Untitled

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Not sure if my phone is still wet inside. So... uh. How long do you wait until the few drops of water that hits it dries?

[ancientstuff]

Rules of unknown board game from the Roman period revealed

Researchers have used AI to reconstruct the rules of a board game carved into a stone found in the Dutch city of Heerlen. The team concludes

So this is interesting. I'm constantly amazed at the creative solutions people have to what seem to be unsolvable questions, such as how ancient games are played,

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Cool

[starspilli]

a little comic for jasons birthday. on being robin & batman and being brave & scared

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Cool and well done.

[memories-of-ancients]

Clay figurine, Japan, Jomon Period, 10th-4th century BC

from The Nara National Museum

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Why does that look like a Pokémon?

[mask131]

Egyptian gods - The Ennead, Nephthys

The Ennead is nine gods – three times three. So I will cover a third deity to complete this first look at the Ennead. Osiris, you say? No. Yes it is expected for him to complete the Seth and Isis duo, but I want to do something different, and place back under the light a goddess too often forgotten. Seth’s wife, Isis’s sister: the goddess Nephthys.  

Poor Nephthys doesn’t get much attention today among the children of Nut and Geb, but it is because she herself did not had much “autonomy” or “independence” in her own mythology and religion… Nephthys name rarely appears alone. She is always either Seth’s wife, either Isis’ sister. Nephthys has an especially strong bond with Isis: together, the two goddesses were depicted protecting the dead on the cover of sarcophagus – a “funeral goddess” role that is due to her participation in the “Legend of Osiris”, where she helped Isis find back the corpse-pieces of the mutilated body of Osiris, gave him with Isis the last funeral rites, and helped during his mummification. She and Isis notably acted as mourners, singing throughout Egypt a beautiful and mystic funeral song we still have today in Ancient Egyptian texts – a song asking for the dead pharaoh to return to them in his original shape, so they can “forget his enemy”, asking for the dead to abandon his anger so they can all rejoice in his resurrection, a song asking him to take back his rightful inheritance and to rule again in his own house – so that the land itself may resurrect…

Isis and Nephthys were more than very good and very close sisters: they were complementary goddesses, almost twin figures. Isis was a goddess of life, of motherhood and healing, wife of the god of vegetation, immortality and resurrection, whereas Nephthys was a goddess of the afterlife, of the shadow and of funerals, married to the god of the desert, chaos, the storm and hostility. Isis gave birth to Horus and was his loving mother – but it was Nephthys that acted as Horus’ nurse, rocking his cradle, lulling him to sleep. The Text of the Pyramids called her the “nursing-mother” of Horus, opposing the “birth-mother” that was Isis. And finally, whereas Isis was the wife of Osiris… Nephthys was his lover.

This story is the most famous legend of Nephthys (and her only true story beyond her participation to the search of Osiris’ corpse). Note that this seems to be a late story, coming from a more “recent” form of mythology trying to tie together the various bits and parts of older legends. But the story goes as this: Nephthys and Seth soon realized that they couldn’t produce a child together. Some read it as Seth’s fault – since he is the god of the desert and of all things venomous and hostile, it makes sense he would be as arid and sterile as what he embodies… Other rather accuse Nephthys herself, the Text of the Pyramids calls her a “concubine without a womb”. But in the version of the story as it came to me, the sterility of the couple was due to Seth, and Nephthys, obsessed with the idea of becoming a mother and having a child, decided to cheat on Seth, to have sex behind her husband’s back to obtain a child. And she decided to use her own brother for this purpose: Osiris. However Osiris is a good, wise and virtuous king, a god of justice and faithfulness who would never cheat on Isis. So Nephthys put together a plan… One evening, as she found herself alone with Osiris, she offered him a lot of food, and a lot of alcohol, ultimately making Osiris fully drunk. Once he is ready to pass out, Nephthys plays a number of seduction on him, and convinces him to sleep with her, manipulating him until she finally obtained what she wanted. She slept with Osiris just once, and from this single night of drunken love, a child was born; the god Anubis. A new problem arose however… Seth knows he cannot have a child, and Nephthys, so obsessed with becoming a mother, forgot that the wrath and fury of her husband could destroy her and her babe… Nephthys, to hide her unfaithfulness, was forced to abandon Anubis in the swamps bordering the Nile, so avoid the vengeance of her dreaded husband. Hopefully for her, Isis actually learned of her sister having an illegitimate child – and unable to let a child to die (especially since herself also didn’t have any child with Osiris), she took Anubis away from the swamps and decided to adopt him, raising him as her own son, much to the relief of everybody in the known. Only Seth ignored of this entire business – Osiris, Nephthys, Isis, they all knew about this night of extra-marital love. How did Isis knew, you ask? Well, in the morning, Isis found in her husband’s bed a crown of flowers… a crown that she had seen Nephthys wear the previous day. But Isis, always ever so close with her sister, forgave her enough to save her child from death – and later Nephthys returned her kindness, by siding with Isis and Horus against Seth during the numerous trials for the throne of Egypt.

Two additional facts about this story. 1) The fact Nephthys got Osiris drunk is to put in relation to a series of pictures and depictions of Nephthys found in Edfu, Behbeit or Dendera, where she was depicted as taking part in festivities and merriments, most notably receiving beer from the pharaoh himself, in return of blessing him so that he could party with “no hangovers”. Yep, that was literally what was written. 2) The failed and bizarre unloving marriage between Nephthys and Seth was apparently (at least according to Wikipedia) explained by some recent Egyptologist research, that placed forward the theory that the union of Seth and Nephthys is a “recent” invention, or rather part of a “late” addition to the myths. As in, Nephthys was recognized as Seth’s wife in Egyptian mythology, yes… But she seems to have been only the wife of Seth under his “positive” aspect of the bodyguard of the Sun ; meanwhile, in the Osirian legend, where Seth appears under his “negative” aspect of the jealous murderer and greedy usurper, Nephthys wasn’t thought of as Seth’s wife, but rather as Isis’ assistant, and Horus co-mother. Mind you, take all this info with a grain of salt: I just found it when looking at Wikipedia to double-check my sources, and this apparently comes from recent studies.

Just like Isis, Nephthys was usually depicted as a regular human woman, wearing on her head the two symbols forming her name: “neb”, a basket, and “hwt”. “Hwt” is… debated by experts. For some it is “the plan of the house” and thus means “house”. For others it is rather the “great wall that surrounds large buildings” and thus means either “palace” or “temple”. So the literal name of Nephthys (Nebhwt, that the Greeks turned into Nephthys, but that could be spelled in a more Egyptian way as Nebet-Het) means “Mistress of the House”, “Mistress of the Palace” or “Lady of the Temple”. She was also called the “Helpful Goddess” or the “Excellent Goddess”, epithets referring her role as a divine assistant and protective guardian when it came to the moment of death and the passing in the afterlife (opposing Isis’ assistance during childbirth). And due to her motherhood of Anubis, she was paired with him in Memphis and called “Queen of the embalmer’s shop”. Similarly to Isis, Nephthys was also sometimes depicted with kite wings (or falcon wings), or herself turning into a kite – again, this is most prevalent when she plays her role as a funeral/afterlife goddess, her wings wrapped around the dead symbolizing her protection. The Egyptian hawk was notably tied to Nephthys because its cries were associated with the laments and mournful screams typical of Egyptian rituals.

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Interesting. Are there other stories with Nephthys other than the ones listed?

[ancientstuff]

5,300-year-old 'bow drill' rewrites story of ancient Egyptian tools

A new study reveals that Egyptians were using a mechanically sophisticated drilling tool far earlier than previously suggested. Researchers

Interesting conclusion regarding an artefact.

[sapphictempest]

If you consume fanfic on ao3 and are 18+ and American I need you to lock in and call your senators saying you oppose a federal porn ban. This would effectively ban ao3 and being queer in public, among many other things, due to the intentionally vague language of the bill. I’m counting on queer tumblr and fandom tumblr to help me get the word out that you have to call your senators

[jstor]

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day! Consider this your peer-reviewed reminder. ❤️

[creepytowers-uk]

random headcanons about House of Anubis in this PJO demigod world:

(fyi i havent read the kane chronicles so if i get some stuff wrong let me know without spoilers)

Nina’s been able to see life and death auras around people since she was little, it’s made her isolated over time

her mom and step-dad died when she was nine

it was a car accident in the middle of an earthquake… yeah could’ve been poseidon who knows

she went to live with her grandmother who had moved to england a few years prior

a satyr found her when she was 15

reminder that in this au monsters aren’t that common outside the us. the only reason a lot of them were around Rome and Greece was because that was their home turf, the original places

and yet monsters slowly started showing up again in the united kingdom for some reason

the last child of the big three in england was winston churchill

(we still dont know which big three)

nina’s invited to attend a special boarding school for people like her

her godly parent is still unknown atm but it’s okay, unlike their US counterparts they dont separate the students via godly parent during school time, that’s just a summer thing.

the houses are based on Egyptian gods because of some past magicians that wanted to make a sanctuary for any and all young heroes regardless of their patronage. this includes Egypt, Greek and Roman demigods, Norse ones too. all are welcomed. (again, i havent read TKC, im aware Carter and Sadie are magicians but idk if other characters are demigods via Egyptian gods)

the Egyptian vibe has stuck around because of the founding magicians who created it.

the houses the students live in arent separated by godly parent but rather by where they hail from.

so in the cause of Anubis House, it’s Greek demigods. Isis House also hosts Greeks.

Nina is put in Anubis because despite not knowing who her godly parent is, when tested she reads Ancient Greek like a pro

at the same time as her being put in this house, the sketchy adults who maintain the sanctuary and maintain the institution have removed Joy Mercer, a daughter of Nemesis for unknown reasons

yes i already have the twist planned out

meanwhile, Joy’s best friend Patricia Williamson, daughter of Ares is 100% sure this newcomer, an American of all things, has something to do with Joy’s disappearance and she won’t rest till she finds out.

in the mean time, Nina runs into an old lady, she talks about a great treasure hidden in the house and gifts her something that will be invaluable

a locket in the shape of the Eye of Horus, a symbol of protection, a warding against evil, but tells her not to open it unless she’s in danger

when a monster invades the school for the first time in decades, Nina discovers it’s more than just a necklace.

when she opens it for the time, it reveals:

(fyi yes i wanna change the purple stones for maroon eventually)

click here for part two

[thefandomfeelz]

Sibuna, the Next Generation

A year ago I got an idea to write a Sibuna, the next generation story where our favorite characters are now parents to students living at Anubis. Then I got writers block and currently pulled it off the shelf.

Nina and Fabian's daughter is arriving middle of the school year to the House and rooms with Amber's niece. Eddie and Particia have a set of twins, the boy rooms with Alfie and Willow's son and the girl rooms with Jerome and Joy's daughter.

My idea is that Nina's daughter is the one that starts to unravel everything and some of the shows past events can be explained through a diary of Nina's. I could just use some mystery ideas. If you would like to offer suggestions, feel free to leave them here or message me. Thanks!

[memories-of-ancients]

Bronze bull's head, Shrine of San Corro, Talayotic culture, Spain, 5th-3rd century BC

from The National Archaeological Museum, Madrid

[ionomycin]

alleyway meet up

[artofmaquenda]

Serendipity Not just luck, but the quiet mercy of survival. Life continues anyway.

[lazypiratesofaking]

Weird

Anyone notice anything out of place here? For the life of me. I'm trying to figure out why a German general is here. Did he get lost to Verdun?

I had to add these cause they're cool too.

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

But why is he there?

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Why the hell was V3 such a bad politician and general in Animorphs?

Several things!

He gets put in charge of a planet he doesn't want, while forced to run his rival's playbook. Visser One is responsible for the covert infiltration, The Sharing, recruiting voluntary hosts, etc. Visser Three is a blunt instrument forced into a role that requires restraint and finesse. (Visser)

The reason he's in charge? He's more of a figurehead than a leader. The yeerks want their one and only andalite-controller highly visible, and so they give him an entire campaign — but he doesn't have a record of leadership, and he didn't put in the hard work to get good. (Andalite Chronicles)

Oh, and he's being sabotaged. V1 sends spies to observe and mess with his plans (MM4) because she's livid that he's "lost Earth, despite the fact that [she] handed it over in perfect shape" (#15). No wonder V3 has trust issues.

On top of that, Earth isn't the yeerks' priority. They view it as a slow frontier that will handle itself, where the bulk of their forces are on Leeran and Anati. Think of the U.S. sending its military against Canada in the War of 1812, while largely ignoring its war with the indigenous nations. Or focusing all power on Iraq because the invasion of Afghanistan was going so badly. For the yeerks, Earth is Oregon in 1812 or Afghanistan in 2003; their attention isn't there for 80% of the war because they figure it's a slow conflict of attrition and will sort itself out even without resources.

Almost every yeerk we see is in the worst sort of middle management: V3 gets inspectors (#37) but not a budget (#28), must finish others' projects (#25) but gets his expertise on Earth ignored (Visser). He's a public school teacher who can be punished for an infinite number of (arbitrary) infractions, but can excel all he wants without getting the tools to succeed.

So V3 is still the worst boss imaginable. And he doesn't exactly rise to the challenge of being an amateur general holding the line on a backwater frontier with severely limited resources and a debilitating need for secrecy (i.e. Jake). But he also has a ton of forces working against him, isn't allowed to play to his strengths, and doesn't have either the personal or the material resources to win the day.

[lazypiratesofaking]

So. Basically he was sent to lose no matter what?

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Uh. Yeah...

[vincentbriggs]

Photos by Hailley Fayle. (Taken early this spring, which is why there are no leaves.)

[vincentbriggs]

Finally got around to posting the rest of these pictures on my blog.

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Great pics. My mom has a similar outfit. Just not as poofy.

[naserina]

Ancient Egyptian deities

Ra:

   - father of Hathor, Sekhmet, Mafdet, Bastet, Satet, Anhur, Ma'at, Mut    - god of order, the sun, kings, sky    - represents life, warmth, growth, the midday sun    - rules in the sky, earth, underworld    - depicted as a falcon    - sent his eye as the goddess Sekhmet to punish mankind for having plotted against him

Anubis:

   - son of Nephthys, Set    - father of Kebechet    - god of death, mummification, embalming, tombs, cemeteries, the afterlife, underworld    - protector of graves, cemeteries    - dictates the fate of souls    - depicted as a black canine    - wore the flayed skin of Set as a warning against evil-doers who would desecrate the tombs of the dead

Sekhmet:

   - daughter of Ra    - mother of Nefertem    - goddess of healing    - breathes fire    - depicted as a lioness    - attempted to slaughter all humans, but failed to do so as a result of extreme drunkenness, which Ra had caused by fooling her into drinking beer

Nephthys:

   - daughter of Geb, Nut    - mother of Anubis, Wepwawet    - goddess of divine assistance, protective guardianship, the Mansion of the Sistrum    - protector of the Bennu bird, mummy, canopic jars of Hapi    - represents health, childbirth, night, beer, magic, mourning, embalming, the experience of death    - depicted as a woman with falcon wings or as a kite    - assisted Isis in reassembling the dismembered portions of Osiris’ body after his murder by the envious Set

Neith:

   - mother of Sobek, Tutu, Serket    - goddess of wisdom, fate, creation, childbirth, mothers, war, hunting, weaving, rivers, water, the limitless sky, cosmos    - protector of the dead, the Royal House    - represents the full ecliptic circle around the sky    - reweaves the world on her loom daily    - depicted as a uraeus or as a woman nursing a baby crocodile    - interceded in the kingly war over the Egyptian throne, recommending that Horus rule

Ma'at:

   - daughter of Ra    - mother of Seshat    - goddess of truth, balance, order, harmony, law, morality, justice    - regulates the stars, seasons    - depicted as a woman with an ostrich feather on her head or with wings on each arm

Isis:

   - daughter of Geb, Nut    - mother of Horus, Min, Four Sons of Horus, Bastet    - goddess of magic, wisdom, maternity, the world, universe, sky, cosmos    - protector of deceased souls as they face dangers in the Duat    - determines the length of human lives, fate itself    - judges souls’ moral righteousness before admitting them into the afterlife    - depicted as a woman wearing a throne-like hieroglyph on her head, as a sow, as a cow, as a scorpion, as a tree, or as a woman emerging from a tree    - used a spell to briefly revive Osiris so he could impregnate her

Heqet:

   - goddess of the final stages of childbirth    - depicted as a frog    - breathed life into the new body of Horus at birth

Hathor:

   - daughter of Ra    - mother of Ihy, Neferhotep    - goddess of music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, maternal care, femininity    - crosses boundaries between worlds, welcoming deceased souls into the afterlife    - leads the deceased into a place where they receive aliments for eternal sustenance    - depicted as a cow bearing the sun disk between her horns, as a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns with a sun disk, as a woman with the head of a cow, as a lioness, as a uraeus, as a sycamore tree, or as a human face with bovine ears    - healed Horus’ mangled eyes with gazelle’s milk after Set attacked him

Bastet:

   - daughter of Ra, Isis    - mother of Maahes    - goddess of pregnancy, childbirth, protection against contagious diseases    - protector of Lower Egypt    - depicted as a domestic cat or as a cat-headed woman

Set:

   - son of Geb, Nut    - father of Anubis, Wepwawet, Serket, Sobek, Maga    - god of deserts, storms, disorder, violence, foreigners    - represents a manifestation of evil    - depicted as an enigmatic creature not identified with any known animal, as a donkey, or as a man wearing a donkey’s-head mask    - damaged or tore out one of Horus’ eyes

Ptah:

   - father of Nefertem, Maahes    - god of craftsmen, architects    - represents the divine essence with which the sun god was fed to come into existence    - causes earthquakes    - depicted as a deformed dwarf or as a young man wearing a crown with two tall plumes that surround the solar disk

Osiris:

   - son of Geb, Nut    - father of Horus    - god of vegetation, agriculture, fertility, life, resurrection, the dead, afterlife, underworld, moon    - depicted as a partially mummy-wrapped pharaoh with a complexion of either green or black wearing the distinctive Atef crown    - revived by Isis’ use of magic after having been killed by his envious brother Set

Nefertem:

   - son of Ptah, Sekhmet    - god of beauty, fragrance, the lotus flower    - represents the first sunlight, having arisen from Nu    - depicted as a beautiful young man having blue water-lily flowers around his head

Khepri:

   - god of protection, resurrection, the sun    - represents rebirth, the morning sun    - restores the sun’s existence every morning    - depicted as a scarab beetle, as a man with a scarab as a head, or as a scarab with a male head emerging from the beetle’s shell    - came into existence in the same manner a young scarab beetle emerges, already fully formed, from its dung ball

Horus:

   - son of Osiris, Isis    - father of Ihy, Four Sons of Horus    - god of kingship, the sky    - depicted as a falcon or as a man with a falcon head    - battled with Set brutally before winning the throne of Egypt

Geb:

   - son of Shu, Tefnut    - father of Osiris, Isis, Set, Nephthys, Heru-ur    - god of the Earth    - represents fertile earth, barren desert    - allows crops to grow    - creates earthquakes with his laughter    - depicted as a man with green plants on his body    - became a judge in the Divine Tribunal of the gods

Bennu:

   - god of rebirth, creation, the sun    - represents rebirth    - depicted as a grey heron with a two-feathered crest    - enabled the creative actions of Atum

Atum:

   - father of Shu, Tefnut    - god of pre-existence, post-existence, the sun    - represents the evening sun    - depicted as a man wearing the royal head-cloth, as a serpent, as a mongoose, as a lion, as a bull, as a lizard, or as an ape    - created everything in existence, including himself, by saying his own name

Amun:

   - father of Khonsu    - god of the wind    - protector of the road    - depicted as a man with blue skin

[superbbouquettidalwavo]

Cool list. Aren't there more gods?