only thing I know so far is that I'd like to tackle the idea of 'sacred' cauldrons being used in connection with (ritual) community meals/feasts. Seeing as it is a bachelor thesis I don't need to invent something completely new or original for that matter. The last year or so I've gotten a new-found love for mythological comparative studies, but I need to bear in mind that since I'm studying archaeology, I do need to incorporate material culture into the study, whether be it an object (or several), structures, or basically anything physical we've got left from pan-Germanic societies. I wrote a "pre-bachelor" thesis on late Iron Age Scandinavian sorceresses where I compared grave goods (emphasis on staffs/wands) with written sources (the Eddas, Ibn Fadlan, Heimskringla etc.) and it was such a joy to write and to dive into the rich source material. I'd very much like to do something similar this time around, but with focus on the cult function of cauldrons/kettles.

So far I've found a few mentions of cauldrons in Old Norse sources, one being the kettle in the hall of Ægir, and the other being the kettle in Valhall (Eldhrímnir). Furthermore there is metioning of "The Kettle of Són" and a kettle in Gesta Danorum which were used to boil snakes to make a powerful brew. I also plan on incorporating a transdisciplinary approach where I look on onomastics fx. the name Askettil and Thorkettil, and I plan to extensive cross-referencing between the aforementioned sources with archaeological material such as the Gundestrup Cauldron, the Kivik Stones, the Hochdorf burial, the Oseberg burial and maybe ancient stew recipes.

To give you an idea of the direction I want to go with the thesis, I've made a rough sketch of the research question I want to build the assignment around;
"The use of kettles/cauldrons is featured in a number of Old Norse sources. These sources hints at a sacred function for the kettles in relation to ritual practice. By cross-referencing the literature with archaeological material, can we deduce a ritual function for said kettles?"

I've completed a list with literature I think would prove relevant to my thesis, but since I haven't read through it yet, I think some (a lot) of it can be discarded;

Bäck, M. & Hållans Stenholm, A. 2012. Lilla Ullevi- den heliga platsens geografi. Stockholm.

Bjarni F. Einarsson. 2008. Blót Houses in Viking Age Farmstead Cult. Acta Archaeologica. Vol.79. Issue 1. p. 145-184.

Damm, C. B. 1998. Forhistoriske ritualer: En discussion omkring mening og handling. Religion og materiel kultur. Ed. Lisbeth Bredholt Christensen and Stine Benedicte Sveen. Aarhus University Press.

Gunnell, T. 2001. Hof, Halls, Goðar and Dwarves: An Examination of the Ritual Space in the Pagan Icelandic Hall. Cosmos. The Journal of the Traditional Cosmology Society. Vol 17:1. p.3-36.

Hermanson, L. Introduction: Rituals, Performatives, and Political Order in Northern Europe c. 650-1350. Ed. Wojtek Jezierski, Lars Hermanson, Hans Jacob Orning, and Thomas Småberg. Rituals, Performatives, and Political Order in Northern Europe c. 650-1350. Ritus et artes. Vol 7.

Hultgård, A. 1995. Fornskandinavisk kult-finns det skriftliga källor? Ed. Kerstin Engdahl & Anders Kaliff. Religion från stenålder till medeltid. Artiklar baserade på Religionsarkeologiska nätverksgruppens konferens på Lövstadbruk den 1-3 december 1995. Riksantikvarieämbetet. Arkeologiska undersökningar. Skrifter nr.19. p.25-57.

Kaliff, A. 2006. Gravhus, kulthus eller tempel? Ed. by Mats Anglert, Magnus Artursson & Fredrik Svanberg. Kulthus & Dödshus. Det ritualiserade rummets teori och praktik. p.129-142.

Larsson, L. Hall, harg eller hof. Ett kulthus I Uppåkra. Ed. by Mats Anglert, Magnus Artursson & Fredrik Svanberg. Kulthus & Dödshus. Det ritualiserade rummets teori och praktik. p.143-152.

Näsström, B. 2002. Blot. Tro och offer i det förkristna Norden. Stockholm.

Nielsen, A. 1996. Hedniska kult- och offerhandlingar i Borg. Ett uttryck för gardens centrala betydelse under yngre järnålder. Ed. Kerstin Engdahl & Anders Kaliff. Religion från stenålder till medeltid. Artiklar baserade på Religionsarkeologiska nätverksgruppens konferens på Lövstadbruk den 1-3 december 1995. Riksantikvarieämbetet. Arkeologiska undersökningar. Skrifter nr.19. p.89-104.

Nielsen, A. Rituals and Power: About Small Buildings and Animal Bones from Late Iron Age. Ed. Anders Andrén, Kristina Jennbert, and Catharina Raudvere. Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives: Origins, Changes, and Interactions: An International Conference in Lund, Sweden, June 3-7, 2004. p. 243-248.

Sundqvist, O. 2016. An Arena for Higher Powers: Ceremonial Buildings and Religious Strategies for Rulership in Late Iron Age Scandinavia. Brill: Leiden & Boston.

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TL:DR; I'm going to write a thesis about the use of 'sacred' kettles in a Late Iron Age Scandinavian/pan-Germanic context. Do you think my research question would cover the question(s) I am trying to shed light on? Also, if you can point me to any obvious literature or material you think I might've overlooked, but which you find important, please do share! Any criticism or thoughts you feel like sharing? Please send it my way as well.

Thank you very much for reading!

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I was reading about how there were roman coins in places as far east as China and Cambodia, this means that merchants were willing to work with foreign from unknown lands to a certain extent, so I'm wondering to what extent?

Like if I'm a Han Chinese merchant do I really accept Roman coins as a form of currency? Do I have some way of verifying if it's gold is real? Do I think it lesser, than my own home bread coin? Similarly, if I'm a roman merchant in say Constantinople who comes across a merchant who only has Persian coins do I accept it?

Or even more local, like if I'm a British merchant working with an Italian merchant, do I care for his Italian gold coins?

I know they played in The Cavern Club and in different clubs in Hamburg, but I don't know how popular those venues were or what was their capacity. What's more, I don't even know what a big audience would be for them at that point.

Would you say documentaries generally are not worth while and books are much better or are documentaries worth while? Outside of expensive college courses what are the ways some of you study history?

I just started watching Deadwood, which is set in the 1870's in South Dakota, and certain profane words like "Cocksucker" seem way more prevalent than I thought they would be. To be honest I haven't exactly given the topic of old western profanity much thought to begin with, but the series seems to include a number of real historical events and people so I was wondering if this was an actual feature of society at the time or if it's just another way to pump the rating up to 18+.

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Sometimes I'll read about ancient armies where someone may have an army of 50,000 men on the move and I just dont understand logistically what this would be like. My hometown has a population of 32,000 and I can't even think of a clearing anywhere near the town that is vacant enough to get a mass of that size in formation to March. I mean there are trees, rivers, hills etc. I'm just curious what these massive ancient armies would look like on the move. Like in the Punic Wars apparently Hannibal marched his army across the alps or something and I just cant wrap my mind around the logistics of such a march regarding the actual marching itself, what are they eating and how is it effectively distributed amongst the men, where and how do they sleep, and just how many generals are needed to corral such a large mass of marching men and ensure they remain on the same page regarding pace or whatever else.

Is that true? And if so, where did those people come from? Sorry for the broad question but I'm having a hard time continuing this book without understanding this issue.

Did the number of slaves in the US tend to grow over time, or level off? Did these factors change in the lead up to and during the Civil War?

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As I understand, Scotland was heavily involved in the slave trade, with cities like Glasgow and Aberdeen being major trade stops coming from the Americas. However, today there is little vestige of African and Caribbean presence in the big cities, why is that?

I'm going to do a book report on how our understanding of the holocuast has developed from the 50's to the present. This is the prompt;

Discuss the memory of the Holocaust in the US (or any other country of your choice) from the 1950s up to the present. Why did this topic become common knowledge only in the 1960s and 1970s? Why not before? How did the memory of and the interest in the Holocaust develop? For this topic, you could rent the TV mini-series “The Holocaust” (1978 with Meryl Streep) and discuss its impact on popular interest in the Shoah in the US. Why, in your opinion, did it have such an enormous impact?

I can't figure out what keywords to google in order to find resources specific to this topic. Does anyone have any recommendations?

A few related/follow-up questions that are related to what I'm hoping the answers help with.

• I know that Jewish communities these days are practically non-existent in most Arab countries, did this happen before, during, or after the establishment of Israel?

• When did the terms "Jewish," "Israeli," and "Zionist" start being conflated or used as synonyms?

• What (actually) caused the hatred to develop?

In two different sources i looked it up about the same is written. here a short summary:

Louis XVI was gathering troops to suppress the riots. The Bastille was stormed. Louis writes 'rien' into his diary. He thought that he will have an easy time suppressing the riots with his army, but only three days later he needed to go to Paris and wear the cockade.

How did the people force him to go to Paris? Where was his army? Why did the army not simply shoot all of them or at least let Louis flee to a real army (hold out until the army arrived)? What the hell happened in those three days (From 14 of July 1789 to 17 of July 1798)?

thanks for reading and maybe providing insight.

Did the Macedonian king respected the founder of the Persian empire? or did he despised him?