speaking of characteristics of old-growth forests, the cycles of great old trees living and dying create effects on the landscape that cannot be fully replicated once destroyed.
there are multiple ways for a tree to die, each with their own impacts on the ecosystem. Many trees die standing, becoming starkly bare pillars of standing deadwood with increasingly fewer branches and more sharply whitened surfaces as the bark falls off and the branches break, the smaller branches first and then the larger ones. Standing deadwood is vital for housing lots and lots of bird species and it also has an undeniable sexiness and charisma
Trees broken by wind, snapping off at some point up the trunk, are often hollow in the middle from heart rot fungi. I don't think the fungi actually kill the tree, since the center of the tree (the heartwood) is dead anyways, but they do structurally weaken it.
One of the most dramatic tree deaths is windthrow. This happens to large trees that are solid all the way through and not easily broken by the forces of wind; instead, the roots are wrenched violently out of the ground, creating a bowl-shaped hole in the ground with a huge mound of twisted tree roots standing 5 or 6 feet tall next to it.
The death of a tree by windthrow feels very sad, because the tree seemed to be thriving up until that point, but the effect on the ecosystem is very fascinating. The hole in the ground where the root ball was torn up creates a shaded, sheltered area, sometimes filling with water to become a small pool. The root ball itself, right next to it, becomes a tall pile of soil and decomposing wood.
When walking in the forest, I often notice strange mounds rising from the layer of leaf litter, covered in lush carpets of moss, like bustling moss metropolises rising out of lowlands that only have scattered moss towns. Elevated from the forest floor, the moss-hills do not become covered with leaf litter. In some cases, these distinctive moss-hills are still visibly connected to the fallen trunk of a windthrown tree; in other cases, the tree trunk has almost completely decayed, and only the mound created by the root ball remains.
I read once in an article that the creation of humps and valleys by the windthrown tree roots is characteristic of old growth forests. That is, the forest has existed so long, with trees living majestically and dying violently in it, that the ground is no longer a smooth plane, but humpy and bumpy and pitted and pooled from centuries of trees dying by windthrow.
My observations seem to agree that these windthrown-tree-humps have unique ecology, particularly in terms of their thriving moss colonies that remain even after the tree that originally died has rotted away. They would create a million little variations on light and moisture level, gathering leaf litter in some places and keeping it away from others. Variations create multiplying amounts of biodiversity due to the increased amount of niches to fill.
Not to mention that hills and valleys increase the total surface area of the forest floor, creating more forest per forest.
The humps and valleys are also called pits and mounds or pillows and cradles! For anybody that's interested in a pretty quick primer on the phenomenon, ecologist Tom Wessels talks about it in the first part of this 3-part series on youtube
This also leads to huge variations in forest structure depending on which tree species were present at different times in the life of that forest.
In my area, one of the first tall trees to shoot up after land is disturbed is the water oak (Quercus nigra. They get 50-70ft tall and 3 feet in diameter in about 50 years. They often have very, very shallow root systems. Because of this, they fall over faster than other trees. They are also more prone to disease, and hollow out from the center faster and more often, and are likely to have dead sections on loving trees, providing even more unique habitat.
So some of our forests that are only 50 years old have old-growth-characteristics because of these trees. And then they fall, or otherwise die, leaving room for our true old growth species to rise up. But the pits and mounds of these fallen early-risers are also shaped differently than those of more deeprooted species. They are shallower pools or valleys, and sometimes form a wall that is perpendicular to the forest floor - completely vertical to the ground.
This is just one example, but understanding it, we can see that the predominance of different species in a forest can drastically change its microclimates and topography! Different species rot in different ways, hollow in different ways, and form different shapes on the landscape. If there are lots of different tree species in your area, then the different proportions they grow in, die in, fall in, and the different timings at which they do so, offer an endless aboundment of variety.
This is why no two forests are the same, and no single wild area is ever truly replaceable, or interchangeable. Because each has developed entirely differently, with so many little factors playing in.
Photo id: 4 photos of a 6ft tall woman standing by an uprooted tree. The wall of roots completely is vertical and flat, perpendicular to the ground, and is several feet taller than her.
Hey artists, C. Spike Trotman, founder of Iron Circus Comics, just posted an invaluable thread on depicting different types of black hair. I’d do the thing where you screencap the whole thread and post it but it’s just too long (which is great because it’s a whole lot of useful information!) Give her a follow while you’re there.
Anyway, go check it out. I just wanted to save it and share it because I didn’t know how much I didn’t know!
This is an amazing resource, not only for artists, but for writers too! I love this!
{ID - tweet from @/Iron_Spike that reads, “Black Hair for Non-Black Artists: a Cheat Sheet Thread. Hi, folks! Just spur-of-the-moment decided to put together some reference for folks who want to draw/model black characters in their work, but arent confident they won’t make simple, obvious mistakes w/r/t black hair. END ID}
saw your tags @did-sm1-say-catfish and yes, that link is broken! I looked into it, and it's because there are now multiple maps, including a map of India—
I appreciate this video a lot--people don't realize how important it is to start slow if you're trying to come back from a completely sedentary lifestyle, and they get really hurt as a result. Straining your muscles too much, too suddenly can land you in the E.R. and the wrong joint injury can permanently affect your mobility, so please start with absolute basics and easy stretches!
(This is part two of the hair lessons, focusing on writing/narratives. If you want to know how the styles LOOK, refer to part 1 and its addendum)
Now that you know what our hair actually looks like, we’re going to discuss incorporating that into your writing (original fic, fanfic, webcomics, anything with a narrative). You don’t HAVE to give us a dissertation on "how you studied 'The Black People’s Hair'" in your story. That’s not what I’m asking you to do. I’m just asking you to CONSIDER the effort and existence of it. The same way you put effort into discussing nonblack hair textures? Should be the sort of tenderness and care you put into discussing ours. It does not stand to reason that I have read thousands of stories describing "the silky, black/blonde tresses/waves that fell down their pale back as their lover ran their fingers through them", but Black readers have nothing of the sort to compare to without seeking our own authors out. Our hair deserves some loving and adoration too!
This is a very long post describing hairstyles and how they can correspond to your character's design and decisions, so I'll put a read more here. The sections are organized into 'Twist Out', 'Afros', 'Locs', 'Braids', 'Black Men', and 'Straight Hair' if you Ctrl F. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE take your time to read all of this at some point though, as I put a lot of resources and explanation into this. I'm trusting you!
The History
As I discussed in the last lesson, our hair is incredibly important to us, and part of that includes the vulnerability and trust that comes along with access to it. This is due to a long history of oppression. There’s a racist history of making Black women hide our hair, as if it would ‘tempt white men’ away, regardless of it were due to actual attraction or the (more likely) rape of Black women. There’s a racist history of touching our hair, as though we are animals or zoo exhibits. We aren’t just going to let anyone touch our heads, so DON'T write that, unless you are doing so to show that it is a microaggression towards your character. Even now, cultural appropriation is rampant. If I were to wear cornrows with hoops, it'd be seen as 'ghetto' or 'gang-like'. Meanwhile, it is a fashion statement for white women. When Miles G Morales showed up in Across the Spiderverse, animators specifically chose cornrows for him, but many people mistakenly took it to me that he was 'rougher and tougher' than the original Miles. This was a racist perception! Hearing the Fade get hyped up in the news as the 'Travis Kelce', when Black men and especially NFL players have been wearing it for DECADES to crickets... it hurts lmao. Point is, you can describe and respect Black hair without being racist about it. Okay? Okay.
Vulnerability
YOUR CHARACTERS NEED TO BE CLOSE BEFORE ALLOWING THEM TO TOUCH THEIR HAIR!!!
It needs to be someone they TRUST wholeheartedly. Again, do NOT let a stranger touch their hair unless it’s meant to be an uncomfortable situation!
Consider CONSENT! Consent is ALWAYS beautiful! Have your other characters (Black or not) ASK to touch your Black characters’ hair! And not in the ‘Oh can I touch it?’ way. But if they’re really close friends or dating, have them ask to help do their braids, or wash their hair, or even just to stroke their hair and face! Or if your Black character is injured with a head wound, and they have to tend to them, have them ask! The asking shows a level of care and respect for your Black character and their body! At any point the consent may be revoked, and that needs to be respected! If they let them tend their head wound, but then smack their hand away after, that’s not ‘rude’- they’re allowed to do that, especially to signify that they aren’t at that level of trust yet. That's still angsty!
One great example of love from a Black character is doing their partner’s hair, or allowing their partner to do their hair. The ‘Hair-washing’ fic is a common thing in fanfiction; we all understand how that shows the depth of the trust in the relationship between the characters. How would you write about that trust with a Black character, if you don’t know what goes into taking care of their hair? If you don’t even know what their hair looks or feels like? The lack of awareness will show, and what should be a beautiful, deep moment will fall flat for Black readers. I wrote one once for my character with locs, and it honestly made me tear up because I realized that I’d never seen one, at least not in the majority white spaces that the fandoms I was in were.
Think about it- how often have you read a hair-washing fic with a Black character? Was it accurate? Would you know if it was accurate? Have you spoken to or heard anyone Black in your fandom space talk about it? Do you know anyone Black in your fandom space to ask? It’s things like this that we have to consider!
If you have a character that is nonblack in a relationship with your Black character, that honestly reveals even more trust because there’s a long history (again) behind that NOT happening! In life, we can’t go to the same places. I can’t go to a white hair salon or barbershop. They won’t know what to do! People are allowed to go through hair school without learning how to work with different, thicker textures. It’s not right nor fair, but it’s a part of the casual, systemic racism in our lives.
My feelings on what Lestat symbolizes aside, the scene where he plays with Louis’ curls in AMC's IWTV was an intelligent way to show that closeness, and how a nonblack character would affectionately play with a Black character’s hair! How he works with the curl in his fingers, rather than trying to pet Louis or run his fingers through- it was an intelligent move on Sam and Jacob’s part as actors to understand that THAT’S how that would go down!
If you have a character that wants to show a violation of your Black characters’ space, touching/harming our hair is cruelty on a very personal level that will generate an extreme reaction.
Think About Your Character!
When thinking about your Black character’s hairstyle, you need to think about your character themselves! What do they do every day? What are their hobbies? Are they Type A, Type B personality? Do they have a lot of time? Are they always in a rush? Are they noncommittal? Are they self-conscious? Artsy? Serious? Are they in a time period where the means to care for their hair are limited?
People make jokes and comments about how Black women don’t like getting our hair wet and dismiss our concerns. But it’s not out of ‘silliness’ or vanity. What you consider ‘just hair’ may have taken days of planning in advance and HOURS of our time! We put a lot of thought and effort into our hair, and it will easily shatter the illusion for your Black readers if you describe our hair poorly or create an unlikely scenario with it. It’s not a joke!
Some Terms:
Protective styles- a style that allows our hair to ‘rest’ with minimal manipulation
‘Tender-headed’- some people’s scalps are more sensitive to the tightness of styles, so it’ll hurt a little bit more and require some more gentleness (Regardless it’s still going to hurt for a bit after a fresh style)
Bonnets- a silk/satin cap of varying lengths that we wear at night to protect our hair and keep the moisture in
Loc Sock- same idea, but for locs
Durag- keeps short haircuts protected; can even help create the wave pattern that many Black men enjoy
Scarf- same idea as the bonnets, except scarfs can be used specifically for straight hairstyles to wrap them up to keep it straight and neat
(It'll seem real legit if you include your Black characters wearing their headcoverings at night! I remember laughing while reading Twilight because I knew that if Edward snuck into my room at night, he'd see me in my scarf or bonnet lmao.)
General Hair Care:
While I don’t completely agree with some of the advertising in this first one (it’s the internet. Can’t go nowhere without someone trying to hawk something) it’s cool in general to explain how our hair looks the way it does.
If you have Black children OCs, it’s important to consider that their parents have to do their hair, and how that will be its own experience! (It can be very stressful for Black children to get their hair done, as it takes a long time and can be physically uncomfortable. There are plenty of stories of burnt ears and tugged tangles and not very nice old women. Children are children! Keep in mind how they may behave while getting the style of your choice.
Moisturizing to keep healthy
Twist Outs
Cute twist out styles
Twist outs are a style that takes overnight to hold, or maybe even a few days! The cool thing is that the twists themselves can be the style! So the tighter you want their curls to be, the longer they’ll wear the twists in. If you want to describe your character with tighter curls, there needs to be a section of time where their hair remains in the twists! If your character has an event, and they want twists… this needs to be done in advance. Your character will NOT untwist them the day of, unless they want weak, limp curls (or you want the scene to compose of them having weak curls).
How long they'll last depends on the activity of your character! If all they do is work a desk job, or they don’t sweat very much, the twists can last some time! But if they sweat, or wear hats or caps, it’s not going to last long. Maybe a week.
Pros: Very versatile! If you have a character that loves trying new looks and enjoy being spontaneous, twist outs are for them! Easy! If your Black character is younger, or haven’t done their hair before, this is a great way for them to start working with their hair! Doesn’t take long (to do)! If your character is in a rush, and they do their twists, they can go just about anywhere. If they’re not self-conscious, this will be just fine.
Cons: It cannot get wet again, or the style will puff up back into your natural texture. It does not last long enough to say “oh my character went on a two year long fantasy adventure with this style.” If you want your character to have a twist out the whole time, they’re going to have to take time to do it. It would be cool if you incorporate a scene where they’re working on their hair, maybe in the background while everyone’s discussing plans or something. Just a reminder that their hair isn’t just staying magically twisted (unless they have the magic to do that).
Afros
Afro Style Guide, Style Guide for Men (works for any gender though)
Wash & Gos are just that- wash it (or really, condition it, you don’t have to shampoo it every time) dry with a t-shirt (to prevent breakage), put some oil and a light crème on it, fluff it up and you’re good to go! Maybe an hour at max and can be done while getting dressed in the morning!
Pros: Easy! If they’re doing a full, combed out afro, it’s not as simple, it will take more time. And at night it has to be plaited so that it maintains its length, otherwise it will tangle. But other than that, that’s still not all that hard. They can show off their curls! Black characters can and should have pride in their hair. It’s beautiful. This is the opportunity that you as an author can describe the pure texture of their hair, how it shines in the light, how the coils look, how soft it is! Romanticize Black hair the same way you do anyone else’s!
Cons: None really! Afros are wonderful! Just make sure that your character has a way to keep their hair from getting tangled. Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean there’s no maintenance! A pick, a bonnet, oil and water go a long way!
Locs
Five stages of locs
A person who does locs is a loctician.
Can be palm-rolled or interlocked/crocheted
I cannot emphasize enough that you do not want just anyone doing their locs! They can really mess up someone’s hair if they don’t know what they’re doing. I say that to say, for your character, if they don’t trust the person doing their hair… they should. They should not be walking into anyone’s place to get their hair locked; they’d do research first.
The time it takes locs to ‘bud’ (that is, to actually form the loc) depends on the texture of their hair. But it can take up to 3 months to even a year for them to actually ‘loc up’. So if your character just got locs, they’re not going to look neat. They’re going to be frizzy.
As long as they’re washing their hair, keeping it moisturized, and not using wax products (DO NOT HAVE ANY BLACK CHARACTER USE WAX PRODUCTS IT IS BAD FOR BLACK HAIR) it’ll last forever! Locs are incredibly strong, especially the thicker they get! It is recommended that locs are retwisted every six weeks, but if your character has freeform locs, doesn’t have the money or time right now, or they just aren’t that pressed, they can grow indefinitely.
Something cute to write in your stories: sometimes locs do just… fall out. Not the whole thing! But the same way thin hair gets everywhere… sometimes the ends of thin locs just… fall off! You’ll find little buds on the ground. This happens especially in the budding stage.
Pros: Very low daily maintenance! At most they’ll need a bonnet or loc sock, and oil/water mix to spritz and massage in. Strong style that can hold any look- buns, curls, etc. They can be dyed, though it will take a long time to do so. I say that to say, if you want your character to have bright green locs, go for it!!
Cons: Low daily, but HIGH wash day maintenance! So if your character has a fancy date or something to go on, they should not be getting their hair retwisted the same day, or at least not so close to. It’s going to be shiny, oily, and tight, which can cause discomfort. Give them the day to let the hair settle!
Locs are PERMANENT!! This isn’t a bad thing, as much as it is a ‘KNOW WHAT YOU’RE DOING BEFORE YOU DO IT’ thing. Technically they can be combed out, but that would take a very long time and very precise effort, and most people aren’t going through all that. They’re just going to cut them off and start fresh. If you have a character that would balk at such a choice, locs aren’t for them. If you have a character that’s picky and choosy, that likes versatility, that can’t make up their mind, do NOT give them locs unless they’re making the conscious choice to commit. (Again, this is subjective! Maybe they have locs because their mother died and it reminds them of her! Okay! That works!) If you have a character that’s vain, or at least doesn’t like looking awkward… unless they’re going to style up the awkward stage, they’re not going to want locs. (Awkward stage: the first two stages get considered awkward because the locs look messy. This is because they’re turning from curls to locs!)
Braids
Styles
How long braids can take depend on the style. Box braids can take 10-12 hours to do! Microbraids? You HAVE to have multiple people or you'll be there for damn near a day (and that's assuming you have a masterful braider!)
How long they last depend on your character! If they're like me as a kid, I didn't care how I looked, so my mom got me cheap braids and let me run free for two summer months. So if your Black character is a carefree child! Go for it. But if they're a teen or adult (or are very concerned about how they look) a month to six weeks is about how long braids can stay in before your new growth shows. A character that is usually trimmed and proper having loads of new growth over their braids may symbolize that they don’t have it all together anymore.
Pros: Protective style! Great way to let your character have minimal daily maintenance; oil and water and something to cover it. SOME braided styles allow for high activity and even rain without changing. It depends on the hair that’s been braided in, as well as the style. Incredibly versatile! They can have multi-colored braids, long braids, short braids, beads, trinkets… if your character is creative and bubbly and likes to experiment, the sky is the limit! That can symbolize their artistic expression, just by describing what they look like! So long as they have the time, they can have any look and style they want. No need to commit too long.
If your character is capable of doing their own braids (and locs, btw), they’re amazing. Like… that’s mad respect for them. If you describe your character being able to do their own braids, they’ve got amazing arm strength, patience, and skill. That skilled dexterity can be revealed as a trait of theirs through that alone.
Cons: They take a LONG TIME. Your character is not going anywhere. If they’re getting braids… they’re not going anywhere. If you write your character doing anything fancy the day of, depending on the type of braids, Black readers are not going to believe you. Even if it did get finished, it would be very tight. I currently have a poll going on, and so far, a good majority of the 10+ answers are braids! It cost MONEY. It is NOT CHEAP to get braids done! If your character is poor as a church mouse, they will be doing those braids with their friend in front of youtube. Because it can be in the hundreds of dollars. (Don’t get me started on hair culture right now; BACK IN MY DAY IT COST-)
Hairstyles on Black Men
I want to specifically give space and applause to these hairstyles on Black men, because we REALLY don’t give Black men enough credit for all the creativity they show with their hair! And again, with The Killmonger being the choice style in all these damn vidya games despite almost no Black man I know choosing it as a look… PLEASE LOOK! WE HAVE OPTIONS! Try describing how gorgeous these looks can be on your Black men characters! It would be very nice.
Straight Hair
Well, I was going to explain, but ol ‘Guest Writer’ here pretty much lays it all out! So just go ahead and read this article lol.
Just to re-emphasize, straight hair is NOT something that just grows out of our head that way! It takes effort! So if you have a character that doesn’t feel like maintaining straight hair, they shouldn’t have it! If your character has natural hair and lives in a rainy or humid city, they’re going to be fighting that weather to keep it straight- make sure that’s consistent with their personality!
My best friend used to wash and flatiron her hair every day. Like, laser focused on looking that good, Type A shit (she’s a top money banker now, so I guess it worked out). If you have a character like that, it’s fine! If they’re lazy any other time of the day, they’re not suddenly going to be waking up at 5am to flat iron their hair. It’s not consistent.
Conclusion
That’s pretty much what I have! I’m not the guru on all things Black hair, and I obviously cannot encompass every potential scenario you may have for your characters. Really, my intention here is to get you to think about how our hair reflects our character and personalities, and how when you write and/or draw a Black character, you have that ability! And when you’re able to incorporate that naturally, it makes your Black readers feel seen, like you actually cared about that character enough to give them just as much description as your nonblack characters. You don’t have to be a master at it! Just… occasionally the little things that we can go ‘oh, yeah!’ at would be nice. An equivalent effort would be nice.
Remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!
pet peeve is when you look up fashion references from a specific era and you keep getting modern day '[era]-inspired' fashion like NO i want authenticity damn it. i can see your 2020 photo quality and your 2020 hair and your 2020 makeup. youre not fooling me.
hello i'm a historical fashion researcher and i have a lot of experience looking up things! this is a very widely experienced irritation and you're definitely not alone in this, but i am here to share everything i know!
so, ways to get around this:
turn off AI results. they're literally nonsense to us
don't use pinterest because the sources/provenance is often hard to trace
a standard internet search can be okay, but museum collections are the top tier (list of collections below this list)
instead of broad terms like victorian, regency, tudor, renaissance etc. try using the decade you're looking for. if you're not sure of what decade it is but have a vague image in your head, look on the fashion history timeline and just jump around until you find it. but even changing to e.g. 19th century will give better results than victorian
including terms like womenswear/menswear, daywear, formal wear, evening wear, court dress should increase the value of your search too
including "fashion plates" in your search can give you a nice impression of the intended silhouettes of the era. some of these might be a little stylised but will show you what was considered in vogue
for pre-fashion plate eras or things like makeup and styling, you'll have to look at portraiture or manuscripts. these are harder to actually find what you're looking for, but searching museum collections and limiting results to specific date ranges will be your friend
when looking at art, do bear in mind sometimes artists would paint fabric extra flow-y to show off their skills. it might not have been exactly like that in terms of fabric weight or drape. so, a pinch of salt required!
if you find something on image search where the provenance is dubious, reverse image search and you might find a source! i've been able to trace random pinterest images to real sources, but this does take a lot of time and effort and is often not worth the headache
some online resources and museum collections:
fashion history timeline is an invaluable resource if you're trying to get a feel for everything and should be your first port of call. it'll also link to good examples
the met has a vast number of extant examples of clothing, as well as fashion plates
costume institute fashion plates is a subcollection of the met for fashion plates (1800s-1922)
v&a also has many extant garments, fashion plates, and incredible articles on clothing and aesthetics. read the details of the objects because they'll often reveal a lot about the piece
lacma is good for C19th-20th pieces
nypl digital collection for photographs
national portrait gallery or similar for portraiture, or literally any museum in your country that has historical art
national museums scotland can be useful situationally but might be oddly specific
stout style history is a great collection for finding image references for fat people wearing historical clothes. survival bias of a lot of museum pieces tends towards smaller clothing that couldn't be repurposed, but this aims to counter that. it's not sortable, but is still a really nice resource
wikimedia commons is surprisingly handy! and the images, if you should need to link/repost them, are public domain
auction websites sound like a funny one to recommend. some won't have mannequins and some will. just look up historical garment auctions and you'll find some!
anyway, i hope this has been a good place to start for anyone interested! there are probably some i've missed because there are so many museums across the world and i don't know about all of them or can't remember them. but these are the ones i've used the most! (my specialisation/jobs i've had to research for have only really been in western fashion, so my resources reflect that)
Wikipedia has a list of fashion museums. Unfortunately, the page itself is only available in German, but the introductory paragraph is very short and after that, it's organised by country, and then it's a simple list. If you click on a museum's article, the website is usually linked in the overview table.
Video description: A black, feminine-presenting person shows how to do ghostly/haunted makeup on dark skin.
They highlight the usage of blue mixed with a foundation(?) to cancel out the warmth on darker skin tones, the lack of a need for blush, and amplifying pre-existing features, such as eye-bags.
At the end of the video they use a lit candelabra and pose briefly, displaying their completed look. Video description end.
Okay I JUST realized I never posted these on here—- BUT BASICALLY, about a year and a half ago I started doing these experimental black hairstyle posts that were threads long on Twitter, to give artists a source of inspo for their black ocs whose hair they wanted to try something new with! There’s more to black hair than just the selected styles portrayed in media, and I thought it would be fun to show people how much texture, shape, fades, length, and style can be combined when drawing black hair—-cause it’s a kind of manipulation our hair can do irl! The OG posts were lost with the hacking of my original Twitter account (@/bagels_donuts) but I’ve since reuploaded the whole thread to my new Twitter (@/ItsDonutsFR)! I hope artists on tumblr find these useful, sorry it took me so long to post them here😭🙏🏾 I’ll upload them all in parts!
Part 1: Long masc hairstyles + playing with fades
💬 2 🔁 715 ❤️ 1008 · Part 2: shape, style, and length with femme styles!
I've been meaning to make a new pinned post for this blog with a few resources etc. for a million years and now I'm procrastinating so here it is.
Link to old pinned post (articles about racism and white supremacy in classics) here. I highly recommend checking it out.
Under the cut you will find a list of resources that I have found invaluable. Please put your own in the replies and reblogs!
Dickinson College Commentaries: Latin and Greek grammars, word lists, and intermediate level commentaries on ancient texts.
Perseus Digital Library and Scaife viewer: absolute classic. Ancient texts and dictionaries. You can click a word in the text and see its potential functions and its definition in a few different dictionaries. also will let you view some texts side by side with an English translation.
philolog.us: literally just Lewis and Short, LSJ, and Slater dictionaries imported from Perseus, but with a really simple interface that makes it the easiest online dictionary to use if you just want to look up a word.
Logeion and Morpho: Logeion lets you look up a word in Latin or Greek and see it in a ton of different dictionaries at once. Morpho will tell you all the possible forms for any given word.
Diogenes Viewer: app that basically does what Perseus does except you can download it. There's a web version with open source texts but to get the full benefit you need to have both the app and the TLG and PHI Greek and Latin text databases downloaded. Send an ask off anon if you want more information about those.
Haverford Bridge: vocab lists for selected texts. There's also a page with the tools they use to generate the lists so you can make your own.
johnstoniatexts: texts that Ian Johnston has translated and put online for free. It doesn't have everything but it has kind of a mind-boggling amount considering everything on here is translated by one person. The translations tend to be a little wordier than I prefer but it's still my first stop when I'm looking for easily accessible translations to recommend to people because I know they're fairly recent and reasonably well-done.
Geoffrey Steadman: free early intermediate level commentaries in Latin and Greek. If you use them and have the means please consider giving him a couple dollars!
PHI Latin Texts: lots of Latin with word + author search functions.
theoi.com: theoi has source material in translation for a number of gods and mythical figures. They don't have everything but if you're looking for every story with x god it's usually a decent place to start.
Intermediate Ancient Greek Language: free open source Greek textbook covering Greek in more detail than your intro textbook/course.
Latin Macronizer: you can paste in a Latin text and it'll add macrons to long syllables! It highlights forms it isn't sure about and you can double check it. (Related tip: the LaNe dictionary, on Logeion, is considered the gold standard for checking which syllables are long by nature in a given word!)
This list is not comprehensive and I will probably keep adding to it!
Also if you're looking for anything feel free to send an ask and I'll see if I can find it and/or poll the masses (everyone following this blog). Anon is off at least until I'm done with finals but if you ask to have it answered privately I'll honor that.
here are a couple of other databases i've stumbled upon in the past few years (as an ancient history major /w a focus on the eastern med):
ancient greek texts/linguistics:
the lexicon of greek personal names: ongoing project dedicated to documenting every single person/name found in ancient greek epigraphy/papyri/etc. the search function's pretty good, and i think its invaluable for anyone trying to figure out the popularity of a name in certain regions.
perseus also has a word frequency search so you can figure out how often a word is being used in a particular text/what the most frequent words are.
ToposText: invaluable resource for both ancient greek texts & ancient greek sites. designed as an online collection of ancient greek texts specifically for mobile devices, which is awesome because many databases are formatted specifically for viewing on a computer.
bronze age databases:
eDiAna: digital philological-etymological dictionary for luwian, carian and sidetic (useful for anyone interested in anatolian languages)
AdW & Universität Würzburg's hittitology portal: contains links to texts, ongoing projects, bibliographies, photos, etc. great starting point for anyone interested in studying the hittites. there is also the hittite monuments project, which has a non-exhaustive database of major hittite rock reliefs & other monuments.
LiBER Linear B Database: database containing thousands of published linear b tablets, with transcriptions of the symbols + images. i also recommend using linearb.xyz, mostly because i prefer the search function button over LiBER. DĀMOS (Database of Mycenaean at Oslo) is another good option.
for those interested in linear a (or an exercise in futility): i recommend lineara.xyz (the linear a equivalent of linearb.xyz) and john younger's Linear A Texts and Inscriptions site which is only accessible via the waybackmachine for reasons i cannot understand. if i were the university of kansas this would be a massive flex, but whatever
amarna texts: online corpus on the amarna texts (correspondence between egypt and other bronze age mediterranean states), along with transliterations.
ETCSLcorpus: catalogue containing a bunch of cunieform compositions and accompanying translations (i am not very familiar with ancient mesopotamian databases, so anyone who actually does research in this area please feel free to add more).
mnamon also has a guide to electronic resources for ancient mediterranean writing systems, which i recommend as a good starting point in general.
iron age greek archaeology & archaeological publications:
CVAOnline: other people have mentioned this in the notes, but i think it's also important to note that the cva doesn't just include the pottery but also the museum's publication of it (including plates, which have the measurements & some related information). this has been a MASSIVE help for my dissertation and i highly recommend it if you want to research ancient greek vessels. the search function is a bit of a pain (believe me) (i have 20 tabs open but it now riots when i try and view a different taf) but it is so worth it.
older archaeological publications: have you ever thought "oh boy! i really want to see 19th century archaeological records from athens!"? well lucky for you, the archaeological society has several archives digitized on their website. they are only available on the greek version of the site and (obviously) all the texts are in greek, but that hasn't stopped me nor should it stop you. another useful source for older publications (that i only discovered recently) is HathiTrust's Digital Library, which contains a bunch of old publications now in the public domain (such as the annali dell'instituto di corrispondenza archeologica, which i'm currently using for my dissertation).
Mapping Ancient Athens: a map of modern athens showing ancient landmarks and excavation sites (including bibliographies for their excavations). great if you're trying to research ancient athens & athenian daily life.
arachne: search engine run by the german archaeological institute in athens; i used it for research over the summer and found it immensely helpful.
orbis: people have mentioned this elsewhere in the reblogs so i'm including it here as well - useful if you want to learn more about ancient transportation/communication times (specifically rome).
these are just the ones i could find in my bookmarks, supplemented by a list curated by the british school at athens. there are a bunch of open-access classics & ancient history databases out there, it's just a matter of finding ones with intuitive search functions (the field of classics is always 15 years behind the times 💀)
like there are so many fun medieval hair and headgear options, it's so boring just seeing loose beachy waves meant to appeal to 21st century beauty standards
put that hot prince in a gay little hood with an ostrich feather or so help me god
~*~Aesthetic~*~ @aerisoemor - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
