#EpigraphyTuesday with a dedication to Venus Ansotica at the Split Archaeological Museum.
Venus Ansotica was a syncretic deity representing a fusion of the Roman goddess Venus and a local Illyrian goddess, worshipped in Aenona (Nin) Dalmatia.
#AncientBlueSky🏺
Property from Goucher College Mummy Portrait of a Man, Roman Egypt, Flavian Period, circa late 1st century CE. Painted with encaustic (pigmented wax) on wood (probably sycamore), his head turned to his right, and wearing a white chiton (tunic) and white himation (cloak) falling from the nape of the neck, his solemn face with full lower lip, long aquiline nose, translucent hazel eyes, bushy eyebrows, and furrowed brow, his wavy gray hair brushed forward above the forehead. 12 3⁄4 by 6 in.; 32.5 by 15.4 cm Auction page: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2026/master-paintings-sculpture-part-i/mummy-portrait-of-a-man-roman-egypt-flavian-period
This realistically rendered Flavian era mummy portrait from Roman Egypt gives us a rare look at an older person from that era. It has been on loan for over 70 years to the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, but was recently sold at auction. Will it disappear into a private collection? 🏺
📸 Sotheby’s
Text: "when you're Zeus and are giving birth to Athena" Image, a man with veins showing on his clenched forehead.
Mine appetite I never more will grind
On newer proof, to try an older friend,
A god in love, to whom I am confin’d.
Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best,
Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
Most true it is, that I have look’d on truth
Askance and strangely; but, by all above,
These blenches gave my heart another youth,
And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love.
Now all is done, save what shall have no end:
Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there, And made my self a motley to the view, Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear, Made old offences of affections new; Most true it is, that I have look’d on truth Askance and strangely; but, by all above, These blenches gave my heart another youth, And worse essays prov’d thee my best of love. Now all is done, save what shall have no end: Mine appetite I never more will grind On newer proof, to try an older friend, A god in love, to whom I am confin’d. Then give me welcome, next my heaven the best, Even to thy pure and most most loving breast.
Shakespeare's 110th Sonnet:
#poetry #poests #literature 💙📚
Alas! ’tis true, I have gone here and there,
And made my self a motley to the view,
Gor’d mine own thoughts, sold cheap what is most dear,
Made old offences of affections new;
Two large cats sit on a computer desk blocking the view of the monitors.
Real hard to get work done with this pair on my desk.
#CatsOfBlueSky #Cats
🐈⬛📷
I finally visited Tito Bustillo Cave.
For our eyes, a purple horse might not stand out much, mainly because we’re used to modern art. But modifying nature like this was not common even 150 years ago—so this kind of representation was a significant creative step at the time.
#Prehistory #Rockart
Mosaic of a lion in a rocky landscape clutching a leopard in it’s front paws. The lion has a fierce expression while the leopard looks fearful for what comes next. Now held in the MAN Napoli, inv. no. 114282.
✨Lion versus Leopard✨
This mosaic immediately captures your attention - the direct gaze of the lion forcing the leopard into submission is hard to miss. The mosaic has suffered some damage from subsistence over the years but feels acutely compelling even with the rough edges.
#MosaicMonday
Marching past the Colosseum in the parade to mark Rome’s 2,779th birthday #NatalediRoma
There's actually a tradition of Roman emperors being depicted in Egyptian art during the period when Egypt was part of Rome. More on that in this article.
#Classics #AncientBlueSky #Rome #history
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/w...
Detail of the interior of a kylix. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oidipous_Painter_-_ARV_451_1_-_Oidipous_and_the_sphinx_-_satyrs_-_Vaticano_MV-MGE_569_-_01.jpg
Question for #ancientbluesky: I'm trying to find articles that include any discussion on the faint inscription on the interior of this Attic red-figure kylix depicting Oedipus and the Sphinx, in the Vatican Museums.
Can anyone help please?
A black and white grey marble bust of a bull’s head with white horns on one side and a ma wearing an Egyptian nemes wig on the other.
A particularly ornate statue from Hadrian’s villa identified as a double sided portrait of the god Osiris and Apis. The emperor built a get away space outside Rome based on the temple and party town of Canopus in the Egyptian Delta. #AncientBluesky #Egyptology
🏛️ Vatican
The text in white: "You came, and I was yearning for you; you plunged my heart into coolness when it flamed with longing." Sappho Fragment 48
From Sappho, the ancient Greek poet.
#Poetry 📚💙
A quote from Euripides (c. 485-406 BCE) about the mysterious power of music.
thehistorianshut.com/2022/10/26/e...
#quotes #history
Brown tortoiseshell Maine Coon cat lying on packing material
So stinking cute.
🐈⬛📷 #CatsofBlueSky
#Cats
#MaineCoon
If what you want is a book that summarizes and presents this information in an easily digestible form - this is great. If you want to dive below the surface level into the nuts and bolts of the linguistics, genetics, and archaeology, then you might better enjoy the works she cites to.
Cover of the book "Proto: How one Ancient Language Went Global" by Laura Spinney
Spinney's book is a very readable summary of the current (2025) ideas regarding the evolution and spread of Indo-European languages. She's very familiar with the work of both David Reich and David Anthony and the bibliography is filled with articles published in the last 10-15 years.
#history 📚💙
Working on correcting the proof copy of Book 2.
Large gray cat
Chaucer and I enjoying a quiet afternoon 🐈⬛📷
An unusual statuette from Egypt's Late Period or Ptolemaic era, depicting an elegant #cat feeding her kittens. In this case, she's not a just a cat - she's Bastet, goddess of fertility, and protector of women and children. I love the kitten trying to give mama a kiss. 🐈⬛ 🏺 1/
📸 me #BrooklynMuseum
Moche ceramic vessels were made in specialized workshops where every step of ceramic production was undertaken in situ, from the preparation of clays to the firing process. Vessels were made with two-piece molds, facilitating the production of multiples. After the molding process, potters carefully added handles, spouts, and small details, in this case the incised ribs and modeled arms. Skeletal individuals are often depicted in Moche ceramics, probably symbolizing the interplay and complementarity between life and death. It has been suggested that in Moche religion, a transitory stage between life and death is expressed by the existence of transitional beings such as simian individuals and the animated deceased. In painted or sculpted vessels, animated skeletons dance, embrace, play music with flutes and rattles, carry funerary offerings, or engage in sexual activities. This embracing skeletal couple with child perhaps illustrates death as a necessary stage for the renewal of life.
"John, the last thing I remember is someone yelling, 'Volcano!'".
A poignant ceramic bottle depicting a skeletal couple with a child. The adults comfort one another, while the child looks confused. Very Dia de los Muertos. 💀🏺
Moche, Peru, 3rd-7th c. CE. #MetMuseum 📸 me
"Carthage: A New History" by Eve MacDonald, "The Horse" by Timothy C. Winegard, "The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World" by William Dalrympe, and "Silk: a world history" by Aarathi Prasad.
New non-fiction reads that I picked up yesterday. 📚💙
#HistoryBookChat #History
(Titles and author names typed out in the "ALT" text)
Ancient Amazons loved their horses!
Check out these fine portraits
Kerch-style vases painted 2,400 years ago
He was one of the first authors to apply the ideas of psychiatry and psychology to character and story development. As such, his work marks a change from the writing that preceded him compared to the literature he influenced.
Writer Henry James, as a young man Photo credit: Alice Boughton/Bettmann/CORBIS Source: The Guardian
“I don't want everyone to like me; I should think less of myself if some people did.”
-Writer Henry James, born on this day in 1843
#WriterSky #BookSky #Literature #Psychological #History #BOTD
Parthenon, Athens, Greece 🇬🇷
#photography
Cover of the book "Land Tenure and Social Stratification in Ancient Mesopotamia: Third millennium Sumer before the Ur III dynasty" by Eric L. Cripps. The cover is red with a photo of a cuneiform tablet.
This is the first snip of a facebook post which reads: The word "scutage" describes a situation where a feudal landholder who owes military service to his liege lord, pays money to that liege lord in lieu of actually performing the service. I'm familiar with the term from my brief period studying medieval literature and history a couple decades ago. I am not 100% sure, but I think the word itself originates in the context of medieval and early modern England. The concept was not first invented there though. If you think back to the Peloponnesian War and the "Delian League" led by Athens, most member city-states of that league paid silver and gold to Athens instead of providing their required number of ships and sailors. This was not a feudal situation, but we see the same concept of discharging a physical obligation with a monetary amount. I'm seeing the same concept again in reading about land ownership in Ancient Mesopotamia. These early city-states did not have all of the trappings of feudalism, but surviving records do indicate that ownership of some fields came with an obligation to perform corvee service for the king or the temple, either military service or work on the expansive network of irrigation canals. There is evidence in some of these real estate sales docs that the purchase price included an amount of silver paid to the state or temple specifically intended to satisfy the unmet corvee requirements of the seller.
2nd and final part of snipped facebook post: Some of the surviving statutes from various Mesopotamian city states and kingdoms specifically state that the inheritor or grantee of land encumbered with a corvee obligation is then responsible for providing that service obligation. But we also have evidence that the same people acquired multiple tracts of property that appear to have had service obligations attached to them. If one person cannot perform the separate service obligations imposed on them by multiple parcels of real estate, then it would make sense that a system developed in which money was used to discharge unmet service obligations. So essentially, for as long as we've had property that was encumbered by some sort of service obligation, there have been work arounds to satisfy that obligation with money. One of the things I find interesting in reading about Ancient Mesopotamia is just how many of their social and legal ideas are still familiar to us in later times. The service obligation attached to land has essentially been converted to the real estate taxes that are levied against the owners of real property in many countries today.
Scutage or something similar in ancient Mesopotamia?
If you click on the "ALT" label on either of the text based images you'll get another version of the full text.
#History #AncientBlueSky
📚💙
a man holds a tiny dark tortoiseshell kitten in his arms.
Once upon a time, Zora was a tiny little kitten. (this is probably 3 years old)
🐈📷
#CatsOfBlueSky
A painting showing the mythological figure of the chimera taking off from a ledge with a woman holding on to him.
“The Chimera” by Gustave Moreau, 1867
Moreau was a French Symbolist born on April 6, 1826 who painted many mythological and biblical scenes. This oil painting is his interpretation of the Chimera. The painting is housed at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University.
#mythology #art
