THE WORLD IS FULL

messy assemblages

https://epoiesen.library.carleton.ca/2019/03/16/messy-assemblages/Ian Dawson & Paul Reilly

exit poll

The Ends of the World

Last month, though, the environment changed. In what the director of Russia’s Institute of Global Climate called ‘a colossal, unprecedented anomaly’, a heatwave inside the Arctic circle took Yamal’s temperature up to 34° celsius, The heat began to melt the icy ground – the permafrost – and things which had been frozen for decades began to thaw. Among those things were the bodies of reindeer which had died more than seven decades ago; and among those bodies were the spores of the deadly bacterial disease anthrax.

The anthrax spread among the local reindeer population, killing more than 2000 of them, and then jumped to humans. One boy died; unconfirmed reports suggest his grandmother died too. Then the Russian government took action. Doctors and soldiers poured into the territory and began a programme of mass vaccinations and antibiotic treatment which seems to have stemmed, so far, the further spread of the disease. At the time of writing, hundreds of Russian troops are burning infected reindeer carcasses across the region, and a 12,000km exclusion zone is being disinfected to ensure no spores remain in the soil. According the region’s governor, ‘it is unlikely that anything will grow there ever again.’

Across the world, the ice is melting at rates much faster than predicted even five years ago, and as it does so it is bringing buried things to the surface. Viktor Maleyev, deputy chief of Russia’s Central Research Institute of Epidemiology, warns that the smallpox virus could be released again from thawing graves; so too could recently discovered viruses from extinct and as-yet-frozen mammoths. In Greenland, researchers fear that melting ice may lead to the release of underground toxic waste, buried during the Cold War.

noltland bitch

A wide variety of ominous or hellish supernatural dogs occur in mythologies around the world, similar to the often seen dragon. Features that have been attributed to hellhounds include mangled black fur, glowing red eyes, super strength or speed, ghostly or phantom characteristics, and a foul odor.

knowlton ring

wrong corner

local

scarcity & substitutes

Digital imaging and prehistoric imagery: a new analysis of the Folkton Drums

antiquity article is out!

zerowork

https://thesebonesofmine.wordpress.com/2015/05/03/guest-post-an-archaeologist-an-anthropologist-and-an-anarchist-walk-into-a-bar-by-stuart-rathbone/

Ri - to cut with something toothed

 

walworth sunday

choke point

In military strategy, a choke point (or chokepoint) is a geographical feature on land such as a valley, defile or a bridge, or at sea such as a strait which an armed force is forced to pass, sometimes on a substantially narrower front, and therefore greatly decreasing its combat power, in order to reach its objective.

fish knife - cut down tool

"Removing the ligature from a prisoner as swiftly as possible is crucial to ensuring the best possible chance of surviving and avoiding long-term or permanent brain damage."

Chun | On Software, or the Persistence of Visual Knowledge

Software has become a commonsense shorthand for culture and hardware a shorthand for nature. (In the current debate over stem cell research, stem cells have been called “hardware.”Historically software also facilitated the separation of pattern from matter, necessary for the separation of genes from DNA.
In our so-called postideological society, software sustains and depoliticizes notions of ideology and ideology critique. People may deny ideology, but they don’t deny software—and they attribute to software, metaphorically, greater powers than have been attributed to ideology. Our interactions with software have disciplined us, created certain expectations about cause and effect, offered us pleasure and power that we believe should be transferable elsewhere. The notion of software has crept into our critical vocabulary in mostly uninterrogated ways. By interrogating software and the visual knowledge it perpetuates, we can move beyond the so-called crisis in indexicality toward under-
standing the new ways in which visual knowledge is being transformed and perpetuated, not simply displaced or rendered obsolete

toon antler

Revanchism

Irredentism (from irredento for "unredeemed") is any political or popular movement intended to reclaim and reoccupy a lost homeland. As such irredentism tries to justify its territorial claims on the basis of (real or imagined) historic and/or ethnic affiliations.

http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/Timeandphotography/melser.html

Antler Macehead

assemblage at the BM

Jones 1990
Goddess (registration no. 1959,0712B.96) and phallus (1959,0712B.97) from Grime's Graves
These two objects were found by A. L. Armstrong during his excavations at Grime's Graves in the late 1930s. The first to be discovered was the goddess, upright on a pedestal of flat chalk slabs near an original platform of closely packed blocks of mined flint, the apex of which pointed to the figure. On this were several antler picks and at its base a small, well-made chalk cup. Nearby were the chalk phallus and three natural flint nodules, arranged, according to Armstrong, 'in the form of a phallus'. The lack of any close parallels from other Neolithic sites has led some to doubt the authenticity of these pieces.
Indeed, it was rumoured at the time of discovery that they had been planted in order to fool Armstrong. It is unlikely that their status will finally be settled until similar objects are found elsewhere, or someone writes their memoirs.

During the inter-war years a number of individuals, particularly Leslie Armstrong, continued to try to find evidence for a Palaeolithic date, even after publication of the 1933 paper written by Clark and Piggott which conclusively demonstrated the Neolithic date of flint mining.
Armstrong's work at Grimes Graves reached its climax when he excavated Pit 15 between 1937 and 1939. This shaft was relatively shallow - the 'floorstone' was encountered at a depth of 6m - and nine galleries radiated out from the base of the shaft.
The excavation of this flint mine was one of the most controversial at Grimes Graves, particularly because of the discovery of the famous chalk 'goddess'. This carved figurine appeared to offer belated support for a Palaeolithic origin for flint mining, a view that attracted few supporters by the 1930s. However, although this figurine echoed the style of Palaeolithic carvings, it was greeted with scepticism - as were the Palaeolithic-style etchings found in 1921 - as the weight of evidence argued overwhelmingly for a Neolithic date.
Recently, the authenticity of the figurine has been questioned again, and there are strong grounds for believing that it was made during Armstrong's excavations by persons unknown, probably to deceive Armstrong. Armstrong held firmly to his belief in Palaeolithic mining - but this proved to be his last excavation at Grimes Graves.

the reticular fallacy

http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/the-reticular-fallacy

The many qualities of rhizomatic systems should be understood not as the pure and innocent laws of a newer and more just society, but as the basic tendencies and conventional rules of protocological control.

viewshed

 He who from the top of AEtna casts his eyes leisurely around, is affected chiefly by the extent and diversity of the scene. Only by a rapid whirling on his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama in the sublimity of its oneness. But as, on the summit of AEtna, no man has thought of whirling on his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain the full uniqueness of the prospect; and so, again, whatever considerations lie involved in this uniqueness, have as yet no practical existence for mankind.
 http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/poe/eureka.html

A viewshed is an area of land, water, or other environmental element that is visible to the human eye from a fixed vantage point. The term is used widely in such areas as urban planning, archaeology, and military science. In urban planning, for example, viewsheds tend to be areas of particular scenic or historic value that are deemed worthy of preservation against development or other change. Viewsheds are often spaces that are readily visible from public areas such as from public roadways, public parks or high-rise buildings. The preservation of viewsheds is frequently a goal in the designation of open space areas, green belts, and community separators.

In digital imaging, a viewshed may be a binary raster indicating the visibility of a viewpoint for or from an area of interest. A pixel with a value of unity indicates that the viewpoint is visible from that pixel, while a value of zero indicates that the viewpoint is not visible from the pixel. In certain disciplines, such as radio communications, 'visibility' may be probabilistic, therefore viewshed may be represented with non-integer values.
In radio, a viewshed is the area where a specific combination of transmitter, antenna, and terrain allow reception of signal.

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Avebury// googleearth

avebury // stukeley

 Burning the heretic

Just before I visited this place... the inhabitants were fallen into the custom of demolishing the stones, chiefly out of covetousness of the little area of ground, each stood on. First they dug great pits in the earth, and buried them. The expence of digging the grave, was more than 30 years purchase of the spot they possessed, when standing. After this, they found out the kanck of burning them, which has made most miserable havock of this famous temple. One Tom Robinson the Herostratus of Abury,* is particularly eminent for this kind of execution, and he very much glories in it. The method is, to dig a pit by the side of the stone, till it falls down, then to burn many loads of straw under it. They draw lines of water along it when heated, and then with smart strokes of a great sledge hammer, its prodigious bulk is divided into many lesser parts. But this Atto de fe** commonly costs thirty shillings in fire and labour, sometimes twice as much. They own too 'tis excessive hard work, for these stones are often 18 foot long, 13 broad, and 6 thick, that their weight crushes the stones in pieces, which they lay under them to make them lie hollow for burning, and for this purpose they raise them with timbers of 20 foot long, and more, by the help of twenty men, but often the timbers were rent to pieces.

Stukeley goes on to write that a single stone could provide enough pieces to build an ordinary house, but that because of the nature of the stone, such a house "is always moist and dewy in winter, which proves damp and unwholsome, and rots the furniture. The custom of thus destroying them is so late, that I could easily trace the obit of every stone; who did it, for what purpose, and when, and by what method, what house or wall was built out of it, and the like."

*The term "auto da fe" (or auto de fe) means "act of faith" and refers to the Spanish Inquisition's ritual of judging and condemning heretics. The ceremony has generally been thought to include executions by burning at the stake (which is no doubt what Stukeley is alluding to), though some sources claim that the actual executions were held separately.
**Herostratus sought to make a name for himself by setting fire to the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus (Turkey) in 356 BC. He boasted proudly of his act, so the authorities not only executed him but decreed that his name should never be spoken again, on penalty of death. Obviously it didn't work, and the name "Herostratus" subsquently became associated with the idea of seeking glory through acts of destruction or violence.

http://www.avebury-web.co.uk/the_shame.htmlhttp://www.avebury-web.co.uk/the_shame.html
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 Our Lady of Fatima

The Three Secrets

The Sun Miracle

Near the entrance to the sanctuary by the rectory is a Berlin Wall Monument, containing a 5,732-pound chunk of the wall donated by a Portuguese emigrant to Germany after it fell in 1989. He offered it as a memorial of God's intervention in bringing down Communism, as promised at Fatima.

10. Berlin Wall

At the entrance of the Sanctuary, on the south side of the Rectory, one may visit a monument of the Berlin Wall's, consisting of a concrete segment that was part of it. (The Walls construction started during the night between the 12th. and 13th. of August, 1961 and its demolition began the 9th. of November, 1989) This segment was offered by means of Virgilio Casimiro Ferreira, a Portuguese emigrant to Germany and is here placed as a grateful memorial of God's intervention for the fall of Communism as promised at Fatima. The segment weighs 2,600 kilos (5,732 lbs.) and measures 3.60 meters (11 ft. 9 in.) high by 1.20 meters (3 ft. in.) wide. The present monument was designed by the architect J. Carlos Loureiro and was inaugurated on the 13th. of August, 1994.

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Claudio Colaguori in Agon Culture: Competition, Conflict and the Problem of Domination. For Colaguori, "the agon is literally the arena of competition, the scene of contest, and the locus of adversarial conflict. The philosophy of agonism affirms the idea that transcendence, truth, and growth are generated from the outcome of the contest...the concept of agonism is often understood in an affirmative sense as the generative principle of economy, society and even natural ecology and personal growth... The ambivalent character of agonism is that it is often seen as a mode of transcendence, while its instrumental relation to the mode of destruction is rarely acknowledged".