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antiquitiesandlabyrinths · 4 months

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Nefretiti

Neferneferuaten Nefertiti, or Nofretiti, (14th century BC; 18th dynasty, New Kingdom) is perhaps best well known for her bust, which has become world famous for its' uniqueness and craftsmanship. But Nefertiti played a role in one of the most controversial eras of Egyptian history. She is one of the most well-recorded Queens of ancient Egypt, but very little is known about her actual life besides conjecture.

Let's start with dissecting her name. Most people will divide her name up into the words Nefer and Titi; Nefer being a common word in ancient Egypt meaning beauty and goodness. In actuality, her name is divided up as neferet - iiti, more classically transliterated as Nfr.t-jy.tj. The t belongs to nefer as it is the denomination of a female pronoun in the ancient Egyptian language, and the jy.tj means coming or has come. All together, her name means The Beautiful One Has Come.

Nefertiti is indeed beautiful; she is, as mentioned earlier, one of the most depicted Queens of Egyptian history, with her image appearing on a great number of walls, in carvings and in paintings, and of course, statues. The reason for this is partly due to her marriage to the Heretic Pharaoh, Akhenaten. To understand this connection a little better, one must have some background about the Pharaoh Akhenaten.

Akhenaten and Nefertiti were married close to when Akhenaten was coronated, which was for him around the age of 16 or 18, and for Nefertiti was around the age of 12 to 16. Akhenaten is fairly well known Pharaoh. His controversial history has made sure of that, despite the fact that after he died, the following Pharaohs did everything in their power to rid Egypt of his memory by destroying his city and erasing all images of him. Akhenaten started off as Amenhotep IV––a name which connects him to the Egyptian God Amun, often associated with the sun, but representing hiddenness, and one of the highest and most powerful Gods of Egypt. The cult of Amun at the time of the New Kingdom was perhaps the most widespread cult of worship in Egypt, and the 18th dynasty, to which the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV belongs, is the first dynasty of the New Kingdom.

This was, apparently, unsatisfactory for the Pharaoh Amenhotep IV. Still, for the first 5 years of his reign, he followed Amun's cult, until he made a dramatic religious change to worship of the Aten; a new God that represented the sun disc. Aten was a faceless God, and the first mention of the word aten was in the Old Kingdom, and back then, it meant 'disc'. While Aten was worshipped as a mere aspect of Ra, the Sun God, in Amenhopte IV's father's (Amenhotep III) reign, Amenhotep IV decided that the Aten should be the primary deity worshipped. Amenhotep IV changed his name to Akhenaten, and worshipped the Aten above all else, as the nurturer of the world, the creator, and the giver of life. This would've likely been fine; however, Akhenaten decided that the Aten should be the only God worshipped, and banned the worship of all other Gods.

Ancient Egypt had been polytheistic since it's very earliest beginnings. Akhenaten essentially introduced monotheism out of nowhere and insisted all his subjects follow him in his new faith, outlawing all other worships, and forcing many priests to abandon the temples of other Gods. Additionally, ancient Egyptians were very accustomed to using an image to worship a God; the image usually being an animal, human, or an animal-headed human. But the Aten was a disc. Although the Aten had been worshipped in Amenhotep III's reign as a falcon-headed solar deity, Akhenaten insisted that the Aten be only shown as a disc with rays reaching out, with small hands on each ray.

Obviously, this caused a lot of dissent in Egypt and the following reigns.

Another interesting point of contention was the fashion in which the Aten interacted with the royal family. In the past, the Pharaoh was connected to the Gods more than any other human––he was the bridge between the two worlds, and the mediator between humanity and the Gods. This was, generally, not a task shared by the whole of the royal family. But in Atenism, the Aten would only shine its life-giving rays onto the Pharaoh and his royal wife; in this case, Akhenaten and Nefertiti. Thus the people, if they wanted to experience the life and love of the only, legally worshippable God, would have to go through the Pharaoh and his wife. This power would've likely, at least in part, been given to the royal family in order to cement their changes, and protect them from any backlash.

This massive change in culture and religion had great affects on ancient Egypt at the time. The style of ancient Egyptian art changed drastically, and the figures of the royal family were now represented as sinuous and gangly, often with large, sagging bellies and breasts, and curved, graceful facial features. Since Akhenaten and Nefertiti, as the royal family, were so important to this new religion of Atenism, the two of them were depicted in a number of scenes––many of them unique to the Amarna period, which is the name for the period in which Atenism was installed. These scenes were familial in nature; depicting the royal couple sitting with their children and bathing in Aten's life-light, throwing gifts down to the people, and engaging with one another. This is one of the main reasons that Nefertiti is the most widely-depicted Queen of Egypt. Not only is she depicted often as the wife of Akhenaten, but she is drawn in her own right––she makes offerings to the Aten on her own, and there are depictions of her smiting the enemies of Egypt, which is a role traditionally given solely to the Pharaoh.

Another piece of evidence for the high status of Nefertiti comes from this famous depiction of the royal Amarna family:

Here, Nefertiti sits on the right side, opposite her husband, Akhenaten. Akhenaten is holding up one of his children, and Nefertiti holds another two children; three of the six daughters that Nefertiti would bear for Akhenaten. The children are depicted in an almost grotesque, alien fashion, though it's not something you can really fault the artists for; it took a long time for artists across the world to realize that babies are not, in fact, just tiny humans, and that their proportions are different. Still, the style of the Amarna period is not helpful; with their large, oval heads, thin limbs, and sagging stomachs, it is difficult to imagine that anyone could be traditionally, Egyptian beautiful. Yet there is still a strange beauty to it; the sagging bellies are meant to call to mind Hapi, a God of great fertility, and the artist's ability to capture the facial features and emotions of their subject is amplified by this new and forgiving artstyle.

This image is a house altar. What that means is that people were encouraged, and evidentially did, worship the royal family in their homes, which is somewhat unprecedented. House altars were usually for Gods such as Tawaret and Bes, who were protectors of the household. But now, with traditional Egyptian religion banned, the typical house altar was now a shrine to Akhenaten and Nefertiti, and by extension, their children, which again shows the importance and power bestowed upon not just the Pharaoh, but his wife as well, as the two are represented in equal size.

Another interesting note about this particular house altar is the thrones on which Akhenaten and Nefertiti are seated. While Akhenaten's seat is mostly blank, Nefertiti is seated upon a throne reserved only for Pharaohs, the reason for this being the decorations which depict the Sema-Tawy ritual; the conjoining of the two lands.

Some time during the course of Akhenaten's reign, he decided to move the capital of Egypt to a deserted stretch of land along the Nile Valley, and called the new city Amarna, for which the period was named after. Here, the royal family took up residence, and this is where the cult center of the Aten would carry out its worship. This is also where Akhenaten royally screwed up his duties in foreign diplomacy, but that is a story for another day.

Before moving to Amarna, Nefertiti had three daughters in Thebes, the previous capital, and three more daughters in Amarna. In order, her daughter's names were Meritaten, Meketaten, and Ankhesenpaaten; then in Amarna, Neferneferuaten Tasherit, Neferneferure, and the youngest, Setepenre. It was to a lesser wife of Akhenaten's that the famous boy Pharaoh Tutankhamun was born, and originally, his name was Tutankhaten.

During his reign, when concerning Nefertiti, Akhenaten placed special attention upon her and loved her dearly, which is why she was one of the most powerful Queens of Egypt. Akhenaten described her as "possessed of charm" and "sweet of love", that "one is happy to hear her voice," and that "contents the Aten with her sweet voice". The two husband and wife were rarely depicted separately, and Akhenaten gave Nefertiti the title of 'heiress', although she was not the daughter of a King. Instead, what many scholars believe Akhenaten meant by this, was that she was to be his successor.

After Akhenaten's death, two Pharaohs ruled for a short time before Tutankhamun took over, and one of those Pharaohs is believed to have possibly been Nefertiti under the name of Neferneferuaten, which means beautiful is the beauty of the Aten. It is still debated whether this was in fact Nefertiti, but given that Nefertiti had given herself the name Neferneferuaten far before Akhenaten's death, and the elvated status gifted by her husband, it seems somewhat likely.

In essence, due to the circumstances of her life and her husband, Nefertiti was elevated to a status that never came before or after her life. Women in ancient Egypt were awarded the same rights as a man, but the wife of the Pharaoh was never depicted as equal to the Pharaoh in such a fashion, as being Pharaoh meant being the intermediary between the heavenly and the earthly, and was a special accorded honour. Nefertiti, perhaps due in part to her charisma and beauty, was given a position equal to the Pharaoh, which never happened unless it was a woman who was becoming Pharaoh. As controversial as Akhenaten's reign was, he did love his wife greatly.

I want to share my opinion on this subject a little, which is essentially to say, that I don't like Akhenaten and I don't try to hide it. His worship of the Aten is alright, but it is the banning of all other worship which rests very uneasily in me. That being said, there is a good source which goes more into detail about Nefertiti, and it is very pro-Akhenaten and anti-ancient Egyptian religion, instead glorifying the monotheism of Atenism and such. Still, it is a valuable resource; Nefertiti and Cleopatra: Queen-monarchs of Ancient Egypt, by Julia Samson, and can be found on Internet Archive here.

#nefertiti #ancient egypt #ancient history #egyptian history #egyptian queen #archaeology #egyptology

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ava-of-shenanigans · 11 months

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Egyptian pharaoh names but I’ve turned them into ancient cat names

1. Tutankhbastet (Tutankhamun)

This is the most obvious name on this list because literally all I’ve done is change out the name of one god for another god. I’m not doing that for any of the others I promise.

King Tutankhamun is the one pharaoh everybody knows about, which is ironic since his birth name literally means “the living (ankh) image (tut) of the Hidden One (Amun).” (“Tut” can also be translated as “likeness” or “statue.”)

Amun was the Egyptian god of, uh… stuff (he’s hidden. His whole deal is that he’s hidden). Bastet was the Egyptian cat goddess. Sometimes she was portrayed as a lady with a cat head, but sometimes she was just a cat. If you switch Amun’s name out for Bastet’s, it becomes “the living (ankh) image (tut) of the Cat Goddess (Bastet).” Truly, a name that only the most dignified and elegant cats deserve.

Transliteration: twt-anx-bAstt

You could also say it “Tutankhbast” if you prefer.

2. Hatmiushepsyu (Hatshepsut)

Hatshepsut’s name means “the foremost (hat) of noblewomen (shepsut),” and it turned out to be really good name for her, since she became pharaoh and all. If you want to change it to “foremost of noble cats” it becomes Hat-miu-shepsyu, “miu” meaning “cats” and shepsyu meaning “noble.”

Transliteration: HAt-miww-Spsyw

3. Nedjestiti (Nefertiti)

I am aware that calling Nefertiti a pharaoh is controversial since there’s a chance that Neferneferuaten might have been her daughter and not her. But finding names of pharaohs that you can do this to and are also popular enough to be recognized is hard so shush.

Nefertiti was supposedly the most beautiful woman in the ancient world (although we can’t confirm that because Nefertiti and all the other ancient women are now dead). Her name fits this, because it means “the beautiful one (nefert) has come (iti).”

“Nedjes” is a word meaning “small,” so changing the name to Nedjest-iti makes it mean “the small one has come.”

This is a good name, because if your cat is bad then you can use it in a derogatory sense to call them a penniless little beggar. Unfortunately, it only really works for girl cats, because the masculine version is “Nedjesiu,” which loses the pun quite a bit.

Transliteration: nDst-ii.ti

4. Miumer (Narmer)

Narmer was the first pharaoh to rule over all of Egypt, and like other early pharaohs the only name used for himself was his Horus name instead of his throne name or birth name. (You know that TS Elliot poem about how cats have a bunch of different types of names? Pharaohs are like that too). Because Narmer was his Horus name, it was written inside an enclosure called a serekh instead of a cartouche.

The name itself means something like “striking (mer) catfish (nar)” or “fierce (mer) catfish (nar).” To change it to “striking cat” or “fierce cat,” you need to change nar to miu: Miu-mer. (Yeah the English translations of this one are stronger wordplay than the Egyptian versions, sorry.)

If your cat is a girl then the name should be Miutmer instead.

Transliteration: miw-mr

5. Bitokris (Netiqerti/“Nitokris”)

Queen Nitokris was either a cunning murderess, whose name lurks in the shadows of history… or she was a 3,000 year old transcription error. The only potential record we have of her name in hieroglyphs is the name of a pharaoh called “Netiqerti” on the Turin kings list. This could be Nitokris, or it could be a mistake made by a scribe while trying to copy the name of the name of another, completely different pharaoh.

If Netiqerti is Nitokris, then her name means “Neith (Net, a goddess) is excellent (iqerti).” Bit-iqerti/Bitokris would mean “honey (bit) is excellent (iqerti).”

Transliteration: bit-iqr.ti

#Ancient egypt #egyptology #ancient languages #This list ending up having more girl pharaohs than boy pharaohs on it which is neat (even if one of them probably wasn’t real)#A lot of the famous names of male pharaohs I first thought of using are things like ‘the justice of Ra is strong’ ‘Thoth is born’#Or some other combination of god name + religious meaning #And just switching another god out for Bastet gets very repetitive so I was only willing to put one version of that on this list #And the king Tut one works the best because Tut and Bastet are both well known enough that some non-nerds will probably be able to get it #Also because ‘The living image of Bastet’ is just a great name for a cat #The Nitokris one also follows that format but I was able to think of something that wasn’t just another god without completely changing it #And I’m so proud of myself for thinking of that. Bitokris is a great name.#I put this list in order of which of the pharaohs on it are most well known. If it was in order of the best names Bitokris would be first #and Tutankhbastet would be second #Ava has thoughts #Id in alt #ancient egypt stuff #Long post

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canmom · 8 months

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The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere: 013-032

Previously: 000-012, spinoff post about entropy [all Flower posts]

Time for more flower...

youtube

...no, not that flower!

Unless...?

Welcome back to my liveblog of sorts for web novel The Flower That Bloomed Nowhere by @lurinatftbn! Shout out to the Flower discord for giving me such a kind welcome. You're making me want to go all out on this liveblog, but, I musn't...! So I'm going to try to just comment on things that jumped out as especially noteworthy rather than write down everything that went down.

Especially since... a lot happened in these chapters. We have a perfect androgyne tree thing! Magical duels! Questionable student/teacher relationships! Steamed hams! Intense political arguments at dinner! Metafictional assurance of fair play! Prosognostic events! Transgender AIs! And of course........

a murder!!!!!

...ok that one was kinda obvious. But the first body has hit the floor! I don't feel like I have nearly enough information yet to start speculating about who might have dunnit.

That's a lie. It was definitely Kinzo Ushiromiya. That bastard.

So, from the top!

We're introduced to a few of the members of the Order, with by far the most screen time going to Su's mentor and ah, kinda-girlfriend? Neferuaten. And like, damn, lot going on there!

Before I get into the meat of that - first the bit where I search a character's name on Wikipedia. Neferuaten's name is most likely a reference to an Egyptian female king/pharaoh (a rank that's apparently distinct, conceptually, from a queen) variously called Ankhkheperure-Merit-Neferkheperure, Waenre, and Aten Neferneferuaten. Most often shortened to just Neferneferuaten.

Her exact historical identity seems to be a little unclear - she may or may not be the same person as Nefertiti for example. Whoever she was, she apparently reigned for a couple of years around 1334–1332 BCE, and was then succeeded by the famous child king Tutankhamun. Or maybe Smenkhkare came in between them? Seems to be a matter of some debate. Girl really needed to leave a few more vast and trunkless legs of stone so we can figure this stuff out.

In any case, this version of Neferuaten goes way back with Su. Her introduction is to launch a magical attack on our poor girl while she's contemplating the 'everblossom'. One of those classic 'master surprise attacks the student to see how much they've learned' deals. This servers as a fine exposition for the exact mechanics of magical duels.

Zettai! Ummei! Mokushiroku!

Let's briefly note how magical duels and magic works here, since it seems like it will be very relevant later.

The more we learn about magic, the more explicit is that this system is not some natural property of the universe, but something that's designed by the mysterious Ironworkers. It seems like it's kind of an API to the Ironworker admin console. The Ironworkers wanted to make it difficult to do magic on human bodies, and therefore they designed a system for detecting what is 'human', based on three heuristics - anatomical, motion and neurological.

Humans, being the freaky little hackers that we are, of course set about figuring out how to bypass this system, and created standardised means, consisting of three spells, termed [x]-beguiling arcana. In a sense the three criteria are something like three 'hitpoints': the primary way to win a duel is to get all three spells off, thus making your opponent vulnerable to magic.

To achieve this, you can either speak the words of a spell or sign them by drawing them with your fingers - i.e. one way or the other express the appropriate string of symbols. This is risky because if you're interrupted at the wrong time, your spell can backfire and blow up, and getting a spell right requires precise pronunciation and also rapid mental maths. So the general 'gameplay' of magical duels involves attempting to disrupt the opponent's focus and aim, while fast-casting the spells that are most familiar to you.

We're introduced to a few spells that could be useful in battle, such as

Matter-Shifting (telekinesis spell with a geometric bent, used to move a cube of dirt to act as a smokescreen),

Matter-Annihilating (deletes stuff),

Entropy-Denying (essentially a shield that freezes objects and fluids in relative motion),

Air-Thrusting (creates a shockwave air blast),

Light-Warping (fucks up the light for visual cover),

World-Deafening (mutes all sound, which can interrupt casts)

Entropy-Accelerating (disrupts coherency, causing rapid aging-like effects - can be used on a 'higher plane' to disrupt all magic in an area)

Entropy-Reversing (rewinds matter along its path of motion - reference to entropy here seems a tad dubious but w/e)

It's clearly a pretty carefully thought out system - I appreciate that it's approached from the point of view of someone trying to exploit the shit out of the system and figure out what the real meta would be. It does kinda seem like if you got the drop on a wizard and shot them with a sniper rifle they'd be toast, but we'll see later that much more powerful weapons than mere chemical firearms exist in this world, and presumably in a combat situation everyone would have entropy-denying (or equivalent) shields up, so maybe that's a moot point.

Anyway, we are later informed by the closest thing to authorial voice that everything we're told here about magic can be assumed to be axiomatically true, similar to the red text in Umineko. Which pretty heavily foreshadows that this is going to be on the test, if you like!

the magical metaphysics

With apologies to Neferuaten, who will get more detailed comments shortly, there are some other big revelations about magic and the nature of this world that I should talk about while we're on the subject of magic!

In the last post I wondered whether casting magic is an innate quality or a 'skill issue' situation. It turns out the answer is sorta 'neither'. In fact, it's something that has to be unlocked, using special equipment and a particular ritual. The cost of this ritual is not yet entirely spelled out, but we definitely get an inkling. It's rather ominously implied by this exchange in chapter 22:

"We're supposed to want to save people, to make the world better. To defend a bunch of people who practically committed murder--" "You're a murderer too, dour girl." I stopped, and blinked. It took me some moments to process the words. They'd come from Lilith, who now seemed to have finished with her dessert. Now she was just slowly swirling her spoon around in the last remnants of the chocolate sludge on the plate and, occasionally, dipping a finger into her cream bowl and licking little bits of it up. Her expression was irritated, but disconnected. "All arcanists are," she said. "It's how it happens. So having fights over moral high ground like this is very stupid and annoying. Please stop."

In the same chapter, Su uses something called an 'acclimation log', in which she records her 'association' with a series of diary entries from her childhood self. It all suggests that Su's present consciousness has somehow taken over the body of another character, who we could maybe call original!Su.

A few chapters later, we find out what's the deal with prosognostic events. In fact we get a pretty extensive exposition. It turns out that iron is magical in this universe, providing access to higher dimensions, FTL and all sorts of shit. However, because the Mimikos and other worlds are running on a 'substrate' of iron - sort of like a simulation - we are told this is why they can't recursively include iron within. And since the human body includes a certain amount of iron (most notably, in the haemoglobin protein in red blood cells), it is not possible to fully realise the human body inside these artificial worlds.

a self-referential quibble

Here's how Su puts it:

A substrate cannot exist within itself. That sounds awkward when I put it so directly, but it's not too hard to understand if you think about it in abstract-- A foundation obviously can't support another foundation of equal weight and nature, because… Well, it would make nonsense of the whole premise. A book is a device for storing information, but it cannot contain within its letters everything about itself and what it contains, because that is already more than it contains. A box cannot hold another box of equal size, unless it is bent or otherwise changed. A mind cannot hold another mind…

On the face of it, this seems on the face of it... not entirely true, at least in some domains? You can run a virtual machine program on a computer, representing any particular combination of hardware and software, which is from the perspective of software 'on the inside', essentially indistinguishable from a computer running on 'bare metal' hardware. The only real difference is that operating the virtual machine has some computational overhead, so it will be slower. The more virtual machines you nest, the slower it gets.

But 'from the inside', the only way to tell which layer of virtual machine you're on would be to refer to some kind of external clock signal (which can trivially be spoofed) and notice that it's running slower than it should!

We could also mention here the subject of quines, which are programs which print their own source code.

Let's consider Su's examples. The book that completely describes its contents might be able to get around this problem in a similar fashion to a quine, by exploiting redundancy and self-reference.

For example, let's try creating a string that completely describes its own content, using a quine-style technique.

This string begins with a sentence followed by its quotation, and then 100 letter ws; the sentence is: "This string begins with a sentence followed by its quotation, and then 100 letter ws; the sentence is: " wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

In fact the '100 letter ws' could literally be the entire string that follows. Suppose the length of the 'real content' of the book is S, and the length of the rest of the 'metadata sentence' describing properties of the book is M; then the total length of the book is 2M+3S.

You can add as much additional information to the 'metadata' string as you like, provided you quote it again afterwards. If you don't like having a book be three times the length it needs to be, you could compress the 'real content' string using an algorithm like DEFLATE, and include instructions in the 'metadata' on how to decompress it. (Text tends to compress really well.) This is where we run up into notions probably all too familiar to rats, or indeed anyone who recently read Seth Dickinson's new novel Exordia, such as Kolmogorov complexity.

But... I think this might well be intentional. Given how common notions like 'stacks of simulations' and 'self-reference' are in rat space, I suspect we may be being misled! The 'rules' of the game - more on that in a moment - say that Su won't deliberately lie to us, and won't withold information without saying so, but her perceptions could be mistaken. Maybe she's been given a false explanation of why the world works the way it does.

It's also totally possible that while the general point (you can't contain a thing in itself) may have some edge cases, the specific instance - you can't build a universe on a giant higher-dimensional iron spike and still have that universe contain iron - may still be true. We don't know the first thing about building universes using magic iron after all.

anyway... the Deal with Prosognisia!

The Ironworkers had a hacky workaround to the 'no iron' rule: they had a few tens of thousands of preserved human bodies on board their Tower of Asphodel. Asphodel, incidentally, is a genus of flower, said to carpet the Asphodel Meadows, one of the three divisions of the realm of Hades. (In their game, Supergiant decided to convert it into a lava zone.) It looks rather pretty actually!

So, they were able to instantiate these bodies in their rebuilt worlds by sort of making them into a reference to one of these stored human bodies. Here's Su again, chapter 26:

Some human bodies, or at least the impression of them and the iron within, had been preserved as part of the Tower, frozen in a timeless place. And because of that, it was eventually discovered it was possible for them to exist in the artificed planes as a sort of stable paradox. After all, while a book can't exist within itself, it can still reference other stuff it does contain internally, even if it makes for somewhat awkward reading. A few tweaks and workarounds solved the problem of the iron associated with that human body staying a part of it, and just like that, human beings were walking something at least akin to the earth once again. However, this only permitted replicas of those bodies within the Tower to exist. The creation of new ones remained impossible, and births not incubated by anima taken by the same mechanism would inevitably fail. And there were far fewer preserved bodies than minds; scarcely more than ten thousand or so for each party.

So every human born in the Mimikos is forked from one of these human bodies. For... mysterious reasons, if you recognise that someone nearby is forked from the same body as you, you both straight up die. If you touch such a person (a 'contact paradox') it's even worse, and all the iron in your body disappears, leaving behind a 'greenish sludge', which seems to be a severe enough disaster to cause deaths of nearby people as well.

(This is a little surprising given that the iron in the human body is only about 60 parts per million by mass, but it would kinda destroy your blood's ability to carry oxygen, so it would definitely be pretty fatal.)

The 'distinction treatment' we heard about is able to mitigate the risks somewhat - with quick medical intervention and time magic, it's possible to allow the people involved to make a full recovery. An interesting wrinkle is that it's implied either Ophelia or new character Balthazar is trans, because normally people of the same gender can't share an upstream body.

That definitely leads to a very fascinating fucked up medical emergency scene, but the reason I'm discussing it now is because it's got bearing on this big-deal question of 'what's so fucked up about arcanists anyway'...

so what's so fucked up about arcanists anyway?

Having finally answered one of the major questions, we can start zeroing in on another. In a flashback scene in chapter 30, we learn that the 'original' bodies have innate access to the magic API, but when you're given a distinct identity at birth you quickly lose it. To have your sv_cheats 1 restored, you have to go through a process that, it would seem, downloads a new mind into your head from one of those original bodies...

The man sat back a little in his chair, crossing his legs idly. "It's intimidating in concept, but please do understand that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, there are no observable effects whatsoever. Around half of the individuals who go through it don't even lose consciousness, and of the other, four out of five don't report any abnormalities when they reawaken. And even of the remaining 10%, the symptoms are negligible for nine out of ten-- Fleeting false memories, minor alterations in temperament that self correct, usually in under a day..." "And the others?" I inquired. "The remaining one percent." He considered this question for a few moments, obviously choosing his words carefully. "The technical term for the rare cases where confusion persists in the longer term is pneumaic assimilation failure. We have a program for treatment, using a combination of various phychological and medical means. It's time-tested. It brings people back to themselves quickly, usually within only only a few months at most." 'Confusion.' 'Brings people back to themselves.' I wasn't feeling fond of the way he couched everything in euphemism. It wasn't helping. "What do you mean by 'it brings people back to themselves'..?" I furrowed my brow. "They just... Forget everything?" "Not immediately," he said. "But they lose a sense of association with... Well, with anything that shouldn't be there, and that leads those memories and feelings to fade over time." He smiled. "The human mind is very adept at excising anything it judges to be out of place. All it needs is a push in the right direction."

The new mind tends to rapidly adjust to its new context, connecting to the memories stored in the body and assuming continuity of identity. But in rare cases it fails! Nuts! And we can infer poor Su appears to be one such case.

Presumably this is what Lilith is referring to when she says that all arcanists are murderers. It's not clear if there is continuity of consciousness when you get /mode +o'd - since you (usually) inherit the memories it is perhaps hard to say whether such a thing is meaningful.

In any case, Su's mega-guilt complex, the reason she seems to want to visit the mysterious egomancer Samium, seems to be at least partly that she's evicted the previous consciousness to inhabit this body. I don't think that's the whole story though! Her grandad seems to be involved somehow too. I don't think Su is literally the reincarnation of her grandad, because it seems unlikely that he'd be motivated to carry out ego suicide like this.

introducing teacher mommy

All those major revelations aside, let's get back to the subject of Neferuaten, aka 'Grandmaster', Su's old mentor in entropic thanatomancy. She quickly establishes herself as one of the most likeable of the inner circle of the Order - she's funny, understanding, generally affable and a little self-effacing. Su definitely puts her on a massive pedestal - though other characters such as Ran find her a little more sussy.

I gotta say, the author is really good at writing old academics. Each one of them comes across as strongly believable, distinctive, motivated and flawed characters. I'll talk a bit about the others in a bit but first let's talk age gap yuri! lmao

Anyway, at the end of chapter 20 we get this:

Then she leaned over and, in an impulsive, almost casual gesture, kissed me on the lips. Before turning, heading to the exit.

'Huh!' thinks the reader. 'That sure is an unusual thing for someone's teacher to do.'

It is quite a few chapters later before Su gets round to telling us a bit more about what's going on...

After that, we met outside of the university more and more often, her becoming sort of a source of emotional support. At some point, I became aware that what was happening was probably quite inappropriate. It's not like I was underage, having turned 25 two years prior, but she was my professor. But I'd been bad at making friends in both of... Well, in both my past contexts, and I'd felt so lonely living in Tem-Aphat, away from Ran and any reminders of the resolutions we'd made. And it all somehow felt so natural. Things got out of hand. One day, I'd had a fight with my father over the logic bridge, and had got a little drunk when I was due to see her. I don't know exactly what I was thinking, but I did something uncharacteristic of me. Inappropriate. But she didn't respond in the way I'd expected. To my shock, she didn't act like it was inappropriate at all. It wasn't as if we ended up dating. That would never have worked, and I was pretty sure she was past wanting that sort of thing anyway. On some levels, she always kept her distance. But it became something we did together, an avenue of private expression that became part of her support for me - and mine, eventually for her.

Su then expresses a bunch of guilt over the whole thing. (Not least because it's a 'selfish' thing she's doing in a body that, implicitly, she doesn't think of as hers.)

The issue of age here is interesting lol. Definitely my gut reaction, and probably the one the story is aiming to elicit, is to be a bit 'wuh oh' by all this, maybe think of Makima wrapping Denji round her finger. That said, by vastly expanding the range of human ages, it's definitely poking pretty hard at our intuitions about what's 'appropriate'. The vibes are like... the students are constantly referred to as 'the kids' by the hundreds-year-old wizards. I don't think we're told Su's current age, but if she was 27 in this flashback, and in the present she says a 29 year old computer is close in age to her, so I would guess currently early 30s. Neferuaten's age is not stated at this point but given her position she's def a few hundred years up there.

The vibe though is that Su is infatuated with someone who has vastly more emotional maturity and experience of the world, not to mention social power over her, and that person is all too happy to encourage it.

The way Su tells it, it sounds like this fling went pretty ok for them? But I definitely feel like things are probably not gonna stay ok, given how clearly the 'inappropriate' nature of this relationship has been foregrounded!

Dark yuri is literally one of the things I'm here for, so I'm looking forward to the fireworks lmao.

Anyway, besides that, we get a bit of a sense of Neferuaten's ideology. She actually shares a lot of Su's skepticism about the viability of the whole immortality project. She makes a big point of making sure the gang get a sense of the order's culture and rituals, apparently viewing this as a chance for their project to be judged by outsiders for the first time. On a personal level, she raises the issue of if the project might be able to save only the young - whether they might be the last humans to not become immortal. Nef's attitude seems to be that she'd be good with that - something she clashes with Kam over.

Otherwise, she's kinda... world-weary, I suppose you could say. She seems to look at the firey youngsters with an attitude along the lines of 'wish I still had that'. She does love to perform to an audience, asking leading questions to set up some lesson or another.

She's a fun character, I enjoy reading her a lot.

Also she seems to have made a sapient AI in the basement! Only everyone says it's definitely not sapient - it is in some sense not agentic, it can't change its motivation, allegedly. Still, it definitely has a 'passing the Turing test' sorta vibe.

don't mention the war

Besides Nef, we get introduced to a few of the remaining members of the class, and also the masters of the Order. Of note is Bardiya, the former revolutionary. He's a very 'speak his mind without preamble' sort of character, which can land him in hot water.

So, returning to Chapter 22, we have a really juicy scene in which a dinner conversation gets very heated after Bardiya mentions his role in the war, provoking a political row with Durvasa, a member of the order. It's a really well observed social dynamics scene - the characters dancing around the topic and the way a row is almost avoided, and then it isn't - Bard's determination, Kam's brown-nosing, Su getting drawn in against her better judgement in a deeply relatable way.

Thanks to this convo, we get a sense of the events of the revolution! So, as @nightpool helpfully informed me, I actually got things a bit mixed up in my rough timeline last time. The 'gerontocrats' were not a feature of the distant-past imperial era - rather it's a figure identified as an oppressor class by a very recent movement, still within living memory for even the youngsters.

The events broadly seem to reflect something like the Paris Commune. There was a famine under the hand of a 'Meritist' city council, killing thousands, which led to a popular uprising let by a 'paritist' movement. The paritists executed a handful of people and redistributed property based primarily on age, intending to break the power of the 'gerontocrats' who had neglected the 'younger generations' by hoarding resources. The Administration overseeing the whole world alliance then cracked down hard - deploying a poison gas that, though it was intended to be nonlethal, turned out to have unexpected lethal side effects.

In the aftermath of the revolution, it seems many reforms were made - besides relaxing the rules on what magic is banned, they changed the equation of scarcity so that food could be replicated more readily? Little unclear on this part. Su mentions that the situation is different now than it was when the Alliance was built, with the material scarcity mostly gone, but clearly there was a famine in recent memory.

Anyway, there is naturally a big generational divide over this. The older generations lived through some pretty fucked-up sounding wars, called things like the 'Great Interplanar War', and in the aftermath built a political system that was supposed to secure peace. (c.f. League of Nations, UN). Although she broadly sympathises with the revolutionaries, Su seems to extends the older generation a fair bit of understanding for having built this system and fearing what would happen if it were destroyed. Though the most relativist view comes from the mouth of Neferuaten:

"I think a common problem with inter-generational communication is an inability to really convey context and scope," Neferuaten said. I noted she didn't actually convey if Kam's understanding of what her point had been was correct or not. "Someone who lived through the Interluminary Strife might tell a young person from the modern day that they have no understanding of hunger, only for the latter to stubbornly retort that they lived through that Ikaryonic famine that preluded the civil dispute… Except that one was a catastrophe that lasted decades and killed tens of millions, while the other slew less than a thousand." She sighed. "People try to relate the experiences of others to their own lives in order to contextualize their understanding of the world and how it might be bettered, but those second-hand experiences inevitably become caricatures, conveying no useful truths. It makes me wonder if human beings, both young and old, are capable of learning from history at all."

Around here is raised the question of a person's political development - the arc from a young person's anger at the state of the world and determination to tear it aside for something better, against the resignation of an older person who fears losing what is already there, however flawed. (We might note of course that there exist young conservatives and old radicals. Circumstances have a lot to do with it.)

Of course, with this whole 'gerontocrat' business at stake already, the mission of the Order hoping to achieve immortality is naturally cast in a dubious light. Fun conflict. On the one hand we have 'can immortality be achieved, and what will it cost', on the other 'who will benefit from it, if it is'! So much narrative force is obtained by politicising this, attaching it to characters with personal motivations and histories, instead of leaving it up to an abstract 'living forever good/bad'.

But it's not all political debates and shagging your teacher...

Over the course of these chapters we get a sense of what the order's been up to!

Let's talk flowers. Just prior to the meeting with Nef, Su comes across an enormous freaky plantlike thing. This turns out to be an experiment to create a being that can survive in even the most extreme environments, like the bottom of the ocean - an attempt to demonstrate that immortality is possible at least in principle. This lifeform is termed the Nittaimalaru or 'Everblossom'. It seems like a pretty good candidate for being the story's eponymous Flower - symbolically, the underwater immortality-granting plant that appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh.

It's worth noting here that 'indefinite lifespan' is actually not entirely impossible in our natural world. I was talking about this with a friend who raised some interesting points:

reading the first post i wanna bring up that while the concept of cancer is fundamental to any multicellular organism the presence of cancer as a problem is actually pretty niche. same with telomere degradation, which is a purposeful anti-cancer measurement. like pretty much all perennial plant life is capable of absolute immortality. while the lobster grows forever until it can no longer use its legs to push its great weight along the sand towards food, if a tree overshoots its growth it's more than happy to break off its unnecessaries, though with both of them at a certain point it's always good to have help after a while. as mammals we're very obsessed with the concept of like ending death as this sort of ultimate goal, prime directive, whatever, when that shit was deliberately turned on in the first place (assigning intent to evolution sue me), because in terms of cost benefit it gave us something in return that we as students of medicine or biology are still not fully grasping.

After a little more discussion:

@play-now-my-lord wrote:

even if humans weren't causing climate change, climactic fluctuations over centuries upend a lot of what is normal in specific areas. if the people on a farmstead in bronze age sweden lived 500 years, the methods and habits they internalized when they were young would habitually be incorrect for the conditions as they existed, the weather, the soil

other friend:

that's how most trees die in the end the root system operates as a weak parallel to the tree's neurons, with a more physiological bent than say our chemical one. patterns around balance, nutrient access, hydrology, and wind are ingrained and learned over centuries and the more regular/consistent that cycle is the more a root will grow. if a tree's roots are built around buttressing from a wind tunnel due to forest conditions and the trees around it fall for whatever reason, it has to relearn what used to be a hundred year old certainty that it needs to lean against the westerly gale every winter, etc. - this is generally a pretty brittle process altogether when it comes to the base of the plant n stuff

some caveats:

should be noted i overlooked a lot of nuance about perennial mortality, like, some plants are more used to investing into survival than others i'm thinking of like how beech bark disease doesn't affect the roots of the beech, so the trunk dies but new shoots continue to grow out and eventually catch the disease and repeat, so the plant is essentially still immortal but forced into a perpetual state of adolescence. but i think for a great number of trees if the tree falls it just goes "eh the rot consumes us all " and dies

Among mammals, we could also note the cancer resistance of the naked mole rat, which loves to defy all sorts of generalisations (also one of the only non-arthropod eusocial animals). They're not exactly immortal, living around 37 years on average, but their chance of dying at any given year is pretty much flat rather than increasing with age.

Of course, longevity and resilience are different things. Nef mentions the resilience of tardigrades as an inspiration. As far as their experiment goes, the 'everblossom' is not an entirely successful experiment, requiring twice-yearly maintenance to address an imbalance.

Given how prominently it features, and the invocation of Gilgamesh, it seems pretty damn likely that the everblossom will in fact be a key to immortality, or something like it.

Religion exists after all!

Other parts of the facility are also pretty funky. We learn that it was patterned after the old headquarters of the Order, which was destroyed when they got found out; that headquarters was built in an old church compound. What sort of thing does a church worship in this world? Actually it's kinda goffic as fuck. Makes Catholicism look downright tame. It's a polytheistic religion and the deities involved are figures like this...

In the center of the circle was a statue, about 8 feet high, and of the kind of ornate-but-formulaic design that characterized art from the Second Resurrection. It depicted a tall, skinny woman, though her two sides, left and right, were very different in nature. The left was beautiful and youthful in a generic, almost ethnicity-less way, dressed in the most delicate of silk peploi, with long and unrealistically tidy curls falling elegantly over her shoulders. Her lip was curled into a gentle half-smile, kind but slightly mysterious, teasing. Her right... Well, her right, to say the least, was very different. On that side, she appeared to be skinless, although it was hard to tell with a statue; I recalled it being a matter of hot debate among the boys in my class back in secondary school. It was possible she was simply incredibly emaciated, or that there were supposed to be growths - like scales - erupting from her flesh. Her hair was made up of hateful, eyeless wyrms, biting and hissing at each other, and her flesh, which was naked save for a tasteful rag covering one area in particular, was covered in numerous stab wounds, bleeding openly. As for her face, it was grim and wide eyed. Mournful and contemptful both. I recognized the figure depicted at once; I passed one of her temples whenever I went to the distribution hall to pick up groceries. This was Phui, Dying Goddess of Love Given Way To Anguish, one of the eleven deities of the now largely defunct Ysaran-Inotian Pantheon.

In the stories, Phui was the third-to-last of the gods to fall during the end of the world, who attempted to take her own life after the death of her lover. But the breaking of the heavens had left her unable to die, meaning that no matter how she much she cut into her flesh, how much she starved herself of food and drink, reprieve would never come. Only relentless, unceasing pain, and grief for that which she had lost.

Metal album cover ass-religion, I'm into it.

The mysterious Ironworkers seem to have really drummed into the population of their new Mimikos that there was a very nice world once, and they'd better be damn sad about what happened to it. However, religion has waned in the present day, and it seems most characters are atheists of some sort.

What did happen to it, anyway? It's referred to as 'the collapse' with a lowercase c; I noticed an author's comment where the author says it's not a case of just a name for the apocalypse. A few people in the comments started speculating about false vacuum collapse. This is a physics thing. Basically, a remote possibility exists in the standard model of particle physics that the existence of matter in our universe could be in a kind of local energy minimum, but it would be possible for it to locally fall into a true minimum, creating a kind of bubble that expands at the speed of light and just deletes everything. We're pretty sure that isn't true though. If it did happen we literally would not be able to do anything... at least in a universe without FTL.

(Curiously, Su mentions special relativity at one point. With all the funky cosmology stuff I kinda wondered if special relativity is still real, but apparently it is! Electromagnetism has been mentioned as still being a thing a couple of times now, so rather than being totally absent it seems like the physics is a bit different, with an electric shock being sufficient to cause radiation poisoning.)

The fair play interlude

In between chapters 22 and 24 we get a curious little interlude called Intermission ∞ 1. The introduction presents it as something that is happening on one of the 'higher planes', translated into terms we can understand, which is grounds for it to get metafictional.

Two entities, calling themselves the Playwright and the Director, discuss the direction of the story so far before laying out the version of fair-play mystery rules this story will be operating under. They are as follows:

THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE PROTAGONIST IS ALWAYS TRUTHFUL

ALL EVENTS FOLLOW THE RULES OF CONVENTIONAL REALITY, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

ALL SYSTEMS INTRODUCED CANNOT BREAK THEIR OWN RULES AS DEFINED WITHIN THE NARRATIVE, UNLESS INDICATED OTHERWISE

I made them red because it feels like they would be red in Umineko.

Further clarifications and caveats allow that Su can withold information (for dramatic tension or whatever I guess) but she'll always tell us when she does, and an example of 'system introduced' is the magic duel sequence: the characters know accurately how magic duels work.

The two entities are performing this story for some sort of audience, and during their double-act credit themselves with control over the direction of the scenario, sometimes disagreeing. (Another one, the chorus, enters at the end.) Probably best not to think too hard about what that implies for our characters on the 'main' level of the story being 'real', it's probably just a cute bit to take the audience aside without completely breaking the fourth wall. Then again... who knows!

What this means is that my concerns about professed liar Su being an unreliable narrator are unfounded. It's still a limited POV, so Su could fail to notice things or be deceived, but she's not trying to pull one over on us.

I bring this up because...

There's been a mordah!

So, in the last chapter I read - strictly the beginning of a new arc - we find someone dead!

Well, this was kinda foreshadowed earlier. The chef disappeared, the assistant chef was knocked out by magic, and some kinda crazy time magic happened in the pantry - with the heavy implication that someone was trapped in some kinda hyperbolic time pantry for many years. At least they'd have plenty to eat..? The characters don't pick up on the implication of the tally marks and write it off as a stasis field malfunction.

So, it was natural to suspect the cook is dead. Indeed they are: Su finds a mysterious note in the book given to her by an academic at the school as a parting gift, warning her not to trust the inner council - inexplicably written two years prior and warning her to check the archive in a certain position. Investigating this, she and Kam find a secret armoury room. In there is a tunnel, and at the bottom, the cook appears to have committed suicide, leaving a suicide note vaguely implying the Order is up to some seriously sussy shit.

Of course, Kam and Su immediately suspect foul play. But they also both have ulterior motives for coming to this conference, so they agree to keep it hush-hush. This is definitely a great idea that won't get everyone killed by Beatrice... I mean uh. Whoever the murderer is.

The obvious question is, who dunnit? And why? Unfortunately, we don't really have alibis for most of the characters. Many of the inner circle haven't even shown up on screen yet. So there's a lot of people who it might have been.

More suspects! More suspects!

I haven't even mentioned several of the characters. We also have Sacnicte, steward of the house - she's an arcanist, and Su is kinda insanely horny for her aesthetically appreciative, in a way that the other characters notice and are literally like 'I don't see it'... which makes me wonder if we have a situation where someone has fucked with her perceptions. She's very down to earth and casual.

Her name is probably a reference to the Maya princess Sac Nicté, meaning 'white flower', who according to legend was involved in the migration of the Itza people from the Chichen Itza. Mind you the article I'm getting this from is kinda horrendous; the sole source is in Spanish and appears to be some random website from 2004.

Among the older generation, we have Theo's dad, Linos. He is a generally affable chap, kinda socially awkward (he's responsible for prolonging the political discussion by a botched apology) but otherwise not particularly standing out among the Order members.

Linos or Linus is another Greek name with a few referents.

The Order member who really does stand out is Anna, or in full, Amtu-hedu-anna. She's the one who's properly old, having dodged many of the 'kills people around 500' bullets of this setting, and not especially inclined to make nice. Very 'straight to the point' kinda lady. We meet her fairly briefly - Ran seems to have landed in her good books.

This one really took some digging! It seems to be based on Enheduanna, who was a Sumerian high priestess of Nanna and the oldest named author in history, credited for tablets like The Exaltation of Inanna, although it seems there's some debate over whether she definitely wrote them. Her rank in Sumerian was Entu, and I could fully believe 'amtu hedu anna' is a different transliteration of 'Entu Hedu Anna'.

As mentioned above, we're introduced to two logic engines, Sekhmet and Eshmun, built respectively by Neferuaten and (the as yet unseen) Hamilcar. Sekhmet has more biological components and wants to be a human. She wants to be human, and she's also expressed a distinct pronoun preference and gender id, which I suppose makes her trans. Eshmun is a more traditional logic engine with a lot of cogs; Sekhmet calls him 'big brother', so I guess he gets he pronouns from that.

Sekhmet is of course named for the Egyptian lion-headed warrior/medicine goddess. Eshmun is a Phoenician god of healing. Hamilcar was a name used by a number of Carthaginians, mostly generals.

Ezekiel is another one of the student gang. We haven't seen much of him yet, so I don't have a lot to say about him. Abrahamic prophet.

Balthazar is a student from another school - another thanatomancer in fact. He's something like the protégé of Zeno, and his presence is Zeno's condition for having this whole affair go ahead. He's got the same eyes as Ophelia, and Zeno failing to do his paperwork and allowing to happen is a big deal. But Zeno's kind of a bigshot so it might not come to anything. Anyway, Su is kind of suspicious towards Balthazar, but he takes it all in good humour.

Balthazar was one of the three magi in Christian mythology. There were a few Zenos, but the best known is surely Zeno of Elea, who came up with his famous "we need to invent calculus to solve this" paradoxes around infinite sums.

Yantho is a member of the Order staff, who was cooking when whoever did shenanigans in the kitchen... did shenanigans in the kitchen. His roast was ruined, but sadly he was too unconscious to order fast food and pass it off as his cooking. He can't speak and communicates by writing on his tablet.

The name crops up as an obscure Maya deity, part of a trio of brothers with Usukun and Uyitzin, but I can't find any source that seems particularly definitive.

Samium is an old egomancer, whose presence is a secret that only Su and Ran are in on. Su wants to speak to him, for reasons that are probably to do with finding out if he can restore 'original!Su' into her body, or maybe resurrecting her grandfather, or something?

...is that everyone? I think that's everyone. At some point I probably need to make an Umineko-style character screen lol.

can we solve anything yet?

Since this chapter is the beginning of the arc, I suspect there's more info to divulge before we can think about trying to solve this one. And, given the Umineko inspo, the problem to solve probably isn't simply 'whodunnit' but something more fundamental to the nature of this world.

Still, it seems all but spelled out explicitly that current!Su failed to properly assimilate into her body after she became an arcanist. Her grandfather's final 'kindness' is less clear. Her intentions with Samium... I've mentioned the obvious theories about already. She's mega guilty about overwriting this poor girl and has decided the only course of action is to try and restore the mind that inhabited her body originally. But I don't think we have the whole picture just yet, because I still can't figure out what her granddad did.

Given her discussion of 'dragon' vs 'phoenix' resurrection, and of how her meeting with Samium might change the order, I also theorised - before I really twigged the arcanist thing - that she was here to resurrect her grandfather in her own body. Body-hopping is like, the classic immortality strat after all. But... I'm less convinced of that one now? It doesn't seem like Su particularly liked the old man, she definitely doesn't want to follow in his footsteps, and 'saw him die unexpectedly during the revolution' does not seem like it would inspire the same sort of guilt.

Still, he surely did something to her, she's definitely cryptically alluded to that enough times.

Besides that?

Obviously really digging this story! Honestly, this one rules. It helps that the author is clearly into a lot of the same shit I am. All the long discussions and beat by beat narration could potentially feel a little dry, but honestly, I'm pretty hooked, it's definitely pulling me forwards. It's a fascinating, conflict-rich setting, that raises all sorts of interesting concepts. It's confident in knowing what it wants to be. Umineko is a hell of a tough act to follow, but this one has a distinct identity of its own. Can't wait to see what happens now the mystery seems to be about to kick off for real.

With that in mind, I'm sure it won't be long until the next one of these. I may have to dial back the detail a bit, this is kinda having a bad effect on my work right now. There's just so many fascinating corners to follow up ^^'

Anyway, I realise these posts are kinda massive for tumblr, so I'm gonna start copying them over to canmom.art soon. <See you next time>.

#the flower that bloomed nowhere #tftbn #sff #novels #fiction

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randomevie · 1 year

Text

Women’s History

viking age (800 to 1050 AD)

most women in the viking age were housewives to their husbands. they often managed the farms and agricultural responsibilities. women were believed to have a choice on who their husband was to be, and even were thought to be able to back out of a marriage if they later decided they didn’t like their husband.

women spent much of their time in the house working with wool, spinning yarn, sewing, and weaving for her family. taking care of the children was a large part of a woman’s life in the viking age. women were expected to have many children to help around the house, and they were expected to breastfeed each child after they were born (since formula was yet to exist).

compared to many women during this time period, viking women had lots of freedoms. in mythology the women are portrayed as independent, confident, and powerful. however, women at this time could not appear in court or receive a share of the man’s inheritance. men had all the political power in this society. literature from this time also shows that women could often find themselves with power if they could somehow make their husband respect them.

ancient egypt (2700 to 1100 BCE)

we all know the famed cleopatra, but ancient egypt has a longer history of powerful women. one of the first female pharaohs in egypt was hatshepsut, who began her rule around 1500 BCE. hatshepsut became queen when she married thutmose ii (her half-brother), around the age of 12. upon thutmose’s death in 1479 BC, she became regent for her stepson, who at the time was an infant. seven years later, she took on the title and full powers of a pharaoh, co-ruling with her stepson. hatshepsut’s step to power garnered lots of controversy, and she had to fight to prove her legitimacy to the throne. she was born to thutmose i, and she claimed that he had appointed her his successor. hatshepsut ordered to be portrayed as a male once she claimed the throne, wanting to be depicted with a beard and a muscular body. despite this order, there are images where she appears in the traditional female regalia of ancient egypt. she tried to surround herself with supporters from key positions in the ancient government, likely hoping to elevate her status and the trust of her subjects. she began taking on ambitious projects during the time of her rule. she is notably known for the memorial temple at deir el-bahir. she also authorized a trading expedition that brought back many profits for egypt like ivory, ebony, gold, leopard skins, incense, and more. hatshephut died around 1458 BC (in her mid-40s) and was buried in the valley of the kings located in the hills of deir el-bahir. her father was reburied to be with her, in a last effort to legimitize her reign. thutmose iii had almost any trace of hatshephut erased upon his rule, so she was not known about by scholars until 1822. another female ruler of egypt was nefertiti. she married amenhotep iv. it’s unknown exactly who nefertiti’s parents were, although it’s theorized she is either the daughter of ay, or a princess from a mittani kingdom in northern syria. amenhotep iv was a monotheist, and during his reign he displaced egypt’s cheif god, amon, in favor of aten. he also changed his name to akhenten, and nefertiti took the additional name of “neferneferuaten” which means “beautiful are the beauties of aten, a beautiful woman has come”. under her husband’s rule she began to be depicted as a mirror image of him. in tombs and temples built during akhenten’s reign, nefertiti is depicted in positions of power and authority that no other queen had been seen depicted with. some instances of this were leading worship of aten, or even smiting enemies. nefertiti mothered six daughters, and after the sixth, akhenten took other wives to eventually birth king tutankhamen. king tut would eventually go on to marry nefertiti’s daughter ankhesenpaatan. around the 12th year of akhenten’s reign, nefertiti seems to disappear from record. it is possible that this is because of her death, although many historians and scholars theorize that she actually took the guise of a man to rule alongside her husband as smenkhkare. it is thought that after his death, she took place to begin undoing his religious policies, which is rooted in the fact that nefertiti paid for a scribe to make divine offerings to amun, begging and pleading with the high god to come back and get rid of the darkness in her kingdom.

the most well known of the female rulers in ancient egypt is cleopatra. she was born in either 70 or 69 BC, the first daughter of ptolemy xii. at age 18, Cleopatra became the dominant co-regent with her 10 year old brother, ptolemy xiii. her brother’s advisors quickly took action against her place on the throne, and cleopatra fled egypt to syria in 49 BC. there, she raised an army, and returned to egypt to create a civil war at pelusium. during this time, ptolemy invited julius caesar to alexandria. cleopatra allegedly snuck into royal palace to plead for caesar’s help. caesar needed for egypt to pay it’s debts owed to auletes in order to fund his own return to power in rome. many months of fighting between the forces of julius caesar and ptolemy xiii occurred until roman reinforcements showed up and the pharaoh was forced to flee alexandria. thought of have drowned in the nile river, ptolemy xiii was never seen again. caesar entered alexandria and restored cleopatra to power, where she became co-regent to another younger brother of hers, ptolemy xiv (13 at the time). julius caesar stayed with cleopatra in egypt, and in 47 BC they had a child, ptolemy caesar, who was known to the egyptian people as “little caesar”. around 46 BC cleopatra traveled with her brother and son to visit caesar in rome, as he had returned sometime before. after he was murdered in 44 BC, she returned to egypt. ptolemy xiv was murdered soon after. cleopatra was named co-regent to her son. her hold on power at this time was as much as she had ever had, being that her son was still an infant. flooding began to lead to inflation and hunger while egypt was being asked for help in a roman conflict. cleopatra sent four roman legions who caesar had stationed in egypt to help his previous allies in rome. in 42 BC, after defeating caesar’s assassins, his allies split power in rome. mark antony, one of the allies, summoned cleopatra to tarsus to explain the role she had played in the roman conflict. according to plutarch, mark antony was seduced by cleopatra and agreed to protect egypt, along with cleopatra’s crown. cleopatra returned to egypt, followed by antony. he spent two years in alexandria. in this time, him and cleopatra formed a drinking society called “the inimitable livers”. in 40 BC, after antony had returned to rome, cleopatra gave birth to a set of twins who she donned alexander helios and cleopatra selene.

commonfolk women in egypt had a duty first as a mother and wife, often having professions like weaving, perfume making, and entertainment. despite their first commitment being towards family, they were allowed to have their own businesses, own and sell property, and serve as witnesses in a court case. many women in the middle east at the time were not allowed to be in the company of men, but in egypt they could be. divorce was also an option for the women of egypt as they were allowed to use it in order to escape bad marriages. from our earliest records, women and men seem to have a fairly similar formal status. both men and women in ancient egypt were able to choose their actions, and had to suffer the consequences of their own actions. women were legally allowed to acquire, own, and sell property, with or without a husband. they were allowed to initiate court cases, as well as do many other legal proceedings under their own name, rather than that of their husband. from the evidence we’ve recovered from the old kingdom, women were often shown as merchants and priestesses (most commonly being priestess for hathor).

although these may not seem like incredible privileges, ancient egypt was well ahead of other societies at the time and their views on equality.

ancient greece

women in ancient greece had very little rights under their own name. they were unable to vote, own/inherit land, and were often only seen as mothers and wives. women were allowed to go to school, but often had more of an emphasis towards dancing and music than towards academic subjects. women in ancient greece were expected to be virgins upon marriage, and were meant to marry at a young age. in most cases, the marriages were organized by the father, often having him sign a dowry for his daughter to marry someone’s son. if they did not have a father another male guardian or relative must sign off on the marriage. married off at 13 or 14, women lived their lives at home, their husbands often seeking satisfaction outside of their marriages. there was no a place in society for single females, as roles for them did not exist.

married women in ancient greece were seen as the property of their husbands by the law. they were expected to be faithful, despite their husbands having the option of going off to prostitutes, and were expected to bear children of the men they (most often) didn’t truly love. they were seen as incapable of making decisions for themselves. if a wife were to not honor her family, she would be banned from religious ceremonies, which in this society was an incredibly huge dishonor. if she were to cheat on her husband, the husband could kill her with no legal prosecution taking place. women had few personal belongings, most of which were clothes and jewelry that had been given to them. if one’s husband were to die, they could not inherit anything from the will, instead having to remarry and let her new husband claim it. if a father were to die, they’d leave their legacy for their male children, and if the women were an only child, her husband would be the one to claim the inheritance.

despite the treatment of women in ancient greek society, there were many powerful goddesses in greek mythology. athena was attributed goddess of wisdom and military victory, aphrodite the goddess of love and beauty, demeter the goddess of agriculture, hera the patron of childbirth, artemis the goddess of the hunt, selene the goddess of the moon, so on, and so on. women in the mythology are often depicted as emotional and troublemakers, showing their view on women during the time.

middle ages (5th to late 15th century)

women during the middle ages often had jobs working the land, and they participated in agricultural duties alongside men. women in the lower class were often bakers, brewers, milkmaids, barmaids, artisans, weavers, and farmers.

women of the time could be educated, but most were only educated in domestic affairs like sewing and cooking. although, noblewomen and nuns had access to many books, the common population did not. education was mostly restricted to the upper class and the clergy. women could have a place in the clergy, but only as nuns. noblewomen had power depending on how much land they brought to their marriage, as during this time, land often equaled power. women were expected to remain “pure” until they found themselves a husband.

women in the early middle ages found themselves gaining power for multiple reasons. with the outbreak of the black death, many of the european population died. because of the lack of people, women were allowed to own businesses that belonged to their late husbands. they were also gaining rights due to the popularity of the cult of the virgin mary. despite gaining a few rights within this time, they were always viewed as second class citizens, their lives an afterthought to the men who ruled.

marriage rights in this time were decided by the lords. once a woman was married, her husband was considered to be her owner. he would control what his wife’s interests and were considered responsible for any behavior a woman may show.

the reason women had so few rights during this time was because of the rise of the catholic church, and their beliefs lying in the story of adam and eve, seeing women as temptresses and often finding them to be evil.

women’s suffrage

during the 1820s and 1830s, the campaign for women’s suffrage truly begins. reform groups were beginning to organize across the united states, and women played a prominent role in the movements. in 1848, a group of abolitionist-activists gathered in seneca falls to discuss women’s rights. the majority of the group agreed that women were their own individuals that should have their own political identities.

when the 14th and 15th amendments were introduced, the women’s suffrage movement pushed for women’s rights to be introduced. the 14th amendment that allowed black men to vote defined citizens as males. women pushed harder against lawmakers to no avail. many women began to ally with racist southerners in an attempt to prevent the 15th amendment.

in 1869, the national women’s suffrage administration was founded by elizabeth cady stanton and susan b. anthony. the endangerment towards the rights of people of color by tying the movements together resulted in the formation of the american woman suffrage association. this group fought state-by-state for the enfranchisement of women, while also supporting the 15th amendment.

in 1890, the groups merged together to become the national american woman suffrage association. this group used a new argument for women’s suffrage. previously, women were arguing for the right to vote since they were equal to men, but in 1890 women began arguing for the right to vote because they were different from men. this argument served to the advantage of the women as it addressed many political agendas.

in 1910, western states began granting women the right to vote. southern and eastern states resisted this change, not believing women were worthy of the same rights as men. in 1916, the president of the national women’s suffrage association revealed the “winning plan”. this plan was a campaign which had local and state suffrage organizations travel the country to fight for their rights.

at the same time, the national women’s party was founded by alice paul. their strategy was to create drama such as hunger strikes and protests in front of the white house.

the mission of the suffragettes was slowed due to world war one. women managed to spin the narrative in their favor, claiming that their efforts during the war showed they were just as deserving as men of the right to vote, and on august 20, 1920, the 19th amendment was ratified.

some of my favorite women throughout history

marie-antoinette-josèphe-jeanne d’autriche-lorraine (originally maria antonia joseph’s joanna von österich-lothringen) was born november 2, 1755 in vienna, austria. she was the 11th daughter of the holy roman emperor francis i and maria theresa. at 14 years old, marie-antoinette’s hand in marriage was given to heir to the throne, louis xvi. she had an unpopular image when relations between france and austria became rocky. the public viewed her to be a representative of austria, which was a view that stuck to her her entire life. louis was an incredibly inattentive husband to the young girl, so she sought out entertainment in a circle of favorites and politically vulnerable companions. marie-thérèse-louise de savoie-carignan was one of marie-antoinette’s closest friends during this time. marie had very little political duties and spent lots of time indulging in her well-known extravagant taste. many people in the public poked fun at her at the time, and began to spread outlandish and sexual rumors about the girl. it became a trend to blame all of france’s problems on marie-antoinette.

after the american revolution, france began to fall into debt, and although it wasn’t her fault, marie began to get lots of blame. as time went on, many people began labeling her an “austrian whore”.

in oct of 1789, a min of parisian women protesting dragged the entire royal family to the city and imprisoned them. in june of 1781, louis xvi and marie-antoinette fled paris, hoping to escape to austria. there was a rumor that the holy roman emperor had troops prepared to invade france. this rumor once again sparked controversy for marie, labeling her as a traitor.

the royal family returned to france ans louis was reinstated as king. in april of 1792, the radical revolutionary government declared war against austria. the french army, which was broken in pieces at this point, did not fair well. they turned their blame to marie once again. in august, a mob overthrew the monarchy and locked the royal family in tower. the next month, revolutionaries began to massacre royalist prisoners by the thousands. during this time, marie’s best friend, princesse de lamballe, was dismembered in the streets. her body parts were then paraded through paris.

in december, louis was put to trial and beheaded for treason. in july of 1793, marie lost custody of her son, who was then forced to accuse her of sexual assault and incest against him. she was sent to the guillotine for treason at age 37.

anne boleyn was born around 1500 to sir thomas boleyn and elizabeth howard. much of childhood was spent in hever castle in kent, as her mother was the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the country.

in 1513, anne was sent to the court of marageret of austria, later being moved to a french court. anne had originally served as a companion to louis xii’s wife, mary. after his death in 1515, she settled in france in the household of queen claude. anne stood out amongst these courts as she was talented in music and dance. in 1522, boleyn returned to england and resides in king henry viii’s court. many people admired her beauty and youth, including the king himself.

at the time, henry was married to catherine of aragon, and together they had a daughter named mary. in 1527, henry began to secretly plan an annulment for his wedding to queen catherine. the pope refused to grant the annulment to henry.

in january of 1533, henry and anne were secretly wed. on easter of that year, their wedding was made public. their marriage was only valid due to the fact that henry changed the church that england followed with. while married to catherine of aragon, england followed the rules and regulations of the catholic church, but upon his marriage with anne, the country found itself operating under the church of england.

anne bore a child, elizabeth i. unfortunately, after this, she had many miscarriages followed but no successful pregnancies. in 1536, anne was accused of adultery and plotting against the kings life. on may 2, she was arrested and taken to the tower of london. anne tried to plead innocent, but the king had already fallen for another mistress and took no mercy upon her pleas. on may 19, she was beheaded by a skilled swordsman. her final words were reported to have been, “i am come hither to die, for according to the law and by the law i am judged to die, and therefore i will speak nothing against it… i pray god save the king… for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was never there.” she was buried in the chapel of st. peter and vincula tower.

11 days after anne’s execution, henry married his mistress, jane seymour.

marie laveau was born september 10, 1801. she is often referred to as the most famous voodoo queen of the south. while there isn’t much information available about marie laveau, many scholars agree the story begins with her grandmother, catherine henry. catherine was said to have gone through a long line of owners before being emancipated and becoming a free woman of color. catherine took the name and surname of her first master henry roche belaire. catherine’s daughter, marguerite remained with roche until he died before being sold to another. this new master set her free.

after having gained her freedom, marguerite became a placée of henri d’arcantel. a placée performed all the duties of a wife, but were not recognized as such to the public.

marie’s father, charles laveau, was a free black man, so when marie was born, she found herself born into freedom. there is little known about marie’s childhood, but it’s believed that she lived with her grandmother.

legal records show a marriage contract between marie and jacques paris. they married on august 4, 1819. it is debated on whether or not they had children.

marie was known as the “widow paris”, although it’s unknown what happened to her husband. she became a hairdresser following his death, catering specifically to wealthy and white families. she began a relationship louis christophe dominic duminy de glapion, they were together until his death in 1885. there are no records she was in any more relationships after his death. there’s official documentation of seven children from this marriage, although some believe she may have had fourteen or fifteen.

sometime in the 1820s marie was known to have started a career in voodoo. she was known to have given private sessions and sell invocations, as well as magickal objects. later in life, she was known to visit church and do charitable acts, although many scholars believe laveau was a catholic her entire life. in her final years, she spent time with her family and continued her charity.

sources

https://www.ushistory.org/civ/3f.asp#:~:text=Egyptian%20women%20could%20have%20their,marriages%20by%20divorcing%20and%20remarrying.

https://fathom.lib.uchicago.edu/1/777777190170/

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/927/women-in-ancient-greece/

https://www.getty.edu/news/what-was-life-like-for-women-in-the-middle-ages/\

https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1345/women-in-the-middle-ages/

https://sites.udel.edu/britlitwiki/women-in-medieval-literature-and-society/

https://www.history.com/.amp/topics/womens-history/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage

https://www.history.com/news/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-marie-antoinette

https://www.britannica.com/topic/woman-suffrage

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Marie-Antoinette-queen-of-France

https://www.hrp.org.uk/tower-of-london/history-and-stories/anne-boleyn/#gs.trtum7