first rule of fandom is everything goes back to destiel

second rule of fandom is everything goes back to kirk/spock

third rule of fandom is everything goes back to holmes & watson

fourth rule of fandom is everything goes back to achilles & patroclus

the funny thing is. I originally typed out "fifth rule of fandom is everything goes back to gilgamesh & enkidu" but then I thought 'no, I can't trust that people will be familiar with the epic of gilgamesh'

I should have known. nerd ass website.

GOGURYEO  (Koguryo) ruled northern Korea during the Three Kingdoms period from the 1st century BCE to 7th century CE, and the best evidence of the kingdom’s prosperity and artistry can be found in the many surviving tombs of the period. The murals inside many of the tombs are an invaluable insight into the ceremonies, warfare, architecture, and daily life of ancient Korea. The tombs are designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

There are over 10,000 Goguryeo tombs of one sort or another, with the earliest ones taking the form of stone cairns using river cobbles. By the 4th century CE, square tombs were constructed and placed within pyramids made of cut-stone blocks. Later tombs were built in the form of huge earth mounds which most often have a rectangular base.

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Ancient Greek Coins With Octopuses 🐙

Extremely pleasing. For some reason I want to put one in my mouth.

Silver brooch, part of the Galloway hoard, a Viking age treasure hoard uncovered in Scotland, dated circa 900 AD

from The National Museum of Scotland

Meiji period fashion was some of the best in the world, speaking purely from an aesthetic standpoint you can really see the collision of European and Japanese standards of beauty and how their broad agreement even in particulars (the similarity between Japanese and Gibson girl bouffants, the obi vs the corset, the obi knot vs the bustle, the mutual covetousness for exotic textiles, the feverish swapping of both art styles and subjects) combined and produced some of the most interesting cultural exchange we have this level of documentation for. Europeans were wearing kimono or adapting them into tea gowns, japanese were pairing lacy Edwardian blouses with skirt hakama and little button up boots. haori jackets with bowler hats and European style lapels. if steampunk was any good as an aesthetic it would steal wholesale from the copious records we have in both graphic arts and photography of how people were dressing in this milieu.

«The botany professor,» from Kkokei Shimbun, October 20, 1908. she's wearing a kimono blouse or haori, edwardian skirt or hakama, gibson girl bouffant, a lacy high-collar blouse with cravat and brooch, and a pocket watch with chain

1910-1930 (Taishō era, right after Meiji, which I should have included in my OP) men's haori with western lapels

I have a love for both kimonos and bustle dresses, so I love seeing how the two fashions influenced each other over this period.  And thanks to Pinterest, I have pictures!

Victorian tea gown that clearly started as a kimono.  It still has the long furisode sleeves, but now they’re gathered at the shoulder and turned around so that the long open side is facing the front instead of the back.  Similarly the back is taken in with curved seams to fit the torso and pleated below that for the skirt.

Woodblock of a woman in a a bustle dress made with colorful patterned fabrics and examples of how a woman could style her hair with it.

More prints to showcase hairstyles, two women wearing western wear and two women wearing kimonos.

This next one’s modern, but it involves hoopskirts so I’ll add it in because it makes me so happy.  There’s been different styles of wedding fashion that take kimonos and give them a more modern look.  Often this involves taking a kimono and then cutting and resewing it into a new dress.  Very pretty, but it can’t ever be worn like a traditional kimono again.  But now there’s another trend where the bride wears a hoopskirt with a white skirt, then you take the kimono and drape it on.  The back of the kimono covers the front of the dress, the long sleeves fall across the sides or the back, and you still wear an obi with it.  The result is pretty and the kimono itself doesn’t have to be altered at all.

And because you mentioned steampunk, I have to add in these two:

Personally I’m a big fan of Taisho Meisen kimono, which are what happen when the Japanese textile industry abruptly gets access to aniline dyes, new spinning and weaving technology, and the concept of Art Deco:

everybody shut up and look at my favourite anatolian hieroglyph

it's the L9/L444 sign and it means embraced or beloved

i was so charmed by this i dropped everything and spent an hour making it into a little stamp

@signipotens

U+14408! 𔐈

everybody shut up and look at my favourite anatolian hieroglyph

it's the L9/L444 sign and it means embraced or beloved

i was so charmed by this i dropped everything and spent an hour making it into a little stamp

every time i see someone call kirk and spock the oldest ship, i'm filled with the urge to go "hmm actually the holmes and watson girlies have been here for a hundred years now", and i refrain because i know the natural conclusion of this game is gilgamesh and enkidu

Snowball fight, Italy, c.1400

I very genuinely need tumblr to understand that museums are as diverse as historians, egyptologists, archaeologists, and what have you in general. Like from the way people are talking you'd think that only straight white Western men are ever involved in these concepts, because the internet at large just loves to be able to get on their little high horsie about how they are sooo much more morally correcter than the Evil Other

Which is absolutely not a concerning attitude to have, not at all no sir

forgot I'm on the piss on the poor website so I'll spell it out: Western straight white men aren't per definition the Evil Other either

You know where the real danger is? Anti-intellectualism, the concept of moral purity, and opening your damn trap when you don't know shit about fuck

#also our job market is a hellscape and a lot of us aren't wealthy either and neither are our workplaces #many museums especially have SUCH a hard time affording anything rn #the days of museums as institutions and the humanities being a realm of wealth and prestige are well and truly over #this is a field that is being devalued constantly in a world that would love to believe everything important is digital #or about making money #and that's a fucking problem bc the whole thing of museums is that they offer easily accessible education #HOW is the “go to your local library” website so indifferent or even hostile towards museums#academia (via @veilchenjaeger)

reproduction of a terracotta girl on a swing, cast originally minoan, agean islands, greece c. 1600-1450 b.c.

none of those words are in the epic of gilgamesh