Building a Monastery the Medieval Way

Historians, architects, archaeologists and volunteers in Germany are teaming up to build a medieval monastery the old-fashioned way. Working conditions will be strictly 9th-century, without machines, rain jackets or even coffee. It will take decades, but they hope to garner fresh insights into everyday life in the 800s.

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German Excavation Reveals Signs of Mass Cannibalism

Was it mass cannibalism, ritual slaughter or both? Archaeologists who unearthed the remains of 500 Stone Age corpses in the German town of Herxheim say the meat was cut off their bones as if they were livestock. One conclusion is that the people were eaten — after volunteering to be sacrificed.

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Dragonflies

I deeply enjoy the spare moments alone, without using them to come to a conclusion. I come home from long hot bike rides with the satisfaction of a happily spent hour, because I was completely alone with myself. My route takes me along the old road to the neighboring village, Neuenfelde (New fields), a road long forgotten since the new one was built, where the sun catches in the wheels and the summer air is thick and hot, and where shadows from the past do not mind the light. It ends at the dike in Neuenfelde and turns into a small path, overgrown and bumpy. But up there, on the crown of the dike, with its height of about four meters, you can see so far over the flat land, which spreads out in the late-afternoon light, that my heart fills with love for this country, which is so low, so flat, so even, that no one who was not born here can bear the weight of the sky above. Weiterlesen

Upcoming Thunderstorm

As I leave the house, I wonder if upon my return I will still be dry. The sky has taken on the color of lead, even though the heat of the day still lingers heavily and undisturbed by any ever so small breeze. You can not even smell the thunderstorm yet through its thickness. Only the color of the last daylight is somehow wrong and speaks of the upcoming changes. Now, upon the end of the day, the country releases the smells it has captured during the sun filled afternoon, melted asphalt and mowed grass mix to a summer’s day cocktail. Weiterlesen