occasionally subtle
Stranger Things
noise dept.
tannertan36
Cosimo Galluzzi
styofa doing anything
Misplaced Lens Cap
d e v o n
JBB: An Artblog!
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
Monterey Bay Aquarium
dirt enthusiast
todays bird
trying on a metaphor
Kaledo Art
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
No title available
will byers stan first human second
JVL
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@thestrugglingarchaeologist
Discover the top transferable skills from archaeology and explore career paths beyond the dig site, from data analysis to project management
Great info!
Great read about life after that trowel! I transferred my skills into the online education world and even though it's "useless" I can turn my MA in Anthropology into a huge positive in any field I want to go into.
I have a theory... and this is just like, conjecture! I'm not an anthropologist and I haven't done or read any studies or anything... I think the way our culture seems increasingly enthusiastic about ritualistic seasonal consumerism (the pumpkin spice lattes and aesthetic Gilmore Girls binges of Fall, for example) is that our lives are increasingly devoid of the rhythm of traditions historically provided by a common religion or societies organized around agrarian cycles. I think that as humans, we crave cyclical time-organization (each season is both new and exciting, yet comfortingly familiar) and social connection, but our society no longer naturally provides that. Most people are completely disconnected from the agricultural cycle, and with globalization and refrigeration, foods that were once highly seasonal are increasingly available year-round (convenient! Yet boring!). Harvesting and food production is no longer a communal activity, but yet another specialized commodity provided by a few professionals. So, what can we do to mark the passage of time? How do we connect with each other and keep from just drifting aimlessly? We buy stuff and consume media! This is increasingly all we have left.
Yee! I have a master's degree in anthropology and I think this is spot on. Capitalism has also helped create a world that is less grateful. We take everything for granted that in the past our ancestors understood the cost of, and they created seasonal rituals and spiritual systems revolving around gratitude and the manifestation of future good fortune. Creating new rituals around the seasons does allow us a way to celebrate and be grateful for the enjoyments of what each time of the year has to offer, it's just through a new lense. Now we have to create opportunities to be appreciative of small delights in a world where we are worked to the bone and disconnected from the work of actually creating the things that benefit us and our neighbors directly because we can't celebrate or worship the fruits of our labor anymore. Not when the work we do feels pointless and so foreign to our daily survival. We have to create our own meaningful endeavors to feel the resounding connection of our spirit to the world around us. Even if it just looks like enjoying a PSL on a crisp fall day or allowing yourself to appreciate the perfection of fall vibes your friend created on the mantle over their fireplace by liking their Instagram reel.
Reblog and put in the tags what’s the stupidest injury you’ve ever had
Archaeology Edition
Calling all archaeoblurs!
If you're an archaeologist* and have a Tumblr, reblog this or sound off in the comments! I figured it's high time we put together a directory of sorts.
*for our purposes, archaeologist can mean someone who has or is working on a degree in archaeology, you don't necessarily have to be currently practicing. If you have a blog that is specifically archaeology focused, include that and what your specialty is!
If you're in a related field like anthropology, museums, or archives, include yourself with whatever your field is :)
ArchaeologistProblems here! I'm an archaeological consultant in Atlantic Canada with specialties in industrial archaeology and historic buildings.
Sporadic posts, usually just funny/silly but sometimes about archaeology workplace safety and such.
Defunct historical archaeologist here but you can still listen to me on The Struggling Archaeologist's Guide to Getting Dirty podcast, which I do still make like one episode a year for 🤣
Hi Reid! Out of curiosity, how do most archaology employers feel about tattoos? I know archeology is a very academic job, but yall seem like a very *special* kind of academic. (Ie, chaotic feral dirt gremlins who happen to write papers about what they find in dirt. Said with love <3) so I wondered if that meant archeologists could have more tattoos compared to other academics.
Hope your day is going well!
Hi there!
I think that 9/12 people on my dig right now have tattoos. I personally have six on my arm that are all visible unless I wear long sleeves, and it's never been a problem. One of my professors has a full sleeve with skulls and stuff and his career seems to be doing just fine.
I think that the social sciences in general tend to be more accepting of body modifications, and archaeology generally doesn't seem to care at all. There might be situations where we need to cover up, but they're few and far between. While the cowboy attitude among archaeologists isn't always super healthy, it does mean that we're more relaxed about appearances.
I'm going to tag @midden-maiden, @archaeologysucks, @archaeo-geek specifically because they're all practicing archaeologists, but anyone else is also welcome to chime in.
-Reid
Three out of five of us at my company have tattoos; one of those three has a full sleeve that she just had touched up recently, and one is my boss. I don’t have any, but mainly for two reasons: 1) I can’t donate blood for a while afterwards, and 2) I know that after 10 years or so it’ll annoy me that the lines get a little blurry. Otherwise I’d probably get a compass rose on my wrist. I also went to school with someone who had a Venus of Willendorf tattooed on her back, and I know three different archaeologists who separately got the “Siberian Ice Maiden” mummy’s deer tattoo on their shoulders.
I don’t know of any archaeologists in my area who would not be okay with hiring someone with tattoos. We are definitely feral dirt gremlins.
#feraldirtgremlins
Let’s talk about The Mummy (1999)
Someone was talking at me yesterday about this movie and I was getting riled so I decided to go full rant. Specifically in regards to the feminist podcast that slammed it.
I don’t even remember which podcast it was, but I am still rankled and baffled that any “feminism in movies” podcast could jump to anything but “this movie is phenomenal.”
First of all, even just discussing the overall quality: sure, it might not have been groundbreaking with its cgi or plot twists. But back in the 90s, that wasn’t the standard of measure like it is now (and even now is a shitty standard that needs to die). This movie was light and funny and yet hit all the right beats to maintain the dire stakes needed to make it a compelling action flick.
Its characters are fully realized and entirely distinct from each other. Even those treated with a broader brush, such as the Americans, were charismatic enough that we were fully invested in their fate. The entire cast of characters were real people with real impact and real agency.
The script is quotable and fucking hilarious. There are gems from literally every single character. Rick and Evie have actual chemistry, aided by Rachel Weisz’s natural magnetism and Brendan Frasier’s career-long knack for acting utterly charmed with his female costars.
Actually, let’s talk about Rick O'Connell for a second. This is peak 90s Brendan Frasier. He is absolutely GORGEOUS, suave, and cool, rugged and handsome. He is the epitome of the 1920s adventure hero. Dear god I want to kiss those casting directors. But for all his general peak masculinity? He’s feminist as fuck. He is equally dumbstruck by Evie as she is by him, and it’s wholly evident that it’s more than a “oh no she’s hot” thing.
How do we know?
He steals her some tools to dig with. This gift demonstrates that he a) has identified her passion for archaeology, b) has recognized her proficiency in the field, despite it not being explicitly stated on screen, and c) sees a chance to restore her full and active participation in the discovery of Hamunaptra.
There is never a moment where Rick assumes to be the leader of the expedition. He is the weapons expert, the muscle–and he knows it. Better than that, he’s totally okay with it. He follows Evie’s lead in all things.
Another favorite moment of mine is when they’re facing off with the American team on Day 1, and Evie realizes there’s a chamber underneath Anubis they could use to excavate the statue. She puts her hand on Rick’s arm, looks him in the eye, and says very deliberately “there are other places to dig.” And he yields, instantly.
By comparison, see the way the Americans treat their workers and guide.
Does he groan about his work being made exponentially harder as a result? Nope. And that’s a recurring theme in his behavior the entire goddamn movie. The only time he is in charge is when a situation is in his wheelhouse– namely, combat and rescue. And it deserves mentioning that the majority of the time that he’s in charge, Evie is not present.
Meanwhile, Evie– her adventurer’s spirit chafing in an academia that dismisses her for her gender– is an absolute marvel. She is visually coded as being very feminine (she’s in dresses and long hair most of the film), but that fact in no way detracts from her competence and agency.
She is consistently protrayed as a fully capable expert in egyptology and there is never a single moment where she waffles on what to do. Even when she’s the damsel in distress, she actively makes the choice to be so because she weighs the potential outcomes and decides doing so provides their best chance of success.
Evie is never the passive victim. She is constantly brash, constantly scheming, and saves the lives of her would-be rescuers mid-abduction. And when her brother (who is the failure of the family, against type) needs help with translation, she correctly translates for him while being throttled by a mummified priestess.
When I first saw this film, I was too young to realize how novel it was. Back then, all I knew was that it was just a good time. But now as an adult– an adult acutely aware of the treatment female characters have gotten in the twenty years since– I marvel at the respect with which the writers and directors treated Evie.
I marvel at how tender Rick was allowed to be, despite his rugged adventurer archetype.
The Mummy (1999) is peak storytelling. It doesn’t try to outsmart the audience, but rather lays out a consistent, coherent narrative that gives the characters and viewers room to breathe. It invests the audience enough to care whether the characters succeed in their goals.
The Mummy (1999) does it right. It’s the reason that any talk of the Tom Cruise version gets an immediate eyeroll from me, because whatever modern grimdark grit they shove into a story about a mummy cannot compare to the reliable and timeless entertainment of the 1999 adaptation.
All modern media should aspire to be the kind of film that The Mummy (1999) is.
@tiny-librarian
Still trying to come to terms with the fact I’ll never be a librarian who can speak a dead language and be recruited by a ruggish but handsome explorer for a quest to lift the curse and save the world
because of the pandemic travel restrictions?
Because of the pandemic travel restrictions.
..... Ea-Nasir is that YOU
dark academia is just when the lightbulbs in the library haven’t been replaced in nine years
dark academia is when your department is in the basement
You can just say dark academia is archaeology it’s ok
This post hurled me back to ten years ago in the Sheffield Western Bank Library when I had to go to the sub-basement via an unlit staircase repeatedly for books, and fewer than half of the lights worked so I had to use the “torch” function on my phone (just a white screen, it was a £9 phone) to try to find the book I needed, when whatever batshit Dewey Decimal system that Sheffield was relying on didn’t assign a unique call number to each book.
Dark academia is definitely describing archaeology.
My master's program was literally in the basement of our building 🤣
just because you can afford to commission a scribe to chisel out cuneiform hatemail does not make your contemptible attempts to defame me any less disgraceful, the quality of my copper is HIGH my ingots are PRISTINE
I was going to say something rude but that’s actually that’s fascinating and I would genuinely love to hear more about mesopotamian writing methodology
Okay! It’s inscribed with a cube-shaped tool, as seen here.
So I throughly enjoyed this it’s delightful, but also I have a suggestion: Cuneiform ASMR
What’s really cool is that there were schools called Edubbas (although later on they were less schools and more just Some Dude’s house.) where young scribes-in-training would practice their craft by writing signs over and over again on a single tablet, (if you don’t cook the clay you can wipe it clean and reuse it) transcribing poetry, etc. and it turns out school really hasn’t changed in 4,000 years - There was homework, recesses, (overseen by a lukisallu, or “yard man”) there’s literature depicting parents scolding their kids for skipping class to mess around downtown with their friends, there’s tablets that seem to have been written by students struggling with dyslexia - but the coolest thing to me is this:
A bored student, thousands of years ago, decided to pass the time by doodling a fish on the back of their worksheet. It’s such a little thing but it’s just so incredibly cool to me that I can see the work of someone who lived so long ago and just think “same”.
Disclaimer: Most of this info came from the book “Reading and Writing in Ancient Babylon” by Dominique Charpin which I read years ago, so some of this information might be out-of-date and/or misremembered.
Sorry for rambling, you just activated a really big dormant hyperfixation of mine.
Oh my gosh this is unbelievably lovely
The cube tool in that video is interesting! When I did my undergrad I was taught that the tool of choice, however, was a split reed stylus. But there might be evidence to support something like that cube being used sometimes too.
Pirate skeletons found in 1717 shipwreck off coast of Cape Cod
At least six more pirate skeletons have been discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod, investigators announced Wednesday.
The remains were unearthed from the wreck site of the legendary pirate ship, The Whydah, which went down off of Wellfleet in 1717, according to the investigative team from the Whydah Pirate Museum.
They were identified in several large concretions and are currently being examined by renowned underwater explorer Barry Clifford and his team of archeologists, including son Brandon Clifford, longtime Whydah diver & historian Chris Macort, and New York Times bestselling author Casey Sherman.
“We hope that modern, cutting-edge technology will help us identify these pirates and reunite them with any descendants who could be out there,” said Clifford, who discovered the Whydah Galley, the world’s only authenticated pirate wreck in 1984. “This shipwreck is very sacred ground. We know a third of the crew was of African origin and the fact they had robbed the Whydah, which was a slave ship, presents them in a whole new light. Read more.
Still trying to come to terms with the fact I’ll never be a librarian who can speak a dead language and be recruited by a ruggish but handsome explorer for a quest to lift the curse and save the world
because of the pandemic travel restrictions?
Because of the pandemic travel restrictions.
drag queen
Socially inept detective.
I am excavating Sutton Hoo I am living my best life
Same as above. I am chilling in a ship burial, one of the greatest archaeological finds ever made, I am having a great time.
And I'm the one making out with Johnny Flynn and being astonished by Anglo-Saxon gold like I've never seen Anglo-Saxon gold before.
A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization?” The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon. Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, “A healed femur.” A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend. Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur.
— Ira Byock, The Best Care Possible: A Physician’s Quest to Transform Care Through the End of Life (x)
Does it ever make you want to cry to think about history & how little we actually know about it? Like there were entire empires that existed & they were glorious & powerful & now all we know about them is what we can find out from ruins & sometimes-fragmented writing. There were entire cultures & ways of life, & people who lived back then probably thought those empires would always exist & be powerful, & now they’re in ruins & have almost disappeared, & idk it just makes me so emotional to remember that
BRENDAN FRASER as RICK O’CONNELL The Mummy (1999) dir. Stephen Sommers
Questions TV producers think drive archaeologists crazy: Where is the gold buried? Did the Knights Templar have a secret city here? Did aliens help build the pyramids? Is there a curse on this tomb??
Questions that actually drive archaeologists crazy: Is this evidence of glass retouching for use as a lithic-style hide scraper, or was it just dropped funny? How did someone manage to lose their Victorian dentures in this privy? Where the heck was the Land of Punt that the Pharaoh Hatshepsut was getting all her copper from?
And most importantly,
I just had my trowel a minute ago - where did I put it??
