Imma Bonet

[Meteocat @meteocat]

Aquesta setmana es preveu l'arribada d'una nova depressió aïllada a altura, una DANA. Hi ha incertesa a la predicció, però a partir de dimecres, una situació de llevant podria acumular quantitats importants de precipitació al litoral i el prelitoral, sobretot als dos extrems.

[Cadena SER @La_SER]

🔴 ÚLTIMA HORA | Meteocat lanza aviso de máxima peligrosidad para Barcelona por riesgo de granizo y posibilidad de tornados y cierra el acceso a las playas https://t.co/xMeGqnPTZe

[inspectoresdetrabajo @instrabajoyss]

Los trabajadores tienen derecho a abandonar su puesto de trabajo en caso de riesgo grave e inminente, sin pérdida de sueldo, como pudiera ser por los efectos de la #dana

Art 21 de la ley de Prevención de Riesgos Laborales ⬇️

[AntonioMaestre @AntonioMaestre]

Habrá que empezar a pedir responsabilidades penales a las empresas que obligan a sus trabajadores a ir a trabajar cuando hay prevista una alerta roja por lluvias.

[3Cat @som3cat]

🔴 Alerta màxima del Meteocat, de 6/6, per risc de pedra de més de 2 cm de diàmetre, esclafits, tornados o mànegues d'aigua al Baix Llobregat

#TotEsMou3Cat ▶ https://t.co/tlhAgA8ehy

[Miare @MIAREsproject]

No vayáis a trabajar. No os presentéis en las fábricas, centros comerciales, en los comercios. No llevéis a los niños al cole. No salgáis de casa.
Toda Valencia debe decir BASTA ahora mismo. Que se hunda el sistema si es necesario.
NO SALGAIS.
Mejor perder el trabajo que la vida.

[MΛRC VIDΛL @marcvidal]

No hay dinero que pague a estos profesionales... #gracias

[$haiel @Panth871Pink]

ULTIMA HORA - Anonymus revelo las actas de votación en Venezuela.
🇻🇪
Todo filtrado!!

[Imma Bonet @immaescar]

El increíble escondrijo de estatuas que apareció bajo el templo de Karnak https://t.co/9G6350Li9K

[Imma Bonet @immaescar]

La tumba con la única momia real completamente intacta del Antiguo Egipto https://t.co/8Q6Yz2y5Zv

[Imma Bonet @immaescar]

Los cristianos del Imperio Romano que seguían adorando a los dioses paganos https://t.co/kDAu2xJ3eS

[Imma Bonet @immaescar]

Desentierran una deidad alada de 2.700 años de antigüedad casi intacta en Irak https://t.co/G9kF3otnQZ

[National Geographic España @NatGeoEsp]

Una nueva técnica de análisis de datos genéticos modernos sugiere que los prehumanos sobrevivieron en un grupo de apenas mil individuos👇
https://t.co/QpWVyEMsfs

[Historia National Geographic @HistoriaNG]

Durante una excavación en el yacimiento de La Cabañuela se han encontrado los restos del foro romano más antiguo hallado en el interior de la península ibérica👇
https://t.co/96B30m2akK

[Imma Bonet @immaescar]

https://t.co/HbMDDKrKet

[The Cultural Tutor @culturaltutor]

We're so used to seeing and hearing about the pyramids that it's easy to forget how strange and extraordinary they really are.

So, just to remind you:

When woolly mammoths went extinct the Pyramids of Giza were already more than 500 years old.

Cleopatra and Julius Caesar are closer in time to the present day — to the Burj Khalifa — than to the construction of the Pyramids of Giza.

Where are they and who built them?

There are three pyramids on the Giza Plateau, which is on the west bank of the River Nile, in northern Egypt. They aren't far from Memphis, which was the capital of Ancient Egypt when they were constructed.

The largest and oldest was built in less than thirty years around 2570 BC for the Pharaoh Khufu. The second was built for Khufu's son, Khafre, and is only a few metres shorter. The third and smallest was then built for Menkaure, Khafre's son. Three monumental tombs for three generations of the same family.

Nearby are many more tombs for various members of the royal court, the Sphinx, several more temples, and the remains of a sort of workers' town including houses, workshops, bakeries, kitchens, breweries, a hospital, and a necropolis.

Khufu's Pyramid, known as the Great Pyramid, was the tallest building in the world for over 3,800 years — that is, until the spire of Lincoln Cathedral in England was constructed in 1311.

And at more than 6 million tonnes it was the heaviest manmade structure ever built, and is still third behind only the Great Wall of China and the Three Gorges Dam.

The mortar used in constructing the Great Pyramid alone weighs over half a million tons, which is more than the total weight of the Burj Khalifa.

See, the Great Pyramid is almost entirely solid — there are only a few narrow shafts and three small chambers inside. It was largely built from huge blocks of local Giza limestone, although its exterior was once covered in polished white limestone transported there from nearby Tura, and its interior includes blocks of granite weighing up to 80 tonnes transported from Aswan, over 500 miles away.

The *precision* of the pyramids is also remarkable. On a technical level their masonry is astonishingly accurate, but even more amazing is that the four sides of the Great Pyramid are all almost exactly the same length — they have a variation of no more than 60 millimetres.

Not to forget that all three pyramids are aligned according to the points of the compass — within one tenth of a degree of perfect geographical accuracy.

And if these facts weren't impressive enough, the actual construction of the pyramids — the specifics of how the blocks were quarried, transported, and lifted into place — remains a marvel we have yet to fully understand.

But those are merely the facts of the Pyramids of Giza; perhaps more interesting is what they really mean.

After all, you can learn a lot about any society from its architecture. What we say about ourselves can rarely be trusted — but what we do and what we leave behind is always truthful. In other words, that which we build expresses our priorities, how our society works, and who has the most power.

Think of it this way: what are the biggest buildings in the modern world?

By volume it is factories (the Boeing Everett Factory is number one right now) and distribution centres.

By total floor space it is airports and malls.

By height it is mixed-used skyscrapers, though they are usually dominated by offices, especially relating to finance. The Pentagon was the world's largest office building until this year; it has been overtaken by the Surat Diamond Bourse in India.

By capacity? Well, there are sports stadiums, the biggest of which is the Narendra Modi Stadium in India, with an official capacity of 132,000. That being said, no single complex can hold a greater number of people than the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, which has a capacity of 4 million.

So the largest buildings in the 21st century are almost all related to industry, finance, retail, transport, and leisure — with religious worship something of an outlier. This is a technologically advanced, industrial, highly consumerist society in which businesses hold a great deal of power, and in which the wants and demands of the public are very important.

For comparison, during the Middle Ages nothing came remotely close to cathedrals in size or complexity, though castles and fortresses were also far bigger than everything else. We can draw the basic conclusion that religion was of immense and central importance, that the church as an institution was very wealthy, and that power was actually spread out among the hereditary nobility rather than being entirely concentrated in the monarch alone, not to mention the political and spiritual power also held by the church.

So, what about the Pyramids?

The Ancient Greek historian Herodotus remarked that the Pyramids of Giza were proof of how tyrannical a ruler Khufu — or Cheops, as the Greeks called him — must have been. In his native Greece the largest buildings were temples for public worship; the Great Pyramid was a monument to but one man alone, and this shocked Herodotus.

The biggest buildings of the 21st century are all useful. They have a clear and immediate purpose, and usually one which benefits — in some sense — lots of people. A factory produces things we all use, a distribution centre organises our online shopping, an office is a place of work, and a stadium is where we go for entertainment. Our largest buildings are intimately and inseparably related to employment and consumption.

What about the Pyramids? They were tombs for the Pharaohs and they were supposed to last forever. In other words, they had no immediate use or purpose, at least for the living. They served only one person: the Pharaoh — plus his family and closest supporters, though they were buried nearby rather than inside — in his journey through the Afterlife.

So this is not the same as a large and lavish royal or presidential palace; such buildings are designed to be used as a seat of power and administration — by several succeeding generations or leaders.

Meanwhile, all the resources and labour that went into building the Pyramids, which were literally manmade mountains, were for the benefit of one Pharaoh alone, after his life had ended — and, to a lesser extent, those lucky enough to have been buried nearby at the time.

Does that mean Khufu and his descendants were tyrants? In some sense, yes. But there is evidence that those who built the Pyramids were not, as Herodotus thought, slaves, and were instead closer to conscripted workers and freely employed craftsmen who were fairly remunerated for their labour.

See, it wasn't just that Khufu held total political power; he was also the spiritual leader of his subjects, such that their work was fundamentally religious in nature — it might have even helped them achieve a better afterlife.

There was nobody who could refuse Khufu's desire to build the largest tomb in human history, because he was a divinely appointed intermediary between gods and humans; no regulation to stop him, because his will was the law; no limits to his expenditure, because he collected the taxes and owned all the land in the kingdom.

However powerful the world's richest and most influential people might now seem, none of it compares to the power wielded by Pharaohs like Khufu; a power that was political, financial, legal, military, and spiritual — absolute.

And so the Pyramids are a glimpse into a society fundamentally and almost irreconcilably different from that in which we now live, to the earliest epochs of human civilisation, long before democracy and the rule of law, when one man could rule as a god and have mountains built to serve as his personal, eternal monument on earth.

[Imma Bonet @immaescar]

Los arqueólogos creen haber hallado en Roma el teatro donde ensayaba el emperador Nerón | Cultura | EL PAÍS https://t.co/cUgABRQ7SV

[Pompeii Sites @pompeii_sites]

Whilst it looks like a pizza, this image from a Pompeian painting from 2000 years ago obviously can't be, since some of the most characteristic ingredients are missing, namely tomatoes and mozzarella.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

Ethiopia's 'Abuna Yemata Guh' is arguably the most inaccessible place of worship on earth and has to be climbed on foot to reach. Located in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, this ancient rock-hewn church stands atop a vertical cliff, perched at an elevation of around 2,580 meters (8,460 feet). It is considered one of the most inaccessible and challenging religious sites to reach in the world.

The construction of rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia has a long history dating back to the 4th century AD, during the time of the Aksumite Empire. These churches were built by carving into solid rock formations, creating impressive architectural masterpieces. The rock-hewn churches served as centers of religious devotion and provided shelter during times of conflict.

Abuna Yemata Guh is believed to have been carved out of the cliff face during the 5th century, making it over 1,500 years old. It is dedicated to Saint Yemata, a legendary Ethiopian saint who is said to have meditated and prayed in this secluded location. The church is named after Abuna (meaning "father" in Amharic) Yemata, who was a prominent Ethiopian religious leader.

What makes Abuna Yemata Guh particularly notable is the challenging ascent required to reach it. Pilgrims and visitors must hike up a steep and narrow footpath, navigating rugged terrain and exposed ledges. The ascent involves scrambling up the cliff face, sometimes using ropes for support. This arduous journey symbolizes a spiritual pilgrimage, testing the devotion and commitment of those seeking solace and connection with their faith.

Despite its remote and inaccessible location, Abuna Yemata Guh has attracted attention in recent years as a testament to Ethiopia's rich cultural heritage and architectural prowess. It is not only a place of worship but also a symbol of the enduring faith and determination of the Ethiopian people.

Furthermore, the Tigray region, where Abuna Yemata Guh is situated, has witnessed significant historical and cultural events throughout the centuries. It has been a center of religious and political power, with various empires and kingdoms rising and falling in the region. Today, Tigray is home to a diverse population, including the Tigrayan people, who have their unique language, culture, and traditions.

In recent years, the Tigray region has faced challenging times due to internal conflicts and humanitarian crises, making access to sites like Abuna Yemata Guh more difficult. Nevertheless, the church continues to be a testament to Ethiopia's rich history and the resilience of its people, reminding us of the enduring power of faith and the importance of preserving cultural heritage.

[Historic Vids @historyinmemes]

The Olmec civilization, one of the oldest known civilizations in Mesoamerica, thrived in what is now modern-day Mexico from approximately 1200 BCE to 400 BCE. The Olmec people were highly skilled in agriculture, trade, and the arts, and their cultural and artistic influence had a significant impact on later civilizations in the region, such as the Maya and Aztecs.

One of the remarkable archaeological discoveries associated with the Olmec civilization is a collection of colossal stone heads. These monumental sculptures, carved from basalt, depict human heads and are considered masterpieces of Olmec art. There are a total of 17 known Olmec colossal heads, and each one is believed to represent a specific individual, possibly a revered leader or ruler.

These colossal heads were discovered at various Olmec sites in southern Mexico, including La Venta, Tres Zapotes, and San Lorenzo. They were unearthed by archaeologists during excavations carried out in the 20th century, shedding light on the Olmec civilization and its artistic achievements. The heads are believed to have been created around 900 BCE, making them over 2,900 years old.

The Olmec colossal heads are characterized by their large size, with some reaching heights of up to 9 feet (2.7 meters) and weighing several tons. The sculptures display distinct facial features, including broad noses, full lips, and elongated earlobes, which are thought to represent significant traits or characteristics of Olmec rulers or nobility.

These colossal heads provide valuable insights into Olmec society, their political structure, and the importance of rulership and leadership in their culture. They also showcase the artistic skills and craftsmanship of the Olmec people, as the creation of such massive stone sculptures required sophisticated tools and techniques.