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A little light historical excursion.

What type of stringed instruments do you think had the greatest variety and distribution? Alvov? Dvergov?

But no! Geartskie. Why is that? The answer is very simple and obvious: they have claws, which were very convenient for plucking strings. This, however, imposed some restrictions: for example, it is difficult to play a guitar with claws - as, indeed, on a violin, a cello, and in general on any instrument whose strings need to be pressed against the neck. There were two ways out of this situation:

1. We used instruments where the strings do not need to be pressed against the fingerboard. As far as we can judge now, there were simply incredibly many varieties of them; Their names have not been preserved, for the most part, but they ranged from gusli and zither to koto and guzheng. They differed mainly in the arrangement of the strings in the horizontal plane, the method of tuning and the height of the strings: if they are located high enough, then with the fingers of one hand they can be divided into parts, while producing higher sounds, as on a modern guqin.
2. We used a notched neck. The funny thing is that it was rediscovered relatively recently (look, for example, scalloped fretboard). The Gearts stopped using it because, starting in the tenth century, they began to undergo operations to retractabilize the claws, and the need for such vultures naturally disappeared. And they reintroduced it into music for a completely different reason: the strings on such a neck can be deliberately pressed lower than necessary in order to extract microtones and various similar things.

And another one of the Aznat Dzheart tribes was the first in the world to invent bows. Their men specially grew their manes almost to their waists and took care of them in some special way, all for the sake of art! There is still debate about what is better to use for bows: horsehair or Geart mane.

We brought you some drawings. Remember the pierced pole and the pole? This is probably what their owner might have looked like.

Not very significant news, but also quite important. Our former chief of the expedition, Ihar Edevran Samuilovich (we once even wrote a little about him) published a monograph entitled “Totemism and animalistic beliefs of people in the territories of Orova and Northern Getulia in connection with contacts with the Geartian tribes" The meaning of the work is clear from the title; Now it seems that it is not freely available anywhere, so for now we will present a few important points. Suddenly it becomes interesting, and then you want to look for it yourself.

Some patterns can be traced between the prevalence of totemic beliefs and the frequency of contacts with Gearts. But they are not always quite obvious. For example, too close contacts with the Gearts lead to the gradual destruction of animalism (this is observed, in particular, in Northern Getulia). This happens, however, only in cases where the nature of the contacts is positive or at least neutral; Frequent and prolonged armed clashes, on the contrary, in some places led to the demonization of the image of the Gearts. With all the consequences, of course; This is partly true, by the way, for the Hellenes and Urtians. To a small extent, but still.

Going a little to the side, we will add that there is the following stereotype: all animalistic beliefs take their roots precisely from short-term and rare contacts with Gearts. We have to disappoint his followers: this is often not true. This also happens, of course (in particular, this is the most popular theory regarding the emergence of all sorts of Anuvis and others like them), but relatively rarely. As a counter-argument, we cite the Rechans, as well as the Germans and Svayts: at the beginning of our era, totemism and animalism were everywhere, blooming and smelling, but there were no traces of Gearts nearby. And attempts to explain this by earlier contacts also fail, since at the pre-Orean stage (when these contacts were still possible) we do not observe traces of either totemism or animalism.

In short, this is a short excursion. Thank you to Edevran Samuilovich for a very good job, and good health to you!

The holidays are slowly coming, and we indulge in idleness and other procrastination. Accordingly, today’s post will be short and light.

Throughout history, people (and not only them) have come up with and invented a bunch of ways to kill. Cold steel, firearms, martial arts, poisons... We'll talk about the latter today. And a little about decorations.

The most popular and most effective combination is poison + ring/ring. For example, you can attach a hinged lid to it, under which there is a small granule with poison. You imperceptibly threw it into the wine - and that’s it, your opponent the next day is writhing in agony.

There are other options. One of these, for example, is described by an unnamed jeart guardian from Eryakhshar in his notes.

"…today I had the opportunity to explore a new and cunning weapon. It is a rich gold ring decorated with gems. Made for human hand. On its reverse side there is a thin and sharp spike with an inconspicuous hole. I did not open the ring, but I also know that there is a cavity inside it that was filled with some substance. From what I can see now, it looks a lot like one of our sleeping pills. I need more time, but if my guess is correct, then the one who did this thing is very smart: after all, just a small portion of it can put a person, an alva, a geart or a dverg to sleep in a very short time. All you have to do is walk up to someone, tap him on the shoulder, and then follow him a couple of dozen steps until his legs begin to tangle. And then do whatever you want with your victim.".

That's how things are. The conclusion is - look carefully at what is in the hands of people who touch you too actively.

Find!

Not too impressive this time, but interesting nonetheless. A small collection of various household magics used here and there in the first half of the fourth century. Of course, we do not provide verbatim descriptions and instructions (we know you, yeah), but we will briefly show some of the most interesting ones.

1. Spell on toads

Originally from northern Eryakhshar. The fact is that there are a lot of bodies of water there - and, accordingly, midges. It seems that even all sorts of natural repellents didn’t help much, so... toads.

"...one of the guardians is supposed to go around all the lakes and swamps near his village at the very beginning of spring. He enters each of them up to his waist, having previously drawn the following Azur signs on the water surface: ...
His thoughts should be turned to life playing around him, because it is at this time that toads spawn...»

2. For different tastes of alcohol

These were used mainly by the Glinnarians and, again, by the Eryakhshar Dzherarts. It is to them that we owe, for example, the existence of such a drink as saerwine - a type of semi-sweet wine, which, however, is almost devoid of taste. It looks and drinks almost like ordinary water, which by the end of the bottle can... play a bad joke, let's say.

Its Eryakhshar analogues have an even more pleasant and subtle taste, but also a higher degree: somewhere around thirty to forty, almost like vodka. And the hangover from them... is not the most pleasant. My head is VERY dizzy.

We don’t give specific quotes, because it all involves reading certain spells at different periods of the drink’s ripening. Gearts also do this during distillation.

3. For goat's milk

Can you guess whose it is? Kharassukhumi doors. Even after they went deep into caves and mountains, goat raising was still one of their first and most important activities.

"... let the priest, or better yet two - husband and wife - go around all the goats of each herd every month. While one of them is holding the goat for the horn, the second touches the udder with his lips and, turning his external and internal gaze to it, says this: ...
This way the milk in the udder will remain longer and will hardly stagnate.".

Have delicious milk everyone and see you in touch!

Next in line will be a post about Kharassukhumi writing, and while it’s being prepared, I’ll write about something for which I don’t need additional materials - just my head.

Archaic modern languages.

I think each of you has heard the phrase “ancient language” at least once in your life. Our natives call Retsinsky and Rechansky ancient and argue which one is more ancient; Skadinsky, ancient Hellenic and a few more - in general, they are certainly ancient. Is it true?

No!

Let's start with the fact that all languages are equally ancient. For example, because they all appeared during the Khivris pandemonium. Or, in other words, because they have been continuously evolving since the very dawn of the emergence of intelligent species. I can give a few more examples, but I think it’s clear.

Much more correct from the point of view of common sense would be the phrase “archaic language” - that is, one that has changed very little over a long period of time and has retained many of the features that were inherent in it even then, a long time ago. So, just for general erudition, I’ll go through them now. For now, according to those that are in use in Orov.

1. Zhutovsky wins by a wide margin! Others can argue with him as they please, but the fact remains: over the past two and a half thousand years, he has hardly changed. Perhaps the vocabulary has been updated, but this is quite natural. Now, for example, I will show one phrase from a song, first in its modern form, and then - how it would have looked somewhere at the beginning of our era. Provided that all the words are the same, of course.

kaip obelis, apsunkusi nuo vaisių, užlaužiu tragiškai nusvirusias rankas
kaip ābelis, apsunku(n)sī nō waisjun, užlaužjū tragiškai nuswiru(n)sja(n)s ranka(n)s

as you can see, except for the word tragiškai (“tragically”), which then in principle could not exist, the rest looks as similar as possible. The name of the song is Laisvė (“Freedom”), I think I already threw it here once.

2. Geartoy. Starting somewhere from the seventh century, it remains practically unchanged, but in the interval between the fifth and sixth centuries its system of times was VERY reworked. In addition to the three already existing numbers (singular, plural and dual), a spider (“several”) was added there, and the species-time system almost doubled in size (all sorts of perfects in the future and other terrible things). In phonetics, several minimal changes occurred, of which the most characteristic is: diphthongs āy and ay (a:y and ah) merged into one diphthong oh (Ouch). That is, if earlier their language was called jeārţāy, then now he is known to everyone under the name jeārţoy. So it goes.

3. Kharassukhumi. I understand it, alas, disgustingly, but the changes, as far as I can judge, are quite ordinary. Morphologically, everything remained the same plus or minus (if we count from the beginning of our era), the word order became much more strict, and the vowels also moved in all possible and impossible directions. This happened due to the influence of consonants (both the previous and the following), and... the fact is that in Kharassukhumi it is the set of vowels of a word that expresses its morphological meaning. Previously, this system was very transparent, but now look for yourself:

was: yadqañr, "he dwells"
became: edqañr

was: yaqrañb, "he is dying"
became: yaqrañb

was: yawẓañr "He is known"
became: ... oẓeñr

I won’t continue further, it’s bad there.

And finally. Ask why I didn’t say about the Alvian languages? Because they are cheaters, they live a long time and they preserve their literary standards very carefully, so it is generally useless to look there. Thousands of years have passed and nothing has changed.

That's all. Stay tuned for updates and don't get too bored!

We were so carried away by all sorts of different things that we completely forgot that the story with the protazan was still continued!

The examination went well, and a certain mark was found on the blade (see attached image), which reads in Glinnar as Gweilen, Gweilen. No, this is not the name of the weapon: the spear maidens did not have a tradition of giving names to their spears, swords, etc. As far as we can tell, this is the name of the owner, and in this case everything works out even better, since such a name was in use exclusively in the territory of the northern state, Mar-ha-Fallas.

Based on the outline of the sign (very specific), they also found a blacksmith. He is still alive, by the way, but they could not reach him: his relatives said that he had taken a long vacation, which would end somewhere in the beginning of summer. Let's wait for now, we're not in any particular hurry anyway.