The Black Flux

Premium Article Preview: One of the great riddles in Mesopotamian sacred art concerns the image of winged birdmen called Apkallu holding a fruit in one hand, and a banduddû — a container — in the other. The purpose of this container is rightly mysterious. It appears throughout Sumer and Babylon, and half a world away in Yucatan; six thousand years earlier, it was carved in on a pillar at Gobekli Tepe, one of the world’s oldest standing stone enclosures.

Link: http://io9.com/musicians-recreation-of-ancient-sumerian-songs-will-hau-1676603467

On request: softer and non-vulgar swear phrases, with their literal meaning:

motyla noga! → buttefly’s leg 

kurczę!  → small chicken / chick (the most popular euphemism starting with ‘kur-’ that can replace the well-known ‘kurwa’)

kurczę pieczone! → baked chick

kurczę blade! → pale chick

kurza stopa! → hen’s foot

kurza twarz! → hen’s face

kurza melodia! → hen’s melody

kurka wodna! → aquatic hen

rany koguta! → rooster’s wounds

psiakość! / psia kość! → dog’s bone

psiakostka! / psia kostka! → dog’s small bone

psiakrew! / psia krew! → dog’s blood (probably the strongest of expressions included on the list)

do stu wilków! → to a hundred of wolves

do kroćset! → to a multitude of hundreds (basically an expression of multiplying the irritation)

do licha! → to the likho (licho / likho is a Slavic demon)

pal licho! → burn the likho (used rather like ‘whatever!’)

do czorta! → to the chort (czort / chort is a Slavic demon, often described as a devil’s minion)

do pioruna! → to a lightning (one of phrases supposedly connected to the old cult of the Slavic god Perun) 

do stu piorunów! → to a hundred of lightnings

niech to piorun trzaśnie! → may a lightning thwack it

jasny pieron! → bright lightning (with archaic spelling of the word meaning a lightning, but warning: ‘pieron’ is considered a very offensive word in a few regions of Poland e.g. some parts of Silesia)

jasny piernik! → bright gingerbread

jasny gwint! → bright / obvious screw-thread

niech to kule biją! → may cannonballs* strike it (*or bullets)

cholera! → cholera (yes - the disease, and one of the strongest expressions here)

choina! / choinka! → small conifer / Christmas tree (euphemisms replacing the word ‘cholera’)

The Tuvans are a Turkic ethnic group living in southern Siberia.

Alongside Tibetan Buddhism, Tuvans practice a traditional form of Tengrism - a religion based in shamanism, animism, and ancestor worship. In Tengriism, the meaning of life is seen as living in harmony with the surrounding world. They believe there is no “one true religion” as humanity has not reached full enlightenment yet. That all humans are weak, and therefore shortcomings should be tolerated