Dr. Tatyana Proskouriakoff
Dr. Tatyana Proskouriakoff is a renowned human archaeolinguist and Vardeyale Universite professor with a long history of collaborative fieldwork focused on the topic of ancient Shimarchua, an ancient continent-spanning civilization whose unique glyfs have been found preserved at site across Aarda. Proskouriakoff was directly responsible for the recognizing and deciphering the Shimarchuan language embedded within the glyfik script and harnessed this success to rise to a position of prominence within Vardeyale.
Proskouriakoff is currently the Ladaun H. Beatificada Endowed Chair of Archaeolinguistiks in the Departement of Aardan Languages' Programme di Ancient Linguistiks. She has been out of favor within her departement for nearly three decades, however, since a disastrous expedition to a Shimarchuan site in South Duartevan saw two of her most promising graduate students killed and another maimed beyond hope of even magical repair. The crippled student has since become the Dean of the departement and while he cannot remove Proskouriakoff, he can ensure that requests for course deferrals, office upgrades, and research travel approval are all denied.
As such, Proskouriakoff has been limited to living vicariously through the research reports of her most recent crop of graduate students (five total; two male, two female, one indeterminate). Simply put, their vivacity and tales of ongoing successes at sites across Aarda (with seven publications already!) have breathed some life into the old lady. There is some talk she is planning to take on more classes over the next few years in an attempt to emerge from the shadows and ingratiate herself with the rest of the Linguistiks faculty, creating a shift in the intra-departemental politics that will diminish the Dean’s influence…
Physical Description
General Physical Condition
Thanks to the magio-alchemical elixirs awarded to highly distinguished members of the Vardeyale faculty, Proskouriakoff is over 150 years old but appears to all as a 70 year old woman. Her severe bearing and piercing gaze belies her fondness for multi-linguistik puns, jokes, and rhymes of all sorts as well as a voracious appetite. Her most defining characteristic is her prized set of Old Essalian viewing lenses, as decades of poring over old texts and filling out grant applications have made her a bit near-sighted.
Mental characteristics
Personal history
From an early age, Tatiana Proskouriakoff's facility with languages marked her out as a gifted child destined to be noticed by Vardeyale Universite talent-seekers. A little over a century ago (145 years, to be exact), she entered the Universite's walls at the age of 17 and enrolled in the Departement of Aardan Languages, where her joint love of puzzles and histories led her to join the famed Programme di Ancient Linguistiks. Under the tutelage of the famed half-elf scholar, Dr. Sylvanus Morley, she developed an interest in the ancient enigmatic remains of the Shimarchua culture that could be found scattered across the continents of Aarda.
The various stories, myths, and religious teachings associated with various Shimarchuan sites began to be pulled into a more comprehensible whole when a multi-disciplinary Vardeyale Investigatory Expedition (VIE) team led by Morley ventured into the sweltering jungles of Usumacinta and made a groundbreaking discovery. Specifically, over the course of three years, shrugging off minor inconveniences like heatstroke, murder hornets, mycolith surges, Tranglan leaf-droppers, and a broken still, the Vardeyale team cleared, mapped, excavated, and recorded the remains of the fabled Shimarchuan site of Takalik Abaj. A young Proskouriakoff played a key role in the excavations, directly supervising the diggings at Complex 46-B and more importantly, copying and examining the various glyfik phrases discovered on door sills, ceramic vessels, metal ornaments, and the like. It turned out that Proskouriakoff possessed a mind whose mental rhythms were naturally attuned towards the linguistic patterning that structured the lost Shimarchuan language and – when said patterns were visualized and further analyzed with help from the VIE’s two Departement of Statistiks logic-mages – the code was broken. Shimarchuan could now be read!
In the decades following the breakthrough in the Usumacinta highlands, Proskouriakoff alternated periods of study and lecturing at Vardeyale with highly adventuresome fieldwork expeditions across the globe, both of which delved deeper into the history of the Shimarchuan civilization. Yet even as she rediscovered and demonstrated the proper usage of items like the Shimarchuan flipbook (a compact, forever-turning notebook made of thin slate) or the Javelni Museu’s famed “Ignatos Ascendant” sculpture (actually an industrial food preparation device missing its central assembly arm), or uncovered the local histories of small seemingly provincial centers, the greater sweep of Shimarchua’s past (and its demise) lay frustratingly out of reach. The fragmentary record of Shimarchuan civilization – buried, isolated, reincorporated, or reinterpreted – taunted Proskouriakoff at every turn even as the magio-alchemical elixirs awarded to highly distinguished members of the Vardeyale faculty allowed her to continue on her mission well past her centennial year. It was only at the ripe age of 133 that Proskouriakoff retired from intensive fieldwork in the wake of the disastrous expedition to South Duartevan.
Since the Duartevan Tragedy, Proskouriakoff has remained at Vardeyale for nearly three decades, ostensibly focused on writing her magnum opus, “A Synthetik Study of the Shimarchuan Phenomenon: An Archaeomateriolinguistik Examination of Ancient Aarda and Civilization’s Rise and Fall 30.000 YBE (~50,000 Years Prior to 8900 Imp. Reg. Anni).” However, she has had difficulty moving past the twenty-ninth chapter (out of a proposed two hundred and fifteen) due in no small part to a lingering desire to head out to the field just one more time...
Education
Dissertatome: "Historical Data in the Inscriptions of Yaxchilan, Parts 1 and 2."
Failures & Embarrassments
The Duartevan Tragedy - A series of misunderstandings in the politically unstable kingdom of South Duartevan lead to a military attack on the camp of Proskouriakoff's expeditionary encampment. Two of her most promising graduate students are killed and a third is permanently maimed. Fallout from this incident triggers a decline in Proskouriakoff's career.
Species
Age
162, appears ~70 (lifespan extended by magio-alchemical elixirs awarded to highly distinguished members of the Vardeyale faculty)
Children
Gender
Female
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