by Karim Attia, 15 May 2009 My Nan often comments on how much things have changed and how quickly, which prompted me to question what is a good measure of the pace of ‘change’?  Food yield of land?  Speed of physical travel?  Many other options occurred to me but the train of thought that seemed to provide the most pleasing/likely answer was the following: The Roman Empire was limited by its ability to maintian contact throughout its vast lands.  It was able to extend its lines of communication as much as it did through road building and naval power.  This demonstrates how communication is the primary limiting factor on the extent to which a cohesive and stable society can expand.  In other words, swift, reliable and cheap communication is key to the growth of human society and, therefore, a good/the best measure of change...perhaps.

by Karim Attia.  Essay written in the first-year ( 1997) of my degree.  Professor said it was 'publishable quality'.  Enjoy. One’s first reaction on seeing this image is to be titillated by the exuberance of the style lavished on the central figure. Flowing, curling, billowing licks of flame and smoke, as hair, append the rushingly animated figure of ‘Death’ rampaging on his mighty white steed. On his brow sits a crown dedicated to ‘DESTRUCTION’, in his right hand he sweeps down with a flaming sword and in his other he has hold of a fanged and winged serpent. Clutching his emaciated and naked body a grotesque familiar rides behind him. Like the huntsman that he is ‘Death’ pursues his quarry despite obstacles, overleaping men - dooming those passed to painful collapse. The game is not ‘fox’ this time, but ‘swine’ who rush ahead in their multitudes, squealing or are left dead underfoot. The smell of the blooded flares the nostrils and lends the eye a terrible aspect - both rider and ridden alike impassioned by the cull. Like greyhounds in the slips ‘Deaths’ attendant demons follow their master, bringing with them the destructive flames and vapours of ‘Hell’. This image of ‘Death’ and ...

by Karim Attia. As the title intimates there is a need, in this modern time, to clarify what sort of person we mean when we use the term master mason in its medieval sense.  Perhaps the term architect grew to acceptance as the materials used in the construction of major buildings diversified, but while stone remained the prestige material it makes sense that the term used to describe its most accomplished manipulator reflect his affinity with his chief medium.  A master mason, then, is a manipulator of stone, an artist in stone and a designer in stone.  How much contact he actually had with this substance is, however, debatable.  The terminology may differ but, as I understand it, the basic organisation and role of the medieval master mason is similar to that of the chief architect today – perhaps a reflection of the immutable fundamentals of constructing buildings. In order to avoid the sort of struggle late Renaissance artists had to be recognised as more than mere artisans it would seem that master masons perpetuated a myth (as I see it) of being the descendants of noblemen.  Further to this, by shrouding their knowledge with secrecy they created a mystique that separated ...

by Karim Attia. In 1367 William of Wykeham became both Chancellor of England and Bishop of Winchester.  The former equivalent to prime minister, the latter the wealthiest See in England.  To mark his rise from obscure roots to these heights, William of Wykeham followed several of his clerical predecessors in founding collegiate societies.  Preference for collegiate endowments over monastic ones derived from the growing corruption of the orders, the combination of the collegiate function with that of chantry, and the need for new blood most especially as the quality and quantity of ordinands had been badly affected by the five outbreaks of plague between 1349-82. 50 miles from Winchester, Oxford was the 6th largest and wealthiest city in England.  It was also internationally renowned for its university – a term, which to a modern understanding, would seem a misnomer.  Legally a self-governing corporation, the university lacked any substantial structures, or coherence.  Most undergraduates rented rooms in town, or lived in a ‘hall’ which was merely a multiplication of rented rooms – i.e. a tenement leased by a master.  The ‘schools’ in which classes were given amounted to whatever building of suitable size was available; sometimes churches, sometimes rented rooms.  The most advanced ...

by Karim Attia. The following is a procedural essay I wrote (1998?) at university for my 'Homer' module.  By no means earth-shattering and not one of my best crafted works, but the content may still be of interest/use. When did Homer compose the epics? According to tradition Homer was a blind bard responsible for composing both the Iliad and the Odyssey.  When he did this is uncertain, but a combination of references from various sources [1]  narrows the date down to sometime between 750-650BC. What period was he writing about? Hesiod states that the Iliad recounts a story from the ‘Heroic Age’ which he located after the ‘Bronze Age’ and before the ‘Iron Age’.  From an analysis of Thukydides a date of no later than 1196BC is derived.  Analysis of Herodotos gives a date of c.1250BC while scrutiny of his genealogies gives a date between 1126-1240BC.  Scholars during the Classical period believed the Trojan wars occurred between 1350-1100BC. From what period or periods do the epics actually derive? Two approaches are used to ascertain this.  One is by cross-referencing places, people and things mentioned in the epics with archaeological evidence and the other is linguistic analysis of the Greek used by Homer. Linguistic analysis tentatively suggests the inclusion ...

by Karim Attia; 3rd November 2003. I wasn’t thinking about Celts or looking for spirits, I was thinking of my stomach and looking for mushrooms, but in the end I got a bit of everything and more. My childhood dislike of mushrooms (fungi) only ended after reading Tolkien’s loving evocation of them early in The Lord Of The Rings.  Since when mushrooms and I have developed a very close relationship. Here in England fungi are at their most abundant between September and the end of November.  So, on Halloween day just gone, my girlfriend and I went ‘shroom-hunting’ armed with wellies, paper-bags, map, guidebook and sandwiches. Fungi eat the dead.  Apart from a few types of bacteria, fungi are alone in being able to decompose lignin (the hard part of wood).  They truly are ‘les fleurs du mal’ – the flowers of decay. In keeping with this dark behaviour they, unlike most sun-loving chlorophyll-driven plants, don’t care a damn about the sun.  What they do care about is moisture.  Dawn after a damp night is usually considered the best time to go foraging – we left at noon. We headed for Fordwich (‘The smallest town in England’), it being close and there being plenty of woods ...

by Karim Attia. I chose the name ‘Moonshadow’ because I wanted a brand that would be internationally recognisable and timeless, and because I love the Moon.  This reflects the conception of this site as both a means for personal expression/sharing and a way of marketing myself and the things I produce – films, scripts, photographs, etc.  No small reason was the remarkable luck in finding that the moonshadow.co.uk domain name had not already been taken. SYMBOLISM Those things that every human being, irrespective of time and place, would recognise are limited to astral bodies (Sun, MOON, stars), certain elements of the weather, fire, the human body itself (plus its functions), consciousness, certain shapes (the CIRCLE) and certain structures. I took my cue from the study of ancient language, which has been able to trace certain words back through time to find the roots from which modern languages evolved.  Some of the most ancient survivals include the word for ‘fire’, ‘hole/cave’, ‘hand’, and in counting ‘one, two, three, many’. As for my love of the Moon, it’s not that I dislike the Sun, but that is simply too painful to view for long, or often – sunrise is my favourite time, closely followed by sunset, which ...