Season 7, Episode 7: Of Meitzer and Men (Patreon)
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Content
The second of our two All Research episodes features Nina's look into ayatori, string games, and possible inspirations for the eight column bridge that appears in the movie, while Thom returns to ancient Babylonia for a second time.
Show Notes
Ayatori
- Wikipedia pages for cat’s cradle (English-language) and ayatori (あやとり, Japanese-language).
- Homepage of the International String Figure Association (Japan) [国際あやとり協会 (日本)]
- Index of all of the bulletins released by the String Figures Association, 1978-1993.
- Index of bulletins of the International String Figure Association, 1994-2023.
- Obit for major contributor to English-language knowledge of South-Pacific string-games, contributor to ISFA, etc.:
Langdon, Robert. “Honor Maude.” The Journal of Pacific History, vol. 36, no. 2, 2001, pp. 253–55. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25169545. Accessed 5 Dec. 2022. - Ca. 1765 (Edo Period) woodblock print of two girls playing ayatori, by artist Suzuki Harunobu (in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art).
- Paper about “Chama” - the string-game of Peru - with a helpful bibliography of books and articles about string games in other parts of the world:
Tessmann, Gunther, et al. “Chama String Games (Peru).” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. 69, no. 2, 1939, pp. 163–86. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/2844389. Accessed 5 Dec. 2022. - Book of some string-figures from a few different regions (but doesn’t include Japan):
Haddon, Kathleen. Cat's Cradles From Many Lands. Longmans, Green and Co., 1912. - Article about ayatori on “ほいくis” - a Japanese parenting and child-rearing website, complete with videos showing how to make the different forms, and how to play solo or versus mode.
- About the Ayatori Hashi (あやとり橋 / Ayatori Bridge) - a bridge completed in 1991 that resembles the string figure Reese makes (Japanese-language).
- Ayatori-Club: Japanese website with photos and videos of various ayatori forms and how to make them.
- Reese's "eight-column rope-bridge":
- 「山中温泉 鶴仙渓にかかる あやとりはし」 (photograph of the Ayatori Bridge) by 藤谷良秀(Yoshihide Fujitani):
Babylonian Art & Culture
Mesopotamia and Babylon generally:
- The same book as last week:
Beaulieu, Paul-Alain. A History of Babylon: 2200 BC-AD 75. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 2018. - English version of the Code of Hammurabi, translation by L. W. King for Yale Law School's Avalon Project.
- Alternative translation of certain laws by Stan Rummel.
- The Epic of Gilgamesh. Translated by George, Andrew, Penguin Books, 1999.
- Ancient Babylonian cookbook with modern interpretations of the recipes.
- The Metropolitan Museum of Art's page on Babylon.
- Samuel Noah Kramer. The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character. (University of Chicago Press 2010).
- World History Encyclopedia pages on Mesopotamian religion, daily life, Akkad, and Babylonia.
- Overview of Assyria from the British Museum, including images of Lamassu statues like this one:
Mesopotamian Climate:
- A. Sinha, G. Kathayat, H. Weiss, H. Li, H. Cheng, J. Reuter, A. W. Schneider, M. Berkelhammer, S. F. Adalı, L. D. Stott, R. L. Edwards, Role of climate in the rise and fall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. Sci. Adv. 5, eaax6656 (2019).
- Jason A. Ur. 2017. “Physical and Cultural Landscapes of Assyria.” In Blackwell Companion to Assyria, edited by Eckart Frahm, Pp. 13-35. Oxford: Blackwell.
Early Excavations:
- Iraqi Excavations During the War Years, by Samual Noah Krame for Penn Museum.
- World War I and Archaeology in Iraq, by Lamia al-Gailani Werr for the American Society of Overseas Research.
- Iraq's First Archeologist, by Jane Waldron Grutz for AramcoWorld.
- Department of Ancient Near Eastern Art. “Early Excavations in Assyria.” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000– (October 2004; updated August 2021).
Examples of relevant Mesopotamian art:
- Example of Babylonian statuary showing the wide bug eyes that inspired the Crossbone Vanguard mobile suits:
- Image of a more humanoid version of the Lamassu.
- Section of the relief from the palace of Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal, featuring the winged disc.
- The full image can be seen on Wikipedia, worldhistory.org, or the website of the Slater Museum.
- From the Assyrian palace at Nimrud:
- In F91:
- Persian/Zoroastrian Faravahar:
- More info about the winged sun symbol generally, and about the Faravahar specifically.
- Examples of the eagle-headed guardian spirits that appear on the wall panel in the movie can be seen in the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and in the collection at LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art):
The Cosmo Babylonian eagle standard:
- Information on the history of this standard and why we think it looked like this.
- Wiki page on the Shahbaz or royal falcon depicted on the banner.
- Compare to the Cosmo Babylonia standard:
Chariots:
- Image of the Standard of Ur:
- British Museum entry for The Standard of Ur.
- Entries on Chariots from Britannica and WorldHistory.org.
- Terrence Wise, Ancient Armies of the Middle East, part of the Men-At-Arms series. Edited by Martin Windrow. Osprey Publishing (Oxford 1981).
- A. Leo Oppenheim. Letters from Mesopotamia: Official, Business, and Private Letters on Clay Tablets from Two Millennia. (University of Chicago Press 1967).
- The Hittites' fast war chariots threatened mighty Egypt, by Luis Alberto Ruiz for National Geographic. May 4, 2020.
- Thomas G. Chondros, Kypros F. Milidonis, Cesare Rossi, Nenad Zrnic. The Evolution of the Double-horse Chariots From the Bronze Age to the Hellenistic Times. FME Transactions VOL. 44, No 2, 2016.
Queen of the Night and Medzack:
- Compare with design art for the Medzack:
The recap music this season is His Last Share of the Stars by Doctor Turtle, used under a CC BY attribution license.
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