#2nd millennium

[lackedthings]

Millenniums of 1001 and 9999

[blueiscoool]

Ancient European Bronze Age Bronze Armlet Bronze Age, 2nd millennium B.C.

[alphamecha-mkii]

Star Wars: X-Wing (2nd Ed) - Hotshots and Aces II Reinforcements Pack Cover Art

[octavio-world]

girl: i better not see u being Standing Figure. 3rd–2nd millennium BCE when i get there me opening the door:

[mapsontheweb]

The world of Abraham, 18th century BC.

via cartesdhistoire

Source: « Histoire universelle des Juifs », Élie Barnavi, Hachette, 1992

Abraham, the father of monotheism, is with Isaac and Jacob one of the three patriarchs who founded the Jewish people. The biblical story of Genesis describes the wanderings of the Patriarchs across the Fertile Crescent, from the mouth of the Euphrates to the land of Canaan. The Bible places the Patriarchs in space but not in time, even if we can assume that Abraham lived in the 18th century. av. AD

Judaism constitutes the first expression of monotheism, but this appearance, far from being sudden, was the result of a slow evolution. Already in Mesopotamia, each state favored one deity among the many that populated its pantheon. In Egypt, the pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1337 BC) had decided to worship only the god Aten and to do so had launched a vast iconoclastic campaign intended to eradicate all traces of worship of the god Amon. Here we see the outline of a shift towards henotheism, namely the idea that if there are several divinities, one of them is superior to the others.

From henotheism comes monolatry, namely the fact of worshiping only one god without denying that there are others. The development of henotheism stems from a form of nationalization of the gods which was notably encouraged by the Achaemenid Persians within their empire. In the biblical story of the Exodus, the alliance that the prophet Moses concluded with Yahweh was conditioned by the latter on the fact that the people of Israel made him their sole and exclusive god and renounced honoring others, which clearly shows that the existence of other gods is then recognized.

It was only around the 6th century. av. BC that Judaism asserts itself as a monotheism, that is to say that it postulates the existence of a single and universal god and therefore considers any other religious belief to be false. The true innovation introduced by monotheism is not so much the idea of divine unity as that of exclusivity and, with it, of truth.

[corey-45]

Goliath and Philistine warriors with young David and the Israelite camp in the background (as told in 1 Samuel 17), circa late second millennium BC; painting by Jeremy B. Raben.

Source:

[1whimsicalgal]

Lauren Bergman's painting and Vimeo are based on one of the most harrowing images I have ever seen from WWII.

"Title: WWII / Persecution of Jews in Liv, Ukraine / Photo, 1941.

Caption: History / World War II / Ukraine / The Holocaust. German occupation of Ukraine. Liv (Lemberg), 30 June 1941. Mass executions of Jewish inhabitants by auxiliary troops of Ukrainian nationalists shortly after the capture of the town. Agitated inhabitants abuse a Jewish woman. Photo, 1941.

Credit: Album / akg-images

Releases: Model: no - Property: no Rights questions?

Image size: 3171 x 4065 px | 36.9 MB

Print size: 26.8 x 34.4 cm | 10.6 x 13.6 in (300 dpi)

Keywords:

I

[alteredphoenix]

A clear memory I have, when working on That Old PMMM/Sailor Moon Fusion AU fic (as in: it's a fic where in this AU the PMMM girls were reborn part and parcel with the Guardians after the Fall of the Silver Millennium), was coming up with a short story about a group of assassins that jumped through time and dimensions that tied into the modern day setting.

The second POV character I made the reader (because the first is a male POV) followed was an OC, and the guy she's walking down the hall with recalls how there were rumors about her being the bastard daughter to Queen Serenity a'la "she fucked around after her husband passed away" because she had silver hair and having that was usually the go-to mark for being part of the royal family.

I never did finish that story, and it's buried away somewhere in the USB Drive (EDIT: NEVER MIND FOUND IT), but she was the head of the group meant to look for two girls in the modern day that were pretty much Madoka and Homura who were...basically constructs of magic born from both Ultimate Madoka and Devil Homura from the PMMM Canon AU but without the godhood attached that were given human form but over time gained free will (and were essentially watched over by an unknown female benefactor named Lady Iris, who was actually an aspect of Queen Serenity who existed beyond the confines of space-time - she was basically the fic's equivalent of a Force Ghost). I don't think I even remember what the goal was once they found them but there was an element of "I'm getting back at the assholes that called me a motherless bitch, and I'm taking it out on Queen Serenity's girl and her squad even though they had nothing to do with my misery", and Not!Madoka and Not!Homura would...eventually find out that they're more than just regular schoolgirls that are able to live on their own and dream of hitting up Akihabara and Shibuya to See The Sights (because they're unconsciously aware they're god-beings but at the same time consciously aren't). The girls would've eventually be protected by the Guardians, who'd be butting heads with both the assassin group and Devil Homura (who's eating up her AU selves who are magical girls like fucking candy for More Power so she can curbstomp Kyouko and Sayaka, who are blessed with the last fragments of Ultimate Madoka's power and on the run, and drag Madoka back into their world, who managed to break out of it, and sit nice and pretty and not worry about all that magical girl shit).

It's...a very complicated AU I've made lol

[panicinthestudio]

Shrine of Hori, late 12th or 13th Dynasty, ca. 1800-1700 BC

Middle Kingdom, presumably from Abydos, Egypt

Limestone

H 49 cm, B 39 cm, T 25,5 cm

This shrine is a miniature memorial chapel which was erected in honor of the god Osiris at Abydos. The figure in the niche depicts Hori who dedicated this shrine for the benefit of his family, as well as himself, so that all might participate in the Osiris mysteries. The incised figures to the left and right of the niche depict family members; yet more are mentioned. Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Wien

Shrine of Hori, Egypt, 1800-1700 BC

from The Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

[2seeitall]

The Temple of Aphaia (Aegina), Greece

The nymph Aphaia was worshipped on the island of Aegina (Aigina) since the 2nd millennium BC, and only there. She was thought of as the daughter of Zeus and was similar to the virgin goddess Artemis. Like Artemis, Aphaia protected women in childbirth. Her temple was a place principally of female cult.

[blueiscoool]

A BRONZE FIGURE OF A BULL, PROBABLY CRETAN CIRCA LATE 2ND MILLENNIUM B.C.

With large forward-curving horns, wide-set ears, and long straight tail falling down to a broad horizontal strut connecting the back of the hind legs, grooved linear ornament on the body. Length 12.5 cm.; Height 12.2 cm.

[ltwilliammowett]

The Mast

One of the most important elements of a ship are the masts, because this is where the sails are attached that serve to propel the ship.

History

The oldest evidence for the use of one solid masts comes from the Ubaid site H3 in Kuwait, which dates back to the second half of the sixth millennium BC. There, a clay disc was recovered from a sherd that appears to depict a reed boat with two masts.

A painted clay disc with a diameter of 6.5 cm from site H3 with a design reminiscent of a boat with two masts, second half of the sixth millennium BC

In the West, the concept of a vessel with more than one mast to increase speed under sail and improve sailing characteristics developed in the northern waters of the Mediterranean: the earliest foremast was identified on an Etruscan pyxis from Caere (Italy) from the middle of the 7th century BC: A warship with a furled mainsail attacks an enemy ship and sets a foresail. An Etruscan tomb painting from the period between 475 and 450 BC depicts a two-masted merchant ship with a large foresail on a slightly inclined foremast.

Tomb of the Ship, mid-5th century BC

An artemon (Greek for foresail), which is almost as large as the main sail of the galley, is found on a Corinthian krater as early as the late 6th century BC; otherwise, Greek longships are uniformly depicted without this sail until the 4th century BC. In the East, ancient Indian kingdoms such as the Kalinga are thought to have been built in the 2nd century BC. One of the earliest documented evidence of Indian sail construction is the mural of a three-masted ship in the caves of Ajanta, which is dated to 400-500 AD.

This Ajanta mural depicts an ancient Indian ship with high stem and stern and three oblong sails attached to three masts. Steering-oars can also be seen. Location: Cave No. 2, Ajanta Caves, Aurangabad District, Maharashtra state, India, 400-500 AD

The foremast was used quite frequently on Roman galleys, where, tilted at a 45° angle, it was more like a bowsprit, and the scaled-down foresail attached to it was apparently used as a steering aid rather than for propulsion. While most ancient evidence is iconographic in nature, the existence of foremasts can also be inferred archaeologically from slots in the foremast feet, which were too close to the bow for a mainsail.

Fragment of mosaic depicting "navis tesseraria", a messenger and police boat of the African fleet, 2nd century AD

The artemon, together with the mainsail and the topsail, developed into the standard rigging of seagoing vessels in the Imperial period, which was supplemented by a mizzen on the largest cargo ships. The first recorded three-masters were the huge Syracusia, a prestigious object commissioned by King Hiero II of Syracuse and developed by the polymath Archimedes around 240 BC, as well as other Syracusan merchant ships of the time. The imperial grain freighters that travelled on the routes between Alexandria and Rome also included three-masted ships. A mosaic in Ostia (around 200 AD) shows a freighter with a three-masted rig entering the harbour of Rome. Specialised ships could carry many more masts: Theophrastus (Hist. Plant. 5.8.2) reports that the Romans brought in Corsican timber on a huge raft propelled by up to fifty masts and sails.

Throughout antiquity, both the foresail and the mizzen were secondary in terms of sail size, although they were large enough to require full rigging. In late antiquity, the foremast lost most of its tilt and stood almost upright on some ships.

By the beginning of the early Middle Ages, rigging in Mediterranean shipping had changed fundamentally: The spars, which had long since developed on smaller Greco-Roman ships, replaced the square sail, the most important type of sail in antiquity, which had virtually disappeared from the records by the fourteenth century (while remaining predominant in northern Europe). The dromon, the rowed bireme of the Byzantine fleet, almost certainly had two masts, a larger foremast and one amidships. Their length is estimated at 12 metres and 8 metres respectively, somewhat less than that of the Sicilian war galleys of the time.

Multi-masted sailing ships were reintroduced to the Mediterranean in the late Middle Ages. Large ships became more common and the need for additional masts to steer these ships appropriately grew with the increase in tonnage. Unlike in antiquity, the mizzen mast was introduced on medieval two-masted ships earlier than the foremast, a process that can be traced back to the mid-14th century based on visual material from Venice and Barcelona. To equalise the sail plan, the next obvious step was the addition of a mast in front of the main mast, which first appears in a Catalan ink drawing from 1409. With the establishment of the three-masted ship, propelled by square sails and battens and steered by the pivot-and-piston rudder, all the advanced ship technology required for the great transoceanic voyages was in place by the early 15th century.

In the 16th century, the cross-section of the masts was made up of several pieces of wood and held together with ropes and iron rings.

A lower mast with sections from 1773 to 1800

In order to achieve a greater height, the lower mast is extended, so that a total length of up to 60 metres can be achieved, measured from the keel. From lowest to highest, these were called: lower, top, topgallant, and royal masts. Giving the lower sections sufficient thickness necessitated building them up from separate pieces of wood. Such a section was known as a made mast, as opposed to sections formed from single pieces of timber, which were known as pole masts.

This is a section of HMS Victory's main mast

The forces of the sails on the mast construction are transferred to the hull construction by standing and running rigging, forwards and aft (stern) by stays, and laterally by shrouds or guys. In order to enable sailors to climb up into the rigging, which is particularly necessary for the operation of square riggers, rat lines are knotted into the shrouds like rungs of a ladder. The upper end of a ship's mast is called the masthead.

Mounting

The mast either stands in the mast track on the keel and is passed through the deck or it stands directly on deck. In the first case, the opening must be neatly sealed with a mast collar, otherwise water will penetrate into the living quarters. If the mast is on deck, it must be supported from below on the keel so that the loads do not bend the deck. Practically every sailing ship therefore has a more or less visible vertical support through the cabin.

Masts are usually supported by the standing rigging. The shrouds pull the mast downwards with several times its own weight and thus prevent it from tipping over.

Traditionally, when a sailing ship is built, one or more coins are placed under the mast as a lucky charm (according to my theory, the coins were also used as money to pay Charon the ferryman in the underworld if the ship sank); this custom is still practised today. Just as a horseshoe was nailed to the mast to bring good luck.

Mast types

For square-sail carrying ships, masts in their standard names in bow to stern (front to back) order, are:

Sprit topmast: a small mast set on the end of the bowsprit (discontinued after the early 18th century); not usually counted as a mast, however, when identifying a ship as "two-masted" or "three-masted"

Fore-mast: the mast nearest the bow, or the mast forward of the main-mast. As it is the furthest afore, it may be rigged to the bowsprit. Sections: fore-mast lower, fore topmast, fore topgallant mast

Main-mast: the tallest mast, usually located near the center of the ship Sections: main-mast lower, main topmast, main topgallant mast, royal mast (if fitted)

Mizzen-mast: the aft-most mast. Typically shorter than the fore-mast. Sections: mizzen-mast lower, mizzen topmast, mizzen topgallant mast

Some names given to masts in ships carrying other types of rig (where the naming is less standardised) are:

Bonaventure mizzen: the fourth mast on larger 16th-century galleons, typically lateen-rigged and shorter than the main mizzen.

Jigger-mast: typically, where it is the shortest, the aftmost mast on vessels with more than three masts. Sections: jigger-mast lower, jigger topmast, jigger topgallant mast

When a vessel has two masts, as a general rule, the main mast is the one setting the largest sail. Therefore, in a brig, the forward mast is the foremast and the after mast is the mainmast. In a schooner with two masts, even if the masts are of the same height, the after one usually carries a larger sail (because a longer boom can be used), so the after mast is the mainmast. This contrasts with a ketch or a yawl, where the after mast, and its principal sail, is clearly the smaller of the two, so the terminology is (from forward) mainmast and mizzen. (In a yawl, the term "jigger" is occasionally used for the aftermast.)

Some two-masted luggers have a fore-mast and a mizzen-mast – there is no main-mast. This is because these traditional types used to have three masts, but it was found convenient to dispense with the main-mast and carry larger sails on the remaining masts. This gave more working room, particularly on fishing vessels.

Cock, John. A treatise on mast-making , 1840.

Fincham, John. A Treatise on Masting Ships and Mast Making , 1854. Kipping, Robert. Rudimentary treatise on masting, mast-making, and rigging of ships , 1864.

Steel, David The Elements and Practice of Rigging, Seamanship, and Naval Tactics, Including Sail Making, Mast Making, and Gunnery , 1821.

Steel, David. Steel's Elements Of Mast-making, Sail-making and Rigging , 1794.

Layton, Cyril Walter Thomas, Peter Clissold, and A. G. W. Miller. Dictionary of nautical words and terms. Brown, Son & Ferguson, 1973.

Harland, John. Seamanship in the Age of Sail,1992

Marquardt, Karl Heinz, Bemastung und Takelung von Schiffen des 18. Jahrhunderts, 1986

[octavio-world]

[mapsontheweb]

The emergence the first states and city states, 2nd millennium BC.

by LegendesCarto

[vimbry]

*if you've heard a couple songs but don't really know much about them, or haven't listened in a long while, you can play!

update: the highest votes went to gudetama. but was it correct? here are the full titles and albums.

❌ "put your hand inside the puppet head" - they might be giants

the opening verse makes reference to leaving one's job and how "it's sad to say, you will romanticise all the things you've known before. it was not, not, not so great". according to flansburgh, "the lyric revolves around the idea that looking back on anything colors it in sentimentality".

❌ "I'll sink manhattan" - they'll need a crane (ep)/miscellaneous T

this is a flansburgh song, but linnell explained its meaning in a 1989 interview with NME as "a song about a guy who somehow figures out how to sink the island of manhattan just to kill his ex-lover, so it's his apology to the other people he's gonna kill in between. he's just gotta do it!"

❌ "meet james ensor" - john henry

it's about james ensor (belgium's famous painter).

❌ "wicked little critta" - mink car

from the tmbg unlimited collection: "forged in the crucible of an eastern massachusetts junior high, this song expresses the dreams, fears and hopes of a new england young adult" the lyrics seem to suggest said young adult fantasising about being a sports star alongside bobby orr and john havlicek while goofing off outside.

❌ "working undercover for the man" - mink car

from flansburgh: "it's more a meditation on the "mod squad" [a 1968 crime series about cool undercover detectives] than anything else. the idea of the narc just seems... like, those episodes of "dragnet" where they have the young undercover dress in a hippie suit."

✔️ "talent is an asset" - kimono my house

the lyrics illustrate an overly-cautious family shielding their very gifted child from others, to keep him studious and soak in all the glory, and is heavily implied to be little albert einstein through puns on relatives and relativity. it's not by them, tho. it's by the band sparks. it came 2nd, so I think many of you recognised it (or really wanted to see the results!)

❌ "bee of the bird of the moth" - the else

"this is a song about a creature called a hummingbird moth, which imitates another creature, which imitates yet another creature. it's completely fucked up, and can only be explained in song!" so they did.

❌ "2082" - join us

thewrap's review of the album describes this song as, "a science-fiction short story (...) a protagonist who travels into the future, finds himself hobbled but still unhappily alive all the way into the next millennium, and travels back to the title year to smother himself with a pillow in a mercy killing". fun!

❌ "call you mom" - nanobots

referred to by linnell as an "oedipus pan" song, the lyrics follow an unfortunate young man beginning a relationship with a woman, getting dumped due to his behaviour of treating her like a mother figure, then infantilising a possibly younger woman in a different relationship and in turn leaving her, who goes on to experience the same issues. fun! (altho, the final chorus actually still refers to her Mom leaving, not her dad, I got the details wrong there in the poll).

❌ "gudetama's busy days" - dial-a-song / my murdered remains

yes, that's a real song. quote flansburgh: "(...) it is really just about feeling isolated from the world, even if you are in a crowded place and manically trying to keep up with your life. the character of gudetama appealed to me because he is such a mopey sad sack."

❌ "marty beller mask" - album raises new and troubling questions

this is real, too! it's just about how marty beller was actually an alter ego of whitney houston the whole time. he's not, but wouldn't that be interesting. the song name-checks multiple of her own in the lyrics. it was temporarily retired out of respect following houston's death (4 months after its release), returning to live performances ten years later in 2022.

[whencyclopedia]

Aqueduct

Aqueducts transport water from one place to another, achieving a regular and controlled supply to a place that would not otherwise receive sufficient quantities. Consequently, aqueducts met basic needs from antiquity onwards such as the irrigation of food crops and drinking fountains. Ancient aqueducts took the form of tunnels, surface channels and canals, covered clay pipes and monumental bridges.

Ever since the human race has lived in communities and farmed the land, water management has been a key factor in the well-being and prosperity of a community. Settlements not immediately near a freshwater source dug shafts into underground water tables to create wells and cisterns were also created to collect rainwater so that it could be used at a later date. Underground aqueducts and those built as bridges on the surface, however, allowed communities not only to access clean and fresh water but to live further from a water source and to utilise land which would otherwise have been unusable for agriculture.

Where Were the Earliest Aqueducts?

The earliest and simplest aqueducts were constructed of lengths of inverted clay tiles and sometimes pipes which channelled water over a short distance and followed the contours of the land. The earliest examples of these date from the Minoan civilization on Crete in the early 2nd millennium BCE and from contemporary Mesopotamia. Aqueducts were also an important feature of Mycenaean settlements in the 14th century BCE, ensuring autonomy against siege for the acropolis of Mycenae and the fortifications at Tiryns.

Continue reading...