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j3ss3jam3s85 · 14 days

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Evidence of Exodus

Many often wonder if there is any factual evidence proving the Bible being true. What if I told you that not only can I point you to strong evidence of the old testament Exodus being real, I can point you to a person in Exodus who has a real life replica of himself. Being possibly the only person mentioned in the Bible that we can truly see how they appeared. (With the exception of Vladimir Putin's recent 2024 claim that he has an original painting of Jesus Christ that has been in Russia).

bNow, if you're not familiar with the book of Exodus (chapters 1-14), I suggest you taking a moment to read it. Otherwise, what I'm about to say may not make much Sense. Or, read this and then read Exodus, and things might make more sense to you as it's being read. Either way, I highly recommend reading it.

Archeologically, we're able to prove many things within the Bible, however, Exodus is not one of them. Matter of fact, some of the things are extremely questionable. For example, where are all these Israelites coming from mentioned? There are no records of a man named Moses in Egypt. Many movies depict the enslaved Israelites were building the pyramids, however, The pyramids were built long before the Israelites were enslaved. There are many things that people question in the book of Exodus, you might as well. Maybe I can help with any doubt that you may have. In hopes to open your eyes as to the possibility that these things really could have, and did indeed happen.

Let's go back to the story of Joseph. Joseph is one of the 12 sons of Jacob, also named Israel. (Remember God changed his name to Israel because of his faith in willing to sacrifice his son). They fell into a Great famine Aunt resources grew very slim, so they went searching for a better life elsewhere. Can you guess where they ended up? That's right, Egypt! This is where we get "The children of Israel", also known as, the Israelites.

Joseph's gift from God was the ability to interpret dreams. In doing so, he was able to interpret the Pharaoh's dream which ultimately helped save Egypt from a great famine. So how did his people, his family, end up in bondage? Answer is, the Israelites were living and the delta and we're living a pretty prosperous existence. Up until the moment a new pharaoh becomes in charge. This Pharaoh knows nothing about Joseph. For none other than narcissistic reasons, the new pharaoh is upset that the Israelites are living such a lavish life. He ordered task masters to watch over them, which is when they became enslaved. This Pharaoh is historically documented saying to his midwives, "watch the two stones." Meaning, Egyptian women often give birth while sitting straight up to let gravity help them with the birthing process. Often, they would sit on two stones to help assist them during labor. This correlates with the Bible when pharaoh ordered the death of all the Israelite males that were being born. This is around the time that Moses was born. With Moses's mom afraid of him being murdered, she sent him away, down the river, for a chance at life.

Another questionable biblical text says that the pharaohs daughter finds Moses and the river and takes him in as her own. An Egyptian naming their child Moses, which is Hebrew is not very likely. Leaving some skepticism. Let me push that skepticism aside.

Remember, Moses is sent down river, so when he's found, he's found in the reeds. Now the Hebrew word massa (משא) means brought out. However Moses, Moses is actually a pure Egyptian name, which means Born. Just think about Ra-Moses, Ra means God and Moses means birth in Egyptian, God is Born. Another common Egyptian term is Toth-Moses. So therefore, just because the name Moses doesn't appear as someone's name being an actual person, it does not mean he did not exist. Moses literally means birth and Egyptian. Something someone would say or call a newborn baby.

Moses later has an encounter with God through a burning bush. God tells Moses that he is going to be the one to help set the Israelites free and lead them into the promised land. Moses, brings his brother Aaron with him to go speak to the pharaoh. Moses performs many miraculous wonders and so do the pharaohs magic wielders. So it's like they're in competition for a moment. Moses has a staff and he throws it down and it turns into a snake. Then Pharaoh has his people throw a staff and they also turn into snakes. It was almost like this was something that they've seen before, and we're unimpressed. Now you can take it exactly how it was written and think that a staff was thrown down and turned into a snake and both parties were able to do so. What I think happened is, the staff happened to be a cobra snake that was stiff like a staff with the head as the handle. When you throw the snake down onto the ground it then is able to slither away. This is a known practice and Egypt then and even today which would explain why people wouldn't be impressed. Moses and Aaron came back time and time again with 9 different plagues. Trying to convince Pharaoh to let his people go. Pharaoh gets annoyed and Now orders that the Israelites are no longer going to be given prepared straw to mix with their bricks. Leaving them to cut their own straw to mix with clay in order to make their own bricks. Giving double work with the same deadline. None of the plagues presented so far didn't seem to phase the Egyptians whatsoever. By this point, God says enough is enough and lets the pharaoh know that if he does not cooperate, he will take all the firstborns of families who do not have a blood sacrifice over their door frame. Of course Pharaoh did not take this threat seriously, so there was no blood sacrifice and he ended up losing his son. This is what makes pharaoh say okay, You can have your freedom, you can go.

When the Israelites leave, the Egyptians are all mourning the deaths of their firstborns. So, when the Israelites asked for gold and silver upon leaving, they just handed it over with no issues. So the Israelites are able to leave rich with gold and silver. Rightfully so in my opinion. They just spent approximately 430 years, in slavery and are now heading to the promised lands.

As the Israelites were on their way, Pharaoh quickly changed his mind and decided to go after the Israelites and bring them back. This is when the famous part of Exodus happens that most people are familiar with. Did the Israelites really cross the Red Sea on dry land? While the Egyptians get swallowed whole by the water? There is a lot of skepticism about rather or not they truly did part the Red Sea.

Here the Israelites are leaving on foot with all this gold and silver. We know that they lived in the Delta part of Egypt so we can kind of figure out the route that they took. They don't take the Philistine route because Palestine is highly guarded with watchtowers. So what they do is go through the marsh. Now the misconception lies with where exactly they crossed at. Which they actually crossed through the Sea of Reeds and not the Red Sea. Now in the Bible it says that Pharaoh's chariots were clogged. Sounds like they were going through mud. If you ask me. Which if I'm on foot I can get through but if I'm in a chariot I cannot. So Pharaoh's men ended up perishing while God helped the Israelites make it through safely.

In playing devil's advocate, if this story is true then why is there no record other than what is mentioned in the Bible of this particular situation? The answer is Egyptians were horrible at record keeping in general. Their record keeping is mainly made up of what is written in tombs or on Stella's. Which never mentioned anything about any of their defeats. Egyptians only kept records of victories. Honestly, this entire situation only really mattered to the Israelites. No one else really cared. But this was the beginning of their entire religion.

Biblically they never say who the pharaoh actually was. Historically, Egypt didn't even have a pharaoh at this time. Who ever was in charge would technically be a king. So where does the Bible get Pharaoh from? It's actually a conjunction of 2 Egyptian words, that meant house, great. Which Pharaoh meant the one who lived in a great house. Fitting for someone living in a palace.

A clue in the Bible as to who this pharaoh may be is when they speak of the Israelites building the store cities with bricks. Is it a coincidence that one of the cities names is Pi-Ramess? They are using bricks, which historically we can narrow down the time frame in which bricks began being used to build the storehouse in these 2 cities mentioned.

i'm going to agree with Bob Brier, an egyptologist who suggested the Pharaoh in the book of Exodus is...... Ramesses the Great. Why?

Ramesses' built his capitol right beside the Delta, which would be close enough to the Israelites. Especially during the times Moses and Aaron were traveling back and forth trying to convince him to let his people go. The Israelite slaves built the city of Ramesses out of brick and he was the one who built these cities. There is a sentence written on a Papyrus that explains grain ratios to be handed out to the soldiers and apperu (now I know I butchered inthe spelling of this word, but I spelled it the way it sounded). Which The translation is thought to mean Hebrew. Many scholars believe that this is our Israelites. Other scholars believe that Merneptah was the ruler over The Exodus. They believe this because the first time Israel is mentioned is during the reign of Merneptah, which is Rameses 13th son and his successor. However, when Merneptah mentions Israel on his Stella. It is referred to as a people and not a country or a foreign land. Meaning around this time the Israelites were still wondering. Therefore, if they are wandering at this time, that means they must have left right before he began his reign. Biblical scholars believe The Exodus happened in year 20 of rameses reign. Guess what else happens right around this time? Ramesses loses his firstborn son, Amonhirkhopshef.

In the Egyptian museum, you can now see the mummy of Ramesses the Great. Which very well may be the only face you can look upon that is a real biblical figure. I love it when science, history and the Bible correlate.

References:

Brier, Bob. The history of ancient Egypt. (2013). The great courses.

Exodus 1+14

#reading #my writing #spilled ink #books #writing #writeblr #exodus #bible #science #history #ancient egypt #moss #pj masks pharaoh boy

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convexicalcrow · 1 year

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Oh? How normal are we about Pharaoh Cub?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#convexical asks #hermitcraft #convex #cubfan135 #gtwscar #pharaoh cub #old man cub #young cub #fanfic #cub's pyramid best pyramid #ancient egyptian magic #ancient egyptian religion #devotional writing #mythfiction #this is a lot of infodumping #but i hope it helps explain things

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cucullas · 1 year

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Upon the controversy of netflix Cleopatra’s documentary I cannot believe we are still sleeping on the Kushite dinasty. I like Cleopatra but Piye did not went all the way from Nubia to conquest a war torn Egypt just to be forgotten. How is there not a documentary about how he conquered the city of Memphis intalling his sister Amenerdis and later daughter Shepenupet as Divine Adoratrice of Amon who ruled in his name.

The Black pharaos did not invest on rebuilding Egyptian ancient monuments, styled thelmselves as pharaohs a tried to build pyramides for a Greek Ptolomaic to be remember as a Black Pharaoh. (Not to speak about the Queens Kandake of Meroe who ruled Kush on their own at the same time of Cloepatra family).

25th dinasty I’m so sorry you are so cool

Head of Shepenupet II from Alexandria National Museum, Egypt

Sphinx of Pharaoh Taharqo

Portrait of Tantamani in his tomb in El-Kurru

#ancient egypt #cleopatra netflix #25th egyptian dinasty #kushite dynasty #WE HAVE TO CALM DOWN ABT PTOLOMAIC

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honey-milk-depresso · 2 years

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@/raven-at-the-writing-desk made a post about Rook in EN calling Jamil a literal pyramid, and I didn’t know about this so Miss Raven, it’s okay, I’m a decade late-

Anyways, I did a little bit of researching and came up with an unorganised blurb of analysis:

**Take note, that these are just thoughts. Don’t take them seriously-

The building of pyramids. Pyramids usually require tons of limestones (or whatever the bricks are made of) to build a pyramid, and thus requires a lot of people (servants more specifically) to build this pyramid. In a way, the pyramid was built as a burial for kings and queens or a resurrection machine for royalty, but in any case, it was built for royalty. You could say that maybe Rook understood the desires of Jamil wanting people to serve him, to feel like he’s the one with power, just like the building of the pyramid and how many servants to build it for one pharaoh.

The pyramid itself is a symbol of power and luxury of the pharaohs, which is again, something that Jamil has /had yearned for. Perhaps it is something similar?

The building of the pyramid (the interior mostly) is a very smart design. One example is that because of the material used, and the fact Egyptians have built an ancient form of air conditioning that has the pyramid interior be at a constant 20 degrees no matter how hot it is outside. The pyramid outside looks plain and almost unethical (I think?? BECAUSE GOD HOW DO YOU MAXIMISE SPACE FOR BURIAL WITH A SHAPE THAT DESCENDS UPWARDS AT FIRST GLANCE RIGHT???? I DON’T KNOW BUT I STILL THINK THE PYRAMID IS COOL-) but inside is where you start to realise how amazing it is. For Jamil, he’s seen as an average student who gets average grades, but in reality, Jamil is a very intelligent and talented person. Perhaps that practical analysis of the pyramid is similar to the portrayal of Jamil.

There are anomaly heat spots found within the pyramid. While most of the temperature in other chambers is around 20 degrees, surprisingly the king’s chamber temperature is 68 degrees, as the room is made of a different material compared to the rest of the pyramid interior. This could also be a reference to Jamil’s “hidden side” but I like to take this comparison a step further to say it can also mean the residing jealousy of Jamil towards Kalim. Kalim’s basically like a king, the “pharaoh” of the “pyramid”. Red, hot anger is related with jealousy, just like the temperature of the king’s chamber which is heated. In a way, it could also refer to Jamil’s true feelings of being a servant.

Then there’s just the surface layer analysis that a pyramid consists of many layers, like many talents Jamil has, but this one is honestly the weakest-

Or not- idk-

#jamil viper #rook hunt #twisted wonderland #twst #twst analysis #kalim al asim #twisted wonderland analysis #character analysis #honey.thoughts #honey.random #honey.rambles

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satsekhem · 2 years

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Hagging Out - July 2022.

The words nswt-bjtj are translated as "[He] of Sedge and Bee". This was the prenomen of a pharaoh and Egyptologists believe that the name was either a regnal name for the pharaoh or potentially their birth name. But what truly matters for this title is that it goes back to the First Dynasty, highlighting ancient Egypt's association of Lower Egypt with the bee.

The city of Sais in Lower Egypt seems to be where this association with bees come from. The city holds a cult center for the goddess, Neith, which was called the House of the Bee. And it appears that from this title, the representative of LE within the prenomen was born.

Historians all indicate that the ancient Egyptians were the first beekeepers. They would build bee hives out of clay or Nile mud into long cylindrical tubes, and those hives would travel up and down the Nile river to pollinate various sectors of the country. When a specific region's plants began to die, the traveling hoard of bees would move on to the next. The beehives were usually stacked in a pyramid form.

One of the oldest tomb images shows a beekeeper with a cloth over his face. The hieroglyph for the image seems to me "to weaken" or "to slacken", seeming to indicate that beekeepers of ancient Egypt had a way to smoke the bees like beekeepers do in modern day.

One myth that I have always been a fan of was that Ra created bees. This myth seems to come down to us from the Salt Magical Papyrus. Unfortunately, the man named Salt who found this papyrus seems to have found a lot of papyri, and finding a translated copy of the original was impossible when your search doesn't even tell you the number of the magical papyri in question. I was able to find this snippet,

The god Re wept, and the tears from his eyes fell on the ground and turned into a bee. The bee made his honeycomb and busied himself with the flowers of every plant and so wax was made and also honey out of the tears of Re.

This mythological starter for bees gave them both theological and societal importance.

Honey and beeswax were important to ancient Egyptian society. Honey was used as offerings and to sweeten foods and drinks. It was also a status symbol; only the rich and famous of ancient Egyptian society would have had access to rations of honey usually due to their close ties to the pharaoh.

Honey was also used medically. While the honey itself may have been used to sweeten the taste of the medication being prescribed by the physicians, it also has antibacterial properties. Medical papyri often have honey listed as an ingredient. Cuts and burns seemed to have been the most common use for honey from a medical standpoint.

I was always afraid of flying insects as a child. The terror of some creature (bee, wasp, fly, beetle, etc.) flying towards me is one that one often associates with the monster in the dark/under the bed/in the closet as a child. (My monster was in the basement, thank you.) But these alien-esque beings that I was to share my planet with terrified me in ways that often left me inside to stay clear of them.

And why did they all think it was appropriate to fly at my face?

I felt seen in Season 3, Episode 12 of The X Files when Mulder said this to Scully:

Yeah, I had a praying mantis epiphany and, as a result, I screamed. No, not... not a girlie scream, but the scream of someone being confronted by some before unknown monster that had no right existing on the same planet I inhabited. Did you ever notice how a praying mantis' head resembles an alien's head? I mean, the mysteries of the natural world were revealed to me that day, but instead of being astounded, I was... repulsed.

Over the years, terror has subsided. And in part of my relationship building with Ra, I've come to realize the necessity of bugs, of bees, of flying bug creatures. It was the myth referenced above that gave me a newfound affection towards the pollinators that I've come to see day-in and day-out on my walks and in my yards.

While the myth specifically references bees, I've come to see Ra within the confines of any bug that pollinates. Bees and all they do were the first gift, but in my religious practice his continued tears gave us moths, ants, wasps, and beetles. He filled the world with beings that would help us on our journey to propagate and grow.

I've found myself looking for little or fat, fuzzy bee butts hanging out of flowers as I walk by. I've added rocks around the bog to give them a safer place to rest when its filled with water for them to drink from. And eventually, I would like to create a little bee hostel of sorts for rest and a carpenter bee home so they stop using my porch for their shenanigans. And perhaps finally find a way to stop the great black wasps from getting stuck between window and screen on my porch.

Ra has given me a new understanding about the loud buzz of healthy bees roaming my yard. And eventually when I finally talk the husband into agreeing that grass is a scam and pollinator plants are the only yard someone needs to have, I'll hear Ra singing to me with the coming and going of the insects that will eventually make both their homes and find their meals there.

Bees buzz through my yard, across the fields on their steady progress forward. And sometimes I find them curled up and dead on the road. But mostly they sing their songs and dance their dances in my face, around my home, and around me as a forgotten mythic memory of the moment when the tears of Ra fell to the earth to give us the majesty of a species that our very existence relies upon.

@graveyarddirt

#hagging out 2022 #hagging out

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nyaskitten · 2 years

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Tell me all about that there Ninjago Connected Universe! Is it a crossover of sorts of all your aus + show & movie?

hehe, no, it's something way bigger than you think. It's my own version of the "pepe silvia" meme. This whole idea is very WIP, but rn, I am gonna consider it canon to ANS, until I can develop it more. Also, if you don't know much about other Lego themes, this'll probably be rlly confusing, sorry.

This will take a fuckton of explanation, so it's all going under the cut :)

Bascially, the idea goes as follows; A good portion of Lego themes take place in the same universe, including Ninjago. You COULD say it's insane because Ninjago doesn't even slightly address any other themes, outside of minor references.

But, the thing is the inclusion of Tox and Mr. Pale all but confirms the existence of the Ultra Agents universe in Ninjago, which includes Astor City.

If Ultra Agents exists in this world, so does Solomon Blaze, the guy who leads the Ultra Agents, and was a member of the Galaxy Squad before then. (Galaxy Squad is abt humans and robots fighting insectoid aliens).

If the Galaxy Squad exists here, so do Monster Fighters (a theme ab humans entering the monster realm to stop a vampire king from uniting six artifacts called Moonstones), because the same race of insectoid aliens are said to have been drawn to the convergence of the Moonstones (from an old magazine), and are alerted to Earth's existence.

This means that Monster Fighters is before Galaxy Squad, and Ultra Agents is after both those themes, and some time during or before Ninjago (as Tox and Mr. Pale aren't criminals in the show). AGAIN, this is a crazy theory, but then again it's my ideas and y'all I'm STILL not done.

Clutch Powers exists, which means Power Miners and Lego City also exist in this world. Because of this, theoretically, Lego City Undercover and Lego City Adventures could be canon to Ninjago.

BUT WAIT, there's even MORE. Jake Raines, the protagonist of "Pharaoh's Quest", has a particular eagle pin on his jacket, the same one that Twitchy Tim has! AND they also share the same pin of a circle with what looks like the front of a light aircraft!!!

This is gonna sound so weird, but then, amidst all this connection, there's Atlantis, Aqua Raiders, and Alien Conquest. According to some other magazines, apparently, an alien warlord helped build the pyramid in Pharaoh's Quest, and when that went south, he aimed to try get the help of the Golden King from Atlantis. In one Atlantis set, there's the skeleton of an Aqua Raiders Diver.

Now, I'm not saying you could squeeze Aqua Raiders and Atlantis in and just say the creatures they deal with are all from Merlopia, BUT ALSO, you could totally do that.

I know this is a huge brain mess but I swear, it'll all make sense! I'll probably just make a lore doc for all this tbh, because this is a LOT.

Now, as for how all this would fit with Ninjago, that's easy. I'd like to think there's a large circle of islands far beyond Ninjago, which are all so close together that most explorers of olden times assumed there was nothing beyond. But the rest? Those presumed lost at sea, dead, or stranded, discovered that far beyond the circle lays several larger landmasses, all with traces of... something. The explorers who DID find these larger landmasses, with remnants of ancient civilizations, went on to populate and build upon these fallen lands. These lands were probably discovered a few hundred years after the Stone Wars, so who knows who or what could have lived there eons ago?

TL;DR: Ninjago, Monster Fighters, Alien Conquest, Pharaoh's Quest, Ultra Agents, Lego City, Clutch Powers (movie), Power Miners, Atlantis, Aqua Raiders, and a fuckton of other themes, and Lego worlds could exist in one continuous world...

#ALSO the insectoid aliens could be evolved from the glow bug aliens from s3...#ye I'm DEF doing a lore doc for this shit...#this is some hardcore idea stuff...#ninjago #ninjago a new spin #lego #lego themes #ninjago connected universe #idk I will NOT tag all those themes

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miscellaneousvintageobjects · 11 months

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Pharaoh Reveals Previously Unknown Ancient International Trade Routes

Ancient Egypt had a lot of gold, but very little silver. So how did Queen Hetepheres get her bracelets?

Sometimes in science, a breakthrough comes not with some new discovery, but with the re-examination of something we’ve had under our noses for decades. Take, for example, a new analysis of the jewelry collection of Hetepheres I, a queen of Egypt more than 4,500 years ago – research that has revealed a century-old museum display to in fact be some of the earliest evidence for long-distance trade in the ancient world.

“The origin of silver used for artefacts during the third millennium [BCE] has remained a mystery until now,” said Karin Sowada, researcher at the Department of History and Archaeology at Macquarie University and co-author of the new analysis, in a statement.

“This new finding demonstrates, for the first time, the potential geographical extent of trade networks used by the Egyptian state during the early Old Kingdom at the height of the Pyramid-building age.”

As wife of the Fourth Dynasty pharaoh Sneferu, mother of Khufu – you may know him as the guy responsible for the Great Pyramid of Giza – and carrying a bloodline that united two royal dynasties, Hetepheres was one of Ancient Egypt’s most important queens.

And in Ancient Egypt, that meant that her burial had to be appropriately flashy. Discovered almost by accident by a photographer in 1925, her tomb is “the richest known from the period,” the researchers note, “with many treasures including gilded furniture, gold vessels and jewellery” to see her into the afterlife in style.

It’s one of the more iconic of these finds that is making headlines once again: the collection of 20 silver deben-rings, or bracelets, which – with the exception of a brief analysis back in 1928 – have spent the majority of the past century simply languishing in museums around the world.

But while precise details on the pieces may have been scant, there were already hints that the jewelry may have been the result of long-distance trade between ancient kingdoms. Being more than 90 percent silver, the material for the bracelets was unlikely to have come from Egypt – while the country was rich in gold, there were no local sources for nature’s runner-up metal, meaning it was likely imported from mines in the Cyclades islands of Greece.

And yet the construction is inimitably Egyptian, the researchers explain. “The bracelets, made of a metal rare to Egypt, are a statement of royal privilege and taste,” they write. “The thin metal worked into a crescent shape and the use of turquoise, lapis lazuli and carnelian inlay, stylistically mark the bracelets as made in Egypt and not elsewhere.”

Combined, this makes the bracelets of Hetepheres the oldest known evidence of long-distance trade between Egypt and Greece, say the team.

“This kind of ancient trading network helps us to understand the beginnings of the globalised world,” Sowada told ABC News. “For me that's a very unexpected finding in this particular discovery.”

Not only does the new analysis rewrite the history of ancient international trade, it’s also provided eye-opening new evidence on early Egyptian silver working.

“[T]he bracelets were made by hammering cold-worked metal with frequent annealing to prevent breakage,” explained Damian Gore, a professor in Macquarie University’s School of Natural Sciences and co-author of the analysis.

“The bracelets were also likely to have been alloyed with gold to improve their appearance and ability to be shaped during manufacture,” he added.

While the links between Ancient Egypt and the surrounding kingdoms have been known for centuries – after all, the entire Ptolemaic Dynasty was Greek rather than home-grown – the silver in Hetepheres’s bracelets predates most previous evidence for these international connections by a good few centuries.

“In the Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom much, much later, we have lots of papyrus that contain administrative records, trade records and so forth,” Brent Davis, a senior lecturer in archaeology at the University of Melbourne, told ABC.

“But for the Old Kingdom, it's just too long ago, those documents for the most part haven't survived.”

That makes the bracelets, and the new analysis of their composition, incredibly valuable – not only shedding new light on the ancient world, but also highlighting just how much we still have to discover.

“This is the start of a line of research that has got a long way to go,” Sowada told ABC.

“These networks wouldn't have happened overnight,” she added. “They would have been built over a long period of time and these bracelets are a window into that wider network.”

The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

Source: Facebook

Katie Spaulding Free Lance Writer

#archeology

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wuxiaphoenix · 2 years

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Worldbuilding: History Shinies

When you’re building a fictional world, a lot of the building blocks should come from what you’re personally excited by; that way the passion you feel for it can get into your writing. So what’s your favorite part of history and why?

I have several, most spawned by odd bits of art, fiction, or weird facts I’ve run across. Let me run down a few.

Egypt! You can go waaaaay back to some of the first traces of agriculture, ever, with various tubers and seeds. Even if you stick to the “land of the pharaohs” before Alexander powered through, there’s a few thousand years of history to play with. Before the pyramids? After the pyramids? When the Sphinx of Giza had been around so long an Egyptian prince actually did some of the first archaeology trying to figure out when it’d originally been made and whose face it had? Tomb paintings and various papyri discovered over the years have given us insight into medicine, jokes, tomb robbing, court cases, and the fact that people have been looking for baldness cures a very long time.

The Megalithic period leading into the Celtic Iron Age. There’s some interesting speculation about what forms Stonehenge took before the final version we see today; an earlier structure looks like it was possibly measuring the about 18.6 year moon cycle instead. Plus, woad, iron swords, gold torqs, redheads, and everything. You can dig into how much influence Rome had on the Celtic areas before and after the Empire fell, and those of a theological bent might find it intriguing to examine the path Celtic Christianity headed down that saw the Church of Rome bent on sending in more priests to drag them back closer to orthodoxy. (The hermit versus monastery split was a serious thing.)

Late 1500s-early 1600s... well, just about everywhere. This is the time “globalization” of trade was really kicking in, for example Spain sending Mexican silver to Manila for Chinese silk. It was also a major section of the Little Ice Age, which made things interesting in the old Chinese curse sense. You could find Japanese samurai in Mexico, Italians in China, even a few Dutch guys in Korea. (They were lost, okay? Very, very lost.) If you want to write about an oddball adventuring party composed of people from across the Known World, this is the time to look at.

And of course Early Modern Japan, more commonly called the Tokugawa Era. Besides the samurai, geisha, and tea ceremonies, there’s also a bunch of interesting ecological stuff that went on during those three centuries, from deliberate reforestation to ever-increasing marine resource exploitation. Also if you dig in a bit you find some of the supposedly hard boundaries on what class you belonged to and what countries Japanese traded with had... some exceptions. (Start looking at Tsushima Island if you’re interested; among other things, it has the most northern coral reef in the world!)

Last but certainly not least, the 1920s-1930s. Everyone was picking up the pieces from WWI, the Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression. Phones were appearing. Cabs were plentiful, because people either didn’t have a car or didn’t know how to drive yet. Determined women were getting into the police forces, and other places, even if they ended up doing most of the paperwork. Aaaand things were gradually, then not so gradually, building up to the second World War, and ouch.

(Also ouch to your head if you spend a lot of time trying to untangle just what set everything off, outside of “people gonna people, and too many of them thought Science could make humans Perfect - and then the Perfect wouldn’t have to tolerate anyone else”.)

Sometimes you need to dig for the human elements, but never forget history is the story of people. It’s awesome. Get that awesome into your world!

#creative writing #worldbuilding #history

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walkswithmyfather · 2 years

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“By faith [Moses] left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible. —Hebrews 11:27 (NIV)

“Choose Faith over Fear” By Rick Warren:

The first resolution: Choose to be who God wants you to be. The second resolution: Choose short-term pain for long-term gain. The third resolution: Choose God’s values, not the world’s.

And the fourth resolution Moses made: He chose to live by faith rather than by fear. You’re going to face the same choice, too: Either you’re going to live by faith or you’re going to live by fear.

The Bible says of Moses in Hebrews 11:27, “By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the king’s anger; he persevered because he saw him who is invisible” (NIV).

Moses went to the most powerful man in the world and said, “You know those slaves that are building all your pyramids? I’m taking them, and we’re all leaving. You’re not going to have slave labor anymore. Let my people go.”

Moses had every reason to be afraid. He was going up against the most powerful man on the planet at that point. Pharaoh in those days was considered a god, and whatever Pharaoh said, you had to do. What he said was the law. And here comes Moses who says, “We aren’t going to do what you say anymore. I’m not afraid of you because I report to a higher authority.” It took some guts to do that!

Do you want the same kind of faith in your life so that you can overcome your fear? The closer you get to God, the more you’re going to be filled with faith. The further away you get from God, the more you’re going to be filled with fear.

I cannot overemphasize the importance of faith for the rest of your life. The Bible says that whatever is not of faith is sin. How many times did you sin this week? A lot. So did I. Because anything I did that wasn’t done in faith but was done in doubt was a sin. The Bible also says that without faith it is impossible to please God. How many times did you please God this week?

Do you want something to change in your life? Stop complaining and start believing. God is not moved by complaints. God is moved by faith: “According to your faith let it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29 NIV). You get to choose what he does in your life.

Here’s the key: What matters is not the size of your faith but the size of the God you put it in. A little faith in a big God gets big results!”

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poptod · 2 years

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How did you learn so much about ancient Egypt and the mythology ? I’m studying it right now and I’m always worried I’m missing out on important notes so it’s also like a side hobby to try and find as much research as I can get my hands on on whatever I’m being taught

hello! my study of ancient egypt has been essentially independent. i use my stories as a reason to research; in order to create an accurate image of ancient egypt, i need to know more about it, so it leads me to very specific sects of knowledge that i wouldn’t otherwise think to research. so like, there’s a lot of parts about egypt that i know that seem really weird—like why would i know that—and there’s parts that i don’t know at all that i should (such as the different pharaohs and some of the general timeline of egypt).

it’s pretty easy to study things just using the internet and books. you need to know how to find reliable sources, of course, and you need to identify when a historian might be biased or straight up incorrect. there’s a lot of misinformation that goes around, especially since people argue ALL the time about how egyptians were either white or black (they were a mixture of black and middle eastern features) or about how they mass enslaved the jewish people (which did not happen by any other account in history) or the building of the pyramids (where people think slaves were forced to build them, when they were actually built by artisans), and then of course, the conspiracy theorists talkin about aliens.

so it comes down to reliable sources, engaging with said reliable sources, and knowing when the person talking is an idiot with an internet connection or a scholar recording genuine data. this process is much easier when you get published books written by well-renowned egyptologists, but it’s important to remember that people are legally allowed to publish lies! documentaries lie all the time. double check your sources, check the information you learn twice or thrice on different sources to see if it lines up with what everyone’s saying. just do your due diligence, cross check, and you should find accurate information.

#anon #ancient egypt #sorry for my long winded replies lol #i just really love talking about ancient egypt

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aboutanancientenquiry · 1 year

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No, the Pyramids were not built by... Union Workers!

Credit: Archie Wong Getty Images

“MAYBE THE EGYPTIAN PYRAMIDS WEREN’T BUILT BY UNION WORKERS AFTER ALL

by Joe Carter

3 . 3 . 11

Back in January 2010, I posted a link to an article on MSNBC which claimed that a new archaeological findings revealed the work was performed by skilled laborers who had the perks of a labor union.

Mark Shiffman, an assistant professor of Humanities at Villanova University wrote in yesterday to dispute the claim. With his permission I’ve reposted his reply below:

Ancient sources unanimously claim that the pyramids and Egypt’s grand construction projects were carried out by slave labor. The Greek historian Herodotus ( Histories 2.124) was told by Egyptian officials that 100,000 Egyptians (probably a number exaggerated to impress him) were forced by Cheops or Khufu to build his great pyramid in Giza. The Book of Exodus shows the Hebrews as slaves making bricks (though does not mention pyramids), and the ancient Jewish historian Josephus ( Antiquities , 2.9) makes the explicit claim that they did work as pyramid builders. These were all written over 1000 years after the fact.

In the 1990’s, archaeologists began to excavate the cemeteries around this pyramid. They found hundreds of tombs, many of high political and religious officials, but also many of construction overseers and artisans. They also began examining the remains of the fields and estimating from animal bones how much meat the workers ate.

Based on this evidence they concluded that the workers were well fed, and that the head workers and the skilled artisans were Egyptians with status. Graffiti also indicate that there were various work crews with different colorful names and rivalries with one another.

Now the hype enters in . The main spin doctor for the interpretation of this information is Dr. Zahi Hawass, serving at the time the story hit the press (January 2010) as Secretary General of Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities. He has a PhD from Penn, which has one of the best archaeology programs in the world. He is also a political appointee with a flair for PR who has continually demonstrated his interest in boosting Egypt’s image. He worked for the recently ousted Mubarak, an autocratic ruler trying to project a democratic image. (He also had the misfortune to accept a higher cabinet position just before the recent protests, and now many of his critics are starting to speak out against him: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/is-the-face-of-egyptian-culture-the-next-to-topple/article1913442/ )

Hawass has an interest in pumping up the view that the ancient Egyptians loved their Pharaohs and were proud to work on their monuments: “And that’s why the pyramid was the national project of Egypt because everyone had to participate in building this pyramid. By food, by workmen, this way the building of the pyramid was something that everyone felt to participate, and really it was love. They are not really pushed to do it. When the king takes the throne, the people have to be ready in participating in building the pyramid. And then when they finish it, they celebrate.”

In the same interview, the main American archaeologist on the excavation project (Dr. Mark Lehner, University of Chicago and Harvard) is more restrained:

“There’s some evidence to suggest that people were rotated in and out of the raw labor force. So that you could be a young man in a village say in middle Egypt, and you had never seen more than a few hundred people in your village, maybe at market day or something. And the King’s men come and it may not have been entirely coercion, but it seems that everybody owed a labor tax. We don’t know if it was entirely coercive . . . .

“Anyway, we think that that was the experience of the raw recruits. But there must have been a cadre of very seasoned laborers who really knew how to cut stone so fine that you could join them without getting a razor blade in between. And perhaps they were the stone cutters and setters, and the experienced quarry men at the quarry wall. And the people who rotated in and out were those doing all the different raw labor . . . .”

In other words, the few at the top of the process, who have tombs near the pyramid (how many?) were skilled and recognized officials, and the rest (to bring the total up to anywhere from 5000 to 40,000) included conscripted Egyptian peasants and may or may not have included domestic or foreign slaves.

An Egyptian tourist site (apparently managed by an American company) proudly displays this interpretation in a fairly balanced, though ambiguously worded, version:

“Slaves there may have been. But the pyramids were built by Egyptians, by stonemasons, artisans, artists and craftsmen. While skilled craftsmen and management staff worked year round, farmers would come from the provinces during the inundation period to do the heavy work.”

Now comes in the sloppy reporting of these results .

MSNBC simply gives the world the interpretation of Hawass : We found tombs of the workers, and they were not slaves or foreigners, but respected Egyptians. No analysis, no questions raised.

Likewise the Times . Discover and the Guardian do likewise, though they at least take the trouble of consulting other Egyptology experts (and the Guardian implies proper caution by putting “proof” in scare quotes).

Then the First Things site picks up the MSNBC report and gives it the headline: Egyptian Pyramids Built by Union Workers, Not Slave Labor

In the article, however, we find the more modest claim: “the work was performed by skilled laborers who had the perks of a labor union: work only ninety days a year, eat steak and lamb every day, luxury burial benefits, etc.”

In other words, the workers (or at least some of them) were well fed and not worked to death and got respectable tombs. The suggestion of union organization in the headline is not in any of the evidence.

So a certain proportion (maybe 25%?) of the workers were Egyptians of high status, a large number of Egyptian peasants were ordered to come do the hard labor, and we don’t know how many slaves may have been employed in the work. Given the prevalence of slavery in the powerful nations of the ancient world, it would be surprising if there were not a significant number, and none of the evidence rules this out. On the other hand, there seems so far to be no direct archaeological evidence for the presence of slaves; but since they are not often honored with tombs, they can be hard to trace.

Two things are worth noting in assessing the “no slaves” claim and the evidence. One is that no one bothers to tell us in the broadcast sources how many tombs specifically belonging to workers have been found and what proportion of the workforce they might represent. One would have to ask that direct question of a knowledgeable scholar or consult the Egyptology technical literature. The other is that Dr. Hawass controls access to archaeological sites in Egypt, so that it is against the interest of any Egyptologist who wants to dig there in the foreseeable future to criticize his version of the conclusions too directly.”

https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2011/03/maybe-the-egyptian-pyramids-werent-built-by-union-workers-after-all

Mark Shiffman is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities at Villanova University, with expertise in Philosophy, Political Theory and Classical Studies. Courses he teaches include “Classical Statesmanship,” “Race and Democratic Dignity,” and “Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov.” He earned his B.A. from St. John’s College and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.

He is the translator of Aristotle’s De Anima (Hackett, 2010) and author of numerous articles and book chapters on Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Augustine, Ockham, Hobbes, Locke, Simone Weil, Ralph Ellison, Wendell Berry and Rémi Brague. He lives with his family in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

Source: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/author/mark-shiffman/

Very interesting and thought provoking text! I will add some thoughts of mine inspired by it:

1/ The truth is that Herodotus never says that the Pyramids were built by slaves and one should not confused what Herodotus writes with Josephus, who was under the influence of his own tradition on Egypt and had his own apologetic agenda in a time very difficult for his community. And, although the numbers Herodotus’ Egyptian sources gave him for the workforce used in the Pyramid building were exaggerated, what he writes, namely that the Pyramids were built through the large use of corvée labor, is totally correct. Of course nothing excludes that, alongside the Egyptians performing corvée labor for their God-King (seen as living incarnation of god Horus), slaves in the literal sense of the term (especially foreigners) were used for the same purpose by Khufu (Cheops) and his successors. More generally, corvée labor was a standard feature of the Pharaonic society and economy and, although not slavery in the literal sense of the term, it was a form of forced labor.

2/ Hawas and other Egyptologists try for various reasons to present an idealized and idyllic picture of ancient Egypt. Now, it seems that, contrary to popular belief, the workers in the building of the Pyramids were reasonably fed (although I think that we don’t know exactly how much from the meat consumed went to the raw recruits who performed the heaviest tasks), some of them (the skilled and specialized workers) had a relatively high social status, and the Egyptian bureaucracy tried to cultivate a sense of collective identity among the workers, but also of competition among the divisions of the workforce. However, there is no doubt that the work in the Pyramid building was harsh and backbreaking, its rythm relentless, and accidents were frequent. And I don’t think that there is any reasonable doubt that coercion played a major role in it: neither the recruits from the villages nor even the specializd workers had the option to refuse to work in the project of Pyramid building or any say in the rythm or the conditions of the work. Moreover, given the role that beatings of subordiantes played in the Egyptian society, we must assume that the Pharaonic state used also methods of “motivation” of unwilling workers other than the cultivation of collective identities and the competition between the different groups of the workforce. Moreover, it is beyond doubt that the project of Pyramid building of the Fourth Dynasty meant much more authoritarian control of the Pharaonic state over the whole Egyptian society and economy, so that unprecedented quantities of surplus might be directed to the construction of the Pyramids and of the necropolises around them, but also to the bureaucracy which organized and oversaw the whole project.

3/ Now, of course we don’t know exactly how the Egyptian population perceived the realization of the project of Pyramid building of the Fourth Dynasty. It is sure that the Pharaonic state and its allies (above all the priests) had the monopoly of production of ideology and of worldview and this played for sure an important role in the fabrication of consensus. Moreover, the Pharaonic state of the Old Kingdom and its allies had also the monopoly of the written record, a fragment of which is now available to us, with as result that the traces of any opposition to the policies of the Fourth Dynasty may have been lost for ever. However, the Pyramid building period meant an abrupt increase in the demands of the Pharaonic state from the population and it is not illegitimate to think that coercion and the threat of violence too played an important role in making the Egyptian society and the Egyptian population obey and bear the burden of the project. This is totally compatible with the role that violence and the threat of violence played in the reality of the Pharaonic state, but also in the image it projected. And I think that Herodotus’ narrative about the tyranny and the hardship that Khufu and Khefreen imposed on the Egyptians in order to have their pyramids built preserves a genuine Egyptian tradition, expressing the negative reaction of a part of the Egyptian society toward the project of Pyramid building and its consequences for the population.

But anyway, beyond the interesting question of how the ancient Egyptians saw the Pyramid building and the Pyramids, important is also the question of how we see it today. For me the historical reality that whole societies worked directly or indirectly for decades and to exhaustion to build artificial mountains of stone as tombs and ‘immortality machines” of some individuals seeing themselves as incarnations of gods, projects in which coercion played beyond doubt a very important role, is not unproblematic and must be seen as exploitative and alienating. I think that this is an aspect of things that we should not forget when we admire -and with reason- the marvels that are the Pyramids. Forgetting these unpleasant aspects of the history of the Pyramids is not historically, or even philosophically and politically unproblematic, I think.

PS: I recommend on the Pyramid building the works of British Egyptologist Toby Wilkinson, who has a realistic and honest approach on this subject, breaking with the idealizations and fairy tales of other Egyptologists.

Egyptian peasants seized for non-payment of taxes during the Pyramid Age. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corv%C3%A9e (the wikipedia article on corvée labor)

#ancient egypt #egyptology #pyramids #herodotus #mark shiffman

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adventuresinposting · 1 month

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Dear Mom,

How have you been? I'm sorry I haven't written in a couple months. I miss you lots, I promise not to go so long next time.

Work sucks, per usual. I spend 10 hours a day schlepping my tired ass up and down the memory ward. Get home, microwave some slop, choke it down, sleep, wake up, shower, back to work. I don't know how I'm going to do this another 30 years. I kinda look forward to being put out of a job by one of those Japanese caretaker bots.

How did you manage to work two jobs while raising two kids? You're really a superhero. I remember when you'd get off work at Hehr and you looked so tired, but you always took me somewhere fun. You must have been exhausted for decades. You gave us so much, so many opportunities, and it cost you so many years of busting your ass. I never properly thanked you - so - thank you.

I wonder if things have always been this way. I hate the idea that we're just born to build a pyramid for a pharaoh or make money for a CEO. I just want to sing karaoke and drink mai tais, instead I have to work all damned day. I guess things could be worse.

Evander is good, we're celebrating nine years together in October. He got promoted! He's some kind of liason between the call center and the client, I don't understand exactly what his place is in the hierarchy now, but I know he's just a few steps down from the site president or whatever the boss' title is.

The kids are so smart! Alie has met the academic milestones for a six-year-old at only five, and our sweet boy is learning so much from her.

I talked to Dad the other day. We have been spotty about keeping in touch, and we usually just bullshit about musician stuff on the rare occasion we chat. He has diabetes now. He insists on treating it with homeopathic garbage.

Do you remember Tom? He finally got married and moved to Oregon. He hates it there, says it's like an ocean of fentanyl with small islands of civilization. I don't know if he's exaggerating for effect or if it really is that bad, but I'm glad I don't live there.

Bob passed away. He had cancer and it spread quickly, Sarah was devastated. We attended the service, she tried to say her peace but couldn't make it through without sobbing.

What else... we got a dog, we named him Mochi. He's a King Charles but we didn't pay a lot since he was a runt. Cute little guy, his fur mats easily though, so we brush him a lot.

That's pretty much everything since I last wrote you. Oh! I'm glad to say the Silverwood Killer got his fucking ass beat and stabbed by some other inmates in Tehachapi. I plan to come see you again in June, I'll bring some CLR for the buildup on your headstone.

I love you,

Elle

#horror #subtle #sad

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convexicalcrow · 1 year

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Here’s an amusing tidbit of info.

Pharaohs mostly did have god complexes about them. Given they often where seen as godlike themselves or ruled by divine authority.

(The Romans did this too. Often stating themselves Demigods and having statues built in likeness to gods.)

And I just can’t get over Cub having a good complex as his pharaoh self.

Oh I'm well aware of that wrt Egyptian kings. I've been into ancient Egypt since I was a kid, and Egyptian religion is mostly what I practice these days. I incorporate a lot of Egyptian stuff into fics when I write Egyptian AUs.

I actually have a Convex Egyptian AU that I started, where Cub is pharaoh and Scar his lover/bodyguard, but has been driven from Egypt and he and Scar got separated on their way back to Egypt to reclaim the throne. It's using an old world I was writing original fic in but never quite got the plot sorted bc it just got very complicated. But it's a good universe and I want to do an Egyptian AU in my own way.

Egyptian Kings were considered to have the Kingly Ka, the soul/spirit that is what legitimised their rule. They are the conduit between humans and gods and are considered divine beings as well as human, and it's not something you stop being. Once a pharaoh, always a pharaoh. It's something I do like playing with when I write Pharaoh Cub, bc the magic he would possess is on a different level and kind than Vex magic and all the magic Scar has. It's a totally different transformation. You can legitimately write Cub, during and post-s7, as a god if you want to.

I do lean into that god complex too, I think it's really interesting that he was Pharaoh in the same season that Scar was Mayor, and it feels like the one time when they have power and authority that can clash in interesting ways. Especially when Cub starts working for Scar. I find that very interesting.

Actually I have a really interesting idea that I'm still trying to figure out what to do with, and it's to do with season 7 being the end of old man Cub, and him preparing for him to be put to rest. There is a tomb in the pyramid after all, and it makes sense for that to be the end of him. s7 is the last dance of the old King, before he's laid to rest for good.

And this leads into s8, and the canyon build, and how Cub changed his skin one episode in, and how you can see the whoel of s8 as a journey through the afterlife and his establishment as a perfect god at the end of it. Specifically I keep eyeing the Book of Caverns as something that could work, given the caverns Cub buiit into the canyon. Plus the whole 'lake of fire' you find in the Afterlife, and Cub's lava river. It just feels like a good metaphor to play around with. It's a way of dealing with s8 as a simulation, and also dealing with the transformation of Cub into a younger man, becoming a perfect god in the afterlife after that. Many pharaohs were master magicians, and to see Cub emerge as court magician in s9 feels like an emanation of that.

Like I said, I have no idea how to deal with this idea apart from swirling it around in my head, but I do think it would be an interesting exploration of Cub, the Egyptian afterlife, and his skin transformation in a different way. But yeah! I love playing around with Pharaoh Cub and Egyptian things, it's super fun. <3

#convexical asks #hermitcraft #cubfan135 #pharaoh cub #fic ideas #fanfic #crow rambles about egyptian religion again #let me show you my non-mc hyperfixations lol

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thoughts4all · 6 months

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Day 328: Inspiring

Hold on I need to structure this. The title is currently "inspiring" however it will probably change.

Batman (parenthood): People want to do good for others. They want to protect others and help humanity at the cost of their suffering. It is a satisfying path to accept that you are not meant to chase your own happiness. It is satisfying knowing you are meant to help others. It is blissful knowing you have not failed yourself if you are not happy since happiness was not the thing you were pursuing.

Batman (resources and free time): In the Dark Knight trilogy, Bruce Wayne has lots of free time and resources. He does not work or have responsibilities. He can do what ever he wants on his free time. On top of that, he has Fox to build him whatever tools or resources he wants. Plus, he has Alfred to be his assistant in everything. Meaning, he has resources, money, time, and a servant/friend. These are immense luxuries we do not posses. This is how he can achieve so much. He can learn things, build things, do things, essentially live more.

Lack of Free time: I want to do so much. I want to read a lot. I want learn to write well. I want to cook intricate healthy meals. I want to workout and become physically healthy and strong. I want to learn to code and create projects. I want to play sports.

Jobs. create jobs business idea. In movies, I always wondered why criminals work for the bad guy when they are ruthless and kill their henchmen anyways. It is because there are no jobs. They will starve otherwise. Same thing how people built the pyramids. Most of the people were slaves. I wondered why the guards would help the Pharaohs keep the slaves in check. It is because there are no other opportunities. Maybe this way they have comfortable resources and could create a family easier.

Duolingo (ethical business idea): Duolingo's story is one many people dream of. People like me. We want to be rich and create something ourselves. At the same time, we do not want to worsen the world. It is easier to get rich off other people's misfortune. Gambling, junk food, polarizing media, porn. These industries gain a profit by hacking the negative parts of the human brain. We do not want to contribute to the things harming society. For instance, I am hard on myself because I am not doing anything valuable. I am wasting my life consuming media. Thus, I do not want to create media since it will assist the rotting of other's brains. I do not want to contribute to the same disease that is plaguing me. At least if I have an ethical purpose at the core of my idea, like Duolingo, I can continue to build something for myself without the guilt of worsening society.

Why am I under so much pressure. What I want is so unrealistic. Why did I have to be plagued with wanting to become an entrepreneur. Why did I have to be plagued with having to find a high paying satisfying job. Why can't I just be happy working at the local mine and raising a family simply because I have to. All this choice and all this pressure on myself that every bad outcome and missed opportunity is my fault. There is nothing wrong with the world. The world is being kind and providing me with all of these opportunities. I don't know why I am so in my head. I think my issue is internal rather than external. I cannot blame the world hacking the addictive components of my brain. It is providing so much. I need to learn to control my thoughts. Not to be successful. But to be content.

Side note, I am probably upset because I am losing. Not putting in the work in the gym, in my career, in myself. Is this my fault or society's? I have so little free time after work. I am exhausted mentally. Mental exhaustion is more of an issue than time. Most of my time is at work, the rest is exhausted and there goes all the days. I have little time to be productive. Is this my fault for not being strong enough?

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