#children of history

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Child's Writing Exercises and Doodles, from Egypt, c. 1000-1200 CE: this was made by a child who was practicing Hebrew, creating doodles and scribbles on the page as they worked

This writing fragment is nearly 1,000 years old, and it was made by a child who lived in Egypt during the Middle Ages. Several letters of the Hebrew alphabet are written on the page, probably as part of a writing exercise, but the child apparently got a little bored/distracted, as they also left a drawing of a camel (or possibly a person), a doodle that resembles a menorah, and an assortment of other scribbles on the page.

This is the work of a Jewish child from Fustat (Old Cairo), and it was preserved in the collection known as the Cairo Genizah Manuscripts. As the University of Cambridge Library explains:

For a thousand years, the Jewish community of Fustat placed their worn-out books and other writings in a storeroom (genizah) of the Ben Ezra Synagogue ... According to rabbinic law, once a holy book can no longer be used (because it is too old, or because its text is no longer relevant) it cannot be destroyed or casually discarded: texts containing the name of God should be buried or, if burial is not possible, placed in a genizah.

At least from the early 11th century, the Jews of Fustat ... reverently placed their old texts in the Genizah. Remarkably, however, they placed not only the expected religious works, such as Bibles, prayer books and compendia of Jewish law, but also what we would regard as secular works and everyday documents: shopping lists, marriage contracts, divorce deeds, pages from Arabic fables, works of Sufi and Shi'ite philosophy, medical books, magical amulets, business letters and accounts, and hundreds of letters: examples of practically every kind of written text produced by the Jewish communities of the Near East can now be found in the Genizah Collection, and it presents an unparalleled insight into the medieval Jewish world.

Sources & More Info:

Cambridge Digital Library: Writing Exercises with Child's Drawings

Cambridge Digital Library: More About the Cairo Genizah Manuscripts

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The dog days are over.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[sir-illmatic]

Nostalgia💚

We all we got

[blondebrainpowered]

Omo Valley, Ethiopia — The many tribes living along the Omo River are renowned for their unique, ecstatic ritual decoration. Their customs and awe inspiring appearance have been the subject of decades of research.

Children of the Kwegu people, known for their intricate flower headdresses and face paint.

Photographer: Hans Sylvester

[mohntilyet]

illario as the grandchild that is most like caterina is something i'm loving to chew on. the grandson that took her lessons to heart the most. kill anyone who sees your face and knows your name, "we are not revolutionaries", the first out of the two to prioritise the contract. power at any cost, and the only one to lean into the unnecessary abuse that their grandmother told them was tradition. why is anyone surprised he allied with the venatori? and then there's illario's considerable skill in infiltration and manipulating any mark, he has always had the charisma that lucanis lacked. illario isn't attached, he has/can/will use someone and immediately drop them; "that does free me from promises i don't intend to keep". he can lie about how much he cares so well that he fools a magister into believing he loves her. he kills zara without hesitation to cover his own tracks, meanwhile lucanis blindly promises a young girl in the middle of a siege that he will help her find her father. even the lessons about family stick with him, and in this entire messy power struggle, he never actually orders anyone to directly kill caterina or lucanis, not until he's backed into a corner.

and even after all that. despite even lucanis believing illario should be first talon, lucanis is still the better killer. illario is not strong enough to be the brutal assassin caterina needs him to be. so when lucanis seems to fill the role his mother left, grief and love for her dead heir apparent remains, and any of the other qualities caterina needs in her next talon doesn't matter. whatever his mother was, lucanis has to be. what illario does doesn't matter, because he will always be second best to caterina's memory of her favored daughter.

[the-blueprint]

Sesame street makes it debut #forourculture #luthervandross appeared on the show in the earlier episodes

[chase-solidago]

Invasive Species and Xenophobia

Invasive species are complicated! People have a lot of feelings about them, positive and negative. Are plants that move "invaders" "colonizing", "immigrants", "citizens"? What does it mean to kill species that are from somewhere else? What if that species legitimately makes a poor neighbor and causes extinctions in other, native species? This complex, culturally-loaded issue is a foundational issue behind a lot of plant conservation and restoration.

This is a juicy and still actively disputed topic! The Guardian recently had a big article on colonialism in Botany, (tbh her views are dated and reductive, imo) and it’s come up again this week, to much hostility (cw: reddit). Yes, my region's native plant restoration came from literal nazis, but also, the impacts of some invasive species are real, not figments of a racist imagination. How do we balance these issues? What does ethical invasive management look like?

Since it’s such a juicy topic, I wanted to offer a few fun readings to share:

The Native Plant Enthusiasm: Ecological Panacea or Xenophobia?, Gert Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, 2004, Arnoldia.

THE CLASSIC 20th century German nazis and native plants paper. Made a huge splash when it came out, and you will still encounter people who paint all native plant stuff with this brush. Summary: yeah the nazis loved their native plants and used them as part of their conquering process. Also, the first prairie plantings ever, located in Chicago, were done by a racist probable-nazi for racist reasons, full stop. I’ll let him speak for himself: “The gardens that I created myself shall… be in harmony with their landscape environment and the racial characteristics of its inhabitants. They shall express the spirit of America and therefore shall be free of foreign character as far as possible… the Latin and the Oriental crept and creeps more and more over our land, coming from the South, which is settled by Latin people, and also from other centers of mixed masses of immigrants. The Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements was overgrown by foreign character. The Latin spirit has spoiled a lot and still spoils things every day.” - Jens Jensen

Botanical decolonization: rethinking native plants, Tomaz Mastnak, 2014, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Rather than viewing native plant plantings as an act of racially-pure occupation, Mastnak positions native plants in California as a decolonization of the sub/urban lawn. Uses a lot of quotations from 16th century English philosopher Francis Bacon, and is heavy on the philosophical musings.

From killing lists to healthy country: Aboriginal approaches to weed control in the Kimberley, Western Australia by Bach et al., 2019, Journal of Environmental Management.

This paper talks through some of the native vs invasive debate, and offers a different perspective on how to approach to plant invasive management based on cultural relations, rather than country of origin or behavior.

Beyond ‘Native V. Alien’: Critiques of the Native/alien Paradigm in the Anthropocene, and Their Implications, Charles R. Warren, 2021, Ethics, Policy, & Environment

DENSE but thorough, if you want to follow the entire history of the native/invasive debate, this has you covered. The most interesting stuff, in my opinion, is the discussion of invasive denialism, IE: the impasse of “You’re just being racist!” Vs “You know nothing about ecology!” I recommend the Discussion, which starts on page 13.

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This is my little niece 🫂

An indescribable scene, this little girl is trying to get food to feed her younger siblings,❗️❗️ and she is sad because she did not provide them with the appropriate amount, is it the fault of these children that this happens to them? And can the world watch these scenes and remain silent?

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[reality-detective]

CPS is just a front for child trafficking. 🤔

[cavalierzee]

Baby and Children's Zip Ties

Inside the mass Graves that were uncovered at Nasser Hospital, Khan Younis, Gaza, they found children and babies who had their hands bound with zip ties.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Child's Sock from Egypt, c.250-350 CE: this colorful sock is nearly 1,700 years old

This sock was discovered during excavations in the ancient city of Oxyrhynchus. It was likely created for a child during the late Roman period, c.250-350 CE.

Similar-looking socks from late antiquity and the early Byzantine period have also been found at several other sites throughout Egypt; these socks often have colorful, striped patterns with divided toes, and they were crafted out of wool using a technique known as nålbinding.

Above: a similar child's sock from Antinoöpolis, in Egypt, c.250-350 CE

The sock depicted above was created during the same period, and it was found in a midden heap (an ancient rubbish pit) in the city of Antinoöpolis. A multispectral imaging analysis of this sock yielded some interesting results back in 2018, as this article explains:

... analysis revealed that the sock contained seven hues of wool yarn woven together in a meticulous, stripy pattern. Just three natural, plant-based dyes—madder roots for red, woad leaves for blue and weld flowers for yellow—were used to create the different color combinations featured on the sock, according to Joanne Dyer, lead author of the study.

In the paper, she and her co-authors explain that the imaging technique also revealed how the colors were mixed to create hues of green, purple and orange: In some cases, fibers of different colors were spun together; in others, individual yarns went through multiple dye baths.

Such intricacy is pretty impressive, considering that the ancient sock is both “tiny” and “fragile."

Given its size and orientation, the researchers believe it may have been worn on a child’s left foot.

Above: child's sock from Al Fayyum, Egypt, c.300-500 CE

The ancient Egyptians employed a single-needle looping technique, often referred to as nålbindning, to create their socks. Notably, the approach could be used to separate the big toe and four other toes in the sock—which just may have given life to the ever-controversial socks-and-sandals trend.

Sources & More Info:

Manchester Museum: Child's Sock from Oxyrhynchus

British Museum: Sock from Antinoupolis

Royal Ontario Museum: Sock from Al Fayyum

Smithsonian Magazine: 1,700-Year-Old Sock Spins Yarn About Ancient Egyptian Fashion

The Guardian: Imaging Tool Unravels Secrets of Child's Sock from Ancient Egypt

PLOS ONE Journal: A Multispectral Imaging Approach Integrated into the Study of Late Antique Textiles from Egypt

National Museums Scotland: The Lost Sock

[paintingispoetry]

Joshua Reynolds, "The Age of Innocence", ca. 1785-88

[notbecauseofvictories]

I'm rewatching leverage out of nostalgia and some other emotion I haven't figured out yet, and I do think there's a story in "Maggie Ford Collins deals with having the most unhinged ex in her suburban book group, learns to hotwire a car, and gets her groove back, not in that particular order."

[tagasaing]

falin and thistle are like this to me

[sovietpostcards]

First snow (Moscow, 1976)