Dossiers
Dossiers

Nabu: The Babylonian God of Wisdom and Writing

Nabu (sometimes known as Tutu) was the Babylonian god of wisdom, learning, prophecy, scribes, and writing, also responsible for the abundant harvest and all growing things. His name means "the Announcer," which refers to his prophetic and creative powers in calling forth words, the harvest and…

religion as epistemology
Source: worldhistory
Melting Mountain Ice Is Bringing Ancient Secrets to the Surface. Archaeologists Are Racing to Find the Artifacts Before They're Lost to Time
Dossiers

Melting Mountain Ice Is Bringing Ancient Secrets to the Surface. Archaeologists Are Racing to Find the Artifacts Before They're Lost to Time

In Norway’s highest mountains, experts are scouring perilous terrain for pieces of the past, long stored in mint condition in ice patches. As temperatures rise across the world, glacial archaeologists must find the emerging artifacts before they degrade forever

Glacial melt is functioning as an accidental archive, surfacing preserved material from periods poorly represented in the archaeological record — each find is a data point in the argument that absence of evidence has been partly a function of ice coverage
Source: smithsonianmag
Does the Experience of Beauty Show Up in the Brain? With Electrodes and a Museum Collection of Artifacts, These Neuroscientists Aim to Find Out
Dossiers

Does the Experience of Beauty Show Up in the Brain? With Electrodes and a Museum Collection of Artifacts, These Neuroscientists Aim to Find Out

Researchers are tracing the brain and body’s response to aesthetic expression in search of a scientific value to art

If aesthetic response is a measurable, cross-cultural neural signature, it quietly pressures the assumption that ritual art was purely symbolic — and opens the question of whether ancient builders were deliberately engineering neurological states in those
Source: smithsonianmag