#Geography in 1500

[useless-catalanfacts]

Did you know that the first map of the Himalayas was made in the 1500s by the Catalan monk Antoni de Montserrat, and it was so accurate that it was used by European expeditions until the 1800s?

Here's the story of a priest that was called by a Mughal emperor for interfaith intercultural dialogue and who ended up being -among other things- a royal teacher, a writer, a geographer, a fake Armenian merchant, and a prisoner.

Antoni de Montserrat was born in 1536 in Vic (Catalonia). He studied in Barcelona (Catalonia) and Coimbra (Portugal) to become a priest and joined the Jesuits. In 1574, he was sent on a mission to Goa (back then a Portuguese colony, now part of India).

The Mughal emperor Akbar was an open-minded man. He was Muslim but wanted to learn about the other religions, so he called representatives of different religions to his court in Fatehpur Sikri. In 1579, he called the Jesuits to explain Christianity, and the Jesuits sent Antoni de Montserrat. Everyone in the court -Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus- knew that the point was not to convert others, but to reach a better understanding through debate.

The Mughal emperor Akbar holding an assembly with religious men. The two men dressed in black are Jesuits. Miniature painting by Nar Singh, 1605. Chester Beautty Library.

The emperor Akbar valued Antoni de Montserrat as a great wise man and chose him to become the tutor of his second son Murâd. Antoni learned Persian (the language of the Mughal court) and accepted. He remained close to the emperor and accompanied him in the military campaign when the emperor's step-brother started an uprising in Bengala. Crossing much of Northern India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Tibet on elephant gave him the perspective to draw the map.

In the end, Antoni went back to Goa in 1582. There, he wrote a book explaining what he had seen in the Mughal Empire, the cultural differences he had experienced, the political organization of these territories, and describing emperor Akbar's court. This book is called Mongolicae Legationis Commentarius, and its descriptions of the lands he has travelled include the earliest description of Tibetans known in Europe since Marco Polo and the first ever map of the Himalayas.

Antoni de Montserrat's map of the Himalayas and their surroundings, including large parts of what nowadays is India, Tibet, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Library of St. Paul's Cathedral, Kolkata (India).

This book explains cultural elements of the different cultures under the Mughal Empire and also the conversations Antoni had with the emperor about certain habits. For example, Antoni writes about how the Brahmans (upper caste Hindu priests) force widows to be burned alive in the same funeral pyre as their dead husbands, often (when the women resist) drugging them or through violence. Antoni tries to get emperor Akbar to stop this terrible tradition, but doesn't succeed. On the other hand, Antoni also tells the emperor Akbar that they should burn the "men who dress as women" who live in the emperor's court, to which the emperor bursts laughing out loud and doesn't give any consideration to. Despite their different cultural backgrounds, Antoni and Akbar were friends.

Antoni's time in the Mughal Empire ended in 1588, when the king Philip II of Castilla and I of Portugal orders Antoni and a young Spanish priest named Pedro Páez to go to Ethiopia to convince the Coptic Christian Ethiopians to get closer to the Catholic Christian Church. Then, Antoni and Pedro dressed up as an Armenian merchants to border the Ottoman Empire through Iraq, Syria, and Egypt, trying to avoid the pirates of the Indian Ocean. However, before reaching Ethiopia, they took a ship to skirt modern-day Oman, but the captain turned them in as soon as they reached land in Yemen. Then, Antoni and Pedro were taken on a camel caravan to the Sultan of Hadhramaut (Yemen), who imprisoned them until 1595 and then sentenced to galleys in the Red Sea, and later imprisoned them again. Luckily for them, king Philip paid their rescue and they were freed in 1596. With his body weakened by the galleys and the mistreatments of prison, Antoni retired to a convent in Salsette (modern-day Mumbai, India), where he died in 1600 right after having finished his map.

The Spanish priest who travelled with him, Pedro Páez, also wrote his own diary explaining what they lived. With his descriptions, we know that in Yemen Antoni and Pedro were given what he describes as a kind of herbal tea called "cahua, water boiled with a fruit named bun and which is drank very hot, instead of wine": that is a drink that was still unknown in Europe at the time, which we now call coffee.

Maybe you have heard the name Pedro Páez before, too. After accompanying Antoni to Goa, he went to Ethiopia again, successfully this time. In Ethiopia, he became the first European to reach the source of the Blue Nile.

Information sources: David Montserrat Nonó (La Mira), Sociedad Geográfica Española. If you want to read Antoni de Montserrat's book, it has been translated from Latin to Catalan and to Spanish by Josep Lluís Alay.

[malachitezmeyka]

Ah yes, Magnificent Century, or as I like to call it – “Why the fuck are the most likely Ukrainian girl and the Crimean Tatar woman speaking Russian to each other, what were the writers smoking???”

[holycosmolo9y]

Three different maps of Taprobane Island

modern Sri Lanka,

as known to the Ancient Greeks

1. Ptolemy's Taprobane

2. Ptolemy's Taprobana published in Cosmographia Claudii Ptolomaei Alexandrini (1535)

3. Taprobane in the Catalan Atlas (1375): "Illa Trapobana"

[gemsofgreece]

Hello! Do you (and other Greeks) find "Hellenic polytheism" an acceptable term for the religion worshipping the ancient Greek gods? If not, what would you want people to call it instead? I feel strongly that I would not be able to change my belief itself, but I definitely want to be respectful in what I call it and my other actions

Hellenic Polytheism should be fine. You can introduce yourself as a Hellenic Polytheist.

People have a bit of a hard time with this hell of terms (get it? he he), so I am gonna create a mini-lexicon. It's not targeted to you in specific to use all these, it's just for whoever is interested to clear this up in their minds.

A very hellenic lexicon

Hellás = 1) the official term for Greece and the only one ever used by Greeks themselves (there is no equivalent of "Greece" in Greek), 2) a historical ancient region in central mainland Greece where southeast Epirus and southwestern Thessaly meet and where a lot of Achilles' soldiers supposedly originated from, 3) the administrative region of central mainland Greece during the Byzantine Empire

Hellenic = anything Greek (like you may say "this is an american movie", that's why you can use hellenic polytheism, because it means "greek religion of many gods"). And by anything Greek, we mean ANYTHING. Care to know what the "Greek Orthodox Church" is called in Greek?

You guessed it! Hellenic Orthodox Church...! So you see, how when foreigners say some things like "i'm hellenic, hellene, hellenist" like "what hellenic are you? coffee? bank? Christian?" You know?

Hellen = the mythological progenitor of the Greeks according to Hesiod. Not to be confused with Helen.

Héllene = a Greek by descent, nationality and / or ethnicity. And if we are being totally accurate, it's a Greek male. I don't actually know how it is pronounced in English but ideally keep the last e silent. (By the way we do not pronounce that h in the beginning in all these words for the last 1500 years or so.... just saying.)

Héllenes = the Greeks, just men or mixed. The last e is NOT silent.

English does not have gendered nouns but Greek does so technically there is a seperate word for Greek women but I don't know if this is transferable to English. If we could do it in theory and by following the trasliteration style of the Hellene, it should be something like:

*Hellenís / Hellenidae or Hellenides = Greek woman / women*

Hopefully this explains why random foreigners identifying as "Hellenes" is exremely problematic.

Helladic = pertaining to the geography and territory of Hellas and whatever happens strictly within its borders

Hellenisation = spread of Greek influence and culture, it is also used for cases of Greek assimilation in ancient times

Hellenistic = 1) something being characterized by particular Greek influence, 2) referring to the era after the Classical period and before the Roman period

Hellenicá = 1) the Greek language, 2) (infrequent) Greek matters, documented topics about the Greeks

Hellenism = The complete Greek culture, civilization and nationhood, the essence of being Greek.

Hellenist = 1) a specialist in the study of Greek language, literature, culture, or history, or an admirer of the Greek culture and civilization, 2) a person who adopted the Greek customs, language and culture during the Hellenistic period, 3) now, the English Wiktionary also adds the "a follower and practitioner of Hellenic religion" <- which one of the two??? XD, clearly following the trend of western classicist circles. In the Greek Wiktionary for the same exact term (Ελληνιστής) that last interpretation does not exist and I can guarantee you it is officially rejected. Here's why: the suffixes -ist and -ism (as well as all suffixes here) are suffixes of Greek origin and they signify that someone is something or is passionate and dedicated to something on the superlative or very very earnestly, essentially. So when someone says they are a hellenist, they are supposed to be dedicated or charmed by anything that makes something hellenic, not to be professional cherry pickers. Of course, everyone is allowed their preferences, however you can't be interested in a super specific / niche thing like a religion mostly practiced 2000-3500 years ago and simultaneously show complete disregard and ignorance on literally everything else about this civilization, history and its living people and call yourself a hellenist. It tears the word apart. By the way this is not targeted at you. You are here asking about it, wanting to do the right thing. I am referring to this thing happening in this forum that @alatismeni-theitsa 's Anon was complaining about; they obsess over the ancient religion and they hate everything Greek post the AD mark. That's not being a Hellenist. That's not a Hellenism forum. That's the exact opposite in fact. Very few people can correctly claim the term "hellenist".

BONUS: Philhellene is kind of synonym to "hellenist" and it means "friend / lover of the Hellenes and all things hellenic". But again it can surely be misused. Not all self-proclaimed Philhellenes were ones indeed. Some, like Lord Byron, were Philhellenes through and through, on the other hand.

Of course, one definitely does not have to go through what Lord Byron and other great Philhellenes of the 19th century went through to prove they are a Hellenist or a Philhellene! My point is that very very few people can correctly claim the identity of a Philhellene or a Hellenist.

Therefore, "Hellenic polytheist" is just fine.

[fatehbaz]

what does your username mean?

Cat ghost.

As child. Would go to library, to look at books about creatures, with a pen and notepad. Or sit before a television watching "nature" documentary stuff, with a pen and notepad. Was fixated on habitats. The context. Did not like to isolate an individual creature from the wider ecological community. This led to interest in geography, distribution range maps. Was aware that, in popular perception, some creatures were strongly associated with a particular place. "Lion is an African animal. Tiger is an Asian animal." Allegedly. And other stereotypes (many of them, I would later come to learn, due to chauvinism, exoticism, Orientalism, colonialism, etc.). Came across a kind of large textbook on wild cats. Saw the historical distribution maps. Only a few centuries ago, tigers were in Anatolia, the Caucasus, near the shores of the Black Sea. Was intrigued. From the middle of the twentieth century onward, the lion and cheetah were so closely associated with Africa, where like over 99% of their range was located. And yet. There remains a small remnant population of nearly-extinct Asiatic lions far away within India''s borders. And there remains a small remnant population of nearly-extinct Asiatic cheetahs within Iran's borders. And all that space, in between, where both cats were now extinct. Only 100 years ago, tiger, lion, leopard, and cheetah all lived generally near each other, still, in eastern Anatolia, near Mesopotamia, etc. And now, only a few dozen wild native cheetah remain on the entire continent of Asia.

"Cheetah". The word for this cat is from South Asia. Through Hindi, from Sanskrit.

"What happened?" I read on. Cheetahs were present within the national borders of what is now India, along with tigers, lions, and leopards. By the 1500s, there was a tradition in South Asia, where some in the Mughal aristocracy enjoyed using cheetahs as companions in sport hunting. The cats would be captured in the wild, and then trained, and then brought along on royal hunts. The cat was the star athlete, goaded into chasing down prey, for the entertainment of the hunting party. There are elaborate paintings, commissioned by Mughal courts and some now displayed in collections of European museums, depicting trained cheetah hunts. It has since been popularly said that Akbar was particularly fond of cheetahs. (Akbar the Great was the "emperor" who is credited often for consolidating Mughal state power across India, solidifying regional power by building administrative systems/structures in India ["forging an empire out of fiefdoms"] that would later eventually be manipulated and overtaken by the British Empire. According to some tellings of the historical narrative.)

Accurate or not, it was said that at any one time, Akbar possessed one thousand cheetahs. A vast royal menagerie. The names of several of the most celebrated cheetahs are still known. In some stories, when he was still young, Akbar was presented with a gift. His very first cheetah: Fatehbaz.

This disturbed me. A child, reading this book, I was upset by the idea of such a vast menagerie of wild animals. Large wild animals, with great need for food, space, enrichment. I was upset by the exploitation of captive wild animals as displays of aristocratic wealth, not just in the Mughal state(s), but also those menageires and exhibitions elsewhere, both earlier and later in time: the royal hunts of Assyrian kings, the Roman arenas, Charlemagne's elephants, European circuses.

So, as a child, I imagined that Fatehbaz resisted the captivity. Like in a daydream, a fantasy. I imagined a royal menagerie breaking free from restraint. I imagined elephants and rhinos and tigers and lions and leopards and jackals and crocodiles. I imagined the beasts attacking an emperor's court. But there are now less than one hundred cheetahs which survive in the wild in Asia. And when Mughal statecraft gave way to European statecraft, when Britain moved into South Asia, the bounty hunting specifically targeted big cats. And, meanwhile, the cats were confronted indirectly with habitat destruction, commodity crop monocultures, industrial-scale resource extraction. So I came to imagine the ghosts of cats. The ghost of a cheetah like Fatehbaz on the Indus plain. The ghost of a jaguar in the Sonoran desert. The ghost of a lion on the Mediterranean coast. The ghost of a tiger on the Amu Darya shore beyond Bukhara, where even the Aral Sea itself has vanished.

[imbellatrix]

Zhurial ("Origins") — Eldarya NE Headcanons; 🌌🪻

In my headcanons, Nevra truly loves his culture. He values it deeply and feels genuinely offended when someone disrespects it, even unintentionally.

However, if you ask him if he misses living in Yaqut, he says no. Sometimes he feels nostalgic for certain things, like a favorite childhood dish. Nevra thinks the clothing is beautiful, Yaqut itself is magnificent, the food is delicious (it's usually quite spicy, which explains his love for hot food), and some of the traditions and events are fascinating. But overall, Nevra feels free and welcomed in the South.

He says the South gives him a freedom, especially to travel the world, that he could never have in Yaqut. This is one of the reasons he doesn’t miss living in his homeland. There's also the traditional conservatism in Yaqut.

Erika had also developed an affection for Nevra's culture after listening to him talk about it extensively, despite not being familiar with it herself. Some nights, before bedtime, Nevra taught her Qutarian words and phrases, accompanied by symbolic hand gestures, a Yaqutian sign language. He taught her "Nahari," meaning "my angel." Sometimes Nevra called her that.

The gesture involved tracing a delicate curve in the air, as if drawing wings, followed by touching Erika's forehead and tracing a line to her heart, symbolizing the soul-heart connection. Finally, he closed his hands into a shell, indicating possession. This term had a feminine and masculine version; the masculine version was "Naharu," but the signs were identical. Nevra shared popular proverbs:

• "La tahlam niram qabla shurukh" - "Don't count the stars before sunrise." (Don't anticipate problems)

• "Al-nar la yuhriq bila nar" - "Fire doesn't burn without fire." (Passion needs fuel; love needs love)

• "Kahluna tazhary fī al-ghasaq" - "Kahluna blooms in twilight." The purple Kahluna flower, native to Yaqut, blooms in darkness, symbolizing resilience. It thrives in challenging conditions. This proverb uses the flower as a metaphor for love, signifying that love can emerge even in turbulent times, like war.

Erika now understood why Karenn called her that. Her surname, Calluna, was the same flower. On Earth, Calluna meant simply "purple flower," and Erika had no idea it existed in Eldarya.

Nevra often speaks to Érika in his sleep, calling out to her and asking her to stay. He also tends to speak in his native language when irritated, cursing in Qutian or muttering to himself. Sometimes, he and Karenn converse in their native tongue. On missions, when Nevra and Karenn cannot make noise, they communicate through sign language from a distance.

In Yaqut, they wear accessories adorned with green crystals. Nevra wears a collar with the crystal, just like Orgelz. Maora wears a diadem with the crystal, while Karenn has various fragments of the crystal on his collar, cord, and hairpin. This green crystal, according to Yaqutian beliefs, brings protection. These emeralds are a divine gift from Ahrakar, the Guardian God, who protects Yaqut from desert monsters, and the emerald is said to ward off death. The blessed emerald's name is Ta'riz.

Nevra's favorite place in Yaqut was the Oasis of Goddess Nilah, deity of water and fertility. He would often sneak out of class to visit the Oasis with Karenn and his two close friends, Khayuna and Thorvos.

Nevra excels in various subjects, including Mathematics, Geography, and History. His father always pushed him to learn multiple languages. However, Nevra dislikes his Native Language class. He believes Mathematics is superior because it is universal and unchanging; 1 + 1 equals 2 regardless of time or place. Native languages, on the other hand, change over time. The way people communicated in 1500 is not the same as today. This is why Nevra dislikes this subject.

The economy of Yaqut is primarily based on the trade of unique and exotic spices used in cuisine and medicine. Precious metals like gold and copper are also extracted and used in jewelry and currency. Additionally, Yaqut is known for its diverse textile production and beautiful tapestries.

Kellinroe, Nevra's father, was a wealthy and influential figure in Yaqut, serving as a trusted advisor to the clan leader. His vast fortune was built on his lucrative mining ventures, which yielded rich deposits of gold, copper, and precious gems. For centuries, Kellinroe's shrewd business acumen and strategic decision-making enabled him to corner the market on Yaqut's most valuable resources, solidifying his position as one of the clan's most powerful members.

Maora, Nevra's mother, was a woman of exceptional intelligence, elegance, and strategic wit. As the matriarch of the family, she skillfully managed the household and its vast network of alliances, leveraging her charm and diplomatic prowess to maintain the family's social standing. Renowned for her impeccable taste, Maora was the driving force behind Yaqut's most extravagant balls, showcasing her talent for bringing together the clan's elite. Her razor-sharp mind and cunning enabled her to navigate the intricate web of Yaqut's society, ensuring the family's prosperity even after Kellinroe's passing. Some whispered that her sharp mind and cunning surpass even that of her late husband, whose legacy she deftly safeguarded. With grace and poise, Maora navigated the complex politics of Yaqut, securing her family's future through her impeccable judgment and unwavering determination.

[hylianengineer]

It's been months since I visited London and I still think about it sometimes.

London is bizarre because you can go there, having never been in the UK in your whole life, and recognize landmarks from your childhood storybooks. You can know the names of the royal family members the buildings are named after, but not why you know them.

London is a city that is still very palpably the seat of one of the largest, most powerful empires in recent history. You can feel it. You can see it in the ostentatious wealth and the cultural gravity. London exists as much in myth as it does in reality, and if you grew up anywhere that was once connected to the British Empire, or even anywhere particularly globalized, you probably know that myth somewhere deep within your brain. It's weird.

Some parts of it are very beautiful and some are very disturbing and many are both at once. It's ancient and modern and touristy and messy and it's world-class museums and fast food restaurants all crammed in together.

There's no place like London - and I mean this both in the Sweeney Todd sense and the complementary one. ("There's a hole in the world like a great black pit / And the vermin of the world inhabit it / And it's morals aren't worth what a pig can spit / And it goes by the name of London!")

It's weird to think about as a USAmerican, because London isn't unique in this position as a huge, cosmopolitan, deeply complicated city - New York is another example. There is everything in New York, good and bad, but it's easier for me to overlook the bad parts presumably because I'm USAmerican and have a cultural blindspot the size of the Empire State Building. It is also a bit different I think because New York isn't the seat of US government - although, fun fact, it almost was. So it doesn't get the same reputation, the same close ties to empire - it does have them, it just hides them a bit better. I mean, it is home to Wall Street, for starters, and it attracts rich and famous people just like London does. It has its bastions of incomprehensible wealth and privilege, and also a great deal of poverty. I guess big cities are just like that - or all cities, really, but the farther up the totem pole you go, the bottom seems farther and farther away. Sorta creepy actually. I know New York's geography and landmarks even better than I know London's, but it wasn't such a shock seeing them in person because, sure, I'd never been there, but at least it was the same country. I knew plenty of people who'd been there.

Also, New York City is recent. London is bafflingly old - New York, like most of America, likes to pretend nothing ever happened there before about 1500, and nothing of consequence for at least a hundred years after that. That's bullshit, of course, but it means the dominant (colonial) cultural narrative many of us have grown up with has only four-hundred-ish years of history to work with, max. You go to London and see individual buildings much older than that. It's bizarre, as an American, not even because we don't have things that old here, but since our colonialist narrative ignores things that old, they aren't often discussed with the same sort of reverence (it's unfair and stupid but that's how it works). Like, that's stupid, all of earth is equally incomprehensibly old to us humans (don't come at me for this, geologists, I know the age of rocks is actually hugely variable but we weren't here for most of that!). Anywhere you stand on this planet has as much history as London or New York or anywhere else but we don't think about that because the cultural narratives we're told don't encourage us to think about it that way. That's weird. What momentous events happened right where I'm standing that I'll never know about?

[worldhistoryfacts]

Jesuit missionaries were some of the first westerners to enter China in the 1500s. They made a sincere attempt to understand Chinese culture.

One of the Jesuits’ first projects was to learn Chinese in order to translate Western works into Chinese and vice versa. Here’s a page of a Portuguese-Chinese dictionary compiled by two Jesuits, Matteo Ricci and Michele Ruggieri:

The Ming were particularly interested in the Europeans’ knowledge of geography — it was the age of European exploration, after all. Jesuits like Ricci provided the Chinese with very detailed maps of Asia:

Chinese people were just as fascinated with the discovery of the Americas as Europeans were, so the Jesuits filled them in on what was known about the lands across the Pacific:

{WHF} {Ko-Fi} {Medium}

[whencyclopedia]

Renaissance Architecture

Renaissance Architecture originated in Italy and superseded the Gothic style over a period generally defined as 1400 to 1600. Features of Renaissance buildings include the use of the classical orders and mathematically precise ratios of height and width combined with a desire for symmetry, proportion, and harmony. Columns, pediments, arches and domes are imaginatively used in buildings of all types.

Renaissance masterpieces which influenced other buildings worldwide include St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the Tempietto of Rome, and the dome of Florence's cathedral. Another defining feature of Renaissance architecture is the proliferation of illustrated texts on the subject, which helped to spread ideas across Europe and even beyond. The Renaissance style was frequently mixed with local traditions in many countries and was eventually challenged by the richly decorative Baroque style from the 17th century onwards.

Renaissance architecture was an evolving movement that is, today, commonly divided into three phases:

Early Renaissance (c. 1400 onwards), the first tentative reuse of classical ideas

High Renaissance (c. 1500), the full-blooded revival of classicism

Mannerism (aka Late Renaissance, c. 1520-30 onwards) when architecture became much more decorative and the reuse of classical themes ever more inventive.

Historians rarely agree on exactly when these changes developed and much, too, depends on geography, both in terms of countries and individual cities.

Studying the Past

The Renaissance period witnessed a great revival in interest in antiquity in terms of thought, art, and architecture. The first and most obvious point of study for Renaissance architects was the mass of Greco-Roman ruins still seen in southern Europe, especially, of course, in Italy. Basilicas, Roman baths, aqueducts, amphitheatres, and temples were in various states of ruin but still visible. Some structures, like the Pantheon (c. 125 CE) in Rome, were exceedingly well-preserved. Architects studied these buildings, took measurements, and made detailed drawings of them. They also studied Byzantine buildings (notably domed churches), features of Romanesque architecture and medieval buildings. For many Italian architects, the Gothic style was regarded as an invasive 'northern' invention which 'corrupted' Italian traditions. In many ways, then, Renaissance architecture was a return to Italy's roots, even if medieval architecture was never wholly abandoned.

A second point of study was surviving ancient texts, most particularly, On Architecture by the Roman architect Vitruvius (c. 90 - c. 20 BCE). Written between 30 and 20 BCE, the treatise combines the history of ancient architecture and engineering with the author's personal experience and advice on the subject. The first printed editions came out in Rome in 1486. Renaissance architects pored over this work, studied the emphasis on symmetry and mathematical ratios, and in many cases, even tried to build structures that Vitruvius had only described in words. Perhaps an even greater effect was that Vitruvius inspired many Renaissance architects to write their own treatises (see below).

Continue reading...

[inspofromancientworld]

Ancient Semitic-Speaking Peoples

By Rafy - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13256859

The ancient Semitic-speaking peoples lived in the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region of the Afro-Eurasian continents. Some of these peoples include the Arabs, Arameans, Assyrians, Jews, and Samaritans. Proto-Semitic existed during the 4th millennium BCE and writing was developed by the mid-3rd millennium BCE. From there, the language developed into three identifiable language groups, East, Central, and South Semitic languages. The Eastern branch includes languages like Akkadian and Eblaite. The Central branch includes two sub branches of northwest, which includes Aramaic and Canaanite, and the southern branch, which inclues Arabic and Hebrew. Southern branch is further divided into southwestern, which includes Qatabanic and Minaic, and Southeastern, which includes Mehri and Harusi. Geographically, this language family covers from modern day Iraq through the Arabian Peninsula, and over to Ethiopia.

source: https://www.reddit.com/r/geography/comments/1ao5pfh/what_ecological_and_biological_effects_would_the/

Exactly where the Semitic-speaking peoples originated is still a question with possible locations being Mesopotamia, the Eastern Mediterranean including the Levant and/or Arabian Peninsula, Eritrea and Ethiopia, and North Africa. The most accepted theory points to the Levant around 3800 BCE where the dialects then languages spread out from there with groups like the Phoenicians, who were renown as traders and sailors along the Mediterranean coast. The dissenting theory is that since all five or more of the other Afroasiatic family languages originated in North or Nortwest Africa, that the Semitic languages originated there as well during the late Neolithic, perhaps during the Green Sahara, which made travel in the area by foot much easier.

By Msanzl - Own work, cf. Manuel Sanz Ledesma, 'Manual de lingüística semítica', ed. Bubok, Madrid 2012, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30681320

During the Bronze Age, Semitic languages had spread over the Ancient Near East with the earliest written record found in Mesopotamia in around 2800 BCE by the Akkadian Empire, who adapted Sumerian cuneiform to their language. From there, writing moved into the Levant and Canaan and into the Sinai Peninsula and into Anatolia, dominating the area known as the Fertile Crescent. There is no currently known evidence of the Semitic languages being spoken in North Africa or in the Horn of Africa at this time. as the Akkadian Empire expanded through the Ancient Middle East. The Eblaites begin to appear in the historical record, as well. Their language is closely related to Akkadian and also used cuneiform as its writing system. Akkadian continued to appear in writing until the 1st century AD and cuneiform continued to be used about a century longer, though the still extant Assyrians still use some Akkadian grammatical features and words

West Semitic languages begin to appear in the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet that appeared around 1500 BCE, though there appears to be earlier uses of the alphabet. With Akkadian being used in the lingua franca in the area, most of the writing that remains is in Akkadian, so writing in other languages is much more sparse than those in Akkadian, but does become more available as the 2nd millennium BCE continues. There also appears to be some snobbery among those who speak Akkadian and had a higher level of technology against the Amorites, who they called the Martu with mentions in Akkadian saying 'he MAR.TU who know no grain… The MAR.TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains… The MAR.TU who digs up truffles… who does not bend his knees (to cultivate the land), who eats raw meat, who has no house during his lifetime, who is not buried after death.' This difference in technology, however, has its origin with the Akkadian speaking peoples of the Old Assyrian Empire preventing those in northern Mesopotamia from participating in the activities they complain they don't do.

By Iry-Hor - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34922151

A group of Canaanite-speaking peoples appear to have entered Egypt. They came to be known as the Hyksos by the Egyptians. They conquered Lower Egypt and became the 15th Dynasty, which ruled from approximately 1650-1550 BCE and were displaced by the Kush from Upper Egypt. They introduced technology, which included the war chariot, and intensive trade with the Canaanites. They also were recorded as having ransacked Egyptian temples and the pyramids for treasures.

The fall of the first Babylonian Empire in 1595 BCE allowed for about 300 years of other languages to develop, especially in the Levant and Canaan. Some of the people groups that developed their own language in the 14th century BCE, which were closely related to Ugaritic, a West Semitic language, included the Phoenicians, Moabites, Ammonites, and Israelites. Through the 13th to the 11th centuries BCE, multiple small states arose, including the Edomites, Hebrews (Israelites/Judeans/Samaritans), and Amalekites. These peoples spoke languages that were closely related to each other. The Philistines, who appeared in the 12th century BCE, appear to have been one of the Sea Peoples. There is little evidence of their language, but based on the pottery style they left behind, which was very similar to Mycenaen Greek pottery, their language was probably related to Indo-European rather than Proto-Sianitic.

[longlistshort]

Matisse's Jazz series at Hammer Museum

Matisse's Jazz prints at Palm Springs Art Museum with work by Ellsworth Kelly

Both Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Palm Springs Art Museum are showing prints from Henri Matisse’s Jazz. It’s interesting to see the same work but in two different contexts based on the curation.

At Hammer Museum they are part of the group exhibition Sum of the Parts: Serial Imagery in Printmaking, 1500 to Now, on view until 11/24/24.

From the museum-

Printmaking’s capacity for serial imagery was recognized during the Renaissance in Europe and has continued to be explored by artists across centuries and geographies to creative, oftentimes experimental ends. Print publishers had a hand in issuing series, which could be conceived complete from the start, expanded from shorter sets, or even formed from existing bodies of related works. Diverse organizing principles have shaped the serial format, including pictorial narratives, iconographic groupings, formal innovations, thematic variations, and sequences measuring time and marking place, as well as structural, modular, and conceptual progressions. Importantly, the creative act itself is an open-ended serial pursuit, with each gesture, idea, and decision interacting with or informing the next.

While we can appreciate an individual print extracted from a series as a work in its own right, our visual perceptions, intellectual interpretations, and emotional responses shift when we view multiple images collectively: the whole becomes greater-or other-than the sum of its parts. New meanings surface as commonalities, patterns, or differences emerge. Selected from the collection of the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts, this exhibition presents prints conceived as sets or series and further considers artists’ informal serial procedures and approaches to printmaking across five centuries.

At Palm Springs Art Museum they are part of Art Foundations, which places different works together in from their collection into groups organized in different themes. Matisse is paired with Ellsworth Kelly in a section devoted to “artmaking through the angle of a given concept, with each wall dedicated to a single concept: pure color, automatic painting, text as a motif, or ready-made.”

From the museum about the exhibition-

Art Foundations explores how various art forms have been produced throughout the last two centuries. It presents a succession of artwork groupings across multiple media and disciplines, bringing together works not usually shown in the same space. Meant to be visited clockwise, each gallery provides a different angle on what we consider art, with each grouping questioning how art is made, why, where, and by whom.

This presentation shifts the lens through which we look at art, allowing us to explore gallery after gallery, the conception and the material of artmaking, and the spaces where it is created. Art Foundations brings together academically trained and untrained artists as well as visual arts, architecture, design, and glass, displaying the breadth and interconnectedness of the museum's collection.

For more on Matisse's Jazz, The Metropolitan Museum of Art provides detailed information on its website.

[fabiansteinhauer]

Jan Micker

1.

Jan Micker malt die Stadt, die schon dann ein Plan oder eine Karte ist, bevor sie gezeichnet oder gemalt wird, nicht erst dann, wenn sie auf Papier oder Tuch oder Wand oder Tafel erscheint. Das Bild zeigt Amsterdam, es entsteht 1652, seien wir unter Vorbehalt großzügig: 'vorher sah Amsterdam auch so aus'. Zumindest hätte man es vor der Entstehung dieses Bildes auch so schildern können, weil sowohl im Medium der Stadt diese Stadt schon vorlag, weil im Medium von Stadtansicht und Bild seit Jacobo de Barberis Ansicht der Stadt Venedig so ein Bild im Prinzip bekannt ist und weil schließlich der Inhalt eines Mediums miedienwissenschaftlich betrachtet immer ein anderes Medium ist.

Schon die Stadt selbst ist ein Plan, sie ist auch eine Institution, die instituiert.Sie lehrt oder sie lässt erfahren. Die Stadt lässt Zeit mehr oder weniger anspruchsvoll durchhalten, sie lässt (er-)warten. Sie ist eingerichtet und ausgerichtet, sie richtet ein und aus. Städte haben Protokolle, mehr noch: man kann sie selbst ein Protokoll nennen. Angel Rama spricht von der Stadt als einer lettered city, aber man kann die Stadt auch selbst als Letter bezeichnen. Die Stadt teilt ihre Orientierung mit und so hat man den Orientierungsinn schon, wenn man nur mit beiden Füßen, sogar nur mit einem Fuß in der Stadt steht. Man braucht keinen weiteren Plan, um zu wissen, wie man in der Stadt von A nach B kommt, weil die Stadt selbst schon so ein Plan und damit auch ein Protokoll ist, ab dem Augenblick, indem man die Stadt kennt und die Stadt wahrnehmen kann.

2.

Wo eine Stadt ist, da ist Raum in Ort übersetzt, da ist der Raum adressiert und da adressiert der Raum, da wird der Raum auch eng und die Wege rufen nach Beleuchtung. Wo eine Stadt ist, da ist und wird gesendet. Wo eine Stadt ist, ist Zeit in Geschichte übersetzt, da ist die Zeit bemessen, oft sogar dringlich und knapp.

Städte haben Stil und Atmosphäre, jede eine(n) anderen. Das haben sie, obwohl beides in der Stadt sich abwechselt, fußläufig wird beides schon anders, auch wenn es regnet und man nicht gerne viele Schritte geht. Dass sie Stil und Atmosphäre haben ist ein Ausläufer der Tatsache, dass Städte Plan und Protokoll sind. Man bemerkt Stil spätestens dann, wenn man mimetisch bedrängt wird, wenn Plan und Prokoll ihre Muster zum Mitmachen anbieten. Auch früher, wenn man nur mimetisch angeregt wird und die Stadt einen beflügelt, indem sie einen mitmachen wollen macht, dann bemerkt man Stil.

O som ao redor: als Klang, Geräusche oder Resonanzwellen der Nachbarschaft begreift Kleber Mendonça Filho ( der die Fragestellungen von Leuten wie Micker und de Barbari zeitgenössisch umsetzt, mit Mitteln des Kinos beantwortet und damit ein herausragender Praktiker der Übersetzung von Raum und Ort und Zeit in Geschichte geworden ist), die Stadt und was an ihr Plan und Protokoll ist. So eine Stadt kann man schon im Singular Stätte nennen. Sein Kino geht von der Stadt aus, davon, dass es sie effektiv gibt. Selbst wenn er auf's Land geht um einen Film zum Sertão zu drehen, nimmt er die Gegend als eine Stätte, an dem Raum zu Ort und Zeit zu Geschichte wird - da ist ist dann das, was auch Städte ausmachen. Sie bilden Referenzen aus. Sertão würde bei ihm dann Bacurau, klein aber oho.

2.

Jan Micker malt die Stadt aus der Vogelperspektive, wie man das aus der berühmten Graphik Jacobo de Barbaris von der Stadt Venedig kennt (diese Graphik entsteht um 1500). Micker malt aber die Schatten der Wolken mit. Den Plan, der eine Stadt ist, den begreift Micker auch als meteorologisches Phänomen. Einen Plan, der die Stadt ist, den kann man auch, wie das Protokoll, als Tracht und als Trachten der Stadt verstehen. Gründliche Linien ziehen. Micker malt hier keine Metaphysik der Sitten, er malt verschiedene physische Verhältnisse, malt eine Geographie, zeichnet Geometrie ein, liefert so noch eine Beitrag zur Meteorologie der Sitten. Weil der Begriff der Sitte eng mit der Vorstellung von Üblichkeit,Gewöhnung, Einbürgerung und Beständigkeit assoziiert wird, spricht man vielleicht besser, zumindest verfremdender und damit überraschender, aufmerksamer bis nervöser von einer Meteorologie der Trachten und des Trachtens.

[elancholia]

@transgenderer wondered the other day about the earliest non-elite, non-officer account of war. I was also curious about the question, and @mynodon generously volunteered a PDF of "British Diaries" (William Matthews, 1950), which I had brought up.

Going through the list, there are a number of military diaries from before the English Civil War, the earliest being from 1544. These tend to be short, impersonal, journalistic, and focused on specific expeditions and campaigns. None seem to have been written by anyone who could be described as low-status; a few of the anonymous entries looked promising, but, on tracking them down, I find that not one provides a first-person account from the point of view of a common soldier or sailor.

On the other hand, civilian diaries of the period are sometimes quite personal, and their authors increasingly include tradesmen, yeomen, and local clergy, though elite accounts still predominate. There are several by astrologers.

When we hit 1642, things get a little denser. I am satisfied that this catalogue contains no examples before that year, which would postdate the account of Peter Hagendorf anyway.

I also had a look around at some of the general works on autobiography I used at university and didn't find anything substantive or specific. I wasn't really focused on military issues at the time, and none of the authors drew attention to specifically plebeian military perspectives, though one (McKay, "English Diarists: Gender, Geography and Occupation, 1500–1700") says there are diaries from "all ranks" (though, again, "not an officer" doesn't mean "not elite", there's one diary from a non-officer member of the King's life guard).

So it seems the earliest account is unlikely to be in English, which makes sense given the relative peacefulness of English history between the end of the Hundred Years' War and the beginning of the Civil War. (This being relative to the continental wars of religion, of course.)

One possible "edge case" is writers who wrote memoirs from memory after becoming high-status — Bernal Diaz's Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España begins its narrative with the author as a common footsoldier, but it was written 50 years after the fact.

[islam-defined]

Allah created stars and constellations as a guide for travelers

December 18 is the World Arabic Language Day, let us prepare to celebrate the Language of Quran by looking into the contribution of Arabs into the modern civilization. Its all started from the rich literature in form of Quran to science and technology to medicines and geography, astrology and space science, globe and pottery, architecture to history and above all the constitution for humanity. Arabs discovered everything and their contribution in every field is amazing and surprising because those are not disclosed and propagated by medium. This is a very big chapter. Presently we are discussing the creation of Universe by Allah.

1500 years ago, Allah revealed the purpose of the creation of the stars and constellations. Quran reveals, “And He is the One Who has made the stars as your guide through the darkness of land and sea. We have already made the signs clear for people who understands. (6:97)

Surprisingly, even today the sailors and pilots after using of both constellations, radars and compass for navigation the plane with passengers vanishes or lose its way. The reply is simple. Its Allah who guides us both in sea, land and space.  Verse (16:79) clearly reveals, “Do they not see the birds made to fly through the air in the sky? Nothing holds them up except Allah. There truly are signs in this for those who believe and understands”.

And if Allah misguides no one can guide. Its all beyond the control of humans although it seems so. And to Allah belong the unknown secrets of the Heavens and the Earth.” (11:123). “And with Him are the keys of the Unseen that no one knows except for Him.” (6:59).

“Say, O’ Muhammad(ﷺ) no one has knowledge of that which is hidden in the Heavens and the Earth except for Allah.” (27:65). O Prophet (ﷺ), you cannot grant guidance to whom you please. It is Allah Who guides those whom He will. He knows best who are amenable to guidance.(28:56)

[fatehbaz]

Had to organize some more of my notes.

Some recently published books on inter/transnationalism (especially Black) in the Americas (focus on disability/health and knowledge/art appropriation).

---

Art, music, knowledge (and commodification):

Rude Citizenship: Jamaican Popular Music, Copyright, and the Reverberations of Colonial Power (Larisa Kingston Mann, 2022)

West African Masking Traditions and Diaspora Masquerade Carnivals: History, Memory, and Transnationalism (Raphael Chijikoe Njoku, 2020)

At Home in Our Sounds: Music, Race, and Cultural Politics in Interwar Paris (Rachel Anne Gillett, 2021)

La Raza Cosmetica: Beauty, Identity, and Settler Colonialism in Postrevolutionary Mexico (Natasha Varner, 2020)

Maps of Sorrow: Migration and Music in the Construction of Precolonial AfroAsia (Sumangala Damodaran and Ari Sitas, 2023)

Queer African Cinemas (Lindsey Green-Simms, 2022)

Bossa Mundo: Brazilian Music in Transnational Media Industries (K.E. Goldschmitt, 2020)

The Geographies of African American Short Fiction (Kenton Rambsy, 2022)

Healing Knowledge in Atlantic Africa: Medical Encounters, 1500-1850 (Kalle Kananjoa, 2021)

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General internationalism:

Transatlantic Radicalism: Socialist and Anarchist Exchanges in the 19th and 20th Centuries (Edited by Jacob and Kebler, University of Liverpool Press, 2021)

Voices of the Race: Black Newspapers in Latin America, 1870-1960 (Edited by Paulina L. Alberto, et al., 2022)

The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (Ilham Khuri-Makdisi, 2010)

In a Sea of Empires: Networks and Crossings in the Revolutionary Caribbean (Vanessa Mongey, 2020)

Anarchists of the Caribbean: Countercultural Politics and Transnational Networks in the Age of US Expansion (Kirwin R. Shaffer, Cambridge University Press, 2020)

---

Caribbean:

Between Fitness and Death: Disability and Slavery in the Caribbean (Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy, 2020)

The Ends of Paradise: Race, Extraction, and the Struggle for Black Life in Honduras (Chirstopher A. Loperena, 2022.)

Panama in Black: Afro-Caribbean World Making in the Twentieth Century (Kaysha Corinealdi, 2022)

LGBTQ Politics in Nicaragua: Revolution, Dictatorship, and Social Movements (Karen Kampwirth, 2022)

Chocolate Surrealism: Music, Movement, Memory and History in the Circum-Caribbean (Njoroje M. Njoroje, 2016)

Fugitive Movements: Commemorating the Denmark Vesey Affair and Black Radical Antislavery in the Atlantic World (Edited by James O'Neill Spady, 2022)

The Creole Archipelago: Race and Borders in the Colonial Caribbean (Tessa Murphy, 2021)

Freedom's Captives: Slavery and Gradual Emancipation on the Colombian Black Pacific (Yesenia Barragan, 2021)

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United States:

Welcome to Fairyland: Queer Miami before 1940 (Julio Capo Jr., 2017)

The Entangled Labor Histories of Brazil and the United States (Edited by Teizeira da Silva, et al., 2023)

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da'Shaun L. Harrison, 2021)

Confederate Exodus: Social and Environmental Forces in the Migration of U.S. Southerners to Brazil (Alan Marcus, 2021)

Country of the Cursed and the Driven: Slavery and the Texas Borderlands (Paul Barba, 2021)

Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean (Kirwin R. Shaffer, 2021)

Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom (Kathryn Olivarius, 2022)

West of Slavery: The Southern Dream of a Transcontinental Empire (Kevin Waite, 2021)

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More:

Transimperial Anxieties: The Making and Unmaking of Arab Ottomans in Sao Paulo, Brazil, 1850-1940 (Jose D. Najar, 2023)

South-South Solidarity and the Latin American Left (Jessica Stites Mor, 2022)

Reimagining the Gran Chaco: Identities, Politics, and the Environment in South America (Edited by Silvia Hirsch, Paola Canova, Mercedes Biocca, 2021)

Modernity in Black and White: Art and Image, Race and Identity in Brazil, 1890-1945 (Rafael Cardoso, 2020)

Region Out of Place: The Brazilian Northeast and the World, 1924-1968 (Courtney Campbell, 2022)

Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia (Anadelia Romo, 2022)

Hiding in Plain Sight: Black Women, the Law, and the Making of a White Argentine Republic (Erika Denise Edwards, 2020)

Peripheral Nerve: Health and Medicine in Cold War Latin America (Edited by Anne-Emanuelle Birn and Raul Necochea Lopez, 2020)

[natequarter]

posts along the lines of "most women in the past had to spend their lives doing domestic work and having children for husbands they hated" are just so grating because:

this is what rich people had servants for, which included both men and women; obviously even royal women would be expected to do some manner of domestic work in the form of embroidery, and what we think of as domestic work like laundry etc. would very much be considered women's work, but this is also, significantly, servants' work, not necessarily women's

lower-class women unable to afford servants would have had to do much of the domestic work to keep a household running, but skills like sewing and knitting have in many eras and places been skills men were expected to know as well; older children would probably also be expected to help around the house

the idea of having to bear children as an essential duty of being a wife, whilst a common misogynistic ideal, was really the preserve of royalty and aristocracy; gender roles vary across time and geography as well, and nuns certainly wouldn't be encouraged to have children! it also varies on a case-by-case basis - most men in the past had power over their wives on a societal level, and child-bearing as an essential part of being a woman is certainly a common idea, but not every man in the past was raping his wife and even before the era of condoms (in theory from the 1500s onwards, in practice from the 1600s onwards), we have evidence of couples practising basic contraception methods. moreover, people in the past were perfectly cognizant of the dangers of pregnancy and childbirth and there were certainly cases, even at the level of royalty, where women would choose/be advised not to have more children

obviously this again varies across time and geography, but certainly in europe arranged marriages have usually been the preserve of the aristocracy. most poorer people simply could not afford to marry young, and would marry in their twenties; even in the upper classes, arranged marriages were really more likely to happen at the ages of fifteen/sixteen; twelve for girls and fourteen for boys were the ages of consent and anything below that was extremely dubious. certainly abusive marriages did exist, but they wouldn't necessarily be arranged and, again, not every man in 1200 was a rapist

ok rant over. misogyny exists across time and space, but it doesn't always manifest as evangelical american tradwife rhetoric or victorian gender roles! thank you and goodnight.