Tumgik
#Burial Doll Replica
ladybugmeat · 1 year
Text
15:05 – London Low Line
The rain falls in thin, translucent sheets. The smell of a Quarter Pounder, of sesame oil and tallow, is transported down the street in brown paper bags. The air is fat with the image of patties on a hot plate and the primitive urge to turn into the warm, yellow outlet. At the restaurant front, a young girl sits beside a life-sized doll, still boxed. Both don pigtails. She feeds the doll and then herself. The McDonald’s arches flash reflections about the wet – dictated by the light and movement in the street. Once in a puddle, flash, then in the book shop window, flash, superimposed over the upper deck of the 188. The yellow arches zoetrope over an approaching taxi, the opening door.
15:14
Like pound coins, the discard of bottle caps shine amongst the shrubbery bed of a five-story estate. The hinge along a corridor of bin storage doors swings open – Number 13, a single mottled mattress, a nest of coats. A man saunters out between cars, yelling a corridor of expletives. His teeth jar like a series of muddied castle battlements.
15:16
Cross Bones Graveyard, a post-medieval burial ground on Redcross Way. The gate is weighted with weather-worn trinkets, ribbons, and bug-eyed soft toys. The shrine lies a mile from the Shard – its needlepoint obscured in cloud. The bodies of 15,000 prostitutes, paupers, single mothers, suicides, and lost children lie beneath the cement. Denied a Christian burial, the outcasts were piled upon a former plague pit.
15:17
“Individual 99”
This is a replica of a 16-year-old girl’s skull. It was the 99th skeleton found at Crossbones. The hole in her skull was caused by third stage syphilis. Third stage syphilis only occurs after 8-10 years of continually sexually contracting syphilis.
The bronze-cast skull shows an opening as large as my hand. The eye sockets collect with rain.
The quiet corners sit with cross-legged plastic skeletons, pallid-faced Marys praying, fake flowers burying themselves in the earth. A rusted studded wristband lies amongst the coppers of funeral garb. A browned pipe leans against a flock of china geese. The ‘Winchester Geese’, the derisive name given to the brothel (stew) workers, were licensed, and taxed under the Bishop’s religious ordinance. Geese – birds that flaunt their white chests to mate.
15:22
A CCTV camera surveilles the dead. Above an electricity cable box, a sign warns: DANGER OF DEATH. Below, a small man victim to a large lighting bolt.
15:25
And well we know, how the carrion crow doth feast in our Cross Bones Graveyard – John Constable, 23 November 1996
15:27
Borough Market: £15.50 Wild Mushroom risotto is slopped into warm styrofoam. The olfactory of rosemary, wet deodorant, and rubber. Mushrooms grow from fungal spores that thrive in damp, dark conditions. They require a medium that is high in decaying matter. 
15:31
Turning left, a crowd of college students bid on another good night. The women preen in the window of an off-licence. The acrylic signage promises Ting drink in unfamiliar flavours. A bus surges water atop the pavement and the group move on.
15:34
With the wind, the purple flower spike of a Buddleia pokes to and fro between the window of a hollowed house-front. It gingerly crawls back through the window frame like fingers. The hardy plant has been recognised as London’s symbolic shrub. It was the first plant to grow amongst bombsites after The Blitz. A Rumour: Romans brought it to England from the Himilayas in their sandals.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
8 notes · View notes
tombraiderhorizons · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media
In the previous edition of Arte-Factual, I looked at Mexican sugar skulls, a folk art tradition that combines Christian religious practices with ancient Mesoamerican beliefs. This time around, I thought I’d turn my attention to the burial doll replica Lara Croft comes across in the remote town of Kuwaq Yaku in the jungles of Peru.
Click here to read “Arte-Factual: Burial Doll Replica”
12 notes · View notes
thewestern · 7 months
Text
Chapter 12.5
Now when he was a young man,
He never thought he'd see
People stand in line to see the boy king.
It’s true that as pharaohs go, Tutankhamon wasn’t really all that memorable. Not in terms of his achievements. Nor was he infamous for some or other empirical blunder. He was just a kid. Nine years old when he ascended the throne. Dead at nineteen. Perhaps then the Boy King captured the childlike imagination inside of us all.  
Or rather it was his toys. Because the real reason you and I know Tutankhamon was his tomb, and more specifically, all the wonderful things contained within it. Lucky for us, the entrance to his tomb had been obstructed by rubble and debris — likely the handiwork of some fly-by-night ancient Egyptian contractors in the course of their renovation of a neighboring tomb unit in the Valley of Kings (KV). As a result of his being hermetically sealed away as such, like in a storage unit, all of his royal stuff was preserved in near-mint condition. Likewise, the many looters who had plundered nearly every other crypt of note couldn’t get their grubby grave-robbing mitts on it. So that when KV62 was finally discovered, largely intact, in the early Nineteen Twenties, the public could be spellbound by the opulence of these his burial goods. Among the artifacts, a great many of them gilded, there was an iron dagger, rare for the Bronze Age, revealed by X-ray fluorescence to likely have been fashioned from a meteorite. Hell yeah. As well as there were luxury chariots, designer sandals, linens of ancient Egyptian cotton and of course his iconic funerary mask, forged of solid gold, baby. Those and hundreds of other treasures were buried there for what was supposed to be all-time with his diminutive teenage mummy. For he was a sickly boy king. And like Russian nesting dolls, laid alongside his there were a pair of sarcophagi which were tinier still, whose occupants were later proven by DNA analysis to be his daughters, probably stillborns.
(King Tut) How'd you get so funky?
(Funky Tut) Did you do the monkey?   
The media frenzy resulting from the find was unprecedented in the history of Egyptology. Newspapermen from all over the world reported breathlessly as contents were extracted from the tomb and catalogued somewhat haphazardly by the attending archeologists. Their readers simply had to know … What would they dig up next?
They had hit paydirt. Tutankhamon had arisen from his tomb, a popular cultural phenomenon reincarnate. Before there was Beatlemania, there was Tutmania. That was seriously the suffix by which they called his ascent to fame. Three thousand years posthumously, King Tut — as he was so affectionately nicknamed — had achieved -mania Mode. (Other previous and subsequent -manias include: Tulip Mania, a period during the Dutch Golden Age when the speculative price of tulip bulbs reached exceptionally high levels before collapsing dramatically, and Beanie Mania, a period during the American Golden Age wherein the same thing happened with plush toys stuffed with plastic pellets. Also Billy’s favorite -mania, Wrestle, which remains ongoing.) 
They composed big band songs about him on Tin Pan Alley. Cast him a leading man of the silent film era. Women flocked to department stores to purchase household goods, some modeled faithfully after the primeval appliances, others crudely appropriated of their exotic-sounding names and likenesses. 
You can bet your sweet ass that Big Museum cashed in too. Exhibited over the decades from Tokyo to Toledo, Ohio, London to New Orleans, Louisiana, Paris to St. Petersburg (Russia, not Florida), King Tut’s treasures became arguably the most well-traveled relics in history.    
Born in Arizona,
Moved to Babylonia (King Tut).
In the Fall of Seventy-eight, KT — or more specifically a life-size replica of his mummy — was subletting an unfurnished wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the last scheduled stop on his three-year North American Tour. By that time his shit was hot, having already been cargo-shipped around the world and back again. Circumnavigations that included a visit to the former Soviet Union, which at the time harboured considerably friendlier relations with the Egyptian government than its Cold War combatants. As you may imagine, this constituted a great embarrassment to these United States. So much so, that following Secretary of State Henry Kissinger’s deft diplomatic interventions during the Yom Kippur War, President Nixon immediately cashed in the resultant political capital, boarded Air Force One to Alexandria and personally appealed to his counterpart Anwar Sadat to please, let his people look upon these magnificent things. Sadat relented, and years later, while Tut was lying in state at the Met, Sadat was himself stateside at Camp David, signing the as-titled Accords with Israeli PM Menachem Begin.
On that very same day that President Jimmy was brokering Middle East Peace  (okay … two things that Hayseed got right, Hank would have begrudglingly allowed), meanwhilst untold thousands of tourists were descending upon the Upper West Side like locusts with fanny packs, there was An American Band — nay, The American Band — kicking off a three-night run at the New Sound & Light Theater just outside Cairo, which from Tutankhamon’s down valley resting place was about the same length-drive from New York to D.C., albeit along the banks of the Nile, a Hell of a long way from the Hudson or the Potomac. The Grateful Dead gigging Giza and the Great Pyramid was mostly Phil’s project. Go figure. Like they had recently been to Stonehenge or something and he was on this kick about them playing Places of Power. The pyramids are like the obvious number one choice, he said, because no matter what anyone thinks they might be, there is definitely some kind of mojo about the pyramids. Fucking-a. But on the other hand, show me a place of power and I’ll show you one of suffering, someone might could have informed him. Live From Chornobyl. Europe 72 AD (recorded at the newly constructed Colosseum). At Folsom Prison. 
(Plattsburgh Air Force Base? Big Cypress?)  
Whatever. Hank wasn’t there if you were wondering. They’re weren’t hardly any capital-f Fans in the audience. Mostly members of The extedned Family. You know, usual suspects: Mountain Girl, Kesey, Ram Rod, Bill Graham, Bear, Portland Trailblazers’ center Bill Walton, Big Steve. As for local party crashers, the nearly blindingly nearsighted Lesh claimed to have caught out of the corner of his soda bottle-bespectacled eye some shadowy figures gathered on the crowd’s outskirts, swaying rhythmically in dark flowing robes. Somehow it was later backchanneled to him that these were Bedouin, the nomadic horsemen of the desert, and that they’d been drawn in by the lights and the music, falling on and echoing off the eroded profile of the mighty Sphinx. 
Hank did attend one of the shows they put on back home to help offset the cost of hauling all their crew and equipment, all the way to fucking Egypt. (Whereas aformentionedly he heard the debut rendition of Shakedown Street, the title track of the forthcoming studio album.) This had not been a treasure-hunting or even profit-seeking Arabian adventure. What meager proceed there was had been donated to the Antiquities Society. (It belongs in a museum!)
Hank had however seen the Tutankhamun traveling road show when it stopped through his town. Fucking everybody went. Even the Grateful Dead! The band members had been, in a way, so resurrected by their experience in Egypt, that they couldn’t hardly wait to visit the blockbuster exhibit for themselves. Conveniently its final destination was right down the street, at the M. H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park. (The U.S. tour had originally been announced without any San Francisco dates. Area Tutheads bombarded the Mayor’s office demanding that he wield the fullest extent of his executive power to Bring Tut To The Bay. de Young Museum trustees flew to Cairo shortly thereafter to negotiate the terms of his visit.) Let the good times roll!
By all accounts, Jerry had especially high expectations for Egypt. They were going to harness the power of that ancient place and levitate the pyramids, he was purported to have said. Of course, Abbie Hoffman and the yippies had attempted that same metaphysical feat on the Pentagon in the decade prior, granted the geometric parameters were incongruent. They were ten years on from the Summer of Love. Garcia had since forsaken the world-expanding properties of LSD in favor of heroin, which as we know constricts time and space down to a much more manageable plane. Although now the walls of his tomb were closing in on him. Maybe that’s what he felt that day at the museum. That the existential jet lag had set in, and the big trip was really over for good this time. All that was left was the sand in his pockets and all these souvenirs. 
Alas, the show must go on. Record company’s on line one. We got a studio album to cut. One of the lest-remembered tracks on Shakedown St. is its finale: If I Had The World To Give. As a fairly straight-ahead love song, it’s sort of an outlier in the Dead oeuvre, even for a Garcia-Hunter ballad. Okay, obviously, there’s TLEO, but isn’t that about love as a concept, conceptually, rather than the act of loving somebody? THEY love EACH OTHER. And it’s a warning. Their love is like a freight train, and boy they better take care it don’t run ‘em clean over. Easy for you to say, watching from the station.   
A true love song — it could be said — is about love in the first person. I love YOU. From my POV, where I stand astraddle these tracks, I can hear the whistle blowing, see the locomotive coming round the bend, smell the steam now as I feel the cattle guard sweep me off my fancy feet, launching me sky fucking high, to kingdom come. And, baby, I don’t care if I ever come down. Because even if I brought you back heaven and the moon and the shining stars above, you still wouldn’t love me back, would you? Don’t lie to me, baby. That’s alright. That’s just fine with me. Because I got something bigger and better. Don’t believe me? Wait till you hear this … (It could also be said that the best love songs are about romantic feeling unrequited. If he or she already loves you back, then really, what the hell are you strumming an acoustic guitar for, like an asshole? Wasting time which could be better spent screwing. That’s what.) This song that I sing to YOU, with these assembled here today as my witnesses: the acid heads and the speed freaks, the Jerry Side and the Phil Zone, the spinners and the tapers and the nomadic horsepeople. It is a divine force all too powerful and too pure for YOU and ME to keep locked away in this tomb of love. THEY have to know what WE have. It is something they can never understand but they can hear it so that they may feel an infinitesimal fraction of it for themselves. THAT is what all THIS is for. 
They only played it three times, all in that same Fall of Seventy-eight, the last of which rendition was performed in Cleveland, of all fucking places, arguably the third best city in Ohio (possibly fourth best, depending on your tolerance for the delicacy which is Skyline Chili), and undoubtedly a long fucking way from Cairo. (Famously, Cleveland is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The city lobbied for the right to host the Hall by citing that local disk jockey Alan Freed had coined the term, Rock And Roll. Additionally it pledged sixty-five million dollars in public money to fund the construction. The building was designed by hall of fame-architect I.M. Pei, who drew up the blueprints for many-a-museum, including the Louvre, which like its Clevelandish cousin, also prominently features a glass pyramid for its plaza facade.) November the Twentieth. By then they were a poorly fucking lot. Bobby was purportedly backstage puking his guts out for the better part of Set Two. Phil, for his part, was by his own accounting a fully-blown drunk in Seventy-eight. Kreutzmann had a cast on his hand, which he busted getting bucked off a goddamn camel. Speaking of the Grateful Dead and their Great Pyramid scheme, the Rocking the Cradle live album they had planned to release as a means to pay for this boondoggle in full had to be scrapped. So here they were, a half a million in the Red Sea, all on account of some crew member had gotten into a row with the piano tuner, who then tendered his resignation in protest. So Keith was off-key in addition to being offbeat. The latter owing to his accelerating abuse of cocaine, which does a number on one’s sense of time. Hard on a marriage too. So, of course, he and Donna were on the rocks. What else is new?
On top of all that bullshit, before the curtain fell, the band’d just been informed of an unspeakable tragedy that had occurred only two days previous. Leo Ryan, a U.S. congressman representing California’s fightin’ eleventh, where indeed all the band members resided (and some of them paid taxes), was gunned down on an airstrip in Guyana. Murdered by an outfit by the name of the Red Brigade on the order of its commanding officer Jim Jones, another erstwhile San Franciscan and embattled leader of the Peoples’ Temple, which had fled to South America to escape persecution for their fringe religious beliefs and raised this settlement that they called Jonestown. (Congressman Ryan had launched this fact-finding mission at the urging of the loved ones of the alleged cult members, many of whom were his constituents. Upon completing his investigation, he was prepared to report back that living conditions were indeed adequate and that, by his judgement, no one was being coerced to remain there against their wills.) Anticipating swift reprisal for this slaying of a sitting U.S. congressman, the Reverend called upon his flock. Rather than be themselves slaughtered by the capitalist pig forces which had been conspiring against them (among whom Jones cited the CIA, the FBI, the U.S. Postal Service and others), he beseechethed thee to commit an act of Revolutionary Suicide. In single file they lined up — men, women and children … alphabetically by height — to be served red plastic cups of grape Flavor-Aid, ladled from a large metal vat. In place of LSD, this fruity concoction had been laced with a cocktail of chemical agents that which notably included the compound commonly known as Cyanide. Small children died within five minutes. Less for babies. (Mothers were instructed to administer their own infants’ doses via syringe.) Adults took an agonizing twenty-to-thirty minutes to succumb. Just over nine hundred people died that day. All but one — Jones was found with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the left temple, his head cushioned by a pillow — died of the poisoning. The events at Jonestown constituted the greatest single loss of American civilian life in a deliberate act until the incidents of September the Eleventh.   
Maybe Jerry was thinking about that. Or, albeit less likely, he could have still been hung up on Ole King Tut, laid to rest beside his wife and half-sister Ankhesenamun, their two deadborn daughters — cherubs, elaborately embalmed — and all their fabulous worldly possessions, when he sang, presumably for the last time, these words: 
Well maybe I've got no star to spare, or anything fine or even rare,
Only if you let me be your world, could I ever give this world to you.
Could I ever give this world to you.
0 notes
Photo
Tumblr media
In the previous edition of Arte-Factual, I looked at Mexican sugar skulls, a folk art tradition that combines Christian religious practices with ancient Mesoamerican beliefs. This time around, I thought I’d turn my attention to the burial doll replica Lara Croft comes across in the remote town of Kuwaq Yaku in the jungles of Peru.
Continue reading this article over on Tomb Raider Horizons!
1 note · View note
girlobsessed21 · 5 years
Text
The 100 season 6 predictions #2
Tumblr media
As promised, here’s another prediction post. I checked my previous one and most of it occurred or might still play out in some way. This time I’m not so confident but I try. My mom vetoed only two of the theories I discussed with her and she’s brutally honest, so that’s something, at least.
That said, I’ll start with the basics. 
The Episode guide
6x09 - What you take with you
UNLIKELY COMPANIONS - Bellamy must venture out into enemy territory with an unlikely companion. Meanwhile, Octavia is forced to confront her past.
This is also the title of the biography of Therese Greenwood about wildfires that destroy an entire community in Canada causing its inhabitants to flee to safety.
A snippet from Rich Malloy’s article ‘What’s In There? Only What You Take With You’ about Yoda’s teachings to Luke Skywalker in the cave. “As we move through life, facing challenges, enjoying moments, getting excited, or being calm, how we are in that moment depends on what we take with us. Did you get blindsided by a difficult conversation? You faced it with only what you took with you. Did you prepare for the meeting? You faced it with only what you took with you. Each day we have new caves to enter with unknown challenges to face, and we do so with only what we take with us.”
6x10 - Matryoshka
REUNITED – Russel seeks justice. Meanwhile, Gabriel must make a difficult choice. Lastly, the Blake siblings reunite
Tumblr media
The following was taken from Kerry Kubilius’s article: The Origin of the Matryoshka, Russian Nesting Dolls
A matryoshka (plural: matryoshki) is a Russian nesting doll, and they are often simply called nesting dolls. It's pronounced mah-tree-YOSH-kah. These dolls open to reveal increasingly smaller versions of the same doll, one within another. The dolls can be pulled apart in the middle to reveal the next smallest doll, with the smallest doll being made of a solid piece of wood.
6x11 - Ashes to Ashes
Ashes to Ashes is a British crime drama series, serving as the sequel to Life On Mars. The series tells the story of Alex Drake (played by Keeley Hawes), a police officer in service with the London Metropolitan Police, who is shot in 2008 by a man called Arthur Layton and inexplicably regains consciousness in 1981.
"Ashes to Ashes" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie. Described as "containing more messages per second" than any single released in 1980, the song also included the plaintive reflection:
I've never done good things
I've never done bad things
I never did anything out of the blue
Instead of a hippie astronaut who casually slips the bonds of a crass and material world to journey beyond the stars, the song describes Major Tom as a "junkie, strung out in heaven's high, hitting an all-time low". 
'Ashes to ashes' derives from the English Burial Service. The text of that service is adapted from the Biblical text, Genesis 3:19 (King James Version):
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”
6x12 - Adjustment Protocol
Adjustment - a small alteration or movement made to achieve a desired fit, appearance, or result
Protocol - the official procedure or system of rules governing affairs of state or diplomatic occasions
6x13 - The Blood of Sanctum
Fire. Blood. Romance. Death. A glorious return. A shocking end that will change everything forever.
Blood Sanctum is a combat anomaly that can be found in null security space with Blood Raiders presence.
Blood globally represents life itself, as the element of divine life that functions within the human body. ... Blood and WINE are interchangeable symbols; in Chinese symbolism, blood and WATER are associated as complementaries, as THE YIN AND THE YANG. The term cold blood refers to unfeeling.
I’ll get into more details below but what I take from all of this is that the primes cannot continue to cheat death and that time dilation will play a big part in the series. Either in the current season or the next. 
Aboard the Eligius ship
Tumblr media
Indra is back! Yes! I’ve called out to this awesome warrior in almost every analysis and finally, someone heard me. Kane will most certainly be less than pleased with his new body, but while he has it, he might as well put it to good use.
We’ve seen Abby’s downward spiral season after season, episode after episode, yet Kane’s transformation might be an all-time low. It’s known of drug addicts to purposefully re-invent themselves after hitting rock bottom. Abby Griffin stopped the pills and then focused all her energy on saving the man she loves, whose death was ultimately a subject of her addiction. 
He will certainly try and find a way to punish her for the selfishness and simultaneously rescue her from the compulsive behavior - he does still love her. How? By finding a way to undo what she did. They do not know how the mind-wipes work exactly. Kane would want to give Gavin his body back. So, if there’s a way, he’d want Abby to find it.
I don’t know if I’ll get used to Kane II. When I see Kane, I see Henry Ian Cusick. That body looked pretty dead to me but there might be a minuscule chance to save him. 
Kane’s new peaceful outlook will not involve killing the primes, but saving their hosts and protecting Sanctum. This is probably what he will conspire with Indra and Raven. Yeah, I doubt that plan will play out as they hope. Simone is still on that ship and will make life hard for them. 
Tumblr media
Leaning on the Matryoshka themed episode, with the last of the dolls being a simple piece of wood. They’ve lived so many lives and come to see themselves as superior, that they’ve become cold and hollow through the centuries. Willing to do whatever it takes to maintain their immortality and power. Another fact, the dolls are all replicas, meaning Josephine must have matured into who she is by some sort of example from her parents. 
Daytrip 2.0 featuring Bellamy and Josephine
Bellamy is in for a bumpy ride in the woods. The sociopath will break him down and torture him to break free. My guess, she’ll use the betrayal tactic. Telling him that Clarke never really loved him, that she has always used him. That he wasn’t even in her mind when she took a peek. Only Lexa, Finn and Madi. She’ll try to make him believe that he’s not important to Clarke and that he should let her go.
Tumblr media
We’ve seen some guy kill himself for Josie and Gabriel can’t shake her either, she’s clearly a master seductress. As a last resort, she might use these tactics to try and win Bellamy over. Make him fall for her using the body of the woman he loves? I’m not saying he’ll give into it, but hell it might be hard to resist. This will all be while watching her deteriorate.  
Reverting to the ‘what you take with you’ theme, how will he act in lieu of this information? Clarke apologized but does she really care? In season two she told him he should risk his life and go into Mount Weather, then left him in the end. In season three she chose to stay in Polis when he begged her to come home. In season five she left him to die in a fighting pit. They’ll have to sleep somewhere in the woods, perhaps Clarke finds another way to reach out to him.
When they reach their destination, Gabriel’s tough decision will obviously be Clarke or Josephine and when he saves Clarke, does he destroy Josephine? I doubt it. It won’t be the last we see of her. Octavia will beg him to save Clarke for her brother’s sake. This will somehow lead to peace between the siblings. She has A LOT to make up for, but it’s a start.
The Anomaly
A temporal anomaly is a disruption in the spacetime continuum which can be related to time travel. Temporal anomalies can take many forms and have many different effects, including temporal reversion, the creation of alternate timelines, and fracturing a vessel into different time periods.
The Octavia that returned looks like a younger version of herself. She may have lost her memories and be attacked by them once she takes a nap in the same way Clarke took a trip down memory lane. That is surely a night of terrors, reliving the Bloodreina phase. How will Bellamy react to this? 
Tumblr media
Gabriel might see this as an opportunity to save both Clarke and the original Josephine. If it reversed Octavia’s age, won’t it do the same for them? They’re both in there, perhaps they can come out as younger versions of themselves? It fits into the Matryoshka theme.
The anomaly also picks up the soundwaves, implicating that they might have a way to contact the Eligius ship to collect them.
The synopsis of the finale states there will be a glorious return. I believe this is Diyoza coming back from the future, with Hope. Both her child and the abstract noun. If we’re going full-on time travel in season 7, she might contain the secret of how to stop the first Apocolypse. This is crazy, I know, if it’s where they’re headed, it will only happen in the series finale.
Sanctum’s blood
Russel will find Madi guilty for her attack. Maybe Jordan will explain that it’s not her actions, but the dark commander in her head which will lead to a painful exploration of the flame and perhaps even the destruction thereof. Although it seems like the writers are hesitant to let go.
Tumblr media
Like I said in my previous analysis, Jade will turn on them and team up with Echo and Ryker to take them down from the inside. Unfortunately, there’s no way to communicate with the ship. Russel already said they’ll save Jordan’s life. If Ryker and Jordan can convince Priya, she might switch sides as well. 
Murphy is a bit of a conundrum. I still think those chips exist for a reason, yet Emori, the hero of the previous episode, convinced him that dying is an option. That she’ll love him forever even if the end is near. 
Anyway, Bellamy will most likely follow Kane’s plan with a bit more force aka guns and manpower. They’ll enter Sanctum to take out the primes but will ultimately walk into a war and have to fight it. 
Who’s on my deathdar?
Madi - Russel wants revenge. If he tries to take out the flame without the necessary knowledge, it might result in Madi’s death
Murphy and Emori - Their story is trudging dangerously close to happily ever after and that’s never a good sign on this show. Emori has also shown some great strength and character development. This might be the end for one or both of them if they don’t co-operate with Russel.
Tumblr media
Gaia - She’s been outcasted to the dangerous woods, not sure how this will end when another eclipse appears.
Russel, Simone, and the other prime chips - Bellamy and his army might have to face countless tribulations to succeed but I believe they will eventually take them out.
Kane - If Abby doesn’t find a way to save his original body, I think he’s a goner.
The romance section
Right now there’s not much romance except for Memori, and that one scares me because it’s bittersweet. Remember the Marper moment in 5x08 where Monty asked Harper if she’ll still love him even if he’s just a farmer? This is following right in their footsteps.
Is Becho dead or alive? I’ve been called misogynistic and typical based on my Becho views but I’m not blind. I do not watch this show with shipper goggles. For a long time, I even thought Becho to be endgame. What in this season so far has broadcasted their relationship except for a sweet moment after Bellamy apologized for calling her an emotionless spy. 
What I think we might get a hint of is Jade and Echo based on what Tasya Teles said. Apparently, her favorite dynamic is between Echo and a new character. On another occasion, she said that Echo is bisexual. What would be better than this lesbian, mixed race pairing? They’re two badass female spies who will diminish the false gods from within. Who knows, we might see a spark.
Tumblr media
Early on I saw a subtle hint of Raven and Ryker, but that’s on hold for now. It might turn in the future now that we’ve learned Ryker is on Gabriel’s side.
Xatavia or Gatavia - There was a momentary connection. I wrote about it last week, then some people told me they saw it too. I like it. I ship it. Okay, Octavia still has a long way to go within herself before she can pursue relationships with others but she’s making progress and I’m loving her this season. 
Jordan and Delilah/Priya - Perhaps Abby (and Gabriel) can find a way to bring the hosts back. If they can’t, Priya defended him, it might turn into something.
Mackson’s still going strong, I don’t see anything breaking them up.
Kabby is dead, by all means.
Bellarke - I wish I could be as positive about them as I was in my previous posts. What I see on screen, what I’ve watched for six seasons straight is the two of them within every romantic trope in the book. Now, once again, Bellamy is risking everything, leaving everyone behind to save her. People call him out on only caring about her. Bellamy is the one thing in Clarke’s mind she cannot face. He’s also her biggest regret. 
I never thought they’ll go the romantic route with Bellarke this season, Becho is still a couple, yet I banked on a confession of some sorts. I’ve read articles and seen tweets about misinterpretations on-screen which means they’ll remain platonic soulmates, for now. On the other hand, it’s bs. While discussing this with my mom, who does not ship, at all, she asked, “I’m waiting for the Bellarke theory...”
And all I had was Bellamy might head into the anomaly in the end and see this cute kid who makes his debut in the finale. He has the freckles and the hair, maybe it’s Bellarke’s child. But it could just be a young Bellamy. Or not related to him at all. What do you think? If it is, they won’t say it is but he’ll have a role to play in season seven.
Tumblr media
Argue with me, I know I’m often wrong. Tell me about your theories, I’d love to hear them. Okay, until next week, bye.
7 notes · View notes
tlatollotl · 6 years
Link
Tumblr media
Figures dressed in elaborate garments and headdresses process from right to left across the face of one of the pillars of the Temple of the Painted Pillars at the site of Pañamarca in northwest Peru. The figures hold typical Moche objects, including a plate with three purple goblets, a multicolored stirrup-spout bottle, and a feather fan.
The cover of the Autumn 1951 issue of ARCHAEOLOGY features a dramatic scene of close combat between two men, teeth bared, faces bright red with exertion, garments flying, pulling each other’s hair so violently that each grips the ripped-out forelock of his foe. Created by the artist Pedro Azabache, this cover is a replica of a wall painting at the site of Pañamarca on the northwest coast of Peru, done very shortly after the work’s rediscovery. Mural A depicts a contest between Ai-Apaec, the mythological hero worshiped by the Moche culture, which flourished in this region between about A.D. 200 and 900, and his twin or double. Although Pañamarca’s impressive ruins on a granite outcropping in the lower Nepeña River Valley were well known in the first half of the twentieth century, and had been described by travelers in the late nineteenth century, only a few articles about the site had been published and very little had been said about its wall paintings. Thus, when American archaeologist Richard Schaedel arrived there in 1950, he believed that any paintings he might find would be fragmentary at best. Once there, however, he soon found that Pañamarca’s adobe structures had been completely covered in polychrome murals. In a single week—originally planned for five days, the trip was extended when more murals and a group of burials were discovered—Schaedel and his five-person team not only recorded the combat scene, but also discovered new murals of what he identified as a large cat-demon and an anthropomorphic bird. On the walls of a large plaza, they documented a 30-foot-long composition showing a procession of warriors and priests wearing a costume with knife-shaped backflaps known to have been part of Moche sacrificial rituals.
Though in less than pristine condition after more than 1,000 years, the abundance and unexpected state of preservation of Pañamarca’s murals surprised and delighted Schaedel. But it also concerned him. In his article about the site for Archaeology, he writes, “We hope that this description [of the paintings] will serve as a timely note and warning to lovers of art and archaeology in Peru and elsewhere that this rich source of vivid mural decoration, which today only awaits the patience of the archaeologist to reveal, may tomorrow be irrevocably destroyed. If these still unrevealed documents of the human spirit are not to be forever lost to us, we must constantly keep in mind two ideals: as archaeologists, to devote our attention first and foremost to the adequate documentation of fragile paintings; and to create among the public in general an awareness of their aesthetic as well as their documentary value, so that the present apathy towards their preservation may be replaced by a sense of obligation to their protection.”
Over the more than 65 years since Schaedel’s work at Pañamarca, it was widely assumed that his admonitions had been ignored or forgotten, and that the surviving murals had fallen into ruin. Very little fieldwork was conducted after Schaedel’s excavations and work by Duccio Bonavia later in the 1950s, and only a few new paintings were discovered. When archaeologist and art historian Lisa Trever of the University of California, Berkeley, chose to work in Pañamarca in 2010 along with her Peruvian colleagues Jorge Gamboa, Ricardo Toribio, and Ricardo Morales, she wasn’t very hopeful. “I was pessimistic when we began, figuring that most of the murals that had been discovered before had been destroyed, so we set out to map where the paintings had been and to contextualize what remained,” she says. “But when we began to dig, we were shocked that so much had survived from the earlier excavations.” What was even more surprising was that so much more remained in situ, intact, and unexcavated. “We were soon looking at things that no one had seen since A.D. 780, when parts of the site were deliberately buried,” says Trever. “We went in with a sense that Pañamarca was a site of lost monuments and lost masterpieces of the ancient Peruvian past, and were amazed to find out that not everything was lost at all.”
Tumblr media
A 1950 photograph taken at Pañamarca shows Mural C shortly after it was exposed by American archaeologist Richard Schaedel. The painting depicts eight figures—likely warriors and priests—standing as much as five feet tall.
The name “Moche” or “Mochica” comes not from any ancient source, but was given to the culture in the 1930s because the region’s ancient center was located near the modern town of Moche. Rather than being a single political entity or state, the Moche culture was a loose system of chiefdoms situated in multiple irrigated valleys, linked by shared practices and common beliefs. Their territory encompassed more than 400 miles along the coast of northern Peru. While not exactly a political capital, the cultural and artistic homeland of the Moche world was located in the Chicama and Moche Valleys, near the city of Trujillo. At some point, Pañamarca, which was about 100 miles to the south, grew in religious and cultural importance.
The Moche were skilled builders and artists. At some sites they demonstrated this by undertaking large construction projects. Other locations were peopled with accomplished metalsmiths or expert ceramicists, and still others boasted gifted mural painters. “There is an interesting view developing among scholars about a world of different accomplishments in different places that breaks down the monolithic view of Moche culture,” says Trever. Moche potters created evocative ceramics depicting daily life, the natural world, religious sacrifices, and deformed and even skeletal figures, as well as an extraordinary panoply of hybrid monsters, mythological creatures, and gods in many forms. Gold and silver earspools, necklaces, and rings, some of which are inlaid with semiprecious stones, have been found at many Moche sites. Early Moche artists sculpted clay bas reliefs and covered them with mineral-based pigments at sacred locations such as Huacas de Moche, with its highly decorated Huaca de la Luna, and at with its parade of naked captives and intricate geometric patterns. Later, they abandoned the relief style and replaced it with the flat narratives that cover the smooth adobe walls of their temples and public buildings. These paintings reveal much not only about the Moche in general, but also about how Moche rulers chose particular ways of expressing their local identity in a world where heterogeneity reigned.
Tumblr media
A newly excavated figure (left) and a watercolor of the figure (right) at Pañamarca show one of a pair of supernatural combatants. The second figure is likely hidden behind the adobe bricks visible at the left of the image.
According to the German linguist Ernst Middendorf, who visited the ruins of Pañamarca in 1886, the Quechua name for the site, “Panamarquilla,” means “little fortress on the right bank of the river.” Trever, however, suggests a different, and more evocative, reading of the name: “little fortress of the paintings.” Pañamarca’s artists were deeply invested in painting, and the murals that cover their monumental temples, including the Temple of the Painted Pillars, reference a Moche ideology focused on either supernatural beings engaging in mythological acts or on human beings performing ritual acts, explains Trever. But adobe is ultimately not permanent—it is eroded and damaged by rain, wind, and time in a way that stone is not. “Because they are building fast, they are constantly remaking their built environment. This gives an immediate sense of their ongoing engagement with the living world,” says Trever. “And because Moche architecture, like Mesoamerican architecture, is renovated and not knocked down, what you end up with is like a set of architectural nesting dolls or onion skins.”
Furthermore, at Pañamarca, Trever sees a localized expression of identity reflected in the murals that is very different from what can be seen at other Moche sites. She believes there was an anxiety about being in the hinterland, 100 miles from the Moche epicenter, that may have led to an increased sense of orthodoxy in the imagery. “What is striking here is that we don’t see a hybrid form of Moche at all, but an even more conservative, even more explicit, Moche ideology expressed,” she says. “It’s almost like they have doubled down on the canon because they are in a more remote location intermingling with peoples of other cultures who aren’t like them.”
Tumblr media
The Mural of the Fish adorns one of the walls of a ceremonial platform at Pañamarca. The sea creatures depicted include (clockwise from left) a ray painted using blue-gray paint over red pigment, a long red, white and blue fish, and a small red fish with blue fins.
What is also unusual at Pañamarca is that there is a density of these canonical images not only in the most public, visible spaces of the temples, but also in restricted, private spaces. While at Huaca de la Luna the inside of many of the temple’s rooms are simply white, at Pañamarca every surface that Trever and her team have excavated is covered in paintings. “It’s almost as if they needed to remind even themselves at every step what it means to be part of a culture, especially when you are far from the heartland,” explains Trever. Says Peruvian archaeologist Gabriel Prieto, “Whatever the reason was to paint all these murals here, it’s clear to me that one of the intentions was to show users of and visitors to these monuments the complexity, quality, and order of the Moche’s most important rituals, stories, and, perhaps, historic events. The paintings at Pañamarca are 100 percent Moche, but the style clearly shows some local taste, and this can tell us that the Moche were adaptable and flexible enough to forge relationships with local elites of other cultures.”
Tumblr media
A pillar in the Temple of the Painted Pillars bears three vignettes (top to bottom): a female and a kneeling warrior, a priestess standing in front of a large, red jar, lifting a yellow goblet, and a zoomorphic figure composed of a human, feline, or fox with serpentine features.
Though much about Moche art and architecture is well understood, key questions about significant changes in painting styles over time—and how these might be related to shifts in Moche fortunes—are at the forefront of current work. Roughly four centuries after the culture first appeared, some sort of disruption rippled throughout the entire Moche world. The cause, according to archaeologist Michele Koons of the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, is the million-dollar question. One possible explanation is an El Niño event, but Koons says that researchers have not yet found definitive evidence of this. She says, “I think that it was probably a mixture of different things—possibly climate change or drought, an earthquake, or some other natural disaster, as well as pressure from highland powers such as the Wari.”
It is not only the cause of the episode, but also the precise date that Koons is interested in. “I realized during the course of my research [at the previously unexcavated Moche site of Licapa II in the Chicama Valley] that the traditional dating for the Moche wasn’t really based on any data, but was built on assumptions about pottery styles that had no relationship to actual dates of any kind,” she explains. “I felt the need to unpack this.” By radiocarbon dating organic remains such as seeds and twigs found in excavated contexts alongside Moche ceramics at multiple sites, Koons was able for the first time to pinpoint the date of the catastrophic event or series of events at around A.D. 600.
Tumblr media
A newly discovered painting shows a figure wearing a yellow dress, holding plates of food. She is trailed by a descending osprey.
With this newly refined chronology in mind, archaeologists are now able to recognize a fundamental shift in the way Moche leaders presented themselves to their communities and the outside world. “There is some sense at this time that people aren’t really buying into the current way of doing things,” says Koons, “and that their claim to leadership needs to be bolstered. This could have happened for any number of reasons.” For example, climatic events may have caused people to lose faith in their leaders’ ability to protect them. At Moche sites such as Huaca de la Luna, this change in perception is reflected in the murals, which become less repetitive and more narrative. Koons believes that this type of art reveals an awareness of not just who they are, but who they have been. For example, the iconography of sacrifice, which was depicted in Moche art for centuries, can be seen in a nearly documentary manner. “There is a sense that they are saying, ‘This is what we used to do,’” explains Koons. “It’s as if they are becoming more self-reflective and more aware of themselves at some transitional moment.”
Tumblr media
The Moche hero Ai-Apaec is shown holding the typical Moche tumi knife in the Temple of the Painted Pillars doing fierce battle with the so-called Strombus monster.
The tremendous challenge faced by Trever and her team is that, while the history of other Moche sites prior to A.D. 600 is relatively well understood, the story of Pañamarca earlier than that date is somewhat dark—nothing has been excavated and little is known. What does seem clear is that Pañamarca’s inhabitants ultimately recovered from whatever happened at the start of the seventh century, and that they experienced a kind of renaissance that would last for some 150 years. “The story of Pañamarca is not just about crisis, but also about recovery,” says Trever. It was during this latter phase, on the site of an earlier temple, that Pañamarca’s rulers supervised the construction and expansion of the large walled plaza and monumental adobe pyramids and platforms they covered with vibrant murals. And, as a result of radiocarbon dating of organic construction materials, it is now possible to say that these structures were built between A.D. 600 and 750, the first absolute dates for the Moche in this valley. Still, questions remain unanswered. “Pañamarca’s paintings seem to me to be a large open book, and when I saw them I felt like the Moche were trying to tell me something about their civilization and their glorious past,” says Prieto. What exactly they were saying is still something of a mystery. 
46 notes · View notes
Text
Trinkets, 5: Interesting baubles, semi magical objects and items touched by mystery.
A battle pennant of black cloth with a single golden eye in its center.
A battle pennant of grey cloth with a black short sword partially wrapped in a white death shroud in its center.
A black stone that beats like a heart and seeps red fluid when pricked.
A blank mask that allows the wearer to look exactly like himself when worn.
A bone insignia of military rank originating from the legendary Horde of the Endless Dead
A bone key of a design akin to the nomadic desert tribes
A brass bas-relief, depicting the finder’s father, mother, sibling, or childhood imaginary friend, in a gilded cage.  
A brass bicep bracer with an Efreet motif.
A brass nose flute.
A brass plated orc skull.
---Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.
---Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.
A battle pennant of black cloth with a single golden eye in its center.
A battle pennant of grey cloth with a black short sword partially wrapped in a white death shroud in its center.
A black stone that beats like a heart and seeps red fluid when pricked.
A blank mask that allows the wearer to look exactly like himself when worn.
A bone insignia of military rank originating from the legendary Horde of the Endless Dead
A bone key of a design akin to the nomadic desert tribes
A brass bas-relief, depicting the finder’s father, mother, sibling, or childhood imaginary friend, in a gilded cage.  
A brass bicep bracer with an Efreet motif.
A brass nose flute.
A brass plated orc skull.
A broken spear head made of bone. There is an unknown script engraved upon the surface.
A bronze plated half-elf skull.
A bronze tablet bound in human skin. The tablet is inscribed in an ancient tongue on both sides. If translated, a rambling account is revealed, seeming to expound the means of communicating with (or perhaps binding?) the demon Uln-Rgaoon, Child of Whispers.
A bundle of legal papers wrapped in colorful braided cord that entitle the bearer to a one-half share in Delecarte’s Cirque Des Wonderment.
A ceremonial stag headdress thought to bring fertility and health.
A charm made from animal bones and feathers believed to ward off the undead.
A child’s doll with hair made of rare moss.
A clay dove mounted inside a wooden cage.
A clay pot containing a mixture of rendered animal fat and herbs that is believed to ward off yeti.
A clean linen cloth wrapped around three ordinary looking acorns. Sewn into the corner of the cloth are the words “High Aldwin”.  
A coin made from a carved insect carapace
A cold iron cage lantern, with no oil reservoir or candle spike. The oversized handle ring has a broken chain link attached to it. The lantern is inscribed with runes of holy abjuration.  
A comb made of bone engraved with an ancient proverb about the dangers of vanity.
A completely sealed, six inch oak barrel with sloshing liquid inside.
A copper plated gnome skull.
A counterfeit coin of the local currency, weighted to favour one side (70% chance of coming up heads). The replica is a perfect copy, apart from the weight, which can be detected by knowledgeable PC’s who spend time handling the coin
A cracked, old map case, containing a nautical map with coordinates to a mysterious isle recorded as VarnKaragoss (Which translates to “Place of Ending”). The island is many leagues to the distant north, and is surely encased in snow and ice. The island does not appear on contemporary maps, but is referenced in some rare texts as a burial ground for ancient giant kin.
A crimson envelope bearing a white star sigil. Inside is a fine piece of folded parchment in a rare language. If translated it’s found to be a riddle: Alive as thee but absent breath/Cold in life as we art in death./Always a thirst we ever drink./Clad in mail but never clink (The answer is “Fish”)
A crude mortal and pestle made out of a pair of rough stones
A crystal ball. When looked at, it usually shows an unending battle between 2 trolls. Every once in a great while a place of great importance to the viewer.
A crystal ball. When you look at it, you are shown a battle between 2 trolls typically, yet every once in a great while a place of great importance to you.
A crystal bracelet fashioned in a fog motif, with three animal charms attached: a bird, a wolf and an octopus. There are links for two other charms, but they are missing.  
A decrepit and slightly malodorous preserved rabbit’s foot on a metal chain.
A disturbingly life-like, white, yeti mask.
A dog whistle fashioned of bone.
A drawstring pouch containing three sticks of green incense, stamped with a two headed monkey.
A dried scalp taken from a still living disobedient slave. Those who hold it feel the urge to rebel.
A false glass eye. Perceptive PC’s will notice that the iris snaps open to reveal a small secret compartment.  
A fashionable, domino mask.
A fine ring case festooned with silver filigree, but with no ring inside. A false bottom reveals a coin sized, obsidian disk, depicting a black raven with three eyes.  
A finely crafted beard snood.
A finger length shard of ice that never melts.
A fishing line that never tangles or snags.
A fist sized ball of an unknown material. When dropped, it doesn’t bounce.
A fist sized ball of copper wire.
A fist sized metallic pyramid, deeply etched in incomprehensible runes.
A fist-sized glass sphere filled with a black, gelatin like substance.
A flat stone with white chalk marks that change each time it is observed.
A folded parchment containing the notes to a whimsical tune.
A folded piece of parchment reveals a charcoal sketch of a stunning young woman. A wide lake and a large tree split by lightning are depicted behind her
A fossilized heart of an unknown creature. Those who hold it hear a slow but steady beat within their head.
A fragile black paper fan. When unfolded, the fan depicts two mesmerizing cat’s eyes.
A full deck of playing cards each of which has two backs and no faces.
A glass elf ear.
A glass jar containing a number of preserved tentacles of an unidentifiable creature. There are six, connected around what appears to be a mouth.
A glass jar filled with humanoid baby teeth, marked “For emergency use only!”.
A gold colored pill box depicting a single cat on the lid.
A hand mirror that reflects an unknown eye at all times.
A hand sized ball of parchment tied up with string. If the string is removed, and the many parchment layers unwrapped, at the center is a pinch of bright yellow sulfur.  
A hardened sand painting depicting a gladiator match
A heavy eight inch gate key, fashioned of cold iron, inscribed with hieroglyphs from an earlier age. If translated, the hieroglyphs translate to “Star Door”.
A holy symbol of an elemental priest of water
A horned and fanged skull that looks human.
A jawbone of a donkey. All its teeth are black and anyone holding the jawbone experiences the slight flavor of rotten meat in their mouth.
A jawbone of a predatory creature. All its teeth are serrated and anyone holding the jawbone feels as if they are starving.
A jeweler’s hammer with a head on both ends.
A knapped flint arrow head with unknown script upon it.
A knife with a handle made from the fossilized bone of an extinct predator.
A kraken like statuette, carved from blue and white coral.  
A lace garter in black and red.
A large amber stone, encasing a six inch dragonfly with elongated tentacles instead of mandibles.
A large eagle feather that smells of brimstone.
A lead plated goblin skull
A leather pouch full of rainbow colored sand.
A lightweight wooden case containing a luxurious feather quill. Two small bottles of ink are also set into the case. The first ink is a faint brownish yellow, and smells like bile. The second is congealed blood.  
A locket containing a picture of an ogre and a manticore.
A lovingly crafted bowl made of rosewood.
A magically preserved oak leaf on a cord that can be worn as an eye patch.
A miniature set of blacksmith’s bellows, small enough for a doll
A multi-colored gemstone of curious origin. No stone dealer alive is able to identify it.  
A mummified hand that twitches when the owner becomes aggravated or upset.
A mummified hand which knowledgeable PC’s will recognize as a mul, a cross species of human and dwarf.
A music box that appears to be in working order but makes no noise.
A old boot stuffed with straw. If the boot is emptied, a dark green, scaled egg is found. The egg is about the size of a child’s fist, and is warm to the touch.  
A one foot long, deep red and grey feather. If inspected closely, tiny black writing can see be seen along the vein. The writing is in a lost language. If translated, it reads “The Seeking of the Sky God is ended.”  
A one foot tall humanoid skeleton bound with copper wire
A painted toy boat, in excellent condition. A single child figurine steers the ship. There is space for a second figurine, but it appears to be missing.
A pair of severed hands formerly belonging to a witch. They have been dried out, preserved and bound together with twine.
A pair of steel spurs
A pair of tin coins from an unknown land.
A pair of tongs crafted from the jawbones of a long extinct animal.
A palm sized, dried mushroom that glows in the dark.
A parchment flip book showing a knight galloping on a horse.
A perfectly smooth stone which, when squeezed, turns blue for five minutes.
A petrified cockatrice egg
A piece of animal hide covered in strange white rune, when stored occasionally quiet laughter is heard from the hide.
A piece of cobblestone rumoured to have once made up the road that lead to a famed lost city from the dawn of civilization.
A piece of parchment covered with untranslatable demonic script.
A piece of supple leather with the image of a forest on it
A piece of white cloth. When it is laid over the face of a dead person it holds their likeness for twenty four hours before returning to its blank state.
14 notes · View notes
shelleyseale · 5 years
Text
The 7 Most Unusual Towns in the World
Tumblr media
While every place on this planet is unique, few among them are truly unusual.
Some places are more wonderfully weird than others — there are even towns that hold Guinness world records for their bizarre traits! Places with more animals than people, underground towns, and villages in which all the citizens live under one roof.  Today, Trading Places is sharing some of the most delightfully wacky towns across the globe:
1: Coober Pedy, Australia
The opal capital of the world is named after its primary quality: opal gemstones. This tiny Aussie town has approximately 3,500 inhabitants — half of whom live underground. Since its founding 100 years ago after a teenager discovered opal gemstones there, the town has been ground zero for opal mining. An estimated 70 percent of the world’s opal production can be linked here, earning it the title of Opal Capital of the World. One of the latest finds was a set of opalized pearls dating back more than 65 million years. Before you think of mining your fortune in Coober Pedy, know that it is hot — hellishly hot. Temperatures can rise to over 110 Fahrenheit, in the shade. That's the reason why so many of its citizens live underground, where it's much cooler. Today, roughly 1,600 out of the total residents like suchlike saving a huge on AC bills in summer and heating bills in winter because of insulation of the cave walls! The Outback Bar & Grill was a little petrol station, that has now been converted to a restaurant. There are even underground hotels, churches, restaurants and bars here. 
Tumblr media
The Lookout Cave Underground Motel in Coober Pedy, Australia
2: Nagoro, Japan
This town is home to only 35 humans — but 350 human-sized dolls. An artist, 64-year-old Ayano Tsukimi, came up with the idea of creating these dolls when the population of the village started shrinking, to alleviate the loneliness of being one of only a very few people left in the nearly deserted town. The lifelike, human-sized dolls accurately represent real individuals, such as the profession that they were once engaged in.  You can even check out a recent documentary, called The Valley Of Dolls, that explores Tsukimi's world, highlighting the time and artistry that goes into making the figures, and explaining her motivations.
3: Hallstatt, China
China is a master at replicating things that it loves from around the entire globe, from Disney World to Las Vegas. Hallstatt is an Austrian village, replicated in China down to the smallest detail to become the world's first cloned town. Construction started back in the year 2012 by a Chinese mining company, with a church being the first structure built. Hallstatt, China is an exact copy of the town in Austria, though with more expensive real estate. It attracts tourists from all over the world by virtue of its incredible imitation. 
Tumblr media
The original: Hallstatt, Austria
Tumblr media
The replica: Hallstatt, China
4: The Federation of Damanhur, Italy
This town, with a population of only 600, is known as "The Laboratory for the future of mankind." It was founded in 1975 by Oberto Airaudi as a sort of commune for him and his friends. Known simply as Damanhur, it's an ecovillage and spiritual community in the Piedmont region of northern Italy. The town has many underground "Temples of Humankind," built at depths reaching up to 100 feet beneath ground level. In Damanhur people live in community houses of 10-30 people. Living in a community and sharing life with other people is an important part of the damanhurian philosophy, however, they recognize that having your own private space is also fundamental. The federation even has its own currency, called Credito. It might sound crazy, but this town (and its stunning setting) is a must-visit place. 
5: Matmata, South Tunisia
Primitive humans used to live in cave habitats — and in the small Berber village of Matmata, in Southern Tunisia, they still do. Here, the residents reside underground in the traditional way of our fore-fore-fore-forefathers, and make their homes out of caves. The entire town has cave houses, and people still manage to live there comfortably just like our ancestors.  The unusual landscape of Matmata is filled with these ingenious dwellings burrowed into the rocky ground, and is a testament to human's ability to domesticate almost anywhere.
Tumblr media
Photo by Bernard Gagnon - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0
6: Whittier, Alaska
A 14-story building that used to be a military barrack, today makes up the entire town of Whittier. Known as the "Gateway to Prince William Sound," the town has 220 residents who all live under one roof, with a gas station, police station, church, and video rental shop all located in one building called Begich Towers. There is only one tunnel to enter or exit the town, and it opens twice every hour, shutting at night and reopening the following day.  Each summer, Whittier gets 22 hours of sunlight, and in winter it may get covered with as much as 20 feet of snow. The Inn at Whittier is a hotel and restaurant that faces the sea at Prince William Sound, and is an attraction for the locals as well as many tourists from across the globe. 
Tumblr media
Photo courtesy of Begich Towers Facebook page
7: Longyearbyen, Norway
What if the place you live in does not let you officially die? That is (sort of) the situation in the town of Longyearbyen in Svalbard, Norway, which is the world's most northernmost city. The name of the town is literal, actually meaning "long year." The sun sets each year for the very last time on October 25th and does not rise again for four months. It's such a big deal when the sun officially returns to Longyearbyen on March 8th, that all of the citizens gather on the steps of the old hospital at precisely 12:15 to await its arrival, kicking off a week-long celebration called Solfestuka. Other interesting facts about Longyearbyen include: The citizens are used to living alongside polar bears and reindeer. Snowmobiles are the preferred mode of transportation, and none of the streets are named. It's home to the world's northernmost gourmet restaurant, the historic Huset, which boasts one of Europe's largest wine cellars (hey, you have to do something all winter!). But perhaps the most interesting thing about Longyearbyen is that its citizens aren't allowed to die. The incredibly frigid year-round Arctic climate doesn't permit the dead body to decompose, and so its one small graveyard stopped accepting burials more than 70 years ago. Residents are required by law to go elsewhere to die; and if a death does occur in the town, the body must be transported to Norway by ship or plane. 
Tumblr media
Longyearbyen, Norway; Photo courtesy of VisitSvalbard.com If you want to add some truly quirky places to your bucket list that most people have never even heard of, much less visited, just set your typical travel taste aside and explore these truly unusual places. Read the full article
0 notes
pigeonacademic · 7 years
Text
Undertaker talks to his “guests” as he works with them. Everything from the cause of death to his personal thoughts–after all, who will they tell? He gets a weird chuckle when he sees victims of suicide–a sort of “I hope they know what they’re in for” reaction. There’s a human skeleton he keeps mounted in the corner. When no one’s there and he has no work to do, he talks to that instead. He was the one who prepared the Phantomhives (what was left of them) for burial. He considered it a final kindness for an old friend. He has a sweet tooth. Cookies are his favorite. When legitimate customers come in, he does everything he can to make them comfortable in his place of business. He really likes kids and is surprisingly good with them. He’s actually more or less blind in his left eye due to whatever gave him that scar on his face. He’s always been a bit… morbid, even in life. Personally, I like to think when he deserted, he just picked up his profession where he left off. Becoming a shinigami only deepened his love affair with death. The skeleton on his scythe is actually his. (That’s why he took it with him when he deserted. “Technically,” he argues, “it’s mine.”) He’s incredibly, hilariously tall. We know shinigami need sleep, and he actually does sleep in a bed, thinking it’s hilarious that people think he sleeps in a coffin. (”Don’t be ridiculous. Do you know how uncomfortable it is in those?”) He navigates mostly using sound and smell. He has worse vision than normal shinigami–between being nearsighted and having poor vision in his injured eye, he can’t tell you what a person looks like very well, but he can tell you what they smell like. (I’ve said this before, I believe.) That skeleton on his scythe is either his or a replica of his. While I do think that, canonically, reviving Claudia is endgame for him, I feel like he would have dabbled in Bizarre Dolls anyway. Maybe he already had at that point. I think he knew Claudia for quite a while in life–enough that he knew Vincent and Frances as children. Vincent got along with him very well, and always told him the best “little kid” jokes. Frances hated him and thought he was creepy. Baby Ciel was terrified of him. (You’ve got a sickly little kid and his dad keeps inviting the local mortician over for dinner. What’s he supposed to think?) Undertaker considers Ciel family and would do whatever he could to protect him from Sebastian. He is the embodiment of “Aleister Chamber is a hilarious man and must be protected at all costs.” Never mind him being Vincent’s father–if I thought for one second shinigami could have kids, I’d have him pegged for Aleister’s father.
0 notes
duckingjack · 7 years
Text
Dressed up for burial.
I am so fucking tired of seeing these doll like replicas of family members and others I cared for. They barely look like who they were all caked up with chemicals and sewn together to resemble who was once there in that body. I don't like it. I'm tired of watching everything fade. Wish I had religion to hide in and make me feel better about this all. At least they aren't suffering anymore. But do we have to dress up the dead, come on now?!
0 notes