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Smoking Crow posted:Why did togas/robes fall out of style? Togas seem much more comfy than pants. What I'm saying is BRING BACK TOGAS If you live in a cold place, or a place that gets cold, pants are a much warmer option than a skirted garment.
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Nov 20, 2014 22:39
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Tunicate posted:Flipped to Olympus on scifi. Could be they were referring to wheat. In some places 'corn' just refers to grain in general, not just American corn.
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Apr 17, 2015 13:32
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As one of those actual pagans, gently caress Robert Graves and the horse he rode in on. If anyone can read The White Goddess and come even close to figuring out what he was getting at I'll be amazed. It's incomprehensible garbage. I really like the way he writes in his novels, although he really flogs his waning moon bitch-goddess theory hardcore. Also, his translation of 'The Golden rear end' is the best I've read. I would say the way he tells the stories and myths is great, however, his interpretation of them is as suspect as anything written by, say, Marija Gimbutas. Graves' bullshit tree calendar continues to be a scourge upon us to this very day.
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Sep 14, 2015 12:49
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I'm sorry! I don't like phone posting and I'm usually reading the forums while on the bus or something. But yeah, Graves' translation gets a lot of the comedy across. I've read 3 or 4 versions of The Golden rear end and his actually made me laugh.
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Sep 14, 2015 14:14
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If you haven't read it, Howard Carter's book about the discovery and opening of the tomb is amazing. That combined with a really good coffee table book on the tomb that has quality photos is really helpful to imagine just what it was like. I went to the Tutankhamun exhibit when it was here in Canada a few years ago and it was amazing just to get a sense of how intricate some of the things are. It's all well and good to see a photo of one of the tiny canopic sarcophagi but to see it in person and look at the engravings on the inside that pictures don't show? That's amazing. They even had the golden knife from the mummy-wrappings, and a radiograph showing where each amulet was. So cool.
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Dec 14, 2015 15:45
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That was an awesome article, thanks for posting it. I have a senet set and it's, like, okay, but it's hardly a thrill. I just love that even in ancient Egypt people were smack-talking each other. Everyone always things ancient societies were so different, but really, human nature never changes.
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Jul 8, 2016 04:36
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Cyrano4747 posted:
I was talking more about the depiction of the ancient Egyptians smack-talking each other over a boardgame, but sure bro, whatever. To the people wondering about the Vestal Virgins: if one broke her vows then I believe she was walled up in a crypt with some food and water, eventually to starve, but I'm not sure if that happened if one was raped.
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Jul 15, 2016 03:20
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you didn't read the whole article did you ?
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As I understand it, at the time period in question the Egyptians didn't really dress like ancient Egyptians and would have been fairly Hellenized by that point. So they wouldn't be wearing schentis and such like they did on the show, basically. Edit: I am going to assume this was more for the benefit of the viewer, so they would know that the bits set it Egypt were actually set in Egypt. When talking about Egyptians of 2,000 years ago folks expect to see schentis and nemyss-cloths.
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Oct 10, 2016 15:31
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Jerusalem posted:This is somewhat outside the spectrum of this thread probably, but I got a copy of Stacy Schiff's The Witches: Salem, 1692 - A History and it is really loving good. Has anybody read her Cleopatra: A Life? I'm thinking of grabbing it once I'm done with this one. How does this try and explain the hysteria? I've got a bug up my rear about the European witch hysteria but while I've read most of the big titles on that subject, Salem is the one that seems to have the shittiest and most sensationalized books about it.
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Dec 31, 2016 22:49
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I don't know why art historians are being so naive, but the venus figurines are obviously prehistoric porn. Dat rear end, dem tittays
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Jul 12, 2017 01:08
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hailthefish posted:That was the original assumption about them. People have always been the same, and we will always be amused / titillated by dicks and boobs. It's the human condition. We can read ancient Greek joke books and they're still funny today, because 95% of them are variations on 'people from Shelbyville are SOOO DUMB' 'HOW DUMB ARE THEY?'. Some of them are amazing, though: quote:Someone needled a jokester: "I had your wife, without paying a dime." He replied: "It's my duty as a husband to couple with such a monstrosity. What made you do it?'  quote:A man, just back from a trip abroad, went to an incompetent fortune-teller. He asked about his family, and the fortune-teller replied: "Everyone is fine, especially your father." When the man objected that his father had been dead for ten years, the reply came: "You have no clue who your real father is."
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Jul 12, 2017 04:47
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I believe for modern coins they're meant to be an aid for the visually-impaired as well.
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Aug 4, 2017 18:54
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Cyrano4747 posted:You're right on the Sharia one. But....society had been pretty thoroughly Christianized by that point? Unless you're trying to imply that anything Murray wrote is capable of holding water?
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Nov 15, 2017 19:06
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Witchcraft gradually became a heretical thing, but in the early days of Christianity, believing in witchcraft was itself heretical and Not To Be Done, because believing in witches was something done by foolish pagans and not enlightened Christians. There's probably a tipping-point somewhere but I'm on my phone and my collection of books on the subject is buried somewhere in my storage unit, which is too bad because I could talk about the European witch hysteria for days.
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Nov 15, 2017 23:44
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You guys I am literally reading Ronald Hutton's 'The Witch' right now and it goes into this in such glorious depth.
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Nov 16, 2017 00:07
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It must also be remembered that a lot of witchcraft accusations started with personal disputes and disagreements, escalating into tragedy. The people who administered trials and examinations may have had some religious underpinning for it, but the initial accusations were less "Goodwife Perkins flew to the Sabbat and had bottomless steak fries with the Devil" and more "I didn't give some butter to Goodwife Perkins and four days later my goat died." Whether there were any religious reasonings behind a witch trial would likely vary hugely depending on the time, place, and inclinations of the examiners. There was a difference between someone educated in Church law and actual legal proceedings as opposed to some idiot who got his hands on a copy of the Malleus Maleficarum, the legal advice of which was questionable and the demonology unorthodox. I think that Norman Cohn's 'Europe's Inner Demons' is a good examination of how social delusion and hysteria chose witches as the target for that time period, much like earlier ones had targeted Jews and lepers. Y'alls are making me want to go digging for my books sooooo goddamned badly.
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Nov 17, 2017 04:59
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Epicurius posted:I had read something, and unfortunatrly, I forget where, that looked at the satanic panic and the McMartin preschool case, and it was interesting how a lot of the accusations in the case mimicked the accusations made at Salem. There werected even statements that the accused flew through the air. The SRA hysteria has a few direct parallels, I absolutely agree. And it's one of those things that seems impossible to us today, but people actually went to jail because they were accused of flushing live children down the toilet into secret rooms where they witnessed people killing elephants and then drinking their blood. It is my opinion that the SRA hysteria cast a hugely long and dark shadow on the modern pagan revival which it's still under, a little bit.
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Nov 17, 2017 12:30
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Ghetto Prince posted:Read up on the 18th dynasty, they're all amazing. Especially once all the incest starts catching up to them with Ahmenotep IV. Also known as Akhenaten / The Heretic / That Criminal. I think you mean
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Nov 25, 2017 13:25
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I think that a lot of modern social problems would be erased if one went back in time and smothered Ayn Rand in the cradle.
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Dec 13, 2017 03:39
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:There is a book called "Red Land, Black Land" by someone I don't remember that focuses on the daily life and beliefs of ancient egyptians. It was a really fun read. This is Barbara Mertz and her books are fantastic. I always assume people think the Egyptians were obsessed with death because their burial practices are so well-known. So much funerary architecture and infrastructure survive.
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Feb 8, 2018 00:42
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ThatBasqueGuy posted:The Hidden Folk are just Neanderthals that got really good at subterranean living, nothing to be afraid of! Margaret Murray, is that you?
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Apr 9, 2018 12:04
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Mr Enderby posted:Do you have an example of criminals being used? Seems a bit rude to give criminals to the god imo. The point of sacrificing something is that you're giving up something of value. "We were gonna kill this rear end in a top hat anyway" seems like a lovely justification and I would assume that any deity receiving such a crappy sacrifice would set that society aside for an extra helping of wrath.
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Jul 4, 2018 19:22
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JesustheDarkLord posted:jupiter optimus maximus is the best and greatest of those I know this was from a few days ago but I wanted to make sure this wasn't unappreciated.
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Aug 23, 2018 18:21
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Mr Enderby posted:A Roman sculptor is closing up his workshop for the day. He looks fondly at the work in progress, a massive carved statue. I'd watch it. I assume there'd be some sort of chariot chase down the crowded streets with at least one fruit cart?
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Sep 12, 2018 16:07
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Grevling posted:Wasn't there some ideological reason history was always depicted with (for the artist) modern clothes, armaments, architecture etc., something to do with "nothing new under the sun"? I think I've heard something like that. I always assumed it was a way of connecting a wealthy benefactor to some famous and important historical or religious figure. Either that or it was just fashionable to modernize scenes from antiquity.
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Dec 5, 2018 18:26
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I really don't see the connection between Osiris and Dionysius myself. I mean, ok, He and Isis invented bread and beer, and I see some people describing Dionysius as a dying-and-rebirth God, but Osiris kind of...stays dead. Oh sure, he's sort of alive - Isis fills Him with the breath of Life when She resurrects Him - but he's not truly alive, which is why he stays and becomes Lord of the Duat. Because He's incomplete He can't rule Egypt which leads to the Contendings of Horus and Set, which is arguably the best set of stories in any mythology, hands-down. I wouldn't say that Osiris is dour but I would say that He has an image of respectability to uphold and partying runs contrary to that.
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Dec 24, 2018 16:58
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I can't help but wonder if the ancient Romans would have considered Nero's tragic neckbeard to be as unfortunate as we do today.
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Jan 11, 2019 18:23
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oystertoadfish posted:the other cool thing i found out when googling for this top-tier post is that apparently the largest known penguin, which lived in antarctica ~40 million years ago, was over 6 feet tall and 250 pounds. Palaeeudyptes klekowski, it's called. so that's cool Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!
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Mar 3, 2019 15:57
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House Hippos are real and I will not be convinced otherwise.
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Sep 2, 2019 14:56
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Tunicate posted:Ancient jewelry is pretty darn cheap too. I mean, it's jewelry, sure, but it just costs about as much as midrange modern jewelry does. From where? I know some people that'd make an amazing gift for.
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Mar 30, 2020 02:25
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Arglebargle III posted:
I believe it was baked in a conical pot.
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May 25, 2020 03:16
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It is my understanding that they thought the sparrows or swallows or whatever they were were eating all the grain that had been sown in the fields. This belief was incorrect.
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Jun 1, 2020 18:34
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Arglebargle III posted:
"So then he turns himself into a pickle, funniest poo poo I've ever seen."
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Jul 21, 2020 12:53
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If the chickens will not nugget then perhaps the fish will fillet?
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Aug 10, 2020 22:23
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My aunt used to say 'great farting Hades' when very excited.
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Jul 10, 2021 20:37
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It's pretty great, but it gets weird towards the end. Mary Gentle is a fantastic author and she wrote another work in the same universe called Ilario, about the travels and travails of an intersex painter.
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Oct 22, 2021 17:55
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There's a book of ancient Greek jokes out there, many of which still hold up because they're either making fun of Shelbyville and its stupid inhabitants or they're boomer jokes about their horrible wives.
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Mar 25, 2022 15:22
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Well, it was Paris who made the indescribably stupid choice to declare Aphrodite the prettiest and therefore have the most beautiful woman in the world as his reward, instead of the much better rewards offered by Hera or Athena. I feel like given the choice between dominion over Europe, Africa, and Asia, or the wisdom of Athena, I would go for the wisdom. Rulership of three continents just seems like a hassle.
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Oct 19, 2022 19:01
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Crab Dad posted:Wow. This alien erasure will not stand. "We learned many things from the mighty Egyptians, such as pyramid building, space travel, and how to prepare our dead so as to scare Abbott and Costello."
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Nov 9, 2022 18:18
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In some countries the stereotype of the malevolent magic-worker was that of a man instead of a woman. Same thing in Russia, actually.
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Nov 15, 2022 16:02
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