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redwoodrroad · 5 years

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arkus’s birthday and some background info on him

SO ive been very busy with work these past two weeks AND sick with several things SO NOW TO MAKE UP FOR MISSING ARKUS’S BIRTHDAY (WHICH WAS ON JANUARY 3RD), im gonna talk about his research

here he is hard at work in his favorite part of the Priory: the ~secret~ library

everything else is under the cut because there’s a lot of science babble, but i do hope it’s fun to read if youre into science as much as i am. i also included some sylvari-centric stuff at the end because it’s specific to arkus

so simply put: Arkus’s concentration is on a mixture among anthropology (not just human-centered either), archaeology, and geology. separately, these sciences are completely different and require different skill sets, mindsets, tools, and research tactics, but these sciences also intersect in many ways and tell a fuller and more comprehensive story when put together. consider a nomadic culture that subsists on farming and animal products: they make clear boundaries in the land between where you sleep, where you eat, where you grow the food, where you cook the food, where you prepare animal parts either for consumption in one area or the creation of materials or clothing, ETC, my point is that this group needs a specific type of landscape to settle--that type of landscape needs to be sheltered enough from weathering and predators while also close to a water source, and the land itself must contain the right nutrients to grow crops; furthermore, the general landscape must be well-liked by large animals that are high enough in quantity that the group can sustain themselves on these animals and not risk endangering the population. the geology of the earth itself, the makeup of the land, is vastly important to this culture because it deigns where they can live and how they can survive in that area

of course, when they move away, they leave behind an imprint in the land itself--these cultures are not the type to necessarily bury their dead for fear of leaving them behind, but that’s also an extrapolation on my part so i cant definitively say that, but theyre also not necessarily the type to waste or throw away animal parts--so this group might not necessarily leave the obvious archeological choice of bones behind, but bones are not the only types of fossils that exist, and they certainly arent the main focus of archaeologists on digs: archeologists are looking for everything in an area--remains of encampments, clothing, pottery, tools, etc. these are the things a nomadic group might leave behind if theyre broken or unusable or perhaps if a disaster struck, and great swaths of belongings had to be left behind. lots of things are left behind when a group like this moves away--furthermore, evidence of a large group living in a place for what we can assume is several years to decades can almost always be found in each of those locations for a culture that is nomadic. archaeologists look for that evidence, and it’s the sort of thing they can follow like a map to see the direction in which this group moved

of course, the culture of that group itself is very important and just as fascinating as the prior fields of research: consider whether this group in my example might have a hierarchy--are elders the leaders of the group? is there a matriarch or a patriarch? how are children raised, and are they raised in a manner that separates them by gender, combined with the types of work or activities these genders are expected to perform? i read about a culture where the women did the foraging and held baskets at all times, and the men did the hunting and held bows and arrows at all times, but before this makes you mad and think that this culture might have been very strict on their gender conforming, the only gender “marker” in this society was that of the baskets or the bows. regardless of sex or gender at birth--concepts this culture had no definition of beyond the gendered tasks--if you wanted to hold a basket, you are a woman; if you wanted to hold a bow, you are a man. and you’re held to that standard until you decide you want to change that. there are also cultures ive read about where food is very closely linked with the cycle of life--there are some foods you eat when you are young, there are some foods you eat when someone is pregnant, and there are items to eat when someone dies, and everything has a very specific meaning assigned to it along with when and how those items are consumed.

all of these fields coalesce in different ways, and my passion for it is also Arkus’s. i imagine he goes out several times a year to conduct field research--something that is also very particular, and no two people do field research the same way, especially when it comes to soft sciences. i will also say that Arkus’s preferred style of research is one that has a little bit of discourse in the science community, and that is that he lets himself get involved with the culture.

in the soft science world, there are two pretty big styles: Positivism and Antipositivism (also called Interpretivism but ive definitely heard it called naturalism too). positivism is clean-cut--it’s objective and empirical scientific Fact. we’re talking quantitative data analysis, objective reasoning and observation (observation ONLY), and a clear separation between Scientist and Subject.

antipositivism is the opposite--it’s not all data points and “objective” observation because to observe a culture without being part of it is not objective at all. you’re not learning about the culture if youre just watching it; you’re watching this culture from an outsider’s perspective, and from an outsider’s perspective with a completely different cultural background in mind, you will not understand the significance to any cultural action in front of you. in this way, the scientist is not separating themselves from the “subject(s);” rather, the outsider is interacting with and empathizing with the insiders. it’s a completely different mindset and one that yields results that almost cannot be measured on data points or spreadsheets.

(if you cant tell, i am an antipositivist lol)

Arkus is an antipositivist: he finds positivist thinking to be too clinical and perhaps inappropriate for his research purposes. that said, he goes out and locates groups like the vague culture i described above, and he learns about them through empathic interaction and openness. he doesnt always publish his work, but he does always ask his participants if they would like to be participants, and if not, then he helps them if they would like the interaction or leaves if they would prefer he not stick around. and that’s okay too! what he does publish is always very lengthy and involves detailed diagrams of rock formations, tools, structures, the landscape, etc, and if he’s in a position to do a dig, he may take samples of the landscape back to the Priory for further testing, especially when it comes to carbon dating or whatever the tyrian equivalent might be (the lifeforms are PROBABLY carbon based on tyria but you never know lol). at this point in the story, Arkus has been doing research for several years now--i haven’t decided when he becomes an archon, but it’s certainly his biggest career goal overall. i think it’s probably tough though because archons typically oversee really dangerous magics and sciences, so one of these days, Arkus will find a way to present his work as especially useful for that specific realm of study

i also think that with arkus’s background in a culture that is largely mysterious to other cultures is also part of why arkus has his passion for his work. to learn and discover things about culture while being simultaneously respectful and open to differences is very important to arkus, and it’s something that his culture has a particular closeness with given their history with--for EXAMPLE--the asura. no tea no shade but arkus isnt trying to be that type of way--but they also changed and got better over time; now arkus just has beef with the inquest because their research style and scientific process is the exact opposite of how arkus wants to be

i should also say--and i havent really seen really problematic evidence of this in the game--that research organizations such as the durmand priory have a tendency to be sorta...... grabby with their research. like there’s a big scientific attitude towards discovery in the modern world where the scientist(s) who discovered something feel Entitled to that discovery. it’s very western and ethnocentric, and it’s Bad. western scientists discovering x y z historic item that is important to an overseas culture’s history does not belong in a western museum or lab, i dont make the rules! unfortunately, the western scientists make the rules so like thems the brakes but let the record show i hate that

arkus is very aware of this scientific tendency to want to hold on to discoveries and sort of keep them close--safe even, in priory custody--but he also recognizes that it’s wrong to do that, so he specifically finds ways to work around that so the culture in mind gets to keep their history. sharing history and culture is really good and healthy for all cultures, but ONLY if that sharing isn’t forced or pressured onto the culture in question. arkus lives by that rule!

anyway, this was obviously just a way for me to gush about science under the guise of my character’s belated birthday, but i hope it was informative! i had fun with it ;u; and i’ll start drawing my characters again too dhfgadjfhg soon i hope

thank you for reading!

#guild wars 2 #sylvari #redwoods words #arkus tag

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loretranscripts · 5 years

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Lore Episode 129: Digging Deep (Transcript) - 11th November, 2019

tw: ghosts, human remains

Disclaimer: This transcript is entirely non-profit and fan-made. All credit for this content goes to Aaron Mahnke, creator of Lore podcast. It is by a fan, for fans, and meant to make the content of the podcast more accessible to all. Also, there may be mistakes, despite rigorous re-reading on my part. Feel free to point them out, but please be nice!

The construction was called to a stop the moment they found the bones. The work crew was preparing a building site along one of London’s many ancients streets when they uncovered what appeared to be a body – or, at least, the remains of one. It was clearly old, given that nothing but bones could be seen beneath the dirt, so a team of archaeologists was brought in to preserve and study the remains. In the end, they determined that the bones belonged to a teenage girl who had lived in London over 1600 years ago – a Roman girl. It’s not the last time something like that has happened in this city. During some development work near Spitalfields Market in the 1990s, a work crew uncovered what turned out to be an entire Roman cemetery. Among the finds was a perfectly preserved lead coffin, its lid covered in beautiful artwork that had been hammered right into the surface, still visible, all these centuries later.

And that’s the way history tends to work – time will bury it under new and current events. But if we dig deep enough, and brush away the soil, we can come face to face with it all over again. The past never truly goes away, after all. It’s there, waiting to be discovered, so that we can study it and relearn the stories it contains. Oftentimes, though, the things that leave the deepest marks tend to be the most tragic and painful, events that rattled people to their core and left a shadow on the history of a place that no amount of sunlight could ever chase away, and the older the city, the more common those shadows tend to be. Which is why I want to take you on a tour of one of the oldest, because while the past is always nearby in our modern world, few places allow it to dwell so close to the present as the city of London. Its past is both a treasury of historic significance and crypt full of the darkest tragedies we could ever imagine. Because in a city filled with so much light, there’s bound to be some shadows. I’m Aaron Mahnke, and this is Lore.

London is ancient, there’s really no other way to say it. Most Americans live in a community that’s less than 200 years old. If you’re in New England or one of the other places with roots in pre-colonial America, perhaps those locations go back a bit further, but London’s history makes all of those seem brand new by comparison. Archaeological work in London can place humans in the area as far back as 4500BC, but if we’re looking for a major settlement where it stands today, that didn’t happen until 47AD, when the Romans arrived and set up a community there that they called “Londinium”. Although from what we can tell, it didn’t last long, all thanks to a woman named Boudicca. As far as historians know, Boudicca was the wife of King Prasutagus, who ruled over an eastern British tribe known as the Iceni. When the Romans arrived in their territory in 43AD, they came to an arrangement with Prasutagus, allowing him to maintain control of his kingdom. When he died 17 years later, though, the Romans refused to acknowledge his widow as the new ruler, and instead invaded them to take the land for themselves. But they misjudged Boudica, assuming she was a quiet woman, incapable of ruling anything. Instead, she rallied a massive army of close to 100,000 warriors and then led them on a campaign against the Romans all over Britain. In 61AD, her army rolled over Londinium like a Sherman tank, burning the entire settlement to the ground. In fact, her campaign against them was so fierce and unstoppable that the Romans nearly left Britain altogether. But those who survived managed to rebuild, and within a handful of decades it had grown large enough to become capital of the entire province.

Over the years, the city continued to expand and mature, and even though the Romans left towards the beginning of the fifth century, the community there refused to die. By the 7th century, London had earned a reputation as a major trade centre, which brought in a steady flow of wealth and goods, and also turned the city into a political powerhouse. Of course, power and wealth has a way of making a community a target for others, and London was no exception. In 1066, William the Conqueror sailed across the English Channel and earned his nickname by taking control of the entire kingdom and making it his own – and, of course, special attention was paid to London. Within two decades, the population of the city had reached nearly 15,000, and by the 1300s that had multiplied to over 80,000.

But something unexpected was heading their way that would ravage that growing community, something mysterious and dangerous and seemingly unstoppable – the Black Death. What started as a plague in western Asia quickly spread to Europe, bringing death and destruction to every community it touched. By the time the Black Death had burned itself out, some historians estimate that upwards of two hundred million people were dead. The people of London lost at least 10,000 lives, most of whom were buried outside the city walls. It wouldn’t be the last time the city would face tragedy. In 1664, a fresh outbreak of the plague killed another 100,000 people, and then two years later, in September of 1666, a fire broke out in the house of a baker on Pudding Lane. It eventually spread west, destroying much of the city as it went, and while there were only six verified casualties, historians now think the fire burned hot enough to completely cremate those who were caught in it, making the true death toll anyone’s guess.

So much of London’s history was tragic and outside human control, but there have also been moments along the way that could only be blamed on the people who lived there. Jack the Ripper and the murders that took place in 1888 in the Whitechapel district of the city are always front and centre in most people’s minds. But there has been a lot more bloodshed than just those five innocent women. In fact, a lot of the city’s murder and violence could be found higher up the ladder, in the very chambers and homes of the people who held the power and wealth. It seemed that rather than being immune to the shadows that lingered in the city, even the powerful could fall under their spell. Because if there’s one thing the nobility of England’s past seem to attract more than anything else, it was pain and suffering and death.

We don’t need to look far to find bloody nobles. It sometimes feels as though all we have to do is open a history book and flip it to a random page. Life at the top was often a cutthroat game, both figuratively and literally, and anyone who found themselves in the orbit of a king or queen certainly understood that risk. A great example of how blood-thirsty the English kings could be was Henry VIII. Henry is known for a lot of things, not all of which are so great in retrospect. He expanded the power of the crown during his lifetime and based a lot of that on his belief in the divine right of kings, something that threatened the freedom of his people. He was greedy and vindictive and had an ego that was only surpassed in size by the codpiece on his armour. But if there is one thing that most people remember today about Henry VIII, it’s his many wives. Henry had six of them, half of whom were named Catherine, which must have made it a lot easier for him, I’m sure. Five of those six wives came and went within a single 10-year period in his life, but not all of those breakups were friendly. After having his first marriage annulled in 1533 and sparking the English Reformation and the country’s separation from the Catholic church, Henry married the sister of a former lover, a women named Anne Boleyn. Three years later, he had her executed for treason and adultery, but also possibly for failing to deliver a male heir.

The day after Anne’s beheading, Henry proposed to one of her ladies in waiting, Jane Seymour. They had apparently fallen in love months before, but Jane had managed to hold off Henry’s advances in the name of honour. Once the queen was dead, though, she was much more agreeable. They were married 10 days later. From everything I can tell, Henry believed that Jane Seymour was “the one” – he viewed her as his perfect queen, and when she gave birth to his first male heir a year later, he probably sighed with relief. The complications from the birth put her life at risk, and over the two weeks that followed she slowly declined. In October of 1537, Jane Seymour passed away. That had taken place at Hampton Court Palace, Henry’s favourite London residence. It was a mixture of a pleasure palace, a theatre and a royal home, so when Henry brought his next two wives through those doors over the next few years, they were probably bittersweet moments. A lot of joy would be possible there, but it would also sit in the shadows of a painful past. His fifth wife, Catherine Howard, made a fool of the king by conducting at least one less-than-secret affair. After learning about what she had done, Henry had Catherine arrested and thrown in a prison cell there, at the house. She was only 18 at the time, and I can’t imagine the fear and desperation she must have felt, being a prisoner of the most powerful man in the kingdom.

According to the stories, though, Catherine managed to slip away from her guards one day, while being walked through the palace. She bolted away and ran down one of the long galleries that led to the king’s chapel, where she knew Henry could be found. Her goal was probably to beg for forgiveness, to ask for mercy and to plead for her life. But the guards caught up to her before that could happen, and her screams of terror were the only thing to reach him. Catherine Howard was beheaded a short while later, and Henry moved onto a new wife, also named Catherine. But just because those former wives were gone, doesn’t mean they were forgotten. In fact, if the stories are true, they might have stuck around to serve as a cruel reminder. It’s said that even today, visitors to that long gallery in the palace have heard echoes of a woman screaming, a desperate, panicked cry that chills them to the bones. Others have heard the quick rhythm of footsteps, as if someone were running down the hallway. And in 1999, according to one source, two different tourists fainted in the gallery at different times on the very same day.

Elsewhere in Hampton Court Palace, other shadows have stuck around as well. In a room at the top of the staircase known as Silver Stick Stairs, multiple visitors have claimed to have seen the figure of a pale women. She stands silently, hovering slightly above the floor, with a mournful expression and vacant eyes. For those who have witnessed it, the spectre has been both calming and terrifying. Whether or not the visions are real, though, it’s fascinating to look at the true history of that room, because while it has been used for countless purposes over the last few centuries, one specific resident stands out above all the others. It was in this room, you see, that Henry VIII’s only male heir was born to his true love, Jane Seymour, and it was there, just two weeks later, that she passed away.

The old home, located on Berkeley Square, is a townhouse, just one of many in a long row of similar facades, but as far back as the mid-19th century, it was different enough to stand out from all the others. But before I continue with the legends, let me be clear that not a lot is known about the house’s origins, and a lot of stories have yet to be completely verified. Still, we know enough to make this a journey worth taking – so let’s get started. The majority of the tales begin with the man who owned the house back in the 1860s. Thomas Myers wasn’t the first to live there, but he was certainly the most infamous. It’s said that he had once been engaged to be married, but his fiancée eventually changed her mind and ended their relationship. Broken and distraught, he retreated into his house and was rarely ever seen again. Neighbours claim that the house would be dead during the day, only to come alive at night. It was as if Thomas had traded in the sunlight for the shadows, living the rest of his life during those moments when most of the world was asleep, and it might very well be whispers of the house all lit up at night that first gave birth to the rumour that it was haunted – but it could also have been what happened next.

Sometime around 1872, the house sold to a new family, and they moved in to clean up the home and make it their own. The couple had two daughters, both in their late teens, and there were precious few years left for the parents to enjoy life as a family in this new setting before they became empty-nesters. In the weeks that followed, though, the future crept in. The oldest of the two daughters became engaged to a young officer named Captain Kentfield, and conversation became filled with talk of wedding plans and guests lists. And at some point in their engagement, Captain Kentfield planned a visit, so the family set about preparing the attic bedroom for his arrival. According to the story, what happened next is still shrouded in mystery. The family maid was sent up to put the final touches on the fiancé’s room, and while she was up there, the family heard her scream. At once, everyone in the house rushed upstairs to see what had happened, only to find her lying on the floor, an expression of complete horror painted across her face. More mysterious yet was that she couldn’t seem to put a complete sentence together and was unable to answer any of the questions the family asked her. All the maid was able to do was mutter a low, cryptic refrain. “Don’t let it touch me. Don’t let it touch me”.

The maid was immediately taken to the hospital to recover, where I imagine someone observed her, and did their best to treat her rattled nerves, but other than that, there was little they could do. Sleep, they assumed, would be the best medicine. The following morning, though, she was found dead in her room. The fiancé arrived the next day, and after hearing the stories of the maid’s unexpected death, he decided to check the room out for himself. Maybe he was playing the brave soldier in front of his future in-laws in an effort to impress them, or perhaps his fiancée needed some reassurance and he wanted to calm her nerves. Whatever the reason, he climbed the stairs to the attic bedroom and declared that he would keep watch throughout the night. In the darkest hours of the morning, though, a gunshot pulled everyone from sleep, their hearts racing at the sound of it. Everyone climbed out of bed, threw on their night coats, and then rushed up to see what had happened. What they found, according to the legend, was the young captain, dead on the floor of his room, a victim of his own pistol.

In 1907, author Charles Harper wrote about the house in a book, and it was there that he declared it to be “the very picture of misery”. After the events that were said to have taken place there, it’s easy to wonder if the misery was in the structure or the lives who lived there. Either way, the stories we’ve heard so far shed a bright light on one more tale that Harper added to the legend. According to him, the next family to own the house moved in fully aware of the tragedies of the past. The owner was an older gentleman, who was said to be practical and not prone to stories of the supernatural. Still, he understood the power of suggestion a creepy old house with a dark past might have over him, so he set some rules for everyone to follow. After settling in with his family, he told them all that he would ring his bell to tell them if he ever truly needed help. If it was a moment of fright, he would only ring it once, which they were all instructed to ignore, but if matters were more pressing and he truly needed help, he would ring it twice, a signal that they were to immediately come to his room.

Everyone went to bed at the end of the evening, and while the night began peacefully, the quiet was broken around midnight by the loud chime of the old man’s bell, not once, but twice, which sent everyone rushing to see what might be the matter. What they found, though, weren’t answers. The old man was writhing in his bed, his face twisted by panic and fear. Just like the housemaid all those years before, he too couldn’t answer the questions that the others around him asked. He could only mutter and shake with horror at something no one else could see. After doing their best to help him, they calmed him enough to let him sleep, and everyone wandered back to their own rooms. They left his bell on the table beside his bed, hoping that he would remember how to use it if he needed them, but the remainder of the night was one, long stretch of unbroken silence. In the morning, they discovered why. After visiting the old man’s bedroom to check on him, one of his family members gently pushed the door open and peered inside. The shape in the bed was unmoving, and so they approached to wake him and see how he felt. But like those in the house before him, he too had passed away. A random coincidence of natural causes, or a demonstration of the power of fear?

There’s a lot about London that seems to echo the atmosphere of the house at 50 Berkeley Square. It’s a city painted in shadows, but it’s unclear if that darkness was always there, or if we imported it over the centuries. What’s clear is that almost from the start, tragedy and suffering has been a resident of this ancient city. Right back to the invasion of Boudica, nearly 2000 years ago, and up to its most modern challenges, the city of London has had to suffer through quite a bit, and that has a way of leaving a mark. Over the centuries, though, the city has always found ways to move on. New layers are added all the time, building the present on top of the past and slowly burying one dark moment beneath another – which is probably why London is one of those places where new construction always seems to bump into ancient things. If you dig deep enough, you’re guaranteed to find something. And look – London is a massive city, and while I did my best to cover some of its larger and more powerful stories, there are hundreds more that I had to leave untouched. Honestly, if you want to visit a haunted location in the city, just visit a local pub, like the Ten Bells, or the Flask, or the Spaniard Inn. If the stories are true, you’ll find a lot more than a pint of ale waiting for you inside.

But if there’s one mark on the pages of London’s history that is bigger than most, it’s hard to deny the power of the plague. If you remember, when the wave of disease washed over the city in 1665, it took two years to run its course, and in the process, it claimed the lives of nearly 100,000 people, and that was a lot of tragedy to deal with – on the personal and the public level. The biggest problem seemed to be what to do with all those corpses. We’ve all seen films like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and can all remember lines like “bring out your dead”, and from what we can tell, that’s pretty close to how it actually would have been, a steady, daily flow of bodies out of the city, away from the places where people lived in the hope that it would stop the spread of the disease. And most of the bodies were carried outside the city limits. One such burial location was started by the Earl of Craven, who purchased a parcel of land west of the city for disposal of plague victims, and every night, for months on end, carts filled with rotting corpses were wheeled out onto his land and then dumped into the pits there. Over time, the place became known as the “Pest House Field,” and later it was named Gelding Close, but to be honest, few people actually went there. They were too afraid of what might happen if they got too close to the body of a plague victim or, heaven forbid, accidentally touch one. So, the burial plot, like so many others around the city, became a sort of no man’s land.

After years of waiting, the owners of the land eventually made the decision to use the property for development. London was growing, and there would always be a need for a new neighbourhood to settle in, so it was sold in pieces and developed into homes for the wealthy and elite to move away from the centre of the city. Gelding Close eventually became known as Golden Square, and today it’s a prominent feature in the SoHo area of London. But even though the name has changed and the landscape around it has been transformed, the past is still there, lingering in the shadows of modern life. In fact, more than a few visitors to the park and buildings that surround it have bumped into the past in a very real way. A few have seen the figures of people dressed in old-fashioned clothing slipping through the square at night, while most have caught the sound of wailing, as if someone were enduring horrible pain and suffering. But it’s not the specific things people have heard over the years that are the most terrifying aspect to these stories. No, it’s where they all claim the voices have come from. The sounds, they say, seem to emanate from right beneath their feet.

A city as old and historic as London is guaranteed to have a library of mysterious shadows and otherworldly experiences and I hope today’s tour has been a satisfying dip into that enormous pond, but I’m not done just yet. There’s one more legend from the city that I absolutely love, and if you stick around through the sponsor break, I plan to tell you all about it.

[Sponsor break from the Great Courses Plus, Squarespace and Fracture]

When you think of London, it’s easy to think of money. As far back as the Roman period of the city, there has been an overt focus on the financial industry. In about 240AD, for example, the Romans constructed a mithraeum, a temple devoted to the god Mithras. Some of the most common members of the cult of Mithras were merchants, traders, customs officials and politicians, all professions that revolved around the flow of money. But it didn’t end with the Romans. As the centuries ticked by, the people of London found new and better ways to manage money and build the economy. In the year 1100, King Henry I instituted a new system of currency that even the most illiterate and uneducated citizens of his kingdom could understand: the tally stick. It was essentially a polished wooden rod that had nicks carved into it to denote its value, and it was then split down the middle. The king kept one half, while the other was put into circulation in places like the city markets, and that’s where the system really shined. If anyone tried to change the value of the public half by adding another nick, they just needed to be compared to the other half kept safe by the crown.

But at the end of the 17th century, one of the biggest changes to the financial world of London was born: The Bank of England. It was created in 1694 to solve a tricky financial problem the government of England faced. They needed to build a massive navy to defend themselves but lacked the funds to do it. So, an elaborate system of lending and currency came to the rescue. A century later, The Bank of England was simply a way of life for the people of London. It had all the prestige and power that you might expect from a government-backed bank and had established a reputation for itself that has carried into the 21st century.

But I don’t want to give you a tour of the bank’s full history, I just want to tell you about one of their employees, a man named Philip Whitehead. Whitehead worked in the cashier’s office of The Bank of England in 1811. Everyone around him viewed him as a pillar of the establishment, a hard-working, respectable man who was charming and delightful with staff and customers alike. Except that’s not all he was. Philip was also a criminal. It turns out he had been forging bank documents for months, cheating the bank out of a slow trickle of money, and at some point in 1911, his misdeeds were discovered, and he was quickly arrested and sent off to prison. A few months later, in early 1812, Philip Whitehead hanged for his crimes, and the bank moved on.

Several weeks after Philip’s hanging, though, a woman came into the bank asking for him. She said her name was Sarah, but when she asked to speak with Philip Whitehead, she was simply told that he was out of the office on a business errand. The woman left disappointed but promised to be back at another time. The next time that she returned, he not only told them that her name was Sarah, but that she was Philip’s sister. She told them of how she had lost touch with her brother many months earlier, and that she had been desperate to find a way to reach him, and at some point, her story must have plucked at the heartstrings of just the right bank employee, because one of the men took her aside and told her the truth. Her brother was dead. It wouldn’t be Sarah’s last visit to the bank, though. The next time she returned, she was dressed all in black, with a black veil that covered her face.

She stepped into the lobby of the bank and asked to see her brother. Taking pity on the poor woman, and official at the bank pulled her aside, apologised for keeping his imprisonment and execution a secret, and offered a small settlement. It was a pay-off, of course, designed to keep her from disturbing the other customers, but I’m sure he sold it to her more as a salve for her aching heart. Either way, she accepted the money and then left. But she returned a few days later. Over and over again, Sarah Whitehead visited the bank, each time dressed in that black gown and veil. At first, her voice was nothing more than a whisper, but with each new visit her question became louder and more aggressive – “Where is my brother?” she continued to ask. Each of those visits ended with another small payment from the bank, but they weren’t a charity house, and eventually decided that enough was enough.

Pulling her aside one day, they handed her a massive settlement and told her never to return, and to her credit, Sarah Whitehead listened. She never again set foot inside the bank, although it’s said that she also never wore anything else but that black gown and dark veil. We don’t know how long Sarah lived after that – sometimes grief has a way of speeding up a person’s decline, while other times it seems to give them a reason to go on. But decades later, Sarah passed away, having spent the remainder of her life in a constant state of mourning for her dead brother. Legend says that the churchyard she chose for her burial was the one right next door to the bank. Maybe she wanted to keep an eye on them from the other world, or perhaps it just happened to be where she attended church. I like to think that it was the former, and that those that still worked at the bank and knew her story were aware of where she was buried. It’s very poetic, whether or not it was actually true.

But her story doesn’t end there, of course. In the years following Sarah Whitehead’s death, employees inside the bank began to report seeing strange things. Oftentimes it was nothing more than a movement, just out of their field of vision, caught in the corner of their eye but never there when they turned their head. Other times, it was the fleeting vision of something black and shadowy. Many who have worked in the bank claim that certain areas give them a feeling of hopelessness and despair, and on rare occasions some claim that a mysterious shape has even materialised right before their eyes. All of them have described it in the same way, too, giving the old stories new life as the decades have passed by. They say the shape is that of a woman. Each time she appears, her pale skin is framed by a dress as black as coal, the veil that had once covered her face pulled back to revealed twisted lips, red cheeks and eyes that seem to glow like fire. But it’s the words she speaks that frighten people the most. After locking eyes with them and washing them in a wave of terror, the women in black repeats the same words she had grown so accustomed to in life. “Where,” she asks them, “is my brother?”

[Closing Statements]

#lore podcast #aaron mahnke #podcast transcripts #london #50 berkeley square #henry viii #uk #hauntings #transcripts #129

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deanfosters · 3 years

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Ancestry Academy: Check New State Classes and Short Courses

They Still Live a journey into the discovery of yourself. What does it mean to White, European, Black, Native American, and others? How am I different from Denver artists? Alisa Anthony and Thomas Detour Evans ask all these questions that have shed light on a dialogue about heritage through a picture sequence pairing African art relics, from the Paul Hamilton collection with African Americans from the Denver community.

Each sketch is designed to make a new conversation on ancestral heritage and origins and tells the story of the Ancestry DNA results. Ancestry took the interview of Paul Hamilton, an African Studies academic and previously was Colorado State Representative and famous collector of African masks. African Art asks him why this display is so difficult to the conversation of ancestral origins and identity.

While gathering African art, one of the discoveries was that the origin of Modern art was African art. Paul says Picasso and other’s artwork were influenced. Amidst Paul’s prized work is a Dan collection that boosts nearly 100 masks that are costly in the art world. Another workpiece is Buddha Dogo that originates from Mali. The Dogons have rich and deep scientific and astrological knowledge from more than 500 years ago.

Paul admits, I learned to despise Africa, as it was thought to be uncivilized. It was not unless he began studying history, finally becoming a history professor at college, he started a life-changing journey to discover the truth on Africa and its deep and rich history. Based on the research, Paul went to write African People’s contribution to World Civilizations.

After taking the Ancestry DNA test, Paul confirmed his ancestors or forefathers were from West Africa, and coincidentally, a large part of his art collection belongs from this region, including pieces from Liberia, Nigeria, Mali, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, and the Republic of Congo. Before the Ancestry DNA journey, Paul heard from family legends who suggested his great-grandmother was half Native American, but the DNA result does not provide any sign.

Paul was not surprised by the effect of European Ancestry that seems in many results and can use his DNA results to provide support to his previous research. Paul says this is unique that provides an opportunity for all people to examine how their ancestors affect us, whether we know it or not. By presenting traditional African art in a modern setting, Paul hopes it will motivate positive conversations for others who are interested in discovering their ethnic heritage. Despite the political climate, Paul hopes that They Still Live show will be a small step towards progress and moving our nation forward.

Paul had dedicated his life to the arts and conservation of some of the finest works from Africa. Outside the statues and masks, The Hamilton Library Collection includes nearly newspapers, magazines, audiotapes, 2,000 books, videotapes, and educational materials focused on African, African-American cultural, and historical issues and concerns. The collection includes 1960’s magazines (Muhammad Speaks, Negro Digest, Black Panther newspapers, and Black Scholar) and newspapers and the journal from 1916-1970. There will be an opening reception for the They Still Live exhibition and Ancestry DNA results for each model will be announced on reception.

Ancestry DNA results uncover 46 years of questions

Leslie H. was adopted in 1970 after her adopted parents were not able to have a child. It was a dinner party one night, and members discussed the possibility of adoption when another guest said he knew a woman wanting to give up a baby. After a few months, Leslie was picked up from the hospital by the family attorney and taken to her parents three days old. Leslie said she knew that she was an adopted child, and my parents never hide it from me. She added I was brought up in a loving home with loving parents and two sisters.

My mother got pregnant after adopting me, and they had a healthy pregnancy. My mother delivered a baby after 13 months after I was born. I was the only adopted child in the home. Due to adoption, she thought that finding out the identity of my parents would be impossible. After Leslie’s daughter was born in the 1990’s, she started to find out the truth about her biological family.

After successfully requesting the court, they released the records. She got the name of her biological family with the help of a third party. After discovering her mother had remarried, Leslie tried to trace her married surname, so Leslie put her research on hold. She started her research by signing up to Ancestry and took the Ancestry DNA test. Her results offered her ethnicity estimate and connected her with cousins.

Having only her mother’s married surname and maiden name, she messaged a few matches, and one of those matches confirmed that she knew her biological parents as a child and provided their names. She finally got to know her biological father’s name. She matched the information provided by her cousin, and from the Ancestry DNA test, she talked with large online adoption databases only to find out that she had half-siblings from her parental side looking for her.

Within hours, Leslie received a call from her half-sister, Jessica. Their stories merge, and Jessica said they were also looking for Leslie for years. Leslie came to know that her biological father had passed away, but she had two younger half-brothers. They are in touch, and Leslie now knows more of her cousins and several aunts. After discovering her parental family, Leslie went to social media to see if she could not find her birth mother.

Leslie messaged a woman whose profile matched her surname. The woman replied and confirmed that she was her biological mother and provided loads of family history. This past January, Leslie met her half-brother, and a few weeks later, she met her biological mother in EI Paso, and they spent some hours together. It has been a fantastic journey, and it was not possible without the help of Ancestry DNA and Ancestry DNA testing. Leslie says I will be grateful forever.

Ancestry releases State Classes and Short Courses

Ancestry Academy had released new classes and short courses. We will be giving you quick tips on one topic in 4-5 minutes or less and start with some basics of the US. Federal Census.

Pre 1850- Census

1850 Census- An Intro

1890 Census- Where is it?

1880 Census- An overview

Introduction to the 1940 Census

You can watch these short courses and classes free, and you need to create a login if you are watching Ancestry Academy Classes for the first time. If you have ancestors from Vermont, Michigan, Illinois, and Massachusetts. See the premium classes below:

The Green Mountain State: Vermont Research with Catherine Desmarais, CGsm

Illinois- Research in the Prairie state with David McDonald

Michigan: Family history in the Wolverine state with Kris W Rzepczynski, MLS, MA

Massachusetts: Research in the Bay State with Marian Pierre-Louis

Hi Guys! My name is Marc and I’m an Archaeologist. I live in Texas USA. Things about history have always fascinated me. That’s why I chose to activate my Ancestry DNA kit. It helped me learn key details about the birthplace and journey of my ancestors. I’ll recommend it to all the people who are curious about their family history. Visit To know More: Ancestrydna.com/activate

Source: Ancestry Academy: Check New State Classes and Short Courses

#ancestry #ancestrydna #dna #ancestry login

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orbemnews · 4 years

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What history got wrong about the 'female Saint Patrick' (CNN) — On forgotten walls of country churches or crumbling castles throughout Ireland, the tiny figures squat unseen. Lost in gray brickwork, obscured by ivy or moss, Sheela-na-gig stone carvings can be hard to spot in the wild — but these medieval creations are in no way coy. Typically bald-headed naked females, with hanging breasts and legs spread wide to display exaggerated vulvas, Sheela-na-gigs at first seem peculiarly out of place in the prim surroundings of a Christian church. However, these envoys from an ancient past have a lot to teach us about Irish and northern European history, and about the pagan roots of the global festival now known as St. Patrick’s Day. While in modern times it’s a one-day celebration, it was once a three-day carnival that finished on March 18 — Sheelah’s Day. This is the story of Sheelah — who she was, why she was forgotten when St. Patrick was not, and what traces of her are left behind. ‘She’s always there’ Irish mythology is peopled with many female figures. Tales of warrior queens, deities, kingmakers and sacred hags have been passed down from generation to generation. However, an oral folk tradition means that names, characters and meanings morph over time — and are subject to the interpretative whims of changing societies. “Sheelah is one folk manifestation of what we call female cosmic agency,” says Shane Lehane, an archaeologist, folklorist and historian at Cork’s CSN College of Further Education who has been instrumental in reviving interest in Sheelah in recent years. “Think of her as the consort of the male, that great mythological tradition of the king and the goddess. She represents the land.” While Sheela-na-gigs are medieval, and the figure of Sheelah first appears in newspaper and documentary accounts around the 17th century, tracing her history back to what is believed to be her ancient Celtic beginnings is a near-impossible task. “There is a body of belief amongst people who study mythology that every female figure in some shape or form represents this entity,” says Lehane. “The very fact she survives is interesting. She’s always there.” ‘That great human concern’ There are Sheela-na-gig carvings around northern Europe — one of the finest examples is at Kilpeck Church in Herefordshire, England — but there are 115 listed nationally in Ireland, more than anywhere else in the world. As they’ve often been shifted from their original locations and placed in new buildings, “it’s quite hard to date them, but the consensus is that they date between the 12th and the 15th or 16th century,” says Matt Seaver, assistant keeper at the National Museum of Ireland. The museum has one Sheela on display at its Dublin archeology museum while six more are on loan to regional exhibitions. There are two main competing interpretations of Sheelas, explains Seaver. The older view is that they’re “promoting chaste living, a taboo on sexuality in the Middle Ages. The other theory that’s developed, primarily since the 1930s, sees them as symbols of fertility.” Lehane, one of these revisionists, tells CNN Travel that, “Sheelah has been the subject of a strong misogynistic perspective for a long time. They were seen as being symbols of evil, symbols of lust, symbols of eroticism.” He argues that Sheela-na-gigs celebrate “the female who has custodianship over birth and over death. Sheelah is an icon of that great human concern.” Embrace the hag The Hill of Tara is an ancient archaeological site and the traditional seat of Ireland’s High Kings. Shutterstock The Hill of Tara in County Meath is the ancient seat of Ireland’s High Kings, a site for ceremony and burial that has been in use for more than 5,000 years. Tour buses travel north from Dublin to visit Tara and nearby Newgrange, a Stone Age passage tomb. Tara’s Lia Fáil, a phallus-like standing stone, has a potent history, explains Lehane. “If you were going to be king you sat up on top of the Lia Fáil and you symbolically mated with the land. If you were the right king, the Lia Fáil would screech.” There are many examples in Celtic mythology of what are termed sovereignty goddesses — female deities who bestow kingly powers through copulation. When a king falls out of line, the goddess who represents the land transforms into a withered old woman, similar to the Sheela-na-gig, known as the Cailleach. “For the new king to come along, he must embrace this dangerous hag,” says Lehane, “and she reforms into this beautiful, bountiful, kind figure again.” The Cailleach is found wherever land is barren and treacherous, and weather unforgiving. She’s given her name to megalithic tomb, rocks at seas, and mountainous outcrops. You can come face to face with the Cailleach at the Ceann na Caillí (Hag’s Head) at the Cliffs of Moher and the passage tomb atop Slieve Gullion mountain known locally as Calliagh Beara’s House. ‘The first story of Ireland’ St. Patrick, the historical figure, was a former slave trafficked into Ireland from Roman Britain in the fifth century. Exclusively among the Irish saints, he wrote down his own story, in two Latin works “Confessio” and “Epistola.” “The one thing that very few people disagree about is that there was someone called Patrick and he wrote what became the first story of Ireland,” says Tim Campbell, director of the Saint Patrick Centre in Downpatrick, County Down. “The history of Ireland literally begins with him.” Patrick makes reference to more earthy Celtic tradition when he writes of refusing to show subjugation to another man by sucking his nipples. There are two preserved Iron Age bodies on display in the National Museum of Ireland that are testament to this. They belong to two failed kings who have been ritually killed and their nipples cut off, so that no one may pledge fealty. Patrick’s legacy as a Christian missionary and bishop “was woven into the later legends of early medieval Ireland,” says Campbell, and the mythical Patrick would absorb the older legends too. ‘Embrace chaos’ The god Lugh is the one most associated with kingship in Ireland, says Lehane. “He represents the perfect male.” When Christianity came along, the legend of Patrick took over the cult of Lugh. And at his side there was his consort, Sheelah — who was now referred to as Patrick’s wife. Many countries have pre-Christian springtime festivals and Ireland is no different. The three-day celebration of Patrick and Sheelah — from March 16 to 18 — falls just before the spring equinox. The license to cavort and disregard the strictures of Lent is Ireland’s version of Carnival. “You were expected to go wild, to throw caution to the wind, to embrace chaos, because that’s the nature of Carnival,” says Lehane. “It’s a very important Irish tradition to recognize.” Christian influence tamed the festival’s licentiousness and Sheelah’s Day — recorded as being widely celebrated by the Irish and Irish diaspora in the 18th and the 19th century — fell to the wayside. But Patrick was not left without a female companion. Three saints, one grave Patrick may be the poster boy, but Ireland has two other patron saints — Saint Brigid and Saint Colmcille. All three, thanks to the impressive promotional efforts of Anglo-Norman knight John de Courcy, are reputed to be buried under the same rock in Downpatrick, a holy site to this day. “During the medieval period, everywhere was claiming to be a place of pilgrimage. If you could get the three major Irish saints all buried in the one place, you’d won the lottery,” laughs Lehane. The Christian Saint Brigid shares many attributes of the pre-Christian goddess Brigid and the saint’s feast day — February 1 — was originally the pagan festival of Imbolc, marking the first day of spring. Irish people still celebrate this springtime festival by weaving St. Brigid’s crosses, made from rushes, to set over doorways and windows to protect the home from harm. Like many Irishwomen before her, this writer was taught by her mother how to gather rushes from marshy land and make St Brigid’s Crosses. Maureen O’Hare/CNN Holy wells Saint Patrick, and Brigid too, are associated with Ireland’s holy wells, of which there are thousands. These natural springs, reserved for curative purposes, are found “in practically every parish,” says Lehane. Women would repair to holy wells for relief from gynecological problems, to pray for the protection of their virginity or to promote fertility. And while Patrick is the wells’ most famous patron, “the majority of the wells are dedicated to female figures,” says Lehane. “If the waters have sulfur in them, that’s good for skin conditions; if they contain magnesium that’s good for muscle function and the heart; if the well is iron-rich that’s good for people who are anaemic,” Celeste Ray, an American academic who is compiling a database mapping the sites of all Ireland’s holy wells, recently told the BBC. Today, the few surviving Sheela-na-gigs can often be found near holy wells, while wells will also commonly have a rag tree, upon which visitors have fixed their tokens and their prayers. “The Sheela-na-gigs represent a point between life and death,” says Lehane. During the many centuries when pregnancy was a delicate balance between a fruitful new beginning or a young life cut short, women turned to Sheelah — an icon of birth — in their time of need. The wells too provided a female space of sanctuary and healing in a sometimes hostile landscape. Sheelah, the earth goddess, lives on in these quiet pockets of rural Ireland, where water flows below and the wind ruffles the grassy hills and the ribbons in the rag trees. In Irish mythology, the hag is withered, but she is also ageless. She’ll outlive us all. Digital Heritage Age’s Sheela-na-gig 3D project has created 3D digital models of the Sheelas in the National Museum of Ireland’s collection. All the holy wells mapped in the Republic of Ireland are here and Ireland’s sheela-na-gigs have been mapped by heritagemaps.ie. Source link Orbem News #female #history #Patrick #Saint #WRONG

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deagrad · 7 years

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The Archaeology of Disability

Hi, my name is Dea, and I am a medieval archaeologist.

Hi, my name is Dea, and I am disabled in multiple ways.

Believe it or not, these two sentences do not preclude each other.

It’s 2013 and I’m at my first field experience. For some reason, it comes up that I can’t drive. “You can’t drive?” The lab manager stares at me. “What do you mean, you can’t drive?”

“Well, I mean, I don’t really know how to. I know the motions, I have driven, and have a driver’s license, but it’s not actually safe for me to drive in any place that has more traffic than the one-stoplight town I did my driving test in.”

“Well,” he says completely serious, “you have to learn how to drive. If you really want to be a bioarchaeologist, you must know how to drive.”

During that same field experience, we’re chatting about grad school in bioarchaeology. A couple of the students are already in or have completed graduate programs, but most of us are still in undergraduate programs. “It’s really cut-throat,” the lab director says. “You can’t show weakness.”

“Yeah,” the field director adds, “anyone who falls behind or shows some weakness is going to be pounced on, there’s no room for people who can’t handle the harsh and stressful environment.”

“Unless you’re always on top of things, you shouldn’t even bother applying.” The lab director then launches into a story about one of his MA students who had a family emergency one fall semester and wanted a letter of recommendation from him. “I couldn’t write her a good one,” he confesses, “because I didn’t support her going on to a PhD program. She nearly failed out during that semester, what if that happened during a PhD program? There’s no place for people like that in PhD programs.”

“But it wasn’t her fault,” I timidly say. I may not have family emergencies, but I am well-acquainted with the general feeling of getting lost during a semester. “It was a family emergency. And what about disabled people?” What about me, was my unspoken question.

“Well, that’s not an excuse.” He shrugs, “They just shouldn’t be archaeologists.”

They just shouldn’t be archaeologists.

There were fifteen of us during that field program. For some of us, it was their first time traveling abroad. For many of us, this was our first field experience. A couple of people weren’t planning on making careers in archaeology, but in other subjects where gaining experience in osteology would be helpful. Some of were planning on applying to grad school that coming fall, some of us had a ways to go. There were eighteen and nineteen year-olds to people over thirty. We were atheists and Jewish and Christian students. Some of us spoke other languages; some of us were monolingual. Most of us were American, though one was Australian. We had a lot of different backgrounds and abilities, but there were two things that set me apart from the others.

1. I am a first-generation, low-income college student

2. I am disabled

The archaeology or bioarchaeology of disability is a growing field. Back in 2013, Lorna Tilley had published a bit in the field, E. A. DeGangi was starting her career and stated (and still states) her interest in “the bioarchaeology of impairment”, and even the lab director himself had co-authored one of DeGangi’s papers on bioarchaeology and disability. There was the origin of the field, Dettwyler’s “Can Paleopathology provide evidence of compassion,” and Irina Metzler had published The Disability in Medieval Europe in 2011.

In 2017, even more work is being done, combining the fields of anthropology, archaeology, history and disability studies. But every time I read an article or book, there’s a tiny voice in my head that goes “if you don’t want disabled archaeologists, what gives you the right to talk about our experiences?”

There are articles, such as this one, that talk about the relationships between changelings and autistic children. Stumbling Blocks Before the Blind talks about the construction of blindness in the Middle Ages. Mental disorders such as ADHD have only existed officially since the 20th century, but people have been described with ADHD traits much earlier. There is always the fear of anachronism, and people hesitate to label past people (including famous people) with various disabilities.

It’s not surprising, to be honest, for even modern Disability Studies seems to change its model every few years: is there a medical model of disability or a social one? Am I disabled because I have an impairment, because I am missing something “normal” people have? Or am I disabled because of the society I live in? If I lived on a farm, would I be as impaired as I am as a graduate student?

Modern Disability Studies give us certain terminology, such as “able-bodied” that are troublesome themselves: physically, my body is in the range of normal, yet I am multiply disabled. “Ableism” is a good, inclusive term in my opinion, because it doesn’t rely on physical or mental ability. Functioning labels should be generally avoided, and there are certain communities that claim they are not disabilities at all, such as the Deaf Community and the growing trend in the Autistic community

The important criterion of modern Disability Studies is the fact that most Disability Studies scholars self-identify as disabled. Just as it is increasingly rare to see cis men as Woman Studies scholars or cis, heteroromantic, and heterosexual scholars in Queer Studies, finding an abled Disability Studies scholar is a challenge. (I should, however, point out that there is a big difference between Special Education and Disability Studies: the former in my experience is full of abled and often ableist scholarship.) But when it comes to Disability Studies in the past, none of the main authors show any indication of being disabled.

Of course, no one is required to out themselves. However, I do find it interesting that so many historical disability scholars show absolutely no indication in their blogs, websites or work that they are disabled, that they chose this topic because it’s important to them as disabled academics, and not because they want to perform drive-by anthropology.

Anthropology and archaeology are full of decade long debates of privileged academics studying disadvantaged communities. Our discipline was created by White European and American scholars who went into Native populations and studied them...and often completely misjudged or misinterpreted their cultures, which led to the continuing misinterpretation of these cultures that we are only now, in the last couple of decades, trying to fix.

So pardon me if I am a bit skeptical of the entire field of the (bio)archaeology of disability, particularly when people use “impairment” and disability interchangeably. After all, disabled people just shouldn’t be archaeologists.

#archaeology #bioarchaeology #anthropology #disability #disability studies #gradblr #research #dea muses #I have a lot of feelings on this topic #and a lot of them are why are so many abled people interested in the topic

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brent-sunborn · 6 years

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The Staff of Ammunae - Pt III

~*~

Kai’eka waited for the dust to clear, coughing a bit before turning to inspect the passageway. It was sealed shut. She nodded.

“Good work,” she said before using her torch to light the room they were in.

The room was large, and had an ‘L’ shape to it. Runes covered the walls and urns decorated each corner. A single large pillar -the one she had taken cover behind- stood in the very center. There were a series of square buttons that could be pushed beneath a depiction of a decorative tol’vir reaching for a staff. A puzzle of some sort, no doubt.

“Hmph…” Kai growled. She hated puzzles and riddles, preferring to just smash her way through things. Of course… she found out long ago why that wasn’t a good idea.

She made her way around the corner, to the part of the room initially hidden from sight. The wall was entirely made of gold. Again, that staff was there, but either side of it depicted a series of planets and constellations.

Other than that there was nothing. No doors to be seen; only the buttons on the pillar to interact with.

Brent, on the other hand, was rather keen on puzzles. One of the allures of archaeological digs like this was to test his modern mind against those of scholars of the past. Could he outwit their traps? Could he decipher their codes? Could he complete their deadly tests, and claim reward in their ancient and sacred relics? It was a challenge - one Brent was most certainly up to.

He inspected the pillar, noting the buttons and their placement. Each bore a different symbol, likely characters in the Tol’vir alphabet. Or perhaps more likely, runes of power that did something when pushed. Brent set his hands on the hilts of his blades - best not to accidentally press a button. He examined the depictions, curiously. The staff, undoubtedly, was the very staff they were after - the legendary Staff of Ammunae. His eyes flared; this was the first indication they were at the right place. Excitement grew, as he grinned beneath his mask.

“This has to be it.” he stated, assuredly. “Look for any sigils or inscriptions that match the ones on the buttons, yeah? They might indicate some kind of order to press them in.”

He turned to follow Kai, examining the gold wall. He tilted his head, curiously.

“Hm.” he mused. “There’s some kind of astral connection…”

He turned back to examine the buttons again, peering at them as he tugged a small notebook from his side. Inside, he had written out a number of self-translated tol’vir characters. Perhaps a few of them could be deciphered.

“Yeah,” Kai’eka sighed, “Always the stars with these ancient civilizations.”

Despite puzzles not being her specialty, she was at least capable of helping. Even acting as a guard all this time, she’d come to recognize certain runes and markings. She was nowhere as skilled as Brent and Thea, but she knew enough to decipher a few things here and there.

She approached the pillar again, looking at the inscriptions on the buttons but unable to recognize any of them. They didn’t match anything on the wall, so she left Brent to decipher them while she made a second round of the room.

This time she noticed unlit torches on the walls; much more convenient than carrying one torch back and forth between the pillar and the wall. Once the room was properly lit up, the inscriptions became much easier to see.

Kai’eka studied the golden wall and what was depicted on it. The planets and moons were depicted in an alignment, surrounded by constellations. There was a text written at the top in ancient script, this one easier to recognize than the symbols Brent was looking up. The Blood Guard dug through her bag and took out her own notes.

She sat down and took a few drinks from her canteen and she flipped through the pages and compared scripts.

“Stars Guide Your Path,” she read out loud with a sneer. Well that didn’t help her any.

Hopefully Brent had better luck figuring out the inscriptions on the buttons…

After a moment or two of searching his notebook, Brent had found a few characters that matched the buttons. As expected, they were one-word translations.

“‘Life’, ‘Sun’, ‘Magic’, and ‘Destruction’.” he reported aloud.

A diverse set of words, to be sure. Their meaning would become clear soon enough, he hoped, as he slipped his notebook back into his pocket. His ear flickered towards Kai, and her translation of the text on the wall.

“Hm. ‘Stars Guide Your Path’?” he repeated, curiously.

Then he was struck with a thought - something so obvious, but often overlooked by adventurers and archaeologists in every dungeon, crypt, and temple - He looked up to the ceiling.

“Kai.” he uttered, pointing upwards.

The torches Kai had lit illuminated the ceiling just enough to cause various gemstones to begin twinkling against the light they produced. They looked like stars; an artificial map of the night sky. Some of the gemstones were larger than others, standing out from their smaller counterparts. Brent narrowed his eyes, recognizing the shapes they produced…

“It’s a constellation, see?” he pointed it out, excitedly. “That’s the constellation for Isiset, Construct of--”

He jerked his head down, eyes towards those buttons on the pillar.

“... Construct of Magic.”

He approached the pillar again, and hovered his hand over the button he’d translated to mean ‘Magic’. His ear twitched, as he turned briefly to look at Kai… before pressing the button.

The room rumbled - the ceiling shifted, tiles pulling back before turning and reconfiguring before setting flat and flush above the two Sin’dorei again. A new constellation was displayed.

“Rajh.” Brent exclaimed. “Construct of the Sun.”

He chuckled - a rarity only two circumstances could produce from him - as he looked back to Kai. It was coming together! He pressed the button labeled ‘Sun’, and watched the ceiling shift and reconfigure yet again. Marvelous technology, for such an early civilization. As the ceiling set with the new constellation, Brent’s ears wilted. A snag.

“... Fuck.” he exclaimed. “I forgot.”

He motioned to the ceiling, sagging his shoulders a bit. There was a constellation displayed, but clearly… it was problematic.

“Ammunae, Construct of Life, and Setesh, Construct of Destruction, both have very similar constellations.” he explained. “That one could be either of them. Without a frame of reference…”

Brent looked around, for a sign of anything that could help him differentiate. He checked the walls, the golden wall, even flipped quickly through his notebook again. All for naught. The only real way to tell which constellation was which was by their position in the sky, against other constellations. Standalone… they were virtually identical. He sighed, and looked back to Kai - frustrated, and defeated. Seems this puzzle got the best of him.

“... I’m not sure.” he admitted - clearly through gritted teeth, evident even under his mask.

The Blood Guard looked up in awe at the changing ceiling. It was one of the rare moments that Brent would see her smile along with him. This was what she loved: watching old mechanisms in motion, especially those with such a beautiful display. That, along with the thrill of being so close to the artifact they were seeking had her actually smiling. She allowed Brent to push the buttons in the proper order… that is, until he got stuck.

Kai’eka raised an eyebrow at Brent as he looked at her for advice. It was shocking, considering he knew her method of randomly smashing buttons on top of her history of setting off traps more often than not.

Of course, his lucky guess was only as good as hers. She didn’t hesitate to even think as she made her way over to the pillar and the symbols he has identified.

“Gut instinct then,” she said, “It’s the staff of ‘Ammunae’ we’re looking for so…”

With that she promptly pushed the button for ‘Destruction’.

The room rumbled and shook, dust and rubble fell from the ceiling, causing Kai’eka to stumble back, away from the pillar. For a few moments, it remained unclear if the button had set off a trap meant to kill them or not. The mechanical grinding sound of stone on stone was near deafening.

The Blood Guard’s ears twitched, as she kept her eyes peeled for any change in the room. That change finally came as the pillar began to sink into the floor, twisting and revealing a spiral staircase that led upward.

Her ears perked up.

If there’s one thing Brent rarely showed, it was fear. But in that moment, between Kai’eka pressing the button - literally labeled ‘Destruction’ - and the appearance of the spiraling staircase… Brent was terrified. Ears flicked upright, brow stiff and eyes wide, he expected the room to collapse on them. After the grinding and shifting ceased, and the stairway was revealed, he let out a sigh of relief.

“Lucky guess.” he sneered, glancing to Kai.

He scooped up one of the bags of equipment approached the staircase. It was considerably wide - at least, for an elf. For the tol’vir, it was probably a bit narrow. Nonetheless, Brent began his ascent up the spiraling stairs, disappearing into the ceiling of the room. The stairs continued for a considerable distance after that. Brent could only imagine that outside the stone tube the stairs were set in, literal tons of enchanted stone mechanisms sprawled out to make the shifting ceiling apparatus function. He ran his hand along the wall, and sighed - imagining the splendor beyond.

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#brent sunborn #kai'eka sunwhisper #archaeology #puzzles

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brigdh · 7 years

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Reading Lately

The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters. The sixth book in the Amelia Peabody series, murder mysteries set in the late 1800s and starring an incredibly blunt, overly self-confident, ironically melodramatic female Egyptian archaeologist. In this one, Amelia, her husband, and their young son are looking forward to excavating some pyramids south of Egypt, in the lesser-known ancient kingdom of Kush, when they get caught up in a mystery involving a long-lost British couple and their feckless rich nephew, a mysterious hidden kingdom that still practices the ancient Egyptian religion, court politics with two princes competing to be the next king, and a veiled woman who seems to be the secret power behind the throne. It's all a parody-slash-loving tribute to Victorian adventure novels, particularly "King Solomon's Mines" and "She". Peters gives these old racist tropes a modern update, which works in some parts better than others. I loved the eventual reveal that the 'good' prince of the hidden kingdom speaks in a stilted English because he's deliberately modeling himself after the florid heroes of H. Rider Haggard's novels, of which he is a huge fan. Similarly, when Amelia is told to look out for a secret messenger carrying "the book", it turns out not to be the Bible or the Egyptian Book of the Dead or some such sacred text, but a copy of Wilkie Collin's "The Moonstone". On the other hand, the mystery eventually comes down to the Peabodys' desperate rescue of the one young innocent white girl out of this entire kingdom, which is... uh, less great. To say the least. I also felt like this book frequently dragged in places. There's a loooooong section in England before they leave for Egypt. Then a loooooong section in Nubia before they find the hidden kingdom. Then a loooooong section exploring the kingdom before the plot finally arrives. I don't think The Last Camel Died at Noon actually has more pages than any other book in the series, but goddamn if it didn't feel like it took three times as long to read. So, not my favorite Amelia Peabody, but I'm still looking forward to the next one! The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers. A light-hearted ensemble space opera, starring the crew of a mid-level spaceship. The main character (as much as there is one; this is an extremely team-focused book) is Rosemary, a nice young woman, just out of college and somewhat sheltered, who arrives at the Wayfarer at the opening of the book to serve as their clerk. However, she's more than she seems: working under a false name and hiding secrets that will be revealed late in the book. Also onboard is Captain Ashby, a human in a long-term relationship with Pei, an alien arms dealer whose culture is HUGELY against interspecies sex; Jenks, an engineer who's fallen in love with the ship's sentient AI and is considering downloading her into a physical body despite this being incredibly illegal; Dr Chef, the kindly doctor and cook who comes from a nearly extinct species and whose sweetness covers a backstory of war and angst; Corbin, in charge of the algae from which the ship gets most of its power, a gumpy, racist, introvert; Kizzy, an antic, cheerful engineer and the only character who doesn't get much an arc, though she's a lot of fun in the background; and Ohan, who has the ability to navigate through hyperspace due to being infected with a virus that's slowly killing him. There's also the pilot Sissix, from a lizard-like species that practices polyamory, casual sex and lots of touching, who's a bit tired of dealing with all the culture clashes this causes on a mostly-human ship. She and Rosemary eventually enter into a relationship, which I mention because you gotta love a book in which a f/f open romance can be dropped in as a subplot. On the other hand, there isn't much of a main plot; this is very much a character-driven book instead of one with a clear, driving endgoal. Instead various characters meet and overcome minor difficulties, and it's all just nice if fairly inconsequential. The best part of The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet is absolutely how much *fun* it is. The worldbuilding is full of charming tossed off ideas, the scifi elements of the background are hugely inventive and clever, the characters are generally enjoyable to spend time with, and there's a ton of bits that made me laugh with pure delight. Like this section, which never ends mattering, but is too cute not to share: The mech tech herself was perched on a work ladder, her head and hands up inside an open ceiling panel. Her hips rocked in time with the drum beats. She belted along to the throbbing music as she worked. “Punch ‘em in the face! Monkeys like it, too!” “Hey. Kizzy,” Jenks said. “I ate a har - monica! These socks — match — my hat!” “Kizzy.” A tool clattered to the ground. Kizzy’s hands clenched into fists as the music swelled to a stormy crescendo. She danced atop the shuddering ladder, her head still in the ceiling. “Socks! Match — my hat! Socks! Match — my hat! Step on — some — sweet — toast! Socks! Match — my hat!” “Kizzy!” Kizzy ducked her head down. She pressed the clicker strapped to her wrist, turning down the volume of the nearby thump box. “Sup?” Jenks quirked an eyebrow. “Do you have any idea what this song is?” Kizzy blinked. “Socks Match My Hat,” she said. She went back up into the ceiling, tightening something with her gloved hands. “Soskh Matsh Mae’ha. It’s banned in the Harmagian Protectorate.” “We’re not in the Harmagian Protectorate.” “Do you know what this song’s about?” “You know I don’t speak Hanto.” “Banging the Harmagian royal family. In glorious detail.” “Ha! Oh, I like this song so much more now.” “It’s credited with setting off the riots on Sosh’ka last year.” “Huh. Well, if this band hates the establishment that much, then I doubt they’ll care about me making up my own words. They can’t oppress me with their ‘correct lyrics.’ Fuck the system.” My main problem is that, as sweet and nice as all this is, there's just not much there there. I felt like every time a potentially interesting conflict arose, the book went with the easiest possible answer; I was particularly annoyed with the resolution of Rosemary's background in this regard. It was a pleasant read, but not the sort of thing that will stick in my memory. Still, thank you to everyone who recommend this to me! :D I did have a good time with it. Venom: The Heroic Search for Australia's Deadliest Snake by Brendan James Murray. A nonfiction book about the taipan, the most venomous snake in the world (well, depending on how one measures such things), and the effort to capture a living snake for study and to enable the production of an antivenom. Murray is far more interested in the story of the people involved in this search than he is in the snake or its biology, which ends up producing a book that reads a lot like an action movie. Which is not a criticism! I loved how much this felt like a suspenseful thriller. There were a few scenes that were so unbelievably wild I had to read them out loud to my partner. Murray focuses on four people in particular: George Rosendale, a young Aboriginal man (only 19 when he was bitten in 1949) who is the only person ever known to have survived a taipan bite without being treated with antivenom; Bruce Stringer, a ten-year-old who was bitten in 1955 and became the first human to receive the then brand-new antivenom; Kevin Budden, an amateaur herpetologist who in 1950 captured the first living taipan but who died in the process; and John Dwyer, a friend of Budden's who in his memory captures the second living taipan, said snake becoming both the most significant contributor to antivenom production and the first taipan to be exhibited in a zoo. Between these men and others featured more briefly, Venom is packed full of exciting stories of hunting snakes through jungles and sugarcane fields, and medical dramas in which lives are saved or lost as doctors and amateurs struggle to find the best treatments. It's not all page-turning adventures though; I appreciate how much attention Murray gave to the role of colonialism and anti-Aboriginal racism, both in Rosendale's personal life and the larger scope of Australian history. I do have a few criticisms. Murray jumps back and forth between so many characters (are they still called characters if they're real people? whatever) and between so many time periods that I was often confused and had trouble remembering who was who. Less significantly, I longed for a epilogue or short final chapter that would have covered what we now know about taipan. A great deal of Venom is taken up with scientists arguing over what were unknowns in the 1940s and 50s – is the taipan a separate species from the Eastern Brown Snake? Is it venomous? If so, how much? how big does it get? where can it be found? how far south does its range extend? – that by the time I reached the end of the book, I was desperate for answers! Don't make me do my own research, Murray, especially since I'm too lazy to go past Wikipedia. Overall, I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone who enjoys creepy biology or exciting history. I read this as an ARC via NetGalley.

[DW link for easier commenting!]

#books #book reviews #elizabeth peters #brendan james murray #becky chambers

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tlatollotl · 7 years

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The Maya refer to both a modern-day people who can be found all over the world as well as their ancestors who built an ancient civilization that stretched throughout much of Central America, one that reached its peak during the first millennium A.D.

The Maya civilization was never unified; rather, it consisted of numerous small states, ruled by kings, each apparently centered on a city. Sometimes, a stronger Maya state would dominate a weaker state and be able to exact tribute and labor from it.

Mayan calendar

A system of writing using glyptic symbols was developed and was inscribed on buildings, stele, artifacts and books (also called codices).

The Maya calendar system was complicated. "By some 1,700 years ago speakers of proto-Ch'olan, the ancestor for three Maya languages still in use, had developed a calendar of 18 20-day months plus a set of five days," wrote Weldon Lamb, a researcher at New Mexico State University, in his book "The Maya Calendar: A Book of Months" (University of Oklahoma Press, 2017).

This calendar system also included what scholars call a "long-count" that kept track of time by using different units that range in length from a single day to millions of years (the unit in millions was rarely used).

Contrary to popular belief, this system did not predict the end of the world in 2012, the unit in millions of years providing evidence of this.

Also, contrary to popular belief, the Maya civilization never vanished. While many cities were abandoned around 1,100 years ago, other cities, such as Chichén Itzá, grew in their place.

When the Spanish arrived in Central America in force in the 16th century, the diseases they brought devastated the Maya. Additionally, the Spanish forced the Maya to convert to Christianity, going so far as to burn their books (the reason why so few of them survive today). However, it is important to note that the Maya people live on today and can be found all over the world.

"Millions of Maya people live in Central America and throughout the world. The Maya are not a single entity, a single community, or a single ethnic group. They speak many languages including Mayan languages (Yucatec, Quiche, Kekchi and Mopan), Spanish and English. However, the Maya are an indigenous group tied both to their distant past as well as to events of the last several hundred years," wrote Richard Leventhal, Carlos Chan Espinosa and Cristina Coc in the April 2012 edition of Expedition magazine.

Maya origins

While hunters and gatherers had a presence in Central America stretching back thousands of years, it was in what archaeologists call the Pre-classic period (1800 B.C. to A.D. 250) that permanent village life really took off, leading to the creation of early Maya cities.

"Really effective farming, in the sense that densely inhabited villages were to be found throughout the Maya area, was an innovation of the Pre-classic period," wrote Yale University Professor Michael Coe in his book "The Maya" (Thames and Hudson, 2011).

Coe said farming became more effective during this period, likely because of the breeding of more productive forms of maize and, perhaps more importantly, the introduction of the "nixtamal" process. In this process, the maize is soaked in lime, or something similar, and cooked, something that "enormously increased the nutritional value of corn," writes Coe. Maize complemented squash, bean, chili pepper and manioc (or cassava), which were already being used by the Maya, a 2014 Journal of Archaeological Science study shows.

During this time, the Maya were influenced by a civilization to the west of them known as the Olmecs. These people may have initially devised the long count calendar that the Maya would become famous for, Coe writes. Additionally, the discovery of a ceremonial site dated to 1000 B.C. at the site of Ceibal sheds more light on the relationship between the Maya and Olmecs, suggesting that it was a complex one.

Archaeologists have found that early Maya cities could be carefully planned. Nixtun-Ch'ich, in Peten, Guatemala, had pyramids, temples and other structures built using a grid system, a sign of urban planning. It flourished between 600 B.C. and 300 B.C.

Maya civilization at its peak

Coe writes that the ancient Maya reached a peak between A.D. 250 and 900, a time that archaeologists call the "Classic" period when numerous Maya cities flourished throughout much of Central America.

The civilization "reached intellectual and artistic heights which no other in the New World, and few in Europe, could match at the time," Coe writes. "Large populations, a flourishing economy, and widespread trade were typical of the Classic …" he said, noting that warfare was also quite common.

The Maya civilization was influenced by the city of Teotihuacan, located farther to the west. One of their early rulers, named Siyaj K'ak, who may have come from Tikal, ascended the throne on Sept. 13, A.D. 379, according to an inscription. He is depicted wearing feathers and shells and holding an atlatl (spear-thrower), features associated with Teotihuacan, wrote researcher John Montgomery in his book "Tikal: An Illustrated History of the Mayan Capital" (Hippocrene Books, 2001). A stela recently discovered at El Achiotal, a site near Tikal, also supports the idea that Teotihuacan controlled or heavily influenced Tikal for a time.

The numerous cities found throughout the Maya world each had their own individual wonders that made them unique. Tikal, for instance, is known for its pyramid building. Starting at least as early as A.D. 672, the city's rulers would construct a twin pyramid complex at the end of every K'atun (20-year period). Each of these pyramids would be flat-topped, built adjacent to each other and contain a staircase on each side. Between the pyramids was a plaza that had structures laid out to the north and south.

Copan, a Maya city in modern-day Honduras, is known for its "Temple of the Hieroglyphic Stairway." It's a pyramid-like structure that has more than 2,000 glyphs embellished on a flight of 63 steps, the longest ancient Maya inscription known to exist and appears to tell the history of the city's rulers.

The site of Palenque, another famous Maya city, is known for its soft limestone sculpture and the incredible burial of "Pakal," one of its kings, deep inside a pyramid. When Pakal died at about age 80, he was buried along with five or six human sacrifices in a jade-filled tomb (including a jade funerary mask he wore). His sarcophagus shows the king's rebirth and depictions of his ancestors in the form of plants. The tomb was re-discovered in 1952 and is "the American equivalent, if there is one, to King Tut's tomb," said archaeologist David Stuart in an online National Geographic lecture.

Not all Maya settlements were controlled by a king or elite member of society. At Ceren, a Maya village in El Salvador that was buried by a volcanic eruption 1,400 years ago, archaeologists found that there was no elite class in control and the village seems to have been managed communally, perhaps by local elders.

Collapse?

Contrary to popular belief the Maya civilization did not vanish. It's true that many cities, including Tikal, Copan and Palenque, became abandoned around 1,100 years ago. Drought, deforestation, war and climate change have all been suggested as potential causes of this. Drought may have played a particularly important role as a recent study on minerals from an underwater cave in Belize shows that a drought ravaged parts of Central America between A.D. 800 and 900.

However, it is important to note that other Maya cities, such as Chichén Itzá, grew, at least for a time. In fact, Chichén Itzá has the largest ball court in the Americas, being longer than a modern-day American football field. The court's rings, through which competing teams tried to score, rose about 20 feet (6 meters) off the ground, about twice the height of a modern-day NBA net. The rules for the Maya ball game are not well understood.

Council Houses, which were gathering places for people in a community, played an important role in some of the Maya towns and cities that flourished after the ninth century.

As mentioned earlier, the arrival of the Spanish brought about a profound change in the Maya world. The diseases they brought decimated the Maya and the Spaniards forced the Maya to convert to Christianity, even burning their books. Today, despite the devastation they experienced, the Maya people live on, numbering in the millions.

Mythical origins

The Maya had a lengthy and complicated mythical origin story that is recorded by the K'iche Maya (based in Guatemala) in the Popol Vuh, the "Book of Counsel," wrote Coe in his book. According to the stories, the forefather gods Tepew and Q'ukumatz "brought forth the earth from a watery void, and endowed it with animals and plants."

Creating sentient beings proved more difficult, but eventually humans were created, including the hero twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who embark in a series of adventures, which included defeating the lords of the underworld. Their journey climaxed with the resurrection of their father, the maize god. "It seems clear that this whole mythic cycle was closely related to maize fertility," Coe writes.

The Maya universe

The late Robert Sharer, who was a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, noted in his book "Daily Life in Maya Civilization" (Greenwood Press, 2009) that the ancient Maya believed that everything "was imbued in different degrees with an unseen power or sacred quality," call k'uh, which meant "divine or sacredness."

"The universe of the ancient Maya was composed of kab, or Earth (the visible domain of the Maya people), kan, or the sky above (the invisible realm of celestial deities), and xibalba, or the watery underworld below (the invisible realm of the underworld deities)," Sharer wrote.

Caves played a special role in Maya religion as they were seen as entranceways to the underworld. "These were especially sacred and dangerous places where the dead were buried and special rituals for the ancestors conducted," wrote Sharer.

Sharer notes that the Maya followed a number of deities, the most central of which was Itzamnaaj. "In his various aspects, Itzamnaaj was the lord over the most fundamental opposing forces in the universe — life and death, day and night, sky and earth," Sharer wrote, noting that "as lord of the celestial realm" Itzamnaaj was the Milky Way and could be depicted as a serpent or two-headed reptile.

Other Maya deities included the sun god K'inich Ajaw, the rain and storm god Chaak and the lightning deity K'awiil, among many others. The Maya believed that each person had a "life force," and draining a person's blood in a temple could provide some of this life force to a god. Recently an arrowhead containing the blood of a person who may have participated in a blood-letting ceremony was identified.

In times when water was scarce, Maya kings and priests would hold incense scattering ceremonies that they believed could provide wind and rain. A Maya pendant inscribed with 30 hieroglyphs that archaeologists believe would have been used in these ceremonies was recently discovered in Belize. Hallucinogenic substances could also be used to help the Maya contact spirits and seek advice on how to deal with problems or situations.

Maya religion also included stories of dangerous creatures such as the sea monster "Sipak." Fossilized teeth from the extinct shark Carcharodon megalodon were used as sacred offerings at several Maya sites and recent research suggests that stories involving "Sipak" were inspired by the fossilized remains of this massive extinct shark.

El Castillo is a pyramid with 91 steps on each of its four sides.

Credit: jgorzynik shutterstock

Human sacrifices

Sharer wrote that human sacrifices were made on special occasions. "Among the Maya, human sacrifice was not an everyday event but was essential to sanctify certain rituals, such as the inauguration of a new ruler, the designation of a new heir to the throne, or the dedication of an important new temple or ball court." The victims were often prisoners of war, he noted.

At Chichén Itzá, victims would be painted blue, a color that appears to have honored the god Chaak, and cast into a well. Additionally, near the site's ball court, there is a panel that shows a person being sacrificed. This may depict a ball-player from either the winning or losing team being killed after a game.

Writing & astronomy

Sharer noted that record keeping was an important part of the Maya world and was essential for agriculture, astronomy and prophecy. "By keeping records of the rainy and dry seasons, the Maya could determine the best times to plant and harvest their crops," Sharer wrote.

Additionally, by "recording the movements of the sky deities (sun, moon, planets, and stars), they developed accurate calendars that could be used for prophecy," Sharer wrote.

"With long-term records, the Maya were able to predict planetary cycles — the phases of the moon and Venus, even eclipses," he said. "This knowledge was used to determine when these deities would be in favorable positions for a variety of activities such as holding ceremonies, inaugurating kings, starting trading expeditions, or conducting wars."

The movements of the planet Venus appear to have played a particularly important role in Maya religion. Both the Dresden and Groliercodices contain detailed records of the movements of the planet. The ancient Maya "were probably doing large-scale ritual activity connected to the different phases of Venus," said Gerardo Aldana, a science historian in the department of Chicano studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Recent research reveals that at least some of the writers of Maya codices were part of "a specific cohort of ritual specialists called taaj," wrote a team of researchers in a 2015 American Anthropologist article. The team studied a room containing murals with inscriptions on them at the site of Xultun, Guatemala, and found that the writing of codices took place in the room and that the "taaj" wrote them.

Economy & power

Sharer wrote that while agriculture and food gathering were a central part of daily life, the Maya had a sophisticated economy capable of supporting specialists and a system of merchants and trade routes. While the Maya did not develop minted currency, they used various objects, at different times, as "money." These included greenstone beads, cacao beans and copper bells.

"Ultimately, the power of kings depended on their ability to control resources," Sharer wrote. "Maya rulers managed the production and distribution of status goods used to enhance their prestige and power. They also controlled some critical (non-local) commodities that included critical everyday resources each family needed, like salt," he said noting that over time Maya rulers managed ever-larger portions of the economy. The Maya rulers did not rule alone but were served by attendants and advisers who occasionally appear in Maya art.

Sharer also notes that Maya laborers were subject to a labor tax to build palaces, temples and public works. A ruler successful in war could control more laborers and exact tribute on defeated enemies, further increasing their economic might.

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earth-as-art · 7 years

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Space Archaeology: In the Realm of Resolution

As satellite imaging—natural-color, false-color, and radar—has evolved and became more accessible, a scientific community that once measured the rise and fall of civilizations based on a few dig sites now discovers landscapes and features hundreds of kilometers long. Archaeological research now includes expertise from geography and earth science, and for some archaeologists, remote sensing has become as valuable as carbon dating.

But space archaeology might not have taken off without Tom Sever. In the late 1970s, while working on a project for an environmental non-profit, Sever went to Peru to retrace paths followed by 16th century Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro. It took three months for Sever and a colleague to walk one-and-a-half of Pizarro’s 41 lines. He remembers thinking: “There has to be a better way to do this.”

He read an article about imaging work being done at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, and he decided to apply to the program. “Traditional archaeology wasn’t going to work for me to answer the questions I had,” he said. In 1981, he joined the small group of programmers at Stennis who were learning to interpret satellite images even as “NASA was inventing remote sensing.” Archaeologists had only just started to approach the agency for help in surveying sites.

In his first year at Stennis, Sever worked by day scouring imagery to make agricultural maps. But by night, he was chipping away at his passion project: mapping archaeological sites. Using several tools—the Thermal Infrared Multispectral Scanner (TIMS), the Calibrated Airborne Multispectral Scanner (CAMS), and the Advanced Terrestrial Land Applications Sensor (ATLAS)—he charted Chaco Canyon, New Mexico (see the top of this page), home to the highest concentration of pueblos in the southwestern United States. Poring through images, Sever found ancient roadways that led to sacred sites—roads 30 feet wide and “straight as an arrow.” Fieldwork by ground-based teams verified the finds. “It was ten for ten.”

Space archaeology would eventually become Sever’s full-time job, and in three decades at NASA, other sensors would slowly fill out his remote sensing toolkit. Perhaps the most important was Landsat, a partnership between NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey. Whereas airborne sensors relied on data collected on sporadic and limited flights, Landsat satellites have provided continuity with new digital images collected from the same angle every 16 days.

Being able to see traces of human history in satellite imagery is dependent on what details can be resolved on a given image. There are four main types of image resolution: spatial, spectral, radiometric, and temporal.

Spatial resolution is the type that most of us are most familiar with: how detailed is an image and what are the smallest features that can be seen? Over the past 45 years, Landsat has improved its spatial resolution from a pixel size of 79 meters to 30 meters to 15 meters. While this is much coarser than modern commercial satellites, the Landsat images serve an important purpose in helping archaeologists examine the broad context of an environment. Also, decades of Landsat data are freely available on the web.

Spectral resolution refers to which parts of the electromagnetic spectrum a given sensor measures. Spectral resolution has increased with each generation of Landsat satellites. The current iteration, Landsat 8, makes measurements in eleven discreet portions of the electromagnetic spectrum from the visible to thermal infrared.

Regions beyond the visible spectrum, especially the near infrared and shortwave infrared, have played outsize roles in space archaeology mainly because they can show where water has influenced the landscape. For example, Landsat infrared data has helped to detect water sources at ancient mining sites on the West Coast of Sinai; ancient settlements and canals in northeast Thailand; prehistoric Hohokam irrigation features in Arizona’s Salt River; and irrigation features at the ancient Sri Ksetra site in Myanmar. Where water goes, so do humans.

Radiometric resolution is perhaps the most esoteric. It describes a sensor’s ability to discriminate differences in energy (radiance). The better the radiometric resolution, the more sensitive the sensor is to small differences in energy. Radiometric resolution is determined by multiple factors, chief among these are the saturation radiance—the “brightest“ thing detectors can measure—and how the radiance measurements are quantized (turned into a digital bit stream).

Early Landsat satellites had only 6-bit quantization, meaning that everything from the darkest to the brightest objects measured had to be described with 64 shades of gray; this increased to 8-bit data (256 shades of gray) with the second- and third-generation satellites. Today Landsat 8 has 12-bit data (4,096 shades of gray). The trio of images of Saudi Arabia (above) demonstrate how bit depth can translate into refined image detail.

In the field of archaeology time is central: how long ago did something exist? Can researchers find important sites before looters do? In remote sensing, the time domain is described by temporal resolution: how often does a satellite revisit and collect data over a site.

Since 1972, a Landsat satellite has flown over each point on Earth every 6 to 18 days. In the first two decades of the program, a few hardware malfunctions and limits on satellite power and download locations meant that data was not always collected and stored on passes outside of North America. Nevertheless, after 45 years of Landsat operations, the seven millionth Landsat scene was recently added to the U.S. archive.

After four decades of advancing technology, Landsat 8 now collects data almost continually around the globe. After just 4.5 years in orbit, Landsat 8 has already contributed a million scenes to the archive. And data from Landsat 9 is on the horizon, as the satellite is slated for a December 2020 launch.

References and Related Reading

Landsat Legacy Project Team (2017) Landsat’s Enduring Legacy: Pioneering Global Land Observations from Space.American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.

Lasaponara, R., and Masini, N. (2012) Investigating Satellite Landsat TM and ASTER Multitemporal Data Set to Discover Ancient Canals and Acqueduct Systems. Computational Science and Its Applications–ICCSA 2012. 7335.

Markham, B.L., et al. (in press) Comprehensive Remote Sensing: Landsat Program. Elsevier.

Parcak, S. (2007) Satellite Remote Sensing Methods for Monitoring Archaeological Tells in the Middle East. Journal of Field Archaeology, 32 (1) 65-81.

Parcak, S. (2009) Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology. Routledge.

Stargardt, J. et al. (2012) Irrigation Is Forever: A Study of the Post-destruction Movement of Water Across the Ancient Site of Sri Ksetra, Central Burma. Satellite Remote Sensing: A New Tool for Archaeology, 247-267.

NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Story by Pola Lem and Laura Rocchio.

Instrument(s): Landsat 8 - OLI

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barbecuedphoenix · 7 years

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'The Abduction’: Chapter 1

...Because it’s too long to be a simple one-shot. After that last Nevra-centric NFSW piece, I’ve learnt my lesson in trying to squeeze too many words into a single post.

In my own defense... plot-bunnies are relentless. :(

So here’s the first part of your long-awaited one-shot custom fic, @mentacomchocolate. The good stuff will be coming up in a separate post... but I hope this one will at least set the scene. ;)

Interested in reading more? You can find all the chapters for this request here.

Warning: Some marginal NSFW mentions towards the end of this piece. You can skip over it if you prefer your archaeological digs sans nudity. Though you won’t know what you’re missing... ;)

Chapter 1: The Spring in the Mountains

The ancient flagstones echoed with the clank of her boots as they stepped onto and off the two hundredth step of the hidden passage, snaking through the mountainside like a vein under the skin. On cue, the nub of chalk in Sofimon's hand flashed twice across the wall on her right, raising two ghost-white streaks along the wave-curl of basalt chips.

Two hundred steps, each ten inches tall on average. That currently placed her at about one hundred and sixty-six feet above the valley, where she first discovered that innocuous door all but hidden by two season's worth of brown-baked summer moss. Now she grinned at her mark on the dark mosaic on the wall, polished chips undulating silver-and-black through the gloom like hydra scales, tasting her sweat at the corners of her lips. A climb this high could only mean one thing for a professional explorer: pay dirt.

Behind her came the rhythmic wheeze that marked her partner's progress up the passage. Which had been climbing up without break just below the spine of the mountain for the last half hour, stringing together the caves caught under the earth's skin.

"Sofi…!" Kero's voice echoed through the tunnel like a plea, finally pinching her smile into wince from how battered he sounded. "For the love of all that's good… please tell me you found the exit…!"

Her chestnut-brown eyes darted again, guiltily, to the twin stripes on the wall. Once upon a time, she would have shared Kero's agony. But a full year in the Obsidian Guard had re-forged her into a swordswoman with piston-like legs, which was one of the better gifts to give an adventurer in the faery realm.

"We are pretty high up… But it couldn't be much further, I think…!" she called back, throwing a smile into her voice that ricocheted down the stone steps.

Then she turned to squint up the passage, at the lightening gloom that wasn't all caused by the glow of her lantern, and sniffed the air. Hints of summer green bloomed on the roof of her mouth. Her tawny lips moved into a broader grin, which lingered as the sodden unicorn—his tunic and poncho joined seamless on his shoulders with sweat– finally caught up with her. Their circles of lamplight shivered and merged over the points of her scaled boots.

"I know neither of us expected a climb like this…" Sofimon began, catching Kero gently by the elbow as he reeled again, "but look on the bright side: whatever is hidden this high above the main complex must be something special."

"Well I'm glad… you're so… eager… about this expedition…" the head archivist returned, sagging against the wall. He drew a limp handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow again, then the bridge of his nose where his glasses were sliding perilously. "… …But Black Dog's Bane… hundred-step stairways are why I like studying history in the library… Who would have known that the naiads are fitness-fiends?"

Sofimon laughed and gestured around the narrow passage, the opposite wall just an inch shy from meeting the sweep of her fingertips. "You're saying that when we're on the lip of an ancient bathhouse complex?"

"When the texts said 'bathhouse', I was hoping for a place with a nice little gymnasium next to the swimming pools. On flat ground. With a massage center and dining spot nearby. Wishful thinking, I guess," Kero grimaced, finally peeling his poncho over his head, and catching it on the point of his horn over halfway through. "Oh, blast it…"

Sofimon bit her lip to keep from giggling as the lanky unicorn finally wriggled himself free, glasses askew, and coughed. "…Anyway. Not that there's anything wrong with a little workout from time to time… but it would be nice if there're also some clues waiting for us at the end of this climb. That door didn't look like it was used excessively though, even when this place was still teeming with visitors…"

Her smile finally dropped. "Well we won't know the truth while we're still in the cave." The steel toe of her boot clinked from the next worn step. "But if you want, I can scout ahead…?"

"No, no… I offered to come with you when you found the door; I'll see this through. And get more exercise, I guess…" the archivist sighed, tying his limp poncho around his waist.

"The dungeon-stairs in HQ will be child's play for you after this," Sofimon joked as she turned up the stairs again, at half-pace this time. Kero grumbled something incomprehensible at her back as she resumed the count in her head, her free fingers tracing the nigh-invisible curls of the mosaic running along the walls in peak-and-valley waves, cool to the touch like river stones.

Here was another reason why two hundred-step stairways still hadn't dimmed her spirits. To her human eyes, it was as if she was transported to a patch of Classical Greece from perhaps 2300 years ago. But here in the faery realm, this archaic bathhouse complex—no doubt carved from the rock by the last nymphs of ancient Grecian folklore– had been deserted a little less than two years ago. The past still walked here.

Their team arrived here three days ago, searching for clues on the whereabouts of the regional naiad queen, to confirm if she too fell prey to the environmental changes and scourge of madness that rolled across the Continent on the destruction of the Grand Crystal. So far, from the state of the main bathhouse complex they left two hundred steps below, once said to be the jewel of the queen's many spa villages, the outlook wasn't promising. Whereas the fully-aquatic nereids and oceanids managed to survive the immediate fallout—buffered by the sea itself from the chain reaction of ecological disasters resulting from the malevolent flux of the maana cycle—no one could quite guess what happened to the naiads, who straddled that curious boundary between water and land.

Though related, the naiads were more amphibious than the nereids and oceanids. According to all the literature she read, they were equipped with two legs capable of walking on land. But with those, they developed a way of 'sprinting' through their native marshes, lakes, and rivers that rivaled water skaters and river eels in speed, aided by the push of their webbed digits and the fins sprouting from their long, wiry limbs. Most remarkably, they had the ability to switch between breathing water and dry air like a lungfish. During the perilous dry seasons, when their native waters shrank to a fraction of their size, older naiads voluntarily migrated onto dry land in a ritual 'exile' for months at a time (or even permanently, for the few mavericks who chose to leave the waters for good), returning only when the streams and lakes swelled again from rain and snow melt past the point of dangerous overcrowding. Naiads, after all, were a notoriously territorial people; they almost never migrated from lake to stream once water levels dropped, and food and oxygen levels grew scarce, instead defending the waters where their mothers were born even from land. But each transition from gills to lungs and back again required a slow, careful period of adaptation in marshlands. Or eventually—as naiad culture advanced and discovered that swamps were unnecessarily scarce and fraught with predators waiting to drag off asphyxiated naiads– in constructed bathhouses, such as the one their team was exploring now.

For centuries, these spring-side spa villages were the naiads' toll-gates and highways between land and water, cross-species trading houses, temples for the rites of passage, ritual exile, and return, forums where returning and departing 'exiles' exchanged news, hydrotherapy centers for holistic healing, exercise, and acclimation, and pleasure houses all rolled into one. As Kero had succinctly put it when they arrived, these bathhouse complexes were the cornerstones of modern naiad civilization. So if there was ever a clue to a sudden influx of madness and mutation in their society, they would be found here.

Though if there was anything the past three days proved, it was that theory and practice could sit worlds apart. Sofimon was no archaeologist (ex-philosophy major, in fact; there was no end to the jokes on how to make money with that back where she came from). But what she was sure of was this: the naiads had left this place suddenly. Bone combs, algae-slicked needles, rancid perfume amphorae, fused fish-oil lanterns, chipped ceramic platters, spotted mirrors, and mold-eaten scrolls were strewn around this community bathhouse exactly as they were when the halls still rang with footsteps. Even a rookie could see that it looked like the entire complex got up as one in the middle of dinner, and vanished into the mountain air.

Her fingers skimmed the dark waves of stone chips and suddenly beached against warped wood, startling her from her count. Her next foot rose and fell hard through a step that didn't exist, cutting through the faint sunbeams crossing the black flagstones and jarring her leg to her knee. And Sofimon's trajectory swung her, stumbling, around the final turn of the passage, out of the deep shadow of the doorway and onto a stone promenade raised high above the forest of cypress, plane, and willow, crouched twisted on the mountainside.

Late afternoon light lanced her eyes gold, warming the skin of her hand as she whipped it up to shield her gaze. The air gurgled with the rush of cataracts and the octave-long trills of feral familiars, whistling unseen from the distant green above and below.

When Kero stumbled into her back and winced in his throat, his glasses catching with a clink on the back of her helm, Sofimon obligingly stepped out and to the side of the rectangular, Pi-shaped doorway. "Two hundred and sixty-nine steps," she announced helpfully, bowing a little to present the view to her partner. Kero winced again, and crab-walked gingerly past her to the edge of the wall.

She let him go, taking in the bright mountain air and bringing her dazzled eyes down past the promenade wall to the bend of the first spring, steaming and bouncing down the green-slicked boulders in white arcs to the groove of the ravine below. Far below, the sharp angles and concentric squares of the bathhouse complex rose from the wild summer green like a granite stamp, half-folded improbably up the side of the mountain to catch two whiplash white streams in a series of pools. If she squinted, she could even glimpse the walnut-brown points of their tents, clustered between the fluted pillars of the southern courtyard. Where she knew the third and final member of their party was packing up their notes and recovered artifacts for the return journey tomorrow, with his systematic, straight-faced precision.

He had declined to join her today when she loped back to camp with news of the hidden door, instead citing Kero as the better researcher. That was Valkyon's polite way of admitting he was pessimistic.

"Holy Black Dog!"

"What? What is it?" Sofimon called out, wresting her eyes away from their distant camp, her free hand automatically grasping for the hilt of her broadsword slung across her back.

Kero was standing on the northern corner of the promenade, both hands planted on the wall and staring fixedly down the other side. From the way his head and neck were jutting eight inches over the edge of the wall, shoulders scrunched, whatever he was seeing didn't seem life-threatening. Yet.

She crossed the promenade with the long, loping strides that earned her nickname in the Obsidian Guard, and looked down past the lip of the wall. And her expression stopped setting the better example.

The hidden cataract stood at the height of about three men where the hot spring plunged down a natural precipice behind the turn of the wall, its rich, iron-laced waters still steaming gently in the afternoon air. At the corner of the cataract closest to the promenade, a rectangular pool had been created by artfully walling off both the riverbank and the rest of the cascade with boulders, forcing just one meter of mineral-rich spring water to plummet down into the tiny canal, collecting, deepening, and warming further into a serene pool of water caught between the natural spring and the wall, before the water continued its journey down the mountain over a shallow lip cut on the far wall of the pool. A steep stairway cut through the wall they stood on, zigzagging straight down to the brilliant, dappled water of the pool. Viridian algae lined the stone in a thin girdle where it met the spring water, before climbing up the corner of the wall in mottled blooms, and escaping over the slope of the divided cataract itself, where the headiest clouds of steam had moistened and worn at the rock for centuries.

But what drew Sofimon's stare was the kaleidoscopic colors shivering out from the pool. Each of its sides had been leveled by hand, then inlaid with pale, moon-washed river stones, clusters of technicolored quartz, malachites, and agates, obsidian chips that glistened sharp through the rushing waters like tiny arrows caught below the current, and even warm flashes of what looked like tiny gold nuggets. All set into a five-sided mosaic of what could only be a lost naiad epic: the crazy-limbed, finned, half-naked dancers—both standing and swimming– locked into their dance under the spring waters that rippled and swirled over them ceaselessly.

Kero whistled soundlessly from her side. "…Your hunch was right, all right, Sofi. This must have been the naiad queen's private bathing pool. Spared from looters– thank the Oracle– by how invisible the only viable entrance is to this place."

"See? It never hurts to be optimistic."

They clambered down the stairs, discovery winding up new springs in their knees. Kero stopped four steps shy of the simmering waters that smelled like a forge, fanning himself again with the collar of his tunic, his glasses fogging over from the steam. But Sofimon went right to the water itself, dipping and swirling one hand through the warmth rushing by, just a few degrees above the temperature of her hand. Her wide eyes wandered across the mural: over the twist of limbs and unearthly bodies, both male and female, profiled in nail-sized chips of glass, gem, and river rock along the walls and the floor of the pool.

It wasn't that deep: no more than three feet perhaps. A smooth, enameled bench lined three of the sides, with naiads cleverly depicted stretching themselves above and below the edge of the bench, reaching for their partners reclining across the divide.

Long moments passed, in the sweep of warmth between her fingers and the flicker of glassy lights across the surface of the water, before Kero's somber voice reached her. "There doesn't seem to be anything here either, unfortunately… But the least we could do before leaving is seal off the door leading to this pool. Guarantee that no looters will stumble across this in the future. Because it is a work of art… We might easily be the last ones to see it—in this state at least—for who knows how long. Once we get back to the camp, I'll ask Valkyon to take a look at the door."

At last, Sofimon retracted her hand from the water, sighed, and rose to her feet. "That would be a good idea," she admitted, sweeping aside the black, sweat-slicked bangs under her helmet, iron-tinged water dripping into the cup of her palm.

Still, her eyes continued to rove along the lines of naiads frozen on the faces of the pool: trying to tease apart the braids of impossible limbs through the waters, even as split-second waves were sliced apart by the sunlight, glinting off the spots of gold from an upturned wrist, an opened thigh, a head tossed back with wide-awake eyes leafed in gold. And with a jolt, she suddenly realized what she was seeing. Across all four sides of the mural, there was a particular pattern to the shapely legs scissored together, twined knee around knee; the press of bodies married waist-to-waist; the curve and bend of backs that brought erect, straining breasts and lit eyes pointing to the sky.

Well. Now she could see why this pool was perched two hundred and sixty-nine steps above the village.

The first giggle broke through her teeth, then through the seal of her lips, and past her hand as it clamped hard over her mouth. Kero, mercifully, blinked at her instead of at the pool, his misted glasses half-wrapped in the edge of his tunic.

"What's so funny?"

"…Nothing," Sofimon spluttered out, still grinning helplessly behind her hand. She forced herself to look away from the twined legs and arching bodies stamped across the sides of the pool. "…Do you, uh, want a rendering of the pool, by any chance?"

Kero didn't so much as pause. "Of course. We would love to have a watercolor of this in the archives. That is, only if you don't mind taking some time this afternoon to make a painting, while there's still light. I can ask Valkyon to hold off on blocking the passage–"

"No! Actually, uh… let him work on the door while I start painting. I, uh, don't want to have to walk all the way to camp. Just to let him know he's free to block up the passage. You see?"

Now the archivist was squinting at her, his voice returning slow and incredulous. "…If that's what you want, sure. Though I'm not sure why this is an issue now, after all those stairs you climbed with barely a sweat."

"Look at me: I did sweat. I'm not exactly made of iron, Kero," Sofimon quipped quickly, smiling her thanks. With enough pinch in her cheeks to encourage him to stop talking. She crossed her arms over her chest. "Anyway, since the painting is going to take a bit of time… will you, uh, be all right if I start here and now? I swear, all these details the naiads put it…"

"True," the archivist sighed, glancing once at the pool before he slipped his glasses back on. "No expense was spared for their queen, apparently… All right, feel free to set up, Sofi, and thanks for doing this for us. I'll see you back at the camp. Before it gets too dark, you hear?"

"I'll try my best," Sofimon chuckled, avoiding his eyes as she slung off her satchel and rummaged one-handed through it.

Kero was already halfway up the stairs when she found her codex, scribbled a quick note in charcoal through the back page, ripped it free, and hastily folded it into sixteenths. She loped after him, two steps at a time. "Oh, Kero, wait! I'm sorry about this. But do you, uh, mind taking this to Valkyon?" The next laugh broke out of her, reflexively, "…It looks like I might need more watercolors than what I'm carrying now. It's the queen's private pool; we ought to do it justice, right?"

The unicorn took the finger-sized wad of notepaper with a smile. "Of course, Sofi. Miiko couldn't have known what a good idea it was to send you with us here."

Her grin slipped out well before she could stop it. "No, she couldn't have."

Disclaimer: Sofimon being a painter was my addition to the character. I could imagine that after some time in Eldarya, and given her love of exploring, she might have picked up some new skills to preserve her finds and contribute to El’s library.

That... and it goes with the setting. :( Apologies to mentacomchocolate if it’s a stretch.

Disclaimer 2: These randy naiads and their penchant for elaborate baths are entirely my invention. The bathhouse complexes themselves are based off a combination of ancient Hellenistic and Roman influences, though I don’t think any pools have been uncovered quite like the one featured here. For good reason. ;)

Part 2 will be up shortly. And that’s when things will start to get steamy. No pun intended. :)

#request #multi-chapter #Eldarya #commissioner's OC #Kero #mentacomchocolate #blog milestone #100 followers

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englishchinesetranslations · 5 years

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I am very interested in History and have studied it for years.

When I was younger I was brought up in a Christian household. As I grew older I had a little trouble believing in what the Bible said and started to question everything. That lead me to start researching different sources of information and comparing it to what I thought I knew. Well this whole thought process brought me deeper and deeper into the world of ancient history. It also started me down a path of interest in research and discerning the truth. Through time I have watched schools and media attempt to rewrite history and use it as propaganda to further their narrative and desires.

Okay I know this may not be popular with some people but the Old Testament in the Bible is basically just a condensed History book. Most things found in the Bible can be corroborated with other Documents and physical proof unearthed by archaeologist through history and written about in more modern times. The Old Testament contains the history of the Jewish people and many others. Currently people in Social media and mainstream media are continuing to attempt to rewrite history and control the narrative. I understand this but am disappointed that people are not taking the time to research and find the truth for themselves.

I am impartial when I seek for true history and I don't involve my feelings in any of it. I also have a fluid opinion. If someone finds alternate facts and documentation to what I believe is the truth, I will go back and revisit my findings. I have found that alot of the history that was reviewed n the 70's and rewritten has been faulty in it's accuracy. I believe that this is where the major colleges began to be weaponized to indoctrinate students and bend history.

Well here is when I will start to paste in articles that I have not written. I only use them as reference material and nothing more. I have no opinion on them and will not change them. They belong to others and I am just sharing information.

null 7th century BCE silver scroll found in Jerusalem, containing the priestly benediction (Israel Antiquities Authority)

Jewish history began about 4,000 years ago (c. 17th century BCE) with the patriarchs - Abraham, his son Isaac, and grandson Jacob.

The Patriarchs

Jewish history began about 4,000 years ago (c. 17th century BCE) with the patriarchs - Abraham, his son Isaac, and grandson Jacob. Documents unearthed in Mesopotamia, dating back to 2000-1500 BCE, corroborate aspects of their nomadic way of life as described in the Bible. The Book of Genesis relates how Abraham was summoned from Ur of the Chaldeans to Canaan to bring about the formation of a people with belief in the One God. When a famine spread through Canaan, Jacob (Israel), his 12 sons, and their families settled in Egypt, where their descendants were reduced to slavery and pressed into forced labor.Jewish history began 4,000 years ago

Exodus and Settlement

After 400 years of bondage, the Israelites were led to freedom by Moses who, according to the biblical narrative, was chosen by God to take his people out of Egypt and back to the Land of Israel promised to their forefathers (c.13th-12th centuries BCE). They wandered for 40 years in the Sinai desert, where they were forged into a nation and received the Torah (Pentateuch), which included the Ten Commandments, and gave form and content to their monotheistic faith.

The exodus from Egypt (c.1300 BCE) left an indelible imprint on the national memory of the Jewish people and became a universal symbol of liberty and freedom. Every year Jews celebrate Pesach (Passover), Shavuot (Pentecost) and Succot (Feast of Tabernacles), commemorating events of that time.

During the next two centuries, the Israelites conquered most of the Land of Israel and became farmers and craftsmen; a degree of economic and social consolidation followed. Periods of relative peace alternated with times of war, during which the people rallied behind leaders known as judges, chosen for their political and military skills as well as for their leadership qualities.

The weakness inherent in this tribal organization in face of a threat posed by the Philistines (sea-going people from Asia Minor who settled on the Mediterranean coast) generated the need for a ruler who would unite the tribes and make the position permanent, with succession carried on by inheritance.

Moses by Michelangelo, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

The Monarchy

The first king, Saul (c.1020 BCE), bridged the period between loose tribal organization and the setting up of a full monarchy under his successor, David.

King David (c.1004-965 BCE) established his kingdom as a major power in the region by successful military expeditions, including the final defeat of the Philistines, as well as through a network of friendly alliances with nearby kingdoms. Consequently, his authority was recognized from the borders of Egypt and the Red Sea to the banks of the Euphrates. At home, he united the 12 Israelite tribes into one kingdom and placed his capital, Jerusalem, and the monarchy at the center of the country's national life. Biblical tradition depicts David as a poet and musician, with verses ascribed to him appearing in the Book of Psalms.

David was succeeded by his son Solomon (c.965-930 BCE) who further strengthened the kingdom. Through treaties with neighboring kings, reinforced by politically motivated marriages, Solomon ensured peace for his kingdom and made it equal among the great powers of the age. He expanded foreign trade and promoted domestic prosperity by developing major enterprises, such as copper mining and metal smelting, while building new towns and fortifying old ones of strategic and economic importance.

Crowning his achievements was the building of the Temple in Jerusalem, which became the center of the Jewish people’s national and religious life. The Bible attributes to Solomon the Book of Proverbs and the Song of Songs.

A thumbsized ivory pomegranate bearing a paleo-Hebrew inscription, probably from the First Temple in Jerusalem, 8th century BCE

(The Israel Museum, Jerusalem)

The priestly benediction

A tiny, 7th century BCE silver scroll found in Jerusalem, contains the priestly benediction:

"The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance upon thee and give thee peace." (Numbers 6:24-26)

Israel Antiquities Authority

The Prophets

Religious sages and charismatic figures, who were perceived as being endowed with a divine gift of revelation, preached during the period of the monarchy until a century after the destruction of Jerusalem (586 BCE).

Whether as advisers to kings on matters of religion, ethics and politics, or as their critics under the primacy of the relationship between the individual and God, the prophets were guided by the need for justice and issued powerful commentaries on the morality of Jewish national life. Their revelatory experiences were recorded in books of inspired prose and poetry, many of which were incorporated into the Bible.

The enduring, universal appeal of the prophets derives from their call for a fundamental consideration of human values. Words such as those of Isaiah (1:17), "Learn to do good, devote yourselves to justice; aid the wronged, uphold the rights of the orphan; defend the cause of the widow continue to nourish humanity's pursuit of social justice."

Divided Monarchy

The end of Solomon's rule was marred by discontent on the part of the populace, which had to pay heavily for his ambitious schemes. At the same time, preferential treatment of his own tribe embittered the others, which resulted in growing antagonism between the monarchy and the tribal separatists.

After Solomon’s death (930 BCE), open insurrection led to the breaking away of the 10 northern tribes and division of the country into a northern kingdom, Israel, and a southern kingdom, Judah, the latter on the territory of the tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

The Kingdom of Israel, with its capital Samaria, lasted more than 200 years under 19 kings, while the Kingdom of Judah was ruled from Jerusalem for 400 years by an equal number of kings of the lineage of David. The expansion of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires brought first Israel and later Judah under foreign control.

The Kingdom of Israel was crushed by the Assyrians (722 BCE) and its people carried off into exile and oblivion. Over a hundred years later, Babylonia conquered the Kingdom of Judah, exiling most of its inhabitants as well as destroying Jerusalem and the Temple (586 BCE).

Seal bearing the inscription to Shema, servant of Jeroboam, from Megiddo (Israel Antiquities Authority)

The First Exile (586-538 BCE)

The Babylonian conquest brought an end to the First Temple period, but did not sever the Jewish people's connection to the Land of Israel. Sitting by the rivers of Babylon, the Jews pledged to remember their homeland:

If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I do not set Jerusalem above my highest joy. (Psalms 137:5-6)

The exile to Babylonia, which followed the destruction of the First Temple (586 BCE), marked the beginning of the Jewish Diaspora. There, Judaism began to develop a religious framework and way of life outside the Land, ultimately ensuring the people’s national survival and spiritual identity and imbuing it with sufficient vitality to safeguard its future as a nation.

On the rivers of Babylon by E.M. Lilien

See Also

History: Re-Birth of a Nation

Map of Kingdom of David and Solomon

Models of Jerusalem: Four periods in the history of the city

Map of divided monarchy

External Links

Historical maps and atlases: Biblical and ancient history

Israel is small country in the Middle East, about the size of New Jersey, located on the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea and bordered by Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. The nation of Israel—with a population of more than 8 million people, most of them Jewish—has many important archaeological and religious sites considered sacred by Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, and a complex history with periods of peace and conflict.

Early History of Israel

Much of what scholars know about Israel’s ancient history comes from the Hebrew Bible. According to the text, Israel’s origins can be traced back to Abraham, who is considered the father of both Judaism (through his son Isaac) and Islam (through his son Ishmael).

Abraham’s descendants were thought to be enslaved by the Egyptians for hundreds of years before settling in Canaan, which is approximately the region of modern-day Israel.

The word Israel comes from Abraham’s grandson, Jacob, who was renamed “Israel” by the Hebrew God in the Bible.

King David and King Solomon

King David ruled the region around 1000 B.C. His son, who became King Solomon, is credited with building the first holy temple in ancient Jerusalem. In about 931 B.C., the area was divided into two kingdoms: Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

Around 722 B.C., the Assyrians invaded and destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel. In 568 B.C., the Babylonians conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the first temple, which was replaced by a second temple in about 516 B.C.

For the next several centuries, the land of modern-day Israel was conquered and ruled by various groups, including the Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Fatimids, Seljuk Turks, Crusaders, Egyptians, Mamelukes, Islamists and others.

The Balfour Declaration

From 1517 to 1917, Israel, along with much of the Middle East, was ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

But World War I dramatically altered the geopolitical landscape in the Middle East. In 1917, at the height of the war, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour submitted a letter of intent supporting the establishment of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. The British government hoped that the formal declaration—known thereafter as the Balfour Declaration—would encourage support for the Allies in World War I.

When World War I ended in 1918 with an Allied victory, the 400-year Ottoman Empire rule ended, and Great Britain took control over what became known as Palestine (modern-day Israel, Palestine and Jordan).

The Balfour Declaration and the British mandate over Palestine were approved by the League of Nations in 1922. Arabs vehemently opposed the Balfour Declaration, concerned that a Jewish homeland would mean the subjugation of Arab Palestinians.

The British controlled Palestine until Israel, in the years following the end of World War II, became an independent state in 1947.

Conflict Between Jews and Arabs

Throughout Israel’s long history, tensions between Jews and Arab Muslims have existed. The complex hostility between the two groups dates all the way back to ancient times when they both populated the area and deemed it holy.

Both Jews and Muslims consider the city of Jerusalem sacred. It contains the Temple Mount, which includes the holy sites al-Aqsa Mosque, the Western Wall, the Dome of the Rock and more.

Much of the conflict in recent years has centered around who is occupying the following areas:

Gaza Strip: A piece of land located between Egypt and modern-day Israel.

Golan Heights: A rocky plateau between Syria and modern-day Israel.

West Bank: A territory that divides part of modern-day Israel and Jordan.

The Zionism Movement

In the late 19th and early 20th century, an organized religious and political movement known as Zionism emerged among Jews.

Zionists wanted to reestablish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Massive numbers of Jews immigrated to the ancient holy land and built settlements. Between 1882 and 1903, about 35,000 Jews relocated to Palestine. Another 40,000 settled in the area between 1904 and 1914.

Many Jews living in Europe and elsewhere, fearing persecution during the Nazi reign, found refuge in Palestine and embraced Zionism. After the Holocaust and World War II ended, members of the Zionist movement primarily focused on creating an independent Jewish state.

Arabs in Palestine resisted the Zionism movement, and tensions between the two groups continue. An Arab nationalist movement developed as a result.

Israeli Independence

The United Nations approved a plan to partition Palestine into a Jewish and Arab state in 1947, but the Arabs rejected it.

In May 1948, Israel was officially declared an independent state with David Ben-Gurion, the head of the Jewish Agency, as the prime minister.

While this historic event seemed to be a victory for Jews, it also marked the beginning of more violence with the Arabs.

1948 Arab-Israeli War

Following the announcement of an independent Israel, five Arab nations—Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon—immediately invaded the region in what became known as the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Civil war broke out throughout all of Israel, but a cease-fire agreement was reached in 1949. As part of the temporary armistice agreement, the West Bank became part of Jordan, and the Gaza Strip became Egyptian territory.

Arab-Israeli Conflict

Numerous wars and acts of violence between Arabs and Jews have ensued since the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Some of these include:

Suez Crisis: Relations between Israel and Egypt were rocky in the years following the 1948 war. In 1956, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser overtook and nationalized the Suez Canal, the important shipping waterway that connects the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. With the help of British and French forces, Israel attacked the Sinai Peninsula and retook the Suez Canal.

Six-Day War: In what started as a surprise attack, Israel in 1967 defeated Egypt, Jordan and Syria in six days. After this brief war, Israel took control of the Gaza Strip, Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, and Golan Heights. These areas were considered “occupied” by Israel.

Yom Kippur War: Hoping to catch the Israeli army off guard, in 1973 Egypt and Syria launched air strikes against Israel on the Holy Day of Yom Kippur. The fighting went on for two weeks, until the UN adopted a resolution to stop the war. Syria hoped to recapture the Golan Heights during this battle but was unsuccessful. In 1981, Israel annexed the Golan Heights, but Syria continued to claim it as territory.

Lebanon War: In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and ejected the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). This group, which started in 1964 and declared all Arab citizens living in Palestine up to 1947 to be called “Palestinians,” focused on creating a Palestinian state within Israel.

First Palestinian Intifada: Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank led to a 1987 Palestinian uprising and hundreds of deaths. A peace process, known as the Oslo Peace Accords, ended the Intifada (a Arabic word meaning “shaking off”). After this, the Palestinian Authority formed and took over some territories in Israel. In 1997, the Israeli army withdrew from parts of the West Bank.

Second Palestinian Intifada: Palestinians launched suicide bombs and other attacks on Israelis in 2000. The resulting violence lasted for years, until a cease-fire was reached. Israel announced a plan to remove all troops and Jewish settlements from the Gaza strip by the end of 2005.

Second Lebanon War: Israel went to war with Hezbollah—a Shiite Islamic militant group in Lebanon—in 2006. A UN-negotiated ceasefire ended the conflict a couple of months after it started.

Hamas Wars: Israel has been involved in repeated violence with Hamas, a Sunni Islamist militant group that assumed Palestinian power in 2006. Some of the more significant conflicts took place beginning in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

Israel Today

Clashes between Israelis and Palestinians are still commonplace. Key territories of land are divided, but some are claimed by both groups. For instance, they both cite Jerusalem as their capital.

Both groups blame each other for terror attacks that kill civilians. While Israel doesn’t officially recognize Palestine as a state, more than 135 UN member nations do.

The Two-State Solution

Several countries have pushed for more peace agreements in recent years. Many have suggested a two-state solution but acknowledge that Israelis and Palestinians are unlikely to settle on borders.

So to summarize Israel owned the land they have now and much more from 4000 to around 2000 B.C. At this point going forward they had alot of turmoil and strife. Their land was taken over and controlled by many Empires. Ultimately in 1948 they officially got it back and became recognized as a sovereign nation. Since then they have been at odds with controlling their own borders and have been on the defense against aggressors from surrounding nations. Modern media has tried to portray Israel as the bad guy and showed alot of bias in reporting.

I myself have no opinion one way or the other. I do get a little irritated when people start to spread false information and try to rewrite history because it is inconvenient. I do have an opinion about current events within the last 50 years to present. There are wealthy powerful families of Jewish descent that are hell bent on controlling the world through any means necessary. There are also families of non- Jewish descent that are also hell bent on the same thing. I have also studied other religions and peoples to get balanced information to form unbiased opinions of my own. I implore people to do their own research and not just believe what you learn in media echo chambers.

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hasansonsuzceliktas · 5 years

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Reincarnation and Past Lives: What's the Truth?

Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş When the topic of past lives comes up, I always remember my own story. During the initial phases of a spiritual journey, images appear before you, and you need to question whether you made them up. In 1995, as I began my journey, I experienced various visions. Later on, in about 2002/2003, I became able to see and tell the past life stories of the people I touched, and I continued to question whether I was making these up or not. Reşat, you later told me, “You can see past lives, but it’s not much to talk about. Everyone can see them. The point is what you do with those past lives!” Only then did things somehow settle down in me. What’s more, you know when people say, “I was this or that person in a past life,” they generally see themselves as a king or queen, like Cleopatra . What you actually see is yourself as a rapist or killer, or the raped or murdered person. It’s mostly the bloody stories that are uncovered. I certainly haven’t encountered many famous figures in my personal stories. Well, it’s now time to elaborate on past lives—or more correctly, the incarnation of the soul—for people with no idea about such things. Why is a soul incarnate? Past lives are nothing but superstitious nonsense to many people, so I’ll ask you a few questions to start with: What is a past life? What is reincarnation? Is it real or not? Reşat Güner: We can of course talk about it from many different angles, but naturally, we human beings—who are embodied but own a consciousness connected to the spirit—need to rely on certain phenomena occurring right before our eyes. So, what are these phenomena? First, there are people who clearly remember their past lives in detail. Secondly, there are people with specific abilities and skills that would be impossible to develop in their short lives. These cannot be explained by genetics either, because there are no other people with such abilities in either the close or extended family. Besides, a significant indication that emerges from regression work occurs when problems are followed back to their roots. Some very relevant and logical stories are found. We can add to these the accumulated knowledge of spiritual work, spiritual communiques, and messages over the past centuries. Reincarnation is an inseparable element of the Indian and Tibetan religions. The followers of these religions immediately accept such a concept. Indeed, throughout humanity’s history, the concept of reincarnation existed in almost every community. If we talk about spiritual development here, we need to talk about beings who continue to exist even when their bodies die, and this is well known throughout the history of humanity. According to modern archaeological research, the survival of the consciousness after death (i.e., the permanence of the spirit) was accepted as long as 60,000 years ago. Some recent archaeological discoveries seem to point to the human beings of those times believing in existence after death. These findings by archaeologists and anthropologists demonstrate that this concept has been with humanity almost from its beginnings. Actually, it would be more correct to call it a truth rather than a concept or teaching. We know that we perceive the world through our limited senses, so the connections we can perceive through our senses are limited as well. For example, how do television broadcasts work? Waves in electromagnetic radiation are not perceivable by our senses, yet we still know they are there. Just like we cannot see or otherwise perceive these waves with our senses, we cannot perceive our past lives with our senses. However, if we know how to “look,” there is actually much evidence in front of us. For a start, we intuitively know it ourselves. Also, if a person experiences a regression, the memories and images seem so real for the person. To give a personal example, when I first became interested in spirituality, I had no psychic abilities at all. There were things I observed in my surroundings, but these were not things that made me curious. Until I experienced a regression, I had no perceptions or dreams about past lives. My mind is not made for fantasy-fiction. The left side of the brain is more dominant in me, meaning that I want to be a down-to-earth person. Sure, I study spirituality at its extreme fringes, but at the same time, I try to integrate my findings with the down-to-earth knowledge of daily life. Anyway, carrying on, the regression experience I mentioned was so real and had so many meaningful connections! Moreover, after that session, many emotional changes occurred within me, and I admit that even for the smallest change, I’d previously needed to work for years with many methods. However, after this first regression session, so many changes occurred in my life. Therefore, for the person who experiences them, these past life memories are real. When any reasonable person looks at these and makes connections, he or she inevitably concludes that there must be a being that continues independently of the body. We call it the spirit, but calling it a being is more accurate, because for us, the spirit is not something to perceive or know. Nevertheless, we have a being that has its exclusive identity and continues existing even when the body is no more. The best example of this is near-death experiences (NDEs). Even if we set aside spontaneous recollections of past lives and regressions that suggest reincarnation, there are millions of people with near-death experiences. Medical doctors have examined tens of thousands of such cases. Well-known researchers have also worked in this field, and they have put forth evidence. This indicates that people whose hearts have stopped (i.e., they are clinically dead), sometimes for up to 20 minutes, can go through an experience while being clinically dead. They leave their bodies and witness whatever happens around them, or they hear what their loved ones say as they wait outside. Most frequently, they observe their own medical treatment and hear the doctors and nurses talking to each other. They witness these things, and when they later come round, they talk about what they witnessed. Some of them even journey up to higher dimensions, completely leaving this physical realm for the hereafter, and they meet other beings or deceased love ones. They may even meet higher beings or guides. When they wake up, they talk about their experiences: “I felt so fine. I didn’t actually die...” NDEs are extraordinarily transformative for these people. Some researchers even study this transformative side of NDEs. Similar to NDEs, regression therapy work can be transformative as well. Over the years, we’ve personally worked in four or five cases that were extraordinarily transformative. Someone who has properly experienced a regression clearly understands it like this: “A-ha! I lived many lifetimes, and I didn’t end! I still exist. And all these memories built up my current identity.” Of course, we do not remember these memories in detail, even when we recall them during regressions, but why? It’s because we need to concentrate on the present life, and our current identity is particular to itself. This identity does not need to be tainted by the colors of other memories. After all, we carry a good amount of them with us, and these are what comprise our intelligence, or in other words, our abilities in certain areas. Indeed, what we call intelligence is completely based on all those experiences. Why are some people more capable in certain fields? It’s because they have experience in those fields. In other words, what we call intelligence is rapid visualization in a certain field. Not everybody is intelligent in every field. We know this. If a person is intelligent in a certain field, it means he or she is able to mentally process the relevant imagery and visualization in a prompt fashion, and this is based on that person’s previous learning and experience. Thanks to the many cases we have observed, we are sure of something: The being somehow continues its existence, even without the body. The consciousness continues to exist, and it transmits its experiences from one body to the next. The purpose of this is a process we may, in a general sense, call evolution or spiritual development. The amount that can be learned within a lifetime is limited, and for a person who lived during the Middle Ages, it was not possible to learn much at all. The world is a field of experience and experiment. We experience all manner of events in abundance: we kill and be killed, we torture and get tortured, we come as a female and then a male, and in the midst of it all, we experience the various sides of many different roles. The accumulation of all this comprises a whole that we call “I” at this moment. The question on everyone’s mind is probably “Why do things happen this way?” I don’t think this is a question we are meant to answer. Sure, it’s possible to study reincarnation using different modalities, because there are widely different approaches for the recollection of such memories. Researchers and scholars take varying stances towards the spontaneous recollection of past life memories, as well as memories that surface during regression. But overall, these are just points of view. Personally, I think the simplest model is the existence of a being—the spirit or the consciousness, if you like—that continues even without a body. This being continues to pursue its experiences through different bodies. Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş: Watching many documentaries, I have heard NDEs being explained as tricks of the brain. A friend of mine watched a documentary and still says, “They put a gadget on a man’s head and stimulated part of his brain; this caused him to feel that somebody was in the room.” Getting to the point, scientists always explain such things as tricks of the brain. Okay, another example pops up into my mind, although it’s a little different. If we sexually fantasize, we stimulate the body, yet there’s no real sexual partner there. I mean, just because you’re stimulating a nerve at a certain point does not mean someone is there. After all, you only find the point where the spirit is connected to the body. I mean, scientists might have discovered a trigger point in the brain that could create such near-death experiences, but it does not mean that a near-death experience was really caused by it. You, as a researcher, only discover the mechanism in the technical sense. You just mentioned that the body remembers. How does the body remember? Reşat Güner: Before this, I would like to point something out: Some NDEs are deemed to be hallucinations, but there is clear data to indicate the very opposite. In NDEs, a man leaves his body and, for example, sees a shoe on an unseen part of the rooftop. This shoe can only be seen from above, yet the man wakes up and tells his doctor, “I saw a shoe on this part of the rooftop. Could you please check if it’s there?” His doctor climbs to the rooftop and cannot see it, but then he notices it from an almost impossible angle. Many other perceptions are similar to this, and it is implausible that all of them are hallucinations. When studied carefully, many cases do not appear to be hallucinations. What’s more, the brain is part of the process of course. After waking up, a person will tell about the things that remain stored in the brain. If a person cannot bring back a memory imprinted in the brain, what can he or she tell us? Nothing! After all, some experiences are too transcendent to be properly understood and expressed, so people say, “I cannot describe it!” If a person reaches a high level where there is no imagery, he or she can only say, “I just experienced a profound peace.” That’s all. Even during operations, under anesthesia, people can experience such things. Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş Have you ever experienced astral projection? Tülin Etyemez Schimberg Yes. Reşat Güner Of course. Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş In astral projection, you also float and soar in the air, and you feel so peaceful. When you return to the body, everything becomes heavy again. Reşat Güner Of course, yet we still have to represent it through the brain we have right now. We can elaborate on this later. At the moment, we need to talk about the memories that remain in the brain. The brain is actually like a receiver. Tülin Etyemez Schimberg Well, maybe we need to point this out first: Our being is not contained in this body. We assume the opposite. We think and talk in terms of a spirit or soul in the body, but The Divine Order and The Universe by Bedri Ruhselman, M.D. gives us a different concept of this being. Our being is like an induction, I mean, like an influence... Our essence-being has an influential mechanism over our body. When it withdraws this influence, what happens? At the moment of pulling the plug, the body returns to its atomic, material base, just like in The Matrix movie. Remember what happened when they pulled the plug? Therefore, if everything works through an influence mechanism, it means that things are transmitted or transferred as influences. We have been using the concept of psyche, which is a concept developed by Bedri Ruhselman, M.D. while researching the concepts of Neo-Spiritualism. So, we have a physical body, as well as an emotional body and a mental body. These are the intermediate body layers: Physical, Astral, Mental, and Causal. These are the concepts of bio-energy work, and there are now many gadgets to measure them. Whenever you experience a trauma—let’s say you break your leg—it is imprinted on your energetic body. However, the same incident also brings an emotion that you carry along, such as a feeling of helplessness. Now take the physical trauma plus your helplessness and add to them a thought that emerges during the trauma, such as thinking, “I’ll never go there again. I’ll never succeed.” For example, imagine you have a past life as a slave. You were taken by force from your town, village and family. They bound your hands and feet and threw you onto a ship. You later died while being flogged. In such a memory, there is a physical situation of your hands and feet being bound, and your physical body transfers this to your psyche, so the body carries the state of being tied up within the body-psyche. In addition, you died without defending yourself because you were helpless, so you carry the emotion of helplessness. Moreover, let’s say that with your last breath, at the moment of death, your final thought (which is very important) is about your pregnant wife and children who you are leaving behind. What will you think in such a state? You’ll be thinking, “I’ll never see them again.” All of these things, as a complex, are carried over. Now, let’s say, you sprain your ankle in your present life and experience a physical problem in your foot. This can then trigger a feeling of helplessness. Suddenly, you begin to relive the complex you carried over and start to think, “I’ll never see them again” or have anxiety attacks. Sometimes a client comes and says, “There is sorrow within me, but I can’t find the reason why...” or “I don’t feel like I belong here.” Others say, “I don’t belong to my family” or “I am deeply lonely.” We look at these and see how there are imprints on the physical, emotional and mental layers. Even if the original physical construct does not exist anymore, and even if the atomic construct is no more (because what we call the afterlife is also matter), this knowledge can still be carried within the subtle material construct of your psyche, which you may prefer to call the astral body. The book The Divine Order and The Universe offered us a wonderful model. We were looking for answers to questions like “How can all of these things be transferred, and which mechanisms play a role here?” when we found the chapters about brain cell beings in this book. These brain cell beings record and register everything we experience in life through the subconscious. Then, even once you are dead, even once your physical body has reverted back to its individual atoms, these brain cell beings continue to carry your experiences as knowledge. Reşat Güner Yes, indeed, the book gave us a wonderful model to work with. Before it, we couldn’t find a working model to explain the survival of personality after death. This was a topic I had pondered for many years. Yes, the characteristics and qualities of a personality clearly continue beyond death, and these are transferred to another body. We see it. At least, sensitive or psychic people can when they contact a dead person and perceive all of that person’s qualities, or maybe they perceive them when a message is transmitted through that dead person. We know this, but how? How does this happen after the body dissolves and the personality is gone? We couldn’t properly answer this question before this book was published, and it was one of the most important answers we found in the book. It meant that the being continues to keep together the brain cell beings that belonged to that lifetime. In a way, it keeps them safe within itself. Then, as we begin to connect to another body, these beings reincarnate in the new brain cells. Tülin Etyemez Schimberg Let’s say they are transferred as influences. For example, The Divine Order and The Universe offers a model for consciousness: It says that all people have a consciousness, and everything related to their lifetimes are recorded in the subconscious. This is like a bridge. Later, when that person dies, there is an evaluation process in the subconscious level. It’s like a sort of accounting process, a comparison of the lifetime’s experiences with previous records from all the previous incarnations. Questions like “What did I do or not do? What did I plan, and how much did I accomplish?” become distilled and refined before being added to the existing essence-knowledge in our essence-being. This is a form of evolution, or if you prefer, spiritual development. Now, if you ask how this influence mechanism works, let me remind you of our usual daily spiritual small talk: “Mercury is in retrograde, and all my affairs are in a mess! The universe will provide...Beware! Mars is in retro now!” It’s not unlike this, as there are innumerable influences within a plane of existence, and almost everything within the spiritual system works through influential interactions, so we also have this model about influences. In the book, it also says that a being at our current level of consciousness should have gone through 500–700 incarnations. It is not necessarily exactly 500, of course, but we find in our regression therapy work that a being leads good lifetimes as well as bad lifetimes. In some lifetimes, a person is relatively insignificant and nothing special happens, while other lives are full of action, such as ending in suicide and so on. Within all these cycles, the being is always on a vast theatrical stage, and everybody else also plays their roles perfectly. The play then ends, and all the actors go backstage and evaluate their performances: “You should do this. You should do that…” Some actors played the servants, while some played the villagers, and another played the king. Within each role, there is a life experience that the role entails. When you backstage, you evaluate it. If you find there were some missed lines that ruined your performance, you can go back on stage to play the role better. In this way, we sometimes see how we return to life many times with similar cycles or patterns in order to learn some specific things, and this continues until we really get what we want. Yes, many times people come to see us with questions like “I want to know my purpose in life? Why am I here? What is my mission? I need to know it.” Sometimes, our current life plan is to learn patience or to unearth our inner compassion, or maybe it’s to learn about what power really is by paying the karmic debts accumulated during lifetimes where we abused power. Again, The Divine Order and The Universe explains how we continuously go back and forth between the negative and positive poles, where the negative pole is worldly cravings and the positive pole is the conscience. This continues until we find equilibrium. I have noticed this from the first moment a person says, “ I am happier now.” Generally, the development can be seen as a zigzag line, sometimes up and sometimes down. In other words, you are neither at the top nor at the bottom constantly. We continuously live within these up and down movements, and after a while, a certain event begins to slow the pace of these ups and downs. These movements still happen, but they become increasingly balanced as they settle around the middle point. Within this whole process, we see how a magnificent system of love works in the universe, because when a being experiences what he needs to live through and goes up, or if you like, when it returns to its essence-being, there is nothing left but the experience. Even after lifetimes where a person played the cruelest aggressor or the greatest victim, once the person is off the stage, all that matters is the experience. There is a profoundly vast system forming and generating all of this. Imagine a system where the need of a person is never in conflict with the need of another, because everything is in equilibrium. Your need and my need correspond, so an incredible system of solidarity and assistance occurs. Within this context, you sometimes see how the one who did the cruelest acts toward you, your biggest enemy, is actually the greatest helper in your education. Unfortunately, when things are easy, we tend to slack off, and the being does not try at such times. It’s only when restraining influences arrive that we strive and struggle, and so we go through such periods by learning many things. Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş As you say, the people who help you most in your development are the most challenging ones. These people are generally partners, parents, or bosses. Regarding the model you just mentioned about the brain cell beings, I think it raises a few questions. Could you please elaborate on it? I would like to understand it better. M. Reşat Güner Of course, we’ll do as much as we can. We too are still trying to understand and digest the knowledge in the book. The model it mentions is not too complicated. You know, there is a holographic model. I think that the majority of your followers already know about it. When an image, let’s say of a tumbler, is recorded on a plate holographically, it makes a hologram. When you look at the plate, all you see is some complex patterns, but when a laser light is directed to this plate…volia! You get a three-dimensional image of the tumbler. However, here comes the most inspirational quality of a hologram: If you break this plate into two, you’ll still get the whole image from one piece. Sure, it gets fuzzier as the pieces get smaller. The thing is, no matter how many pieces you break the plate into, you still get the whole image from one piece. So, from this model, two scientists arrived at interesting conclusions. One was Karl Pribram, a neuroscientist who used this holographic model while studying the working principles of the brain . The other was David Bohm, a well-known physicist who was deeply inspired by the holographic model when explaining the functions of the universe. Now, when looking from this point of view, we see how most things in our reality work through this model. That is, within each part or piece, there is knowledge of the whole. Like how the DNA of any cell in our bodies carries knowledge about the whole of the body. In the universe, everything works within such a system. We can also study it from another angle. For example, this tumbler is a part, and a human being is another part. Sure, a human being has a wholeness itself, but that wholeness comprises smaller parts, and it is also a part of a greater whole. In short, everything we can see and perceive, from atoms to the galaxies, is all both made up of smaller parts and a part of a greater whole. The best example is the human body: Atoms form molecules, molecules form cells, cells form tissues, tissues form organs, organs form systems, and systems form the organism. When we look at one layer, we see a molecule is a whole within itself, but it becomes more meaningful when it becomes a part of a cell. Again, the cell is a whole in itself, but it is able to function better as part of a tissue. We can continue this process indefinitely. Arthur Koestler named this holon, which isderived from the Greek word holos, meaning “whole.” It describes something that is simultaneously both a whole and a part, so a cell is a holon, because it is both a whole and part of a greater whole. Likewise, each cell in our bodies has a correspondence in the being-ness: Each cell has a soul! Let’s call it this for the time being. By this, I mean it has an energetic correspondence. After all, following the discoveries related to quantum mechanics and the concept of anti-matter in recent years, I think physics researchers have encountered similar findings. So, coming to the brain cells, these are the most developed cells in the body, the most conscious cells, if you like, because they are the conveyors of consciousness. We call them neurons. They exist not just in our brains but also in the nerves throughout our bodies, as well as in the heart and intestines. Each neuron in the brain has a being, and the sum total of these forms the current consciousness, personality, and identity of a person. Experiences at the physical level—actually all of our experiences—create a motion in the neurons and this, in turn, causes conscious perception in our brains. In this way, a “firing” occurs in the brain through the sensory organs. Therefore, the experiences our neurons gain are also transferred to each of their beings, where they store this knowledge. Imagine the sum of all beings belonging to the neurons as the memory of all your experiences. The brain inevitably dies, but the brain cell beings live on. In fact, brain cells begin to die on their own after a certain age, and I believe the knowledge in these is also transferred to other cells through the brain cell beings. Once physical death occurs, these beings leave their bodies (i.e., the neurons). In a general sense, the brain cell beings are a subsystem of the being that constitutes our whole identity, and they continue their existence. When a being decides to incarnate again (i.e., it draws a life plan, chooses its parents, etc.), and as the brain and the nervous system of this new body begin to form in its mother’s womb, the beings from the previous brain cells slowly begin to incarnate in their new “bodies” (i.e., the newly formed neurons). Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş And because they remain as energy, they connect to it as energy. M. Reşat Güner Exactly. Tülin Etyemez Schimberg After all, everything is energy. Isn’t it? M. Reşat Güner The transfer of knowledge, or information if you prefer, from one lifetime to another occurs this way. However, there is an interesting point here, and this almost always raises the same question: “So many people live so many lifetimes, but the population is always on the rise. Does this mean the number of spirits is growing as well?” In a way, The Divine Order and The Universe explains this point elegantly. The brain cell beings do not forever remain connected to a being. After a certain stage of development, they leave one being and separate. Each of them then begins to incarnate in various different systems (i.e., the bodies of other organisms) in order to become new beings each capable of managing a body by itself. As they develop stage by stage, each brain cell being becomes a being capable of managing a human body by itself. This is related to its accumulation of experience and knowledge. In this way, the creation sustains itself by branching out. Of course, I’m sure that in both the near and distant future, more models will be devised. For now, however, when we look from the viewpoint of the holographic model, each part has information about the whole, and the universe sustains and grows itself in this manner. In turn, the beings within the universe diversify and multiply in the same way. The knowledge or information is never lost, because there is a sort of order within the universe. There is no absolute entropy (the thermodynamics principle indicating a gradual decline into disorder). If there were, the universe as it is couldn’t exist. Yes, matter has inclination to a certain degree of entropy. It has a tendency to dissolve and disperse, but only to a certain point. Beyond this point, a force holds everything together and organizes it, a force that generates negative entropy. You know, entropy means a gradual decline. You pour hot tea, and after a while, it gets cold in the cup. All matter decomposes until the system finds its own equilibrium. Tülin Etyemez Schimberg What happens when we die? Entropy occurs. Matter separates into its base atoms; it decomposes and turns back to its original state, because there are no more incoming influences. There is no more power supply, so the light goes dim and turns off. What makes the bulb shine anyway? It’s the influx of influence and energy coming toward it. What happens when you stop the influx? It reverts to its original material form. M. Reşat Güner Is what we call inanimate matter really inanimate? No, it never is, because it is comprised of elements. We therefore cannot say that matter is without consciousness, or unconscious if you like. Why are there over a hundred elements, all of which remain in the same pattern? This is also a form of consciousness but on its own level. What we understand by consciousness is a being that interacts and communicates sensibly. This is the definition of consciousness for us. Yes, of course, consciousness at the human level is the highest and most developed level that we know of. However, it is not all that there is. Matter has its own kind of consciousness, and matter is not limited to what we can see. We can only see a very limited portion of matter. There is matter we cannot see, and even our being is actually made of matter. Yes, what we call the spirit is also matter, but it’s extraordinarily subtle (an energy flux causing physical and spiritual influences at the micro level) and its vibration is extraordinarily high. Regardless, it is still matter. So, let’s hope we will find more useful and elegant models in future, so much better explanations can be made. After all, reality has its own particular construct, and we can only develop various models to understand it. Science is just this. Science is developing models in order to understand reality, and the level science has reached now is the same level the human consciousness has reached. When we look into it, nothing is limited by our minds or intelligence. After all, the universe existed long before we did, before the Earth was even formed. Everything else was already there. Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş When you said “model,” I thought maybe some of our readers might think, “Why do they look for models?” Well, I was a communications major, and in my college, the professors always sought and studied models for communication between people. Right now, here we are with friends on the academic side of the spiritual, and they look at things just like academics do. This is why they talk about models. While in college, we doubted the benefit of the theories at first, thinking that these teachers would be better off talking about more practical matters. The thing is, though, if you cannot use a theory as a basis, you cannot see its practical side. I only understood this after graduation. Practice without theory is like walking with one leg. To use both your feet, you need theory as well as practice. M. Reşat Güner Certainly. In the previous part of the interview, we talked about regression. If we study the human consciousness and work on transforming it, we need a strong model in our hands. The more detailed the map in our hands is, the stronger the interventions we can make and the greater the transformations we can bring about. If our model is small and simple, we can only move around on a small field. However, if our model is vast and detailed, then this means the field we can explore is many times as vast... Of course, as developed as the human consciousness is, there are more elegant possibilities now. With God’s help, the generations after us will take it further. We will then understand what kind of reality we human beings live in, and right now, that is much more important than anything else, because at the background of all the problems we moan about is the inability to pin down the meaning of our own existence. Currently, most people are in this kind of crisis, namely an existential crisis. Tülin Etyemez Schimberg All those increasing numbers of depression cases... Tell me, what have we been asking for? We struggled to buy a car and then a house. Once we had them, we bought better and newer ones! And now we see that none of it satisfied us. However, we assumed that all of these things would add something to our being and make us happy. They may have in a way, but the true need of our beings is entirely different. So, what do we do when we identify with matter? When we cannot have it or buy it, we ask, “Then what am I?” I think regression therapy gives the answer to people. If I can put it in a simpler way, by setting aside all the models and theories, let’s imagine that there is no concept of reincarnation... All of the things ever experienced or lived on this world influence everybody currently alive. In other words, the incidents or conditions that my ancestors experienced in the past are now affecting me. As genetics indicates, you carry the DNA of your last seven generations of ancestors. What does this mean? It means you also carry the unfinished business of your ancestors. You count your mother and father, their mothers and fathers, and so on. For example, for seven generations, 2 is raised to the power 7. Imagine the branching as the number grows exponentially. So, why do we do regression work now? We do it in order to live better lifetimes and vitalize our current lives. It’s not for this or that past life but rather for this one. Which life is the most real, the most important? This life! So, as we lighten or release our burdens in this lifetime—whether their roots are in past lives or childhood or ancestral periods—we clean, integrate and transform them. Remember, you are the ancestor of the next 27 people, the next seven generations... You know, frequently asked questions include “How can this world be changed?” “What should we do?” and “What can I do by myself?” We turn on the TV, and when we see scenes of conflict and war in vicious cycles, we lose hope. However, whatever we see on screen is the battle of our parts within. The micro is reflected on the macro. If this is the case, what should we do? We should start to work with ourselves. When we facilitate the change within ourselves, it will be holographically reflected on the world at the same time. When we are integrated and become whole, we increase the chance of others integrating as well. In this sense, the knowledge and information that we pass from generation to generation varies and changes, and we, as individuals, can do many things in this sense. How? Can you change your partner, your kids, and your siblings? No way! Even changing ourselves entails a great deal of effort. We resist it, and if we take one step forward, we usually take two steps back. First of all, we must begin with ourselves. Once we can build it within and achieve it through deep transformation, it will be reflected on the whole anyway. Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş You put it across so well that I cannot think of anything to add... M. Reşat Güner Please let me quickly add something. Tülin’s words evoked a line of thought in me. Now, one of the most important keys of spiritual development is, as many diverse spiritual teachings and traditions also state, how a person should experience the here and now as much as possible. Living the now throughout our being is possible only by cleaning the parts that still cling to the past. If we don’t clean these, living the now remains just a fanciful concept in our minds. However, when the parts that need to be dealt with are clean, and the necessary integration is achieved, we become able to live the now properly. Only then can we be in the now and digest it accordingly, because otherwise, those unprocessed parts will pull us in other directions. Yes, there are many identities and personalities within us, and as these pull and distract us in many different directions, we cannot live in the now. We cannot be occupied with the now, nor can we be in it. However, when this integration occurs, it is possible for a person to experience the now and feel the peace that really exists in a person in a profound way. This is why the work on the self is so important. The task for people is to work on themselves using various methods, so they can understand and come to know their own beings. Hasan “Sonsuz” Çeliktaş Thanks so much for this wonderful interview. I hope we can come together again to discuss other topics. Read the full article

#channelling #dharma #east #karma #pastlives #regression #reincarnation #soul #spirituality #therapy

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