I will never forget walking through the portrait gallery at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and how absolutely disgusted I felt at every single person depicted.

If it wasn't a biblical picture it was some sycophantic ruler surrounded in relative excess. A class of people as old as time and just as deserving of their status now as they've always been.

Diogenes was right and I won't act like any wealth hoarder no matter the time period is deserving of admiration.

I know its a meme, but man I loathe the wealthy.

Roses are red

The Mediterranean's a sea

I just crashed the entire

Egyptian economy

Explanation For Those Wondering: Around 1325 AD, Mansa Musa of the Mali Empire in West Africa went on pilgrimage to Mecca, as Muslims are expected to do at least once in their lifetime. As making the journey was a much more arduous and time-consuming endeavor back before trains, planes, and ships with engines, Muslim monarchs who made the journey often did so with an eye towards making the most of it along the way - you may not ever see the countries between your land and Mecca again in your lifetime, so best to make an impression! Much of his travel was through North Africa and the Mamluk Sultanate in modern-day Egypt.

Mali itself was fantastically wealthy with regards to gold - much of the Old World's gold supply came from Saharan mines in the country. Furthermore, as a Muslim monarch, Mansa Musa wanted to display both his piety and his power as he traveled to Mecca - and he did so by giving away vast sums of gold to charitable causes and potential diplomatic allies along the way.

... unfortunately, he gave away so fucking much gold that it caused the price of gold to drop significantly for the next decade in Egypt, with (less severe and less obvious) knock-on effects across the Mediterranean economy.

who dis