Recent comments in /f/history

Atharaphelun t1_iv96ysy wrote

Reply to comment by Bentresh in Hurrem Sultan: The Sultan’s Concubine Who Became Queen by TheMDNA

The storytelling, acting, cinematography, etc. are all absolutely impeccable, although the subtitles could use a lot of improvement (especially the deeper you go into those shows). One extremely common issue for example is the inability of the translators to distinguish between he/him/his/she/her/hers because Turkish apparently has no grammatical gender.

5

Atharaphelun t1_iv938vp wrote

Reply to Hurrem Sultan: The Sultan’s Concubine Who Became Queen by TheMDNA

Speaking of which, I strongly suggest watching the two Turkish historical dramas, Magnificent Century and Magnificent Century: Kösem, if you want to know about the so-called "Sultanate of Women" period of Ottoman history when female political giants such as Hürrem Sultan, Mihrimah Sultan, Safiye Sultan, Kösem Sultan, etc. took an active role in the state and foreign affairs of the Ottoman Empire. While they are historical fiction shows and therefore most of the story is fictional for the purposes of drama and storytelling, a lot of the broader events covered in those shows are historically accurate, or at least based on various historical accounts (some of which are contradictory to each other). You can even follow along the big events in the two shows on Wikipedia or other sources, for example, for the actual historical accounts of those events and compare them with the show.

Note that both shows (especially the first one) are very long with so many episodes, with each episode being an average of just over 1 hour and a half in length, with some of the longest ones (usually the ones containing events of greatest historical significance) being 2 and a half hours. Both series are available in their entirety, with English subtitles, in Youtube.

3

shantipole t1_iv8xvml wrote

Reply to comment by mydadisgone11 in Simple/Short/Silly History Questions Saturday! by AutoModerator

There were many competing measurement systems, at least one per country. Literally look up "pound" in Wikipedia and see the 4 systems used in England. After a while, there were conversions between the most-used systems and rules of thumb a out which system was best for which industry.

Generally, I believe they worked the same way the old standard Kilogram worked--there was one or a small number of reference units--this physical object is exactly one pound/mark/whatever. Standard weight sets were made using simple scales and comparing to the reference unit. And then the weights that merchants would use were made the same way, compared to standard sets (you don't want to handle the reference weight too much). Ideally, any two merchants could pull out a 1-ounce weight and they should balance out in a scale. And they largely did (though dishonest merchants might have a lighter set that just looked like a standard set to cheat people with. The Sheriff might compare weights, too, and then you might have to explain to the man with the keys to your jail cell why yours were so different....)

[ETA: for heavier objects you'd see scales with some mechanical advantage, but of a set amount. A "steel yard balance" is a good example. They were still balances--east to observe, hard to cheat, easy to replicate, as long as the weights were reliable]

Also remember that money was generally a set amount of precious metal. A silver penny contained X amount of silver and should weigh a set amount (ignoring clipping and devaluation). So, a payment could be literally weighed. But, it was still the same simple scales using known weights.

6

teplightyear t1_iv8ra1t wrote

Reply to comment by DOnotRespawn in A 1000-year-old Viking silver treasure found in Sweden by drexa24

Right, but the issuing country (and whoever the ruler was at the time the coin was minted) are required information for determining the metal content, unless you literally destroy the coin.... so coins from certain issuing countries with certain rulers on their heads could be accepted as more valuable than others if you could find someone to trade with that also had that knowledge.

There was another interesting article that I read yesterday about a late Roman hoard that was found in Spain that had coins minted by several Emperors after Diocletian's reforms, with a vast majority of the coins being minted by Diocletian.. on that one, the researchers hypothesized that the hoard was literally representative of a payment during a Venezuela-like inflation crisis and that the Diocletian coins were valued higher because they were known to have the highest silver content.

32

BoredCop t1_iv8otkh wrote

Reply to comment by AmbitiousBird5503 in A 1000-year-old Viking silver treasure found in Sweden by drexa24

Coins back then were made of silver, and had value as precious metal irrespective of minting. They would commonly cut coins up into smaller pieces to make change. So the foreign coin at the the time would be perfectly good for use at home, they wouldn't have treated coins any different from other silver pieces used for trade.

5