nickysfacts

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Sappho was the only Muse that was inspired by other Muses!

🏳️‍🌈📜🏳️‍🌈

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Ring that once belonged to Søren Kierkegaard, who had given it to his fiancée Regine Olsen. He reclaimed the ring in 1841 after they broke up. Denmark, 1841-1855 CE.

Museum of Copenhagen-Københavns Museum

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Yesterday, one of my preschoolers came up to me very concerned, and said, “Miss ____, this book doesn’t have any pages!”

Now, this kid is only three, and I can’t always understand what he says because he’s still so little. However, he carries himself and has the conversational lilt of an 80-year-old academic, so I absolutely believed him. Also, like any library, not all of our books have been as gently used as one might like, so there’s always a chance that the pages of the book this kid was holding actually had fallen out somewhere, and he was only holding the cover. I hurried over to see if this was the case and he opened the book for me, still very concerned.

He had only opened to the end sheet, that blank page at the front of a book. I turned the page for him to reveal the title page. This look of absolute relief crossed his face and he went, “Oh, silly me. I didn’t look hard enough!”

I love kids.

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All hail the Queen of Isla Nublar!

🦖

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Girly girl🌸

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THYLACINE REIGN 🦴 By Valentino Lasso, an Illustrator, Visual Developer, and Character Designer (Lasso’s Website) (Instagram)

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All hail Namor, the ruler and environmental bad boy of the sea!

🌊🌊🌊

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Soda Pop: A highly carbonated soda drink. It can be used to restore 50 HP to a single Pokémon.

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Happy Juneteenth!

🤎💜🤎

To celebrate here are some history facts showcasing how African Americans have and continue to shape American history and culture, despite the many roadblocks put in there way!

💜🤎💜

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Well!

So first, let's clear a common misconception: no, President Abraham Lincoln did not love Black people nor see them as human equals. At best he was centrist about it (though, even his implication that 'exceptional' Black men ought to vote got him assassinated).

"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do, it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about slavery, and the colored race, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union...I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty; and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free."

The "freeing of slaves" after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 was meant to kneecap the economic and military powers of the seceded South. Lettuce stop making a white savior figure out of Lincoln, or thinking that my people's shackles were unchained via anything other than desperate war strategy and extreme violence. Think on that, for a moment.

That being said!

But not everyone in Confederate territory would immediately be free. Even though the Emancipation Proclamation was made effective in 1863, it could not be implemented in places still under Confederate control. As a result, in the westernmost Confederate state of Texas, enslaved people would not be free until much later. Freedom finally came on June 19, 1865, when some 2,000 Union troops arrived in Galveston Bay, Texas. The army announced that the more than 250,000 enslaved black people in the state, were free by executive decree. This day came to be known as "Juneteenth," by the newly freed people in Texas.

Consider going through the Smithsonian website to learn about Juneteenth! Recognize why it's an actual day of freedom, versus July 4th and the independence of a select few.

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We can thank Pachucas for providing us with the ability to reshape are lips and kisses!

🎞️💋👩🏽‍🦱

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you HAVE to expand what your mental image of what a woman looks like in order to progress past trans/misogyny and intersexism. when you finally accept that "woman" does not have a set look or sound, you free yourself from the chains of both patriarchy and radfem ideals. "woman" does not mean thin, pretty, hairless, short, quiet, large breasted, hour glass figured, weak, submissive, high voiced, or small.

women can and do look, act, and sound like anything. cis, intersex, trans, butch, non binary, gender non conforming, detrans, or anything else: any woman can look, act and sound like anything. we are just as diverse as any other member of this population. in order to acknowledge this, we must let go of the concept that a woman "should" look, act, or sound like anything.

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Cloud was cross dressing and breaking masculinity stereotypes before it was cool!

🎀👗🎀

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You could say Nekhbet always got you covered!

𓅐

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A Scythian goddess on Apulian vases

These are five vases likely showing the elusive Scythian ancestral goddess. 

I love the floral imagery, but I’m also frustrated that I can’t find much information about the tendril-limbed female figures. I’m fairly certain that these images, aside from the siren, depict the Scythian ancestral goddess, but I can’t find any art historians who specifically discuss the figures. I’ve found several articles that talk about the vases in general, but they only focus on the flowing vines and the main scenes, not on the likely Scythian deity herself.

Apulian red-figure oinoche, about 350-320 BCE. Photo by courtesy of Dr. Matthias Recke, University of Giessen, Antikensammlung Museum. Photo via Peter on Flickr.

This vase could also be a siren, the lovely singers of Homeric fame. While the other Scythian goddesses only have wings, this woman has bird feet. Sirens were bird-bodied women to ancient Greek artists. However, this siren is unusual as her tail feathers curl out on either side of her, like the Scythian ancestral goddess’s tails do.

Apulian Red-Figure Loutrophoros about 330 B.C. Attributed to the Painter of Louvre MNB 1148 (Greek (Apulian), active 350 - 330 B.C.) Info from Getty Museum.

This woman has wings, a basket on her head like the Vergina mosaics of the Scythian goddess, and a dress like the Carytids in the Thracian Tomb of Sveshtari, Bulgaria. The lower part of the vase shows the mourning of Niobe.

Winged woman with tendrils, likely the Scythian goddess. Apulian red-figure vase, about 340 BCE, Varrese Painter; Antikensammlung Kiel, inventory number B 724. Picture taken by Marcus Cyron via Wikipedia.

This woman also has wings, a basket on her head, and the distinctive curling chiton dress like other Scythian goddess figures wear. She’s mentioned in the article “Half-Human Half-Vegetal Hybrids in Eastern Mosaics” which does talk about Scythian goddess imagery, but the author doesn’t specify that this is an image of the Scythian goddess.

Likely Scythian goddess, Baltimore painter, loutrophoros with wedding scenes, about 325-320 BCE. Matera, Museo Archeologico Nazionale. Photos via Saiko on Wikipedia.

Our next goddess has a different style dress, and much more elaborate tendrils— but she also has wings and perhaps a basket on her head. It’s interesting that most of these goddesses have bare toros, as she Scythian goddess is usually shown with a full dress.

We also have a confirmation that this imagery is related to the Scythia goddess, in an article on her imagery:

“The female winged deity with lower part of the body resembling a palmette or acanthus leaves is a widespread image on Apulian vases. Two characteristic examples are the “Niobe” amphora (4th century BCE) from Naples, featuring an aedicula stepping on a base decorated with several such figures (20) Fig 7 and a case which was sold at Christie’s in 1979, dated to the last decades of the 4th century BC.” (Valeva 1995.)

This article could be referring to the Getty vase, as they're both showing scenes with Niobe. Image from Baggio 2013.

Update: I found one more example of this motif on a vase here.

Sources.

Valeva, Julia. “Valeva-1995 The Sveshtari Figures (An Attempt to Specify Several Hypotheses).” Thracia 11, Studia in honorem Alexandri Fol, Sofia. (1995): n. pag. Print.

DERWAEL, Stéphanie. “Half-Human Half-Vegetal Hybrids in Eastern Mosaics.” Journal of Mosaic Research, no. 16, 2023, pp. 89–110, https://doi.org/10.26658/jmr.1376718.

Heuer, Keely. “Tenacious Tendrils: Replicating Nature in South Italian Vase Painting.” Arts, vol. 8, no. 2, 2019, p. 71, https://doi.org/10.3390/arts8020071

Baggio, Monica. “Sistemi Di Immagini, Sistemi Di Oggetti Le Loutrophoroi Del Pittore Di Baltimora.” Cahiers « Mondes Anciens », no. 4, 2013, https://doi.org/10.4000/mondesanciens.1072.

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for my fiancé ♡