Tsenacommacah Chamber of Commerce
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archaeomancer.bsky.social
Tsenacommacah Chamber of Commerce
@archaeomancer.bsky.social
230 followers 1.8K following 380 posts
Archaeologist. Passionate about history, context, and boring civil process. Slowly becoming the Joker but entirely about participatory democracy. 🏳️‍🌈 #RVA
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archaeomancer.bsky.social
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The flag of Virginia, which features a lady with her tit out stomping on some dead king dude and the motto “Sic Semper Tyrannus”
November 5, 2025 at 4:05 AM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Welcome back to J.D. Salinger Presents: Washingto Stars and Politicos: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let’s Find Out! I’m your host, Mr. Peanutbutter
A screenshot from BoJack Horseman showing Mr. Peanutbutter, a yellow lab in a pink suit, hosting a game show, with BoJack, a horse in a blazer over casual clothes, as contestant. Some of categories on the vaguely Jeopardy-style board are cut off, but they probably include Time Travel Paradox, What’s That Smell?, Trigonometry, Advanced Physics, At The Movies with Mr. Peanutbutter, and Sports.
October 29, 2025 at 3:25 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
To paraphrase Graydon Saunders in the Commonweal series: our purpose as a society is to get ourselves, to get one another, into the future. As many of us as we can manage.
This is how it works: We protect each other, period. These are our neighbors, our friends, our family. We do the things we have to do to ensure that as many of us can make it to tomorrow as possible. Not everyone does. I need you to understand that we tried.
October 25, 2025 at 11:23 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
ps I am very sorry to anyone who, for some reason, follows me! I really would like to post more silly nonsense and/or fun history and archaeology stuff. The Republic is currently experiencing technical difficulties. Funny and interesting content may be temporarily disrupted.
The classic SMPTE color-bars test pattern, with the legend “TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES” superimposed over it.
October 24, 2025 at 2:20 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Is this something
A meme featuring DW from Arthur, labeled “ICE”, staring at a closed door with a sign that says “Chinga La Migra.” The caption says “That sign won’t stop me because I can’t read!”
October 23, 2025 at 2:32 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
This idea has a fairly old lineage, cf this 1888(!) political cartoon/map. (source here: www.loc.gov/resource/g37...) Though I’d argue the roots of the Bad Tree have more to do with the Cavaliers, the English Revolution, and Bacon’s Rebellion than with Jamestown *specifically*
A 19th century map of the United States, titled “HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY.” It depicts two “trees,” shown as long arrows crossing the continent with smaller arrows branching off. One, originating at Plymouth (marked by an illustration of a Bible), is labeled “The Blessing of Liberty.” It runs straight across the continent to California, with its peak labeled “Immortality” and branches labeled things like “Benevolence,” “Philanthropy,” and “Love of Country.” The other tree originates at Jamestown (marked by an illustration of a dollar coin, symbolizing the financial motives involved in the settling of Virginia), and is labeled “God’s Curse Slavery.” It runs in a crooked course west and south, forced to turn southward by the northern boundary of the slaving states and territories, which is marked by the label “Mason and Dixon’s Line,” and it terminates in Texas. Its peak is labeled “Hades,” and it has branches labeled things like “Ignorance,” “Sedition,” “Rebellion,” and “Murder.” A series of props(?) holding up the sagging tree are labeled things like “Missouri Compromise,” “Fugitive Slave Law,” and “Dred Scott Decision.” Nevertheless, the tree of slavery is in the process of being chopped down by a giant axe labeled “Emancipation Proclamation.” The whole thing goes EXTREMELY hard.
October 19, 2025 at 7:03 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Every now and then I remember the pikes that John Brown commissioned for his armory raid and attempted slave uprising, and I think that these would make a fantastic McGuffin for a modern-setting tabletop campaign. Find John Brown’s haunted freedom pikes!
A spear-like polearm called a pike, with a stabby steel blade like a long knife on the end of a wooden pole.
October 17, 2025 at 2:44 AM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
In 1677, Cockacoeske, the werowansqua (chief/queen) of the Pamunkey, led a handful of fellow weroances--all that remained of Powhatan's empire--in signing the Treaty of Middle Plantation with the English Crown. The Monocans and a few others who were never part of Powhatan's empire signed, too. 24/
A bronze statue of an Indigenous woman, Cockacoeske. She's wearing a flowing dress and a cloak of furs and holding up a piece of parchment, which is meant to symbolize the Treaty of Middle Plantation. The statue is standing against the park-like backdrop of Virginia's Capitol Square.
October 13, 2025 at 7:43 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
To symbolize this arrangement, he ceremonially "adopted" John Smith in a dramatic set piece that involved his daughter, Matoaka or "Pocahontas," ritually interceding to halt a threatened execution of Smith. You've probably heard about this bit, which Smith wrote about as if it were 100% real. 21/
A 19th-century American illustration of the ceremonial "saving" of John Smith by Pocahontas, as reported by Smith. It depicts a crowd of very anachronistic Native people in brightly-colored clothes and with feathered headdresses standing around Smith, who is kneeling over a stone, preparing to be executed. A woman, Pocahontas, has thrown her body over his to prevent his execution.
October 13, 2025 at 7:43 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
We don't know exactly how this happened, but the Powhatans' location at the western edge of Tsenacommacah exposed them to trade, raiding, and diplomacy with the Siouan-speaking Monocan people, who lived in the Piedmont above the Fall Line and had trade connections along and across the Blue Ridge. 6/
A section of a black-and-white map of Colonial Virginia, attributed to John Smith. It shows the locations of rivers, mountains, and Indigenous towns, with most towns shown as dots while major towns, which were the seats of chiefs, are indicated with little drawings of longhouses. The town of Powhatan is located at the bottom or east edge of the view, with towns of the Monocans located along the "Powhatan Flu," modern James River, leading upward to the west. One of these, labeled "Rassawek," is marked out at a fork in the river near the mountains, which today is the junction of the James and Rivanna Rivers near Columbia, Virginia.
October 13, 2025 at 7:39 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
The Powhatan people of this town were the westernmost member of a diverse collection of mostly Algonquin-speaking peoples who lived in the coastal plain between the Fall Line and the sea. The Chesapeake Bay and the great tidal rivers of eastern Virginia were both food source and highway for them. 3/
A more modern map from 2002, drawn in black and white. It shows modern-day Eastern Virginia, with the names of Indigenous nations densely scattered across the landscape, showing where those people lived when the English colonists arrived at Jamestown in 1607.
October 13, 2025 at 7:36 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
I'm from Richmond, VA, a city established in 1737 at the falls of the James River, where the river roars over the granite boulders of the Fall Line. Before it was Richmond, it was the town of Powhatan, the center of the Powhatan people and birthplace of a man named Wahunsenecawh: Chief Powhatan. 2/
alt: A section of a black-and-white map of Colonial Virginia, attributed to John Smith. It shows the locations of rivers, mountains, and Indigenous towns, with most towns shown as dots while major towns, which were the seats of chiefs, are indicated with little drawings of longhouses. The view is centered on the major town of Powhatan, located near "The Fales" on a river labeled the "Powhatan Flu," now the James River. The river flows from west (at the top of the map) to east (at the bottom), with mountains at the top and the Chesapeake Bay off the map at the bottom edge.
October 13, 2025 at 7:36 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
THE AIM OF SECURITY!

PROTECTION
October 7, 2025 at 3:12 AM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
The linked paper is quite a cool archaeogeophysics thing, they drove a magnetometer all over Karakorum and put the data together into a map of the city.
A diagram from the linked 2021 scientific paper “Mapping Karakorum, the capital of the Mongol Empire.” It shows two versions of a relief map, one with more gradual color gradients showing absolute elevation and one with sharper color gradients showing relative elevation. The colored relief shows a dense, cruciform area in the middle that represents the most built-up part of the city, with square enclosures or compounds radiating out from it. At the bottom is an elevation profile that shows a cross section of the map from the side.
September 13, 2025 at 5:21 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Maybe a couple of notes, but I respect the level of effort (none)
One of the many, many proposed new flags for Massachusetts. It’s literally just the overview location map from the Wikipedia article about Massachusetts.
August 26, 2025 at 10:38 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
No notes, honestly
One of the many, many proposed new flags for Massachusetts. It features the state dinosaur of Massachusetts, Podokesaurus holyokensis, with a badly photoshopped cup of Dunkin Donuts coffee and the legend “massachusetts” in comic sans. It looks like it was made in MS Paint and is delightful.
August 26, 2025 at 10:36 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Isabella Rossellini as a celebrity spokesperson is a pretty impressive get, I have to admit…
Actress Isabella Rossellini with her face painted green. She is dressed as a praying mantis and is riding another, vaguely papier-mâché-style praying mantis to illustrate mantis mating habits. The screenshot is from an episode of Rossellini’s show “Green Porno,” which explores animal reproduction in a delightfully surreal fashion.
July 27, 2025 at 4:35 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
RIP to one of my favorite spots in #RVA. I’ve played board games there, I had one of my first drinks with my now-husband there. And now, after ten years, I’ve had my last round there.
A picture of a brewery’s menu board, visibly a little sparse. The featured beer is the Last Round, an American Lager, described as “This is the last beer made here at Garden Grove! Thanks RVA! Ryan & Kev!” Other pictured beers include the Shades on Saison, the Double Wide, and the Oblivion.
June 25, 2025 at 11:03 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
artificial intelligence when I was a kid
An image of Motherboard, the AI from the PBS animated educational tv show Cyberchase. She’s a disembodied head on a huge screen, and she and the screen are all in funky colors. She’s overseeing a birthday party for Digit, a small animated bird.
May 4, 2025 at 3:09 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Grunkle Stan from Gravity Falls: “Finally, I have them all.”
April 20, 2025 at 6:32 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
Ok, it is a *little* funny seeing angry judges cite Loper Bright as a reason to completely ignore the administration.
Excerpt from court ruling: not been improperly sent to El Salvador.” Abrego Garcia, supra, slip op. at 2. "Facilitate" is an active verb. It requires that steps be taken as the Supreme Court has made perfectly clear: See Abrego Garcia, supra, slip op. at 2 ("(Tihe Government should be prepared to share what it can concerning the steps it has taken and the prospect of further steps."). The plain and active meaning of the word cannot be diluted by its constriction, as the government would have it, to a narrow term of art. We are not bound in this context by a definition crafted by an administrative agency and contained in a mere policy directive. Cf. Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 400 (2024); Christensen v. Harris Cnty., 529 U.S. 576, 587 (2000). Thus, the government's argument that all it must do is "remove any domestic barriers to [Abrego Garcia's] return," Mot. for Stay at 2, is not well taken in light of the Supreme Court's command that the government facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador.
April 17, 2025 at 8:12 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
An edited version of the Carmen Sandiego logo, reading "Where in the world is DOGE Administrator?"
February 24, 2025 at 11:33 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
This post reminded me that he also did the art for the 1989 John Bellairs novel The Trolley to Yesterday, which is set in Constantinople in 1453! I honestly remember nothing else about it but it's got some neat art, like this showing the Basilica Cistern. goreyana.blogspot.com/2010/06/trol...
A cross-hatched pencil illustration by Edward Gorey for the novel The Trolley to Yesterday, showing three characters rowing through the shadowed Basilica Cistern beneath Constantinople.
February 22, 2025 at 8:49 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
An edited version of the "it's all Ohio" meme template. Two astronauts float in space, looking down on a planet that is, in fact, just a mushroom that looks like a butt. One asks, "mushrooms are caked up now???" The other, leveling a gun at the first, replies, "Always have been." The second astronaut's sleeve flag has been replaced by another butt mushroom.
February 20, 2025 at 2:42 PM
archaeomancer.bsky.social
If anyone wants to be particularly officious, feel free to reference the park's foundation document, its official statement of purpose, which makes clear why it exists. www.nps.gov/ston/learn/h...
The purpose of Stonewall National Monument is to preserve and protect Christopher Park and the historic resources associated with it and to interpret the Stonewall National Historic Landmark’s resources and values related to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender civil rights movement.
February 13, 2025 at 11:42 PM