Photographs That Show Action Figures Interacting with Everyday Objects

Japan, Osaka-based photographer Hotkenobi stages action figures in real life settings to create a series of quirky photographers.

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Culture is defined by a collection of morals, ethics, traditions, customs and behaviours shared by a group of people.

Hierarchy and Social Structures

Within every culture, there is a hierarchy. Hierarchies are an important part of any culture, usually do ingrained that one within the culture wouldn't even question it. Hierarchy can be established either by age, gender or wealth and could even determine roles within their society. Sometimes hierarchy can may be oppressive and rigid whilst other times, ranks can intermingle without trouble. You should consider how these different ranks interact with one another and whether there are any special gestures or acts of deference one must pay to those higher than them. For example, the Khasi people of Meghalaya (Northern India), are strictly matriarchal. Women run the households, inheritance runs through the female line, and the men of the culture typically defer to their mothers and wives. Here are a few questions to consider:

Traditions and Customs

Traditions are a staple in any culture. These can be gestures or living life a certain way or to the way a certain person should look. Traditions are a personal detail to culture, they are what make it important. Tradition can dictate how one should keep their home, run their family, take care of their appearance, act in public and even determine relationship. Tradition can also be a double edged sword. Traditions can also be restrictive and allow a culture to push away a former member if they do not adhere to them, eg Traditional expectations of chastity led to thousands of Irish women being imprisoned at the Magdelene Laundries. Customs could be anything from how one treats another, to how they greet someone.

Values and Opinions

Values and Opinions are the bread and butter of any culture. This is the way your culture sees the world and how they approach different life hurdles. These may differ with other cultures and be considered odd to outsiders, what one culture may value another may not and what opinion another holds, one may not. There will be historical and traditional reasons to why these values and opinions are held. Cultures usually have a paragon to which they hold their members to, a list of characteristics that they expect one to if not adhere to then aspire to. The Yoruba people value honesty, hard work, courage and integrity. Here are some questions to consider?

Dress Code

For many cultures, the way somebody dresses can be important. History and ethics can effect how one is meant to be dressed such as an expectation of chastity, can impose strict modesty. While other cultures, put more importance on details, the different sorts of clothes worn and when or what colour one might wear. The Palestinian people (من النهر إلى البحر ، قد يكونون أحرارا) denoted different family ties, marriage status and wealth by the embroidery and detailing on their thoub.

Language

Arts, Music and Craft

Many cultures are known for different styles of dance, their artwork and crafts. Art is a great part of culture, a way for people to express themselves and their culture in art form. Dance can be an integral part of culture, such as céilí dance in Ireland or the Polka in the Czech Republic. Handicrafts could also be important in culture, such as knitting in Scottish culture and Hebron glass in Palestine. Music is also close to culture, from traditional kinds of singing such as the White Voice in Ukraine and the playing of certain instruments such as the mvet.

Food and Diet

The way a culture prepares or intakes or treats certain foods are important to a culture. In some cultures, there is a diet yo adhere to, certain foods are completely banned. With Jewish culture, pork is prohibited along with fish such as sturgeon, along with shellfish and certain fowl. Meat must also be prepared in a certain way and animal byproducts such as dairy, must never be created or even eaten around this meat. This is known as kosher. The way one consumes food is also important to culture. In some cultures, only certain people may eat together. Some cultures place important on how food is eaten. In Nigerian culture, the oldest guests are served first usually the men before the women. In Japanese culture, one must say 'itadakimasu' (I recieve) before eating. Culture may also include fasting, periods of time one doesn't intake food for a specific reason.

Russian woman's costume for holidays of Nizhegorodsky Oblast, Kstovsky District, Bezvodnoye village.

The middle of the XIX c.

(from Sergei Glebushkin collection)

Felt that it’s important to share videos like this too.

Newly exhibited photos from the project Ένδυμα Ψυχής - Raiment of the Soul,  collaboration of photographer Vangelis Kyris and Bulgarian embroidery artist Anatoli Georgiev who present Greek traditional costumes, which are exhibits of the National Historical Museum of Greece. The exhibition is currently hosted in the Acropolis Museum, until March.

See more photos of the project  x, x, x and x. 

Ok wow! these portraits are amazing. and textile archaeology from primary sources is my jam!

can we just.. marvel and wonder at the sheer volume of fabric in the mens under-dresses? the number of tucks/pleats in those long garments? THE LAYERS?

Is it fine Cotton or Linen?

@auressea Glad you brought that up. The fabric is cotton as it was first a peasant’s clothing but brand new special ones might also be made of linen.

There is this most likely urban legend that some warriors of the Greek independence wore fustanellas with 400 pleats in order to symbolise 400 years of the Ottoman occupation. This is in my opinion bs because not all regions of Greece were conquered for the same amount of time, let alone the full 400 years. However, honouring this legend, the Greek presidential guard nowadays does indeed wear fustanellas with 400 pleats. I also believe that even in the past, the Greek fustanella might have been a little more heavily pleated than fustanellas of other nations, based on some symbolism like that. There is a fustanella of a fighter found that had exactly 200 pleats. But the number 400 is excessive for the means of the time and also is unlikely for the reason I explained above.

a mix of old and new, Tibetan style

via ellemenfashion

Liu Zhiwei

Just in case anyone didn’t know June is National Indigenous History Month!

(Not to be confused with Native American History Month which is in November)

The month of June is National Indigenous History Month. It was officially declared in 2009 with a unanimous motion that passed in the House of Commons.

On June 21st it is National Indigenous Peoples Day! On June 21st, we celebrate the strong heritage, beautiful diverse cultures, and many outstanding achievements of First Nations, Inuit and Métis People!

Traditional costumes of H'Mong subgroups. Credit to Hnubflower.

Traditional costumes of H'Mong people subgroups (H'Mong Hoa & H'Mong Lenh). Credit to Hnubflower.

So how do they make that?

This just raises more questions for me 🤦🏾‍♂️

what the FUCK

this is whats called a ‘coffer dam’, you basically build some walls, drop them in the water, tie them together, and then pump out the water from your new hole in the water so you can build while staying dry its oddly not that hard- the flippin ROMANS were able to do it with logs and mud

occasionally particularly devious people would use this to hide treasure or tombs underneath the river so its not only impossible to find but impossible to get to without an engineer division

that last part gives me ideas for campaigns

“Not that hard - the ROMANS were able to do it” - people seriously underestimate how advanced some ancient cultures were and the organized effort it takes to come up with something like this and actually implement it. The Romans had heated floors, glass windows and ceilings that could be rotated to reflect what you were eating (forests for game, sea landscapes for fish). Hell, the Greeks built cameras and moving robots. The Minoans, who lived four thousands years ago and were wiped out by a tsunami three times as powerful as the one which devasted Japan in 2011, had running water and modern toilets. And let’s not get into how China basically invented everything centuries before anyone else. 

Bottom line: just because someone was already doing it thousands of years ago, doesn’t mean it’s not very difficult and an extraordinary feat of engineering.

someone: you build how many bridges on a single military campaign…?

Caesar: what, like it’s hard?

The Indus valley civilisations (one of the cradles of civilisation) had a covered sewer system. The first urban sanitation system might have been Harappa around 4 500 years ago. It included baths. The people in Lothal had a toilet in every house around 4370 years ago. They also had normed brick sizes to make building easier.

While we’re on industrial norms: Mesopotamia (another cradle of civilisation) had mass-produced bowls. They were traded with other city-states (read: internationally). They also had a writing system, schools (at least for the upper class), and exercise slates. The Sumerians and Akkadians in Mesopotamia formed a sprachbund that meant many people were bilingual in the 3rd millennium BC.

While we’re on the topic of literacy in ancient civilisations: Signboards were a thing. Enough people were literate to have signboards and inscriptions on houses. The oldest known inscription is on a lintel in Dholavira, Indus valley from 5000ish years ago (We have no idea what it says though.).

That’s just my five cents to people have always been people, and people have always been awesome. Sorry for the rant (but do tell me if you want to hear more about awesome in the other cradles of civilisation; or the proto-communism debate; or the “mother-goddess” debacle; or egalitarian values in ancient cultures (I might have to re-read Plato to go into full detail on that one and include the Greeks).

Please never apologize for adding cool info to posts! And feel free to add more :)

The real reason we’re scared of the technological capabilities of ancient civilizations is because they were just as good as us, and now they’re gone