#elamite

[bronzeageecho]

kneeling bull holding a spouted vessel | ca. 3100–2900 BCE | proto-elamite

in the met museum collection

[memories-of-ancients]

Figurine of two lovers having sexy time, Elamite, 1500-1100 BC

from The Louvre

[thatshowthingstarted]

An Elamite Copper Zebu,

Circa Late 3RD Millennium B.C.

Standing, the head with projecting ears and short, tapering, curving horns, almond-shaped eyes with concentric rings, prominent neck hump and dewlap, and long, straight tail reaching down to its hooves.

5¾ in. (14.6 cm.) long

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Wheeled Hedgehog from Iran, c.1500-1100 BCE: this 3,500-year-old figurine was found with several other artifacts depicting animals on carts

This hedgehog figurine was unearthed during excavations at the temple of Inshushinak, in ancient Susa (located in modern-day Iran). It dates back to the second Elamite period, c.1500-1100 BCE.

The hedgehog's body measures just 2.8cm (roughly 1 inch) long, and it was carved from a piece of limestone. The feet are attached to four round sockets located at the front of a wheeled platform, which was made from a bitumen compound.

Eight empty sockets are also visible toward the back of the platform. Based on the pattern/spacing of these sockets, researchers believe that two smaller hedgehogs may have originally been mounted on the cart just behind the larger one, like a pair of baby hedgehogs following their mother.

A similar figurine depicting a lion on a wheeled platform was also discovered at the site.

The original function and significance of these artifacts is still widely debated, with some experts arguing that they may have been created as toys, while others argue that they were used as votive offerings. It's important to note that those two explanations may not be mutually exclusive -- some artifacts served as both toys and ritual objects.

Toys have often been incoporated into ritual contexts (as offerings or grave goods, for example) and they have also been used to familiarize children with rituals and religious beliefs.

Regardless of why they were made, these figurines are strikingly adorable.

Sources & More Info:

The Louvre: Hedgehog Toy & Lion Toy

Metropolitan Museum of Art: Artifacts from The Royal City of Susa

Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies: Probing the Margins in Search of Elamite Children

Portrait of a Plaything: Hedgehog

Cambridge University Press: Ritual, Play, and Belief in Evolution and Early Human Societies

[typhlonectes]

This limestone hedgehog, mounted on four wheels, was discovered near the temple of Inshushinak in Susa, Iran, dating to the Middle Elamite period, circa 1500-1200 BC. The piece is currently on display at the Louvre Museum.⁣

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Mountain goat.

Place of origin: Near Eastern, Iranian

Period: Elamite, Proto-Elamite

Date: 3500–2700 B.C.

Medium: Silver and sheet gold.

[baudouinette]

More WIPs ✨

(On pause while I have to finish something else 🫣👑)

•After all, bc I wanted to draw the codex manesse with Baldwin (and Lluna), I decided to start drawing some of them in a collage, for convenience. But I also would like them as individual pieces so im not sure how to go about it

•The elamite masks ✨

•from this video that i was obsessed with a few years ago

•Ignore the sword angle, I have to change it. The banner will have a jerusalem cross ofc. The original draft of this is from long ago, and I started making it with his movie look, the scene of him entering Kerak which is one of my favorite shots. But then I decided to adapt it more to my stories, give him a white caftan-tunic (will have golden embroidery running down the center) and another, short sleeved caftan underneath, indigo blue to match the turban… which has lore in HCW.

•Elf Baldwin in Lothlórien

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

and he is finally here!!

⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️⚜️

shdjsjsjsjjd i have a few of these that make me laugh

One of my relatively close Irish ancestors is called McAnally for example 😭😭😭 and one of the byzantines (an antecesor of the Komnenos dynasty) is called ✨ Erotikos ✨

I have been seriously building my family tree since 2016, and the amount of names in my head is just ridiculous—sometimes I can visualize the tree in it and navigate thru it, a couple of times I even dreamed about it 💀. But it can get too much. That’s why I didn’t even remember that Fulk was there, in various branches of it. And i don’t think I ever realized that Renaud was there too—i wish I hadn’t Hhhahahahahahhah

My dream is to meet some ancestors 🥲 so thats why im writing Vide Cor Meum, a time travel Baldwin x OC that expresses this wish, by having the OC discover them (in an Assassin’s Creed typa way) and it’s like a mystery adventure kind of story, in part

[bovinearthistory]

Kneeling bull holding a spouted vessel

Proto-Elamite, Southwestern Iran, 3100-2900 BCE

Silver

Soon after the political transformations of the Uruk period in southern Mesopotamia, similar innovations—including writing and cylinder seals, the mass production of standardized ceramics, and a figural art style—developed around the city of Susa in southwestern Iran, an area in which the predominant language was Elamite. While most of these innovations were adapted from Mesopotamian examples, they all took on distinctive Elamite characteristics in Iran.

This small silver bull, clothed in a robe decorated with a stepped pattern and holding a spouted vessel, shows a curious blend of human and animal traits. The large neck meets distinctly human shoulders, which taper into arms that end in hooves. Representations of animals in human postures were common in Proto-Elamite art, possibly as symbols of natural forces but just as likely as protagonists in myths or fables. The function of this small masterpiece remains uncertain. Traces of cloth that were found affixed to the figure suggest that it was intentionally buried, perhaps as part of a ritual or ceremony.