I took a class about Ancient Egypt last semester and we had a whole lecture dedicated to talking about how gay Niankhkhnum and Khnumhotep were.
Their tomb walls were decorated with scenes of them ignoring their wives in favor of embracing each other. In one scene, the couple is seated at a banquet table that is usually reserved for a husband and wife. Thereâs an entire motif of Khnumhotep holding lotus flowers which in ancient Egyptian tradition symbolizes femininity. Khnumhotep offers the lotus flower to Niankhkhnum, something that only wives were ever depicted as doing for their husbands. In fact, Khnumhotep is repeatedly depicted as uniquely feminine, being shown smaller and shorter than his partner Niankhkhnum and being placed in the role of a woman. Size is a big deal in Egyptian art, husbands are almost always shown as being larger and taller than their wives. So for two men of equal status to be shown in once again, a marital fashion, is pretty telling. Not to mention they were literally buried together which is the strongest bond two people could share in ancient Egypt, as it would mean sharing the journey to the afterlife together.
And yet 90% of the academic text about these two talks about these clues in vague terms and analyze the great âbrotherhoodâ they shared, and the enigma of Khnumhotep being depicted as feminine. Apparently itâs too hard for archaeologists to accept homosexuality in the ancient world, as well as the possibility of trans individuals.
On the last note, I was walking around the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and there is a mummy on exhibit. It caught my attention because the panel that was describing it was talking about how it was a womanâs body in a male coffin and wow, the Egyptian working that day really screwed that up. My summary, not actual words, sorry I canât remember verbatim but it basically said that someone screwed up.
They claimed that the Egyptians screwed up a burial.
The Egyptians. Screwed up. A burial.
Now Iâm not an expert in Ancient Egypt but from what I know, and what the exhibit was telling me, burials and the afterlife and all that jazz DEFINED the Egyptian religion and culture. They donât just âscrew upâ. So instead of thinking outside the box for two seconds and wonder why else a genetically female body was in a male coffin, the âresearchersâ blatantly disregard the rest of their research and decided to call it a screw up. Instead of, you know, admitting that maybe this mummy presented as male during his life and was therefore honorably buried as he was identified. But it would be too much of a stretch to admit that a transgender person could have existed back then.
(Sorry I canât find any sources online and itâs been like 2 years but it stuck in my mind)
Archaeology is great because 95% of the time you're basically a glorified librarian and then you go on a dig and is expected to have the stamina and upperbody strength of a weightlifter
Real life story I once borrowed my bossâ book, went to Home Depot, got a ton of paint chips, matched them to the colors in the book, wrote the tag on the back, and hole punched it together. Lasted me three field seasons before I could justify buying my own.
its really baffling to me when people get their panties in a wad over the idea of repatriating stolen items from museums like weâre just gonna be left with empty buildings, like the idea of replicas is totally foreign to them. do they not know we can make fake things that look like the real thing? what do they think wax museums are? do they feel cheated when natural history museums put out casts of fossils and not the real, actual fossils? do they think there are small people inside the television?
A new comic book by Paul Guinan, David Hahn, and Anina Bennett retells the story of the fall of the Aztec Empire in stunning detail.
Depiction of a battle between Spanish and Maya forces from the graphic novel Aztec Empire.
DRAWN BY GUINAN AND HAHN
The story of the fall of the Aztec empire is a compelling human drama that has all to often been oversimplified into a story of perceived technological or cultural advantage. Â For centuries, Western historians downplayed the sophistication of the empire, emphasizing instead the alleged inherent superiority of Western culture. Paul Guinan, David Hahn, and Anina Bennett are upending these narratives with a compelling new retelling of the events surrounding the fall of the empire in a digital graphic novel named Aztec Empire.
The choice of medium may surprise some, but Matt Smith, Vice President of the Comic Studies Society and professor at Radford University, notes that âfor anyone who thinks that comics are limited to caped crime fighters from Metropolis, or tempestuous teenagers from Riverdale, thereâs a whole world of comics storytelling to discover.â Smith says that âAztec Empire is one in a long list of comics that allows us to re-imagine our history through this story telling medium and to do so with visual flair.â
no one is entitled to the sacred art, tools, or costumes of another culture (save members of the culture itself) and nonsacred reproductions will serve just as well for the purposes of education and appreciation
having museums full of reproductions would be even cooler than having museums full of sacred artifacts because when modern craftspeople are able to replicate those artifacts, itâs usually because they still make the same items the same way today
this means that you could have description tags emphasizing that such-and-such item has been made by these people in almost the same way for hundreds of years
having museums full of beautiful reproductions takes the emphasis off of Things and places it on the People who make them, which is really as it should be
Also, with permission from the communities we could make 3D models of the artifacts and upload them to digital platforms to make them so much more accessible.
Literally the only scientific reason I can think of for keeping originals is future study using sciences we havenât invented yet, and that is not a sufficient argument to keep sacred or significant artifacts locked up or on display without permission. Replicas in museums: an awesome idea that we need to endorse.
The American Museum of Natural History corrects a Native American story in full view of visitors, inviting them to âreconsider this scene.â
This diorama at the American Museum of Natural History was amended in a way that allows museumgoers to see the historical inaccuracies it perpetuates.Credit Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
On the first floor of the American Museum of Natural History, a diorama depicts an imagined 17th-century meeting between Dutch settlers and the Lenape, an Indigenous tribe inhabiting New Amsterdam, now New York City. It was intended to show a diplomatic negotiation between the two groups, but the portrayal tells a different story.
The scene takes place in what is now known as the Battery, with ships on the horizon. The tribesmen wear loincloths, and their heads are adorned with feathers. A few Lenape women can be seen in the background, undressed to the waist, in skirts that fall to midcalf. They keep their heads down, dutiful. In front of a windmill are two fully clothed Dutchmen, one of them resting a firearm on his shoulder. The other, Peter Stuyvesant, colonial governor of New Netherland, is graciously extending his hand, waiting to receive offerings brought by the Lenape.
Critics have said the diorama depicts cultural hierarchy, not a cultural exchange. Museum officials said they had been aware of these implications for a while, and now they have addressed them.
About a year ago, the museum asked Mr. Pecore to help solve the diorama problem. Should it be removed entirely? Could the protective glass be temporarily taken out, and what was behind it altered?
Lauri Halderman, the museumâs vice president for exhibition, said, âWe could have just covered it over.â Instead, museum officials decided on a more transparent approach. âWhat was actually more interesting was not to make it go away,â Ms. Halderman continued, âbut to acknowledge that it was problematic.â
The solution offers a lesson in the changing nature of history itself. And itâs written on the glass.
I learned in a Latin Studies class (with a chill white dude professor) that when the Europeans first saw Aztec cities they were stunned by the grid. The Aztecs had city planning and that there was no rational lay out to European cities at the time. No organization.
When the Spanish first arrived in Tenochtitlan (now downtown mexico city) they thought they were dreaming. They had arrived from incredibly unsanitary medieval Europe to a city five times the size of that centuryâs london with a working sewage system, artificial âfloating gardensâ (chinampas), a grid system, and aqueducts providing fresh water. Which wasnât even for drinking! Water from the aqueducts was used for washing and bathing- they preferred using nearby mountain springs for drinking. Hygiene was a huge part if their culture, most people bathed twice a day while the king bathed at least four times a day. Located on an island in the middle of a lake, they used advanced causeways to allow access to the mainland that could be cut off to let canoes through or to defend the city. The Spanish saw their buildings and towers and thought they were rising out of the water. The city was one of the most advanced societies at the time.
Anyone who thinks that Native Americans were the savages instead of the filthy, disease ridden colonizers who appeared on their land is a damn fool.
just a note, we donât think of old european cities as ruins, because those civilizations continued and kept building over the oldâthere are no abandoned ruins for us to visit & photograph. when we picture those old cities, we have only mental images drawn from our own assumptions & prejudicesâimages that tend to glorify âcivilizedâ europe.
since victors write history, our image of native american cities was created by colonizers motivated to uphold the ânative savageâ myth. when we think of these civilizations now, we think of âuncivilizedâ (rough, broken, abandoned) ruins, because thatâs what remains. ruins are the only thing left. because of the destruction wrought by western invaders, these civilizations never had a chance to continue building. they were destroyed, and all we have left is an unimaginative shadow of their former glory.Â
went to peru and visited some of their museums and learned inca history that american schools donât teach you. basically you know why they were beaten out by the spanish invaders? because incas were mostly scientists and not warriors. they had advanced medicine, farming and science technology. THATS what they were good at - tech - not building weapons to most efficiently kill people. the spanish were good at that. so they won. basically the real savages and thugs won and murdered a bunch of scientists, and their technology and advancements are lost forever. it took into the 20th century for colonizer technology to advance in the field of medicine and agriculture to the level of the incas. colonizers literally set human knowledge back like 500 years.Â
idk guys maybe if we referred to Siberia as sovereign indigenous lands instead of âRussiaâ more people would realize that Indigenous Siberian struggles exist and that Russian settler-colonialism/Russification has been a huge problem for hundreds of yearsÂ
It makes sense that a land mass as large as Siberia would have this kind of diversity, but this is the first time Iâve seen a post even attempting to address or explain it. Thatâs not cool, Internet. Letâs talk more about this.
Yep. Something Iâve noticed is that whenever I post a short thing about colonialism a lot of people reblog with âwtf Iâve never even heard of this!!!â and thatâs so clearly because our education systems *want us to not know.* It is very important that we learn these histories and do what we can to bring about real justice to peoples still dealing with the legacy of and the continued of colonialism. The protests at Standing Rock? A response to colonialism. The indigenous peoples of the Amazon Rainforest attacking logging camps? Thatâs a war they are waging to keep their lands sovereign. If you live in what is sometimes called a âsettler colonyâ such as the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Mexico, and other places around the world, there are almost certainly indigenous peoples to your land whose histories you should learn about and their descendents who are struggling against colonialism. You should take some time to learn about these fights and do what you and your friends/community can to right what has been and continues to be wrong.
Exactly. As a close friend of mine from the Wichita Nation in Oklahoma once told me when I was lamenting being part of a demograph that caused all of the problemsâitâs not the fact that Iâm part of the people who CAUSED the problems, itâs the fact that Iâm part of the people who PERPETUATES the problems. If we all took the time to look, see, learn, and help, so many injustices could actually have a chance to start healing.
In Canada, Unistâotâen Camp can really use your help in stopping an oil pipeline!
The Duwamish Nation (Seattle and areas surrounding âLake Washingtonâ) is seeking federal recognition. Â
The Kalispel Nation in âEastern Washingtonâ and âNorthern Idahoâ is working on climate change issues although Iâm unsure of what solidarity opportunities there are.Â
In Hawaii, Native Hawaiians have taken to the streets to stop the desecration of sacred lands and build community power to take fight colonialism! It would be very useful to donate to the bail/legal fund.Â
I noticed even before I graduated high school there were gaps in knowledge that made me đ§. I love history, but noticed no history classes taught Russian history beside the Cold War era. Basic slave history was taught, but no history about the African continent or modern individual countries within, beside âhumans originated within tribes in Africa, then expanded outwardâ and the European occupations during the 18-1900s. It is not lost on me how the European countries promised to erase African history, and yet while lots of the history, traditions and cultures has been reclaimed, Americans arenât teaching it, maintaining the whitewashed version of the continent. Maybe thatâs why so many people believe current Africans are still residing in huts, bc I STILL see most American content regarding Africa to be impoverished tribes, not sophisticated infrastructure and improvements in both technology and medicine.
Ok but Mexico isnât a settler-colony. Whatâs left of the state of Mexico has taken on some of the sharper features of settler-colonialism since the neoliberal turn in the 80s and that process has intensified, but it is not a settler colony.
tfw Europeans hold the vast majority of political power, promote a racist and anti-Indigenous Mexicanidad, brutally takes down Indigenous-led revolutions, is still in the process of genocide against Indigenous peoples within its borders and in neighboring states, and is still stealing land but itâs not a settler colonyÂ
I had a journal reviewer tell me that Mexico was not a Spanish colony. It was at that point that I was suddenly grateful that my article had been rejected because clearly they knew about shit all about Mexico.
Like, the arrival of Spaniards to the land is literally called Conquest.
Conquistadors used the land to produce for Spain
Indigenous people were enslaved
The continuing effects of colonization that are experienced in USA and Canada are also recorded in Mexico.
The Trump Administration just ok-ed the use of spring loaded cyanide bombs (aka M-44s) to deal with âwildlife pests.â Wolves, beavers, rats, bears, deer, basically anything can be a âpestâ. Something that can kill a bear can definitely kill a person. There are accounts of humans and domesticated animals who have been killed or gravely harmed by these devices.
So all us archaeologists who are going through the woods trying to do survey have another thing to fear: CYANIDE BOMBS.
The link shows what the âcyanide bombsâ look like. Areas where they are used should be well marked with warning signs. The article doesnât mention any humans killed, although there was an instance of a boy walking a dog where a bomb was triggered and the dog was killed, but the boy survived. The bombs are a danger to humans and animals, including pets and endangered species.
snowghoul
izzy806
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
gummygunk
vaporwave
andulkaphoto
stormborns
kianamaiart
