Florisbad
A Brief History
...The First Fossils belonging to the ancestors of Homo Sapiens were found in Chad, North Africa...
The
Skull
...found in modern-Day Florisbad, South Africa....
...It is said to be one of the earliest known homo-sapiens, dating back to...
c. 256,980 BCE
17,000-15,000 BCE
Venus
c. 28,000-25,000BCE
...a fertility figure...
...a good-luck totem...
...a mother goddess symbol...
...an aphrodisiac made by men for the appreciation of men...
...one researcher hypothesized that it was made by a woman and that “[w]hat has been seen as evidence of obesity...is actually the foreshortening effect of self-inspection...”
The
of
Willendorf
Yellow Ochre
Hematite
Umber
Red Ochre
Calcite
Limonite
Charcoal
Burnt Bone
...paints were made of mineral, stone and burnt bones...
c. 5,000 BCE
One of the great masterpieces of late Stone Age art, this extraordinary terracotta sculpture, known as The Thinker ("Ganditorul"), was unearthed in 1956 - together with a similar statuette of a female figure, known as The Sitting Woman of Cernavoda, and numerous other similar, though headless figurines - during archeological excavations of Neolithic settlement and burial debris in the lower Danube region, near Cernavoda in Romania. Created during the Hamangia culture, it is believed to be the oldest known prehistoric sculpture that reflects human introspection, rather than the usual artistic concerns of hunting or fertility. As a result it has become an iconic sculptural figure of prehistoric art, and a striking example of Neolithic art for art's sake. It currently resides in the National Museum of Romanian History, Bucharest.
“Thinker of Cernavoda (C.5,000 BCE).” Thinker of Cernavoda: Neolithic Terracotta Sculpture, www.visual-arts-cork.com/sculpture/thinker-of-cernavoda.htm.
3,600-2,600 BCE
Mesopotamia
And The CITY of
Uruk
... [Uruk] is considered the first true city in the world...
...the first example of architectural work in stone and the building of great stone structures...
...A pyramidal stepped temple tower that is an architectural and religious structure characteristic of the major cities of Mesopotamia.
...the origin of the ziggurat...
The ziggurat was always built with a core of mud brick and an exterior covered with baked brick. It had no internal chambers and was usually square or rectangular, averaging either 170 feet (50 metres) square or 125 × 170 feet (40 × 50 metres) at the base. Approximately 25 ziggurats are known, being equally divided among Sumer, Babylonia, and Assyria...
...the origin of writing...
The first city to develop the which the ancient Mesopotamians used to designate personal property or as a signature on documents. The Cylinder Seal was immensely important for the people of the time, and it stood for one’s personal identity and reputation...
...Uruk could also be credited as the city which first recognized the importance of the individual in the collective community...
Mark, Joshua J. “Uruk.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 15 July 2020, www.ancient.eu/uruk/.
...The city was continuously inhabited from its founding until c. 300 CE when, owing to both natural and man-made influences, people began to desert the area. It lay abandoned and buried until excavated in 1853 CE by William Loftus for the British Museum...
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Ziggurat.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 11 Feb. 2020, www.britannica.com/technology/ziggurat.
...When humans began to settle in the Fertile Crescent, and put down roots after centuries of a nomadic societies, a language and writing system was urged into existence out of necessity. Communication was the key to success of their grand new cities...
c. 3,500 BCE
...Spoken languages were already in existence, but humans realized they needed something tangible, something that could document their lives, maintain their memories, and even create worlds and characters that their descendants would one day read...
...The cuneiform writing system is also not an alphabet, and it doesn’t have letters. Instead it used between 600 and 1,000 characters to write words (or parts of them) or syllables (or parts of them)...
Finkel, Irving, and Jonathan Taylor. “Cuneiform: 6 Things You (Probably) Didn't Know about the World's Oldest Writing System.” HistoryExtra, 26 Mar. 2019, www.historyextra.com/period/ancient-egypt/cuneiform-6-things-you-probably-didnt-know-about-the-worlds-oldest-writing-system/.
c. 3,000 BCE
Stonehenge
3
2
1
Long ago, a battle was fought between the British and the Saxons. King Aureoles Ambrosias buried the dead in Salisbury Plain, requesting the wizard Merlin to erect a Memorial. The King wanted to use a stone circle in Ireland called the Giant's Ring. It got its name from the Giants who had carried the stones from Africa to Ireland. Merlin, using his magical powers, transported the great stones across the Irish Sea to its current location in Salisbury, England.
Long ago, when the Devil roamed the earth in human forms, a woman owned the stones that would one day make up Stonehenge. The Devil wanted these stones and approached the woman as a man, working out a deal with her: she could keep however many gold pieces she could count in the time it took for the Devil to move the stones. Thinking it would take a long time, the woman agreed. The Devil was clever, however, and used his powers to transport the stones instantly to their spot in the Salisbury Plains, cheating the woman out of any gold pieces. the Devil was not done. In England, he claimed that no one would be able to guess how many stones lived in the monument. As you may have guessed, there was a human who did: a travelling Friar. So angry that the Friar had guessed correctly, the Devil threw a stone at the fleeing person. That stone hit the Friar in his heel, denting the stone;it sits near Stonehenge today, the indentation made by the Man-of-God's heel.
Long ago, when giants roamed the earth, a peaceful group of those creatures lived on Salisbury Plains. Legend has it that those Giants were turned to stone while dancing in a circle holding hands one day. There they stand, falling and crumbling century after century in that unending dance of joy or ritual.
c. 2,649-330 B.C.E.
The Dynasties of lasted for more than 3,000 years...
Ancient Egypt
... It was the giant on whose shoulders Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome and every civilization following was built....
...Hints of Ancient Egypt appear even in our own daily lives and cultures: in architecture, cosmetics and money...
...They created a culture of art, myths and Gods, built on the backs of slaves and the the desire for power...
...It was a way of life dictated by the gods of life and death, the
absolute power of Pharaohs
and the Afterlife...
... This art is located on a wall inside the Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb...
...Egypt is one of the only civilizations which created the majority of its art in places where it would never be seen. These beautiful paintings were not for the eyes of the living...
Épine Noir Society
... Those words in Hieroglyphs ...
c. 2100 BCE
by Pulkit Agrawal
Epic
I WILL proclaim to the world the deeds of Gilgamesh. This was the man to whom all things were known; this was the king who knew the countries of the world. He was wise, he saw mysteries and knew secret things, he brought us a tale of the days before the flood. He went on a long journey, was weary, worn-out with labour, returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story.
Colossal statue of a hero, (Gilgamesh) plaster cast, original in Khorsabad, Iraq, late 8th century BCE
... translated to English for the first time in the early 1870s by George Smith, a scholar at the British Museum...
engraved in Cuneiform...
The
of
Gilgamesh
Kil.sikil.lil.la Dark Maiden
The demon goddess Lilith has been with us since before the first canonized hero, Gilgamesh. She appeared in that text under her Sumarian name, Kil.sikil.lil.la meaning the Dark Maiden. In the story of Gilgamesh, that hero overcomes many obstacles in his quest for immortality. The demoness confronts the hero when she tries to thwart his plan to declare his love for Inanna, the Goddess of Eroticism and War. Gilgamesh, being the hero of his legend, conquers and kills the monster, forcing the terrified Dark Maiden to flee to the desert.
c. 800 B.C.E.
...Buried in the Greek Creation myth live three humanoid creatures, born of Gaia and Jupiter, with only one eye each. These are called the cyclopes, and they appear in many myths in the Ancient Greek canon...
... Most notably in Homer's Oddysseus, an epic poem chronicling the hero's decade-long journey home to his beloved wife and son. In that myth, A Odysseus and his crew must face off against the great one-eyed giant...
... Although in most depictions, including the one below, of Cyclopes, they are large humans with one eye in the middle of their foreheads, there is a theory which some historians and archeologists have developed linking the creation of Cyclopes to the fossils of mammoth skulls...
According to National Geographic: “to paleontologists today, the large hole in the center of the skull suggests a pronounced trunk. To the ancient Greeks, Deinotherium skulls could
well be the foundation for their
tales of the fearsome one-eyed Cyclops.”
...before Sappho, Sophocles and Socrates could document their thoughts, a language must be created and they proceeded to shape the beginnings of the Latin Alphabet ...
... And those 24 letters inspired and facilitated the growth of some of the most amazing, influential and intellectual artifacts and philosophies of ours or any age. These creations were so great, that their influence is still felt, millennia in the future, and we continue to build on the shoulders of these great artists, poets and philosophers...
Simeon Solomon 1840–1905. Watercolor on paper. 1964. Tate, Purchased 1980.
c. 630-c.570 BCE
Sappho
Lesbian Poetess of Ancient Greece
Now in my
heart I
see clearly
a beautiful
face
shining back on me,
stained
with love
Lilith
The mythology of the Dark Maiden from Ancient Mesopotamia and the Gilgamesh myth, has permeated cultures across the populated world, has permeated cultures across the populated world, since the time of Babylonia, until Sappho, and beyond. The basic myth tells the story of a woman who died a virgin who takes and eats young children, and is dangerous to pregnant women, as well. She appears in mythology from many cultures, under different names. Each can be traced back to the demoness Lilith.
In Sappho's poem, we find the name Gello, one that was used from Syria to Italy to Ethiopia.
appears again, under another name, in a poem fragment written by Sappho.
c. 551-479 BCE
Ge'llws paidofilwte'ra
More fond of children than Gello.
Zenobius, about A.D. 130, quotes this Sappho fragment as a proverb. The ghost of Gello was said by the Lesbians to pursue and carry off young children.
A Limestone wall plaque found in Arsla Tash, Syria dates back to around the 7th or 8th century BCE, and is said to be an Amulet to protect women and children from the baby-devouring Demoness Lilith.
To translate the Cuneiform engraved on this amulet:
"O you who fly in [the] darkened rooms, be off with you this instant, Lilith, Thief, breaker of bones."
The name Confucius, is a Latinized combination of the surname Kong (孔) with an honorific suffix “Master” (fuzi 夫子)
teacher
advisor
editor
philosopher
reformer
prophet
Confucius originated many of the foundational concepts and cultural practices in East Asia, and his casting as a progenitor of “Eastern” thought in Early Modern Europe, make him arguably the most significant thinker in East Asian history.
Confucius with many of the foundational concepts and cultural practices in East Asia, and his casting as a progenitor of “Eastern” thought in Early Modern Europe, make him arguably the most significant thinker in East Asian history.
he was closely associated with the transmission of the ancient sacrificial system, and he himself received ritual offerings in temples found in all major cities.
Confucius sought to preserve the Zhou ritual system, and theorized about how ritual and music inculcated social roles, limited desires and transformed character.
Csikszentmihalyi, Mark. “Confucius.” Edited by Edward N Zalta,
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Metaphysics Research Lab,
Stanford University, 31 Mar. 2020, plato.stanford.edu/entries/confucius/.
c. 500 BCE
Lao Tzu
also rendered as
Laozi
Lao-Tze
and
“The Tao of Pooh.” Just Pooh News, www.just-pooh.com/tao.html.
Hoff, Benjamin. The Tao of Pooh. Mandarin Paperback, 1982.
...the basic Taoism is simply a particular way of appreciating, learning from, and working with whatever happens in everyday life. From the Taoist point of view, the natural result of this harmonious way of living is happiness....
Taoism
Be content with what you have;
rejoice in the way things are.
When you realize there is
nothing lacking, the whole
world belongs to you.
Lao Tzu
...Taoism has influenced many cultures. Recently, Benjamin Hoff discovered a connection between the ancient Philosophy and our favorite happy, honey-Loving Bear. Pooh and his friends seem to understand the teachings of Leo Tzu is a way not many could understand...
...and Tigger bounces...
While Eeyore frets...
...and Owl pontificates...
... Pooh just IS...
... and as for Piglet?
He demonstrates the Te,
or Virtue of the small...
The Tao of Pooh
Siddhartha Gautama
"The Awakened One"
...The beginnings of Buddhism and the teachings of Siddhartha "He who achieves his goal...
...To Provide humanity with a relief from suffering...
...Knowledge and meditation WERE A true means of salvation...
...Nirvana is the ultimate goal...
.
...Nirvana translates to "Extinction", which signifies the idea of blowing something out, or extinction. It refered to the concept of Freedom from Re-Birth...
Violatti, Cristian. “Siddhartha Gautama.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 3 June 2020, www.ancient.eu/Siddhartha_Gautama/.
c. 496-406 BCE
Sophocles
Sophocles was a classical playwright in ancient Greece who created some of the most famous household names of multiple Millenia.
Oedipus Rex, or was first performed in 429 BCE. It told the story of a prophesied King of Athens who was abandoned in the countryside in hopes of keeping him from killing his father and marrying his mother. Prophesies don't work that way, and that choice only led him to attacking and killing the traveling king. That king's people adopted him as the new king and brought him to Athens, where he took his place next to his new wife, the woman who once gave birth to him. The tale ends in tragedy, the suicide of his Queen, and his own self-mutilation, which led the blindness. The story continued in the trilogy of Oedipus canonizing the lives of his children and Royal relations.
Because of Sophocles, the concept of an "Oedipal Relation" has influenced and explained societies, psychologies and cultures for many hundreds of years.
c. 450 BCE
...Quetzacoatl is the Feathered Serpent or Precious Twin. He is the god of intelligence and self-reflection, a patron of priests. He is a primordial god of creation, a giver of life. He is the Lord of the East, and is associated with the morning star...
...After the last world, the Fourth Sun had been destroyed, Quetzalcoatl went to Mictlan, the land of the death, and created our current world, the Fifth Sun, by using his own blood to give new life to bones. Quetzalcoatl is also the giver of maize (corn) to mankind....
...It is said the Quetzacoatl, a loving and generous god, wanted his people to be well fed and happy. By being healthy, they would dedicate themselves to improve and be the best people they could be, studious, knowledgable, generous artistically talented...
...One day, Quetzacoatl stole the cocoa tree from Paradise where all the other Gods lived. The God plant that tree in Tula, Mexico, where it flourished under the rain sent through Tlaloc, the God of Rain...
... Xochiquetzal, the goddess of love and beauty, gave the tree beautiful flowers...
...Quetzalcóatl then focused his efforts in teaching the Toltecs how to obtain the grains, toast and grind them. Later he taught his people how to mix the ground cocoa with water to produce a delicious beverage now known as chocolate...
...the Toltecs were then transformed into powerful people because only they possessed the precious chocolate...
“Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent or Precious Twin.” Aztec Calendar, www.azteccalendar.com/god/Quetzalcoatl.html.
Herz, May. “The Legend of Cocoa .” Inside Mexico, 2017, www.inside-mexico.com/the-legend-of-cocoa/4/.
Queztacoatl
The Legend of Chocolate
&
...Nothing comes without consequence, even for the gods. Quetzacoatl found himself surrounded by the fury of the other gods because he had stolen the cocoa tree. The gods also began to envy the power the Toltecs had achieved through this invaluable gift. The envious Gods swore to destroy Quetzalcóatl and punish the Toltecs...
...Tezcatlipoca, enemy of Quetzalcóatl, transformed
himself into a pulque seller (pulque
is a fermented agave cactus juice). He approached Quetzalcóatl and offered him the drink, telling him that the beverage was delicious and would take away all his troubles. The next day, when he realized what had happened he felt unbearably ashamed and humiliated, not only for getting drunk but also for having fallen to the envy and hatred of the other gods...
...Dishonored and ashamed, Quetzalcóatl decided to disappear from the earth permanently...
...As he was leaving he noticed that almost all the cocoa trees, which were so lovingly cared for by the Toltecs, were completely dry. The other gods, corroded with envy, tried to exterminate all cocoa trees from the face of the earth...
...Tezcatlipoca, enemy of Quetzalcóatl, transformed himself into a pulque seller (pulque is a fermented agave cactus juice). He approached Quetzalcóatl and offered him the drink, telling him that the beverage was delicious and would take away all his troubles. The next day, when he realized what had happened he felt unbearably ashamed and humiliated, not only for getting drunk but also for having fallen to the envy and hatred of the other gods...
...Dishonored and ashamed, Quetzalcóatl decided to disappear from the earth permanently...
...As he was leaving he noticed that almost all the cocoa trees, which were so lovingly cared for by the Toltecs, were completely dry. The other gods, corroded with envy, tried to exterminate all cocoa trees from the face of the earth...
c. 500-400 BCE
The , named after the settlement of the same name, flourished in southern West Africa (modern Nigeria) during the Iron Age from the 5th century BCE to the 2nd century CE. Famous for the distinctive terracotta sculptures of human heads and figures, Nok was the first known culture in West Africa to produce such art and perhaps the first sub-Saharan culture to perfect iron-smelting technology.
Cartwright, Mark. “Nok Culture.” Ancient History Encyclopedia, Ancient History Encyclopedia, 27 Mar. 2019, www.ancient.eu/Nok_Culture/.
c. 426-323 BCE
Ancient Greek Philosophers
Plato c.426-c.347
Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.
Be a free thinker and don't accept everything you hear as Truth. Be critical and evaluate what you believe in.
Aristotle
Aristotle c.426-c.347
Scholars and historians who try to gather accurate information about Socrates face a peculiar problem, known as the Socratic problem. This problems arise due to 3 key features - There is no proof that Socrates ever wrote anything, philosophical or biographical.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.) was a classical Greek philosopher who is credited with laying the fundamentals of modern Western philosophy. He is known for creating Socratic irony and the Socratic method (elenchus). He is best recognized for inventing the teaching practice of pedagogy, wherein a teacher questions a student in a manner that draws out the correct response. He has had a profound influence on Western philosophy, along with his students Plato and Aristole. Though much of Socrates' contribution is to the field of ethics, his input to the field of epistemology and logic is also noteworthy.
Socrates
c.469-c.399
“Socrates.” Ancient Greece, www.ancientgreece.com/s/People/Socrates/.
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.
Socrates
Peotics, Chs. 24-5 ...Wonder needs to be produced in tragedies, but in the epic there is more room for that which confounds reason, by means of which wonder comes about most of all, since in the epic one does not see the person who performs the action; the events surrounding the pursuit of Hector would seem ridiculous if they were on stage …But wonder is sweet …And Homer most of all has taught the rest of us how one ought to speak of what is untrue …One ought to choose likely impossibilities in preference to unconvincing possibilities …And if a poet has, represented impossible things, then he has missed the mark, but that is the right thing to do if he thereby hits the mark that is the end of the poetic art itself, that is, if in that way he makes that or some other part more wondrous...
c. 400 BCE
Gəˁəz
Ethiopic
and the
alphabet
Created in Ethiopia and Eritrea, for the laguages Ge’ez, Amharic, Tigrinya, Oromo and is still used today
Belcher, Wendy Laura. “Early African Literature: An Anthology of Written Texts from 3000 BCE to 1900 CE .” Early African Literature Anthology - Wendy Laura Belcher, wendybelcher.com/african-literature/early-african-literature-anthology/.
c. 200 BCE
Melka, Tomi S. “The Ancient Libyco-Berber Inscriptions of Canary Islands – Part 1: Semantic Scholar.” Semantic Scholar, 2014, www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-ancient-Libyco-Berber-inscriptions-of-Canary-%E2%80%93-Melka/fd69ff747f967123aeae95a4ed3862d791d82820.
Tracings of Libyco-Berber sign sequences from Oued Mertoutek (Tamanghasset), southern Algeria. Presumably one of the oldest Libyco-Berber inscriptions in the African continent, it appears – as several other LB writings – embedded within or next to picture-like carvings. A semantic nexus is implied only if the writing and the bovid-like figure coincide along a time sequence. The immediate context of inscription hints at pasturing, herding or hunting grounds of a given community. It also speaks of the literary and visually-oriented mind of the LB scribes when conveying messages, in a very slight analogy to the ancient Egyptian scribes.
c. 200 BCE-200 CE
...The majority of
were written between the 2nd century bce and 2nd century ce. During this time, different Judean groups struggled to obtain and maintain political and religious leadership. As primary sources, the Dead Sea Scrolls shed light on these historical events and explore the ways that various Jews of the Second Temple era related to the world around them...
The Dead Sea Scrolls
“Historical Background.” The Dead Sea Scrolls - Historical Background, www.deadseascrolls.org.il/learn-about-the-scrolls/historical-background?locale=en_US.
“Lamia.” Greek Mythology, www.greekmythology.com/Myths/Monsters/Lamia/lamia.html.
John William Waterhouse. Painting. 1909.
c. 100 BCE
...From
Lamia
...
was a beautiful Libyan queen loved by Zeus. Thus, through no fault of her own, she incurred the wrath of Hera upon herself. Angry with Zeus’ interest for her, the goddess showed no mercy towards Lamia: every time the girl gave birth to a child, Hera either murdered it or made Lamia kill it herself. Either way, after a while, Lamia went mad and began stealing babies from mothers more fortunate than her only so that she could eat them. It is said that the wickedness of Lamia’s revenge was so unprecedented that it visibly disfigured her face. In time, this child-eating monster became a bogey-woman, a word Greek mothers used to frighten their children into discipline and good behavior.
Lilith
The Dark Maiden
Gello
to
to
to
...to be continued...
