Truth Teller.

This is the Great Pyramid of King Khufu.  Everybody knows the Great Pyramid of King Khufu, but you probably don’t know about the Shit Pyramids of his father, King Sneferu.  This is a shame, because they are amazing.

When King Sneferu came to the throne of Egypt, the cool thing that all the pharaohs had was a Step Pyramid, like the original one built by King Djoser and designed by Imhotep (not the mummy).  King Sneferu could easily have had one one because his predecessor King Huni had died before his could be finished. All Sneferu had to do was step in and put the last few blocks on.

But King Sneferu had a vision.  He didn’t want any old Step Pyramid.  He was going to build Egypt’s first smooth-sided pyramid, and make King Huni’s pyramid way taller in the bargain.  It didn’t work.  The core of Huni’s pyramid couldn’t handle the modifications and nowadays the Step Pyramid at Meidum looks like this:

It’s not on a hill - that’s the outer layers of the pyramid that have fallen down all around it.  The name of the structure in Arabic is Heram el-Kaddaab, which means something like The Sort-Of Pyramid.

Anyway, King Sneferu was understandably disappointed and made his pyramid-builders start over from scratch at a different site.  Apparently having learned nothing about the Big Fat Nowhere that hubristic pyramid ambition was going to get him, this pyramid was designed to be even taller and pointier than the last effort!  Too tall and pointy, in fact - the bedrock proved to be less stable than he might have hoped, and by the time the pyramid was half-finished stuff was already moving and cracking inside of it.  There are ceilings in this pyramid that are to this day partially held up by wooden beams.

The builders seem to have panicked and decided that the only way to finish the pyramid without another disaster was to make the top half lighter than the bottom half.  They did this by changing the angle of the slope, ending up with a pyramid that looks like this:

Egyptologists call this one the Bent Pyramid for fairly obvious reasons.  Uniquely among Egyptian Pyramids, it has most of its smooth outer blocks intact, rather than having them all stolen to build other stuff (most of medieval Cairo is built from the skin of the Giza pyramids).  I’m guessing this is because nobody dared touch the thing for fear the whole structure would come down like a giant limestone game of Jenga.

I’m sure the pyramid-builders were very proud of this solution.  Sneferu appears to have been less so.  He had them move over about half a mile and start over.  Again.  Why only half a mile when he had them move 34 miles between the Sort-of Pyramid and the Bent Pyramid is a mystery.  I think he wanted to keep them in sight of the Bent Pyramid so they could look at it and feel ashamed every once in a while.

And there they built Sneferu’s third pyramid, which is called the Red Pyramid.  As pyramids go, it’s a very cautious one - it’s got the shallowest slope rise of any Egyptian pyramid, and while it’s the same height as the Bent Pyramid it spreads its weight over a much greater base area, making it far more stable.  Sneferu seems to have been happy with this one, because he was buried in it.  Either that, or after a forty-eight-year reign he just finally died and that was the pyramid they used because it was the nicest of the three.

These three pyramids together actually contain substantially more stone than the Great Pyramid of Sneferu’s son Khufu.  By the time Sneferu died, his workforce had honed themselves into a lean, mean pyramid-building machine.  They had already made every possible pyramid mistake.  So when Khufu announced that he didn’t just want a great pyramid, but The Great Pyramid, these guys built him a pyramid so fucking great that we now think aliens must have done it.

It was as true in Ancient Egypt as it is now.

Can anyone rec me some wilderness romance? More hiking and surviving together, less small town. I loved the Simple Wild by KA Tucker and want more like it. 

I've been looking for a list like this! Thank you~

Hi sorry to bother you, but would you happen to know where I can find accurate information about Norse Mythology that is also not riddled with white supremacist coding? I’m looking for as much complete information that I can do I can understand the religion properly. Thank you!

No prob.  Well, there’s the Fjorn’s Hall podcast, which if you’re into podcasts is *chef’s kiss* excellent, and you can go follow @fjorn-the-skald and @fjorn-wanders right here on tungler

Also the Saga Thing podcast, which is also amazing

And not to toot my own horn but I also have a podcast that deals with Heathen-related stuff.  Right now there is one entire episode!

There’s Dr. Jackson Crawford’s youtube channel

The Exploring Series on youtube

And there’s Sacred-Texts.com, the best website on the whole entire Internet, a sprawling archive of historical and religious texts.  Here’s the Celtic index, the English index (this is also where they keep the fairy lore), the Icelandic index, the “Legends And Sagas” index, and the Tolkien index (includes a lot of historical material that’s had a big influence on modern fantasy, like the Mabinogion and the Kalevala)

What? The cat's on the pot. He's... Potty training himself... . . . . ...

>:3

that is definitely not your letterbox.

Lightening Mouse...? B-but...I never liked Pikachuuuu!

I do this to Daniel on a pretty regular basis. He hates it, I think it's freaking hilarious.

n.n

04-08-19

Had an ectopic pregnancy and it burst my left fallopian tube bc I'm on birth control and was completely unaware that I was preggers for FOUR WEEKS bc I was still having my period?? I waited like....nine hours to go to the emergency room bc I have out of state insurance and have been too dumb/lazy get it switched and who wants to be stuck with an out of pocket er bill when they work a minimum wage part time job?

Not me! But the alternative was death so...

Legit, every nurse and doctor that I've talked to about this has made it a point to let me know just how close to dying I was. It's been great!

Still in pain, but they're releasing me w pain med prescriptions, so that's nice.

Also work isnt going to really like it but I have two weeks of recovery time that I'm not allowed to work...which means I wont be getting paid either...but ya know! Fun!!

I love cooking hearty dishes, and warm treats in the Fall and Winter, which is why I also love slow cooker recipes. So here is massive list of recipes that are great for this time of year!

Soups, Stews, and Entrées

Creamy Wild Rice and Turkey Soup

Loaded...

I'm jealous of this cat... What had my life come to?

Ushiko, the cat that lives at Studio Ghibli.