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emdykay.bsky.social
Eɯdyʞay
@emdykay.bsky.social
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emdykay.bsky.social
And while we are on the topic of pull toys: One of my favourite little guys is this cow on wheels from the Cucuteni-Trypillia culture in western Ukraine. It is also one of the oldest wheeled objects we know of at more than 5600 years old! (3950-3650 BC) And I adore it's design.
A cow shaped pull toy, painted red with tiger-like dark stripes running down it's body. Instead of legs it has wheels.
July 29, 2025 at 12:40 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
And at the Louvre is this hedgehog on wheels! It was found in Susa at the Temple of Inšušinak circa. 1500-1100 BC. Location suggests it is a votive offering, it could also be a toy. Why not both? It also has a lion companion!
collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/5335...
A small, very detailed hedgehog carved from white limestone sits on top a small wheeled platform carved from black rock.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
The Hamin Mangha Site dated to 3500-3000 BC from north-east China might have a bit of a grizzly history, but that doesn't make this particular guy any less cute.
An almost entirely round clay figure of a hedgehog, only small stubs for legs to stand on stick out. Lines in a wave pattern are carved onto the body to indicate the spines. The face is very large with small holes for eyes and nostril and tiny lobes as ears. The mouth at the front is large and circular, giving it the appearance of O: emoji.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
This fellow is from the Chalandriani cemetery on Syros, Greece, 2800-2300 BC. It belongs to the early Cycladic culture and is a rhyton a vessel for drinking or pouring libations. It's popular enough there are a couple of reproductions you can buy around.
A clay vase shaped like a somewhat anthropomorphic hedgehog sitting upright and holding a large bowl in it's arms. It's painted with brown lines across its entire body and the bowl. On it's back the lines form a tight net pattern to indicate the spines.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
On to some Hedgehogs:
An aryballos is a small vessel for oils or perfumes. Hedgehog ones are quite common and this is the goofiest and thus my favourite, from around 600 BC. And rather than on top, it's left ear is the opening, because reasons.
A small brown clay vessel depicting a hedgehog. The body is round with dark brown scales painted on it. The head makes up almost half of the figurine and tapers into the snout at the front, nose also painted dark brown. Small brown dots are painted across the head. Two raised circles also painted darker form the ears, the left one has a hollow opening, not visible in the picture.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
This guy comes from 9th century Samarra in Iraq to us. You go check out the other pictures and tell me if it has some extra detail or whether that is just incidental...
id.smb.museum/object/15224...
A small beige clay figurine of a cow. It is very simply designed consisting of just a torso with four straight beams for legs sticking out diagonally under it and a triangular head without a neck at the front. The face only has two circles as eyes. Across the body and legs are multiple lines carved into it for texture.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
And one last guy from Fatimid Egypt (for now):
The proud lion with his strength and regal bearing, is a great choice as fountain figure! O:
id.smb.museum/object/15210...
A copper figurine of a lion from a fountain. The mouth forms a large O for water flow and it's entire body is short and round with short and stubby legs, giving it a chubby appearance.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
Here is another Fatimid bowl, a small fragment at just 8cm diameter. And I am absolutely in love with the tiny bird, it's so pretty.
id.smb.museum/object/18689...
A small fragment of a clay bowl. Painted in the middle is a small sparrow-like lustre bird holding a vine in it's beak.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
Hares are very common in Islamic art. But this one from the 11th century Fatimid Caliphate looks like it is super excited and brimming with energy.
recherche.smb.museum/detail/15218...
A ceramic bowl painted with golden vines and leaves. At the bottom of the bowl a hare is painted. It's front right paw is lifted high up to his head. It's holding another small vine in it's mouth. The open mouth and posture combined make it look like it is cheering.
July 29, 2025 at 12:22 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
Honestly kinda weak for the infamous theft museum to not have been more ambitious with it's theft. We aren't nowhere as renowned for our art and history thievery, yet we smuggled an entire city gate out of Iraq!
A picture of the Ishtar Gate at the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Two people walking through it demonstrate the enormous scale.
July 12, 2025 at 8:28 AM
emdykay.bsky.social
Big oof if you argue in favour of a person discussing problematic tech, then read more of his posts in that thread and he is using it for fact checking 🫠
I still stand by my thread but... yikes. Makes me approach SciShow content with a lot more scrutiny than before.

bsky.app/profile/emdy...
Post by Hank Green: "This is less of a problem now that they can actually provide source links. Speeds up the fact checking process a lot. But you’re right that fact checking still requires expertise and LLMs encourage a lot of quick and dirty work."
April 24, 2025 at 1:44 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
If you see this, quote with your first anime

My first conscious memory of anime is catching an episode of Tonde Burin, a pig themed magical girl show, on TV.
Never saw it again and at some point thought I had hallucinated it.
Until a couple years ago I finally found it again and learned it's name.
November 17, 2024 at 10:56 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
Zooming in on the lower-right section of the English language cluster:
A section of the bluesky cluster map. It consists primarily of the British Cluster towards the top-left corner and the Science Cluster at the bottom. The legend for the British & Science section of the bluesky cluster map: 1 British Cluster 1.1 Irish Cluster 1.2 British Leftwing 1.3 British Politics 1.4 British Birding 1.5 British Education 1.5.1 British Education Psychology 2 Meteorologists 3 Norwegian Cluster 4 Biology 4.1 Marine/Ecology 4.2 Biomechanics 5 Neuroscience 5.1 Neurology 5.2 Psychology 6 Economics 7 Political Science 8 Historical Science 9 Science-slanted mixed zone
November 16, 2024 at 12:54 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
These are two tiny tinies, terrifyingly detailed at less than a cm, come from ancient Egypt's 18th Dynasty (~1540-1292 BC).
Some 'experts' claim these are fertility charms associated with the frog goddess Heqet, but I see only tiny.
www.clevelandart.org/art/1914.570
www.clevelandart.org/art/1980.123
A tiny frog amulet crafted from smooth red carnelian. It is terrifyingly detailed and accurate in shape for it's diminutive size. Another tiny frog amulet made from mostly blue faience, only the eyes are brown colored. The body has ridges, very similar to an actual bull frogs skin texture, and this one even has the tiniest of toes clearly visible!
November 16, 2024 at 9:49 AM
emdykay.bsky.social
A small agate pendant from Panama, some time between 100-800 CE, depicting a... cute little critter? Your guess is as good as anyones's.
www.clevelandart.org/art/1948.15
Photograph of a small beige-brown colored agate pendant of an animal. It has a large curly tail forming a loop from the back towards the head and four nubs underneath the it's long body for leg. The head is triangular coming to a pointed snout, a small grove separates upper and bottom jaw, while two large semi-circular-ish ears sit on top. The traits don't seem to match any real animal.
November 16, 2024 at 9:49 AM
emdykay.bsky.social
I was curious and tried identifying the clusters a bit. Note that I used the incredibly scientific and sophisticated method of clicking on a bunch of accounts in a specific area, to check out what is on there and see if I can figure out any pattern.
Expect more clusters and also misinterpretations.
A graph mapping the connections of bsky accounts, forming multiple clusters. Some of them are labeled in different colors. The three biggest clusters towards the center are the Japanese language cluster on the upper left center, the Portuguese cluster on the upper right, and the English cluster on the center bottom. The English cluster includes smaller labels, roughly from left to right: Furries, Art, Vtubers, Nerdy Cluster(Gaming, Comics, TTRPGS, etc.), Sex Work, Literature and Science & Education. Below and to the right of the English cluster are multiple other medium to small language clusters, roughly from bottom left to top right: German, French, Finnish, Dutch, Ukrainian, Turkish, Spanish, Persian. A small Russian cluster exists between the Portuguese and Japanese cluster. On top of the Japanese cluster are the Indonesian and Korean NSFW clusters. To the left of the Japanese cluster are Thai, Korean and Chinese Clusters. Further out on the left of the English and Japanese cluster are a Gay NSFW and a Chinese Gay NSFW cluster.
November 14, 2024 at 2:11 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
To be fair looking at a night sky without ANY light pollution would make being imaginative a lot easier I assume.
Imagine looking at something even more colorful and flashy than this while also high!
A picture of the night sky from very rural America. A multitude of stars are visible in the sky, including the colorful band of the milky way streaking across the sky. Underneath mountains are visible in the distance and in front a grassy plain with some trees.
November 12, 2024 at 12:07 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
There is also this glorious snek sculpture. I couldn't confirm any of the info given (from U Thong, Thailand, 6th-11th century CE, at the Bangkog National Museum), but it is way too fantastic to not include here:
A simple figurine of a snake. It's body coils upwards, roughly semi-circular lines for carved across it, but very loosely. The head rests on top, with a smiley faced carved into it.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
For an actual Nazca cat see this funky lad, inlaid into a seashell, from the Cleveland Museum of Art.
www.clevelandart.org/art/1950.567
Description by the Cleveland Museum of Art: This ornament is made of a spondylus shell, from which the exterior surface has been carved away to reveal a layer of bright orange. The pampas cat inlaid on the surface in multicolored shell and stone has bean-shaped spots on his body, and grasps a gold gourd or fruit. In both Paracas and Nasca art, the small, non-domesticated pampas cat is strongly associated with beans and other crops. Perhaps it was thought to guard the fields from rodents and other pests.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
This ancient kitty doodle from the Paracas culture, while among the Nazca lines, predates them, created around 200-100 BC. It was only recently discovered, despite the hill it is on being used as viewing spot for years, as it had almost faded away entirely
www.apollo-magazine.com/peru-nazca-g...
A large picture resembling a cat across a small hill. It is very crude, no straight lines in sight, the proportions are completely off and the head is funny looking circle with three smaller circles for eyes and mouth and two triangles on top for ears. It looks like a small child's doodle.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
These precious little bat illustrations are from a medieval manuscript by an English monk called Matthew of Paris, 1240-1240.
digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/objects/b639...
Three very simple drawings of bats on the side of a manuscript text. The body, wings and legs are only done in black outlines, the heads round circles with smiley faces and large, round ears.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
A Hittite jug from the ancient city of Karkemish, at the border of Turkey and Syria, ca. 1700 BC.
Might be the oldest know smiley face, if you believe that is what it is supposed to be. Adorable regardless.
www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/w...
A beige, very old and eroded jug. It is reassembled from many fragments, the fracture lines clearly visible. On top a slim neck with a larger opening and a small handle to the right. In the middle of a jug what appears to be a smiley face in black paint is visible, but it is very faint.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
A tiny glass pendant of a ram. Found in Greece, from around the 5th-4th century BC of Punic origins.
There are a couple of these, but I think this one looks especially cute.
art.thewalters.org/detail/17822...
A tiny glass pendant in the shape of ram's head. The head is mostly white. Two black dots for nostrils and a line for the mouth at the front. Behind them a large blue eye, with a black dot in the middle. The long brown and white horn curves from the top of the head, around the protruding ear, to the bottom and up again underneath the eye.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
Piggy pottery from Sanxingdui, China, 11th-12th century BC.
The first picture of this pig-faced pot got attention for it's resemblance to the Angry Birds pig.
But I love the tiny little pig figure with it's silly smiley face even more.
www.flickr.com/photos/10156...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:%E...
A vaguely round, beige clay jug with a highly stylized pig face on the front. The raised, round snout in the middle has two holes for nostrils. To the sides two raised circles with holes are the eyes. Underneath the snout is a long, scraggly groove for the mouth. There are two bumps to the left and right top which might be ears, but they are very rough. All in all the pig face looks very cartoonish. On the left sits a small round clay figurine of a pig. It stands little nubs as legs, the face at the front is again highly stylized. It consists of a large groove across almost the entire front, forming a smile, above it a flat pig nose. The two goggly looking eyes are set quite far apart, above them round ears are visible. A raised circle sits on top. To the right sits a pig face, presumably a fragment of another similar figurine. It snout is very long and tube shaped with two holes for nostrils. Only the base of the face is left, including two slightly raised dots for eyes. The figurines are held in place by string and fixing pins.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM
emdykay.bsky.social
Also the most adorable painting of Hammerhead sharks imaginable. Found in an encyclopedia of Japan's Oki Islands natural resources from the mid 1730s.
The other illustrations are quite reasonable and realistic, only these two look this goofy, another page for comparison.
dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/2541411/...
An illustration of two Hammerhead sharks, on from above, one from the bottom, a few Kanji in the top right corner of the page. The bodies are drawn in reasonably accurate proportions and detail, colored in grey. But they have goggly eyes and the left one viewed from a bottom has a large open mouth, that looks like it's smiling, with simple triangles for teeth, making it look like a child's drawing. Two pages from the same book, showing two quite accurate and detailed illustrations of fish and some Japanese writing above them.
November 11, 2024 at 2:39 PM