Winedarkfag - Average Enkidu Enjoyer

Jeweled medici dagger, ca. 1840

Reconstruction, Ziggurat, Ur.

Виктор Цой / Кино

Figurine of a Persian man 500-300 BCE

"The Persian nation contains a number of tribes as listed here. ... : the Pasargadae, Maraphii, and Maspii, upon which all the other tribes are dependent. Of these, the Pasargadae are the most distinguished; they contain the clan of the Achaemenids from which spring the Perseid kings. Other tribes are the Panthialaei, Derusiaei, Germanii, all of which are attached to the soil, the remainder—the Dai, Mardi, Dropici, Sagarti, being nomadic."

-Herodotus, The Histories, Book 1.101 & 125

Illustrations of Epic of Gilgamesh by Marek Żuławski

lines from the epic of gilgamesh that make me feel like this

Staff Pick of the Week

A few weeks ago I read the Epic of Gilgamesh for the first time, and despite the fact that the origins of the story are probably from the mid-3rd millennium BCE, and the earliest cuneiform tablets we know the story from date from the late 2nd millennium BCE, the narrative’s emotional frame, and the frank depictions of sex, violence, fear, longing, and friendship, all felt remarkably contemporary to me. Just last week, Gilgamesh came up again in a discussion during a session of my course on the History of Books and Printing. Since Gilgamesh has had a recurring presence in my life this past month, I’ve decided to highlight some images and text from our copy of the Limited Editions Club production of Gilgamesh, translated by William Ellery Leonard and printed in 1974 at The Stinehour Press in Lunenberg, Vermont, in an edition of 2,000 copies.

The book includes nine bold three-color woodcuts and seven black-and-white woodcuts and linocuts by the American visual artist Irving Amen (1918-2011), who also signed the entire edition. The text is printed in the Club’s proprietary eighteen-point Janson type, with thirty-six-point Trump Gravure wedge-serif capitals for the titles. The woodcuts beautifully capture every significant scene in the epic. Click on the images to view the captions.

View more posts on the Limited Editions Club.

View more posts with woodcuts.

View more of our Staff Picks.

– MAX, Head, Special Collections

Russian Monk. (5/10)

Hope you enjoy:)

A man and woman wearing Mongolian (蒙古族) attire for a douyin trend. Ethnic Mongolians are one of 56 official ethnic groups in China.

in love with these fragmented portions of a Sumerian lullaby