Arseny

@ampanmdagaba.bsky.social

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Symbols, myths, anthropology, art, linguistics, history. This is a notebook of TILs: things I wish I could learn more about!

he/him. For my daytime alter-ego, see @khakhalin.bsky.social

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I was reminded again today that in a way, Hindus River relates to India kinda similarly to how Ararat Mountain relates to Armenia, or Constantinople to Greece (only maybe with less tragic connotations? idk.) When a key geographic marker of your origin story is located outside of your territory

The map of India, compared to the flow of Indus river (left), and to where people speak Hindi (right)

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Arseny

Strawberries with Mouse, Maria Sibylla Merian, Late C17th-early C18th.

This script is insanely pretty! For any sort of decorative inscriptions, omg!

Languages written in 'Phags-pa script: 1. Chinese; 2. Mongol; 3. Tibetan; 4. Old Uyghur

The word for "Sister" (+etymology) in different languages. Except in some langs older- and younger sisters are named differently; in Basque a sister of a man vs of a woman are named differently, and Greenlandic has 4 words (older/younger same/diff gender) (from oysteib.bsky.social on the olden site)

My favorite streets are not too wide, but also not too narrow: they are exactly a whole number of tree canopies wide. One canopy is sweet and cozy; the houses act like a gorge, trapping coolness in summer, while trees exhale and further cool the air below. Two canopies, for biking arteries :)

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Arseny

Now that "model" is a noun, verb, and adjective, we can produce a "buffalo" style complete sentence "Model models model models model model model models model models model."

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Iaia of Cyzicus was a 1st century Greek artist, notable for being a woman artist who painted women’s portraits. Here’s a 15th century depiction of her in her studio, using a convex mirror painting a (very early) self-portrait (Boccaccio, De Mulieribus Claris)

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There is a new article on “A new approach to locate, characterise and restore in 3D polychromy of Apollo’s temple at Delphi (4th century B. C.),” which is pretty stunning. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... 🌈 🎨 They used machine learning to analyze photos to isolate pigment remains then analyze.

One of my favorite maps: the difference between astronomical and nominal time. Red = having real noon after nominal 12:00 (aka sun is late, 8 am is still night). White = truth. Green = sun is early (8 am is bright day). Note the difference between Poland and Spain, or how China favors East over West

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Dr. Holly Walters

This spectacular shila is a Vasudev Shaligram, and contains within it, the entire story of the infant Krishna being carried across the river. It's also the image I use in demonstrations of Shaligram interpretive tradition.

I can't stop thinking how a random upper middle class dude in a random suburb hired a team to paint some lemons in the bedroom, and they painted some lemons, and now these lemons are The Face of the Empire, instantly recognizable by millions. And the painter have never learned that :(

On August 2nd, UVA classicist Sara Myers has a new book coming out with OUP on the ancient Roman literary garden 🪴 🌺 🌳. global.oup.com/academic/pro... this book looks brilliant and also she is a great human. So 10/10 would suggest.

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#Etruscan clay bust of a woman with very rich jewelry. The headdress is particularly interesting. 4th-3th century BCE Collection MKG Hamburg sammlungonline.mkg-hamburg.de/de/object/We...

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Erm… Le secret de l'histoire naturelle, France c. 1480-1485. BnF, Français 22971, fol. 13r.

A fun difference: last week my wife and my son, who both moved to Germany 3 years ago, both got feedback from their teachers: My wife was told that she speaks as if she were writing. Germans don't talk like that! My son was told, he's writing as if he were speaking! Germans don't write like that!

Buryatia is a Buddhist-heritage "republic" within russia that is being targeted by a weird "auto-genocide" of sorts: >10% of its men were forced to fight against Ukraine and were killed there. (3.5% of all losses, 560k losses, 970k ppl in Buryatia, do the math..) Putin killing 2 birds with one stone

Last fall, a sociologist from PSLab spent over a month conducting ethnographic research in Buryatia, one of the Russian regions that has suffered most from the country’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Meduza shares key insights from this unique study: meduza.io/en/feature/2...

‘Our guys’ In Russia’s Buryatia, high military death rates make the war impossible to ignore. A new report reveals how it’s become normalized. — Meduzameduza.io In the fall of 2023, researchers from the Public Sociology Lab (PS Lab) visited three of Russia’s regions — the Sverlovsk region, Krasnodar Krai, and Buryatia — to study residents’ views on the full-s...

Judging from my experience on languagesquad.com, double-dutch is either Danish or Norwegian... Somehow from written texts I always expected Norwegian to be crispy, strong, and a bit crackling, but nope, total double Dutch...

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 An old English phrase about unintelligible or garbled speech is “that’s double Dutch” vs 🇳🇱 A Dutch phrase about something that’s incomprehensible is “I can't make any chocolate from that”

languagesquad.com

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Helmet laws only exist so that the media can make the deaths of cycling children a personal problem and not an infrastructure one

pinax: votive tablet of painted wood or terracotta; marble or bronze relief that served as a votive object deposited in a sanctuary or a memorial in a burial chamber That's how you can identify a good religion! A good religion REQUIRES a constant supply of art! Music, painting, dance, you name it!

Greek pinax (votive tablet) depicting a funeral, KHM Wien. Faces don't reveal the grief. Arms do...🏺

I'm low-key obsessed with the Cao’an temple: the Only still-functioning Manichaean temple in the world!! Built in 14C, disguised as a Buddhist temple to avoid the purge, still functioning as such, retaining the original image of Mani (Photos: @antiokhos.bsky.social ) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao%27an

No Way Home A-lone Star War Dogs Don't Wear Pants on Fire Country for Old Men in Black Mirror

Merge 2 films: Star Wars

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Long ago for @hyperallergic.com, I wrote a history of Phrygian caps (and red hats generally) if you want to know what the heck this new Paris Olympics mascot thing is. Enjoy! hyperallergic.com/436182/befor...

Before MAGA: Mithras, Phrygian Caps, and the Politics of Headwearhyperallergic.com Despite the current political landscape of the US, we can look to antiquity to see that the red cap was actually once a symbol of citizenship and welcome to the foreigner.

That one time that I made a DnD map of Bard College, Red Hook NY, and the surrounding.

Nazar battu: introducing a deliberate imperfection into something you love, to make sure it is not jinxed en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazar_b...

Nazar battu - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Most sold souvenir from every country (found on reddit). I'm more into religious stuff and musical instruments myself, but some of the choices are so interesting!! The link with arguments and explanations :) www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/co...

Votive offerings: either to indicate the part of the body that needed help, or to thank for a cure. Around 200 AD (so if I get it right, some 400 years before conversion to Christianity)

Wooden votive offerings in the shape of parts of the human body, from the spring sanctuary near the Roman settlement at Dambach, Bavaria. Objects like this were given to healing deities. They were intended either to indicate the part of the body that...1/2 📷 taken by me 🏺 AncientBluesky

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Every single thing I've seen about this is behind a paywall, and I've seen a lot. Is the volume of writing about high profile people and sexual abuse helping survivors? It's certainly helping the people writing about it (or their publishers). If it does help survivors, good.

What a tremendous piece by @michelledean.bsky.social which says exactly what needed to be said.

Alice Munro Was Hiding in Plain Sightwww.thecut.com I know the Nobel laureate’s writing by heart. I know her failures by heart, too.

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Marble head of Aphrodite emerges in the excavation of the ancient city of Aizanoi in modern day Turkey (or Türkiye). Probably 1st or 2nd century www.archeotravelers.com/en/2021/11/0...

EU announced (in Azerbaijan, of all places) that Georgia's (the country) ascention to EU is postponed because of their recent antidemocratic laws. They specifically mention the law about suppressing NGOs, but recently GE gvt also outlawed LGBTQ in art. Very RU-style :( en.trend.az/scaucasus/ge...

Georgia’s EU accession process stopped, ambassador saysen.trend.az