Tag: tools

Model of Carpenter’s Adze from Hatshepsut’s Temple

ancientpeoples:

Model Carpenter’s Adze from Hatshepsut’s Temple

New Kingdom, Dynasty 18, ca. 1479–1458 B.C., joint reign of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III.

From Egypt, Upper Egypt, Thebes, Deir el-Bahri, Temple of Hatshepsut, Foundation Deposit 1 (A), Egypt Exploration Fund, 1894–95.

Wood, bronze or copper alloy, leather

L. of handle 19.6 cm (7 11/16 in.) L. of blade 15.7 cm (6 3/16 in.); W. 5.3 cm (2 1/16 in.)

The handle of this adze is inscribed “The Good God, Maatkare, beloved of Amun, foremost of Djeser-Djeseru.” Maatkare was the throne name of the female pharaoh Hatshepsut, and Djeser-Djeseru (Holy of Holies) was the name of her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. The adze was uncovered in one of the temple’s foundation deposits by the Museum’s Egyptian Expedition. Although the adze is full-size and appears to be functional, the blade is too thin to be used for cutting and, like most of the tools discovered in foundation deposits, this is a model.

Source: Metropolitan Museum of Art

The WayBack Machine and Curing your Defunct Website Woes

It’s happened to you. It’s happened to all of us.

You’re chugging along doing your research, and you see a site that looks promising. Best of all, it’s by another Scadian. You gasp with joy and excitement! Someone else is interested in the Weird Thing You’re Researching and has already done some of the legwork! And sometimes, what you’re looking at is an image – in a search engine, Pinterest, or some other place – that is spot-on the kind of thing you’re looking for.

Eagerly, with much anticipation, you click the link.

But then your hopes are broken when the site is either not there, broken, or otherwise doesn’t live up to your expectations of Glorious Research Breakthrough.

It probably did, at some point. But we Scadians are really bad about webpage upkeep, it seems.

Feel better, my fellow Catalog Crawlers. For I have a tool for you. It carries a +5 to Research bonus to boot!

Introducing – the WayBack Machine.

Enter a web address, and you can see a timeline of when it was last archived – and more often than not, you have some choices.

Case in point: The Purple Lotus and Leah’s Attempts to Research Sasanian Persia.

I found a series of delicious, delicious pins of metal plates depicting women in the Sasanian period. But when I clicked on them, they took me to a site that had information, but no pictures. Pictures mean context! It was clear to me that the author was changing her website around, and the HTML that pointed to the images was broken. I didn’t lose faith though!  I waited a bit to see if she was in the middle of fixing it, but after a few weeks, I went to the WayBack Machine.

Not only is thepurplelotus.org archived, but it has been archived several times. The earliest snapshot had a PDF of the information I wanted, but it wouldn’t load – but I wasn’t surprised. A snapshot from 2011 had what I wanted – the article, plus images. One print-dialog later, where I chose to save the “print” as a PDF instead of sending it to the printer, and I’m home free.

So take heart, my Delvers of Dusty Dissertations! The WayBack Machine will resurrect that old dead website (most of the time) and get you the information you seek!