narachamesuke

The aesthetic superiority of Spanish Holy Week.

Genghis Khan died in the summer of 1227 during a campaign against the Tangut kingdom in northwestern China. He was somewhere in his sixties, and the exact cause of his death remains disputed. Medieval chroniclers offered different accounts: a fall from his horse, wounds from battle, an illness contracted in the field. What his army did next was far less ambiguous. His body was dressed in a white robe and felt boots, wrapped in a white blanket of fragrant sandalwood bound with golden straps, and loaded onto a procession headed back toward Mongolia. A riderless horse carrying his empty saddle traveled with it. What traveled alongside the procession was death. According to the most detailed accounts, the soldiers accompanying the body killed every living thing they encountered on the forty-day journey home — men, women, animals — to prevent anyone from knowing the route. When they arrived at the burial site, believed to be somewhere near the sacred mountain of Burkhan Khaldun in the Khentii Mountains of northeastern Mongolia, the grave was dug and the body placed inside. Then a thousand horses were driven repeatedly over the ground until no trace of disturbed earth remained. The men who carried out the burial were killed. Those who killed them were killed in turn. The Mongols had no tradition of elaborate tombs. Genghis himself had asked for an unmarked grave. Burkhan Khaldun was a mountain he had prayed on since his youth, a place where he had hidden from enemies as a young man and where he had pledged to return. The Secret History of the Mongols records him resting beneath a tree on its slopes and saying simply: “Bury me here when I die.” A protected zone called the Ikh Khorig, meaning the Great Forbidden Area, was declared over roughly 93 square miles around the mountain. Entry was punishable by death. A dedicated guardian tribe, the Darkhad, enforced the prohibition for nearly seven centuries. By the time Marco Polo traveled through the Mongol Empire in the late 13th century, even Kublai Khan did not know precisely where his grandfather was buried. Polo recorded that all who had knowledge of the location had been killed, and that thousands of people who happened to cross the path of Möngke Khan’s funeral procession — another great khan buried by the same tradition — were cut down simply for witnessing it. The reasons behind the secrecy were strategic as well as spiritual. In the steppe world, destroying an enemy’s burial site meant destroying the spiritual power of his lineage. Genghis understood that his enemies would try to violate his grave if they could find it, not merely for treasure but as an act of symbolic annihilation. Making it unfindable was one final military decision. The search has never stopped. A 2001 American-Mongolian expedition found a walled burial ground near the Onon River containing at least twenty high-status unopened tombs. In 2015, French archaeologist Pierre-Henri Giscard used drones to survey Burkhan Khaldun’s summit and identified a manmade structure, but the mountain falls within a protected conservation zone the Mongolian government permits no one to enter. A National Geographic project has used satellite imaging and ground-penetrating radar. None of it has produced a confirmed location. Most Mongolians, for their part, do not want the tomb found. Some point to the legend of Tamerlane, a 14th-century conqueror whose sealed tomb was opened by Soviet archaeologists in June 1941. Two days later, Nazi Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union. #archaeohistories

Every single night, rain or shine, this little statue reminds Edinburgh of the most faithful Dog who ever lived. This is Greyfriars Bobby, a legendary Skye Terrier who spent 14 years guarding the grave of his master, John Gray, in the nearby kirkyard after he passed away in 1858 from tuberculosis until his own death in 1872. He became a symbol of loyalty, love, and unwavering devotion, and Edinburgh never forgot him... 🐶 ❤️.

An Iranian Red Crescent rescue dog was injured during a search and rescue operation, and the team’s doctor is currently treating it.

The largest surviving capstone of an ancient Egyptian pyramid, weighing nearly 5 tons (6 ft wide, 4.5 ft tall), dating to around 2600 BC.

@paddlesweep1 @OmarAbbasHyat well on a Pak show: she and a whole lot from Lollywood were bitching about loss of visa etc. They then discussed how Bollywood is insecure & jealous of their art. # am sorry do not have details of show.

@narachamesuke @OmarAbbasHyat what?? seriously...?? 🤣🤣

Raj Kapoor: Hina! Message? “We Wuzz Same Peeplez, Same Bloody 🩸” Yash Chopra: Veer Zaara!“Lou Knows No Boundaries” Mahesh Bhatt: Pimp for Pakistani actors Karan Johar: Gay for Fawad Khan Vajpayee era: “Aman Ki Asha” Tamasha Point is: North Indian Old Guard, both in policy and in rhetoric/entertainment, always had a soft heart (almost a boner) for Pakistan. Let the southerners with no common language, culture deal with Pakistan and see the fireworks…

Ancient Roman Coins

@OmarAbbasHyat @paddlesweep1 yeah if you listen to Mahira Khan's notes on India .....think she is Waheeda Rehman.

Pakistan had a lot of pressure by the entire world to cut down on terrorism, did they? They still pursued the treacherous “death by thousand cuts” against India. The least India could have done is never allowed their actors, businesses, cricket players and politicians to ever set foot in India so long their treachery continued.

@OmarAbbasHyat that is why despite being southerners: the Madras Regiment does tough duty up north. Many special forces officers too.

I’m not saying my McDonald’s collection is getting too big, but this amazing late 70s breakfast menu is displayed in a bathroom.

🌌 A Night at a Bedouin Camp in the Jordanian Desert

🇮🇶 Saddam Hussein is pictured with Western hostages in Iraq in 1990. This moment became part of his propaganda campaign during the crisis that erupted following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.

Class photo, Missouri rural school in the 1920s. Many bare feet.

🇮🇷 Bagh-e Melli (National Garden) is a magnificent brick gate, decorated with colourful tiles and multiple inscriptions, in Tehran, Iran.

@DivyaSoti at some point of time we have to become more self reliant. Also these neighbours of ours because the ships have not left hormuz & they are already asking. How much of our resources are eaten by our NGO system. e.g take a look at the Dalai Lama bill

But the United States never allied with India in any India-Pakistan conflict. It always allied with Pakistan.

Shibuyabashi

In the Scottish Highlands near Aberfeldy, 13-year old Labrador Otto calmly met two orphaned fox cubs. Their mother was killed on the road; the cottage owner fed them as they roamed. A peaceful interspecies moment, thanks to Otto’s impulse control training

Wow 😍😍✨ If you have never seen a pink world, take a look now!

Carl Zeiss factory in Jena, 1970s.

🇯🇵 A traditional Japanese house in Kyoto. I've never lived in one of these but I've stayed in a few before. They're lovely.