Strabo on Crimea - Thread

Strabo was an ancient Greek geographer who lived from 64 BC to 24 AD
His work "Geographica" is arguably the single best source on the geography of the ancient world & consists of 17 books in 8 volumes (Loeb edition)
Crimea in ancient times was known as Taurica Chersonesus
Book VII, Chapter 4 in "Geographica" focuses on Crimea

Strabo begins his description of Crimea on the western coast of the Perekop isthmus, the strait which connects Crimea to the mainland. Today Perekop is known as Armansk
Lake Sapra refers to Syvash, also known as the "Putrid Sea," a marshy lowland area

https://x.com/cartographer_s/status/1875280249975624074

2024 Reading List & Book Reviews - Thread

The best books I read in 2024
I posted this on SS but will repost this list & reviews here as well
This list is very late because I was busy with preparing my book "The Expedition to Khiva"
The list is in no particular order

https://twitter.com/cartographer_s/status/1898093319176978919

The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity: A Sociohistorical Approach to Religious Transformation - James C. Russell

An interesting book that examines the spread of Christianity to the Germanic barbarians who brought down the Western Roman Empire in late antiquity. The book is basically divided into two parts that are largely separate from one another and each present their own unique thesis. The first part argues that Christianity spread the way it did in the Roman Empire because it was a universalistic religion that offered a solution to the atomization and rootlessness which characterized the large, cosmopolitan cities of the empire. The second part looks at how Christianity was “Aryanized” and made palatable for the warlike Germanics.

The thesis of the first part of the book is very interesting and is likely correct to a large extent. The thesis intuitively makes sense because Christianity serves a similar role today, in a world where life is similarly atomized and rootless. The thesis of the second part of the book is much weaker. Russell provides far less evidence for what he claims, and as a result the entire second part of the book is underwhelming. The first half of the book is definitely worth reading though due to its relevancy to the modern world.

The Caucasus was so much more difficult for Russia to conquer than Central Asia mainly due to the Caucasus' geography and the socio-political norms of the people.
Unlike Central Asia which is primarily flat, which allowed Russian forces to apply their advantages in firepower against local forces in pitched battles, the Caucasus is a giant labyrinth of forested mountains difficult to penetrate and prefect for guerrilla warfare.
Culturally, the Caucasians (North Caucasus in particular) are extremely militant and independently minded, which meant that every clan and village had to be pacified independently, and even then they were highly liable to rebel.
Other than Russia, no other power in history has ever fully conquered the Caucasus


For example, this is the Argun River valley in central Chechnya, just south of Grozny
Unsurprisingly, this region was the site of several ambushes by Chechen seperatists on Russian forces during the Chechen Wars

Vsevolod Borisovich Ivanov - Painting Thread

Vsevolod Ivanov is a contemporary Russian painter, famous for his visions of Hyperborea, Atlantis, ancient Rus and other lost Aryan cultures
Born in Belomorsk on the White Sea in 1978, he studied art in Tver, where he now resides





Messenger from Asgard to Atlantis, 2006

The version of Hanno's text that comes down do us today is very fragmented and likely an abridged version of the original
Thus, is it not useful for located the previously mentioned colonies of Carthage and Tyre on the west African coast

The Carthagians sent sail with 60 ships, each with 50 oars, carrying 30,000 people
The purpose is overtly stated to be to build cities on the African coast beyond the Pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar)

Fantastical Architecture by Jean-Paul Faccon
Short Thread

From 1907 to 1911 Sergey Ivanovich Borisov traveled across the Altai Mountains, taking over 1500 photos of both native Altai people, Kazakhs and Russian settlers, as well as nature
Borisov operated one of the most popular photo studios in Barnaul

Painting Thread

Sergei Petrovich Panasenko-Mikhailkin is a contemporary Russian painter, known for his landscapes, portraits, historical and fantasy scenes
Born in Astrakhan in 1970, he lived on the Kuril Island of Shikotan
His website can be found here: arms-painting.narod.ru




Svyatogorsky Uspensky Monastery, Donestsk Oblast, 2007

The Tang Emperor Taizong encounters the Buddhist Sixfold Path of Transformation, from "The Journey to the West, volume 1"

"Those who perform good works ascend to the way of the immortals", while "those who are vicious and violent will fall back into the way of demons"

Taizong travels through the Chinese underworld
Souls of the dead pass through multiple layers of judges or courts, where they are held accountable for the actions while they were alive

The origins of the Tibetan Empire & its dynasty the Yarlung clan remain a mystery.
Tibetan chronicles merely state the first king "came down from the sky".
Some believe the Yarlungs were originally nomads who came from the Eurasian steppes

Short thread on the steppe hypothesis

https://twitter.com/cartographer_s/status/1549830130507325445

This is merely a speculation on my part, but I think is are more than enough evidence that indicate the Tibetan Empire's imperial clan came for the steppes

"The End of the Bronze Age: Changes in Warfare and the Catastrophe of 1200 BC" by Robert Drews - Short Book Thread

In the 12th century BC, the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean all collapsed after suffering famine & invasions by the "sea people"
Only Egypt survived

https://twitter.com/Assurbaniapli7/status/1695195070083797183

Drews argues this was due to a revolution in military technology, primarily in javelin technology which allowed infantry to defeat the professional chariot armies of the Bronze Age civilizations
Once their chariot forces were defeated, they were defenseless, and then anihillated

Werner Holmberg - Painting Thread

Werner Holmberg was a Finnish painter who lived from 1830 to 1860
Holmberg studied at Düsseldorf, and later painting many landscapes of Germany, Sweden, Norway and his native Finland



Storms or Degervik crown office at Kirkkonummi, 1852

Alexandre Kojève on the tyranny of Alexander the Great & his plan for a "universal state"
Alexander hoped to create a racially mixed Greco-Persian ruling class that would be uprooted from all ethnic loyalties and reign over a Europe & Asia that had been dissolved into each other

Alexander's plan was actualized with the Edict of Caracalla in 212 which gave Roman citizenship to everyone within the empire
This project has been revived in modern times, through a form of secularized, universal Christianity
Important to emphasize that universality= homogeneity

Johann Joseph Eugene von Guérard - Painting Thread

Eugene von Guérard was an Austrian painter, born in 1881
He traveled throughout the Mediterranean, and to Australia in 1852
He is one of the greatest landscape painters, with amazingly vivid scenes of great depth and color



Landscape from the Island of Capri, 1846

A debate exists why the "library cave" at Dunhuang was sealed, hiding away 1000s of Silk Road documents that were discovered by Stein
Preeminent Dunhuang scholar Rong Xinjiang thinks it was done in response to the expansion of the Muslim Qarakhanids into the Tarim Basin in 1006 https://t.co/ZQCAIUc5HX

https://twitter.com/cartographer_s/status/1540172587573153793

He believes monks at Dunhuang feared that the iconoclastic, Islamic Qarakhanids would come and annihilate their Buddhist civilization, as the Qarakhanids did to Khotan in 1006
Others believe the documents were considered worthless - the "waste theory"

https://twitter.com/cartographer_s/status/1540172595164860417

Turkestan Series by Vasily Vereshagin - Painting Thread

During Russia's conquest of Central Asia, Russia's greatest painter of Asia accompanied Russian armies during the most decisive part of the conquest
Vereshagin later painted his Turkestan Series based off of his impressions

https://twitter.com/cartographer_s/status/1657506013073887234

The Door to Tamerlane

Sheng Shicai was one of the most interesting figures in modern Chinese history
In the 1930's, Sheng ruled Xinjiang (Chinese Central Asia) as an autonomous warlord & later allied with USSR, turning Xinjiang in a Soviet puppet state
But during the battle of Stalingrad in 1942... https://t.co/AK5JVTDksg

https://twitter.com/Zwentibald/status/1678472359978606597

Sheng thought the Germans would the win, and back stabbed the Soviets
He killed all Soviet & CCP personal (including Mao's younger brother), and switched his allegiances to the Chiang Kai-Shek & KMT national govt in Chongqing
(Mao Zemin)

According to Aristotle, extreme democracy is tantamount to tyranny
Both types of regimes primarily rely on women & slaves to up hold their rule, as both a tyrant and a radical democracy base their support on pandering to the people, while women & slaves love being flattered Women and slaves also prefer a radical democratic regime because such a regime will be exceeding lax towards them, as well as empower them

King Niruimo Zhunashen and his family, 500AD & Prince Tottika of Kucha with his wife Svayamprabhā, accompanied by two monks

Tocharians from the Kyzyl Caves of the Thousand Buddhas King Suvarnapushpa of Kucha, 625AD

The thread continues! - apologies for interregnum
The first governor-general of Central Asia, Constantin von Kaufman compiled the "Turkestan Album"
It has over 1200 photographs of historical & ethnographic significance
Digitized version can be found here - loc.gov/rr/print/coll/… The men who led the conquest were veterans of the Napoleonic Wars
Their involvement in liberating Europe and restoring the pre-revolutionary order gave them a sense of prestige and confidence in themselves & in Russia's world historical mission to spread European civilization

Adolf Hirémy-Hirschl - Painting Thread
Born in 1860, Hirémy-Hirschl was a Hungarian painter who is best known for his works depicting Greco-Roman mythology
He spent much of his life in Vienna, and later moved to Rome
He died in 1933, and is buried near Rome



The Tomb of Achilles