Mike Stuchbery 💀🍷 Profile picture
Feb 16, 2022 14 tweets 7 min read Read on X
I've wanted to talk about the 'Gold hats' found in Germany and France over the last few centuries for a while.

Now that they make an appearance at 'The World of Stonehenge', the time has arrived!
The first to be found was in my neck of the woods of Southern Germany, back in 1835 at Schifferstadt, near Speyer. It's considered to be the best preserved of the four in existence.

It dates to between 1300 - 1400 BCE, during the chrinological period known as the 'Bronze Age'.
A few years later, across the French border at Avanton, near Poitiers, another hat was found. This one was a little damaged, and restored before display.

It dates from around the same age range as the Schifferstadt hat.
In 1953, a third hat was found in Bavaria, near the villages of Ezelsdorf and Bunch, in Bavaria.

It dates to around 1000 BCE. F
A final hat turned up in Berlin in 1995 & was bought by the Museum for Prehistory and Early History from a private seller.

As for when and where it was found - who knows. Presumably it hails from somewhere in southern Germany.

It's also potentially the youngest, circa 800 BCE.
From what archaeologists have discovered, each of these gold hats were the headdress of a priestly class.

They were symbols of a solar cult that stretched across Europe in the Bronze Age.

Slightly younger than the Nebra Sky Disk, they're part of the same belief system.
This solar cult played a central role in the community, as the bearers of knowledge regarding the planting of crops and other important yearly tasks.

It was this cult who could discern the movement of the sun and moon and direct agriculture. (Art: Silvia Nevekotten)
These gold hats aren't just a rather striking headdress, archaeologists actually believe that they were calculation devices.

Much like the Nebra Sky Disk, they were used to work out when to add an extra month, to align the solar and lunar calendar.
If these priests weren't able to align the two calendars, crops would be planted at the wrong time and herds slaughtered, leading to widespread famine in the cold winter months. Art: Joeri Lefevre)
All across Europe we have found aretfacts and solar observatories from this era, that speak of this cult and their focus on reading the sun and stars.
It may be an oversimplification on my behalf, but I honestly believe that this era was a turning point in the continent's history.

For the first time in Europe, knowledge was a commodity, and an instrument of faith.

In response, Europeans would form their first empires.
If you want to learn more about the gold hats, the solar cult or the Bronze Age in Europe, visit the 'World of Stonehenge' site at the @britishmuseum or @MuseumHalle_E - the home of the Nebra Sky Disk. /FIN
No, wait, I can't shut up yet. It was the age of this solar cult that we see the very first pitched battles.

The very, very first battlefield ever identified is in Northern Germany, in the Tollense river valley. science.org/content/articl…
There is evidence of raiding and massacres prior to this, but the Tollense battle in the 13th century BCE demonstrates organized, armed power - and that's a consequence of regulated, agriculture.

Partly made possible by the solar cult, the Nebra Disk and the gold hats. /FIN II.

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More from @MikeStuchbery_

Apr 4, 2023
Sometimes when I get a little down in the dumps, I try to remember the amazing things around me, that connect me to a wider history, and my spirits soar.

This is Kloster Denkendorf, about twenty minutes drive from me. 🧵
Sometime in the 1120s, a 'Bertholdus', perhaps Berthold, Count of Hohenberg & Lindenfels, returned from a trip to the Holy Land and donated a small monastery and a church to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, who sent a prior to Southern Germany. 🧵
Over the next hundred years, the protection of this church and monastery were placed under some very important families - the Hohenstaufen, the Habsburg, and the Holy Roman Empire. 🧵
Read 8 tweets
Mar 7, 2023
With #InternationalWomensDay on the 8th of March, here's who you can thank for its existence: Clara Zetkin! 🧵
Clara was born in the kingdom of Sachsen in 1857. In the 1870s she became involved with rhe SPD while studying to become teacher.

Her politics veering further leftwards, she spent time in Switzerland and Paris, dodging bans on socialist and communist orgs. 🧵
It was during her time in Paris that Clara, nee Eißner, took the name Zetkin, from her lover, Ossip Zetkin - the pair had two children - Maxim & Konstantin.

All the while she integral in forming the Second Socialist International, and other organisations. 🧵
Read 11 tweets
Mar 6, 2023
I tweeted that the inventor of the first real automobile, Gottlieb Daimler, died #onthisday in 1900.

Not many know this, but Daimler had a habit of scaring the bejesus out of his neighbours. I'd like to honour that. 1/4
When Daimler was putting his 'grandfather clock' engine onto a carriage chassis, the noise from his greenhouse in Bad Cannstatt was alarming his neighbours so much that his gardener eventually led the police in - they'd suspected him of running a counterfeiting operation! 2/4
On November 18 1885, a brave 17 year old Paul Daimler climbed on his father's invention, the 'Reitwagen', and made the world's first motorcycle trip along the banks of the Neckar River, terrifying local with the roar of the 1/2hp engine.

Also the seat caught fire. 3/4
Read 4 tweets
Feb 21, 2023
One thing that I don't think gets talked enough with folks experiencing ADD and/or living on the spectrum is the financial hit.

And I don't mean in a 'oops, didn't pay that bill way', but what years of grappling with if does to your job history and career progression.
There's loads of financial tools out there to help you keep track of where money is going - believe me, I use several.

However, there's not much that can be done when career progression has slowed due to ADD/ASD, but costs keep rising.

Working *harder* isn't an option.
Now, life patently isn't fair, and there is something to be said for hard graft.

Yet perhaps we need to examine and acknowledge that grey zone of those who high functioning, and can do some things really well - but end up driving themselves into the ground over time.
Read 6 tweets
Feb 13, 2023
#ValentinesDay tomorrow. You may not know this, but I am, in fact, @TheLocalGermany's love guru, in addition to Southern Germany correspondent, culture observer & ad creative.

So, you want to date a German? Let me offer you 10 rules for wooing, and dating a German. Image
10. Don't worry if your German is sub-par, you'll barely get a chance to use it.

Many Germans are keen to practice their English, and while this may seem a rich seam of laughs, it's best to keep a straight face.

Anyway, how many language do *you* speak?
9. When the friendly barkeep approaches you whilst on a date, and says 'zusammen' (together) or 'getrennt' (seperated), he's talking about the bill, not inquiring after your relationship status.
Read 11 tweets
Jan 25, 2023
Edward Berger's 'All Quiet on the Western Front' (DE: 'Im Westen Nichts Neues') has gathered nine nominations for the 2023 Oscars - including Best Picture, the only non-English film to make the cut.
It is third adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque's seminal anti-war novel, and the first German-language version.

It stars Felix Kammerer as Paul Bäumer - an enthusiastic volunteer to the Imperial German Army in 1917, as World War One rages.
Erich Maria Remarque, born 1898, based the novel on his own experiences on the Western Front, and upon publication in 1929 it became a bestseller around the world.

Remarque left Germany in 1931, before his works were banned by the Nazis as 'unpatriotic'. He died in 1970.
Read 5 tweets

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