This looks like a hoot

[conal]

cheers wargod, very nice.

half-drunk is a hard thing to call... that three pint point where pool and darts skills for a brief moment improve?

[Gaius Drustanus]

In a 5th century A.D. dictionary, Hesychios of Alexandria defines the word "Hemp", referring to Herodotus, as "Scythian Incense". After an impressive Scythian royal burial, Herodotus describes what he thinks is a particularly effective "vapour bath" (Book IV 73).

Scythians crawl into small felt tents containing brasiers holding red-hot stones. They throw hemp seeds onto the hot stones and inhale the smoke.
As the "Father of History" had never smoked pot himself, his account is naive and the fact that the Scythians "howled with pleasure" is attributed by him to enjoyment of a "vapour bath", when obviously they were just High.

In modern times whole sets of hemp-inhaling equipment were found in the frozen tombs of the Altai ("Altai Scythians"), proving Herodotus accurate, and not the "Father of Lies". Bronze cauldrons containing hot stones, as can be seen from the heat cracks left on the rock surfaces. A leather bag filled with hemp seeds, and charred seeds among the stones (leading to the term "stoned"?). The conclusion: the "incense" burners were actually still smouldering when the mourners left the tomb chamber so that the dead remained behind wreathed still in cannabis smoke.

The Eastern Scythians were known as the saka haumavarga, "hauma-drinking saka", ie used fly agaric sediment with an intoxicant effect similar to the frenzy of the early medieval berserkers: "their use before battle (similar to that of the later 'assassins') ........ contributing to victory" Page93-95.

"Die Welt der Skythen". Renate Rolle 1980.

[Daniel Duxfield]

Stoners in history. Well met. lol

I've read where archaeologists found the tomb of a Mongolian princes and among the artefacts there, was a small pipe and the remains of a small leather bag which contained some very dry cannabis.

Seems like everywhere in the ancient world people felt the need for a wee toot now and then. Too bad times are what they are with small minded prohibition mongers, masquerading under the banner of public health and anti crime.

[Daniel Duxfield]

Actually, I have to admit with my sparing with the bokken with a friend of mine good enough to be a master with the weapon. He encouraged a jug (1 litre) of beer (or 2) and a wee joint before a few hours sparing. Just to loosen up a bit.

It seemed to work well enough. We never used armour or helms but still managed to put our blows in the right places and try new techniques.

It didn't however, inspire me to greater acts of courage, never spared drunk per say. I took chances and tried out what he'd just taught me, but he was always able to keep me in line with a quick short blow to the head whenever I got a little cheeky. Which soon put be back in line. lol.

[Gaius Drustanus]

The Eastern Barbarians: Scythians and Saka. All part of the Ethnic Majority of the Modern world, the Indo-European ethnic group (like their cousins the Norse). In a recent documentary, "The Story of India" on Sky, Michael Wood visited a Russian Archeologist excavating a "Lost Civilisation", a City of the Steppe dwelling Aryans ("Noble"), cousins to the the Scythians.

Before they overan the Indus Valley civilisations of Mohenjo Daro in the Northern part of the Subcontinent, in their lost city on the Steppes, they were taming horses and had mastered the earliest form of Chariot warfare. Noted in sanskrit and elsewhere, and collaborated by these Russian archeologists, they were partial to "Soma". An Hallucinogen. A mixture of hashish, ephedrine and other additives. The earliest ancestors of the Europeans were, um....,err.... stoners.

[conal]

I've seen that doco.

Its a goody.

[Gaius Drustanus]

Ah Aryan "Soma". The other additive I couldn't remember, was Poppy. The drug of Choice for the Aryan Nobes, master race of the Indian Subcontinent. But "som" today in modern Pakistan is Ephedrine. It grows naturally in the high mountains on the border with Afganistan.

Of course, Soma found modern fame as the futuristic hallucinogen Wonderdrug in the 20th century Utopian novel of Aldous Huxley "Brave New World".