Red Bones posted:

He was looking kind of dumb
With his fingers and his thumbs on the
Shameflute we fastened to his neck

Well the fruit starts coming and it don't stop coming
You screw one priest and the guards come running
Didn't make sense just to live for God
When we all get buried in the same wet sod
I stopped by the seminary
Father Klaus has always been nice to me
I should've never let the Duke know
Flute ain't the only thing that I blow

Hey now
You're a wastrel
Get the flute on
For shame!
Hey now
You're a peasant
Screwing priests is
Not okay!
It is the Lord's intent
That you're going to go to hell if you don't re-peeent

Alhazred posted:

The Great Sphinx of Giza is not a sphinx. It got that name 2000 years after it was constructed. Before that it was known as Horus of the Horizon but we do not know what the people who constructed it called it.

Cacafuego posted:

“Big”

Alhazred posted:

The Great Sphinx of Giza is not a sphinx. It got that name 2000 years after it was constructed. Before that it was known as Horus of the Horizon but we do not know what the people who constructed it called it.

Cacafuego posted:

“Big”

Phy posted:

Cat big

Phy posted:

Cat big

Cacafuego posted:

Yeah, but in like, hieroglyphics or something

CommissarMega posted:

"Fluffy".

I mean, Hades apparently named his dog 'Spot', so I can't be too off the mark.

*I was told that Cerberus translates to 'Spotted one'. Can anyone confirm?

Alhazred posted:

According to wiki the etymology is uncertain. It could also mean "not yet successful", "evil in the pit" or "flesh-devouring".

Ichabod Sexbeast posted:

5 Vigilant Gaze Purges The Horizon

madeintaipei posted:

Excerpts from a diary found in an ancient excavated privy, Giza:

I will never forget the first time meeting Khafre. A vibrant, dynamic personality. The perfect salesman, all exuberance and clear visions for the future. He had much to tell me, Ahmenenet, maker of statuary.

"I tell you, Ahme' , this pharaoh thing is small time. Private sector is where you make the real money. That's what you can help me with right now. Will you?"
"Sure."
"You've seen the fuzzy, clawed things? The, uh, the-"
"Cats, sir?"
"Yeah, yeah. Those things. Can't stand 'em myself. Do you know how much they eat? People line up and down the streets to feed 'em. Worshipping the creatures, even."
"Yes, well I'm an architect. I don't see..."
"Two words. Cat. Food. Just get our name out there. Think big. Make us famous, Ah'. When they write my name, I wanna see, 'Man-sitting-while-holding-staff, cat'".

...ten years. Ten years of questions, interviews, accolades, and lots of hard work. For it to come crashing down at it's conclusion is such a black mark, my family name may never be clean again.

I, myself, gently covered our benefactor's eyes during the unveiling. Feeling a slight tremble of anticipation on both our parts, I closed mine as he opened his. A sunny, idyllic moment of satisfaction shattered by a roar,

"What the gently caress?! That's just a huge statue of a loving cat! Where's my name? Who's gonna know this is mine? Why have you built it to outlast the Gods?! Ten years! I'll have you buried in it!"

I couldn't think of what I, Ahmenenet, grandson of builder of the Giant Weevil off Alexandria, son of builder of the Massive Bed-Louse in Memphis, could say to the man...

Pick posted:

Also, it's light history in many respects, but I found How to Feed a Dictator thoroughly enthralling. Written by a Polish journalist and published this year, it's an easy one-afternoon read. Most of it is just straight translation of the experiences shared by the head chefs of Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, Pol Pot, Fidel Castro, and Enver Hoxha after this fellow tracked them down.

I actually found the Enver Hoxha section the most interesting even though he's easily the least commonly-known of the set. All of them were people with some level of personal interaction with the leader.




Anyway, an insightful look at how people viewed events when they were in surprisingly close proximity but had no political power. The most fun guessing game is who denounced their associated leader and who continued to vouch for them.

Pick posted:

bony tony posted:

Very nice and Pratchettian

drrockso20 posted:

Ho there, Coming or Going?

anyone here not already reading Kill Six Billion Demons really should go amend that asap

WITCHCRAFT posted:

My favorite pieces of history are the ones from the barren, ragged edge that are barely remembered. New World civilizations that were smothered out, and we can only suss out the barest details of their millennia long history. Old World civilizations that we have record of, but they are so distant that even the names of their rulers seem alien.

"Finger Snail was an ancient Egyptian ruler (Pharaoh) from the pre-Dynastic period of prehistoric Egypt. It is disputed whether he really existed as the reading of his name as king's name is far from certain."

FINGER SNAIL, GOD-KING OF MEN

His possible successors include Fish, Animal, and The Motherfucking Scorpion King. But we don't know. Maybe they existed, maybe they are myth layered upon someone who once was real. You gotta go back 5000 years for that poo poo in Eurasia+Africa.

In the Americas, you have plenty of alien indecipherable rulers within the last 2 millennia. Numeral Jaguars and Smoking Obsidian Mirrors and all kinds of living, mythical godheads whose name and reason and accomplishments are all dust. We can just barely affirm that they existed. And they have their own 3000 BC proto-dynasties that are almost entirely lost knowledge.

I eat that poo poo right up. Even if it's a dry, scholarly document and it's missing lots of details, I love reading about some of the Oldest Things We Can Possibly Know.


gently caress you i just burned through the whole thing in 3 days and now i'm really mad that it is not a complete series

it is the perfect combination of casual modern retelling of ancient myth and slap-happy combat from a tabletop RPG/Jojo at the same time.

WITCHCRAFT posted:

My favorite pieces of history are the ones from the barren, ragged edge that are barely remembered. New World civilizations that were smothered out, and we can only suss out the barest details of their millennia long history. Old World civilizations that we have record of, but they are so distant that even the names of their rulers seem alien.

Wikipedia posted:

It remains unknown how a population large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and compensated or fed in the conditions of pre-sedentary society. Scholars have been unable to interpret the pictograms, and do not know what meaning the animal reliefs had for visitors to the site. The variety of fauna depicted – from lions and boars to birds and insects – makes any single explanation problematic. As there is little or no evidence of habitation, and many of the animals pictured are predators, the stones may have been intended to stave off evils through some form of magic representation. Alternatively, they could have served as totems.[55]

The assumption that the site was strictly cultic in purpose and not inhabited has been challenged as well by the suggestion that the structures served as large communal houses, "similar in some ways to the large plank houses of the Northwest Coast of North America with their impressive house posts and totem poles."[56] It is not known why every few decades the existing pillars were buried to be replaced by new stones as part of a smaller, concentric ring inside the older one.[57]

Human burials may have occurred at the site. The reason the complex was carefully backfilled remains unexplained. Based on current evidence, it is difficult to deduce anything certain about the originating culture or the site's significance.

WITCHCRAFT posted:

I eat that poo poo right up. Even if it's a dry, scholarly document and it's missing lots of details, I love reading about some of the Oldest Things We Can Possibly Know.

System Metternich posted:

Then look no further than the Battle of Tollense valley! Up until the 90s, it was widely believed that during the bronze age northern middle Europe was basically a sparsely populated wasteland (which as a south German I'm legally obligated to say it still is ) where people were organised in tribes and/or small villages, living off the land as well as from a limited trade network of e.g. amber going from the Baltics to the west and south. Warfare didn't figure into scholar's thoughts about that time and place except as the vague possibility of groups of young men raiding neighbouring tribes/villages. The area was basically seen as a European hinterland; while in the mediterranean big civilisations like Egypt, the Minoans or the Sumerians flowered, this part of the continent was thught to be technologically and culturally way behind.

Well, sometimes it's really a single find that literally rewrites history. In 1996, an amateur archaeologist found a bone at the Tollense river in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany's northeasternmost state. It was a human bone, and it had a bronze arrowhead embedded in it. The finder alerted the authorities who started larger digs at the spot and were absolutely flabberghasted at what they found during the following years. This area had been the site of a vast battle that took place at around 1250 BC, encompassing somewhere between three and five thousand men. Those were no mere tribal warriors either, but well-equipped soldiers - virtually all of them males between 20 and 40 years old - with a lot of combat experience, as their bones show. Some of them even came from far away places like what is today southern Gemany - maybe they were mercenaries of some sort? It wasn't merely footsoldiers either, but also cavalry and archers.

This changed everything. Five thousand professional soldiers don't just appear out of thin air, they need to be trained, clothed, equipped, fed, briefed and organised. This is only possible if you have a centralised authority of some sort - or rather two at least, since it was two armies clashing against each other. But, and this is the really fascinating thing: We have literally zero idea about those authorities. Who and where were they, how were they structured and governed, what were their motivations about going to war, what language did their peoples speak and what religion did they follow, did they have capital cities and if yes, where? Noone knows.

Alhazred posted:

The punic wars did not officially end until 1985 when the mayor of Rome and the mayor of modern Carthage signed a peace treaty.

Carthag Tuek posted:

at least 200 poles have been attested

System Metternich posted:

I first read this as "at least 200 Poles have been arrested" and was super confused for a hot second But thanks, that's a cool story! I take it that the reformation ended pilgrimages to this sacred spring?

Carthag Tuek posted:

lol

Pilgrimages to the St. Helen spring continued after the reformation. There's a churchbox account book from the 1700s, detailing donations made at the spring donation box and their payouts to the local poor. As all sacred springs, it was said to have healing properties and of course the lame were made to walk again if they bathed in it. I think the most recent accounts I've seen of are from the 1800s. It is still visited, now mainly because it's a nice area and a nature preserve.

The change from Týr to Helen* probably happened around the christianization of Denmark ca. 1000 CE, but there are no local written sources that mention any of these locations until way after the reformation (1536) so who knows — also, almost all primary Danish sources are post-reformation. As a guess, I would say least 75% of Danish history prior to the reformation is from external sources and archaeology. Probably a lot was lost during the associated struggles...



e: It is now called Helenekilde (ɔ: St. Helen's Spring), but a theory is that it was for a time called Helligkilde (ɔ: Holy spring) and the name shifted over time.

I guess she isn't actually a catholic saint, but rather a murdered (some say common, some say noble) woman, thrown into the ocean, whose corpse was born ashore on a great rock. And where she landed, a spring came forth. That's the medieval story anyway. The pre-christian story is only conjecture:
https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helenekilde_(Tisvilde)

Carthag Tuek posted:

Also I just remembered that Santa Maria is still celebrated in parts of Denmark and Sweden. On December 13, white-clad children walk in procession with candles, while singing this song, here by the girl choir of the Danish Broadcasting Corporation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rBd8EdGs5c

FreudianSlippers posted:

In Iceland the mass of St.Þorlák, patron saint of fishermen, Scandinavian Catholics, and Iceland itself, is celebrated the day before Christmas Eve by eating ammonia infused skate.