Some words have come down to us largely unaltered since the last Ice Age.This is goddamn amazing.
(Source: victoriousvocabulary)
YO HOLD ON.
IT GETS BETTER.
This mummy, found in the Altai mountains of Siberia, is actually that of a young woman who died at about the age of twenty-five; she is thought to have been a member of the Pazyryk tribe.
She was buried with six horses and two similarly-tattooed men (the horned griffon that decorates her shoulder also appears on the man buried closest to her, covering most of his right side), possibly escorts. She was also wearing a horse-hair wig, silk, and elaborate boots, which is all a level of ceremony that would have likely only been accorded to a woman of high rank. You didn’t get inked like this unless you were very important, and had worked your way up to that importance.
…Hence, of course, the references to her by researchers as ‘The Ukok Princess,’ although due to the lack of weapons in her grave they have concluded that the woman was in fact a healer or a storyteller.
And now I’m all consumed with curiosity: Who was she? What amazing things did she accomplish? Why these symbols, and what did they mean? Who were the two men alongside her?
The most informative article about it can be found here, although I would completely eat up any other information you guys could find.
I only met one other homosexual in the army. That was in Le Havre in 1917. We was on the boat coming home. I don’t know how these things work, whether it’s through conversation, or whether it’s the attitude of the individual concerned, but we seemed to come together, see. All of a sudden his arm was round my neck and this, that and the other, and then, of course, one thing led to another. And that was Phil, my affair that I had for seven years. When I come out of the army we stuck together. I was living at the time in Ilford. I rejoined the army in 1920, then I went out to Germany. I was living with Phil at the time and I saw him when I came home on leave and we kept a flat together. I was in the army because the army was my life at that period. He was somebody just like a wife to come home to…
… I don’t think our friends or family knew, yet they had a very good suspicion. Phil and I often talked about it, only he said, well, he says, as long as we love each other, what’s it to do with other people? And that was the true situation.
Text: First person account as told by Gerald, born 1892, Norfolk, England. Excerpted from Between the Acts: Lives of Homosexual Men 1885-1967, Jeffrey Weeks and Kevin Porter (eds)
(story found thanks to: www.woolfandwilde.com)
(via ahundredyears)
Hidden in the Open: A Photographic Essay of Afro American Male Couples
This is soo good! Trent Kelley has compiled over 100 images revealing a long legacy of Black male couples. These are some of my faves. Check out his flickr page for more amazing images.
(via aesho)
![cracked:
“It’s going down! Quick, break out the emergency karaoke machine!”
6 Hilarious Pranks Pulled by Soldiers in the Middle of War
#4. Singing Sarcastic Songs on a Sinking Ship
In 1982, the Falklands War was raging between Argentina and the United Kingdom. On the fourth of May, an Argentinian jet unleashed a lethal Exocet missile onto the British ship the HMS Sheffield. The ship was destroyed, and the crew was left to sit and wait for rescue. Sensing an abrupt drop of morale, the crew decided to cheer themselves up by singing. Appropriately, they sang [the Monty Python song ] “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” And this, it turns out, would begin a truly insane tradition among British troops.
Read More](http://24.media.tumblr.com/9638d848f8e15ffb71aba8ef3ad4111b/tumblr_mky1eqsYfD1qz5q5lo1_400.jpg)
“It’s going down! Quick, break out the emergency karaoke machine!”
6 Hilarious Pranks Pulled by Soldiers in the Middle of War
#4. Singing Sarcastic Songs on a Sinking Ship
In 1982, the Falklands War was raging between Argentina and the United Kingdom. On the fourth of May, an Argentinian jet unleashed a lethal Exocet missile onto the British ship the HMS Sheffield. The ship was destroyed, and the crew was left to sit and wait for rescue. Sensing an abrupt drop of morale, the crew decided to cheer themselves up by singing. Appropriately, they sang [the Monty Python song ] “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” And this, it turns out, would begin a truly insane tradition among British troops.
(via iseultafire)
someone should make a shakespeare character pin-up calendar
lady macbeth posing seductively in her nightgown covered in blood
romeo posing seductively on a balcony covered in blood
ophelia in a bikini
#tamora eating a meat pie in a very seductive manner #claudius doing that pin up girl ‘shh don’t tell’ pose as he pours poison into hamlet’s dad’s ear #MALVOLIO POSING SEDUCTIVELY IN HIS YELLOW STOCKINGS (penthesileas)
#Viola in menswear #Henry IV in nothing but a crown #Julius Caesar just holding a single dagger over the relevant areas #Richard III posed like Lady Godiva atop the horse he gave his kingdom for #Timon lounging on a bed of gold #Desdemona with just a pillow (Notbecauseofvictories)
#brutus and cassius in very flimsy togas #cleopatra with a snake britney-style #the fool sexily trying to cover lear up during the storm scene #the dromeos covering each other with their hands #hamlet holding a skull over his junk #shakespeare himself doing a tits and ass pose
#isabella in her wimple and nothing else #king richard lounging on a horse #titania grabbing someone’s ass lol geddit #ferdinand and a strategically placed log #antonio and bassanio almost-kissing #prospero stroking his staff #charles the wrestler all oily #viola and olivia all up in each others’ faces #othello just standing around being othello because othello was just really hot
#rosencrantz and guildenstern doing something shirtless and homoerotic like wrestling on the deck of a ship #hamlet posing seductively with a shovel in a graveyard #tybalt wielding a rapier in a leopardprint thong #prince hal in a flimsy white shirt pouring wine over himself seductively
(via aesho)
![art-of-swords:
Shark-Tooth Sword reveals “lost” shark species
Shark-tooth weapons once used for warfare in the Central Pacific have revealed two locally extinct shark species, a new study says. Historical records show that natives of the Gilbert Islands, now part of the country of Kiribati, once battled one another using wooden swords, spears, daggers, and other weapons inlaid with the sharp, jagged teeth of local shark species.
By studying 120 such weapons housed at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, scientists determined that Gilbert Islanders used teeth from at least 17 shark species in making their weapons. The Gilbert Island weapons used in the study date to the mid-19th century, when the first British and American missionaries and whalers arrived at the island. (Read about the pioneers of the Pacific.)
The main bodies of the weapons were made of wood, and shark teeth were painstakingly sewn along their edges using thread made from coconut fiber and human hair. Because the islanders had no metal, they used spiral snail shells to bore holes in the teeth before sewing them to the weapons. According to written eyewitness accounts by the missionaries, the Gilbert Islanders used the shark weapons in violent and often fatal territorial disputes. “Space on the island was at a premium,” explained Drew, whose study was published online April 3 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Often in these battles, two “champions” would fight in a central skirmish. The champions “were dressed in this really cool armor made of very tightly woven coconut cords, and they had tiger shark ‘brass knuckles’ and helmets made out of dried pufferfish with spikes on them,” Drew said. The champions’ weapons might include elaborate swords made of three separate shark-teeth-encrusted blades bound together with stingray skin. Meanwhile, as the champions clashed, their “henchmen” would duke it out in the background, he said.
According to the missionaries, “the henchmen had these really long spears that were completely covered with shark teeth. And while the two main guys were fighting, the henchmen would basically try to reach over their guy and poke the other guy… so there was this battle of these 15-foot [4.5-meter] spears above the heads of the champions,” Drew said.
Women also took part by lobbing clubs at the enemies—sometimes hitting their own warriors.
While sharks were important for the construction of weapons, historical records indicate the Gilbert Islanders weren’t killing them just for their teeth. “The ethnographic literature suggests they used all the different parts—for shields, for household [items], and for food,” Drew said.
Source: © 1996-2013 National Geographic Society](http://25.media.tumblr.com/eb31428d7df012137f635f2c63842424/tumblr_mkpix3lS8C1rrjmgoo1_500.jpg)
Shark-Tooth Sword reveals “lost” shark species
Shark-tooth weapons once used for warfare in the Central Pacific have revealed two locally extinct shark species, a new study says. Historical records show that natives of the Gilbert Islands, now part of the country of Kiribati, once battled one another using wooden swords, spears, daggers, and other weapons inlaid with the sharp, jagged teeth of local shark species.
By studying 120 such weapons housed at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, scientists determined that Gilbert Islanders used teeth from at least 17 shark species in making their weapons. The Gilbert Island weapons used in the study date to the mid-19th century, when the first British and American missionaries and whalers arrived at the island. (Read about the pioneers of the Pacific.)
The main bodies of the weapons were made of wood, and shark teeth were painstakingly sewn along their edges using thread made from coconut fiber and human hair. Because the islanders had no metal, they used spiral snail shells to bore holes in the teeth before sewing them to the weapons. According to written eyewitness accounts by the missionaries, the Gilbert Islanders used the shark weapons in violent and often fatal territorial disputes. “Space on the island was at a premium,” explained Drew, whose study was published online April 3 in the journal PLoS ONE.
Often in these battles, two “champions” would fight in a central skirmish. The champions “were dressed in this really cool armor made of very tightly woven coconut cords, and they had tiger shark ‘brass knuckles’ and helmets made out of dried pufferfish with spikes on them,” Drew said. The champions’ weapons might include elaborate swords made of three separate shark-teeth-encrusted blades bound together with stingray skin. Meanwhile, as the champions clashed, their “henchmen” would duke it out in the background, he said.
According to the missionaries, “the henchmen had these really long spears that were completely covered with shark teeth. And while the two main guys were fighting, the henchmen would basically try to reach over their guy and poke the other guy… so there was this battle of these 15-foot [4.5-meter] spears above the heads of the champions,” Drew said.
Women also took part by lobbing clubs at the enemies—sometimes hitting their own warriors.
While sharks were important for the construction of weapons, historical records indicate the Gilbert Islanders weren’t killing them just for their teeth. “The ethnographic literature suggests they used all the different parts—for shields, for household [items], and for food,” Drew said.
“The most intriguing duel fought between women, and the sole one that featured exposed breasts, took place in August 1892 in Verduz, the capitol of Liechtenstein, between Princess Pauline Metternich and the Countess Kielmannsegg. It has gone down in history as the first “emancipated duel” because all parties involved, including the principals and their seconds were female… Before the proceedings began, the baroness pointed out that many insignificant injuries in duels often became septic due to strips of clothing being driven into the wound by the point of a sword. To counter this danger she prudently suggested that both parties should fight stripped of any garments above the waist. Certainly, Baroness Lubinska was ahead of her time, taking an even more radical take on the (at the time) widely dismissed theories of British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1870 revolutionized surgical procedures with the introduction of antiseptic.
With the precautions Baroness Lubinska recommended, the topless women duelists were less likely to suffer from an infection; indeed, it was a smart idea to fight semiclad. Given the practicality of the baroness’ suggestion and the “emancipated” nature of the duel, it was agreed that the women would disrobe—after all, there would be no men present to ogle them. For the women, the decision to unbutton the tops of their dresses was not sexual; it was simply a way of preventing a duel of first blood from becoming a duel to the death.
…
It is humorous that most recounts of this historic event fail to mention two important things: the winner of the duel (Princess Metternich) and the reason why the women came to arms in the first place—they disagreed over the floral arrangements for an upcoming musical exhibition.”
The first rule of topless victorian ladies swordfighting club is that topless victorian ladies swordfighting club is not to be mentioned in mixed company.
The second rule is naught but an emphatic repeating of the first.
I’M TELLING YOU PINK IS HIDEOUS!
/WHIPS OUT SWORD.
TAKE OFF YOUR SHIRT. WE’RE SETTLING THIS WITH A DUEL.
Seriously some of the comments on this post are epic.
I love this thread.
(via silverturtle)
Cosmonaut Crashed Into Earth ‘Crying In Rage’
This Day in Space: 1927. Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov born. He would be the first person to die during a spaceflight.
So there’s a cosmonaut up in space, circling the globe, convinced he will never make it back to Earth; he’s on the phone with Alexei Kosygin — then a high official of the Soviet Union — who is crying because he, too, thinks the cosmonaut will die.
The space vehicle is shoddily constructed, running dangerously low on fuel; its parachutes — though no one knows this — won’t work and the cosmonaut, Vladimir Komarov, is about to, literally, crash full speed into Earth, his body turning molten on impact. As he heads to his doom, U.S. listening posts in Turkey hear him crying in rage, “cursing the people who had put him inside a botched spaceship.”
This extraordinarily intimate account of the 1967 death of a Russian cosmonaut appears in a new book, Starman, by Jamie Doran and Piers Bizony, to be published next month. The authors base their narrative principally on revelations from a KGB officer, Venyamin Ivanovich Russayev, and previous reporting by Yaroslav Golovanov in Pravda. This version — if it’s true — is beyond shocking.
Starman tells the story of a friendship between two cosmonauts, Vladimir Kamarov and Soviet hero Yuri Gagarin, the first human to reach outer space. The two men were close; they socialized, hunted and drank together.
In 1967, both men were assigned to the same Earth-orbiting mission, and both knew the space capsule was not safe to fly. Komarov told friends he knew he would probably die. But he wouldn’t back out because he didn’t want Gagarin to die. Gagarin would have been his replacement.
The story begins around 1967, when Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union, decided to stage a spectacular midspace rendezvous between two Soviet spaceships.
The plan was to launch a capsule, the Soyuz 1, with Komarov inside. The next day, a second vehicle would take off, with two additional cosmonauts; the two vehicles would meet, dock, Komarov would crawl from one vehicle to the other, exchanging places with a colleague, and come home in the second ship. It would be, Brezhnev hoped, a Soviet triumph on the 50th anniversary of the Communist revolution. Brezhnev made it very clear he wanted this to happen.
The problem was Gagarin. Already a Soviet hero, the first man ever in space, he and some senior technicians had inspected the Soyuz 1 and had found 203 structural problems — serious problems that would make this machine dangerous to navigate in space. The mission, Gagarin suggested, should be postponed.
“ He’ll die instead of me. We’ve got to take care of him.”
- Komarov talking about Gagarin
The question was: Who would tell Brezhnev? Gagarin wrote a 10-page memo and gave it to his best friend in the KGB, Venyamin Russayev, but nobody dared send it up the chain of command. Everyone who saw that memo, including Russayev, was demoted, fired or sent to diplomatic Siberia. With less than a month to go before the launch, Komarov realized postponement was not an option. He met with Russayev, the now-demoted KGB agent, and said, “I’m not going to make it back from this flight.”
Russayev asked, Why not refuse? According to the authors, Komarov answered: “If I don’t make this flight, they’ll send the backup pilot instead.” That was Yuri Gagarin. Vladimir Komarov couldn’t do that to his friend. “That’s Yura,” the book quotes him saying, “and he’ll die instead of me. We’ve got to take care of him.” Komarov then burst into tears.
(via gallifreyburning)
CALL TO ARMS!!! Save the Higgins Armoury Museum
The Higgins Armoury Museum has an official SAVE ME page.
- PETITION - please take a second and sign it HERE.
- DONATE - those who can and want are free to it HERE.
- SPREAD THE WORD - reblog, share on Facebook, tweet, make journals, send e-mails, etc.
For more news, updates, and ideas on how to help out you can turn to their Facebook page or follow them on Twitter.
Thank you all! Save Higgins!!!
I love my tattoo because it comes with a history lesson!
Emperor Norton is the one and only Emperor that the United States has ever had. He was born in London in 1819, raised in South Africa, and came to San Francisco a wealthy man until he lost his fortune investing in rice. He became homeless and some say he was driven mad, which prompted his next move- publicly declaring himself “Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico”
The city of San Francisco accepted him whole-heartedly as their Emperor, bowing to him in the streets, paying for his meals in fancy restaurants, even accepting currency he made himself which depicted his own face. Newspapers began to print his decrees, which included dissolving Congress, abolishing both the Democratic and Republican Parties, demanding that a suspension bridge be built to connect San Francisco and Oakland (now known as the Oakland Bay Bridge), and demanding that a meeting of the nations be held in order to encourage friendly relations (now known as the United Nations). One day, an overzealous police officer arrested His Majesty Norton I for involuntary treatment for a “mental disorder” and created a major civic uproar. Police Chief Partick Crowley apologized to His Majesty and had him released back into the street where he continued to live. After several scathing newspaper articles, police officers began to salute His Majesty when he passed them.
The Emperor regularly attended synagogue on Saturdays as he was born Jewish. He also attended church on Sundays, stating that a public figure such as himself should be mindful of all beliefs. In Chinatown, where tensions between the newly immigrated Chinese and the white miners were running high, gang wars tended to break out. On one such occasion, His Majesty noticed a group of white miners about to attack a group of unarmed Chinese men. He placed himself between them, raised his hands, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. Both parties stood down.
On January 8, 1880, The Emperor was on his way to a lecture at the Academy of Natural Sciences when he collapsed in the street. The next morning, the San Francisco Chronicle’s headline read “Le Roi Est Mort”- The King is Dead. 30,000 people lined the streets for his funeral procession which was darkened by a total eclipse of the sun.
He was beloved by those who knew him, including such literary legends as Robert Luis Stevenson and Mark Twain, who immortalized The Emperor through a character in his novel “Huckleberry Finn”. You’d know him as “The King”.
I’m a tour guide in SF and my favorite part of the day is telling the story of The Emperor. He’s shaped the way that I look at SF. To me, it will always be the city that, even in it’s rowdy Gold Rush days, accepted a man who may or may not have been mad, who had a deep sense of goodness, a great pride for his people, and was absolutely absurd. SF continues to embody this spirit today.
The Tattoo was done at Cold Steel Tattoo in Haight-Ashbury, San Francisco by Thaoe Rivas, who was as excited as I was when I told him the story.
(via nudityandnerdery)
Water-stained violin proven to be the one that played Nearer my God to Thee by Wallace Hartley as the Titanic sank is found. [x]
It is the instrument that he played as the ship went down in the Atlantic, and that he later used as a buoyancy aid once Titanic went down.
The violin was discovered only by chance when the son of an amateur musician found it in his attic. It was given to his mother by her violin teacher and was left gathering dust.
The discovery was almost too good to be true, prompting experts to have the relic forensically examined by some of the most revered scientific bodies in Britain.
Now, after seven years of testing at a cost of tens of thousands of pounds, the water-stained violin has been proven to be the one played by Hartley on the night of the tragedy.
These pictures show how incredibly well-preserved the rose wood violin is despite its age and it being exposed to the sea for 10 days after the sinking.
There are two long cracks on its body that are said to have been opened up by moisture damage.
The photos also show the corroded engraved silver plate screwed onto the base of the fiddle that provided scientists with they key proof of its authenticity.
The historic violin, said to be worth a six figure sum, will go on public display at the Belfast City Hall, where Titanic was built, at the end of March.
Negotiations are also under way to exhibit it in museums around the world including America. It is likely to be auctioned off in the future.
Titanic experts have described it as the most important artefact associated with the infamous liner to have come to light.
(via longdistancewinner)
narwhalsareunderwaterunicorns:
how is it possible to love fictional characters this much and also have people always been this way?
like, did queen elizabeth lie in bed late sometimes thinking ‘VERILY I CANNOT EVEN FOR MERCUTIO HATH SLAIN ME WITH FEELS’
was caesar like ‘ET TU ODYSSEUS’
sometimes i wonder
oh my GOD
the answer is yes they did. there’s a lot of research about the highly emotional reactions to the first novels widely available in print.
here’s a thing; the printing press was invented in 1450 and whilst it was revolutionary it wasn’t very good. but then it got better over time and by the 16th century there were publications, novels, scientific journals, folios, pamphlets and newspapers all over Europe. at first most were educational or theological, or reprints of classical works.
however, novels gained in popularity, as basically what most people wanted was to read for pleasure. they became salacious, extremely dramatic, with tragic heroines and doomed love and flawed heroes (see classical literature, only more extreme.) books in the form of letters were common. sensationalism was par the course and apparently used to teach moral lessons. there was also a lot of erotica floating around.
but here’s the thing: due to the greater availability of literature and the rise of comfy furniture (i shit you not this is an actual historical fact, the 16th and 17th century was when beds and chairs got comfy) people started reading novels for pleasure, women especially. as these novels were highly emotional, they too became…highly emotional. there are loads of contemporary reports of young women especially fainting, having hysterics, or crying fits lasting for days due to the death of a character or their otp’s doomed love. they became insensible over books and characters, and were very vocal about it. men weren’t immune-there’s a long letter a middle-aged man wrote to the author of his favourite work basically saying that the novel is too sad, he can’t handle all his feels, if they don’t get together he won’t be able to go on, and his heart is already broken at the heroine’s tragic state (IIRC ehh).
conservatives at the time were seriously worried about the effects of literature on people’s mental health, and thought it damaging to both morals and society. so basically yes it is exactly like what happens on tumblr when we cry over attractive British men, only my historical theory (get me) is that their emotions were even more intense, as they hadn’t had a life of sensationalist media to numb the pain for them beforehand in the same way we do, nor did they have the giant group therapy session that is tumblr.
(don’t even get me started on the classical/early medieval dudes and their boners for the Iliad i will be here all week. suffice to say, the members of the Byzantine court used Homeric puns instead of talking normally to each other if someone who hand’t studied the classics was in the room. they had dickish fandom in-jokes. boom.)
I needed to know this.
See, we’re all just the current steps in a time-honored tradition! (And this post is good to read along with Affectingly’s post this week about old-school-fandom-and-history-and-stuff.
Ancient Iliad fandom is intense
Alexander the Great and and his boyfriend totally RPed Achilles and Patroclus. Alexander shipped that hard. (It’s possible that this story is apocryphal, but that would just mean that ancient historians were writing RPS about Alexander and Hephaestion RPing Iliad slash and honestly that’s just as good).
And then there’s this gem from Plato:
“Very different was the reward of the true love of Achilles towards his lover Patroclus - his lover and not his love (the notion that Patroclus was the beloved one is a foolish error into which Aeschylus has fallen, for Achilles was surely the fairer of the two, fairer also than all the other heroes; and, as Homer informs us, he was still beardless, and younger far)” - Symposium
That’s right: 4th Century BCE arguments about who topped. Nihil novi sub sole my friends.
because i apparently imprinted hard on dame judi dench as elizabeth I in shakespeare in love, i am now imagining her going to the globe to see mr shakespeare’s latest, and admitting to her ladies in waiting on the way home that she is all heart-clenchy, dead of feels, she cannot even.
i am oddly reassured that some things never change.
(via racethewind10)
(Source: blackwingedheaven, via nudityandnerdery)
