For anyone who missed it, it's launch day for WALLS. It looks at how walls have shaped the history of civilization. Hard to believe no one did this before me--millions of people labored on walls or lived behind them. Enjoy, my twitter friends.
https://t.co/oORrvGdP8v
More evidence confirming that Minoans walled their cities. Sadly, this contradicts what I always taught about the Minoans in Western Civ, but, on the plus side, it does bolster my thesis about walls and early civilizations.
So it's a wash.
https://t.co/IAzflKSrTn
And yet another ancient author must be acquitted of the alleged crime of "fabricating the Other."
Diodorus Siculus, you have been vindicated.
https://t.co/sTHzuGNdFZ
Not sure which I prefer: this Japanese depiction of George Washington, wearing some type of skirt (and shooting an arrow), or this Persian illustration of a very buff Jesus, apparently asking John the Baptist, "do you even lift, brah?"
And now the answers to the quiz... (Some great guess by the way, but none were correct):
(Clockwise from right)
Oliver Cromwell
Frederick the Great
Peter the Great
Newton
@StalkerGhost12@GarettJones@ScribnerBooks@nytimes Hi, StalkerGhost. Sorry, not exactly what I was implying there. If you read the passage in its full context, you'll see what I'm saying, basically that Sparta's decision to be defended only by "walls of men," required men to be warriors, not workers.
Mexican racoon (or coati) climbing city walls at the ancient Mayan town of Tulum. Ironically, Central Americans were building walls long before North Americans.
More importantly, coatis are also known as, I kid you not, "snookum bears."
Just returned from Mexico, where dinosaurs the size of small dogs laze about the ruins. This weary fellow guards a Mayan temple. By this, I mean he was draped unceremoniously over a block.
Pretty sure he would have give me the finger, but he just couldn't be bothered.
This may be a bit of an inside thing, but how many of you took one look at this headline and knew it would be about Zahi Hawass before you even clicked?
https://t.co/dx3vyA7EtI
@robneyer So you spend your days writing about baseball and escape-reading about walls, and I spend my days writing about walls and escape-reading about baseball...
"Roman Wall Blues," part 2 (sorry the last lines were cut off in the previous tweet). It finishes:
When I'm a veteran with only one eye
I shall do nothing but look at the sky.