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No Frills Prompt 30

Prompt: Erasure. By removing many words create a piece from the following text. Remove as many letters as you're like, even parts of words, but keep the text linearly the same (as in, don't rearrange anything, only delete). This is a selection from the current wikipedia article for Emeralds. Make it your own. Whether you only leave 15 words, or you have a sprawling flash narrative about Opticon, the Stone Agent, copy-paste the following text into your word processing software and start forming a piece. I personally like pasting the text twice, and leaving the first one untouched so you can refer back to it if you might want to change an impulse deletion, but that's just me.

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Treatments
Most emeralds are oiled as part of the post-lapidary process, in order to fill in surface-reaching cracks so that clarity and stability are improved. Cedar oil, having a similar refractive index, is often used in this widely adopted practice. Other liquids, including synthetic oils and polymers with refractive indexes close to that of emeralds, such as Opticon, are also used. These treatments are typically applied in a vacuum chamber under mild heat, to open the pores of the stone and allow the fracture-filling agent to be absorbed more effectively.[10] The U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires the disclosure of this treatment when an oil treated emerald is sold.[11] The use of oil is traditional and largely accepted by the gem trade, although oil treated emeralds are worth much less than un-treated emeralds of similar quality. Other treatments, for example the use of green-tinted oil, are not acceptable in the trade.[12] Gems are graded on a four-step scale; none, minor, moderate and highly enhanced. These categories reflect levels of enhancement, not clarity. A gem graded none on the enhancement scale may still exhibit visible inclusions. Laboratories apply these criteria differently. Some gemologists consider the mere presence of oil or polymers to constitute enhancement. Others may ignore traces of oil if the presence of the material does not improve the look of the gemstone.[13]

Origin determinations
Since the onset of concerns regarding diamond origins, research has been conducted to determine if the mining location could be determined for an emerald already in circulation. Traditional research used qualitative guidelines such as an emerald’s color, style and quality of cutting, type of fracture filling, and the anthropological origins of the artifacts bearing the mineral to determine the emerald's mine location. More recent studies using energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy methods have uncovered trace chemical element differences between emeralds; even emeralds mined within close proximity to one another. American gemologist David Cronin and his colleagues have extensively examined the chemical signatures of emeralds resulting from fluid dynamics and subtle precipitation mechanisms, and their research demonstrated the chemical homogeneity of emeralds from the same mining location and the statistical differences that exist between emeralds from different mining locations, including those between the three locations: Muzo, Coscuez, and Chivor, in Colombia, South America.[25]

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No Frills Prompt 21

Prompt: Right-click the following Wikipedia roulette and open it in three times in new tabs. Try to use all of the things you are linked to together in a piece, but at least use two of them in the same piece. Try to avoid just having them be throwaway references. Make them core to the story/poem even if it makes you think a bit longer on what you're writing. But also, just write it. You got this!

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No Frills Propmt 17

Prompt: Erasure. By removing many words create a piece from the following text. Remove as many letters as you're like, even parts of words, but keep the text linearly the same (as in, don't rearrange anything, only delete). This is the current wikipedia article for ancient cats in Egypt. Make it your own. Whether you only leave 15 words, or you have a narrative about the character Mau... copy-paste the following text into your word processing software and start forming a piece. I personally like pasting the text twice, and leaving the first one untouched so you can refer back to it if you might want to change an impulse deletion, but that's just me.

Cats (Felis silvestris catus), known in ancient Egypt as "Mau",[1] were considered sacred in ancient Egyptian society. Based on recent DNA comparisons of living species, it has been estimated that cats were first domesticated from the Middle Eastern subspecies of the wildcat about 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent.[2][3] Thousands of years later, the peoples in what would later be Upper and Lower Egypt had a religion centred on the worship of animals, including cats.[not verified in body]

Praised for controlling vermin and its ability to kill snakes such as cobras, the domesticated cat became a symbol of grace and poise.

As domestication was not as steadfast with cats as today, wealthy families would often curate examples of well bred felines, show them, and pride themselves in the coloration and behavioural adaptations that are seen in today's organized shows.

The goddess Mafdet, the deification of justice and execution, was a lion-headed goddess. The cat goddess Bast (also known as Bastet) eventually replaced Mafdet, and Bast's image softened over time and she became the deity representing protection, fertility, and motherhood.

As a revered animal and one important to Egyptian society and religion, some cats received the same mummification after death as humans. Mummified cats were given in offering to Bast.[not verified in body] In 1888, an Egyptian farmer uncovered a large tomb with mummified cats and kittens. This discovery outside the town of Beni Hasan had eighty thousand cat mummies, dated after 1000 BC.[not verified in body] The punishments for harming cats were severe.


Cat's Head, 30 BC to third century AD Bronze, gold. Brooklyn Museum

Cat with Kittens, c. 664-30 BC or later. Bronze, wood. The Egyptians associated the female cat’s fertility and motherly care with several divinities. The base of the statuette of Cat with Kittens is inscribed with a request that Bastet grant life, directly linking the cat pictured here with the goddess Bastet. Brooklyn Museum
Cats were one of the most recognizable species in Egyptian culture and were domesticated much later than dogs.[citation needed] Two types of smaller cats appeared in ancient Egypt: the jungle cat (Felis chaus) and the African wild cat (Felis silvestris libyca). The African wild cat was domesticated from the Predynastic Period onward.[4] Wild cats naturally preyed upon the rats and other vermin that ate from the royal granaries. They earned their place in towns and cities by killing mice, venomous snakes, and other pests. They were worshipped by the Egyptians and given jewelry in hieroglyphics.[citation needed]

Small cats would often be found underneath women's chairs on reliefs, evoking fertility and sexuality. The other variety of cat, the lion, was also prevalent in Egyptian culture.[citation needed] Although most lions receded to the south around the Predynastic Period, lions were rare in pharaonic times, but were extremely important in Egyptian iconography. Lions represented royal authority because of their aggressive nature and power.[5]

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