okay, nauts.

here's a photo of
Gilgamesh with
the herb
of immortality.

to me it looks a helluva lot
like a bouquet of
ripe poppy seed pods😂

@holon42 or rose hips.. although those aren't hallucinogenic :)

@TrueBloodNet

i've never seen rose hips valorized in ancient architecture.

and i know the Egyptians used opium.

hence my suspicion.

@holon42 You're likely correct. To mention though, rose hip oil was used by Egyptians to keep their skin/face 'youthful'. We likely will never know for sure :)

@TrueBloodNet

oh for sure rose hips have many uses.

the plant in the epic was described as a kind of buckthorn growing at the bottom of the sea, but none of the photos of buckthorn look anything like that.

sounds like a reference to a deep dive into the unconscious, symbolized by the sea, according to Jung.

@holon42 There is a non woody plant who's first word is buckthorn but I can't remember what the second word is right now. Damn my noun forgetting abilities... grrr.. I'll let you know if it comes to me. Sorry

@TrueBloodNet

no problem.

happens to me all too often🤔

@holon42 I memorized so many nouns with my degrees that my brain filled up. Then, in my 70ish years they changed so many of them, even all the bird names are changing.. my brain said, let the computer remember this stuff. LOL

@holon42 Buckhorn Plaintain https://plantscience.psu.edu/outreach/plant-id/broadleaf/buckhorn-plantain-1

Probably not this...

@TrueBloodNet

no, no similarity to the sculpture.

the fact that the plant was supposed to be under the sea, and he had to tie stones to his feet to collect it, makes me think it was a metaphor for an exploration of the unconscious using opium.

@holon42 There is a sea buckthorn. Did we talk about that already? It's not underwater though..

Enjoy your postulating. I'm going to shove something with calories in my piehole. :)

@TrueBloodNet

no we haven't discussed sea buckthorn.

once your calories are consumed, tell me about it.

just found it, but p, right, it's not under the sea.

a superfood though, sounds interesting.

the discrepancy in the story of Gilgamesh still makes me think it's a metaphor, especially since this bush looks nothing like what he's holding up.

@holon42 @TrueBloodNet TO be fair, King Gilgamesh kinda had rocks in his head. He might have thought that a particular bush was called something else, and he would have dared someone to disagree with him so he could fight them.

I mean, he could be fun to hang out with, but he was also a bit of a "there are five lights" sort of guy.

@AskTheDevil

yeah, those heroes are all a little, shall we say, off🙄