Mostly Vala @landskapande - Tumblr Blog

toyastales

Pomegranate Door of Casa Bellia in Turin, Italy

strangledplanet

malnedott

in a church i visited for a wedding

the-light-of-truth-world

famouspainterwombat

vestalevelata

lordoftheringsmusical

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what-even-is-thiss

Xenia, often translated as the laws of hospitality, was really important in the stories of Greek Mythology.

It wasn't just on the host. The rules also applied to the guests.

Xenia was basically what allowed for nobles of different cities to network with each other.

Greece, you may have noticed, is mountainous and rocky. If you're ruling with ancient technology the easiest way to set up a government is to put a fortress on a hill and rule everything you can physically see from there. Maintaining an empire of any kind is difficult. Frankly, idk how the Macedonians and Romans pulled it off.

But. Even though they all have different governments there's a general shared culture in the area. Not identical, but they all worship the same gods, speak roughly the same language, and have similar moral codes. There's a specific type of guy who is a noble-born Hellene. A free citizen of a city. A guy who owns property. A guy who is Greek. You know a Greek when you come across one.

So when the noble-born Hellenes are traveling around they are guaranteed safe lodging by the laws of hospitality. They help their host, their host helps them, they eat together, they work together, and this is where the inter-city and inter-regional politics happen. These dinner conversations are where alliances are struck. These rules are what makes travel safe. They keep you from being attacked by your host and keep you from sleeping on the ground.

The laws of hospitality really do kind of hold the entire society together by keeping all of these different city-states socially connected to each other. This is the real reason you scare each other with stories of Zeus striking down people who break the rules of xenia. Because if you turn away strangers you turn away potential allies and everyone around here is stuck in a seemingly never-ending struggle for local influence. Zeus is both a god of politics and a god of strangers. If you mess with friendly strangers, you're betraying your chief god and your entire political system.

kaalbela

Aari, also known as Zalakdozi is a form of embroidery originating from Kashmir. The word zalokdozi means chain stitch. Aari embroidery involves only the chain stitch done in concentric rings to fill a pattern. Zalakdozi typically uses wool, cotton, or silk thread. It is done not using a needle, but a hook known as ‘ari’. Using a hook to do this embroidery saves on time and energy as the hook is used to pull a series of loops of the chain stitch, as against the single loops that have to be done using a needle.

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