The face of a Mayan Ruler

The face of a Maya Ahau, from Stela 1 at the city of Bonampak. Rubbing by Merle Green Robertson.

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Ahau was a general term for ruler used in Classic period inscriptions.

'Valuable Artifacts'?

Those obsessive archeologists that insist on guarding their own access to ancient artifacts and keeping them out of the hands of collectors and avocational students of the past should consider just how 'valuable' they actually were in the past. This 3rd century papyrus ( P.Oxy. 67.4633 ), containing a kind of ancient commentary to Homer's Iliad, was last used as toilet paper. The sheet, once a beautiful scroll, preserves 2 columns of text written in a nice hand. Discovered among the trash mounds at the ancient Egyptian city of Oxyrhynchus

Easter Bunny: Coptic Style

A Coptic wool fragment, from the 4th -5th century, with a depiction of a beautiful hare.



Happy Easter.

A Sexual Harassment Suit From Ancient Mesopotamia

An extraordinary document.

In this 3700 year old legal document from Iraq, a woman called Šāt-Marduk takes an injunction out against a man called Ahuni - she is not beholden to him in any way, he should not talk to her about the "man and woman thing" or kiss her on the lips. If he asks her for sex, she will report him to the city-elders and the mayor. British Musem 13912, published by Anbar Revue d'Assyriologie et d'archéologie orientale 69 (1975) 120-125. The document would appear to have been made in Larsa in the year 1744 BC.

Cosmetic Birds

These glass birds from Ancient Rome contained cosmetics - you snapped off the tail to get to the contents.

This type of container was made by glassblowing, a technique perfected circa 50 B.C. by glassworkers in the eastern Mediterranean region. Glass-blowing allowed the Romans to produce a larger volume of vessels in a smaller time period. They were highly prized luxury items filled with expensive scented oils. Especially the content.

Art as Old as we Are

This tiny Ice Age figurine was discovered in the Vogelherd Cave, near Stetten, in southwest Germany. Sculpted in mammoth ivory c. 35,000 years ago, it is the oldest known sculpture of a horse.

Had China acted sooner, none of us would be in this mess.

Ming yongle mark porcelain

Had China acted sooner, none of us would be in this mess.
Steven Ahle 'Study Finds 95% of Worldwide Cases of DTMNBN Could Have Been Prevented if China Had Acted Earlier', April 1, 2020.

The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Southampton and considered non-pharmaceutical interventions such as travel restrictions and single case isolation. Researchers found that their research model indicated that 95% of cases would have been prevented if China had acted three weeks earlier. Intervention one week earlier would have resulted in 66% mitigation, while two weeks would have led to 86% fewer cases. “Our study demonstrates how important it is for countries which are facing an imminent outbreak to proactively plan a coordinated response which swiftly tackles the spread of the disease on a number of fronts,” said study author Dr. Shengjie Lai.

China has been excoriated by many for attempting to cover up its culpability in the spread of the virus, the Chinese even went so far as to accuse the US military of planting the virus in China. China's government must understand that the entire world will hold them responsible for their evil here. Their evil has nothing to do with other governments. Let us all pray for the collapse of their vicious, authoritarian regime. The US should immediately rescind any cultural property MOUs and other arrangements with the Rogue State of China.

Overkill

Disinfecting Pericles who died from the plague in 429 B.C.