#Linear pottery

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

drinkjijg my morning tea from a 7000 years old cup

[daisyachain]

The pitch behind Anterran Literature also just tickles me. Humans have been around for a couple of ten thousand years, the early civilizations that we know of each formed within a few hundred years. Why wouldn’t there have accidentally been an abortive attempt at structure or two? And isn’t it creepy that there have been minds thinking with the same level of complexity about the world for that long? Even without the foundations of theory, people weren’t any less clever to figure out how to tell where edible roots grew than for me to figure out how to get my damn spreadsheet to import data. They were more clever. There’s something horrific about the idea of having that mind without being able to do anything with it. What can you do about the stresses of life when you don’t know the chains of causality that cause lightning, floods, the movements of beasts? If your only explanation is spirits or chance, then isn’t that terrifying to be faced with the constant threat of incomprehensible death? It is to me.

[roguewavemusic]

Open Living Room Image of a medium-sized, elegant living room with a ribbon fireplace, a plaster fireplace, a media wall, and a medium-tone wood floor.

[theonetruebinkly]

2-22-2023

Daily journal entry for 2-22-2023

Events: Morning: Slept much better last night, very deep sleep and even had a few dreams. Don’t remember what they were about but I do remember I came up with the most amazing idea for something during one and had to remember it in the morning, but of course I don’t. I did have a dream that I could finally do a side splits though. Maybe the thing I had to remember was how to do it? Went to…

[planetbabel]

Bathroom - Contemporary Bathroom

[icyg4l]

PAC: June 2024 Predictions

Hello beautiful people! Continuing on with my summer 2024, I am kicking off this upcoming June with predictions! I look forward to posting more content relating to this topic and many others. I also want to say that tomorrow, I will be having a Five Dollar Friday Sale so if you would like to receive a reading for a lower price, tomorrow is the day to do so! Without further ado, please choose the image that resonates with you!

Top Left-to-Bottom Right: (1-4)

Pile One: This pile is definitely geared towards femmes of the African diaspora. I feel like you will be more knowledgeable about your culture. You will take more pride in your identity this month. Happy Juneteenth in advance <3! I also feel like this month will be perfect for you to brush up on skills like crocheting, quilt making, jewelry making or sewing. I see that you’re a versatile person who has many sides so do not be afraid to show them. I feel like this month you will be rewarded with recognition due to your connections with women. If you are someone who struggles when it comes to intimacy with women, do not fear what can work for you. This month is crucial for you. I feel like you need to be paying close attention to cameras. People will be videoing you and taking pictures of you heavy this month. You might even go viral. People will also be more generous towards you this month. You may even notice people being more flirtatious with you, offering to pay for your drinks/food, etc. Some of you are going to be traveling down South, specifically Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia. If you have a sexual partner, you will get into an argument with them about something trivial. It will be blown out of proportion but I will say this. There is a reason why you feel the way you feel about them right now. Your gut never lies, love. And lastly, you may get invited to a surplus of dinner dates, picnic dates and family friendly places like Top Golf, Dave N Busters, etc. And be sure to keep your spiritual protection up!

Cards Used: Wheel of Fortune, 7 of Cups, 6 of Cups, 8 of Wands (RX), 5 of Wands, The Star, The Empress, Judgment, King of Wands.

extras: buying hair picks. reaching a fruit tree. jamaican flag. acorns. nature lover. egyptian goddess. play for keeps. buckaroos. monkey island.

Pile Two: Who lit a fire under your ass, Pile Two? I feel like this month will be about spoiling yourself and letting people know that you are not to be played with. It feels like you are finally standing up for yourself after being punked for so long. Think of this time as charging up and gaining your power. This is the era of reclaiming your power. You are going to be realizing your worth and it will feel so good. A lot of you guys are newly single and now you feel spiritually lighter. The weight of your past relationship turned you into someone you weren’t. Healing is not a linear journey so you need to be as patient with yourself as possible. Some of you will be taking up a pottery class, will start pole dancing or start gardening to help you cope with your situation. You are more in control of your situation than you think. It’s time to want better for yourself and to do better for yourself. Out with the old, in with the new is what I heard. If you’ve been talking about starting up a business or starting up a podcast, then get on it! Type up that business plan and brainstorm some topics to talk about (preferably some unrelenting to splitting the bill or the criteria of being a feminine). This month, you could also do some traveling. It could be in the Northern parts of the U.S. or even in the Caribbean. I feel like your main focus will definitely be getting rid of the dead weight though. Clearing up your face, cleaning up your diet, physically cleaning your room, all of that. Just do it!

Cards Used: 5 of Discs, King of Swords, Queen of Swords, Knight of Discs, 6 of Swords, Temperance, 9 of Discs, The Fool

extras: revenge body. health nut. being more strict. podcast listener. kendrick lamar fan. maracas. greece. puerto rico. haitian. fixing insecurities.

Pile Three: You guys are definitely under 5’4”, lol. I feel like you could be an aspiring model or dancer. You could even be an aspiring rapper. I feel like you guys have a resting bitch face and because of it a lot of people accuse you of being mean when you really aren’t. This month, you could find yourself trying to overcompensate for that, lol! You may find yourself doing yard work for your neighbors, putting up flyers for someone’s local business, taking out someone’s trash, moving someone’s car for them, picking up your s/o’s sibling/mother up from work/school. I also see you guys purchasing a new wig with color in it or a pair of Lady Gaga-esque heels from Poshmark or Depop. You guys have a gothic sense of style. During the month of June, you will definitely be partying with the gays (probably only on the weekends though depending on your schedule). Happy Pride Month <3! I think that you guys will be doing things that will get you out of your comfort zone, specifically going out at night. The nightlife will be calling your name, dear. You will be bombarded with attention when this does happen. You are socially awkward but it’s okay, they won’t bite. The environments where you’ll be at will be filled with welcoming characters that make you feel safe. I feel like some of you will be trading services with another business owner (i.e., hairstyle for nail set, reading for reading, etc). Lastly, you guys need to go to karaoke bars, gay bars, go bar diving! Your self-esteem will go up, lol!

Cards Used: The Hermit, King of Cups, 7 of Cups, The Star, 2 of Swords (RX), Strength, 6 of Wands, The Tower.

extras: studded heels. drunk selfies. smoked out eyeliner. dragged. tea. money-hungry. marge simpson. katniss everdeen. facts about the royal kingdom.

Pile Four: This month will mark a special meeting between you and another person. A lot of you guys will be attending a wedding ceremony during this month, if you’re not already getting married. If you are getting married, just know that the stress is worth it dear. The ceremony will go great. But for the single folks, I feel like guys have been having a bad streak when it comes to dating/love. This will change at the wedding reception/ceremony. You will either meet someone who is exactly your type or you will catch the bouquet. I see that this person is tall, bright-eyed and very charming. This person will change your perspective on life. Outside of love, I feel like you guys will be working at some type of charity event. If you work somewhere with children involved, you will be assigned as the leader for the big task. You will handle it well. You could be in your 9H profection year or you could just be looking for your purpose in life. I feel like you will expand on your beliefs. You will visit different places of faith, travel to different neighborhoods and try new foods just to get a new perspective. I also think you will listen to music of different genres more often, specifically music with an island feel to it. If you have a science test coming up, you will pass it. And lastly, I feel like by the end of the month you will be on vacation. Whatever is going on at work will make you want to take a break. I see someone drinking RedBull to get through the day. I am also channeling the movie ‘The Last Holiday’. You should watch it! There is more to life than just working. You have some exploring to do, friend.

Cards Used: 9 of Wands, Temperance, 3 of Wands, The Hierophant, Queen of Cups, 3 of Discs.

extras: moonwalk. euphoria. small fry. tupperware. black lives matter. sagittarius placements. jupiter heavy. buoyancy. shameless (2011).

[southwest-pottery-bracket]

Preliminaries: Battle of the Black-on-Whites!

Black-on-white pottery is far and away the most common decorated pottery style of the ancient Southwest. There are way, way too many to include them all... in fact, there are too many to include even all the ones I want to show off!

So this is the Preliminary Round - four different black-on-white types will go up against each other... only two will move on to represent black-on-whites in the final bracket.

Vote for your favorite!

Information and details about each type under the cut:

Sosi and Dogoszhi Black-on-white

Dogoszhi Black-on-white jar. Northeastern Arizona, 1050-1200.

These are actually two different types within Tusayan White Ware - Sosi B/W and Dogoszhi B/W. However, like I said, Too Many Whitewares, so I'm grouping them together because there's strong overlap.

Sosi B/W can be identified by its bold, black designs, like the one in the compilation above the cut; Dogozshi B/W has similar design layout, but instead of solid black, they're filled with hatchure (thin, parallel lines. Sometimes, like the image above, the body is a Dogoszhi design, while the neck has a more Sosi-like design.

Sosi and Dogozshi Black-on-whites were built with the coil-and-scrape method (built up of many small coils, probably turned on a turning plate called a puki, and then while the clay was still wet, scraped smooth and sometimes polished). The paint was carbon-based and got its color from a plant called beeweed. These were made in the Kayenta and Tusayan regions of north-eastern Arizona.

Mimbres Black-on-white

Bowl with a Frog, Mimbres Black-on-white. Southwestern New Mexico, AD 1000-1150.

One of the most iconic Southwest pottery types. Literally: one of the few pottery types in the Southwest to display a wide range of icons, human and animal figures. Pre-Classic Mimbres bowls used geometric and rotational symmetry designs more often, mixing bold lines and hatchure; Classic Mimbres bowls tend to have a linear design around the rim, and then a human or animal design on the inside. Various types of figures are seen, but primarily birds, insects, amphibians/reptiles, and twin human figures, in hematite-based paint.

Mimbres bowls are among the most popular to be sold by looters on the black market. Worse, a very large number of the most dramatic Mimbres bowls come from burials; if you see an archaeological pot for sale with an animal design like this, it was almost certainly stolen out of a grave. You can especially suspect this when the bowls have small circular holes smashed or drilled in the center, usually obscuring the figure partially. Archaeologists call these kill holes, from the idea that the pot was "killed" to end its use-life when it was buried with the deceased person. If you see a Mimbres pot with a kill-hole, odds are very good (something like 80%) that it came from a burial. These displayed bowls here are verified to come from non-burial contexts.

Chaco Black-on-white

Chaco (or Gallup) Black-on-white. Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon, north-western New Mexico, AD 1000-1100.

Chaco Canyon! One of the most dramatic, interesting, and still mysterious aspects of the Ancestral Southwest. In a canyon in New Mexico, multiple palatial "Great Houses" were built, with hundreds of rooms, large and regimented plazas, massive kivas (circular subterranean religious buildings), and an incredible amount of decoration and pageantry. Pueblo Bonito, the largest of the Chaco Great Houses, is proven to have had a matrilineal elite/noble lineage. How many people actually lived in the Great Houses? Were they palaces, communal centers, worship centers? Were the Chaco elite a priestly class or a noble caste or a bit of both? How did they mobilize people throughout the Chaco sphere of influence to bring timbers down from the mountains a hundred kilometers away to build these Great Houses? There are a lot of things archaeologists still argue about. Pueblo and Navajo oral histories describe Chaco as an overreach of power that their ancestors eventually rejected, leading to the collapse of Chaco Canyon as a center of social influence throughout the Southwest around 1100. (Modern Pueblo and Navajo relationships to Chaco are complicated. It was an overreach of power, but also an incredible ancestral polity.) Until then, it was certainly a socially, politically, and religiously powerful force.

You can also see this in the pottery: this style of hatchure, the narrow black-and-white lines, was massively popular in Chaco Canyon and seems to have kind of ripple-effected out to the rest of the Southwest who were in or near the Chaco sphere of influence. Hatchure is very common in a lot of black-on-white wares, but very close, very narrow, very even hatchure is strongly associated with Chaco Canyon.

Cylinder jars for chocolate-drinking, as described and confirmed by Dr. Patricia Crown. Chaco Canyon, Pueblo Bonito, 1000-1100.

Also, Chaco Black-on-white cylinder jars were used for a chocolate-drinking ritual, indicating cultural connections, religious ties, and trade routes to Mesoamerica and Maya communities far to the south in Mexico in the 900s-1000s. It's an important thing to remember: None of these cultures or time periods were static, and were almost never insular.

Mesa Verde Black-on-white

Mesa Verde Black-on-white bowls. Southwestern Colorado/northwestern New Mexico, AD 1150-1280.

An immensely popular white ware style, Mesa Verde Black-on-white is associated with the Ancestral Pueblo settlements - including the dramatic and famous cliff dwellings, like Cliff Palace. Bold, heavy, repeating geometric designs in carbon-based paint are the most common, but there are hatched designs and some areas that used mineral paints as well. Paintbrushes to apply these painted designs were made of yucca.

Some of the most fun and famous Mesa Verde B/W vessels are the mugs of Mug House, a site so named because a bunch of mugs were found in it.

[tlatollotl]

vase

Cultures/periods: Nasca

Production date: 100BC-600

Findspot: Nazca

Provenience unknown, possibly looted

Pottery bulbous-concave vase. Depiction of apparently a penguin or marine animal. Multi-coloured linear patterns shaping body of figure. Painted on cream background.

British Museum

[transgenderer]

The archaeological site of Herxheim, located in the municipality of Herxheim in southwest Germany, was a ritual center and a mass grave formed by people of the Linear Pottery culture (LBK) culture in Neolithic Europe. The site is often compared to that of the Talheim Death Pit and Schletz-Asparn, but is quite different in nature. The site dates from between 5300 and 4950 BC.[1] The site contained the scattered remains of more than 1000 individuals from different, in some cases faraway regions. Whether they were war captives or human sacrifices is unclear, but the evidence indicates that they were roasted and consumed.[2]

Of particular note from both studies[1][3] was the peculiar treatment of the humans' skulls. Many skulls were treated in a similar manner: skulls were struck on "the sagittal line, splitting faces, mandibles, and skull caps into symmetrical halves".[3] A few skulls were clearly skinned prior to being struck, again, all in the same manner: "horizontal cuts above the orbits, vertical cuts along the sagittal suture, and oblique cuts in the parietals".[3]

Whether for religious purpose or war, it is apparent from the 2009 study that the humans at the site of Herxheim were butchered and eaten.[1] Not only were cut marks found on locations of the  skeleton  that are made during the  dismemberment  and filleting process, bones were also crushed for the purposes of marrow extraction, and chewed. Besides the fresh-bone fractures present on many bones, "[processing] for marrow is also documented by the presence of scrape marks in the marrow cavity on two fragments."[1]

The number of people concerned at Herxheim obviously suggests that cannibalism for the simple purpose of survival is highly improbable, all the more so as the characteristics of the deposits show a standard, repetitive, and strongly ritualised practice.[1]

rec reading the whole article

[sotvrna]

here, in the breeze

[you can read it on ao3]

The thing about dying and being brought back—and Laudna considers herself something of an expert at this point—is how it will mess up your idea of time. Not just the way you perceive it, but how you logic its passage. Being stuck in a place, if it can be called that, where time takes no form of future or present, but past eternal coiling with itself, then being thrust back out to the now; the linearity of time feels dreamy for a while, and the ‘how much did I lose’ question only truly sets in after. They say she lost a few days. It didn’t feel like that. It didn’t feel like anything; just the there, and now here. She loses a couple more days after that, like a part of her stayed behind and she might wake up encased in bark once again at any moment. They lay low, they grieve, she’s not all there but certain moments bring reality into sharpness: the Sun Tree; a tryst under lantern-light; Eshteross, dead. Slowly they become more frequent than not, and she feels more grounded in the now than the there, until she can for the most part have her subconscious agree that here is reality.

Three days after they returned to Jrusar she is mostly back to her old self, even if fear lingers. Their group is restless from the time spent at the inn, plans upon plans but no concrete path to follow, she checks the orb connected to the tracking ring almost compulsively, looking for any sign that Thull is near. Now they—Imogen and her—are on their way to Zhudanna’s place, taking the opportunity of the others running an errand at the Krook House early in the afternoon to check in with her.

The sight of the house in the Windowed Wall brings clarity to Laudna, opening a flood of fond memories of her time with Imogen before Bells Hells.

Zhudanna opens the door with an “Oh, hello dearies,” and motions for them to come inside.

“Hi Zhudanna,” Imogen replies, affection tingeing her tone.

The inside looks exactly how they left it, from the pottery utensils to the ever growing pile of knitted articles. “How have you been?” Laudna asks.

“Just fine, dear.” Zhudanna ushers them to the small kitchen. “Come, I’ll put on some tea for you.”

It isn’t long until they’re seated by the window, tea in hand, Imogen regaling a half-attentive Zhudanna with the milder stories from their travels, Laudna piping in with occasional commentary. It’s all so familiar. Comfortable. She realises she spends a lot of that time staring at Imogen, just watching her speak and gesticulate. They’ve been preoccupied, especially her, but since Whitestone and the night they spent there, whenever Laudna feels present she finds herself looking to Imogen, like an anchor, tethering her—confusing her thoughts but at least she knows they’re real, and they’re hers.

—

It was strange, being under the Sun Tree. Despite its canopy rising so high above them, Laudna felt like she was within the tree somehow, its presence all-encompassing. It was not a bad feeling; though she wasn’t sure it was all good either; conflicting emotions swirled within, some new, some old and memory-laden. Before it could fully overwhelm her she turned to the side, where she was accommodated next to Imogen—laying on her back looking up the same way Laudna was a moment ago, her hair haloed by the dim light, eyes open and attentive to the branches above. Laudna squeezed delicately, their hands entwined in the vacant space between their sleeping rolls. Imogen looked at her inquisitively, but unfocused, like she was just brought out of a reverie.

“Can’t sleep either, darling?” Laudna asked, voice low and throaty due to the extended silence.

Imogen hummed and adjusted her position so she was facing Laudna. “Too much to think about,” she whispered.

Laudna glanced over her shoulder at the rest of her friends, all apparently sound asleep—except FCG who stood stock still, gaze focused on some far off point. “Not a problem for the others it seems,” she said, a light smile on her lips.

“And you?” Imogen mirrored her gesture from earlier and squeezed her hand affectionately. “You oughta be resting after the day you had.”

“I feel like I just had the longest sleep. Tired still, but too overslept to retire.” True, though she kept from Imogen how scattered she felt, how dislocated; she had worried her enough for one day.

Imogen stared at her, scrutinizing. The longer she lingered the more butterflies Laudna got, being at the centre of Imogen’s attention always bringing her a thrill no matter how long they had been together. Then the spectre of an idea passed through Imogen’s face and her expression turned conspiratorial. She raised her eyes to look over Laudna towards the others, and then back to her. “C’mon,” she said and began to rise, still holding onto her hand. “Let’s go for a walk.”

“Now?” Laudna asked, louder, but still allowed herself to be pulled up to her feet.

“Shh,” Imogen motioned for her to keep it low, cracking a grin, and continued whispering. “Yeah, aren’t you curious about the town?”

Laudna glanced back at the Sun Tree. “I suppose...” She lurched slightly as her hand was pulled on. “What—”

Imogen urged her along and Laudna fell in step with her. They stumbled on each other in the rush, giggling hushedly as they made their way down the raised area the Tree grows from and out towards the cobbled streets of central Whitestone. Imogen looked around, picked a direction, and led them deeper into a wider way where many people were milling and walking about in those early hours of the night.

For a while they walked in silence, watching the folk heading to their homes or a tavern after a day’s work. Laudna felt Imogen’s eyes on her every so often but the whole experience was akin to a vision, memory overlapping with reality in a confusing display. They passed through spots she remembered from childhood, so different and exactly the same simultaneously, as Laudna did her best to provide some commentary.

“It really is good to have you back,” Imogen said after some time—she lost track of it—, apropos of nothing, and immediately Laudna was brought back to the moment.

There was something different about Imogen since Laudna’s resurrection. A linger to her looks, a leaning towards her when they were talking, she hadn’t let go of her hand yet. For the first time since they first met, Laudna felt well and truly awkward around her. “Y— It’s good to be back,” she said, echoing a conversation they already had. “Thanks to you, of course.”

“Not me,” Imogen said, pensive. “Without the others I— I don’t know what I would’ve done to bring you back Laudna.” She stopped their walk with a hand on Laudna’s arm, looked into her eyes with intense purpose. “I just know I would’ve tried. Done anything.”

They had stopped in a square, and lanterns illuminated them, the yellow-orange light giving Imogen’s lavender tresses a striking colouration. Laudna smiled, and hoped her eyes conveyed the warmth in her heart. “I believe you,” she said, resting her palm over the hand on her arm. “But I’m here now,” and in that moment, she really was, fully.

“Yes, you are.”

“I also wanted to thank you for—,” Laudna bit her lip. “I heard you, when I was... gone. The things you said... Thank you.”

“Oh. Right. Well, I meant it you know?” She couldn’t see Imogen flushing but could hear it in her voice.

“And the same goes for you,” Laudna said in earnest. “You know I love you too Imogen,” and there she went again—saying those words to her was so easy, so natural, part of her wished they were harder to speak, more momentous, but every time they just came out and like the air around them were so true and so intrinsic that they just passed as a breeze between them. “And I’m with you. Through this Ruidus shit, and everything else that may come.”

Imogen gave her a meaningful look, a smile—but when Laudna really focused on it there was some melancholy about it. She heard Imogen sniff before she was engulfed in a hug, the second that day, so tight with emotion she felt like crying herself. When they pulled back they lingered in each other’s spaces. Imogen stared deeply, and from that close all Laudna could focus on were her eyes, beautiful and flicking across her face, reading her, glancing down at her mouth for but a breath. Then she leaned up and pressed her lips to Laudna’s, for less than a second, a ghost of a kiss, fleeting and eternally soft. Before she quite registered it the moment passed, Imogen let out a strangled laugh, said “We should get back before FCG worries,” and that was it. They went back to the Tree, Imogen had portent-full dreams and things went downhill from there.

—

“Guess she was tired, heh,” Imogen’s voice brings Laudna out of her thoughts, and she notices Zhudanna is asleep on her rocking chair, head bent forward, half-knitted sock on her lap.

Still a bit disconcerted from her thoughts, Laudna barely hums in acknowledgement.

Imogen furrows her eyebrows, and Laudna winces inwardly. Before she can say something more eloquent, Imogen gets up and slowly, deliberately, walks away, heading to the room they shared—share? It feels like a lifetime since they did.

After a moment of hesitation, Laudna follows. She finds Imogen standing by their bed, back to her, a hand fidgeting with the cover, and the afternoon sunlight streaming from the one window basking her in glow. Laudna may not need breath but she finds her airway constricted just the same. They haven’t spent any time alone together since Whitestone, and words fail her now. Laudna props herself against the door, closing it with a click to announce her presence.

“It’s good to be back,” Imogen begins, looking partway over her shoulder. “Even if the circumstances are not— not great.” Her expression darkens momentarily but she turns to Laudna with a smile, genuine if fragile. “I missed it. Jrusar.”

Laudna returns the smile and positions herself by the window, looking out into the spires then back to her. “Yes, I’ve grown quite fond of this city. Feels like home doesn’t it?”

“It does.” Imogen pauses. “For now, at least.”

“For now,” Laudna agrees. Thinking about the future brings a knot to her stomach. After they get out of this mess with the Solstice and Otohan, after they figure out Imogen’s magic and family, she will need to move on. She doesn’t want Imogen to be stuck forever with someone like her. Imogen deserves a true home, peace, and while Laudna will always be close to protect her, she doesn’t want her to be held back by her attachment to her. Images of Imogen’s recent behaviour come to the forefront of her mind, and the kiss—the kiss!—, the warmth they bring swirl with the cold in her guts into a confusing mix of emotions. “I...” she pauses, and Imogen tilts her head slightly, signalling she’s paying attention, encouraging her to go on. “I care so much about you,” she begins, choosing her words carefully. “I want you to be happy, more than anything.” Imogen breaks into a sweet smile, but there’s nervousness to her eyes, sensing the shift to a more serious tone. “Which is why I need you to know, I can’t give you everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I can’t be what you want me to be.”

“What are you sayin’, Laudna?” She’s fully frowning now, her voice wavering.

“I might be misreading the situation,” Laudna admits, feeling dread at just that possibility, yet she continues. “But I noticed— You— Uh, how do I say this...” She started pulling at her hair nervously. “You kissed me.”

“I did...” Imogen’s cheeks tinge, even through her increasingly worried countenance.

“And maybe you meant it as a friendly kiss I don’t know,” she stumbles through the words quickly. “But if you didn’t... Well, look at me Imogen. I’m not a whole thing, you deserve better. You deserve someone alive and warm and—”

She was so focused on her nervous tick she didn’t notice Imogen approaching her, and she now stills Laudna’s hair-pulling with a hand on her own. “Stop,” Imogen says, firm yet careful. “You’re not a thing, Laudna.” She sighs deeply, and it comes out quavering. “I guess we’re doing this now, huh?” She brings their entwined hands down to hang linked between them, and Imogen’s is shaking. “You are alive. You know how I know? Because you died, and we brought you back, and I’ve seen what dead looks like and I’ve never been more sure you’re alive. And you’re beautiful. And I—,” her voice cuts off and Laudna hears the next words inside her mind, clear and purposeful. ‘I am so in love with you.’

Laudna bites her lip, looking away. The confusion is back—part of her elated, fighting with the part of her that was afraid of this. “What if there’s someone else out there, someone more like you, and you miss them because you were so focused on me?”

“Look at me.”

Laudna raises her eyes and is stunned; she’s never seen Imogen look so fragile, so near brokenness. There are so many emotions bursting through those eyes she couldn’t even begin to catalogue them.

‘I don’t care about anyone else. I’ve made my choice.’

She realises then how much this is hurting Imogen. Her doubts, her resistance to... them; it’s breaking her heart in exactly the way she wanted to prevent. She also realises how much she wants to give in. “I don’t know if I am able to be everything you want.” She thinks she can see Imogen’s heart shatter at the words. “But,” she adds, “what I can tell for certain is that I didn’t know love like this until I met you. And...” She finishes by sending the thought to Imogen, willing all she’s kept inside into it, hoping she can feel it just as much as she can hear it. ‘I do, really, utterly, love you as well.’ This one felt like something new. Weighted.

Imogen breaks into a wobbly smile, sniffs. ‘I don’t want anything more than you can give me.’ She brings Laudna’s hand to her lips, kissing it soothingly.

‘Then may I kiss you?’ Laudna battles the shyness at the request, her inexperience making her completely unsure if this is even the right moment.

Her anxieties are assuaged when Imogen gives her the brightest grin. ‘You may,’ the thought comes laced in good humour and endearment.

It’s awkward at first. They’ve been friends and travelling together for so long, but approaching her like this is something else entirely. Laudna raises her hand to Imogen’s cheek, brushing over her freckles reverently. When they lock eyes Laudna learns how simple this is; they’re magnetic, all she has to do is not fight against it. Then she’s kissing her, a simple touch like their first one. Their breaths mingle, Laudna hesitates, and Imogen leans in. And she’s kissing her again, and again, and again, until they find each other’s rhythm. She can feel Imogen’s smile grow and they break away. Imogen rests her head on Laudna’s shoulder, laughing airily. “Sorry, just— I’m happy. Really happy.”

Laudna allows it to wash over her, grinning in response. “Alright. Good. Good.” And it is. Did she always have the power to make Imogen smile like this, and just didn’t know? She embraces her, and they stay like that for a while.

When they return to the others Laudna feels weightless, like a light breeze is carrying her, Imogen’s hand in hers an anchor.

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

yay my favourite professor reired this year but he's going to take me withj him for surface surveys soon ^_^

[broodwolf221]

things I am thinking about this morning: did arlathan understand germ theory? more broadly, what kind of technologies did they have - and what did they lack? esp considering magic as a major governing force

I don't think they would have known much about how disease or illness worked, because they can cure it so easily with magic - certainly some things were known, and individuals may have figured out more, but there would be little reason to preserve that knowledge

I could see them having a plumbing system tho

blacksmithing, pottery, painting (thus, acquisition/creation of pigments), tilework, weaving and its components (gathering/creating weavable material) all seem to be givens. tattooing ofc re the vallaslin. farming seems very likely, although they could have had a gathering culture instead. hunting ofc.

related: preservation of foodstuffs. curing of meat, etc. probably able to create wine and/or other alcohols, altho perhaps not out of necessity re: disease prevention/treatment from consumption of contaminated water, bc again, magic

I'm uncertain about how advanced their construction is, bc based on solas' description it sounds very organic - it is possible that it was created via magic instead of constructed

without trying to view "advancement" of civilizations as a linear path, I tend to see arlathan/elvhenan as further advanced than what comes after, the veil and the destruction setting technological breakthroughs back quite a ways. but there would be whole areas that they wouldn't need to focus on, which is interesting to consider

[fatehbaz]

For millennia, the invention of writing has been heralded as a characteristic of civilization. Standard world-history texts name it -- along with monumental architecture, occupational specialization, and central governance -- as definitional. The new technology that associated symbols with sounds and numbers enabled specialists to record, communicate, and govern more efficiently. Ethnologists [...] discuss how writing facilitated census-taking, tax collection, the codification of law, governmental elaboration and centralization, and communication over long distances. Literacy became the basis for the transmission of the past and the development of modern historical consciousness in general (Howe 1979). 

Written records, then -- such as those in cuneiform, inscribed on clay tablets; those left on a stone stele like Hammurabi’s Code; and the first to be written on papyrus or paper -- became in time the bedrock sources for fixating memories and constructing histories. Without a written record of events, recollections might, it was assumed, be abandoned to oblivion (Burke 1989, 97). Time and dates became the convention that societies used to order actions, resulting in a linear sequence of events and the organizational principle for much of the historical accounts. This also meant that for most of the documented past, historians dealt with the stories of leaders, elites, and heroes, which only in the last few decades have been supplemented with attention to the experiences of common people and everyday life.

---

Memories and identity link dialectically. Recollections of the past, be they of individuals, families, lineages, ethnicities, or nationalities, learned or experienced, help fashion identities [...]. [M]uch of the modern world’s historical sense comes from written sources stored in the libraries and archives of the world. Selections from these sources are conveyed to various publics through such institutions as movies, documentaries, commemorative monuments, museums, parades, ceremonies, and schools. 

Accepting this posture in the not too distant past, scholars described preliterate peoples as societies without history. Archaeologists’ use of the word “prehistory,” though now slowly disappearing from academic publications, defined people who left no written records [...]. Eric Wolf’s famous book title, Europe and the Peoples without History (1982), referred to societies on the periphery of Europe [...]. Angel Rama’s (1984/1996) influential essay on the “lettered city” restricted the written record to urban centers, largely beyond the reach of the vast majority of the rural, largely unlettered populace.

---

In partial reaction to such pronouncements, recent scholarship has focused on alternative ways of recording and remembering the past. There are, in fact, many ways that [...] societies accomplished this. Chapters in Elizabeth Hill Boone and Walter Mignolo’s edited work, Writing without Words: Alternative Literacies in Mesoamerica and the Andes (1994), draw attention to visual documents and the messages they convey. Following this lead, Joanne Rappaport and Thomas Cummins’s book (2012) includes analyses of drawings (on pottery, for example) and a discussion of paintings as alternative means of communication by peoples without a written language. An example of this emerging trend on the topic is Chilean anthropologist José Luis Martínez Cereceda’s (2009) insightful article on the scattered petroglyphs of northern Chile, which, after an exhaustive survey, he characterizes as a recognized system of early communication.

Oral tradition is another alternative way of communicating (Thompson 1978). Among the Greeks, the time-honored tradition of oral storytelling conveyed knowledge to both young and old at family and community gatherings. [...] The Greek epic poems, the Iliad and the Odyssey, both attributed to Homer, were orally conveyed (Edwards 2003) before appearing in written form in the eighth century BCE. As in the case of the Greeks, the Norse oral culture passed from generation to generation in long poetic sagas. [...] Topics were historical, legendary, and religious and revealed attitudes toward the past. [...] Anonymous Icelandic family sagas (Íslendingasögur) retold the tales of real people who lived in Iceland from its settlement in the 980s until about 1030 (Byock 1984–85, 153). Like their Scandinavian counterparts, medieval Gaelic and British professional storytellers added music to the verses they composed.

---

Text by: Susan Elizabeth Ramirez. From Chapter One: “Alternative Ways of Remembering and Knowing.” In Praise of the Ancestors: Names, Identity, and Memory in Africa and the Americas. 2022. [Bolded emphasis added by me.]

[blueiscoool]

Headless Skeletons Discovered in Prehistoric Mass Grave

Archaeologists have found a mass grave site containing 38 decapitated burials at a Neolithic settlement in Vráble, Slovakia.

The remains of 38 people were discovered in a ditch surrounding the settlement by archaeologists from the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 1266 of Kiel University (CAU) and the Archaeological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (Nitra) during this year’s excavation in Vráble. Their well-preserved skeletons were jumbled together and all of them were missing their heads, with the exception of a young child.

“We assumed to find more human skeletons, but this exceeded all imaginations,” reports project leader Prof. Dr. Martin Furholt.

There are three Linear Pottery Culture settlements at the Vráble-Ve’lke Lehemby site (5,250-4,950 B.C.). A geophysical survey found 313 homes inside the perimeters of the three villages, which were inhabited around 5110 B.C. That makes Vráble one of Central Europe’s biggest Early Neolithic settlements. Not all of the houses were occupied at the same time. At its peak, there were approximately 600 people living in 80 homes, making it a very large community for the Early Neolithic.

During the excavations in the summer of 2022, the Slovak-German team uncovered the remains, spread over an area of about 15 square meters. One on top of the other, side by side, stretched out on their stomachs, crouched on their sides, on their backs with their limbs splayed out – the position of the skeletons does not suggest that the dead were carefully buried. Rather, the positions suggest that most of them were thrown or rolled into the ditch. All of them, with the exception of one infant, are missing their heads, including their lower jaws.

“In mass graves with an unclear positioning, the identification of an individual is usually based on the skull, so for us this year’s find represents a particularly challenging excavation situation,” says Martin Furholt.

The discovery raises many questions. Several bones out of place suggest that the already-skeletonized bodies were pushed into the trench’s center to make room for new ones. Some skeletons also have the first cervical vertebra preserved, indicating that the head was removed with care rather than in a rash violent action.

“It may seem obvious to assume a massacre with human sacrifices, perhaps even in connection with magical or religious ideas. Warlike conflicts may also play a role, for example, conflicts between village communities, or even within this large settlement. Did these people fall victim to head-hunters, or did their fellow villagers practise a special death cult that had nothing to do with interpersonal violence?” says project leader Dr. Maria Wunderlich.

An important part of further research is to find out more about the dead. An interdisciplinary team of researchers will examine the skeletons using archaeological DNA analysis, radiocarbon dating, and stable isotope analysis to shed light on the dead’s age at death, where they were raised, whether they came from somewhere else, whether they had any close family ties, what they ate, any illnesses they may have had, and what may have been their causes of death.

By Leman Altuntaş.

[notguccienoughforthis]

No one talks about what happens after.

In the years that followed my last attempt to shatter I

Quietly swept away the pieces too small to glue back, lost forever

Picked up most of the larger chunks

all too much like brittle pottery and porous clay

Made a ham fisted attempt at making something cohesive out of the wreckage.

No one warned me about how the adrenaline rush of trauma slowly trickles from your system like a river running dry, the only evidence of its lush waters now an ugly scar upon the earth - a muddied trench you couldn’t even drown in.

No one wrote a how-to manual about moving on.

Though I have stopped seeking death with every inhale, no longer a moth to flame

Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine unzipping my wrists -

A reveal

the unnatural blooms that flower under my skin sometimes

Rage and sorrow alternating inside my belly

The churning maelstrom, roiling clouds that always threaten a downpour but never deliver

No one talks about the frustration of a climax denied.

There’s never been a blueprint for recovery,

Although I hold fast every maxim and idiom

Clutching the serenity prayer in my mind with wild eyed desperation

Telling myself healing isn’t linear

While oscillating between fine and fatal,

At some point the rollicking back and forth makes me seasick

No one talks about what happens after.

Maybe because there isn’t an after

Maybe I’m forever frozen in amber at the moment of breaking

Maybe I’m always perched at the precipice

Maybe I’ve already made a ghost of myself and all this racket

Is just a prolonged death rattle.

All this living

Is just the thrashing of a body already drowned.

[enkhanthor]

Eu gostaria de ter deixado este simblr linear e organizado (perfeccionista ao extremo), mas isso não vai rolar. Pouco tempo, mods a terminar e esse desafio é longo para construir, estou demorando muito para postar os capítulos aqui.

I would have liked to leave this simblr linear and organized (perfectionist to the extreme), but that won't happen. Short time, mods to finish and this challenge is long to build, I'm taking too long to post the chapters here.

Então, quando comecei isso aqui, não tinha uma história realmente. Eu só queria ter um registro da minha família para preservar a memória do que eu joguei. Agora, terminei o capítulo 1 (Paleolítico), 2 (Mesolítico) e 3 (Neolítico) e estou iniciando a Simvilização! Eu tenho uma história, talvez não tão interessante, mas é uma história. E perdi meus saves do Mesolítico!!! Mais de 40 saves. Triste :(

So when I started this here, I didn't really have a story. I just wish I had a record of my family to preserve the memory of gameplay. Now, I've finished Chapter 1 (Paleolithic), 2 (Mesolithic) and 3 (Neolithic) and I'm starting Simvilization! I have a story, maybe not as interesting, but it's a story. And I lost my Mesolithic saves!!! More than 40 saves. Sad :(

Eu tenho muitas capturas de tela é claro, mas não é a mesma coisa. Com os saves poderia fazer novas capturas legais e testar poses. O capítulo 2 irá demorar. Então, adeus cronologia e vem aí as regras do Neolítico e Início da Simvilização no fim de semana. Depois eu continuo o capítulo 1.

I have lots of screenshots of course, but it's not the same thing. With the saves I could make new cool captures and test poses. Chapter 2 will take a while. So, bye bye chronology and here comes the Neolithic and Early Simvilization rules this weekend. Then I continue with chapter 1.

Estou deixando vocês com capturas aleatórias ao fundo, para verem o quanto fica legal quando você usa imaginação e entra na imersão daquele período.

I'm leaving you with random screenshots in the background, to see how cool it looks when you use your imagination and get into the immersion of that period.

Assentamento paleolítico. | Paleolithic settlement.

Pinturas de Caverna. | Cave Paintings.

Vida de nômade. | Nomad life.

Vivendo em cavernas. | Living in caves.

Moldando cerâmica. | Molding pottery.

Descobrindo a agricultura. | Discovering agriculture.

O Neolítico vem aí... | The Neolithic is coming...