How researchers achieved the first long-distance reconstruction of a cultural artefact

The epic of Atrahasis is one of the most significant pieces of ancient Babylonian literature. It describes a creation myth, a great flood and the building of an ark, that significantly pre-dates a similar account in the Bible. The epic has survived millennia on clay tablets inscribed with cuneiform script. But the third tablet of one of the most complete surviving copies is broken.

The difficulties associated with its reconstruction are summarised by Irving Finkel, cuneiform curator at the The British Museum: “The crucial episode about the Ark and the Flood occurs in Ipiq-Aya’s Tablet III. This tablet is now in two pieces. The larger, known as C₁, might just possibly join [with] C₂ if they could ever be manoeuvred into the same room, but the former is in the British Museum and the latter in the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire in Geneva. One day I will try out the join…”

This potential join has been hypothesized for over 50 years, but never physically confirmed. Now, using 3-D computational geometry, there is no longer a need to manoeuvre the physical fragments into the same room. Instead, we built 3-D virtual models of the fragments and demonstrated that they join precisely. This is the first time that a long-distance virtual reconstruction of a cuneiform text has been achieved. Read more.

Back stateside....don't think I'll experience this again for a while....

Historically accurate

Nazis secretly eat falafel

A loanword is a word taken from another language, such as ‘angst’ or ‘tsunami’ or ‘calque’. A calque is a literal translation of a word from another language, such as rhinestone (from French caillou du Rhine) or blueblood (from Spanish sangre azul) or loanword (from German lehnwort). #linguistics #calque #loanword is a calque #calque is a loanword #what

[Patra, Greece] “We do not forget our murdered brothers and sisters in Turkey. Solidarity to revolted Rojava” (Anarchist collective "Disinios Ippos”)“.

Bronze Age trollin’

Babylonian era problems. (photo via tbc34)

Charles Shultz on the social sciences… 

Found at sociologist Larry Stern’s “Who are these people that become sociologists?“

Anthropology will continue to get a bad rap as long as we anthropologists think and write about the human condition in obtuse ways. When I talk about my life in anthropology and the people I have come to know and love over the years, I find people in the audience moved–not because what I had to say was particularly brilliant, but because I opened my experience–my joy and pain and that of my Nigerian friends–to them and such an opening established a connection. At my last several talks, I seen people shed a tear to two when I talk about the depth of my ethnographic experience and the depth of the humanity of my Nigerian friends. That kind of connect is usually missing in anthropological accounts. In my view of things, this connect should be the centerpiece of what we do.

Paul Stoller, this year’s recipient of the Anders Retzius gold medal (for a significant contribution to the field of anthropology)

So tired of these mothafuckin snakes on this mothafuckin plane!

With all the throwing around of the terms, used to describe different types of cultural transfer, assimilation,  negotiation, people need to be careful, not to simplify unequal cultural interaction. Cultural Appropriation needs to be a tool for resistance, not a dogmatic, misguided labeling generality. More work like this is necessary, as well as a more publicized debate, apart from the ivory tower of academia. 

In Kwame Dawes essay, he touches on the danger of  “the perpetuation of the concept of the existence of homogeneous and pure races and cultures” (Ziff & Rao, 1997).  He continues that we would essentially be promoting ideas of “purity” and engaging in the “ghettoization” of the world.  In deciding who gets to use what, you segregate and homogenize culture, which is innately fluid and ever-changing.  The whole book, though, would be a viable read for anyone who wants to learn more about the intricacies of concepts such as cultural appropriation and misappropriation.  

In the very near future, if time permits, due to the *cough cough* misinterpretation of my last post, I’ll write something specific to clarify the differences between positive appropriation(egalitarian/respectful appropriation) of culture, and misappropriation indicative of dominant/marginalized groups, with specific contexts,  i.e. White (mis)appropriation of native american symbols for fashion purposes,  and more complex, ethically grey examples such as Nazi restriction of black music to promote “racial purity”, etc.