Orion🌈&sm9eb

@sm9eb.bsky.social

1965 Followers 1525 Following

Archaeologist specializing in Late Neolithic/Halaf Şanlıurfa, Turkey; D.C.-born; foodie; astronomy & gardening buff; former guardian of Urfalı cat Commander Orion 🌈🖤; current guardian of not-a-Guest-anymore Cat Italy!

Baby squirrels gathering nuts on a grassy hillslope.
A handsome tuxedo cat in a black and white plaid bowtie on a pink pillow surrounded by plant pots. Actually, he wants to run for the US Senate representing the District of Columbia but, whoops, DC has taxation without Congressional representation, so he has only his dreams for comfort. (He would have a tough fight against DC cat about town Finn in the City, though.)
A handsome tuxedo cat with a black and white bow tie and green eyes lounges on a salmon pink pillow, reminding me weirdly of Tucker Carlson, but not an unregistered foreign asset for Russia. He looks like he's posing for a book jacket cover photo.
Baby squirrels running around near a tree above volleyball courts
Forboding clouds with dark dribbly floaty bits in front and dramatic light behind. Looks potentially tornado-y.
My fuzzy comfort opossum Violet, much loved, with a pink nise and a gold bow. When you're losing your contract at a job you live, with no clear, meaningful future in sight, a stuffed opossum really helps.
The seed of a wild North American persimmon on the leaf that sprouted from it.
📢 Fully Funded PhD Position in Ancient History – University of Basel Applications are now open for a fully funded 4-year PhD position at the Department of Ancient Civilizations, University of Basel, as part of the SNSF-funded research project: The Roman Villa as Ecosystem: Climate, Production, and Society in the Sabina Tiberina (PI: Prof. Dr. Sabine R. Huebner) The doctoral project, „The People Behind the Villa: Life, Labour, and Death in Roman Italy,“ investigates the lives of the men, women, and children who formed the labour force of the Roman countryside, drawing on archaeological, historical, bioarchaeological, and environmental evidence. 📍 Location: University of Basel, Switzerland 📅 Start date: 1 October 2026 (negotiable) ⏳ Application deadline: 1 August 2026 The position is open to excellent graduates in Ancient History, Classical Archaeology, Bioarchaeology, Archaeology, or related fields. The working language is English. Knowledge of German is not required at the time of application. For the full advertisement and application instructions, please visit the University of Basel jobs portal: https://jobs.unibas.ch #unibas #ancienthistory #phdposition
This loving, handsome tuxedo cat with a bowtie, Italy, is belly up in my lap with little kitten paws in the air looking happy and sleepy.
An absurdly handsome tuxedo cat with a black and white plaid bowtie.
This tuxedo cat with green eyes and a bowtie has an amazing smoulder.
Attention everyone! As many of you know, significant changes are being proposed to U.S. federal grant regulations that could dramatically impact our ability to conduct research. On May 29, 2026, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) put forward a series of sweeping alterations to Title 2, Part 200 of the CFR, which governs how federal grants are managed and funded. While our organization, SHA, is preparing a collective response, it is vital for each of us to voice our concerns individually. The deadline to submit comments is July 13, 2023, and you can share your thoughts through the OMB portal. These proposed changes pose serious threats to our research community. They include introducing political oversight, allowing appointees to veto grant awards, which undermines the merit-based peer review process. Additionally, the proposal expands agency authority to suspend or terminate multi-year grants, jeopardizing ongoing projects and funding stability. Not to mention, it bans the use of federal funds for journal publication, which could hinder our ability to share our findings and contribute to the scientific community. Let’s stand together and make our voices heard before the deadline! Access the Portal here: https://monkeylink.co/65e49c
A handsome tuxedo cat drinking from my water with eyes bright in the flash of a camera at night. He wears a black and white plaid bowtie.
A chart of elements showing the source for each: the Big Bang, Large Stars, Supernovae, Cosmic rays, small stars, or manmade
Charlottesville's 14th Street bridge, which is notorious for capturing and eating tall trucks, with a rainbow overhead. UVA's V is on the window of drunken watering hole Boylan Heights.
A tuxedo cat in darkening skies on a balcony looking moody surrounded by pkants and a plant stand
A handsome tuxedo cat wears a black and white plaid bowtie, looking a little annoyed. Behind him is a poster for the Afghanistan Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul 2008 exhibit at the National Gallery of Art, showing an amazing version of a Near Eastern Master of Animals motif, but with dragons.
A handsome Italian cat in a tuxedo with a black and white plaid silky (probably rayon?) bowtie whose pattern contrasts with his tuxedo coat.
A horror
A barrage of 800k fireworks over DC
A handsome tuxedo cat yawns as a thunderstorm starts
Wind blowing in treetops as a thunderstorm approaches.
The memorial brick of Commander Orion Bekçikedisi (the Watchguard cat, her father Teshup's family surname) at the CASPCA, cleaned off so visitors can pay their respects.
A tuxedo cat sprawled on his right side on a hot balcony. He is poochy and he has a nubbin tail.
A hot black and white cat splayed out on his right side, head to the left from the viewer's perspective, on a concrete valcony. His belly is soft and poochy. His tail is a nubbin.
A handsome tuxedo cat with big soulful green eyes
A tuxedo cat asleep on my lap. Again.
A stall at the Charlottesville City Farmer's market showing a purple tent and tables of tinatoes, blueberries, peaches, and flowers.
The USGS list of today's earthquakes newly updated, showing a fresh 7.5 quake 23 km SE of Yumare, Venezuela with a depth of 10km. (Also worth noting Japan had a 6.9 quake ENE of Kuji.)
A screenshot of the USGS map show tectonic plate boundaries near the 7.1 Venezuela plate, covering the Americas. You can see one fault runs right into the quake location.
The caption on this ceramic drinking vessel shaped like a curly-toed shoe from the Middle Bronze Age/2nd millennium site of Kültepe-Kanes/Karum near Kayseri in Türkiye says, "Where can you see it? At the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations [in Ankara]. The shoes is decorated with stripes around the ankle, curls, zig-zags, and floral.motifs around the top of the foot, and then a zig-zag weaving pattern closer to the toe, where it curls up. The source is an Instagram page named denizdegisikbiri.
A handsome tuxedo cat sits on a pot of catnip asleep, wearing a rainbiw-colored tie for Pride.
A red, black, and white spotted lanternfly nymph on my knee
A handsome tuxedo cat sound asleep on my lap. He has big paws. He faces to the right from the perspective of the viewer. My legs are crossed beneath him.
Peroni Nastro Azzuro Stile Italiano says a label on a green glass bottle
A handsome tuxedo cat with a rainbow Pride tie sits in turkey pose on a pit of catnip with tge bars of a balcony behind him. He has green eyes and looks up into a sunbeam. His whiskers are long.He sits with hus head to the left from the viewer's POV.
A tuxedo kitty, Italy, curls up on his left side with his white belly facing the viewer in a pot of catnip. He sports a rainbow Pride tie. His big right mitten is raised and his head is tucked so that his white chin faces up.
The Misfits of Science (1985)! A young Courtney Cox is on the lower left.
An extraordinarily handsome and loudly purring tuxedo cat with long whiskers, green eyes, and a Pride tie, looking up at me from his perch on my left knee.
A twilight blue sky with a bright planet, Venus, above clouds and silhouettes of trees. Jupiter is barely visible to the lower left.
A bunny, out of focus, looking alert.
A very happy tuxedo cat sitting in a mound of catnip with his face angled into the sun.
Public transcripts expressed in theatres of cruelty: the royal graves at Ur in Mesopotamia D Bruce Dickson Cambridge Archaeological Journal 16 (2), 123-144, 2006 The interpretation of the Royal Graves at Ur, Mesopotamia, by their excavator, Sir Leonard Woolley, has long been accepted. Woolley implies that the people sacrificed along with the dynasts went willingly to their deaths out of loyalty, devotion, and faith in the dead monarchs; but other interpretations are plausible. One is that these graves are the remains of dramas portraying a ‘public transcript’ played out in a public theatre of cruelty staged by rulers claiming divine status. State power united with supernatural authority can create extraordinarily powerful ‘sacred or divine kingdoms’; but ‘sacred’ or ‘divine’ kings need continuous contact with the supernatural and affirmation of their divinity. They are obliged to practise acts of public mystification, of which the Royal Graves appear to be examples. Ur's kings may indeed have been strong and their subjects loyal, but it is equally likely that they were weak and vulnerable and that they practised ritual sacrifice to terrorize a restive citizenry and convince themselves and others of their right to rule. Other examples of public transcripts made manifest in state-sponsored theatres of cruelty confirm that the Royal Graves at Ur are not unique but represent a phenomenon of wider historical generality.
A wineberry plant in a terracotta pot with a glass watering device shaped like a mushroom.