Jacob

@iacobuscaesar

I have an MA in archaeology and run a blog called Living in the Longue Durée about ancient history and whatever else. This profile is mostly funny observations about history and science. Blog: Ask if you want Discord.

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Jacob@iacobuscaesar· 28d

It’s good that you guys said yes because this is the Harlan’s ground sloth that runs this account. (Sorry, not a Megatherium; all these Cascadia posts are subtle Paramylodon content.)

Image of a Harlan’s ground sloth (Paramylodon harlani) from the US National Park Service website about White Sands National Park.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· 29d

Would you guys still love me if I was a giant ground sloth?

The Megatherium americanum from Walking With Beasts, reared up on its hind legs to feed from a tree. Several Macrauchenia are visible in the background.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 11

Remi is the real cozy cabin hyena though.

Remi the big goldendoodle lying on a carpet in the cabin living room between a couch and a chair with a telescope in the corner. Out the windows in the background are the hills and fir forests of Washington.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 11

Last night in the Jacob dream report… So IRL I’m at my parents’ cabin near Mt. St. Helens and I have this view from bed but while I was on the edge of sleep last night I dreamed a spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) approached the door. I don’t think those live in Cascadia.

View out the window of one of the bedrooms of the mountain cabin my parents have in Washington near Mt. St. Helens. The sheets of the bed can be seen in the foreground with a patio beyond a screen door and beyond that various wild grasses and fur trees. In the distance are the rolling hills of the Cascade Range.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 10

My mom gave me a narwhal (Monodon monoceros) finger puppet which… hell yeah.

My hand with a finger puppet of a narwhal on it.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 10

The vibe might be a bit different but I love Thor as defender of humankind. I think about Norse traders who wore the sign of his pendant far from home so that he would keep evils at bay and I love stories about his travels.

Thor’s Fight with the Giants (1872) by Mårten Eskil Winge.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 9

I love those Dimetrodon. Am I alone in thinking they’re directly in conversation with the traditional mode of portraying Chinese dragons? Yuan Dynasty textile for comparison.

Yuan Dynasty textile showing a group of six dragons with twisting contorting bodies surrounded by flowers. The dragons are scaly and serpentine in forms with feathery details and the antlers of deer. These particular ones are five-toed as is tradition.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 9

Proving I’m back in Portland with a visit to Mill Ends Park, former smallest park in the world, a spot with a plant at an intersection near the Portland waterfront. It’s changed a lot since I last visited.

Mill Ends Park, where a bush sits in a bit of dirt in a ring of concrete along Naito Parkway.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 8

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We%27wha Today I learned about We’wha, a Zuni lhamana (AMAB person who took on mixed gender roles) who used both masculine and feminine pronouns and served as an ambassador to the US government, meeting President Grover Cleveland in 1886.

A black-and-white photograph of We’wha wearing a long dress and necklace and holding a basket, all traditional Zuni garb.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 8

I might be far away from Agnès right now but my parents’ house is home to my other baby, Remi the gigantic goldendoodle, a mighty leonine beast who is master of cuddles. And I’m his favorite so that’s nice.

Remi the goldendoodle relaxing on the carpet in my parents’ living room.

Remi up close as I shove a camera into his fuzzy face.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 5

Barely starting things so activities are still easy but I want to take a moment to appreciate how visually maximalist the Maya glyphic writing system is. This from the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs at Palenque. So much linguistic-informational density and artistry in every block.

A page from Translating Maya Hieroglyphs by Scott A. J. Johnson showing a very basic exercise meant to practice identifying glyph blocks and columns for reading order. The sample text is a very dense piece from the Tablet of the 96 Glyphs at Palenque.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 4

I have a very long trip to the US tomorrow and I’m sort of between books so I decided it might be time to crack open this one that I’ve had on the shelf for two years now. Stay tuned as Jacob commentates on Maya glyphs and travel tomorrow I suppose.

Translating Maya Hieroglyphs by Scott A. J. Johnson.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 4

Skircle time!

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 4

Sorry, UK friends, but we must dissolve the bands which have connected us to one another and assume among the powers of the Earth the separate and equal station which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle us. I just think I need life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for myself a bit.

An 1823 facsimile of the original 1776 United States Declaration of Independence.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 4

The votive statues always on watch.

Various Sumerian votive figurines with wide eyes.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 3

Good morning.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 2

The Argead star, symbol of the Macedonian Argead Dynasty of Alexander the Great fame, do be looking kinda like the Kurdish sun.

The Argead star, having a flower pattern in the center surrounded by two concentric circles and eight rays on the first layer around that with eight more rats around that.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 2

Komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) are one of my favorite extant animals species but also TIL their teeth are covered by their gums and they bite through them whenever they eat and get blood all over in their mouths. What the hell.

The Komodo dragon has a tail as long as its body, as well as about 60 frequently replaced, serrated teeth that can measure up to 2.5 cm (1 in) in length. Its saliva is frequently blood-tinged because its teeth are almost completely covered by gingival tissue that is naturally lacerated during feeding. It also has a long, yellow, deeply forked tongue.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jul 1

“Hey, have you met my dog?” My dog (Thylacoleo carnifex, a predatory marsupial from Pleistocene Australia, sometimes called the marsupial lion and which has herbivorous koalas and wombats as its closest living relatives):

Size comparison of Thylacoleo carnifex from “New Skeletal Material Sheds Light on the Palaeobiology of the Pleistocene Marsupial Carnivore, Thylacoleo carnifex” by Wells and Camens, 2018. Thylacoleo is shown standing about three quarters of a meter high and stretching a little under two meters long.

A skull of Thylacoleo carnifex, showing a heavily derived version of the typical vombatiform build with four giant incisors on both its top and bottom jaws each.

Skeleton of Thylacoleo carnifex at Naracoorte Caves National Park in Victoria, Australia. The animal has noticeably long limbs, especially the forelimbs and formidable clawed paws and the aforementioned massive teeth.

Illustration of Thylacoleo carnifex by Nellie Pease. It is depicted with a lot of fur and a tiger-like color palette with a cockatoo biting at its tail.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 30

“Serbs you right, LOL.”

Illustration of the assassination of Austro-Hungarian Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo by Gavrilo Princip on June 28, 1914, as drawn for the July 12, 1914 issue of the Italian newspaper La Domenica del Corriere. The image shows Princip striding forward after removing a hat with his pistol drawn and firing. He has just taken a shot at the archduke who stares forward as if falling dead and now aims at his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg. The archduke and duchess are in a car whose driver stares in horror while a number of soldiers and guards surge forward too late.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 30

He made a statement so incertae sedis even his gang could not classify him.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 28

Skircle time!

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 28

Throwback to 2017 when I climbed this sand dune in the Gobi Desert of southern Mongolia. I helped a nomad family fetch water and cut goat meat off bones for soup while trying to practice Mongolian phrases and the father of the family said I was the most Mongolian tourist and I live on that high.

Young Jacob in shorts and a t-shirt wearing an outdoorsy hat and clutching a water battle on a towering sand dune in the Gobi Desert. Rolling sand stretches into the background and patches of clear sky and pouring rain clouds move across the windy dome of the sky.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 26

Nothing activates the bisexuality in quite the same way as the Greek mythological repertoire of French Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau. I am drawn to every single character. Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864). Jason and Medea (1865). Hesiod and the Muse (1891). Jupiter and Semele (1895).

Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864) by Gustave Moreau. Oedipus, carrying a lowered spear, encounters the Sphinx in a rocky canyon outside of Thebes. She is a winged lion-bodied monster with the head and breasts of a woman, who grasps onto Oedipus’s scant clothing with her paws. The two have their eyes locked together as she gives her riddle. The bodies of her prior victims are visible in a pit in the foreground.

Jason and Medea (1865) by Gustave Moreau. Jason stands triumphant over the slain beast that guards the Golden Fleece, Medea standing behind him with a hand on his shoulder and a magic ointment clutched in the other. In the background, the Golden Fleece is displayed as a ram’s head on a monumental pillar. Various birds and plants emphasize exotic Colchis.

Hesiod and the Muse (1891) by Gustave Moreau. Hesiod is shown with closed eyes, playing an ornate lyre while behind him a winged Muse embraces him, guiding his hand and whispering words in his ear. A bright star shines overhead with an exaggeratedly tall Mount Parnassus crowned with a temple in the background.

Jupiter and Semele (1895) by Gustave Moreau. Zeus sits enthroned in a resplendent otherworldly hall showing his divine essence that radiates from his head while his lover Semele, her side bloodied, stares in awe as the divine vision overwhelms and kills her. The infantile Dionysus, winged and having seemingly escaped from Semele’s open wound, hides his eyes as he flies out. Zeus’s wife Hera is visible behind him, similarly radiant. The pillared courtyard is filled with climbing plants and various divine personages, mostly hard to identify. Zeus’s foot rests on an Ouroboros and at the base of the throne sit personified Death and Sorrow as goddesses. Pan is prominent in the middle of the room, reclining with outstretched goat legs and his horned bearded face. Also visible is Hekate in the lower left with a piercing gaze and her crescent symbolism. Throughout the room are various winged angelic figures and monstrous beings, many of which meld into each other.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 25

Thinking about places I want to go one day and as usual they are bad ideas. Maybe it’s the heat but Mount Erebus on Ross Island off the coast of Antarctica (Ross Dependency, facing New Zealand), the southernmost active volcano on Earth, just seems like it’s gotta be a cool place to trudge around.

A photo of Mount Erebus by Richard Waitt of the US Geological Survey. The volcano dominates the horizon of Ross Island and overlooks a valley between it and one of the other peaks on the island. The landscape and the mountain are buried in snow and ice but in the foreground igneous rock is available, telling ancient and active history.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 25

Middle-aged Bluesky users will type “well said” and “I couldn’t have said it better myself” and the post is just an image like this.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 24

Today I came across this paper from last year relating to megafaunal radiocarbon dates from Brazil dating to the Holocene, including the macraucheniid Xenorhinotherium post-dating the Caral-Supe civilization. I’m kinda fixated and interested in if anyone knows where the discourse on this went.

The last ages of appearance of mammalian megafauna in Brazil are associated with the Pleistocene/Holocene transition, establishing a consensus of extinction of this magnificent fauna during this period of time. In recent decades, direct dating of skeletal remains of this extinct fauna in Argentina, the Caribbean and Alaska, demonstrates that extinctions mammalian megafauna until the middle Holocene. Here, eight fragments of megafauna teeth from the Brazilian Intertropical Region were dated, in the locations of Itapipoca (Ceará state) and the Rio Miranda Valley (Mato Grosso do Sul state), with the respective ages: Itapipoca - Eremotherium laurillardi (PDR-01: age = 6,161 +- 364 RC years BP; PDR-02: age =7,415 +- 167 RC years BP), Smilodon populator (PDR-03: age = 7,803 +- 179 RC years BP), Toxodon platensis (PDR-05: age = 7,804 +- 226 RC years BP), Xenorhinotherium bahiense (PDR-06: age = 3,587 +- 112 RC years BP), Notiomastodon platensis (PDR-07: age = 7,940 +- 502 RC years BP) and Palaeolama major (PDR-09: age = 3,492 +- 165 RC years BP); Miranda River - Eremotherium laurillardi (PDR-11: age = 5,942 +- 294 RC years BP). The ages obtained that the latest ages of megafauna appearance in Brazil are associated with the middle and late Holocene. In South America, the extinction of megafauna has been attributed to many causes, climate/environmental changes or even the synergy between these hypotheses. The ages obtained in this analysis, together with archaeological evidence, demonstrate that the Overkill and Blitzkrieg theories are not plausible explanations for the extinction of the South American megafauna. We believe that the extinction of megafauna in South America is the result of the synergy between environmental/climatic changes between the Last Glacial Maximum and the Holocene Climatic Optimum, with selective hunting of females and young individuals, auto ecological factors of megafauna as supporting agents.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 24

“Light on Used Napkin” by me, now.

Used napkin on a table with a line of sunlight going across it.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 24

In Chinese mythology, there used to be ten suns who’d take turns crossing the sky but one day they all came up at once and the archery god Hou Yi shot down nine of them. I’d like to petition Hou Yi to finish the job.

Qing Dynasty depiction of Hou Yi aiming his bow upwards from the work Inquiry of the Heavens.

Jacob@iacobuscaesar· Jun 23

Most of the kids weren’t in the class today so we just hung out with another group and drew. I drew this dinky Protoceratops and then all the kids started asking for their favorite dinosaurs to take home so that’s what I did for the last hour. Mostly Tyrannosaurus rex naturally.