#Excavation Hero

[pokemonbattletournament]

We have Pokémon at Home!

Round 4 matchup 4

Propaganda for Pumafiend:

"Pumafiend is the ultimate glass cannon type of creature, very fast and has what might be the strongest move without recoil, Blood Force, at 90-140 power as well as a stronger move with downtime turns after, Crazed Blast at 20-370 power. Coupled with Pumafiends many passive speed and power boosting skills, it's a force to be reckoned with."

Propaganda for Clara and her Excavator:

"Clara’s on the digger!!!"

More info under the cut

More information about Pumafiend:

More information about Clara and her Excavator:

[mhabirthdays]

Happy Birthday

Higari Maijima (Excavation Hero: Power Loader) – September 17th

[scrawlingskribbles]

brain wouldn't let me know peace until I drew the dang meme for myself, so... x'3c Radlights brainrot found still perfectly alive and well at the end of 2023 lmfao, who woulda guessed it~? ✨️💙💚🧡❤️✨️

[recsspecs]

Remembering,

Khaled al-Asaad 'Mr Palmyra'

Cause of death : Decapitation

In May 2015, modern Palmyra and the adjacent ancient city came under the control of the Islamic State. Al-Asaad helped evacuate the city museum prior to the Islamic State's takeover, but was himself captured by the terrorist organisation. The Islamic State then tortured al-Asaad in an attempt to discover the location of the ancient artifacts that he helped hide. He was murdered in Palmyra on 18 August 2015 at the age of eighty-three.

The New York Times reported:

After detaining him for weeks, the jihadists dragged him on Tuesday to a public square where a masked swordsman cut off his head in front of a crowd, Mr. Asaad's relatives said. His blood-soaked body was then suspended with red twine by its wrists from a traffic light, his head resting on the ground between his feet, his glasses still on, according to a photo distributed on social media by Islamic State supporters.

In February 2021, Syrian state sources reported the discovery of al-Asaad's body in the countryside 10 km east of Palmyra.[22]

Along with al-Asaad, Qassem Abdullah Yehya, the deputy director of the DGAM Laboratories, also protected the Palmyra site, and was murdered by the Islamic State while on duty on 12 August 2015. He was thirty-seven years old

"he had a degree in history from Damascus University, he had no formal training in archaeology - all his knowledge in this field was self-taught."

"When you look at Palmyra today as an archaeological site, really that's the legacy of Khaled al-Asaad," Mr Azm says.

Here, you can read about the antiquties of Palmyra

This is the source I found so far, with details and colored pictures about his work and legacy

Al-Assad was one of the few people on Earth who was fluent in the language of ancient Palmyrian. By the end of his career, he had translated over 3000 lines of text. In addition, he taught himself English to be able to communicate with visitors and scholars interested in the area.

[wonderjanga]

Marvelous Fate

Billy, and Dr. Fate, otherwise known as Kent Nelson, were childhood friends. I mean, both their fathers were archeologists after all. Who’s to say they wouldn’t have met at least once.

Billy: “Hi, I’m Billy!” *waves*

Kent: “I’m Kent.” *waves back*

Sven (Dr. Fate’s Dad): “Well isn’t that just precious? Why don’t you boys go play together while we adults talk about work?”

Kent and Billy: “Okay!”

And the rest was history. They played together often whenever their dads were assigned the same excavations. Then, y’know, Billy’s parents died and Mary disappeared.

The Nelsons went the funeral.

Billy and Kent: *sipping juice boxes together as they watch people pay their respects*

Kent: “I’m sorry, Billy. But maybe they’ll let you live with us or something!”

Billy: “I hope so. But I think they’re just gonna stick me with my uncle. He’s creepy. And mean. At least whenever dad or mom aren’t around.”

A year later, Kent inadvertently killed his father resulting in Nabu and him meeting. This same year, Billy was kicked out by Ebenezer. They never saw each other again, until they were both heroes.

Marvel: “It’s wonderful to meet you Doctor Fate.”

Dr. Fate: “You ask well, Champion.” *cranes his head to look up at Marvel because the man is tall, and pauses when he feels Kent remember his old friend’s dead dad*

Marvel: *stares for a solid minute because, wait, this guy is familiar* “Kent…?”

They did some catching up, and it turns out they still rock with each other till this day. The JL were a little, tinsy-winsy bit jealous when they found out Fate knew Marvel’s identity because they’d thought they’d known Marvel for longer.

Flash: “So… Cap, how’d Doctor Fate find out your secret identity? Magic or something?”

JL: *all hiding around a corner, eavesdropping*

Marvel: “No? Me and Fate are childhood friends.”

Flash: “Huh…? Isn’t Fate an old ass man?”

Marvel: “Yeah, I guess.” *shrugs*

Flash: “Then how are you guys…?”

Marvel: “Time bubble.”

Flash: “What.”

Marvel: “Time bubble.”

[coredrill]

they literally had to go to china and dig up an actual mummy to get crunchyroll to release this movie

GAUMA TIME‼️‼️‼️

[some-messed-up-writing-for-you]

Short Prompt #1390

Ice and snow bit at Right Hand’s face, forcing them to pull their scarf up higher. The wind continued to howl regardless of their annoyance.

“Boss, I understand you’re immune to the cold,” they grumbled, eyeing the villain. “...But I can’t say the same for the rest of us.”

The henchmen around them wouldn’t dare complain, but it was pretty obvious the temperature was getting to them. Still, they worked hard on excavating the site.

“Bah, you humans… so delicate,” Villain growled softly, but acknowledged the concern with a huff. “Fine, we’re done for the day.”

Somewhere not too far away, a certain sidekick was hiding in the snow. They were totally going to ambush the enemy, impress Hero, and DEFINITELY not get caught in five seconds!

[theresattrpgforthat]

I'm looking for TTRPGs that have... for lack of a better way of putting it, mechanics where like, your character is under a profound amount of stress, and if they don't manage it and additional stress that comes in, they'll break or snap and do something horrible and then have to deal with the consequences. So something that mechanically 'forces' your character to do something they'd normally never do due to external stressors.

THEME: Stress Clocks.

Oh this is my shit. Get ready for a Hall of Fame style of recommendations from me this week (as well as a bit of self-advertising)!

Also a note: this was (mostly) a chance for me to get very excited about a number of games that have specifically inspired me, and I am aware that it means that I’ve kind of neglected certain houses of design as a result. For this post especially, I encourage anyone who can think of a game that fits this request that isn’t listed here to give it a shout out in the reblog and the replies!

Mothership, by Tuesday Knight Games.

Mothership is a sci-fi horror roleplaying game where you and your crew try to survive in the most inhospitable environment in the universe: outer space! You'll excavate dangerous derelict spacecraft, explore strange unknown worlds, exterminate hostile alien life, and examine the horrors that encroach upon your every move.

Mothership inflicts Stress upon you with every failure, and hitting your Stress cap reduces your most relevant Stat or Save, thereby consistency reducing your chances of success with every roll. That’s not all though - your Stress cap also makes it harder and harder to stop your character from panicking, by representing the threshold you must beat every time you make a Panic Check. If you roll less than or equal to your current Stress rating, you must take on a new Panic condition.

You make Panic checks whenever you roll a critical failure, but also whenever you witness something traumatic. These conditions don’t necessarily force your character to do anything, but they represent the toll that being in a constantly hostile environment takes on your mind and body. You have to work harder and harder to prevent your character from attacking allies, giving in to the demands of whatever is haunting their psyche, or going straight-up catatonic.

You can also try to mitigate this stress and panic by resting and doing something that helps relieve the pressure - having sex, taking drugs, praying, etc. There’s even a Shore Leave mechanic for long-term games that allow your character to turn their stress into a character improvement.

In some respect, these conditions remind me of the Morality and Clarity tracks of Chronicles of Darkness and Changeling: the Lost, but with less of the errant language around mental health. The dice rolls also make the consequences much less predictable, so if you want to be surprised by what exactly causes your character to snap, I recommend Mothership.

Urban Shadows, by Magpie Games.

The streets bleed shadows as the supernatural politics of the city threaten to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero—a savior for those who have never had enough—or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or give in for power?

The choice is yours. 

Urban Shadows is an urban fantasy tabletop roleplaying game in which mortals and monsters vie for control of a modern-day city, a political battleground layered just under the reality we think we know. Vampires, faeries, hunters, and wizards fight to carve out a piece of the streets and skyscrapers, ready to make deals with all those who have something to offer. 

The ‘consequences’ track for Urban Shadows is called Corruption. Each character playbook in this game has a couple of special moves called Corruption Moves, and when you start playing, you start with two Drama Moves the tie into this. The Drama Moves describe specific situations in which your character must mark Corruption. If you fill your Corruption track, you take a Corruption Move. Corruption moves give you special powers that are super-effective, but fill up your Corruption track faster. You can only fill your Corruption track so many times - fill it one too many and your character must be retired, because they’ve just become an antagonist.

I really like how this feels like a slow descent that speeds up the more you lean into it. Your character is consistently tempted to give into their darker sides in order to keep themselves afloat in this unforgiving city - but lean too far and they become exactly the kind of person they were hoping to stop.

Antiquarian Adventures, by acegiak.

Antiquarian Adventures is a pulpy tomb raiding and treasure hunting Blades In The Dark hack in the style of Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and The Mummy.

So Antiquarian Adventures is a pulp game. It’s not grim dark in any sense of the word, but I think it introduces a unique use of the Blades’ Stress mechanic in a special “ability” that happens when your character uses up all of their Composure (this is the “Stress” of this gam). Once you’ve used up all of your Composure, you cannot resist anything that comes your way and your dice pools are reduce to 0 until you do something (specific to your playbook) that usually invites a new consequence.

For example, The Veteran’s version of this is called “Not As Quick As I Used To Be,” which hamstrings the character until the player allows themself to be left behind or separated from their comrades. This kind of mechanic has directly inspired one of the projects that I’m working on, and I think that if you tweak the amount of Composure your character has, or makes the reaction harsher, you could absolutely make it work for a game that’s a bit grittier than Antiquarian Adventures.

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games

The last of humanity are fleeing across space, pursued by the implacable inhuman adversary that destroyed their civilisation. They're outnumbered and outgunned. Supplies are running low. The actions of a brave few could be all that stands between humanity and extinction.

Welcome to the Last Fleet.

Last Fleet is a PBTA tabletop roleplaying game where you play brave pilots, officers, engineers, politicians and journalists struggling to hold the human race - and themselves - together under unbelievable pressure. The game focuses on action, intrigue and drama in this high-stakes situation. You'll fight space battles, search for enemy infiltrators, tackle supply shortages and navigate faction politics. You'll strive against your own self-doubt and sometimes crack under the stress.

Last Fleet has something called a Pressure Mechanic, which can be used as a player resource, but also activates when you take weather harm or get called out on your shit. Hit your cap? Clear your Pressure and take a Breaking Point action, which often puts you at odds with the other characters, making the situation worse. The whole situation is a designed to act as a pressure cooker, making the situation harder and harder to bear until you finally pop. I love it, and it’s also a direct influence on one of my games.

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi (@temporalhiccup)

Unmask your feelings, uncage your ruination… The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

Taking cues from Urban Shadows, Apocalypse Keys gives you a Ruin track to follow as your monsters try to stop the world from ending. The Ruin track gives you a Ruin advance every time you fill it, unlocking Ruin Moves, permanently marking character conditions, and eventually forcing your character to turn into a Harbinger if you let it. Your Ruin moves are powerful and dark, generating even more Ruin when you use them, and in some cases (like with the Hungry’s "Only Hunger Remains" move), your character can actually halt the current mystery as they get close enough to becoming a Harbinger that the entire party will have to work together to stop you from ripping the world apart.

Protect the Child, by Mint-Rabbit (that’s me!).

Humans have always been protective of their young, sometimes overly so. Humans have also always feared that which might make their young strange or different, and so insist that only humans can raise their own young. Monsters cannot raise human young. This is known.

You have a human baby. You cannot find its parents. What is even worse, is that this child has powers, powers that others covet, and so everyone wants it. If you want to prove that you’re not the heartless monster that everyone says you are, that means you’ll have to raise it, at least until you find someone who is better suited to it than you. 

You are creatures of fur, scales and fangs. You have claws that can rend flesh, faces that can crack mirrors, howls that can cause ears to bleed. 

And your charge wants a blankie.

Protect the Child is a Forged in the Dark game about monsters caring for a young human, a human who contains strange and mystical powers that make them a valuable asset in any monster crew. The setting and factions present in this game are flexible: you might be aliens in a far-flung future galaxy, fantasy monsters from rival kingdoms, or even everyday wild animals that fear human society. 

Alright, so this is my baby and I can tell you exactly how to push your character towards some really unhealthy coping mechanisms. In Protect the Child, your character is constantly battling the stress of being a parent. Stress, like in other Forged in the Dark games, is a player resource, but it’s also inflicted on you when you resist consequences, and when the kid has an emotional breakdown.

Should your stress clock fill up, you’ll have to take a reaction from the list attached to your playbook before you can take more Stress, and these reactions range from doing something for selfish gains to lashing out to your fellow monsters to being fully monstrous at exactly the worst time. Your tools to manage this stress are also limited - you have to be willing to confront your fellow monsters and be honest about your relationships with each-other if you want to stop your emotional kettle from whistling all of the time. If you want a game where building relationships is the only way to deal with the pressures of monster-parenting, then check out Protect the Child!

[ancientcharm]

Pompeii: the new discoveries in the excavation in Region IX

The dominant theme seems to be that of heroism, due to the representations of pairs of heroes and deities of the Trojan War, but also due to the fact and at the same time of the often open possibility that man has to be able to change his own destiny.

In addition to Helena and Paris, indicated in a Greek inscription between the two figures under her other name “Alexandros”, the figure of Cassandra, daughter of Priam, appears on the walls of the living room. In Greek mythology Cassandra was known for her gift of foresight and the terrible fate that prevented her from changing the future. Despite her ability to see beyond the present, no one believes her words, due to a curse that Apollo inflicts on her for not giving herself to him, and therefore she will not be able to prevent the tragic events of the Trojan War. that she predicted. After being raped during the taking of Troy, she will end up as Agamemnon's slave in Mycenae.

The frequent presence of mythological figures in paintings of the living and social environments of Roman houses actually had a social function of entertaining guests and diners, providing impulses for conversation and reflection on existence.

Texts and photos : POMPEII-PARCO ARCHEOLOGICO

Pompeii 💙

[hyperionheights]

bones sexuality headcanons

yeah i dont have proof (except angela) i just Know. call it my lesbian spidey senses. disclaimer that those are MY headcanons, you can have your own opinions on those ofc

main characters:

brennan: bi (preference for ugly men... but i digress). she probably started exploring her sexual orientiation in college and came to the conclusion that she's attracted to every gender to varying degrees. she's probably tongue kissed angela a few times pre season 1

booth: cishet ally! ⭐️ he's a bit confused but he's got the spirit, i'll give him that.. bi wife energy start playing whenever he walks into the room

zack: gayboi with a bad case of hero worship for dr brennan. naomi from paleonthology made him realise this isnt really what he'd like to excavate, if you get the gist... ;) (ew)

angela: imo? bi, but it's up to anyone. canon queer and i'm very happy about it

hodgins: bi. putting my foot down on this one- to me, hodgela is bi4bi. one day early into the series angela goes "why is everyone so hot... being bi is so hard" and hodgins is like "yeah, tell me about it" and they have a Oh, You Too? moment

cam: distinguished (ex-disaster) pan. she's all cool and collected now but in middle school she was probably stuttering whenever she saw a pretty girl

sweets: pan. boykisser. i just KNOW. that man is not heterosexual. probably had a few boyfriends in high school too

aubrey: bi? preference for women but in an alternate universe he and sweets are a thing

goodman: token straightie along with booth except i actually like him even tho even tho he took a 2 month sabbatical and never came back

squinterns:

clark: bi. a bit repressed and only realised it after breaking up with nora but as long as he gets there it's fine

daisy: pan. absolute girlkisser. she has the wlw equivalent of whatever zack felt for dr brennan. swaisy is a disaster pan couple.

fisher: pan- and i wont have it any other way. he was 100% checking sweets out when he came over to b&b's in s8, so i like to think when hodgins asks sweets "what is it with you and interns?" in 9x23 he's including fisher

wendell: bi and in a lab au he's dating vincent thank you

vincent: english twink and i think he and wendell should kiss in the lab lost & found

arastoo: straightie but we still love him. pan wife energy since he and cam are married

finn: god, i have No Idea but i have a feeling he doesn't either

wells: aro, and maybe ace too, but fyi even if he wasn't no one would want him

jessica: ... i used to say lesbian but i kinda let the jaubrey of it all get to me... pan vibes perhaps? i'll have to think it over. in another universe she and daisy are a thing too btw

other characters:

caroline julian:... lesbian. no i will not give an explanation for this one. sham marriage and all.

karen delfs: big pansexual energy coming from this random profiler?? i like her

villains: (do not take those seriously, but also...)

pelant: unlabeled. getting strangled by hodgins awoke something in him but he didnt have the time to figure it out between 8x01 and 9x04

taffet: very VERY mean lesbian

epps: heterosexual incel

broadsky: internalised homophobia over booth, clearly

kovac: the man pretended to be married to his sister. i'm not sure i even wanna know

[catpriciousmarjara]

"....and here we have the image of the Terran deity of truth, Eycha-Bomba-ur-Guy, not be confused with the deity Bomb-ur, the god of abundance from the ancient Tolki-eena religion, which predates the Utubar religion entirely. Archeological excavations of the primitive holo-relics of Terra dates the Utubar religion to the two kingdoms period of the Amaz-U-na, and App-le-ple empires, in the Memetiscan era.

As stated before Eycha-Bomba-ur-Guy is a deity of truth and religious texts proclaim that he emerges whenever the principles of truth are violated. The legends we have been able to uncover from the ruins of Terra talks of a well where he is supposed to reside in and that every terran year he appears unexpectedly in order to shame the liars seeking fortune in the Holos of the kingdom of Utuba in a ruthless public sermon.

(Unfortunately we have not been able to uncover physical evidence of the kingdom as of now. Much of the information we have on the Utuba come from the Utuba Com-men-tits, the famous historical document that confirmed the theory that the Utuba people, consisting of the mortal Viu-wah, the priestly Saab-scriba, and godly Cree-atar, recorded history collectively.)

In his endeavor to champion truth Eycha-Bomba-ur-Guy is confronted by many adversaries and we can see how these battles play out in the religious iconography of the period. One of his many opponents is Tomm-y-Tallaar-ico, a rather comical figure who relentlessly takes credit for the achievements of others' and boasts about it throughout Terra. Some scholars believe him to be a fictional figure created to warn children to stay away from lying and boasting, especially because the Utuba Com-men-tits records one of the claims made by the minor deity as his mother being proud of him, which by the very nature of the deity is implied to be a false claim.

(Parental figures and their approval seems to be very important to the Terrans. Scholars have found multiple worshipful holos with terms such as Daddy, Zaddy, Mother, Mommy, and Muscle Mommy as evidence to this theory. Deviant behaviour seems to be referred to as 'Fatherless' behaviour. 'Yo Mamma' statements seem to be considered a damning insult. In addition, the ritualistic chant "Excuse me? Sorry. Mommy? Sorry. Mommy? Sorry", which is believed to be the only surviving part of the the lost Litany for Forgiveness, the pair to the Litany against Fear from the Epic of the Dune, validates the theory that Terrans craved parental approval.)

Much more sinister than the Tomm-y-Tallaar-ico is the Jayme-som-Erton, a figure that only talks in the voice of others. A negative deity presiding over plagiarism, Jayme-som-Erton pretends be your ally while making profit off of your work. After Eycha-Bomba-ur-Guy defeated him in a lengthy duel the Utuba Com-men-tits faithfully records that Jayme-som-Erton's own voice can only speak lies and to be wary of the others among the Cree-ator class that use his tricks to prosper in Utuba.

Eycha-Bomba-ur-Guy's legendary victory over Jayme-som-Erton was followed by the complete erasure of the Cree-ator's presence in the Utuba kingdom's religion beyond being used as a cautionary tale. This presents another aspect of Terran religion, called Can-cellat-Ion, a ritualistic deicide of the gods that have wronged them. Undoubtedly this is an evidence of the might of the ancient Terrans. Several pieces of historical evidence from the records known as Twee-et-er (theorized to be named after a blue avian like figure who many believe might be related to the legendary heroes Twee-dle-dee, and Twee-dle-dum) refer to multiple conflicts called the War of the Fans which lead to the Can-cellat-Ion being performed. Ancient Terrans were indeed a fearsome species. (To be noted that some deities do recover while others do not. Criteria for survival unknown.)

In the coming chapters, we'll look into more deities from Terra's various pantheons, such as the eternal enmity between the Goddess Doll-y-Par-tonn and her nemesis Jol-e-Ne. The deity Trish-a-Payt-As, whose children are harbingers for the death of malignant royals is also important to look into. The deity seems to have had hostility towards the Brie-ti-ish royals specifically as legends say they were hit twice by the deity's wrath. Also of particular interest are Ea-Nasir, a deity of trickery and mischief, and ancient literature such as the Gonch-ar-Ov, a lost epic saga whose holo-copy researchers are still trying to uncover today. Both of these are a part of the Tumb-L-Er mystery religion, whose intricate rites and rituals still remain too complex to decode...."

-Excerpt from Chapter 9, "Deities from the Holo", from Scholar Jaarp-r-Saar's The Complexities of Terran Religions.

[blueiscoool]

Roman Marble Statue Found in Bulgaria

Archaeologists uncovered a fully preserved statue from the ancient city of Odessos. Archaeologists from Regional History Museum in Varna (Bulgaria's biggest maritime city) reported this afternoon, October 15, about this exceptional find during the excavations of the ancient city - a marble sculpture from the Roman era, slightly taller than a human height.

It depicts a middle-aged man with a short beard, dressed in a toga, with a scroll in his hand. On the front of the pedestal there is a well-preserved inscription, and from a preliminary reading it is clear the name of the person depicted: G(ai) Marius Hermogenes.

The only part that is missing is the wrist and there is some minor damage to the face, so restoration is needed before it can go on display, Archaeologia Bulgarica said on its Facebook page.

The statue was discovered during construction work in an area of sandy deposits, outside the walls of the ancient city. It was promptly reported to the museum by construction contractor Georgi Kraychev. The sculpture is believed to be from the end of the 2nd and the first half of the 3rd century.

The present-day city of Varna, Northeastern Bulgaria, originated as a settlement named Odessos (Ὀδησσός) which was founded by Ionian colonists from Miletus around 600–550 BC. The Greeks established their colony on the site of an earlier Thracian settlement.

In 335 BC, Alexander the Great conquered almost the entirety of ancient Thrace, and Odessos became part of the Macedonian Kingdom.

Odessos flourished most significantlly during the Hellenistic Age (end of III – I BC), when the city served as a starting point of troops of the successor of Alexander the Great – king Lysimachus (323–280 BC) who proclaimed himself king of Thrace. Big public buildings like temples, theatre, gymnasium (school for boys) and others were built during this period. Due to the increase of Thracian population in the city, a temple of the Thracian god-rider Heros Carabazmos and a temple of Artemis Phosphoros were built in II – I BC.

In 15 AD, Odessos became part of the Roman Empire, in the province of Moesia (later Lower Moesia), and became its main port on the Black Sea (Pontus Euxinos). Huge and ornate warm baths (Roman baths), the fourth largest in Europe, were built 7000 square meters of land.

It was called Varna by the Ancient Bulgars after the First Bulgarian Empire conquered it in the late 7th century AD.

[little-sis-toga]

I sent excavation teams to 7 landfill sites that would be ideal for nefarious people to hide in

Unfortunately, there was no one there ☹

We did find some treasure though 🤑

But it went towards paying for the cost of the excavation teams 😒

The cost of the work was 1,000,000,000¥ 😠

So thanks for giving me a false clue to your whereabouts I guess 🙄

…You were trying to catch us? I thought you wanted to hang out with us like old times. I’m so hurt right now. Not! 😒

I’m honestly surprised you fell for it. We might be villains, but even we wouldn’t make a base at a landfill. We do have some standards, unlike heroes.

[whencyclopedia]

Archaeology

Archaeology is a wide subject and definitions can vary, but broadly, it is the study of the culture and history of past peoples and their societies by uncovering and studying their material remains, i.e. tools, ruins, and pottery. Archaeology and history are different subjects but have things in common and constantly work with each other. While historians study books, tablets, and other written information to learn about the past, archaeologists uncover, date, and trace the source of such items, and in their turn focus on learning through material culture.

As much of human history is prehistoric (before written records), archaeology plays an important role in understanding the past. Different environments and climates help or hinder the survival of materials, e.g. papyri can survive thousands of years in the hot and dry desert but would not survive in damp conditions. Waterlogged conditions, such as bogs, can preserve organic material, like wood, and underwater wrecks are also excavated using diving equipment. Working everywhere from digging in the ground to testing samples in laboratories, archaeology is a wide-ranging discipline and has many subsections of expertise. The two rapidly widening areas are experimental archaeology and ethnoarchaeology. Experimental archaeology tries to recreate ancient techniques, such as glass making or Egyptian beer brewing. Ethnoarchaeology is living among modern ethnic communities, with the purpose of understanding how they hunt, work, and live. Using this information, archaeologists hope to better understand ancient communities.

Archaeology of the Past

Archaeology as an academic study, career, and university subject is a fairly recent development. Nevertheless an interest in the past is not new. Humankind has always been interested in its history. Most cultures have a myth or story that explains their foundation and distant ancestors. Ancient rulers have sometimes collected ancient relics or rebuilt monuments and buildings. This can often be seen as political strategy - a leader wanting to be identified with a great figure or civilisation from the past. On the other hand, ancient leaders have also been known for their curiosity and learning. King Nabonidus of Babylon, for example, had a keen interest in the past and investigated many sites and buildings. In one temple, he found the foundation stone from 2200 years before. He housed his finds in a kind of museum at his capital of Babylon. The Roman and Greek historians wrote books about the past, and the stories of famous heroes and leaders have come down to us.

However, modern archaeology, or at least its theories and practice, stem from the antiquarian tradition. In the 17th and 18th centuries CE, wealthy gentleman scholars, or antiquarians as they are also known, began to collect classical artefacts. Fuelled by interest, they began to make some of the first studies of sites like Pompeii and drew ancient monuments in detail. The first scientific excavation has been attributed to Thomas Jefferson (third president of the United States of America) who dug up some of the burial mounds on his property in the state of Virginia, USA. The beginnings of modern field techniques were pioneered by General Augustus Lane-Fox Pitt Rivers, who excavated barrows at Camborne Chase with systematic recording and procedure. In the USA in the 1960s CE, archaeology went through a phase of new theories, often called processual archaeology. This approach has a scientific approach to questions and designs models to suggest answers and test its theories.

Continue reading...

[paganimagevault]

Anyang funerary bed 550-577 CE

"The Anyang funerary bed (Chinese: 安阳北齐石棺), also known locally as the Bed of Ts'ao Ts'ao (from the Chinese hero Cao Cao), is a Chinese funerary couch belonging to a Sogdian merchant and official active in China in the 6th century CE. The tomb was discovered in 1911, and the components of the funerary bed were dispersed among various museums in the world after being offered on the art market. It is thought the funerary bed was excavated in Anyang (ancient Zhangdefu), capital of the Northern Qi dynasty. It is stylically dated to the Northern Qi dynasty (550–577 CE).

There are eight known components of this funerary monument: a dais and two cornices with notched ends, now in the Freer Gallery of Art, a pair of gates, now in the Museum of East Asian Art (Cologne), two rectangular slab in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and one slab in the Guimet Museum in Paris.

The funerary bed is important to Sogdian art and culture, as it is decorated with musicians in the typical Sogdian attire and with a Buddhist scene including deities. The ensemble of Sogdian musicians includes two lute players, a flutist, two drummers and a cymbal player, as well as two dancers. Two stretchers once attached to the bed showed what the Chinese called a huxuan wu (胡旋舞), i.e. "Sogdian Whirl dance", which was enormously popular in China, and appears on many Chinese tombs. Tang sources confirm the dance's popularity. It was performed at court by the Tang Chinese emperor Xuanzong and his favorite concubine.

Gustina Scaglia was the first to recognize in 1958 that the pieces scattered in several museums belonged to a single funerary couch made for a member of the Sogdian community in China.

The owner and exact history of the owner of the tomb remain unknown, as the epitaph has been lost.

Sogdian stone funerary beds disappear during the subsequent Tang dynasty period, even though Sogdian influence was probably even more significant in China at that time, possibly due to Imperial restrictions regarding funerary practices."

-taken from Wikipedia

[katerinaaqu]

What would Cassandra of Troy have worn? Would the Trojans also have Mycenaean fashion or is the any depiction of their fashion? I’ve been trying to design Cassandra but I really wanna be accurate so I thought I might as well ask someone who has more knowledge on it probably haha

That is a very good question given how Troy is a rather interesting city mythologically. Homer and other writers ironically do not refer to it as massively different than the rest of the Greek cities, or at least it highly depends. However the way Iliad is constructed, the Trojans do not follow massively different lifestyle than the Greeks, for they worship the same gods, they do not seem to have a language barrier and they have names that do often resemble the Greek names with some exceptions. This seems to be the case that Homer seems to be hinting to the previous taking of Troy by the hero Heracles around a generation or two prior (depending on the story). So Homer seems to be implying an osmosis of cultures between the Greeks and the locals which most likely were closer related to Hittite and Assyrians given how the Hittites existed at the are around till the 1300 BC as an empire before falling mostly under control of Assyrian empire. The fights or sociopolitical relations between Greeks and Hittites were already known by the data as well as the exchanges of knowledge between the two nations which probably the Trojan War is referencing to

Now of course it is not 100% correct to take Homer as a source that somehow Troy is a mixture of Greek and Anatolian characteristics given how no matter how accurate he is in certain things, his knowledge is still infiltrated by anachronisms so we still should take into account this to the back of our heads. And the fact that he depicts the Trojans worship the same gods or have similar customs and such might as well be his way to make the Trojans even more sympathetic to his viewers at that time so instead of showing them as the "bad barbarians that Greeks have to defeat" he made them all similar, with similar customs and similar cosmotheories with their only difference being the wall that protects Troy. I am not sure that Homer himself believed that Troy was a city of heavy Greek influence at least to THAT degree that he pictures but rather that he wanted to use that trick to help his listeners to remove their own personal biases and see the two sides as similar. Similarities definitely might have existed as well as osmosis of religions but his Trojans seem to be worshiping exactly the same gods which doesn't seem to be a realistic scenario

So if you are asking me how Cassandra might have been dressed I should say that if you are looking for historical locations and historical contexts then maybe is more valid to look at Assyrian or Hittite clothing and this is an old but very nice representation you can look like:

You can also look at the infamous image of Schliemann's wife who is wearing the jewelry they discovered during those excavations they did to the city of Troy (or at least the city that we have come to interpret by the evidence as Troy)

Mythologically though I think it would be perfectly valid to give her certain mycenaean characteristics to her clothing such as pieces of jewelry or skirts or veils or hats that were inspired by it given how she is a priestess associated with Apollo and all. Mycenean-inspired makeup might also work for her as well as an idea. Either way given the closeness of the two people with each other influences of Greek cities and such to Troy would be perfectly valid either way. To what degree is up for interpretation for your mythological depictions and ideas but we definitely expect to see plenty of similarities and exchange between the two.

I hope that answers your question a bit, I will be glad to elaborate further.