Ian Randall
@epinicion.bsky.social
1.9K followers 2.3K following 1.9K posts
Archaeologist. Byzantinist. Dr. Also possibly spider from space. He/him.
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epinicion.bsky.social
My soapbox take is that archaeologists and anthropologists should be helping to shape public policy and infrastructure development. The way we currently behave is like someone who spent their whole life studying cars and then said "Oh no, I have nothing to contribute to current car manufacturing."
Reposted by Ian Randall
pedsortho.bsky.social
Please remember that the disgust people have over Christopher Columbus is not based on some modern, 21st century “woke” ideology, but rather on contemporaneous accounts of atrocities that make many modern genocides appear quaint in comparison.

Below, are the accounts of Bartlomé de las Casas.
But too many of the slaves died in captivity. And so Columbus, desperate to pay back dividends to those who had in-vested, had to make good his promise to fill the ships with gold. In the province of Cicao on Haiti, where he and his men imagined huge gold fields to exist, they ordered all persons fourteen years or older to collect a certain quantity of gold every three months. When they brought it, they were given copper tokens to hang around their necks. Indians found without a copper token had their hands cut off and bled to death.
The Indians had been given an impossible task. The only gold around was bits of dust garnered from the streams. So they fled, were hunted down with dogs, and were killed. After each six or eight months' work in the mines, which was the time required of each crew to dig enough gold for melting, up to a third of the men died.
While the men were sent many miles away to the mines, the wives remained to work the soil, forced into the excruciating job of digging and making thousands of hills for cassava plants.
Thus husbands and wives were together only once every eight or ten months and when they met they were so exhausted and depressed on both sides... they ceased to pro-create. As for the newly born, they died early because their mothers, overworked and fam-ished, had no milk to nurse them, and for this reason, while I was in Cuba, 7000 children died in three months. Some mothers even drowned their babies from sheer desper-ation.... In this way, husbands died in the mines, wives died at work, and children died from lack of milk ... and in a short time this land which was so great, so powerful and fer-tile... was depopulated... My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write....
Reposted by Ian Randall
drnwillburger.bsky.social
Halloween is near! It's time to post this marvellous articulated Roman skeleton, presumably meant to be a reminder to enjoy life to the fullest, since pleasure ends irrevocably with death.
In Petronius’ Satyricon, the host of a dinner party brings out a small skeleton with moveable...🧵1/2
Bronze figurine of a walking skeleton with elongated limbs and detailed ribcage, shown against a dark gradient background.
epinicion.bsky.social
This is still one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen.
athenepallas.bsky.social
Choose #20paintings that have stayed with you or influenced you — one painting per day for 20 days, in no particular order. No explanations, no reviews, just paintings. #blueskyartchallenge #art #painting

Artist Unknown • Flora (fresco at the Villa Arianna, Stabiae near Pompeii) •
Reposted by Ian Randall
alaintruong.bsky.social
George Hoyningen-Huene, The Acropolis of Athens, 1938.
Reposted by Ian Randall
fernmonkey.bsky.social
My friend Sascha is a professional musician and he's lost a viola bow on the way to Heathrow. Please signal boost to help him get it back.
Lost viola bow on the way from Honor Oak Station to Heathrow Terminal 2. The bow slid from its bow case somewhere along the way, possibly on the train. TFL contacted already.
It weighs 68.2 grams and has got a stamped DODD next to the frog. If any info on this, please pm me.
epinicion.bsky.social
Think you really hit it on the head with 'Misanthropy Masked As Introvertism Culture.'
epinicion.bsky.social
I've always liked small talk, and this really gets to the core of it.
chappelltracker.bsky.social
This Tumblr user summarizes something I've been feeling/doing lately. Against everything going on, it somehow feels helpful.
User homoquartz writes: as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now."
Small talk isn't to get to know a person. It's just a greeting to affirm you're buddies in the universe. I am motivated by wanting the other person to know I am friendly, so I have gotten pretty decent at small tall when I used to hate it.
Reposted by Ian Randall
slurmsmackenzie.bsky.social
GenAI truly was the worst technology to come along at this moment.

An energy and water guzzler when we most urgently need to take climate action.

A disinformation machine as our journalism fails.

A bias machine as fascism takes root.

A job killer in a cost of living crisis.
thevoidencore.bsky.social
The "cognitive decline and brain damage from repeat COVID infections" and "easy to use robot that makes slop and melts your critical thinking skills" is a hell of a combo in a post-fact media ecosystem
Reposted by Ian Randall
Reposted by Ian Randall
livewildly.bsky.social
Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, et al. folks – looking for a foster family for a dog and two cats until they’re owner can find housing again. Know of anyone?
toriglass.bsky.social
Long story short they’re staying in north Seattle (Everett) but need to foster their two cats and a dog until they find housing again. If you know of any pet lovers in Seattle with a little extra space, please put me in touch with them!

2/2
epinicion.bsky.social
and they also end up paying back into the system in several roundabout ways. There are already systems in place to process them into or out of the country once they are discovered. So. . . . . really it's just racism?
epinicion.bsky.social
I have yet to be given a reasonable answer as to why immigration is a problem. Legal immigrants pay into the system, so if your system is having trouble coping with the strain then that sounds to me like bad management. Illegal immigrants largely can't access that system . . . .
epinicion.bsky.social
In our multi-year VtM LARP some of us tried to roleplay this, but it never really got off the ground. We were 20-30 people and most didn't have time for this perspective.
epinicion.bsky.social
Why didn't you? Did you forget?
epinicion.bsky.social
I genuinely don't understand why people use generative AI. Yeah, I get that it's easier, but. . . . . did you forget why you did anything in the first place? It was easier to not get that degree, not ask that question, to not make that painting or write that paper. It was easier to stay in bed.
Reposted by Ian Randall
drnwillburger.bsky.social
Models of everyday life were deposited in #Egyptian tombs. They were supposed to support the deceased in the afterlife. One of the most charming examples is the model of a #cow giving birth.
Carved in wood, painted.
Probably from Meir, #Egypt, dating c. 2040-1985 BC.

📷 Royal Ontario Museum

🏺
The photo shows a wooden model of a cow giving birth accompanied by two men. One man calms the cow while the other ensures a proper delivery.The calf emerges from his mother, licking the hand of the man.