#Hieroglyphics Canyon

[cat-eye-nebula]

JP’s Mission to Ancient Artifacts & Civilizations found in Grand Canyon    

My US Army source JP was sent to the Grand Canyon as part of a six-man team to investigate ancient artifacts found in a large cavern complex. His team found hieroglyphics on walls. They also saw a flying saucer craft in one of the chambers and went inside to explore it. It was built for a small race of humanoids. JP believed the craft belonged to an early civilization of the Ant People, who he had met on earlier missions.

[kinopioa]

Various Echidna tribes/civilizations (Part 1)

While Knuckles doesn't know of the latest tribe he specifically came from, the games have had a multitude of tribes and civilizations to represent Echidnas, even outside of Angel Island/Pachachamac's

Part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/kinopioa/752676073211412480/various-echidna-tribescivilizations-part-2?source=share

-Outside Angel Island Civilizations-

1. Pachachamac's tribe (Knuckles Clan)

3000 years ago, Pachachamac's tribe had established itself as an undefeatable force thanks to the leadership of Pachachamac himself. The tribe itself was wiped out from the Earth due to enraging Chaos, with the remaining stragglers to use the Master Emerald afterward to lift the landmass to the sky, forming Angel Island. As such, any later Angel Island tribes have this for the base

2. Unknown tribes

In the Sonic Adventure Perfect and Softbank Guide in Japan, we learn that other Echidna tribes neighbored Pachachamac's, with Pachachamac's tribe being small and scrabbling before Tikal's Grandmother died. After her death, Pachachamac took control and aggressively supressed other tribes with brute force

3. The Echidna Pyramids

While Eggman defaced most of the pyramid and surrounding area during the events of SA2, the more intact Wild Canyon and Dry Lagoon area neighboring it shows us hieroglyphics and moniker of an Echidna civilization living alongside typical human Ancient Egyptian based statues. In Pyramid Cave there are even imposing Echidna statues in the background

Interestingly, there are murals showing us upright other animal headed people, which given the many anthros in Sonic might be legitimate. It's unknown what happened to this civilization, though they seem to have had the Master Emerald before it wound up in Pachachamac's area. Chao are also noted in murals, likely as pets

*Note: The SA2 Perfect Guide doesn't state either this or Wild Canyon as a part of Angel Island. Pumpkin Hill/Aquatic Mine connects directly to the city, nor has evidence of Echidnas despite similar ghosts

-Angel Island Civilizations-

Given the size of Angel Island and the distinct locales, later Zones will be specified

In Sonic Battle, Knux is temporarily residing in this area given an ancient echidna tribe lived there besides a now inactive volcano. While not much is said, the battle arena here has ruins depicting Chao

*Edit: The sky BG shows this is on Angel Island. Rare Chao iconography on Angel Island!

Hydrocity

A series of ruins, the architecture consists of gold, malachite, and steel blue brick, several decorated towers with dangling balls inside (likely to measure water pressure), high ceiling arches, pulleys and fans, tunnels and chutes. It's important to note that the area is flooded in 3K mainly due to the island being forced on the ocean. Regardless, it is a water oriented site, with waterfalls pouring in, and chutes to manage the water

Marble Garden

Located in the mountains and deep forest, Marble Garden is a site heavily littered with spikes, spike balls, crushers, even motion triggered arrows. It implies that the former residents here were very mistrusting of outsiders

The blue mechanisms directly shift the landscape, allowing access to hidden passages. A pulley powered handle can help those that can't traverse up the steep slopes normally. Apricots/Peaches and Orange brickwork adds a splash of color to this otherwise green/tan site, same for intricate designs on various walls and blue loop-deloops

Drill tops can be used to flat out fly in the air. This tribe was very innovative

Ice Cap

In Sonic 3, Eggman's environment machine* has heavily impacted the area. As such, the ice structures are far more warped than intended. Though there is still bits of architecture intact

For starters, the bungee platforms that launch the user to higher areas. Intricate ice bridges and towers can also be seen throughout the area

Closer to the forest, we see more elements that use wood, such as gates and bridges

Residents may live in shacks and brick houses qnd windmills scattered across the mountain as well

*The Sonic 3 and Sonic & Knuckles Japan guide notes that the environment machine seen in Mushroom Hill impacted more areas than just Mushroom Hill. This might explains Adventure's drastic change.

*It's also important to note that Ice Cap is found on Angel Island in Sonic Adventure, as Angel Island crashed into Mystic Ruins

Welp, 30 image limit reached. See you in Part 2!

https://www.tumblr.com/kinopioa/752676073211412480/various-echidna-tribescivilizations-part-2?source=share

@skaruresonic

[paleodictyoptera]

I heard @headspace-hotel is having a rough time of it right now, so ill post some flora/fauna photos i have saved on me.

First four are from Tonto national forest, butterfly and lizard are from Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, and the last four are Hieroglyphic Canyon on the north side of South Mountain, right next to the Cub Scout Pueblo day camp.

[sinisterexaggerator]

Sriluurian, the language of the Weequay "was formed by guttural mumbles and subdued whispers." It also used hieroglyphs as a written form. It is a language used to communicate with people from other tribes, as Weequay from the same clan/tribe could communicate via their pheromones and did not need to use spoken language.

"As a result, speech was only a secondary form of communication for Weequay, and they seldom spoke a whole sentence, resulting in Humans mistakenly believing the species to be unintelligent."

There are only two known Sriluurian words in canon/legends that I can find.

Uurutche'zediev - The name of Temptation Canyon on Sriluur ( a place on their home planet ).

Raquor'daan - Dark wolf ( an animal that lived on Sriluur ).

It sort of reminds me of Huttese.

Now, imagine if you will...

Hondo never shuts up. He's always talking, telling stories, flattering himself, or giving commands. He knows at least four languages, if not more: Sriluurian, Basic, Shyriiwook, and probably Huttese.

Considering his species, this is not natural. Pair this with the fact that Hondo "has a large disconnect with Sriluur culture and religion," and what we get is a black sheep of the family.

This is verrrrrry interesting, because another part of Weequay culture dictates that "as long as the clan survives, a single Weequay is expendable." We know from canon that Hondo was sold to priests of the god Quay by his parents, which means they were most likely hard up for money and needed to support the clan in some way; stealing and swindling people wasn't cutting it.

That, and/or Hondo was considered to be one who is expendable in this scenario, and maybe there was a reason for that.

To me, ( and @allsystemsblue xD ), Hondo is a well-spoken, well-educated man with street smarts on top of book smarts. He may not be Count Dooku, but he is not a dummy by any means. The fact that he can speak that many languages should be proof enough, but he was also an advisor to a Hutt who trusted him with his business dealings, not to mention his successful pirate's horde, and the fact he kidnapped a Sith lord with ease.

Now, imagine him being surrounded by other Weequay whom he cannot identify with. Imagine he often simply speaks his mind instead of talking with his pheromones. Imagine how shunned or ridiculed he must be by the others, them using their guttural, grunting language or not talking at all verbally, and for Hondo to have so much to say, with so many ways in which to say it.

Not only did his mother teach him things, but we can assume he also read a lot of books, and was literate, unlike his brethren. Just look at this letter he wrote himself, for Pete's sake!

I've decided to headcanon that Hondo grew up in Dnalvec. It was "the main port city of Sriluur, which housed three of the four main spaceports on the planet. It was a chaotic frontier environment of drifting star pilots, information merchants, and mercenaries."

By doing this, I imagine Hondo's youth was filled with all sorts of colorful characters, world travelers, and the well-to-do. Teeth says he was a charming young man who people fell in love with left and right. I tend to agree with this.

Maybe this is why he can't shut up now for the life of him; he always has so much to say when no one wanted to listen to him before. Maybe his mother warned him time and time again. Maybe this was one of the reasons she kicked him out of the house on numerous occasions to spend time on the streets before she finally let him back home again.

And even though he loved his mother, deep down he only wanted her to love him back. He holds her in esteem, refusing to think poorly of her, convincing himself she did her best, that she would never truly mean to hurt her child...

But that is where the disconnect comes in. If Weequay's truly are as they are described in canon/legends as "mean-spirited, suspicious, xenophobic, devious, and deceitful," and Hondo is none of those things, or only learns to be so from a necessity to survive, then that means he must have had a very disappointing and frustrating childhood, not to mention the heartbreak he must have felt when he was sold.

Just a thought.

If he ever told me a story, I would be sure to listen.

[o-craven-canto]

Words borrowed from other languages in English

Very incomplete list, based mostly on The Languages of the World (3rd ed.), Kenneth Katzner, 2002 + a heavy use of Wiktionary. some notes:

Many of these words have passed through multiple languages on their way to English (e.g. Persian -> Arabic -> Spanish -> French -> English); in that case I usually list them under the first language that used them with the same meaning as English.

I generally don't include words whose ancestors already existed in Middle English, unless their origin was exotic enough to be interesting.

The vast majority of borrowings are terms very specific to their culture of origin; I generally only include those that are either well known among English-speakers, or of general use outside that culture. As always, this is largely subjective.

INDO-EUROPEAN FAMILY (West and South Eurasia)

Hellenic

Greek: angel, chronometer, democracy, encyclopedia, geography, graphic, hieroglyphic, homogeneous, hydraulic, kudos, meter, microphone, microscope, monarchy, philosophy, phobia, photography, telephone, telescope, thermometer, and way too many other scientific or technical terms to count

Germanic

Afrikaans: aardvark, apartheid, fynbos, rooibos, springbok, trek, veld, wildebeest

Danish: Lego, simper

Dutch: brandy, bumpkin, coleslaw, cookie, deck, dock, dollar, freight, furlough, hodgepodge, landscape, maelstrom, noodle, Santa Claus, waffle, walrus, yacht

German: aurochs, bildungsroman, blitzkrieg, cobalt, dachsund, eigenvector, ersatz, gestalt, glockenspiel, hamburger, hinterland, kindergarten, kohlrabi, lager, poodle, quark, sauerkraut, wanderlust, yodel, zeitgeist

Icelandic: eider, geyser

Norwegian: auk, fjord, krill, lemming, narwhal, slalom, troll

Swedish: lek, mink, ombudsman, rutabaga, smorgasbord, tungsten

Yiddish: bupkis, chutzpah, kvetch, putz, schlemiel, schmaltz, schmooze, schtick, spiel, tchotchke

Slavic

Czech: robot

Russian: fedora, glasnost, intelligentsia, kefir, mammoth, pogrom, samizdat, steppe, sputnik, troika, tsar, vodka

Serbo-Croat: cravat, paprika

Celtic [many of these words are shared between the two languages]

Irish: bog, galore, gaol, geas, glen, orrery, shamrock, slob, whiskey

Scottish Gaelic: bard, bunny, cairn, clan, loch, ptarmigan, ?scone, slogan

Italic-Romance

†Latin: way too many, but ignoring the ones that were already naturalized in Middle English: a priori, arcane, algae, alumni, artificial, calculus, cancer, carnivore, cavity, circa, confide, dire, federal, flammable, homicide, interregnum, larva, lemur, magnanimity, manuscript, millipede, nebula, nimbus, nocturnal, octave, optimal, postmortem, senile, supernova, urban, verbatim, and countless medical or legal terms

French: the bulk of French (or rather Norman) borrowings occurred before Middle English, but to stick to my rules: aubergine, bourgeois, buttress, camouflage, capitalism, caramel, chassis, chauvinism, cheque, collage, elite, embassy, ennui, espionage, etiquette, facade, fondue, gouache, guillotine, infantry, lingerie, mauve, mayonnaise, mollusk, Renaissance, reservoir, sabotage, souvenir, turquoise...

Italian: allegro, aria, balcony, bandit, bravo, calamari, casino, cello, chiaroscuro, crescendo, contraband, contrapposto, fresco, gazette, ghetto, gusto, inferno, lagoon, lava, mafia, malaria, pants, quarantine, tempo, umbrella, vendetta, volcano

Portuguese: baroque, brocade, cachalot, cobra, creole, flamingo, petunia, pimento, zebra

Spanish: abalone, armadillo, bolas, bonanza, canyon, cargo, chupacabra, cigar, cilantro, embargo, gaucho, guerrilla, junta, manta, mesa, mosquito, mustang, patio, pueblo, rodeo, siesta, tornado, vanilla

Iranian

Persian: bazaar, caravan, checkmate, chess, crimson, dervish, divan, jackal, jasmine, khaki, kiosk, lemon, lilac, musk, orange, pajama, paradise, satrap, shawl, taffeta

Indo-Aryan

†Sanskrit: brahmin, Buddha, chakra, guru, karma, mantra, opal, swastika, yoga

Bengali: dinghy, jute, nabob

Hindi: bandana, bungalow, cheetah, chintz, chutney, coolie, cot, dungaree, juggernaut, lacquer, loot, rajah, pundit, shampoo, tom-tom, thug, veranda

Marathi: mongoose

Romani: hanky-panky, pal, shiv

Sinhalese: anaconda, beriberi, serendipity, tourmaline

DRAVIDIAN FAMILY (Southern India)

Kannada: bamboo

Malayalam: atoll, calico, copra, jackfruit, mahogany, mango, pagoda, teak

Tamil: curry, mulligatawny, pariah

Telugu: bandicoot

URALIC FAMILY (Northern Eurasia)

Finnic

Finnish: sauna

Saami: tundra

Samoyedic

Nenets: parka

Ugric

Hungarian: biro, coach, goulash, hussar, puszta, tokay

VASCONIC FAMILY (Northern Pirenees)

Basque: chaparral, chimichurri, silhouette

TURKIC FAMILY (Central and Northern Eurasia)

†Old Turkic: cossack, yurt

Tatar: ?stramonium

Turkish: baklava, balaclava, bergamot, caftan, caviar, harem, janissary, kebab, kismet, minaret, pastrami, sherbet, tulip, yoghurt

Yakut: taiga

MONGOLIC FAMILY (Mongolia and surrounding areas)

Mongol: horde, khan, ?valerian

SINO-TIBETAN FAMILY (China and Southeast Asia)

Tibeto-Burman

Burmese: ?marzipan

Tibetan: lama, panda, tulpa, yak, yeti

Sinitic [Chinese languages closely related, not always clear from which a borrowing comes]

Hokkien: ?ketchup, sampan, tea

Mandarin: chi, dazibao, gung-ho, kaolin, oolong, shaolin, shanghai, tao, yin-yang

Min Nan: nunchaku

Yue (Cantonese): chop suey, dim sum, kowtow, kumquat, lychee, shar-pei, ?typhoon, wok

TUNGUSIC FAMILY (Eastern Siberia)

Evenki: pika, shaman

KOREANIC FAMILY (Koreas)

Korean: bulgogi, chaebol, hantavirus, kimchi, mukbang, taekwondo

JAPONIC FAMILY (Japan)

Japanese: banzai, bonsai, dojo, emoji, geisha, ginkgo, hikikomori, honcho, ikebana, kamikaze, karaoke, koi, kudzu, manga, origami, pachinko, rickshaw, sake, samurai, sensei, soy, sushi, tofu, tsunami, tycoon, zen

KRA-DAI FAMILY (mainland Southeast Asia)

Thai: bong, pad thai

AUSTROASIATIC FAMILY (mainland Southeast Asia)

Vietnamese: pho, saola, Vietcong

AUSTRONESIAN FAMILY (maritime Southeast Asia and Oceania)

Western Malayan

Javanese: ?junk [ship]

Malay: amok, camphor, cockatoo, compound [building], cootie, durian, kapok, orangutan, paddy, pangolin, rattan, sarong

Barito

Malagasy: raffia

Phlippinic

Cebuano: dugong

Ilocano: yo-yo

Tagalog: boondocks

Oceanic

Hawai'ian: aloha, hula, luau, poi, wiki

Maori: kauri, kiwi, mana, weta

Marshallese: bikini

Tahitian: pareo, tattoo

Tongan: taboo

TRANS-NEW GUINEAN FAMILY (New Guinea)

Fore: kuru

PAMA-NYUNGAN FAMILY (Australia)

Dharug: boomerang, corroboree, dingo, koala, wallaby, wobbegong, wombat, woomera

Guugu Yimithirr: kangaroo, quoll

Nyungar: dunnart, gidgee, quokka

Pitjantjatjara: Uluru

Wathaurong: bunyip

Wiradjuri: kookaburra

Yagara: dilly bag

AFRO-ASIATIC FAMILY (North Africa and Near East)

Coptic: adobe

Berber

Tachelhit: argan

Semitic

†Punic: Africa

Arabic: albatross, alchemy, alcohol, alcove, alfalfa, algebra, alkali, amber, arsenal, artichoke, assassin, candy, coffee, cotton, elixir, gazebo, gazelle, ghoul, giraffe, hashish, harem, magazine, mattress, monsoon, sofa, sugar, sultan, syrup, tabby, tariff, zenith, zero

Hebrew: amen, behemoth, cabal, cherub, hallelujah, kibbutz, kosher, manna, myrrh, rabbi, sabbath, Satan, seraph, shibboleth

NIGER-CONGO FAMILY (Subsaharan Africa)

unknown: cola, gorilla, tango

Senegambian

Wolof: banana, fonio, ?hip, ?jigger [parasite], karite, ?jive, yam

Gur-Adamawa

Ngbandi: Ebola

Kwa

Ewe: voodoo

Volta-Niger

Igbo: okra

Yoruba: gelee [headgear], mambo, oba, orisha

Cross River

Ibibio: calypso

Bantu

Lingala: basenji

Kikongo: ?chimpanzee, ?macaque, ?zombie

Kimbundu: ?banjo, Candomblé, gumbo, macumba, tanga

Swahili: askari, Jenga, kwanzaa, safari

Xhosa: Ubuntu

Zulu: impala, mamba, vuvuzela

KHOE-KWADI FAMILY (Southwest Africa)

Khoekhoe (Hottentot): gnu, kudu, quagga

ESKIMO-ALEUT FAMILY (Arctic America)

Greenlandic Inuit: igloo, kayak

Inuktikut: nunatak

ALGIC FAMILY (Eastern Canada and northeast USA)

†Proto-Algonquin: moccasin, opossum, skunk

Cree: muskeg, pemmican

Mikmaq: caribou, toboggan

Montagnais: husky

Narragansett: ?moose, ?powwow, sachem

Ojibwe: chipmunk, totem, wendigo, woodchuck

Powhatan: persimmon, raccoon

SALISHAN FAMILY (Pacific coast at the USA-Canada border)

Chehalis: chinook

Halkomelem: sasquatch

Lushootseed: geoduck

IROQUOIAN FAMILY (Eastern North America)

Cherokee: sequoia

SIOUAN FAMILY (Central USA)

Lakota: teepee

MUSKOGEAN FAMILY (Southeast USA)

Choctaw: bayou

UTO-AZTECAN FAMILY (Southwest USA and north Mexico)

Nahuatl: atlatl, avocado, chili, cocoa, coyote, chocolate, guacamole, hoazin, mesquite, ocelot, quetzal, tamale, tegu, tomato

O'odham (Pima): jojoba

Shoshone: chuckwalla

Yaqui: ?saguaro

MAYAN FAMILY (Southern Mexico and Guatemala)

Yucatec Maya: cenote, Chicxulub

ARAWAKAN FAMILY (Caribbeans and South America)

†Taino: barbecue, cannibal, canoe, cassava, cay, guava, hammock, hurricane, iguana, maize, manatee, mangrove, maroon, potato, savanna, tobacco

Arawak: papaya

CARIBAN FAMILY (Caribbean coast of South America)

unknown: curare

Galibi Carib: caiman, chigger, pawpaw, peccary, yucca

QUECHUAN FAMILY (Andes)

Quechua: ?Andes, caoutchouc, coca, condor, guano, jerky, llama, mate, poncho, puma, quinine, vicuna

AYMARAN FAMILY (Andes)

Aymara: alpaca, chinchilla

TUPIAN FAMILY (Brazil)

[borrowings are often shared between these two languages]

†Old Tupi: ananas, arowana, Cayenne [pepper], jaguar, manioc, piranha, tapioca

Guarani: cougar, maracuja, Paraguay, petunia, toucan

CREOLE LANGUAGES (worldwide, mixed origin)

English-derived

Chinese Pidgin English: chopstick, long time no see, pidgin, taipan

Jamaican Creole: dreadlocks, reggae

Chinook-derived

Chinook Jargon: potlatch

EDIT 08-01-24: added lots more examples, especially African, Asian, and North American languages. Still not done. EDIT 17-01-24: finished adding examples, more or less. EDIT: 18-02-24: apparently not (cheetah). EDIT: 20-05-24: nope (mosquito); 30-06-24: jerky, mukbang, cello, glockenspiel, hodgepodge; 06-06-25: marzipan, lagoon, contraband, artichoke EDIT 02-11-24: finally expanded the French and Latin points. Also, added kudos, camphor, moose, and the Thai and Vietnamese sections.

[naranjapetrificada]

This post is making the rounds again for whatever reason and besides all of the things that like, make absolutely perfect sense about it, for whatever reason it's also made something click about Izzy characterizations in fic that do or don't work and why and how I can (in ADHD veteran fashion) "trick" myself into handling him and his nonsense more easily.

We're always reminding people about his status as a device vs an actual character, and that's something I've understood implicitly about the show but only intellectually in fic for whatever reason. Sometimes you can "know" something without truly internalizing it and you need like, the stars to align in a certain way on a certain day before you actually know what to do with that information. I guess that day was today? Anyway.

I've talked about what I will believe about an Izzy characterization and what I won't, and those things still matter, but what's behind them is the question behind any storytelling device: what's being attempted/accomplished with him here?

And when you take away everything else about it and deal with the question head-on, it's usually extremely straightforward to answer, even with portrayals that absolutely don't work for you or may not have been intentional on the author's behalf. In fact, it can even be tied to the thing I was just saying about understanding something on an intellectual level versus actually internalizing or believing or buying into it, and how that intersects with Izzy as a device instead of a character. Because here's the thing, like The Thing the thing about Izzy in fic, from the most sympathetic canyon-cooked apologia to the most excoriating condemnation:

He's still not a person, he's a tool.

And he'll never be more than that. There are writers who understand this both intellectually and implicitly, there are writers who understand it intellectually but have yet to internalize that understanding, and there are writers who reject the premise outright. But every single one of those writers still ends up treating him that way whether they mean to or not, because we're not given more than that to work with.

Whether someone is writing a nice guy OC with Con O'Neill's face and naming that guy Izzy or is making an effort to adhere as close to the text of canon as possible, they're all just using him as a tool. Maybe they're using him as a tool to reveal something about the world or the other characters, or maybe to move the plot forward. Maybe the message they want to convey is just that they think he's hot and/or they find something compelling enough about him (or Con O'Neill's portrayal of him) to make them want to build up whatever they need to to make him seem sympathetic. But you have to engage in a great deal of invention if you want him to be more than that, at which point he starts to go all ship of Theseus.

Izzy is a character in the way that the letters I'm using to form the words that make up this post are characters, in that he exists as a device for accomplishing the goal of conveying meaning. And sure, some characters are seemingly straightforward alphanumeric characters like the number 1 and the letter I, and other times characters are complex and multilayered and capable of conveying a great deal of meaning with room for rich discussion and interpretation like in some scripts that are both phonetic and ideographic (cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese characters).

If you want to extend this overstretched metaphor even further to all characters fine, but there's still a key difference between him and the actual protagonists Ed and Stede. If they're all "characters" in this sense of the word, whether or not you write Izzy with a dull pencil on wide-ruled notebook paper or paint him on silk with a calligraphy brush, he's just the number 0 or the letter O. Ed and Stede though? They're those works of figurative calligraphy where Arabic writing takes the actual shape of a bird or a boat or a tree. They're those Chinese characters written with dozens of strokes that feel like single, self-contained poems.

And that's a distinction that matters greatly when it comes to reading and writing fanfic. So next time I'm wrestling with a portrayal of Izzy in someone else's work that doesn't work for me or I'm continuing to wrestle with the struggles of trying to write him myself, I hope I remember to pause and ask myself hey, what's the point of him here? What's he meant to do? Because who he "is" doesn't matter, and isn't even the right question. I cannot tell you how easy that makes it to quiet down all the constant noise around him and put down all the baggage attached to him and just move forward with everything. It's so freeing.

[convexicalcrow]

Oh? How normal are we about Pharaoh Cub?

Okay look. You gotta understand. I've been interested in ancient Egpyt since I was a kid. It's my longest-running special interest/hyperfixation, so much so that I've been practicing ancient Egyptian religion for over twenty years. It's something that's very, very precious to me, bc it's so personal to me, and bc I'm who I am, my knowledge of this stuff is arguably higher than the average person. This makes any kind of media about ancient Egypt actually not that interesting to me bc my brain will Not shut up about inaccuracies, so I tend to avoid them bc of that.

(I could go on about my issues with ancient Egyptian themed media, but I won't, that's a whole 'nuther essay frfr.)

(Also I hope you like infodumping, anon, bc that's what I'm about to do :D)

That said, I've actually written a whole lot of Egyptian myth rewrites, as well as ancient Egyptian stories exploring all kinds of various topics. I have some published on an old blog of mine, but some I never finished for various reasons. It's a whole thing. It's been a whole thing for me for a very, very long time.

So, you're me, someone with a more than average knowledge of and interest in ancient Egypt, and you've just become a Cub fan in s8 bc that was my first Hermitcraft season. I had heard about the pyramid, and Pharaoh Cub, and I was both SO INTERESTED but also actually quite hesitant to watch Cub's s7, bc I didn't want to be disappointed if he messed it up or did something wrong that caused my brain to Disagree. Again, very irrational bc my brain do be like that, but also based on previous experiences of seeing ppl just taking the aesthetics and doing whatever with it, and screw historical accuracy.

(Honestly, this is, like, my One (1) critism with the lore TrixyBlox built into the USW map. Can we Not have evil pharaohs plz just for once. ;_;)

I wanted to trust Cub, bc I'd seen the research that went into the canyon build. He's a smart dude. He cares about getting those kinda details right. And I did genuinely want to see how he approached the pyramid build and how he was going to use it as a base. But again, SO HESITANT. bc what if my blorbo messes it up and ruins the whole thing for me bc m brain is Stupid about this sort of thing. ;_;

But I'm so glad I trusted Cub when I did get around to watching s7, bc I fell in love with the pyramid. The fact that he cared about making it as life-size as possible, but also that he took an approach of taking what works, but also making it his own, and making it fit into the minecraft world. Like, using Standard Galactic for hieroglyphs! I loved that small little detail! It makes so much sense to use it that way.

Like, my very-not-srs gripes about the Pharaoh skin and its weird sleeves aside, his approach was very much how a lot of Egyptian pagans approach things today. Take what works, or what makes sense, and adapt it to where we currently are in the world and what we have access to. And I could tell from how he talked about it throughout the season that he really had done his research. And just- The Morning and The Evening Sun/Star epithet he gave himself like!!!!

Like, it's the little things, like the lapis roof, the stars - including Sirius!, the most important one bc its rising heralds the flood of the Nile and the new year - on the ceiling in the bedroom, the statue room and the way he built those five statues to represent aspects of himself (I cannot stress enough how much I adored those statues), allll the little tunnels and sekrit passageways, and the cartouche on the wall with his name in SGA and using SGA in the museum room, the treasure room with its traps, and the tomb of the Pharaoh himself. Like. It was such a perfect blend of Cub and Egyptian stuff. 10/10. I can find no faults. Although I do want to go back and finish the oasis room at some point. Make it a healing pool room with a shrine or two in it. Something like that.

Like, I had my doubts, but I trusted Cub and his process, and I was right to do so. It cemented Cub as my favourite Hermit at that point, bc he took my special interest and did it justice. And that's why I'm Very Normal about Pharaoh Cub.

But there are also other aspects too! Pyramids were designed to be tombs, and that's where the Pharaoh was left to rest at the end of s7. Which seems very appropriate, given where Hermitcraft went after that.

The reason I fixate so much on this is that there's this Egyptian underworld book called the Book of Caverns, that describes the King's journey through the underworld. It's not as well-known as the Book of the Dead, but the reason I keep coming back to it is because of Cub's canyon in s8. Where he built everything in little caverns in the canyon itself. And with the change of skin to young Cub, my brain just cannot let go of the idea of s8 being Pharaoh Cub's journey through the underworld, culminating with the final battle against the serpent we do not name so we do not give it power (a/p/o/p/h/i/s) that is here manifested in s8 as Moon Big. It's not a perfect metaphor, and I won't pretend it is. Especially bc while Cub escapes, the world is destroyed, and that's not necessarily accurate. But! He still escapes! He uses all his knowledge and resources that he's gained through his journey through the underworld to escape. To rise again in s9 as the new sun.

AND AND AND the fact that in s9 PHARAOH CUB DID ACTUALLY RETURN. Only now, we have the Pharaoh as a distinct entity. A divine akh/ancestor, a master magician, one who is clever and wiley like Thoth and who loves playing games and playing pranks. (Thoth is a trickster, and a very smart one.) And to have the distinction between Pharaoh Cub, who is a god, and mortal Cub, who is just Cub, like.

(Cub and his possession kink is also a whole 'nuther essay frfr)

That distinction makes sense in an Egyptian theological framework. Once the Pharaoh dies, they become divine akhu/ancestors. Very few were Actually Deified in a way we would recognise, but Cub is still not wrong when he calls the Pharaoh a god. The Pharaoh was a conduit between the people and the gods. He acted as the only high priest of the religion. He became King by hosting the Kingly Ka, the divine soul of Horus that legitimises their rule. This Ka/soul, has been with every king before it, and all the kings are attached/accessed through it. Kings live forever, after all. My own personal religious work has involved various Kings and Queens and working with them. (Not the most famous ones, tho, it's mostly the Sobek ones bc I worship Sobek first and foremost.)(Sobek being a crocodile god, a strong protector, and a god who was incorporated in Horus at one stage and gained Kingship attributes from that.)

And so it makes so much sense for the Pharaoh to be a separate entity now. The old man died, bc Cub is mortal, and ba/eternal soul of Cub was reborn into a new, younger body, with a whole new ka. Everyone has a ka, it is the soul that belongs to a particular lifetime and is the one that goes through judgement after death. The ba is eternal, and can have many kau/souls throughout its existence.

And bc the Pharaoh has died and become an akh, he can be contacted and manifest in the world again through the mortal Cub. The fact that Cub never actually changed the Pharaoh skin to reflect his younger self? It still has the old man's face? Like. This helps the distinction work. They're two different souls. This is theologically sound. And honestly I never imagined the Pharaoh lore would get to that point. But here we are, in s9, and we have the Pharaoh and mortal Cub, and I am Just So Normal about this bc I thought I'd missed my chance at Pharaoh Cub bc I only started watching in s8. BUT NO. s9 came along and is like, would you like some more Pharaoh Cub? and it's eating my brain like. oh my gods.

And also like, the Vex Magic Grimoire I've been working on? Canonically (to me), it's being written by Pharaoh Cub. Once the ConVex and ConCorp shenanigans settled down, and Cub had space to really focus on his magic, that's when he starts working on the grimoire. bc almost all Pharaohs were also master magicians. They had to be! It was part of their work as high priest and conduit for the gods. So Cub has Pharaoh magic on top of Vex magic, and in working through his new powers, decides to start recording down all he knows about Vex magic. Scar does some as well, but it is intended to be mostly Cub.

(I have an ask I STILL have not got around to about the Pharaoh's magic, and I will save a longer discussion for that there. I will get to it, I promise, anon! It's just taken a while to get my thoughts in order. <3)

It's like, in Pharaoh Cub, I can combine my love of writing about Egyptian things with my current hyperfixation on Cub, and it's so much fun omg. Cub doesn't do deep lore the way someone like Sausage does (again, whole 'nuther essay lol), but there's enough there to make a really good story, and build up these aspects of his character and make a really coherent story out of it.

And with Pharaoh Cub, I can explore all kinds of things that maybe don't work with other characters. Like death! In a way that doesn't really happen in minecraft bc players just respawn. Permanent death is something I've really only encountered on Empires, not Hermitcraft. But with the Pharaoh dying and being laid to rest in his pyramid? Like. That's something to work with. There's lore there to explore. Old Man Cub coming to terms with dying and what happens afterwards. and bc like. idk if anyone has actually ever written Old Man Cub as an actual Old Man. But as someone who's approaching 40, and has their own chronic pain stuff to deal with, like? Maybe I see it differently. Maybe I want to approach Old Man Cub as an old man. And maybe the Old Man dying as Pharaoh, and being reborn into a younger body is one way to do that.

Sure, it may not be the most popular fics for ppl. Maybe ppl are more interested in my other works. But I don't care. It's all my special interests in one place and I'm having the time of my life. :D

Even if I STILL don't know what to do with the journey through the afterlife!s8 caverns idea. Maybe one day I will find the right spark to do that idea justice. <3

[lordsothofsithicus]

Touch of Death Review

Hey all, I found a review I wrote of the 2nd edition Ravenloft adventure, Touch of Death. Warning, it's pretty long

First, the cover.  A Boris Karloff-looking mummy looms in front of a backdrop of cracked and aged hieroglyphics, superimposed in front is a swooning woman scantily-clad in a style evocative of the Rom, except she’s blond and blue-eyed.

This cover grabs the eye, but is really old-fashioned.  It also doesn’t really evoke the plot.  Not that I think that’s necessary.  A cover-artist’s job is to get your attention.  In this case, I think it succeeded… but also that this cover has really gone out of style.  Still, it’s a reminder that the story is the story, but it’s the cover that puts the butts in the proverbial seats.

The story begins with your PCs helping a group of Vistani (Rom-analogues, who have recently returned to D&D with much revision because the old depictions of them were spectacularly racist) whose wagon threw a wheel.  The group’s young matriarch, a Vistani girl named Dulcimae, asks the players for their help.  This is unusual for the older Ravenloft stuff in that the Vistani, while suspicious of the party, aren’t malevolent or sinister - they just need help sorting out their wagon.  The opening of the adventure is contingent on the PCs helping the Vistani and doesn’t offer alternative paths, but then again D&D isn’t the game of not helping people who are in a tight spot.  In exchange for the players’ help, Dulcimae offers to lead them out of the Domains of Dread.

Needless to say this adventure isn’t about leaving the Domains of Dread with a group of Vistani after you help them fix their wagon.  Though I think that there’d be a sort of poetry to that especially if players had been there for awhile.  There’d probably be some indignant sputtering.  Someone would say “That’s it?  That’s all we had to do?” 

After that your friends wouldn’t talk to you anymore, but you’d have won a moral victory.

The Mists of Ravenloft have other plans, and they divert your fly Vistani ride into the sandy hellhole of Har’Akir.  No, really, 2nd Edition Har’Akir sucked.  You’d be happier in one of the domains full of vampires.  You pass into Har’Akir bounded on one side by a sheer cliff with a searing wall of heat to your back and a crappy little mud-brick village up ahead.  The description of Har’Akir given by the module reads:  “The domain is a very simple place. There are two roads, a village with a spring, a canyon ridden cliff, and a lot of sun and sand.”

It specifically says that if you yell at Dulcimae about this, she’ll cry.

It goes on to describe how miserable life in Har’Akir is, and how there’s almost no food to be had and that the people of Mudar don’t die because the waters of the oasis sustain them.  Life must be awful if you have Water Plus and everything still sucks.  Presumably if they try to dig an irrigation ditch and grow a garden the Darklord loses his cookies and smashes it.

Also is the name of the village Mudar or Muhar?  Even the adventure can’t keep track - in the text it’s Mudar, on the map it’s Muhar.  

There’s more here, mostly to drive home the point of how hard-up the people of Mudar/Muhar are and how at the mercy they are of… well, everything.  The desert, monsters, you name it.  They even provide you with an NPC, an orphan boy named Abu who’s so desperate to leave the desert hellhole that he attaches himself to the party as a hireling… are they still a hireling if you don’t need to pay for them?  They also provide another hireling, one capable of reading the Akirran hieroglyphics, but honestly his prices are pretty ridiculous.  5 GP a day and a 100 GP rider to enter the final dungeon.  If your PCs are a bunch of min-maxing fools then they best pay up because the Wizard never bothered to pick up Comprehend Languages and Har’Akirrans use a Hieroglyphic alphabet.  “You can’t use that in a fight!  It’s stupid!”  Haha, guess you’re paying 5 gold a day so you’re not stuck in Hell’s Sandbox forever, shoulda thought of that, Fireballs McLightningbolt!  Better not let this guy die!

Actually, progressing through Touch of Death doesn’t require you to bring either hireling along.  The most they do is translate flavor text for the party.  Which is another thing wrong with this module.

After this misery breakdown, the module introduces the plot, which starts with people going missing from Mudar/Muhar every few nights, with the villagers occasionally finding a withered corpse.  It talks about the domain’s darklord and how the people view him (...not well, considering their circumstances).  The only light in this forsaken place is Muhar/Mudar’s temple and its benevolent high priestess.

A slight digression here, the plot of Touch of Death kicks off with an introduction that in part says “This module is partially event driven which means that certain events take place regardless of where the PCs are or what they are doing.”  This is a big red flag, because it means that the plot of the adventure is on rails, and isn’t reactive to what the player characters are doing.  This means that they’re not integrated into the arc of the story, which can lead to disenfranchisement if the DM doesn’t fix it.  A DM should have to make adjustments, but they shouldn’t have to fix anything in an adventure to make it work.

These fixed plot points occur night-by-night.  Each one is assumed to happen as written, and isn’t reactive to the actions of the players in any meaningful way.  As indicated, their presence isn’t even required for half of them.  Great.

After this, there are spoilers.  I’ve tried to keep them to a minimum, but you’ve been warned.

Day/Night 1:  The cool part of Night 1 is the introduction of the Desert Zombie, a Fast Zombie variant on the ol’ shambler with the ability to erupt out of the sand and ambush the unwary.  They also have the ability to rapidly burrow through sand as if swimming, but that’s stupid when they can just lie in wait.  It’s not like they have anywhere else to be.

On the first night, the party is supposed to get their first look at the Big Bad and fight a pitched battle with a small horde of Desert Zombies, who kill and drag off as many of the Vistani as they can catch (but explicitly not Dulcimae, who hides).  

Day/Night 2: This starts off with Dulcimae doing a Tarokka (that’s a fictional Tarot analogue used by the Vistani) reading for the party.  It’s kind of cool that this is meant to be interactive, though the adventure is written as if you’ll just use a deck of Bicycle cards instead of the deck that came with the Red Box… yes, I remember.  The downside of this is that there’s almost no flexibility to the reading, you just keep pulling cards until the ones indicated come up, all others are “false readings.”

Honestly you’re better off just narrating the fortune-telling, in my opinion.

The next night, the Big Bad comes back with more zombies, including any of the Vistani they managed to drag off on night one.  This is once again a fight on rails, since no matter what the PCs do the zombies drag off Dulcimae and kill the rest of the Vistani.

This is by far the most frustrating part of this adventure, and also the part where it most shows its age.  But I’ll elaborate on that in a little bit.

Day/Night Three: On day three, the Big Bad frames the PCs as being involved in the murders… even though they started before the party got to Mudar/Muhar and… this is just super frustrating.  What is the point of Day Three?  The party gets shut out by the village, which is annoying but to… what effect?  There’s nothing they need there, Mudar/Muhar is a toilet that doesn’t even have a place to resupply.  If you need water you have a whole oasis you can draw it from while glaring daggers at the Mudar/Muharites.  If the PCs weren’t present for what happened to the Vistani on Night 2 they don’t get framed, they don’t get shut out by the villagers… and this has absolutely no bearing on the rest of the plot.

On night three, a Force Ghost of Dulcimae shows up, frantically pointing the PCs at the temple.  Instead of slowly dropping hints to the party that all is not as it seems, sinister revelations and creeping fear, the party gets a ghost, frantically waving and pointing.  K.

Inside, the benevolent high priestess is caught red-handed.  Literally red-handed, since she just finished making a human sacrifice out of Dulcimae.  There’s a fight (naturally) which can end a couple of different ways (and the way the priestess tries to outfox the PCs is actually quite clever and very Egyptian), but however it ends Day/Night 4 is pretty well fixed.

Day/Night Four: The villagers are angry that the PCs killed the Benevolent Priestess (even if they didn’t pull it off) and try to lynch the party.  The text says they won’t disperse until the PCs kill at least three of them, and that the lynch mob will come after the party every day until the adventure concludes.  This is incredibly frustrating, as it leaves no room for player cleverness or persuasiveness, and is basically just railroading the players into a Dark Powers Check because they did Something Bad.  Bad PCs, bad!  Don’t *bap* kill *bap* peasants! *bap*  Even if the adventure makes you!  *bap*

On Night Four, the Big Bad decides the PCs have to go, and sends Mummy Dulcimae after them at the head of a troop of Teriyaki-flavored Desert Zombies.  Once again, the outcome of this encounter is largely on rails.  There are some minor variables but the overall outcome is fixed.

Day/Night Five: There isn’t even an entry for Day Five, so just assume the PCs have to beat down the angry mob I guess.

On Night Five, the Big Bad comes to mess with the PCs himself, along with Mumcimae and every other NPC that got Railroaded to death in the course of the adventure.  There isn’t really a point to this, and the encounter basically stipulates that the Big Bad beats the crap out of the party (knowing his 2E stats, it’s highly likely at the suggested PC level) until another NPC who has no further bearing on the adventure shows up, and the Big Bad runs off rather than confront them.  PCs aren’t given the slightest clue who this NPC is or why the antagonist would retreat rather than fight them.

Day/Night Six: The PCs murder a horde of 30-40 Mudar/Muharites during their daily confrontation with the angry mob.  Like you do.  Everyone remembers that fun D&D battle they had with a horde of 40 angry level 0 townsfolk.  So fun, right?  ...Right?

On Night Six, it’s assumed that the players head out to the module-concluding dungeon, ifi they haven’t already.  Despite the previous encounters offering no clue that the PCs should go there outside of the card reading.

So overall my review of these encounters is… not good.  If you run these as written without disguising that they’re on rails really well I could easily see players getting frustrated and losing their investment in the adventure.  Instead of slowly reeling them in with clues that all is not well in the land of Sand and Misery and Zombie Jerky, the adventure just drops a ‘GO HERE’ on the party… but there’s no payoff, because they can’t save the NPC in whom they’re presumably emotionally invested (even though all Dulcimae does in the adventure is cry if people are mean to her, give a card reading, hide, swoon, and faint).  

What happens to Dulcimae is a legitimately bad example of Fridging, and if you want to run Touch of Death I’d strongly advise you to fix it - you should probably dramatically change the way she behaves, and give your players an opportunity to rescue her if they can figure out where she’s been taken in time.

There are other examples of fridging in this adventure, since other NPCs the party is supposed to get attached to like Abu the Orphan Boy are also supposed to be killed and thrown back at the PCs as monsters.  I understand that character death generates horror for the PCs and your players, but I posit that there are better ways to do it than the options Touch of Death lays out for you.

If you don’t know what Fridging is (you probably do but I try not to assume), it’s when a character, almost always a woman (but I also extend it to children and animals. I do believe it’s possible to Fridge a male character, it’s just done to women in fiction much more often), exists as a character only to die horribly so that their death can give pathos and drama to someone else’s story.

After Six Days and Nights in sunny Har’Akir, the module goes into the layout of the dungeons the PCs will visit during the module, the Temple of Mudar/Muhar and Pharoah’s Rest.  A lot of the things contained in these dungeons are interesting and add weight and mystery to the adventure, but the encounters as given don’t sync up with them as well as they should.  The PCs are pointed toward the Temple by a proverbial blinking sign and toward Pharoah’s Rest by dint of having no place else to go.

The way the adventure ultimately resolves… to be frank, the module doesn’t do a good job of playing up the drama of it, but it’s the best part of the adventure IF you pad it out and dress it up right.  If you played the old SSI computer game The Stone Prophet, they used a version of Touch of Death’s ending to wrap up the game, but made you sweat for it.

Final Review: Touch of Death is one of the adventures that’s part of Hyskosa’s Hexad, AKA the Grand Conjunction adventure series, which is one of D&D’s classic adventure lines… except Touch of Death is quite frankly not very good.  If there’s one thing that’s absolutely true about running an RPG, it’s that you keep the sitting around waiting for something to happen to a minimum and even if you have a path the story should broadly follow, you create options for variability of outcome or unorthodox solutions to encounters.

Those don’t exist in this adventure.  There’s no dawning dread and very little mystery.  The villains’ motivations aren’t well-defined even in the narrative (they have a plan, but the method for achieving their goal is… highly dubious) and the Darklord of Har’Akir, the looming presence of whom should overshadow the whole adventure even for the villains, building up to when the PCs finally meet them… is barely touched on.  Even an important point of order between the two principal villains is there in their DM-facing write ups but isn’t made relevant in the adventure itself.  PCs aren’t given a way to find out about it, let alone capitalize on it.

If I had to summarize this adventure in one word, that word would be frustrating.  This is a frustrating adventure module not because it’s difficult, but because it’s completely on rails and the scenery facing the players isn’t even that compelling.  There’s a story here though - and that story is The Stone Prophet, which is built out from this adventure and is canonically a sequel to it.  It assumes that the adventurers from Touch of Death lose.

1995’s The Stone Prophet computer game took the basic premise of Touch of Death, expanded it out and built it into a real campaign, one with vibrant NPCs (by early-mid 90s D&D computer game standards), a fun plot, a lot of mystery and satisfying resolutions.  And with no fridging in it.

Edit to add: While it’s not explicitly detailed in Stone Prophet’s story, if you play or read this adventure and then play that game, the circumstances of some of the characters allude to it being set after Touch of Death.  But that doesn’t change the fact that the computer game realized the potential of the best things about this adventure better than Touch of Death itself did.

If you’ve read the new description of Har’Akir in Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft, they spruced this domain up a lot.  They made Mudar/Muhar (now officially called Muhar) ten times larger (it literally went from a sun-baked collection of hovels clinging to the edge of an oasis to a city of 3,000 on the edge of a lake) and just by filling out the map of the domain created a bunch of story seeds and adventuring hooks where before there were… not a lot.

But having said that, Touch of Death is not a good candidate to be reclaimed as an adventure for 5E, above and beyond compensating for the 5E rewrites to the Har’Akir domain.

I keep comparing Touch of Death to The Stone Prophet for a reason, and that reason is that Stone Prophet is the adventure Touch of Death should have been.  If you’re interested in Har’Akir for your 5E adventures and want to explore an older version of the setting for ideas, you’re better off reading a plot synopsis of Stone Prophet or just getting your retro on and playing it, you can buy it as part of a bundle with Strahd’s Possession at gog.com for ten bucks.  See what D&D computer games were like during the pre-Baldur’s Gate forgotten age!

The guy who wrote this adventure, Bruce Nesmith, wrote a lot of other stuff for TSR when he was their Creative Director, and a lot of his work is better than Touch of Death in concept and execution, though there are some common flaws in execution throughout his adventures that are really at their worst in this module.  An adventure I’ll be reviewing soon, The Created, is arguably Nesmith at both his best and his worst at the exact same time.  

Nesmith later moved on to work for Bethesda and was the lead designer for Skyrim, and honestly adventures like Touch of Death aren’t all that different from grubbing around for shit somebody dropped in the back of a cave full of monsters.  Why’d they drop it there?  Does my going after it have any effect on the outcome of events?  Shrug. Final Thought:

I decided not to do star ratings or thumbs-up/thumbs-down because I don’t usually find those ratings helpful, unless a Mark Millar or Zack Snyder joint pops up on Netflix and then you better believe I’m hammering that thumbs-down as hard as I can.  In this case, my final thought is that when this adventure was published in 1991 it cost $6.95.  That’d be $13.99 in 2021 dollars (when I wrote this review), rounding up to the nearest common US price point.  I don’t think this is a fourteen-dollar adventure.

[augustbog]

Got bored, so Magnus Chase characters as lyrics from the Oh Hellos:

Magnus - In the end, all I hope for is to be a bit of warmth for you, when there's not a lot of warmth left to go around. (Boreas)

Samirah - Isn't that what it's all about? The slow trickling thaw that sets the banks in half, the sweet melody it makes when the canyons crack. I wanna give it all I've got and I want nothing, I want nothing back. (Theseus)

Alex - And the shape that you drew may change beneath a different light, and everything you thought you knew will fall apart, but you'll be alright. (Constellations)

Hearthstone - I feel it in my soul, I feel the empty hole, the cup that can't be filled. And I feel it in my blood, in the fire and the flood, the piece that can't be killed. (Bitter Water)

Blitzen - A thunderous disturbance, and for every action, a reaction. And the rush will take you away, like you're caught in the undertow, and you will drown in the wake of the things you lost to the winds of Notos. (Notos)

TJ - What's true is like a sickle, it'll cut you to the middle, your rose is without a thorn. But no, my mouth don't taste of metal from the pot here to the kettle. I think we got a lot we gotta learn. (Rose)

Halfborn - 'Cause I've seen the line of ocean and shore, the tumbling tide of water and soil, and I've seen the day's fading begin the gradient wake of the sun that spins around again. (Hieroglyphs)

Mallory - Where I go, will you still follow? Will you leave your shaded hollow? Will you greet the daylight looming, learning to love without consuming? (Thus Always to Tyrants)

[colorsinautumn]

Hey Jordan! I’m travelling to Arizona for opening night and am staying a few extra days to explore phoenix + driving the grand canyon and petrified forest. Do you have any must-see hiking recommendations for these areas?

Hike Hieroglyphs Trail out on the Superstitions! Very easy about 3 miles out and back! STOP IN SEDONA! PLEASE! She’s one of the most beautiful places in the world with stunning scenery you can see effortlessly! Check out Flagstaff and the Snowbowl too! As for a good Sedona hike, check out Bell Rock trail and check out Crescent Moon Ranch in Sedona!

[whitepolaris]

Weirdness Abounds at Mount Shasta

No place in America is the subject of as many occult legends and stories as the majestic snow-capped dormant volcano called Mount Shasta. Rising 14,162 feet above sea level in the Cascades and visible for over one hundred miles in the magnificent north of the state, the mountain has been famed in folklore and meta-physical speculations for centuries. 

Shasta’s story ties in disparate elements including white-robed phantoms, the fabled Lost Continent of Lemuria, underground cities, gold-bedecked tombs, and a host of the most colorful dreamers, holy men, and prophets this side of Tibet. 

The Shasta mythos begins, appropriately enough, in Indian times. Hopi legend says a race of Lizard People built thirteen underground cities along the Pacific Coast region thousands of years ago. One of these settlements was supposed to be beneath Shasta. The Lizard People might have survived into modern times; in 1972, a San Jose resident hiking on the mountain swore he saw a “reptilian” humanoid in shirt and trousers walking along the slopes. 

The Siskiyou and Miwok nations, who considered the mountain holy, had a legend about an invisible race of beings who dwelt there. The natives were so afraid of offending these spirits that it was taboo to climb the mountain above the timberline. One old Indian told of show, when his father had approached the forbidden zone, he had suddenly heard “the laughter of children” echoing across the deserted slopes. 

The Lost Continent of Lemuria

When whites arrived in the region, they began to create their own legends about the strange peak. One came from Frederick Spencer Oliver, a teenager who lived just south of Shasta. Oliver spent most of 1883 and 1884 dictating a book whose contents he claimed he received from an entity that called itself Phylos the Tibetan. Titled Dweller on Two Planets, the book was first published in 1886 and is still in print, a classic of what is now called “channeled” material. 

Dweller is largely about Phylos’s life on the continent of Lemuria, the Pacific’s equivalent to the lost continent of Atlantis. Lemuria is a favorite subject of occult writers, who claim the continent once housed a highly advanced civilization. A massive cataclysm, around 12,500 B.C. destroyed the Lemurian world, they say, and the land sunk beneath the Pacific Ocean. However, some Lemurians sages escaped the disaster. They burrowed into tunnels and secretly lived on into modern times. 

Phylos has been through several lives in both Lemuria and Atlantis, as well as in more recent times. In one account, he revealed a strange secret about Mount Shasta. 

Incarnated as Walter Pierson, a California gold miner, Phylos was reintroduced to his mystic heritage by Quong, a shadowy Chinese man. Quong took him to one of Shasta’s canyons, where a hidden tunnel led to the secret meeting hall of the mysterious Lothinian Brotherhood deep within the mountain. Marveling at the vision of this hidden temple, Phylos described “the walls, polished as if by jewelers, though excavated as by giants . . . ledges . . .  exhibiting veining of gold, of silver, of green copper ores, and maculations of precious stones . . . a refuge whereof those who ‘Seeing, see not,’ can truly say: ‘And no man knows . . ./’And no man saw it e’er.’”

But one man did know and claimed to have seen the secret tunnel. The man was J.C. Brown, a prospector for the British Lord Cowdray Mining Company.

Brown was prospecting near Mount Shasta in 1904 when he came upon a partly caved-in tunnel in a mountainside. After clearing the opening, he found himself standing in a long, narrow room whose walls were lined with tempered copper and decorated with shields and wall pieces. Exploring farther, Brown found more rooms filled with gold and copper treasure, much of it covered with strange, undecipherable hieroglyphics. The rooms’ floors were littered with enormous human bones, the remains of a race of giants. 

This already unlikely story takes an even more unlikely turn. Instead of carting off any of this amazing treasure, Brown quietly returned to civilization and kept the find a secret. Little was heard of him for thirty years. Later on, it was found out that he spent these years studying legends about Lemuria and the occult history of western America. Brown was especially interested in Los Gigantes, a legendary race of giants who had inhabited prehistoric North America. 

The old prospector eventually surfaced in Stockton, thirty years after his adventures in the Cascade Mountains. Then seventy-nine and living off an unexplained private income, he joined forces with John C. Root, a retired printer and student of the occult. Root was fascinated with Brown’s tale, and the two men organized an eighty-man expedition to search for the lost tunnel. On the eve of the expedition’s departure, the explorers assembled at Root’s house, and Brown told them that he would have a “surprise” for them the next morning. And surprised they were when Brown failed to show up the following day. He was never seen or heard from again. 

Police investigating the disappearance were puzzled by Brown’s complete lack of motive for flying the coop. He’d never taken a cent from the explorers, and had always seemed totally sincere in his desire to relocate the tunnel and its fabulous relics. The case remains unsolved, and the tunnel, if it exists outside of Brown’s imagination, was never found. 

[worldtouradvicetravel]

Egypt Jordan Tour

Egypt Jordan Tour

Embark on a captivating Egypt and Jordan tour that combines two of the most historically rich and visually stunning regions in the Middle East. Your adventure begins in Cairo, where you'll be awestruck by the grandeur of the Pyramids of Giza and the enigmatic Sphinx. This iconic introduction to ancient Egypt is complemented by a visit to the Egyptian Museum, where you can marvel at the treasures of Tutankhamun and other artifacts from Egypt’s storied past. Luxuriate in the vibrant atmosphere of Cairo before setting off on a journey that will take you deeper into Egypt's rich history.

Next, set sail on a luxurious Nile River cruise, where you'll experience Egypt from a unique perspective. As you glide through the heart of the country, you’ll visit the remarkable temples of Luxor and Karnak, with their towering columns and intricate hieroglyphics. The cruise provides a comfortable and elegant way to explore these ancient marvels, while also offering opportunities to relax onboard and enjoy exquisite dining. Each day brings a new adventure, from exploring the Valley of the Kings to marveling at the beautiful temples of Edfu and Kom Ombo.

After your Egyptian adventure, cross into Jordan, where the magic of Petra awaits. This UNESCO World Heritage Site, often referred to as the "Rose City," offers a mesmerizing journey through narrow canyons to the awe-inspiring Treasury, carved into the red rock centuries ago. A guided tour ensures you gain insight into the fascinating history and architecture of this ancient city, while the experience of walking through its majestic streets will leave you spellbound. 

Your journey continues with a visit to the stunning desert landscape of Wadi Rum. Here, you’ll experience the dramatic beauty of the red sand dunes and towering rock formations. Staying in a luxurious desert camp, you’ll enjoy a blend of adventure and comfort, with opportunities for guided jeep tours, camel rides, and stargazing in one of the most serene environments on Earth. 

Conclude your tour with a relaxing stay at the Dead Sea, where you can float effortlessly in its mineral-rich waters and indulge in rejuvenating spa treatments. This final leg of your journey offers a tranquil end to your exploration of Egypt and Jordan, allowing you to reflect on the extraordinary experiences you’ve had. From the ancient wonders of the pyramids to the breathtaking landscapes of Petra and Wadi Rum, this tour provides an unforgettable blend of history, culture, and natural beauty.

Egypt Jordan Tours, Tour Package in Egypt and Joran, Enjoy a unique comfortable way to explore Egypt treasures, Then follow the pharaohs footsteps in Pyramids, Luxor  and Aswan, the Nabattean footsteps in Petra, great places to visit in Midle east, holiday including Nile cruise tours , historical places, spiritual holy places in Egypt and Jordan, Book tours now get discounts with World Tour Advice

Itinerary

Egypt and Jordan Tours Day 1 Arrival to Cairo - Egypt Tours Wow, Now You are in Egypt, Relax, World Tour Advice tourism responsible will follow your flight status, he will carry a personalized sign with your name to enable you to recognize him easily, You are a VIP tourist for us so, All what the discerning tourist would wish, sit back and relax with drink in hand while your chauffeur and our tour manager look after your all requirement, Now Enjoy Cairo city scenery and bustling streets in comfort from Cairo airport to your hotel in Cairo

Overnight in Cairo

Egypt and Jordan Tours and Travel Package Day 2 Giza, Saqqara , Memphis Tours - Egypt Tours Bon appetit , Enjoy your delicious breakfast meal at the restaurant of your hotel in Cairo, then prepare yourself to travel in the history and to meet the souls of ancient pharaohs during tours to the pyramids of Giza, Saqqara and Memphis, Your private tour guide will be ready to answer all your questions about Ancient Egypt history and monuments, he is private qualified tour guide, studied Egyptology, Your first day wll be great tour in the desert to see the three pyramids of Giza, the Sphinx and the valley temple, then proceed tour to the step pyramid in Saqqara, visit Teti pyramid, the mastaba of Kagemni, then drive to Memphis, the first capital of all Egypt which was built by king Narmer Mena about 5000 years ago, Now you will see only ruins of the city, few statues were collected in an opened museum, the most famous statues to see in Memphis are the statue of Ramssess II and the alabaster Sphinx Lunch meal will be served at a restaurant of good quality, Return to hotel Overnight in Cairo

Egypt and Jordan Tours and Travel Package Day 3 Cairo City Tours, Train to Aswan Enjoy your breakfast in hotel, meet your tour guide who will accompany you in a tour to the most famous museum in Cairo, it is the Egyptian museum in Tahrir square, where are exhibited thousands and thousands of ancient Egyptian pieces, enjoy a guided tour among kings and queens statues, your guide will tell you the most important stories about them, he will help you to understand the history of more than 7000 years in a very easy way, he will teach how to write and read few letters in the ancient language of Ancient Egypt, You will be surprised by visiting King Tut Ankh Amon gallery where You will see the golden mask, the golden coffins and the big shrines of gilded wood, and more other things, After the tour to the Egyptian museum your tour guide will take you in a tour to Old Cairo, visit the hanging church, the crypt of the holy family and Ibn Ezra synagogue, Enjoy your lunch meal at a local restaurant of good quality, proceed tour too Islamic Cairo, visit the mosque of Sultan Hassan, free time for photos from the citadel square to Mohammed Ali mosque, transfer to Giza rail station, take the sleeping train to Aswan Dinner included in the train Overnight in train

Egypt and Jordan Tour and Travel Package Day 4 Arrival Aswan - Abu Simbel Tours Enjoy your breakfast in train, World Tour Advice representative will meet you upon your arrival to Aswan trian station, then direct transfer to Abu Simbel temples, Abu Simbel  village is lying 280 km south of Aswan and only 40 km north of the Sudanese border, and it was chosen by Ramsses II to build his great temple, the big temple is dedicated for himself and the small Abu Simbel temple which is dedicated to his wife Nefertari, after visiting the 2 temples, back to Aswan, lunch meal, transfer to your hotel in Aswan Overnight in Aswan

Egypt and Jordan Tour and Travel Package Day 5 Egypt Nile Cruise - Aswan sightseeing tours Enjoy your breakfast in hotel, meet your tour guide, start tours in the city of Aswan, meet your tour guide who will take you in a tour to discover the best things to see and visit in Aswan ( The unfinished obelisk, the high dam, Philae temple ), Lunch meal, Then the walking tour in Aswan market ( Souq ), then transfer to your Nile cruise to check in, Experience the very best of Egypt in comfort and style on a Nile cruise, stopping at popular sites such as Aswan, Luxor, Kom Ombo and Edfu, Free time for leisure, Meander through the busy markets of Aswan, Aswan name means markets , and one time it was the main market in Africa, The famous street where is located the main market is called Sharih El Souq,  experience the ubiquitous waves of travelers bartering for trinkets & souvenirs to give them as gifts for their relatives and friends when they go home,You will be surprised when You arrive to the northern end of Aswan market, Stumble upon a colourful selection of local products, fruits, vegetables, nuts, henne, flowers of hibiscus which is used by Egyptian to make the traditinal juice of Karkadeh, Back to your Nile cruise ship Overnight in Aswan On board Nile Cruise

Egypt and Jordan Tour and Travel Package Day 6 Sailing From Aswan to Kom Ombo & Edfu - Egypt Nile Tours Enjoy your breakfast in Aswan, sailing from Aswan to Kom Ombo,Finish the day with a relaxing time in your Nile cruise down the River Nile, taking in the beautiful sights and sounds of the surrounding land visit , arrival to Kom Ombo,the temple devided between the 2 gods, god of evil and god of good, back to cruise, sail to Edfu, transfer by horse carriage to Edfu temple,visit Edfu temple which was dedicate to the god Haoereis, a form of god Horus ( represented as a falcon symbol of protection ) , free time for the traditional market in Edfu, return to cruise Overnight in Edfu

Egypt and Jordan Tours and Travel Package Day 7: Luxor Nile Cruise Holiday Breakfast on board the cruise, sailing from Edfu to Luxor , satrt the guided tours to explore the hidden secrets of ancient Egyptian, your guide will help you to decipher the tombs and temples inscriptions, start the tour by Luxor West Bank of the Nile River to visit the two colossal statues of Amenhotep III (Colossi of Memnon), proceed tour to the Valley of the Kings, where the magnificent tombs of the pharaohs of New kingdom were discovered, the tombs were carved deep into the desert rock, richly decorated and colorful,and they were filled with treasures for the afterlife of the pharaohs. but all these treasures were stolen, except the treasure of the child king Tut Ankh Amon which is exhibited now in the Egyptian museum in Cairo, Visit 3 tombs in valley of kings. Continue the tour to visit the temple of queen Hatshepsut at El Deir El Bahary; this impressive temple dedicated to the Queen Hatshepsut; the Temple of Hatshepsut, Egypt’s only female pharaoh who ruled Egypt, then back to your Nile Cruise for lunch, tea and dinner on board your cruise and overnight, Optional tour to attend Sound and Light Show at Karnak Temple. Overnight in Luxor on board your Nile cruise boat.

Egypt and Jordan Tours Package Day 8: Nile Cruise Holiday, Luxor - Sharm el Sheikh An early start begins with breakfast on board your Nile Cruise ship. Be ready to discover Luxor city, Luxor city was called the city of thousands of gates  and the city of palaces because of its many huge temples with their gates and walls, Luxor is considered as the largest opened museum in the world,Head to the East Bank of the river to visit the temples of Karnak and Luxor.These incredible structures were built in honour of the Egyptian sun god Amon Ra. Take a walk through the majestic hypostyle hall with its magnificently painted pillars in Karnak temple which is the largest place of worship ever built, visit the most ancient zoo in the world in Karnak temple, the holy lake and the fabulous scarab of granite, proceed tour to Luxor temple dedicated to the goddess Mut, enjoy a tour to the papyrus institute where a local guide will explain to you how ancient Egyptian were using the plant to make paper, beds, baskets and more things from this holy ancient plant,, transfer to local restaurant of good quality in Luxor city, lunch meal, transfer to Luxor airport, fly to Sharm, upon arrival to Sharm, World tour representative will meet you and drive to Sharm El Sheikh hotel, check in. Overnight in Sharm

Egypt and Jordan Tours and Travel  Package Day 9: Sharm el Sheikh beach holiday

 Sharm El Sheikh is located on the southern part of the Sinai Peninsula. Sinai Peninsula is the only part of Egypt located in Asia, while all the rest of Egypt lands is located in Africa,Sharm El Sheikh location offer unrepeated combination of both desert and sea, Its warm, crystal clear Red sea waters are home to some of the best diving centeres and locations in all the world, and this phenomenal underwater environment along with an array of water sports and a beautiful weather is perfect for both sun and thrill seekers, incredible variety of eye-catching fishs, You can enjoy a free day for leisure, swimming and sea activities or You can enjoy our boat trips to Ras Mohammed or Tiran island, where you can diving and snorkeling  among some of the most beautiful and amazing underwater scenery, under the clear water of the Red sea, You see the most beautiful reefs. About 85 species of fauna living in Ras Mohame park, including mangroves Overnight in Sharm

Egypt and Jordan Tours and Travel Package Day 10: Sharm el Sheikh Red Sea holiday Saint Catherine’s Monastery Excursion Trip From Sharm; Saint Catherine’s Monastery, located at the mouth of a gorge at the foot of Mount Sinai in Egypt’s South Sinai Governorate. Sint Catherine monastery is Orthodox and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site., this monastery is one of the oldest working Christian monasteries in the world together with the Monastery of Saint Anthony, situated across the Red Sea in the desert south of Cairo, which also lays claim to that title. In the area around the monastery, a small town has grown, with hotels and swimming pools, called Saint Katherine City.The monastery was built at the end of Emperor Justinian I between 527 AND 565, which encloses the Chapel of the Burning Bush ordered to be built by Helena, mother of Constantine I, The site where Moses is supposed to have given the burning bush. It also referred to as "Chapel of St. Helena." The site is sacred to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Commonly known as Saint Catherine, According to tradition, Catherine of Alexandria was a Christian martyr initially sentenced to death on the wheel. However, when this failed to kill her, she was beheaded. According to tradition, angels took her remains to Mount Sinai. Around the year 800, monks from the Sinai Monastery found her remains. Though it is commonly known as Saint Catherine’s, the full, official name of the monastery is the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai, and the patronal feast day of the monastery is the Transfiguration. The relics of Saint Catherine of Alexandria were purported to have been miraculously transported there by angels and it became a favorite site of pilgrimage, You can choose one of 2 optional tours, the first tour is only half day tour to Saint Catherine monastery, start early morning and back to your hotel in Sharm at 2:00 PM, The other tour is to spend the ex night  climbing Moses mountain, spend the night on the top of the mountain,Watch the sun rise, an early morning after the sun rise go own to visit the monastery of Saint Catherine, lunch meal will be inclue either in ahab or Newibah, back to Sharm .

Egypt and Jordan Tours Package Day 11: Aqaba - Wadi Rum - Petra Early morning World Tour Advice representative will meet you at your hotel in Sharm El Sheikh, direct transfer by air-conditioned van to Taba, take the ferry boat from Taba to Aqaba port in Jordan,upon arrival to Jordan another World Tour advice Representative will assist you through immigration, driving from Aqaba port to Petra . Along the way you will stop to discover the desert  of Wadi Rum, where you can enjoy an exhilarating 4X4 ride visiting the Wadi Um most famous sites such as the traces of Lawrence of Arabia and the famous Red Mountains. Then proceed driving to the north to find the breathtaking lost rose city Petra. Overnight in Petra

Egypt and Jordan Tours Package Day 12: Petra Tours Breakfast at hotel in Petra and then you will be accompanied by a guide who speaks English to explore Petra Jordan  "The ancient Nabatean city carved into the Red Rock'' in a full day tour Crossing the Siq which is a long canyon leading directly to the treasury, you can walk or ride a horse or one of the buggies in the area, during Petra tour You will see the silica quarries, where Nabataeans may have mined silica for making water proof cement. Beyond this, on the right of the silica quarries you will see large square cut rocks that mark out the boundaries of the sacred area of Petra city. There are over 20 of these huge stone monuments around Petra, usually at entrances to the city.during the tour  in Petra You will find small tombs start appearing. These were tombs of the middle class. Those with a sharp eye however, will be able to spot an unfinished tomb, one of several in Petra. (right side of the road) The first major monument that you come to will be on the left side of the road. This is the Obelisk tomb, named after the four Indian obelisks that decorate the top of the tomb. This tomb has two stories to it. The top story houses the tomb proper, while the bottom story, decorated in a more classical style contains a traditional dining hall for Nabataean funeral ritual .obelisk tomb, many things to visit and discover in Petra, The treasury building, the colonnaded road, the theatre, tombs , markets and more, baths , after the tour, enjoy your lunch meal at a restaurant of good quality, back to your hotel in Petra for overnight.

Egypt and Jordan Tours Package Day 13: Petra - Dead Sea - Amman Start your day by early breakfast, drive to Madaba which is located about 30km from Amman, Madaba is one of the most memorable places in the Holy Land.  during the tour in Madabayou will visit St. George Church home to the Madaba Archaeological Park where you will see the famous Byzantine mosaics representing the promised land, Proceed tour to Mount Nebo, an elevated ridge on which it is believed Moses viewed the Promised Land (please note that sometimes the church at Mount Nebo is closed but it is still possible to visit the site). So sure You will visit the site , but not inside the church, Mount Nbo is a holy place because It is believed that Moses is also buried somewhere on the mountain, according to Christian and some Islamic traditions, after the tour drive to Amman Overnight in Amman

Egypt and Jordan Tours Package - Amman day tour Day 14  Amman Day Tour Enjoy early breakfast, meet your tour guide, visit Amman citadel, the Archaeological museum, city tour, back to hotel Overnight in Amman

End of Egypt and Jordan Tours and Travel Package Day 15: Amman - Final departure Enjoy your  breakfast in Amman hotel, meet World Tour advice representative, transfer to Queen Alia International Airport in Amman and back home.

For more info

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·         http://www.worldtouradvice.com

·         Mobile and what’s App:

·         002 01090023837

[yesdaveopal]

Hieroglyphic Canyon with David Guggisberg

[iamtryingtobelieve]

You drive me crazy

I drive Miss Daisy

Before I take you anywhere

If I could get your smell out of my hair

You bum me out

I have my doubts

I sleep with one eye open

A toast and here's to hoping

That she'll clutch your pearls so hard that one popped off

He grinded his teeth 'til they were soft

Parking meters and laundromats ate my coins

(They ate my coins, what will I do?)

So I can't make a wish in a well, oh well

I'll sit back might as well enjoy

(I'll sit back might as well enjoy)

The part where Jack and Jill fell

They fell

You take me on

I should be gone

The doctor told me so

The doctor from that talk show

You make me wait

I hesitate

I'll pile up my books

And change my whole outlook

He drove his car right off the cliff

She wrote 'fuck you' in hieroglyphs (Fuck you, man!)

Parking meters and laundromats ate my coins

(They ate my coins, what will I do?)

So I can't make a wish in a well, oh well

I'll sit back might as well enjoy

(I'll sit back might as well enjoy)

The part where Jack and Jill fell

They fell

Jack and Jill went up the Hollywood hills

Winding canyon roads

No turning back

An earthquake shook the city of angels

And Jack and Jill fell right through the cracks

[joshrgomez]

The fact that humans are so diverse YET! we share so many of the same culture origins and possibly it's all true and not one religion is all mighty. They dont know since it's all man made! There is a omni agreed thought that no matter where you go on Earth. You have people from different countries, lands, and surroundings believing in a God. Also some believe in a hell or bottom tier soul. Anyway, if it's proven that Egyptians have visited America and left Hieroglyphics in the Grand Canyon and in Central to South America. Even Antartica. That means we didn't come from Africa. We also see different and older artifacts in Asia. We come from somewhere that made the world more accessible. Africa used to have a jungle and looked more like Congo in North Africa to Egypt. Middle East was a prairie land with lots of hills at one time. Italy was a lot more massive since it was so easy for them to get to Africa or Saudi Arabia. We have a lot of people from different areas of the world having massive civilizations that are elite and intelligent some with war whom have excelled the most in territory and ideology. Most were "herders," so they focused on infrastructure in their own country that expanding to other territories. US doesn't invade, but makes deals and trades. They are the business men of the World. SO we need a good president who isn't an embarrassment. Anyways, lol. We don't know where we come from. The amount of information of who accessible it was between continents and each continent having old pyramids both older than 20,000 (ice age) scientist just bullshit about that. Aztecs didn't invent the pyramids.

[franklupelchiaro]

Unveiling the Past: Historical Expeditions Journeying Through Time in Fascinating Locations

Embarking on a historical expedition is like stepping into a time machine, transporting us to bygone eras where tales of conquests, discoveries, and civilizations unfold. These journeys through time not only reveal the secrets of our ancestors but also allow us to witness the evolution of cultures and civilizations. In this blog, we’ll explore some fascinating historical expeditions that take us on a captivating journey through time, unraveling mysteries and connecting us with the rich tapestry of our past.

One such expedition transports adventurers to the heart of the Egyptian desert, where the majestic pyramids stand as silent witnesses to the grandeur of the ancient world. The Great Pyramid of Giza, a marvel of engineering, continues to captivate historians and archaeologists alike. Expedition teams delve into the labyrinthine chambers, deciphering hieroglyphs and piecing together the puzzle of ancient Egyptian life. The air is thick with the scent of history as explorers uncover artifacts that whisper tales of pharaohs and the afterlife.

For those with a penchant for maritime history, a voyage to the depths of the Mediterranean offers a glimpse into the submerged city of Thonis-Heracleion. Submerged for over a millennium, this once-thriving port city reveals the remnants of temples, statues, and ships submerged beneath the waters. As divers navigate through the sunken ruins, they unearth the mysteries of a city lost to time, shedding light on the ancient trade routes that connected civilizations.

The Silk Road, a historic trade route that connected the East and West, beckons modern-day explorers to retrace the steps of ancient merchants and nomads. From the bustling markets of Xi’an to the legendary city of Samarkand, this expedition spans diverse landscapes and cultures. Travelers traverse deserts, mountains, and ancient trade routes, immersing themselves in the vibrant tapestry of traditions and exchanges that shaped the course of history.

Heading south to the rainforests of Central America, the lost city of El Mirador emerges from the dense foliage, challenging our understanding of ancient civilizations. This sprawling Mayan metropolis predates even the famous Tikal, offering a unique perspective on the rise and fall of one of history’s most enigmatic cultures. The jungle conceals massive pyramids and intricate carvings, inviting explorers to untangle the complex narrative of the Maya civilization.

Closer to home, the historic city of Petra in Jordan invites adventurers to wander through its rose-red canyons and marvel at the intricate architecture carved into the sandstone cliffs. This archaeological wonder was once a thriving trade hub, and its rock-cut structures hold the echoes of ancient footsteps.

Historical expeditions, whether through the deserts of Egypt, the depths of the Mediterranean, the Silk Road, the jungles of Central America, or the canyons of Jordan, offer a unique opportunity to witness the layers of history unfold. As we journey through time in these fascinating locations, we become not just spectators but active participants in the ongoing exploration of our shared human heritage. Each expedition unearths new discoveries, reshaping our understanding of the past and connecting us with the timeless stories that have shaped the world we inhabit today.