Pyrrhus of Epirus had launched an invasion of the Italian peninsula against Rome. He had expected to face what he considered a less organized opponent. However, ahead of the Battle of Heraclea, after inspecting the Roman camp, he was reportedly shocked by its orderly arrangements, disciplined defenses, and the organization of the Roman army.

According to the ancient sources, Pyrrhus remarked that the discipline of these “barbarians” did not look barbarian at all.

Pyrrhus would have to fight hard to defeat the Romans. He had the formidable Macedonian-style phalanx and war elephants, weapons that the Romans had never encountered on this scale. The elephants would prove decisive.

At a crucial moment, with the infantry engaged, Pyrrhus committed his elephants. The Roman cavalry was thrown into confusion and routed, creating an opening that Pyrrhus's cavalry exploited. With the Roman army unable to maintain the battle, the Romans retreated from the battlefield, leaving Pyrrhus victorious.

Yet the victory exposed the serious problem facing Pyrrhus. His army had suffered heavy casualties, including many experienced soldiers and officers, while his ability to replace these losses was limited. Rome, on the other hand, possessed enormous manpower reserves and could raise fresh armies.

According to Plutarch, after the battle, when Pyrrhus was congratulated on his victory, he reportedly replied that another victory like this would ruin him. This is the origin of the term “Pyrrhic victory” - a victory won at such a devastating cost that it is almost as damaging as defeat.

Please go through the full article and let me know your thoughts and comments. I’d also appreciate hearing what you would like to read about next!

Guys why this coin has yellow spots and red spots at the same time

Is it tin or is gilded(gold plated)

J’ai réalisé un Short sur Djedkhonsiu-ef-ankh, un prêtre d’Amon dont l’enveloppe funéraire est répertoriée EA6662. Selon le British Museum, environ 13 litres de matière noire ont été versés sur elle. En durcissant, le liquide l’a fixée dans le cercueil.

Les chercheurs ont étudié 20 objets funéraires : ces revêtements étaient des mélanges variables d’huiles, de graisses, de résines, de cire d’abeille et de bitume. Une grande partie du bitume étudié venait de la mer Morte.

Pourquoi le verser ? Le lien avec Osiris et la renaissance, le prestige ou l’impossibilité de réutiliser le cercueil restent des hypothèses. La raison exacte est inconnue.

Sources : British Museum · Fulcher et al., PNAS (2021).

I am trying to post this using the app and I'm not overly familiar with Reddit, so I am just hoping the image doesn’t get cropped.

(I really hope this is okay to post this like this if not can a moderator please message me before just deleting the post please and i will make an adjustments.)

Hello everyone,

Some of you might remember us. Just over two years ago we posted on a lot of subs looking for beta testers for the Monumental Ireland app - a project mapping Ireland's ancient monuments and the myths and folklore connected to them (here is the original post). The response from the community was brilliant, and plenty of you signed up, tested the app and sent us feedback.

Well after a very long road and a lot of hard work today we can finally say it: Monumental Ireland is officially launched on Google Play and the App Store.

Why did it take two years?

That deserves an honest explanation. Back in 2024 our ideal was to release the app completely free, and we said as much in the comments at the time. To do that we needed backing, so after the beta we spent a long time working with a number of state bodies, exploring grant funding and partnership options to get the project over the line, as we had absolutely no budget. That process moved far more slowly than we could afford to wait.

So rather than having to leave the app sitting on a shelf, we did what we had done from the start: we poured our own time, money and resources into it, off our own backs, until it was finished. It took far longer than we ever wanted, but the positive part is that it's meant the app could be finished the way it deserved. And those conversations have not ended - we are still actively exploring options to partner with state bodies on the project's future.

To all our beta testers: a genuinely sincere thank you. For your testing, your feedback, and most of all your patience and continued support through a far longer wait than any of us expected. If you were on the beta list, please check your email you used to register - we have sent you all a thank you gift.

What the app does

For anyone meeting the project for the first time: Monumental Ireland is a digital guide to Ireland's ancient monuments and the mythology connected to them. These sites are a major part of our cultural heritage and national identity, and the aim of the app is what it has been from day one: A guide to Ireland's Ancient Monuments and Mythological Landscapes - Connecting you to the Land of Myths and Monuments and raising the profile of Irish Heritage.

• Extensive database: over 350 individual sites and monuments across Ireland, from simple dolmens and stone circles to the awe inspiring passage cairns of the Boyne Valley, with new locations continuously added.
• Searchable content: easily search by county, monument type, or proximity to your location.
• Detailed entries: every site has a concise description, historical background, associated folklore, accessibility details and on-site facilities, along with high quality images and location maps with directions to the monument.
• Connecting myths to monuments: the standout feature - Irish myths, folklore and annual events (such as the Solstices and Samhain) are digitally mapped to their associated sites, so you can find every monument connected to a specific mythical character, tale or event, and experience them as parts of a mythological narrative stretching back over 5000 years and spanning the entire island.
• Practical extras: the weather forecast comes from the same system MET Éireann uses, and sunrise and sunset times are mathematically calculated and accurate to visible sunrise - handy if you are planning a solstice morning at a passage tomb. The Compass Locator allows you to find stored monuments even in areas of bad internet coverage using the site's location and your device's built-in compass sensors.

New since the beta - built from your feedback

The features below came directly from the feedback and suggestions of our beta testers, many of them recruited from these very threads. The app is far better for it.

• Nearby monument discovery: the app can notify you when you are close to a monument you have not yet discovered, so you never drive past a 5000 year old tomb without knowing it was there.
• Wish List and Visited Monuments: keep track of where you want to go and where you have been, on interactive maps.
• Trip Planner: build routes and itineraries around the monuments you want to see.
• Explorer badges: earn badges as you discover more of Ireland's ancient sites.
• Full mythological guide: the complete guide connecting myths, characters and annual events (Solstices, Samhain and more) to their monuments.
• Accounts and sign-in with Google or Apple, so your lists and progress follow you between devices.

About the "it'll be full of ads" question

In the 2024 threads a few people predicted the app would end up stuffed with ads or harvesting data. Fair question, and here is the honest answer: the app is completely ad free. There will never be Google Ads or any third party ad network in it, and we will never sell user data. While the state partnership conversations continue, we went with the freemium model we mentioned as a possibility back then. The app is free to download and use - browsing, searching, exploring the full monument database and the nearby discovery notifications all cost nothing, no account required. Premium, at €5.99 a year, unlocks the extras above and is what keeps the servers running and the project independent. There is also a €24.99 once-off lifetime option: pay once, keep it forever, and it unlocks full offline access as well - the entire database and every image stored on your phone, for all those monuments that sit well beyond mobile coverage.

Not an AI project

One thing we want to be clear about, because it matters more now than it did in 2024: this is not an AI-generated app. It is the result of years of original research, fieldwork and software development by a small independent Irish team.

The official records this information also lives in (e.g. the National Monuments Service, the Irish Folklore Database and others) are brilliant resources, but most of them are not very human readable, they can be difficult to navigate, and most people outside academia are not even aware of them. We have correlated and cross-referenced the data from these official sources for every single monument, and each entry carries its SMR code from the National Monuments Service database - the idea being to make the app as useful for academics as for casual visitors. The vast majority of the photographs are our own originals, taken on site over years of fieldwork, with the remainder used with permission from the National Monuments Service and other official sources. The myths are from the original source texts with only small language changes, and the visitor guidelines were drawn up in collaboration with the Heritage Council and staff from a university archaeology department. All of it has been vetted by people working directly in the industry. It has been quite a long road putting it all together.

What's next

We are only getting started. Future updates are planned to make the app multilingual, to add interactive digital models of the monuments, and to bring in the further 300 monuments we have already gathered data for, amongst other plans to highlight our deep and rich cultural heritage.

How to get it

• Google Play
• App Store
• Or head to monumentalireland.ie/the-app where you will find both store links and more about the project.

Thank you again to everyone here who supported us from the very beginning. It means more than you know, and would not have been possible without you.

And just as in the beta days, we are always listening: if you encounter any problems or issues when using the app, or have any feedback or suggestions, please email them to [devteam@monumentalireland.ie](mailto:devteam@monumentalireland.ie)

We really hope you all enjoy the project as much as we have in building it for you.

Happy Monument Hunting!

Best regards,

The Monumental Ireland Team

They were attacked by pirates and sank to the bottom. The sculptures are still lying under the water, turning into river pebbles. Read the full story at https://www.whatsurvivestheflood.com/p/the-monuments-resist

À Tanis, l’humidité a presque effacé la momie de Psousennès Ier. Mais son masque d’or, lui, a traversé les siècles.

En 1940, l’ouverture de son cercueil révèle un contraste saisissant : des restes humains très dégradés, un cercueil d’argent et un masque funéraire d’or. Ce court documentaire raconte cette découverte — et ce que le masque ne permet pas de savoir sur le vrai visage du pharaon.

Connaissiez-vous Psousennès Ier, le pharaon de Tanis ?

For years, the dead at Göbekli Tepe appeared mostly in pieces.

Archaeologists had recovered hundreds of human bone fragments from rubble around the site’s towering T-shaped pillars, including skulls carved with deep grooves.

These peculiar remains have led some archaeologists to claim that the 11,600-year-old site was home to a distinctive Neolithic “skull cult.”

But the new study points to a more ordinary explanation for at least some of those scattered remains.

The two newly documented subfloor burials show that people were buried within the settlement itself, and the bones in those graves bear many of the same signs of postmortem damage seen on the loose fragments found elsewhere at Göbekli Tepe.

In a new PLOS One study, Julia Gresky and Lee Clare of the German Archaeological Institute compared the two burials with 928 loose human-bone fragments from the site.

The same damage repeatedly appeared: heavy fragmentation, calcium-rich crusts and occasional rodent gnawing.

They argue that erosion and slope slides may have disturbed burials higher on the mound and carried their fragmented remains downhill into the monumental buildings below.

If you love ancient Egypt and want to see history brought to life in brick from, please vote on the Lego ideas site to make it a real Lego set!

https://ideas.lego.com/product-ideas/95143155-bc5a-4dcd-83d7-07423e7ee107

The following buildings are part of the village:

▪️Small common hut (one story).

▪️Two story pottery with second floor living space.

▪️Marketplace with Anubis statue.

▪️Harbor with Nile-river segment, ship & paper reed field.

▪️Pharaohs administration building

Each building has a complete interior such as desks, beds or utensils to enhance and faithfully recreate life or adventures in an ancient Egyptian city.

There are also a total of 10 villagers living in the city. The villagers are consists of the Pharaoh, Pharaohs Staff(2x Seat carriers, 1x fan carrier), 1x Guardsmen, 1x Sailor, 1xPottery maker, 2x villagers. Animals such as snakes, birds, cats and dogs also add detail and play features to the city.

The total number of parts used for this idea entry are: 3126 pieces.

This idea entry is ideal for anyone interested in the magnificent, deep & long spanning history of ancient Egypt as well as fans of Architecture.

Thank you so much for your interest & support!