historyisntboring

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The Gawain poet, hitting a blunt: the knight was green. But more importantly I need you to understand how hot this guy was. Like so fucking hot dude

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Everyone shut up and look at this carving of a whale from the 1200-600 CE Chumash culture

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18th century tumblr user

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(x) id lose my fucking mind. imagine climbing nearly 10k ft of elevation thinking you're the first to ever do it n turns out someone beat you to it a millennium ago

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unreasonably charmed by Pendant in the shape of a ram's head, Eastern Mediterranean, 5th–4th century BC, made of glass

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She was a 50 y.o. Siberian woman from 2500 years ago, living a nomadic lifestyle, and look at her tattoos...

Look...

I'm going to cry

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His wikipedia page explains the three-color photography principle quite well, and it's full of really good illustrations, including a photo of Tolstoy...

...and Prokudin-Gorsky himself, working on his photos with an assistant!

Long before the introduction of color film, a Russian chemist and photographer named Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky used an innovative technique. He took three individual black and white photos, each through a colored filter (red, green, and blue), to create fully colored, high-quality pictures. The photo of this woman, taken by him, is around 107 years old!

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Favorite "humans being human" history posts, please

I've seen the collections of favorite tumblr fiction posts; now I'd like to see what your favorite "humans being human" historical posts are. (Because sometimes it is Nice to be reminded that compassion is not something easy for us to lose; we laugh at the same bad jokes; there are entire fossil records of our kindness.)

Here are my favorites-- add on yours.

The story of the RMS Carpathia, with a follow-up (aka one of if not the best pieces of short nonfiction historical writing in the modern age and one that reduces me to tears every goddamn reread)

Bronze-age grave of teenage gamer girl lovingly buried with her sheep ankle bone collection

The 1st-2nd century CE Roman tombstone with a bar joke that reads like a Dril tweet

And even earlier: A 4500-1900 BCE Sumerian bar joke

"Please know that there's an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that's beautiful to you"

Reconstructing Otzi's shoes

The Paleolithic grandmother and the child's fingerprint

Stone-age toddlers had art lessons

Ice-age children played in megafauna-footprint puddles

There once was a little boy who loved ducks

The oldest human burial found in Africa is a toddler; they made a pillow for his head

Henry Kenelm Beste's father loved him very much

"A Timeline of Humanity"

"I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them."

"I got to hold a 500,000 year old hand axe at the museum today. It's right-handed. I am right-handed"

A 3rd century dog carved on a marble tomb; a 1st century dog lovingly described and named for posterity

Patrice, a 1st-2nd century dog, was dearly loved

And: we found a Paleolithic dog, buried with its bone

Humanity, unified across time by everyday experiences

The Golden Record sent into space in the 1970s

Ancient Egypt had archaeologists

Egyptian figurine of a woman waiting for her bread to finish baking

The graffiti of Pompeii

Ancient Greek tourist graffiti at the tomb of Ramses V

Hidden messages on circuit boards

The earliest examples of someone chewing on the end of their pencils

"im having feelings about the uffington white horse again"

The vast relatability of Medieval marginalia (and cats peeing on things)

Potoooooooo

What our ancient ancestors would think, seeing us prosper

Engage with older art; it keeps you from forgetting their humanity

"They were just like you and me. They write don't forget eggs, and wondered if their neighbors secretly hated them or if they are reading into it too much. They loved and were loved and they wondered. They wondered about you."

"Why do you study history" web-weaving

And ending on a high note: Ea-nasir and his shitty copper

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She wouldve done numbers here…..

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Actual roman epitaph for a dog

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Tag yourself as this list of “bad art” features, according to a twitter fascist

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I love the very idea of the paris catacombs like. yeah sure the real-life city of paris has a straight-up megadungeon sprawling under it. Why not.

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“Medieval peasants couldn’t handle my Spotify playlist” but could YOU handle a medieval bard relaying the epic of Beowulf over the course of an hour? Humble yourself.

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at the risk of sounding like a raving lunatic, i think one of my favorite trekkie memes/posts is that one where someone comments on a screenshot of tos and asks if sulu is texting, because it PERFECTLY encapsulates star trek's strange little place at the intersection of pop culture and the tech world:

like listen... 55+ years ago a bunch of actors had to use a mix of existing habits and wild imagination to come up with what they felt would be believable movements and muscle-memory for someone using completely unbelievable tech a few hundred years in the future. like tv had less than ten channels and the screen was a foot across, and they had to go "ok how would someone who's used to a tiny wireless gadget with a screen hold it and use it? how would they talk to a computer? how would the computer sound when she talked back?"

and over half a century later our own tech has surpassed the clunky retrofuture gizmos in so many ways, no doubt inspired by it, that now someone two decades into the 21st century sees an actor in the 60s holding some tiny rectangular plastic prop in both hands and immediately recognizes it as "oh, sulu's texting!" now THAT is a called shot. hell, that's putting your money on a roulette wheel in a casino that hasn't been built yet. i LOVE it. it's so star trek. sulu is absolutely texting.

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Ancient Roman Horse Cemetery Discovered in Germany

An ancient Roman cemetery uncovered in southern Germany has revealed more than 100 horse skeletons, shedding new light on the role of animals in ancient military life, and one burial is drawing particular attention.

Archaeologists began excavating a site in Stuttgart in the summer of 2024 ahead of a planned construction project. Stuttgart, located in southwestern Germany, is about 400 miles southwest of Berlin.

Based on earlier finds in the area, including scattered horse bones, experts expected to uncover remnants of a Roman cavalry presence. What they discovered went far beyond expectations.

The State Office for Monument Preservation at the Baden-Württemberg Regional Council announced on April 16 that a vast Roman graveyard had been unearthed.

Dating back around 1,800 years, the cemetery contained over 100 horse skeletons, making it one of the largest known Roman military horse burial sites in the region.

Graveyard linked to a Roman cavalry unit

Archaeologists believe the horses belonged to a Roman cavalry unit stationed in the area during the second century A.D.

Historical records suggest the unit had about 500 riders, which would have required a herd of at least 700 horses to support daily operations, travel, and military campaigns.

Most of the horses appeared to have died from natural causes, injury, or illness. There were no signs of a mass death event, such as battle or disease, said Sarah Roth, the site’s lead archaeologist. The burials were generally simple, with no special markings or artifacts.

One burial reflects a personal connection

A single horse was found buried with two ceramic jugs and an oil lamp placed near its leg – items commonly associated with human graves in Roman culture.

Roth said the burial appeared to mimic that of a person and pointed to a strong emotional bond between the animal and its owner. “Even after around 1800 years, the mourning over the death of this one animal is still evident,” she explained in the statement.

The human skeleton raises social questions

The team also uncovered a lone human skeleton at the edge of the site. Officials believe the individual may have been an outsider, excluded from formal Roman burial grounds.

The contrast between the simple human grave and the symbolically rich horse burial has raised new questions about the social values of the time.

Further research planned as site closes

Although excavations at the site are now complete, researchers believe the cemetery may be larger than currently documented.

Further analysis of the remains is underway to better understand the Roman military’s dependence on horses and the cultural practices surrounding their care and burial.

By Nisha Zahid.