“There are no magic words. To say the words is magical enough.”
William H. Gass, “The Ontology of the Sentence” in the volume “The World Within the Word” (1971)
@anthropos7.bsky.social
Borgesian. Interested in history, literature, cultures.
“There are no magic words. To say the words is magical enough.”
William H. Gass, “The Ontology of the Sentence” in the volume “The World Within the Word” (1971)
11. There are no 'good' Romans. They were terrible enslavers who had a knack for stealing technologies and imposing ideologies. Don't drink the Kool Aid. Study them. Don't become them.
31.07.2025 20:10 — 👍 25 🔁 2 💬 3 📌 0In the death registers of early modern Venice, marginalia often marks the cause of death: drawings of daggers for murders, for instance.
In 1696, Giovanni Battista Rinaldi was killed by a dog. This is the drawing by his entry.
Initiates cheer as they return home after undergoing the koma rite of passage in Moletjie, Limpopo province, on July 19, 2025. The traditional practice, which includes circumcision for boys and men, is a key event on the cultural calendar. Girls also take part in separate initiation programmes focused on preparing them for womanhood. Since June, 529 initiation schools have been registered in Limpopo, with more than 25,000 initiates. Officials say the province recorded the lowest fatality rate in the country this season, with two deaths linked to medical conditions, including epilepsy. (Photo by LUCAS LEDWABA / AFP)
End of the road: In the Limpopo province of South Africa, initiates cheer as they return home after completing the koma rites. The rites, which include circumcision, are a key part of the region’s culture.
Photo: Lucas Ledwaba/AFP
In the early 18th century, the Pawnee numbered more than 60,000 people with historical lands on the Great Plains in present day Nebraska & Kansas. By 1873 they were forced to live in Indian Territory (Oklahoma today) and had a population of about 2,400, reduced by European diseases, warfare, etc.
26.07.2025 14:11 — 👍 0 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0A painting of a Native American sitting in a chair with red paint and buffalo designs in black paint on his face and chest. He is holding a bow and arrow in his lap as though ready to draw the arrow and is wearing leather pants and moccasins embellished with colored decorative patterns. The painting is by George Catlin. Image in the public domain via Smithsonian American Art Museum. Description from the museum: Buffalo Bull appears "with his medicine or totem (the head of a buffalo) painted on his breast and his face, with bow and arrow in his hands." This unfinished portrait provides a key to Catlin's working methods in the West, where he had to work quickly. During Buffalo Bull's sitting, Catlin focused on his face and his totem (the buffalo head painted on his chest, partially hidden behind a large peace medal). The artist usually finished bodies and costume details in an urban studio.
La-dóo-ke-a, Buffalo Bull, a Grand Pawnee Warrior in 1832.
Another painting by George Catlin (see post above 👆)
Title: The Great Elephant Artist: Lala Deen Dayal (Indian, Sardhana 1844–1905) Date: 1885–1900
Asian elephant and mahout. By Lala Deen Dayal, late 19th century.
25.07.2025 17:10 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0The Goddess Kali, 19th century Battala woodcut print, West Bengal, India
24.07.2025 22:40 — 👍 10 🔁 2 💬 1 📌 0Literature is the most agreeable way of ignoring life.
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
You stand helpless before Belarusian soft power.
21.07.2025 11:45 — 👍 5 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Screenshot of a tweet by user protofailure: Murder is actually really frowned in Japan. It goes against the traditional concept of 生きる, which means "to live". It is from October 28, 2022.
Time for a classic
20.07.2025 16:15 — 👍 56 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 0Elephant
Iran, probably Nishapur, 10th century (Los Angeles County Museum of Art)
when i finally sit down to work on my revise and resubmit
20.07.2025 14:50 — 👍 43 🔁 4 💬 1 📌 0A landscape scene with a small red building surrounded by mountains and trees.
'Mount Tatsu in Harima Province' from the series 'Wrestling Matches between Mountains and Seas' - Utagawa Hiroshige, 1858. From the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston collection.
#JapaneseArt #ukiyoe
Afternoon walk on Kvitsøy. #norway
19.07.2025 16:02 — 👍 6 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0Neanderthals living over 120,000 years ago created a bone fat 'factory' of sorts (with elephants on the menu as well) www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
18.07.2025 21:01 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0Caravaggio died on this day in 1610, aged 38
18.07.2025 06:06 — 👍 54 🔁 12 💬 2 📌 1A magnificent sculpted golden comb made by a Greek sculptor, with a crest showing Scythian warriors in battle, is one of the great treasures of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia. The golden ornament, known around the world as “the Solocha comb,” was found in what is now Ukraine in 1913.
Scythian golden comb, 4th c. BCE
18.07.2025 01:23 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0In Mongolian the word for sea lion is "dalain khav" which means "sea poodle" because they first came to the country in visiting circuses where poodles and sea lions would hold up a little ball on their noses
10.04.2025 00:00 — 👍 47 🔁 14 💬 2 📌 0Leon Diguet, Large organ pipe cactus in Baja California, 1895
16.07.2025 22:18 — 👍 39 🔁 8 💬 1 📌 1The Spillhaus projection shows our world centered around the oceans. I love how the legend (sea surface temperature) is elegantly integrated into the pop up box. Source: buff.ly/N1LhFcw
16.07.2025 22:27 — 👍 64 🔁 24 💬 2 📌 0'The Fire Within' (1963) dir. Louis Malle older man in white jacket: life is good younger man looking down his nose: good for what, doctor?
still waiting on an answer
15.04.2025 11:06 — 👍 64 🔁 7 💬 0 📌 0Yashô (1782-1825) “Bat in Flight”, Ink on paper
12.07.2025 15:56 — 👍 84 🔁 18 💬 3 📌 1RIP Tadeusz Rolke, 1926-2025
Picture of Warsaw, 1956
A limestones bust representing a lady, richly attired and wearing a headdress composed of a tiara covered by a veil, a diadem on the forehead and, on the sides, wheel-like coils (rodetes) that frame the face in which the hair would have been gathered.
I’ve been fascinated by the “Dama de Elche” since I first learned about her, a mysterious statue from the 4th century BC discovered by a 19th-century farmer in a field in Valencia. Finally saw it in person today #ancientsky
13.07.2025 15:04 — 👍 222 🔁 32 💬 8 📌 2Film review by Jorge Luis Borges of KING KONG (1933): King Kong: A monkey fourteen meters high (some of his fans say fifteen) is obviously charming, but perhaps that is not enough. This monkey is not full of juice; he is a dried out and dusty contraption with angular, clumsy movements. His only virtue-his height-seems not to have greatly impressed the photographer, who persists in not shooting him from below but from above, a plainly mistaken angle that invalidates and annuls his tallness. It should be added that he is hunchbacked and bowlegged, features that also shorten him. To ensure that there is nothing extraordinary about him, they make him fight monsters far stranger than he and find him lodgings in fake caverns the size of a cathedral, where his hard-won stature is lost. A carnal or romantic love for Miss Fay Wray brings to perfection the ruin of this gorilla and of the film as well.
Borges’ capsule review of KING KONG in which he mostly complains that Kong should be bigger
12.07.2025 03:56 — 👍 1146 🔁 257 💬 34 📌 58A collection of silver amulets
Another collection of silver amulets
Patri is a word for Hindu amulet pendants, that typically show a deity, in a simplified form (because small). Cheap ones are made of copper, good ones, of silver.
Source: www.ethnicadornment.com/indian-amule...
French cigarette style cards showcasing the theatrical practical special effects work of early cinema. 1908.
12.07.2025 14:09 — 👍 212 🔁 52 💬 7 📌 2911
11.07.2025 23:17 — 👍 25 🔁 3 💬 2 📌 0