Russian Fairy Tales, illustrations Kate Bailey. 

reblog if AAAAAAAAA

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啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊 啊  啊 啊 啊

Michael Eastman (American, b. 1947) Gold Room, Rome, 2010 ©Michael Eastman/Courtesy of Edwynn Houk Gallery

Michael Eastman: Structure and Color opens Thursday!

The Sword of Osman

The Sword of Osman was an important sword of state used during the coronation ceremony of the sultans of the Ottoman Empire. The sword was named after Osman I, founder of the Ottoman Dynasty. The practice started when Osman I was girt with the sword of Islam by his mentor and father-in-law Sheikh Edebali.

The girding of the sword of Osman was a vital ceremony which took place within two weeks of a sultan’s accession to the throne. It was held at the tomb complex at Eyüp, on the Golden Horn waterway in the capital Constantinople. Even though the journey from Topkapi Palace (where the sultan resided) to the Golden Horn was short, the sultan would board a boat amid much pomp to go there.

The Eyüp tomb complex was built by Mehmed II in honour of Abu Ayyub al-Ansari, a companion of Muhammad who had died during the first Muslim siege of Constantinople in the 7th century. The sword girding thus occurred on what was regarded as sacred grounds, and linked the newly enthroned sultan both to his 13th-century ancestors and to Muhammad himself.

The fact that the emblem by which a sultan was enthroned consisted of a sword was highly symbolic: it showed that the office with which he was invested was first and foremost that of a warrior. The Sword of Osman was girded on to the new sultan by the Sharif of Konya, a Mevlevi dervish, who was summoned to Constantinople for that purpose. Such a privilege was reserved to the men of this Sufi order from the time Osman I had established his residence in Konya in 1299, before the capital was moved to Bursa and later to Constantinople.

Until the late 19th century, non-Muslims were banned from entering the Eyüp Mosque and witnessing the girding ceremony. The first to depart from this tradition was Mehmed V, whose girding ceremony was open to people of different faiths. Held on 10 May 1909, it was attended by representatives of all the religious communities present in the empire, notably the Sheikh ul-Islam, Greek Patriarch, the chief rabbi and a representative of the Armenian Church.

The fact that non-Muslims were allowed to see the ceremony enabled The New York Times to write an extremely detailed account of it. Mehmed V’s brother and successor, Mehmed VI, went even further by allowing his girding ceremony to be filmed. Since he was the last reigning Ottoman sultan, this is the only such ceremony that was ever put on film.

Freya’s Tears

Gustav Klimt

The Harmonia Macrocosmica of Andreas Cellarius. Detail.

“View of the Salon Carré at the Louvre”, c.1880, Alexandre Brun. (via)

Bosschaert Ambrosius the Elder. Detail from Still life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase, 1610.

I’m so over radical queers on this website saying homophobic shit and then clarifying “oh I’m just talking about upper-class white cis gay men” like it’s basically the equivalent of people saying super misogynist shit and then being like “but I’m just talking about vapid white teenage girls so it’s okay because everyone knows they’re the worst and it’s okay to be misogynist towards THEM” like if you’re going to critique a privileged subset of a marginalized group fine, but make damn sure the things you are saying actually relate to the ways they are privileged and are not just shitting on marginalized aspects of their identity and then being like “but it’s okay because they’re privileged in this other way”

also like I saw morningchorus saying earlier today the stereotype of gay men as being ALWAYS white, wealthy, and socially powerful is one that plays RIGHT INTO republican homophobia so maybe fucking watch yourself if you’re gonna go there

RUBENS, Peter Paul The Capture of Juliers 1622-25 Oil on canvas, 394 x 295 cm Musée du Louvre, Paris

Tomb of ancient medical school head unearthed

Archaeologists have discovered an ancient tomb belonging to a high-profile doctor who lived more than 700 years ago in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province.

The newly-discovered tomb, located at a village of Xi'an City, capital of the province, dates back to the Yuan dynasty (1271-1368), said Duan Yi, associate professor with Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.

A gravestone inscribed with 665 words inside the tomb revealed the identity of its owner, Wu Jing. Wu was born into the famous Ru Yi (Confucian doctor) family in Zhouzhi, now a county of Xi'an.

Confucian doctors were a special group proficient in both Confucianism and medicine, which allowed them a high status during that period. Read more.