Year: 2013

Playing to be a paleontologist. (Digging your own Ammonites)

Today things are going about paleontology.

From very tiny I knew what fossils were because in my house there is a small collection. Nothing about showcases or inaccessible sites, there, at the entrance, where you could hand touch and “study” them.

Besides, the garden walls of my house contained small “treasures”. They were merely shells (mostly), but it was fun to inspect one by one in search of a most important finding.

When I was older, my aunt (geologist) took me to a museum and taught me about many others that I did not know.

And so we come to this.

It may seem like a piece of sand like any other, but as they say in the movies of our childhood “beauty is on the inside”.

With a little digging work we discover our fossil:

”

“Ammonites are an extinct group of marine invertebrate animals in the subclass Ammonoidea of the class Cephalopoda. These molluscsare more closely related to living coleoids (i.e. octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish) than they are to shelled nautiloids such as the living Nautilus species. The earliest ammonites appear during the Devonian, and the last species died out during the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event.

Ammonites are excellent index fossils, and it is often possible to link the rock layer in which a particular species or genus is found to specific geological time periods”

(Wikipedia)

When our daughter grows up, she will have their own treasures to unearth, learn with brush and hand peak and imagine the history of the little bug that that was buried millions of years ago.

A play and learning tool that will appeal to parents and children, teachers and students … and soon it will be available in our store.

4 November, 2013
A pot of fairy dust

Since I heard that Tinker Bell was described by Barrie as a fairy who mended pots and kettles, like an actual tinker, I have more sympathy for her and I admit I’ve seen all his movies almost in one day.

As we all know, Tinker Bell and other fairies need “fairy dust” to fly.

The craft that I propose today is done in a few minutes, the idea came up to me yesterday when I saw a toy of my nieces Angela and Julia (nieces of Miguel) and today I could not resist the temptation to try it.

The toy is a black light flashlight, I think it came with a doll who changes her hair color. In any case, if you don’t find something like that you can buy a black light bulb in a hardware store.

“A black light, also referred to as a UV-A light, Wood’s lamp, or simply ultraviolet light, is a lamp which emits long wave (UV-A) ultraviolet light and not much visible light” (Wikipedia)

We will also need a highlighter pen, I have used a yellow one because it seemed closer to the color of fairy dust, baby oil (really any oil, but baby oil is usually transparent) and of course a clear jar that we like . (It is important that it closes tightly to prevent catastrophes).

The fluorescent highlighter ink glows when illuminated with black light, so we will take advantage on that and that water and oil do not mix, so that the ink inside the jar will make very small balls but not just dissolve.

The only complication we have with this is to extract the ink. As far as I know there are two types of markers. Those with liquid ink in a cartridge which is what I used because it was more concentrated (one Pilot in my case) have difficulty drilling into the cartridge without spilling. I did it with a screwdriver after removing all detachable.

The other case is that of the normal markers, which have an impregnated cotton inside. In that case, all we have to do is put it under the faucet with a bowl underneath to catch the stained water . We can also is to put the cotton directly into the water and squeeze… but I warn you that it’s going to happen something like this in your hands. Well, whatever you do, it will surely occur. As mentioned, water and oil do not mix, so by putting the ink into the jar full of oil will get something like this:

Shake and ready. We have a jar with floating fairy dust.

I made a mini video but, in the dark, the effect does not look too good.
I like it better in live.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bItnOZOoYNg[/youtube]

P.S. A side effect that I had not calculated that … Maybe one of our little fairies (or pixies) want to sprinkle a little to fly ….

25 September, 2013
Goddess Nammu and the Anunnaki

Sumer was a historical region in the Middle East that formed the southern part of ancient Mesopotamia, between the floodplains of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. The Sumerian civilization is considered the first and oldest civilization of the world. Although the origin of its inhabitants, the Sumerians, is uncertain, there are numerous hypotheses about its origins. The most widely accepted today argues that it would have happened no cultural break with the Uruk period, which would rule out external factors such as could be invasions or migrations from other distant lands.

The Sumerians originally practiced a polytheistic religion with anthropomorphic deities representing cosmic and terrestrial forces in their world. During the middle of the third millennium. C., Sumerian deities became more anthropocentric and were “… nature gods transformed into gods of the city.” Gods like Enki and Inanna were seen as if An, god of heaven or Enlil, supreme god of the Sumerian pantheon had assigned them the range, power and knowledge.

As a prelude to other divinities one special find:

Nammu is the Sumerian Goddess of the primordial sea, creator of all things. She gave birth to An (heaven) and Ki (earth), as well as Enki, the master shaper of the world. She instructed Enki on how to create man, and helped him to form them from clay.

The ancient astronaut theory, also known as paleocontact hypothesis, argues that aliens have visited the planet Earth and that these beings have been responsible, in varying degrees, of the origin and development of human cultures, technologies and religions (another way to call it is alien creationism).

A common variant of the idea is that most of the deities in the religions, if not all, are actually extraterrestrials, and their technologies were taken as evidence of their divine status.

Sitchin argued that writings of the Sumerians existed that told the story of 50 Anunnaki, inhabitants of a planet called Nibiru, who came to Earth about 400.000 years ago with the intention of undermining raw materials, especially gold, for transport back to Nibiru. Because of their small number, soon got tired of his job and began to create workers for the mines by means of genetic engineering. After many tests, eventually created homo sapiens sapiens: the “Adapa” (model man) or Adam in subsequente mythology. Sitchin contended that the Anunnaki were active in human affairs until their culture was destroyed by global catastrophes caused by the abrupt end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago. Seeing that humans survived and all they had built was destroyed, the Anunnaki left Earth after having given humans the opportunity and means to govern themselves.

Nammu was the goddess who gave birth to Heaven and Earth, in the times of the Sumerians. The representation of this goddess is the one of a naked woman, straight, snakehead and breast-feeding a child. Their bodies are decorated with cupolas as a symbol of the underworld and magic method to ask the goddess the rebirth of what is in her womb. They also have broad shoulders, arms faced as symbol of protection. Great pubic triangle alluding to earthly paradise where life originates and resurrection.

We present here our representation of the goddess Nammu. Shaped by the painter and sculptor Angel Corral for us (which from here we appreciate his help) taking inspiration on a statuette now disappeared from the Baghdad Museum.

The reproductions are made of polyurethane resin loaded with crushed marble and mounted on a wooden stand. They are hand painted and aged.

Dimensions (without stand):

22 x 10 x 6 cm

With the base reaches about 30 cm high.

Weight: Approximately 550 grams

The finish is hand shaped and painte, so each one is unique and may have slight differences in color with to the photo.

They are at your disposal in our store.

References::

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religi%C3%B3n_sumeria

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiguos_astronautas

http://www.historiaantigua.es/sumer/tradicionreligiosa/tradicionreligiosa.html

http://www.lamentiraestaahifuera.com/2010/11/24/la-diosa-nammu/

http://www.expresionbinaria.com/la-historia-secreta-de-los-sumerios/

27 August, 2013