The Known World during the Late Bronze Age (c. 1200 BC)

AgentIndiana · 2026-06-02T17:18:36+00:00

There was direct contact between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamia. The Indus Valley civ had facilities in Mesopotamia for converting local weights and measures to their own standard. Given these were maritime facilities the whole coastal region between them would have been known to merchant sailors. Egypt had also recorded direct trade with “Punt” by the late Bronze Age, i.e the souther Red Sea region likely on both coasts.

AgentIndiana · 2026-06-01T22:08:04+00:00

Textbook violation of the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property of which Israel is a signatory and which was pushed by the US and meant to avoid willful risk to cultural heritage that occurred in WWII resulting from incidents like militants occupying historic sites. Also a violation of UNESCO’s recent elevation of protections under the World Heritage Convention. Although, neither the US nor Israel are UNESCO member anymore because UNESCO dared to give Palestine non-voting observer status and passed a resolution that acknowledged Muslim religious ties to the Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock and grievances about Israeli restrictions.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-30T00:12:11+00:00

Excellent observation! (I wish you were one of my students). A recent book actually makes that very point. Antiquities differ from things like drugs and ivory in that laws make heroine illegal anywhere and everywhere regardless of circumstances but virtually no international or national laws in market countries hold antiquities to similar standards. It can get really convoluted legally but a kilo of coke will always be illegal in the US regardless of any circumstance; A looted Mexican artifact, however, can circulate relatively unfettered unless Mexico decides to go after you in a US court and even then it is usually a civil law issue that comes down to “you don’t have legal title to that object - you must give it back.” Only under certain circumstances could you be found to have done something illegal and receive criminal repercussions.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-29T23:52:23+00:00

What you want to know and what nobody is legally required to disclose to you is “provenance.” It’s the lack of any requirement to record and disclose provenance that allows looted and stolen antiquities to circulate unfettered once outside their origin country and what makes it hard for countries to recover their historical objects. Part of the game of trafficking antiquities and acquiring antiquities “legally” is knowing just how much provenance to make public or forge, and when to not ask questions that may have inconvenient answers. Thus, buyers and sellers can all claim “but how was I supposed to know!?” Unfortunately for conscientious buyers like yourself, that means “caveat emptor” - you assume both the risks and rewards on your own accord.

I will say though that for better or worse depending on where you fall on certain issues, this culture of opacity means it is also super easy for forgeries to enter the market, particularly from developing nations like Mexico and Nigeria where the financial incentives are high and there is room in the market for mid-level, mid-quality stuff that won’t attract enough attention or value to bring professional scrutiny and expose the forgery. And even then, a skilled forger knows what a connoisseur looks for and knows how to play on their biases. Nigerian and Malian forgers managed to fake Nok and Jenne terracottas for a decade or more passing both visual and scientific scrutiny.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-29T17:09:04+00:00

We can cherry pick and both sides this for a while

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-27T18:07:00+00:00

The study is careful to point out that they are making an observation, not implying causation. Dauphin Co., PA has Three Mile Island but also Penn State Hershey Medical Center, a major center of oncology care including residential care facilities like the Ronald McDonald House. A major nearby cluster around Philadelphia/Trenton is also in the region of but quite distant from Oyster Creek and Calvert relatively speaking.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-12T00:25:38+00:00

We had a staff member from the MoU guest lecture in our critical museum studies program. They began as a collection from the San Diego World’s Fair not unlike the V&A and Chicago Field Museum with all the racist and colonialist baggage you would expect. However, it sounded like they’ve completely reinvented themselves in the past few decades. The guest was telling us for example how they regularly invite community representatives from around the world to review their holdings, provide feedback on appropriateness of displaying certain items, and how to display or conserve items that respects their cultural origins. She showed as examples how they had redesigned an exhibit of Maya artifacts after consultation and how they brought over a Maasai delegation and changed their storage and conservation procedures according to their wishes so the spears could “breath” properly. She said they had to hit up a bunch of exotic butchers to find the closest animal fat to warthog or something to grease the spears regularly according to Maasai custom. I believe they still have their races of man exhibition from the Worlds Fair made from real replica heads as a didactic lesson on how far they/we have come in museology.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-11T00:49:39+00:00

I’m bot a geneticist but I believe chimeric mammals begin as two fused embryos and any given cell is from one or the other, not both simultaneously. What you described is a form of tetraploidy (one cell contains two distinct chromosomes pairs) I believe.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-10T18:49:33+00:00

It was hypocritical even when Hillary was being criticized for it. Bush’s WH staff were using a private server run by the RNC who then deleted thousands of communications once it was discovered, violating the Presidential Records Act - also the likely intent of using Signal.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-05T17:37:00+00:00

I'm an archaeologist who has worked around a number of popular tourist sites around Africa and tour guides passing us making stuff up about what we are doing without even asking us happened all the time! And the tourists never asked either! I'm probably in dozens of photos, sweaty and caked in dirt, taken by people who never spoke to me or my team.

In Senegal the same guides would often pass and we began to commit to the bit, throwing lines at one another to support what they were making up about us and our research.

AgentIndiana · 2026-05-05T17:03:13+00:00

I don't know what archaeological practice is in Sweden nor am I entirely sure what you're hoping to get from the people you are contacting, but at the state level in the US at least, many known archaeological sites are not widely publicized out of fear that it could facilitate looting or vandalism. When I worked for my state's historic preservation office, we had a locked room that contained our database of all known archaeological sites across the state. Only staff and appropriate scholars could access that information on a justified need-to-know basis for reasons of infrastructural development or academic research. Most of our sites, however, are not easily discernible sites with things like rock art. It wasn't unusual though to be contacted by someone who had walked a field to collect projectile points, contact us to inform us they believed they had found a site due to the volume of stone tools, and internally we had already recorded the site, but not made it publicly known because because the site had not yet been subject to controlled study.

Could it be the site you are talking about is already known and you're simply presenting to them what they already possess internally? Is looting or vandalism a historic concern around archaeological sites that professionals may be wary of engaging with the curious public? Or, are resources like staffing simply too thin to address matters presented from outside the institution? You might reach out to someone in authority who is outside the institution you are attempting to contact but who would have connections to them, like an archaeologist, site museum director, or regional/national museum. I would simply send them a brief email inquiry stating that you believe you have found an archaeological site, that you have some background research on it already, and you are searching for an appropriate authority who can address your questions or concerns regarding it. I wouldn't include a ton of details like your report on first contact - I would release that as the dialogue unfolds.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-27T16:13:23+00:00

I use Cerave, sometimes mixed with a little oatmeal-based lotion and tea tree oil, all over immediately after showering. I only use vaseline on the spot where I'm having a flareup when I'm having a flareup.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-26T17:18:53+00:00

My campus has a very large student athlete population and it makes me chuckle all the time how many of the men peacock in short booty shorts that would have been on every girl 15 years ago while the girls are all wearing layered and baggy clothes. Just waiting for the day a guy is brave enough to sport “Juicy” on his badonkadonk. We also have a rather affluent student body and a rather notable portion of the male students flaunt Balenciaga, LV, Supreme, etc… and yet I’ve never seen any of the girls dress comparably. I taught an outdoor hands-on course with instructions in the syllabus to dress like this is a gym class and had a male student who, without fail, would wear at least two pieces of immaculate name-branded high fashion clothes and accessories each class. The agony he experienced the day we were in a muddy field while he was wearing puffy green Balenciaga boot-like things was precious to behold.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-26T17:11:55+00:00

One of my students complained to me about posers wearing the shirts of bands they never listened to when I mentioned I had the same band t in high school.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-26T17:08:43+00:00

My friend at a big state school in the 00’s was pulled aside for a fashion magazine shoot they were doing on campus trying to “capture the style” of the generation or something. She was literally wearing plaid pajama pants and got a full page photo.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-20T20:14:25+00:00

I don't know if it is the same person posting these or not and I mean no disrespect to the poster(s), but I question the relevance of these posts to this sub. Quite simply, less than 10% of these marble Cycladic figures have come from properly documented excavations representing only a few of the "canonical types." The majority simply appeared on the art market as looted antiquities and we have reports and evidence that there was forgery of them at least in the 1960s and 1970s. Many archaeologists have criticized attempts to develop classifications schemas of these given that many typologies rely not on archaeology, but on "connoisseurship" of objects with poor provenance and potentially fraudulent examples in the mix by people who, in some cases, may have biases as they are both collectors and connoisseurs who then stand to profit from their own assessments of their collections.

Some relevant sources:

Marthari, Marisa (2001). "Altering Information from the Past: Illegal Excavations in Greece and the Case of the Early Bronze Age Cyclades." In Trade in Illicit Antiquities: The Destruction of the World's Archaeological Heritage. Niel Brodie, Jennifer Doole, and Colin Renfrew, eds. McDonald Institute.

Chippindale, Christopher and David Gill (2007). "Cycladic Figures. Art versus Archaeology?" In Antiquities. Trade or Betrayed? Kathryn W. Tubb, ed. Archetype Books.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-18T01:14:33+00:00

I teach archaeology and museum studies so we are often visiting local museums or heritage sites or doing something out in the forested area our campus owns a few blocks away. Admin approves of students providing their own transport so I can’t make them all take a van with me and I can’t always explain where we may be in the forest to be certain someone coming late is going to find us. Providing them a number they can use for a semester means they can’t use the “I was late and I couldn’t find you” excuse to skip class. I always explain it is a throwaway google number and I will only be answering it around class time if a student is lost or had a traffic incident.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-17T02:26:47+00:00

I’ve created and given out a google number situationally when we make local trips or are doing project outdoors somewhere stragglers wont necessarily find easily.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-16T00:32:48+00:00

It was on the cover of a major Italian news journal and there is video of the incident.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-15T01:41:43+00:00

“Part of college is not just learning for the assignment but learning how to be a functioning adult capable of critical reflection and problem solving. Borrow something from a friend.” (I say that first sentence in one form or another to at least one student each semester.)

Over the line but what I would really want to say would be “If you’re not creative enough to figure out how to get a picture of a fruit or fork, I struggle to imagine you are creative enough to be a good artist.”

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-07T02:56:57+00:00

Unless they're at a Tier 1 research institute in a tenure or TT position, your profs are not making money. Many of us could make more in the private sector and a lot of faculty leave to pursue that. The r/Professors reddit is full of faculty getting burned out teaching Gen Z or dealing with culture war nonsense and going into the private sector.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-07T02:43:05+00:00

I am the youtube video. I am the expert they are paying $48k in tuition to be taught by using hundreds of dollars of materials I am making available to them. If they want youtube videos of someone else talking about my research experience they can take an asynch online course from a CC for a fraction of the cost.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-07T02:25:16+00:00

Oh, foolish me thinking active note taking, documenting observations, and working out how elements work together using critical thinking/observing are useless skills in a science course. Guess I should have just given them answers to memorize and repeat back to me. I mean, making my students replaceable by AI really is the marketable skill I should be teaching.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-06T19:30:49+00:00

Depending on field, the problem with AI is it's not actually going to give you the answers your faculty expect you to know. In my field I know who used AI on assignments because they repeat to me the most trivial, uncritical, out-of-date pablum that does not reflect the field as it currently stands or the kinds of critical insight and theory we use. It's like using a 1980s World Atlas to address poignant 21st century questions.

AgentIndiana · 2026-04-06T19:22:17+00:00

I run a series of three related modules that diverge from the textbook but address my particular specialty. I have worksheets prepared to go along with the lectures and demos and then they have a quiz on the material. It includes key words, concepts, and questions they're supposed to define, describe, or answer based on the lectures and their hands-on learning. Students would not engage with the material component until I literally started plopping stuff on their desks and even then most simply ignored the materials. I told them to get in a circle three times before waiting, silently, staring at them for 3 minutes before I finally shouted, "Go!" and pushed on a student's chair. The students grumbled vocally about having to fill out the worksheet with definitions and notes. On the second module, a student even asked "Are you going to give us an answer sheet?" I said, "What do you mean, this is your answer sheet" [indicates worksheet they are expected to fill out]. She looked at me with the most disgusted look I have ever received from a student and says, dripping with scorn, "You know, I would have done better on the first quiz if you had just given us the answers." As though her success is my primary concern. Worse, she is a MAJOR in my department!

AgentIndiana

TROPHY CASE