Pedestrian In The Roadway

[archaeologicalnews]

How researchers achieved the first long-distance reconstruction of a cultural artefact

The epic of Atrahasis is one of the most significant pieces of ancient Babylonian literature. It describes a creation myth, a great flood and the building of an ark, that significantly pre-dates a similar account in the Bible. The epic has survived millennia on clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script. But the third tablet of one of the most complete surviving copies is broken.

The difficulties associated with its reconstruction are summarised by Irving Finkel, cuneiform curator at the The British Museum: “The crucial episode about the Ark and the Flood occurs in Ipiq-Aya’s Tablet III. This tablet is now in two pieces. The larger, known as C₁, might just possibly join [with] C₂ if they could ever be manoeuvred into the same room, but the former is in the British Museum and the latter in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. One day I will try out the join…”

This potential join has been hypothesized for over 50 years, but never physically confirmed. Now, using 3-D computational geometry, there is no longer a need to manoeuvre the physical fragments into the same room. Instead, we built 3-D virtual models of the fragments and demonstrated that they join precisely. This is the first time that a long-distance virtual reconstruction of a cuneiform text has been achieved. Read more.

[mad-world123]

[pitr]

Back stateside....don't think I'll experience this again for a while....

[sandandglass]

[island-delver-go]

I’ll reblog this until it stops being so relevant

[pitr]

Historically accurate

[antifascistaction]

Nazis secretly eat falafel

[gifak-net]

[keinepopsongs]

An elephant got caught on security camera picking up trash and putting it in a garbage can

[shittingbats-blog]

woa

[erylon]

A loanword is a word taken from another language, such as ‘angst’ or ‘tsunami’ or ‘calque’. A calque is a literal translation of a word from another language, such as rhinestone (from French caillou du Rhine) or blueblood (from Spanish sangre azul) or loanword (from German lehnwort). #linguistics #calque #loanword is a calque #calque is a loanword #what

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

[Patra, Greece] “We do not forget our murdered brothers and sisters in Turkey. Solidarity to revolted Rojava” (Anarchist collective "Disinios Ippos”)“.

[tastefullyoffensive]

Babylonian era problems. (photo via tbc34)

[dama3-deactivated20210619]

old school hate mail

[jakovu]

Imagine how pissed you have to be to engrave a rock

[thesparkofrevolution]

Ok but there was this guy called Ea-nasir who was a total crook and would actually cheat people ought of good copper and sell them shit instead. The amount of correspondences complaining to and about this guy are HILARIOUS.

[skeletonrex-deactivated20151101]

Are you telling me we know about a specific guy who lived 5000 years ago, by name, because he was a huge asshole

[thesparkofrevolution]

More like 4000 years ago but yes. Ea-nasir and his dodgy business deals.

[prokopetz]

And we haven’t even touched on the true hilarity of the situation yet. Consider two additional facts:

He wasn’t just into copper trading. There are letters complaining about Ea-nasir’s business practices with respect to everything from kitchenwares to real estate speculation to second-hand clothing. The guy was everywhere.

The majority of the surviving correspondences regarding Ea-nasir were recovered from one particular room in a building that is believed to have been Ea-nasir’s own house.

Like, these are clay tablets. They’re bulky, fragile, and difficult to store. They typically weren’t kept long-term unless they contained financial records or other vital information (which is why we have huge reams of financial data about ancient Babylon in spite of how little we know about the actual culture: most of the surviving tablets are commercial inventories, bills of sale, etc.).

But this guy, this Ea-nasir, he kept all of his angry letters - hundreds of them - and meticulously filed and preserved them in a dedicated room in his house. What kind of guy does that?

[ source ]

[pitr]

Bronze Age trollin’

[socimages]

Charles Shultz on the social sciences… 

Found at sociologist Larry Stern’s “Who are these people that become sociologists?“

[nubbsgalore]

[nubbsgalore]

the yakel, seen in their kastom (village) on the vanuatu island of tanna (in the south west pacific ocean), refuse any modern methods of living, choosing instead to keep with their traditional ways; they have no electricity, fetch water from the nearby river, and grow everything they eat. women wear skirts made of coconut fiber and men wear only a namba.

in the katsom, certain men are tasked with the responsibility of keeping the other villagers in good spirits, taking on the title of “happy man” (first photo). dance is an important part of yakel culture, with the nasara, or dancing grounds, a prominent place for the community to congregate.

according to the 2006 happy planet index, which analyzes data on reported happiness, life expectancy and ecological footprint, vanuatu is the happiest, most ecologically efficient nation in the world. no surprise than that vanuatu literally translates as “from me to you.”

photos by (click pic) magda biskup, eric lafforgue, joey l. and jimmy nelson

a few days after posting this, vanuatu was hit with a devastating category five cyclone that is believed to have completely wiped out the island of tanna featured here. “this is likely to be one of the worst disasters ever seen in the pacific,” said oxfam. 

if you’re so inclined, you can donate to unicef emergency relief, world vision, the red cross and red crescent pacific disaster fund or oxfam’s emergency relief

[literary-ethnography-deactivate]

Anthropology will continue to get a bad rap as long as we anthropologists think and write about the human condition in obtuse ways. When I talk about my life in anthropology and the people I have come to know and love over the years, I find people in the audience moved–not because what I had to say was particularly brilliant, but because I opened my experience–my joy and pain and that of my Nigerian friends–to them and such an opening established a connection. At my last several talks, I seen people shed a tear to two when I talk about the depth of my ethnographic experience and the depth of the humanity of my Nigerian friends. That kind of connect is usually missing in anthropological accounts. In my view of things, this connect should be the centerpiece of what we do.

Paul Stoller, this year’s recipient of the Anders Retzius gold medal (for a significant contribution to the field of anthropology)

[quirinus-iz-zaras-realm]

[fromgreecetoanarchy]

Athens, Greece (Polytechnic University of Athens)

[pitr]

[pitr]

[pitr]

So tired of these mothafuckin snakes on this mothafuckin plane!

[the89thkey]

[pitr]

This book was a really informative and insightful collection of essays over cultural appropriation in our society today, mostly focusing on America's appropriation and use of Native American culture specifically more or less. The topics in this book covers a lot of ground from arts, land, and artifacts to ideas, knowledge, and symbols. The book doesn't try and point fingers blaming anyone rather then stating facts of the matter over the gray area of cultural appropriation. Overall a really nice read.

With all the throwing around of the terms, used to describe different types of cultural transfer, assimilation,  negotiation, people need to be careful, not to simplify unequal cultural interaction. Cultural Appropriation needs to be a tool for resistance, not a dogmatic, misguided labeling generality. More work like this is necessary, as well as a more publicized debate, apart from the ivory tower of academia. 

In Kwame Dawes essay, he touches on the danger of  “the perpetuation of the concept of the existence of homogeneous and pure races and cultures” (Ziff & Rao, 1997).  He continues that we would essentially be promoting ideas of “purity” and engaging in the “ghettoization” of the world.  In deciding who gets to use what, you segregate and homogenize culture, which is innately fluid and ever-changing.  The whole book, though, would be a viable read for anyone who wants to learn more about the intricacies of concepts such as cultural appropriation and misappropriation.  

In the very near future, if time permits, due to the *cough cough* misinterpretation of my last post, I’ll write something specific to clarify the differences between positive appropriation(egalitarian/respectful appropriation) of culture, and misappropriation indicative of dominant/marginalized groups, with specific contexts,  i.e. White (mis)appropriation of native american symbols for fashion purposes,  and more complex, ethically grey examples such as Nazi restriction of black music to promote “racial purity”, etc.