This week's podcast is a great example of where we've got a loose working title and no idea what we're going to talk about. So we're going to dive straight into it. We're going to roll with it because these little short conversations between Jack and I, they allow us to live, be a little bit more loose and goosey. We don't have to ask perfectly structured questions as we often do with guests. I have we can just a list here of 20 questions to ask about warmups that I've been procrastinating over for days and been formulating. I'm highly, highly prepared for this podcast. Him I am not. I'm just going to wax lyrical for a while, which is actually the same as most weeks. Anyway, so we are going to talk about why, why your warmup might not be working. Why your warmup is the problem and why warmups are often really bad or poorly. That is a combination of the working titles we've come up with before recording this week. And hopefully within that, give you some tangible takeaway things to A, consider in your warmups and then B, implement in your warmups so that they can be more effective, so that your body functions better during your session. You're going to have better session, better progress, recover better, be in less pain and be happier because you're making all that progress. Before we get into it, we just need to remind you, because you've probably heard it already because you listened last week, of course, that it's January, which means we have got one of the greatest offers on that we have all year is 25% off our annual memberships, which means if you want to come on a standard membership and there's nothing standard about our standard membership, why do we call it packed full? Because we've got amazing membership name for it.  You get a plethora, that's a word the jacket often gets wrong. It's a plethora, not O, of training programmes, including all the specific movements, like handstands, human flags. This is going back to my training announcement from the other week. You mean most of your handstands, human flags, your bain rate basics, yeah. The segue I was thinking that you might use, Tim, for the offer was, you know, our warmups are that good in the virtual classroom for our online programmes. That's specific and tailored for the session you're about to do, that we don't even call them warmups, they're called movement preparation. And all makes sense for the rest of the podcast, but it's not just about getting tissue temperature up. It's about being specific for what you're going to do and all of our programmes are specifically designed with that in mind. But then there's also the progressive overload and as out of their period eyes and everything that you're going to need to make the utmost progress with your calisthenics. Training, whether you are just looking for like an overall body weight training system that you can use at home or whether you have some of those iconic movements like human flags, muscle ups, handstands, frog to handstand, those types of things in your impossible box that you'd like to achieve in 2022, then all those available inside our online training programmes that members get access to. And as Timbo said, about 25% off, go and bag a deal now and join us for the whole of the year, because it's about being consistent over a long period of time. That's how you make progress. That's the magic bullet. Right, so let's dive into this, a little bit of a short conversation about why you're warmup, why it might not be working. There's some Ws, yeah, on a Wednesday in there. Right, sit back, enjoy us having a chat about warmups. Roll that jingle. Listen, players. You're listening to the movement, strength and play podcast by the School of Calisthenics. Here are your hosts, Tim and Jaco. I'm going to kick you off Jaco with one of the most important things that we need to bear in mind when we think about warmups or movement preparation, whatever else it is you want to call it, effectively the first thing that you do before you get into the main body of your workout, this kind of preparatory phase is exactly that. It is the first thing that you are going to do and therefore has going to have a significant impact on how it sets up the rest of the training session. So if we bodge the first part of the session and we do a very general, non-specific, kind of just half baked warmup, we can expect that we haven't really done what's required to prepare the body suitably for the demands that we are about to place on it. So it's really important that we consider a couple of things this week and one of them is content. Another one is intensity and another one is kind of like bridges those two things together, which is the specificity of what we are about to do and making sure that we are prepared for it. Now, if I had prepared more fully for this conversation, I would now insert a great analogy, but I need time to think about one. So I'll stop talking. You can talk and I will see if I can call it one. So I will now start talking. Now, something that potentially for me now, I'm on board obviously with everything you just said, but something that potentially even precedes the warmup being, have I made some level of analysis check in slash self-awareness and like, how is my body today? That then takes into the context of what am I actually like right now with this session that's about to go ahead in terms of like mood, in terms of like energy, in terms of like, what, like, how bad was my sleep last night? Just how is my well-being in terms of like, what I'm going to then actually do? And physically, where is my body at? And then I can start, I might have a specific warmup for the session that I'm about to do that's tailored for that, all those things, but then having also like, this is something that's changed massively for me individually of going, and this is where I feel like I'm finally getting to like a good place that is then taking that, like the specificity for the session, but then turning that context on to like, where am I at right now? And what does my body need right now to then be able to go and do those things? And even this is something that you've been very good at in the past that I have not been about is then I can make an assessment to even go, I might change the session that I'm going to do based on those things. Hopefully that's not necessarily needing to happen, but that is an option for me. And then the other thing I wanted to throw into the mix was like testing and retesting. That's the only way you find out to know whether other things you're doing in your movement, perhaps actually making any, are they actually beneficial for you as an individual? Have you got your analogy now? A little bit. It's not, it's not a great one. I agree with you entirely. The analogy is a little bit, the only thing I often I can just think of what things I like doing that have got a similar kind of story behind them. One of them will be cooking. So it's like, you've got to prepare the session. This is actually really bad analogy, but I've started. Roll with it. You don't just take a steak out of the fridge and put it straight on a fire. You've got to take it out. You've got to prepare ahead, thinking that actually the steak needs to come up to room temperature before you're going to go and put it on. Otherwise, it's just going to be basically cooking a cold piece of meat. And that's not a good thing. Let's not get stuck down. So I don't think it's a great one. What I do want to just kind of touch on before we get into takeaways around movement preparation in terms of how you can make it all that more specific to what you're about to do. It's just to highlight the point of what often happens in many people's training sessions. So let's say, for example, that you are in a group training environment, you turn up and your coach is going to take you through a warm-up. That warm-up is going to probably be, well, it is going to be very general. And probably, depending on the skills of the coach, it's either going to be just some general movements, which are going to serve the purpose of warming up, which means to basically get a heart rate going and to get the muscle temperature up a little bit, which are good things. But they're probably only going to be pattern specific for the workout ahead. So for example, if there's going to be some pressing movements in there, there's probably going to be some pressing in the warm-up. But where we often want to go with movement preparation concept is that we need to understand what the mechanics of that pressing pattern.  Starting off with pipe push-ups is all very well, because it's a regression of where we're trying to get to in the main body of the session. But what about the shoulder mechanics at a more basic level? So have we got range of motion through the joint? If we've been sat in a car or at work, or we just generally got tight postural restrictions or areas where we struggle to get range of motion to overhead patterns, have we done something specifically to address that for you? Now, I'm going to get a little bit sort of, I don't want to overwhelm you and get you into thinking, oh, I don't even know where to start, but I'm going to highlight the point. So from a shoulder perspective, it could be pecs that are tight. It could be lats. It could be thoracic spine. It could be some issues around bicep triceps. There's lots of different things that could start to play an issue there. It could be mobility in terms of this tight tissue or overactive tissues. It could be stability in that your shoulders are unstable and therefore the shoulder is tight. So one thing which we want to be thinking about is, if I'm going to go and do a workout, what do I need on that given day? Have I got tight thoracic spine because my postural patterns in life are such that that means that over time I've just got that tight thoracic spine, back can't extend, shoulders struggle to get into an overhead position. If that's the case, then I would be sensible before I go into a workout which has got overhead pressing in there that I do something specific for myself rather than going along with the group warm-up, which is good in terms of it hits the patterns that we're going to hit, but it doesn't actually take into consideration how or the strategy of which I need to be able to create movement through those patterns. Can I say one thing for people might be listening to this and they're like, oh actually I just train at home on my own or I train with my mate and that's not in that group setting. But the principle and the concept is still there because you might, if you're just doing quite a generic generalize, you do the same type of warm-up all the time. It's just like engaging this concept of like, am I being specific to the session and am I being specific to myself, regardless of whether you train at home on your own or whether you train as part of a group. Yeah, definitely. So yeah, is that bringing that awareness piece of how do I need and that takes a little bit of effort, right? You can't, if you're not kind of invested in that understanding of, okay, what does my body telling me that I need today? That's a real kind of process to go on of a little bit of trial and error effectively and you need to kind of get your head in the movement. I think sometimes the issue is we can go into training sessions on autopilot and we're not necessarily that cognizant of what's happening in that workout and how we're feeling. So starting to kind of dial into that a little bit and that's where movement preparation can be a great feedback tool. So do something and then see how you feel after it. If you feel better and all of a sudden you've got better shoulder range of motion, then what you did was a positive thing and your brain liked it. So we can do more of that. But unless you're using this test retest kind of movement assessment, it's quite difficult to know whether you're actually ready. So we go in, we do five, six exercises, we go into the main body of the session, like is that actually, have we actually done something positive, which is going to affect the outcome? So some really easy kind of test retest things that I'll use all the time will be an overhead squat pattern. Hands overhead, unloaded, like no bars or anything. Do a squat pattern, total body assessment, how easy does that feel? If I do that before the warm-up and then after the warm-up, you could even do it after each exercise if you wanted to. If it feels better, looks better, more free, I've just got better control or making better shapes in those top-bottom positions, then I've done a good job, my warm-up's ready. That's from a movement perspective. And also then need to just lay on top of that, what am I going to do from an intensity perspective? Another one would be like an arm, like hands to wall. So stand with your back against the wall into kind of like a quarter squat position and bring your hands overhead. Can you get your hand through to touch the wall behind you? That's one of the assessments that we do at a workshop or a retest process. If you can get better range of motion or you've improved the way that you're getting into overhead position, it feels easier. Then your warm-up was successful, you've done something positive and beneficial for that range of motion. So that would be my starting point, like you start with movement. I've talked before and said this a lot around that movement is the cornerstone of performance. If you can move well, then everything else sets itself up. So part of our warm-up should be about restoring the quality of movement through the patterns which we're going to use in a warm-up, or in the main body of a session, sorry. So if it's a push session, upper body, whatever, if it's a squat session, we want to be thinking lower body or whatever it might be, think about doing things which are going to free up those patterns. And then we could start to think about activating a little bit more around the musculature, which we're going to use an intensity which we're going to want to start to train at. Yeah, and I think that's almost one of the, just picking on that last bit, you say that you, and using that example, you said, like how a pike push-up is a regression from say if someone was doing a handstand push-up as part of their session, and that the intensity compare, and this is for a comparison of like weight lifting or weight training compared to body weight training, where you might do a, whatever warm-up you do, and then you say you're going on to like doing bench press or squats, you're going to start with a lighter load, then you're just going to progressively build that load up to the target sets that you've got. With body weight training, it's as long as it can be more challenging to take that like progressive approach once you've finished the one we're going, like building through that session, because you're sort of like, rather than picking up like the slightly heavier dumbbells or putting a little bit more weight on the barbell, I've just got my whole body weight to do, and often I'll, in the past I'll have done this myself, and it's the same for people I'm working with them, is that we're almost like finished the movement preparation stuff, where I may have restored range of motion quite well, and I've maybe got a little bit of temperature, but then I'm going from like a, I don't know, let's say like a 30% intensity exercise to almost like 100% since I'm going, I'm going to try my frog to hand sign now, and it's like that we can still build up progressively with our body weight training, once that warm-up has finished, almost like the build up sets to your, to your sort of like peak work, is an extension of that warm-up, the warm-up put you, or the movement preparations we would call it, like addresses the specificity to the session, specificity to yourself, sets you up then to take that and gradually build through that intensity. You all, I think we've all probably been there and done it, felt the bad side of it, where you're like, you think you're feeling good, you've finished your thing, and then you're like, you try and start at too higher intensity in terms of like max one-hour effort. And that's where like, if you take the framework that we use of movement preparation, feeds into movement patterning, which goes then pre-seeds our strength-based work, whether that be specific or general. So the movement patterning part being this, typically like the skill acquisition sort of phase, but let's take a human flag, for example, we might do something to improve shoulder range of motion. We might do some stuff to start to try and open the thoracic spine to get us into that overhead position. And the movement patterning phase is then going to basically serve as, yes, some skill acquisition, but it also primes the system to put force down because we might go and do, for example, something like a stability ball human flag hold. So in that position, we're going to have to really cue kinetic chain integration. So we're getting the shoulder to stabilize the pelvis in this lateral sideline position, but we're also able to progressively start to play around with ramping force on as well. So we can start that push-pull pattern that we need in a human flag under sort of unstable conditions, but it's starting to cue a little bit around force production and integrating some stability and expression of that asymmetric position, which we're going to go and want to use when we get into our applied strength section, which is then going to be very specific movements. So that might look like, as Jaco was saying, in body weight context, because it's a bit different to a bench press or a squat, it could be that you go in and your applied strength exercise for that day is a vertical flag. So we're just going to try and push-pull in a flag position and take our feet off the ground ever so slightly. That is still going to be a maximum strength exercise of isometric contraction for, let's say, five seconds. It's hard out, right? So maximum voluntary contraction for five seconds is going to be pretty like red line for most people. So if we don't... What we've done in that movement preparation processes you've gone through is you've gone... What's the movement patterns that I'm going to try and execute today? How do I optimize myself to be able to deliver a good quality movement or performance in that movement pattern? I've then done some work where I'm starting to kind of cue the brain up for... This is a pattern that I want to do and I can start to load a little bit of intensity towards it, but nothing too crazy. So I'm warming up the patterns and starting to get the new activity going. And then I go into a stage where I'm going right now. Here's the main body of the series adaptation that I'm looking for of strength and it's high end, high kind of like effort. That's my kind of target total work. So we... I think that's just... There's an idea of thinking through what does your warm-up look like and how do you sequence your training sessions so that you actually arrive at the main part of the session where we need that strength adaptation or stimulus for that day. What have you done preceding that to make sure that you arrive there in a place where you are ready to kind of get as much benefit as you can from that 10, 15 minutes or whatever it might be that you're going to focus on those specific exercises and getting that success. And as Jaco mentioned at the beginning of the podcast, the performance progression week on week of being able to successfully do those exercises well. Like we all know what happens if you're going to walk in and do no warm-up and you're going to go straight under the bench press and try and go for a 1RM. Like it's not going to be that good. We need to build ourselves into it and the same thing with body weight training. But we can take really actionable steps right from our movement preparation to get better performance. And if we do that, we get better progression because we're going to get better adaptations. So we're going to move through. So it's not just the quality that five-second hold. It's what we did preceding that which is going to affect how quickly we then achieve our goals. No. Very, very...  What hopefully can seem like relatively simple principles. You're going to be able to change or massively improve the impact that your warm-up is then going to have and then you will start to see the real benefits in your training. And to try to attempt to summarise some of these like actual takeaway things would be like asking yourself some of these types of questions like and then put something into place do I have some way... So question one, do I have some way or some measurable action around assessing how am I currently today before I've even warmed up? And it might be that you've got some wearable tech like I watched it gives you some feedback on like how you slept or your heart rate variability or something to give you a bit of a marker or you're much more of a touchy-feely person you've got an awareness, give them yourself... I'm a 7 out of 10 today or whatever you want to do that but something to check in on yourself how are you... how are you doing right now before you warm up? Then something that you're able to test and retest to assess whether your warm-ups are and your movement preparation is helping you to improve the thing you're going to work on. So that test, retest being related to the session you're going to do. So if it's a handstand session and your arm's going to be going overhead you're doing like an overhead assessment. If it's like more of a muscle thing you need to go more into an rotation and extension of the shoulder like assessing for that. Do your preparation, reassess and then the final bit is like am I gradually building into my session once I've actually done my sufficient movement preparation or warm-up work? Have I summarized Timber? There's so much in there. Yeah, that's great. Now I think it's so... sometimes when I listen to myself back I'm like are we just... people are like I just want to get on with my workout guys and I'm like what you are. Yeah, that doesn't have to be a long period of time though. This is the thing. No. As this is actually a really good point as you get better at understanding yourself understanding what works for you and then understanding what your session needs that warm-up can be very short. My warm-ups my movement preparation used to be like far too long and the reason being because I didn't actually... I wasn't I wasn't effective enough in knowing what was actually working so therefore you just do everything and it takes too long that with what we're describing if your pinpoint with knowing what you need to do can be shorter rather than longer I would say. Yeah and I think you start to kind of go I just want to get on my session guys and this all sounds a bit corrective and that kind of thing but just to kind of contextualize it say you want to do some pistol squat work and you've got tight coughs there's no chance you can have a great session if you don't do something about the cough it can be as simple as that and if you by taking that 10 minutes don't see it as wasted time see it as optimizing the performance that you're going to get later on in the session those things are going to aggregate over time so we do we consistently commit to our warm-up to being specific for what we're about to do meaning we get better results you do that for six months you're going to be way further ahead than you would be if you come in and just kind of effectively just toss off the warm-up and just try and do a few things that are not non-specific and then just try and get into the body of the session because you're not going to get as good adaptation particularly in calisthenics like I think it's probably more important than a lot of areas because as Jaco said you're having to lift your whole body you're managing a large amount of mass it's not the same as going we're going to bench today so I don't know I feel a bit tired so I'll start at 60 rather than 70 like you're going into handstand push-ups you're starting at your body weight whether you like it or not not to as we're bringing things to a close so not to open up a bit of a rabbit hole but you'll you'll like this Timbo so maybe save maybe save the reply for another podcast but I think the number one thing that reduces my progression and this will be very similar for a lot of people is not being injured that I stopped training I haven't been injured for a long time that stops me training but it's the little niggles that just like a scratching there in the and you don't actually sort the amount of deal with them that it just like makes your session be a little bit crap and you feel a bit crap as you don't feel I really really is able to to push through that thing because that was niggling still a little bit but I sort of did a session and you basically just stay on this like plateau of just not really making any further because you're not addressing the things and it not not that it's the answer for all things but like having better more specific movement preparation for an effective warm-up will allow you to have less days like training like that more days of training where you like I did a session this morning and I was like that's the best I've done my pipe push-ups and it felt flipping brilliant and one of the one of the little tricks I'm doing is trick there are no magic bullets but what it's like I'm leaving leaving a little bit leaving leaving something for for the next day or leaving something for you there you go not killing it and not and then if anything is feeling not groggy not great sorry feeling a bit like off either leaving it or addressing it but anyway but I feel like you'd be on board with that yeah definitely I think you're dead right and it's like if I'm going to do an overhead pressing session now because of my shoulder history like there's no I will just go and do my corrective program that I know works for me so I'll go and do some stuff on my shoulder stability and my scapular movement because I know it's going to help and if you put it if you kind of listen to this and go still not you still not kind of sold this to me if you increase the structure integrity of your system so let's take the shoulders for example it's very callous and it's specific if you can improve the way that your shoulder is moving your brain will allow you to produce more force because it has more confidence in the structure integrity and it knows that it's not going to be unstable and if you're not getting pain you are going to be able to one put more force down so you're going to be able to get better strength adaptations and if you're not kind of like getting that kind of pinching or uncomfortable sensation in your shoulders or whatever it might be elbows the lot you can kind of insert whatever body part you want to then you're probably going to have the confidence to go through and complete those eight repetitions rather than stopping at six because you feel a bit weak and it's kind of uncomfortable like all of those things are the things I'm seeking to address in my warm-up and if I can't undo them in that warm-up and I don't do that test retest and I go after my warm-up I feel now like I can go and complete the targets repetitions that I've got for that session then I haven't done a good enough warm-up or as Jaco says I need to modify that session because my shoulders not in a good place that day and I probably shouldn't be pushing it that hard anyway that's not weakness it's not giving in it's just intelligently listening to your body so that you can actually do what you want to do and rather than having a compromise session on the upper body I might go do you know what I have trained my shoulders quite a lot the last four weeks they're a bit tired maybe I'll throw in a little bit more recovery work some more kind of like mobility things just to get them moving better later on this week so today I'm just going to switch my program and I might go lower body or I might do some core stuff or I might do some pulling work whatever it might be and go and have a really good session at that but my warm-up has still informed that decision about what I'm going to do and it just requires us to be a little bit sort of flexible and mindful about how we are kind of seeing that whole piece of physical exercise that we're going to do on any given day and if you're listening to this the biggest takeaway message is take your warm-ups seriously people if you are like oh what were some of those tests that Tim was talking about maybe I like to use those if you are like not sure about what even some of those more specific movement preparation things might be every single program for our online members has specific movement preparation and warm-ups as part of those programs the testing and retesting is in all within there and if you I know some of you listening will have like you've had a membership with us in the past but maybe you've not used it you know there's no contract to them so you know if you're on a monthly membership you can cancel them anytime but the annual membership obviously you get that for the year and some of you have used it and then you've stopped using it like actually yeah no one of the thing I might you know I won't get back on board and actually take this seriously do this properly and that starts with more warm-ups properly then get on board with that annual offer that we've got on right now 25% off your annual memberships whether you want a standard or VIP but that does make that standard less than 75 quid so it is a bargain for a full year of training check out the movement preparation parts for a starting point don't be that guy or girl that skips the skips that bit now straight straight to the good stuff don't skip that so many of us sat there going but this sounds like it's just a generic program that's written for everybody well you're right there are some exercises but we've given them as Jako said specific to the workouts that you're going to do but the thing to also remember is we are wanting to help you to understand and educate you so there are assessments in many of the classrooms you can go through you can kind of do a bit of a body weight set or a body movement assessment and you can also start to kind of understand as you use a different program is what the different tools are and some of them if you're going through this process with an open mind about how they apply to me you'll end up after a period of time of going these are the five or six things which I know I need to do based on what my body is telling me and that's where the education and the power comes from so yes there are prescribed exercises which are the same for everybody but they are specific to the training program your job is to work through those and go these ones I feel like they give me really good value and keeping that one that's the tool in my toolbox and I'm going to go and add to that over time and that's how Jako and I end up with doing five ten minutes of movement prep and being able to go into a decent session because you've kind of just got that that little arsenal of things which are going to work perfect sign off all right guys thank you for listening I hope that's giving you some food for thought at the beginning of the year tea sell for a great year ahead by making one small change and that being a bit more focused on what you're doing in your movement preparation warm-ups coordinate movement prep it sounds a little bit more sports and sexy sounds well perfection so yeah until next time keep exploring your physical potential with movement strength and play class dismiss


From around the globe, it's theCUBE with digital coverage of Dell Technologies World, digital experience brought to you by Dell Technologies. Welcome to theCUBE's coverage of Dell Technologies World 2020, the digital experience. I'm Lisa Martin joined by a couple of guides from Dell Technology. Please welcome Martin Glenn, the Senior Director for Product Management for PowerMax. Martin, good morning. Good morning. Nice to see you. And joining Martin is Matthew Paul, the Senior Director of Product Management for PowerFlex at Dell Technologies. Matthew, nice to see you. Nice to see you. Thanks for having us, Lisa. So our virtual CUBE this year can't be with you guys in person or the 14,000 other folks that usually attend at Dell Technologies World, but a lot of opportunities to engage customers and partners and press and analysts digitally, which is great. So, Mark, Matthew, let's go ahead and start with you. Talk to us about what's new with PowerFlex. This was the end of the rebrand under the power portfolio that Dell Technologies undertook the last couple of years, formerly VX Flex, excuse me, from ScaleIO. What's new with PowerFlex? Yeah, that's a spot on. So really the idea of us aligning the full power portfolio is kind of a big deal, right? Part of the winning roadmap to.o kind of assigned to our customers and our field and everyone, that software-defined storage is a critical part of the Dell Technologies strategy. If you think about PowerFlex just to kind of level set, it's really a software-defined infrastructure kind of system that brings you the best of traditional three-tier infrastructure and the best of HCI infrastructure while being able to make that experience really simple in the enterprise, why still delivering essentially our really great performance in scale. In terms of new things, well, just real quick, in terms of kind of new things, we brought interesting topics like native Async replication, secure snapshots, some end-to-end lifecycle management pieces. So a lot of great innovation in the last year. And that was some of the recent announcements. Tell me, Matthew, from a customer perspective, since you announced Async or Disapplication snapshots, what's the customer adoption customer feedback been like? Yeah, it's been fantastic. We continue to grow this market really strong. We're focusing on high-end, large enterprise customers working towards bringing down also into kind of enterprise and commercial customers to make things easier to use. But very strong adoption and great investments here at Dell with this product. All right, so PowerFlex, Martin, let's go to you. PowerMax, talk to us about PowerMax and then also how it kind of fits into the whole Power portfolio. Sure, yeah. So thanks, Lisa. The PowerMax products, I think was the first product other than of course the server products to be powered up in the storage portfolio. PowerMax is the sort of flagship storage array product that we've had now for a few decades, really been a leader in mission critical data centers. But I think the pace of innovation over the last year, just like Matt described in the PowerFlex side has been really phenomenal. We just about a year ago, we came out with storage class memory. We did fiber channel, MDME over fiber channel. And more recently, we brought in a few really interesting new technologies like support for replication with V-Vault, cloud mobility and now end-to-end efficient encryption. So the set of things we're enabling our customers to do with their sort of traditional three tier sand infrastructure is really just unmatched. So Martin, talk to me about the last six, seven months. Where are these enterprise customers in terms of leveraging PowerMax, for example, when everything just changed dramatically almost overnight, enterprises in any, every industry had to had suddenly remote workforce. How did PowerMax help your customers pivot and ensure that their digital transformation could support this business surviving? Yeah, well, like everybody, we were a little worried at the outset, you know, a lot of uncertainty about how things would play out. And the response from our customers has been amazing. They've all sort of really doubled down on using our technology to support their businesses through this new model. So, you know, the business has been really amazing, really incredible. And it's been great to partner with our customers to help them continue to deliver the services they need, you know, in this new model. So that part's been really wonderful. And as we work really closely with them, some of the things we just came out with, you know, they've helped us to design and deliver in a way that they can best take advantage of.  And so that's, you know, that's enabling them to take advantage of some new models and a new approach to doing things. And I think ultimately that's gonna help them work through this new normal we're all participating in. Yeah, we wanna help those businesses not just survive this time, but be able to thrive, especially as we don't know how much of this remote scattered workforce is gonna remain. We're hearing estimates from some of the big technology leaders at all, 50% of the workforce is going to remain at home. So really helping organizations to maneuver and navigate these challenging landscapes is a big priority. I know for Dell Technologies, we talked about that with some other guests. Matthew, over you talk to me about PowerFlex from a workloads perspective. So we can get a good idea for the workloads that it's really ideally best suited for. Yeah, I think wanted to just take a quick second on the COVID piece, because we have a couple of really big customers that we had to enable really quickly for curbside checkout.  They were putting it on their existing infrastructure, their existing systems, and it just wasn't fast enough. It wasn't keeping up. And by working closely with the customer and designing a system with PowerFlex as the core allowed us to enable them really quickly to turn from a customer who didn't have this idea of curbside checkout to enabling curbside checkout. So I think working and partnering closely with our customers is a critical part of how Dell Tech is successful and enabling them to kind of work through these tough times. With workloads, yeah, oh, go ahead, sorry. That's okay, go ahead. I was gonna say with workloads in general, the way that we have to think about them with enterprise quality or enterprise requirements is really in kind of a scheme of looking at performance, understanding scalability, ensuring we have enterprise class availability. And then last but definitely not least is like how we manage that and how we make it easier for customers to work through those. And when I think about Flex, there's two or three key areas that we try to go after. If one of the key differentiation pieces around Flex is the fact that we can deploy it in multiple manners. So you can deploy it in an HCI mode where you have the compute and networking together or you can deploy it in a disaggregated mode where you have compute and networking, I mean, compute and storage separate. And if those are separate, that allows you to scale those independently work really, really well for key database workloads, key workloads like, let's say even like HANA where you maybe have really high compute but little less storage requirements. So it really allows customers to dial up and down what makes the most sense for them, right? The other angle that we're seeing pretty big adoption is around this idea of re-platform or realigning a data center with transformation with software-defined scale-outblock storage. So think about deploying PowerFlex in an environment and then being able to use that in a virtual environment in a physical environment, in a container environment, being able to have your traditional applications like SQL or Oracle, ride along really cool new applications like Elastic Stack or MongoDB or other things because of the way that we design our layout, it's really aligned towards being able to re-platform and align in a software-defined infrastructure. So customers are using to kind of align those pieces meaning platforms, re-platforming and then also aligning specific applications that require high performance. I heard a lot in that and one word that pops up is, no, that's good. It's not silly. No, I can tell you're passionate about it and also the customer influence is absolutely critical. I think this is a time you mentioned the curbside check-in and then I was reading a few months ago about some of the huge brands that were filing for Chapter 11 and companies like big retailers that simply couldn't pivot, couldn't digitally transform to even offer curbside check-in. So that factor alone since as consumers are so demanding was table stakes a few months ago. It still is, but getting an organization able to pivot so quickly is key. Martin, let's go over to you, PowerMax workloads. Talk to me about some differentiators as well. Yeah, actually, if I could, I'll start, I know it's sort of some similar examples that Matt laid out there. Just like we have customers who chose PowerFlex, where environments that made sense for them, we had customers who chose PowerMax to meet similar new demands with the whole pandemic. So we had some really big customers just said, okay, now we have a sort of line of sites and across both products, I think the thing that our customers value most is the quality of the experience, the performance of the experience, some of the things Matt mentioned already, but they really pulled forward, huge numbers of systems and business to be able to support where they saw things going. So that was really great to partner with them on that and be ready to help support them and provide a product that they felt really good about making such huge investments. And it was great to see their trust in us and be able to deliver for them. So that was, I think, a big part of the first half of the year, the sort of new workloads and new use cases for us on the PowerMax side really revolve around giving our customers new capabilities that can deliver new services for their end users. So one of those is our new support for B-Balls remote application. And this really lets us tie together the way that the infrastructure is managed at the VMware level much more closely to the way that the storage infrastructure is managed. And the result is that our customers can do more granular operations for their end users. They can simplify the whole process and now they can do it on top of our remote application solution, which going on 20 plus years now has really been sort of the gold standard in which they've come to rely on so much. So that's really exciting to be able to offer that to them now to have it be part of the whole VMware stack that they're deploying and let them use new things like B-Balls works with our VMware site recovery manager to let them automate the testing of failovers and the actual failovers. So there's an interesting example of how I think our customers are gonna take advantage of some of these new technologies as we go forward. You mentioned giving customers the ability with the right infrastructure to offer new services and that's another critical component as we've seen in 2020 is businesses needing to pivot continuously and come up with new creative ideas, products and services and new ways of delivering those to their existing customers, holding onto them and hopefully growing their customer base and that ability to leverage technology to deliver new services is also one of the key kind of foundations that will allow businesses to be the winners of tomorrow. Matthew, to you talk to me when you're in customer situations, customers have choice, we know this, dig into me, give me the top three differentiators when you're talking to customers why Power Flux is the ideal solution for them. That's a great question, I'm glad you asked. So I think as part of being a product guy, it's really cool when the intellectual property within your product is software that your company owns and hardware your company owns. So we're able to do some really cool stuff together to deliver innovative solutions for our customers. But when I think about my product, I think first and foremost around performance and scale. Several million IOPS at sub millisecond response time and anytime someone wants more performance, they just add another server, right? So this idea that we scale linearly is a key differentiator for the product. A second key differentiator is this idea that I talked a little bit about before that you can kind of multi-platform this.  So if you wanna run this with Linux and use software-defined storage in the bare metal, we can support that. Or we can go directly to containers. So you can use containers, bare metal or virtual. And so this idea of choice is a huge differentiator. And then the last one is anchored around this idea that when you scale and you get the benefit of management, you don't have to scale everything at the same time. So in traditional software-defined infrastructure on the HCI side, you have to scale compute and storage together. So every time you add a node, you add compute power and storage power. With PowerFlex, we've been able to effectively split those two pieces off so a customer can actually only scale what they need. And in fact, if they only wanna buy storage side of the solution, you can just buy storage side of the solution and then you can have existing infrastructure connect to that and it behaves just like a traditional three-tier model. So those are, I think, are the key things that I think differentiate the product and kind of make it special here at Dell and for our customers. Matthew's taking with you. Are there any, I think of things like compliance and healthcare and financial services, especially right now, what are some of the key benefits that PowerFlex delivers, say for some of those essential industries right now? Yeah, I think it's interesting because those are two of our largest space and financial is probably our largest space. And really for them, it comes down to you talked about compliance, you talk about scale, and then you talk about management. So we've had some really interesting requirements because of scale so large. For example, in our last release, we're able to start to do rack level firmware and software updates. So when you look at other solutions, they might be doing system out of time, doing updates, taking them offline and then running those around. But in our scenario, since we kind of own the SDS layer and the compute side, we can actually do updates for an entire rack in one shot, dramatically reducing the complexity, dramatically reducing the amount of time that it takes to do updates. So that's a real big deal in financial space. And then in terms of healthcare, for example, we're the only software defined solution product that can run all of Epic Healthcare, all pieces of Epic within our product. All other products run out of bandwidth, run out of performance. So they end up not being able to run all sides of the requirement, whether it's the database backend or the VDI front end, we're the only one on the market that can do all of that. Seems to really be a big differentiator in healthcare as a lot of organizations run on Epic or try to help with patient care and care delivery. Martin, last question for you. Give me a snapshot of the partners perspective. Over the last couple of years with the rebrand under Dell Technologies with the Power Portfolio, how have your partners embraced this simplification? So I think that overall this gave them clearer understanding of where and what to sell and what made sense for PowerMax in particular. I think let them anchor on the flagship product, the legendary performance and reliability of that platform and gave them an easy way to think about where to position that with our end customers and in what ways that the product would benefit their customers the most. So as Matt described on the PowerFlex slide, it starts with our performance and reliability and then ultimately enabling them to do whatever they need to do. So across all the different data services and we got to talk right about some of the new ones, but we also have a lot that we've refined over the years and making it sort of official and sort of the PowerMax envelope but everyone really just sort of simplify how they would consume it all. So I think maybe one other thing worth mentioning in all these new use cases and environments and all the different applications that our customers are trying to operate and deliver on is security. So we developed a new capability that we call end-to-end efficient encryption. And this really lets customers do encryption all the way from the host through to the storage. And I think ultimately that's gonna help them sleep better at night and also help them avoid some of the things that we've seen crop up now, now that the world is so digital and all the different threats that our customers face. So we're keeping our finger on the pulse of a lot of different needs, whether it's flexibility, performance, reliability and all these new technologies as well to make sure that we set our customers up to be as successful as possible. It's exactly what they want to be successful. Martin, Matthew, thank you so much for joining me on theCUBE, sharing the updates for PowerMax, PowerFlex, the differentiators, we appreciate your time. Thank you, Lisa. Yeah, thank you, Lisa, this was fun. All right, from my guests, I'm Lisa Martin. You've been watching theCUBE's coverage on Dell Technologies World 2020, the digital experience.


Most people make a mountain out of a molehill in this peak. That protein and meat you've chosen to eat been exposed to some heat. Radiation waves got you comatose in the sleep in your Chernobyl retreat. Because that elephant in the room is that mole on your cheek. Hi boys, we've got bars, are you insane? But it's cool, last week my man Pete talked me to the shooting range. And I'm only a beginner, so I ain't too accurate yet. But if you stand perfectly still for like 8 minutes, there's a 70% chance you're getting clunked in the head.


First question is from Jay Hothi. Is there a different way to train for wide lats versus thick lats? Oh with versus thick lats. I think a better way to word that question would be train for a wide back or a thick back. Yeah, you're right. I would agree. Then say thick lats or a wide lats. Yeah, cuz the lats. That's not gonna change. No, the lats grow when they shrink, right? So if they grow they're gonna get thicker and wider, right? But when you're looking at back width, you're typically talking about the lats. So if you were to look at like an anatomy chart of the back, the lats kind of come up and attach up in the top of the arms and they come all the way down and attach along the spine and there's these really big kind of wing muscles that are, you know, they kind of, they give you the width look to your back. Because when you think like rhomboids or rectospinae would be more of a thick back. Yeah, rhomboids mid trapezius, rectospinae. That's what's gonna give you that kind of thick looking back. So I like this question though, because I remember the bro way of explaining this, like I had buddies that would train like this where they would do all their lat exercises, narrow grip, cuz in theory we're trying to make their lats thicker that day or they would go all wide grip because they're trying to go width. And the way this is worded is probably somebody who's been either told this or is thinking this and I think that's just the wrong way to look at it. It's like developing your lats 100% is going to make you wider looking, right? Because the lats run on the side of you like that. The muscles that I think will give you more of a thicker back look would be attacking things like your rhomboids, your traps, your rectospinae. Those are the muscles that I think are gonna give you more depth. Yeah, so typically anything that's like a pull up, a pull down, you're gonna hit the lats much more directly. Things like rows still work the lats, but you're gonna get more of those mid-back muscles, deadlifts, right? Lots of those mid-back muscles, lots of the rectospinae. And it's funny through the years I now am able to really tell with decent accuracy if someone does a lot of rows and deadlifts versus if someone does lots of pull ups. And you can see it in their back. You really can. I remember years ago there was this guy that would come into the gym and he was just a pull up machine. And he had these really wide back with these kind of hanging lats, but he did lack some of that thickness. Yeah, he did lack some of that upper back fitness. Then there was these power lifters that I knew that lacked the width from the lats, but they had such thick, deep looking backs. So really for full development, you want to kind of do all of it. You want to do all of it. Well, that was the biggest thing that I saw into Justin's point about the rectospinae was, man, when I, when you guys pushed me to lift heavy deadlifts, I had never done that in my life. Like I had deadlifted, but not heavy, like not singles, doubles, triples, lifting or even under five reps. It was always something I did lightweight. I did them at the end of workouts. I was never trying to push the weight with deadlifts. And I remember I, and I got to go back because I know you've referenced itself before that picture before and after is so telling. And all the only difference is literally, I, and I actually threw out like all of their back exercise, all I did was deadlift. And so to see the difference. Now you got to remember that I got 15 years plus of before that of doing all kinds of lat pull down and pull ups and all the traditional type of, you know, lat and back exercises. The only thing I wasn't doing was really focusing on deadlifting and what that could do for my back.  I mean, and that was one of my early critiques from judging was when the first judge saw me was like, Oh, you could improve your back thickness. And I went after deadlifting and it totally changed the look of my back. Yeah, it's funny. When you see like strength athletes, like power lifters make the transition to bodybuilding, you often will see the issue of back width. So they oftentimes have to then focus on really getting the last belt, but they don't lack thickness. They've got really, really thick back. Oh, our buddy Ben Pollock is a great example of that. I mean, he is just thick. Yeah, thick. But you can see that he's having to work on the width to bring that kind of bodybuilding, you know, that that flared lat look or whatever. So you got to do them both. But as far as the lats are concerned, you develop them or you don't. And when you develop them, they'll get wider and thicker.  Yeah, that heavy lifting where you're just in that isometric contraction of stabilizing your spine. And now since we're on the topic, if you want that, that yoke where it's like the traps and upper back, like do your, your high poles, your cleans, your farmer walks carries. Yep. Oh yeah. You ever like you ever run into like an athlete that does just lots of cleans and high poles. And they're not really focused on aesthetics. They're just trying to focus on getting really good at cleans and high poles. And what do they always have? Super thick, like upper kind of traps, traps. Yeah, I noticed that from training with Justin, we trained when we I was training with him, or because we were building the app while I was also competing. And I get workouts in with him and I would do cleans the presses. So and I remember I went a good saw, I would say a good saw six months to a year of no more traditional shoulder presses. Anytime I shoulder press, I cleaned the press and got up to a point where I was trying to catch up to Justin what he was what he was doing weight wise. And I remember close to him or I got close. I don't think I was doing the same weight as he could do. Justin's a machine with that. But I do what I did notice was again, because I'm getting, you know, judged and I see pictures and I'm critiquing my physique like crazy during this time in my life, was the upper back development from that was incredible and shoulders to it blew my shoulders up, blew my traps up just a great, great movement for the upper back. Yeah, it's got to be the one area of the body that if you develop it really well and balanced, it gives you this overall appearance of strength. I think some of that has to do to with it. Those exercise promote you pulling your shoulders back and better posture. So at least I feel that way. Like if you get that upper back that's thick like that, not only are you standing upright with good posture, then your t-shirt kind of hangs off so you can see that this person's all developed up there in the fast twitch movement. You know, getting that kind of stimulus is that too that people lack a lot in their training. So to be able to kind of get that from some of these like powerlifting. What a great point. When does anybody do an explosive exercise for your shoulders or for your upper back? Like you just rarely ever see that as an explosive type of movement that you train. I think that's part of that. I think it's good to point that out actually, Justin, because I think that's half of why I saw such great benefit from doing that was I never did that. Yeah. So of course, it's yeah, that exercise is great for that. But if you do it all the time, obviously the thing that we always talk about the exercise you never do is probably the most beneficial. And then the other thing too is from a functional standpoint, you can't always judge a book by its cover, obviously. But I know the people that I would when I would grapple the people that I could look at and tell like that's a strong person, had a well developed back and hips, like everything else didn't matter. If I had a well developed back and hips, you know, they're strong, you know that they're strong, you tend to see that in athletes.


Good morning. As Associate Curator of the Bodie Museum, I would like to welcome you all to today's lecture. I'd first like to introduce Bodie Museum Assistant Curator Jessica Johnson to read our land statement. Hello everyone. We would like to begin by acknowledging that Berkeley, California is on the territory of the Hootune, the ancestral and unceded land of the Chotanyua Loan. Thank you, Jessica. I would now like to introduce today's speaker. Solange Ashby received her PhD in Egyptology with a specialization in ancient Egyptian language and Nubian religion from University of Chicago. Dr. Ashby's expertise in sacred ancient languages, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic and Coptic, Ethiopic, Biblical Greek and Biblical Hebrew underpins her research into the history of religious transformations in Northeast Africa. Her first book, Calling out to Isis, the Enduring Nubian Presidents at Filet, explores the temple of Filet's history as a Nubian sacred site. Dr. Ashby has been awarded a president's postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her current research describes the roles of women, queens, priestesses, mothers, and traditional Nubian societies. In 2023, Dr. Ashby will join the faculty of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA, where she will teach Egyptology and Nubian studies. She is a founding member of the William Leo Hansberry Society, which seeks to create pathways for people of African descent on the continent and in the diaspora to engage in the study of African antiquity. Today she will be speaking to us about priestesses, queens, goddesses, women of Nubia. Take it away, Solange. Right. Thank you. Let me just share my screen. All right. So I would like to just start by thanking the folks at the Bade Museum and the ARF at UC Berkeley for inviting me to take part in their symposium on gender performance in the ancient world. I'm really happy that the queens of Nubia are going to be part of this discussion. So let me just get started. I have gotten in the habit of using this beautiful painting by Armonia Rosales, an Afro-Cuban American painter, called the Virgin to just sort of set the tone because I feel that this image collects or gathers so much of what is important and noteworthy about these queens from ancient Nubia. So this woman in the image, I should be clear, is not an ancient Nubian queen. However, her forthright gaze, her bared breast, the obvious fact of her maternity and how powerfully she's connected to her infant, together with the golden halo around her head, showing her sanctity all bring to mind really important elements of the queens of ancient Nubia. And I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge my friend and colleague, Deborah Hurd, with whom I was a graduate student at University of Chicago. It was from Deborah at Chicago that I first heard about these ancient Nubian queens. Okay, so first to get us situated in time and space, I want to point out that the land of Nubia, this ancient territory is now divided between Egypt in the north and Sudan in the south, both located in the northeast corner of the African continent and really centered on the Nile River, which it's important to remember flows from south in the heartland of the African continent north to finally dump or release at the delta in the Mediterranean sea. So, Nubia is bounded traditionally conceived of as a land bounded on the north at the first cataract, which is there at the city of Oswan, an ancient city that is still a modern city in Egypt and the site of the ancient temple of Philae. And then on the south at the sixth cataract, which is the general vicinity of the ancient city of Merylway. So what is the cataract, you might ask, it is a region of the Nile River that is interrupted, if you will, by boulders both under the surface of the water and strewn along the path of the river that creates the cities and tidal pools and sometimes even small waterfalls and makes passage to boat traffic difficult and dangerous. And so this was an area in antiquity and, well, I'll just say in antiquity where boats had to be disassembled and taken out carried around the cataract reassembled in order for the river journey to continue. So this could be an important place for cities and trade markets to be established and we see that in the land of Nubia we have three chronological capitals that all together are referred to as the kingdom of Kush. And so this very early as capital is located at the third cataract and called karma. Subsequent capital was located at the fourth cataract and called Napata. And the final capital was located right around the sixth cataract and called Merylway. I'd like to share these dates so you have an idea of the incredible longevity of the kingdom of Kush and so it very much parallels what we see in Egyptian antiquity. But karma is that oldest lasting for about 1000 years and then there's a break where Egypt is controlling Nubia and so there's no indigenous kingdom. But then when Egypt falls on hard times and the third intermediate period begins we have Napata arising and the 25th dynasty kings who then conquer and rule Egypt for a period. And then finally we get to the kingdom of Merylway which is where we encounter these soul ruling queens that I will talk about today. So, Merylway. I want to lead with saying that it was contemporary with first Ptolemaic Greek rule in Egypt. That was the last ruler being Cleopatra the seventh and then Roman rule where we have Octavian who later becomes Caesar Augustus conquering Egypt and and maintaining Roman rule in Egypt for about three centuries. And I use this beautiful photograph by Chester Higgins Jr. of royal burials at the North Cemetery in Merylway to depict this phase so what you see in the background is a steep sided pyramid, under which all of the rulers were buried, and then in the foreground jutting out on the east side monumental gateway. I was saying yes this monumental gateway fronts a funerary chapel that jutted out from the east side of all of these royal burials and we'll look at some imagery from the interior of these funerary chapels as we proceed. I'm going to introduce the five queens that I'll focus on today and that's not to say that there weren't other Marawitic queens but these I will focus on and they lived sometime around 50 BC to about 100 of the common or AD, and their names are Nahirco about whom I don't know much so I'm not going to say much about her today, but then followed by Amani Reynas, who was followed by Amani Shaketo, and then now we the mock and finally Amani Tore. So you'll see that I've noted titles for four of these queens and so at the bottom you can see that the Marawitic title Korae means the ruler and so in this ungendered language it can be used for a male or a female ruler just with the idea that this is the paramount leader of the kingdom, the soul ruler. And then the more gendered title is Kandake which probably means queen mother and was held by a series of very powerful women who also had their own spheres of influence within the royal family. And to illustrate this I just used the image of Amani Tore on the right from a stone bark shrine that was found at the sacred site of Wad Ben Naka and I'll show you where that is very close to Maraway. But in it again we see her with her arms up raised she's literally holding up the sky you can see stars I hope along the top there. She's dressed bared again much like the image of the Virgin that I used to open this talk. I hope you can see around her neck she's wearing a necklace comprised of three Rams heads that make reference to the Ram God moon his newbie in manifestation. I would say for those who don't know a bark shrine just provided a place to sit and rest a sacred boat that was used in ritual processions in in the Marawitic rights. This table taken from cloud re French scholar who does a lot with the Marawitic language I want to illustrate multiple things that being first that there were not only ruling Queens but also ruling Kings since I focus on and present about the Queens I often get asked were there any Kings in Maraway and yes indeed so in this list you'll see that the names that don't have ran for Queen in French before them are ruling Kings. And then the other thing I want to show what this table is how uncertain we are about the specific dates of the rule, the reins of these various Marawitic kings and Queens. And then the other thing that I will show you in just a minute is how the burial seem to really alternate between at the south at the current capital city of Maraway and then sometimes being buried up again at the fourth cataract at the older capital city of Napa and site of a sacred site dedicated to moon that Ram headed God that's so closely related to Nubian royalty. So let's just start here. I'm going to point out after these two Kings Adi Kalimani and Tabirco we have this first soul ruling Queen named Nahirco. And she's buried at the North Cemetery at Maraway this abbreviation stands for beggar we are north and her burial is numbered 11. She's followed then by two Kings and then after that an unknown Queen whose name is not preserved, who's buried now up again at the fourth cataract so up to the north at the old capital. This unknown Queen then is followed by two male rulers again and then we have Queen Amani Reynas, who also likely but unsure is buried in the north at Jebel Barco. Tarikas is the spouse of Amani Reynas and Akini Dodd probably was their heir. After that pair of three royal rulers then we have Queen Amani Shaketo, who is buried now in the traditional Royal Cemetery at Maraway. And then Nawid Amak, again buried at the fourth cataract at Jebel Barco number six. And then Queen Amani Tore who ruled with the co ruler listed immediately below her, Nataka Amani who was either her husband as we used to say or her son as cloudry has recently proposed. And she is buried in that north cemetery at Maraway. So I'd like to just now zoom in on the north cemetery at Maraway, beggar we are north and show you three of, I think, almost 60 royal burials at this north cemetery. These three are up on a ridge with a beautiful view to the east so facing the rising sun and you'll see that they're very steep sided pyramids, each of which is fronted by a funerary chapel. And this first one beggar we are north 11 is the one that has a double pylon so two monumental gates. And as I believe I mentioned the interior of these funerary chapels that are decorated with scenes of the funerary rights performed for the deceased ruler. This is the burial place of Queen here go now according to cloudry beggar we are north 12 is where her son was buried, and then yet another ruler to the right in beggar we are north 13. And yet they're very similar looking royal pyramid burials at the fourth cataract so at this site of Jebel Barco and you can see in the background that raised plateau in the back is the sacred of Jebel Barco and then along behind it where you see the greenery and this otherwise desolate land is where the Nile River is flowing and so it is an open question why some of these ruling queens chose to be buried at this cemetery at the fourth cataract. I should also point out that these steep sided pyramids also had funerary chapels to their east side they're largely destroyed now so you can't see them but the early explorers did record the decorated interior of these funerary chapels and we'll see one for Queen now we tomorrow. In fact it was used to advertise this talk so you've already seen it. Okay, so let's get started with this very early unnamed queen I just love this sculpture and so I'm including it even though she's not one of the queens that I'm focusing on this powerful piece is at the museum of fine arts in Boston which really has the largest Nubian collection in the United States and one of the largest in the world. And so in the center we see the queen in this very typical voluptuous thick, curvaceous shape that was considered beautiful and also conveyed power and may in fact have been how the queens actually looked.  She has on a beautiful ball bead necklace that probably has the ram head of a moon as its centerpiece and she's holding in her hand something that Nubiologists tend to call a pine cone, but following Janice Yellen I also agree that this is likely a head of sorghum, a brain crop that was the main carbohydrate grown and eaten in the kingdom of Maroway and still today in Sudan. And then the queen is bracketed on either side by two goddesses who are pouring out libations from vessels on their laps and wearing crowns that seek to identify them perhaps. This is a little bit worn but maybe it is the throne that writes the name of Isis in the Egyptian script or Nephthys hard to say it's a little bit worn, and then this being the crown of Hathor, but a crown that was adopted by the goddess Isis in the late period. So, this looks a little busy at first but I want to give you some idea of how these sites that I'm describing are situated with in relation to each other geographically so you'll have to imagine these two maps the one on the left is being showing the north you'll see some lower Nubia here. And then the one on the right is showing upper Nubia and so this so I can see a little bit better and get my pointer working. So here's lower Nubia closer to Egypt. There's a double barcle circled here and then Meraway there at the bottom. Sorry, this thing keeps getting in my way. Okay, good. So the first arrow is pointing to the Temple of Dhaka where we have an inscription that is written in the Meraway script that is an attestation of this ruling Queen Amani Rainas, her spouse Tiritakas, and a Kinidad. So that is up very close to Egypt and the Temple of Philae probably about 80 miles or so south of Philae. While this arrow that I just clicked on the map on the right shows both the Temple of or the site of Meraway, and just below that the site of Hamadab so I will show you a Stila from that site. This arrow a bit further south is pointing to the site of Wadbanaka where we saw that bark stand and we'll see a Stila from that site. And then the Temple or the site of Naka that has many temples, Merawayic temples, including the so called Lion Temple, dedicated to the God of Petamak and the temple to the God Amun. So just to give you an idea of the vast territory that these Merawayic kings and queens were claiming dominion in building temples in dedicating Stilae and other sacred objects. Okay, so let's start with the Merawayic queens as Queen Mothers. I'm going to divide this talk according to the titles held by these queens, either Kandake being the Queen Mother, and then later I'll talk about those who held the title as sole ruler. I note that two of these queens held both titles so I will talk about them in each section. So the Kandakes that I'm focusing on are Amani Rainas who ruled around 50 BC, and then Amani Shaketo around 10 BCE, and finally Amanitore in about 30 CE or AD. In this image we see Amanitore embraced by the God Amun. She is, and he's in his ram-headed manifestation. He's reaching out to touch him. He's grasping both her elbow and her shoulder, and you'll see in the queen's left hand that she's holding the ankh sign, the Egyptian way of writing the word for life. And so this is an allusion to the queen coming together with the God to create offspring who will be eligible then to be considered to sit on the throne of Meraway. The bear at the bottom is just what this title Kandake looks like in the Merawaydix script. It's red cursive Merawaydix script I should say. It's red from right to left. And it looks like a three with a tail is the letter K, and this is an alphabetic script I should say. So quite a departure from the Egyptian hieroglyphic script and the Demotic script from which it is developed. So we see here K and then D, the letter N is not written, another K, and then the letter E to write Kandake, Kandake. And then this L is just for the definite article meaning the Kandake. So here's our first attestation of Imani Reina's who, again, according to Janice Yellen is not depicted in any imagery and so this will stand in for this earliest Kandake. In the inscription that you see on the left, it's again written in that Merawaydix cursive and surrounded in a cartouche, which is the typical object that surrounds the king's name in ancient Egypt. The text names Teriticus, so her husband who holds the title Korae, he is the ruler, while Amani Reina is given as Kandake, so the queen mother, and then Akinidad has the Merawaydix title Pakara, which probably designates him as the heir apparent, although he never comes to rule. And it also is a title that's associated with Governor of the northernmost area of Nubia, where Dhaka is. In Meraway it was the province of, called the province of Akin. And so this inscription was just found on the facade of this Egyptian temple built in Nubia and it's a way that these Merawaydix rulers were claiming ownership of this space, if you will. So here is an image from the interior walls of the funerary chapel of Queen Amani Shaketo and we see her very regally seated upon a lion throne. Let me see if I can get my laser pointer going. Here she's seated on a lion throne, she is wearing this typical autef crown of Merawaydix royalty, the long coat and a cord. You can see this cord hanging down here in the royal sash so she's very much depicted as the ruler she has her fierce.  So that's Amani Shaketo as kandake. I'm showing these this pair Amani Torre on the right and the Takamani on the facade of the temple of Amun at that site called Naka. And they're very much co rulers they are jointly dispatching enemies of the kingdom of Meraway, and perhaps you can see beneath their feet beneath the king Naka Amani on the left is a lion mauling a prisoner, and underneath the queen a lion, reaching out to grab some of those bound prisoners. So that was Nataka Amani Torre on the front of the temple in a posture very much as an aggressor a powerful ruler here on the side of this temple at Naka we see her more in the role of kandake where they are before the lion god Merawidic lion god a pedamak on the left. We see first the king. He's again holding that pine cone in his right hand and then in the center of this group of worshipers is the kandake Amani Torre, and right behind her is one of several princes who are prominently portrayed around these Merawidic temple so this is very much Amani Torre in her role as kandake. Alright, so Merawidic queens as sole rulers so we'll have some familiar names coming up now. Both Amani Rainas and Amani Shaketo held also this title of Koray there at the bottom of the screen on the left and then no weedama we never see her as kandake but she is that sole ruler and holds the title Koray. The image that I chose for this slide is Amani Shaketo there in the center again very thick very voluptuous she is wearing the necklace of the three Rams heads of Amun you can see on both her and the goddess who is ushering her into the presence of a pedamak on the right. On both of the females the queen and the goddess you can see a very pearly natural afro. The goddess is bare breasted as is probably the queen. But this is an image from a stele that is showing the sole ruler Amani Shaketo being ushered into the presence of divinity and thus alluding to their. Allowing her to hold the throne of the kingdom of Meraway. So here is the stele at that site of Hamadab that I showed on that opening map so really walking distance from the capital city probably about six kilometers. And it has so many lines of Merawidic cursive text that probably relays the Merawidic side of the story when Meraway met Rome in battle. Octavians troops having conquered Egypt in about 30 BCE leading to the death of Cleopatra the seventh Rome got control of Egypt and then tried to push south into Nubia several years later and was met with military force from the kingdom of Meraway. It's quite possible quite likely that the Merawidic side of the history of those series of battles is recorded in this text that we can not yet read. I tried to give you a little bit more of a close up here. Still hard to see but we see a male and a female figure standing before God and a goddess it is Amani Reynas is the female and Akini dad is the male at this point to retakas. We have to assume has died and Amani Reynas now holds the title of Korea. If anyone's interested this object is in the British Museum and there's the museum object number there. So a little bit of the Greek side of this history of the conflict between Rome and Meraway since we can't read the Merawidic cursive script on the homodob Stila will have to go with Strabo from his geographical and he was contemporary with these incredible queens who ruled in Meraway will just place him in the early first century CE. So I'll take this quote from the geographic and read it out loud to you but I've substituted some interpretations of his, his language so he says quote, but the Ethiopians, and one must always remember when Greeks or Greek writers say Ethiopia they're talking about Nubia. So the Ethiopians attacked the Thebaeus and the garrison of the three cohorts at Syene and by an unexpected onset took Syene and Elephantinae and Philae and enslaved the inhabitants, the generals of Queen Candice. So here we should be hearing Candace, who was the ruler of the Ethiopians in my time, a masculine sort of woman and blind in one eye and quote. So the, the sort of Greek take on fearless and fierce queen who actually led her troops into battle against the Roman troops attempting to push south into Nubia. So what about those toppled statues that were carried away by the Meroitic invaders into southern Egypt. We have this head of Caesar Augustus who was known as Octavian when his troops invaded Egypt. Apparently put up statues of himself all over the country and this was taken home as a trophy, if you will, by the Meroitic forces when they then left Egypt after attacking deep up into Egypt. This head was found buried under the steps of a building in the capital city of Meroe, I think it is M292, often called the temple of victory because of some images that I will show you shortly that were painted on the interior walls. And there's the British Museum object number, very interesting in their description of this object, they omit much of the history of how it came to be in Meroe. So here's just a little bit of the painted decoration from the interior of that building M292. And what it shows I'll show you a larger image on the next slide but it shows bound prisoners and this is probably as the result of conflict military conflict between Rome and Meroe and we see a series of people with their arms prisoners pinned behind them. This one on the top on the left has been identified as possibly a Roman soldier who was captured and taken as a prisoner to Meroe. So I'll just show you a larger image of this scene it's said to be or it used to be on the right hand wall of this temple in Meroe city unfortunately now it's been lost but an early visitor did a watercolor and so along the top you can see royalty here standing before seated gods and then under the feet are these same bound prisoners who you can see much larger size and painted. And I like to point out that the God best is here under the throne, and on this side an image that's called semi towel we in Egypt that very important concept of the unification of the two lands. So maybe an illusion to when Kush was able to extend control over Egypt during the earlier Napa 1025th dynasty, but really beautifully rendered bound prisoners they're clearly painted in characteristic ways so that people in antiquity at least who would see them would immediately be able to identify which ethnic groups were under the dominion of the kingdom of Meroe and they're shown sort of thrown down at the feet of the ruler. So on to Amani Shaketo as a core a soul ruling queen, this line drawing shows the full body where the photo at the bottom is showing what the actual carved relief on the facade of her funerary pylon at the north cemetery at Meroe. So we see this very large very voluptuous queen in the traditional royal attire of a coat, the tasseled cords, this cloak over her right shoulder and down to her left hip. She's dispatching enemies with a spear and she has her name written in a cartouche above her head. But I listed these other attestations of Amani Shaketo as core just to show the geographic range of her building projects, her political control and her involvement as a ruler at Meroe. This is a block from Temple T, originally built by Taharco of the 25th dynasty then a cotton period at the third cataract at Kawa, a granite stele from Meroe city. This is found at a palace at Wad Ban Naka that other sacred site by Meroe, a stele from Kasser Ibrahim far north at the second cataract. This cartouche that you're seeing in the image on the left from the pylon of her funerary pyramid and also an offering table from that same royal burial. So very well attested queen. Not only in buildings but in this amazing cache of jewelry that was found by the explorer, looter, treasure hunter Giuseppe Ferlini, who had the terrible habit of blowing the tops off of these royal pyramids thinking he was going to find more gold buried in them. This image on the right shows all of the objects that were found in association with the burial of this Meroetic Queen Amani Shaketo, this beautiful bracelet in the center that shows probably the goddess Isis in her winged form, which was very popular in Meroe. Again on the left, this beautiful stele where you see Amani Shaketo on the right and the goddess, Meroetic goddess Amasimi on the left who has not only facial markings. She is also wearing a very beautiful short natural afro that mirrors that of the queen and she's breathing out ox signs, the Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for life from her nostrils into the nostrils of the queen. And then really beautiful examples of Meroetic hieroglyphs that say simply on the left, this is Amasimi, and this one says this is Amani Shaketo. I should say it's so many fewer examples of Meroetic hieroglyphs, the bulk of all of the inscriptions that we have in the Meroetic language are in that cursive script, which I believe we'll see again. Okay, so then on to our third ruling queen holding this title core, this is the image on the right that was used to advertise this talk. And then we see Noida Mock again seated on that lion throne, you can see that under her skirt, the lion head popping out. And her name, the arrows indicating her name is in a cartouche so indicating this is a name of a ruler. I think it says there. And then above this young man's head we're told that his name is Yaktarate, if I get that right. And he again holds this title that we saw associated with Akini Dad, he's a peccara, which it changes over time but it is probably referring to him as the royal heir. And that is his job and his honor to make funerary offerings to the deceased queen. But he's also then as a serving as governor or a ruler of this northern province of Akini that is Lower Nubia. On the left, just a sketch of a beautiful gold statue of the Queen that is now held in the National Museum and Cartoon. Highly recommend to visit there if you ever have a chance to be in Sudan. You'll see it's missing its head. It's probably about nine or 10 inches tall. You can see that the Queen is wearing all of the traditional regalia of Merawidic royalty now the coat that tasseled cord which is hanging down in the back the image on the right, the sash from her right shoulder to her left hip. And it used to be attached to a base that had Merawidic cursive script, a text around the bottom, letting us know that this was in fact no Weedamock, and she's holding the title of Korae and that piece which had unfortunately been separated from the statue is in the Allen Memorial Art Museum in Ohio in Oberlin, Ohio. One day I will get there to see that if it is on display. So I just want to close with this really powerful image of a young woman in Khartoum. Her name is Allah. She was a university student at the University of Khartoum in Sudan while the protest against the former dictator happened in 2019 and in fact, these protests got large enough to topple that dictatorship. But what is pertinent to this lecture is the way in which she this photo went viral on social media many of you have probably seen it or heard me talk about it in other pictures, but she's labeled as the Kandaka for in recognition of her leadership role and the way that she galvanized the crowd. She was chanting in Arabic what do my people want and the crowd responds revolution. She's very much hearkening back to traditional attire of Nubian women from maybe the 40s and 50s so not antiquity, but the gold earrings and the white cover. It's just powerful that that this concept of a powerful woman as leader lives on in this modern country of Sudan so we have the Kandaka depicted here in this photo. And then I'm making a plug for a publication that I wrote was published in 2021 and is available on my academia.edu page if you want to read more about these amazing women from antiquity and if you want to get sort of more granular detail. And with that, I will stop and gladly take questions. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much Dr. Ashby for your fascinating talk. I would like to now invite our YouTube audience to submit your questions for Dr. Ashby. In the meantime, I wanted to start with the the topic of the Meriwodic burial patterns. I was wondering if you could speak more about the royal burials at a Gebel Barkle and at Meriway. You could tell us what are some of the theories behind as to why Meriwodic queens would want to be buried at either location. Can we see any sort of patterns in the burial location between these two settlements. Thank you. All right. Yeah. Um, so George Reisner from Harvard excavated almost everything in Nubia. He was amazingly productive man. So he excavated both at Napata, Karma and Meriway. So all three major sites. He had the idea that turned out to be mistaken that they were two different royal families, maybe competing contemporary royal families and so they would each be buried in their traditional home of origin. That has turned out to not be true. So now we need to sort of come up with other ideas about why this alternation of burial site and I have read it written. Maybe some of these queens who were engaging the Romans in battle so trying to defend the northern borders of the kingdom of Meriway from Roman aggression would have chosen to be buried further to the north, sort of as a statement of, this is our land, you know, I'm here eternally and making a claim to the place. I don't think that there has been sort of a definitive answer yet about why some chose to be buried in the north and some in the south but I will just say that even in the eastern period, so that that second phase, we do have royal family members who are already choosing to be buried at Meriway at the south cemetery there so it seems to be something that happens for a really long period that both options are available to rulers. If I understood the second part of your question right Brooke it's about how the burials are situated or or laid out like each individual one, I will just go ahead and answer that or you can correct me if I misunderstood. It was it was just about the difference of being buried at these two settlements but yeah if you would like to speak more about the the individual burials would be fantastic. Yeah, so what Reisner did again at the North Cemetery the way that since we don't have any such king list like the Egyptian Egyptologists are blessed to have that list the rulers chronologically a lot of this had to be sort of extrapolated from material culture. And so really the genius of George Reisner was to sort of think about how the burials were located in this site so he understood that the oldest burials were placed in the prime location so up on this ridge where those three that I showed you, and then a succeeding rulers would have to choose perhaps less ideal locations and so they were buried sort of further down the hill. I do want to just reiterate that the essential elements of a Merawitic royal burial were of course the pyramid but always also this funerary chapel on the east side which lets us know that they were doing something similar to what we see in Egypt like the tradition of making offerings to deceased rulers was really vital. And so the offering table which I did not show from Amani Shaketa but almost all of these rulers had offering tables. There probably would have been bar birds placed at the burial and the interior of the funerary chapels show what the processions of carrying the body to the royal burial ground would have looked like and we just see so many people walking in procession often holding palm branches and and very much vital pouring libations for the deceased ruler. Thank you. I also wanted to ask, so you spoke about Amani Rainas as this warrior queen and I wanted to ask, do we see other Merawitic queens being presented in the same way and gives us a common more common and do we see any similarities in the way that both women and men are presented and referenced in these texts that account recount battles and war. Yeah, so that one, it was just a sketch but of Amani Shaketa shown sort of larger than life and very feminine looking but holding a group of bound prisoners and getting ready to dispatch them with a spear. So she succeeds Amani Rainas and she still is presenting herself as a warrior queen and probably also still had to fend off incursions by the Romans in the northern part of her territory. Not to mention sort of the ongoing battles that rulers of the kingdom of Merawai fought against other ethnic groups other culture groups that also lived in Nubia I haven't spoken about them at all but certainly those two queens are shown very much as warrior queens Amani Rainas and Amani Shaketa. And then from that pylon from the temple of Amun at Naka we see Nataka Mani and Amanitore in these mirrored images so that was very much in the conception of Merawitic royalty that the queen was not just a baby producer or like a pretty face or the one who shakes the rattle for Hathor in the temple but that she also was out there dispatching enemies leading troops into battle and Strabo's description of his queen Candace or she's not named but it's the consensus is pretty much that that was Amani Rainas that she's one eyed and might be that she lost that eye in battle. Yeah, yeah so these queens are both very feminine looking we see their breasts and illusions to their ability to bring forth and nurture life but we also see them dripping in gold jewelry with fabulous long pointed nails and then also as warriors leading troops into battle or dispatching enemies so. That's fascinating thank you. We have a few YouTube questions coming in. What are the markings that you mentioned on the face of the goddess. I'm a senior indications of tattooing Hannah markings or scarification as seen in some contemporary African peoples. Yeah so that last section of the comment is right on it is a facial scarification and I am going to imagine at least in contemporary periods. It's meant to really identify a person as belonging to a particular group and I think if we knew more about the different ethnicities living in Nubia during the time that the stealer was made it might identify this goddess as being associated with a particular ethnic group, maybe even the royalty living in in Maroway. So yes very much scarification. I write and think a lot about tattooing in earlier northern Nubian groups called see groups and they did a lot of body tattooing but also scarification so it's a very widespread practice on the African continent because African skin does this interesting thing when it's cut is raised produce a raised scar called the key Lloyd I have a couple of them myself not intentional. And so this sort of reaction of skin of African people makes it possible to make very dramatic markings through scarification and I'm sure that's what we're seeing on the face of I'm a see me. And we have a question about the portrayal of of women in chemets, versus the conticades in points. And why women in chemets were not portrayed with that same full figure as the condom case and points women. Yeah, it might have just been actual physical difference like you see if you travel in Sudan. In Ethiopia and Eritrea where point probably is located or in Kemet itself you just see that people look different there's sort of a continuity of a look but it changes as you move from south to north and vice versa. So, I really do believe that these ancient artists were depicting the women as they looked. Some scholars think that it's just sort of more ideological and making a statement about their physical power their spiritual and political power and I think that is also true but I also think in other places that that the women were just larger that that's just how they were naturally and and that was of course appreciated as the beauty aesthetic. Okay, thank you so much Dr Ashby I want to thank you again for this wonderful talk. I would also like to invite our audience for to our next women and gender performance in the ancient Middle East lecture, which will be on May 11 at 930am. Here Lauren McCormick will present to see and be seen looking essential yet underappreciated attribute of the Jordan pillar of figurine.


Okay, so we're going to think about the atom calcium from the periodic table, and we're going to write out its full electron configuration, okay? So if you guys can help me, if you want, you don't have to, though, okay? So starting with the lowest energy level always, right, it's going to be 1S2. So how many electrons? This calcium have 20, right? So all of these numbers we want to add up to 20, right? So 1S2, 2S2, 2P6, 3S2, 3P6, 4S2, okay? So 2, 4, 10, 2, 4, 10, 10 plus 10 equals 20, so we got the right number, okay? So now we want to write the electron configuration, or we're going to draw the electron configuration by putting in the orbitals, okay? So the orbital diagram, I guess I should say. So how do we do that? We draw it starting lines, showing the energy levels and the different orbital subsets that are in that energy level, okay? So what's the lowest energy level orbital? How would I figure that out? Look over here, okay? So help me out. So what's the lowest energy orbital? 1S. 1S. So remember when I say 2, then I start referring to the electrons, so don't say that, okay? So what's the next, and how many orbitals are in the 1S? I already gave it away, but how many are there? One. One, right? How can I tell? Well, I can look here and I know that there's just two electrons there. Or really, what you should be doing is looking up at the periodic table and learn. So what's the next one up? And if you can't remember, it's up there. 2S. 2S. And how many orbitals are in it? One. One, very good. And the next one up? 3S. 3S. How many orbitals? One. One. Next one up? 3P. 3S. How many orbitals? One. One. Next one up? 3P. 3P. How many orbitals? Three. The next one up? 4S. 4S. How many orbitals? One. One. Okay? So this is increasing energy, right? And what do we know about these electrons? They like to go to the lowest energy orbital first, right? Okay, so we've got two electrons. So we're just going to put them in. But this tells us we've got two electrons in the 1S orbital. Is everybody okay with saying that? So how are they going to fill? So remember, Hunter Rule tells us that they like to go to the lowest energy level first. So 1 and then 2 is Pauli Exclusion Principle. The other one has to go opposite spin, right? So the next energy level is the 2S. So the first one goes there. The second one goes there. Like that. Okay. So the next one. Oh, sorry. Did I say Hunter Rule? I meant Off-Ball Principle Building Up. So the Hunter Rule is when you're building up doing a cross, right? So Hunter Rule now? One, two, three, Pauli Exclusion, four, five, six. Like that. Okay. So now Off-Ball, Pauli Exclusion, Off-Ball, Hunter Rule, Pauli Exclusion, and then Off-Ball, Pauli Exclusion. Right? So is everybody okay on doing something like that? So really what you should be able to do is if you can do this type of thing, this is really the most basic. This translates to this, okay? So your orbitals will always be set up in the same way here, okay? So the next one after the 4S would be the 3D, which would be starting with SC up there and going all the way to ZN, okay? And do one of those next if you want to, okay? Any questions on this one?