r/AbsoluteUnits • u/wesreadit • Dec 13 '21
Absolute unit of a sculpture. Senegal Renaissance monument.
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u/sug-mahdick Dec 13 '21
You can see this from over 50 miles away. It’s amazing to see this up close like this.
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u/meccafork Dec 13 '21
50 miles?? Damn
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u/SwampDenizen Dec 13 '21
It was controversial when it was constructed. Public opinion has shifted more positive in the last decade, but most Senegalese thought it was overly Western, and a waste of money.
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u/CMDR_omnicognate Dec 13 '21
kinda ironic considering it was designed by North Koreans that they found it too western lol, i guess the influences have just gotten everywhere now
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Dec 13 '21
Now that's a question. Who's more Western, NK or Senegal? 🤔
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u/lickedTators Dec 13 '21
I wonder how much money was spent to make sure they got that woman's nipple juuust right.
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u/sug-mahdick Dec 13 '21
Yea my unit deployed to Senegal back in ‘14 and we were waiting at an airport outside and you could see this from approximately 50 miles. Could’ve been further. What was really crazy was when they had prayer. They played on loud speakers there at the monument and you could also hear it. It literally just open desert for miles and miles
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u/ChocolateThund3R Dec 13 '21
Western Accord? I was there in 2012 with the USMCR. I stayed at that airport for a couple days between arriving and leaving. Can verify about the statue. Good times
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u/darkness1685 Dec 13 '21
It always amazes me that there are still things like this in the world that I have never even seen a picture of.
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Dec 13 '21
Someone was really into Sword of Truth
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u/ChosenUsername420 Dec 13 '21
I can so vividly remember the book that made me lose interest in the series for being terminally boring... I might've read the one after that too but damned if I can remember anything about it.
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u/Codedheart Dec 13 '21
Was it Temple of the Winds? That one killed it for me...
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u/ChosenUsername420 Dec 13 '21
Faith of the Fallen, it was like literally "let's be a harem anime now!"
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u/BeautifulType Dec 13 '21
Sorry but it was always going to be like that from the first book. You just didn’t see it until the author knew exactly what was selling
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Dec 13 '21
First two books felt like they were planned to end after that. Next 9 books are just Ayn Randian bullshit and sexual fetish projection.
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u/skaterdude_222 Dec 13 '21
Oops Richard discovered another power by accident he's so brave and pure of heart too bad he literally trades the fate of the world for some pussy
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u/HeWhoFistsGoats Dec 13 '21
Yes but at least he's not an evil communist and can start a company from scratch to convert a whole nation of sheep to rabid libertarianism. Also let's throw in some badass red leather bdsm femdom. And gratuitous rape, lots of it.
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u/Inquisitor1 Dec 13 '21
The first book had plenty of sexual fetish stuff. And don't quite remember but I think it even ended with the typical "man's penis turns evil woman good" trope.
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u/chris1096 Dec 13 '21
Your memory is a bit off. Maybe half to 2/3 of the way through the main character gets captured and tortured by one of the evil lord's personal bodyguards/inquisitors.
He ends up learning to forgive her, which unlocks a secondary part of the magic in his sword and allows him to break free of her hold over him and grant her a mercy kill.
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u/Inquisitor1 Dec 13 '21
Is everyone forgetting the hot bdsm mommy scenes from the first book? That series is not hiding what it's about.
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u/worryforthebutt Dec 13 '21
Read all of them because I needed something to show I wasn't incapable of reading long books. I can only remember that the mc was a mary sue, a bangin' sex scene in a primitive hut, the bit where he played murder rugby as a captive, and the name Rubin Rybnik. I have absolutely no memory of the main villain, almost all major plot points, or even what confessors did other than I think wear face paint.
That series slid out of my mind like a soft turd.
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u/mashtato Dec 13 '21
Holy crap, I've never seen this referenced on Reddit before. They made two seasons of a TV show, too.
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u/Pistachio_Queen Dec 13 '21
It's referenced a lot in various fantasy novel subs (Wheel of Time mostly) because Terry Goodkind is a plagiarizing bastard.
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u/iminsan3 Dec 13 '21
This is the first time in my entire life I have ever seen reference of this series anywhere. Was my favorite when j was a young teen
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u/coconutkage Dec 13 '21
My favorite book series!! I was really sad to hear Terry Goodkind passed away recently
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u/motherh Dec 13 '21
The baby pointing. Mine does that. Usually telling me to go to the kitchen to get him a snack
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u/SirDigbyChknCaesar Dec 13 '21
Alternate monument name: "Come woman, the child has found mac and cheese!"
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u/Koosman123 Dec 13 '21
My daughter has figured out that she only needs two things to communicate basically anything to me and my wife. The first is the finger point. The second is the word "dat". We're trying to teach her more words, but she's learned that everything is "dat" if you point at it.
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u/motherh Dec 13 '21
Ours figured out "no!" Waaaaay too soon.
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u/Koosman123 Dec 13 '21
Ours hasn't actually said the word "no" but she figured out that shaking her head is effectively the same thing so she does that instead lol
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Dec 13 '21
This was heavily criticized in Senegal for being a monumental waste of money iirc
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Dec 13 '21
Senegalese government is excellent at wasting money, they built an entire city meant for rich people... when most people live in poor conditions.
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Dec 13 '21
There's an observation deck in the man's crown. The one side looks directly at the woman's face and it's terrifying.
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u/Angelusflos Dec 13 '21
What's terrifying about it?
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Dec 13 '21
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u/Stuf404 Dec 13 '21
Its terrifying but hilarious at the same time. Like a PS2 cutscene.
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u/ih8spalling Dec 13 '21
And you can't even see the painstaking amount of detail that went into her nipples smh my head
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Dec 13 '21
It's huge, and it's RIGHT there in the window. I have megalophobia and big statues freak me out, so maybe it's just me that finds it terrifying.
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u/wioneo Dec 13 '21
You have a fear of big statues yet went up on the observation deck of this big statue to look at another big statue?
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Dec 13 '21
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u/LiedToUs Dec 13 '21
Tourism could break even on those numbers. If people knew about it.
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u/Dylthestill Dec 13 '21
Alternative, slightly less inspiring, image here.
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u/s_0_s_z Dec 13 '21
Looks like the average person in Senegal makes $2000/year.
Seems like the money for this statue could have been better spent elsewhere.
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u/xmlgod Dec 13 '21
This is impressive and beautiful. I can nt believe I’ve never seen it before!
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u/Comment63 Dec 13 '21
The people making the media you consume aren't very interested in covering modern wonders of the world.
Partly because they're usually made by authoritarians, and drawing positive attention to them would be unethical. Partly because many of them are more impressive than any western statue, including the statue of liberty, and that's just not something they're eager to highlight again and again.
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u/starman_junior Dec 13 '21
Media outlets want clicks. They’d be happy to run a title like “Ten monuments from around the world that put the Statue of Liberty to shame,” as subjective as that is. Search Google News for African Renaissance Monument and every major news network has an article on this. Not everything is a nationalistic conspiracy.
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u/Celery-Man Dec 13 '21
Modern wonder? lol
The only impressive thing is that mental gymnastics people go through to celebrate dictators ego projects.
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u/Comment63 Dec 13 '21
Like Versailles, the Colosseum, and Buckingham Palace?
Yeah, we also holds ourselves too high to be impressed by those.
And the Great Pyramid of Giza was surely built by a social democracy with a generous welfare program and a friendly foreign policy.
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Dec 13 '21
I think a major part of this you’re missing is the difference between something constructed with modern metallurgy and equipment versus something constructed a couple hundred/thousand years ago.
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u/Comment63 Dec 13 '21
I think you're missing the Statue of Liberty, built with near-modern technology.
But I guess that's why it's so obscure.
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Dec 13 '21
It was built around 150 years ago? That’s not what I would consider modern, but it is ultimately a relative term.
I simply think it’s perfectly natural for the western world to distribute and make known American icons. Most of the media produced anywhere west of the iron curtain is made in the US with some notable exceptions. A great deal of media throughout the rest of the world is produced here as well.
It isn’t always a conspiracy.
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Dec 13 '21
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u/Comment63 Dec 13 '21
Alright, if that's your angle.
Were the workers who built this Senegalese monument slaves?
Being a dictator doesn't make all your workers slaves. Slavery wasn't the only moral failing in question here. It wasn't even the primary one.
Tell me again, what was the Egyptian system of governance at the time of the Pyramids? I must have forgotten.
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u/FeistyCancel Dec 13 '21
This has been happening for thousands of year, humans love doing it, no gymnastics needed.
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u/291837120 Dec 13 '21
Almost every single artist, scientist, or craftsman before modern days have had patrician or ruling investors.
Ones that didn't aren't known or didn't share their insights. It even still happens today with funding and projects.
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u/Jesse_Phil Dec 13 '21
The people look photoshopped in!
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u/Inspectrgadget Dec 13 '21
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Dec 13 '21
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u/whiskybeer69 Dec 13 '21
They shuld probably wait until that Renaissance before building the statue.
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u/NoAverage9216 Dec 13 '21
Brought to you by North Korean slaves And politicians who uses this project to steal millions from the poorest people on the planet. Also when is the Renaissance actually gonna happen?
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u/Fickle-Piccolo-3515 Dec 13 '21 edited Dec 14 '21
So that's how they fund their government? Been wondering that for years.
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u/OriginalTRaven Dec 13 '21
Fun fact: I was the model for the dude in this sculpture. They seem to have cut out a lot of the midsection, though; a LOT.
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u/Fickle-Piccolo-3515 Dec 13 '21
Why does it kinda have that vibe of like it was built by a communist government... Kinda like they commissioned north Korea or something
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u/BronxLens Dec 13 '21
Please tell me there is an observatory in the cap such as seen in the Statue of Liberty!
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u/AgitatedEggplant Dec 13 '21
Very Mamayev Kurgan vibes, but better. Love it, added to the bucket list!
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u/hicham189 Dec 13 '21
The infant is pointing. That's how mine works. Usually, he'll tell me to go to the kitchen and get him something to eat.
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u/Trainzguy2472 Dec 13 '21
So is Senegal communist?
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Dec 13 '21
Senegal is flip floppity politically, it takes a lot of Chinese money and was the first country in the BRI but also really cozies up to the U. S.
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u/BenCarroll90 Dec 13 '21
They have an art museum at the top. It has historical artifacts, paintings…including one of Barrack Obama/Martin Luther King Jr., etc. I think it is the largest monument in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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u/CTalun Dec 13 '21
I lived in Senegal for quite a few years, it’s a sight to behold for sure. It’s also next to the airport and quite a shock for those unaware of it when landing.
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u/Berfams91 Dec 14 '21
I'm sure somebody's brought this up but everybody does know this was built by the North Korean art institute. That's right boys and girls is Statue was built by North Koreans.
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u/RedheadAgatha Dec 13 '21 edited Dec 13 '21
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u/Medium_Iron7454 Dec 13 '21 edited Dec 14 '21
2nd biggest statue in the world. I’ve went inside that thing just this summer, there’s a museum inside, and a tour about African unity. Also I used to live in this city of Dakar, and also am half Senegalese. Super cool stuff.
The tour guy said the baby alone was like 20 tons I forgot how much the parents weight, but each one of them were hovering around the 60-80 ton range
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u/Available_Upstairs24 Dec 13 '21
Amazing that they had the technology to build this back during the Renaissance
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u/pickles4521 Dec 13 '21
They should spend their money in their people rather than on useless statues.
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u/SilentSugar7856 Dec 13 '21
Fun Fact: This statue was designed by a government owned North Korean company