Sundiata
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Posts posted by Sundiata
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Wow man...
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Oh my god, @feneur, @Lion.Kanzen, it was really as simple as that. Just needed to write something in the header.... I'm so sorry to waste your time, and thank you for the help!
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2 hours ago, Lion.Kanzen said:
I can , you must upload as photo/ video.
That doesn't work. The option to uploads gifs is not a part of the setup. If I try to upload it as photo/video, the upload screen just freezes. I can wait 30 minutes and nothing happens...
As you can see, the option to share, or even preview is even greyed out.
It's just stuck there in perpetuity... Every time, whether I use Safari or Firefox.
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28 minutes ago, Stan` said:
@Sundiata Is this worth a facebook share?
Of course it is, it's awesome
, But I can't embed it...
@feneur, @Itms, why can't I embed GIF's to the facebook page? I asked before, but without the ability to embed gifs, a lot of good social media content is wasted. I think it's something you need to enable or something. It's silly because random commenters can leave gifs in the comments without a problem...
How it is for me everywhere else (option to upload gifs):
How it is on 0AD's page (no option to upload gifs):
I found a workaround using a 3rd party website to host the gif and then embed it a couple weeks ago, but even that doesn't work anymore... I can't find any way to embed it. Just an external link appears, and nobody wants to click those...
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Just now, Lion.Kanzen said:
this is an updated planned building set.
Nice... What's SP B1 and SP B2? And what's citadel?
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Just now, Genava55 said:
Moreover, without saddle and stirrups, it is impossible to transmit the whole kinetic energy of the horse and the man with the lance without being projected during the contact.
Didn't stop them from doing it. Riding without saddle and stirrups is an art in its own right, but it can and has been mastered. They wouldn't have been able to transmit as much energy as knights in a medieval jousting tournament, but they were still more than capable of killing you were you stand.
But yeah, I don't think they would have used both hands in all cases.
I was referring mostly to a Roman description of Parthian cavalry equipped with the kontos, a two handed lance in excess of 4 meters.
Just now, Thorfinn the Shallow Minded said:Furthermore, the Alexander Mosaic clearly shows Alexander holding a lance of comparable length with one hand.
maybe I should have shared this piece of a one handed lance
But I was trying to help illustrate the use of 2 handed lances.
Obviously they didn't use the sarissa on a horseback. I just thought that was just a placeholder.
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Kerma, capital of the First Kingdom of Kush, c. 2500 BC - 1500 BC
As with the previous post, most of you will already be familiar with the site. Kerma was the seat of a Nubian state that the archaeologists refer to as the Kerma Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Kerma, and the associated culture as Kerma Culture. The capital was located in Upper Nubia, between the 3rd and the 4th Cataract (close to the third) This is the first Sudanese Kingdom that the Egyptians referred to as the Kingdom of Kush (k3š), a name which stuck for almost 3 millennia. These people were contemporaneous to the Middle Kingdom, the Akkadian Empire, the first Kings of Babylon, the Minoans, the Indus Valley Civilization and Stonehenge. They even predate the Mycenaeans. Its predecessor, Pre-Kerma began around 3500 BC, itself the culmination of even earlier sedentary traditions in Northern Sudan.
The Kerma Period of Kushite history is important with regard to understanding the origins of advanced material culture, architecture, monumentalism, religion, state-hood and militaristic expansionism that predates the Egyptian conquest of Kush by more than a millennium! Kush, usually conflated with vague concepts of "Nubia", has often been seen as an irrelevant "adjunct" to Egypt. This outdated narrative is being entirely abandoned by modern Egyptologists and Nubiologists alike.
Kerma Kushites actually ransacked the Middle Kingdom. The Egyptian Middle Kingdom fortresses in Lower Nubia, including Buhen, widely regarded as the most impressive fortifications in the world at that time, were all conquered by these Kerma Period Kushites in their earliest recorded march on Thebes. Elaborate Egyptian statuary which was looted during the campaigns were placed in the tombs of Kerma rulers, and testify to these early military incursions with relative success, as do the inscriptions in the tomb of Sobeknakht, an Egyptian official who recounted the counterattack against Kushites at Elkab, a mere 65 km south of Thebes, the embattled Egyptian capital. Incredibly, a looted vessel belonging to Sobeknakht was actually found in a Kerma tomb, illustrating that Sobeknakht's already finished tomb had already been looted by the Kushites prior to the Egyptian counterattack, and the inscription in the tomb was made after the counterattack, and the refurbishment of Sobeknakht's tomb.
Here's something incredible to think about: The most famous of the looted Egyptian statues in Kerma Period Kushite tombs is the elegant statue of Lady Sennuwy, found in Kerma, Tumulus K III, hall A, a large 70 meter diameter mound with many rows of halls (often called "apartments") filled with burial goods and sacrificial offerings including humans (the largest tumuli reached a diameter close to 130 meters). This statue of Sennuwy comes from Asyut, Upper Egypt, a whopping 216 km NORTH of Thebes on the border of Middle Egypt. The implications are potentially far more significant than the inscriptions from Sobeknakht's tomb, but most academics have so far been shy to draw any conclusions. The Kerma Tumulus K III, dates to c. 1786 BC -1650 BC, which directly abuts the beginning of the Second Intermediate Period of Egypt: c. 1650 BC – 1550 BC! There's definitely still some untold history here...
I did some compositing of other people's work
Kerma:
"making of"
I watched a nice video on an exhibition on Kerma period Kush:
Took screenshots of the panoramic shot of the city:
Stitched them together:
Cut out the city. Did some color corrections. Separated the front part of the city from the back part. Applied blur to the back to emphasize sense of distance and scale. Worked in a panoramic savannah shot as the background, and blurred it a little more than the back part of the city. And some other random stuff. Tadaaaa:
@LordGood, I was like:
I aLsO mAdE tHiS mEmE [insert upside down smiley]
Map of central Kerma (This site was walled, and surrounded by more palaces/royal/elite compounds, agricultural villages and huge cemeteries with monumental chapels.
Kerma is obviously important for many reasons. One of the things which Kerma tells us is that Kushite monumental architecture had started in Sudan more than a millennium before the Egyptian conquest of Kush. The Western Deffufa still stands to a height of 18 meters today!
The Eastern Deffufa (Temple K II) is usually overshadowed by the larger one pictured above. But the Eastern Deffufa has it's own charm, if you realize that you're looking at a 3750 - 3480 year old monument:
The magnificent faience lion-inlays come from this mortuary temple.
So does this sandstone ceiling block with faience rosette inlays:
Temple K II, the Funerary Chapel, a.k.a the Eastern Deffufa during the excavations of George A. Reisner:
Another similar chapel on the map next to some of the biggest Tumuli (Temple K XI):
As you can see, some of these "mudbrick" temples were actually encased in sandstone! The insides were plastered and painted, sometimes with addition of elaborate faience inlays! Note the staircase, probably leading to the roof, just as in the Western Deffufa.
Temple K XI
Take note of the use of cut stone columns! This is very significant as it shows us that columned structures, just like so many architectural features were already a feature of Kushite architecture centuries before the Egyptian occupation of the area (and centuries before columned structures appeared anywhere on the European mainland).
Plan of the Eastern Cemetery:
There are c. 30.000 tumuli in the cemeteries of Kerma...
I have the distinct pleasure of presenting you with the highest quality pictures of some of the largest Kushite Tumuli ever to be indexed by Google
I have looked for these pictures for almost 3 years! They're incredibly rare. I finally found them in the original excavation reports by George Andrew Reisner himself! The largest of these Royal Tumuli were absolutely huge! Probably not very tall, but huge nonetheless.
Reisner, George A.
Excavations at Kerma
Vol II, Cambridge, Mass. 1924Enjoy!
Kerma Tumulus K IV
Kerma Tumulus K III (The one where the looted Egyptian statue of Lady Sennuwy was found):
The stolen damsel herself appears. Lady Sennuwy still located in the land of her captors, more than 3500 years later.
Fully excavated statue in situ:
Funnily, the Egyptian statues of Sennuwy and the less well preserved example of her husband Djefaihapi, aren't even the only Egyptian funerary statues in Tumulus K III. Other Kerma tombs also contained Egyptian statuary. Kushites were even known for looting Ptolemaic and Roman statues in later times as well. Stealing statues seems to have been a national pass time... Definitely an expression of power by Kushite rulers. From K III:
Kerma Tumulus K X
And here's a museum restauration of a much more modest tumulus:
This one is a family affair:
Kushite bronze daggers, some of them the size of short swords, from the tumuli at Kerma.
Kushite Ivory inlays of Taweret, an Egyptian goddess, illustrating very early forms of syncretism:
Take note of the knife/sword she is holding:
Actual examples of such knives/swords from the tumuli at Kerma:
photographic example:
Lions were already central to the symbolism of Kush since the kerma period. Bronze lion inlays from Kerma:
Incredibly well preserved sandals from Kerma, essentially identical to the later Napatan and Meroitic sandals (which often aren't as well preserved)
Oddly appropriate artwork of Kerma Kushites "appropriating" articles from an Egyptian tomb during one of their raids or campaigns. The original Tombraiders. Perhaps not as sexy as Lara Croft, but at least as interesting... What is that guy doing with that axe???
Kushite burial customs:
Raid on Buhen:
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Just now, LordGood said:
I do believe those long lances were held with 2 hands,
Indeed.
SpoilerRequires a close relationship between horse and rider (or a very experienced rider and trained horse) and some seriously fancy legwork to steer the animal.
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Just now, LordGood said:
@Sundiata Any suggestions for Kushite tier 3 towers?
Honestly, not really... I'm not the biggest fan of artillery towers for non-Greco-Roman-Carthage civs, but you circumvented that quite smartly with the Mauryan towers. It fits them well. I'm not sure the same should be done for Kushites.
For some ideas, just for the sake of it
I think that the bastions of the Royal City in Meroë would have been plastered white, while the bastions of more functional fortifications like Gala Abu Ahmed were drystone, with some of them still having evidence of mud brick parapets. I've seen an example of later Christian period fortifications of drystone towers still reaching 7 meters, suggesting some of the bastions may have been entirely drystone.
Check this out, surviving parapets from the Medieval period:
And I found a date for this one, it's a 13th century Christian fortress (el-Khandaq):
They could help interpreting earlier Kushite fortifications using more or less the same techniques. Me butchering your blender model and resorting to photoshop to "finish" it:
The drystone to parapet ratio is closer to reality here, and I removed windows from the drystone and added them to the mudbrick parapet instead.
I'm actually more concerned about siege equipment for the Kushites. Particularly a battering ram, or tunneling/sapping (subterranean bolt shooter principle). I can't find anything in terms of references though... Only Egyptian stuff, and even that is virtually non-existant. Basically a frame covered by animal hides (cow hides) and carried, rather than rolled on wheels.
SpoilerFrom Beni Hasan, Middle Kingdom Egyptian (there's some Kushite mercenaries in there as well)
The only Kushite art reference of a siege on Buhen:
Random:
Sorry, I can't be of more help. References of freestanding artillery tower derivatives is something I sadly can't produce.
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Musawwarat es Sufra, and Temple 300
In the first of a series of reference updates, I'll be revisiting the site of Musawwarat es Sufra, central Sudan. Most of you will be familiar with the site, but I present here an updated post, which will include some fresh photographic delights. Temple 300, located in Musawwarat, and featured in the new Kushite home screen for 0AD, was recently the source of contention for one of our community members. It was supposedly depicted "unreasonably huge", "near-complete fiction" or perhaps even really Egyptian... This post will address those concerns in detail.
Firstly, some history on Musawwarat es Sufra:
Musawwarat es-Sufra was a large temple complex and cult center in the Western Butana, 25km from the Nile, 16km to the North of the Royal City of Naqa and 71km to the south-west of the capital city, Meroë. It’s located in the Wadi es-Sufra, a dry riverbed that can turn into a rapid stream during the yearly rains. The complex features temples, courtyards, a large water-reservoir, long walled corridors and possible workshops, kitchens, store-rooms, royal residences as well as a smaller secular enclosure. The Kushites themselves called this place "Aborepi" (believed to mean “place of the elephant” in Meroitic). Depictions of elephants and other animals, especially lions are a common theme in the reliefs, graffito and statuary of Musawwarat.
The earliest known structure from Musawwarat is the Great Hafir, a massive water reservoir built to capture surface runoff from the Wadi es-Sufra's seasonal water-flow. With a diameter of 250 meters and a depth reaching 11- 12 meters, it is the largest ancient hafir known in Sudan, and seems to have been built during the Napatan Period between the 6th and the 4th centuries BCE. It's sheer scale is somewhat of an enigma, considering the apparent absence of any significant settlement in the Wadi es-Sufra, dating to the Meroitic period. The absence of Meroitic graves in the valley also indicate that burial at this site was not allowed.
Almost all the standing monuments date to the Meroitic Period. The Lion Temple of the Meroitic King Arnekhamani dates to the later 3rd century BC. The standing remains of the Great Enclosure date to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC, partly overbuilding Napatan Period foundations. The enclosure measures about 237 meters by 203 meters. “Archaeological investigations have revealed that the courtyards east and north of the Central Terrace once contained gardens with carefully laid-out planting beds”.
The exact function of this site has been a greatly contested subject. Many theories exist, including:
- A royal hunting abode, the large courtyards supposedly being used to house wild animals.
- An elephant training center, because of it's layout of large courtyards (holding pens?) and ramps, and a significant amount elephant depictions found here, and because of Ptolemaic expeditions "sometimes numbering hundreds of men", coming to this area to acquire war elephants during the 3rd century BCE.
- A royal palace, because of the idea that at least some of these structures were (seasonal) royal residences, thought to feature a throne room.
- Or simply as a large cult center, hosting major religious festivals drawing in countless people and royals on a regular basis.
Google maps: 16.412878, 33.323855
https://www.google.com/maps/place/16°24'46.4"N+33°19'25.9"E/@16.4134602,33.3246782,332m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d16.412878!4d33.323855A layout of the main site:
Detail of the Great Enclosure (Temple 300 is on the far right):
Naming conventions:
An aerial shot of the Great Enclosure:
Now, for the contentious depiction of Temple 300:
To examine wether it's unreasonably huge, we should first figure out how big the temple in this artistic render really is. Luckily for us, Pedro Blanco was kind enough to actually place a man standing in between the two pillars of the entrance. We shall henceforth refer to this man as "Dude". This Dude will give us an excellent frame of reference for the actual size of the temple depicted here. The average height for men around the world today is 1,75m. You could argue that people were smaller back then, as you could also argue that Kushites were tall people based on historical records and modern population heights of Nilotic people. For the sake of simplicity, we'll say that both considerations cancel each other out. We conclude that the Dude is 1,75 meters tall, and shall be our height unit. Using this highly scientific method... ... we can now measure the size of the temple in Dudes.
As we can see, the temple in this artistic render measures roughly 6 Dudes by 13 Dudes, which translates to about 10,50 meters by 22,75 meters.
And then I'm even being a little generous (it's really more like 5,8 Dudes by 12,7 Dudes, but no stress, we'll just call it 6 by 13 dudes).
[of course, I know, perspective... But the Dude is standing dead center in the temple, which we'll say cancels out any warping of the measurements. Also, the size of the temples was questioned in relation to the puny looking humans, so the Dude is really the best unit of measurement for this exercise]
So how does this measurement compare to the actual Temple 300 in Musawwarat? Let's see:
According to this ground plan, The main structure of Temple 300 measures c. 20,5 meters by 13,5 meters, with walls nearly 2 meters thick, all round.
This can be corroborated with Google Maps:
This means, that in order to be completely historically accurate, the temple in the render should be 3 meters wider, or 22% more wide, and 2,25 meters shorter, or 10% shorter.
In terms of surface area, the temple in the render is c. 239m² while the temple in real life is c. 277m², or 14% larger!
It is now clear, using very meticulous Dude measurements, that the temple in the render is in fact smaller than its real world inspiration, Temple 300. The only thing that can be said is that the platform or terrace on which Temple 300 was built measures roughly a meter in height, while in the render, it's almost 2 meters. So the platform is roughly 1 meter too high.
The funny thing is that the size of Temple 300 is nowhere close to the size of the largest Kushite temples. It's not even the largest temple in Musawwarat. That honor would go to Temple 100 (built on a higher terrace), the beautiful peripteral temple at the centre of the complex, which in itself, isn't particularly huge to Kushite standards either.
Check out the official website of the Archaeological Mission to Musawwarat: http://www.musawwarat.com
The Zamani Project has also done a lot of work in Musawwarat: https://www.zamaniproject.org/site-sudan-Musawwarat-es-Sufra.html
For scholarly discussion of the site: Musawwarat es-Sufra: Interpreting the Great Enclosure by Steffen Wenig: https://issuu.com/sudarchrs/docs/s_n05-wenig
For a 3D scan of the entire temple: https://skfb.ly/6OSqp
The remains of Temple 300, in all its glory, c. 2200 years after construction:
The actual height of the structure, as proposed by K.-H. Priese in this reconstruction is based on the recovered blocks from the excavations, and extrapolated from the size of the door, and statues (of which there are many direct parallels with which to compare), further supported by the 2 meter thick walls and rather beefy columns.
If the structure reached a height of c. 7,5 meters, as in this reconstruction, and the height/width ratio of the model in-game is about 9 to 11, which would make the model about 8,6 to 9,6 meters in the artistic render, then we can indeed say that the temple in the render is about 1,1 to 2.1 meters too tall. As I said earlier, the terrace of the temple is indeed c. 1 meter too high...
Again, I need to emphasize that this is nowhere near the tallest structure ever built by Kushites. The tallest pylons constructed for the Amun Tempel at Barkal by Piye, reached a spectacular 21 to 33 meters in height. Likewise, the pylons of the Meroitic Amun Temples of Meroë and Dangeil would have reached between 15 and 21 meters in height. The largest Napatan Pyramid was in excess of 30 meters in height. Just to name a few examples. More on these figures (which did not require Dude Measurements) in a future post.
The rest of Musawwarat:
The first picture is Temple 100, perhaps not as tall as Temple 300, but definitely bigger:
Even the "small" Lion Temple at Musawwarat really isn't actually that small when you see people standing next to it...
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Just now, Stockfish said:
Now i can see how addicted we¡re to this game lol
Sorry, I don't know what you are talking about.
Spoiler
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Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:
Spellforce III wins hands down. It's not a "dark filter" or an "HBO filter", it's realistic lighting. It's the lighting that I strive for in my screenshots that all of you upvote. Now, the
The lighting is really good on that screenshot. Very natural looking. Their textures are also very detailed and naturalistic. Definitely not too dark. Definitely good for inspiration for 0AD.
Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:Cossacks 3 screenshot you might definitely have a point. That one's ugly af.
I don't get why they use puke green all over the place...
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Just now, GunChleoc said:
If you cn find the time, how about uploading them to https://archive.org/details/image ?
Oooh, a lot of it seems to be back online with a new collection search (broke my old links).
What's the difference between archive.org and say, wikimedia commons?
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Just now, Stan` said:
Kudos
I forgot this part:
QuoteBy the way, I was able to go through the entire archive of 20.000+ items in the MFA online collection a while a go. I literally examined every single entry... This is no longer possible... It seem that they made a large part of it private again. But the pictures were licensed under CC0 and I took almost everything I wanted when I still could, hahahaha.... Nobody's hiding nothing from me, I'll sniff it all out!
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Just now, Stan` said:
@Sundiata Have you tried to contact these people to showcase this thread? Perhaps it would be good for us to be actually visible to the academic world?
Nope, I haven't directly contacted them. Something tells me a few may have seen the thread though.
I've had contact with some youtube historians though
They love my stuff I even saw one guy claiming to have a PHD using images from this thread.
I'm still hard at work collecting sources, reevaluating details, factoring in new information. I'm still planning to write a more extensive piece, but I'd like it to conform to academic standards, which means there's still a lot of work for me to do. When I've finished my own compendium on Kushite history, I want to contact every specialist I can think of to see if any of them are willing to proof-read and provide feedback and corrections. Then I'll release it to the world. I'd basically want to write an illustrated narrative history book on Kush one day.
In the meantime I'll just keep updating my state of knowledge here.
Funny tangent:
SpoilerSo, I shared I really interesting museum talk from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, in this post.
Truly, a good presentation. But at the end, a controversial question was raised by a member of the audience, when she asked if there was no pressure to return these artefacts to Sudan. Mr Bermen, one of the speakers and senior curator of the Nubian Art at the MFA, was visibly annoyed and casually dismissed the question, saying that everything was acquired legally through the Sudan Antiquity Services. Basically parroting the official stance of the museum. The thing is, I'm familiar with the history behind the history, so I very politely formulated a question in the comment section of the video (luckily I saved it). I said:
"A very interesting presentation. I enjoyed watching it... I have one follow up question in response to the statement by Mr Berman that there is no pressure to return any of these 20.000+ items back to Sudan and that the excavations were done with the permission of the Antiquity Service of Sudan.
I assume that the Antiquity Service of Sudan at the time (1907-1930's, when the excavations happened) was run by the de facto British Colonial Government of Sudan, misleadingly referred to as the Anglo-Egyptian condominium. Even during the presentation itself, at the 1 hour mark Mr Berman shows a picture of Sir Herbert William Jackson Pasha, the British governor of Dongola province and veteran of the British reconquest of Sudan, fighting in the Mahdist war (a rather bloody affair). Berman even elaborates on how William Jackson Pasha facilitated the excavations and that they would have been nearly impossible without his support. Isn't it rather easy to argue that British colonials in Sudan issuing "licenses" and offering support to other Europeans and Americans to ship large quantities of priceless antiquities out of the country, in fact constitutes an act of plunder?
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to discount the work that the MFA has done with regard to preservation, documentation and study of these items, and I'm not trying to discuss the merits of returning such a large quantity of gold and other priceless antiquities to Sudan in its current state of turmoil. It just seems rather odd to brush over the obviously sketchy ways in which these items found their way into collections halfway around the world, where they are not always understood in their proper Kushite context, reducing their perceived significance and obscuring their very existence. The MFA has done a lot to make their collection available, and I very much appreciate that, but I hope that they understand that these artefacts will always belong to Sudan."
I was getting upvotes y'all... On a very academic youtube channel. But no official response. Not really surprising. But since then, the video has been made private. Unavailable. Gone...
What's interesting though, is that the official museum stance has since changed! lol...
From the official MFA site on "Ancient Nubia Now":
"The MFA played a key role in bringing ancient Nubia to light, undertaking excavations at sites in southern Egypt and northern Sudan between 1913 and 1932, when both countries were under British colonial control. As a result, the MFA’s collection of ancient Nubian art is the largest and most important outside Khartoum, but the Museum’s possession of the objects is complicated by the far-reaching impact of European colonialism, and its history of displaying and interpreting them has at times been based on incorrect assumptions."
Lol. That's quite a bit different than what they were saying only a few months ago. Now, I'm not saying my youtube comment made the difference, as I'm sure other people must have noticed that these items were shipped around the world by the British during the colonial period, but I'm pretty sure mr Berman, saw my comment, and realized he was maintaining an untenable position. The mentality towards Kush and Nubia has changed quite a lot over the past 50 years, but the past couple of years specifically, it's seems to be snowballing. Over the next 10 years, I see the Kush becoming common knowledge... And 0AD has been a real part of that
By the way, I was able to go through the entire archive of 20.000+ items in the MFA online collection a while a go. I literally examined every single entry... This is no longer possible... It seem that they made a large part of it private again. But the pictures were licensed under CC0 and I took almost everything I wanted when I still could, hahahaha.... Nobody's hiding nothing from me, I'll sniff it all out!
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So, I still have a lot of references and sources that I gathered over the past few months. I guess it's time to start sharing them in a new series of reference updates.
For today, I'm just going to share a few videos, including a talk by Prof. Dr. Dietrich Wildung, an Egyptologists essentially turned Nubiologist, former director of the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptischer Kunst, Munich, former director of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, Berlin, and has since 1995 been leading excavations at the the Royal City of Naqa (Königsstadt Naga), in central Sudan.
When I started sharing my references on the Kushites, I was actually being very conservative. I definitely didn't want anyone to think that I was overstating or misrepresenting things, and tried to be as meticulous as I could/can. Mistakes were definitely made along the way, and if you followed the 36 pages of discussions on this thread (as well as all the other threads on Kush), you'll have noticed quite a bit of back and forth, questions, criticisms, corrections and nuances. It's been quite a journey, and I can tell you, we're still very much on our way towards a deeper and more tangible understanding of Kushite history. It's an exciting time to be a Nubiologist!
Dr. Wildung seems to have shed any semblance of conservatism when it comes to the history of ancient Kush/Nubia/Sudan (and isn't the only one), and he clearly speaks with a lot of authority on the subject, as well as well as a genuine love.
For a little more background info on Dr. Wildung (since one or two of his claims might sound a little bold to the ears of some):
QuoteDietrich Wildung studied Egyptology, Classical Archeology and Ancient History at the University of Munich and in Paris. 1967 [1] awarded with a doctorate for a dissertation on the historical consciousness in ancient Egypt: "The role of Egyptian kings in the consciousness of their posterity. Posthumous sources on the kings of the first four dynasties ". He worked between 1968 and 1974, first as a research assistant at the Institute of Egyptology at the University of Munich, after his habilitation in 1972 on "Imhotep and Amenhotep. Gottwerdung in Ancient Egypt "as Privatdozent. In 1975, Wildung became director of the Staatliche Sammlung Ägyptischer Kunst Munich and remained in this position until 1988. In addition, Wildung 1979 became an associate professor at the University of Munich. In 1989, following Jürgen Settgast, he moved to the post of Director of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection Berlin and became honorary professor at the Free University of Berlin. From 1990 to 2000, he formed a double top in the position of museum director together with Karl-Heinz Priese until his retirement, after which he headed the museum alone. Dietrich Wildung retired in July 2009, his successor as museum director was Friederike Seyfried.
Since 1978 Wildung leads the Munich "Ostdelta-excavation", since 1995 an excavation project in the Sudanese Naqa. From 1976 to 1989 he was Vice President, from 1992 to 1996 President of the International Association of Egyptologists (IAE). Wildung is holder of the Federal Cross of Merit, the Order of the Two Nile of Sudan and is "Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres" in France and a full member of the German Archaeological Institute.
[translated from: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Wildung]
From Ägyptisches Museum, the official youtube channel of the Staatliche Sammlung für Ägyptische Kunst, Munich.
These sentiments are being increasingly adopted by many Egyptologists, who have been continually readjusting their understanding of the ancient civilizations of the Nile. "Nubia Now", the latest exhibition of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, is actively trying to address these question (possibly because they're also partly responsible for disseminating some of the misinformation that separated Egypt from Africa, and obscured Nubia from public view during the 19th and 20th centuries).
These two short talks from the MFA help to understand a bit of the history behind the history, and why many of us have barely ever heard of Kush or Nubia as great centers of civilization in their own right.
Race and Nile history is an unpleasantly controversial subject, but almost unavoidable when dealing with Egyptian, Kushite and Nubian history. This talk illustrates something on the futility of talking about "race" in this context, as in many other contexts, and how it sometimes does still affect even academia.
Bonus 1: a flyby of relatively recently excavated temple at Naqa:
Bonus 2: 3D Animated flyby of the Apedemak Temple at Musawwarat es Sufra
By now, even the Japanese are starting to get into Kushite history
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Just now, LordGood said:
oops
Oh my god!
The legends were true...
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@Anaxandridas ho Skandiates have fun with your scholarly investigations.
By the way, I just remembered that the idea was even to replace temple 300 from Musawwarat es Sufra with temple M250 from the outskirts of Meroë, as the new Kushite wonder.
I had already made the model a few months ago, but still need to make some adjustments and texture stuff more properly.
Any thoughts to share on this render? I'm curious what you think...
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Just now, Ideaguy said:
I think bug fixes would change the overall experience of working with the map editor. I recently tried my hand at building a small cit in the editor and when ever starting to type anything into the search-bar I would get double of the letter i typed (Ex: house; hhoouussee) From here back space would not work so I had to select one letter at a time and delete it.
I have the exact same problem. I need to use an external text editor and copy past whatever I'm looking for. Every time.
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@Alexandermb I'm so sorry, I totally forgot. I was doing some herculean land management (gardening), house cleaning/scrubbing and needy goat tending. I'm still exhausted. And today I was further distracted by other topics. I'll see if I can do something tomorrow (my eyes are heavy right now). Give me another ping if you don't hear from me.
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Just now, Genava55 said:
Sorry mate. Thanks to correct me. I totally trust you on the matter.
No need to apologize and no need to trust me either. These things can easily be corroborated by simple google searches. If you want specific academic sources, I can, and have provided those several times.
Just now, Genava55 said:I think his issue arises from the lack of understanding the illustration is inspired by the render in game.
It's not, that's the problem. His arguments are based on the premise that I'm misrepresenting Egyptian and Byzantine structures as Kushite (which is a ludicrous claim to make in the Information Age), and that it's somehow laughable that Kushites built large city centers with processional avenues and monumental architecture that rivaled and in some cases even predated that of the Hellenistic world. He has no interest in the Kushite world. He just can't pallet the idea of these "βάρβαροι"looking anywhere near as flush as his precious Greeks. That's what this is about...
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Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:
But even on other subjects, I do assume that I have a right to express thoughts freely. Also when they are critical.
Nobody denied your right to talk. If you make patently untrue claims, then I am also allowed to disprove them.
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:I see a tendency here of taking the large Egyptian temples constructed by Thutmose III and Rameses II and other pharaos, as evidence for Kushite mega-architecture and mega-cities, because Kushite rulers renovated or added features or courtyards to existing structures.
This is a lie. All of the architecture referenced was built by Kushites during the Napatan and Meroitic Periods. The only element that was originally Egyptian were those small chambers in the back of the Amun temple of Napata. Everything else is Napatan or Meroitic Period Kushite construction. I posted well over a hundred sources (most of them academic) and I even shared a PDF in the previous page, written by, among other specialist, Dr. Timothy Kendall, discussing the history and archaeology of some of the main temples and palaces at Jebel Barkal. Dr. Kendall is "a fellow at Harvard University's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute and an expert in Nubian Studies, served as associate curator of the Department of Egyptian and Near Eastern Art at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, and developed the "Kush: Lost Kingdom of the Nile" exhibition for the Brockton Museum, vice president of the International Society of Nubian Studies" and director of archaeological excavations at Jebel Barkal between 1986 and present. I'll take his word over yours any day.
If I wanted to share Egyptian temples in Kush, I would have shared New Kingdom Egyptian temples like the temples of Soleb, Abu Simbel, Derr, Amada, Aksha, Beit el Wali or Wadi es Sebua. But I didn't! I focused entirely on those structures that were built by Kushites in Sudan during the Napatan and Meroitic Periods. I even tried to avoid Lower Nubia, on the Egyptian side of the modern border, to avoid unnecessary confusion.
As I already pointed out, Meroë and Napata were far greater in size than what is depicted in that render, and the size of the structures on that avenue aren't even exaggerated (you could argue that the platform for temple 300 is a meter too tall in relation to the structure, but then we're really nitpicking). The palace should even be noticeably bigger than it is, and there could be several of them, as was the case in the aforementioned cities. Not even those big statues in front of temple 300 are exaggerated in size......
One of the Colossi of Tabo (there's two of them, the same size): King Natakamani, early 1st century AD, Meroitic Kush, in front of the National Museum of Sudan in Khartoum:
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:We have full reconstructions by historians of Greek and Roman and Hellenistic cities, we attempt to make those cities resemble that to some degree. Here I see ruins of temples in Egyptian style, and a few unique features such as the pyramids and the unique mud-architecture. Then I see byzantine elements in later architecture of the region, which could date within the period of the game.
Yes, Kushite architecture had a lot in common with Ancient Egyptian architecture, this is hardly news to anyone on the forum. They shared a lot of history and culture, even since pre-Dynastic times. There is literally nothing Byzantine in this render.
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:Aithiopia is used here in its classical sense.
Then why do you share a picture of a vaulted ceiling from the modern day country of Ethiopia, if you could as well have shared a picture of a vaulted ceiling from Sudan? As early as Kerma Period, both of the main proposed reconstructions of the Western Deffufa have vaulted chambers:
I actually remembered a stone vault in one of the tomb entrances at El Kurru. This would have supported a hell of a lot of weight (backfilled earth rubble):
Most of the royal tombs were actually vaults cut from solid rock (Egyptian goddess, Isis or Mut on the left):
Or maybe something like this Nubian example from the Nubian Museum in Aswan?
Karanog is also Lower Nubian, currently Southernmost Egypt, but was a Meroitic governors residence. Because it's one of the youngest palaces on the list, and on account of the dryness of the area, this was the best preserved Meroitic palace, until it was submerged by Lake Nasser. On the left an archetype Nubian Vault. In the middle construction technique for an upper floor is shown and in the image on the right, it's hard to see, but there's a "great staircase" supported by that arch.
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:Sundiata, you asked whether I was "talking about those Nubian Vaults? You might want to look up what a Nubian vault is". Indeed everything makes sense when the building is not built of stone. A clay-vault is the most reasonable of things. But since that structure has the same colour as the stone-structures, how is one to know that it is mud, clay and mudbrick: It is contributing to the feeling of inauthenticity. Two or even three storeys of mudbrick, accessed with latters, we can see evidence of such architecture still in use today.
Palaces and temples were invariably plastered with a white lime-plaster. Stone, mudbrick and fired brick elite structures would have all looked more or less the same from the outside. Not muddy. But smooth white (possibly with a yellowish patina building up over time, from the sand and rains). Also, I've seen examples of stone vaults as well...
I couldn't be arsed to save them because I didn't think someone was going to be this dismissive of Kushite architecture. Next time I bump into the stone vaults, I'll let you know[edit: see stone vault above].And why are you talking about ladders? They built staircases. Here's one from inside a Pylon of the Amun Temple in Dangeil:
A lot of the palaces also have remains of staircases, sometimes more than one. I'm pretty certain it wasn't limited to royal architecture either.
Kushite staircases could be quite monumental. Some of the subterranean staircases to the tombs of El Kurru, cut from the rock, are the biggest I've seen so far.
Just now, Genava55 said:Kushite civilization during the Meroitic period has the difficulty to inheriting several monuments from previous periods and keeping them in function without important updates in the architecture and in the design.
However, the Kushites building in the game do not seem to overuse Egyptian architecture, this is the case only in key buildings where the argument of a legacy can be justified (like the wonder)
This is not the case with our models. As I already said, I completely ignored pre-existing Egyptian architecture in Sudan for my references, even though Kushites did indeed maintain a good number of them. The wonder is based on temple 300 from Musawwarat es Sufra, Sudan, Meroitic Period, 3rd century BC, which I already pointed out in my previous post. It's not Egyptian!
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:the palatial structure between the temples looks like it is stone, but it should be mudbrick, and even then it should be the tallest structure in the whole cityscape.
The palace is covered in lime-plaster and they often used fired brick for such structures, and no, the pylons of the Amun temple dominated the landscape.
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:But players will say "those Kushites really built awesome cities on par with Rome and Athens in their glory days, and temples as large as the Hagia Sophia. Wow." But they just didn't right?
They did build awesome cities. Why compare it Rome and Athens? If you must, several Napatan and Meroitic temples were bigger than any of the temples that the Athenians ever built. In fact, the Amun temple of Napata was built centuries before the Classical Period had even started, when Rome had barely even been founded, and the Amun Temple of Dangeil was built over a century after Athens had been conquered by Rome... You know who wasn't conquered by Rome?
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:The people on the street there are still extremely small,
Have you actually bothered to look at the size of the people in the references, both in the reconstructions as well as the aerial shots of the archaeological sites that I shared on the previous page? I know, it's hard to spot them, because they actually do look extremely small compared to the structures... Some of their temples were absolutely huge, why is that so hard for you to believe even when pictures of the remains of such temples are staring you in the face? Cognitive dissonance?
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:But the whole central megatemple and massive central axis boulevard are missing
I already pointed this out. They did have processional avenues linking the palaces, temples and Nile river.
Here's some more bite-sized info since you weren't interested in Dr. Kendall's extensive description of the sites at Jebel Barkal.
The Meroitic Palace and Royal City, by M. Maillot:
https://issuu.com/sudarchrs/docs/s_n19_maillot
Just now, Anaxandridas ho Skandiates said:Look, the city in that render is so awesome, that if a Roman emperor had walked out on that balcony he would have said "wow, I want the view of Rome from my palace to look like this - can you send up some of your expert Kushite engineers and architects up to us, please, so ours can learn from them."
Hands up if you think that is realistic. I rest my case.
Condescending and facetious. Rome was literally a village when Kushites were building monumental temple complexes at Jebel Barkal and other places like Kawa. One of the earliest examples of monumental Kushite architecture is the Western Deffufa in Kerma, dates to roughly 2000 BC, 1st Kingdom of Kush, Sudan. This is monumental architecture that predates even the rise of the Mycenaeans! And it's still standing...
^4000 years ago... These people have a long-lasting legacy of monumental architecture that predates even the Mycenaeans. These are the same guys that in conjunction with the Hyksos from the north, brought the Middle Kingdom to its knees.
Just now, Stan` said:Okay the city is bigger that it would have been but is it really that important ?
It really isn't. It's way smaller. Why do you give this guy any credit at all when it comes to a subject he admitted that he didn't have any expertise on, just one page ago.
Just now, wowgetoffyourcellphone said:While your criticisms are mostly valid from a scholarly POV,
Appart from the balcony, he doesn't show any scholarly integrity whatsoever and has deliberately smeared me by claiming that I misrepresented Egyptian architecture as Kushite, even though I didn't, and even though I shared literature and sources by the worlds' foremost experts in the field disproving almost everything he said, and he couldn't even be arsed to read it.
Might I remind everybody that this is the same guy who proposed a magnetically levitating statue for the Ptolemies as well as a mountain sculpted in the likeness of Alexander the Great as the Macedonian wonder. Even his references for the Ptolemaic towers aren't even primary references, but come from a Roman mosaic in Italy, full of actual fantasy creatures and monsters... I'm not even saying that there is something wrong with the tower, but I've always strongly preferred to use primary sources from the start. Now suddenly primary sources, like actual archaeology, can just be thrown out the window because some dude says he doesn't believe Kushites could build such stuff, based on literally nothing more than his own ignorance and biases...?
Yes, the balustrade is incorrect. Pretty much everything else he said was nonsense.
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Just now, sphyrth said:
I think the OP Image looks great. Look at all the vibrant colors... looks like AoE4
XDXD, I love it too... @pedro_blanco did a stellar job!
Top facebook comment: "This will be 0ad in 2025"
Imagine 0AD with a real-time physics based renderer. With raytracing enabled, who knows, one day 0AD will actually look like that in-game...
@Anaxandridas ho Skandiates, why did you also go ahead and smear the image on the official facebook page? What's the point of that?
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Social media feedback.
in General Discussion
Posted
I mirrored your post about development progress, with a little more information and there seem to be a few bites: 2 programmers and an artist showed interest, 2 other programmers were tagged by their friends and there were 9 shares
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People definitely respond positively to open and honest communication. They don't mind if development takes a while, as long as they know development is ongoing. They just need to be reminded sometimes that it's Open Source, volunteer based, and free. Then they will be more sympathetic to "delays", although I think that's the wrong word to use. There are no delays, because there is no fixed schedule, nor would a fixed schedule benefit anyone at this stage. It will just lead to stress, unnecessary friction and burnouts.
On a previous post, one of the fans said: "Este juego es como el vino porque entre mas tiempo pasa, más bueno se pone"
A livestream with devs, a podcast or some youtube Q&A really isn't a bad idea, but it's also time consuming and perhaps a bit stressful, if you want to do it right. As you said, it needs to be announced well in advance, and people need to be prepared. I think currently the devs are in the middle of discussing some things to try to get a slightly smoother development process going, so I'd wait at least a month or so, to see how the programming side goes, and then, when the devs feel comfortable/confident enough with the direction of development, they can think about "releasing" a simple roadmap with some specific plans for alpha 24, easy to understand for the fans. Just a list of bullet points, followed by a live Q&A stream. Of course this all depends on the devs themselves, who probably prefer to spend their time coding, but perhaps one or two would be interested. Perhaps if some of the artists are interested, I'm sure they have a lot to say/share as well, and could provide a lot of visual interest for a well prepared stream.
Either way, I think it would be a really good initiative, to engage the community in such an interactive way, but be prepared for a lot of work, for something on which you might not see immediate returns (more of a long term positive effect).