#Fun history

[nihalsthings]

The ever so impressive Artemis of Ephesus.

Fun fact; the original statue was lost, in probably a fire around 2000 years ago. Temple of Artemis was prone to floodings, fires, and was structurally compromised, but wasn't moved because it was built on holy grounds. The original statue was most likely made of wood and did not survive a fire. After that many more statues were made, but these are considered copies. This lady here is a copy too.

Artemis of Ephesus is vastly different from the regular Artemis who is a huntress. This is because Ephesus had It's own goddess deity which was merged with Artemis in time and became a local version that was only worshipped by people of Ephesus. Her symbol is the "bee" and she is also a goddess of fertility unlike the regular Artemis.

And the boob like structures around her torso is less likely to be boobs and more likely to be symbols of fertility for the people of Ephesus: bull testicles or bee eggs. In some other statues these structures are more clearly breasts, for example "the Fountain of Diana" in Sicily.

Her crown symbolizes the city she protects. She has depictions of animals she protects and rules all over her body, along with symbols of fertility and a Zodiac wheel.

[snufkinsong]

it makes me so pleased that humans have always been up to something.

shenanigans like snowball fights are timeless.

Source

[fred-waffen]

[meeewtfbtchs]

YOUR 6 + FRAME WILL NOT STOP MY OFFICERS BULLETS FROM KILLING YOU- Napoleon Bonaparte -Told to General Dumas, who turned on him.

[historyprofessorquotes]

"Because of course you can't just call it the 'Party of Big Fat Racists', so the State's Rights Party."

-Professor Boldt on the State's Rights Party.

[bandcampgremlin]

hello history tumblr k thought you would like to see this 16th century, Turkish umbrella hat

[rachel-sylvan-author]

"How to Survive History: How to Outrun a Tyrannosaurus, Escape Pompeii, Get Off the Titanic, and Survive the Rest of History's Deadliest Catastrophes" by Cody Cassidy

Guys!! I read "The Nature of Fragile Things" about the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake two days ago, recommended it yesterday. I read this yesterday to recommend today and!! It teaches how to survive the 1906 earthquake! Yay book corroboration! 😊 It's so random but it made me super happy and I hope it makes you happy too!!

Thank you @readingbeagle for recommending this! It was fun! ❤️

[lucere-aeresta]

Been reading this little fun book and only a few pages in our poor ACD had already been asked:

to introduce assistant/housekeeper/etc. to Sherlock Holmes. (And when mentioning the woman loves "bees" the word is capitalized and in quotation...I don't know what to make of it 🤔)

to get Holmes' autograph for readers. (Should be simple enough lol)

to write more SH books. (Of course! I'd be surprised if none of these letters turned up)

to send some copies of his books to a poor girl, better if translated into Russian. (Phew, who am I to complain readers requesting translation when ACD himself had to face such requests as well!)

to check out a treasure map somehow procured from the Admiralty, which was cyphered and needed to be decoded. (Man, leave him alone; he had already made enough money from selling SH books!)

to solve a case in which a Polish prince was murdered. (Fan fact, he got a detective work request--none other than the disappearance of Agatha Christie--even after death.)

Lmao it's funny but I feel sorry for ACD. I don't blame him for hating Holmes in the end, if only for having to deal with these letters!

Can't wait to see what this book has in store for me. But at least after part one the letters were not sent to Holmes-tormented ACD anymore but to some secretaries who got paid to deal with this headache and/or amusement.

[tricornonthecob]

I need you all to understand the transcendent joy of finding evidence of People Being Trash Gremlins Through Time.

I present to you, the Bog House Miscellany

a compendium of funny graffiti in ordinaries, taverns, and public shitters in London in the early 18th century. Published anonymously by Hurlo Thrumbo, may their name be forever blessed.

With such gems as:

If you're gonna moan about being broke, at least make a good pun out of it.

I absolutely read all the pauses in Ha! Ha! Ha!

Some quality shitter discourse

For some reason this has tumblr reblog thread energy

yooooooooooo

I have absolutely read something akin to this in a public bathroom somewhere circa 2014.

If you don't get this, say Mike Hunt repeatedly until you do.

And my absolute favorite roast of all time:

[nihalsthings]

Some other artifacts from Ephesus.

What's so significant about this location is the fact that it was home to many different, great civilizations including ancient greeks, imperial romans and early christians, and it is said to be founded by Amazonians. It was first built in 10th century BC, but recent excavations stretched the timeline all the way back to 6000 BC. The intricate works made out of stone, ivory, clay, marble, copper and gold carry the fingerprints of so many different cultures. It's hard not to feel amazed by such a big piece of human history while walking around.

Tiny cups with powder are make-up containers. Just imagine the greek or roman woman who use these to have her make-up done, and go out to see the play in the great theatre nearby, which had the capacity of 20k people! Right below them are surgical tools, crafted in great detail.

Tiny egyptian priest statute is a bonus and was a lovely surprise to see here. It was naturally a low-light environment so the photos aren't excellent, but I did my best.

[depressed-overthinker]

weird ascension of darius the great

have u ever heard of Darius the great. i  mean people who are passionate in middle east’s history might or probably do know about this king since he was the first Persian ruler who actually unified the what is now known as persian empire and under his rule it went onto great heights. he kinda reminds me of Julius creaser since their story is pretty much the same :- great majestic prime then died tragically.

anyways back to the topic, what really makes me laugh about his case is not his empire and his rule but the hilarious chain of events that led to him becoming king.

never heard about this...buckle up since this is going to be a hell of a ride.

the story starts with Cyrus the great

yes that Cyrus the first to ever write a human rights tablet. great ruler. salute to this man. he was actually a distant relative of Darius.

one day he dreamed of Darius with wings behind his back one wing shadowing Europe the other Asia. Cyrus fearing that Darius might be plotting against him send him away. though Cyrus's story ends tragically i dont really feel bad for him. he died at the hands of queen Tamarius. badass lady seriously dont mess with her as Cyrus learned the hard way. she cut off Cyrus's head after he killed her son and dipped his head in the pool of his own blood. i think the exact words she said were i always keep my word and    "Drink your fill of blood!. Badasssss i say with a capital B. well she had aright to be angry since Cyrus got her son slaughtered.

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A WOMAN SCORNED!!!!!

ANYWAY I ALWAYS GET A LITTLE TOO PASSIONATE IT SEEMS.

SO after Cyrus death, as the custom dictates his eldest son should inherit the throne the problem was Cyrus had 2 sons Cambyses and smerdis.

while Cambyses was the elder one he was also a short tempered spoiled  and paranoid man who had a habit of going into fits of rage and doing things he later regretted. in my opinion he was also an idiot.

there is actually a story of how when a close comrade of him told hm that he drank too much. and he was like ,”ok if i drank too much then i wouldn't be good at shooting a bow and then he had the comrade’s son stand against the wall and used him as a target board. he said that if he drank too much then he will PROBABLY miss the shot and then proceeded to shoot the comrades son in the heart IN FRONT OF THE COMRADE.

WHAT.    A.     DICK.

kinda like Joffrey from got.

smerdis was....

his brother?? he is not the focus here and is irrelevant.

so... FFUUUUUCCCKKK OFFFF SMERDIS!!!!!

ANYWAYS, he also had a weird mind considering he sometimes had very crazy plans that always ended in disaster.

case in point in his new years of crowning himself  he had this awesome (not) plan of invading Egypt by basically sending his army through Sahara desert. SENDING AN ARMY THROUGH SAHARA DESERT!!!! l

LIKE. DUDE. WTF. IS. WRONG. WITH. YOU.?

even today i think people have not fully travelled through Sahara desert through foot or on horses and camels imagine in that time.

understandably this ended in disaster as i think we still haven't found the lost army of king Cambyses as people have named this mystery.

though he did end up conquering Egypt during the reign of pharaoh phastmik 2?? i think the name is. but the first attempt and its consequence still remain a mystery. (probably)

So when he visited Egypt he took his brother with him because he had a dream of smerdis on a throne and his form  big enough to touch the heaven.

(i swear this family has weird dreams).

this nightmare made him fear that smerdis will usurp him in his absence so he ordered smerdis to come with him. now the most logical decision in these circumstances would be to go yourself and in order as to not have a power vacuum in your empire u leave a close family member to rule temporarily. but what this idiot dd? he took his brother with him and put a magician aka a complete stranger to rule in his absence.

i.  am. done.   with.   this.   guy.

soon his paranoia reached its limit and he had his brother assassinated.  througha trusted confidant of his - perxasspes. after the deed was done prexasspes returned to egypt to give his master the good news.

also fun fact i dont know where this comes in the story but the guy who assassinated smerdis, perxasspes his name was i think, his son was actually killed by Cambyses.

PLOT TWIST!!!!.

when Cambyses was to return to his Syria after a successful conquest of Egypt he received very surprising news considering the circumstances - in his absence his throne has been taken by..... SMERDIS?? yeah smerdis.

or is it??

continue if u want this mystery solved. HEHEHEH......MWAHAHAHAHAHA

Cambyses at first was confused by this recent development until someone reminded him that this must be a power grab by an opportunistic usurper.

i. am. honestly. loving.  this.  whole.  situation.  really. so.  far.

in his haste to reach his kingdom Cambyses accidentally  stabbed his thigh with his sword  while mounting his horse and died in Egypt. BUT BEFORE DYING HE INSTRUCTED HIS NOBLEMEN TO SEIZE HIS THRONE FROM THIS SMERDIS...

OR IS IT???

since he had no heirs the power vacuum that was created and the fuckup events following it are finally here so lets get STARTTTTEDDDD!!!!

the problem the Cambyses men faced was that this smerdis was an extremely popular king and majority of the population believed him to be real son of cyrus. yes this is fake smerdis. i really suck at keeping suspense *sigh*.

perxasspes the one who killed the real smerdis could have resolved this confusion but he kept his mouth shut most likely to keep himself innocent because no one is going to leave u alone if u admit that u killed a prince on his brothers orders. most likely this would have created a scandal. or because perxasses was sadist who enjoyed peoples suffering.

the smerdis on throne also kept himself in seclusion whenever possible and surrounded himself with people who never met the real smerdis so as to further protect his identity.

enter one nobleman named otanes, otanes had a sneaking suspicion as to who this imposter was. years ago during cyrus’s reign a man had his ears cut off. otanes believed that this man could be the imposter. but to find out if this was true was very difficult since the imposter king always had a turban on which hid his ears and thus he could not confirm if he had ears or lack there of. so otanes had his daughter who was part of imposter kings harem sneak up on him  while he was asleep and and check if he had ears.

NOOOOOO EARSSSS!!!!!

OTANES HAD HIS SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED. THE MAN ON THE THRONE IS NOT IN FACT THE REAL SMERDIS BUT A MAN ALSO NAMED SMERDIS.

HISTORY TWISTTTTTT!!!!!!

it gets worse btw.

turns out i the magician who was tasked to keep an eye on the empire had a brother whose name was smerdis and he  in the absence of cambyses and smerdis crowned his brother king. its awesome timing since the real smerdis had just been secretly murdered.

otanes now gathered a bunch of men to overthrow the false king and one of them happened to beeee.........

DARIUS!!!! our man is finally here.

it seems that darius had pieced the plot together himself and came to assist the noblemen in their rebellion.

meanwhile the fake smerdis and the magician were getting nervous because the rumors of their scheme were spreading and so to get control of their situation they enveloped perxasspes in their scheme to make a public formal announcement that the false smerdis is the real smerdis and that the real smerdis had not been killed but the weight of his lies and betrayals finally began to crumble upon the assassin. he decided that he will no longer follow the line filled with betrayals and falsehoods. he climbed on a tall building and openly denounced the false king and confessed in front of the astonished crowd that the smerdis sitting on the throne is indeed an imposter. he urged to those who were listening to him to rise up and destroy the false king and restore the true persian royal family line. then in a dramatic exit he jumped and fell to his death. he must have realized he was fucked any way so death seems like a better alternative.

back to otanes and his men, after storming the royal palace and killing the imposter and his magic bro. the noblemen took to the streets and explained the evil plot to their people and urged people to cut down any magi they see. by morning, almost every magi was slaughtered.

the people seem easily impressionable tbh.

after their successful rebellion the noblemen had to decide who will rule them. in order to decide who will be king they determined that they will mount their horse  and whoevers neighs first on the sunrise will be the king.

well at least there wasnt another war. that is a very effective yet childish way to do it.

according to one version of the story darius turned to his horse master obareus  for help who proceeded to help his master by rubbing his hand on one of darius horse’s favourite mare’s vulva and then just before sunrise bought it close to darius’s horse nose which caused the horse to immediately snort and whinny.

ughhhhh so disgusting!!!

and thats how my friends darius the great became the ruler of persian empire after a chain of hilarious clusterfuck of events.

well his intelligent reflects from his actions. piecing together a conspiracy theory from abroad which turned out to be accurate is pretty sherlock holmes stuff.

darius my pal hope u are proud of yourself. u really left a mark on history and ur legacy.

[minimumred]

Related fun fact: early biologists believed living beings could grow from inanimate stiff like dirt for a long time. The OP should think of themselves as less dumb!

[historyprofessorquotes]

"He is one of history's most celebrated losers."

-Professor Boldt on Napoleon Bonaparte

[stealingpotatoes]

some alternative eras of lady normalgirl and her eunuch <3

[donloco]

Crassus: Minted Song | Rotten Romans | Horrible Histories