The Oseberg Cheetah

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I'm NOT a lion, a leopard, a dragon, or a mythical beast!

I AM an overlooked clue to how widely interconnected the Medieval world was...

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[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

A different approach:

Visually, these carvings portray -

Seal,
Cheetah,
Bear,
Wild Wolf,
'Caged' Wolf.

I'd claim to be the most intriguing (at the moment), for the same reason I was dismissed as a 'mythical beast' for so long.

I'm a link with lands no 'Viking' ever saw...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@BelovedOfOizys The Sun - with Icarus (one wing drooping) below...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@g0blinegg You know I'm always going to say 'ME...!'

IMO, the handicrafts teachers found at Oseberg (& their teddy-bears) provide potentially important (and definitely fascinating) clues about lesser-known aspects of Norse life and international connections in the early middle ages...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@KMFollett @Kulturhistorisk Great carving, definitely.

But you're looking at a SEAL, not a dragon...!

Hopefully, the Museum of the Viking Age will be less distracted by Norse mythology, and more excited by the reality of living, exploring, and understanding the natural world in a Norse context...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@CatJarman Hopefully, a new display for me, the other heads, and all of the objects associated with those ships will take a wider view of what was possible, and where, in 'The Viking Age'.

Not joking - recognising me as a cheetah WILL be a huge step forward in 'reading' the Oseberg site...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@foxvshedgehog Is it about the context...?

Significance &/or importance are usually related to a context - so setting that out may throw up some constructions that are more evocative.

(For example, I'm important as evidence that discovery and display are no guarantee of recognition...)

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@g0blinegg You know I'm always going to say 'ME...!'

IMO, the handicrafts teachers found at Oseberg (& their teddy-bears) provide potentially important (and definitely fascinating) clues about lesser-known aspects of Norse life and international connections in the early middle ages...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

'Joining the dots':

Before 2006, I was an odd find, because *history* says Norse sailors, seeing Africa, always turned left into the Mediterranean instead of going far enough south to find *ME*!

Then DNA linked the Younger Oseberg Woman to Persia - also cheetah territory...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

'Skin Prints' (1):

It's easy to assume my surface carving is just arbitrary decoration, but those ornaments really represent pale fur winding between dark spots.

Originally, soft fibres literally and artistically 'filled in the gaps', forming a luxurious tactile 'pile'...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

'Skin prints (2)':

Once you notice that the recesses represent my spots, the ornate carving covering my surface becomes a sideshow. (It's really just 'fancy underwear'!)

And I'm not just ANY cheetah - those spots record the unique 'skin print' of ONE cherished individual!

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

'Skin Prints (3)':

The pits are really SOCKETS. Stippled texture shows where bundled fibres were tightly packed and glued, like paintbrush bristles.

Dark bundles would be surrounded by paler colours, tufting outwards to hide my carved decorations under a plush layer of fur...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@VindolandaTrust Everybody STILL needs a teddy-bear...!

(this Vindolandish one doesn't have a wooden 'chassis', which is all that's left of me...)

https://t.co/XE2CR3OPcD

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

'Skin Prints' (1):

It's easy to assume my surface carving is just arbitrary decoration, but those ornaments really represent pale fur winding between dark spots.

Originally, soft fibres literally and artistically 'filled in the gaps', forming a luxurious tactile 'pile'...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

I'm a Charismatic Big Cat, and I approve this message...!

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@Claire_M @CathNoakes Both are improved by a better seal around your face - but the public information isn't emphasising that.

Officially describing masks as 'face covering' confounds population studies, by making effective mask-wearers and people with a bandana over their face interchangeable...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

Representations of armoured dogs seem to be very rare. Are the Oseberg Wolves unrecognised examples...?

Any thoughts
@SimonElliott200
@KhakiMalarkey
@OliviaSmithHist
@ph0ebestyle
@MedWarMag
@churchill_alex
...?

Anyone else in #militaryhistory ?

https://t.co/eJFcNq5izC

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

I love it when assumptions get rethought...!

Several ssumptions about ME (and the culture that created me) are LONG overdue for re-evaluation...

[Kate Fulcher @Kate_Fulcher]

Enjoying listening to @aaronmdesouza - re-thinking assumptions of circular=Nubian rectilinear=Egyptian (also difficulty of defining those terms!) and landscapes being relevant to buildings within them 👍

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@DrJaninaRamirez In brain development, evidence for science (knowledge of the natural world) appears earlier than signs of religious belief.

(Eg - birds can apply psychology when caching food, & learn the properties of metal wire.)

If science could make it redundant, religion wouldn't appear...

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

I'm a more trivial example. (but a significant source of new learning, if taken seriously...)

In 1904, powers-that-be knew cheetah and 'Vikings' could never have met.

So they decreed that I must be something else - and who can gainsay such expertise...?

https://t.co/BBXhoY7XGW

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

Like Empire, Academe is a world where powers-that-be demand to be trusted and believed, however destructive their decrees appear.

More significantly, such empowered luminaries may with impunity decide to 'close ranks' against critical voices...

https://t.co/W0jaKVigP8

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

Like Empire, Academe is a world where powers-that-be demand to be trusted and believed, however destructive their decrees appear.

More significantly, such empowered luminaries may with impunity decide to 'close ranks' against critical voices...

https://t.co/W0jaKVigP8

[British Museum @britishmuseum]

George Osborne will be appointed by the Trustees to join the board as of 1 September 2021 and will succeed Sir Richard Lambert as Chair on 4 October 2021.

Read more here: https://t.co/Ui956FnAkB (2/2)

[The Oseberg Cheetah @CheetahOseberg]

@PoliticsForAlI There are two versions of the Cnut tale.

In one, a king's so great he can drive his nation forward by commanding the tide - that's a later fantasy of ignorant empire-builders.

In the original, a leader was making the point that fantasies of power are no match for reality...