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💬🌳🏛🖼️📜 Quotes, nature, architecture, art and history about our homeland, Europe.
“Myths are metaphors for the spiritual potentialities of the human being, and the same powers that animate our lives animate the life of the world.”
— Joseph Campbell
“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”
— Ancient greek proverb
The Lough Gur Shield
This bronze shield excavated from Lough Gur gives many people a frisson of excitement as they imagine the warriors who used it in battle. The truth, of course, is less violent but just as fascinating.
Contemporary theory is that this was one of a number of votive offerings deposited in the lake and it was probably never used in battle at all. The fact that the shield dates back to over 700 BC is also an eye-opener in that it shows a thriving level of craftmanship in the country well over two thousand years ago. That’s several hundred years before the time period in which the Fionn mac Cumhaill stories are set.
The shield in the image is actually a replica which can be seen at Lough Gur. The original is kept in the National Museum of Ireland (for obvious reasons).
Traditional costume and charro costume. Mogarraz. Salamanca (Spain)
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Mosaic at Ancient Thurii/ Sybaris, possibly the death place of Herodotus.
The ancient city of Sybaris (720BC-445BC) flourished as a port city before its destruction and abandonment for 58 years. Once Athenian citizens re-settled it, including Herodotus, "father of history", it rose once again. Later, it fell under Roman Influence and would be occupied by both Hannibal and Spartacus in their campaigns against Rome. The city was lost until the 1960s, buried under 4 meters of sediment by .
"Njörd's desire of the Sea" (1908) by W. G. Collingwood
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Summer Solstice Celebration, Stockholm, Sweden, 1970.
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A worker changes a lightbulb, unknown street London 1890s.
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Livraria Lello, Oporto, Portugal
Founded in 1881, it’s one of the oldest bookstores in the world and is known for its stunning Neo-Gothic interior, featuring a grand staircase, stained glass windows, and ornate ceilings. The bookstore was voted “the Most Beautiful Bookstore in the World” by the 1000 Libraries Community in 2023.
Hungarian Medieval Knight Miklós (Nicholas) Toldi fighting wolves in the forest. Sculpture of János Fadrusz (1903).
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Freikorps unit takes to the streets in Berlin during unrest in the years of the Weimar Republic. Circa 1923
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Bust of Young Marcus Aurelius, 122-180 AD. marble.
📸 Capitoline Museum, Rome.
Phillip II’s Chair
From this series of stepped platforms, it is said that Philip II of Spain monitored the construction of the seat of the Spanish Empire. The platform, as well as the four seats located on the north side, was said to be engraved at the command of the king to accommodate him and his entourage.
Formed by three stone seats separated by armrests, this seat is supposedly where the king sat to supervise the works of the Monastery of El Escorial, headquarters of the immense Spanish Empire. The story behind the chair was a common legend, and while the king did come hunt and walk in the area, evidence points to a different origin story.
In 1999, the archeologist Alicia M. Canto of the Autonomous University of Madrid suggested that the whole complex could be a sacrificial altar built by the Vettones, a people of Celtic origin who lived on the Iberian Peninsula before the Romans arrived. Other altars in the area show similar Celtic influence, such as Panóias in Portugal. Not far from La Silla are the remains of another, older possible altar.
“The power they have over me depends on the fear I have of them.”
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A 5thC BC corinthian helmet with the skull of a warrior inside supposedly found at the Battlefield of Marathon, Greece.
The 192 Athenians killed in the battle were cremated, so there's a chance it belonged to one of the 11 Plataean allies who also fell during the fight in 490BC.
It now forms part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s collections, but originally it was discovered by George Nugent-Grenville, who was the British High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands between 1832-35.
A keen antiquarian, Nugent-Grenville carried out a number of rudimentary archaeological excavations in Greece, one of which took place on the Plains of Marathon, where the helmet was uncovered.
Luftwaffe officer with a dueling scar across his face. The 'dueling' scars were otherwise known as mensur scars.
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“Come back with your shield, or on it, but don't come back without it.”
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Heinrich Himmler mushroom hunting on his summer holiday, Tyrväntö, Finland, August 1942
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“The tallest trees have the deepest roots“
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Head of the assassinated Swedish King Charles XII, killed in 1718 by a shell while inspecting his troop lines during the Siege of Fredriksten in Norway. The shot struck the left side of his skull and exited through the right. These photos were taken during an autopsy in 1917.
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"Nothung! Nothung! Conquering sword!", (frontispiece from Siegfried and the Twilight of the Gods). by Arthur Rackham, 1924.
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Victoria Louise in 1909, as Honorary Colonel of the II. Prussian Life Hussars Regiment
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"We become what we love, and who we love shapes what we become."
— Clare of Assisi
"Apollo and Daphne", Jakob Auer
📸 Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria.
Tyr placing his hand in the jaws of Fenrir, by John Bauer.
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