#and also the name egypt comes from the greek name for us. which predates the arabization of egypt. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

redlightningart · 1 year

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see this color?

this is vermilion pigment, which is made of ground cinnabar ore. it was such a bright red that it may or may not have changed the course of art pigments as a whole, and both ancient and medieval artists loved it. i did a write up for class about it which i'm going to stick under the read more in case you're interested because, as my friend put it, tumblr loves weirdly specific information:

Vermilion is a brilliant, warm red pigment extensively used in ancient times through the 20th century. Especially coveted during the time of the Romans, the word derives from the Latin word vermes. This root refers to the scale insect kermes found on oak trees that, when dried and crushed, produced a rich red dye now known as crimson. True vermilion, however, comes from a very different source: cinnabar, the most common source ore of oxidized mercury (named for the Roman god of war: Mars). This toxic mineral forms in crusts and veins near volcanic activity and hot springs. The first documented use of vermilion predates even the Romans; evidence of ground cinnabar dating back to 8000-7000 BCE has been discovered in the neolithic village Catalhoyuk in modern day Turkey. Vitruvius describes cinnabar’s appearance in book 7 of his series The Ten Books on Architecture: “First, before getting to the vermilion itself by methods of treatment, they dig out what is called the clod, an ore like iron, but rather of a reddish colour and covered with a red dust.” This ore (pictured below) only needed to be finely ground to create a brilliant red pigment.

The Romans adored this pigment despite its scarcity and price. According to Pliny in Natural Histories, the best cinnabar was sourced from the Almaden mine in Sisapu. He wrote also that the best mines were property of the state, and “nothing is more carefully guarded. It is forbidden to break up or refine the cinnabar on the spot. They send it to Rome in its natural condition, under seal, to the extent of some ten thousand pounds a year. The sales price is fixed by law to keep it from becoming impossibly expensive, and the price is fixed to seventy sesterces a pound.” This price (10 times that of red ochre) was for the highest quality of vermilion (which was usually liver-colored) and the only truly vibrant red known to the ancients.

Powdered vermilion was used in a variety of ways during ancient times. Many frescoes uncovered in Pompeii feature vibrant red made from vermilion, despite its price. It was known as the most expensive pigment used by the Romans for wall painting. Numerous walls from the Villa dei Misteri (Villa of Mysteries) are painted with vermilion (pictured below), and a jar of powdered pigment was excavated in the shop below the villa. It had its uses beyond decorations, too: Pliny wrote that worshipers ritualistically applied it to their bodies and on the faces of statues of Jupiter (Zeus) during holidays and festivals, as vermilion carried great importance and sacred associations. Outside of Rome, the pigment would be applied to skulls and other bones as part of burial rituals in neolithic cultures in Anatolia, China, Galilee (Judaea), Spain, and Syria, and some ancient Native American cultures. It was also used in jewelry-making during the Iron Age by Iberian cultures, and the Achaemenid (Persian) Empire used the paint as a bedding for gemstones to enhance the red vibrancy of translucent carnelian stone inlays.

As time passed, the need for larger and finer quantities of vermilion increased, and alternative methods of creating the red pigment arose. It is unknown who discovered how to make mercury from cinnabar via removing the sulfur and vice versa to create vermilion, although it was likely done by an alchemist trying to produce gold (which ancient alchemists believed to be red-based and thus linked to this pigment). The Greek alchemist Zosimus of Panopolis in Southern Egypt insinuated that he had a secret recipe for artificial vermilion sometime around 300 CE, but the first description was found in Compositiones ad Tigenda (Recipes for Coloring), a Latin manuscript from the 8th century. Some of the manuscript is in Greek, so it is possible that the scribe copied it from a Hellenistic dictation, therefore indicating that the manufacture of vermilion had been known beforehand. By the 12th century, there was a clear recipe and process outlined by the Benedictine monk Theophilus, who wrote down what would become known as dry method vermilion.

To create the pigment, one needed to combine mercury and sulfur, then heat the two together. When simply mixed, the two elements create a black mercury sulfide known as aethiops mineralis. However, upon heating at the proper temperature, the mixture vaporizes and re-condenses in the top of the flask in which it was combined. Upon breaking the jar, the black mixture could be collected and then ground down. The powder then turns red as the color develops, becoming brighter and brighter as it is pulverized. This process was a source of great interest to medieval alchemists, as a transformation and combination of mercury and sulfur, and a possible gateway to gold. Mercury’s appearance and chemical behavior were the basis of a large section of alchemical theory and practice, and it and sulfur were seen as the parents of all metals. To combine the two into a likeness of cinnabar was greatly respected and devoutly practiced. However, this method could be incredibly dangerous if not done carefully, as the mercury fumes from improperly sealed vessels was extremely poisonous. In an effort to prevent harm, the Venice government banned this practice in 1294.

Undeterred by the danger, medieval artists greatly favored this pigment and used it excessively. Vermilion was used alongside gold leaf and ultramarine for manuscript capitals and on tempera panels. The pigment would be mixed with egg yolk to product a brilliant red paint that ranged from an orange toned scarlet or a violet hue with high intensity and pigment quality. In the 14th and 15th centuries, vermilion that had been tempered and become dingy would sometimes be mixed with saffron or walnut bark to produce a warmer tone. The paint was normally paired with vivid blues, greens, and yellows, as medieval artists believed it should be used alongside other beautiful and precious colors. Vermilion’s importance in art history cannot be understated: without it, it is likely that the middle ages would not have developed the high standards of coloring upheld in their works, and would have had less use for other bold colors invented after the 12th century.

However, this pigment had one fatal flaw: it inexplicably and unpredictably turned black. This process did not occur due to chemical changes or by direct sunlight, but rather a rearrangement in the structure of the mercury sulfide. The causes for this change are still not fully understood, but it seems to be less likely to occur in tempera or oil paintings under reasonable conditions, but seemed to affect lime paintings enough that it was not recommended for wall painting. Small amounts of blackening have been observed in some medieval manuscripts, but it is unknown if that was due to the vermilion or because of what it was mixed with, like white or orange lead. Luckily, most medieval paintings have survived and still shine a bright red today.

^ You can see the darkening of the horse's bridle in The Battle of San Romano (1435) by Paolo Uccello.

This pigment became less common after oil paint became the art medium of choice in the 15th century onwards, as the pigment presented as quite transparent in an oil base and other vibrant red pigments became available. It still had its uses, however: it was used as a glazing layer for oils and continued to be widely utilized in tempera and lacquer work. Da Vinci used vermilion in another application: as a grounding layer for his paintings.

Despite its translucence in oil, vermilion was still the most vibrant red and retained its popularity enough that alchemists still experimented with other methods of synthesis. A new technique for the manufacture of vermilion was discovered in 1687 by German chemist Gottfried Schulz, who created the Dutch method or wet method. In this process, mercury and melted sulfur were mashed together to create black mercury sulfide, then heated in a distiller to produce vapors that condensed into bright red crystals. The sulfur was then removed by treated the crystals with a strong alkali, then washed and ground under water to yield pigment powder. This process is still used today.

Cost and toxicity notwithstanding, vermilion still held the position of the primary red pigment used by European painters from the Renaissance through the 20th century, when it was almost entirely replaced by cadmium red. Today, genuine vermilion pigment is mainly manufactured in China, where it is still widely used in lacquerware and other art.

^ a lacquerware dish from the Ming Dynasty, 15th-16th cen CE

Thanks for reading this far! Images are from wikipedia. DM me if you'd like my sources :)

#art history #colors #pigment #archaeology #red #rambles

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fitladyzone · 11 months

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19 food & drink items that have been around for thousands of years

There are plenty of foods and drinks currently consumed that are recent inventions—Red Bull, plant-based burgers, the Cronut—while others have existed for hundreds of years or more. In fact, some things we still eat and drink today have been consumed by humans for millennia. (And for the record, we’re not even talking about fruits, vegetables, and other produce you simply pick off a plant or tree.) Here are 21 foods & drinks that have been around for thousands of years.

Beef jerky

The first written records of modern-day jerky come from the 1550s when Spanish conquistadors spoke of “ch’arki,” a dried form of llama or alpaca meat made by the indigenous people of what is now Peru. However, earlier versions of jerky have been made by Native Americans for thousands of years and there’s also evidence of dried meat found in tombs in Ancient Egypt from the 14th century B.C.E.

Bread

Bread—specifically the leavened kind that’s made with yeast—has been baked in Egypt for at least the last 3,000 years. Some researchers date the first use of yeast even farther back, claiming that there’s evidence that sourdough bread was first made 6,000 years ago!

Butter

The first known instructions for preparing butter were written on a Sumerian tablet that dates back to 2,500 B.C.E.—but it’s likely butter predates that ancient recipe by several thousand years. Historians believe that 10,000 years ago, herdsmen discovered that milk transported in sheepskin bags would curdle into a tasty, solid form after being jostled for hours on end during long journeys.

Cheese

Like butter, cheese was likely invented by accident some 10,000 years ago. The enzyme mixture known as rennet is produced in the stomachs of young mammals, and milk stored in these stomachs led to the creation of the first cheese. Instructions for cheesemaking have survived from Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt—making them 4,000 years old or more!

Cheesecake

Not only do we know how long cheesecake has been around, but we might even know who published one of the earliest recipes. Cheesecake was apparently popular all the way back in Ancient Greece, with the Greek physician Aegimus—who lived in the 5th century B.C.E.—writing an entire book on the art of making a dessert similar to the one we know today. A more modern version, as well as the name “cheesecake,” dates back to 14th or 15th century England.

Chocolate

Cacao has been harvested for nearly 4,000 years in the areas now known as North and Central America, and it was so valuable to the Mayans that cacao beans were once used as currency. The Olmecs—the earliest known major civilization in the area—were known to use cacao to make a chocolate beverage, and there’s even some evidence that chocolate drinks predate the Olmecs!

Curry

Curry generally refers to an Indian stew made with a sauce consisting of various spices, so it’s not surprising that evidence suggests this simple dish has been made on the Indian subcontinent for some 4,500 years. That’s a long time, which explains why regional curries now exist in nearly every continent.

Flatbread

Researchers in Europe found evidence of grains from cattails and ferns on grindstones and pestle grinders at three sites in Italy, Russia, and the Czech Republic that date back 30,000 years. Evidence of a more modern version of flatbread—made from wild wheat and barley—was also found in Jordan’s Black Desert and was estimated to be some 14,000 years old. Scientists from the latter site speculated the flatbread may have been used to wrap meat, so that find could also be the oldest evidence of sandwiches!

Honey

A rock painting in Valencia, Spain that dates back to 6,000-8,000 B.C.E. depicts a hunter gathering honey from wild bees, confirming that humans have been eating this bee byproduct for at least that long. Even beekeeping has ancient origins, as there are written records of this practice that originate from Egypt circa 2,500 B.C.E.

Noodles

In 2005, archaeologists made a historic discovery in northwestern China: A 4,000-year-old bowl of noodles. Historians knew noodles have been around for thousands of years, but this finding provided evidence of an even earlier date. And if you’re wondering about the type of noodle found, it was similar to the wheat flour-based lamian noodles still consumed today.

Olive oil

In Israel, just a mile west of Nazareth, researchers discovered ancient pottery that was found to contain traces of olive oil. Those researchers estimated the age of the pottery to be 8,000 years old! In addition to cooking, olive oil was used for lamp fuel, medicine, soap, religious ceremonies, and even perfume.

Pancakes

The first recorded mention of pancakes comes from the 5th century B.C.E., when a pair of Ancient Greek poets described tagenites, a food made from wheat flour, oil, honey, and milk. This meal was prepared in a frying pan, called a tagenon, hence the origin of the name tagenites. However, it’s possible pancakes were invented even longer ago…maybe even thousands of years prior, as Otzi the Iceman—a mummified man who lived around 3,200 B.C.E.—had what researchers believe to be pancakes in his stomach.

Rice

The exact time when rice was first cultivated is still up for debate, but it’s generally cited as being about 10,000 years ago, according to archaeological findings. The world has yet to get sick of this seed—much to the contrary, as about half of the world’s population, eats rice every day.

Sauerkraut

Although it’s most associated with German cuisine, sauerkraut, like many other foods, likely originated in China. Laborers who built the Great Wall of China 2,000 years ago subsisted on cabbage and rice, and would use rice wine to preserve the former during the non-growing season, resulting in its fermentation.

Soup

Man discovered fire about 400,000 years ago, but soup isn’t quite that old—at least according to the evidence found thus far. In 2013, archaeologists from Harvard discovered 22,000-year-old pottery in a cave in China that featured scorch marks, suggesting it was heated over a fire. Although it’s possible something other than soup was cooked in the bowls, it’s highly likely that broth or stock was regularly consumed by our ancient ancestors in an effort to render fat from animal bones and avoid protein poisoning.

Soy sauce

Soy sauce is a popular condiment in Asian cuisine, and it has had plenty of time to build up a following. Historians say early versions of this salty sauce were first invented in China 2,200 years ago during the Han Dynasty and were used to preserve meat, vegetables, and grains.

Tamales

While the folks in Asia were cultivating rice, people in what is now Mexico and Guatemala were making tamales. That’s right, the tamale might date back as far as 10,000 years! As this meat, cheese, and/or bean-filled food is wrapped in dough inside a corn husk or banana leaf, it was the perfect portable meal for hunters and warriors alike.

Tofu

Prince Liú Ān ruled during China’s Han Dynasty more than 2,000 years ago. The scholar is credited with editing and publishing numerous pieces of classic Daoist literature, but also for inventing tofu! Whether he personally invented bean curd is still up for debate, but this timeframe for tofu’s invention is generally agreed upon.

Yogurt

Historians believe yogurt was first invented—likely when milk was accidentally fermented—around 5,000 B.C.E, after the domestication of milk-producing animals in Central and Western Asia. Since then, it has become a staple of diets around the world, especially in Turkish culture, which gave the food its name!

#food #healthy eating #healthy living #healthy lifestyle

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infjtarot · 2 years

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Judgement ~ Anna Maria D'Onofrio Tarot

The card image is clearly inspired by the Christian idea of the last judgment originating in St. John’s vision from the book of Revelation. In that vision seven angels blow their trumpets and announce global disasters. After a series of extraordinary events, the dead rise from their graves to stand final judgment, and finally heaven and earth become united. Pictures of the last judgment usually emphasize its terrible aspect and the fate of those sentenced to hell, but the Judgment card seems lively, illuminated, and optimistic. It may refer to the resurrection of the dead ones, but the attributes of judging them (sword and scales) appear in Justice and not in this card. Jodorowsky reads the name of the card as le juge ment, meaning “the judge lies.” In his view this indicates that every judgment is false. judgment signals an awakening The original Greek name of the book of Revelation is Apocalypse, which means “lifting of the veil” or “revelation.” The Christian day of judgment is the end of worldly history and the manifestation or revealing of heaven on earth. We can see a connection between the idea of the end of history and the two final cards of the major suit: Judgment, referring to the apocalyptic events, and the World, which can be a perfect vision of reality made divine. The difference between the two is that the World card is more symmetrical, delimited, and stable. It may signify the end of a process on the practical level, reaching its completion in a state of equilibrium. In contrast, Judgment shows drama and movement that is directed mainly along the vertical axis. Perhaps what we see here is a completion of inner processes like a spiritual or an emotional quest. Such a completion is not a closure but a revelation and awakening that opens us to a new experience of life. The Judgment card can indicate a moment of revelation, an awakening, or a new understanding. For example, it can signify a new insight that changes our understanding, a paradigm change, or a personal transformation. It can represent a significant turning point in a therapy process or some sort of enlightenment and spiritual awakening. The dramatic nature of the card indicates a quick pace of events, indicating a special moment rather than an ongoing process. It can also represent a meaningful insight obtained from the reading itself.

judgment opens the sky The cross on the flag can be a Christian reference, but the cross is also an ancient symbol that predates Christianity, and thus we may give it another interpretation. It can symbolize the meeting of the two axes in the cards: the horizontal axis of earthly reality and the vertical axis of inner experience. The trumpet can be seen as a kind of tube that is an open path to the sky above. The line pattern on the back of the middle figure imitates the trumpet shape in an inverted way and expresses active acceptance of what comes from above. The tonsured head resembles the two aspirants in the Pope card and indicates that the figure has undergone a path of spiritual learning. The head and the hill behind it may also remind us of an eye observing us, a mystical symbol of higher wisdom that has survived from ancient Egypt to modern times. Sometimes it is drawn inside a triangle, and we can see such a shape between the three faces in the card. The card may describe a moment of grace in which spiritual reality manifests itself on the earthly plane. For example, it may be the peak moment of a magical ritual or a mystical experience that blurs the limits between ordinary and extraordinary reality. It can indicate an awakening to a higher level of consciousness or to the understanding that there is something above and beyond material existence. It might also signify the opening of the gates of heaven — that is, a moment in which we can make a wish that will come true. judgment illuminates the abyss The three figures on the ground can be a child with two parents. If this is so, the card may be showing an ideal family triangle where the parents assume their role with adoration and devotion. Their contact with the child’s body indicates closeness and support, and their nudity expresses an egalitarian attitude that respects the basic humanity of child and adult alike. We can see here a reparation and recovering from problems originating in the relationships with the parents. Alternatively, the card can represent the querent’s assumption of responsibility as a parent. If the card is inverse, it can indicate an unhealthy relationship between parents and child. The opening in the ground is the abyss, which has appeared in the previous cards but is now illuminated and open to the sky. The white surfaces around the pelvis may express purity and cleanliness in sexual matters. One can also see the angel with the raised wings and the tongue extended outward, as an elevated version of the main figure from the Devil card. Like the Christian day of judgment that is the world’s redemption, the card may express some sort of redemption or emotional reparation — that is, healing of the soul’s suffering and illumination of its dark sides. The connection between the angel and the figure in the middle may also represent an encounter of the querent with their personal angel orwith a sublime and benevolent part of themselves. judgment reveals what is hidden The nudity, the figure coming out of the hole, and the bare ground indicate that whatever was buried and hidden is now revealed and exposed. The Judgment card may indicate the revealing of a secret previously kept by the querent or from them. The trumpet resounds far and wide, and it may indicate that private matters become common knowledge. The card may express public exposure and fame or, alternatively, defamation and gossip. It can also symbolize mass media and the spread of information.

judgment celebrates a new birth The central figure emerging from the earth between the two parental figures can hint at a baby coming out of the womb. The card can refer to the circumstances of the querent’s birth or to a new baby in the family. In a more general sense, one can think of the birth of something new in the querent’s life. Whatever is born is accepted with approval and support, but its face is still hidden; we cannot know exactly what will come out of it. The card may also describe a rebirth, a personal transformation, that opens a new chapter in the querent’s life. Yoav Ben Dov

#Judgement #tarot #majo arcana #Anna Maria D'Onofrio Tarot

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aboutanancientenquiry · 2 years

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Hippocrates and Imhotep (a text of the British Classicist Helen King and some thoughts on it)

“Imhotep and the power of Egyptian medicine

The regular return to the Oath in discussions of medical ethics is an important aspect of the way in which we learn about Hippocrates, but this document also features in challenges to his authority. In Chapter 3, when discussing his role as ‘Father of Medicine’, I mentioned other contenders from other cultures. One of the pressures on the Hippocrates Wikipedia page comes from attempts to take away this title and bestow it on Imhotep; for example, the talkpage comment that ‘The article is bogus and based on an illusion in it’s [sic] opening’ (Tljackson224).[37] Tweeting on 31 May 2012, The Astrochologist, a professional astrologer, stated simply ‘Imhotep predates Hippocrates’.[38]

Hippocrates has more to do with Imhotep than rivalry for the title of Father of Medicine, as websites and articles in medical journals regularly repeat a direct connection between them because ‘Hippocrates visited Egypt to study and understand medicine’.[39] This myth has even been phrased in terms of Hippocrates travelling to use the library of Imhotep, dismissed by the classicist Jacques Jouanna as an ‘impossible hypothesis’.[40] Yet the absence of any evidence for such a journey does nothing to prevent belief in it. In January 2019 @siliconenozzles asserted on Twitter:

Enemas date all the way back to ancient Egypt, not to mention many different cultures. Hippocrates spent seven years in Egypt learning from the physicians, then brought these practices back to Greece, and they then slowly spread around the world.[41]

The claims for Imhotep’s priority are worth examining not just in terms of how the history of ancient medicine responds to political pressures, but also because they demonstrate what we want medicine to be. Who was Imhotep? Or, more importantly, who do people think he was? A popular online ancient history site gives a timeline including: ‘2667 bce–2648 bce Imhotep in Egypt writes medical texts describing diagnosis and treatment of 100 diseases and 48 injuries.’[42] These medical texts are supposed to be those of the Edwin Smith Papyrus, one of the key sources for Egyptian medicine, dated to around 1600 bce; its translator, James Breasted, speculated that the material could have been written by Imhotep then copied again and again over many centuries, a claim found widely on the internet.[43] Imhotep is described as being ‘recorded in history as the world’s first physician, a title that was later bestowed upon a Greek named Hippocrates who was born some 2,200 years later’; the same website states that Imhotep was ‘referred to as Asclepius, the god of medicine, by the Greeks’.[44] Yet even the Wikipedia page dedicated to him admits that claims for him being a doctor are unreliable, with sources from his lifetime hailing him only as chancellor to the Pharaoh, Djoser, and architect of the step-pyramid; the first mention of his healing powers dates from 2,200 years after he died.[45] Within Egyptian studies it is acknowledged that, although his statues were eventually used in healing – for example water poured over them was used to treat various conditions – ‘There is no information whether he was also a physician.’[46]

Whoever was Father of Medicine, Imhotep or Hippocrates, the myth takes a similar form. Hippocrates is believed to have shone the light of reason on the darkness of superstition, and those who want Imhotep to be the author of the Edwin Smith Papyrus play up this text as ‘science’ in order to support a narrative of movement from magic, or religion, to rational knowledge. Yet, while the front of the papyrus gives a sequence of chapters on wounds starting at the head, the back has spells against demons: and ‘Both sides of the Edwin Smith Papyrus belong together.’[47] We want our medicine to make sense, in current terms, but we find it hard to cope with a medicine that mixes science and magic.

There is a further, important, reason for the resurgence of Imhotep as Father of Medicine; the modern priority dispute between him and Hippocrates seeks to reverse a valorization of West over East which has been common in histories of medicine into the twentieth century. For example, in 1931, ending their chapter on Hippocrates, Stubbs and Bligh invited their reader to

contrast these medical and hygienic achievements of the fifth century B.C. with those of Assyria and Egypt of the seventh century B.C. and realize how utterly impossible it is to conceive that in those two centuries, or ten times those two centuries, the Eastern peoples should have advanced from their dimly lit superstitions and conservatisms to the blazing daylight of the West.[48]

In such histories, even where Egyptian medicine is praised for its content, it is usually seen as non-Western, and attacked for what Withington called ‘its non-progressive character’; Greeks speculate and investigate, but Egyptians lack ‘love of knowledge for its own sake’.[49] This repeats stereotypes used by Garrison in his much-reprinted 1913 history of medicine, a source for the Wikipedia Hippocrates page: while ‘the Father of Medicine was indebted to Egypt for much of his knowledge’, the difference between Egyptian and Greek medicine was that Greek medicine was ‘entirely free from priestly domination’.[50]

Overturning the traditional priority of the West in favour of a ‘stolen legacy’ theory,[51] attempting to trace ancient Greek medicine to Egypt, and trying to replace Hippocrates as Father of Medicine with Imhotep, are all influenced by the three volumes of Martin Bernal’s Black Athena project, published between 1987 and 2006. Bernal argued not only that the roots of ancient Greek civilization and language lay in Egypt and the Semitic Near East, but also that ‘the Ancient Egyptian civilization can usefully be seen as African’.[52] These proved controversial claims, but an internet search for ‘Who was the true father of medicine?’ will now find assertions about Hippocrates such as ‘. . . some are of the opinion that the title bestowed upon this man is very misleading. Records show that a man by the name of Imhotep was treating ill patients with modern techniques many generations before Hippocrates [sic] appearance in history.’ Imhotep becomes Hippocrates’ ‘mentor’: Hippocrates his ‘devotee’.[53] Cited here, and on many other sites, is Sir William Osler, who identified Imhotep as ‘the first figure of a physician to stand out clearly from the mists of antiquity’.[54] Yet Osler still regarded Hippocrates as the ‘Father of Medicine’, so that writers such as James H. Brien are wrong to say that ‘in 1928, William Osler proposed that Imhotep was the “real father of medicine” – not Hippocrates’.[55]

Imhotep is also being credited as the author of the Oath. The Afrikan Center of Well Being, Inc., which markets a range of holistic medicines, states that ‘The Oath is a universal doctrine utilized by traditional Afrikan healers from Imhotep forward along with The Law of Ma’at, centuries before the advent of Hippocrates. Today, the Hippocratic oath is an abridged, allegorical and meaningless document not adhered to by allopaths plus other health professionals!’ and, as I mentioned in the Introduction, this site exhorts readers to ‘Download a copy prior to your next doctor or dental appointment and conduct a performance evaluation!’ A note explains that ‘An Aescalapian [sic] is a follower of the God of Medicine, IMHOTEP, the PRINCE OF PEACE!’[56] A new version of the Oath, the ‘Oath of Imhotep’, was composed by Anthony Pickett in 1992 ‘in recognition of African contributions to Western medicine’; he repeated the Osler claim about Imhotep and the ‘mists of antiquity’ although he made this ‘the midst’.[57]

The name of Imhotep sells news stories about ancient Egyptian medicine. A multi-disciplinary group at the University of Manchester was funded from 2005 by the Leverhulme Trust to study the plants used in ancient Egyptian medicine.[58] At that point, it included Dr Jackie Campbell and Dr Ryan Metcalfe from the KNH Centre for Biomedical Egyptology, and worked with Judith Seath who performed chemical analyses on the plants named in medical papyri, as well as with their partner, the Egyptian Medicinal Plant Conservation Project in St Catherine’s, Sinai.[59] On 9 May 2007, the university issued a press release from this project, headlined ‘Egyptians, not Greeks, were true fathers of medicine’.[60] They made it clear that the papyri the team had examined were not newly-discovered – they had been known from the mid-nineteenth century – and that the new claims simply ‘concerned the efficacy’ of the drug substances named in those papyri.[61] This sort of research is part of a recent trend towards making strong claims for the antimicrobial effects of materials used in the past, which may also reflect the ‘impact agenda’ of universities today.[62]

Imhotep was not mentioned in this press release but, when the Daily Telegraph ran the story, it was headlined ‘How Imhotep gave us medicine’ with the headline of the press release then repeated in the main story: ‘The Egyptians – not the ancient Greeks – were the true fathers of medicine’.[63] The story went on to claim that ‘The medical history books will have to be revised’ because ‘a credible form of pharmacy and medicine’ had been found in papyri dating to ‘1,500BC – some 1,000 years before Hippocrates was born’.[64] The reference to Hippocrates is interesting; this did not feature in the 2009 Leverhulme report.[65] The context is the research group pointing out that ingredients in ancient Egyptian remedies would have had physical effects; for example, castor oil as a laxative, cumin for flatulence, substances to redden the skin to treat muscular pain.[66] In framing the story around Imhotep, the Telegraph journalist went beyond using his name in the title, claiming that medicine began with ‘the likes of Imhotep (2667BC–2648 BC), who designed the pyramids at Saqqara and was elevated to become the god of healing’ and ending by quoting the lead investigator on the funded project, Rosalie David:

And of all the ancient Egyptians, it is Imhotep who was regarded as being the father of medicine. ‘He should have the credit,’ said Prof David.[67]

This proved to be a very saleable line. The story was subsequently taken up by Colourful, an African-Caribbean radio station and wider network of sites and groups.[68] Rasta Livewire ran a story by Jide Uwechia under the headline ‘Imhotep and medical science: Africa’s gift to the world,’ quoting from Jackie Campbell and opposing ‘previously peddled lies which identify Greece as the origin of medicine’ while presenting Hippocrates as the ‘devotee’ of Imhotep.[69] Journalist Deborah Gabriel interviewed Rosalie David for Black Britain and reported that

Imhotep was a man we know from the Egyptian records as the architect of the first pyramid in Egypt – the step pyramid at Saqqara that goes back to the very beginnings of their history to about 2600 BC. In Egyptology we’ve always thought of Imhotep as an architect, the people later in Egyptian history and indeed the Greeks, regarded him as the father of medical science . . . He probably was the founder of medical science in Egypt right back at the time when they were building the earliest pyramids.[70]

The headline now was a variant on the original press release which further increased the authority of the story by putting ‘scientists’ into the picture: ‘Scientists find evidence proving ancient Egyptians were fathers of modern medicine’, although the ‘new evidence’ mentioned in the subheading may raise hopes of rather more than the observation that castor oil is a laxative. The factual statement in a further subheading, ‘Ancient Egyptian medical papyri were written before the birth of Hippocrates’, is even less ‘news’. Gabriel wrote:

African scholars have long identified Imhotep, the Prime Minister of Pharaoh Djoser, the 2nd King of the 3rd Egyptian Dynasty, as the founding father of medicine, including Dr Molefi Kete Asante, John Henrik Clarke and Cheik Anta Diop.[71]

The reference to ‘African scholars’ shows how this small story was now moving into a larger narrative: the ‘stolen legacy’ one.

Once the claims of a press release or published academic journal article are translated into simpler language as they fight for a place in a news site alongside celebrity news, it is perhaps inevitable that they become sensationalist, and that the headline focuses on the sensational element. Contested as it is between 78an Afrocentric history and historians of ancient Egypt and Greece, the priority war between Imhotep and Hippocrates is unlikely to go away.”

From the book of Helen King Hippocrates Now. The ‘Father of Medicine’ in the Internet Age

Source: https://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/hippocrates-now-the-father-of-medicine-in-the-internet-age/ch4-needing-a-bit-of-information-hippocrates-in-the-news

Hippocrates Now. The ‘Father of Medicine’ in the Internet Age

Publisher‎ Bloomsbury Academic; 1st edition (November 28, 2019)

Helen King (born 1957) is a British classical scholar and advocate for the medical humanities.[1] She is Professor Emerita of Classical Studies at the Open University.[2] She was previously Professor of the History of Classical Medicine and Head of the Department of Classics at the University of Reading

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_King_(classicist)

I have the following remarks on the excerpts from the book of Pr. King that I have reproduced:

First of all, Helen King is not some kind of Hippocrates enthusiast, on the contrary, she is rather over-critical toward the image of Hippocrates in the Western tradition (perhaps I will devote one of my future posts to her book as a whole).

Anyway, let’s start the approach of the more specific subject of the respective claims of Imhotep and Hippocrates on the title of “Father of Medicine” from the obvious: as Helen King very correctly observes, Imhotep… was not a physician! He was a high-ranking dignitary of the Old Kingdom Egypt (3d Dynasty), involved in the building of the famous Step Pyramid of Djoser, who reigned during the 27th century BCE (it is not even totally clear, I think, whether Imhotep was involved in the pyramid building as architect in the strict sense of the term or as administrator, manager and overseer of the project). His association with medicine (and his deification) is a product of a much later period, i. e. of the era of the Egyptian New Kingdom, more than one thousand years after his death. On the contrary, Hippocrates was with no doubt a physician…

I have also to confess that I find comical the effort of some Egyptologists to oppose Imhotep to Hippocrates as ‘Father of Medicine”, given the undeniable fact that the historical Imhotep was not a medical doctor. Such claims show only how antagonistic are for some reasons the same milieus of Egyptologists toward the ancient Greek contributions and the ancient Greek legacy. I find also outlandish and totally unfounded the theories of some that Hippocrates would have been just a devotee of Imhotep and would have drawn on his medical knowledge from Imhotep’s library in Egypt (there is no serious indication even for a visit of Hippocrates to Egypt) or that Hippocrates would have been the pupil of some ancient African tradition of medical wisdom.

Now, no one denies today that the ancient Egyptians had a developed medicine and medical practice. Among the ancient Greek authors, Herodotus praises in the Book II of his Histories the quality of the Egyptian medicine and reports the high degree of specialization of the Egyptian physicians. However, if one cannot exclude an Egyptian influence on the first phases of the Greek medicine, the latter was not some kind of copy of the Egyptian medicine but had its own characteristics and development.

Moreover, with the Hippocratic movement appears the first system of naturalist medicine, one which combines careful observation of the symptoms and regularities of the diseases with a theoretical framework conceiving health, disease, cure, and their causes as purely natural processes, without role left for the intervention of various types of spirits and of magic, factors which played an important role in the Egyptian ideas about medicine. This Hippocratic new conception of medicine was of course a breakthrough of cardinal importance in the progress toward a scientific understanding of things, whether some Egyptologists like it or not.

The exact role of Hippocrates himself in this movement and more particularly in the authorship of the body of treatises which have survived under his name (the Hippocratic Corpus) is debated (see more recently on this topic the book of Robert Lane Fox The Invention of Medicine: From Homer to Hippocrates ). But I think that Hippocrates deserves the title of “Father of Medicine” as we understand it today in his quality of leading figure and foremost representative of this decisively innovative movement of naturalist and scientific medicine in Classical Greece.

I add that the ancient Greek historians of the Classical era and more particularly Herodotus had close intellectual ties with this new scientific Hippocratic medical movement (see on this subject the book of Rosalind Thomas Herodotus in context. Ethnography, Science and the Art of Persuasion).

#hippocrates #father of medicine #history of medicine #ancient greek classics #imhotep #egyptology #herodotus #helen king

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yamayuandadu · 3 years

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For the character breakdown, I’d love to see hadad, anat, shapash, yam, mot, athtar, kothkar and khasis... really any of the ugaritic pantheon, of course you don’t have to do all of them >.<, I’d just love to see your hot takes

I shall rise up to the challenge! I’m the only person on this site obsessed with Ugarit as far as I can tell... I covered everyone you asked for plus Ashtart and Yarikh. As much as I like burrowing through jstor and academia edu and persee and so on, I kind of wish there were more people approaching Ugaritic, Mesopotamian, Hittite etc. myths the way many do with Greek ones tbh - sometimes i’d just like to see which figures people think would be into gossiping and so on or which tacky modern fashion they think suits them equally as much as I want to find out if Yarikh’s portrayal in Ugaritic poetry owes more to Nanna/Sin or to the Hittite moon god. ALSO as far as this sort of light hearted takes go, there are two japanese artists on twitter who draw Baal cycle fanart: here and here.

Hadad: How I feel about this character: one of my fave mythical protagonist. I think I genuinely only like Inanna more. Going from a very relatable desire to get his own house to triumph over death is quite the journey. The relative powerlessness many interpreters point out is interesting, too - the fact he mostly gets somewhere because of allies and because even if El was the king of gods, Hadad’s attributes made him the king of people’s hearts arguably, so he has to win against overwheming odds. All the people I ship romantically with this character: Anat, Ashtart/Astarte/however we transcribe her name this week... Kothar? My non-romantic OTP for this character: given the Seth-Baal equation in Egypt and the uncertaininty over whether Astarte papyrus is about Seth or Baal under Seth’s name it’s funny to imagine them as friends. Also I’ll talk about it more underneath but since Dagan was a god with similar purposes further inland (and is attested earlier iirc) and Ugaritic texts - even though they rarely feature him - call him Hadad’s father - it would be cute to assume he also taught Hadad everything. My unpopular opinion about this character: I’m a Dagan parentage truther against all odds. It was the norm outside Ugarit! I think “Dagan isn’t in Ugaritic myths because they take place in Ugarit but people thought Dagan lives further inland in Tuttul based on prayers etc.” is enough to explain his absence from myths, and also note that in the epic Baal is “Dagan’s son” even when he’s at a low point (ex. when Yam demands he gives up his freedom or when he’s dead) and only El’s and Asherah’s son when he’s victorious for the most part (ex. during palace construction) - imo this makes it plausible that Dagan is his real dad and El and Athirat are only his parents in the way vassal rulers called emperors fathers. Likewise I think any references to siblings can be interpreted in the light of ex. kings of Ugarit calling kings of Carchemish or Alashiya brothers. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I really like how corny the Hittite/Hurrian storm god cycle is with Kumarbi constaly raising new challengers to attack Kummiya and dethrone Teshub/Tarhunna, I actually wish the Ugaritic one was longer too via a similar plot device. Also I wish Dagan actually appeared in myths alongside his son - Noga Ayali-Darshan had a theory he was in some oral tradition predating Baal cycle as the god announcing Yam demands a tribute since in Hurrian “Song of the sea” and in Egyptian “Astarte papyrus” a grain deity does this but a possible reconstruction isn’t much... Anat How I feel about this character: well, she’s not Inanna, but she’s still pretty good. I mostly like the parts of the Baal narrative which show her unpredictable character, like her probable parents being afraid of her, listing various never shown enemies she vanquished, or Mot’s death. Aqhat myth doesn’t interest me much. That myth fragment where she and Ashtart pity Yarikh because other gods treat him poorly is interesting, too. All the people I ship romantically with this character: Baal, Ashtart, that’s it I think. My non-romantic OTP for this character: she seems to get along really well with Shapash during the segment of the Baal cycle where Baal is dead. My unpopular opinion about this character: I really hate the speculation popular among bible scholars which amounts to making her, Ashtart and Athirat interchangeable to justify her irrelevance in the iron age. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: honestly? I wish an “Anat cycle” existed. She pretty clearly had a fair share of own adventures considering Baal enlists her help on the account of past accomplishments. Yam How I feel about this character: out of all antagonists in the basic middle eastern “storm god vs sea” narratives I think he has the most fun personality - Hedammu is barely a “character” and Tiamat lacks the more human dimension Yam has. All the people I ship romantically with this character: nobody, he has to move past the Astarte papyrus characterization and learn some respect for that smh My non-romantic OTP for this character: his nameless rude messenger who refused to bow down when speaking to the assembly of the gods My unpopular opinion about this character: contary to what this (very good) paper says, the Yam battle is more thrilling than the Mot one - the strength of the Mot part of the narrative comes from the visceral descriptions of Anat’s emotions but Mot is a flat villain compared to Yam. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: he had a seemingly positive role in cult and there are 13 known people with Yam theophoric names (out of 6000 or so people from Ugarit known by name) so I sort of wonder if there’s some lost myth where he’s the hero or something. Mot How I feel about this character: if nothing else, feeling offended by being offered bread and wine instead of corpses is pretty funny and a great introduction. And the pathetic attempt at a comeback shut down by Shapash is All the people I ship romantically with this character: unshippable by design tbh. My non-romantic OTP for this character: if the theory about Horon - the god from the “anti-snakebite text” and the “may horon crack your skull” curse - being a cthtonic god too - just a generally benign one - is true I think they could have a lot of comedic potential. My unpopular opinion about this character: I don’t understand where the idea of a nonexistent myth about Mot kidnapping Shapash and Yarikh comes from and I wish it wasn’t all over the place online. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: some more detailed description of the afterlife - Mot, rephaim, Horon if he really lives there - would be useful... Shapash How I feel about this character: she seems severly... underrated? There are maybe two papers about her (and one underlines the fact there isn’t much research on her) and yet she’s the second most prominent goddess in the Baal cycle AND has her own narrative in the anti-snakebite texts! She might actually be more remarkable than her Mesopotamian counterpart - with all due respect for Utu/Shamash, in myths he’s the boring sibling between himself and Inanna/Ishtar... All the people I ship romantically with this character: I don’t have any real ideas, some papers assume she and Horon were a thing but this is disputable and Horon is pretty nebulous himself... My non-romantic OTP for this character: “Kothar - your close friend!” from that one hymn has that covered. Since she’s basically a divine herald perhaps they travel together? My unpopular opinion about this character: I suspect the reason why she isn’t studied more is because many researchers are stuck with some sort of false “good mother goddess - evil sex goddess” dichotomy of ancient middle eastern religion and while you can force Athirat, Anat and Ashtart into these roles, Shapash with her aura of a divine equivalent of a mundane earthly official doesn’t fit into it and as such is ignored. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I said I hate the false Mot myth spreading online but I actually do wish there was a myth or at least a cult text of some sort showing what sort of relation existed between her and Yarikh - safe to say it didn’t mirror Shamash and Sin... Kothar-wa-Khasis How I feel about this character: huge fan of artisan gods and he seems genuinely nice. One of my Ugaritic b-list favorites. I like that he’s a reneissance man - armorer, architect, even a musician... The theory that he was developed based on Ptah since Memphis had a large foreign population is great. All the people I ship romantically with this character: Baal sort of? I imagine Baal is actually relatively knowledgeable about architecture given the length of the window debate in the Baal cycle... My non-romantic OTP for this character: Shapash, as I said earlier. My unpopular opinion about this character: based on the tale of King Keret some researchers argue he’s meant to be ugly like Greek Haephestus, but since I like the Ptah theory and his appearance isn’t described elsewhere AND King Keret might be satire where everyone is their worst self possible, I prefer to imagine him as handsome One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: supposedly from Caphtor and yet we never see Caphtor (Crete) in Ugaritic myths... come on, ancient scribes, surely someone went there? Maybe even recorded some proper Minoan myths? Ashtart How I feel about this character: she’s my favorite Ugaritic figure of limited relevance. An Ishtar/Inanna equivalent who seemingly curses other gods and presides over political pacts is a pretty solid premise! And it’s funny she rebukes Baal seemingly for insufficient dedication in battle. I wonder if the Egyptian fragment which implies Yam acted lecherous towards her is a factor in this tbh. Perhaps an earlier oral tradition had both these elements...? All the people I ship romantically with this character: Baal (her title is “face of baal”/”of the name of baal”, c’mon...), Anat (almost always listed together!) My non-romantic OTP for this character: Keret curses his son with a formula invoking both Horon and her so perhaps that’s who she’s learning curses from. My unpopular opinion about this character: I hate that “Astarte is Asherah” is widespread just because people want to defend the historicity of the biblical Jezebel narrative which probably even the biblical compilersdidn’t view as historical. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish she didn’t vanish from the Baal cycle after Yam’s defeat :C Attar How I feel about this character: this sure is... a guy. He’s so pathetic in the Baal cycle it’s hard to even see him as an antagonist - sorry, Handbook of Ugaritic Studies... All the people I ship romantically with this character: nobody, Shapash points out he’s single as the reason why he can’t rule and i don’t think that changes in any subsequent texts? But then Marriage of Nikkal and Yarikh iirc mentions he has a daughter... My non-romantic OTP for this character: again, nobody. My unpopular opinion about this character: he’s actually a pretty vital part of the Baal cycle and the fact he gives up on own accord makes him more interesting than the other “failed god” in a similar narrative, Ashtabi. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: a god with the same name was prominent in present day Yemen so I guess finding some direct connection would be nice - it fits with him leaving to “rule elsewhere” in the myth! Yarikh How I feel about this character: he’s so pitiful in the fragment which compares him to a dog begging for scraps... His main myth is pretty good too, tbh it’s the best middle eastern marriage myth imo - I actually don’t care for Dumuzi much, but Yarikh is cool. All the people I ship romantically with this character: only Nikkal-wa-Ib My non-romantic OTP for this character: given his mistreatment and Nikkal’s father(?) saying he could be a son in law of Baal I assume that in some unknown texts they must have been allies. Note that the Hittite storm god has the sun and moon gods acting as his metaphorical eyes warning him against Kumarbi’s new plots in song of Ullikummi. Also I assume Anat and Ashtart must consider him a friend given how they help him when nobody else does? All around he feels like a god in Baal’s orbit even though we have 0 direct proof for it. My unpopular opinion about this character: I think trying to correct him to Nanna is a doomed endeavor tbh. Their wives have similar names but Yarikh doesn’t give the impression of a “Father of gods” type deity in what little we know about him. One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: more myths. None we know show him as the moon even though it’s literally his name! I am afraid I don’t have anything interesting to say about El and Athirat. Handbook of Ugaritic Studies has an amazing El summary that I generally stick to, I can post a cap if you are interested.

#Anonymous

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admelioraii · 3 years

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Cats that changed the course of history

Photo by Linnea Sandbakk on Unsplash

Ailurophilia comes from Classical Greek, meaning “cat loving” or “love for cats”. We will dive into this topic from three different perspectives: historical, modern and scientific, even though there is much more than that to our feline friends.

Cats in ancient Egypt:

The first known cat with a name was called “Nedjem” meaning “sweet” or “pleasant” and dates from the reign of Thutmose III (1479 -1425 B.C.) in Egypt.

Cat in tutmose’s tomb

Nedjem was found in the tomb of a noble man named Puimre, and unlike dogs, it was uncommon to name cats in ancient Egypt.

Domestication of cats started in the Near East around 7500 B.C. It was long thought that cat domestication was initiated in ancient Egypt around 3100 B.C.

We know very little about the short life of the crown Prince Thutmose although most of the knowledge we have we got from his cat Ta - miu. Ta -miu served as his personal pet, we know nothing about how she died, but she was mummified and her sarcophagus tells us most of what we know about her owner.

In ancient Egypt, Bastet, the god of love, was portrayed with a cat’s head. It is not difficult to imagine why, as grain was of essential importance to the country and the cats successfully killed the country’s grain-destroying rats and dangerous cobras.

Killing a cat in ancient Egypt meant a death sentence. Perhaps that’s why 3,000 cat mummies were found, buried in Beni-Hassan; the worlds first known pet cemetery, which is 2,000 years old. Here we find cat mummies wearing remarkable iron, and beaded collars.

According to Greek historian Herodotus, the Egyptians would shave their eyebrows as a mark of respect when mourning the loss of a family cat.

The Egyptians fascination with cats is partially due to the fact that cats were seen as possessing a duality of the desirable temperaments. On one hand, the can be protective, loyal, and nurturing, but on the other hand, they can also be pugnacious, independent and fierce.

The battle of Pelsium 525 B.C.

The Macedonian author Polyaeunus wrote that there was a war in 525 B.C. between Egypt and Persia. He suggests that the invading Persian army used cats to shield the self from Egyptian arrow fire. The Persian king Cambyses II persuaded troops to carry these “mystical” animals into the battle to prevent Egyptians from fighting back.

As a result, the Egyptians lost the war and as a consequence the Persian period of pharaohs in Egypt followed and it would last for 200 years.

Cats in the Roman Empire.

Photo by Alvan Nee on Unsplash

The most commonly used pets in the Roman world were caged birds, especially liked by Roman women. A lot of Roman love poetry was dedicated to birds.

In poetry birds were directly related to love, catching a bird meant human pursuit and seduction, caged bird for captured lover and dying bird for withering love or end of a love affair.

Roman cat smugglers, got the cats from Egypt to the Roman Empire before the time of Christ. The cats served as mouse haunters for the Roman legionnaires, who in turn introduced cats to Britain. The brits and Welsh fell in love with them as they controlled mice and disease, they even made cat-killing a hanging offence.

Back in Italy, cats finally moved into people’s homes replacing pet snakes and domesticated weasels.

Much later in the 1370s, an Italian writer Arqua’ Petrarch near Padua, used his cat to protect his books from getting eaten by mice, the feline was later embalmed.

Cats in Asia protected the silk industry by guarding silk cocoons from small predators.

Cats in modern times.

Guinness record cats.

Photo by Nina Mercado on Unsplash

Longest living cat, was born on August 3rd1967, cream puff lived until August 6th 2005, for a total of 38 years and 3 days. Recorded in the Guinness book of world records as the oldest cat to have ever lived. Her grandfather “Rex Allen” lived 34 years and 2 months.

Towser “the mouser” killed about 28,899 mice over a period of 24 years. About 1,210 victims annually and 3 mice a day. She got the Guinness world record for the most mice caught. The people in Crieff in Perthshire, Scotland erected a bronze statue in the memory of Towser upon her passing.

Astrocat.

Astrocat, the first cat in space, took off on October the 18th 1963 in a French Veronique AGI projectile shot from the Algerian Sahara Desert rocket base. During the 15 minutes long flight, Felicette reached an altitude of 260 miles and safely returned to earth. A bronze statue was built in her honor in 2019 at the international space university. Felicette was the only cat ever having travelled and returned safely outside the earth’s atmosphere.

Even in modern times cats were used in wars by the Germans to spread poisonous gases in the 17th century. Even in Britain cats were used during the 2nd world war, as an early warning signal that airplanes were coming as the cats went hiding whenever hearing airplanes.

The use of cats in medicine.

Photo by C. Z. Shi on Unsplash

A car purrs within a range of 20-140 Hz, which is known to be medically therapeutic for illnesses in humans. A cat's purr can not only lower the stress it can also help labored breath, lower blood pressure, help heal infections and even heal bones.

Meows are not innate cat language they developed them to communicate with us humans!

Domestic cats spend 70% of the day sleeping and 15% of the day grooming.

Why do cats always fall on their feet?

In 1894 Etienne- jules Marley used a chronophotic camera to watch a cat fall in slow motion. He discovered how a cat really falls and why it always lands on its feet.

Cats have an inbuilt balancing system called the “righting reflex”, they can orient themselves and land on their feet. The higher the fall, the more time the cat has to be able to right their position for the fall. When the cat reaches maximum speed (in the fall) they relax and stretch their legs, like a flying squirrel, their body expands and creates air resistance, like a parachute.

Photo by Alex Meier on Unsplash

Nowadays most people have cats as pets for companionship. We even have an international cat day every year, on the 8th of August.

The journey has been long and the reasons for having cats have been various and different. Whatever the reason is, or was, for having a cat, the cats have done a great job!!!

More on Mistletoe:

"Mistletoe is a plant that grows on range of trees including willow, apple and oak trees. The tradition of hanging it in the house supposedly goes back to the times of the ancient Druids; however, there's little evidence that this happened. It is also meant to possess mystical powers which bring good luck to the household and wards off evil spirits. It was also used as a sign of love and friendship in Norse mythology.

When the first Christians came to Western Europe, some tried to ban the use of Mistletoe as a decoration in Churches, becuase of some of the old stories about it, but many still continued to use it! York Minster Church in the UK used to hold a special Mistletoe Service in the winter, where wrong doers in the city of York could come and be pardoned."

Link for all the above quotes: https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/

"Christmas bells" are actually pagan bells:

"Ringing of bells can be traced back to pagan winter celebrations. During those times, noisemakers were used to scare away evil spirits in the night. Among those early noisemakers were bells."

Link: http://www.holidayinsights.com/xmas/bells.htm

TL;DR:

Christmas is its own holiday, yes, but almost every aspect of it has pagan origins. It is wrong to not acknowledge this fact because it furthers the idea that Christmas, and ultimately, Christianity, is superior. There is no war on Christmas, just people tired of hearing that Christmas is the only right way to celebrate. I literally just googled things and found answers. It's not that hard to look for things, you just don't want to.

If anyone else would like to add something or correct me, go ahead! However, I will not respond to people who aren't civil or refuse to see the other side of things and that they might be wrong. Thank you, have a great day! Happy holidays ♥️♥️♥️

#Christmas #Personal #Pagan #Witch #I wanted to rant but I've spent a lot of energy already #It just irritates me that people ignore all this and act like Christmas is the only right holiday #Colonizers istg #Feminismandmedia

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oneshortdamnfuse · 5 years

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There are so many things about Rami Malek’s identity that people get wrong through ignorance, willful or not, to justify presenting him as someone he is not. It is so contrary to common sense and to how he has publicly self identified, but people don’t care if it means they can continue to call him a terrorist or position him as a domestic laborer to deny his talents. No matter how many times people refer to him as a white / “caucasian” / European man, it ultimately does not change how he’s been othered by comparison to white peers.

People love to say that Rami’s Greek ancestry is evidence that he can’t be a person of color. He’s like ~12% Greek, and it does not take away the fact that he’s brown. Egypt is in the Mediterranean, and it’s experienced gene flow from three major continents (Africa, Asia, and Europe.) It’s not surprising that he would have Greek ancestry, and labeling him as a “white guy” because he has ancestors from a non-Western European country that was once dominated by the Ottoman Empire is completely ignorant.

Along with that, people have lumped Greek Orthodox and Coptics together, suggesting that they are the same and reinforcing the completely false idea that Rami is more European than North African. Nope. The Catholic and Orthodox faiths are the oldest Christian faiths, with Coptic Christianity predating Islam in Egypt. The Coptic language may have an adapted Greek alphabet for writing, but it descended from Ancient Egyptian, ya know, the language that pharaohs used. Copts are Egyptian. They’re an ethnoreligious minority. Not Greek.

People also like to make pretentious clarifications that he’s actually “Egyptian-American,” with absolutely no sense of how Americans define their ethnicity. Our ethnicity is not “American,” that’s our nationality. If you want to make a distinction that he’s not of Egyptian nationality, that’s fine. He, himself, calling himself an Egyptian person is in no way asserting that he was born and raised in Egypt. We often refer to ourselves by where our ancestors came from because their culture informs our identities here in the states.

Besides that, Rami is a first-generation American. His parents immigrated from Egypt. His sister was born in Egypt. His extended family still lives in Egypt. His first language was Arabic. He has spoken Arabic in interviews. He has been to Egypt. He discusses Egyptian news and politics, including terrorist attacks that have killed Copts in his community. He’s also had the misfortune of being type-cast as a terrorist more than once, because his name, his features, his skin, his culture, etc. are frequently othered in Hollywood.

No amount of trying to rewrite history to justify racist and ethnocentric “jokes” on the internet will change any aspect of his identity. He calls himself a person of color. He acknowledges that he’s Arab. He is not the same color as his white peers, no matter how many skin color palettes people try to come up with to “prove” that he’s just a white guy which is still pretty racist and it conflates the concepts of colorism with whiteness. Rami may benefit from having light skin, but he is not white. Stop playing games to justify how people treat him.

#rami malek #i've truly seen some uneducated bullshit on here and on twitter

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smarmykemetic · 7 years

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Amun, Amun-Re: One of the most important gods of ancient Egypt, Amun is first mentioned, along with his consort Amaunet, in the Pyramid Texts (PT 446). He appears as a local god of the Theban region from at least the 11th dynasty when four rulers took the name Amenemhet or 'Amun is pre-eminent'. Within s century and a half Amun gradually displaced the old god of that region, Montu, and the ascendancy of the Theban kings in Middle and New Kingdom times eventually propelled him (as the combined Amun-Re) to the position of supreme god within the Egyptian pantheon. He was associated with two other deities who together made up the local divine triad of Thebes: his consort, the goddess Mut -who largely replaced Amaunet in this role- and the lunar god Khonsu who was worshipped as their son. His character developed over the millennia into that of a rich and varied personality. The Egyptians themselves called him Amun asha renu or 'Amun rich in names', and the god can only be fully understood in terms of the many aspects which were combined in him. The Greek writer Plutarch quotes the Egyptian chronicler Manetho as stating that Amun meant 'that which is concealed' or 'invisible', and the god was also commonly given epithets such as 'mysterious of form' -suggesting an essentially imperceptible nature- and it is possible that his name originally referred to Amun as the invisible power of the wind. While it is true that his name was written without a defining determinative, this was also true of some other creator gods, but the aspect of Amun as a mysterious, hidden god was primary to his nature. In addition to being a member of the Ogdoad, the group of eight primeval deities worshipped in Hermopolis, Amun was worshipped as Amun kematef or 'Amun who has completed his moment', a creator god in the form of a snake which renewed itself. In this form Amun was said to predate the other members of the Ogdoad, and it was probably this form of Amun that Plutarch refers to as 'Kneph' -an eternal, self-engendering god worshipped by the inhabitants of Thebes. By the 18th dynasty Karnak Temple was said to occupy the 'moung of the beginning' where Amun brought the world into being; and a number of New Kingdom hymns extol Amun for creating the cosmos through his thoughts, an important step in the theological development of cosmogonic ideas. In the Book of the Dead Amun is called 'eldest of the gods of the eastern sky', an epithet reflecting both his primeval character and solar-associated nature, and an 18th-dynasty hymn to Amun preserved on a stela in the British Museum refers to Amun when he rises as Horakhty, directly fusing the hidden one with the visible sun. When he was syncretized with the god Re, as the composite Amun-Re, Amun took on a number of aspects of the solar deity, though these were clearly secondary to his hidden nature and the god was regarded as antithetical to the sun during the Amarna Period. From the 12th dynasty, Amun kamutef -literally, 'bull of his mother'- was the ithyphallic form of Amun depicted in ritual scenes in the temples of Thebes and especially Luxor Temple. The epithet suggests both that the god was self-engendered -meaning that he begot himself on his mother, the cow who personified the goddess of the sky and of creation -and also conveys the sexual energy of the bull which, for the Egyptians, was a symbol of strength and fertility par excellence. In this ithyphallic aspect Amun was related to the fertility god Min and is sometimes called Amun-Min. It seems likely that some of the character of the old Theban war god Montu, whom Amun largely displaced, was absorbed by this ascendant deity. The Theban rulers of the 13th dynasty had made their city a rallying point against the invading Hyksos and, when the Hyksos were finally driven from Egypt (c. 1550 BC), it was Amun who received credit for the military victories of the time. Likewise, in the succeeding period of New Kingdom Empire Amun was not only said to instigate Egyptian expansion and to protect the Egyptian king in battle, but the 'lord of victory' and 'lover of strength' was specifically given credit for successful military strategy. Pyramid Text 1540 states 'you have come, O king, as the son of Geb upon the throne of Amun', and from the Middle Kingdom the god was styled 'Lord of the thrones of the Two Lands' of Upper and Lower Egypt. The first known example of Amun's title 'king of the gods' appears on the 12th-dynasty 'White Chapel' of Senwosret I at Karnak and is used frequently thereafter. He was also called 'chief of the gods' in this same role of divine king. By Ptolemaic times AMun was directly equated with Zeus, and his Greek name Amonraonther may be based on the Egyptian title Amun-Re nesu Netheru, 'Amun-Re king of the gods'. Unlike deities who were thought to personify the sky, earth or some other limited region or phenomenon, Amun was held to be a universal god who, at least in his developed theology, permeated the cosmos and all it contained. While a few other gods could be said to be 'universal' in nature, it is with Amun that we find a developed rationale for this claim. As the god who 'exists in all things' and the one in whom all gods were subsumed, Amun came particularly close to being a kind of monotheistic deity and was sometimes revered as the ba or soul or all natural phenomenon.

The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt By Richard H. Wilkinson

#complete gods and goddesses of ancient egypt #library of kemet #kemetic book quotes #amun #amun-re #amun-ra #mut #khonsu #amaunet #ogdoad #horakhty #re #ra #min #amun-min #montu

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tipsycad147 · 5 years

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Animal Magic: 12 Animals That Can Strengthen Your Craft

SL Bear

Loving animals is easy for most people. When we look at animals, we see the natural order, perfect symmetry of form and function, beauty, strangeness, and the long-dormant wild part of ourselves that many long to reconnect to. We became separate from animals and the natural world at some point, moving down from the trees to the grass, and slowly along the evolutionary path to where we are today. Though modern science and luxuries keep human beings alive longer and give our lives comfort, most of us will never be as free or self-assured as, say, the little birds who visit our backyards.

Cultures around the world include animal symbolism in their religions and systems of belief. In Haitian Voudou, they practice snake worship. Damballa is a serpent and is seen as the creator of all life. Hindus worship the cow in recognition of all the animal offers society. The ancient Egyptians revered cats, and many gods took on the appearance of animals. The list goes on and on; however, most relevant to us are animals associated with witchcraft. These are animals such as cats, birds, bats, toads, and other creatures that get a bad rap. Today, I’d like to share with you some animal associations you can use in spells, divination, talismans, altar-making, and just simple invocations to bring the power of each of these animals into your practice. I’ve only focused on a few animals, so if you need something more specific for your intentions, believe me, all you have to do is do a little digging — there is a perfect animal symbol out there for any need you have!

Wild Witchcraft

1. Bat

To some, the bat is a symbol of evil and death and fear for this animal runs deep. To others, the bat is a symbol of the night and all the hidden mysteries one can learn if they open their eyes while everyone else is asleep. Thanks to echolocation, the bat finds its way through the night with ease. Invoke the bat’s power before a night out by drawing a small bat somewhere hidden on your body to keep your wits about you when the sun goes down. If you’re struggling during a time of confusion in your life, invest in a bat talisman — any little bat figurine you can carry with you — to help find your way in the darkness.

2. Bear

The bear is a warrior. The name Artemis, goddess of the hunt, comes from the root word “artos” which means bear. This animal fittingly represents earth, and in European cultures predating Christianity, where lions are absent, the bear takes its symbolic place as a powerful king of the land it roams. Interestingly, Artemis is sometimes shown with a bear and both have ties to the moon.

Ursa Major and Minor are the constellations associated with this goddess as well — the Great Bear and the Little Bear, respectively. The bear should be summoned when you need strength. If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor can be seen year-round, so make a trip outside under the full moon and find these constellations. Draw a bear print on the sole of your right foot or on the palm of your right hand, and light a white candle. Ask for the strength to face obstacles or overcome overwhelming odds. And when the time comes, show no fear!

3. Bee

The symbolism surrounding the bee could fill a book. They are industrious, hard-workers and their symmetrical honeycombs are symbols of perfection and the harmony achieved when a group works as one. They also have mystical links to gods and spirits. Honeybees create honey, a sacred food of the gods, from sunlight and fruits of the earth, and therefore have ties to transmutation and the divine. In literature, you may recognise the name Dumbledore from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter. This word comes from the Old English form of the word bumblebee and unlike honeybees, these bees spend their time joyfully “bumbling” from flower to flower.

Though they look very soft and fuzzy, bees can sting if provoked and so they are a symbol of mothers protecting their families. Although there are several ways to invoke the bee in magic, I think their most admirable attribute is their singular focus and work ethic, and so if you’re having difficulty staying motivated on a project — especially involving others — use the symbol of the bee as a talisman to remind you hard work pays off. Wear yellow. Light yellow candles. Sweeten your tea or toast with honey. Keep the spirit of the bee close at hand when working on any project to stay “buzzed” about it!

4. Butterfly

Often quite beautiful and less driven than its fellow flower-lover the bee, the butterfly is a symbol of gentleness and innocence. The Greek word for butterfly is psyche, and so we therefore associate it with the soul in many cultures. To others, the butterfly is a communicator between us on earth and the spiritual realm.

The butterfly goes through a striking metamorphosis, changing from a squirming caterpillar to a breathtaking, jewel-bright creature that takes flight! Changing one’s life is no easy task, but the butterfly reminds us that just because something seems impossible doesn’t mean it is. Draw an image of a butterfly in black and white and hang it somewhere near your altar. Every time you actively make a change for the better, colour in a little part of the image and take a moment to reflect on your progress. Take in the whole image instead of just one small piece; see the big picture to stay motivated. Bit by bit and day by day, work at transforming the black-and-white image to one that’s brilliant and bold. It may not be a quick process, but you’ll be amazed at what you can accomplish with perseverance and a state-of-mind metamorphosis.

5. Cat

In ancient Egypt, Bast was the cat goddess, and cats in general were revered. Other religions and beliefs look upon them less favourably, especially black cats, which are seen as unlucky despite their nine lives. Where the dog is man’s best friend, a loyal and obedient sidekick, the cat is picky and will leave a home that doesn’t live up to their lofty standards.

Despite being domesticated 4,000 years ago, cats maintain a feral wildness we’ve bred out of other pets and farm animals. They roam. They can live quite happily without us. Cats are inquisitive, sleek creatures that move where they want and choose who they want. And by all accounts, across many cultures, the cat has chosen the witch. The black cat is a staple of the traditional caricature of a witch, as much as the pointy hat or broom. Like the witch, the cat is mysterious, elusive, and seen as a threat by many a superstitious person. There are many ways you could call upon the cat in your magic, but I suggest channelling their ability to relax and make every space their own. When you are overwhelmed with life, call on the witch’s companion. Things always look better after a good night’s sleep.

6. Dragon

The dragon, like most animals on this list, will mean different things to different cultures. In the East, the dragon means royalty and the word “dragon” can be used instead of emperor. In the Chinese zodiac, the dragon is the fifth sign and aligns perfectly with Leo — the lion being another symbol for kings and queens. The dragon can be fearsome or something marvellous, depending on your point of view, and in stories will often guard over a great treasure or secret.

The dragon is versatile, but one thing is not up for debate: The dragon represents power. While the bear is a warrior, lashing out fiercely at foes, the dragon’s mere presence is enough to instil fear. Keep a dragon symbol over your bed for prophetic dreams and place the dragon’s image on jewellery boxes and other treasures to ward against thieves. Draw or print out an image of a dragon and wrap it around a red candle during protection spells or use in curses to strike fear into your enemies. If you have a secret, no animal will guard it like the dragon.

7. Fox

In stories, the fox is the trickster, the cunning one who uses charm and sly words to achieve goals. In mythology, the fox is a seducer, and in Christianity, the fox is linked to the Devil. So naturally, women described as “foxy” are not just attractive, but devious, ready to lure innocent men to their doom. Misogyny aside, the fox’s ability to outwit its foes with a smile on its face and bushy tail high, make it a symbol of guile and craftiness — the perfect creature to invoke when you need help solving a problem or getting out of a sticky situation. Use the fox’s image covertly — drawing it underneath altars, on the bottoms of candles, or on the reverse side of sigils — when performing spells to add an extra element of cunning.

8. Horse

It’s no surprise that an animal so closely linked to mankind’s success will be spiritually significant to us. Where would we be if we hadn’t had the horse to carry us? On one hand, the horse is tied to the sun, pulling the chariot of Apollo. On the other, the horse is a symbol of the moon and water — just ask Poseidon, the god of the sea and the horse. This animal can stand for gods and goddesses alike, good and evil, life and death. Perhaps this then is the true symbolism of the horse: Usefulness. No matter in which context you see this animal, you’ll see it being put to good use. After all, without the horse, humans wouldn’t have gotten very far. In your magic, invoke the horse when you’re travelling by coupling its image with Raido, the rune for travel, or the Chariot tarot card. Do this before a long trip to ensure safe passage.

9. Owl

It will delight you to learn that Strix is a genus of owls, and another word for witch. They share many symbolic attributes with witches, like working alone at night under the moon and having mystical knowledge. Hekate, the queen of witches, has an owl companion. Some say owls are bad omens foretelling death, while others claim owls are clairvoyant — and know when you’re about to die!

Owls are skilled hunters and unlike other birds, their large eyes are positioned on the front of their heads instead of on the side. They can also swivel their necks to see behind them. This gives them complete vision, and so it’s no wonder owls are associated with knowledge and prophecy — they literally see all. Like other nocturnal animals, they are linked with occult wisdom, having access to the secrets only available in the cover of night. Cultures across the globe believe the owl is a traveller between the realms of life and death. Invoke the owl during any kind of divination to help you “see.” Carry an owl talisman for wisdom, and whenever you hear a hooting owl, make sure you ask it to take any bad luck away from you on its flight.

10. Raven

Here is a shocking fact: The average human IQ is 100 and the raven, relatively compared, has an IQ of 138 [1]. They make tools and solve puzzles. They can recognise people by their faces, and they can learn and even understand different languages. For this reason, ravens are symbols of intelligence. Ravens enjoy a rich mythology and have a reputation for protecting mankind, whispering to shamans about what’s to come. However, ravens are also seen as death omens and their haunting calls feature in many horror films. This may be attributed to the fact they are often seen after battle, feasting on the dead. I choose to see ravens for what they are: incredibly intelligent. So, they are an obvious talisman for those seeking wisdom, like students. Keep an image of a raven near blue candles and light them every Monday to help you on tests, mental challenges, or to outwit a foe.

11. Snake

This much maligned animal strikes fear in the hearts of many. Perhaps this is a vestigial fear from our primate days when venturing down into the grass meant dealing with this poisonous threat. Maybe the “snake eyes” are what creeps people out. Maybe it’s their size (pythons can reach 25 feet!) or the way they shed skin or their “forked tongues” now synonymous with one who cannot be trusted. Ouroboros is the image of a snake eating its own tail, symbolising life and rebirth forever.

In the bible, a serpent convinced Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and learned of good and evil. The lore of snakes is closely associated with that of dragons, though snakes carry more sinister connotations. But ask any snake charmer or a person who keeps snakes as pets and they will tell you these animals are as gentle to hold as kittens. Invoke the snake when you’re being bullied or someone is actively working against you. Draw a snake on several pale stone and place them in a circle near your front door, then sprinkle black pepper and eggshells into this circle whenever you leave your home. You can also bring this circle inside and spread it so you can sit within it while working spells for protection or against your enemies to ensure no repercussions come your way.

12. Wolf

Who hasn’t heard the tale about men turning into a wolf under the full moon, only to turn back when dawn breaks? Or Little Red Riding Hood, who was nearly eaten by the wolf wearing her grandmother’s clothing? Or the boy who cried wolf? Or Peter and the Wolf? Though wild wolves try to avoid people, the image of a wolf as a danger is an old one. These stories are not really about dangerous animals; they are allegories for dangerous situations and people. The wolf is the animal in stories that represents the dangerous side of human nature, and acts as a warning.

[1] The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols Paperback – March 1, 2009, Adele Nozedar

https://thetravelingwitch.com/blog/animal-magic-12-animals-that-can-strengthen-your-craft

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didanawisgi · 7 years

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The African origin of heroes, super and otherwise

July 7, 2011

by J.D. Jackson

Historically, heroes – super-powered or not – come in all shapes and sizes. But what about colors? If we allow your standard history book and Hollywood small and silver screen productions to answer that question, the overall answer would be that the color is only one – white. Black heroes, it seems, do not exist.

But nothing could be further from the truth, especially for the sharp-witted student of world history or even popular culture. For such a person – though not without long-lived hard work and patience, intense study and research, and steel-spined dedication – would discover that throughout time immemorial, the Black hero – real and imagined – repeatedly appears and impacts culture as well as individuals who either welcome or disregard his or her heroic appearance, words and/or deeds.

Speaking of words, some scholars now agree that the very word “hero” comes from an African (Black) word and an African god. The 19th century scholar, Gerald Massey, states that the word “hero” comes from the Egyptian, “ma haru,” meaning “the typical warrior” or the “true hero.” Whereas another scholar states that the word “hero” is derived from the Latin name of a Greek word for the African god, Heru or Hor, who most Egyptologists call “Horus the hawk, the avenger.”

Interestingly enough, the hawk is an ancient and sacred bird of Africa, particularly Ethiopia, and what the late but legendary African world history scholar, Dr. Chancellor Williams, calls “Ethiopia’s oldest daughter, Egypt.”

Furthermore, based on the testimony of the Greek historian, Herodotus – often dubbed the “father of history” – and other scholars past and present, the very names – if not the very same gods, Greek then Roman, under different names – of the gods from Greek and Roman mythology came from, or were heavily influenced by, the ancient Egyptian and African mythology which predated them.

Those African-derived Greco-Roman gods would consequently serve as the backbone of today’s multi-billion dollar superhero comic book and movie industry.

Obatala, God of Yoroba mythology.But the unmatched impact of Black heroes, real and fictional, would not stop in Greek and Roman mythology or even in Western society today. It would encompass both Asia and the Far East too. Whereas there is little, if any, hardcore evidence that King Arthur truly lived, in the Asian country of Saudi Arabia, there is evidence that over 1,500 years ago, there lived a courageous, 6th century, Black or Afro-Arabic warrior-poet and lover named Antar.

History has dubbed him the “father of knighthood … [and] chivalry” and “the king of heroes.” Greatly admired by the founder and prophet of Islam, Muhammad, he is still widely celebrated for his poetry and warrior spirit throughout the Arab world today.

Those African-derived Greco-Roman gods would consequently serve as the backbone of today’s multi-billion dollar superhero comic book and movie industry.

Then, in the Far East – China, specifically – during the 9th century, there lived a writer named Pei Xing. Although there is virtually no proof that he was Black, during the Tang Dynasty of said century he wrote what some have called “China’s first martial arts short story,” entitled “Kunlun Nu.” It means the “Negrito,” “little Negro” or “little Black” slave and its hero is an enslaved Black man who can fly and has incomparable martial arts skills – just as in the traditional Chinese martial arts films of the 1960s and ‘70s, if not in earlier and even in modern-day movies.

Then there’s Japan, where this ancient but little-known proverb was found: “For a samurai [warrior] to be brave, he must have a bit of Black blood.” Another version says: “For a samurai to be brave, he must have half Black blood,” meaning one of his parents must be Black.

We also find in Japan a noted Black warrior who historians have called “the paragon of military virtue,” a Japanese general and the first person to bear the Japanese title of sei-i tai shogun – meaning “barbarian-subduing generalissimo.” His name was Sakanouye Tammamura Maro, sometimes spelled Sakanouye No Tamuramaro.

Furthermore, let’s not forget about the only “thoroughly documented amazons in world history,” the women warriors of Dahomey, who were West African women often serving as the king’s bodyguards and who, unlike the Grecian “amazons” and the comic book “amazon,” Wonder Woman, truly lived.

And what about the beautiful, fictional or factual, Black warrior-queen, Califia – after whom the state of California is said to be named; or Nzinga, a lioness-hearted Angolan warrior-queen, who fought against the Portuguese for decades to keep them from enslaving her people? Nzinga lived. Xena, the warrior-princess, did not.

Nor let us ignore the Black steel-driving man, John Henry, who not only – according to legend – beat a steam-driving machine with his hammer in his hand, but – according to one scholar – serves as the model for both Superman and Captain America, who is called the “first avenger” in the trailer for the movie to be released July 22.

Then there’s the Black Frenchman, Alexandre Dumas père, who wrote both “The Three Musketeers” and “The Count of Monte Cristo,” which both influenced fictional characters such as Mickey Spillane’s private eye, Mike Hammer, Ian Fleming’s super spy, James Bond, and characters created by the cowboy novelist, Zane Grey.

But what about the gun-slinging, outlaw-catching – catching between 3,000 and 4,000 outlaws – greatly feared, highly respected, often disguised, Black deputy marshal – serving for over 30 years – Bass Reeves? Says one scholar, Reeves may have served as the model for both the Lone Ranger and the Rooster Cogburn characters in the novel and movie, “True Grit.”

And let’s not fail to acknowledge the literal and literary hijacking, if not outright theft, by movie productions of African people’s centuries-long struggle against racial oppression, especially the Civil Rights Movement. Examples of such productions, if not parodies, are the “Planet of the Apes,” “Matrix” – an idea which allegedly was written by and stolen from a Black woman named Sophia Stewart – and “X-Men” movies.

And not one movie has been made about the late Henrietta Lacks, whose legendary cells are considered to be the world’s “first immortal cell lines,” reproducing on their own, adding billions to the coffers of medical researchers and research companies, and having been instrumental in the developments of the polio vaccine, in vitro fertilization, gene mapping and the possible cure for cancer, if not AIDS. It’s her mutated cells – the He-La cells, if you will – that should be the subject of a major motion picture, or several of them.

Truly heroic, African-centered people should make movies about her, her poverty-stricken family and the other Black heroes and she-roes, real and imagined, that may or may not have been mentioned.

For they, like Robert F. Williams – the Black, Marine Corps trained weapons expert and stalwart, armed self-defense advocate and major but little-known Civil Rights Movement activist – clearly indicate that Black heroes do exist, should be studied and known and their lives should be written about and filmed for the small or silver screen by African people. It’s important for us to restore what the Afro-Puerto Rican bibliophile, Arthur Schomburg, once said “slavery took away” – our sense of humanity, self-worth and undying willingness to work together and improve the overall dismal plight of the world’s 1 billion-plus African (Black) people – as crafted by anyone’s hand, mind or faith – come hell or high water. Such people are the real heroes – walking, talking and doing superheroes.

This is dedicated to Brother Obadela Williams, who suggested research on this topic over 20 years ago.

Source: http://sfbayview.com/2011/07/the-african-origin-of-heroes-super-and-otherwise/

#mythology #sumerian mythology #Greek Mythology #american mythology #ancient egypt #superman #african mythology #sociology #egyptian mythology

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savedfromsalvation · 5 years

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Compiled by Jim Walker

The stories of the Bible evolved slowly over centuries before the existence of orthodox religions. Many belief cults spread stories and myths probably handed down by oral tradition from generation to generation before people wrote them down. Many of the stories originally came from Egyptian and Sumerian cults. All of these early religions practiced polytheism, including the early Hebrews. Some of the oldest records of the stories that later entered the Old Testament came from thousands of small cylinder seals depicting creation stories, excavated from the Mesopotamia period. These early artifacts and artworks (dated as early as 2500 B.C.E.) established the basis for the Garden of Eden stories a least a thousand years before it impacted Hebrew mythology.

Mesopotamian Eden predates Genesis

An example of a cylinder seal depicting a Garden of Eden story. A man and woman sitting under the seven branched Tree of Life. Note the snake on the right. Akkadian Cylinder Seal, 2330-2150 B.C.E.

Virtually every human civilization in the Middle East, before and through Biblical times, practiced some form of female goddess worship. Archeologists have confirmed that the earliest law, government, medicine, agriculture, architecture, metallurgy, wheeled vehicles, ceramics, textiles and written language had initially developed in societies that worshiped the Goddess. Later the goddesses became more war-like with the influence of the northern invaders who slowly replaced the goddesses with their mountain male war gods. So why doesn't the Bible mention anything about the Goddess? In fact it does, but in disguise from converting the name of the goddesses to masculine terms. Many times "Gods" in the Bible refers to goddesses. Ashtoreth, or Asherah, named of masculine gender, for example, actually refers to Astarte- the Great Goddess. The Old Testament doesn't even have a word for Goddess. The goddesses, sometimes, refers to the Hebrew word "Elohim" (masculine plural form) which later religionists mistranslated into the singular "God." The Bible authors converted the ancient goddess symbols into icons of evil. As such, the snake, serpents, tree of knowledge, horns (of the bull), became associated with Satan. The end result gave women the status of inferiority, a result which we still see to this day.

The Old Testament consists of a body of literature spread over a period from approximately 1450 B.C.E. to 200 B.C.E. There exists no original writings of the Old Testament. There does exist, however, hundreds of fragments from copies that became the old testament. These fragments consist of Cuneiform tablets, papyrus paper, leather etchings and the famous Dead Sea Scrolls. The scribes of the old testament wrote in classical Hebrew except for some portions written in Aramaic. The traditional Hebrew scribes wrote the texts with consonants but the Rabbis later added vowels for verbal pronouncing. Of course the Rabbis did their best in choosing the vowels that they thought gave the words their proper meaning and pronouncement. In the second century C.E., or even earlier, the Rabbis compiled a text from manuscripts as had survived the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. and on this basis they established the traditional or Masoretic text, so called from the Hebrew word Massorah. This text incorporated the mistakes of generations of copyists, and in spite of the care bestowed on it, many errors of later copyists also found their way into it. The earliest surviving manuscripts of this text date from the ninth to eleventh centuries C.E. It comes mostly from these texts which religionists have used for the present Old Testament translations.

The New Testament has even fewer surviving texts. Scholars think that not until years after Jesus' alleged death that its authors wrote the Gospels. There exists no evidence that the New Testament came from the purported original apostles or anyone else that had seen the alleged Jesus. Although the oldest surviving Christian texts came from Paul, he had never seen the earthly Jesus. There occurs nothing in Paul's letters that either hints at the existence of the Gospels or even of a need for such memoirs of Jesus Christ. The oldest copy of the New Testament yet found consists of a tiny fragment from the Gospel of John. Scholars dated the little flake of papyrus from the period style of its handwriting to around the first half of the 2nd century C.E. The language of most of the new testament consists of old Greek.

Oldest known snippet from the New Testament

This photo shows a papyrus fragment from the Gospel of John, discovered in Egypt, the oldest known fragment from any part of the New Testament, dated from the first half of the 2nd century C.E.

Script appears on both sides, the front contains verses 31-33 and the back, verses 37-38.

The fragment resides in the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England.

Interestingly, there existed many competing Christian cults in the early years after Jesus' alleged death. Some sects saw the universe in dualisms of goodness and sin, of light and darkness, God and the Devil. Other Christian sects performed odd rituals, some of which involved the swallowing of semen, thought of as a sacred substance. Many other Christians also wrote mystical stories and by the second century there existed more than a dozen Gospels, along with a whole library of other texts. These include letters of Jesus to foreign kings, letters of Paul to Aristotle, and histories of the disciples. In one of these secret Gospels, it describes Jesus taking naked young men off to secret initiation rites in the Garden of Gethsemene. There lived Christian Gnostics (knowers) who believed that the church itself derived from the Devil to keep man from God and from realizing his true nature. In those first centuries of Christianity orthodoxy did not exist and when an organized orthodox church finally came, it got defined, almost inadvertently, in argument against many of the Gnostic sects.

So the idea of the Bible as a single, sacred unalterable corpus of texts began in heresy and later extended and used by churchmen in their efforts to define orthodoxy. One of the Bible's most influential editors, Irenaeus of Lyon, decided that there should only exist four Gospels like the four zones of the world, the four winds, the four divisions of man's estate, and the four forms of the first living creatures - the lion of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, and the eagle of John. In a single stroke, Irenaeus had delineated the sacred book of the Christian church and left out the other Gospels. Irenaeus also wrote what Christianity did not include, and in this way Christianity became an orthodox faith. A work of Irenaeus, Against the Heresies, became the starting point for later inquisitions.

There has existed over a hundred different versions of the Bible, written in most of the languages of the time including Greek, Hebrew and Latin. Some versions left out certain biblical stories and others contained added stories. The completed versions of the old and new testament probably got finished at around 200-300 C.E. although many disputed the authenticity of some books which later ended up as Apocrypha (uncanonical or of questionable authorship). For example, the book of Ecclesiasticus appears in the Catholic Bible but not in Protestant versions.

At around 405 C.E. Jerome (Eusebius Hieronymous) finished translating all the Old and New testament books into Latin (Vulgate Bible) which provided the Roman Catholic church added power. The Vulgate Bible went through several revisions up until the early 1900s!

Codex Palatinus

This shows a small segment of a leaf from the Codex Palatinus (British Library, add. ms. 40107, f.1), an Old Latin version of the gospels from the 4th or 5th century.

The text got written in two columns in uncial script which runs continuously without word breaks. Enlarged capital letters provide the only clue to place marking.

The salvation doctrines of Christianity survived and flourished because they afforded the priesthood considerable power. The priests alone held the keys to salvation and could threaten the unbelievers with eternal punishment. Hence, in the evolution of Christianity in the last two thousand years with priests preying on human fears, the religion has demonstrated extraordinary powers of survival. Even without the priests, the various versions of the Bible have had more influence on the history of the world, in the minds of men than any other literature.

Unfortunately, the beliefs in Scripture produced the most violent actions against man in the history of humanity up to that time. The eliminationof competing Christian cults (called heretics) by early Christian churches acted as the seeds of violent atrocities against those who did not agree with Church dogma. There later followed the destruction of Rome by the Christian Goths, and the secret pagan sacrifices consented by the Pope, the Vandals that had the Bible with them as they destroyed imperial North Africa, the crusades in the eleventh century fighting in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean, Palestine and Syria, capturing Jerusalem and setting kingdoms from Anatolia to the Egyptian border. In 1204 the Fourth Crusade plundered Constantinople the most holy city at that time, with Christians fighting Christians. And the slaughters continued (and continues to this day). According to Romer, "More heretics and scholars were burned in the Middle Ages than were ever killed in Carolingian times. For at this time the Inquisition came into its own, and torture, largely unused as an instrument of government since Roman days, was reintroduced."

In the 1380s, John Wycliffe translated the first English Bible which inspired an English religious revolution which caused persecutions against him by the Catholic Church.

In the early 1500's the German heretic, Martin Luther, almost single handedly caused the final split from the Roman Catholic church and created the beginnings of the Protestant revolution. This split still influences violence to this day. He translated the Bible into German which further spread Protestantism. Luther also helped spread anti-Jewish sentiments with his preaching and books such as his "The Jews and their lies," all supported through his interpretation of the Bible. One should not forget that Hitler (a Christian and great admirer of Luther) and his holocaust probably could not have occurred without his influence and the support of Bible believing German Christians.

In the 1530s William Tyndale completed his version of the English Protestant Bible (probably with the aid of Luther) and the first to print the English Bible. He too felt the persecution of the Church and he spent his last days in imprisonment and exile. His enemies finally caught him and burned him at the stake, but because of his celebrity, they strangled him first (what nice guys!).

After Luther's German Bible, others followed suit by translating the Bible into their native languages including Dutch and French. Not until 1611 C.E. did a committee of translators and interpreters complete the most popular Bible of all time, the King James Version.

Today we still have dozens of Bible translation versions, with Bible scholars still arguing over the meaning and proper translations of words and phrases. The following shows just a few of the most popular versions:

King James Version (KJV)The New King James Version (NKJV)Modern King James Version [Green's Translation] (MKJV)Literal Translation Version [Green] (LITV)International Standard Version (ISV)The New International Version (NIV)English Standard Version (ESV)New English Bible (NEB)American Standard Version (ASV)New American Standard Bible (NASB)Revised Standard Version (RSV)New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)Contemporary English Version (CEV)Today's English Version (TEV)The Living Bible (LB)New Century Version (NC)

New Life Version (NLV)New Living Translation (NLT)Young's Literal Translation (YLT)Revised Young's Literal Translation (RYLT)John Darby's New TranslationWeymouth New Testament TranslationRotherham's

(One might wonder what will happen to the "new" revisions a few hundred years from now. Nevertheless, the King James Version still remains the most used Bible in the world today and it will probably continue its popularity long into the future.)

No doubt that future versions of Bibles will surface in the future: revisions of previously revised Bibles and newer revisions of new versions. The history of the many versions of the Bible stories, from the ancient Mesopotamian myths to the varied interpretations, interpolations, and versions of the Bible speaks volumes about the reliability of their interpretations and the alleged "truth" they claim the Bible holds, because it shows that the Bible comes not from supernatural agents but rather from human imagination. We have not one shred of evidence for the supernatural influence on human written works (and mostly from unknown authors), but we do have an abundance of evidence for human recorded beliefs and myths. This shows a marked difference between those of scientific works and those deriving from religious minds. For example, Euclid's Elements written around 300 B.C.E. has changed little since its inception. Scientists don't argue and debate about its meaning because they know it doesn't represent an absolute or fixed work. It only provides a step in the understanding of geometry. Most Christian apologists, on the other hand, view the Bible as fixed and absolute, if only they could only

just

get the interpretation correct. But regardless of how much they want the Bible to reflect their particular beliefs, they can never dislodge the violence and atrocities described and condoned by their God in the stories in the Old Testament. Nor can they dismiss the even more horrific result of the horrors of Hell as amplified by the words of the alleged Jesus in the New Testament where almost everyone on earth dies in eternal fire. In short, Bible belief influences horror, not by the majority but by the few that actually believe in its macabre prophecy and have the power to force their beliefs onto the majority.

We have little reason to think that violence inspired by Bibles and other religious texts will ever cease. One only has to look at the religious wars around the world to see belief's everlasting destructive potential. One only has to look at the Protestant-Catholic uprising in Ireland, the conflicts in the middle east with Jews fighting Moslems & Christians, the Gulf war, Sudan's civil war between Christians and Islamics, the Bosnia conflicts, and the war in Iraq. The desperate acts of fanatical individuals who have killed for their beliefs of Jesus, Mohammed, God or Satan would create a death list unmatched by any other method in history. The "Holy" Bible supports the notion of war and destruction, not only as a prophesy but as a moral necessity. If we wish to become a peaceful species, it may well serve us to understand the forces of belief that keep us in continual conflict and why the Bible has such a stronghold on the minds of people around the world.

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nicomacheannothing · 7 years

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THIS POST IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHY THE TUMBLR DISCOURSE IRKS ME. It’s not 100% wrong, but there are several inaccuracies here, it’s sources are poor, and it has a ridiculous amount of overconfidence in its oversimplified ideas. Oh, and it ends by calling people bigots, which means, of course, that you can’t argue with it. Here’s what’s true in this post: - Easter has nothing to do with Ishtar. Right. There’s this meme that goes around every year claiming that the word “Easter” is a twisted version of the name “Ishtar”. That’s bs. - Easter is the Christian celebration of the resurrection of Christ. Yup. That’s true. - Easter was not “stolen” from the pagans and pagans shouldn’t claim victimization about it. BUT. There’s a lot of really oversimplified shit here. First of all, STOP conflating Passover and Easter. They take place at the same time of year because Jesus was supposed to have been crucified around the time of Passover. They are not the same holiday, they do not commemorate the same thing. Early Christians used (or, dare I say, appropriated) Passover symbolism in order make Jesus’s death and resurrection fit into the established canon of Jewish mythology. Remember, Jesus’s followers probably believed that Jesus was the long-awaited Jewish Messiah. Problems arose after he was crucified because the Messiah was supposed to rise up and become a great leader... not be executed in the most humiliating way possible. After his death, his followers went back and started reinterpreting Jewish traditions and prophecies so that they would make sense with what they believed about Jesus. Passover is a perfect example of this kind of reinterpretation. Passover traditionally incorporated ritual animal sacrifice. You’ve probably heard the phrase “Passover Lamb” before. Christians believe that Jesus was a metaphorical Passover lamb, whose death and resurrection meant that they would no longer have to perform literal sacrificial offerings the way that their Jewish ancestors had. This is why some Gospels (e.g., John) place Jesus’s death before the actual Passover meal, so that his death would match up with the time at which the Passover sacrifices would have been made. Other Gospels (like Mark) say that Jesus was crucified after the Passover meal also called “the last supper”. There’s no way to tell which account of the crucifixion is accurate, but John’s account clearly uses heavy-handed metaphor to make a theological point about Jesus and his death. If you want to know more about the history of early Christianity, I recommend checking out Bart Ehrman’s YouTube channel. He’s a well-respected Biblical historian and he touches on some of the things I’ve been talking about in both his talks and his books. Jewish people do not believe in any of that stuff I just talked about. They do not believe in the resurrection of Christ. They do not believe that he was the Messiah. Passover is about commemorating the Jewish liberation from slavery and the Exodus from Egypt. The main reason why I’m writing an absurdly long rant here is because I think that it actually is antisemitic to casually conflate Easter and Passover. The idea that Easter is somehow the Christian version of Passover is an idea that comes directly from Christianity, not from Judaism. Christianity has a very long, very bloody history of using Jewish traditions and mythology for its own purposes while viciously persecuting Jewish people. I’m not trying to say that Christians shouldn’t celebrate Easter or believe in the resurrection of Christ. Those beliefs are fine. The problem is that I keep seeing these posts that are like “Easter isn’t Pagan, it comes from Passover!” like it was a simple, linear process. The central theme of Easter (Christ’s resurrection) has nothing to do with Judaism. Bunnies and eggs are Christian Easter traditions. It’s not antisemitic to question their origins. At all. Because Christianity is not Judaism. *deep beath* Second of all, let’s talk for a moment about Easter symbolism. The OP provides two sources. The first is a link to an Orthodox Christian forum post and the second is to an article on a Christian website. This are not good sources because they are written by Christians for Christians. Of course Christians don’t believe that their religion is Pagan. Many sects of Christianity explicitly forbid associations with Paganism. That’s a pretty strong bias that we have to account for. The question as to whether or not the Easter holiday makes use of old Pagan symbolism is a historical one, not a theological one. The current Christian theological significance of bunnies and eggs is not very useful when trying to determine where those symbols originated. Clearly, they meant things before Christians started using them. Plus, the Catholic and Orthodox churches (where most mainstream Christian beliefs derive from) have a long history of creating cultural narratives about their own origins that have nothing to do with historical facts. I know people who went to Catholic schools where they were taught that Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were real disciples of Jesus who actually wrote the gospels that bear their names. This idea is mythology, not history. The four Gospels were written anonymously and their authors probably would not have been Jesus’s disciples, who would have been poor, uneducated and not literate in the Greek dialect that the Gospels were written in. The whole “Gospels were written by Jesus’s disciples” thing makes for much more cohesive cultural narrative, though, as does the idea that the rabbit was associated with the Virgin Mary or that eggs were died red to represent the blood of Christ. Again, it’s totally ok to be Christian and believe in the teachings of the the religion. If you’re looking for facts about how the religion actually developed, you’re going to have to look at sources outside of the stories passed down from the church. The thing is, we don’t know exactly how some of these traditions developed. Christian culture has its own explanations, but from a historical perspective, it’s hard to say. That’s why calling the monk Bede a “speculating idiot” is silly too. He didn’t just pull Eostare out of his ass: he derived the name from what he believed to be the linguistic origins of the Germanic word “Easter”. Whether or not he was correct is a matter of debate. Evidence is rather scant, so its hard to take a definitive stance if you don’t heavily study this kind of thing. I was in a thread today with a professor of mythology who said that Spring Equinox celebrations (yes, those really have existed since the ancient Pagan days) probably have Indo-European origins that they share with some elements of Easter. I will have to do more research into that, but based on what I know about how cultures develop, there’s probably some truth there. There’s also a BIG fact that the OP conveniently forgets: exactly what constitutes Easter symbolism depends on what culture you’re from. Russia has lent and Easter traditions that are UNDOUBTABLY Pagan in origin. They have a week long Mardi Gras-type holiday called Maslenitsa that probably originated as a celebration of the Slavic sun god. The festival definitely predates Christianity, but is still widely celebrated in conjunction with Orthodox lent and Easter traditions. A type of crepes called bliny are eaten as a part of the celebration and yes, they are large and round and they symbolize the sun. Back when I was Christian, I knew American Protestants who made crepes or pancakes as Easter dishes in celebration of their Slavic heritage. They had no idea that the tradition was Pagan in origin. I actually saw a Russian person explain that to my Sunday school teacher and she was shocked. ANYWHO, this idea that somehow the Abrahamic faiths are completely separate from Paganism and historical polytheism are just... false. Culture doesn’t work like that. Religions and traditions don’t just pop out of the ground, they develop out of older faiths and traditions. As much as the Tumblr Pagans want to distance themselves from Christianity and as much as the Christians have historically tried to erase Paganism, the two have always been intertwined to some degree.

#easter #ostara #rant #sorry #also this shouldn't be a fight at all because the Neopagan holiday Ostara was weeks ago and doesn't interfere with Easter in the slightest?

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infjtarot · 7 years

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Judgment

The card image is clearly inspired by the Christian idea of the last judgment originating in St. John’s vision from the Book of Revelation. In that vision, seven angels blow their trumpets and announce global disasters. After a series of extraordinary events the dead rise from their graves to stand final judgment, and finally heaven and earth become united. Pictures of the last judgment usually emphasize its terrible aspect and the fate of those sentenced to hell. But the Judgment card seems lively, illuminated and optimistic. It may refer to the resurrection of the dead ones, but the attributes of judging them (sword and scales) appear in Justice and not in this card. Jodorowsky reads the name of the card as “le juge ment”, meaning “the judge lies.” In his view, this indicates that every judgment is false.

Judgment signals an awakening

The original Greek name of the Book of Revelation is Apocalypse, which means “lifting of the veil” or “revelation.” The Christian day of judgment is both the end of worldly history and the manifestation or revealing of heaven on earth. We can see a connection between the idea of the end of history and the two final cards of the major suit – Judgment referring to the apocalyptic events, and The World, which can be a perfect vision of reality made divine.

The difference between the two is that The World card is more symmetrical, delimited and stable. It may signify the end of a process on the practical level, reaching its completion in a state of equilibrium. In contrast, Judgment shows drama and movement which is directed mainly along the vertical axis. Perhaps what we see here is a completion of inner processes like a spiritual or an emotional quest. Such a completion is not a closure, but a revelation and awakening that opens us to a new experience of life.

The Judgment card can indicate a moment of revelation, an awakening or a new understanding. For example, it can signify a new insight which changes our understanding, a paradigm change or a personal transformation. It can represent a significant turning point in a therapy process, or some sort of enlightenment and spiritual awakening. The dramatic nature of the card indicates a quick pace of events, indicating a special moment rather than an ongoing process. it can also represent a meaningful insight obtained from the reading itself.

Judgment opens the sky

The cross on the flag can be a Christian reference. But the cross is also an ancient symbol which predates Christianity, and thus we may give it another interpretation. It can symbolize the meeting of the two axes in the cards: the horizontal axis of earthly reality, and the vertical axis of inner experience. The trumpet can be seen as a kind of tube, that is an open path to the sky above. The line pattern on the back of the middle figure imitates in an inverted way the trumpet shape, and expresses active acceptance of what comes from above. The tonsured head resembles the two aspirants in The Pope card, and indicates that the figure has undergone a path of spiritual learning. The head and the hill behind it may also remind us of an eye observing us, a mystical symbol of higher wisdom which has survived from ancient Egypt to modern times. Sometimes it is drawn inside a triangle, and we can see such a shape between the three faces in the card.

The card may describe a moment of grace in which spiritual reality manifests itself on the earthly plane. For example, it may be the peak moment of a magical ritual or a mystical experience which blurs the limits between ordinary and extraordinary reality. It can indicate an awakening to a higher level of consciousness, or to the understanding that there is something above and beyond material existence. It might also signify the opening of the gates of heaven, that is a moment in which we can make a wish that will come true.

Judgment illuminates the abyss

The three figures on the ground can be a child with two parents. If this is so, the card may be showing an ideal family triangle where the parents assume their role with adoration and devotion. Their contact with the child’s body indicates closeness and support, and their nudity expresses an egalitarian attitude which respects the basic humanity of child and adult alike. We can see here a reparation and recovering from problems originating in the relationships with the parents. Alternatively, the card can represent the querent’s assuming responsibility as a parent himself. If the card is inverse, it can indicate an unhealthy relationship between parents and child.

The opening in the ground is the abyss which appeared in the previous cards, but now it is illuminated and open to the sky. The white surfaces around the pelvis may express purity and cleanliness in sexual matters. One can also see the angel with the raised wings and the tongue extended outwards as an elevated version of the main figure from The Devil card. Like the Christian day of judgment which is the world’s redemption, the card may express some sort of redemption or emotional reparation, that is healing of the soul’s suffering and illumination of its dark sides. The connection between the angel and the figure in the middle may also represent an encounter of the querent with his personal angel, that is with a sublime and benevolent part of himself.

Judgment reveals what is hidden

The nudity, the figure coming out of the hole and the bare ground indicate that whatever was buried and hidden is now revealed and exposed. The Judgment card may indicate the revealing of a secret previously kept by the querent or from him. The trumpet resounds far and wide, and may indicate that private matters become common knowledge. The card may express public exposure and fame, or alternatively defamation and gossip. It can also symbolize mass media and the spread of information.

Judgment celebrates a new birth

The central figure emerging from the earth between the two parental figures can hint at a baby coming out of the womb. The card can refer to the circumstances of the querent’s birth, or to a new baby in the family. In a more general sense one can think of the birth of something new in the querent’s life. Whatever is born is accepted with approval and support, but its face is still hidden and we cannot know exactly what will come out of it. The card may also describe a “rebirth,” that is a personal transformation which opens a new chapter in the querent’s life.

Yoav Ben-Dov. Tarot - The Open Reading. Tarot of Marseilles.

#judgment #tarot #major arcana #Anna Maria d'Onofrioh Tarot #yoav ben dov #tarot of marseilles

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