User:Mineffle/sandbox

Design
The Sutton Hoo helmet was elaborately decorated with sheets of of tinned bronze. Each of the five panels was stamped with one of five designs. Two depict figural scenes, another two zoophormic interlaced patterns, and the fifth pattern, known only from seven small fragments and incapable of restoration, is known to occur only once on an otherwise symmetrical helmet and may have been used to replace a damaged panel. The nose and mouth were made from one piece, and are made of a tin-copper alloy with engraved details.

rigid neck guard, separately made cheek pieces with decoration over the eye sockets consisting of brows ending in  animals heads in profile the Sutton Hoo helmet was apparently raised from a single piece of metal, with a separately applied tubular crest, and a face mask. elaborately decorated  surface, embellished with impressed foils, and enriched with gilding, garnets, and inlaid silver wires

The Sutton Hoo helmet was made of iron and covered with decorated sheets of tinned bronze. Fluted strips of moulding divided the exterior into panels, each of which was stamped with one of five designs. The nature of this moulding remains unclear. It was first suggested they were swaged from tin and gilded, and later suggested that they were made of bronze. The later analysis found conflicting results. A subsurface sample of the moulding suggested that the original metal was tin, while a surface sample showed an ε-copper/tin compound (Cu3Sn), suggesting "that the surface of a bronze alloy containing at least 62% of copper had been coated with tin and heated." This theory was based on a similar process observed on a shield also found in the Sutton Hoo ship-burial. Additionally, a surface sample taken near the crest had a trace of mercury, suggestive of a fire-gilding process that requires temperatures of at least 128°C above the melting point of tin. An alloy containing at least 20% copper would be needed to sufficiently raise the melting point of the tin during the gilding process, which raised further inconsistencies with the results of the subsurface sample of moulding. As to swageing, "if the strips [of moulding] were of high tin alloy throughout, swageing would be impossible as copper/tin alloys containing more than 20% of tin are very brittle," while an alloy containing less than 25% tin would no longer replicate the white colour of the helmet. Although the subsurface sample supports the first theory of swaged tin, it contradicts the theory suggested by the surface sample, of a copper alloy with a high tin content that was not swaged.

second reconstruction


The errors in the second reconstruction were minor compared to the first, consisting primarily of slight errors in placement. "The chief of these related to the neck-guard. The profile view of the reconstruction shows that the projecting corner of the cheek-piece and the neck-guard, which adjoin, are not at the same level. This has been corrected in the Tower replica, as it became apparent that the neck-guard must have fitted inside the cap. This off-setting in the line of cap and neck-guard lifts the latter slightly and allows it to ride up, bringing the corners to the same level. This provides the smooth curves at the top of the openings to accommodate the lift of the shoulder or arm." Additionally, while the replica helmet has an interlace pattern of identical length repeated on both the top and bottom of the neck guard, the second reconstruction gives substantially more length to the bottom portion. The fragments from the middle of the neck guard with horizontal fluted strips separating the top and bottom patterns are placed too high, and are thus slightly out of alignment with the fluted strips seen on the fragments on the right (dexter) side of the neck guard. "This should be adjusted to equal lengths above and below as shown in the Tower replica."

significance
study of art

<!--Nara notes

much of the oldest extant writing is oral literature; many people composed works for oral delivery

earliest valuest works are the kojiki, the nihon shoki, and the manyoshu

Ko and NS written to reinforce the new state order attempts to make the chinese writing system accesible to non-Chinese speakers resulted in the hybrid writing system known as manyogana kojiki written in manyogana, NS in classical chinese; manyoshu is a mix of both nihon shoki first official history of japan https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=LsHfIsIXgEgC&pg=PA19&lpg=PA19&dq=nara+literature&source=bl&ots=v2rViycvmU&sig=16BR_gtzbdg-Ox2lhmf6O40QlvA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir16y-mMPQAhXIe7wKHSPgDcU4ChDoAQgqMAQ#v=onepage&q=nara%20literature&f=false

Heian literature (794–1185)
The Heian period has been referred to as the golden era of art and literature in Japan. During this era, literature became centered on a cultural elite of nobility and monks. The imperial court particularly patronized the poets, most of whom were courtiers or ladies-in-waiting. Reflecting the aristocratic atmosphere, the poetry was elegant and sophisticated and expressed emotions in a rhetorical style. Editing the resulting anthologies of poetry soon became a national pastime. The iroha poem, now one of two standard orderings for the Japanese syllabary, was also developed during the early Heian period.

Genji Monogatari (The Tale of Genji) written in the early 11th century by a woman named Murasaki Shikibu is considered the pre-eminent masterpiece of Heian fiction. Other important writings of this period include the Kokin Wakashū (905), a waka-poetry anthology, and Makura no Sōshi (The Pillow Book) (990s). The Pillow Book was written by Sei Shōnagon, Murasaki Shikibu's contemporary and rival, as an essay about the life, loves, and pastimes of nobles in the Emperor's court. Another notable piece of fictional Japanese literature was Konjaku Monogatarishū, a collection of over a thousand stories in 31 volumes. The volumes cover various tales from India, China and Japan.

The 10th-century Japanese narrative, Taketori Monogatari (The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter), can be considered an early example of proto-science fiction. The protagonist of the story, Kaguya-hime, is a princess from the Moon who is sent to Earth for safety during a celestial war, and is found and raised by a bamboo cutter. She is later taken back to her extraterrestrial family in an illustrated depiction of a disc-shaped flying object similar to a flying saucer.

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=AvilNLC9pFYC&pg=PA143&lpg=PA143&dq=kamakura+muromachi+literature+-wikipedia&source=bl&ots=zWU2CV9ADT&sig=BCuT19MA4dJ2I-W8mrh43JI6O9A&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4tb-j4qzQAhWLHZQKHSkBCdQQ6AEIRjAH#v=onepage&q=kamakura%20muromachi%20literature%20-wikipedia&f=false

http://oriens-extremus.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/OE-29-1.pdf

https://books.google.co.jp/books?id=OKr3XPabVQIC&pg=PA249&lpg=PA249&dq=poetry+anthologies+kamakura+period&source=bl&ots=n76brnHrue&sig=WcAzLg_K17UN-Xs219OS1ax96pU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin0sTIsLvQAhXIebwKHRnZA-c4ChDoAQgaMAA#v=onepage&q=poetry%20anthologies%20kamakura%20period&f=false (also good for diaries) -->