In 1927, a young Spanish boy, aged 8, - who would become the 18th Duque de Alberquerque - sat in a cinema watching a newsreel of the Grand National.
In that moment, an impossible dream was born.
Born on the 15 December 1918, the boy - Beltran de Osorio y Diez de Rivera

Thread:

On this day, Jat pride Veer Gokula Singh attained veergati fighting Aurangzeb Forces.

He was the landlord of Tilpat (Faridabad)

1/14

Gokula's father Madu Singh and his uncle Uday Singh was a rebellion who fought against Shahjahan in the support of Nandaram Jat. Shahjahan appoint many commanders against them.

1650, Madu Singh was mortally wounded fighting Mughal forces led by Raja Jai Singh (Jaipur).

2/14

Then Madu Singh was successed by his song Sindhuraj who also died in 1651 fighting Mughals. then Uncle Uday Singh took command of the family

And Nandaram's rebellion also ended by 1660 and after that Aurangzeb appoint Abul Nabi (Ghazi) as Fauzdar of Mathura and Agra.

3/14

1660, Abul Nabi's prime duty is to demolish temples and lay the foundation of mosque on the site of destroyed temples as he was a Ghazi.

In 1966 he target the famous krishna temple Keshav Rai and another one is Giriraj temple

4/14

After 1660 almost all revolutionary activities were stopped in Koil but some rebels were active in Agra, sarkar.

The pargana (Sadabad) become the core centre of revolt and the whole command was taken by Gokula Jat.

The revolt took extreme after 1666 under Gokula.

5/14

The Kushana Empire was founded by Mahārājādhirāja Kujula Kadphises, a Shaivite Hindu convert from his ancestral Steppe religion of the Yüeh-chih. He was not a Buddhist, as popularly believed.

A thread on the Hindu Emperors of the Kushana Dynasty.

The Kushanas were part of a tribal confederation called the Yüeh-Chih that originally lived in the western part of the Gansu Province of China. They were pushed west by the invasions of the Xiongnu (Huna) confederation. Kuja Kadphises united all the five sub-tribes under Kushana.

Emperor Kuja Kadphises had converted to Shaivism, a Mathura inscription from the Tōkrī Tīla mound (Maṭ village) clears up previous confusion (Based on him being called "satyadharmasthita" or 'steadfast in the true dharma' people speculated he was a Buddhist)

This is incorrect.

The Mathura inscription applied the same epithet to Emperor Huvishka (satyadharmasthita) but explicitly says the Kingdom was conferred upon its founder by Lord Shiva (Sarva is the epithet of Shiva). This makes it clear Kujula Kadphises had adopted Shaivism & the Kharoshti script.

This also makes sense, when we realize his son, Emperor Vima Kadphises was also a devoted Hindu Shaivite (and in his coins we clearly see a trishulin ithyphallic shiva with a tiger skin).

So his son had just been continuing his father's tradition & upbringing.

So. I loved #TheDig. Despite being set in the 30's it evoked a lot of my early fieldwork experience in the 80's and some of the things archaeologists were gushing about are still pay of the experience today. And it also evoked the fantasy that I became an archaeologist to chase>

If you just want to enjoy it, and bask in the glow of archaeologists being happy for once, stop reading here >

Because, being aware of that fantasy, I'm also aware of corrosive elements, things that structure how archaeology works, both practically & in the collective imagination which work against that other fantasy, that my work can 'make a difference' contribute to progressive change>

The primary driver of the story is class & it's connection to skill & to land. EP has the right to the land, the choice to dig, the ownership of the artefacts because she is the landowner. We are meant to cheer along when the coroner decides in her favour>

BB is a man of the land, he literally knows the soil of Suffolk by feel. His skill & sense are central to the story. And they are credited with the discovery, which is the most important part of the process, not the analysis, care or interpretation>