Cabinet of Curiosities by Charlotte Wightwick - feeling hot, hot, hot

Typical. I started writing this article a couple of days ago, at 5.30am after yet another sticky, close night. In the end I gave up trying to sleep and decided to do something useful instead. It is now Sunday morning and the weather is cool and grey and rainy, making this one of the most poorly timed blog posts ever.

But all is not lost. According to my phone, the heat is coming back. So, for those of you who love a heatwave - and those like me who just want it to be 20 degrees and cloudy LIKE NORMAL FOR JULY IN BRITAIN - here’s a quick overview of a few ways people have kept cool through history. At the end I’ll pick my favourite to go into this month’s Cabinet of Curiosities.

1. Caves. Ok, so they won’t fit into my cabinet, but many caves are Nice Cool Places. On holiday in Sicily this year, this was brought home to me in two different ways. The first was that my bedroom in our rented villa was one! It was by far the coolest (in both sense of the word) room in the house and despite the temperatures being well into in the 30s during the day, I slept well and long every night (and sometimes for afternoon naps too).

My bedroom in Modica, Sicily, 

always cool and comfortable! 

Photo: C Wightwick

We also visited the Cava d’Ispica, a series of caves which were inhabited from prehistoric times through to the middle ages. Obvious evidence of inhabitation ranged from soot markings, to stone-cut tombs, shelves and niches for lighting or possessions and the remnants of medieval frescos – a really stunning landscape detailing the different ways that people shape and use the natural world around them.

Cava d'Ispica, Sicily. 

Photo: C Wightwick

2. Air-con. Yup, it existed prior to electricity. Wealthy Romans, for example, pumped cold water through the walls of their houses in the summer months to keep things cool. And of course the Romans also had the Frigidarium at the Baths to plunge into…

3. Fans. So this is where the photos get really pretty. Used across different cultures for thousands of years (evidence dates from C4th BC in Greece and C2nd BC in China, for example), fans became a major fashion accessory in Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Disappointingly though, the so-called ‘language of the fans’ is, apparently, just a myth (or rather a later marketing ploy). While I’m normally one for historical accuracy in my fiction, please don’t let that put you off, romance writers! 

C18th hand fan, showing Hector's 

farewell to Andromache, 

Victoria & Albert Museum London 

4. Back to Sicily. I seem inexplicably not to have taken any photos of the frankly vast quantity of gelato I consumed on holiday earlier this year (I can’t imagine why that would be) so you’ll have to imagine it. Ice cream. Mmm. Again existing in some form (at least for royalty) for thousands of years, it seems to have developed in Europe into what we would recognise as ice-cream in around about the C16th and was gradually popularised as ice houses and then refrigeration became more available.

So – my winner? Well, I can’t fit my bed-cave into even my imaginary Cabinet of Curiosities, so it will have to be a fan. Practical and pretty – it can act as a reminder of this summer’s heat wave long after we’re shivering in our beds and longing for summer again…

The Goddess Sulis Minerva

by Marie-Louise Jensen

Living in Bath as I do, I've trailed around the Roman Baths dozens of times with and without visitors. What is fascinating is that no matter how many times I visit, I always learn something new. 

The Great Bath as it looks today: Wikipedia

Before Christmas, I went for a wander around in order to be inspired for a story for 7-8 year olds. I hardly dare mention I'm writing a Roman story with resident History Girls' expert Caroline Lawrence on the blog! But I consider the Roman Baths at Bath practically home, so that will serve as my excuse to dip my toe in Roman waters. 

On my last trip, they had a new innovation at the baths: actors dressed in Roman costumes who could tell you 'their' story. I had a long chat with the slave girl, maid to a grand Roman lady. I learned that the only way she had of making money was to grow and sell her hair. I also learned lots of fascinating information about Roman cosmetics and the fact that Romans disliked body hair. 

As I'm in the process of writing the e-book now, I'm particularly interested in the goddess of the baths, Sulis Minerva. She was an amalgamation of the local Celtic deity Sul, goddess of healing and sacred waters, and the Roman deity Minerva, goddess of wisdom. The largest Roman baths in Britain, built to make use of our only hot springs, are dedicated to her. The city was named Aquae Sulis in her honour.

Sulis Minerva: image courtesy of Wikipedia

There was a huge temple, which only the priests could enter, next to the baths complex, but the altar was outdoors in the temple precinct. Here sacrifices of food or animals were made by the priests.

But the public had their own way of communicating with the goddess. It was believed that the Sacred Spring was the point at which the human world touched the world of the deity and that here communication could take place. Prayers, wishes and above all curses were scratched onto thin sheets of lead or pewter and thrown into the spring. They seem to have been accompanied by a gift thrown into the spring: a wealth of jewellery and coins from the era have been recovered along with the prayers. 

I love the idea that the deity could intervene in human affairs through the spring and so have had my young characters ask Sulis Minerva to bring down a plague of carbuncles upon a thief. That should serve him or her right. Let's just hope the goddess is listening.