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elstersen.bsky.social
Symbols, myths, anthropology, art, linguistics, history. This is a notebook of TILs: things I wish I could learn more about! he/him. For my daytime alter-ego, see @khakhalin.bsky.social Support Ukraine! 🇺🇦
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An elephant protecting its young from a dragon. BnF MS Latin 6838B; anonymi tractatus de quadrupedibus, de avibus et de piscibus; 14th century; f.4v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

submitted 2 days ago • 1 comment

I think a lot of people—including many who are very sympathetic to asylum—have some idea that the asylum process is easy and involves showing up and saying “I want asylum” and then being granted asylum.

submitted 3 days ago • 22 comments

Indeed. If you'll pardon me personalizing, I get asked fairly often why my academic career seems stalled despite a prestigious book contract and public presence and one of my first answers is more than half of departments are uninterested in ever hiring a military historian of any description.

submitted 5 days ago • 9 comments

Its #AncientSiteSunday & since we've been posting on Orkney, seems about time for a thread on the Broch of Gurness 🧵👇

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

The world has been through anti-science cycles before, to disastrous results On a detour on my lit review, a mosey through the history of our familiar friend, the standard onion (Allium cepa) brought me right to one of botany's greatest cautionary tales of what happens when ideology overrides data

submitted 155 days ago • 25 comments

A script of a radio episode from NPR

submitted 5 days ago • 0 comments

Do vampires not reflect in mirrors coz mirrors are made of silver, or coz they don't have reflections in general? Do they get reflected in water, ice, plastic, polished stone? Gold, copper? Full internal reflection in a prism?

submitted 6 days ago • 1 comment

Interesting point I like the books though! But the map is funny haha 😅

submitted 6 days ago • 2 comments

There's a Georgian town in the middle of Iran (Fereydunshahr). Georgians were relocated there from Kakheti in 17C; they still speak Georgian, but converted to Twelver Islam. Many dream of returning to Georgia, but it rarely works out (rare dialect, archaic customs) chaikhana.media/en/stories/4...

submitted 415 days ago • 0 comments

How different are the various Japanese dialects from Tokyo Japanese? Which are the most different? Dialectometry allows us to answer this question visually. The darker the colour on the map, the more different the dialect spoken there is from that spoken in Tokyo (red dot)

submitted 7 days ago • 4 comments

this is the very first time the phrase "the Polish Japanological jargon" has crossed my timeline but it better not be the last

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Wow "pissed" is quite a false friend haha, I had no idea (and one of the starkest changes, as it's so incompatible!)

submitted 8 days ago • 3 comments

some random doodles from 2021

submitted 9 days ago • 0 comments

Viola de Cocho: a pretty unusual short #lute from #Brazil: • Never more than 2-3 frets • Tiniest sound hole, or none at all • Dense, non-sequential tuning (GCEAd) • Typically left unvarnished One can listen to it on youtube, here for example: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z13K...

submitted 442 days ago • 0 comments

Well of Barhout: A 250-deep sinkhole in Yemen, filled with stinky stale toxic low-oxygen air. Which is why it remains unexplored. Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Well_of...

submitted 578 days ago • 0 comments

This account is entirely dedicated to professionall artizanal manufacturing of miniatures for custom games

submitted 10 days ago • 0 comments

TIL there's a mosque in Berlin, named Ibn-Rushd-Goethe-Moschee (yes, both Averroes and Goethe) with 3 simple points: Women and men can pray together A woman can lead a prayer Gay people are ok And it could not be more dramatic! Closed every year for terror threats! Police presence during prayer. 🧵

submitted 10 days ago • 2 comments

til gudi (or gudhi, or guḍhī): a ritual object that is created in every household in Maharashtra during local new year (lunar calendar, movable, happens in Mar-Apr). The object consists of a pole, dressed in a robe, with flowers and leaves, and a small copper pot on top!

submitted 10 days ago • 1 comment

Heard from a psychotherapist that unhappy ppl in Berlin fall into two groups: Mothers whose children have grown up, who now can't find themselves, as they focused on being a parent their entire life. Younger ppl who want to find a partner, but can't give up their freedom, remain unhappy in-between

submitted 11 days ago • 1 comment