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Tag: archaeology

morning computer big giant rocks

Published May 13, 2025 by Warren Ellis

The Olmec heads are among the largest non-architectural monuments ever discovered in Mexico, ranging between roughly 3.5 and 11.5 feet in height and weighing up to eight tons, with the largest of them weighing a head-spinning 45 tons. They all have a similar appearance, one strikingly similar to that of modern-day indigenous groups living in southern Mexico, featuring large cheekbones and flat noses. 

Researchers have found evidence that a giant “lid” made of magma could be stopping the supervolcano in Yellowstone National Park from erupting.

As detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature last month, a team of researchers discovered a “volatile-rich cap” a mere 2.36 miles below the surface, trapping pressure and heat below it.

In fact, the researchers believe the obstruction may be what’s preventing the volcanic system from erupting — a blast that’s happened several times previously in the history of our planet, and which could have devastating consequences for civilization if it happened again.

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morning computer dem bones

Published April 14, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Cindy Ji Hye Kim.

More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes that a set of seemingly plain, functional objects are in fact a key part of the complex rituals which would ensure the transformation and regeneration of the young king in the afterlife.

Philippe Starck designs a funeral urn:

I’ve been invited to a private dining experience in Kennington where I’ll be served several dishes made exclusively from roadkill. Petr Davydtchenko, a Russian performance artist, and Michelin star chef Masayoshi Haraguch are hosting the dinner. 
I arrive an hour before the other guests to chat with Petr. Me and Petr speak about the reasoning behind his practice. Starting in 2016, he decided to move to the south of France, detach from society, and learn how to be completely self-sufficient. He mentions evading capitalism and embracing brutality. Every morning he would wake with the sun and cycle for thirty kilometers looking for roadkill. Donkeys. Badgers. Deer. Pheasants. Rats. Then there’s the animals we’re all a bit more fond of. Cats and dogs. Sad to think about, but still a natural part of life.

Probably not useful, actually:

The best way to prepare a fox is to leave its body in a running stream for 24 hours, this will tenderize the meat, making it softer and easier to eat. For some reason, this feels like incredibly useful information and something I’ll probably tell my kids. 

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

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Manuscript Culture

Published April 9, 2025 by Warren Ellis

A new study uses digital tools to analyze nearly 1,000 Syriac manuscripts from the British Library, focusing on how scribes and editors selected and rearranged parts of texts—a practice known as excerpting. Researcher Noam Maeir introduces a new measurement called Excerpts Per Manuscript (EPM) to track how often this happened. This approach reveals that the people who copied and compiled these manuscripts were not just preserving texts—they were actively shaping what future generations would read and remember.

By highlighting these editorial choices, the study shifts attention away from authors alone and shows that scribes played a key role in organizing knowledge, adapting texts for new purposes, and influencing how Syriac literary culture developed over time.

What Syriac scribes chose to keep: A digital dive into 1,000 manuscripts

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27mar25

Published March 27, 2025 by Warren Ellis

The sun is out. Not sure I’ll have the time to make the most of it, myself, but he’s rolling around on the grass like a happy idiot.

🌐

OPERATIONS: Quick rewrite on deck, some breakdowns to knock out, wrapping up Sunday’s newsletter, a hundred emails to process – which I’m about to do, and maybe send some more, as I continue to fail to try to be better about being in contact with people.
STATUS: a geophysical artist I know has sent me an email entitled “cave cameras,” so god knows what he’s done this time. A few moments of frustration last night with my phone last night, my usual complaint that nothing on it works the way I want it to – why on earth would Fitbit not be accessible by Apple Health? Why do so few app makers produce widgets for their apps? Why isn’t this goddamn thing a glanceable terminal?


READING: THE NOTEBOOK, Roland Allen (UK) (US+)
LISTENING:

THINKING ABOUT:

When the copper returned to the station at the end of the beat, the duty officer could quickly inspect the notebook to verify that he had indeed performed his duty. That indoor role solidified into the rank of ‘inspector’; the officer whom we think of as an investigator was, originally, merely there to check the paperwork.

THE NOTEBOOK

MISSION CONTROL: I can be contacted via the Cheng Caplan Company. Link in masthead to join my free newsletter. Now: DESOLATION JONES: THE BIOHZARD EDITION, THE DEPARTMENT OF MIDNIGHT audio drama podcast, THE STORMWATCH COMPENDIUM. Forthcoming 2025: FELL: FERAL CITY new printing, THE AUTHORITY Compact Edition, The LIGHTS OUT Anthology.

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morning computer ruin value

Published March 27, 2025 by Warren Ellis

Mandy Barker’s cyanotypes of junk found in water.

Brutalist-style hilltop home intended to look like an ancient ruin.

(Which really just summons Albert Speer and “ruin value” to my mind, oops)

A team of Egyptian-American archaeologists has uncovered the tomb of an unknown king who reigned over the region of Abydos in southern Egypt 3,600 years ago.

Luxury real estate goes off-grid. Ruins in waiting.

I used to ride the train past the Olympic stadium in Stratford quite often, and would frequently imagine it repurposed as a post-apocalyptic ritual space, a giant radio dish for praying to the space gods and a complicated gallows for mass executions.

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

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morning computer symbology

Published March 17, 2025 by Warren Ellis

“Folk Traditions, Quotidian Items, and Spiritual Symbolism Merge in Haegue Yang’s Sensory Sculptures.“

A new scientific study is challenging long-held beliefs about Jackson Pollock and his iconic “drip paintings,” suggesting that the Abstract Expressionist may have embedded hidden images, or what researchers call “polloglyphs,” into his compositions. While some experts argue this is merely a case of pareidolia—seeing patterns in randomness—the findings reignite debate over the psychological depth and hidden symbolism in Pollock’s revolutionary art.

The researchers refer to these “recognizable” images as “polloglyphs,” and believe that they may have been camouflaged by Pollock’s “drip technique.” They claim, for example, that the 1945 work Troubled Queen can be rotated to reveal various images, including a “charging soldier holding a hatchet and a pistol with a bullet in the barrel; a Picasso-esque rooster; a monkey with goggles and wine; and one of the clearest images, the angel of mercy and her sword.”

I am enjoying “polloglyphs.”

By integrating data from four key fields—stone tool production, hunting strategies, symbolic behavior, and social complexity—the study argues that different human groups, including Neanderthals, pre-Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens, engaged in meaningful interactions.

“Symbology” should go next to “polloglyphs.” The protagonist of Dan Brown’s books is a “symbologist,” but Brown made up symbology. It’s a mix of iconography, semiotics and symbolic anthropology.

morning computer: some useful things first thing in the day.

My free weekly newsletter is at https://orbitaloperations.beehiiv.com/

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A Little Splash Of Colour For a Dark May Morning – 31may24

Published May 31, 2024 by Warren Ellis

I could write a long list of all the things I don’t care about any more, but I don’t care about them enough to write the list.

TODAY:

Starburst galaxy:

Erin Hanson:

Even Nature can become depraved if people relentlessly incite it to do so . . . And Nature must have had an interest, taking an unscrupulous glance at our history where it discovered the perfect setting it needed to try out some new experimental form of life.

THE TWENTY DAYS OF TURIN (UK) (US+)
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The Unhoped For – 27may24

Published May 27, 2024 by Warren Ellis

TODAY

ARTS

Above taken from this exhibition, will add artist attribution when I track it down (none provided on site)

Trailer for the new Leos Carax film. His HOLY MOTORS is a favorite:

Thank god, a new Black Polygons record:

I keep meaning to catch up with the works of Drew McDowall:

Twinkle twinkle there you are, a solitary life on an anomalous star.

STRANGE HOTEL, Eimear McBride

morning computer, zibaldone first thing in my day

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marks 19apr24

Published April 29, 2024 by Warren Ellis

Importantly, these cursus monuments are clearly aligned with burial monuments in the landscape, as well as the rising and setting sun during major solar events such as the solstice.

According to Dr. O’Driscoll, “This may have symbolized the ascent of the dead into the heavens and their perceived rebirth, with the cursus physically setting out the final route of the dead, where they left the land of the living and joined the ancestors beyond the visible horizon.”

Well, the time is never found, quoth Ms Cameron; it can only be made. But it is also the case that habits must be broken or (re)built one at a time…

When you are sitting there looking at an individual tweet, watching youtube video, or looking at an Instagram post, ask yourself: “What About This Excites Me?“.

The question I’m finding, serves as good jumping off point to becoming more conscious of about the engagement with the media I’m consuming. This question helps me immediately identify whether my engagement is driven by genuine interest or merely habitual scrolling.

The epic may go to the origins: the archetypes of thought, emotion and spiritual desire, and dissolve them in the present. The sensuous, contemporary life, seen from the perspectives of both past and future: film. Like music, the cinema is experienced as a continuous, live process of energies. It is conceived and best remembered in a flash, a composite whole.

—Kumar Shahani, Film as a Contemporary Art

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