This perfectly modeled and well-polished life-size statue depicts king Khafra, the builder of the second largest pyramid at Giza. It was found in a pit in the antechamber of his Valley Temple at Giza. The king is seated on a throne flanked by lion heads. The two sides of the throne are decorated with the sema-tawy, symbol of the unity of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Khafra wears the nemes headdress, surmounted by the uraeus, or royal cobra. He wears the royal pleated kilt. Attached to his chin is an artificial ceremonial sacred beard. He is protected by the god Horus, represented as a falcon, perched at the back of his neck.
This artifact is a masterpiece of workmanship. The sculptor was able to depict the details of the facial features and muscles of the body, in spite of the hardness of the stone.
Made out of anorthosite gneiss (related to diorite). From the Valley Temple of Khafre. Old Kingdom, 4th Dynasty, around 2570 BC. Now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo. JE 10062
On this day, 13 July 1976, a team of Uruguayan and Argentinian soldiers kidnapped Uruguayan anarchist Sara Méndez and her friend. She woke up in a torture camp run by the US-backed dictatorship, and was unable to track down her missing infant son. Her son had been taken from her and was put up for adoption, and they were not reunited until 2002.
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On this day, 7 December 1928, Avram Noam Chomsky, legendary American activist, linguist and author was born in Philadelphia.
Chomsky came to prominence as an activist as an outspoken critic of the Vietnam war, for which he was arrested several times and placed on President Richard Nixon’s official list of enemies. He has since become one of the world’s leading critics of US foreign-policy, and one of the most cited scholars alive. Politically Chomsky usually identifies with currents including libertarian socialism and anarcho-syndicalism.
We were very happy to be able to speak with Noam for our podcast about the geopolitics and human cost of the Vietnam war: https://workingclasshistory.com/2018/10/31/e14-the-vietnam-war-with-noam-chomsky/
Happy 91st birthday, Noam! https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1285886454929835/?type=3
“Ancient Egypt shared many parallels with other Bronze and Iron Age societies as can be shown by an analysis of the structure of the state, of the limits of royal power, of the authority of local but neglected micro-powers (such as provincial potentates and wealthy non-elite), and of the circulation and control of wealth.
Furthermore, Egypt experienced deep changes in its social, economic, political and territorial organization during its history, thus making the land of the pharaohs an ideal arena in which to test applications of models of governments and to define the dynamics that rule societies on the longue durée.
When seen through these new perspectives, the pharaonic monarchies appear less exceptional than previously thought, and more dependent on the balance of power, on their capacity to control the kingdom’s resources and on the changing geopolitical conditions of their time.”
People ALWAYS fuckin over-complicate compost. You don’t need a recipe, you don’t need to turn it or water it or whateverthefuck, you just. Pile shit up and let it rot.
Steps of composting;
1. Pile up organic stuff. Manure, food scraps, sticks, whatever. Throw all that shit in a pile.
2. Throw a couple shovelfuls of soil on there. (The soil contains all sorts of good nematodes and bacteria and fungi and all the other Good Bois that rot organics down.)
Now just…leave it alone. Throw more waste on there as it accumulates. Ignore. Don’t fuckin worry, my dudes, just leave it be. The Rot Squad has it from here.
After a year, move all the half-composted stuff on top aside to Pile #2, and lo and behold, what was once chicken manure, orange peels, moldy bread, and coffee grounds is now rich black humus. If there’s any chunks of stick or corn cob or whatever in there, just pick ‘em out and chuck them on Pile #2. Use the compost as you wish.
Now, will this sterilize any seeds in there? Fuck no. You could start a whole garden from a shovelful of my compost. Tomato seed, columbine seed, squash, blanketflower, nicotiana, echinacia, about thirty types of grass, raspberry, sunflower, strawberry, hyssop, and who knows what else.
So that’s why you spread the compost around plants, and then top it off with some more mulch, which will shade out any germinating seeds. Or plop it in planting holes.
The mulch will also rot down over time into MORE nice rich humus.
Next year, rake back the half-composted junk from pile #2, plop it back on pile #1, and repeat forever.
And if you’re just on shitty clay or sand?
COMPOST COMPOST COMPOST. MORE COMPOST MOAR COMPOST. Tilling compost into clay will absolutely transform your soil. Sand, the same.
Most local landfills will ALSO have a compost heap, and that, like mulch, will ALSO be available for cheap to free. Load up on that sweet black gold, and start a compost heap.
Don’t you need to have a certain ratio in the stuff you’re throwing in there, though? I vaguely remember the number 25:1 in terms of the amount of food waste and stuff you’re throwing in versus the amount of yard material like sticks and leaves, but I don’t know if the addition of pre formed soil changes that or not.
Nope fuckit it all rots down anyway.
Those ratios make it rot faster is all, but ain’t nobody got time to be out here mixing compost precisely.
Is there any reason I can’t do this in a ditch? The backyard used to have a broken in ground pool when we moved in so we tore it out and filled it in with construction site dirt, but it formed a two foot deep, eight feet long not-really-sinkhole because it wasn’t packed down very well. Can’t I just…throw the compost things into it and fill it up while forming some nice usable dirt?
Not a one. That would actually trap water and make it work even better.
Let me introduce you to trench composting! This is a great way to improve soil when you are creating new garden beds and aren’t in a huge hurry. (For those who use the imperial system, 350mm = about 1 foot.)
