Mr. Strugglebeard

[Nho Eskape 🔞 @nhoeskape]

Geralt loves taking baths... Can't blame him

[LeoDaVinciWave @LeoDaVinciWave]

The Great Gold Buckle from the Sutton Hoo ship burial, a masterpiece of 7th-century Anglo-Saxon metalwork.

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

An ancient statue that was recovered by a Nazi expedition in the 1930s was originally carved from a highly valuable meteorite.....

Researchers say the 1000 year-old object with a swastika on its stomach, holding an Andean cup cross-legged is made from a rare form of iron with a high content of nickel. They believe it is part of the Chinga meteorite, which crashed about 15,000 years ago. The findings appear in the Journal, Meteoritics and Planetary Science, external. The 24cm tall statue is 10kg and is called the Iron Man.

The story of this priceless object owes more perhaps to an Indiana Jones film script than sober scientific research. It was discovered in Tibet in 1938 by German scientist Ernst Schafer. His expedition was supported by the Nazis, in particular by Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS. Himmler was said to believe the Aryan race originated in Tibet and was keen to recover objects from the area.

According to researchers, Turks did not meet Swastika after they became Buddhists. This symbol has existed in Turkish world as the stamp of Oz for thousands of years. Swastika symbol has been used by various peoples for thousands of years as an ancient religious icon in Eurasian cultures. Turning into a symbol of the Aryan race in Hitler's hands is an interesting story. On the Turkish stamp of Oz, the ends of the symbol face left, while on the Nazis' Swastika, they face right.

Brought back to Germany, statue became part of a private collection and disappeared from view until 2007. A new owner then sought scientific advice on the origins. He turned to Dr Elmar Buchner from the University of Stuttgart.

"I was absolutely sure it was a meteorite when I saw it first, even at 10 metres" said Dr Buchner.

He said that the clue was in small, thumb like impressions caused by the melting of the surface. Further analysis showed that it was a rare ataxite class, a type of meteorite not often found on Earth.

"It is rich in nickel, it is rich in cobalt. Less than 0.1% of all meteorites and less than 1% of iron meteorites are ataxites, so it is the rarest type of meteorites you can find."

Meteorites have been seen as a sign of divine activity across many cultures since the dawn of time. Knives and jewellery were made from iron meteorites by ancient Inuit. But tracing their exact origins is often extremely difficult.

German and Austrian scientists who worked on the Iron Man with Dr Buchner were surprised to be able to trace the statue to a specific event in meteorite history. The researchers believe it was carved from a piece of the Chinga meteorite that fell in border region of eastern Siberia and Mongolia about 15,000 years ago. The debris from the crash was only discovered in 1913 by gold prospectors, but the individual fragment from which the statue was carved was collected many centuries before.

"We were quite astonished by the results," said Dr Buchner.

"OK, it's a meteorite but what amazed me was that we could also say it was from Chinga, that we could find the provenance, that was really astonishing for me."

The statue is believed to portray the god Vaisravana. The researchers think it belongs to the pre-Buddhist Bon culture that existed in Asia about 1,000 years ago.

"If we are right that it was made in the Bon culture in the 11th Century, it is absolutely priceless and absolutely unique worldwide," observed Dr Buchner.

Neither the person who carved it or the Nazis had any idea it was made from such a rare substance, he said.

In keeping with the Hollywood element in the story, Dr Buchner said the statue had a certain aura.

"It is extremely impressive, it was formerly almost completely gilded - there is a great mystery represented by it."

© BBC

#archaeohistories

[Nho Eskape 🔞 @nhoeskape]

Testing if Grok Imagine is truth-seeking...
(to new followers: no, this is not something I post... often)

[Smilee @Smilee43783946]

https://t.co/R10UwNnnYm

[𝓖𝓸𝓽𝓱𝓮𝓷𝓫𝓸𝓻𝓷 🇸🇪 @gothenborn]

💥Hardcore Heaven💥

[📸 Tullage 📷 @Tullage]

💕💕💕💕💕💕💕💕

#Katya

[Sarp Serter @SarpSerter]

Black Cat music video!

Song: ‘Bad For You’ by Marcus Hedges Feat. Aliice

Thank you especially to Marcus Hedges and ALIICE for helping make this happen! This is the first time we are making a music video, we learned a lot and looking forward to doing more of this type of content!

This video was officially sponsored by Marvel Rivals!
It helps me tremendously if you click the link below and download the game!
https://t.co/ZszW8sNVYJ

[Satire-S@bine-Mueller™ 🇺🇸 @elonmusk @Mueller_NJ_USA]

Während der Nürnberger Prozesse gab Hermann Göring dem Psychologen Gustave Gilbert ein Interview und sagte:

„Natürlich will das Volk keinen Krieg. Warum sollte ein armer Bauer sein Leben im Krieg riskieren, wenn er bestenfalls hoffen kann, unversehrt auf seinen Hof zurückzukehren?

Natürlich will niemand Krieg. Niemand will Krieg in Russland, England, Amerika – nicht einmal in Deutschland. Das ist doch klar.

Aber letztendlich bestimmen die Machthaber eines Landes die Politik. Und es ist immer ein Leichtes, das Volk mitzureißen, ob in einer Demokratie, einem kommunistischen Staat, einem Parlament oder einer faschistischen Diktatur.“

Gilbert wandte ein:
Aber es gibt einen Unterschied in einer Demokratie – das Volk hat durch seine gewählten Vertreter eine Stimme.

Worauf Göring erwiderte:
„Schön und gut, aber ob das Volk eine Stimme hat oder nicht, es lässt sich immer von den Führern lenken. Das ist ganz einfach.

Man muss ihnen nur einreden, sie würden angegriffen, und die Pazifisten des mangelnden Patriotismus und der Gefährdung des Landes bezichtigen. Das funktioniert in jedem Land.“

— Nürnberger Tagebuch, 18. April 1946

[AvP Odyssey (☥𝐃𝐁) @AvPOdysseyDB]

This is a rare behind-the-scenes shot of the original Xenomorph from the 1979 film Alien. The image clearly reveals the eerie “human” skull visible beneath the creature’s translucent dome. A deliberate design choice by H.R. Giger. He included it to suggest that the alien mimics distinctive features of its host.

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

A 1000 years before modern metallurgy existed, Viking blacksmiths were somehow forging steel so pure it should have been impossible...

Ulfberht sword is one of greatest unsolved mysteries in the history of warfare and craftsmanship. Since first examples were discovered, archaeologists and metallurgists have been left completely baffled by what these blades represent. Over 170 swords bearing the runic-style inscription "+VLFBERHT+" have been recovered from sites scattered across Europe, with the majority found in Rhine River valley, Scandinavia, and as far east as Russia. They date primarily from around 800-1000 AD, placing them squarely in the heart of the Viking Age.

What makes these swords extraordinary is not their age or their ornate design. It is what they are made of. When scientists subjected Ulfberht blades to modern metallurgical analysis, the results were shocking. The steel contains a carbon content of up to 1.0 percent, classifying it as true crucible steel, sometimes called wootz steel. Crucible steel is forged at temperatures exceeding 1,600 degrees Celsius, hot enough to fully liquify the iron and allow slag and impurities to float away from the metal completely. The result is a blade with almost zero impurities, extraordinary flexibility, and a strength that far surpassed anything else available in medieval Europe at the time.

Here is the problem... European blacksmiths of the Viking Age did not have the technology to reach those temperatures. The standard method used across Europe during this period was bloomery smelting, which produced a metal called wrought iron filled with slag and impurities. To remove those impurities, smiths had to laboriously fold and hammer the metal repeatedly, a process that helped but never fully eliminated the problem. The resulting weapons were brittle by comparison, prone to bending or snapping under the stress of combat. Soldiers often had to stop mid-battle to straighten their swords by hand or under their foot. An Ulfberht blade would never require that.

The knowledge and equipment needed to consistently produce crucible steel of this quality was not independently developed in Europe until the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, roughly 800 to 900 years after the Ulfberht swords were being made. The only comparable steel being produced during the Viking Age came from workshops in Central Asia and Persia, particularly in regions near modern-day Iran and Afghanistan, where craftsmen had mastered crucible steel techniques centuries earlier.

This has led researchers to one of the most compelling theories surrounding the mystery. Viking traders and warriors had extensive contact with the Islamic world through the Volga trade routes, exchanging furs, amber, and slaves for silver and goods from the East. It is entirely possible that Ulfberht steel was imported raw from Central Asian or Persian sources and then worked by Frankish or Scandinavian smiths who understood how to shape it but did not fully understand how to produce it themselves. The name Ulfberht itself appears to be Frankish in origin, suggesting the swords were likely produced in the Frankish regions of what is now Germany or France.

What deepens mystery further is that researchers have identified two distinct categories of Ulfberht swords. The genuine high-carbon crucible steel versions represent the minority. Majority of 170 plus recovered blades are actually crude imitations, made from inferior bloomery iron and bearing a slightly different spelling of inscription, with the crosses positioned differently. This tells us that even during Viking Age, counterfeiters existed. Ulfberht name carried such enormous prestige and commanded such high prices that lesser smiths were willing to forge inscription onto inferior blades to deceive buyers. Owning a real Ulfberht sword would have been the equivalent of carrying a weapon of legend, a status symbol as much as a tool of survival.

#archaeohistories

[Kevin Sorbo @ksorbs]

This is hilarious.

If you, as a man, didn't mess with your pregnant wife, do you really love her?

[Jani Michael @JaniMichael5]

Heute schon gelacht?🤭🥳🙅‍♀️