Wikipedia Linkdump (1)

Some of the most interesting and unusual link I've found over the years

Still working on some stuff, but in the meantime I thought I’d share some of the most interesting Wikipedia articles I’ve collected over the years.

It’s a bit random, but this one tends to focus around archaeology, anthropology, mythology and religion. One theme is the continuity of ancient ideas and traditions into the modern era. Another is the similarities between diverse cultures. There are some other interesting tidbits mixed in as well. Hope you find them interesting!

Glossary of ancient Roman religion: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_ancient_Roman_religion

Cult is the care (Latin: cultus) owed to deities and temples, shrines, or churches. Cult is embodied in ritual and ceremony. Its presence or former presence is made concrete in temples, shrines and churches, and cult images, including votive offerings at votive sites.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cult_(religious_practice)

In ancient Roman religion, the Di Penates were among the dii familiares, or household deities, invoked most often in domestic rituals.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Di_Penates

Lares were guardian deities in ancient Roman religion. Their origin is uncertain; they may have been hero-ancestors, guardians of the hearth, fields, boundaries, or fruitfulness, or an amalgam of these.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lares

In the religion of ancient Rome, a haruspex was a person trained to practise a form of divination called haruspicy, the inspection of the entrails of sacrificed animals, especially the livers of sacrificed sheep and poultry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haruspex

In ancient Roman religion, sacra (Latin, neuter plural, “sacred [matters]”) were transactions relating to the worship of the gods, especially sacrifice and prayer. They are either sacra privata or publica. The former were undertaken on behalf of the individual by himself, on behalf of the family by the pater familias, or on behalf of the gens by the whole body of the people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacra_(ancient_Rome)

A flamen (plural flamines) was a priest of the ancient Roman religion who was assigned to one of fifteen deities with official cults during the Roman Republic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flamen

The Sodales or Sacerdotes Augustales (singular Sodalis or Sacerdos Augustalis), or simply Augustales, were an order (sodalitas) of Roman priests originally instituted by Tiberius to attend to the maintenance of the cult of Augustus and the Julii.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodales_Augustales

Manus was an Ancient Roman type of marriage, of which there were two forms: cum manu and sine manu. In a cum manu marriage, the wife was placed under the legal control of the husband. In a sine manu marriage, the wife remained under the legal control of her father.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manus_marriage

Ferragosto is a public holiday celebrated on 15 August in all of Italy. It originates from Feriae Augusti, the festival of Emperor Augustus, who made 1 August a day of rest after weeks of hard work on the agricultural sector. It became a custom for the workers to wish their employers buon Ferragosto and receive a monetary bonus in return.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferragosto

The burakumin (部落民, ‘hamlet/village people’) are the Japanese people commonly believed to be descended from members of the pre-Meiji feudal class who were associated with kegare (穢れ, ‘defilement’), such as executioners, undertakers, slaughterhouse workers, butchers, and tanners.

The term encompasses both the historical eta and hinin outcasts. During Japan's feudal era, these occupations acquired a hereditary status of oppression, and became an unofficial class of the Tokugawa class system during the Edo period. After the feudal system was abolished, the term burakumin came into use to refer to the former caste members and their descendants, who continue to experience stigmatization and discrimination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burakumin Compare to the “untouchables” in India. Here’s a BBC article about this class of people: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-34615972

The Mesta was a powerful association protecting livestock owners and their animals in the Crown of Castile that was incorporated in the 13th century and was dissolved in 1836.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesta

Karahan Tepe is an archaeological site in Şanlıurfa Province in Turkey. The site is close to Göbekli Tepe and archaeologists have also uncovered T-shaped stelae there and believe that the sites are related.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karahan_Tepe

The Taş Tepeler (Turkish, literally ‘Stone Hills’) is an upland area in the Southeastern Anatolia Region of Turkey, near the city of Şanlıurfa. The area has a number of significant prehistoric archaeological sites, including twelve sites with the characteristic T-shaped obelisks well known from Göbekli Tepe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ta%C5%9F_Tepeler

The trifunctional hypothesis of prehistoric Proto-Indo-European society postulates a tripartite ideology reflected in the existence of three classes or castes—priests, warriors, and commoners (farmers or tradesmen)—corresponding to the three functions of the sacral, the martial and the economic, respectively.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trifunctional_hypothesis

The Wild Hunt is a folklore motif occurring across various northern, western and eastern European societies, appearing in the religions of the Germans, Celts, and Slavs. Wild Hunts typically involve a chase led by a mythological figure escorted by a ghostly or supernatural group of hunters engaged in pursuit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_Hunt

*Trito is a significant figure in Proto-Indo-European mythology, representing the first warrior and acting as a culture hero. He is connected to other prominent characters, such as Manu and Yemo, and is recognized as the protagonist of the myth of the warrior function, establishing the model for all later men of arms.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*Trito

The *kóryos (Proto-Indo-European for ‘army, war-band, unit of warriors’) refers to the theoretical Proto-Indo-European brotherhood of warriors in which unmarried young males served for several years, as a rite of passage into manhood, before their full integration into society.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*K%C3%B3ryos

Assianism is a polytheistic, ethnic and folk religion derived from the traditional narratives of the Ossetians, modern descendants of the Scythians of the Alan tribes, believed to be a continuation of the ancient Scythian religion. It started to be properly reorganized in a conscious way during the 1980s, as an ethnic religion among the Ossetians.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assianism

In many historical societies, the position of kingship carried a sacral meaning and was identical with that of a high priest and judge. Divine kingship is related to the concept of theocracy, although a sacred king need not necessarily rule through his religious authority; rather, the temporal position itself has a religious significance behind it. The monarch may be divine, become divine, or represent divinity to a greater or lesser extent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_king

The term Elder, or its equivalent in another language, is used in several countries and organizations to indicate a position of authority. This usage is usually derived from the notion that the oldest members of any given group are the wisest, and are thus the most qualified to rule, provide counsel or serve the said group in some other capacity. They often serve as oral repositories of their culture's traditional knowledge, morals, and values.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_(administrative_title)

The Golasecca culture (9th - 4th century BC) was a Late Bronze Age/Early Iron Age culture in northern Italy, whose type-site was excavated at Golasecca in the province of Varese, Lombardy, where, in the area of Monsorino at the beginning of the 19th century, Abbot Giovanni Battista Giani made the first findings of about fifty graves with pottery and metal objects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golasecca_culture

The Este culture or Atestine culture was an archaeological culture existing from the late Italian Bronze Age (10th–9th century BC, proto-venetic phase) to the Iron Age and Roman period (1st century BC). It was located in the modern area of Veneto in Italy and derived from the earlier and more extensive Proto-Villanovan culture.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Este_culture

Tartessos is, as defined by archaeological discoveries, a historical civilization settled in the southern Iberian Peninsula characterized by its mixture of local Paleohispanic and Phoenician traits. It had a writing system, identified as Tartessian, that includes some 97 inscriptions in a Tartessian language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartessos

El Argar is an Early Bronze Age culture developed in the southeastern end of the Iberian Peninsula. It is believed to have been active from about 2200 BC to 1500 BC. The people developed sophisticated pottery and ceramic techniques that they traded with other Mediterranean tribes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Argar

Cycladic culture (also known as Cycladic civilisation) was a Bronze Age culture (c. 3100–c. 1000 BC) found throughout the islands of the Cyclades in the Aegean Sea.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_culture

The house of Murashu were a family of businessmen and moneylenders based at Nippur in Babylonia in the fifth century BCE. They left an archive of hundreds of cuneiform texts which is often used to understand business and society in the Achaemenid empire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murashu_family

The House of Egibi was a family from within ancient Babylonia who were, amongst other things, involved in mercantile activities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Egibi

Shimao is a Neolithic site in Shenmu County, Shaanxi, China...It is dated to around 2000 BC, near the end of the Longshan period, and is the largest known walled site of that period in China, at 400 ha.

The fortifications of Shimao were originally believed to be a section of the Great Wall of China, but the discovery of jade pieces prompted an archaeological investigation, which revealed that the site was of Neolithic age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimao

Kofun are megalithic tombs or tumuli in Northeast Asia. Kofun were mainly constructed in the Japanese archipelago between the middle of the 3rd century to the early 7th century AD. Many kofun have distinctive keyhole-shaped mounds.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kofun Here’s a BBC article about these mysterious tombs: The ancient tombs kept under lock and key

An oppidum (pl.: oppida) is a large fortified Iron Age settlement or town. Oppida are primarily associated with the Celtic late La Tène culture, emerging during the 2nd and 1st centuries BC, spread across Europe, stretching from Britain and Iberia in the west to the edge of the Hungarian Plain in the east. These settlements continued to be used until the Romans conquered Southern and Western Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oppidum

The Gallic Empire or the Gallic Roman Empire are names used in modern historiography for a breakaway part of the Roman Empire that functioned de facto as a separate state from 260 to 274.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallic_Empire

Ostrogothic Ravenna refers to the time period in which Ravenna, a city in Northeastern Italy, served as the capital of the Ostrogothic Kingdom, which existed between 493 and 553 CE. During that time, Ravenna saw a great renovation, in particular under Theodoric the Great (454–526).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostrogothic_Ravenna

A City God (Chinese: 城隍神; pinyin: Chénghuángshén; lit. ‘god of the boundary’), is a tutelary deity in Chinese folk religion who is believed to protect the people and the affairs of the particular village, town or city of great dimension, and the corresponding location in the afterlife.

City God cults appeared over two millennia ago, and originally involved worship of a protective deity of a town's walls and moats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_God_(China)

The Ancient Greek: δαίμων, spelled daimon or daemon (meaning “god”, “godlike”, “power”, “fate”), originally referred to a lesser deity or guiding spirit, such as the daimons of ancient Greek religion and mythology and later the daimons of Hellenistic religion and philosophy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daimon

A baetyl, literally “house of god” is a sacred stone (sometimes believed to be a meteorite) that was venerated and thought to house a god or deity. The most famous example is the Omphalos stored in the Temple of Apollo at the Greek town of Delphi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baetyl

In Greek mythology, deities referred to as chthonic (θɒnɪk) or chthonian (θoʊniən) were gods or spirits who inhabited the underworld or existed in or under the earth, and were typically associated with death or fertility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chthonic_deities

Goddess on the Throne is a terracotta figurine found at the site of the Tjerrtorja spinning mill in Pristina, the capital city of Kosovo, in 1956. The seated terracotta figure is a well-preserved specimen of small Neolithic plastic Vinča culture (also known as Turdas culture in Kosovo).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goddess_on_the_Throne

The Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük is a baked-clay, nude female form seated between feline-headed arm-rests.

It is generally thought to depict a corpulent and fertile Mother goddess in the process of giving birth while seated on her throne, which has two hand rests in the form of feline (lioness, leopard, or panther) heads in a Mistress of Animals motif.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seated_Woman_of_%C3%87atalh%C3%B6y%C3%BCk

Cybele is an Anatolian mother goddess; she may have a possible forerunner in the earliest neolithic at Çatalhöyük.

She is Phrygia's only known goddess, and likely, its national deity. Greek colonists in Asia Minor adopted and adapted her Phrygian cult and spread it to mainland Greece and to the more distant western Greek colonies around the sixth century BC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele

The Lady of Elche is a limestone bust that was discovered in 1897, at La Alcudia, an archaeological site on a private estate two kilometers south of Elche, Spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_of_Elche

The Dolmen of Guadalperal, also known as the Treasure of Guadalperal and as the Spanish Stonehenge for its resemblance to the English Stonehenge, is a megalithic monument dating from between 2000 and 3000 BC in Peraleda de la Mata, a town in the region of Campo Arañuelo in eastern Extremadura, Spain. The monument is within the Valdecañas reservoir in the Tagus River and is only visible when the water level allows it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen_of_Guadalperal

The Hohle Fels is a cave in the Swabian Jura of Germany that has yielded a number of important archaeological finds dating from the Upper Paleolithic.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hohle_Fels

Attis was the consort of Cybele, in Phrygian and Greek mythology. His priests were eunuchs, the Galli, as explained by origin myths pertaining to Attis castrating himself.

Attis was also a Phrygian vegetation deity. His self-mutilation, death, and resurrection represents the fruits of the earth, which die in winter only to rise again in the spring. According to Ovid's Metamorphoses, Attis transformed himself into a pine tree.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attis

Svetovit, also known as Sventovit and Svantovit amongst other variants, is the god of abundance and war, and the chief god of the Slavic tribe of the Rani, and later of all the Polabian Slavs. His organized cult was located on the island of Rügen, at Cape Arkona, where his main temple was also located.

According to the descriptions of medieval chroniclers, the statue representing this god had four heads, a horn and a sword, and to the deity himself were dedicated a white horse, a saddle, a bit, a flag, and eagles. Once a year, after the harvest, a large festival was held in his honor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetovit

Zalmoxis is a divinity of the Getae and Dacians (a people of the lower Danube), mentioned by Herodotus in his Histories Book IV, 93–96, written before 425 BC. Said to have been so called from the bear's skin in which he was clothed as soon as he was born.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zalmoxis

The name poppy goddess is often used for a famous example of a distinctive type of large female terracotta figurine in Minoan art, presumably representing a goddess, but not thought to be cult images, rather votive offerings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poppy_goddess

Minoan religion was the religion of the Bronze Age Minoan civilization of Crete:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoan_religion

The Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni is a Neolithic subterranean structure dating to the Saflieni phase (3300 – 3000 BC) in Maltese prehistory, located in Paola, Malta. It is often simply referred to as the Hypogeum (Maltese: Ipoġew), literally meaning “underground” in Greek.

The Hypogeum is thought to have been a sanctuary and necropolis, with the estimated remains of more than 7,000 people documented by archeologists, and is among the best preserved examples of the Maltese temple building culture that also produced the Megalithic Temples and Xagħra Stone Circle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C4%A6al_Saflieni_Hypogeum

A river valley civilization is an agricultural nation or civilization situated beside and drawing sustenance from a river. A river gives the inhabitants a reliable source of water for drinking and agriculture. Some other possible benefits for the inhabitants are fishing, fertile soil due to annual flooding, and ease of transportation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_valley_civilization

A proto-city is a large, dense Neolithic settlement that is largely distinguished from a city by its lack of planning and centralized rule. The term mega-sites is also used.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-city

A toilet god is a deity associated with latrines and toilets. Belief in toilet gods – a type of household deity – has been known from both modern and ancient cultures, ranging from Japan to ancient Rome.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_god

A marae (in New Zealand Māori, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian), malaʻe (in Tongan), meʻae (in Marquesan) or malae (in Samoan) is a communal or sacred place that serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marae

Nan Madol is an archaeological site adjacent to the eastern shore of the island of Pohnpei, now part of the Madolenihmw district of Pohnpei state in the Federated States of Micronesia in the western Pacific Ocean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nan_Madol

A big man is a highly influential individual in a tribe, especially in Melanesia and Polynesia...The big man has a large group of followers, both from his clan and from other clans. He provides his followers with protection and economic assistance, in return receiving support which he uses to increase his status.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_man_(anthropology)

The Meadowcroft Rockshelter is an archaeological site which is located near Avella in Jefferson Township, Pennsylvania. The site is a rock shelter in a bluff overlooking Cross Creek (a tributary of the Ohio River), and contains evidence that the area may have been continually inhabited for more than 19,000 years. If accurately dated, it would be one of the earliest known sites with evidence of a human presence and continuous human occupation in the New World.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meadowcroft_Rockshelter

The Mnjikaning Fish Weirs are one of the oldest human developments in Canada. These fishing weirs were built by the first nations people well before recorded history, dating to around 4500 BP during the Archaic period in North America.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnjikaning_Fish_Weirs

Orenda is the Haudenosaunee name for a certain spiritual energy inherent in people and their environment. It is an “extraordinary invisible power believed by the Iroquois Native Americans to pervade in varying degrees in all animate and inanimate natural objects as a transmissible spiritual energy capable of being exerted according to the will of its possessor.” Orenda is a collective power of nature's energies through the living energy of all natural objects: animate and inanimate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orenda

The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is the modern archaeological designation for a particular Middle Bronze Age civilisation of southern Central Asia, also known as the Oxus Civilization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria%E2%80%93Margiana_Archaeological_Complex

The Rollright Stones are a complex of three Neolithic and Bronze Age megalithic monuments near the village of Long Compton, on the borders of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rollright_Stones

The Dolmen of Menga is a megalithic burial mound called a tumulus, a long barrow form of dolmen, dating from 3750–3650 BCE approximately. It is near Antequera, Málaga, Spain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolmen_of_Menga

Phyle is an ancient Greek term for tribe or clan. Members of the same phyle were known as symphyletai meaning ‘fellow tribesmen’. During the late 6th century BC, Cleisthenes organized the population of Athens in ten phylai (tribes), each consisting of three trittyes (“thirtieths”), with each trittys comprising a number of demes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyle

A sept is a division of a family, especially of a Scottish or Irish family.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sept

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of his retinue, the thiasus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maenad

The battlefield of the Tollense valley is a Bronze Age archaeological site in the northern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern at the northern edge of the Mecklenburg Lake District...Thousands of bone fragments belonging to many people have been discovered along with further corroborative evidence of battle; current estimates indicate that perhaps 4,000 warriors from Central Europe fought in a battle on the site in the 13th century BC.

As the population density was approximately 5 people per square kilometer (13 people per square mile), this would have been the most significant battle in Bronze Age Central Europe known so far and makes the Tollense valley currently the largest excavated and archaeologically verifiable battle site of this age in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tollense_valley_battlefield

Old Croghan Man is a well-preserved Irish Iron Age bog body found in June 2003.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Croghan_Man

The Jiroft culture, also known as the Intercultural style or the Halilrud style, is an early Bronze Age (3rd millennium BC) archaeological culture, located in the territory of present-day Sistan and Baluchestan and Kermān Provinces of Iran.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiroft_culture

Olorgesailie is a geological formation in East Africa, on the floor of the Eastern Rift Valley in southern Kenya, 67 kilometres (42 mi) southwest of Nairobi along the road to Lake Magadi. It contains a group of Lower Paleolithic archaeological sites.

Olorgesailie is noted for the large number of Acheulean hand axes discovered there that are associated with animal butchering. According to the National Museums of Kenya, the finds are internationally significant for archaeology, palaeontology, and geology.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olorgesailie

The Saint-Martin-de-Corléans Megalithic Area is an archaeological site that is considered of major importance for the study and knowledge of European prehistory and protohistory, located in the Saint-Martin-de-Corléans district of Aosta, Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-Martin-de-Corl%C3%A9ans_Megalithic_Area

The Great Pyramid of Cholula, also known as Tlachihualtepetl (Nahuatl for “constructed mountain”), is a complex located in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. It is the largest archaeological site of a pyramid (temple) in the world, as well as the largest pyramid by volume known to exist in the world today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pyramid_of_Cholula

The Izhorians are a Finnic indigenous people native to Ingria. Small numbers can still be found in the western part of Ingria, between the Narva and Neva rivers in northwestern Russia. Although in English oftentimes sharing a common name with the Ingrian Finns, these two groups are distinct from one another.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izhorians

The Selk'nam genocide was the systematic extermination of the Selk'nam people, one of the four indigenous peoples of Tierra del Fuego archipelago, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selk%27nam_genocide

Hero cults were one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion. In Homeric Greek, "hero" (ἥρως, hḗrōs) refers to the mortal offspring of a human and a god. By the historical period, however, the word came to mean specifically a dead man, venerated and propitiated at his tomb or at a designated shrine, because his fame during life or his unusual manner of death gave him power to support and protect the living.

A hero was more than human but less than a god, and various kinds of minor supernatural figures came to be assimilated to the class of heroes; the distinction between a hero and a god was less than certain, especially in the case of Heracles, the most prominent, but atypical hero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_hero_cult

Sacred groves, sacred woods, or sacred forests are groves of trees that have special religious importance within a particular culture. Sacred groves feature in various cultures throughout the world.

These are forest areas that are, for the most part, untouched by local people and often protected by local communities. They often play a critical role in protecting water sources and biodiversity, including essential resources for the groups that protect them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sacred_grove