the colophon for the Consensus Press edition of The Tale of Sinuhe

about three years ago a group of almost 100 book collectors started an absurd project: to publish a handmade book, with every decision made democratically. somehow it actually worked?

it is *very* on brand that picked an ancient egyptian travelogue poem as the text

Screen cap of parodic version of William Blake's "The Tyger" that begins: Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright (Not sure if I spelled that right) What immortal hand or eye Could fashion such a stripy guy? What the hammer that hath hewn it Into such a chonky unit? Did who made the lamb make thee, Or an external franchisee?

In honor of National Poetry Day, the greatest parody rewrite of all time:

This Thursday, online public lecture Manchester Egyptology Seminar Series - Dr Kathleen Sheppard @k8shep.bsky.social Prof. of History at Missouri University of Science & Technology: ‘“How Winning a Woman of Study Can Be” in Early American Egyptology’
Oct 2nd, 5pm UK: zoom.us/j/91521871294

Anyone interested in medieval fakes should plan a trip to Paris. The Musée Cluny has a show from 7 Oct. to 11 Jan.,
www.musee-moyenage.fr/activites/pr...
and the Archives nationales has one from 15 Oct. to 2 Feb.:

I remain impressed at the consistency of the Counts of Barcelona: Ramon Berenguer had Ramon Berenguer and Berenguer Ramon, but Berenguer Ramon killed Ramon Berenguer but had to abdicate for Ramon Berenguer who went on to sire Ramon Berenguer and Berenguer Ramon, who each went on to name…

By which I mean that Knut Eriksson, Erik Knutsson and Erik Eriksson were fighting Sverker the Elder, Karl Sverkersson and Sverker the Younger (aka Sverker Karlsson).

because why come up with new names when the names you've got can take at least another few generations of wear and tear.

Siegfried’s Long Call from Twilight of the Garage (Gäragerdämmerung)

Image of Indiana Jones stealing a golden idol modified to be Layard taking an ancient Assyrian sculpture

Prepping a lecture on the difference between looting and archeology and have just made this cursed image

a man is playing a game of frog dog at a carnival Alt: a man playing Whac-A-Mole

Live footage of historians these days

[ancient egyptian standup comic] see guys from the upper kingdom, they observe funerary rites like THIS. but us guys from the lower kingdom, we observe funerary rites like THIS. See this guy knows what I’m talking about [pointing at man with the head of a bird]

Telling my kids that this is just the god Nanna:

The episode banner for the Writing Worlds Podcast featuring a portrait of science fiction author Arkady Martine and the words "Language with Arkady Martine" against a background of a fantasy map and the logo of the Writing Worlds podcast featuring cartoonish pictures of a dragon and a spaceship.

It was a huge pleasure to chat with the wonderful Arkady Martine @byzantienne.bsky.social for our latest Writing Worlds conversation about world building.

This time we talk about language as an element in world building and the development of imagined cultures.

🎧👉 www.pod.link/1812994751

Further thought: Charles V's empire also the last gasp of Lotharingia. Not just Charles himself and his sisters and aunt, but many of his closest advisors were all from bits of what had been the Middle Kingdom. Chièvres (Netherlands), Gattinara (Piedmont), the Granvelles (Franche Comté).

so my PERSONAL favourite way to fuck with Americans is to be like “this building is from 1520!” Or whatever and they’ll go “wow we don’t have anything that old!” And I’ll go “yes you do” and just stare at them

I'm torn about this, as someone who learned cuneiform well at Not Chicago, but since my own program and many others have since been eviscerated, the alarm call is warranted.
Academia is necessary to the preservation of knowledge and we need to rebuild more durable distributed knowledge networks.

The Flooding of Lagash (Iraq): Evidence for Urban Destruction Under Lugalzagesi, the King of Uruk and Umma High-resolution remote sensing, magnetometry, and trench stratigraphy identify a significant flood event at Lagash (modern Tell al-Hiba) during the late Early Dynastic period (ca. 2400–2350 BC). Sate...

Hot off the presses! Here’s a new article that I co-authored with my Lagash Archaeological Project colleagues on a geoarchaeological study of what we believe to be evidence of hydrological warfare in the Third Millennium BCE.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The name Catherine doesn’t exist in the ancient world, and is likely a diminutive of an abbreviated form of Hekate which was used in antiquity: Κατε

Thus the name Kate is older than the name Catherine!

& while we use it as a diminutive, Kate is really an un-diminutive of a diminutive of itself.

UChicago is not a school people go to to have FUN. Everyone I've met from there felt guilt for not being in the library studying. You go to Chicago for incredibly serious scholarly work.

Stopping PhD admissions? Are you out of your damn mind?

She’ll play a Spaniard. Well, an Egyptian, actually.

Clay cuneiform tablets should be the only text medium

Wafaa Bilal, facsimile of Assyrian Lamassu guardian double relief destroyed by ISIL, Coded into DNA of a grain of wheat; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago http://dlvr.it/TMbmpP

Artwork for the podcast A Language I Love Is...

New ALILI!

To make up for an unexpected podcast pause, Ep. 38 is four languages for the price of one. Imar Koutchoukali discusses the Old South Arabian group, included among them the language of the Queen of Sheba.

Acast: shows.acast.com/a-language-i...
Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/0hty...

EMILY DICKINSON, JEDI KNIGHT

Not so clumsy, nor so random -
As a blaster - in its rage

More elegant - the weapon
More civilized - the age

Reviewer 2

Smiling cartoon tiger (Disney's Tigger)

Working to translate some texts on Joan of Arc into Norwegian for teaching purposes, I am tickled to learn that the word for a mendicant friar is "tiggermunk"

My "Yeda’yah son of Asayahu" seal has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my seal.

An R1 without languages programs isn't a research university, it's a joke.

Quote from a story on changes at the U of Chicago that notes they are "pausing" doctoral eduction in Classics, Comp Lit, Germanic studies, Middle Eastern Studies, Romance languages and literatures, and South Asian Studies.

Wow. The University of Chicago, a world-class institution whose humanities faculty in the past has included Homi Bhabha & Lauren Berlant & Ralph Ellison & Hannah freaking Arendt, is getting rid of basically every graduate department involving the acknowledgment that other cultures & languages exist.

“Gosh, you really need to start with the uncataloged materials. You never know WHAT you’ll find in that stuffed to the gills storage area.”

Slightly diminish a band: The Theban Venerated Band