{"id":1400,"date":"2026-02-18T08:51:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T08:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost:8888\/wp_stories\/?p=1400"},"modified":"2026-06-28T03:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T03:23:07","slug":"tower-of-babel-jigsaw-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/?p=1400","title":{"rendered":"Tower of Babel jigsaw puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The Bedford Hours: the Tower of Babel, from the Bed Master&#8217;s Studio<\/strong> <br>(circa 1423 &#8211; Pomegranite &#8211; 1000 pieces)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How long ago did I get this puzzle?  I think I bought it &#8220;used&#8221; \ud83d\ude42  It&#8217;s pretty worn out and there&#8217;s more pieces missing that usual for me.  So I&#8217;m gonna guess I got it in the &#8217;00&#8217;s at the Mt Carmel Shop on Lovell Ave in Mill Valley.  Going to that store was a regular part of my post-coffee rotation.  Gosh that was a nice life!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I love the early Middle Ages style of tapestry.  <br>I have so many questions and thoughts:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"768\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-2342\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024-1.png 768w, https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/image-768x1024-1-225x300.png 225w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 768px) 100vw, 768px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am going to cross-link this to the puzzle I&#8217;m doing now. It&#8217;s got it&#8217;s own take on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/?p=1961\">protelariat style 600 years later<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Why is a very stylish 21th-century orange such a popular color for homespun?  It&#8217;s still that was centuries later in this puzzle linked above!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><em>Hoodies came before hats<\/em>! :))\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>This is kind of obvious I guess. But this scene reminds us that it was kind of a class thing back then.  Even a peasant could design a cloak with an extra flap in the back to pull over your head.  You had to be a little fancy to carry around an extra piece of clothing just to cover your head. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Class-conscious clothing\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The worker dudes (and they are <strong>all dudes<\/strong>, nary a non-dude person anywhere to be found) all wear leggings and tie-up booties&#8230; They don&#8217;t call it &#8220;homespun&#8221; for nothing!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8230;while the rich dudes have nice fitted shoes and cuffs on their pants and some pretty sweet needlework. I am speaking mostly of that crew in the lower left corner who are pretty clearly the Bishop and his traveling party.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Only dress exception I see is the stonemason in the bottom middle (green shirt, orange headgear) He&#8217;s sporting those silver booties like he&#8217;s ready for the disco. Stonemasons had a marketable skill so they were further up the status scale.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The camel getting loaded up is pretty cool. <br>Even though the scenery and people look European, it&#8217;s a reminder that we&#8217;re supposed to be in Iraq somewhere.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>On the right middle there&#8217;s a couple of heads and an orange hat, but no clue what their message is &#8230; not true, on further review I think they are the Magi &#8211; I know I&#8217;m mixing Old and New Testaments, but &#8230; artistic license and all. \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I love that everybody needs a shave!  Even the fancy Bishops or whatever they are in the left bottom are pretty ratty. \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>So, from bottom to top, we have:\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>the Bosses on the bottom left Church people and money people<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Skilled professionals on the bottom middle. The skill required to cut a block so that it fits perfectly after you carry it up four flights of stairs is quite remarkable!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Less skilled professionals on either side of the lower part of the tower. Running the winch, mixing the cement, carrying it all from here to there.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>From the middle down there is a swarm of activity, but from the middle up activity on the sides fades to nothing to focus on the existential drama on the Tower.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Up to 2\/3 up the Tower it&#8217;s still pretty normal, carrying morter, organizing the block and tackle to get stones up to their lever &#8230;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8230; but on the tier 4\/5 up the picture (the top tier), the last visible tier, all heck is breaking loose!<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It&#8217;s gotten downright primitive at the top. The wages of <em>hubris<\/em> and all that! \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;m gonna guess that the buildings on the left about 70% up are the &#8220;shining city on the hill&#8221;. That odd little figure on the middle tower who prefigures all the crazy s&#8211;t upstairs is staring at it (I think \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Looking it up in the internet I am reminded that Pomegranate makes very high quality puzzles. I have a bunch of them in my stack of puzzles in my closet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Also is appears that this puzzle is no longer in their active catalog!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Bedford Hours: the Tower of Babel, from the Bed Master&#8217;s Studio (circa 1423 &#8211; Pomegranite &#8211; 1000 pieces) How long ago did I get this puzzle? I think I bought it &#8220;used&#8221; \ud83d\ude42 It&#8217;s pretty worn out and there&#8217;s more pieces missing that usual for me. So I&#8217;m gonna guess I got it in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2198,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[97,98],"class_list":["post-1400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","tag-art","tag-jigsaw-puzzle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1400"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2345,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1400\/revisions\/2345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.whufu.com\/wpgreen\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}