#petroglyph writing

[docileeffects]

[ancientorigins]

From mere vocalizations to intricate cave drawings, ancient communication methods continue to captivate us, revealing humanity's remarkable ingenuity in our quest to connect. Exploring the depths of history, we find that communication in its earliest forms consisted of simple vocal sounds, cries, and hunting calls, later evolving to include resourceful methods such as drums and horns, facilitating communication across vast distances.

As the limitations of vocalization became evident, prehistoric people turned to visual ciphers as an alternative means of conveying complex messages. With the advent of fire, smoke signals emerged, and over time, our ancestors advanced to the creation of intricate carvings and petroglyphs. Before the development of writing systems, pictograms allowed for the representation of more abstract concepts.

The introduction of the alphabet laid the groundwork for the development of written languages, marking a transformative milestone in human communication. This progression eventually led to the establishment of the first postal systems, highlighting the enduring impact of written communication on society.

Today, we enjoy the privilege of instant connectivity, thanks to the advancements in modern communication technology. However, it's essential to acknowledge the ingenuity of our ancestors, whose innovations paved the way for the communication marvels we now rely on.

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

The purpose of this paper is to make public the exceptional discovery in the province of Essaouira (Morocco) of three petroglyphs engraved with an original subject in Moroccan rock art.

Regardless of the cultures involved, observation of the sky and astronomical bodies has been of worldwide interest since prehistoric times. Petroglyphs have been found around the world and have been interpreted by researchers as signs of the Sun, of Moon and of supernovae. However, very few of them have been interpreted as bolides, comets and meteors or meteorites. It is not difficult to admit that these events could have been interpreted by early societies as bad or good manifestations of the gods and; therefore, carved on rocky surfaces to be admired by future generations. In fact, Bailey argues that phenomena related to meteors and comets seem to have played an important role in the beliefs and social habits of most civilizations.

After carefully cleaning Ida 1 (brushing and vinegar), the only engraved side of this piece features a spectacular scene of a man and woman apparently panicked by the fall of a meteor.

overall view of the petroglyph Ida 2

Identically on Ida 2, not yet cleaned of its clay and sand gangue and under the secondary precipitates of carbonate drandruffs, we can identify a scene that includes a fleeing anthropomorph and a large car.

After cleaning, Ida 3 symbolizes a scene that includes an anthropomorphic, two cattle of different sizes, a meteor and a figurine of the sun with concentric circles in the center. To complete his ideogram, the artist has arranged two lines of inscriptions with Tifinagh characters with blunt incised lines on the sides, showing, thus, an image-inscription association that is arranged in the interval that remains free, where it blends harmoniously. These Tifinagh inscriptions, which are difficult to translate, are quite old, it is impossible to date them precisely.

Figure 8. Ida 1: two human figures (probably a woman (A) and a man (B) and a meteor with a hollow centre (D). Ida 2: a human figure (C) and a meteor (E). Ida 3: meteor with four wavy lines (F).

"Rock Art and Archaeoastronomy in Morocco: Preliminary Observations" by Abderrahmane Ibhi, Fouad Khiri, Lahcen Ouknine, Abdelkhalek Lemjidi, El Mahfoud Asmahri

[nobleelfwarrior]

I’m at a rock art symposium right now, so I want to remind everyone how to treat rock art.

First, what is rock art? Rock art are carved or painted images or symbols on rock faces. They are part of the landscape. For many people creating rock art, it is a sacred site and experience. From an archaeological perspective, rock art is invaluable. Rock art is created to convey a message using symbolism that is often lost. Imagine viewing the Sistine chapel without knowing anything about Catholicism. There was something being said, but it takes a lot of effort to understand it, but it still tells archaeologist a lot about the people.

So, if you go to a rock art site remember to not touch. Not with your fingers or paper or pen. There may be residue that can be sampled to teach us more and your interactions could contaminate it. Worse, the oil in your skin can degrade the rock art.

Second, if you take pictures do not post them to social media unless they are a public site (for example an interpretive site by the blm in the us with a trail and placards). Your pictures include meta data, like your location, or horizon lines that can be used to identify the location of the rock art, putting it in jeopardy.

Third, leave no trace. Do not dig around the art, don’t take any artifacts, and do not graffiti. This is a sacred site. You would get in trouble for carving your name into the Vatican.

Finally, notify the appropriate authorities if it is unmarked. For the US, that will probably be a national park, national monument, the blm, or the forest service. If you live in a country where you are concerned that reporting the rock art will endanger it, please continue to keep it secret. If you notify authorities, feel free to report vandalism. It is important to note the changes in the rock art condition over time. If you are ever in doubt about who to contact, university anthropology programs will be happy to help.

Rock art is important to me. I don’t have any that I can point to and say “that’s my ancestor”, but it brings me a lot of joy to study them. Please help protect them by spreading this message.

[homenecromancer]

progress post for this thing i’ve been working on... yes, i won’t lie, this fic is straight up an excuse for me to turn the “self-indulgent bullshit” knob all the way to eleven

summary: the year is 199X, and the employees of the School decide to throw a Christmas party. things go either poorly or very well indeed, depending on your point of view

0000000

Until the Christmas party, you didn’t get along. After that, you did, and that was worse.

Roland ter Borcht had been a late addition to your team — he had come from Itex after the buyout, and that meant he simply hadn’t been there during the startup phase of things. You knew him — the professional circles you moved in, even before he joined your company, were small enough that you’d have had to put effort into ignoring him — but you didn’t consider him a friend. Just a face you saw in the halls.

But at the end of the first full year after the buyout, you were all in a festive mood. Things were going well, better than you’d dared to hope for, and of course the increased funding you got from Itex helped smooth things over. And so, you decided to throw a Christmas party.

Valencia did most of the decorating, which should have made you suspicious. But you were busy figuring out how to throw a party whose centerpiece wasn’t a bathtub full of jungle juice, and you were just grateful someone else was hanging the decorations. She’d even brought her camera to take pictures of it all.

You were pouring the last of the punch into the bowl when you heard a knock at the door.

“Come in!” you called, stirring cautiously with the ladle. One of Valencia’s friends had contributed the recipe. There were little chunks of fruit in it.

You didn’t have so many coworkers that you couldn’t recognize him just by voice. It wasn’t necessarily a pleasant voice, but the accent was distinctive. And you still knew few enough Europeans that you found it faintly exotic.

“Am I too early?” he said. He’d signed up to bring potato chips, and he had — his arms were full of bags. Well, at least he wasn’t a flake.

“No, come in,” said Valencia, who was busy setting out stacks of napkins and paper plates.

You stirred the punch a little more, then took three cups from the stack next to the bowl, and began ladling out the punch. “We’ll start a little early,” you said.

You didn’t really register that ter Borcht had come to the table next to you and set the chips down until you heard Valencia laugh.

“What?” you said.

You looked at her, and wondered why her camera had suddenly moved from hanging by its strap to sitting poised ready in her hand. Then she pointed up, above your head, and you understood.

Stapled to the foam ceiling tile, positioned strategically above the punch bowl — was a strand of mistletoe.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” you said.

“That’s hardly fair,” ter Borcht said, next to you. There was a nervous edge to his voice.

Valencia only laughed again and, worse yet, raised her camera. “Gotcha,” she said.

“You’re not going to blackmail me, are you?” you asked. You knew she wouldn’t settle for a quick greeting kiss on the cheek, either. No, she would want you to pose.

It all happened very fast after that. A hand tapped you on the shoulder, and you automatically turned to face its owner.

Ter Borcht said, “Take the picture.”

Then he grabbed the front of your shirt and, unflinching, pulled you towards him — and kissed you.

You didn’t have an extensive record when it came to kissing, and were therefore rather lost when it came to what to do next. Luckily for you, he kept things brief — he brought his lips to yours, kept them there a moment, and released you. He smelled like aftershave.

You opened your eyes and said, “I hope you got the picture, because there’s not going to be a repeat performance.” There was a hot flush on your cheeks, as though you’d been outside in the cold.

Valencia laughed and patted her camera. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I got it.”

///

The rest of the party went well, though you couldn’t decide if you felt betrayed, embarrassed, or some other, third thing. Valencia was in high spirits, and ter Borcht surprised you by staying the whole time — so whatever you were feeling, neither of them shared it. You settled for just not thinking about it until, very suddenly, you found that the party was over. And ter Borcht needed a ride home.

As it turned out, he was even in the same apartment building as you. So you didn’t even have the excuse that it would take you too far from home. Faced with this pressure, you folded.

Standing next to your car in the parking lot, you said, “Don’t make it weird.”

He looked at you silently for just a moment, then said, “Pardon?”

His grasp of English idiom was still a little patchy, you decided. “Just get in the car.”

He stayed quiet as you started the car and poked your way through the darkness away from the School; the whole car rattled on the gravel access road. You realized, with shame, that you were still a little drunk. You held the steering wheel harder, as if that would help.

You almost forgot you had a passenger until you were turning onto the highway back to town. His voice was soft. He said:

“Sorry I ruined the party.”

You were a little started; you couldn’t remember, just then, what he was talking about. “Huh? You didn’t ruin the party.”

“At the beginning, when I--” He broke off there, and made an embarrassed hand gesture you could only partly see while driving.

“Oh,” you said, before he could finish the sentence with a lethal verb. “Uh, yeah. Don’t worry about it.” You fumbled for words. “Valencia is – kind of a prankster, sometimes. She plays jokes on people.” And there was no way she was ever going to let you live this one down.

“I know the type,” he said, after a pause.

You doubted that – you didn’t know him very well, but you also knew that no one seemed to know him very well. He was polite but never friendly; when you sent the invitations out, you hadn’t expected him to show up to the party. The shape of his character was, to you, a pure negative space, defined by that absence of knowledge. A flicker of alcohol-fueled determination went through you. To hell with the polite fiction of self he showed at work. You wanted to know the man.

That was your excuse to yourself when you let him invite you to his apartment. You could’ve just gone straight home without fear of committing a social faux pas. But as you parked he said artlessly, “Do you know, I’ve been living here a year already, and I’ve never had a visitor?”

“Really?” you said, and you followed him upstairs.

His apartment looked familiar the moment he opened the door. It looked like Valencia’s apartment – like yours. The furniture was lazily-arranged and clearly on its fourth or fifth owner, and nothing seemed to quite be in its proper place.

There was only one thing on the walls, you noticed. (Valencia’s apartment was virtually wallpapered with framed posters and artwork. You, on the other hand, hadn’t so much as put up a calendar.) The couch was an earth-toned relic of the 70s, its familiar Western pattern worn by years of use. And above it, tacked neatly to the wall, was a photograph you knew.

It showed a ruined village, protected by a looming outcrop of stone that hid it from the sky. The buildings that remained upright stood in the loose rubble of their own slow collapse. You knew that, in real life, the soft, ashy gray of the bricks in the photo was a warm brown that echoed the sheltering mass of sandstone overhead – and you knew that the photo didn’t show the dark black lines of desert varnish that laced that stone.

Ter Borcht had gone into the kitchen – you could hear the sink running and cabinet doors opening – but he heard you when you said:

“Hey, I’ve been there.”

“What?” he called.

“The picture,” you said. “That’s Mesa Verde; I didn’t know you’d been there.”

“Oh, I haven’t.” His voice preceded him out of the kitchen. He was carrying two glasses of water, and he offered one to you. You took it. He said, “I found that in a – thrift store.”

Ordinarily you would have shut up and just let that statement hang awkwardly in the air. But tonight you said, “It’s a national park in Colorado – I went when I was in college.”

He looked at the photograph for a moment, silent. There was a distant look in his eyes. “I thought it was very beautiful,” he said quietly. “You could take me sometime?”

You were a little startled by that, simply in logistical terms. You were torn between the potential joy of showing someone a place you had loved, and the practical fact that you barely had enough time off for sleep, much less driving across multiple states. “I mean, if we’re ever in Colorado,” you said. You cast about for something else to offer. “There are some petroglyphs, rock carvings, in some of the canyons around here, I could show you those.”

[mutant-distraction]

In the elevated Indus Valley of Pakistan, you'll find some of the world's most intricate and diverse petroglyphs. Specifically, the ancient Shatial glyphs along the Karakoram Highway in the Gilgit-Baltistan region stand out. Dating back to the Stone Age, these glyphs adorn rocks and boulders, extending for over 100 kilometers. Encompassing various languages, religions, and the symbolism of peoples spanning 10,000 years, these remarkable writings and designs face potential threats from modern hydropower projects planned in the Indus Valley.

[yatima]

Ok Tumblr it's your Elder here to remind you that yes, the Northern Hemisphere nights are dark and the cold is getting into your bones and maybe you think everything's going to keep getting worse forever and you'll just get older and older until everyone and everything you love is dead: but you're only partly right.

Because yes sure we are all gonna die but in the meantime and maybe even because of that, there's joy. Even if it's only a bird half glimpsed from a moving vehicle, even if it's only the warmth in a cup of coffee, even if it's only the memory of someone who adored you as whole-chestedly and unconditionally as you deserve to be adored, joy is real in the world.

And tomorrow morning as I write this, the sun will shine along the passage at Newgrange and the sun daggers will frame the petroglyph in Chaco Canyon, and that is evidence that the long slow celestial mechanics of reversion to the mean will pull us inexorably back to springtime and the first green things growing out of the earth. The elders before me built these monuments to remind me to remind you that the sun will return.

And in the meantime let's hold hands in the dark. Let's tell the bleakest jokes we can think of at funerals to try and get the bereaved to laugh. Let's hug each other to coregulate our tender nervous systems that are trying so hard to keep us safe and alive. Let's watch how fast the efficiency of solar power is overtaking that of fossil fuels (effectively free energy by 2035: let's live to see it.) Let's revel in gods like pigeons and coyotes that can learn to coexist with humans.

Let's remember that there are more ordinary people of goodwill than we can possibly imagine: people who observe stop signs and pull over to let fire engines pass and who pay their fucking taxes and never cross pocket lines: normal working people who are kind to animals and who love all children and who feel solidarity across race and class and gender lines. Let's be those people and raise our children of blood and choice to be those people, the infrastructure of the world, the sunbeams shining into the dark.

[iferguerrero]

How long did Simon and Betty know each other? Timeline

How many years did the stable relationship of Simon Petrikov and Betty Grof last?

Hello, everyone, I bring you this post that is focused on the past of Simon and Betty, in Fionna and Cake we are given more information about their relationship before everything that happened in Ooo.

I have several theories about the dates, which is why I created a timeline.

I filled in some boxes with drawings.

Simon Petrikov & Betty Grof Timeline

1 week

1.The whole story begins when Simon and Betty want to take the same book from the library, but let's not forget that Betty had already been following Dr. Petrikov's work, which is revealed in "Jerry," "I've admired your research for years," which leads us to assume that since she was studying her career, she already knew Dr. Petrikov but only as an author of books. 2. After that, in "Temple to Mars," when they pass the tests, it is revealed that she was planning a trip to Australia to study petroglyphs, and her plane leaves in a week. (This is where she mentions that she left her career for Simon. I consider that she refers to her career not at the moment of the bus but at the moment when Simon looked for her through the Jambo portal in the episode "Betty." This is where Betty's career was cut, I'll explain this further.) 3. She already had the ticket for the trip, but just that week, she attended Dr. Petrikov's lecture, where she expresses to Babette the following: "I touched his hand in the library once." 4. Excited by Dr. Petrikov's lecture, she wants Dr. Petrikov to sign her book. They make comments about a vase, and Dr. Petrikov says it would be very good for her to accompany him on the expedition to search for The Enchiridion. She doesn't think twice and accepts. Dr. Petrikov is surprised but agrees that she can join the trip.

1 month

5. Dr. Petrikov and Betty go on the expedition to search for The Enchiridion. I want to believe that this took them a month, during which they got to know each other better as people. 6. They have fun, and it's clear that Betty is not afraid of anything, and in the end, she doesn't do what Dr. Petrikov says. 7. They return, and the word spreads. Dr. Petrikov wants both to get credit, but Betty doesn't want it. Dr. Petrikov doesn't express himself correctly and tells her that “it's indispensable”, and Betty leaves.

3 weeks

8. A "couple of weeks" pass, which could be calculated as 3 weeks, and Simon reads the note and rushes to Betty. 9. Simon and Betty reveal their mutual feelings, but in doing so, Simon stops Betty from getting on the bus. 10. My favorite scene ❤️

1 year

11. In the episode "Bespoken For," we are shown that they met for lunch at Captain Tasty's, and they used to eat there all the time. They even had a favorite table, and since Simon belonged to the "Book-a-day club," he gave books to Betty because she belonged to the "Book for the bookless" club.

2 years

12. In the episode "Come Along with me," this sweet scene shows that Simon and Betty live together. Simon is reading a book that mentions "GOLB," but he doesn't fully understand it. 13. Betty tells him to stop doing that and suggests they make sundaes. 14. Betty throws a can of cherries at him and accidentally hits him. Here, it's clear that she's concerned, but Simon takes it well, knowing it was an accident.

1 month

15. In the episode "Simon Petrikov," Simon talks about going on an expedition to the Temple of Java with Betty, where they lost half of their provisions, but Betty somehow put together a four-star dinner.

1 year

16. In the episode "Jerry," Simon comments that Betty makes the best soft-boiled egg, not runny, but perfectly jammy. (It is adorable how Simon expresses about Betty)

3 years

17. Betty and Simon write a book together. According to the internet, the average time to write and publish a book is 3 years.

1 month

18. Simon goes on another expedition and purchases the crown in Northern Scandinavia from "an old dockworker" as part of his studies to be an antiquarian of ancient artifacts. 19. Betty "disappears." (Although we know that she actually went to the future). 20. Simon records the tapes.

So, from what we can see here, it would be an approximate total of:

7 years and 4 months

What do you think? :)

From my perspective, this is a very good amount of time to get to know someone, especially considering that they were already living together. This is why Betty Grof was of legal age, and she knew what she was doing consciously. I believe there was a lack of communication towards Simon, and Simon should have asked because if we notice in the episode "Simon Petrikov," he tells Finn that if he is the one leading, making it clear that Simon could easily have gone along with whatever Betty wanted to do. As I mentioned, Betty felt that her career ended when she was transported through time by Simon, not before.

Thank you guys!

[rrrick]

"In the elevated Indus Valley of Pakistan, you'll find some of the world's most intricate and diverse petroglyphs. Specifically, the ancient Shatial glyphs along the Karakoram Highway in the Gilgit-Baltistan region stand out. Dating back to the Stone Age, these glyphs adorn rocks and boulders, extending for over 100 kilometers. Encompassing various languages, religions, and the symbolism of peoples spanning 10,000 years, these remarkable writings and designs face potential threats from modern hydropower projects planned in the Indus Valley."

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

High up in Pakistan's Indus Valley are some of the most intricate and diverse petroglyphs on earth. These are the ancient Shatial glyphs on the Karakoram Highway in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. Dating from the Stone Age to the birth of Islam, the glyphs cover boulders and boulders stretching for more than 100 kilometers. The writings and designs cover various languages, religions and the symbolism of peoples dating back 10,000 years.

[Historical Images]

* * * *

“You walk towards the edge of knowledge, and then you walk down the vertical plateau of curiosity.”

— Ahmed Salman (via inthenoosphere)

[unhonestlymirror]

Kamyana Mohyla, or The Stone Tomb, is a unique monument of geology and archaeology of world significance, located in the Zaporizhzhia region near Melitopol.

It is the only place in the world where drawings and petroglyphs dating from such a wide historical range are concentrated in a small area: from the Late Paleolithic era to the Middle Ages (20-16 millennia BC - 11-13 centuries AD). Kamyana Mohyla served as a "world mountain", like Olympus in ancient Greece. It is (as a natural creation, in contrast to much later cult objects created by people - ed.) older than Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids and all the ziggurats of the East.

They say the inscriptions are the first examples of human writing: some scientists adhere to the hypothesis that the Melitopol petroglyphs are one and a half to two thousand years older than the world-famous Mesopotamian clay tablets.

Traces of the red paint have been preserved on some drawings. Petroglyphs are made with small stones of hard rocks, which easily left traces on soft sandstone. Several such quartz stones were discovered in the course of research. Goat cave, Bull and Dragon grottoes, a two-meter stone figure of a man-fish... And everywhere there are images of the Tree of Life, a symbol of fertility and eternity.

In the 1950s and 1970s, a debate arose regarding the dating of images to the Palaeolithic, Neolithic, and even Eneolithic. Palaeolithic dating was mainly advocated by V. Danylenko and O. M. Bader (at least at the early stage of research), M. Rudynskyi and other researchers adhered to Neolithic dating. The debate essentially boiled down to whether one of the largest petroglyphs is a mammoth or a bull (a mammoth would point to the Palaeolithic and a bull to the Neolithic). The panelists died in the 1970s and 1980s, remaining true to their opinions, continuing, each in their own way, to call the grotto with the controversial image "The Grotto of the Bull" and "The Grotto of the Mammoth".

People have left their "autographs" here since the Stone Age (22-14 millennium BC). Walls were painted both in the Bronze Age and later. Remains of ancient altars were found here. Through the drawings, you can trace primitive religions — totemism, magic, animism, fetishism, the cult of ancestors... The role of a temple that united three worlds (heavenly, earthly and underground), this steppe monument near Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia region, has performed for many millennia of various tribes and peoples who passed through.

Since February 2022, Kamyana Mohyla has been under russian occupation. In November 2022, the occupation authorities announced the subordination of the reserve to the federal museum-reserve "Khersones Tavriyskyi." The latter is located on the territory of the occupied Crimean peninsula.

[imactuallysoup]

SIMON = TEACHER

OLAY BUT IMAGINE SIMON AS A TEACHER FOR A QUICK SECOND.

CLICK EXPAND FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THIS WONDERFUL IDEA

THE DOODLE IS SHIT BUT LOOK. Its plain yes and simple and like honestly kinda obvious?? But I haven't seen anyone do it yet. I haven't seen any art for the idea so I wanted to do it Because I'm cool okay.

Like this would be his main fit. Its Betty's sweater because why not and some pants a math teacher would where everyday for years. I can imagine him teaching in university or college on history/ancient artifacts of course. BUT LIKE I THOUGHT ABOUT THIS AU FOR NO REASON REALLY HARD. LOOK AT MORE OUTFITS BELOW

INFODUMP BELOW THANKS OR OTHERWISE THANK YOU FOR LOOKING AT MY ART<3

So some information for this au no one will see is that he would hate the cold and honestly have Seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Makes sense right?? This Simon wouldn't be as adventurous as normal and so he wouldn't go searching for them in the wild but he would have a massive interest in them still and continue to write books about research he's done. He would settle into a more teaching job though to teach other people about well the world and ancient stuff for people who wanna hear about it and even give presentations to other places. Like mega nerdy. And maybe he would meet Betty after she finally took her trip to see petroglyphs. Something sweeter so they can bond a more functioning relationship.

In the teacher au or whatever the heck I'm naming this idea, Simon would not have found the crown or come near to finding it. He would live a good long life and after ending up with Betty he would die happy with his loved one after the world ends. The au would like be more focused on the inbetween like I don't know. Bro had a life before the crown and before Betty. I just like thinking of it. And he's such a teacher though like honestly??

This is the end of my rant everyone. I hope you enjoyed my idea and I hope people like this and stuff. I'm just like... My brain is rotting becuase of this idea. I think this idea should be touched on more. WHAT IF HE WAS SLIGHTLY LESS ADVENTUROUS? WHAT IF DIDNT GET CURSED? WHAT IF HE DIED A HAPPY MAN IN THE BEGINNING? ???

[ancientorigins]

Ancient art or ancient writing? The stunning Damaidi rock petroglyphs in Ningxia China were used to leave stories for others in the deep past. Some have an intriguing resemblance to Chinese characters and may hold the key to the origin of this complex writing system.

[dieletztepanzerhexe]

Tifinagh alphabet, from Aghali-Zakara (1993 and 2002): Hoggar (Algeria); Aïr (Niger); Ghat (Libya); Azawagh (Niger-Mali); and Adghagh (Mali)

"The "written landscape" of the central Sahara: recording and digitising the Tifinagh inscriptions in the Tadrart Acacus Mountains" by Savino Di Lernia and Stefano Biagetti

[marykk1990]

My next post in support of Ukraine is:

Next site, the city of Boryslav (Борислав) in Lviv Oblast. The city was first mentioned in writings back in 1387, but there have been people living in the area since the Bronze Age. There's remains of a pagan shrine from the 1st millennium BC nearby with around 270 petroglyphs that have solar symbols on them of a pre-Christian solar deity. During Kyivan Rus times, there was a fortress called Tustan on the site of the modern city. The city later became part of different kingdoms, first the Kingdom of Poland, then Austria. After WWI, it became part of the West Ukrainian People's Republic, but then after the Polish-Ukrainian War, it again became part of Poland. It was annexed by the soviet union in 1939 under the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Then, in 1941, it was occupied by the Nazis. After WWII, it again became part of the soviet union. The area actually produces oil and a substance known as ozokerite. It's a type of natural mineral wax or paraffin and is used in things like electrical insulators and candles. (Дякую, Wikipedia. I've never heard of that substance before.)

#StandWithUkraine

#СлаваУкраїні 🇺🇦🌻

[blackvahana]

Lightning ritual, 4/4/24

In Zeus’ territory, though that hardly narrows it down, there's a great expanse of red rock as far as the eye can see, an active lightning field. There are some formations of huge rocks stacked on top of other rocks, the swathes of red rocks have sedimentary layers except they band visibly on the surface. The sky above is blackened, gold on the horizon.

Young sky spirits are brought here for the rituals of rememberence, to tie their lines to those that came before - to ignite their mind with the Sky itself, the petroglyphic utterances of the ancestral collection of the Sky Bird.

Their bodies are marked with sigils. On the forehead is a sort of letter-character, representing them, their strengths. Each letter of any language ties into the sky for Indra-Zeus, his skies are painted with speaking and writing as one, and if you are to join you will take your place as a letter. This isn't a huge symbol however, it's not like this binds you to that letter, but it's important to him and that's what matters. In order to become a part of the sky, you have to fit a key into a lock - locks and key patterns are arbitrary but extremely specific to themselves.

On the body is patterns and scrawls that have their own meanings. On the outside are patterns of “feathers” representing, together, the Birth Cave, a place within which the Sky Fathers weave history together, something hard to get across and so worth its own post. Inside this down are depictions of various sacred animal spirits, vahana-esque in the way they're symbolic of qualities and act as vehicles - though literal vehicles - for various parts of the initiate's soul, journey, etc.

The Birth Cave is an awful thing to skip over because it's central to the markings. It's symbolic of the history of the Sky itself, but not, the Sky is both it and contained in it. Specifically: It's the true origin point, and so, because the Sky is seen as the origin point, it is synonymous with the sky… But really it's the clay of Creation. The Birth Cave is containment, the sacred temple, the outer limits, and thus is also the expanse and the knowledge that there is something outside - think how a “cave” implies that it is a pocket within something else even if all we see is the cave.

Regardless, the initiate is woven into the Cave. In visions, the Cave is a place for the initiate to carve their own place into, this registers symbolically on this plane as cave paintings, but isn't the same.

What actually happens in the ritual is not to be spoken about, because it's the point speaking inverts and becomes pure existence. There are birds, there are revelations, there are visions, ancestors, mergences.

The lightning plays a key though. The sky spirit should be prepared to be struck, that plays a key part. The ritual is walking into the mouth of Zeus and expecting to come out the other side, but it is also a shedding of skin whether it's ready to come off or not.

This is, though, chiefly a mutual respect of Father Sky and Sky Children inheriting. The symbolic painted hands on the wall are not an absorption into a hivemind, this is not about assimilation but revelation. It uses the power of the Kings of Mountains to transcend the mind's barriers and ignite the river of the archetypal forces… If a sky spirit is a sky spirit, then it is a sky spirit, and the sky is ancient and its river extends beyond the birth and death of sky spirits - thus the sky spirits who are ready and chosen can be given a lightning bridge to outside themselves.