Mummy Brown and Other Historical Colors – Veritable Hokum

  Everything © Korwin Briggs

How did humanity discover how to make colors?

The quick answer is that we, even as cave-dwellers, ground up everything we could get our hands on. Comic creator of Veritable Hokum and historian Korwin Briggs recently assembled a chart that demonstrates the incredible millenniums-long process that resulted from that urge. Many of the paint colors that we take for granted today were actually difficult to come by for most of human history.

Often because the stuff we ground up to make colors was poisonous and kind of killed us!   - From Tor.com 

See the Infographic and read more:  

Mummy Brown and Other Historical Colors – Veritable Hokum:

JRR Tolkien: Interview from 1968

An interview with Tolkien, originally published in The Telegraph magazine on March 22. 1968.

For a fascinating look at the author behind the myth, and the discussion of his "epic fairy-tale", language, fairy-tales and the world of Middle Earth, in an era when fantasy wasn't fantasy yet.

What is also fascinating, is the language and skill of the article itself, this is before the media-zation of information. When writing was well written, and enjoyable to read in any medium.

 - Tolkien’s imaginary landscapes grew out of his predilection for creating languages. “Anyone who invents a language,” he said, “finds that it requires a suitable habitation and a history in which it can develop. A real language is never invented, of course. It is a natural thing. It is wrong to call the language you grow up speaking your native language. It is not. It is your first learnt language. It is a by-product of the total make-up of the animal.” Read the full article - telegraph.co.uk :

Book Review: A Darker Shade of Magic

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Narrated by Steven Crossley 

Series: A Darker Shade of Magic Book 1

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this audiobook from the Ford Audiobook Club. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I enjoyed this book, and the reader was excellent. The book reads more like a contemporary fiction book or magical realism, though this book is all Fantasy otherworld/hidden worlds Fantasy.

The author has presented the reader with a historical London setting, and combines it with unfamiliar parallel worlds, it is a fascinating, concept, I give Schwab credit, in the length of the novel, she has attempted to world build not just one, but four worlds at once. This may have resulted in an expansive, but less developed world building, that includes a bit of info dumping" or "stop and smell the roses moments", that pull the reader out of the action, and storyline.

Overall, A Darker Shade of Magic is a good, and different fantasy read, with interesting and engaging characters. This is a fantasy book, that is not all encompassing and has a medium learning curve.

Details:
Series: A Darker Shade of Magic Book 1
Published February 24th 2015 by Tor Books
Links:
V.E. Schwab


View all my reviews

Triggerfish Story Lab Announces Shortlisted Entrants (Wanuri Kahiu, Nnedi Okorafor, Judy Kibinge + Others)

Triggefish Animation Studios announced that its inaugural Triggerfish Story Lab (which aims to give continental Africa’s most talented storytellers and filmmakers the opportunity to develop their ideas alongside Triggerfish’s international network of mentors)
Triggerfish has revealed the 23 feature and 12 TV projects that have been shortlisted 23 for the inaugural Story Lab, upped from the initially planned 10 features and 10 TV series, thanks to the overwhelming number of quality submissions. ... Read full article on indiewire.com

The shortlisted feature film entries are:

The Big Wild (Ian Pugh)
Born Flea (Andrew Phillips)
Bru and Boegie (Mike Scott)
The Camel Racer (Wanuri Kahui and Nnedi Okorafor)
The Crash (Julia Smuts Louw)
Dropped (Ian Tucker)
Elliot’s Journey (Judy Kibinge)
Fish Out of Water (Matthys Boshoff and Carina Stander)
The Legend of the Rain Queen (Hanneke Schutte)
The Life Factory (Howard James Fyvie)
Lights (Kay Carmichael)
The Little Five (Alex Latimer)
The Loneliest Satellite (Charlie Human)
Make Believe Maya (Nimrod Geva)
The Makers (Sheldon Bengston)
Molly and the Quarks (Donovan Marsh)
Mumbo Jumbo Bambinos (Mbuso Thulani Shiburi)
Paris in Africa (Yolanda Makalaza)
Paradox City (Greig Cameron)
True Colours (Bernard Bruwer)
The Wild Waste (Naseem Hoosen)
Witches Way (Jenna Bass and Chinelo Unwualo)
Zahrah the Windseeker (Wanuri Kahui and Nnedi Okorafor)

The shortlisted TV series are:

Chicken Core (Shina Ajulo)
Folklore (Andile Ngcizela)
Gullivan’s Loft (Jenny Verwoerd and Stephen van Wyk)
Herbert Smelly Pants (Denzil Lewis)
KC’s Super 4 (Malenga Mulendema)
Matchbox Monsters (Sue-Mari L. Sauer)
Ninja Princess (Marc Dey)
Onion Boy (Sarah Scrimgeour)
Sam and Sbu (Lori Reardon and John Reardon)
Sophie the Giantslayer (Kay Carmichael)
Uncanny Valley (Nicholas Rix and Moray Rhoda)
Wormholes (Lucy Heavens)

For more information, http://triggerfishstudios.com.

Monday Musings: Cryptology Unsolved Mysteries

Monday Musings: 
Many of the early documented writings, that have survived are accounts, but others are poems, myths and stories. With the Epic of Gilgamesh Dating from the Third Dynasty of Ur (Circa 2100 BCE), being probably the most well known.  

Ancient writing systems. Some are yet to be deciphered, some have only recently been deciphered.  Though we have deciphered, many of the known early writing systems, and languages, there are a few out there yet that are still true mysteries. Read more... 

Phaistos Disk, a fired clay disk from the Minoan palace of Phaistos on the Greek island of Crete, dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age (tentatively dated about 1700 BCE), it is read spirally.  Read more.


Recently Dr Gareth Owens of the Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Crete has put forth his deciphering of several key words, and he believes the disk is a prayer dedicated to a mother.

Scientists  Finally Crack The Code Of The Ancient 'Phaistos Disk'
Maybe ... Interesting, but from other sources, not quite there yet.

Gareth Owens, The Phaistos Disk and Related Inscriptions

Signs of Civilization Neolithic Symbol System of Southeast Europe (PDF)

Vinča-Turdaș script,
The Vinča culture, also known as Turdaș culture orTurdaș-Vinča culture, is the oldest Neolithic culture in South-eastern Europe, dated to the period 5,500–4,500 BC.  (Wikipedia)

Tărtăria tablets, found in a Neolithic site in the village of Tărtăria, in Romania

Vinča / Old European
The Vinča Culture

Indus Harappa script
Indus/Harappa script

Indus Script Based on Sanskrit Language

Speculations on some of the most common ancient Indus signs.

Proto-Elamite, Dating from 3400 BC to 2500 BC, in use before the introduction of Elamite cuneiform. It is uncertain whether the Proto-Elamite script was the direct predecessor of Linear Elamite. Both scripts remain largely undeciphered.

The Puzzle of Proto-Elamite

Technology Helping to Decipher Proto-Elamite Script

Proto-Elamite

Linear A, one of only 2 Greecian scripts left to be deciphered, has been found mostly on Crete, but also at other sites in Greece, as well as Turkey and Israel.
Linear A
Linear A Lexicon

Cretan hieroglyphs, is the second of the Greek Scripts that is still undeciphered it is found on artefacts of early Bronze Age Crete, during the Minoan era. It predates Linear A by about a century, but continued to be used in parallel for most of their history. (Wikipedia)

The Cretan Hieroglyphic Texts

Mycenaean Linear B was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris.

Voynich Manuscript A parchment codex, Carbon Dated to ranging between 1404 and 1438, The MS is written in an elegant, but otherwise unknown script. There are possibilities, that this is actual text, which hasn't yet been translated or deciphered, some private or imaginary language, or encrypted in some individuals code, or possibly a hoax.

Voynich Manuscript Cipher Manuscript, digitized online at Beinecke Digital Collections 





Rohonc Codex, discovered in Hungary in the 1800s. It is believed to have been part of the personal library of Count Gusztáv Batthyány, before he donated his entire personal library to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. When the Codex surfaced, it initially appeared to be from medieval times. However, the text, which appears to resemble Old Hungarian script, was completely indecipherable. Read more.

Rohonc Codex
The Codex from Rohonc Project

dacia.org - Scanned images of the pages

Rongorongo Glyphs of Easter Island.

The name Rongorongo comes from the Rapa Nui language, which is the native language of Easter Island, and means "to recite, to declaim, to chant out.” (Wikipedia)

The mysterious Rongorongo writing of Easter Island
Rongorongo,

Book Review: Shadows of Self

Shadows of Self by Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn series book 5 (Book 2 in the Wax and Wayne Arc, Book 1 in the Wax and Wayne Trilogy)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Shadows of Self continues the story of Waxillium Ladrian,(Just love that name :)) and his sidekick Wayne. 
This Flintlock Fantasy is a continuation in the Mistborn world, and answers that age old fantasy lovers question of what would a world with magic be like during an Industrial Revolution

Sanderson mixes up the boundaries of genres with this, I would label it Flintlock Fantasy, part fantasy, part western, part mystery and part detective story. 

Taking place 300 years after our heroes saved the world the first time around, readers get to see the evolution of Scadrial.  I loved the story, and the characters, with this second book,  Wayne though still a sidekick, developed more as a character, and is starting to move from sidekick status to equal hero on his own.  
Like any Sanderson book, there are twists and turns and surprises! Cosmere hints and a few throwbacks to the first three Mistborn books, will delight fans of Sanderson and the Mistborn world.

Mistborn unlike many epic fantasy's was lacking in an elaborate legends and myths, but with Shadows of Self, we get to see how the initial trilogy is the basis for the Myth, legends, and religions of the world, it will be interesting to see where this goes as the Mistborn world moves from Industrial Revolution, to the planned additional series, of Urban Fantasy, and Sci-Fi. 

 I suggest new readers start with The Alloy of Law, before reading this book. It does add to the experience if you have also read the the 3 book Epic Fantasy Series Mistborn,  but this series can easily be read without that as a standalone series. 

Details:
Series: Mistborn, book 5.  Book 2 in the Wax and Wayne Story Arc, Book 1 in the Wax and Wayne TrilogyPublished October 6th 2015 by Tor Books
Brandon Sanderson’s Shadows of Self debuts at number 5. on the New York Times Best Sellers Combined Print and E-Book Fiction List for  Oct 18, 2015 - Nov 1, 2015, and number 8 on the Hardcover Fiction list.

Links:
Brandon Sanderson

View all my reviews

New clay tablet adds 20 lines to Epic of Gilgamesh

New clay tablet adds 20 lines to Epic of Gilgamesh


Newly discovered clay Tablet V of the Standard Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh. in the Sulaymaniah Museum in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq has corrected the order of chapters, filled in blanks and added 20 lines to the Epic of Gilgamesh.


Read various versions of The Epic of Gilgamesh:
Project Gutenberg:

• An Old Babylonian Version of the Gilgamesh Epic by Clay and Jastrow. (also on archive.org)
• The Epic of Gilgamish by Stephen Langdon
• Assyrian International News Agency Books Online (PDF)

Audio Readings and books:

From Internet Archive: The Epic of Gilgamesh - a new translation

by Prince Frederick, MD Performed by George Guidall. 

Hear The Epic of Gilgamesh Read in its Original Ancient Language, Akkadian.  Standard Version, Tablet XI, lines 1-163, read by Karl Hecker


The University of London’s Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Ancient Near. Readings of Gilgamesh, The Epic of Anzu, the Codex Hammurabi and other Babylonian texts.

Cuneiform

• English to Cuneiform Translator. Babylonian,or here,  Sumerian
Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative.
• Cuneiform the system of writing used in the ancient Middle East. Cuneiform was employed for writing a number of languages from about the end of the 4th millennium BC until about the 1st century BC.
• Akkadian Akkadian
• Elamite
• Hittite 
• Old Persian Cuneiform
• Sumerian
• Ugaritic

Akkadian was a semitic language spoken in Mesopotamia (modern Iraq and Syria) between about 2,800 BC and 500 AD. It was named after the city of Akkad and first appeared in Sumerian texts dating from 2,800 BC in the form of Akkadian names. Read more on omniglot.com

Sumerian was spoken in Sumer in southern Mesopotamia (part of modern Iraq) from perhaps the 4th millennium BC until about 2,000 BC, when it was replaced by Akkadian as a spoken language, though continued to be used in writing for religious, artistic and scholarly purposes until about the 1st century AD. Sumerian is not related to any other known language so is classified as a language isolate. Read more on omniglot.com

Source:http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ling201/writingsystems/sumeriancuneiform.htm

Links

Sumerian language and writing system:

• ancientscripts.com Sumerian
• Wikipedia Cuneiform 
• Wikipedia.org Sumerian language
• sumerian.org
• Sumerian Lexicon

Akkadian language and writing system:

• Akkadian, an introduction collected by John Heise
• Wikipedia Akkadian language
• Wikipedia Akkadian Cuneiform
• ancientscripts.com Akkadian
• The Akkadians - by Robert A. Guisepi and F. Roy Williams
• Akkadian Dictionary

Early Akkadian Literature - a Text Corpus of Babylonian and Assyrian Literary Texts from the 3rd and 2nd Millennia BC: