Racing Turtles

downside: going to have to include a picture of the Giza pyramids in the slides for the lecture upside: i get to give people a crash course in why perspective matters in two frames, because

followed by

is such a funny sequence

i find most people who haven't seen it in person don't know that cairo is RIGHT THERE

I loved these perspectives so I took some of my own when I was in Cairo and yeah, they're literally just. Right there. Pass em on your way to work, nbd

No, y'all don't even understand.

There is literally a Pizza Hut across the street from the pyramids.

That Pizza Hut among other things is why Egyptologists laugh their asses off when we see another piece of media where the protagonists get "lost in the desert near the pyramids", because it's like... just turn around my dudes you're only a seven min walk away from the nearest fastfood shop

Yall don't know how much I adore all of this

Don't leave this in the tags

Why is a god losing to a vegetable?????

ARE YOU TELLING ME THAT HORUS BABY TRAPPED HIS UNCLE WITH LETTUCE?????

In Horus' (and Isis', who is the one who actually performed the act of dressing the lettuce with the semen) defence, Seth did first try to rape him to disprove his claim on the throne.

Also related fun fact: In one iteration of this myth, the semen is asked to come out of Seth through his ear, which it does in the shape of a golden halo. Thoth then snatches the halo from Seth and puts it on his own head as the moon. So in this case, Seth is technically responsible for birthing the moon.

Just to clarify from my understanding of this myth, the reason Horus babytrapped his uncle with cum-lettuce is because Seth (as previously stated) tried to rape him to show that he was unfit for leadership--and then spread the message that Horus was a bottom and therefore shouldn't be king.

Except Horus and his mother came up with the cunning "make him eat cum-lettue" plan, so when Seth went bragging that he'd fucked Horus, the gods used their X-ray vision to see that it was actually Seth who had semen inside him, how embarrassing.

And people ask me why I love studying mythology SO MUCH. :)

"N. K. Jemisin! Why is there so much weird god-sex in your works?"

Well, you see, I read a lot of mythology, growing up.

Something must be wrong with me, I haven't talked about the beadnet dress in forever.

It consists of seven thousand faience beads in blue green and blue to imitate turquoise and lapis lazuli. It is 4600 years old (the threading is modern, but the beads were found in their original pattern so this reconstruction is as accurate as it can be). It is one of the most gorgeous garments in existence and was owned by a woman who was a contemporary of king Khufu.

The dress was found in her tomb in Giza, known as Tomb G 7440 Z, and it's the earliest known garment of this type.

Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost

I can’t believe I forgot my favourite Hill to Die On

Hats off to the few of you who’re reblogging this with tags saying you’re going to check my claims later. You make me not entirely despair of this hellhole.

Here are some vetted Egyptological books/sources (that are by and large appropriate for a lay-audience) you can find most, if not all of the above:

Guys do me a solid and reblog this version instead of continuously asking for sources on the other versions thanks

You’re doing the good work, friend.

ok but can we go back to the ancient erotica pls

We sure can!

is there a version of this post where y'all talk about how the ancient Egyptians had advanced technology (that is lost and unknown to us) that allowed them to cut multiple ton granite stone to such precision that if you were to try to slide a human hair between the cuts, the hair wouldn’t fit? and if you try to take a photo of the cut from a few inches over head that you can’t even tell the cut line is there? unless the ancients were some sort of advanced earth benders, how do y'all explain that???

Yeah it’s called “the ancient Egyptians were skilled stone workers with the attested tools at their disposal and we didn’t lose that knowledge actually” and you can find all the pertinent evidence in The Complete Pyramids, run along now.

i made a great response to this but then i realized your complete and utter rudeness is not worth it at all. i had a genuine question and there was no need to respond like that. and no, my “earthbender” comparison wasn’t serious.

You know why I was harsh? Because you coached your question in the exact same terms every single conspiracy theorist uses to deny ancient Egyptians their agency when it comes to their stone working. Your reply had the exact same tone of many, many people who tried to play gotcha with me in 119k+ notes, and I’m just not here for that. There is a need to respond like that, actually, because conspiracists will take a mile if you give them an inch on their barely disguised racist beliefs that the Egyptians couldn’t have built their monuments themselves. You either shut it down immediately or you give them ammo. If you got caught in the crossfire of that, that’s regrettable but there is a reason for it.

And why am I making that “dumb comment”? Because I’m an Egyptologist. I have studied this, reviewed the evidence, read all the theories. And as I stated, we do have proof. We do have evidence that metal tools and harder stones can, in fact, cut stone. The same tools can, in fact, create a level surface on a quarried block because the Egyptians, like many contemporary civilisations, knew how to use things like measures and plumb lines.

There is, again, nothing lost or too-advanced about it. It’s technology that is actually still in use today in various fields and quarries together with more modern techniques. If you look through the recent reblogs you’ll find one that attaches many different videos showing exactly what I’m talking about.

And to reiterate, if you’re genuinely interested you can find all of this info in Mark Lehner’s The Complete Pyramids, which is relatively easily accessed online. Barring that, you can look at his website or any of the freely accessible articles by the same and also read up on this. It’s no skin off my nose if you don’t want to take my word for it, but that is why I added sources.

NOT EVERYTHING IN EGYPT IS SAND NOT EVERYTHING IN EGYPT ANCIENT OR MODERN IS DESERT EGYPT LITERALLY IS A BIGASS RIVER VALLEY + DELTA THAT IS GREEN AND HAS PLANTS AND SHIT BECAUSE OF THE RIVER NOT. EVERYTHING. IS. FUCKING. SAND.

“but the pyramids were built in the desert and th-”

okay one: OBVIOUSLY THEY’RE NOT BUILDING GIANT FUCK OFF MONUMENTS TOO CLOSE TO WHERE WATER CAN GET TO IT BECAUSE AMONG OTHER THINGS THEY MAY HAVE FIGURED OUT THAT THIS WOULD NOT LEAD TO CONTINUED STRUCTURAL SOUNDNESS OF ROUGHLY 6 MILLION TONS OF ROCK

and secondly the Giza pyramids are built far closer to the valley than you think if you’ve never been to Egypt:

"There's something strangely human about this thing that humans made 4000 years ago"

Yes because it was made by humans, next question

Speaking from an evolutionary perspective, we are still so very close to humans 4,000 years ago.

Some of them were living in cities and states already. Others were starting to settle down in permanent villages for the first time. Many had complex social orders and intricate religions. They made things, obsessively and continually, whether that was tools or art, from wood or stone or clay.

Many of them were living in conditions very different from the ones evolution had shaped them for: migration sent them to hotter or colder regions than they came from, their social situation put them in larger groups in smaller spaces, and they were specialising their diets much more than in the past. Farming was widespread in many areas.

They worried about money. They worried about what others would think about them. They celebrated holidays, and went to work, and gathered together to eat dinner.

We have so much in common with people 4,000 years ago, because in the grand scheme of human history, it wasn't that long ago.

Literally the only thing I want is that when people read something about Egypt that was sourced only to Herodotus they think “oh huh, maybe I shouldn’t take this at face value”. That’s it. I don’t care if y’all want to face him in the sewers for a physical altercation the same way I do or not.

Please remember that just because Herodotus was “also ancient” it doesn’t mean he’s by default correct about “all the other ancient stuff”. Herodotus was born in 485 B.C., during which time period Egypt was being ruled by the Persians. He is almost equally far removed from the building of the Great Pyramid as he is removed from our present day, give or take a few centuries.

Even his accurate statements about Egypt should be taken as true for the Egypt of his time, and not used to make broad generalisations about a country/people whose history spanned millennia. 

#to be honest this should be the attitude approaching any writer that belongs to an empire#who is writing about any people beside his own#the romans had some interesting ideas about the celts#and the british empire was equally problematic#because victorians

And honestly, “Was Herodotus important to the development of history as a field?” and “Were Herodotus’ statements coloured by his own cultural perception and how do we handle this when using him as a historical source on any other culture but the Greek?” are two different discussions that are sometimes conflated to both mean the same thing: that we ‘shouldn’t be harsh because Herodotus was trying the best he could’. It’s not a matter or being harsh; it’s a matter of being realistic. 

Controversial Truths About Ancient Egypt Masterpost

I can’t believe I forgot my favourite Hill to Die On

Hats off to the few of you who’re reblogging this with tags saying you’re going to check my claims later. You make me not entirely despair of this hellhole.

Here are some vetted Egyptological books/sources (that are by and large appropriate for a lay-audience) you can find most, if not all of the above:

Guys do me a solid and reblog this version instead of continuously asking for sources on the other versions thanks

Let’s agree to disagree about the alien thing.

Full offense but there’s no “agree to disagree” when it comes to ancient aliens, I will always fight you when you come at me with that idiotic hokum.