#ancient history memes

[diocletion-aint-shit]

Shoutout to the guy writing the sumerian king list, who says of the period just after the fall of the Akkadian empire "Who is King? Who is not King?"

Historians and archaeologists for all eternity feel your pain

#ancient history #memes #tagamemnon #ancient history memes #mesopotamia #ancient sumeria #akkadian #bronze age

[historynerdj2]

History memes #14

#funny humor #funny memes #history memes #funny #history #humor #meme humor #egypt #ancient egypt #ancient history #ancient history memes #ancient Egypt memes #mummy #mummies #mummy meme

[nyahkmenrah]

Saving this copy pasta for later lol

L + dont care + CURSE OF THE NILE ‼️ ‼️

𓀔𓀇𓀅𓀋𓀡𓀡𓀕𓀠𓀧𓀨𓀣𓀷𓀷𓀿𓀿𓁀𓁶𓁰

𓁴𓁿𓂀𓁾𓁵𓁯𓂞𓂤𓂗𓃃𓂾𓂺𓂹

𓃞𓃙𓃖𓃓𓃕𓃓𓃜𓃘𓃙𓃟𓃛𓃞

𓂺𓃂𓂿𓂺𓃃𓃂𓂛𓂏𓅱𓅥𓅩𓅦

𓅹𓅸𓅳𓅩𓅪𓄭𓄫𓄮𓄬𓄗𓄑𓄌𓃦

𓃧𓃨𓃤𓃟𓃓𓃅𓃁𓂽𓃂𓂊𓁾𓂀𓁽

𓁼𓁠𓁛𓁟𓁦𓁜𓁭𓁡𓀔𓀇𓀅𓀋𓀡𓀡𓀕𓀠𓀧𓀨𓀣

𓀷𓀷𓀿𓀿𓁀𓁶𓁰𓁴𓁿𓂀𓁾𓁵𓁯𓂞𓂤𓂗

𓃃𓂾𓂺𓂹𓃞𓃙𓃖𓃓𓃕𓃓𓃜

𓃘𓃙𓃟𓃛𓃞𓂺𓃂𓂿𓂺𓃃𓃂

𓂛𓂏𓅱𓅥𓅩𓅦𓅹𓅸𓅳𓅩𓅪𓄭𓄫𓄮

𓄬𓄗𓄑𓄌𓃦𓃧𓃨𓃤𓃟𓃓𓃅𓃁

𓂽𓃂𓂊𓁾𓂀𓁽𓁼𓁠𓁛𓁟𓁦𓁜𓁭𓁡𓀔𓀇𓀅

𓀋𓀡𓀡𓀕𓀠𓀧𓀨𓀣𓀷𓀷𓀿𓀿𓁀𓁶𓁰𓁴𓁿

𓂀𓁾𓁵𓁯𓂞𓂤𓂗𓃃𓂾𓂺𓂹𓃞𓃙

𓃖𓃓𓃕𓃓𓃜𓃘𓃙𓃟𓃛𓃞𓂺𓃂

#endo safe #copypasta #ancient egypt #ancient egyptian memes #ancient egyptian #hieroglyphs #ancient history #history memes #ancient history memes

[weirdly-specific-but-ok]

what's your most oddly specific hot take

Hello maggot what a lovely question, here you go:

I believe that OFMD fandom's character Izzy, the subject of much controversy, actually doesn't exist, and so the discourse is unnecessary. He is simply a Freudian projection induced by hallucinogenic rum triggered by childhood boiling of a humanoid potato by Ed.

Shitposters in Ancient Greece and Rome would crush anyone on Tumblr. Has anyone on Tumblr ever run into the prestigious Academy of Plato with a plucked chicken screaming Behold a man? Spat in the face of a rich man in his own home because he told you not to sully the furniture with your spit? Left graffiti on the walls of Pompeii before 70 AD that said, "If you are bored, take a bag of rice, scatter it all over the road. Pick the grains up one by one. Now you have a task."

144 is the sluttiest number ever why does it have to be divisible by so many things? You could tell me 144 is divisible perfectly by 433339 to get a whole number, and I would believe. What a whore, 144.

Not a hot take, but Crowley's hot and I wanna take them on a date.

#good omens mascot #good omens #crowley #weirdly specific but ok #asmi #lgbtqia #maggots #ancient greece #ancient rome #pompeii #ancient history memes #diogenes the cynic #people have always been people #people being people #humans being humans #maths #mathblr #im weird ok #you asked for it #ofmd fandom #ofmd izzy #tumblr #shitposting #izzy hands

[geezerwench]

Bathe in its glory!

#but it must have been aliens #aliens #megaliths #ancient history #prehistory #ancient history memes #megalithic #pyramids #easter island #white people memes

[elizabethan-memes]

Peter: easy peasy through Lord Jeesy

Paul: never ever say that again

#biblical memes #christian memes #ancient history memes #roman memes

[jeannereames]

Do you see memes and shitposts about Alexander and his time? If yes, do you like them, you hate them? Would you change something about these memes?

I’m sorry. I’m just really curious about what a professor thinks about this. Do you perhaps have a favorite Alexander meme?

Well, for me there’s a big difference between memes and shitposts. The former can be rather entertaining, the latter are just trolling. Don’t feed the trolls. I realize I’m perhaps defining shitposting more narrowly than some, but there’s enough of the narrow sort out there I don’t want to confuse it with memes.

Meme are great. I have two favorites, although not about Alexander, ironically. I’ve shared them below. Both show up in my class Power-points, btw! Many of my colleagues also enjoy clever memes. My buddy Borja Antela was trying to collect some on Alexander last year. For a while, I followed Alexandergoatmemes on Instagram, but finally left because about 85/90% of them seemed to be about Alexander naming cities after himself. Sure, it’s funny maybe the first 20 times, but at 100+?

So memes are great. Shitposting and ignorant-posting, however, are annoying.

I’m deliberately creating that third category. Shitposters know they’re posting shit; ignorant-posters (usually) don’t. The latter put up videos, tweets, or blog entries about (in this case) Alexander that perpetuate a lie, a false quote, or an oversimplified-and-mostly-wrong factoid. Some ignorant-posters are just reposting what they heard because they don’t know any better and may receive correction well enough—especially if offered politely. Yet others get upset (sometimes disproportionately so) when their errors or distortions are pointed out.

This can be about controversial matters, such as Alexander’s putative “sexuality” or it can be something surprising. I once had a fellow fly off the handle when he posted that Alexander was left-handed and I (gently) corrected him.* You’d have thought I’d called his mother a whore. It seemed quite silly…except that left-handedness used to be considered a Very Bad Thing. So being able to claim famous people as lefties was apparently more for him than just leftie pride.

Aside from oddities, most of the ignorant-posting I’ve seen comes in three main types.

First, we have the religious/spiritual/life-coach sorts who usurp Alexander for a moral lesson—not unlike the orators of the (Roman-era) Second Sophistic, or both Muslims and Christians in some of the Alexander Romances. Alexander has ALWAYS been a malleable figure for lecturing. Ergo, he pops up in homilies/sermons as a parable, like his supposed Last Three Wishes. It is, of course, total bullshit, but there’s quite a lot of stuff like it out there. People read it, go “Aww,” and reblog without bothering to check if it’s correct. It has “the authority of hearsay.” These can be either Alexander-positive or Alexander-negative parables, btw.

See also: quotes attributed to famous celebrities that they never, in fact, said. Alexander gets these too. The ¡Inspirational! “Army of Sheep Led by a Lion” is especially egregious, as it’s a general proverb that appeared well after Alexander (no, he didn’t say it). It seems to be currently popular, along with, “There is nothing impossible to him who will try” (also not ATG). Yet these make great quotes for those damn “Inspirational Posters.” Here’s a whole page of them, lion quote right at the top, suitable for a Power-point!...with no attempt to verify their authenticity or say where they got them. But the image with the quote below is especially funny as they even put a date on their fictional quote. If it has a date, it must be true! Netflix, btw, used that bloody quote even though I told them not to; it was fake. Didn’t matter.

Second, we have the alt-right/white supremacist groups, or hangers-on who might reject the label (coyly or not) but embrace much of its Eurocentric thinking. These folks present Alexander as spreading good [white] Western values to the poor benighted East [brown people]. It’s essentially warmed-over Plutarch with a dash of Curtius and some Arrian. Their Alexander even sometimes has longish flowing (blond) locks and is oddly tall.** Like Thor. I stay the hell away from them but have occasionally stumbled over them on Tik-Tok.

Anyway, the alt-right crowd may have read some about Alexander, written by other alt-right guys who take material from a carefully curated set of “accepted” histories: Arrian and Plutarch, and not just Plutarch’s Life of Alexander, but his double-essay from the Moralia, “On the Fate or Fortune of Alexander.” They tend to be war/conquest-approving and see the Greco-Roman past as some pure Aryan utopia from which we’ve fallen into our “wretched age of iron.”*** Of late, a lot of their associated images are AI generated, btw. A couple examples below.

Last, and on the opposite end of the spectrum are the Alexander-was-Queer-AND-Wonderful, and oh, boy, some of them also don’t want a single bad thing said about their hero. They may know relatively little about his life aside from his putative gayness, but are just as resistant to/resentful of being corrected in their errors and romantic oversimplifications.

And that is what all of these categories share: oversimplification for the sake of a particular social and/or political agenda.****

Isn’t it, then, also shitposting? No. Because shitposters intend to stir the pot. They may or may not believe what they say, but they’re saying it TO get a reaction. Like the Tweet Heard Round the Alexander-verse after the Netflix thing (below). THAT was a shitpost. His entire goal was to go viral, and he succeeded.

By contrast, ignorant-posters usually aim for a particular audience and rarely expect to go viral outside their circle. Nor do they expect to be corrected. When they are, they react with surprise and anger. (Again, there are exceptions.)

I tend to observe these things, but rarely engage—although I did engage more when I was a young grad student. Now if I reply, it’s general (as here), not to the original post/tweet itself. TBH, I have books and articles to write, classes to teach, and papers to grade. 😉 I don’t have time for flamewars.

-----------------------

* Yes, I made Alexander left-handed in Dancing with the Lion, partly for the hell of it. But there’s zero evidence one way or the other—which I point out in my Author’s Note at the end of book 2, Rise.

** BTW, there’s a Whole Thing out there online about Alexander as tall, even Super Tall, claiming evidence which they don’t actually cite (correctly). Note the “many stories suggest….” Oh, really? These are? Anyway, I don’t think the author of that blog entry is alt-right—which is why I put it as a footnote—but dig the wacko AI white-haired Nordic Alexander at the top! And I’m still chuckling at a 7-foot-tall Alexander. Good Lord, how tall would that make Hephaistion?

*** Yeah, that’s a little bow to Hesiod’s theory of the Ages of Man.

**** Note that I didn’t include Greek Nationalists. While some of them also swing right (Golden Dawn, Front Line, National Reform Party, etc.), many are more moderate. Alexander is a Greek hero, and if what’s presented about him by some is also oversimplified to fit a national narrative, it doesn’t spring from ignorance so much as deliberate choice and what they learned in school/at home. Think about what the average (white) American knows about George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, or for that matter, the average native person about Tecumseh or Crazy Horse.

#asks #alexander the great #ancient greece #ancient macedonia #classics #ancient history memes #alexander the great memes #alexander's supposed three wishes #alexander never said to fear an army of sheep led by a lion #alexander also didn't say everything is possible to him who will try #tagamemnon #alexander shitposting

[metis-metis]

Saw this on a Facebook archaeology group and thought I’d share it all with you… Purrikles

#tagamemnon #classics #ancient history #archaeology #history #ancient greek #historyblr #history memes #ancient history memes #cat #cat memes

[antiquityroadsshow]

I feel like every time archeology support’s something in Herodotus, every classicist needs so bow their heads in unison and say “sorry Herodotus”

#classics memes #ancient history #ancient history memes #classics #herodotus

[classics-cassandra]

*Early Peloponnesian war*

Pericles: In a bad state right now. Not mentally, I’m just in Athens

#swear every single event is the Athenians asking to go on an expedition and Pericles just #having a moment #really like dealing with small children #classics memes #tagamemnon #ancient greek #ancient history memes #ancient history #ancient literature memes #thucydides #peloponnesian war #pericles

[lturnips]

there's something really poetic about Alexander the Great conquering the Persian empire and deliberately burning Persepolis (the symbol of Persian kingship) to the ground, trying to erase the empire only for it to actually preserve loads of clay tablets which are some of the only sources that can tell us about daily Persian life that aren't biased sources from the conquering Greeks. something about perseverance no matter how hard you try stamp down the resistance...

#history musings #ancient greece #ancient history #ancient greek mythology #this is herodotus bashing #ancient persia #alexander the great #history memes #ancient history memes

[diocletion-aint-shit]

I find it so funny that Sargon, the chosen royal name of the ancient Akkadian king, means "legitimate king".

Hello there everyone, my name is legitimate king. No need to be suspicious about how I came power. I'm the legitimate king. See, it says so on my name tag.

#ancient history #memes #mesopotamia #sargon of akkad #Sargon #history memes #ancient history memes

[historynerdj2]

History memes #37

#funny humor #funny memes #history memes #funny #history #humor #meme humor #sillyposting #silly #ancient egypt memes #ancient history memes #ancient history #ancient egypt #egyptian mythology #mythology memes

[nyahkmenrah]

This body: *is part Italian*

Me (and most of the system): *uses the Greek names for the gods*

Our Roman ancestors:

#they’d be so disappointed #endo safe #fictive blog #introject blog #introject #fictive #ancient history memes #history memes #history #ancient rome #ancient history

[beepbeepdespair]

me noticing some fairly empty boxes in my greece booklet and realising i just never fucking finished some tasks:

#this is my favourite gif btw. ever. just wanted u to know that <3 #ok to reblog #beep beep gets personal #personal #greece #ancient greece #ancient history memes #ancient history #a level #a levels #a level history #college #a level 2023

[jeannereames]

*cough, cough* BOOST

Come on, folks. I know y'all got this!

"Do you like Memes on History and the Classical World? We love them!

Send us your Memes on Alexander the Great life and legend! We will publish them all (all that can be published, please!). Each month we try one Winner of the Month, and in December a Calendar 2024 of the best Memes will be launched!

The Monthly Winners will receive one paper-print Calendar 2024 of The Great Alexander’s Meme Tournament wherever they want!

Fight!

(send your memes to [email protected])"

#Alexander the Great #Alexander the Great memes #ancient history memes